Service's Code - Novel 01

By Emanuela Locatelli

The goal is simple: don't die.

Survive until you gain all the points that will allow you to return to your world as a free man.

That's how IDSC uses us in your world. Convicts like us capture our own refugees for the Confederation, so we won't be discovered.

Every refugee recovered is a point for us and, eventually, instead of a dining set, the Confederation gives us back our freedom in our world.

They call us Allies because cheap manual labor doesn't sound so good.

And while I am here, capturing my people to be free again, I get the most tempting offer of my life: working with the ultimate Ally.

How could I say no?

To all this, add a crazy psycho fighting against an Ally who looks more like a pit bull on drugs, a frustrated bartender, and me: a seventeen-year-old boy with thieving tendencies. Mix everything with explosions, shootings, magic and spells, and whip it all up with scenes of ordinary madness, irony and a fair share of bad words.

The result is an American style action movie and a fantasy movie headbutting each other.

But you can also call it Service's Code, it's fine anyway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Youcanprint
• Release date: Feb 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9788827816103

Book preview

Zen

Code N° 000 Prologue

Sempione Main Road 33. About 3 a.m. Normal cruising speed. I'm heading toward the next unloading point: Gallarate.

The rain's knocking loudly on bodywork and windows.

Spring's just started and the nights are already hot. The music can't completely overpower the rain's noise. Or is it hail?

A crack. I start and skid.

What has been thrown at me at a ridiculous speed is a human being. I already know for sure I didn't run over it, but it doesn't matter at all. The glass cracks anyway and the vitreous eye on the unknown face on my windscreen is looking at me, in a silent plea for help.

That's when I know.

I practically dive with the truck in the first pull-in I see and throw myself against the door, slamming it open, almost ignoring the handle. The rain is on me right away, drenching my clothes and hair. And he is there, somewhere in the dark. I look around me, frantically. A few cars pass by at high speed as I turn left and right, and he is there, I know, it's just a matter of where.

Where.

His slim figure, so different from mine and yet so very the same, a black spot in the dark of night. I can't see him, but I feel him on my skin.

He smiles, and then his breath is in my ear.

Have you been waiting for me?

I turn around quickly but he's not there. And he's not around anymore: his presence has faded. I stay there under the beating rain, the cars on the main road flashing past me and that man's blood slipping off the bodywork of my Renault, mixing with the rain as it drips on the asphalt.

I clench my fists and scream.

Code N° 001 System Failure

I've always been told that in the third dimension only upright people were recruited. Good people, people skilled enough to capture other people who would do anything in order not to come back here.

Okay, I also know that it's likely that those who pass on the other side don't come back here and, of course, most of them do not complete more than one or two missions. Nevertheless, the first thing I felt when I was told that I was assigned to the third dimension, was pride. At the age of sixteen I was already positioned in the Northern Area, can you believe it?

I'm cool.

Okay, my mother didn't take it this well, but luckily – for her – she didn't have much time to see me grow up.

And luckily – for me – she didn't manage to lay a hand on me after I was caught.

The trip to Akrem, better known as the Southern Area, was pretty much like the one a cow undergoes on its way to the slaughter house: a wooden box with four crooked wheels and two tiny windows with rusty bars.

My claustrophobia was very thankful for that.

Why didn't they just tie me behind the wagon?

The sealing cuffs on my wrists already blocked my magical powers, so what was the need to squish me up into that box?

During the trip I pondered on the reasons why I had been condemned to such a severe penalty; at the end of the day, it was just theft, and most of the stolen goods had already been recovered. The only one who died was a friend of mine (even if they didn't find the body and therefore they can't prove it) and I repeated over and over again that it was not my fault.

After all, I didn't steal from the Gods.

I understood everything during the trial.

That is to say right now.

The Lord Chamberlain's voice shouting all my faults at my face (since we are less than a foot away), chills my blood.

Probably, if I hadn’t been skilled enough to be shipped to the Northern Area, I would have been sentenced to death, and they would have organized a dance competition on my dead body.

****

It's in these moments that a good leader remains calm.

Mental clarity is everything.

You can't face a problem if you fear it, if your mind is clouded by the catastrophic consequences that this might entail.

No.

