Three Towers headquarters was, in fact, a solitary tower in a relatively upscale district. The walkways were relatively sparse, there were a lot of open spaces, and even a decent-sized garden in the middle of it all. There weren’t a lot of people, though. Not with the city-wide countdown to potential chaos. Most folks from around here were probably safely tucked away in penthouse apartments, in any of the gleaming metal structures around.
It had taken about an hour, divided between two rides in more aggravatingly slow trains, but Gaylen, Kiris and Bers now finally stood on a red rubber-covered landing, looking up at the company building. At a mere twenty stories, it wasn’t the sort of place to awe big-time bankers or shipping company execs, but to folks like Guill it certainly was the mark of someone not to be trifled with.
“One last check in,” Gaylen said, and took his comm out. “Jaquan, anything?”
“Nothing, as far as our little eye can see,” the engineer told him. “Herdis is here, keeping an eye on things, and the special repairs are underway. I’m hopeful about the results.”
“Right.”
He didn’t ask for any clarifications, nor check the status of their little rumour mill operation against Chief Horruk. Not right outside the house of the man whom it was meant to fool. Listening devices that extended outside a property tended to be illegal, but then so did making backroom deals with pirates.
“Right,” he said again, now to his two immediate companions. “Let’s see how this goes.”
“Have you considered that they might be closer to the pirates than we realise, and that they might just shut us in there and not let us out?” Kiris asked.
“Let them know, maybe,” Gaylen said. “But we’ll have time to run. As for actually keeping us there… that would be a bit hands-on for someone like this. Especially given the location. Types who make it to this…”
He waved his hand upward at the tower.
“... don’t like the boat being rocked.”
“Logical,” Kiris said. “I just thought I’d mention it.”
“Sure.”
His eyes lingered on her face. It wasn’t quite as hidden as it so often was when they were out in public, being merely shadowed by a hood. He could make out the tiny muscles beneath that flawless skin, and the subtle picture they drew.
“Are you upset?” he asked.
“Not about this,” she said, and pointed forwards. “And ‘upset’ isn’t the right word. Maybe ‘annoyance’. Or ‘resignation’.”
“Later, you two!” Bers barked.
“Indeed.”
There was no guard outside, and the lobby was listed as open to entry, so in they went. The doors hissed open, and they walked into a semicircle of a floor. In the centre of it was a well-tended bush dotted with large, pink flowers, the probable source of the pleasant smell Gaylen found himself breathing in.
Now he saw guards, tucked away a bit, by the hefty doors that led further into this place. He took their measure, just in case, as he led his trio to the main desk.
“Good evening,” he said to a woman with red and white hair done up in a stack of sorts. “I believe I have a meeting with the man in charge. It was to have been arranged by now. My name is Gaylen Qin.”
“Good evening, good guest,” she said professionally. “Yes, it has indeed been arranged. Mister Schach will see you. His office is on the eighteenth floor. The red door elevator over there will take you to him. And please note that this appointment is for a single visitor only. Oh, and please leave your blade behind, good guest.”
“Thank you.”
They stepped away from the desk, and Gaylen let Kiris take his folded knife.
“Stay near the main entrance,” he told both of them. “If they try to get you to go further in, just say something polite and stride out and wait for me there. If you can’t raise me the comm, alert the authorities. We are actually kind of sort of on the right side of things here.”
“I have these eyes of mine,” Kiris reminded him. “They’ll tell me if something is up.”
“You might be talked to by someone who is just innocently relaying a message,” Gaylen told her. “So be extra paranoid. Bers: No fighting unless they or Kiris give you a reason to.”
“Mm.”
“Is that a yes?” Gaylen asked pointedly.
“Yes, yes, dagi,” the Fringer said, just a bit morosely.
Gaylen walked past the lobby and found that red elevator. It was already on the bottom floor, and so he could just step in and press the button for the eighteenth floor. All the other ones were marked as locked, anyway.
He reflected that he was going in with a lot of unknowns. There hadn’t been time to research the connections that this Vandil Schach had with the pirates. All things considered, they were probably weak at best, but that word could lead one into a lot of trouble. If Schach knew that Horruk was in fact the real deal, or if the false rumour hadn’t spread well enough to reach him to any convincing degree, then that wasn’t necessarily the end of it. There was still the possibility of just convincing him.
