One Over X News

New Material

The following is something that I wrote this past week. It is intended at the moment as an extension to the Two: The Power of X series. As I have recently amended the Wolf Stuff to include new material I have also increased the volume enough to require some additional material for the second series. It seems fortuitous as I never believed that three books was enough and I also felt a year ago that both the Wolf Stuff and the other material seemed to be drawing to an abrupt and unnatural close.

Maybe I am now to the point that I know what needs to be written.

At any rate this is the first installment:

Bartoul

“There was a time when life was chocked full of potential. Unfortunately I slept through most of that first year of life,” Brent said to the mild amusement of the gathering. The pause lingered as he basked in the glory of every eye trained on him. “I guess all that I am trying to say is that finally my life seems to be living up to the potential that I was forever hearing about all throughout my life. For that I owe thanks to each of you and my undying gratitude for your support.”

He turned and met Jonathan’s eyes as they exchanged a smile in knowing appreciation for the hard work and faith in one another that had led finally to what they had each hoped would be the ultimate outcome. Brent accepted the congratulations Jonathan offered with the extension of his hand. “That was nice, very nice,” he said, beaming with almost as much pride in Brent’s accomplishment as the considerable relief in the knowledge that the most difficult effort was now behind them.

“Even if it was off script?” Brent asked.

“Every once in a while you amaze me,” Jonathan said. Together they had produced something of note. It felt good. At the moment they were experiencing the fruits of that labor. To Jonathan it was success.

As the two of them stepped down from the platform to mingle with the gathering, many outstretched hands patted Brent’s back, while others were offered in acknowledgement or introduction. Some pressed through the considerable crowd to thrust copies of the latest book toward him and he paused to scribble a generic sort of note that might be mistaken as a personalization along with his autograph.

For the most part he was among friends and a few peers. He recognized several and a few others he knew by reputation even though ever before they had been strangers. Just as Jonathan had promised there was a considerable presence of the literary community of Bartoul. Regardless, the majority were outright strangers except that they had read some of his stories and by that experience alone they felt that they knew him. This was the Society for which he had labored and endured hardship, pain, suffering, anguish, torment and even torture. In his past life he had served them with distinction and honor but ultimately disappointment and disgrace. Now perhaps he had returned to their good graces. Maybe now he finally belonged. Anyway, for that moment he felt as if he had arrived.

Slowly he made his way across the room, toward the exit. Jonathan had already arrived at the door and was holding it open as a helpful indication to the others that there was a scheduling constraint on their time and as much as Brent might want to bask in the glory, he had other gatherings to attend for promotional purposes.
When he stepped through the door, she was there. She had been waiting in the wings but as Brent wrapped up his presentation she hurried to the exit ahead of the other well wishers and stepped outside. She did not want to risk the attention of the moment shifting to her, or why she was even there. This was Brent’s time. Even beneath the disguise, a few had recognized her and even bowed in passing respect for her title. The irony was that she hated the pompous arrogance of the Society almost as much as Brent hated having to come to Bartoul on business.

It was common knowledge that she and Brent were friends. The facts were well documented in the slanderous periodicals that they had been friends for a very long time, even before the Lord of Bartoul’s scandalous disregard for protocol in marrying a commoner. Not only was she of low birth but also she had come from Earth’s decadent past.

Gratefully the true nature of her relationship with Brent had escaped public scrutiny. Still the speculation was nearly worse. Brent was friends with Carlos as well and had the Lord not dispelled many of the rumors, it could have been a very intolerable situation. It seemed to be explanation enough that Brent had introduced them.

Lana threw her arms around his neck and in response Brent lifted her up from the tarmac to where she could more readily kiss his cheek. “I am so very proud of you,” she whispered into his ear.

“I’m happy you could see it,” Brent said. For whatever reason, her praise meant the most. Most of his other children were still in the past and even though they had produced accomplishments and a progeny, they were nearly forgotten except that he mentioned them every now and again. His son, the exception, worked for the Society and had returned from the past and had even begun making plans for when Brent would be in town.

