Sunshine of Your Cult

  Sunshine of Your Cult

  Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire

  J. S. Morin

  Magical Scrivener Press

  Copyright © 2018 J.S. Morin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

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  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

  J.S. Morin — First Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-64355-025-1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Sunshine of Your Cult

  “You can have some, too, you know,” Tiffany said across the table of their booth at Peking Pizza. She waggled a slice of teriyaki salmon and black olive toward Esper.

  They sat on the far side of a full-wall glass window overlooking the Mactar V capital city of Perth Port. Towering buildings intermixed with abandoned factories, low-rise apartments, and little shops and restaurants like the one Tiffany had picked for dinner. The planet’s primary selling point had been a cheap deal on last-minute tickets off Earth.

  On the other side of the booth, Esper glared icicles at her young ward. She held a kappa maki roll between her chopsticks, poised halfway to her mouth. “It’s your birthday, not mine. I’ve put on two kilos because of these shackles.”

  From the side of the table with no seat to get in his way, Kubu snickered.

  “You think this is funny?” Esper asked. “Even before I learned magic, I hadn’t put on a gram in years. Something about all the warping of the universe kicked my metabolism back to human standard.”

  “It’s funny because I can get big or little now, and you can only get big,” Kubu pointed out.

  True. Since convincing the universe to let him adjust his own size, the megalodog had been tinkering with the exact size that suited him best for everyday interaction. He was currently slightly larger than Esper had made him, tall enough that even with his butt on the floor, he was comfortable eating from the table.

  Tiffany spoke with her mouth full. “After this, we’re going bowling, then chowing down at Matrimony and More.”

  Sighing, Esper popped the cucumber and rice sushi into her mouth. If the girl wanted by-the-slice wedding cake for her birthday, so be it. Just another tempting treat to watch with longing.

  The Shackles of Nethanti itched on her forearms. Psychosomatic. That didn’t make the sensation any less annoying. Every time she showered, Esper surreptitiously tried to pry them off. The lack of any sign that the shackles might someday relent merely compounded her frustration.

  “By the way,” Tiffany continued without looking up from her pizza. “Since it’s my birthday, and you can’t yell at me—”

  “I can yell at you on your birthday,” Esper cut in. “It doesn’t grant you diplomatic immunity.”

  “Since you shouldn’t yell at me on my birthday… here.” Tiffany slid her datapad across the table atop a napkin to prevent the table’s sticky film from getting on the device.

  “What’s this?” Esper asked rhetorically as she picked it up.

  “It’s a datapad!” Kubu said merrily. He’d already finished as much food as they were willing to buy him at full price. Later, he’d get one slice of birthday wedding cake, then as much dry dog kibble as he liked once they got home. Tiffany had to manually mark each twenty-kilo sack of the stuff to prepend “megalo” to the label, but he liked it well enough that he played along despite the transparent ruse. However, with no further pizza to occupy him, the canine had taken to comedy.

  When Tiffany didn’t supply a more helpful answer, Esper ignored them both and looked for herself.

  Tiffany’s text comm inbox was opened to a new entry, time-stamped earlier that afternoon. The subject line of the back-and-forth was “SIDEKICK NEEDED,” and Tiffany hadn’t been the one to originate it.

  “Explain this,” Esper said in her recently developed mom voice. She angled the screen so it faced Tiffany.

  The newly minted seventeen-year-old shrugged without meeting Esper’s eye. “Read it. Make seriously considering it a birthday present.” Even without magic powers, Esper could hear the trailing since you didn’t get me anything else.

  Fair enough. Esper had tried. But everything she could afford seemed cheap and tawdry. Everything she wanted to get for Tiffany would have required criminal activity to acquire. How could she be a role model for selective obedience to the rule of law when she flouted it at will?

  With a resigned sigh, Esper read the original message, which seemed to have been an omni advert.

  “Wanted: a sidekick for an urgent mission. Life-and-death stakes! Looking for a go-getter with a never-say-die attitude. Should have the spirit to prevail against impossible odds, the courage to laugh in the face of death, and good cardio. Medical insurance a plus. As previously stated, urgent! Will take first qualified applicant!”

  Esper glanced up. “They mention death in almost every sentence. And we don’t have medical insurance.”

  Returning her attention to the screen, she read Tiffany’s reply.

  “How important is the insurance thing? We pound the fuck out of the rest.”

  Remembering to avoid scolding Tiffany on her birthday, Esper declined to object to the use of language in business transactions.

  The final reply was: “No problemo. Contact me at this comm ID for an interview. Remember: urgent. Life and death.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “All you gotta do is talk to the guy. Happy birthday, Tiffany. How hard is that?”

  “Can we sing?” Kubu asked.

  “Wait for the cake,” Tiffany advised.

  “I was still hoping to get you something nice,” Esper hedged. Good lord, she sounded lame.

  Outside, life on the streets of Perth Port flowed past. Productive, useful colonists on the edge of ARGO space. They could get their kids’ birthday presents without worrying they’d have to find a new apartment.

