dydx - Chapter III: Wagyu
A river of blood for a river of gold
Previous Chapter
A battle-hardened soldier chanced upon the old mariner’s logbook, where Captain Whitetip’s confessions of the high seas read like a nautical noir:
“In the biting grip of a wind that cuts my teeth dry — the kind that leaves you colder on the inside than out — I write. I’ve taken refuge in a dingy hole, ‘Bull In The Heather’, wedged between a dockyard on one side and a house of ill repute on the other. The woman beside me, with frosty eyes and a burning soul, idly runs her fingers along the rim of her glass, granting me half an ear. A glass of bottom-shelf algae firewater, ‘Aquamaris’, sits at my elbow, its emerald tint casting restless ghosts across the bar. I draw on a ‘Viudador’, a rare breed of cigar cured in one’s own blood, the cherry of which punctuates the gloom, its ember casting a devilish glow in the dim light. Not a healthy habit, mind you, but then, neither is living.
At long last, the vast majesty of Aurora Magna’s port, in Auricene, had unfurled before us. A jewel among cesspits.
A rite awaits any vessel docking in Auricene: disarm or be gone. Sheer daylight thievery. This time, we had cargo — one that makes your skin crawl and the sirens sing. Under some bureaucratic hogwash of a treaty, the Mercurial Navy was barred from venturing any closer than two hundred nautical miles off this gilded coast. Chained like a rabid dog.
We’re hauling a tanker full of human plasma, bound for their pharma industry. They pay us in gold. An honest deal, to be sure. There’s a certain poetic irony in it — a river of blood for a river of gold, almost at a rate of a coin per drop… each as unholy as the last.
Blood has always been the price. It has made us kings and slaves. You commit to a ‘Viudador’ by leaving behind a pint of blood. To reclaim it, you must bring a pound of flesh. Flesh follows blood. Simple as that.
In Auricene, the exchange itself was always peaceful. But I’ve been through enough of these runs to know — before and after, that’s when the wolves come out to play. I’ve been poached, robbed, boarded, and shot. This run, I had a rogue ace up my sleeve — Vannecker Feericks.
Vannecker, now there’s a man who could cast a shadow in the dark. You’d have an easier time breaking a diamond with a toothpick. He had hitched a ride with us from some godforsaken pit in Buitenland. It was surprising, then, when another of my crew got slapped with a murder charge. I’d have put my money on Vannecker.
So now, in addition to the usual miseries, I’m facing a court date. In the Membrane, laws are a tricky business — some to obey, some to ignore. Time tells which is which.
The dame sighed, her cool eyes reflecting the dying ashes of my cigar. A pour of ‘Aquamaris’ materialised, the barkeep’s silent salute to another tale of the high seas.”
The apparent peace between Contemporia and Buitenland was just that. Since past transgressions were never apologised for, nor forgiven, it was inevitable that the two would drift apart. Nature, abhorring a vacuum, compelled men to fill it. Thus, the Membrane emerged—a buffer of hybrid quasi-states on the border between civilisation and the unknown.
Among these states, Auricene stood dominant, serving as the de facto capital. Known as Mediliman during its Buitenlander days, it initially thrived as an idyllic balneary town, offering refuge to the sick, their attending physicians, and eventually, tourists.
But even paradise could not escape its inherent fragility, and the tides of the Aurean Revolution ensured this. Bolstered by Contemporia’s coffers and self-imposed isolation, Auricene’s loyalties shifted, as it transitioned from sanctuary to political linchpin — adaptation by greed, resilience by fear. Over time, Contemporia secured a greater degree of allegiance from Membrane leaders than these leaders had towards the nations they served.
Contemporia neither produced nor employed nor took risks. The Lotto, increasingly responsible for the commanding heights of its economy, outsourced supply chains, and personal employment disappeared from the land, with preferred dividends, distributed through the sharewealth programme, replacing traditional wages.
Lotto’s influence, extended via a maze of self-executing treaties and regulations, reached far and wide, as if organising civilisation itself: Auricene became the financial hub, Undershore the manufacturing and mining belt, and Buitenland a reluctant source of cheap manual labor.
