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

It was almost two hours before Tenzhian Cacliocos arrived with Aisya in tow. The two of them crept down into the white-lighted Metternich Station surreptitiously, like rats.

The entrance into the Station had been strewn with corpses, but by then they had seen so many dead bodies that a few more hardly made an impression.

They went down the lengthy entrance corridor and followed the dogleg right into a brightly-lit lobby, and then they saw Betelgeuse there, sitting on a pile of corpse-meat and aiming a railgun straight at them. The bodies under him were leaching blood in a creeping pool that caught the light in mottled dapples.

"Sakar!" Tenzhian called, raising his hands out of reflex. "It's us! Don't shoot!"

Beside him, Aisya yelped in surprise and raised her hands as well, but moreso because Tenzhian had raised his hands and not because she had any real awareness of the circumstances. Sure, she was staring down the barrel of a gun, but it took her a moment to realize what that meant.

She was a civilian, after all, and lacked the same finely-tuned sense for danger.

Betelgeuse lowered his weapon. Several heads popped out from behind the steel siding to his left.

"Captain!" Entuban rumbled. "You are managing to find Aisya!"

Tenzhian took several steps forward, glad to see Entuban's broad face. Betelgeuse passed his eyes from Tenzhian to Aisya, his features carved into a rigid mask.

Aisya's eyes were deep-set as ever, but ringed with darkness and exhaustion. And yet, Betelgeuse still found an incongruous optimism shining within her eyes. Her fine aquiline nose twitched in apparent distaste for Betelgeuse' choice of seat, and her slender hands clutched uncomfortably at her upper arms.

She was wearing an over-large coat that broke up the contours of her form and dark nylon pants that flared at the hems. The skin of her face was smooth and oily, and they glistened under the glare of the overhead OLEDs.

Betelgeuse stepped forward to come before Tenzhian, towering over him. As he did so, he observed Aisya turning slightly away. Something must have passed between the two of them.

This is where the seeds of your undoing lie. In untrustworthy people like them, like Belekov, like Tenzhian, like Voke.

Were those his sentiments, or that of his unruly will? Was there any difference?

This is no time for paranoia, he told himself. The die has already been cast. It is survival or death.

"Let's go," he said. "Remember to bring the box, Entuban."

"Betelgeuse," Aisya said softly, "where are you taking us?"

She wants to know your plans. Aisya already knows we have to get to the Nook. She must know, because her brother must have told her. They want to know more details, the better to betray you.

"Into the Nook," he said simply, leaving it up to them if they wanted to follow.

Following Betelgeuse' instructions, they breached the door of a maintenance-access tunnelway. Access #412 of 900.

They followed the steep descent of the maintenance-access into the bowels of the Underground, passing from white-light to crimson to dull-cerise. Betelgeuse advanced at the front of the column, his gaze never wavering from the path ahead.

The tunnelway was narrow. At the widest, it could only accommodate two people walking abreast.

Entuban was almost as wide as the corridor, so that at certain sections he had to travel sideways. His height meant he had to keep his head bowed throughout that claustrophobic journey, and he settled on dragging the box of Incunabula because there wasn't enough space for him to carry it on his shoulder.

It was one hour of silence before Thete decided to say something. Although she was located at the back of the column, the space was so narrow that her voice reached Betelgeuse easily.

"Betelgeuse, who is this contact? Are you sure it's… reliable?"

"The name's Kanogg," he returned, maintaining the maximum pace that his lungs could sustain. "Nothing's for certain, but she wants what we have very badly, and she's willing to pay for it."

"What does she want? What do you have in the box?" Aisya asked, her voice shriller than Betelgeuse remembered.

Nobody answered her for some time. Tenzhian opened his mouth, then closed it again without uttering a sound.

Eventually, Belekov said, his tone replete with mirth: "You'd think someone died or something!"

A voice, semi-deep, guffawed in response. Betelgeuse knew it was Douglas even without turning around.

"Someone should tell her," Misha said tentatively.

