Chelen City: Chapter One, Part One

Notes: Omigosh, HERE WE GO BABES!!! From outer space to planetside, our gents are starting a whole new adventure–learning to survive living with each other. And having snarky tweenage sentient ships to look after, and looking after a bunch of refugees, and dodging assassins–wait, what?

Oh yeah. You know it had to happen. Can’t all be domestic fluff, we need to throw some mayhem in there too 😉

Have fun! I know I am!

Title: Chelen City: Chapter One, Part One

Chapter One, Part One

“Where to begin, where to begin…”

“The assassinations, babe. Start there.” Kieron’s voice had that sharp, caustic edge to it that would make almost anyone else either shit themselves or make themselves scarce. He sounded like a dangerous man when he talked that way. He was a dangerous man.

Elanus, fortunately, knew him well enough to be able to let the tone slide right past him without cutting anything vital. “The assassination attempts,” Elanus corrected him, reaching for his glass of wine. “I’m still alive, obviously.”

“So you are. Why?”

Elanus choked on his first sip. “Wh—what kind of question is that?” he demanded after wiping his mouth.

Kieron was resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Elanus could tell. “You said they’re bad assassins, but Gania is a highly sophisticated society with a tradition of technological innovation. You can’t be the only genius on the whole planet. If someone wanted to kill you badly enough, they’d be able to figure it out. So why are you still alive?”

Elanus sighed. “All right, so…there are some things about Ganian society that are a little…unusual.”

“Mm.”

It was hard to believe they’d been happily ensconced in bed just twenty minutes ago. Where had the afterglow gone? It hardly mattered—Elanus was so pleased to have Kieron in grabbing range again that he’d endure a thousand glares and remonstrations every day for the pleasure of having him back by his side.

That said, Kieron was absolutely dogged when it came to managing and mitigating danger. At least for other people.

Welp. Story time. “You probably don’t know this, but originally Gania was a Central System penal colony. White collar crimes only,” he added. “Hardly the equivalent of somewhere like Redstone. There was a lot of tolerance by the guards when it came to…inmates enriching themselves in novel ways. A lot of black market trading, of course, a huge amount of bribery and smuggling, but eventually it turned into a system of patronage by the strong toward the weak.”

“Which is reflected in your education system to this day,” Kieron said. “I get it.”

“Not just the education system,” Elanus corrected him. “In every aspect of society. We’re socialist, for the most part, but the wealthy are expected to do at least as much as the government, on top of what we’re taxed, for those with lesser fortunes.”

“That…seems fair.”

“I agree,” Elanus said. “Except remember the part where the people here had all the moral backbone of a bunch of whinging criminals when they arrived here. A lot of fortunes were made in very immoral ways, and not everyone gave according to their station. So a casual system of…remonstration was instituted. Remonstration by assassination, technically.”

“Chiding people by killing them?” Kieron’s eyebrows were so high up his forehead they looked like they might crawl right up into his hair.

“Only if it’s a person’s third or fourth offense,” Elanus clarified. “Before that, the attempts deliberately fail. You might be poisoned, but not fatally. Drowned, but not to the point where you couldn’t be resuscitated, that sort of thing.”

“So when someone is mad at you for not doing your part for society, they send a deliberately bad assassin after you.”

“That’s the idea. Of course, it’s become rather bastardized over the years…” Elanus had another sip of his wine. “In the case of my most recent assassination attempts, for example. I’ve supported enough causes that our leaders have put me on a permanent ‘Do Not Kill’ list. It ought to mean I’m as good as gold from here on out, but there are fringe groups who disagree with my inclusion on that list, largely because I won’t share patented information with them.”

A light of understanding went off in Kieron’s eyes. “This is about the girls,” he said, finally reaching for his own glass of wine.

“It is,” Elanus said. “Technically speaking, it’s about the current state of Lifeship Enterprises. I’ve been very careful over the past few years to keep the level of advancement in my AI systems private. Remember how Lizzie was before we upgraded her? As far as my investors should know, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Exquisite work, but not genuine sentience.” He sighed heavily. “It turns out my former business partner wasn’t as silent on the subject as I was. I don’t know everyone Deysan told, but there have been several attempts not just on my life, but on my business—efforts to steal data, even efforts to steal pieces off the production line.

“Someone even tried to steal Catie.”

Kieron leaned forward some, his eyes murderous. His hands, Elanus noted, were completely steady. They’d been shaking ever since he got to Gania, and only now, when Elanus was sharing all the worst news, were they steady.

Poor guy. He’d been fucked over but good by his upbringing. Elanus would have to do something about that…but right now he was going to be grateful that Kieron was his cuddly little murderbunny.

“What did she do to him?”

Elanus laughed. Of course Kieron understood. “Electrocuted him to the point of unconsciousness. I had him taken to Chelen City’s only indigent-serving hospital, and he’d vanished by the next morning, well before they could have gotten him in and out of a Regen tank given his level of damage. His employer had picked him up, no doubt.”

“And do you know who that employer is?”

“I know a few of them,” Elanus extemporized. “And the ones I know for sure, I’m going to deal with my way.”

Kieron did roll his eyes this time. “You’re going to talk them to death?”

“Sparky, you’re running hot tonight!” Elanus laughed and blew him a kiss. “No, sweetheart. I’m either going to talk them around to keeping their mouths shut until the technology is truly ready to be released, or I’m going to blackmail them into the same state.”

“You have that kind of information?”

“With Catie hacking their systems? Yeah, I can get blackmail material on just about anybody.”

Kieron suddenly looked worried? Why? “Elanus…you should be careful about that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re basically asking a kid—your kid—to look into your enemies’ pasts and dig up all the worst things they’ve ever done to use against them. And I understand why, but that sets a precedent for her that it’s all right to take some very drastic steps in order to get what you want.”

“Wanting me to be alive is a good thing,” Elanus said, feeling strangely unsettled.

“Obviously, but the way you’re going about ensuring it might not be.”

Elanus waved the criticism off. “She understands why this is important.”

“But will next time be as important?” Kieron pressed. “When someone does something she doesn’t like, something that isn’t a life-or-death situation, and she decides the best thing to do is blackmail them into doing things her way?”

“Catie won’t do that.” But he didn’t sound as confident as he wanted to.

“She won’t if you talk to her about it, no,” Kieron said. He looked tired again. The tremor was coming back into his hands. “But you have to be upfront about it, and very, very honest with her. I had to have a few talks with Lizzie like that, and it wasn’t fun, but—”

“About what?”

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised. “Let’s get through this stuff now. So people are throwing bad assassins and saboteurs at you to try and force you to give them things they shouldn’t know about on the grounds that you need to share because fuck proprietary software when you’re on top. Is that it?”

“Just about,” Elanus agreed.

Kieron rubbed a temple. “Shit. This place is all kinds of fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Elanus said, feeling a little bad about it. “That’s Gania for you. Paradise on the outside, Purgatory on the inside. At least there’s no Hell level, though.”

“Oh, I just bet there is.” Kieron downed the rest of his wine in several long swallows. “All right. Show me the rest of this place so I can figure out how to secure it better.”

Elanus would be surprised if Keiron could improve on his home’s current security system, but… “Your wish is my command.”