Religion had rekindled in the Membrane, sometimes as old practice, sometimes as occasional political pantheism. The people of Auricene called themselves the venii, keen on their distinctions from the Buitenlanders, despite clinging to similar views on marriage and religion. To the detached eye of the Contemporians, distinctions dissolved; all non-Contemporians were simply ‘expolitans,’ a classification resented by all membranites.
The venii typically lived long lives, averaging over a century and a half — and not rarely living over two hundred years — all thanks to life-prolonging hormonal therapy, often a trade-off between longevity and fertility. The silvery-grey tint of their skin bore the signature of their choice.
Auricene’s essence was distilled into its famous spirit, the Caledonian Malthus. Produced under a strict code, no bottle of Caledonian Malthus could be sealed before it had aged twenty-four years. Legend had it that sipping a vintage from the year you were born would extend your lifespan by ten years — not only tacking those extra years onto the end, but extending one’s prime by a decade.
Selling it to foreigners was strictly forbidden. But a man like Vannecker Feericks knew how to get what he wanted. And he had arrived in Auricene seeking to purchase a contraband bottle.
Vannecker, ol’ Skull’n’Bones Feericks, was a real piece of work, a crooked puzzle with missing pieces. To anyone who asked, he’d say that his nickname traced back to his days as a privateer. In reality, his original nickname was Skin’n’Bones Feericks, christened by Captain Whitetip himself, for whom Vannecker held a high form of twisted gratitude.
When they first crossed paths, Vannecker was lost in the Amazon, a barely alive skeleton with sunburnt skin stretched tight over his bony frame. He was found delirious, clutching a golden coin in one skeletal hand and a bug, perhaps a bee or a fly, buzzing from his mouth, sun in his eyes, and a pistol in his pocket — along with the kind of madness it takes to search for El Dorado.
He wasn’t even nineteen.
Vannecker claimed to be a distant descendant of Jan van Eyck, alleging the same piercing blue eyes and shaggy blond hair had been carried over through hundreds of generations. Yet, much like the rest of Vannecker’s life, this claim remained unverified.
True or not, it didn’t matter. His run-ins with the law were real and some of his unique talents were undeniable. Few people knew, only his inner circle — although given their nature, it wasn’t much of a secret — that Vannecker could interface with the Lotto, all the while maintaining his ability to process language autonomously. A neat trick he used in his darker dealings. But sometimes for good. They say.
As with everything, Vannecker had a backstory to rationalise his abilities. He claims that he had died in the Amazon, if only for a few minutes, hours, or possibly days. But the dead couldn’t keep him company, and he was rescued back into the world of the living by “the lady and the slave boy,” as he recalls.
Years prior, Vannecker’s family had attempted to assimilate him into Contemporia. Lacking access to a qualified doctor, they resorted to a back-alley butcher. The resulting botched procedure wreaked havoc on Vannecker’s Broca and Hozhonogi areas, leaving him mute and rendering him a socially outcast as a teenager, imprisoned in silent rage. It was only the Amazon that gave him his words back.
The underworld had a craving for men like him. Armed with his newfound abilities, he felt like he had just the right set of skills to navigate those waters, the main one a skewed compass always pointing towards trouble.
Auricene was powerful yet divided, almost down the middle. One half was ruled by the Beith-venii, and the other half by the Stavrovenii: two families perpetually interlocked but never quite crossing blades, both reputations stained by time’s unforgiving ink. They controlled the two largest banks in the land, Aureum and Bancs Caduceus, respectively, and by extension, controlled the Banking Guild. “In Bello et Sanitate” was the guild’s motto — ‘in war and health’, reflecting their two most important lines of business.
The banks rose during the Aurean Revolution, in the aftermath of the infamous crash of the polymetals bonds markets. Some argue the crash wasn’t an accident but that the Oikos manipulated markets to bankrupt Buitenlander interests in then Mediliman. The banks started consolidating, supported by Contemporian capital as they executed guarantees and took over the machinery left stranded in Undershore.