  “Just. Talk. To. Him. You want to get me something real for a present, get it once we’re filling hotel hot tubs with hardcoin.”

  It was telling that Esper, Tiffany, and Kubu managed to stumble in after midnight stone sober and with sore bowling muscles. By popular vote, they’d gone for cake first, and the bowling alley stopped charging them after their third string as the crowd petered out.

  Esper collapsed onto the inflatable vinyl couch. A flash of worry that she might pop it vanished as the cushioned air inside broke her fall. The plastic surface squeaked as she settled into a comfortable position to kick off her boots.

  Before she could completely relax, a spinning datapad sailed through the air, landing in her lap.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed. “These things aren’t free! Break it, and you’ll go without.”

  “Call him,” Tiffany ordered. “And no yelling on my birthday.”

  Esper double-checked the datapad’s chrono before holding it up. “That dubious rule expired seventeen minutes ago.”

  Nevertheless, Esper found the comm program and initiated a link.

  The connection was nearly instantaneous.

  “Hi.”

  The speaker was on video comm. His face was rugged, clean-shaven like he was fresh off a promotional holo, with a strong jawline and gleaming white teeth. Pale blue eyes squinted at her from the screen. By the lines on his face, Esper estimated he was in his forties despite the full head of dark hair.

  “Um, hi. We’re responding to the ad for—”

  “Could you turn a light on?” the man from the advert asked. Without having to be asked, Tiffany took care of it. Their shabby little apartment blinked into view. “Aaaand, angle your camera slightly. I’m seeing up your nose.” Esper hurriedly did so. He held his hands in front of his own camera, index fingers and thumbs forming an expandable rectangle through which he viewed her critically. “Great. And maybe just hold it a few centimeters farther back… aaaand… perfect. Hi, I’m Wesley Wesley, star of such holovids as Nightmare Squad and Rocko Goes to Puppy School. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

  “Um… I’m sorry, but—”

  Wesley held up a hand. “Not your fault. I blame my agent. Look, I’m not here to promote my upcoming holo, The Loudest Predator. I’m not even here to talk about my charity work with Kids’ Federation. No, I’m looking for someone to help me track down a man by the name of Arturus Everest.”

  Finally. Business. “Mr. Wesley—”

  “Please, call me Wesley.”

  The self-discipline she’d learned as a wizard kept Esper from expressing the whole-body eye-roll she wanted to give. “Wesley, can you describe the circumstances where Mr.
Everest went missing?”

  On the datapad screen, Wesley was bobbing his head along as Esper asked her question. “No.”

  “What? But you—”

  “Afraid he went missing without a trace somewhere on Nefertari. His last comm to me was on March ninth. Mentioned he was off to do some immersive character research there before our next holo started filming. He hasn’t replied to a comm since, and I’ve seen him use a charger before, so I know he knows how to refill a depleted battery. No… this isn’t a simple case of a man letting his datapad die and not having three terras to place a comm from a municipal terminal. I fear there’s been… foul play. I wish I could say more, but I don’t think it wise to give details over an unsecured channel.”

  Tiffany pushed into the camera’s view. “But you just said—”

  Wesley cut her off with an upraised finger. “Don’t listen to what I said. Listen to the words inside the words. Better yet, meet me on Nefertari as soon as you can. I’m en route now. ETA, lunchtime day after tomorrow.”

  “But we haven’t agreed to terms of employment,” Esper protested. Heck, they hadn’t come close to agreeing to take the job at all.

  “Do it,” Tiffany mouthed silently. “Say. Yes.”

  What did they have to lose? They were slowly going broke, burning through their savings faster than the paltry odd jobs could backfill their accounts.

  “Terms are this: help me find Arturus Everest. I’ll pay you ten thousand terras up front, plus another ten thousand when the job’s finished. Fifteen, if he’s alive and well enough to start filming. We can discuss employment details on Nefertari, but I don’t want to—”

  “Discuss them on an unsecured channel,” Esper finished for him.

  With a wink, Wesley pointed a finger at the camera, making it look as if he were pointing right at Esper’s nose. “Exactamundo.”

  Tiffany had her hands clasped, pleading. Kubu shrugged.

  “See you on Nefertari, Wesley Wesley. You’ve got a team of sidekicks.”

  Their transport departed Mactar just before dawn. Half asleep, Esper barely felt the ship’s drop into astral. It was a numerically designated starliner, not even interesting enough to warrant a name. Their accommodations were the cheapest available with a destination of Nefertari. The only saving grace was that the Mactar V to Nefertari run wasn’t popular that day.

  Esper, Kubu, and Tiffany had a whole section to themselves. That meant their pick of narrow, uncomfortable seats and harnesses flimsy enough that Kubu could have broken them at will.

  And they needed the safety harnesses. TransGalactica Vessel 66019 didn’t have a gravity stone.

