Fool's Gold: Carson Lyle's War - Part One (6 page)

This time Two actually laughed. "Is that what you're going with? You don't think the Grey Corporation has the resources to pay off a customs inspector? We allowed it to pass. Shorty, as you call him, was our willing and highly paid mule."

"It's plain and simple," One said. "We have you dead to rights for these charges. All we have to do is file them. Your ship is already impounded. It's as good as gone."

That got Lyle angry. Mad Jack would come back from the grave to kick his ass if he knew he’d lost the ship, especially to Authority impound.

"I've got rights," Lyle said. It sounded utterly ridiculous to himself when he said it. Trying to invoke his rights as granted by an Authority that he had zero respect for.
Pathetic.

"Now," One said, "You do have a recourse. As I said before, you can help us."

Lyle resumed laughing.

"Do you have any idea why Grey Corporation would even bother acquiring such a substantial load of mech parts under the table? Of everything they do, their military contracts are in other areas. So why?"

"Fine. Why?"

"Who would want Mech parts?"

Lyle sighed. "A Mech unit."

"The units based here wouldn’t need to buy stolen parts, would they?"

Lyle shrugged. “The Authority doesn’t bother providing sufficient basic needs for most of the people out here, so failing to supply its own military isn’t too much of a stretch.”

Neither agent reacted to the comment

Lyle thought for a moment. Where was this leading?
Other
Mech units...

“The rogues in the Outer Rim,” Lyle said, finally.

"More specifically, the 501st Mech Battalion."

Lyle went wide-eyed. He knew the 501st to be the largest of the rogue Mech Corps units that defected at the start of the war. They started a wave of defections of most of the other smaller units that were based in the Outer Rim, effectively splitting the Mech Corps in two. It made a war over a difference in principles, extremely personal for those fighting it. Any Mech Corps driver with a confirmed kill on a rogue mech would get a bonus. Command called it a ‘Traitors Bounty’.

The force that defected was sizable, but lacked the supply infrastructure and support from Earth and it was believed the traitors would be mopped up quickly. That wasn't the case. The Authority Mech Corps kept going after them in the asteroid territory and they were taking heavy losses with each engagement. This cycle of attack and loss went on for three standard years. But with reinforcements arriving from Earth, time was on the Authority’s side.

Then the rogues launched a daring raid on the Earth gate. They stole the jump space interface control fuse, disabling the gate. During the battle, the getaway ship carrying the fuse was destroyed. The fuse for a deep space, interstellar gate is unique. No replacement was available or could be manufactured. Without it, there was no gate. No reinforcements from Earth. No supplies to make up for the loss of raw material the inner worlds used to get from the Outer Rim colonies. After that, the two military forces were on much more equal footing.

It wasn’t long after that a cease fire was declared and a treaty signed granting independence to the break away colonies. But the ripple affect of not having support from Earth, and very limited trade for raw industrial materials from the Outer Rim for the last nine years had crippled the economy within Authority territory and not done anything to mend fences between the two populations. Popular opinion would have the war start again tomorrow if it meant getting the Earth gate back online.

“They truly are traitors of the worst kind,” Two said. “The very act of trying to deliver illegal cargo meant for their hands constitutes a charge of treason on top of everything else.”

"If you do this for us, you have the opportunity to bring closure to those that lost friends and loved ones in that attack,” said One.

Hearing the story again was torture for Lyle. He did his best to remain calm, but he couldn’t hold it all in. A painful tear slowly ran down his cheek.
Sarah…

“You lost someone too,” One said.

Lyle nodded slowly. It was almost too painful to think about. He wasn’t there to protect Sarah. He should have been, but he wasn’t. He was in so much inner turmoil, he almost lost sight of the fact that he wasn’t there to protect her
because
of the Authority…that the attack happened
because
of the Authority.

Lyle felt his face contorting into an angry grimace.

“What do you think about that?” Said One.

