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

[City-State Jegorich, Outer Circle]

"Breaking news! Breaking news!" the boy cried, racing down the street and calling out in a shrill voice. The boy, who was cursed with an over-short stature and a distended head, was tearing down the back alley calling out the same thing over and over again, indicating his wrist to all and sundry as if to tell everyone that there was "Breaking news" and that said "Breaking news" was accessible via their wrist-transceivers.

The men in the street—for they were mostly men, engaged in the difficult work of loading and unloading crates emblazoned with Common words, "AMMUNITION", "NW-LPR", and "TOILETTES", amongst others—the men in the street rolled their eyes at the redundancy of having someone physically reminding them to check the news. It was absurd.

They kept their opinions to themselves. The dwarf-child was the favored of the Black Baron, and few dared draw the ire of that fearsome man.

"It's ridiculous! It even looks ridiculous!" Rifiq groused, leaning against the gray concrete wall and pointing with a pale-skinned hand toward the dwarf-child disappearing around the corner.

"Oh, come off it Rif, it gives Pygmy something to do," Polentis laughed. His pale skin gleamed smoothly in the light of Jegorich, and his fine nose twitched at the revolting aroma. The breeze brought the smell of refuse down from the slums.

Rubbing his nose, Polentis turned toward the building and looked up at the tip of the gleaming skyscraper, squinting his blue eyes.

It was his skyscraper. A symbol of his power.

There were skyscrapers all around, some taller than his building, though everything paled in comparison to the colossal Bujarrat sticking out the center of Jegorich.

'The sky is so monotonous,' Polentis thought, feeling irritated all of a sudden and thinking that it must have been the gray, gray sky. 'Would it kill the City Engineers to give it some dynamic lighting like in Saltilla?'

Clicking his tongue at the thought, Polentis entered through the nondescript entrance with Rifiq trailing him, turning right into the private elevator and thumbing the button that would take him straight to his office. His office, 10 floors below ground level.

The wealthy elite liked to live high up in their towers, lording over the unwashed masses they positioned far below their feet. Polentis, the Black Baron, was different. Now that he had a skyscraper all to himself, he made a point of locating his office as far underground as he could.

He liked to be underground, to be covert, to remain secret. Polentis had furnished the top floor of his 40-story behemoth with an office, of course, but this he left to his right-hand man, Rifiq.

The elevator doors closed. Rifiq glanced at Polentis.

"Pul, people are going to talk," Rifiq nagged. "I can see where you're going with this. You picked this Pygmy out of the gutter and made him your runner so you can play Robin Hood. It helps your image for the upcoming Ombudsman elections, sure, but it's going to backfire."

"Shit, Rif, tell me more," Polentis shot back sarcastically.

"Be serious, Pul," Rifiq shot back, the elevator clanking as if in agreement with his sentiments. "You think Sloane is going to keep quiet about it?"

"What can she say, that I'm a criminal?" Polentis scoffed. "The biggest criminal in the Protectorate rules this barren shithole as President. People in Jegorich know that tough times call for tough leaders."

"Well, she'll say you're arbitrary. Tough leaders must make tough decisions, sure, but not arbitrary ones. Or they'll say Pygmy's your bastard, which is why you chose him over the million other beggar-children wasting away in the slums—and then they'll question your genetic fitness, what with Pygmy's unfortunate dwarfism. I'm saying this is scrutiny you can do without," Rifiq sighed.

The truth was that Pygmy reminded Polentis of himself, that's all. A decade after he'd left the slums and still he could smell the cloying scent of refuse. You could take someone out of the slums, but the slums never truly left one's heart.

'Great men aren't allowed common feelings,' thought Polentis. He clasped his hands behind his back and pressed his eyebrows together.

The elevator doors opened and Polentis stepped into the warmly-lit space and breathed in deep, savoring the sweet lavender scents and feeling grateful that it washed some of the stink out of his nostrils.

"That's the stuff. How much of this Lavendii scent do we have left?" Polentis inquired.

"We're almost out. I can ask Atanya to source more of it from Phytologic…" Rifiq said, frowning as if thinking about something else, "but shit's expensive."

Polentis nodded, stepping across the carpeted floor and sinking comfortably into the large leather seat before a grand faux-oak desk.

"I'd normally tell you to spare no expense," Polentis said, scratching at his chin and glancing at the pale-skinned Rifiq as he took the seat before Polentis' desk. "But I'm thinking that Kradir bitch is getting too cocky. Her daddy's been kakked ever since the whole thing with Saltilla went down, so you gotta put the screws to her, yes? She oughta give us a discount!"

Polentis loved lavender scents—all his offices were furnished with Lavendii—notwithstanding that the only manufacturer was the Phytologic Gazebo, owned by The Apothecaries' Society's President Janna Sloane—the same Janna Sloane who happened to be Polentis' main political rival for Jegorich's Office of the Ombudsman.

