“That was different. I fought for a cause.”
“And that’s just what I’m doing now.” Random shook his head sadly. “I thought you of all people would understand my purpose.”
“I don’t see any purpose. Just the last murderous spree of a failed revolutionary. I won’t let you kill her.”
“Son; you can’t stop me.”
Random raised his sword, and suddenly Evangeline stepped past Finlay and stood between the two men. “No! I’m damned if I’ll let you two kill each other! We fought on the same side in the rebellion, fought for the same cause!”
“You betrayed it,” said Random. “And all the guilty have to die, if I’m to put things right.”
“We never made a deal with the Families!” said Evangeline fiercely. “You did. Where were you, when Finlay and I fought our way into Wormboy Hell, to rescue the imprisoned espers? We never stopped fighting for what we believed in!”
Random looked at her for a long moment. Finlay’s sword never wavered. “No,” Random said finally. “Maybe you didn‘t, at that. All right; you get to live. This time. But if you can’t clean up the clone underground’s act, we will meet again.” He nodded to Finlay. “Next time, son.”
“Anytime, old man,” said Finlay.
Random turned and looked around him. The room was littered with the dead. The walls were running with blood. The only living souls still left in the hall apart from himself and the unconscious Ruby were Evangeline and Finlay, Toby and Flynn, the grieving Daniel ... and Elias Gutman. Random nodded to the news team.
“Keep filming, boys. You’re about to witness the death of a genuinely evil man.”
“I’ve alerted my guards,” said Gutman. “They’re on their way.”
“Let them come,” said Random. “Let them all come. It won’t make any difference.”
“Think what you’re doing, man,” said Gutman urgently. “Don’t throw away everything you’ve achieved, just because you didn’t like the conditions on Loki.”
“The corruption’s everywhere. All through the Empire. You should know. You’re responsible for most of it. You and your kind.”
“You can still be a positive influence. You achieved so much ...”
“I achieved nothing! Nothing’s changed. Not really.” Random shook his head, no longer smiling. “My fault. I wasn’t true to my cause, to myself. All my friends are dead. They died for the cause. If I stop now, they died for nothing.”
“What about Ruby Journey?” said Gutman, gesturing at the still body on the dais.
“We no longer have anything in common,” said Random. “I’ve nothing left to lose, Elias. The Madness Maze made me very powerful. I think it’s time I put that power to some real use, at last. Time to die, Elias.”
“Owen would never have approved of this,” said Evangeline, and Random stopped his advance on Gutman to look at her again. She met his cold gaze unflinchingly. “Owen Deathstalker gave you a new life, Jack Random. Is this how you repay him, by spitting on everything he ever believed in?”
“Owen’s dead,” said Random.
“Not as long as we still believe in the cause and honor he lived by. You know he would never accept what you’ve done here. Killing someone just because you can will make you just the kind of person we fought a rebellion to get rid of.”
“Owen’s dead,” said Random. “The most honorable man I ever knew. The only real hero in the whole damned rebellion. And Gutman’s still alive. Doesn’t that tell you all you need to know about the way things have gone?”
There was a sudden pounding on both doors at once, as Gutman’s guards finally arrived. From the noise they were making, it sounded like there was a hell of a lot of them. Random looked at the doors thoughtfully, and then turned back to face Gutman again, only to find Evangeline had moved to stand between him and his prey. The Unknown Clone was there too, at her side, as always.
“You’ll have to get through us to get to Gutman,” said Evangeline steadily. “And I don’t think you’re ready to go that far yet.”
“Why are you doing this for Gutman?”
“I’m not. I’m doing it for you.”
“Ah hell,” said Random. “There’s always another time.”