The religious undertones of the revolution were clear, as was Contemporia’s goal to expel the Bellatric Church from Mediliman and cease their influence. The emergence of Contrarians, a Bellatric dissidence supported by Contemporia, led to a defined split: the majority Contrarian Membrane States and the majority Bellatric Buitenland.
In the peace era, their banks specialised in more benign products: 120-year mortgages, self-granting trusts (a scheme rumoured to be used by transhumans to avoid taxes when transferring wealth), and retrolifecycle loans, allowing children to monetise their early years by borrowing against their future income. The latter, a novel scheme, was underpinned by sharewealth guarantees from Contemporia for eligible kids seeking CRISPR treatments to facilitate their migration.
The venii banks employed state-of-the-art technology, using unique neural degradation patterns as signatures to authenticate and validate transactions, making them instant and nearly costless. But their trust was in gold. Currency, as they knew as insiders, was mightiest under the watchful eye of its sovereign.
“Don’t trust a currency you can’t carry,” was free advice handed out by Nousdriel Beith-venius, a proud Contrarian and head of the Aureum, a figure who wasn’t particularly shy about his ties to the Oikos. Even though his bank had significant polymetal and orbital engineering operations, Aureum’s core ventures were in genetic and hormonal picomanufacture — a trade that fed rumours of a deeper play through a sophisticated, transhumanist technology ring.
Oliveron Homvenius, on the other hand, was of a different breed — the head of Bancs Caduceus was not a traditional banker but hailed from a long line of politicians. He took the helm of Bancs Caduceus after a strategic wedding with Sontare Homvenia (née Stavrovenia) — known as ‘the Princess’ — heiress to the riches of the founding family of the bank, the Stavrovenii.
Oliveron’s lineage traced back to the Princely Age, a time of fleeting prosperity in Mediliman. Their friendship with the Stavrovenii is as old as that. Building on generations of political acumen, the Homvenii had successfully rolled over their influence into Auricene’s Diet.
Bancs Caduceus specialised in financing polymetals mining in Undershore and satellite farming; but also agricultural operations in Buitenland, which brought heightened scrutiny and risks to the bank. Reputedly a New Contrarian family, the Stavrovenii conversion from (and ties to) the Bellatric Church were the subject of much speculation and a political powder keg.
The fuse was lit when Estevon Stavrovenius, the Princess’ father, unilaterally rescinded all of Bancs Caduceus’ retrolifecycle loans and removed the bank from the programme. An unforgivable transgression that led to his imprisonment in the Xenokastro prison in Contemporia. Betrayed by his own name — documents surfaced where he had signed his Bellatric prename ‘Vistvan’ — he was arrested and later sentenced on charges of sedition and conspiracy.
The family was on the brink of ruin. A timely marriage to a Homvenii saved them.
Vannecker’s conscience didn’t let him forget where he was, and his guts knew why. He was aware men of his kind weren’t overlooked there; he would be in high demand. But he was in town to meet Düsenflieger, an old nemesis and not-too-recent friend, an ex-operative from the notorious AVS — Membrane’s elite private military company — with a newfound purpose: illicit trades, notably the Caledonian Malthus.
The security of the Membrane States was teetering on a delicate balance between the greed of the Victuallers — the Undershore crime syndicate — and the vacillating loyalty of the AVS troops, like a seesaw on a cliff's edge. One wrong move, and everything would go to hell.
They’d meet at the Benneteau, a club on the Stavrovenii palatial estate, a place for outlaws of a certain strain — too refined to be common but too vulgar to be noble. Here, the elite trampled on conventions with gilded boots, shielded by their prestige. Punctual as never, Vannecker was early.
Perched on an expensive stool that reeked of spilled drinks and deception, Vannecker watched the pointed dart whizz through the air like a drunken firefly. The atmosphere was alive with noise; a smoky post-bop tune, served over slurred stories, filled the air, as persistent as the thudding rain against the glass roof. Sofitja was there, a woman sculpted by the harshest elements of nature — a survivor of teeth and sea, the untamed in her eyes as she knocked back another glass of König Rum, its sharpness mirroring the edge of her smile.
