Chapter Forty-Four (Ullmook) (1/2)
Ullmo'ok was a bad Lanaktallan. His mother and father had always told him so. He was uninterested in money, he was uninterested in power, he had little to no interest in politics, and he didn't care one way or another for rules. The last would have been understandable if it involved the first three in any way, but Ullmo'ok's idea of a fun evening was getting together with some friends, all of the them from the UnCivilized species or the neo-sapients, hacking a car's computer, and roaring around the city in it.
The final straw had come when Ullmo'ok had gotten high on stim-grass, stripped naked, painted himself red with the crowd suppression paintgun, stolen a LawSec cruiser and driven it on a two hour chase that had culminated in Ullmo'ok deliberately crashing the armored vehicle into the river and standing on top of it as it sank, rearing up to show his genitals to the TriVid cameras, his jowls full of stimgrass. He'd had a gun in each hand, taken from the LawSec cruiser, and kept shooting potshots at the cameras until a LawSec sniper had tagged him with a stunner rifle. The sniper had been forced to shoot the young Lanaktallan three times to drop him.
It was put up to the jowls full of stimgrass.
His parents had been horrified. His friends had found it hilarious. LawSec had taken the bribe and looked the other way.
Ullmo'ok had been entertained. He'd almost felt something, standing on the roof the sinking LawSec vehicle. He'd come so close but the stunner had hit him. He'd felt something then, not the ravening nerve pain that the second shot brought, not the darkness that the third shot had dropped onto him, but he'd felt something he'd never felt before.
He had been sent to where his father's uncle was in charge of resource collection in a system in the Unified Outer Systems. His great-uncle was less than impressed that Ullmo'ok had gotten intoxicated during the flight and had fallen off the gangplank and onto the spaceport tarmac, laughing like a pair of bagpipes in a paint shaker, a bottle of alk-brew in each hand and a stimstick in his mouth.
His great-uncle had tried to put him in the offices, doing busy work and just moving files and papers around down in the mail room.
Ullmo'ok had convinced the neo-sapients who worked in the mail room to fight one another in the ”Pit of Fists Swinging” for the reward of time off, vacation days, and raises.
His great-uncle moved him to the warehouse, where Ullmo'ok had put together a racing rally with the wheeled ground effect forklifts with ”prizes” for the winners. After that was stopped by his great-uncle he arranged a 'hover smash' where workers drove old hoverlifts and crashed into one another with the winners getting prizes. Soon every hoverlift was covered in sheet metal and spikes and mesh. Ullmo'ok himself took part in them until finally he broke one of his arms when he was t-boned by another lift. Ullmo'ok's uncle sighed and sent the young Lanaktallan out to one of the mines as soon as he healed.
Ullmo'ok himself had almost felt something when the bones in his arm had snapped and he'd whipped his hoverlift around to slam the heavy weighted end into the worker's side. He'd almost felt something when his uncle had ordered his arm set without painkillers. He'd knocked out the Umtervian medic with one hit when he'd reacted to the pain and felt a little bit of something that he had been chasing.
At the mines, Ullmo'ok's uncle had despaired. Ullmo'ok had gotten bored with paperwork and supervision the first week and had bribed one of the workers to teach him to use a cargo-mech to load the raw ore into the transports. That had led to ”Mech Bash” competitions where mechs smashed against each other, slamming each other with graspers or lifters, while an audience cheered. Within a month the cargo-mechs were covered in metal and spikes and painted garish colors.
A few workers were killed in the competitions, but Mech-Bash went on, with Ullmo'ok participating to the roar of the crowd.
Strangely, productivity was up. Incidents between the workers and CorpSec were down. Alcohol and drug use were up, black market trading of ration chips and CorpStore script was up, fighting was up, but the amount of lethal stabbings, shootings, beatings, and ambushes went down.
Ullmo'ok's uncle just swept all the Mech-Bash incidents under the rug. He purchased junk mechs from the other Corporate divisions, thinking maybe having older, battered, less maintained cargo-mechs would stop the Mech-Bash and having massive redundancy would replace the cargo-mechs when they failed.
Instead Ullmo'ok's band started stripping parts from the junk-mechs and adding them to the cargo mechs.
Then CorpSec reported that the junkyard where the old defunct corporate crowd control and law enforcement vehicles had been robbed.
Ullmo'ok's uncle knew exactly who had robbed it, but at least this time there was no evidence. The older Lanaktallan had boarded his executive hoverlimo and gone out to the mine, chewing narco-cud the whole way to ease his anxiety.
He could see two cargo-mechs battering each other as his hover-limo came in for a landing. As he watched in horror one of them opened up with a chain-gun that was the same type as the heavy crowd control vehicles from CorpSec used.
