Pax Galactica - A Space Opera

Chapter 3 - An Interesting Prospect

One standard year later...

Decker sat in a plain white room, so white that is was difficult to tell the ceiling from the floor. The only objects in the room was a table and two moderately comfortable chairs. Decker sat in one of them, the other was empty.

Decker had been in the room all morning being aggressively questioned by two peacekeeper drones. Then they left. For the next standard hour or so Decker had to entertain himself with next to zero stimulus.

Finally the silence was broken by the opening of the door. The outline seemed to appear out of nowhere when it was opened, and once it was fully closed it all but disappeared into the pure white wall.

The woman who walked in was old. Older than anyone would let themselves age on purpose. She looked like one of those actors from pre-immortality period dramas. She wore a conservative black suit. Pinned to her breast was a matte-black dragon insignia. It looked like it was made of computronium or something. Maybe a deathward?

The woman pulled out the other chair, took a seat, and then spent a moment adjusting the position of the chair. Only then did she acknowledge Decker.

"Mr. Decker," she said, with the casual condescension of a person used to being in a position of high status, "I am led to understand you overcame a peace bond. That is no small feat. It might interest you to know that you're only the second person in the history of this ring to actually pull that off."

"You're too kind," said Decker, waving his hand with false modesty.

"The peacekeepers don't know what to do with you," continued the woman. "The peace bond is one of their strongest sanctions."

"What can I say? No cage can hold me," said Decker.

"You're not cute, Mr. Decker," said the woman.

Decker pushed his chair back onto its back legs. In his estimation he was adorable.

"So, I guess since the 'keepers don't know what to do with me you're the person who does?" Decker asked.

"I'm the person who can get you out of here, Mr. Decker. I can say a word and you can walk out of this building."

"I would appreciate that."

"If you want me to help you first you're going to have to do something for me."

"What's that?" asked Decker, suddenly suspicious.

"Tell me how you defeated the peace bond," said the woman.

Decker laughed.

"That's a fair deal. It's a pretty great story. I'm going to need practice for when I tell it at parties for the rest of my life."

"Please make sure to begin at the beginning," said the woman.

"In that case, do you know the story of how I got the peace bond in the first place?"

"Pretend I know nothing, Mr. Decker."

"Okay, right, so the guy I beat up is a Deathracer called Thane Fulvous. Back during the Deathrace Ring Chalice last year he sabotaged my racer so after the race I punched him at a party. Everyone freaked out and the 'keepers gave me a peace bond against Thane."

"I heard about that. You had to finish the race on a blown hoverpod. The feeds said it was a mechanical error."

"Well they were wrong. It was Thane. So I punched him."

"Is that why you were expelled from the Deathrace League?"

"I thought you said you knew nothing," said Decker.

"I said you should pretend," said the woman. "I know everything."

"Whatever," said Decker. "That's not why I was expelled anyway. They kicked me out a few months later because they found out- allegedly- They allegedly found out that I was racing without a deathward."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I didn't. That hasn't been proven. My appeal is still pending," said Decker.

"Fine. Continue. You punched Thane Fulvous at the party..."

"In retrospect I should have chosen a better time and place but I otherwise stand by my decision."

"Once you were bound not to harm Thane Fulvous how did you get past that prohibition?"

"It's not actually all that hard," said Decker. "People act like a peace bond is run by some superintelligence that spends all its time just reading your every thought and monitoring for any hint you're going to hurt the person you're bound not to harm, but it's not even like that. It's some regular 1.2 peacekeeper drone, who has to monitor about three people at a time. And legally all they can do is scan your surface thoughts for violent impulses against the bondee. That's it. They can't look at anything else."

"So, for example," Decker continued, "if your violent thoughts are directed towards the 'keeper instead of the bondee they're not going to sense that until it's too late."

"That would certainly explain the destroyed peacekeeper drone," said the woman.

"It's fine though, right?" asked Decker. "They're all being constantly backed up."

"It's already been slotted into a new body."

"So there you go. Once the 'keeper was out of the way there was no one to read my thoughts and use force fields to stop me from beating up Thane. So I went and found Thane and I beat him up. Then the 'keepers brought me here."

"Why did you go to all that trouble just to give Thane Fulvous a bloody nose?"

"First of all, I broke his nose. Second of all, he a sprellhead bedswerving cheater who almost got me killed at least year's Ring Chalice. I still needed to finish the beating I started giving him for that. Third of all he has been giving me a hard time about the peace bond ever since I got it. He was awful before but the peace bond just made him insufferable. We run in the same circles and he was at every race. Every party. Following me around. Talking sprell like he was untouchable. Well I showed him who's untouchable."

"You're trying to say he provoked you?"

"That's exactly what he did, with malice aforethought. But only because he maliciously aforethought I couldn't do anything about it. So he's a coward as well as a cheater and a bedswerver."

"I think I understand. How did you find the peacekeeper drone?"

"A girl has to have some secrets," said Decker.

"If you want my help you'll answer the question," said the woman, with a hint of menace.

"I deliberately thought violent thoughts around Thane. When the drone read my thoughts and blocked me with a force field I traced the origin point back to the drone and kept tabs on it from there."

"Clever. Thank you, Mr. Decker, you have given me everything I need. You're free to go."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Who are you?"

"I think, Mr. Decker," said the woman, rising with some difficulty, "in time you will come to know that."

"Spooky," said Decker, dismissively. He followed the woman out the door of the room.

Several peacekeeper drones turned to face Decker as he walked out. They resembled floating, rounded old-timey video cameras.

"Better luck next time everyone," said Decker as he walked past them and pointed jovially. "Good effort though. Third time's the charm. I'm sure you'll be able t prevent me from beating him up a three times. Fingers crossed at least."

The AIs bristled at the comments, but did not make any move to stop him. Decker walked through the door of the precinct office and back out into the streets.