Still, it was different with Lana. Perhaps he felt that he owed her. He needed to make up for all the years that they had been apart, all the wasted time that he could have been a father to her if only he had known.

Jonathan ushered them into the awaiting pod and upon entering it as well he closed the hatch, securing it before the pilot nodded and applied the necessary thrust to lift them from the roof top landing pad.

“Well, that went extremely well.”

“You omitted the ‘for once’.” Brent responded with a chuckle.

“For once it wasn’t necessary. Even with your ad lib at the end…”

Brent looked out the porthole, seeing the sprawl of human triumph over nearly impossible odds spread-out toward the horizon; under the protective dome through which the glare of the setting sun diffused as a blurry mockery of an otherwise spectacular event. It was the same familiar sun that set over the bay back home.

Although it was a little smaller and the world outside the dome was a lot colder, it was the same life-giving sun.

Despite the horrible spread of humanity into the pristine environs of alien worlds in the immediate solar system, there was proof of the indomitable spirit that in the beginning had propelled a single craft into the cosmos to begin a chain reaction of events that culminated in the present moment of his observation. Brent struggled for a moment to recall the lady’s name, the first human to set foot on Mars.

He was also mindful of the other scenarios in which a man or several men and women of differing nationalities had simultaneously taken a first step into the red soil. Brent found it very curious that there was never a mention of the extraterrestrial hand that had guided the effort, or the fact that the first humans to walk on Mars had found two sets of human footprints as inexplicable indication that someone had been there before. No one could give credit where it was due!

It was an unsanctioned event, but Lana had wanted to see Mars first hand.
As he looked out the porthole, the world beneath them was another alien environment that had been warped into conformity the process of the overall conquest of the cosmos. It was still artificial. Mars was natively inhabitable to humans. Despite all efforts to the contrary that was an undeniable truth. Personally he couldn’t wait to get back home.

“Well anyway, I am glad you could come,” Lana said to her best friend. Even if he had turned out to be her biological father she still mainly thought of him as her friend. “Carlos has made a lot of plans. He even took a few days of vacation especially for your visit.”

“I hope he has forgotten about the mountain climbing that he suggested last time I was here.”

“Fat chance,” Lana said. “You bragged about climbing up your mountain. After you promised to climb with him he bought a machine just to help him practice. You know how competitive he is.”

“Great,” Brent said while flashing a very brief smile in her direction. “Have you finished reading it?”

“I have barely had a chance to even start it,” Lana apologized.

“My apologies for the short notice,” Brent countered. “Still, I gave you a pre-release…”

“I know, I know. Honestly, I haven’t even been able to read any of the others ones. You always send me the books you write. I really appreciate it and I am always so very proud of you…”

“But you never read them.”

“I read one…Well one and a half.”

Brent smiled. “You got lost.”

“Yes, to be perfectly honest.”

“Honesty,” Brent said as he turned to Jonathan. “You hear honesty from my own flesh and blood. My own children do not read my books!” Brent blasted.

“Well, I am sorry,” Lana said. “I told you a long time ago that I am not into the genre that you use for your writing.”

“It is not just you,” Brent replied.

“Well your other daughters are in the past and are restricted from every seeing the material,” Jonathan said.

“Bob is here, in this time,” Brent countered. “At least he comes and goes just as I did in the day.”

“I am sure Bob has read your books.”

“He read the first one; at least I hope that he did. God knows he modified it extensively before it was published.” Brent sighed then turned his attentions back to Lana. “I appreciate the candor. You might want to read this one, though. A lot of people seem to like it.”

“I promise I will, just as soon as I get the time. The last couple of days have been crazy.”

“It is a good thing that your day is just under 40 minutes longer than mine,” Brent said. Then in response to her stymied reaction, “Hey, a lot can be done in 40 minutes.”

“I know how long our day is,” she said

“Five pages can be written in forty minutes,” Jonathan said.

“Yes, but it would be utter crap,” Brent responded. “For all intents and purposes Earth days and Martian days might as well be the same. Forty minutes amounts to two additional coffee breaks.”

