The Liberation Paradox

Time to Get a New One

Mr. Daniau

14:05

Eddie was tired. He was probably too tired to be flying a plane, but here he was, flying amidst the tall buildings of Harvest Junction's skyline. He'd been up all night, but it couldn't be helped.

He'd needed to get assurances from the other bosses of the Impulse Syndicate that none of them were involved in the attack on his servers. He'd gotten assurances from all the other bosses that their organizations weren't involved and he'd gotten official syndicate sanctioning to take whatever action was necessary when he found out who was behind the attack. If it turned out to be one of the other bosses, he would go to war. He very much hoped it was one of them. He would wipe that boss off the map and then take over their organization and their territory.

He'd also warned them to check the security on their servers, but they had mostly blown off his suggestion. Their arrogance blinded them to their own vulnerability. They were stupid.

One day, Eddie would unite the entire Syndicate under his own control. He would push out the other bosses and consolidate their holdings and influence under his control. One day, Eddie Daniau would run Harvest Junction from the 17th floor of the Paradox Hotel. But that day was definitely not today. Today was a huge setback. Admitting the breach in his security had made him look weak in their eyes and had cost him some influence. He would recover, but even now, Eddie's sleep-deprived mind was already seeking ways to turn this setback to his advantage. Through their arrogance, their sense of invulnerability, the other five bosses of the Impulse Syndicate had all unwittingly showed him some of their weakness.

In the dusky, ever-reddish, light of Distortion's sun, Eddie saw the rooftop landing platform of the Paradox come into view as he banked the Fulmine around the glittering structure of a massive skyscraper. His building seemed so small from this altitude, but he knew that one day very soon it would be one of the most significant buildings on all of Distortion.

He pulled the Fulmine's main engines back to idle and let the airspeed begin to bleed off. The little sportsplane's stick began to feel mushy in his hand. Eddie reached down, grabbed the collective beside his seat, and lifted it up slightly. This brought the plane's three vertical thrusters online only slightly too late. The stick shaker engaged briefly as the wings stalled. The plane lost lift for half a second before the vertical thrusters spun up to speed. He never lost control, but it was sloppy flying. He was tired. He needed sleep.

Now that the plane was in vertical flight, the control stick between his knees functioned as a cyclic, controlling the plane's horizontal direction of flight. Eddie used the collective lever beside his seat to control the amount of thrust produced by the vertical thrusters, and by extension, the plane's altitude. He put the sleek, little plane into a controlled descent towards the landing platform on the Paradox's rooftop and lowered the landing gear. Just over a minute later, Eddie set the plane down roughly on the landing platform. It was an embarrassing landing, but his MxBot wouldn't complain. Eddie was extremely tired, but now he was home. He could sleep soon.

He shut down the main engines and the vertical thrusters and then climbed out of the cockpit. MxBot climbed out of its storage socket at the edge of the landing platform and walked over on its six mechanical limbs to the parked plane. At the plane, the bot shifted its weight onto its four aft limbs and reconfigured its two front appendages to serve as something approximating hands. As the bot got to work tying the plane down and refueling it, Eddie walked down the roof access stairs into his hotel. First, he went to Oswin Miles's office down on the 16th floor to get an update on how things were going.

"Not much has changed while you been gone, sir," Miles said. He then told Eddie about the nerds speeding up the decryptors and having to call in one of the local union electricians from an affiliated electrician service.