He could hear the roar of the crowd even through his armored limo's windows.
When he landed a small Puntimat neo-sapient lizard asked the older Lanaktallan if he wanted to purchase something called 'box seats' or if he wanted refreshments or to meet some of the 'Mech Slammers” personally.
The Uncle, who went by the name of Lo'omo'nan, harrumphed and demanded to see his nephew. Lo'omo'nan found himself escorted by two young female Lanaktallan of lower caste, secretaries for the Corporation's mining facility, dressed scandalously so much of their udders showed. Instead of taking him directly to see his nephew Lo'omo'nan was taken to a seat protected by pressor beams and armaglass.
”Where, harrumph, is my nephew?” Lo'omo'nan asked, accepting the offer of a narcobrew.
One of the Lanaktallan females pointed out at the dirt field where a cargo-mech had just walked out. The cargo mech was covered in crude metal armor, garishly painted, with chain guns, a giant sawblade for a hand, and a crudely fashioned metal spiked fist replacing one of the graspers.
”He is right there, Most High Guest,” the Lanaktallan female informed the older male.
As Lo'omo'nan watched the cargo-mech raised all four arms, slamming the forearms together as the crowd roared.
The entire crowd roared so fiercely that Lo'omo'nan's tendril curled and his crests inflated defensively.
The battle was fierce and made Lo'omo'nan cringe and feel nauseous. His grand-nephew showed no hesitation, like a proper civilized being would, and instead charged his opponent and met him blow for blow. The battle ended when the other cargo-mech landed on its back with a crash and the crowd roared. Lo'omo'nan thought it strange that his nephew reached down one mechanical hand to help his opponent to their feet and raised the mech's hand with his own, to the roar of the crowd.
One of his female hanger-ons asked Lo'omo'nan if he wanted a Tri-Vid or VR chip of the battle as a souviner.
Only 24 Corpscript.
Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe that the crowd had been chanting his family name at top volume. He himself avoided crowds, which all stared and muttered as his limo moved through. He saw his nephew pushing through the crowd, slapping extended hands with his four hands, cursing loudly, and swigging narco-brew handed to him. His nephew, Ullmo'ok, was sweaty, wearing only a cooling vest and a bandage over one of his side eyes, not even a sash to proclaim who he was and what his standing was. Lo'omo'nan watched, horrified, as one of the tall neosapient mammals, a two legged Hikken, poured narcobrew on her fur covered mammary glands and his nephew pressed his sweaty face between them, shook his head, and made blubbering sounds.
The crowd around his nephew roared with glee.
Another worker being, another neosapient, stripped off her shirt, revealing scandalous flesh and fur, handing her shirt to Lo'omo'nan's nephew. Ullmo'ok wiped his face and chest and handed it back, the neo-sapient clutching it tight to her upper body, her eyes bright as she watched Lo'omo'nan's nephew swagger between a doorway.
Lo'omo'nan was led to his nephew's ”office”, taking a winding way. They moved through the maintenance bay where Lo'omo'nan saw maintenance techs working on the crudely armored and armed mechs. Past makeshift lounges and bars where Lo'omo'nan saw wealthy executives of the Corporation yelling, shaking fists, and shouting bets as the narcobrew flowed and the stimcud was chewed. Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing.
He knew that Lanaktallan, a senior executive with the Corporation, from distinguished family lineage, who's family was wealthy and powerful even by Unified Core Systems standards. The SEO was at the bar, shouting at the screen where two cargo-mechs brawled, a narcobrew in each hand of his four hands, while two small lemurian Welkret females combed the Lanaktallan's fur and rubbed his skin while sitting on his back. As Lo'omo'nan watched, the wealthy and powerful being turned at the waist to face the two on his back. The closer one took a deep drag off a stimstick held by the other one, put her hands on either side of the Lanaktallan's jowls, and blew the smoke directly into his nostrils.
Lo'omo'nan hurriedly clopped past that, closing his side and rear eyes so he didn't have to see such disgusting deviance carried on by members of his own species.
Finally he reached his nephew, who was sitting on a broken couch, a stimstick in his mouth, a Welkret female with a medikit tending to his bruises and small cuts on his hide. The younger Lanaktallan had his eyes closed, his hands at his sides, and Lo'omo'nan was horrified to see that his nephew was allowing two comely young Lanaktallan females manually stimulate him sexually as he relaxed and the Welkret tended to his wounds while loud music, prohibited by the Corporation, blared from speakers stacked in the corners.
”Nephew!” the elder Lanaktallan harrumphed, hoping the sound of his voice would put a stop to this degeneracy and debasement.