Mental clarity is the first step to solve a problem.

There were practically no chances that the Iantor could be subtracted, but 'practically no chances' is different than just 'no chances'. Panic, now, is the only thing that nobody can afford.

I calmly reassemble the pages of the botched report that I was presented with as a consequence of the above mentioned issue. In the meantime, my mind explores the various possibilities so as to avoid disaster. Reasons. Chances of success.

Losses.

There are always casualties in the missions that they give me. My job is not to avoid them. My job is to have as few losses as possible.

You have to be rational and cold minded enough to understand that if you want to save one hundred people, someone must be sacrificed. At least in my line of work.

Human losses are always expected.

After putting the fountain pen back in my leather bag, I set my attention on those attending the special meeting. While they still argue terrified about the consequences of this theft, I fold my hands and talk, bringing silence to the room.

I never need to raise my voice to be listened to.

They know that if I speak, I don't blabber: I provide the solution to their problems.

****

Six months later

Since I got here, I have understood three things very well.

I jump to the right, I throw myself on the ground and roll on my side until I can shield myself behind boundary wall of the public park. Shards of brick scatter on the ground close to my face. I reload my Glock and wait a couple of seconds.

The first thing is to never be out of ammo.

I take a deep breath and I jump to the left. I roll on the lawn, aim and shoot. I hit the target again, this time in his leg.

The second thing is that we are on our own.

The Confederation considers us like pawns to be used, soulless and easily replaceable. It treats us for what we are: scums of society.

He staggers. The multiple empty 'clicks' make me realize that I have won. I jump up on the wall and throw myself against the target, now wounded and unarmed.

The third thing is that I'm not a murderer.

I hit him with the butt of my gun and the guy I was fighting against falls to the ground, unconscious.

I lean down and handcuff him.

I sigh and I stand up again. I twist the wrist watch that I was provided with (that only looks like a watch) and call the cleanup crew.

I light a cigarette and look at the dark evening sky. The weather is still warm, it’s mid-September.

I patiently wait for them to arrive, to assess that my mission has been successful and for them to give me my damned points. Once this is done, my work can be considered finished and they will take care of hiding all the possible traces of struggle that I left in the surrounding area.

- I might say that this time it was an easy job, - I whisper to the dark sky.

Maybe there's a fourth thing I have understood.

I'm losing my mind. Honestly. Now it often happens that I talk to myself.

And when I talk to myself, it means that I'm tired of not having anyone to talk to.

Well, of course, I have made some friends, I'm an outgoing person, but I can't talk about who I am, where I come from, or what I do.

The friends I have here don't know who I am. They are 'cover' friends, people with whom you talk about the weather or the rise in prices... stuff like that.

Allies can't communicate with other Allies.

They deploy us in such a way that we hardly meet one another. The targets that the Confederation assigns us are always in different places and we rarely manage to cross paths.

Sometimes on the news I can guess that, close to where I was, there was a similar fight, but only because this is my job. Human beings of this world know nothing about us and continue to live peacefully thanks to the Confederacy’s clean up and coverage work.

****

- If things... had gone differently... -

He raises his head slightly, smiling in his weird way, insane and melancholic. He stares me in the eyes. His hands slowly slide from my neck down onto my chest.

And I can't move. I'm immobilized by something I can't see.

My SPAS 12 is lying on the ground near my feet, and I can't reach it. The air around me has thickened so that I can barely breathe, and my limbs don't respond to my commands.

There is a stabbing pain in my chest.

Gasping for breath, I lose my strength in a moment, my vision becomes blurry...

My mouth tastes like iron, and a warm stream of blood flows down my chin, from my lips. I can't scream.

I can barely see his hands folded on my chest, while they slowly move away. And I see the deep wound on my abdomen.

He suddenly frees me, and I instantly find myself on the ground, first sitting and then lying on my back, my hands clutching at my wound in a desperate attempt to repress an indescribable pain.

He looks at me. He looks at me on the ground, with those white eyes.

Then, slowly, he kneels by my side.

I feel my teeth gnash, gritting because of the pain. I'm lying on my side, my head down, in the dust of the unpaved parking lot.

As his hand brushes my hair from my forehead, I jerk my head up.

