The Path of the Four

Ariana found out that Billy, the redhead who had helped her to fix the ice cream machine in the recreation room, had gone missing, and that this maddened Joe.

Joe found Ariana in the TV studio. The facility was still under construction.

Ariana tried to combine a video-cube editing machine with a camera switcher.

Joe and Ariana had decided they needed to save another three meters of space in the studio.

Joe told her that Billy was thirty hours late coming back from being off-shift.

“The rules say one second over the limit is trouble but I don’t go straight all the way with the rules.”

Ariana, on her knees, bent over equipment, holding tools, put the tools down and stood up.

“Yeah. I noticed that about you.”

Around her and Joe, crewmembers painted walls, hung lights, and the swept back white hair man looked over his copy for the next news transmission. The news staff had written the copy on memory paper and the swept back white hair man edited it by speaking commands into the paper. Really, it was amazing that Vertex had been doing news transmissions from here for -- What was it? A month already?

Ariana had decided to dress up for today. She wore an ankle-length dark skirt, and a pink and white blouse with ruffled collars and sleeves. She had her hair up, instead of being in its usual ponytail. On her feet, she wore a pair of Duvall-Melville of Paris evening formal slippers.

Joe wore baggy denim cutoffs, a baggy yellow T-shirt, and dirty sneakers. Yes, baggy even on a fat man like Joe. Many things were possible in the Universe, Ariana thought.

“Look, Joe, I don’t want to give you a hard time here, but why are you telling me about Billy? This is Jafari’s department, or you got to have at least one friend in Human Security who--”

“Let’s go. I’ll explain why it’s got to be you and me on our way down. Jason, in the docking bay, already has a shuttle ready for us.”

Shuttle Number 8 had about as much interior as an elevator car would have on Earth. Thirty seconds out of the docking bay, Joe turned on the automatic pilot and turned to Ariana.

“Billy was engaged. Was. Got a letter from Earth. The girl broke it off.”

“Why?”

“What difference does it make, Ariana? Sometimes girls just do that. Anyway, the way Billy went on about her, I thought he might not handle it well when the break off happened --”

I didn’t even know Billy was engaged, Ariana thought.

“--And now that he’s more than a day late getting back, I’m sure of it.”

“So why are we going to play detectives, Joe?”

“We’re not going to play much. I mean, something like this happens to a guy, there’s a short list of places in the Old City where he’d want to go.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why you, and why me for this?”

“Because I want Billy to be damn clear how much this pisses me off. And if you’re there, I won’t break his fucking neck.”

A few minutes late, Joe had something else to say. This time he didn’t look at her when he said it.

“It’s getting harder for us to put together items for the news transmissions about the Yamato disappearance. Nothing new after more than two weeks, but everybody wants us to keep covering the story.”

Ariana put a hand on the cross and pentagram around her neck and nodded, not caring that Joe, with his head for the moment turned away from her, couldn’t see her nod.

Tucked into one of the seedier sections of the Old City, the Two Worlds Club sucked up the time and money of Human tourists who decided, popping out of the far end of the Corridors, they wanted to go to a place like millions of other places--millions of other places back on Earth.

The exterior of the Two Worlds Club could have substituted for the outside of a boring warehouse in boring city in the American Midwest, back on Earth. The interior, however, was a jumbled mess of crazy colored flashing lights, stairs and stages, tables and miniature dance floors sunk into the larger floor, at varying levels. Topping this whole ensemble off were large, two-sided video-panels that dangled from the ceiling. Ariana thought she counted about a dozen video-panels, but it was hard to tell with the odd lights and the shadows. The video-panels showed silent, two-dimensional films, from Earth, from the 1920s, music “videos” from the 1980s, and -- Ariana thought people called them “situation comedies,” from the 1960s.

In the lights and the shadows, was the crowd, dancing, not at sync, with the music, which was a long series of overlapping electronic drums and odd riffs on timpani. Drone Beat. It was a music fashion popular in the after-hours clubs for software creators in Hong Kong.

In addition, the crowd danced and drank and sat and talked (or tried to, with the high volume) and the whole set up made Ariana very, very nervous. She estimated there were at least four hundred to five hundred people in here, and the place looked like it could safely hold two, three hundred at best. God helped them if they ever had a fire.

