Prologue - Saori Sato

The apartment was stark, cool, and antiseptic.  It was typical of someone of her standing in the professional and military life, medium sized – large for a single woman flirting with 45 years at about one-hundred-forty meters squared.  The walls were an “ultra” white.  Every apartment she’d lived in since her seeing her mother and father for the last time had come in white.  She’d been in enough apartments as a guest to understand that there were other colors that people painted their homes, but she supposed after a half dozen moves, every move into an apartment painted the same “ultra” white, that those colors were the choices of their owners. 

She stood behind a counter-high breakfast bar.  A coffee percolator sat on the counter of the wall kitchen behind her and gurgled softly.  The device’s murmurs came with diminishing frequency as the last few milliliters of water were fed over the coffee, ground just so and it was the epicenter of an increasing area within the space that smelled distinctively of morning. 

A small holo-monitor glowed from its position on the wall across a small living space.  The East Osaka sun shone through a large panel window.  The bright morning light was half obscured by a floor-to-ceiling curtain that was half drawn over the sliding glass door and it lit the opposite wall of the living space, setting it ablaze with morning red. 

The volume was set low on the monitor.  A newsreader, a youngish man with neat, short black hair, parted on the left side and forced into compliance with what appeared to Saito to be machine oil looked to the camera in practiced form, making the viewer feel easily like he was personally delivering this story. 

“UNE News Osaka-Tokyo’s coverage of a recall campaign in the outer reaches of colonized space where citizens of Kessler, a colony in the 18-Scorpii district, aim to unseat as many as twelve sitting members of their District Parliament.”  A small photo of an arcology structure barely rising from a vast foundational complex appeared next to the news reader as he read.  “Political fallout for the Triumvirate in the Capital City of Delphi continued yesterday when Senior Governor Stefan Roarke abruptly resigned hours after a snap vote by his Sector Delegation.”  The image left and was replaced by a logo for UNE News : Delphi. 

“We now go live to our affiliates at UNE News Delphi where Elena Ward is sitting down with Governor Althea Veyra, now serving as Senior Governor of the 18-Scorpii district.  Also joining her is chair of the Finance & Infrastructure Committee of the District Parliament, Marcus Dhravan.  And finally, representing the Labor Union of Kessler is Commissioner Tomas Calder…”   

This was news from the fringe.  Political conflict wasn’t new, but most people agreed we’d grown past the sort of partisanship that tested political boundaries.  Saori’s education included more classical history than her contemporaries in the Navy.  It was never something she would admit to; being born into a family of politicians and entrepreneurs. Still, she remembered some of the lectures in her history classes.  There were few points in history where politics were graceful or orderly, but in what had been the United States, especially in the first half of the twenty-first century, it stopped being functional at all.  India turned elections into spectacle, and in the old United Kingdom, Rugby matches were calmer than Parliament. 

Saori turned from the holo, the bubbling from the percolator having stopped completely, and opened the small cabinet above the machine.  On the first of three shelves rested 6 small ceramic mugs, each perfectly aligned with the small handle pointing diagonally left and out.  She selected the one closest to her and nearest to the center of the cabinet, gently closing the door and placing the cup on the counter in front of her, the movement so deliberate there was still no sound in the kitchen nook other than the coffee machine.  She removed the urn from the heated platform, filling the mug with a rich black coffee that smelled slightly of graham crackers in top of the complex nutty aroma. 

From the holo a sharp snap erupted from the speakers, a crash, and three pops, all so quickly it could have happened in the same moment in time.  Saori stiffened but only for a beat, and then slowly turned towards the disruption.  A cry of surprise from the newsreader then a shocked gape, and stunned silence.  Saori watched, not with horror or even shock, but with curiosity as, off camera on the monitor, shouts could be heard. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, those are what we call warning shots and you will only get those.  Faces on the floor,” muffled as though through a barrier of some kind.  Maybe plastic, Saori mused.  Or glass? 

The sharp sound of shattering glass and forms could be seen to the right of the camera.  Glass then.  Three people, two men, one woman and all of them were carrying what looked like military assault pistols.  They were in casual civilian dress and-- was the woman wearing a skirt?  Saori caught sight of a small e-plate, an identity badge on her arm bearing the icon of a broadcast organization that operated in fringe-space. 

“Interesting,” she heard herself say out loud. 

She watched, unblinking, as a fourth figure appeared, for a moment looming over the newsreader for a moment, then sat next to him where a co-anchor might. 

He was a handsome man, devastatingly so.  Saori had never found time for a family, but she made time for the periodic night to satisfy that urge for human connection, and this one could easily have been on the list.  He thoughts paused on this for a moment, considering the absurdity of her first instinct wanting to take this terrorist into her bed and then he spoke, his voice almost like a skilled musician drawing a bow over the strings of a perfectly tuned cello. 

Not sure I like this as an aside.

“Good evening, Jameson,” the handsome terrorist said to the still stunned newsreader.  “We have some breaking news, do we not?”  His speak was deliberate, calculated.  It was delivered as though he was ordering a drink and not as though he, and three of his compatriots had just violently commandeered a broadcast station. 

Jameson just nodded as the handsome man, square jaw and blue yes, waved at someone off camera.  A moment later four new faces appeared and were pushed to stand behind the news desk. 