He was shocked and appalled that the two females didn't even look up, instead just leaned over his nephews back to entwine their jowl tendrils, their hands still busy. The Welkret ran the auto-suturer down a cut on his nephews flank. Everyone else cheered as an arm was torn free from a cargo-mech as the other yanked the arm straight and ravaged the joint with the chaingun.
”I perfected that move, you know, uncle,” His nephew said, pointing at the screen with a half-empty narcobrew.
Lo'omo'nan yanked his attention from the huge display, normally used by executives to display data, and looked at his nephew, who was patting the rumps of the two females and shooing them away.
”Just what do you think you're doing?” Lo'omo'nan demanded of his nephew.
”Getting 'patched up' to use a phrase, Uncle,” Ullmo'ok answered, taking a swig from his narcobrew. ”My opponent was skilled and determined. I was proud to defeat him, Most Honored Uncle.”
”Honored? Honored? You destroy the honor of our line, of our name, by brawling with these... these... neo-species,” Lo'omo'nan sputtered, his tendrils tight with outrage.
”If you say so,” Ullmo'ok said. He twitched slightly and the Welkret snapped at him to stay still so she could scrape the emergency coagulate off his skin and suture the wound.
”Your workers cause damage to company property, costing the mine credits, undoubtedly putting this whole facility into the red! If you don't care about our honor, what about our stockholders?” Lo'omo'nan barked as best he could, inflating his crests to establish dominance over his nephew.
His nephew ignored the crests, taking another swig. ”Is it money you're worried about, uncle?” The younger Lanaktallan said slowly. He signified disappointment and resignation then made a tossing motion toward the older male. ”View that if all you worry about is the profits.”
Lo'omo'nan snorted and opened the datafile. It was a spreadsheet of company costs and expenses balanced against income, with man hours, and expenses and income broken down.
Ullmo'ok watched his uncle digest the data that seemed so important to the older Lanaktallan but was infinitely uninteresting to Ullmo'ok himself.
Anyone can turn a neo-sapient upside down and shake the credit chits from his pockets, Ullmo'ok thought to himself. Only the best can convince them to roar out his name is frenzied appreciation.
Lo'omo'nan couldn't believe what he was seeing. The entire facility was making more profit in a single planetary cycle than it ever had in its entire existence. Membership fees, drinks and narcotics, prostitution, viewing fees, entrance fees, income from TriVid and VR chips, GalNet broadcast on shady Netsites that were pay per view only, gambling, and more. The credits were pouring in, outstripping even the cost to black marketeers for weapons, armor, narcotics. Even outstripping worker payments, taxes, everything else. The books were then cooked, using the mining and refinery plant as cover. What the refinery actually made in profit could have been listed in the slush funds compared to what his nephew was bringing in from his illegal and immoral activities.
Even more startling was that Ullmo'ok had reported every drip and drop of income to the Unified Taxation Office and paid the taxes.
Ullmo'ok watched his uncle's tendrils tremble in pleasure and gave the equivalent of a sigh of envy. His uncle looked almost orgasmic, a feeling that Ullmo'ok chased but could only taste the bare edges of.
Only in the cockpit of his cargo-mech.
”You did all this?” Lo'omo'nan asked, surprised his nephew even understood how to do multi-column accounting.
Ullmo'ok snorted in amusement. ”Hardly, uncle. I pay employees to do it and pay them well.”
”What if one of the neo-sapients tries to cheat you or rob you?” Lo'omo'nan asked, sure his nephew didn't understand how to keep the neo-sapients in line.
”The first one that did I had chained to the fist of my cargo-mech and pasted him against the chest armor of my opponent with a few punches,” Ullmo'ok said matter of factly, as if he wasn't talking about the brutal killing of another sentient being. Lo'omo'nan stared at his nephew in horror as the younger one gave the equivalent of a shrug. ”It's one of the most downloaded and paid for clips. My opponent painted over the dark blue of the dried blood with bright blue paint to remind everyone of that battle. Since then, my employees only steal about 2%, which I'm willing to overlook.”
Lo'omo'nan just stared in horror. Without another word he turned around and galloped back to his limo, returning to the capital with a promise to himself that as long as his nephew kept bringing in record profits the maniacal Lanaktallan could just stay at the remote facility.
---------------------
Ullmo'ok looked at the being. Called a 'human' apparently. A bipedal primate with the closely set forward facing eyes of a predator, thickly muscles, with hair only on its head and around its mouth, with five fingers instead of four. It was dressed in clothing covered with holograms that showed cartoon female humans chasing each other and hitting one another with blunt object. It made Ullmo'ok inflate his crests with amusement.