One of the locked doors was blown in by concentrated disrupter fire. Random ran over to the hall’s only window, overlooking a twelve-story drop to the street below. He threw open the window and looked down. It was a long drop onto solid stone, certain death for any man. Random laughed breathlessly, and jumped. It felt like he was floating down, and when his boots slammed against the flagstones, he hardly staggered, his more than human leg muscles absorbing the impact easily. With the blood of many on his hands and on his clothes, the last professional rebel in the Empire ran off down the back streets, disowned by all, a man alone. And Jack Random couldn’t have been happier.
Back in the hall of the dead, Gutman’s guards were sweeping quickly through the splintered doors, guns at the ready as they checked for targets. It only took them a moment to realize the killer was gone, and they set about checking the fallen for signs of life. But the piled-up bodies were beyond all help now. Random’s sword cuts had been as precise as a surgeon’s and the power behind his blows had been brutal. Someone called for a medic anyway, to check out the few survivors for shock. Evangeline watched it all numbly. She’d always thought of Random as a wild card, but she’d never thought ... A loud groan to one side spun her round, to see Ruby Journey slapping aside a guard’s helping hand as she lurched to her feet on the dais. She put a hand to her head, grimacing at the pain, but her eyes were already clear and sharp.
“Damn,” she said thickly. “Never saw that one coming.” She looked at the corpses strewn across the great hall. “What the hell ...”
“Jack Random has gone insane,” said Elias Gutman, approaching the scowling bounty hunter with a certain amount of caution. “He killed all these people, just because they dared to have opinions and beliefs of their own. And he’s threatened to kill a great many more.”
Ruby nodded slowly. “He said he was going to clean house; put an end to all corruption. Trust Jack Random to take the most direct route.”
“He has to be stopped,” said Gutman.
“You mean killed.”
“Yes; that’s exactly what I mean. God knows how many others will die if he isn’t brought down.”
“You can’t condemn him to death just like that!” said Evangeline. “He’s a hero of the rebellion!”
“And now he threatens the existence of everything the rebellion has brought about,” said Gutman flatly. “Do you really think he’d allow us to take him alive? And we couldn’t afford a trial anyway. The scandal would rock the Empire just when it’s most vulnerable. No; he’s going to kill and kill until he’s stopped, in the only practical way.”
“You’re looking at me,” said Ruby Journey. “Why are you looking at me, Gutman?”
“You know why.”
“You saying you want me to go after Jack?”
“The only thing that can take down a Maze survivor is another Maze survivor. And you’re the only other one left. You were a bounty hunter once; be one again.”
“He’s my friend.”
“Parliament will authorize an extraordinarily high price for his head.”
Ruby looked at him. “How extraordinary?”
“Name your price.”
“You can’t seriously be considering this!” said Evangeline. She started toward Ruby, but the Unknown Clone took her firmly by the arm and held her back. The bounty hunter didn’t even look at her.
“Make me an offer, Gutman,” she said calmly. “But bear in mind that if it isn’t good enough, I might just join with Jack to bring you all down. Just for the hell of it.”
“More money than you can ever spend,” said Gutman. “You’ll never want for anything, ever again. Lifelong security. And, we’ll make you official Champion to the new King and Queen. You’ll get to fight the worst of the Empire’s
enemies.”
Ruby smiled, though it didn’t touch her eyes. “You know how to reach a girl’s heart, Gutman. You’ve got a deal.”
“Understand me, bounty hunter; we don’t want him brought back alive. As a dead legend he can still serve Humanity as an inspiration. Alive, he’s just an embarrassment. Kill him, Ruby. If you can.”
“No problem,” said Ruby Journey.
Diana Vertue had never visited a House of Joy before. Not even in her wildest Jenny Psycho days, when she’d refused to accept any restrictions on her actions, on general principles. She walked slowly down the busy street, hidden behind a psionic cloak that left her physically and psychically invisible. People on the street moved automatically to avoid her without even wondering why. Diana Vertue had dropped out of sight, so that no one could find her.