“Well, I apologize for the abrupt change in the schedule,” Jonathan explained directly to Lana. “If there is blame, then I accept it. If it was up to Brent he would be home in his shack awaiting the next hurricane half way up a mountain on his Caribbean island.”

Brent nodded as if confirming the obvious.

“Your new book surprised a lot of people,” Lana said.

“Despite your not having read it, are you included?” Brent asked.

“I knew you had greatness in you,” she said.

“Lana, always the keeper of the faith,” Brent smiled, and then patted her knee.

“I don’t think anyone quite expected the reception,” she said.

“It was unprecedented,” Brent said. “It feels strange. Really, I am having trouble accepting it. I have not changed but everyone else, everything else has. I mean I have had moments similar to these but on a much, much smaller scale. Strangers would sometimes recognize me. Now almost everyone has seen my picture and stops me, asking confirmation that I am ‘that author everyone is talking about’.”

“Everyone knows you now,” Jonathan said, glowing in the realization that he had played a significant part in that overall transformation.

“It seems that way,” Brent said, again turning his attention to the colorful lights of the city that was passing below just outside the porthole.

“You’re homesick already;” Lana punched him lightly in the arm, punctuated with the added query, “Aren’t you?”

“You know me very well,” Brent said to her but spoke more so to the porthole. “You are the only reason that I ever come to Bartoul.”

“Have you ever told Carlos?” Jonathan asked.

“What? That I’m his father-in-law – sort of?” Brent posed.

“I don’t understand the secrecy,” Jonathan said.

Brent turned to look for the answer from Lana.

“Look, I just don’t think it is necessary for him to know that. Okay,” Lana offered.
Brent shrugged.

“So you let him think…”

“He can think whatever he wants to believe,” Lana interrupted. “It isn’t like he doesn’t have his personal friends.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said. “Now, I understand.”

“Lana is faithful,” Brent said. “Carlos has to have his ego reigned in every now and again.”

“Exactly right,” Lana confirmed.

Jonathan shook his head. “He doesn’t deserve you. You know that, of course.”

“He has given me a lot of things,” Lana said. “I am comfortable with him even if we argue when we are together. He never tells me I can’t invite my friends to come and stay. To him the place where we live is my estate. I enjoy the peace. I allowed Brent to bring the wolves there.”

“Sometimes you miss the excitement of the city.”

“Well, yeah but it is always such a bother when I come into Bartoul. Everyone knows me,” Lana said. “It is not like my image isn’t everywhere. I am on the currency vouchers that people print out to secure certain deals. The only real friends that I have are from before…well, even before I worked for Brent. Some of them are changed too.”

“It is hard to adjust to knowing someone who is in the limelight,” Jonathan said. “Even Brent may change.”

“Never,” Brent vowed. “I have always been the same, well ever since my sister cracked me in the head with a croquet mallet. I don’t remember but maybe I was even normal before that.”

Lana laughed, but punched Brent in the arm all the same. “You know I don’t like it when you do that.”

“It is better for me to be self-deprecating than self-defecating,” Brent said, leave Jonathan to shake his head.

“Well, let’s not bring up that story in front of any of the gatherings. Okay? We are doing really well without.”

“Jonathan wants me to pretend to be something I’m not,” Brent whispered as an aside to Lana.

“I heard that.”

“Well you do,” Brent challenged.

“When have I ever told you anything that was not for the best?”

Brent nodded, “No, you’re right. I am always wrong.”

“Oh, here we go again,” Jonathan said, looking to Lana for some help.

“Hey this is something between the two of you,” she bowed out.

“Do you want to be obscure? Do you want to write books that only a handful of people will ever read?”

“The fame and wealth side of the equation has little to do with my definition of success.”

“Well your definition of success is flawed,” Jonathan countered. “There is absolutely no good reason to write if you don’t want to have everyone in the world read the words that you write.”

“I want that, Jonathan. It is just that having all that does not define success.”

“It hasn’t been success because you have always accepted less than was your potential.”