“I think…you may know more than you let on,” Lyle said, evenly, without looking at them directly.

Then Two asked suddenly, “Have you ever been to Farpoint?”

Lyle’s face was stone cold. He turned to Agent Two and stared for several long moments. There was a perceptible increase in tension in the air.

“No,” he said, turning away and looking straight ahead again. “Why?”

Two stepped closer, beside Lyle, and leaned down next to him face to face. Lyle continued to look straight ahead.

“I think,” he said, very slowly and deliberately, “that you may be one of the few people that’s done something worse than
treason.”

Chapter 10

"There are…irregularities…in your file. Very subtle. Almost imperceptible except to possibly an A.I Inspector."

"Or someone like us," One added.

Lyle kept looking straight ahead. To his left, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Two still staring at him at face level.

"What about these little scars along your jawline?" Two said. "If we were to really look, would we find cosmetic reconstruction?"

Lyle grounded his teeth.

Agent Two smiled.

Lyle could almost feel the Agent's joy. He could only imagine what inhuman thoughts were happening behind that visor. Whether or not they really knew all about him, dredging up the memory of the attack was a dirty play. Everything he'd heard about these guys might have only scratched the surface of what they really were. But no one ever asked the question Carson Lyle was thinking at that moment about that Authority Agent.

Does he bleed?
At that moment Lyle wanted nothing more than to find out. All he needed was one good chance.

"If it is, it's good work. Couldn't have been cheap," Two said.

"So what's your point?"

Two stood up, slowly walking behind him, from the left to the right.

One said, "You’re obviously hiding something. You do this for us and there could be an Authority pardon for whatever it is you’ve done."

"You might be able to put the pieces of whatever pathetic life you had back together again," Two said. "…Or maybe even start a new pathetic life."

Lyle broke his stare at the wall behind Agent One and looked up to face Two, his eyes burning with hate.

Two smiled again. The grin seethed of both conceit and contempt. "Why do you visit Betty O'Malley before every run?"

Carson Lyle pounded the table with both hands, standing up, sending his chair tumbling on the floor behind him.

Both One and Two were unphased, except for Two's grin which grew just a little longer at the corner of his mouth.

Two continued, "She's getting a little long in the tooth. She'd want you to get an honest job instead of this freight hauling, you and your criminal brethren—"

Lyle lashed out, grabbing the Agent by the lapels of his suit and forcing him backward and slamming his back into the wall behind him. He pressed his forearm against Two's head and neck, It was then he discovered Two was a full ten centimeters taller than he was. But he used that difference to his advantage, pushing with his legs to force his arm into Two's throat hoping to crush the man's larynx.

“We'll see how
you
like breathing, motherfucker!!”

One remained seated calmly while Two's face contorted under the strain. He grunted and gasped for air slightly.

Lyle released him, took a half step back, squared his stance, draw his right hand back, into a tightly clenched fist and let loose. The blow struck Two squarely in the cheek and jaw. Lyle saw the man's head snap to the left. The visor went flying. Two slumped over but remained on his feet. Adrenalin coursed through Lyle's body. He was going to take out nine years of anger and hate and utter contempt for the Authority on an expensive piece of their property right then.

"You know Shit!" Lyle yelled, kicking Two in the chest. The agent's torso shot up, snapping his head upward. The back of the man's head crashed into the wall, then he slumped over again, still on his feet.

Lyle saw One still sitting and watching. He was so angry and focused on Two, it didn't even register that the Agent hadn't done anything to help his partner.

He turned back to the crumbled heap that leaned against the wall. "Us haulers keep this whole damn territory alive with the job we do!" He yelled, as he kneed Two in the face. Lyle stepped back and squared up to strike again. "And as for Betty O'Malley? You’re going to pay that right now—"

Agent One looked at his partner's visor in the corner. It was cracked. "Oh no, now you've done it," he said, barely sounding interested.

