The Game Players of Meridien Read online

  We all know that time marches on and everyone gets older. We hit a plateau and then, no matter how hard we try to resist, our abilities begin to fade. It happens to the best. Your reflexes are not as fast as they used to be. Your stomach is not as flat. Your hairline begins to recede. Maybe you’ve picked up a wife and some kids along the way. And maybe you just don’t care anymore. Maybe you no longer feel like pushing for that next level, that next rung up the ladder, so you put away your guns and call it a day, maybe with some regret, maybe with a sigh of relief. No shame in any of that.

  I knew all of this, in an abstract sort of way. I was far away from the time when quitting the game would be an option for me. I was still young, but I knew myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t do it. Some of us just can’t bring ourselves to quit. Some of us would rather go out with our boots on. It’s just the way we are.

  Sindara was a small mountainous island with white sand beaches, bright sun, cool tropical breezes and no native population. I had formed a consortium of like-minded investors and for a nominal sum had purchased development rights plus a long term, renewable lease to the Southern, more fertile half of the island from the family that had owned it, and ignored its potential, for over a century. I would have preferred to purchase the entire island outright but the family, despite having allowed it to lie fallow, refused to sell. No matter; I had what I needed. Construction had yet to begin but plans were complete for the first luxury resort, the first upscale beachside apartments and the largest casino in the Western hemisphere. I had put a lot of money into Sindara.

  I sipped a brandy as I considered my options.

  Quitting wasn’t one of them.

  I could always see in the dark, though it took me a number of years to realize that most people could not, and I could always see the energy pulse that surrounds electrical devices, power lines and all living things. I assumed that everybody could. I never thought much about it, not until the day after my eighth birthday. They held a little party for me in class. My mother brought in a cake and everybody had a great time—except for Jack. Jack was the biggest kid in the class and he thought that the world revolved around him. His parents were old Guild, Guild for many generations.

  I could see the resentment on his face. He ate his cake with an angry red glow pulsing with every heart beat. Jack was not the star of this little presentation and Jack just had to be the star. This did worry me. I had never before been the victim of Jack’s bullying but some of my friends had. He would stop them after school and take their candy and once, when one of them protested, Jack had grabbed him, kicked him in the belly and walked away. As was usual at the age of eight, my friend was too embarrassed to say anything.

  This time, Jack decided to pick on me.

  I walked home from school and Jack followed me, not too close at first. He didn’t want the other children to see what he was about to do but soon, we passed a small patch of woods and nobody else was around. He was close behind me by now. I knew what was coming, and I was afraid.

  “Hey, cretin,” he said. I doubt that he knew what the word ‘cretin’ meant. He just knew that it was demeaning and he liked the way it sounded.

  I turned around, trying to look unconcerned. “What do you want?” I said.

  He gave me a thin, tight lipped smile, stepped in and aimed a kick at my belly, evidently his favorite way of dealing with kids that he didn’t like. I could feel my heart pound and the kick seemed…slow. I slid to the side. Jack’s foot came down and he stumbled. He looked stunned but no more so than I. Suddenly, anger flared red around him. He gave a sort of grunting roar and charged me. This time, I was too startled to move and he wrapped his arms around my neck and I felt my own anger pouring out of me. I grabbed his hands. There was a sudden surge, a sort of snapping sensation. I felt heat coming from my fingertips and then Jack screamed and fell to the ground. He twitched all over. His breath came in short, hitching gasps. I stared at him, then turned and ran home and slammed the door behind me.

  I could hardly sleep that night. I was afraid that I had killed him but Jack showed up for class the next morning, just as usual, and after that he very carefully ignored me. So far as I know, he never spoke of this incident, and though I briefly considered telling my parents or my teachers what had happened, neither did I, not for a very long time. I was shaken up, though. I was afraid, not of Jack, not anymore. I was afraid of myself, afraid of what I might do. I needed to understand what was happening to me.

  Luckily, I knew where to find the answers.

  “Who is he?”

  Curtis shrugged. “After you left, he finished his espresso and exited the cafe about ten minutes later. His people left with him, or at least the ones we could identify. He entered the Trellis Minor building and so far as we can determine, he never came out.”

  “That seems unlikely,” I said.

  “Of course. He was almost certainly disguised. He would have changed his appearance and vanished.”

  “Possibilities?”

  Curtis was tall, well-built and good looking, with clear, blue eyes and close cut, sandy hair. He almost always had a gentle smile on his face, the sort of smile that invited other people to smile back, but I had once seen him crush an opponent’s skull with that same calm expression. “At least twenty. Within limits, he could have altered his face, his size, his skin color and his clothing. We’ve had better luck with his people. We identified six covering the site of the meet. All of them were followed. They all went into large office towers and none of them were seen to come out, but seventeen people who matched their height, weight and general description emerged within six hours, and another five within twelve. All of them were followed, as well. Of these twenty-two people, three have been positively identified as working for Sebastian Securities.”

  “It’s possible that the three you think you’ve identified may have had nothing to do with the original six.”

