Manifold [An Interstellar Sci-Fi Progression Story with LitRPG Elements]

Voke was rather brave to leave the shop with them, they all agreed. The barber had left the hair on the right half of his scalp uncut, so that Voke's formerly boyish tangle looked conspicuously lopsided and absurd to the point of hilarity, as Douglas was only too ready to point out.

But he wasn't about to be left out of their decision to scout out the source of the commotion. Aisya left a total of 40 Chit on the counter in physical bills (20 to cover Betelgeuse' cut and 20 to cover Douglas'; no payment in respect of Voke, for obvious reasons) and they exited the space and found, several tens of meters away to the left of Branton Barber's, a thronging congregation. As they came closer, past the detritus of that dank street, they saw at the head of that congregation a raised platform and a man standing on it and looking very like a skeleton charred black.

He was inhumanly thin, the man, and his face resembled a hungry jackal. He cradled a device in his arms which had been painted a dull maroon, and behind him a dimly-lit shop lay wide open and beaming wan streaks of light out into the crepuscular street, its walls hung with a variety of low-value electronics. Two other men emerged from inside that shop-space bearing a flimsy plastic table which had been painted gunmetal gray.

The thin man raised the device he was carrying with some difficulty and then plonked it down upon the table, and he took a screwdriver to its back and started twisting. The front of the device was faced to the congregation, and Betelgeuse observed that its face had been fitted with a metal grille and realized belatedly that it was a comms-vox.

Static emanated from the comms-vox. Garbled sounds. Static.

Someone in the crowd yelled a whole bunch of things, and some others responded with words that signaled either irritation or agreement.

"They're saying to hurry up," Thete relayed to the others. "But I can't understand half the shit they're saying."

"He said it's 'almost time'. I think this might be a scheduled broadcast," Aisya said, turning to Thete.

A voice. A voice speaking in Common. Hoots from the crowd. The thin man dragged a chair up beside the table and collapsed into it. Betelgeuse estimated that the crowd comprised several hundred to a thousand people.

"—the people of Saltilla, citizen and non-citizen alike, I make this voxcast with a heart that is heavy but determined to convey what must be said. By now you all have heard of the death of the nine-year-old boy at the Talonne Concourse. Eugene Lachlan was run over by a holo-cycle four nights ago, and despite repeated calls for justice, no name has been produced identifying the perpetrator. We have demanded and we have demanded. We've submitted multiple eyewitness accounts to the Police specifying the time, the weather, that the fair-complexioned woman was riding a Standard Issue holo-cycle with a PDF military plate—everything they require to conduct an investigation and more. And we have received nothing for it; just silence, empty silence, while the creature who murdered Eugene that night, hit him and sped off without an ounce of remorse, unwilling to lift even a single finger to help—"

Static. The voice, breaking up, devolving into static. The crowd started shouting angrily. The thin man regained his feet and, tottering unsteadily, started fiddling once more with the comms-vox, his expression shifting between heightened states of agitation.

"Why does he speak in Common?" Betelgeuse asked. He glanced from side to side to see that more of the Saltillan Nooksters were joining the congregation.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aisya raised her eyebrow.

"I mean, don't people speak Aluaa?" Betelgeuse said, turning his head just enough so that he could catch her out the corner of his eye.

"Did you not know that Common is the official language of Saltilla, or are you just fucking with me?" Aisya said, rolling her eyes. Despite her slight irritation, she went on to add, "Many Saltillan youth, the ones who live in the main city at least, are not able to communicate well in standard Aluaa."

"There is a similar trend happening in my hometown," Thete nodded to herself.

"Eh, it's the same in Jegorich," Aisya returned.

"… You are very young yourself, but you understand it no problem," Betelgeuse saw fit to point out.

"I studied Aluaa at uni—well, Applied Chemistry was my main subject, being a Primary and all—but still, something would be wrong if I didn't understand it."

"You studied uni? How old are you?"

Aisya waved Betelgeuse off, clearly done with the questions, and pointed at the thin man. Betelgeuse returned his attention to the front.

The static flared loudly, then slowly dissipated. The voice returned, powerful as it had been. Betelgeuse supposed that it had been enhanced in some way or other.

"—Eugene was—is—a Saltillan, as you all are Saltillans. Eugene is Sul, like you, an inheritor of the Legacy. And no matter what these new false prophets or agitators might say or suggest or imply, I am saying now that the Sul do not discriminate on the basis of color or wealth. To be Sul is to be a person amongst equals—an individual first and foremost, and a proud community second—and when one of us has been murdered, as dearest Eugene has been murdered, we clamor for justice, we fight with our teeth to exact a vengeance that is right and lawful.

"You know of whom I am directing this against. How much more humiliation can you stand? They conscript your sons and daughters, push you into the filth of the gutter, kill you like rats as you forage for food, for warmth. The corruption of the Protectorate government has never been more blatant in all the six centuries of its existence, and they have let snakes and wolves into your midst, beasts that are murdering your children and exterminating your seed.