Joe led her toward a long bar, set against one side of the room; the bar curved three times as it went along the wall at, Ariana estimated, eighty, sixty, and forty-two degree angles. The patrons at the bar, from Ariana’s perspective, all had their backs to her and Joe. Three were four redheads, like Billy, but only one of them was male; so if Billy wasn’t in the washroom, and if he was in the Two Worlds Club, that was him. It didn’t take any detective work to figure out that the other three redheads at the bar were female. Those three wore clear plastic miniskirts and flexi-metal black bikinis underneath. Therefore, that, maybe, made Billy the redhead in the long leather coat.

Joe stopped, with a surprised look on his face. Ariana saw nothing that would have gotten that reaction out of him, and in the next instant, she knew it had been nothing he had seen. Joe took the key, hand unit for the shuttle they had taken down out of the pocket of his baggy denim cutoffs. He looked at the key unit, and then showed it to Ariana. They key unit also served as a link to Vertex’s artificial intelligence computer program. Babe must have activated the alert in the key unit because there was a message from him on the unit’s small, readout panel, spelled in black block letters on a pea green, rectangular screen:

NEW DATA SUGGESTS EGG SHELL WHITE NUMBER THREE FOR PAINT IN TV STUDIO WOULD LEAD TO TWENTY PERCENT MORE PRODUCTIVITY. CREW CURRENTLY APPLYING EGG SHELL WHITE NUMBER SIX. PLEASE ADVISE. – BABE.

Joe smiled a tight smile and shook his head. The A. I. bothering Joe with such a tiny detail at such an inappropriate moment indicated the drawback of a thinking computer program inside all of Carne-Tischler’s Zah-Gre operations. Sometimes he, Babe, didn’t leave well enough alone. Ariana smiled and shrugged. Joe held the key unit up to his throat. He was, Ariana knew, taking the option of responding to Babe by sub-vocalizing a reply. Ariana guessed the message was something terse and diplomatic like “Use best independent judgment.”

A moment later, that done, Joe pocketed the key unit and proceeded to again lead Ariana toward the bar. They took up positions on either side of the redhead in the long leather coat. Joe reached out a meaty hand to the bar top in front of him, brushed aside the pretzels and used and new condoms and stripped and spotted pills and found the large white audio-dampener dial, Ariana knew he knew would be there. They always were, in a place like this. Ariana was sure they were set all along the long bar. Joe cranked the dial to the left, created a zone of increased quiet just for himself, Ariana, and the third party.

Moreover, yes, the redhead in the long, black leather coat turned out to be Billy. Billy draped an arm over Ariana’s shoulders.

“Miss Orlando! You’re great! Great!”

He couldn’t keep his glass steady so the beer kept splashing out.

“You are a sexy little elf. That’s you. Hot, pretty little elf girl.”

Ariana crossed her arms and stared straight ahead.

“Hey Billy, ” Joe said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ariana saw Billy see Joe and then Billy took his arm off her shoulders.

“Mr. Whitney! Got a good excuse! Yes sir! A great one! Let me just think of it a minute.”

“First, Billy, what you just did with our assistant manager, if she were interested, she’d let you know.”

Joe leaned forward and talked across Billy, to Ariana.

“I do have that right about you. Don’t I?”

Ariana lowered her head for a moment and smiled.

“Yeah. Sure,” she said.

“Second, Billy--”

Joe, from out of the pockets of his denim cutoffs, took a small, flat, square plastic package.

Joe’s movements were quick now, but Ariana got with total clarity each detail as it happened.

The logo on the package read, “Sober UP!” The popular product, for millions of consumers, did just what the brand name promised, and fast.

Through the artificial zone of increased quiet that the audio dampener had created, Ariana heard, out in the din of the Two Worlds Club, a singer in the Drone Beat song start to sing, or chant, a phrase, after long minutes of pure, instrumental sound:

“I’m the NEW alien!”

“I’M the new alien!”

“I’m THE new alien!”

“I’m the new ALIEN!”

Then the singer stopped.

Meanwhile, Joe tore open the top off the pocket, revealing the standard eighth-inch, sterile needle. He jammed the needle into Billy’s hand, making him spill his beer glass on the bar.

Ariana saw Billy’s eyes seem to focus better, but then cross, and then go bloodshot. He put an index finger up to his lips, looked around, and started to fight his way through the crowd, heading toward the washroom.