“Well maybe so but all this, this… what we are doing now to promote the book, it is necessary I know. This isn’t why I write, though. No one in his or her right mind would ever…”

“And you’re not in your right mind,” Jonathan interrupted.

“Hardly ever,” Brent agreed.

Lana shook her head, “You’d think you two were married.”

“In a way we are,” Jonathan said. “Regardless what he says, he approached me a long time ago, and asked me what he was doing wrong.”

“And you told me and I changed some things.”

“Those things were mostly bad habits.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do everything you told me.”

“Because of that you have struggled.”

“No, it is because it is damned hard to get anyone to pay attention to a book from an unknown. That is why I struggled,” Brent said. “Then Lana changed all that.”

“I did?”

“You inspired me.”

“I see.”

“You are my private muse.”

Lana laughed. “Okay, well your private muse tends to agree with Jonathan. I know how you feel about the art of writing and I have heard it all before how for you fame and success are not synonyms. The rest of the mankind might argue.”

“I am a success,” Brent said. “I was a success even before this brief period of fame. That is all I am saying. When this fame goes away as it certainly will, I will not be any less successful for lacking all this attention and notoriety.”

The background hum of the pod’s engine changed pitch indicating a decrease in speed and altitude in approach of the building where the next gathering was scheduled.

“Anyway, as long as you stay on-script, just as we rehearsed,” Jonathan reminded. “Everything will continue along for a while just as it is going.”

“Controversy sells,” Brent countered.

“There is more than enough controversy around you already. Please do not add anything to it. I have produced enough of a Public Relations miracle in just getting you to this point. Even so you are here at the invitation of the Society.
That does not mean that they have pardoned you.”

Brent looked to Lana and met her wonderfully enchanting eyes. “It is all fantasy, you know. All that a writer ever does is ‘make believe’.” He punctuated his remark with a wink.

* * * *

Raoul chewed on the end of a cigar as he considered the proposal. As he sucked the smoke into his mouth, the coal at the end burned bright red for as long as it took for the smoke to satisfy him. Then he expelled it in a stream of grey that wafted across the table toward Brent. Behind the smoke he spoke with a Latino accent so thick that it almost sounded fake. “So, you got the goods nearby.”

“Do I have stupid tattooed on my forehead?”

Raoul laughed. “No, my friend. It would be convenient. That is all.” He swept his arm across his desk, letting the piles of paper fall where they might and then he opened the center drawer of his desk. From it he produced the small package in question and he placed it on the center of his desk calendar blotter. It had obviously been over a year since he had changed the month on the calendar.

“May I?” Brent reached out.

“Not yet,” Raoul held up his hand for emphasis. “Why is this trinket so important?”
Brent shrugged.

“It has caused a good deal of trouble for me and you.”

“That it has,” Brent confirmed.

Raoul laughed. “You and I are not so different. We have people that we answer to, yes?”

“Of course,” Brent said.

“Your friend she wants this?”

“She doesn’t know about it, not yet.”

“Ah, it is a surprise, then. Maybe it is her birthday I think.”

“No, she was born in the winter.”

“Your winter is my summer,” Raoul said.

“So it is.”

“I think January. Yes, that would be a good month for her to have been born.”

“Why is that?”

“January is when my mother was born.”

“You love your mother,” Brent said.

“Of course. She suffered to bring me into this world and worked herself to death to feed me and send me to school.” He leaned back.

“And now look at you.”

“Yes,” Raoul laughed. “We would both be disappointment to our mothers, I think.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” Brent said as he studied the package. A brown wrapper stood between him and the truth. “You know how it is. They give you a mission and no other explanation.”

“In case you are captured you have no information to give. You are worth only that much. You know nothing that could save your life.”

“Even if I knew something, my life is forfeit in the event of capture.”

Raolu chomped on the cigar again, puffing and producing a dense cloud around his head as he swiveled in his chair. “That package has cost three lives that I know of.”

“Three of your people.”

“Two were mine. One of them was a friend.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you really.”

“If I had known him I would be more sincere but yes, I am sorry.”

Raoul swiveled back. “You have no sorrow for the third one that died?”

