Chapter 5. Deal
There wasn’t any rope. Perhaps rope was obsolete here, but sitting them in the corner with a gun to their heads worked too. Thaum had never shot someone with a laser pistol before.
While they were out Thaum grabbed the leader's head and focused. His hands glowed a sickening amethyst. Sickening because most people who saw this type of magic would get lightheaded or throw up. It was mind magic. Not something Thaum liked to use, but the results spoke for themselves.
Images flashed past his eyes. First of things the boss did. Unfriendly things. Thaum found enough to justify himself and delved deeper. He found what he was looking for and a few things he wasn’t. Memory scouring was never very specific. Done he the boss alone and waited.
They stirred after a couple of minutes. The man he kicked however died. Thaum did in fact feel the man's spine with his foot. When he shattered it. He could have healed the man. Could have. Now the man lay crumpled on the floor with a small pool of blood below his mouth. Corpse for affect Thaum shrugged.
The boss surprisingly was the first to wake. Thaum had hit him harder than he needed. “wh--”
Thaum interrupted, “time for civilised conversation yes.”
“Fuck you”
Thaum shot the wall next to the boss's head, “I’ll pass, but if you enjoy lasers I can arrange some penetration.”
The boss grabbed his throbbing head and sat up, “you have no idea, who I am. Who I know. You best just walk out that door and we pretend the other doesn’t exist.”
Thaum grabbed a chair spun it around and sat down, “are you talking about mister smith, the police chief. He can’t do anything to me.”
The boss chuckled, “the police chief is for keeping the cops off us I’m tal--”
Thaum said, “oh you mean Mr. Solovan the GDF Admiral that you have blackmailed with his daughter.”
The boss began, “yea so if you don’t want the military to come aft--”
“the daughter that you already killed and buried in Sokka town under the rock that looks like a set of boobs.” The boss stammered, but Thaum continued, “what did she do, Ah, I remember. She acquired a stimpack which would keep the addiction away long enough to run back to her daddy. You freaked out. The admiral would slaughter you after all. So you killed her.”
The boss refuted, “bullshit Rebecca is still alive I--”
Thaum said, “ah Adam, do you mean the Rebecca that you surgically altered to look like the dead one in the proof of life videos. I am curious though, what is your endgame on that one.”
Adam's face was set. Thaum could appreciate the poker face when the man was close to pissing himself. That skill must have been useful in his line of work.
The others were beginning to wake. Thaum grabbed Adam and took him upstairs to his office. He received an interesting assortment of looks when he left the “backroom” both alive and apparently chummy with the boss.
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Thaum sat in the comfortable chair behind the large desk. Blasting another hole in the building when Adam drifted towards a cabinet. They both remembered it had a laser pistol in it.
Thaum said, “while I appreciate the effort and optimism in trying to kill me. The sooner you figure out how fucked you are the sooner we can get to business.”
Adam slumped into the rickety chair in front of his desk, “so what do you actually want.”
Thaum smiled, “finally. First I have my ship set to inform the authorities about the locations of most of your crimes including Rebecca's body. I’m sure the admiral will hear about that. So you want me alive. Second I want access to the galactic web anonymously. Third I want a bunch of bank accounts set up.”
Adam replied, “you don’t have net access in your ship. Pics are going around of your combat corvet?”
Thaum shrugged. If someone figured out how to make mobile network access he didn’t know about it. Perhaps they invented it while he was in cryosleep. “just get it done.” Thaum said as he threw a small USB-shaped object at Adam.
He caught it. It was the IOU from the conglomerate. Thaum said, “stick half of that in the new accounts you get me and you can keep the rest after you finish the other task.”
Adam checked the device and gasped. The IOU was enough to expand his organization severalfold. He muttered, “ship captains really make the big bucks.”
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Several hours later.
Thaum was sitting at Adam's desk. He was typing on a massive laptop. It closed like a box rather than a book and required two people to move it with its handles. “these have gotten small.” Thaum mumbled.
Adam said, “yea, a couple of years ago someone figured out how to do the quantum entanglement thing in a tiny container.”
Thaum complimented, “you work fast. But this is anonymous right?”
Adam explained how he came to “obtain” the computer and the bank chips on the table in such a short time. Adam had his own guy for making money hard to track. The accounts were real accounts and so were the chips. Issued by the Federation themselves. However, the old owners signed over the rights to the account to whoever held the chip. And they weren't around to ask about it anymore.
The computer was the admirals. Adam simply asked. No demanded the use of it for a few days. Thaum questioned the anonymity of a console from a planetary defense force admiral. Apparently, the console came from a pirate ship just as the technology became mobile. The admiral never reported it. So this console was registered to someone else completely. And the other side of the connection had never been cut.
Thaum nodded to the story then told Adam to leave the room. He was going to use it for a few days. And to send someone to take care of anything he needed.
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Over the next few days, Thaum checked the galactic version of the internet. His host was an idiot. Thaum wanted to know how things worked. He started at economics. The principles were the same here. Then politics. They seemed different at first. The number of people involved was astronomical. But after Thaum saw past the bloated numbers from instant communication he found the rules to be much the same. Buy loyalty remove obsolete keys ect. He had seen it all before.
Thaum would look up mostly benign topics. His secrecy just a habit rather than a necessity. He would sleep on a matres he had someone bring in. Get up, search the galactic web. Have the serving girl that he pointed to earlier bring him food. Then sleep again.
He repeated this for days. Only occasionally stopping his search to chat to the serving girl. She was a rather average-looking woman. Brown eyes red hair. A spattering of freckles. Thaum only noticed her because she didn’t want to be in the brothel. Or near anyone else who was in it. Thaum's people-watching habit picked out such an odd person in the room while he was gambling.
He asked her about this world. The pictures in his databank spoke of wealth. The real thing was run down. Near the landing pad was similar to the pictures. But everything else looked like crap.
Corruption was the answer. It usually is. And dried up mines from which most of this world's wealth came from.
If you were born on this world you never left it. Anyone low enough on the totem pole to want to leave. Found it impossible to make enough money to leave. Made worse by the fact all the outside trade went through the world governor.
The man kept taxes high and laws to keep the people outside his circle low. Which kept those in the circle happy. They in turn kept him in power.
While Thaum was contemplating leaving the governor a present as he stood up. Asked, “so what is your story. I’m guessing drugs. But debt is a close second.”
She replied, “what?”
Thaum said, “it's obvious you don’t want to be here. So I thought I would ask before I left. Curiosity and all.”
She sat down on the rickety chair. “I was trying to set up a school for the children around here. One of boss Adam’s men whom I knew for a long time took a fancy to--”
Thaum interrupted, “okay I get it. Took a loan got screwed. They had the police in their pocket now you're here in the den. Thanks my curiosity is sated,” He stood up and left for the door.
She sighed, “you know the boss sent me up here because you pointed me out before. Aren’t you going to do anything,”
Thaum opened the door and left saying, “do you want to do anything.” He poked his head back in the door and said, “oh yea just a tip, the boss and his men are going to die in a week goodbye.”
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Thaum walked the streets. Now that he had filled the gaps of his knowledge he realized how destitute this city truly was. And this was the capital. He felt a small urge to do something about the governor.
Killing the man probably wouldn’t change much. Chaos was the only real certainty. But it would give the people a chance for change.
Thaum had no plans of sticking around this backwater world when he had a galaxy to explore. So he wasn’t going to be around long enough to make change the civilized way.
He found a pub and spent some time thinking about it.
Thaum was in no rush. He particularly hated stagnant corruption. And he wanted to test his magic against these people.
He smiled. It was time to be the karma he wanted to see in the world.