Joe and Ariana followed, leaving the artificial zone of increased quiet, made by the audio dampeners, the full sound hitting Ariana with ugly force, and Joe and Ariana worked their way through the crowd.

“Damn!

Joe said it with enough volume and close enough to her ear, so Ariana could hear it over the nose.

Well, Ariana thought, the manufacturers say right in their ads this happens to one in fifty users.

In the washroom, Ariana and Joe found Billy throwing up into one the eleven white sinks that lined up along one wall.

Somebody inside one of the toilet cubicles raised its lid. A high-pitched voice (male, female? Ariana couldn’t tell, and both were possible) came out.

“Everything OK out there?”

Joe took up a position next to Billy, still bent over the sink.

“We got it. Thanks.”

“OK then.”

The unseen person lowered the mini-ceiling back down on the toilet cubicle.

Standing before a full-length mirror stretched along another wall a tall, blonde woman, in loafers, gray pants, ragged suit coat, and knit cap (her yellow tresses stuck out) was playing with the mirror’s imaging feature.

“Business formal.”

The mirror changed her reflection. Now somebody had cut her hair short, and she wore a suit, with a sensible skirt and heels.

“Eighteenth century. Europe.”

Now her mirrored image showed her with a powered wig, and an elaborate, long dress, making her look like someone from the time of the American Revolution.

Joe looked at her.

“We have to do something here. It might get a little personal and messy.”

The blonde looked at Joe, Billy, and Ariana.

“I’m just goofing around anyway,” she said, and left.

A “star bum,” Ariana thought. The woman who had just left had that look. Humans who got off Earth to drift, not working, not on vacation. Just getting off Earth to keep going.

Billy, at last, raised his head from the sink. Standing behind him, Ariana saw the sanitation sensors in the sink react to Billy’s -- contribution. The hidden spray nozzles tossed water, then disinfectants, and air fresheners into the sink, washing the puke away, cleaning things up, and tiny, robotic arms emerged to finish the job.

“Not happy about this, Billy,” Joe said. “Not happy at all.”

Billy looked at Ariana, reflected in the mirror in front of him. He kept looking at her, although the first part of his next remarks he addressed to Joe.

“I know that, Mr. Whitney. I’m sorry, and I was wrong -- Miss Orlando, I don’t mind being a space worker. I like it. I like my job. But it’s not enough. I want a family. You know?”

Ariana saw Joe’s head and neck stay stiff, but the eyes in that fat face snapped over to her and his mouth tightened. Ariana had to read the expression some way and she settled on, “You can field that one, Miss Chief Engineer.”

“Maybe it’s not enough for me, Billy. I don’t know. People like us can take some comfort in what we’ve made. I did an in-orbit construction, back at Earth. An orphanage. Only half dozen of us on that job. Other jobs -- Making or repairing places people live, or worship, or work, or maybe just shop. If you never get to make your own family, Billy, you still have that. That’s nothing small. Building something.”

Impulse hit, a desire to take a risk, and she took it.

“Joe, didn’t you feel like you and your friends were helping to make a future at Irving, Texas?”

Joe’s eyes widened in surprise. It was the first time that Ariana had ever talked aloud about Joe’s past in the Universal Resistance League. The U.S. government had surrendered to U.R.L.’s terms at the Irving meeting.

“I wasn’t at Irving,” Joe replied. “Many weren’t. I was too busy making a new life.” He paused. “Come on, people. Let’s get back up there and get back to work.”

They left the washroom, and the recording of another song was playing.

Joe shouted at Ariana.

“There you go! ‘Rock Lobster’ by the B-52s! This is more my speed!”

And then the music stopped and the face of Brother Chaos appeared on the video-panels, the left green eye and the right blue eye glistening behind the half black, half white mask, the eyes moving the mask under the gray hood.

Ariana thought, boy, it sure looks like seems like he can see us. That’s not possible.

Is it?

Conversation broke out all around Ariana, audible, now that the music had stopped and Brother Chaos hadn’t spoken yet. In English, French, German, Spanish Ariana heard, “What the hell?” and its equivalents. Some sat at a close table or went over to the bar to drink. And some waited with apparent patience, or impatience, for Brother Chaos to speak.

“This asshole again,” Joe said.

Billy turned to Ariana, pulling his long black leather coat more tightly around himself.