“I figured it was taken from him. He was a bad guy.”

Raoul laughed. “Yes, he was a bad guy, on the wrong side anyway. I would like to believe that like me he had a mother that loved him. Chances are that she was just another filthy whore. The whores produce the pawns of the world.”

“The courtesans produce the servants of the kings.”

“A whore by any other name is yet a whore.”

“The quality of a whore is measured by the company that she keeps.”

Raoul laughed. “I am beginning to like you. You and I have much in common, I think.”

“Is it a deal then?”

“It was already a deal when you arrived.”

“I see. Then I am free to go?” He asked as he reached for the package.

“Not yet,” Raoul rocked forward and snatched the package away from Brent’s grasp. “Don’t you wonder what it is?”

“It bears a seal.”

Raoul rotated it in his fingered until the seal was directly in front of his face. “It is no seal that I recognize,” he said with a laugh.

“It is a seal nevertheless. It gives it diplomatic status. I am merely a courier sent to officially thank you for finding it.”

“The gratitude is all well and good but I am a businessman.”

“Yes, of course. We can go there together. That way you can you’re your reward and I can be on my way with that I came after.”

“I would like to trust you.”

“You have your men outside the door.”

“And you know this.”

“They are devoted to you. If they do not follow your orders they fear your reprisal.”

“It is what works with the dullards.”

“I am not here to pass judgment on how you conduct your business. You have something that does not belong here. I am here to take it back to where it belongs.”

Raoul chuckled. “Andre, you know him.”

“Hunter?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I know him.”

“You are friends.”

“We are on good terms, yes. I am not sure we are friends.”

“You have allowed him to stay in his house.”

Brent smiled. “You have done your homework.”

“I always know my counterpart in a negotiation.”

“Are we still in negotiation? I thought it was a done deal…”

“Oh, but it is. It is just that I expected something more. You have quite a reputation.”

“It is all smoke and mirrors.”

“Perhaps so. I think not. You are one of their best. You are a Psych Op.”

Brent did not react at all, simply stared at Raoul, not confirming or denying.

“The mere fact that they would risk you speaks very loud to me. This is not such an insignificant little trinket at all. The Society wants it very badly.”

“I could take it and you would never receive anything.”

“You would have to kill me.”

Brent shrugged. “I would regret having to do that. I am beginning to like you as well.”

Raoul laughed. “I believe you. Not only that you are beginning to like me – after all who could not like me? - but also that you could kill me. You would leave here alive though. That is the reason for the restraint.”

“The reason for my restraint is the unnecessary expenditure of energy and resources. I assure you that if I wanted to kill you I would leave here alive. The three men you have outside and the seven that guard the perimeter of the house would not stop me any more than the twenty that would come at the first sound of alarm in reinforcement.”

“You have done your homework too.”

Brent smiled. “You have a choice.”

“Yes, so I see. It is just that I would like to see what a real Psych Op can do.”

“I am afraid that under the present circumstances the period of that observation would be very brief.”

Raoul stubbed the butt of his cigar into an ashtray that rested on a table behind his desk, extinguishing the coal. Then he swiveled around again. “My men, they are pretty good.”

“They would have to be better than me. They are not.”

“That is pretty arrogant. You haven’t even seen them in action.”

“I don’t need to. I know what I can do. I know what I had to go through to learn what I have learned and I know that none of your men have that experience.”

“If I tell you there is no deal.”

“You lose more than the reward.”

Raoul stood up from his chair. “Then I suppose we have always had a deal, just as I said.” He reached down to his desk and pressed a button concealed under the corner to signal his guards. One opened the door for the other and then both heavily armed men stepped inside. “It is tempting though. I would enjoy the show.”

“My work is not a spectator sport.”

Raoul reached the for package but it slid as if under its own power across the desk and leaped into Brent’s outstretched hand.

“It was your package all along,” Raoul said.

“From the moment you invited me into the compound.”

Raoul laughed. “Yes, I like you. You and I have a great deal in common, I think.”

posted by Unknown @ 1:08 AM