“Miss the target, Vannecker,” she nudged him with her one good leg, “and the next round’s on you.”
He held up a stone pendant, “A shard from the Blarney Stone, kiss for luck?”
The dart landed far off the bull’s-eye, the deflated thud drowning in the collective guffaw that followed. Sofitja chuckled as she puffed, her smoke rings forming translucent halos around her cropped, maroon hair.
She then stubbed out her cigar, her lone leg bouncing to the rhythm of the tune, her eyes shining like amber marbles. “The shark didn’t claim its piece with a bang, just a soundless crunch, a calm surrender. A tranquility in the violence that almost felt beautiful. Yet it ate me alive,” she confided, as her Mediterranean skin glinted under the fading lights.
“The Princess swims in calm waters tonight,” Sofitja whispered, her voice dropping low, her eyes sharp. “Be on the lookout for sharks, if you’re in the mood.” Little did Sofitja know that earlier that day, Vannecker had been approached with a different offer…
Düsenflieger strolls in, looking around with an air of ownership that couldn’t be mistaken. “The air around their chit-chatting crackled with electricity, the tension between their skins creating thermals that kept lust and intrigue airborne in the room…” he jokingly declaimed as he approached Vannecker.
“Herr Düsenflieger!” Vannecker called out with an accent, recognising in his forearm a Cerberus impaled by a trident, the mark of the AVS.
“Spare some time for me?” Düsenflieger lunged, playfully hauling Vannecker by the neck and dragging him to a corner. And mind you, Düsenflieger was a big man, one of those big men who look big even among other big men.
Düsenflieger leaned in, “Plans have changed, pal. You know how it goes. The wheel spins and the pawns move. None of us is getting exactly what we want here… Good old news is if you still want that bottle of Malthus you won’t have to pay me… But the new bad news is that I’ll snatch the bottle during the commotion you will cause as you kidnap the Princess for me… for friends of mine... It’s not all sipping wine and dining roses tonight, Van.”
“Not much of a change, Düsen,” Vannecker scoffed. “A change in plans would be for the plan to remain the same with you. I’ll be honest, I’ve got a triple-decker situation with the Princess here. One to kill, one to save, and now one to kidnap. Maybe if I can pull all three in just the right order, I might hit the jackpot and then I can retire…”
“Your call,” Düsenflieger shrugged.
“Why me, Düsen? Out of all the schmucks in your list…”
“Vannecker, even I don’t get around gun control checkpoints these days. I know you. I know you’re the only one twisted enough to be packing heat right now. Am I wrong?”
“What makes you believe that?”
“You’re pointing it at me right now.”
Vannecker flashed a lopsided grin, “You can never be too careful, my friend. Yet, I’m not the only one.”
Patting Vannecker on the back, Düsenflieger prepared to leave, “Well, you know where I’ll be. Grab the Princess, get the bottle. Just remember, shoot first, never ask questions. And keep shooting. Shoot as long as you feel it’s reasonable. Then some more.”
“Times have changed, Düsen, since I last docked with a plasma ship here. The blood comes in at higher pressure, much cooler. I had to remove a couple of compressors to fashion my gun. The blood is gonna go bad, and I need to get out of here before that happens…” Vannecker cautioned. “Two Skov guards, an off-duty AVS, a mid-rank Victualler… This isn’t a friendly gathering. You’re setting me up.”
“Skovs, huh? Stakes are higher than I expected. Think on it, Vannecker. I’ll be seeing you.” Düsenflieger looks around and gets up.
Vannecker, laughing under his breath, threw a final barb as Düsenflieger leaves. “Don’t let the bullets hit you on the way out, Düsen.”
“I’ll catch one for me and one for you, Van.”
Vannecker walked back over to Sofitja. “Do I look like I’m too stupid to know when I’m marked? I sniffed out the trap from mile one, but where there’s a plot, there's always a pot of gold.”
“Don’t you have nettles where you come from?” Sofitja quizzed him.
