M.J. Markgraf
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BSE Chapter 3-32
🕑 Added 2024-12-26 13:00:12 +0000 UTCYulia grumbled under her breath as Charlie passed her on the track yet again. The older boy had been spending all of his free time with the go-carts since what happened with his father, Sorin.
She knew about the incident, but not what the man had actually done. It had to be something really bad though or Alex wouldn’t have punished him like he did.
The boy sneered at her and she was forced to brake hard when he cut over, blocking her path and almost sending her into one of the barriers around the pillars in the parking lot. It wasn’t the first time the boy had done it, so she had been ready. That didn’t prevent the boy from laughing and pulling away though.
Alex had warned her that she would need to practice if she wanted to stay the fastest, but she didn’t have time, and Charlie was racing dirty. Anger rose inside her, she didn’t know if this was because of what Charlie had done or if she just needed to vent her frustrations, but she rammed into the back of Charlie’s go-cart right before the next turn.
Her tormentor lost control of the vehicle and instead of turning, went straight into the barrier on the far side of the course. Her cart didn’t fair any better, she had bent a wheel and came to a rough stop against that same outside barrier no more than twenty feet from Charlie.
The boy looked stunned by the impact, but otherwise unhurt. Yulia immediately felt bad for her actions and climbed out of the cart only to be accosted by a screaming woman.
Before she even knew what was going on, the woman slapped her hard across the face, leaving her cheek in stinging pain and a dumbfounded expression on her face.
Everyone seemed stunned by the woman’s reaction. Everyone except Dog. There was a whomp sound and the woman’s screams turned into a pained cry as Dog hit her with a pulse blast. Yulia couldn’t recall what happened next, she only remembered being pulled aside by one of the station security people while another handcuffed the woman and took her away.
At some point, Alex had shown up and spoken to the guards. He picked Yulia up and brought her to the medical area for a quick check before taking her home.
It wasn’t until she was home on the couch that she finally seemed to snap out of her fugue state. “Alex… Why did that woman slap me?”
Alex sighed and sat on the floor cross-legged in front of her. She had come to realize it was his favored position to impart some wisdom to her. “That woman was Charlie’s mother. After she saw you deliberately run into the back of his cart, she thought you were trying to take away her son like I did with her husband, after that, she sort of snapped. Her actions aren’t excusable, but neither are yours. Why did you run into that boy?”
“Is Charlie okay?” Yulia asked, worried she had actually harmed the boy.
“He was fine. He had the wind knocked out of him and was a little dazed by the impact but that was all.”
“He was racing dirty and being a bully,” she replied meekly, not even believing her own words now that she had time to think about it.
“I reviewed the footage, try again,” Alex stated.
“I was mad,” she finally admitted. “Why am I the only one who has to train with Damien? The man’s a jerk and I wanna hit him and make him stop!”
“We’ve discussed this already, Yulia. I don’t want to put you through this training any more than you want to do it, but you need to learn how to protect yourself.”
“Because I’m your daughter?” she asked.
“Because you’re important,” Alex replied.
“Aren’t the other kids important as well?”
Alex paused to think about that for a bit before he replied. “Of course they are. I’ll tell you what, I’ll speak with Damien and see what he thinks about creating a class to train kids your age. That way you won’t feel alone.”
Yulia wasn’t sure she liked the idea of her friends having to go through the same things she did, but she had to admit she liked the idea of not being the only person that the Head of Security would have to focus his ire on. She nodded and Alex smiled.
“What’ll happen to Charlie’s mom?” she asked, fearing the answer.
“She will spend a week in lockup for attacking a minor. Charlie will spend that time with Headmaster Wong since he has no other living relatives. If she repeats her actions, she will be sent to jail where she will work until her sentence ends. Then she will be exiled from Eden’s End.”
“Will Charlie have to go with her if that happens?” Yulia asked. She may not like the boy all that much, but she didn’t want him to lose his home and his friends over this little issue.
“That will be up to the citizens council. They are the ones who chose her current punishment and what would happen to Charlie,” Alex replied.