As it happened, Polentis bulk-bought Lavendii scents through a contact of Rifiq's. Only recently had he discovered that the contact was none other than Atanya Kradir—the daughter of Home Affairs Apparatchik Bilal Kradir.

Even though Atanya commanded a high commission, she was entitled to a substantial VIP's discount from the Phytologic Gazebo, and the overall price Polentis paid in the end was lower than if he transacted as a normal buyer.

"Old man Bilal might be rehabilitated yet," Rifiq said, steepling his fingers before his face. "You did read the 'Breaking news'... did you?"

"I saw this morning's headlines. 'TAF Commander Jirani Mzeeka Announces Great Victory Over Alien Threat'—but they've lost… what, ninety plus percent of the population? What kind of a victory is that!" Polentis laughed, his handsome mien breaking out in an expression of unadulterated schadenfreude.

"My point is that the Saltilla-loving Bilal isn't out of the picture yet," Rifiq said, leaning forward and locking gazes with Polentis. "You see, it was never about saving Saltilla. The TAF wanted the Transportation Gate intact, and now that they've gotten their pyrrhic victory they'll turn to Jegorich and Polyaria for support and supplies. Everybody knows that Saltilla no longer poses a threat to the Jegorich elite, so a rapprochement is probably on the horizon. Who better to bridge gaps than old Bilal?"

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Polentis leaned backward, keeping his eyes on Rifiq. Climate control kept the mellow-lighted space at a cool 21 degrees Celsius, so that he felt thoroughly comfortable in his clone-cashmere jacket.

"... Observation," Polentis said, tapping on his temple with a finger as he stared straight into Rifiq's eyes. "You can stand to be a little clearer. Are you saying that Bilal... and that girl, Atanya, are you saying they're loopholes?"

Rifiq had an eye for such things, mostly because the Bronze grade, whose mediocre Increment was adapted to resolving civil engineering quandaries, had through a brilliant stroke of imagination manifested a thoroughly useful Etching—one that gave him the ability to find what he liked to call 'loopholes'.

Loopholes, according to Rifiq, were wildcards in the equation. Focal points in a convoluted web of relationships whose tensions between each other—between said focal points—held up the whole political structure of the Sylvan Protectorate.

Rifiq believed that in them lay a means to short-circuit the normal hierarchy of the Protectorate—hence, 'loopholes'.

"Well, specifically Atanya," Rifiq asserted. "Not so much her father."

"... You've known her for awhile," Polentis said, narrowing his eyes, wondering if it was really a coincidence that their Lavendii supplier turned out to be such an important personage. He suspected not, and he tended to have an intuition about these things.

"She's been supplying our Lavendii for a long time. Why are you only telling me this now?" he asked.

"As I told you before," Rifiq rolled his eyes, exasperated at how Polentis never cared to remember important details, "it's a spectrum of significance. You must understand, Pul, that many people look primed to become loopholes at any one point in time. But few do. Once they cross the threshold and become loopholes, however, my working hypothesis—bear in mind this is more an art than a science—is that loopholes no longer tend to lose significance with the passage of time. They become more important as time passes."

"So that makes three loopholes now, that you've reported." Polentis said, watching Rifiq's facial expressions closely and finding nothing worth noting. "Remind me again?"

"Deputy Marshal Allied Forces Marja Mentzer, yourself, and the most recent one: Atanya Kradir," Rifiq said, sinking back into his chair and snapping off the names as if he'd resigned himself to becoming Polentis' personal secretary.

Polentis clicked his tongue. Rifiq had obviously cultivated the relationship with Atanya with an eye to this.

"I'll let you deal with her then," Polentis said, nodding. "Just get me more of those scents. You know how I like'em."

"Natura—"

"Ah wait, I remember now, there was an 'anomaly' you reported a month or so ago," Polentis interrupted, rubbing a finger under his nose and affecting a thoughtful look. "It's just occurring to me now that that one could, how do you say, be in danger of 'crossing the threshold'. Just like Atanya."

"Which one?" Rifiq raised an eyebrow, obviously nonplussed.

"You know, the one who came up after that weird-looking Nookster appeared in the Outer Circle…" Polentis said, waving his hands vaguely above his head.

"Oh. Kanogg Paluviere," Rifiq snapped his fingers loudly. "Well, the anomaly wasn't her, but the one connected to her. Don't worry about it though, it's since receded. I'm getting nil."

"Kak me for trying to pre-empt it," Polentis sighed. "If I knew what I was getting into, I'd never have given Kanogg a foothold."

Indeed, of all the Nooksters to seek shelter in Jegorich, Kanogg was the most troublesome. In the span of a month, he had managed to upend the balance of power amongst the slum bosses, having cheated a large number of them out of insane amounts of cash and then slaughtering those who threatened violent redress.