“We do.”
“So why did you still graze it?”
“What do you mean? Back home, we always graze the nettles.”
“As a matter of principle?”
“No, as a matter of means and ends.”
“Your little Blarney Stone whispers sweet nothings into your ear.”
“Let’s just say that when it rains I try to avoid the pavement and walk on the dirt to get some traction under my worn-out shoes.”
Their chatter stopped cold with the arrival of the Princess, gliding through the room with lightness and impact. A cocktail of genes that had been carefully selected and bred for centuries, where only the fairest were matched with the wealthiest. A statuesque woman, with sun-kissed skin under a cascade of rich, flowing hazelnut hair— a smile unveiling the intricate architecture and mechanics of her perfect cheekbones.
She moved with a grace that was more poetry than geometry, her bare shoulders like tanned alabaster. She had the expression of a deer that had grown accustomed to the headlights, and she was tall. Intimidatingly so, the kind of tall that would leave men in fear they would run out of arms before she ran out of spine.
The Princess’ figure captured every eye in the room. But Vannecker’s gaze lingered on the lurking figure of Brennan Timpanez, a man from the past and a present threat — the Victuallers had sent their weapons specialist in tonight. Timpanez, whose twitchy eyes betrayed a lethal intent.
“That guy’s gonna try to smoke her,” Vannecker drawled, watching the theatre of the soon-to-be shooting unfold.
“Sharpshooters train to keep the non-dominant eye shut,” he explained to Sofitja, a serene storyteller amidst the gathering storm. “The whole idea’s to quiet the half of the brain you don’t need when you kill. But in the hot minute when it’s time to pull the trigger, things get shaky.”
“Adrenaline punches your heart into overdrive, your eyes, they want to open just that little bit wider. That’s your brain betraying you, losing faith. And in that chaos, squinting open that eye can throw you off, distract you from the shot.”
“So, how do you adjust if you are an inferior marksman? You wear glasses.” He leaned in, his voice barely audible over the chatter. “Smear a little chapstick on the lens of the non-dominant eye. Gives you just enough blur to calm the brain, get it to focus one eye on the target. Taps a little into your muscle memory.”
The princess floated across the room, the very picture of unaware beauty. Meanwhile, Timpanez was preparing for his move, subtly shifting his stance, his hand inching towards the gun at his side.
Vannecker, with a calmness that belied the tumultuous scene, pulled out his makeshift gun and fired. The room fell silent as Timpanez, shot through the heart, crumpled to the floor.
With a glance to Sofitja, he concluded, “That’s why you don’t aim for the man, sweetheart, you aim for the man within the man.”
The Princess, showing grace even amidst the unfolding chaos, didn’t even flinch as her would-be assassin hit the floor. With a cool, collected gaze, she retreated to her private chamber in the back of the club.
Two men converge on Vannecker; his hands lift in surrender. “If not me, you’d have done it,” he pointed out the obvious to them.
Sofitja gives him a note and, her smirk evident, as she says, “I’m so sorry.”
“You ain’t sorry,” Vannecker quickly replies.
“Oh, but I am.”
“So why do you keep playing?”
“Well, I guess, I ain’t…”
He grabs the note; his eyes fix on the closed door the Princess had disappeared through. “The night’s young.”
In the midst of the chaos stood Henry Minley, a figure that didn’t quite cut the proverbial mustard. These days, Minley was busy bartering his craft for influence, but his mind often wandered back to simpler times when his mustache wax didn’t taste so bitter.
Inside Benneteau’s private room, walls draped in lush aubergine velvet, and underfoot, a carpet so plush it swallowed the sound of footfall — stood the Princess, Helen of Troy reverse-engineered to Aphrodite’s exacting standards. Her presence there this late was unusual.
She greeted Vannecker. Her voice, soft yet unyielding, flowed with the elegance of diplomatic prose, “I make it a habit to be home before six, to ensure that a cooked meal awaits my husband upon his return. Today is different.”