The Mater Mundi had grown more and more open in its attempts to stop her investigating into its true nature. At first, it tried direct psionic assaults on Diana’s mind, and when that didn’t work, the Mater Mundi took over the minds of innocent espers and sent them to kill Diana Vertue. They could come from anywhere, sudden and unexpected. No one could be trusted anymore. Nowhere was safe. Diana broke the first few free from the Mater Mundi’s domination, before they could do her or themselves any harm, but she quickly realized she couldn’t defend herself forever from an endless series of fanatical assassins without the risk of having to kill some of them. And some of them had been people she’d thought of as friends.
She was too open a target at the esper Guild House, for all its much vaunted psionic security, so she disappeared. Just walked out, and vanished behind a psychic fog of her own making. She avoided contact with anyone who knew her, and continued her computer search into the Mater Mundi’s past behind a series of anonymous cutouts. She’d learned a lot from the cyberats, including how to manufacture new short-term identities, as and when needed. She kept moving as much as possible, sleeping in transients’ hotels, and only eating in busy restaurants where she could just be part of the crowd. The destruction of the city during the last fighting of the rebellion had left a lot of people homeless and drifting, and no one noticed one more. The Mater Mundi had driven Diana deep underground, leaving her rootless and alone as any vagrant. Which made it even more surprising when a strange mental voice broke through her shields effortlessly, and told her that if she wanted to know the truth about the Mater Mundi, she should go to a particular House of Joy, on a certain day at a certain time, and all would be revealed to her.
Who are you? Diana had asked.
Another former manifest of the Mater Mundi, the voice had replied.
Which had been very interesting, because according to all Diana’s research, every previous manifest of Our Mother of All Souls had died, burned up by the power that blazed so very brightly within them. But the voice had found her, and pierced her shields, both of which Diana would have sworn were impossible. So she weighed her options as logically as she could, and decided to go. The odds heavily favored it being some kind of a trap, but Diana was desperate for knowledge she could use against the Mater Mundi. Something to even the odds.
And now here she was, standing outside the front door to the House of Joy, and she found herself hesitating, almost embarrassed. The House of Joy was the single largest chain of brothels in the Empire, officially licensed and endorsed, owner of the proud motto and boast “No customer leaves unsatisfied.” You could find anything your heart or other organs desired in a House of Joy. Anything at all. But there hadn’t been much room for sex or love in Diana’s young life. She went straight from the rigidly ruled esper academy to serve as ship’s esper on the late starcruiser Darkwind. After her traumatic time on the ghostworld Unseeli, she deserted from the Fleet and gave her life to the esper underground and the rebellion. That led to her time in the esper prison Wormboy Hell, where she underwent horrors and was made over into Jenny Psycho, and first manifested the power and the glory of the Mater Mundi. And after that, she was more alone than ever. Not many found themselves attracted to a living saint, and a crazy one at that. And those that did were even crazier than she was.
After the rebellion was finally over, Diana Vertue took control of her life again, only to find there wasn’t much of it left. No lovers, no friends, only a few comrades of the rebellion, who all looked at her with doubtful eyes. If she were honest with herself, something she quite sensibly avoided as often as possible, Diana had to admit she had started her quest for the Mater Mundi’s origins just for something to do, something to fill up the empty hours of her life. Only now she couldn’t let go of the tiger’s tail.
There had been no love or lovers in Diana Vertue’s life. And most of the time she preferred it that way. Loneliness wasn’t so bad, once you got used to it. And anyway, her life was complicated enough as it was.
She glared at the quiet, ostentatiously normal door before her, with its discreet sign. Her mouth was dry, her hands were sweating, and butterflies were playing demolition derby in her stomach. She felt almost wistful for the loss of her Jenny Psycho persona. Jenny hadn’t been scared of anything. On the other hand, Jenny had been several guppies short of an aquarium, so ... Diana realized she was just putting off the moment, and brought her thoughts under control. She could do this. She could. After all, she was only here for ... information. She dropped her psionic cloak, and reappeared in public. She glanced casually about her, but no one seemed to be paying her any attention. Yet. She opened the door before her, and did her best to stride in like she owned the place.