The statement made Lyle pause, for just a half second. "What—"

Before the word could even escape his lips, he suddenly felt a clamp snap around his neck. It happened so fast. He didn’t even see the agent’s arm move. Lyle struggled to bring air in, and his lungs burned more because of it. He couldn't even force the words 'fuck you' out of his throat. Spots formed in his vision. He struggled to get free, and it finally dawned on him that the clamp around his neck, that was choking the very life out of him, was the agent's hand. He'd never felt such a solid grip. It was almost mechanical.

Two stood to face him. Lyle's eyes went wide at what he saw. The man's hair was…moving. It slithered and swayed, like something out of Greek mythology. In a few moments, it had moved back into place perfectly.

Lyle grunted and struggled again, trying to kick Two in the knee caps, anything to get him to release his grip. He needed air!

He saw Two raise an eyebrow and, in that moment, his body seized and froze. Lyle’s grunts turned to panicked squeaks and wheezing. His eyes darted back and forth as he tried to grasp what was happening. It was like all of his muscles had cramped all at once. Pain, on top of the burning in his chest, lit his entire body on fire. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. Lyle felt the grip loosen slightly, but he still couldn't move.
Air!
His rapid breaths were restricted, but air was flowing. The pained scream that had been building up was finally released. It didn't help.

Two leaned in close. Lyle was baffled and almost horrified by what he saw. Gashes on the man's face, opened by fists, didn't bleed…and they appeared to be sewing themselves closed. No blood. No scars. And the eyes. They were different. There was no sign of a pupil or an iris, but they were moist and fleshy like normal eyes and had what looked like a pattern of circuitry but it...moved.

"What…the hell…are you?" Lyle said, forcing the words through his pain and fatigue.

Two didn't respond.

One stood up, finally, and walked over. Lyle's muscles were still locked in Two's grip.

"You help us. You get your life back," One said. "You don't. You disappear."

"There's another option," Two said.

One looked at his partner.

"We can just let you go."

Lyle grunted.

"Just throw you out in the street. Impounded ship. Revoked credentials. Frozen assets.
Someone
will find you. Maybe the Grey Corporation will come looking for their cargo? Maybe even the 501st? They'll have some very direct questions for you. What will you tell them?" Two said.

Lyle struggled to get the words past his clenched throat. "Wh…what…if I told them what you want…me…to do?"

"You could do that," Two said. "And whether or not they believed you, your corpse would be found in an alley somewhere." His tone was one of smug satisfaction.

One added, "You'd be dead and the rogues would continue on without answering for wiping out Wagner. Have you forgotten that?"

Two released his grip from Lyle's throat. He immediately dropped to the floor in a crumpled heap at Two's feet, coughing and sucking in deep gulps of air at the same time. Movement crept back into his muscles like a wave of needles washing from his extremities, inward. Lyle laid there for several long moments. He couldn't believe what he was thinking. What they were saying, as much as it sickened him, it
was
a chance. A chance at...something. A chance to not have to keep one eye over his shoulder everywhere he went. But he was Carson Lyle now, and he did have a good life. He helped people. He was fulfilled in that life.

But Sarah...

Chapter 11

The loss of his wife hit Carson Lyle harder than anything ever could. The first couple of years were the most brutal - trying to cope with the loss and trying to make a living as a hauler at the same time. There was more than one occasion, when he was most down on his luck, where he was a trigger pull away from being with her. He had his service sidearm with its last government issue round in the clip. It seemed fitting that since the Authority caused her death, an Authority-issued gun should finish the job with him.

Laying on the floor with the agents standing over him, Lyle found himself remembering a time when he'd bottomed out and came closest to reuniting with Sarah. It was shortly after he'd met Mad Jack and Betty. He'd only been hauling for a year or so, at the time. Knew everything and still wet behind the ears. Jack had undercut him for a job that was agreed to under the table. It had Lyle on the edge of losing his small ship, everything.