Her husband, Oliveron, was exactly the man you would expect the Princess herself to be sculpted from his very rib. It was clearly a marriage of convenience, but it was a convenience served on a silver platter, garnished with shared smiles of satisfaction.
“You might be anticipating a reward, Vannecker,” Oliveron joined with a knowing look, “but there will be none. The man whose life you took, I had hired him to test your resolve.”
“Princess, Princess’s husband…” Vannecker addressed them, “Brennan Timpanez, the unfortunate soul, had a price on his head somewhere, I’m sure. I hope you understand that I will stake my claim when I’m finished,” he continued, “and, as far as I know, there are many spikes still waiting for a few illustrious heads around here.”
“Every day, there’s a bounty on my head, I wear them as a mask concealing my flaws from the world. I don’t yearn for the day my head is free of a price,” the Princess interjected, her charm sharp.
“A man like you, Vannecker, hops from one bounty to the next. But your true craving is a touch of tragedy, where you can play the hero. We can provide an abundance of both," Oliveron posited.
Vannecker let a harsh laugh, “You jumped through many hoops to bring me here. Makes me question my friendships,” he continued, “I knew news of my arrival in Auricene would draw attention, but this…”
“You’re mistaken, Vannecker. We didn’t ‘catch wind’ of your arrival; we made sure you’d be here now. But we don’t need you here; we need you in Contemporia. A girl has died there, there’s your tragedy. She was important to us, there’s your bounty” Oliveron quipped with a chilling voice.
“The Buitelander girl who died, and the ‘unintelligible’ nonsense? Playing the good Samaritans now? That’s a tough sell; even I know she was a nobody,” Vannecker declared, steadfast.
“So, you know,” Oliveron recognised, a hard edge to his voice.
“And it’s clear that you knew I know. And I know what you really want. You wish to break your father out of jail; I’m just not sure how. You are using a kid’s death to manipulate me into it. It’s funny to see how you care about your own family, with your old surnames and inherited estates, while crushing every other family under the weight of your greed and delusions…” Vannecker sneered.
The mention of her father tempted the Princess to intervene, but she restrained herself, waiting for Vannecker to conclude, “My father…”
“Vistvan,” Vannecker cut her off, mocking her father’s ‘real’ name.
“Estevon… he ordered that she should be denied, and then the rest. She was the cause of all the chaos that led to my father’s downfall…” the Princess spoke until Oliveron silenced her with a stern “Sontare…” as if she was speaking too much. “But she got around,” the Princess concluded subtly.
Vannecker leaned forward, the creak of leather his only companion. “We are somewhat repulsive to you, aren’t we, in our ignorance?” he mused, a half-cocked smirk on his face. “We’re chaotic, we speak out of turn, we show no regard for your status, and our grammar is far from perfect. We’re good enough to be disposable assassins, or a spare pair of hands to do the dirty work you’re too pure to do… to be brought to the back room as minced meat to feed the hyenas of your egos…”
The Princess stiffened, her lips pressed into a thin line. But Vannecker didn’t stop.
“You know,” he continued, lifting a half-empty whiskey glass, swirling the liquid before downing it, “From my perspective, with the ghosts of your past trailing and shadows looming ahead, you seem to be standing on shaky ground, sweetheart. And not the kind that comes from too much drink.”
He paused, letting his words sink in. “All in all, I know the holiest of things through the filthiest of methods. But this, I won’t do. I won’t play housemaid to the elite, dusting off their sins.”
Oliveron, sensing the charge in the air, moved a step forward, but Vannecker’s voice stopped him. “And you, husband boy, might want to rethink crossing me. I’m not auditioning to be a foot soldier of yours… and I don’t wear gold, I wear a shade much darker, and far more unforgiving.”
“You seem to be proud of the fact nobody can tell whether you’re telling the truth or a lie at any given moment,” Oliveron leaned in, the sour stench of aged whiskey evident. “But that’s not the mark of the master grifter you fancy yourself to be. The real gift? It’s convincing someone to swallow a lie when they’re certain it’s the God-honest truth, that’s all.”