The door opened to a hallway carpeted in a nice red-brown colour, and a glowing sign that pointed to different parts of the floor. The main office was only a few steps away, but Gaylen took a few extra seconds to note stairs and emergency exits. If this went wrong somehow, then those would probably get shut down somehow, but it would be worth a try.
A guard in a suit that looked thick enough to hide a pretty decent armour weave, not to mention a gun, wordlessly motioned for him to enter, and he did. The door had a plain old handle, and he had to close it behind him manually.
Much like in Guill’s place, the room was what he would have expected: Lots of empty floor space, really nice furniture lined up against the walls, and the sort of soothing colour and pattern mix that one got by paying for professional advice. The desk was what Guill’s aspired to be, and a man sat behind it, his back turned to Gaylen as he watched several holographic screens.
“Come on up,” the figure said in a smooth voice. “Don’t be shy.”
Gaylen crossed all that excessive space, and continued to take the room in. There was one other person in there with them: A woman leaning up the back wall. She wore a black body suit that seemed designed to intimidate and draw the eye, and he couldn’t quite tell if it was armour or not. There was definitely a holster on her hip, but it was closed and had a vague shape. She watched him with cold, calculating eyes, and Gaylen was put in mind of a snake.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He stopped by the front side of the desk, which marked almost a man’s height in distance between him and Schach. The man breathed in, then turned his chair around, and Gaylen knew immediately that his plans had been scuppered.
No one had mentioned that Vandil Schach was a Chanei.
The man smiled. Like all of them, he was nigh-inhumanly gorgeous, and unlike Kiris he didn’t hide it behind layers of unflattering clothing and a glum expression. His slim, toned body filled his clothes out quite thoroughly, and the top third of the shirt was loose to hint at the flesh beneath.
Damn it.
“Gaylen Qin, wasn’t it?”
“That’s me.”
“Well…”
Schach showed another winning smile.
“... do excuse the distraction. I’ve just been absorbed in all this recently. It’s a fascinating turning point. One might even call it historic.”
He indicated the screens, and now that Gaylen gave them any heed he recognised the footage. It was from the battle for Ciinto Res. Some of it was planetside, either slow pans to show the effects of the invasion, or interviews with locals about what had gone on. And some of it was actual battle footage, mostly of the ship-to-surface fighting that had preceded the troop ships touching ground.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Schach said, and enlarged a couple of screens that showed the bizarre energy tendrils that had been deployed against the Alliance fleet. “Nothing else like it, in any other battle anyone can point to. Some are saying the Authority cooked up some wonder weapon to try to turn things around. Some are saying they dug up working First Civilisation tech. And some are even saying it was magic. Some great mystery all the way from the Outer Fringe, come to change warfare forever. What do you think?”
The whole thing did indeed not look like anything Gaylen had seen. Not in any news footage, or war documentary. Not in his entire life.
“I try not to care about things that don’t affect me directly,” he replied.
“I heard ‘try’,” Schach said. “Come now. You have some opinions.”
“I have seen things I cannot make any rational sense of,” Gaylen admitted. “So I’d say all those options are viable.”
“Right.”
Gaylen knew what the man was doing. He had seen Kiris play the same game. He was making a database out of Gaylen’s little tells, before moving onto a topic that actually mattered. And the man damn well knew that he’d been taken aback at seeing what he was dealing with. And he knew that Gaylen was trying to hide it. He knew there was a secret, and that Gaylen was trying to hide the fact.
Shit.
“What about you?” Gaylen asked. “What do you think?”
He surely also recognised this as an attempt at evasion. Gaylen might as well have been in a sniper duel with a pistol.
“Oh, I think a superweapon would have been seized by the Alliance, and used by now. And it is not like the Kalero Wardens are a mere rumour these days. They are just a fact to be accounted for, when one does business that reaches far. I think… that the galaxy is a stranger, more fascinating place than many realise.”
“Sure. Fantastic. But let’s talk about why I’m here.”
“Why you are here,” Schach said. “Plural.”