“Who do you think he is, Miss Orlando?”

“No idea.”

Then the electronic, rasping of the voice of Brother Chaos started.

“I see you. Out there. In the darkness. Having any luck? Job’s tougher than you thought, isn’t it? Well, now all the pieces are in place. I’ll come out to play two more turns. Then it will be time to move the game off the board. Here’s my move, this time. Who are the Paladins of the Promise?”

Standing next to Joe and Billy, Ariana looked up at the video-panels, and saw, out of the corner of her eye, Joe snap his eye toward her and stare, with alarming intensity.

Why? Did Joe recognize the phrase, “Paladins of the Promise”?

Joe spread his arms out wide, the short sleeves of the baggy yellow T-shirt flapping under his chubby arms.

He threw himself at Ariana and Billy, knocking them to the floor and covering them with his fat body.

Muffled, pressed against the floor, Ariana still heard the high-pitched whine coming out of the darkness.

It sounded like--

It had been, maybe, thirty seconds since Brother Chaos had appeared.

In the next second, Ariana heard what was, without a doubt, the high-intensity beam from an offensive laser weapon lash out, burning, cutting, slashing, and the panic and destruction around her rose.

Human Security was there in ten minutes. The unknown person had stopped blasting after, perhaps, three minutes. Panic, fleeing, sparks, and falling video-frames had done the rest.

The H.S. rounded up as many eye witnesses as they could. Most had fled back into other parts of the Old City. In the end, after many hours, Ariana, Joe, and Billy sat at a table as Captain Roselle stood with his hands behind his back. The Two Worlds Club, now bright and lit, looked smaller.

Roselle watched six H.S. officers do their final pass with their hand scanners: Little white spheres with small clear plastic portions, sparking circuits visible inside.

“Well, that’s it, Captain,” said an otherwise feminine-looking H.S. man with bushy moustache, a man who walked with a limp. “We register four hundred and eighty-two different sets of DNA traces having been in here. Number of heat signatures confirms that, as do fingerprints. We’ll shove the whole package through the law enforcement nets, through the next Corridor.”

“And nothing from the house-to-house, sir,” said a H.S. man who had just come in from outside, an officer whose deep voice didn’t match his boyish face.

Roselle looked fifty, maybe sixty years old. He had a prominent brow, the black and gray hair looking like they had woven themselves together. His eyes were pale blue, almost white. His face was a perfect oval, his nose a little button, set a little too much to one side, and the lips thin.

“We’ll put a tag on the net-match order. See if anything comes up about this ‘Paladins of the Promise’ thing.”

Joe stood. He was between Ariana and Billy.

“Can I say something, now?”

“We already have your statement, Whitney, and those two with you. You and your people can get out of here.”

“What I gave you anybody could give you, Captain. Want an i.d. on the weapon?”

Roselle looked at the officer with the limp.

“What do we have on that?”

“The video-cube surveillance recordings are useless. There’s at least a hundred types of weapons the shooter could have used, sir.”

“Only one would have sounded like this one sounded,” Joe cut in. “And done this level of damage.” He swept a flabby arm at the charred and broken Two Words Club interior. “The Krink-Gaffin Two Thousand.”

Roselle rubbed his eyes.

“Krink-Gaffin Two Thousand. Let’s see --”

“Big, black thing,” Joe went on. “In a technical sense, a pistol-style weapon, but the baby is huge. The Combined German-French Infantry, Wild Bear Company, used it in the field at the Battle of Ni Qwo Quang. That wasn’t a battle. That was a fucking slaughterhouse. One year after the war, the Better World Foundation put the Krink-Gaffin Two Thousand at the top of their Banned Weapons List, the treaty BWF talked twelve governments into signing.”

“An old weapon, then.”

“At least twenty years, Captain. Yeah.”

Ariana listened, but also thought about the music that had been playing. (“I’m the new alien!“) She thought about the message Joe got from Babe, she thought about what Babe really was. She thought about the principles behind the Yamato Drive and what else that might mean, elsewhere in the Universe.

Captain Roselle walked over to the table. He stood before Billy and Ariana.

“Anything you two want to add?”

“No sir.”

“Yes, Captain. I do.” Ariana looked up at Roselle. “It’s about Brother Chaos. I think I have some answers.”

Roselle leaned over her.

“You think you know who he is?”

“No. I think I know what he is.”