Real Thick Real Quick

“Don’t get mad, Uno. It’s only now and for the rest of your life.” I thought out loud as I loaded the last of those heavy beams of wood back into the crate Wullorie’s drones knocked over.

It took me hours. The entire time I was fuming, cursing under my breath. Insulting all of them.

“Fuckin’ Wullorie…”

I just knew they were laughing at me. Making jokes at the work they’d left for me. Making fun of me. The thought infuriated me more.

I finished up, had a quick shower and changed into something fairly casual. White button up, black jeans… and I smiled down at my Jordan Concorde 11s. Least they didn’t trash the crate with my new shoes in them.

They never required clones to dress up, I’d just screwed up so much lately I figured I should do something to show I at least still had some level of respect in my undignified body.

No, but really, I seriously caught hell tyring to tie that tie. By the time I got done it just looked loose and sloppy and I gave up caring.

“Fuck it,” I sighed after struggling to tie my tie. It was loose and poorly done… I didn’t care.. “NORA,” I called to my onboard AI.

“Captain.” It responded in that familiar female voice. Chipper, emotive, but not overly annoying. I spent two days swiping through voices on the holo network trying to find something that wouldn’t annoy me.

“Set a course for Thread. You know the deal."

“Setting a course for platform world Thread.”

“Take us down by Oda’s Hindu Ramen.”

“Oda’s Hindu Ramen. 4.5 Stars. Indo-Japanese Cuisine. Set.” NORA replied.

My comms cut in almost immediately. I heard the familiar static feedback of all of my ship’s systems recalibrating. Shifting from fuel propulsion and batteries to the One Logic as we progressed into deep space.

I could see the deep through my large view finder.

Multi-colored twinkling lights. Some of them now and again flashing off and on. Distant galaxies close enough to take up a chunk of the visible sky.

I even felt that familiar, soothing wave of peace start at the crown of my head and work its way down as One Logic returned to me. I felt it inside. In The Self.

“Captain… you have mail.”

I curled my lip in confusion, wondering. I couldn’t stop it from happening most of the time. The thought spiral. I felt the gears turning in my head, felt myself wandering down a spiraling loop of thought. Mostly curiosity. Who would have left a message? My eyes searched about, ping ponging in thought.

Nobody did that anymore. Messages I mean. Not the eye thing. That was my own personal weirdness.

Shut up. We all have weirdness, alright?

Back to the message. Most people just sent direct comms and if you didn’t answer, they gave up until later.

“You’re thought looping.” NORA said, but I didn’t hear her. I was too busy thought looping.

“You’re thought looping, Captain.” She repeated.

Oh, right.

“Huh?” I practically breathed, snapping out of thought to look up, “Sorry… no, I was,” About to make an excuse to an AI, I realized.

Both of my eyebrows ticked up once at the ridiculousness of that notion. “Who was it?”

“It’s from The Silence. Mido Khan.”

I felt a spark of realization and a little fear. Mido Khan… why would he be reaching out to me? He could barely stand me.

I think.

He had zero emotion. Walking box of Dangerous Grump Cereal.

And Resonance Rounds.

Let’s not forget the bullets.

“Play it.” I nodded at no one.

My entire forward windshield became the image of my mentor. Reaching up to the console in front of me, I tapped a few overrides, bringing the visual down from the big screen to the floating, holographic deck in front of me.

Mido started, “Rembrandt. Your current designation is over. Meet me in the War Room on Meridian after you get back. You’re being permanently reassigned. That’s it.” He ended the message abruptly. It was just his face paused on my screen.

I couldn’t help but marvel at him. He was a wall of professional stoicism. The primary tenant of the illusion. Nearly all of the world operated on it inside of the Six Gates. Like its own bushido.

A stoic belief in The Self.

Looking at him, darkly cloaked in Hunter garb, that wild, tattered black poncho of his spilling over his frame. Marred with holes from hundreds of battles. Likely thousands of fights.

He was a Ghost.

Well, to be fair he wasn’t.

“Can you believe that guy? Greatest Hunter of all time they say. Course everybody knows he’s a Ghost, but…” I hollowly spoke the words, lost in deep reverie. Staring at him before I turned off the holo display.

“Ghosts don’t exist.” NORA replied.

“Oh come on…” I twisted my face and scoffed in disgust. “You and I both know that’s garbage. He trained me. He taught me Ghost Protocol.”

“Yes, Captain. You are correct,” She said, but I heard it in her tone. I was about to be corrected. “But for the record, Ghosts don’t exist.”

“Right, right. Ghosts don’t exist.” I blew a sigh. “Alright. Take us home.”

“Course is already set for Thread,” NORA reminded me.

“I know, but… looks like I’m not going for Ramen. Go ahead and take me to Meridian. Close to the War Room. Let’s get this shit over with. I’d rather not have Mido waiting while I walk halfway across the Court of Silence.”

“Good call,” NORA confirmed sharply as I stood from my pilot’s seat. “One day you’ll get to try it.”

“No I won’t,” I said dreamily. Butter Chicken and Ramen… Never had it.

Wanted it really bad though.

No clue why.

“I’m gonna go catch some sleep. Time delay messes with me pretty bad. I already got the shit slapped out of me twice today, I’d rather not make it a third cus I can’t pay attention… God knows I’m probably about to get another pointless supply mission. Man I hate that… I was starting to get used to the Indo-Japan gate.”

“Would you like me to cancel your Japanese lessons?”

“Yeah… barely anybody’s alive who speaks it anymore anyway. I was just trying to blend in with the locals.”