“You’re not going to punish her for harming me?” Yulia had heard Alex say that on more than one occasion.
He sighed. “No. While I am certainly angry that a grown woman could act in such a way, I’m not going to personally punish her for slapping you. If I did that to everyone who wronged me or you instead of going along with the people’s suggestions, I would be no better than a tyrant or dictator.”
“What is a tyrant and dictator?” Yulia asked, having never heard the words before.
“A tyrant is a person who rules people through cruelty and fear. A dictator is similar, but he rules through near absolute control. I don’t ever want to become either of those things, which means the people need a voice and I need to listen to them. It doesn’t mean I always have to agree or accept their recommendations, but the more I ignore them, the closer I become to being one of those two examples.”
“Oh,” she said, not totally understanding, but picking up enough from the context that she knew those would be bad.
***
While Yulia left to clean up and get ready for supper, Alexander sat there in thought. He looked at his hands and flexed them. His anger over the woman’s actions was slowly fading, but he still recalled the thoughts he had back when he first learned what happened. If he had been there during the altercation, it probably wouldn’t have ended well for the woman.
Even with not being there, it was only by the barest margins that he didn’t storm off after the guards and confront the woman himself. What he told his daughter was true, going down that route led to nothing but problems.
After dinner, Alexander searched for Damien, finding him at home. “Do you have a few minutes?” he asked.
The man grunted and opened the door, letting him enter.
“Is this about the attack?”
“…No,” Alexander said after a bit of hesitation. “I came to ask if you would be willing to start a class to train people like you’re training Yulia.”
“No,” the man stated without any preamble or an explanation.
“Any reason why?”
“Alex, I only agreed to train your daughter because I owed you for the shitfest that Sorin and his people had stirred up. And even then, we had disagreements about my training methods. I don’t like kids, and I’m not going to subject myself to parents coming to me bitching and moaning because their little darlings are coming home bruised. You may have been able to accept that I needed to stoke Yulia’s anger to make her an effective fighter, but I doubt other parents will be quite as understanding.”
“I think you may have done too good of a job, she already lashed out and says she wants to punch you,” Alexander muttered.
Damien snorted. “Good, it means we’re making progress. If she can picture every future attacker as me, she won’t hesitate to do what’s necessary. Getting her to control that anger and focus it, is another story. Now that I know, I can switch up her training slightly.”
“So you’ll continue to train her, but nobody else. Are you sure I can’t convince you to change your mind?”
The man just looked at him with a smirk. “You could try, but it ain’t happening. I’ll tell you what though, since you’re so gung-ho about training kids to defend themselves, Travers has free time until the academy training takes off. I’ll ask him if he wants to start a younger class. The man is much better with kids and I kinda want to see the cocky shit get yelled at by the parents. I’ll even train Yulia in the same classroom so she doesn’t feel singled out as much. I assume that’s why this whole idea came about.”
It wasn’t a perfect solution to the problem, but Alexander was beginning to understand that there was no such thing as a perfect solution, only one that was good enough at the time.
He agreed with the man’s suggestion and put word out that additional self-defense classes were being offered free for kids aged ten to sixteen.
There weren’t as many takers as he hoped for, but there were a few. Markus Wu entered the class, followed by Yulia’s friends Sarah and Claire. Alexander wasn’t sure they would stick it out. Those girls were much more interested in things girls normally were than the types of stuff Yulia was interested in. They didn’t even race the go-carts around, however, they did cheer Yulia on when they were there. There were a couple of other kids he didn’t know by name but had seen at the racetrack. Some of the orphans had signed up as well. Then there was Charlie.
The boy's inclusion was a bit of a surprise, but Alexander could see he was focused on the training unlike a few of the other kids who just thought it might be fun.
Travers seemed to be in his element as he instructed the kids. The former Hawks Team Leader’s methods were the complete opposite of Damien’s but Alexander still saw the advantage with Damien’s way of teaching Yulia.
