A handsome three tiered concrete dome rose in the distance, blazing white in the blatant morning sun. A lawn stretched out in front where a fountain was playing in the center. Gravel crackled beneath his feet as Broot dashed towards the front door. A tiny dwarf bowed down and flung the gate opes as Broot waved his hand to enter. The hallway was large, lines of dusty portrait of look alike goblins adorned the walls, the stone floor was covered in a moth eaten carpet. A rank smell of decay hung in the air. The hallway ended and a heavy door blocked his path. He took a deep breath and turned the stone handle. The room was dark and full of dwarfs sitting at a long stone table. At the far end of the table, a goblin sat beside the central figure. A thin dwarf with pointed ears and a blue half jacket. “Broot” the dwarf said, “Come, we were waiting just for you.” Broot walked in closer and the face of the thin lean dwarf with watery blue eyes shoe through the gloom. Most of the eyes followed Broot as he sat down beside the goblin and whispered in his ears.
“What’s that?” said Alfred.“My lord, its true. He is the sleaze killer. He uses the darknet to operate and accept kill requests for corrupt humans.”Everyone leaned forward on the table and a few of them gasped. The goblin beside him smacked the table with the palms of his hand and whistled softly.“The Sleaze Killer…” repeated Alfred, “Good. And how do you know?”“I have-with difficulty, and after great effort - succeeded in placing a comm cloner - a trojan horse that relays all his activities to my device.”“Impressive. You did that within two storm passovers” Said Alfred, his eyes fixed at the hulking muscled figure of Broot.“And this trojan was sent to him by-”“By the source we discussed”Mordant leaned forward to look at Alfred and said, “Didn’t I tell you sire, he can do anything” He patted the dwarfs shoulders.“What say you, Harry?”Heads turned towards the other end of the table. Broot hadn’t noticed him before. A tall, full grown, adult human in midst of thirteen dwarfs was not a sight to expect.“Without evidence its as good as a homewife’s gossip” he said in his usual monotonous voice, “he is filthy rich and can bribe the entire peacekeeper department for two decades and still will be left with enough stoners to buy off the ‘Island of the Dead’.”Alfred turned to Broot but before he could speak a dwarf seated next to Kritter spoke, “My lord” she said, “give me a chance to remove this…” her voice contorted with emotion, “this hurdle”“Thank you Plinky, but it must be planned out meticulously.”“I have a plan, my lord. I’ll send him a request for a kill and…”“And you can leave the rest to us.” Mordant ejaculated, “If you can lure him to a place we name…”“Morgan Slave Traders will have a vacancy very soon” jeered Broot.There was an eruption of laughter all around and some thumped the table with their fists and roared.Finally Alfred raised a hand and silence fell.“So be it.” He said softly.Kane was wandering in the passover, diamonds bouncing off his shoulders and flying into blue smoke. He walked in the rainbow lights flickering off the falling rain. He had no sense of where he was going, the cogs of his brain whirring and moving as he traced every detail of his adventures with the power plant engineer. He was not in that shell that walked on the maglev roads, shining wet. And yet when the comm rang he knew it was Sati and he knew she would be bitter. His hands were already sweating as he grabbed the comm and answered. “Yes,” he said.“Where are you? Sayan said you left hours ago?” the annoyed voice said“I’m at work,” He said as casually as he could.“Really? You take me for a fool, huh?. Kane, tell me the truth” she yelled.“What truth” Kane said heart pounding, Harry had to go, he had made up his mind.“You are sleeping with her, aren’t you?”“Who… What are you talking about?”“That girl from the news, Effie. I know you were there last night”
Kane Morgan sucked deep on the greenish smoke from the leaf cigar and leaned back on the bed. The darkness of the room pressed on in the feeble light from a lone lamp in the corner.It had been three days since he set foot outside. Efiie sat beside him on the bed. Luckily she had a virtual job. Kane found it amusing. He was the hardworking, bring-it-on kind of guy and didn’t understand how she could work wall those emotions in the soulless digital world. He offered her a puff and put his arms around her. She put out the cigar and he kissed her gently on the lips. Her mouth was sweet and he gents pulled her down on the bed. She closed her eyes and Kane felt her heart drum against his. They made love until it was time for lunch. After lunch they made love again and Kane asked, “what do you want to eat for the third meal?”She pressed against him “Just you” she said. “What will you say to your wife?”Kane had