But not Polentis. Kanogg had honored Polentis' contract.

The way Polentis saw it, those guys had it coming. They should've known better—the Jegorichian code of honor did not apply to Saltillans, and over the years he'd found that one-sided contracts with those dark-skins always ended up badly.

Which was another way of saying Polentis distrusted Kanogg. And yet, old-fashioned intuition told Polentis to keep the relationship with Kanogg. The Lotuszhink Chief was nothing if not resourceful, and he expected to be able to use him in corralling (i.e., coercing) public support for the upcoming Ombudsman election.

"If there's nothing else," Rifiq said, pushing down on the faux-oak desk and getting to his feet, "I'm gone."

"Wait," Polentis said, raising a hand. "I don't think you actually told me the name of this anomaly. It is a person, right?"

"My Etching doesn't deal in names," Rifiq said, laughing heartily. "But I've been following the anomaly for a while now, through official and unofficial Intraweb channels. I've narrowed it down within an acceptable margin of error to an individual, an individual seems to have joined the multitude of feuding warlords fighting over scraps in the Elluhada*."

*[Aluaan name for the Strata Basin, which bounds to the East and South of Jegorich. A jutting strip of the Strata Basin separates Jegorich from Saltilla.]

Rifiq's tone seemed all too sure of himself. Polentis knew what he was getting at—the life of a criminal out on the Elluhada was brutal and short. Few survived, and those who did rarely prospered.

Rifiq had already written off the anomaly.

"If you must know, though, they're calling him Colonel Dog Balls," Rifiq said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "He plies the support route between cities and has caused quite a stir in the official channels. Wouldn't put much stock in it, though."

"Hah!" Polentis scoffed. "That's what they said about General Rabid. Look where that got the Gehennites?"

"Small time egomaniacs," Rifiq rolled his eyes. "The Gehennites are bottom-of-the-barrel idiots, so I don't expect they're a good benchmark… hey, I gotta go anyhow. Anything else?"

'Indeed, indeed,' Polentis thought to himself, waving Rifiq away and watching his back recede down the corridor.

That's why all these warlords liked to include military ranks in their names. They were egomaniacs looking for short-term gains and the illusion of legitimacy. In the end, they were nothing more than thugs and psychopathic criminals.

Right?

***

Polentis waited for Rifiq to leave his office, then watched the camera feed on his terminal-screen. He saw handsome Rifiq in the elevator, shifting his weight from foot to foot, saw him alight at the ground floor and then leave the building.

Once he was sure that Rifiq was gone, Polentis focused his mind on his Tzevtao, felt both of them pulse against his chest as they converted his intentionality to physical modification.

The pain was monumental, but not anything he was unfamiliar with.

He felt his skin tingle, then burn. Burn so hot and so painfully that he wanted nothing more than to claw his skin off, to have it flayed from his flesh. Slowly, inexorably, his fair skin turned dark, coal-dark.

The muscles of his face were next, shifting and morphing, pushing down the cartilage of his nose until it became shorter and flatter.

It was minutes before the pain stopped. Polentis let out a breath and rose to his feet, moving toward a mirror he'd had fitted into the wall, between his bookcases.

He looked at himself, Polentis Shy—looked himself up and down—and felt certain again that he was himself, and not some other person. His dark skin, the flattish nose his mother gave him, the sharp, black eyes he'd inherited from his father.

No matter how painful, a mind had to be reminded of who possessed it, lest it become corrupted by a whole host of mind-poisons. Polentis could keep his disguise on for three days max, before the strain on his psyche started to become palpable.

Physical disguise—a limited ability to shapeshift—was a power he manifested from the synergistic application of his Bronze and White Tzevtaos*, both of them grafts.

*[Polentis' Bronze Tzevtao gives him a preternatural ability to visualize his own anatomy at a molecular level, while his White Tzevtao allows him to morph his features to whatever he finds beautiful and/or handsome.]

As a child of the Nook, Polentis had never had the opportunity to undergo the Analysis, which meant that he never acquired a Tzevtao that was his own. But in the end he supposed it all turned out well.

Polentis stretched and returned to his desk, scratching at his chin. Things were just starting to get interesting, what with the Desert Question being resolved in favor of Jegorich. Polentis Shy had gambled it all—forsaken Saltilla for Jegorich—and come out on top.

But Polentis wanted more. He wanted what the fadster elites had—their offworld villas, their unlimited wealth, their access to breeding pools. He wanted control over his own private army, his personal harem—

Ah, such an appetite!

Polentis gritted his teeth. The Office of the Ombudsman was merely a stepping stone. It was the Presidency he was after. All the rest was noise.

Now, the Black Baron would gamble again.