"A great many of you listening to this still harbor respect—perhaps even love—for our masters, the great Democracy. But I will be destroying every shred of my own integrity if I do not tell you all, my fellow Sul: yes, the agents which the Democracy have let loose amongst our people—false Saltillans, false Democrats—are snakes and wolves all, psychopathic killers without conscience, beings of inferior sentiment, inferior human quality. I will be the first to recognize that the idea which the Democracy champions across the stars must forever remain undimmed within our hearts; but does this mean that we must simply accept all of the petty corruptions which their venal colonialists bring? Their syphilitic practices? It is ridiculous to suggest we should live and die by the whims of inveterate cowards and fools—

"And yet, with the help of our corrupt government and the wealthy Democracy-worshipping fadsters they pick from the gluttonous Saltillan 'elite'—'elites', they are calling them!—they have set themselves up as our betters. An evolution beyond the Sul, they imply. They who have turned away from the ideals that built this city are disparaging the Legacy to which we owe our existence, and—make no mistake—it has always been their plan to turn you and to convert you from the right path. To this end, an apparatus of social conditioning like no other has been set up in Saltilla itself, to control—it's always about control—to control your minds and to turn it away from our great and honorable Legacy. They will enslave you to corrupt values and you will be happy.

"Here is the situation as it stands. It is the truth that I, Kaise-qintus, Mandalazief of the Gimma Ashby, swear by. They've covered up the murder and stymied the investigation because someone important is at stake—Eugene's killer is a high-ranking official, the kind of warmonger our masters have vested with the authority to throw a million, a billion of you at the Alien. They could care less that Saltilla is razed to the ground for false glories and fabricated values. One can doubt if these zungu even believe in true Democratic values, or if their lives are all just falsities piled upon hypocrisies. Make no mistake: such creatures—and it matters not if they are PDF or TAF—they think of the Sul as little more than insects, and Eugene is not the first, nor will he be the last, to pay the ultimate price.

"To Eugene's mother, Natalie Lachlan—we give our deepest and most heartfelt condolences. Natalie, if you are tuned in right now, just know… our hearts are with you in this trying time. Your son, Eugene's living spirit, will forever live on in our stories and our actions…"

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Betelgeuse' eyes narrowed as he observed Voke's gray-haired barber mount the platform. He was whispering things to the thin man, and looking in the PLPs' direction and pointing. Another one of the barbers, the one who had trimmed Betelgeuse' hair, jumped up onto the platform and looked like he was arguing with his colleague.

"Hey Cockster, there's the guy that took a shit on your head," Betelgeuse heard Douglas whisper.

Alarm bells were blaring in Betelgeuse' head. Gray-Haired Barber was pointing at them now, and some in the crowd were looking behind them and throwing glares in their general direction.

"The fucker's out to fuck us," Voke said, conveying this particularly creative description in a whisper that was laced with agitation.

"What the fuck, do they think we're involved in this shit or what?" Douglas returned.

"I doubt they care. The whole thing is given over to mob psychology," Betelgeuse intoned, squinting up at the expanding moil of people on the platform. "They think the whole military is at fault."

"... Our demands are simple," the Mandalazief was saying, as one by one the crowd was turning to face the PLPs, their faces marked by suspicion and hostility. "The identity of Eugene's murderer must be disclosed. Her race, her full name, her rank and appointment, all of it must be divulged. Her person must be delivered over to the Saltilla Police, and public trial must be brought by the Office of the Ombudsman in its capacity as the Public Prosecutor, presided over by an impartial Judge of the Peace—only the Honorable Nedermeyer Kettelman, known for his high-minded independence, his fairness, justness and supreme objectivity, will suffice. If these demands are not met, then it is my duty to announce the consequences that will obtain. The Transportation Gate will be stopped, the roads will be clogged, the airport will be blockaded. They will fight us, beat us, even kill us, but we will," and this, the Mandalazief took pains to stress, "we will come back. We will not relent until this murderer protected by the breathtakingly corrupt military establishment is produced.

"But do not take it only from me. I have here with me a special guest, the President of the Amalgamated Union, Janessis Hillear…"

Betelgeuse placed a hand on Thete's shoulder beside him, sharing a fraught look.

Time to leave, he blinked.

Shit. I think you're right, Thete squinted, and by the flaring of her nostrils Betelgeuse could tell that she was starting to get apprehensive.

People were pointing at them and shouting in clipped bursts over the Mandalazief's words; the alarm had spread to Aisya, who, rather perspicaciously, sounded out that "we have to leave now" and backed away slowly, as if afraid that any sudden movement would cause the crowd to fall upon them.

Which in the circumstances was what ended up happening anyway, when Betelgeuse yelled at them to "run!"; Voke and Aisya bolted immediately. Familiar with Betelgeuse' deficient stamina, Douglas hooked his good arm under the former's left armpit and all but dragged him along, and they pumped their legs madly back in the direction from which they had come. Thete came up to Betelgeuse' other side and grabbed his right forearm, her diminutive stature preventing her from supporting him as Douglas did but her always-considerable strength effectively increasing their overall speed.