- DON'T TOUCH ME! - I scream with all the voice I have and with all the hatred that I feel.

He remains with his hand a few inches from my forehead, still looking at me.

- All this pains you as much as it pains me, - he murmurs.

- Screw you! - is my answer.

He shakes his head. - You do not understand me. You never have. - And then he disappears. And I remain here.

I remain in deep shit.

****

- Are you sure? Right here? - The guy seems to hesitate.

Yes, I want it right there, on my face, beneath my eye, is there something wrong with that? After all, once I go back to the other side the points I gained here will vanish, so what's the problem if I decide to have one put right below my right eye? It matches the other one below my left eye. I look so good with them.

Every now and then I think and speak as if I were gay, but I can assure you that I’m not.

- As you like, it's your face, - he tells me. And finally he puts the mark on my right cheek and gives me my point for this mission.

Points are nothing more than tattoos. You can't forge, delete or move them. You have them on your skin and they remain there, until you collect all of the points that you must earn. Once you have done that, they remove them and kick you back to the second dimension.

I heard that my Hero remained here, but I think he's the only one who asked for it, and I suppose they made an exception for him.

Who is my Hero?

He's the greatest Ally that the Confederation has ever had.

He had to earn a whole lot of points (I don’t know what he did to deserve them). He collected them all and then decided to live here.

He occasionally helps out the Confederation, but he's a free man now, and he's paid as a mercenary.

If you find yourself before the Eirdar and you are a refugee, you have no way out.

I ignore the vague confabulation of the Confederation agents behind me as they clean up the whole area. I bend down to look at my face reflected in the window of a C3 car parked nearby. The small black crescent tattoo stands out clearly under my right eye. It looks cool, I can assure you that.

This is my thirtieth point.

I have to collect eight hundred and twenty-three.

A record.

Especially if you think this is the sentence for a theft, when they make you collect five hundred points for murder.

Of course not just anybody would steal the Iantor and give it to the worst enemy of the Confederation. Only I could do it. And without even knowing it, just think how smart I am.

****

The tapping of my leather shoes on the basement concrete is deafening.

A clear tapping, marked, regular and lonely in the deep night.

Someone's breaks screech in the distance. Tapping of leather, and now the clinking of car keys in my hands.

In an instant I feel it and I whirl around.

The edge of my hand stops an inch from his throat, faster than the time my leather bag takes to touch the ground. He smiles, hands in pockets, dirty and battered. Dried blood on his face, a huge bruise on his forehead. He's biting the cigarette filter he's clenching between his teeth.

-How on earth did you manage to pass the surveillance, Eirdar? -

He grins.

-If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead, you know -

The instinct of any living thing would have been to grab him.

I step aside.

And he falls onto the door of the Mercedes parked behind me. He slides to the ground, and sits.

- Has anybody ever told you that you're an asshole? - That's the last thing he says before passing out.

I stare at him for a moment, then I grab the cell phone in my pocket, I open the faceplate with a mechanical gesture and make the default call for medical emergencies.

****

This point has been under my eye for at least half an hour, but the team is still forbidding me to leave. And I am sleepy.

I'm lying on the grass in this public park and I'm staring at the dark night sky.

The stars in this dimension are much more opaque. Veiled. Smog, or light pollution, I don't know.

One of the Confederation soldiers comes up to me. He's talking to the control unit via the headset and that microphone which barely sticks out of his right ear. He just nods at me and says, - Go to the Alpha section headquarters. Chief General Shelv wants to speak with you. -

That name makes my new points look even darker.

That's because I turn pale.

****

I can't move a single muscle. Actually, I can barely perceive my whole body, but I swear that as soon as I manage to find that thing that keeps on beeping, I'll smash it by throwing it down from the top floor of whatever building I'm in right now.

I don't even know where I am. I don't know if I'm really alive, but this is my first thought.

In addition to this loud beeping, I also hear some voices, and I decide not to open my eyes.

There are two people at my side.

Okay, I got it. I'm in a Confederacy hospital room.

In the end Shelv, that asshole, called a doctor and didn't let me die on the concrete floor of his garage.

He needs me.

I grin in my mind.

Judging by the voices and the topic, I'd say that these are two of his flunkies.