"Tell me what? What the hell's up with you guys!" Aisya exasperated.

"You tell her," Belekov said to Misha.

"It's Tzevtao," Entuban said finally. "The box is filled with Tzevtao."

The silence that interspersed was filled with the thudding impacts of boots on faux-wood boards. Somewhere along that journey, the concrete floor had become flimsy boards which flexed dangerously from Entuban's weight.

"Tzevtao…" Aisya breathed. "You took them… from the… strikers?"

"Some of them," Entuban said.

"You've been thinking about this for some time, Sakar," Tenzhian said. He was right behind Betelgeuse and walking side-by-side with Aisya. "You've not been completely honest with me."

He's probing for a weakness. He's baiting for a reaction. This Tenzhian is a wily one, always trying to seem like he holds the high moral ground—

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Betelgeuse suppressed his inner voice before it had a chance to say anything else.

"Can you blame me?" Betelgeuse said. "I'd thought you would understand the need for discretion. Whether it's the Protectorate, the Democracy or the Gimma Ashby, there isn't much space for independent thinking."

"... You're a more complicated person than I thought," Tenzhian said.

His words ended the conversation, and they traveled in silence another hour or more before they reached the end of that long corridor. A black door—or rather, a door taped over entirely with black-tape—obstructed their exit.

Entuban's immense strength made short work of it. The contingent passed through the wrecked portal to find themselves in a wide and dark street. The Nook, finally.

Betelgeuse looked down at his transceiver. Apparently, Kanogg owned 'a place' somewhere further down the main Nook thoroughfare. She had replied with instructions of what to say to her 'bellboys', and Betelgeuse was surprised she even had bellboys.

As if mirroring the general turmoil of Saltilla proper, the Nook was incredibly quiet. Definitely far more quiet than the last time Betelgeuse was here.

The streets were still strewn with dark-skinned destitutes suffering from the Bloam and groaning wretchedly out of broccoli-heads and lips so cleft they flapped like labial folds. The greased-colored air above their heads still sputtered with the occasional holo-vehicle passing by.

But in general, people weren't out and about.

Betelgeuse actually recognized the part of the Nook they were in. It was about a kilometer down from where they had originally entered the Nook, when Aisya first brought the PLPs here.

Mustering the contingent, Betelgeuse led them down the dank and grimy streets, passing the occasional odd-looking Nookster (and all of them looked odd) to finally halt before a familiar building.

A seven-story building painted entirely in red.

To its left was a tall and dilapidated complex that looked as though it was collapsing, with parts of its external facade having collapsed into rubble-piles that littered the street.

The red building, however, looked quite well-maintained. Outside its large double-doors stood large over-muscled creatures that might have been men.

They didn't seem to be the same creatures that Betelgeuse had placed under his compulsion all those weeks ago.

"It's… here?" Aisya said, her voice drifting over Betelgeuse' left shoulder.

"Looks familiar, does it?" Douglas said, coming to Betelgeuse' left.

Betelgeuse stepped forward, coming before the giant 'bellboys'. They stood their ground and stared menacingly at him. Behind Betelgeuse, the Jegorichian contingent brandished their weapons, and between the two groups it wasn't entirely clear who appeared more belligerent.

So, this was her place. No doubt she was the elusive 'Chief'.

Cocking his head, Betelgeuse said: "Business with Beetlejuice."

The two towers of muscle nodded but lost none of their threatening demeanor. They turned and pointed wordlessly to the door.

One by one, the contingent brushed past the 'bellboys' to enter the red building.

Entuban let the box crash unceremoniously to the floor.

The noise reverberated through the room, and Kanogg, flanked by more of the White giants, indicated with her additional arms for the box to be opened.

Several serving girls, all of them clad in skimpy outfits, rushed forward to do their Chief's bidding. They were obviously spurred on by a healthy amount of fear.