She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting, but the quiet, tastefully appointed lobby before her could have belonged to any successful corporate body in the city. The walls were bare, the furniture and fittings stylish but still pleasant to the eye, and the young woman sitting behind the main reception desk was only conventionally attractive. There was no one else in the lobby, for which Diana was quietly thankful. She strode over to the reception desk, and the young woman smiled widely at her, displaying perfect teeth.
“Welcome to the House of Joy. Is this your first visit here?”
“Yes,” said Diana shortly.
“Please don’t be nervous. We are here only to make you happy. We guarantee complete anonymity for all our clients, and one hundred percent satisfaction or your money back. Your pleasure is our business. Now; how can we help you?”
“I’m ... looking for someone,” said Diana. It occurred to her that she had no name or description for her contact. She’d just assumed all she had to do was show up, and the owner of the mysterious voice would make contact. “I’m Diana Vertue. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Oh, of course,” said the receptionist. “One of the heroes of the rebellion. An honor to have you here. Now; would you like a man or a woman? Or both, perhaps?”
“No!” said Diana quickly. “I’m here to meet ... someone special.”
“Well, of course you are, but I shall need some direction from you, to help choose that special someone to satisfy your fantasies.”
“You don’t understand,” said Diana. She could feel her cheeks blazing. “I was supposed to meet someone here. A particular person. Do you have a message for me, perhaps?”
The receptionist looked doubtful, but dutifully checked the monitor screen beside her. She frowned suddenly. “That’s odd. I could have sworn there hadn’t been any messages for this afternoon, but you’re right. Your name’s here. No contact name, just a room number. A trifle irregular, but not to worry. Apparently we have someone standing by to take you there.”
She hit a concealed bell, and a door opened to Diana’s left. She turned to see who it was, and then stood frozen to the spot as she recognized the man before her.
“Deathstalker? Owen? They told me you were dead! What the hell are you doing here?”
The familiar face smiled politely, and he crossed the lobby to join her. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, dear. I’m not the real Owen Deathstalker; just a lookalike. The be
st copy the body shop could produce. There’s always been a market for famous faces in the House of Joy. They tend to come and go, as fashions change, but Owen’s very popular at the moment. There’s an Owen in every House on Golgotha, and even more offworld. We pay him a percentage for the use of his visage, of course. Copyright law’s very strict on that. Now, if you’d like to come with me ...”
“I think we need to get something clear first,” said Diana. “I mean, I’m sure you’re very sweet, but ...”
“Don’t misunderstand me, darling. I’m just a messenger today, here to take you to your appointment. Your host thought a familiar face might help to put you at your ease. Shall we go?”
He gestured at the open door, and Diana walked stiffly past him, doing her best to radiate strict disinterest. The fake Owen closed the door quietly behind them, and then led the way along a quiet, anonymous corridor where all the many doors leading off were strictly closed. Diana kept her esp under firm control, telling herself she had absolutely no interest in whatever might be going on behind the closed doors.
“So,” she said finally, with just a hint of desperation in her voice, “tell me; who else do you have here with a famous face?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised, darling,” said the fake Owen easily. “We’ve got a Jack Random, a Julian Skye, two Robert Campbells (he’s very popular at the moment, with the royal wedding coming up), three Constance Wolfes, and four Hazel d‘Ark’s, for those who like to live dangerously.”
“How about Ruby Journey?”
“Sweetie, we wouldn’t dare. We do have several Lionstones, for the S&M trade. Would you like to meet your own lookalike?”
Diana stopped dead in her tracks, and glared at the fake Owen as he stopped too. “There’s someone here with my face?”
“Well, yes. Everyone famous makes an appearance here eventually. Our job is fulfilling fantasies, and as there aren’t enough of the real thing to go around, people come here for the next best thing. You’re quite in demand, you know. A lot of espers have a thing about you. You’d be surprised.”