“That’s true. Most of the known worlds within the illusion speak tradespeak or Hindi. You’re pretty much already covered as a Dharma Yog.”

I stopped halfway through the hall, eyebrowing up at NORA’s mention of tradespeak. “Let’s be honest, my Hindi’s not exactly perfect.”

“We can resume Hindi lessons when you wake up. It’s 2 days to Thread.”

I nodded at no one and continued towards my quarters. “Okie dokie.”

“Hyper sleep?” NORA asked.

“Might as well. I’m not looking forward to two days staring at the wall.”

The thought looping.

The inability to stop it.

Obsessively training.

Meditating to escape the boredom.

I didn’t want any parts of that shit.

“Captain, your thought looping.”

“Right. — Wake me in 2 turns.” I said, referencing the unmoving sun on Thread. They used turns instead of days.

Clock turns.

But then it hit me. Ghost Protocol.

“Actually, NORA… I’m a little curious.”

“No, Captain.” NORA said, her voice almost disappointed in me.

“Just a peek.”

“No, Captain.” She said, more sternly this time.

“It’s Ghost Protocol, I’ll never be detected!” I did my best to sell assurance to an unfeeling creation of chipsets and the One Logic.

“By anyone except Mido.” NORA added and I nodded a little as I sauntered towards my room.

“Just do it. Use my codename.” I said, turning down a smooth, industrially sanitized hallway.

It was a Rent-a-Frigate. The kind The Silence used for long haul. I’d never get anything unique. Especially if I kept getting myself into trouble.

I let the retinal scan echo my amber eyes with a blue line of light moving up and down the top half of my almost-chocolate face. On the screen I saw it pull up my credentials.

[Uno Rembrandt. Model 01Delta.]

My design number and type code. Every time I saw it I found myself wondering: Who is 02? Where is 02? Was I part of a series…? Do I have family?

It didn’t matter. My door irised open, allowing me into the bog standard room I’d come to call home. I had a few remnants of the past inside, but nothing all that detailed. I had a life. It wasn’t awesome. Mostly facilities, training, and a history of going AWOL.

Dharma Yog’s could take a beating.

The Silence liked giving them to me.

Caught running the streets with people way older than me off-world. Sneaking into bars in the real. Drinking. Fighting. Always having to prove myself. Being five-foot-four with a face most boys wanted to kiss instead of punch, I spent my life getting in and out of bad situations.

But I always had The Silence there to clean up after me. As I walked into my space and looked around the sparse collection of items in it, memories flooded back.

I had an old, tired catchers mitt on a night stand. A picture of me and believe it or not, the closest thing I had to family. Mido Khan. The cold, unloving, unforgiving master who beat the absolute life out of me since I was old enough to pick up a Punch Cannon and a sword.

I went over to my bed, grabbed a Third Eye holo emitter, and stuck it to my forehead. It was a bronze, circular dot of adhesive metal no bigger than a chickpea.

Immediately displays sprang to life all over my room in my vision. One on mute displaying the News Feed from Thread. I ignored it, lifting my left hand as I laid back, bringing the Internal mainframe of my ship into view.

“Alright, patch me into The Silence hub… I wanna see what I’m being reassigned to.”

“01Delta Ghost Protocol login initiated. I’m assuming you’d like traceless browsing.”

“No, NORA, please. By all means. Tell everyone.”

“Sarcasm noted.”

[Holo Entry: War Room - Meeting]

I read it in front of me with a quizzical stare. “That’s a holo entry.”

“Peculiar, no doubt. There’s a message.” NORA said.

“Play it.”

“01Delta. I assumed you’d use your Ghost Protocol,” Mido’s voice said, dry and pensive. “There’s nothing to hide. Your fate is set, but feel free.”

“Smug bastard,” I whispered, swiping past the audio log to the personal recording of Mido Khan. “He always knows.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a Ghost if he didn’t.” NORA countered.

“Thought those didn’t exist?” I said childishly.

“Sarcasm noted…” NORA sighed.

Why did AI sigh?

That's a thought for another day.

In front of me, the resolution on the holo jittered, then it shifted.

What I saw in front of me was the opulent war room of The Silence. Navy blue tones in stone, speckled crystalline dust embedded in the architecture. It looked exactly like it should. Like the entire moon was a monastic temple. Most of all the war room. Even its digital readouts were designed to look like ancient archways. Glittering images lost to the digital past of the illusion.

Mido Khan was standing by one of its great arching windows facing the Peninsula Del Arigo. The dry, jutting rock cliff overlooking one of Meridian's many barren ‘oceans’ that had been picked clean of inert crystalline deposits. The fuel source of the galaxy.

He was a tall, lean man, but he looked like he could more than handle himself in a fight. Most Ghosts were like me. Lean. A lot of them were short.

Hunters were a bit bigger but for the most part, Ghost Protocol was all about leaving as small an imprint as possible. Right down to the silhouette we casted. Mido was a rarity among us. He was tall. Nearing six feet.

Then the next form entered the war room.

One that made my amber eyes widen.

One that made my chest flutter.

Terror and attraction in the same breath.

I hated it.

“That’s Dvar…” I almost whispered. “Wait… what year is it on Thread?” I asked, swiping over to the calendar. “Holy shit… five years.”

“That’s right. In five years it will be time to renegotiate The Six Gate Treaty.”

I nodded at no one.

“Okay. This shit’s gettin’ real thick real quick… Why’s it starting to feel like the only person not in control of my life is me?”