  Curtis shrugged. “While we were surveying the scene of your rendezvous, we managed to plant microscopic tracers on two of the six. The tracers were found in garbage dumps, along with their discarded clothing. We’ve retrieved DNA signatures for both. One is unlisted. The other has a juvenile record. His name is Gerard Harrington. He now works for Sebastian Securities. He’s one of the three.”

  I considered this in silence for a few seconds. “And how many tracers did they manage to plant on us?”

  “Two,” Curtis said. He grinned. “That we’ve found. They’ve been re-implanted in stray dogs on the other side of the city.”

  “Excellent work,” I said. “Send me the data.”

  “It’s already been sent to your interface.”

  “Good. I’ll take care of it.”

  Curtis nodded but he looked mildly worried. That was alright with me. Curtis was paid to worry. He was also paid to do what he was told.

  Gerard Harrington was twenty-seven. He had been arrested for minor assault and again for shop lifting at the age of fifteen. His academic record was solid but unspectacular. A salaryman. Sebastian had dozens like him, guys good enough to do a job but not good enough to get beyond the basic levels of the game. He lived alone.

  Sebastian Securities occupied the Seventh Floor of the Salem Tower. The woman seated behind the reception desk was blonde, beautiful and well dressed. She gave me a dazzling smile as I walked up. “A pleasure to see you again, sir. Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I have an appointment with Leon Sebastian.”

  She nodded. “Of course.” She pressed a button on her desk and said, “Mr. Oliver to see you, sir.”

  “Send him right in.”

  She looked down at a log book on her desk, made a notation and pressed another button. A panel in the wall slid open. “You remember where it is, sir?”

  “Thanks. I do.”

  Down the hallway to left. Leon Sebastian had the big office at the end of the corridor. I knocked, didn’t wait for a response and entered.

  Leon looked good in a suit. He di
dn’t fidget or squirm. He was lean and tanned, with a square jaw and a small scar on his left cheek. He was happily married and had three kids that he doted on. He stood when I walked into his office and smiled. We shook hands. “How are you, Doug?”

  “Not bad, when people aren’t threatening to kill me.”

  He looked momentarily surprised. “Who is threatening to kill you?”

  “Apparently, you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You are the annoying sort but I think I would have remembered.” He sat back in his seat and rubbed absently at his chin.

  He listened to my story without comment and then said, “Huh.” Then he frowned and pressed a button on the intercom. “Please ask Gerard Harrington to come to my office.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “So,” I said, “how’s the wife and kids?”

  “Good. Jolene was asking about you just the other day. How long has it been since you came to dinner?”

  “A couple of months. We should go out.”

  Leon was a member of Gentian, one of the oldest Guilds, though not one of the largest. The administration of Gentian had always been conservative and they preferred to grow slowly and with little risk. Leon and I had gone to collegium together. His family was rich. So was mine, though not as rich as his. We had similar interests, mostly the usual—sports and games and the opposite sex. Leon had always been a pleasant, easygoing sort, which might have seemed strange considering the family business, but Leon never let personal issues interfere with his livelihood. Back then, he could usually be found sacked out on a couch but he managed to study hard enough to get solid grades.

  “I’ll talk to Jolene. Will you bring Laura?”

  I frowned. “Laura and I are no longer together.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Leon said. “We liked her.”

  I shrugged. “She was getting pushy.” An understatement; Laura Jones had seemed like a nice, normal, pretty girl with a level head on her shoulders. A middle-school teacher, non-Guild, she began angling for a commitment within weeks of our first date. She must have sensed my growing discomfort with the relationship because suddenly my attorney received a letter from her attorney seeking a financial settlement for unspecified abuses. I wasted no time in obtaining an order of protection and I had been careful to avoid her ever since.

  Just then, a knock came from the door. “Come in,” Leon said.

  A large young man entered. Gerard Harrington. He gave me a blank look then focused on Leon. “You asked for me, sir?”

  “Yes.” Leon glanced at me. “It appears that a few days ago you were involved in an operation regarding Mr. Oliver, here. Tell me about it.”

  Harrington’s eyes flicked toward me, then back to Leon. “Not much to tell. We were paid to provide surveillance and security for a meeting between Mr. Oliver and a client.”

  “Do you know the client?”

  “No.”

  “Did the contract specify confidentiality?”

  “Probably not,” Harrington said, “since we weren’t told to keep our mouths shut.”

  Leon shook his head and glanced at me. “Anything else?”

  “Exactly what were your orders?” I asked.

  “It was a simple bodyguard job. Protect the client.”

  “And who were you supposed to be protecting this client from?”

  Harrington barely smiled, “Well, you sir.”

  “Me, personally, or the people in my employ?”

  “We were shown pictures of seven men in your organization. We were told that you had more, but the client was supposedly unaware of their identities. We didn’t see any of the seven in the vicinity of the meet.”

  I leaned back. Leon looked at me. I shrugged.

  “Thank you,” Leon said. “That will be all.”

  Harrington turned and left. Leon waited until the door was closed. “The specifics of the operation might not be confidential but the clients will be. I’ll take a look at the contract but I can’t tell you who signed it. I’m sorry.”