As for the White goons flanking Kanogg, Betelgeuse was sure that he recognized the two White giants that he had originally met during his first foray into the Nook—only they looked different now. They stared straight ahead with glazed and unblinking eyes, and it wasn't entirely clear if they were consciously processing what was happening around them.

Betelgeuse scanned the rest of the surroundings.

All of them—Jegorichians, Nooksters, PLPs—were crammed into a cuboid space which was lined with dirty blue carpeting. Dirty couches were flushed to the walls and there were several tables leaning against the staircase at the far end of the room.

The room was divided between the two forces.

To one side of the room stood Kanogg, her bodyguards, and a legion of tired-looking prostitutes.

Kanogg herself looked bulkier than before. Her face was covered by the same black mask. Instead of a single appendage that stuck out from her clavicle, she now had two, with the new addition looking girthier and more durable.

A man with a facemask and churgeon-like appendages sticking out the nape of his neck stood to Kanogg's right. The man was dressed sloppily—in a dirty polo-T and nylon trousers—and his eyeballs were large compound gemstones that glittered in the light. 'Brain-tekkie,' Tenzhian had whispered into his ear.

To the other side of the room stood Betelgeuse and his contingent, carbines and railguns held at the ready. Betelgeuse regarded Kanogg humorlessly even as she chortled in over-deep tones at the sight of the Incunabula all stacked within the box.

"There are twenty-eight in there. Four Hollows, five White grades and nineteen Ash," Betelgeuse began.

"Oh… my," Kanogg managed, raising her masked face to regard Betelgeuse, both pairs of her hands clasping together. "You've brought me quite the haul. It couldn't have been easy to… come up with this."

"You couldn't imagine," Douglas said sarcastically from somewhere behind Betelgeuse, only to be shushed by Voke.

"You have enough to pay for this?" Betelgeuse asked, looking carefully at Kanogg's body language but not finding anything amiss.

"... It's big money, yes, but I've come into some money myself," she said cryptically.

"There's another," Betelgeuse said, retrieving an additional White Incunabula from his bulging vest—one lacerated by fire and bearing bulbous growths—and throwing it onto the ground.

"I see…" Kanogg replied. One of her additional arms picked up the damaged White Incunabulum and flipped it open to see it filled on every page with gibberish scrawls and bloated pages.

"Hyper-bloam mutation," the brain-tekkie said to Kanogg, his voice faintly metallic and his pronunciation too precise to be entirely human. "Probably occurred spontaneously. Cause: exceptional emotional arousal. Cannot be grafted."

So that's what it's called, Betelgeuse thought, narrowing his eyes. The brain-tekkie said it can't be grafted. Does it mean this other White grade I took can be grafted? I should ask later. Privately.

"This is unusable. I'm not buying it," Kanogg said, handing him back the Incunabulum.

Betelgeuse took Salleh's Incunabulum in his hand, held it a moment, then let it drop to the floor.

"The rest then. 10% bulk discount, as we agreed. 10% off current market prices," Betelgeuse said, raising his wrist and poking at his transceiver for emphasis.

Since he had the guns, he could set the price, was Betelgeuse' view. Still, he would keep to the agreement, if only because he still needed Kanogg's assistance on certain matters.

"Of course," Kanogg returned. Bending her already hunched back even more and scrutinizing the Incunabula in the box. "They are all…"

"All in good condition, save for one or two intermediate-qualitys," Betelgeuse asserted with the utmost confidence.

"I'll have to check, but that does seem right," Kanogg said. "Why don't you guys take a seat? I'll need to go through them with Dr. Killian over here."

"I am not a doctor," the brain tekkie said without any modulation to his voice. "I am Mr. Killian."

Waving her hands in mock irritation, Kanogg dismissed her White grade bodyguards. She obviously wanted to reduce the tension in the air.

Turning to Tenzhian, Betelgeuse indicated that it was fine to ease up a little, although he couldn't help cautioning the man to keep alert.

As the contingent shuffled towards the nearest couches, Betelgeuse went forward to exchange several words with Kanogg.