He nodded in approval at the two men before leaving the room. He wouldn’t have been there at all, but some of the parents expressed concerns and asked him to watch the initial training sessions. They could have done so themselves if they wished, but most people were too afraid to annoy Damien despite the man’s claims that the parents would harass him constantly.
If he was flesh and blood as well, he might feel the same way.
With Yulia appeased, Alexander really only had one other person to deal with before the trip.
***
Theo was walking down the hallway back to his room. Unlike most of the residents who lived in the atrium apartments, his domicile was in one of the side hallways. He would have preferred to be enjoying a penthouse apartment back on Malik but it could be worse. The rooms here were at least nicer than what he had been forced to live in after his demotion.
Before he could make it to his door, a pair of security guards appeared from the end of the hall, Pembrooke ignored them, thinking it was just a standard patrol at first, but when two more blocked off the other end of the hall, he knew they were here for him.
Running wouldn’t do any good in this situation, and disabling four guards was not within his capabilities. That left him only one option, lying through his teeth. He took a calm breath and turned to face the officers. “Can I help you gentlemen with something?”
“Theodore Pembrooke?” one of the men asked.
Theo thought about denying it, but they would just check his ID. “Yes. What is this about?”
“Please come with us.”
Four guards, but no weapons out. That probably meant they weren’t here to arrest him, but it also meant refusing was not an option. He nodded and the guards led him through the facility for a good twenty minutes.
They probably could have taken the tram and gotten to their destination much quicker, but the guards seemed disinclined to do so. Theo gave a mental shrug, he had memorized most of the facility by now, so even if he was in a section he didn’t know the layout of, he could probably get back to one he did in short order.
Not that it would do him any good. He didn’t have a way off this planet if his cover had been blown. That was a mistake on his part. He should have gotten a clearer picture of how Eden’s End operated before coming out here, but it wasn’t like there was much information available.
This system was an information black hole after it was shut down nearly a hundred years ago. There were ships coming and going, but none of those were allowed to land planetside. If he wanted to leave, he needed to submit a request to do so, and once enough requests were submitted, they would do their best to contract a ship to take them back to STO space.
The problem was that most captains didn’t want to deal with passengers, and passenger-specific ships weren’t all that common in Unokane. In the time he had been there, only two passenger ships had arrived. One of the captains decided to stay, and the other got arrested for attempting to bring in illegal substances. The crew was acquitted and sent back to STO space, minus their captain. That ship was also banned from entering the system ever again.
All of that boiled down to the fact that Theo was kind of stuck here, dealing with his Omni handler and the Omni traitors who were on this planet with him. Hopefully, that work would put him in good standing when he returned home.
The group of guards stopped at a door and gestured for him to enter.
Theo did as complied and entered the room, only to stop, his hand still on the doorknob. Inside the room was a table, a chair, a holo projector, and a robot. He had been here long enough to know that this was Alexander Kane.
“Mr. Pembrooke, please have a seat.”
Theo swallowed hard, closed the door behind him, and took the offered seat. He had purposefully avoided Kane since arriving as he gathered information. Each nugget of intel made him more certain that his initial assessment of the man’s capabilities was correct but also made him less inclined to try and get Kane to come work for Omni.
The reason was simple, Kane scared the hell out of him. Theo had heard all the rumors, and as far as he could tell, most of them were true.
As he sat there, he used every ounce of his skill to try and bullshit his way out of this. “I’m afraid you have me at a loss. You know my name but I don’t know yours.”
The holographic face floating in front of the robot's body smirked. “Let’s not play that game, Mr. Pembrooke. You know exactly who I am, just like I know exactly who and what you are.”
Theo was pretty sure he could feel the blood slowly drain from his face as Kane stared at him. “W- what is this about?” he managed to get out through a suddenly dry mouth.
The robot made a flicking motion with its hand – nearly making Theo jump – and the holo-projector came to life. A series of messages popped up on the screen and if Theo could have gone any more white, he would have.
“These are the conversations you’ve been having with Omni. While I’m glad to see you’re curtailing their rogue agents, you can probably see the issue I’m facing.”
“I haven’t done anything illegal or against BSE,” Theo quickly mentioned.