Saori didn’t recognize them, but they were certainly not with the assailants.  Two men, two women.  All of them were probably in their late thirties or early forties.  The first, a woman, maybe 35, blonde hair coifed loosely just above the nape of her neck, brown eyes with the smallest of wrinkles only barely starting to show at the corners, and what looked like a minimalist natural makeup, wore a light grey pantsuit with a blue dress shirt and a grey tie.  Standing next to her a man with the only a few gray hairs at his dark brown temples and neatly parted hair, wore a white dress shirt and a red tie.  He had a set of heavy framed glasses that sat halfway down his nose.  Next to him a women wore what looked like some kind of checked pantsuit with a maroon dress shirt and a gold tie.  Flashy and stylish.  That one was almost certainly a politician.  Her hair a natural orange, and she could see just the slightest color on her lips. Finally, next to her a man who wore a white suit with a pink dress shirt, no tie, and two buttons opened to show a flash of gold tastefully adorning his neck.  They were all dressed to be on television, Saori realized as she watched.  She was detached.  She knew this music. 

“We would love it, if you introduced your guests for this evening,” Mister Handsome said, gesturing genially to the four standing behind them. 

Jameson cleared his throat.  It was a forced, and quiet sound. “Uhm…” his voice faded into a croak as he forced another sound through his throat that wasn’t quite a cough. 

Handsome smiled.  Saori was pretty sure he actually meant it.  This was a man that understood violence and how to employ it.  This man was dangerous.  It wasn’t the sort of danger you saw at the pub on a Saturday night.  A man who postured and ended up quiet as a church mouse when the constabulary appeared.  No, this man exuded threat.  He was a shark.  The lion.  The tiger stalking from the bushes.  This man was a predator.  He didn’t need to announce this.  Everyone knew.  This was the man you’d cross the corridor to avoid. 

Potentially breaks POV filter and seems a little more omniscient.  Needs adjustment so that it’s Saroi’s read. 

“Mara—” a cough, “Mara Kestrin, Elias—” 

“What does Ms Kestrin do, Jameson?”  Handsome was engaged, and interested.  He was probably the center of attention at dinner parties. 

“Uh—” another cough, “She is the Director at the Office of Labor and Industry.”  He managed to get it all out in a quick burst of words.  Handsome nodded encouragingly.  “And… Elias Vorrin.  Uh, he’s the Chair of the Subcommittee on Infrastructure & Transportation.” 

Handsome nodded again. 

Jameson glanced at who was next.  “Uh, Dr. Illyana Sorev.  Uh, she’s the Director of the Office of Health and Civil Service and,” he raised a now trembling hand towards the last man, “Tomas Revek.  Deputy Chair of the Committee on Colonial and Inter-District Affairs” 

Handsome’s gaze seemed to linger a bit on Mister Revek and Mister Revek seemed, at least to Saori, to squirm from it.  “Thank you, Jameson.  Glorious work.  I, on a personal note, love to see you every night.  You are a comfort to all of us.  A testament to what humanity should do when it comes to the media and information.” 

“Interesting…” Saori heard herself again.  That wasn’t for Jameson.  That was for us.  This is part of the message. 

Handsome stood up and moved his chair to the side.  It was deliberate.  Not slow, not fast.  He was getting up from the table after paying the server.  He then turned to Jameson.  “You may go now, Jameson.” 

Jameson, still sitting looked up at Handsome, confused, terrified, frozen. 

Handsome’s face changed.  It was barely perceptible, but might as well have been a completely different face.  It was now menace.  As though, that’s what it was made to be. 

“Get out, Jameson.”  Handsome said, as he took hold of the chair Jameson was sitting in.  Jameson somehow found the motivation to move and like a gust of wind was gone from the frame. 

Saori glanced at a small clock against the wall opposite the sliding door.  It had been two minutes.  That’s a long time.  Strange that they were still broadcasting.  Everything that Handsome had to say from here out would have been planned as “Extra”.  It was a bonus.  They knew how this works, the Central Broadcast Authority would be shutting the feeds down any second now. 

“This has gone on long enough,” Handsome started.  “We recognize the value of the United Nations of Earth.  We appreciate what a strong and just government brings to Earth and see that without the work of those that framed this way of life, we’d probably have been lost as a species.  A failed civilization on a dead planet in a lonely arm of one of an infinite number of galaxies.” 

He was smart.  Saori understood this.  This isn’t some dirt-farmer separatist cell.  Handsome was core-born.  Probably at some point UNE Educated.  He struck her like a professor.  A professor with teeth, but he had that bearing. 

“It’s time for the UNE to change.  To loosen it’s grip.  What works in the core of Humanity does not work on the fringes.  It’s time—” 

The monitor cut out with an almost violent zap and was replaced with the seal of the CBA.  She looked at the clock.  He managed thirty-eight seconds before they cut him off.  That’s a long time. 

She just stood in her kitchen nook.  Directly in front of her, the only splash of color in the apartment sat a small Japanese Flowering Quince.  It was meticulously cared for, rigidly pruned, and blossoms vivid against the stark white of everything around her.  She regarded it quietly and sipped her coffee. 

On her belt her ComTab buzzed.  Three short buzzes in rapid succession and then quiet. 

She wasn’t surprised.  She’s not the only Operator with the kind of specialization they might be looking for if an armed group takes control of a small broadcast station on the edge of space. 

She was probably the best though.