The horde of Nooksters hurtled toward them, their minds filled with semi-righteous anger. Betelgeuse kept his focus on the road in front of him, where the lopsided tangle that was Voke's half-cut hairdo bobbed up and down, and he swore he could hear the creatures behind him snarling and snapping and shrieking like wild animals.

Shortness of breath. A hand of ice, gripping his chest tightly, threatening to collapse his lungs into itself. His asthma was getting worse.

One leg in front of the other.

"We'll… hit the crowd," Betelgeuse hyperventilated, turning his head to Thete, "we won't be able to run… once we reach the crowd."

"We'll use it. They won't be able to follow us easily," Thete returned.

"Thete… won't work, if you didn't notice our height. … We stick out," Betelgeuse said. As Earth-born humans, they were a whole head taller than the average Desertian, was his meaning. There was no way they could blend into a crowd of Nooksters.

"... Fuck," was all the eloquence Thete could muster.

"Shit, Ballsman, hurry up and think of something!" Douglas yapped, swerving to the side and jostling into Betelgeuse in order to avoid a naked and moaning body curled up upon the ground.

Muffled curses and angry shouts continued to scissor at their heels. Betelgeuse could hear the spew of bodies tumble over and around those fleshly, lumpen masses the PLPs hurtled past.

He heard a shrill voice close in. One of their pursuers, a particularly fast runner, had caught up to them on their right; Thete released Betelgeuse' arm and snapped around, swiping the ragged-looking man's shins from under him with one powerful kick. Carried by his momentum, the man tumbled over violently and smashed his face into a piece of concrete rubble, its jagged edge cutting into his forehead with a sickening crack and causing his body to twitch spasmodically.

Thete returned to Betelgeuse' side before two seconds had elapsed, clamping her hand down upon his forearm.

Betelgeuse wracked his brain for ideas. It was only a matter of time.

I could always… use the compulsion. But… secrecy must be maintained. There is no telling what Thete's and Aisya's reactions will be, and I do not have confidence in my ability to bring all of them under my compulsion at once.

Douglas and Voke on the other hand… perhaps there is less risk in divulging my ability to them.

The wall of human bodies lay up ahead, some hundred meters before Voke and Aisya—it was the start of the crowded street, and the street seemed even more jam-packed then when they had left it. Betelgeuse quickly realized that the crowd was kept fed by a constant stream of people carrying heavy bags and exiting from a towering vertical complex on the right.

Far above them, the windows of that gray, concrete complex were open and belching smog and fumes into the passing air traffic. From within those dark spaces Betelgeuse thought he could discern the spark and spangle of metalworking.

They were coming up to that building now, and as they sprinted closer to the shifting wall of people Betelgeuse noticed another structure just beside. It was a seven-story building painted entirely in bright red and completely overshadowed by the vertical complex; outside its large double-doors stood two large men in colorful clothing, keeping guard. It was the gargantuan and heavily muscled neanderthals they had passed by earlier on their way to Branton Barber—creatures too large to forget.

'It's worth a try,' Betelgeuse thought, readying himself, 'and I will have my answer as to whether an Ash can compel a White.'

"Thete… you and Aisya… go into the crowd. Tell Voke come with us…" Betelgeuse wheezed, struggling to stabilize his breathing. "I have an idea."

"I hate it when you say that," Thete sighed.

"Go!" Betelgeuse pointed his chin forward, and Thete sped off in the direction of Voke and Aisya. She grabbed Aisya's hand and, nudging Voke backward toward Betelgeuse, entered into the shifting moil of people and became lost to the eddies of flesh.

Voke whipped around, staring at Betelgeuse across the short distance, his face filled with worry, his hair an absurdist statement Douglas couldn't help but laugh at again. Betelgeuse beckoned for him to join them and, struggling to regain his breath—forcing the feeling of tightness down—he turned and made for the two overmuscled creatures, Douglas in tow.

He willed himself to walk normally, even though his body wanted him to bend over and vomit all over the asphalt. His vision swam; the feeling ebbed but slowly. He was some meters from the giants when they locked gazes with him, and that was when he let fly the manifestation of his intentionality, willing it to envelop his targets like a net entangles fish. He found the Incunabula sewn into the insides of their pant-legs, felt the brute manifestation of their intentionalities…

Betelgeuse ground his teeth together, grappling with mass and strength and stubborn personalities and forcing them into a mold of his creation. The powerful things bucked and strained against his chains, and he pummeled them into submission with as much mental force as he could muster. Intentionalities, blunted and sharpened as he willed. White or not, they would be subjugated.

The mass of pursuers were almost upon them, crying savagely and making a bedlam of that wide street, and the commotion was great enough that the crowd on the other side were gaping and joining in the shouting themselves.

"You there!" Betelgeuse hollered at the giants, waving as he did so to get their attention, and they tensed their bodies and flexed their impressive musculature to hear him.

Douglas was already prodding him and muttering imprecations, and Voke, reaching Betelgeuse, placed a hand upon his shoulder and asked him "what the hell are you doing?"

"It is your duty to protect us!" Betelgeuse bellowed, willing every ounce of his mental strength into his command.

The giants blinked. Once, twice.

"Why?" the one on the right had the presence of mind to ask.