The man’s holographic face bobbed up and down. “Of course not, if you had, you would have been arrested, but you have been working against your current employer,” Kane stated.
“What are you tal-,” his response trailed off as a realization came to him. The only way Kane would have these messages was if he was monitoring the Qcomm and intercepting them. He knew of certain groups doing this, but he thought the capability was beyond this little outpost.
Theo could only watch in abject dismay as the screen flickered again, and this time it showed the true messages that he was meant to receive. Every single one was either a demand for him to return or to not interfere with Omni’s other agents. Then they started growing frantic with requests to find out why their other agents had gone dark. Theo was the reason those other agents were no longer communicating back to headquarters. He had done as he was requested and disrupted all of their work, thinking them traitors working against Omni’s bottom line. He had been dupped this entire time.
It wouldn’t matter what his excuse was for his actions, if he returned to STO space he would be a dead man. It would only be a matter of time.
“Now you see your dilemma,” Kane spoke without emotion. “I believe I have a good idea of the type of person you are, Mr. Pembrooke. You’re a corporate climber, am I correct?”
When Theo didn’t respond, Kane simply continued. “You don’t need to answer that, I know you are. I know because of your messages, the information I dug up about you, and what your compatriots say in their messages back to Omni. You’re not a very well-liked man, Mr. Pembrooke. I would say more of your associates fear you than respect you. Your presence here seems to be associated with the phrase ‘liquidated’ more than anything. Going by the context of the messages they sent and the ones that your handler sent to you, I can make a pretty good assumption on what that term means in your line of work.”
Theo was having a hard time not hyperventilating as Kane laid it all out for him. Not that it was hard to see given Theo’s options. Either he agreed to work for Kane in whatever capacity he saw fit to give him, or Kane could simply ship him back to the STO. There would be no need to even get his hands dirty. He was proven correct a moment later as Kane continued.
“You really only have two options. Work for me, or take a trip home. I can tell you which option I would prefer if I were in your shoes.”
“What would you need me to do?” Theo asked. His aspirations to glory within Omni had crumbled when Kane presented the doctored messages, but maybe he could eke out a decent living here. It might not be the lap of luxury, but it certainly beat living in a tin can in space like he had when he was growing up aboard his parent's small freighter.
“First off, I’ll need you to sign some paperwork. After that, you’ll point out every single corporate spy on Eden’s End. I know some are laying low or who aren’t from Omni. I’ve been keeping an eye on your work, so I do not doubt that you’re capable of doing that. Once you finish that, we’ll discuss further possibilities. Prove that you are loyal and capable, Pembrooke, and you’ll find out I’m a much better employer to work for than Omni.”
Comments
Supernova Wizard
Excellent question. I look forward to seeing how things develop.
mmarkgraf212
That's what I get for editing after eating too much good food.
SubtleStubble
Envy might be a good replacement for respect
Duke of Coffee
Been a long time since I comment, but wow this arc of establishing the company, his employees and Kane and his family ups and downs is pretty good. 👍 And a anti-espionage division head get? 😜
Shmooggie
This seems a little weird to me: “You’re not a very well-liked man, Mr. Pembrooke, and I would say it's more out of fear than respect.” I didn’t know you could dislike someone out of respect.
Shmooggie
Lol, I got so confused when I read “tormentor”, had to reread a little to realize it was Charlie. Yulia pov is on top as always.
Jeremy Young
So many double negatives. My brain hurts, could be the home blend eggnog.
BookwormLich
I won't say is not a satisfactory end of Mr. Pembroke the spy, but I think I wasn't dissatisfied with how easy he just bend... Anyway, I hope to see more growing of his character in the long run. Thanks for the chapter.
Danielle Warvel
Karma is served, Pembroke. I wonder if he’s eventually going to become a true convert of Kane’s over time. That would be interesting to see, because even if he did become one, would he also learn to temper his ambition with some empathy if he found himself in a kinder, less cutthroat work environment, or would we have another potential Sarin in the making, just waiting for the perfect moment to make a power grab?