Vannecker snorted, rolling a poached cigar between his fingers. “Funny thing about gifts,” he mused, eyes never leaving Oliveron’s, “they often come wrapped in curses. You think I get by on a slick tongue and quicksilver hands? Nah. It’s that little itch, right in the back of my skull, tells me when to duck, when to dive, when to dance, and when to let Nero play his harp as Rome burns.”
Unfazed, Oliveron plowed on. “Do you know what interest is? It’s just the weak man’s gamble against nature. A desperate bet against the inevitable decay of things — be it fruit, flesh, love... So, if you’re banking on your smarts to carry the day, remember: compound stupidity has a hell of an interest rate.”
With the lights casting eerie shadows across his sharp face, he continued. “You know, Vannecker, men like you have a short shelf life. You feast on the rich all your life, and you dread the day there won’t be a silver spoon left to lick. When you’re finally hungry, you’ll find your hypocrisy tastes just as bitter as ours. Only, we have the privilege of washing ours down with the finest wines.”
Vannecker flicked an invisible speck off his jacket, then looked straight into the Princess’s eyes, bypassing Oliveron entirely. “Excuse me, while I address the head mistress of the dinner party you fantasise so much about… Tell me, Princess, do you really expect me to believe that a girl, a Buitenlander no less, is priority number one for the grand Bellatric dynasty? What’s the real play here?”
The Princess locked eyes with him, unblinking. “Childhood should be free, free from consequences. Unlike the Aureum, we don’t mortgage their dreams, chaining them to irredeemable futures not yet chosen. My father dared to take a stand, now I must dig.”
Vannecker laughed, short and mocking. “Hard to believe... you revel in blind pleasures, rolling the dice with our lives for profit, upon the altar of your own unresolved issues. That’s all you have to cling to, that and a tendency to become easily bored in the absence of drama. No better than Contemporians.”
She leaned in, voice a chilling whisper. “Hubris, Vannecker, has a way of making us miss the cliff’s edge.”
An eyebrow raised, he replied. “Different cliffs, Princess. I might sell my own skin, but you, darling, you peddle everyone else’s."
Tilting her head, the Princess was unwavering. “True, playing God is easy when lives seem just a theory. But now, it’s real, real enough for my father to lose it all.”
Vannecker leaned back, a mocking gleam in his eyes. “You know, I think you might be developing a soft spot for the rest of us. What’s it called when the kidnapper starts falling for the hostages? Stockholm something?”
Oliveron rolled his eyes. “Stockholm Syndrome is not about the… never mind…”
Vannecker smirked, “Let me see which of your lies I believe in… I’m here to escort a delivery of plasma, but I was also promised some Caledonian Malthus, then I’m here to kidnap, kill and/or save the Princess. But no, the latest now is that I’m here to smuggle myself into Contemporia, under false pretences, to suss out a murder that by all accounts, shouldn’t concern you, but most likely, I still believe you are trying to get me to break your father free…”
He paused, taking a deep breath, “By the way, aside from the courtesy you extended to me, as I killed a guy I was looking forward to doing away with anyway, am I getting paid at all?”
The Princess gracefully slid a bottle of Caledonian Malthus across the table, its label marked with the year of Vannecker’s birth. “Drink it; it’s yours. It might just buy you the extra years you need.”
An eyebrow raised, Vannecker inspected the bottle. “Guess my next life is on you, but no reruns. Further proof that no good deeds go unpunished…”
Oliveron laughed lightly, “Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the cost of doing business when you're a professional scoundrel.”
As he took his leave, Vannecker thought fast and slow, “Breaking into Xenokastro would be a lot cheaper than sneaking around Priciex looking for a killer. But well, you can’t make a proper scramble without breaking a few eggs and stirring the pot.”
In silence, Contemporia’s glaciem displacers carried traces of the previous night’s rain. Under the sea of glass-like crystal, the Oikos sought Vidamundo, the key to the ‘unintelligible.’
The Oikos was something between the ethereal and the brutalist, neither timeless like the Daemon nor transient like the Agora. On the surface, the people of Contemporia made all the choices, but it was the underlying Oikos, selecting which levers of democracy were at play, that pruned the decision trees in the Lotto’s random forest.
