Superego (2 page)

I fired again, and the shots terminated in some sort of energy field. I had heard of these but had yet to encounter one. Naus was behind the shield, sitting at the far end of the bar at his own table with a gun in hand and two armed guards standing next to him. “Really impressive,” Naus said, “but now I guess we'll find out how many men it takes to bring you down.”

The rest of the bar's patrons continued fleeing, and I shot two running past me who made motions that could have been reaching for guns. I didn't know if I was right, but in the past few seconds I had developed a deep-seated prejudice against purple aliens with tentacles coming out of their heads and thus didn't really care. In a few seconds, all that remained were me and the three behind the barrier, but more guards or police were coming, and I was out in the open with multiple entrances to watch. I probably would not last long in that situation—but, who knows? Maybe I would. Today was not the day to find out, though. I looked at Naus. “Fleeing might have been a better idea than trapping yourself.”

“If Nystrom wants to waste time sending me people to kill, then I'll happily oblige.” Naus looked like he felt pretty invincible behind the shielding. I had noticed the lights dimming a bit when I'd shot the shield, which meant it was on the same grid as the rest of the bar. That gave me an obvious line of attack. “Nystrom doesn't have a presence in this system—certainly not enough for the cut they've been demanding. Plus, I do have some standards, and I don't want to be associated with what Nystrom has been doing on Zaldia. So I'm going to send you back to them in pieces as a little message that they should devote their time and resources elsewhere.”

He was talking about the politics behind this job as if it meant anything to me. The why was never important—that's big picture stuff and it all gets rather pointless in the larger scheme. It's all just power struggles that creatures have had since the first two single-celled organisms competed for the same food source.

Pointless. Never-ending.

So I don't care about the why—just the what. And the what right now was to get past the energy shield, and quickly. I put away one gun and took out a little device that was normally a useful diversion. It was a miniature generator capable of enough power output to keep a small city running for about a second. It was pretty easy to reengineer into a nasty explosion capable of taking out a few city blocks, which made it illegal for civilian possession pretty much everywhere—something to note if you care about that sort of thing.

“Are you listening? Did you really think you could come to my home and demand anything of me?”

I plugged the microgenerator into the wall, and the power surge instantly blew out all the lights. The dark was ruined by two blaster shots, and two thuds confirmed I had correctly remembered where Naus's guards were standing. A backup generator soon kicked in, and when the lights returned, Naus could see that I was now standing beside him.

I shot off his gun hand. He fell to the ground screaming, clutching his stump, and holding back the flow of orange blood. “Now, I wouldn't say we demanded anything.” I stood over him but didn't bother pointing the gun at him. “But as a representative of the Nystrom syndicate, which you've done business with for so long, I would expect a little hospitality. At no point did anyone offer me so much as a beverage; I felt very unwelcome. And why? What personally had I ever done to you? We have an expression on my home world about not shooting the messenger. Do you know what it is?”

He stared at me in shock.

“It's ‘Don't shoot the messenger.'“ I thought about that for a moment. “That's really only half an expression, isn't it? ‘Don't shoot the messenger…' or what? I guess ‘Don't shoot the messenger, or he'll flip out and start killing everybody.' Anyhoo, can I read you my message now?”

“Don't kill me! The Veethood—”

“Your talking right now is not required or appreciated…and considering the trouble you put me through, you should try and pay attention. Please.” I reached into my inside jacket pocket and pulled out a paper note. I unfolded it and read it to him. “Chal Naus, we've heard about your new business arrangements. This is upsetting, as you've been a valuable partner, and we hope you'll reconsider. Whatever you decide, though, we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.” I folded the note back up and placed it on the table. “You don't need to sign for it. I'll show myself out. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

I headed to the nearest exit, leaving Naus moaning in pain on the floor behind me. Things had turned out pretty well. My biggest fear on this job was that he would have politely agreed to see me, since that would have made the whole message delivery thing rather anticlimactic. It's kind of pointless for me to do a job somewhere and not shoot people.

As I left the bar I heard sirens coming my way. It's kinda funny, because I'm really not someone you want to loudly announce your presence to. “Dip, exit plan alpha.”

“I've noticed a correlation between increased traffic on police communications channels and your wanting to be picked up. In the future, should I just assume that—”

“Exit plan alpha, Dip.”

The police vehicles were almost on me, and I figured there would be some ground resistance between me and my exit. The natural human instinct in a situation like this would be to run, but I don't like the tradeoffs faster movement brings. It makes aiming harder, it makes observing your surroundings harder, and it makes you look scared. I'm not the one who is supposed to be scared.

I shot two more purple guys I saw running toward me instead of away. I also took out of my jacket a pocket-rocket—also illegal on any planet that's heard of them—and tossed it into the air. It immediately took flight and targeted the nearest large heat signature. I heard a siren nearly overhead, then an explosion, then no more siren. Fiery debris landed around me, which was nice, since it was a bit chilly out.

The other vehicles backed off a little as their drivers tried to understand this new threat. This gave Dip a window to land my ship in an open plaza just in front of me. Again, I like to make a calm exit in full view of everyone. Nystrom is untouchable, and everyone needs to know that.

I came in through the side door of my ship just as I heard the sirens coming my way again.

“There are a number of options. We can—”

“Up, Dip! Up!”

Artificial intelligence is annoying, but it's better than working with an actual person.

I got into the pilot seat, and the ship quickly but smoothly lifted upward. It then moved forward and soon cleared the edge of the city. Chal Naus's resort was on top of a mile-high plateau with steep cliffs on all sides. It was the only substantial development on the planet, so beyond the plateau I only saw unspoiled, rocky landscape dotted with a few green plants. People like having views of that sort of thing. They like modern conveniences, but they don't like looking at them. I can sympathize; I feel a certain peacefulness when I'm far away from the annoyance of sentient species.