  Sebastian Securities was a trustworthy firm. Their business would go under very quickly if they weren’t. “I understand.”

  “Alright, then,” Leon grinned. “Will I see you at the Guild Hall?”

  “I’ll be there at the end of the week, Friday night.”

  Chapter 3

  I had been given my first interface, as was customary, on my seventh birthday. My father presented it to me after dinner. It had a leather strap and a round face with numbers blinking on and off and could project a holographic field into thin air. I strapped it on while my parents watched, beaming with pride and my brother Jimmy fidgeted in his seat, bored. I rotated my wrist, admiring it from every angle, very proud of myself. I was a big boy, now.

  We were all taught that the First Empire had founded a colony on Illyria, one colony world out of hundreds, and that our ancestors were put here, on this world, in order to concentrate genetic traits that the Empire considered desirable. The question of whether our ancestors had volunteered to participate in this grand experiment was rarely addressed.

  The Empire had enemies and they needed soldiers. Our ancestors were faster, stronger, bigger than unmodified humans. They could survive in harsh environments. They were bred to win battles. We were taught this in school. It wasn’t a secret.

  I asked my interface for a listing of genetic modifications common among the original population of Illyria. The results made me feel a little better about myself. I wasn’t quite the freak that I had assumed. Most animals are stronger, pound for pound, than human beings, and many have reflexes that an unmodified human cannot match. The genes for increased size and strength and speed were universal among the original colonists.

  Sharks and birds and many other animals can sense magnetic fields. Electric eels could store electricity and use it to hunt their prey and to defend themselves. Supposedly, an electric eel could knock a grown man unconscious, and so, apparently, could I. Bees can see into the ultraviolet. Snakes can detect infrared. It’s how they locate their prey at night, by the heat that they emit.

  I sat back and I pondered as I read all this. An enhanced sense of smell is closely related to an enhanced sense of taste. My brother Jimmy, I knew, possessed both. So, did I.

  Still, most people did not. A few more minutes looking through cyberspace answered the question. Genetic traits that confer an advantage tend to be selected for. Traits that confer no advantage can linger in a population but will tend to slowly vanish over time. Human beings have brains. We invented maps and compasses and the interface and GPS. We didn’t need to navigate by the planet’s electrical field. Being able to see in the dark might be a necessary adaptation for a snake but not for a human being. Three percent of the population could see in the infra-red. Two percent possessed magnetite in specialized cells that allowed them to detect the planet’s magnetic field. I knew that my father had this ability. He never had to consult his interface to know where he was going, and my mother could see in the dark, just like me.

  It all made sense and I breathed a sigh of relief. Still, I knew enough to be cautious, to keep my more unusual abilities to myself. Maybe I wasn’t completely a freak but children are not known for being tolerant and my classmates might not agree with that assessment.

  Luckily for Jack, and probably for myself as well, the retractable claws under my fingernails, and the poison glands that they connect to, had not yet grown in. One more gift of puberty.

  I could do things that most of my classmates could not but we were all stronger and faster and larger than the off-worlders who occasionally came to visit or to trade. I wondered what they thought of us. Did our superior physical attributes impress them, even a little? Probably not, I decided. Illyria, after all, was a provincial backwater and they were citizens of the Second Interstellar Empire of Mankind, in all of its ascendant glory.

  There used to be a nation on Earth called Switzerland (it may still be there, I’m not certain), that required all its ci
tizens to own a rifle and to be proficient in its use. Switzerland maintained strict neutrality in regard to its neighbors’ disputes and its territory was protected by almost impenetrable mountains. Nevertheless, Switzerland believed in forestalling aggression by being always ready and able to repel it. Any citizen of any nation on Illyria would have understood Switzerland’s point of view.

  Two days after my seventeenth birthday, I reported for my mandatory year of service in the Meridien Guard. Most of us resented it but all of us accepted it. It was the way things had always been done. I found, however, that I actually enjoyed the Guard.

  My platoon consisted of two squads of ten men and women each, all physically fit. The training consisted mostly of drill and learning how to work as a unit. For the first time in my life, I let at least some of my physical abilities show. The largest recruit in my squad was named Mark Jefferson. He knew how to use his size but he didn’t have much skill.

  The first time we got into the ring together, he gave me a benign smile and said, “I feel sorry for you little guys.” We waited for the Sergeant’s signal and then he charged, obviously expecting to sweep me out of the circle. Except that by the time he reached me, I was no longer there. A snap kick to the back of his knee and a spinning kick above the waist and he went flying.

  “Bout,” the Sergeant called.

  Jefferson gave me a wounded look and we both resumed our place in line. Jefferson wasn’t a bad sort, once he got it through his thick head that he wasn’t as good as he thought he was.

  Two months into my tour, I received a visit from a Colonel and his aide, a pretty redheaded Captain. “Mr. Oliver,” the Colonel said. I had been ordered to report to the administration building and we were sitting in a plain office with one small window, a flimsy table and plastic chairs. “Please sit down.”