The very existence of the Oikos was a subject of extensive speculation, even though the Daemon, through a series of political trial-and-error experiments — a method they called ‘tâtonnement’ —, had exposed the entity by what it wasn’t. Its marks were everywhere, as they traced their origin to the bureaugogues of the past, silently becoming the invisible hand that fed the Leviathan.
Rainwater was one amongst them. In a Priciex high-rise, they contemplated their projection in their lifepad. “Who am I today?” they wondered, looking at their now-self. Yesterday’s ink felt foreign; their hair was a regret, and today’s choice was a pill: “One for pride or one for acceptance?”
Endorphin, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, melatonin… the true identity of a Contemporian depend on a delicate balance between chemical reactions and electric impulses. Breakfast, replaced by the glowup routine: that’s what Rainwater was having.
Vidamundo’s name kicked the system in motion, first retrieving an empty log. Then communication was tried and proved impossible. Protocol dictated a shift from the digital to the analogue: a verification check at Vidamundo’s lifepad. Or lifepads, as there were many to be checked. Rainwater was on the way to the next one.
Meanwhile, the unintelligible kept creeping into Contemporian life; euthanasia services were now interrupted as the required civistasis threshold could no longer be met. The societal unrest was beginning to overwhelm the reaffirmation algorithms.
From the outset, the Oikos’ search for Vidamundo was hitting dead ends. “Anyway, it’s like checking your brakes after the crash,” Rainwater’s embassy sneered as it moved towards a new location, in tandem with Seahawk’s.
“This ‘unintelligible’, how is it different from the Lotto’s regular purges? Truth, justice… are still being sanctioned and dosed accordingly. Nothing appears irreparable,” Rainwater’s debated. “We persist in the habit of reading what’s not written,” Seahawk’s replied, “Euthanasia services are down in reality, not in theory. That’s the difference.”
Rainwater, smirking, said, “The charm in your devotion to the Lotto is almost endearing. It was never liable to a bad outcome… we’re all protected from consequences when there’s no scarcity….”
Seahawk shot back, “Your words make many assumptions. But, we aren’t the collective conscience.” Rainwater replied as their embassies stopped, “Neither is the Lotto. And the Lotto, doesn’t love you.”
Contemporians lived in assigned lifepads, nine feet each side. Inside they were free, with displacer tech allowing them to wander without ever truly moving. Assemble your company, change your climate, and pick your mood; the lifepad was all they had, all they needed.
Landing at the next lifepad, Rainwater and Seahawk’s embassies found another emptiness. No DNA, no signs of any presence. Except, this time, messages were left, chiselled by laser: “a fire burns unseen,” “pain rages without hurting,” “longing to long,” “enslaved of your own free will,” “your defeat a victory,” and “bring human hearts into sympathy.”
Vannecker came to Contemporia when the Oikos were deep in their discoveries. He thought about Vidamundo, a name he earlier traded for a bullet, wondering if they escaped the city. “I’ll see for myself,” he decided.
Stepping into Contemporia meant the Lotto entered him, he called it his ‘mindghost’. And there was the risk the ghost might overstay its welcome. Which meant the schizophrenic party he never RSVP’d to would never end. But Vannecker never knew the nature of his own beast anyway, his mother once called him a “sheep in wolf’s clothing.” But maybe those were his words.
The stars blinked in the chilly night, as numerous as the eyes of those who had crossed his path. He vowed to stay away from Contemporia after every escapade, only to be tricked again.
He might have broken a promise, but not his rules. He found himself promising this was the last time. For good now. No reruns. He lied.
P.S.: With apologies for the delay. The chapter ended up considerably longer than anticipated, and I figured an extra day’s editing would be worthwhile. Thanks for reading!
This is a chapter of a fiction series I intend to further refine into a book. I would greatly appreciate your feedback at caufskiviers@gmail.com. If you’re interested in being a beta reader in the future or participating in the project in any capacity please reach out for a chat.