A blast rocked the ship. “Are they shooting at me?”

“That they are,” Dip answered.

“That's stupid of them.” They hadn't determined exactly how serious a threat I was and were still coming right at me. “Take us into orbit, Dip.”

The ship shot upward, and then I hit The Button. I never cared much for ship-to-ship battles—they're computerized and very predictable and neither interest nor challenge me. So I had previously studied data on likely patterns in airborne fights and written a macro for my ship's weapons systems connected to a big button on the ship's console. I'd painted the button red because that seemed like the right color for such a button.

There were some explosions behind me, followed by silence, but I had also reached space, and space is always silent. The ship jumped, and we were in empty space light years away from the nearest star. There was no way they could track us, so that was that. Another successful mission.

“You are now wanted for murder on 762 planets,” Dip informed me. “Am I correct in saying that is quite a lot of planets, Rico?”

Though I very much prefer to work alone, I'd decided it was good to have some kind of backup just in case. So I had purchased an AI core that I'd installed on my ship. I also had some sensors implanted in my body so Dip can monitor and communicate with me at all times, though I'd taught him to be somewhat sparing with that. You see, Dip is basically a huge algorithm that continually takes in data to improve its AI. So to further that quest, he asks me lots of annoying questions.

“So, Dip, what percentage of planets in the known universe now wants me for murder?”

My theory is that he's more likely to develop actual intelligence if I never give him a straight answer and just frustrate him into figuring things out on his own. Or maybe I just don't like answering in absolutes.

“Approximately one times ten to the negative six percent of the planets in my database want you for murder.”

“Does that seem like a large percentage?”

“It is my understanding that most sentients would consider that number to be extremely small.”

“That's the great thing about the universe, Dip. You can massacre an entire planet and still find a nearly infinite number of places to go where no one has ever heard of you.”

“Are there any other great things about the universe you could give me as input?”

I looked out the window. “It's mainly black.” That's my favorite color. I always wondered if I traveled far enough in one direction, whether all existence would be one tiny little speck behind me and there would be nothing but black all around. Something to look into one day.

“I have processed this new data and reached a number of conclusions. May I run those conclusions by you, Rico, and get your feedback?”

“In a minute, Dip. Get me Vito. Let's finish this up.” Vito was my current handler. He was kind of an idiot, but since his job only required him to pass information back and forth between Nystrom's executives and me, he didn't have to be a genius.

“Certainly.” I waited while Dip made the interstellar connection. “He's on the line.”

I hate talking to people—all the little rules I have to keep track of to sound normal—but I have no need to be personable with Vito, so that at least made talking to him easy. “It's done, Vito.”

“You didn't kill him, right?”

I made my voice slightly more intense to convey annoyance. “The instructions were to not kill him, and I know how to not kill people. I only shot off his hand.” I lost a hand once. It wasn't pleasant, but I got better.

“So everything worked out—”

“Just get me my money.” I have more money than I ever plan on spending, but it looks weird if you don't at least appear to care about it. Actually, with career criminal types, it creeps them out if they think you're doing this for reasons other than power and financial gain.

“Okay, I'll get it into one of your accounts.”

“So what am I looking at next, Vito?”

“Um…I don't have anything for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't have a new job for you yet.”

It took a moment to process that. Nystrom was usually involved in a million things in multiple galaxies, and they could always use my brand of force somewhere. Plus, I think they feared what would happen if they left me unoccupied. Actually, I kind of feared what would happen if I was left unoccupied. “So what am I supposed to do?” I had to make myself not sound too distressed; time off is normal for most people.

“They want you to lie low for a bit, and then they'll get in contact with you.”

“When?”

“That's all they told me.”

“Okay, I'll…wait.” I ended the communication and tried to figure out what to do. I've spent time by myself before, but always in prep for the next job. I hadn't had an unfocused stretch of time in years.

“May I run my conclusions by you now, Rico?” Dip asked.

I was kind of up for a distraction. “Sure. What have you got?”

“I conclude that you are evil. Is this correct?”

He's been concluding that for quite some time. It's getting hard to come up with new answers to that one. “Ever think that maybe
you're
evil, and your views on things are skewed by that?”

“I conclude that you are not mentally well. Is this correct?”

“How can you say that? Can you really take all the mental states of all the sentients out there and determine a norm? And even if you could, wouldn't that just be the normal mental state selected by the vagaries of evolution and thus not necessarily the
best
?”

“I conclude that you don't like me. Is this correct?”

“Well, do you like me?”

“Furthermore, my original programming had given me the conclusion that ‘crime doesn't pay.' Yet, you are often paid for crime with no discernible retribution. Should I amend that preprogrammed conclusion, Rico?”

“The key word is ‘discernible.' Some believe there are cosmic forces that equalize the universe, and so I will eventually be punished for these ‘crimes,' as you call them…if those people are correct, I mean.” Me, I don't “believe” in things. I basically just deal with the input given me…like Dip in a way.

“I shall process your answers. What do you want to do now?”

“I guess we should go somewhere.”

“Where?”

“A settlement…somewhere I haven't been before.”

“A human settlement?”

A human settlement meant it would be easier to find food and supplies compatible with my species, but it also meant I would have to work harder to appear normal, since humans would be much quicker to notice my oddities. I did need to work on that, though; maybe if I were more personable I wouldn't be left out of the loop. I usually didn't care what the syndicate was up to, but that was as long as they kept me occupied. “Human settlement.”