Steven Campbell - Suck My Cosmos

“All I need you to do is observe him and let me know if you see anything I can use in a divorce. He won’t grant me one because he feels it would be injurious to his political career and family honor.”

I scratched my neck a good long while with my lips pursed.

“Have you asked him nicely?” I said.

“I need cause for a divorce. He has dealings all over the System, I just need proof.”

“You want to blackmail him?” I almost swallowed my tongue.

“I don’t mean business dealings. He sees…other people. It is an understanding we have,” she said impassively.

I was feeling light-headed. Even this tiny bit of information she’d told me, that the wife of a City Councilman wanted a divorce, was headline news. The Districts fought rabidly when it came to politics. The way Belvaille’s government worked was that every piece of legislation had to be agreed on unanimously by every other Councilman and then approved by the Governor.

Not a lot got done, really…

When everyone did compromise, it was often at the end of a stick. Or, I suspected, when they had dirt on each other. Maybe even dirt like this.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked her.

“Yes, please.”

I hurried to my liquor cabinet and poured myself one, which I slammed. I then refilled it and brought back two full glasses.

“So will you take my assignment?” she asked.

I drank my second drink.

“You see,” I started, “I’d really like to—”

“My concern,” she interrupted coolly, “is I’ve told you everything. If you don’t take me on as a client, we won’t be protected under Master-Servant Secrecy agreements and you could be forced to testify at trial.”

“Secrecy agreements? Is that a thing?” I asked dumbly.

“It is.”

“Oh.”

So now she was basically blackmailing me. Or threatening. Or whatever.

“You will be paid handsomely,” she said.

“I just got to have proof of him cheating on you?” I confirmed.

“It can be anything he would find more embarrassing than a divorce,” she clarified.

I didn’t see I had much of a choice. She just strongly hinted at some badness if I didn’t help her. Right now that was staring me in the face. The badness of angering her husband was not yet in view. Always avoid the conflict that’s closest to impact. The ones further down the road may never reach you.

“Fine,” I said, defeated.

She smiled beautifully.

“My name is Malla.” She offered her hand politely.

I took it.

“I will be in contact with more details shortly,” she stated, turning to go. She stopped in front of my door as if it were some unknown contraption of baffling origins.

I hustled over and opened it for her.

As she was slipping out, she faced me.

“One last thing. If you see anything unusual, particularly anything that might be dangerous to my husband, please let me know at once.”

“What? Dangerous?” As a City Councilman he was probably one of the most protected people in existence. What could I possibly notice that his army of security professionals couldn’t?

“Just use your best judgment. And recognize that I hate being surprised.”

So now I was in a restaurant across the street from where I’d followed Ray’Ziel and his sizeable entourage. We were in the District he controlled, Education.

This District, and its corresponding Sector outside of Belvaille, housed every school, university, and trade college. If you wanted to learn anything, from how to make a basket, to how to build a spaceship, it was taught under his control.

He also had authority over all the scientists and engineers who made the Belvaille System their home, which was quite a lot of influence.

Still, he was probably the least important of all the City Councilmen. Education simply didn’t generate as much money as the other Districts. The others being Trade, Housing, Make, and Food.

Make was short for Manufacturing. My home was in the Make District—which was purely coincidental. I owned the building long before the Districts were ever mapped.

“Are you expecting your friends to arrive soon, sir?” the waiter asked me snobbily.

I was taking up a booth at the upscale restaurant and had been here for thirty minutes, not ordering any food because it was all too expensive.

“Any moment now,” I lied.

He sniffed and went away. He could see I didn’t have any heraldry and knew I wasn’t important. The restaurant was nearly empty so I didn’t know why he was concerned.

I poured some alcohol from a flask into my complimentary water. I didn’t normally drink while working but this was a boring job. I had been watching Ray’Ziel for a few weeks now.

It wasn’t easy following him. Mostly because he had access to places I didn’t, due to his wealth and prestigious position as City Councilman.

I was keeping all my receipts to bill his wife, but I was really concerned about spending too much. I hadn’t been paid anything up front and this was burning a hole in my wallet.

Ray’Ziel himself was an older man but handsome. He dressed well but not ostentatiously. He moved with the grace and confidence of someone who was incredibly important yet was so used to being important that he didn’t flaunt it.

In short, he looked everything I expected a City Councilman should look like. He was the first one I had ever seen in person. I simply had no need to ever view them. My line of work and theirs didn’t exactly intersect.

Except for now.

However, if Ray’Ziel had a mistress or two or did anything at all remotely scandalous, it must have been behind closed doors and in the four hours when he apparently slept. The man was constantly meeting with nobles, scientists, officials, working at City Hall, and visiting projects.

The only times I saw him alone with a woman was when he was with his wife, Malla. And even they weren’t alone when you counted all the servants and security.

As for anything dangerous that Malla had hinted about, there was nothing of the sort.

Belvaille was a very secure city nowadays. I had a License to Hurt, which I paid a substantial fee to maintain. I was allowed to carry “hand weapons,” but that was a vague term. Besides, there were too many police and security in the city to want to go around blasting people.

I had traded my firearms for a mostly non-lethal Gravitonic gun. It would fling a normal person ten feet on low power. On high power, it could…I don’t know, fling them more than ten feet. My gun had been designed by my friend, Delovoa.

I also carried some concussion grenades.

There were still lots of murders, and gang fights, and factional skirmishes among the nobles. But nearly all of it took place off Belvaille. There were too many fees involved with fighting on the station.

I was beginning to get a little buzz from my spiked water. I had the glass raised to my lips when:

Boom!

I was thrown out of my seat and rolled across the floor.

I looked around groggily for my drink, but it was gone.

I slowly got to my feet and saw tables and chairs overturned and that the entire side windows had been blown out. Restaurant patrons were on the ground in pain, or worse.

Ray’Ziel’s restaurant had been bombed!

I had survived bombs before. A lot, as a matter of fact. I was a mutant. I was bulletproof and I healed rapidly on the rare occasions I was injured. But bombs were definitely something I liked to avoid.

Across the street, the restaurant where Ray’Ziel had been dining was almost completely destroyed. The whole first floor was ripped and spilled open like the abdomen of an insect someone had stepped on.