He brought up a holoscreen that showed the lobby. Kiris and Bers were indeed keeping close to the exit, and no one seemed to be hassling them over it.
“I gave the order for a single guest well before you arrived,” Schach said, his eyes lingering on the two of them. “Just after dear Guill said he had a priority meeting for me. What did you think of him, anyway?”
“Big ideas in a worthless vessel.”
“Oh, I’ll remember that one!” Schach said cheerfully. “Big ideas, indeed…”
He leaned forward a bit, and Gaylen could tell his main focus was on Kiris.
“My point is, I didn’t realise you had a kinswoman of mine with you. I don’t get to talk to those often enough.”
He sounded a little bit wistful. There was no doubt an interesting story behind how a Chanei ended up as a fairly important figure on a planet so far from their native grounds within the Kingdom, and their refugee enclave within the Federation. But Gaylen didn’t care.
“Oh, and she’s challenging,” the man went on. “Gives so little away. To strangers, anyway.”
His golden eyes drifted to Gaylen.
“She gives herself to you, doesn’t she?”
“I give back,” Gaylen told him plainly.
“Mm. I believe you.”
A golden finger drifted softly over those golden lips, a small gesture but amazingly distracting. Just what was it about Chanei?? It went well beyond just their looks.
“What’s your relationship with those pirates?” Gaylen asked him, applying his will to stay on topic.
“Well, that’s rather personal.”
“You got personal first.”
“Oh, I did, didn’t I?” Schach said shamelessly.
He leaned back a little.
“That doesn’t mean I need to tell you, here in my office, on my time and tolerance.”
“It’s relevant,” Gaylen said. “But go ahead and tell me I’m lying to you.”
Schach sighed a little bit.
“It’s easier to play with people who don’t understand how well we see through them. But you’ve had experience, I suppose. There is no relationship to speak of. They simply promised to give my associates a berth once they had what they wanted out of you.”
“What they want out of me is the legendary Gilded Box,” Gaylen told him. “Legendary, as in ‘doesn’t exist’. It seems Horruk is dumb enough to believe an enticing rumour, and stubborn enough to never let go of it. I don’t have the Box. I have a small freighter ship, and several tons of produce. So unless you really like jam, you gain nothing by holding us here, and the longer you draw this out the messier it gets for everyone. You included.”
Gaylen put his hands on the desk and leaned forward a bit.
“But go ahead and tell me I’m lying.”
All the playfulness went off the man’s face, and he simply beheld Gaylen for a few silent seconds.
“Oh, dang it. You’re not, are you?”
“I am not. Horruk is just an idiot.”
“Right. Well, I’ll go ahead and send an order. Those little technical difficulties at Arret Blanc will be dealt with once you get there.”
“Good.”
“Yes, good. You and Horruk go and settle your business out on the lanes somewhere. Away from everyone else’s business.”
“We will. Goodbye.”
Gaylen didn’t wait for anything further. He just strolled back the way he’d come, and out into the hallway. No one protested, and his comm could still connect to the outside world, so he used it to call a number he’d looked up earlier.
Bers and Kiris were the only ones to pay him any heed as he exited the elevator, and he wordlessly motioned for them to step outside with him. The night was right where he’d left it, and they strode back down the stairs.
“You look a bit flushed,” Kiris commented.
“I’ll explain later. We have what we need. Look: You two get going. Get to the Addax and help Jaquan and Herdis with any last-minute prep that needs doing. We take off as soon as we can. I’m just going to run a little side-errand.”
“I knew it,” Kiris said with a sigh.
“Of course you did,” Gaylen told her. “And you also know better than to argue with me on this. Give me the fighting cane. You have Bers for bonking heads, if the need arises.”
She handed the disguised weapon over, looking a bit sour. Gaylen ignored the look, and just tested the feel of the weapon in his combat gloves.
“I mean it. Get going you two. I’ll be right behind you. Just use public transport again.”
Kiris sighed again, pressed into him, and Gaylen discovered there was such a thing as an angry peck. He started walking, and a few seconds later the call he’d made paid off. An automatic little aircar swooped down. It was a two-seater, the smallest ride available on next to no notice, but had the price of a much larger vehicle. He got in, put the cane on the spare seat, then put in a destination and let the thing take off.