The tracer took four hours, sometimes five to return a search. Effie would be finished by then. Kane took a deep breath and decided to clear the air between him and Sati. It had to be done, no matter how much he hated her. He left the building and in fifteen minutes was at his destination. Everything around him flashed white blinding him for an instant and then he was back in a dim lit hallway of the Wockhart's residence. The tall form of Sayan Wockhart was standing right in front of Kane, eyes groggy and red, wearing a electric blue night robe with tiny hats printed in black all over it. A stone basin was shimmering in the corner. Sayan looked like he had swallowed a toad. “Where have you been, you moron!” Yelled Sayan raising his eyebrow. “You should try it sometime, funny how it makes you take the plunge” Kane looked at him with dull eyes and sighed. "Try what? Cheating on my wife? Disappearing for weeks
Sati walked out of the Wockhart house and went straight to her office. She closed the door and making sure there wasn’t anyone in the hallway outside, she pulled out a piece of paper that had a code on it. She dialed the code and a wireframe three dimensional image of the 404 CONTENT NOT FOUND popped up over the comm. A deep voice answered, “I was waiting for your call”“I have news. He has moved in with her. That’s where he was for two weeks”“I told you he’s cheating on you”There was an awkward silence broken only by the static of the comm.“What should I do now?”“Listen to me. Do as I say and we might still get him.”“Get him how?” Sati screeched. Talking about separating was one thing. Being separated was other. She felt like a broken piece of furniture nobody cared about. “He has an empire and you were with him when he built it. You deserve your share. I’ll help you with the court case, but I need hard evidence. Stay at his home for a while and gathe
Kane even with all the technology of this day wouldn’t have found it possible. The plethora of information recorded over the centuries, and classified genealogically. It made him swoon over the earthling. Satellites were useless in the intense heat of R-786. It made radio communication impossible. But earthlings had found the way out. They sent short burst of signals for a kilometer, captured it at small foot long heat attenuators or HAR and sent the signal forward. A network of these HAR poles all across the planet was what the earthlings had established. And for what? To allow someone like him to track down and kill the corrupt among them. He was certainly enjoying himself for he received the tracer back with data. Data that corroborated with the request for TASK. And he was flying at an altitude of about two metres above the shining slag covered giant magnet strips under the asphalt that the humans used to ride their wheel based vehicles. He preferred flying
Fate had done Dilip no favors this morning. He'd dashed from his office into the open road. A mysterious man had walked into his office seconds ago and demanded to know all about the Pridewen’s chest. He refused. The maniac pulled out a lighting gun and aimed straight at his heart. Dilip was holding a hot grubbly root drink. He flung the glass cup straight at his face and dashed out. The curb of the walkway had stopped him mid stride and swung him hard left before falling. Dilip was suddenly stumbling off balance into the blinding sun. When he’d looked up, he was heading straight for a cluster of trees across the road. He had a weak heart and his left knee was broken years ago in a freak accident. The gift of the chest. He jumped over, brushing a loosely hung rope and dashed in. By the time he realized where it led, it was too late. Now he stood in a confined cell of trees and caught his breath. His side burned. Narrow slats of sun streamed through the openings in the grove. He
The dwarf lay motionless in front of Kane, a thin curl of smoke rising from his body. The rain had started and in a matter of seconds, diamonds falling from the sky would rip apart the human. Kane hurried towards Dilip and held him up, pressing his comm to summon his hovercraft. The hovercraft whooshed past the grove and drifted slowly towards him. He pulled open the door and shoved Dilip inside. Just as he was about to enter however, a loud voice boomed over a microphone and took him by surprise. He turned around to look at the speaker.“I’ve got you this time” said a familiar voice.Kane turned around, “Harry? What are you doing here”“What do you think?” He clapped his hands and a couple of peacekeepers walked out of the tree around the grove and marched in resonance, geared with the formidable railgun, camouflaged attire and black leather boots. Harry moved forward, a mousy looking human moved wit
Indrani pressed her face against the window of her workstation and jumped back massaging her face as it felt a sting of the heat outside. She notched up the weather conditioner and sat back behind her desk clattered with volumes after volumes of black leathered tomes scattered carelessly over the desktop. The papers on the desk flapped in rhythm to her heart. The cabinet meeting was ongoing and she had tabled the Dwarf Reservation bill the third time this month. The Prime Minister, Mr. Rutherford, had politely asked her to give them an hour to decide. The last three attempts were thwarted by the cabinet, undoubtedly under the influence of some wealthy businessman -rather one wealthy businessman in which her husband was a partner. She couldn’t bear to fail. Not after what she had gone through. She remembered her grandfather reciting stories of the Kritakash Landing. The ship that landed on the TRAPPIST Planetary system. The planet was a paradise. One big garden with rivers and lakes