  Hair floating in a halo around her head, Esper wished she’d packed a headband somewhere she could access it. But their luggage—scant though it was—now rested in the cargo hold.

  “At least it’s a short hop,” Tiffany said brightly.

  “I don’t think dogs get to enjoy spaceships without gravity,” Kubu muttered. His canine harness kept him in the doggy version of a seated position, but he was too large for the seats. Esper had forbidden him changing his size while they were on a rickety starship. Not every vessel was built Mobius tough. Some might not recover from a magical incident in time to land.

  “I’m having second thoughts,” Esper admitted. The parenting stuff on the omni told her that a child needed a trustworthy authority figure, a stable gravity well of responsibility, knowledge, and moral certitude. But Tiffany was old enough to hear her legal guardian’s occasional self-doubts. “Without magic, what good am I going to be?”

  “This Arturus character needs help. Probably got mixed up with a gang or something. We’re old pros at that stuff,” Tiffany countered. “Besides, I’m learning!”

  Esper felt beneath her sleeves. Even through the fabric of her shirt, the cold, hard steel of the Shackles of Nethanti was ever-present, throwing a smothering pillow over the face of any magic Esper might hope to enact.

  “You can do impressions,” Esper replied sternly. Not that they weren’t uncanny impressions, but Tiffany had only internalized a few lessons before being parted from Keesha’s tutelage. “I don’t see that freeing hostages from ransom-demanding gangs if that’s what we’re up against.”

  “It could be,” Tiffany protested.

  Esper slouched in her seat as best she could without the familiar tug of gravity. For all the interstellar travel she’d done, she’d been spoiled by traveling on vessels that produced their own.

  The intercom blared overhead. “All passengers prepare for realspace.”

  Esper rolled her eyes. There were certain psychological conditions that made non-wizards susceptible to the effects of an astral drop. They were the same sorts who believed in vampires and claimed that aliens were living on human-only planets in disguise. The actual effects of the dimensional shift were harmless, and Vessel 66019 was only 2 Astral Units deep.

  It said so in the flight safety brochure.

  Kubu had the window seat in their section. He got the first view of Nefertari before Esper or Tiffany had an angle on it out the ship’s tiny viewports.

  Esper saw it when the ship began to slow its descent. Without artificial gravity, it had to slowly acclimate its passengers to the effects of Nefertari’s natural pull. No swooping into a starport with fire washing over the hull as they broke atmosphere.

  With a sick sensation in her stomach, Esper felt herself gradually pressed into her seat.

  Tiffany doubled over. Slapping frantically for a button tucked under her armrest, she released an overhead panel. A long tube with a flared end sprang down at roughly face height, whooshing with a vacuum flow of air. Just in time, Tiffany pulled the end to her mouth as she vomited.

  “At least we weren’t still in zero-G,” Esper commented mildly, rubbing Tiffany’s back as she emptied her stomach. “This is why I warned you not to eat a big breakfast.”

  Pulling the vacuum tube away from her mouth, Tiffany croaked, “But it was just a few pancakes.”

  “A slice of grapefruit would still be in your stomach. Kubu, how you holding up?” If Esper had to reach across and activate his space-sickness hose, she’d rather know with time to spare.

  “I’m fine. I had a little breakfast,” the megalodog replied. He’d had pancakes too—five times as many as Tiffany.

  As the full force of Nefertari’s gravity set in, Esper tried to relax. The worst is over, she told herself. But that was a comforting lie. Her own stomach hadn’t been too badly traumatized by the shifting gravity, unpleasant though it might have been. Her own light meal before departure kept its peace in her belly.

  I’m taking on unknown dangers, and I don’t have my magic to fall back on.

  The ship touched down with a jarring thud that sent a shockwave up Esper’s spine.

  At least they were planetside.

  On a despairing chance, she risked attempting to use her magic. If it worked despite the Convocation’s precaution, she was no longer a threat to the ship’s ramshackle science.

  Raising a fist to cover her mouth, she cleared her throat softly. Dear universe, I know we haven’t exactly been—

  NO… NO… NO…

  She felt the Shackles of Nethanti chanting like a stubborn toddler, drowning her out, shouting her down, imposing their oppressive will down on her.

  NO… NO… NO… it continued even after Esper stopped trying.

  “Quit that,” Tiffany whispered as she unbuckled from her safety harness and moved to help Kubu out of his. “I can barely hear myself think over that racket. I probably can’t work any magic right now either.”

  Esper figured it wasn’t the time to point out that the self-importance of a high-end datapad was enough to stop Tiffany’s magic. Her attempts reminded Esper of a newborn fawn trying to walk.

  Speaking of walking…

  “That zero-G travel is rough on the legs,” she commented as she stood. “My knees are wobbly.”

  “I figured it was blerking up five pancakes and a side of sausage, but I feel it too,” Tiffany commented, rising up on her toes a few times to check her hypothesis.

  “Gravity here is 20 percent more than standard,” Kubu said. “You should look up that sort of thing before going places.”