- His conditions are stable. He will make it this time too. -

This must be the boss of the two.

- He's the Eirdar, after all. I've lost count of how many times we’ve patched him up, you know? This time he must have run into a refugee with guts. -

The Probie.

- It wasn't a refugee. -

- Then who the hell could have beaten him up like this? -

Someone snorts.

- This is not information that I can disclose. - I hear something being put on the table by my side. - I'm getting a coffee, you keep an eye on him. -

Steps. Door. Steps. The door again.

He's gone.

For a while I don't hear anything.

Then comes the sound of a chair being dragged near me. Someone sits down.

That someone remains silent, but I perceive that he's nervous.

Noise near my ear, sheets of paper. A whispered curse.

- And so the little brother... -

I clench the sheet with my right hand. He is on my left and doesn't see it.

- Damn, he’s a loose cannon. -

He whispers. He counts, and reads the names of places and people.

Noises from the hallway. The noise of papers being shuffled and set back on the nightstand.

The door. Steps.

I try to sleep. For the moment.

****

He's sitting right in front of me.

I'm standing in front of him.

The desk divides us, but I would rather it was a 7" wall, possibly a mile away from me.

And in the other dimension.

He is Nakiri Shelv, Chief General of the Confederation. The best strategist existing on the planet.

My planet. The other one doesn't matter. He is the best. His name is legend, together with that of Tears Eirdar. They are only playing on two different fields. One in that of the brain, and the other in the physical field.

And I'm here in front of him ready to shit in my pants.

It's also been a quarter of an hour that I've been here, ready to shit in my pants in front of him. Obviously his manners don't match his strategy abilities in war, because he hasn’t even asked me to sit down.

As soon as they mentioned his name, all of my weariness disappeared, but my bones and muscles are starting to feel the fatigue. I know that, because of all this tension, when I’m finally able to relax, I won't be able to get up for a whole week.

I wait.

If Nakiri Shelv decides that I have to be shot down, I believe that it would take about two seconds, maybe only one, before he passes from theory to practice.

So I wait and I don't complain.

But I'm curious and I can't help looking around.

His office is huge. One could easily fit in here three or four of those studios that the Confederacy gives its Allies. The desk he is sitting at is made up of so much glass and metal that one could build a fairly big greenhouse out of it.

Everything is in perfect order. The few ornaments and even the papers on his desk and the pens in the pen holder are all in right angles, perfectly aligned and in order.

This kind of tidiness is almost morbid.

I don't realize it when he puts the fountain pen on the glass desk surface, and that's because I'm looking at the enormous bookcase on my right.

It takes up the whole wall, this means that there should be something like a million books.

I realize that he's expecting my attention when he closes the leather folder in front of him. I look at him and he stares back at me.

Grey eyes, hot as ice and set in a perfect mulatto face.

I stand at attention and do not even know if he perceives it as a joke. He stares at me for a moment, then he interlaces his fingers and talks.

His voice is low and smooth. Hypnotic. But firm and sure.

I have a feeling that if he told me to cut my throat with that paper knife there, in front of him, with that tone, I would do it. And I would even thank him for the excellent idea he had given me.

- Number 156459 b, you were summoned with no previous notification for a very specific reason. The field agent that we sent to recover what you had stolen has had some difficulty in completing his mission. -

Number 156459 b.

I heard it only once, when I was registered as an Ally at the Confederation base in the second dimension down in Akrem.

I know it's on the small hard drive inside the fake watch that I was equipped with and that I have it tattooed on my neck along with a little bar code, but I've never been called like that.

I have a name. My mom gave it to me, do you know that?

But I don't say that to him, so that I can preserve the second thing that my mother gave me: life.

As if sensing my thoughts, he reopens the leather folder he was working on and stands up. He walks while he speaks to me, reading from the folder that contains my record.

- Zendaru Of Samirien. Age 17. Small burglary precedents. Public nuisance and, – he pauses, his eyebrow flickers imperceptibly, - indecent exposure in public places? -

I cough.

I would like to say that it's a long story, but I swallow my thoughts and I choose to remain silent.

And it's certainly more decorous than explaining what happened that time.

The General lets it go and continues, glancing occasionally at the folder. - Did you at least realize what you did in your last crime? - He asks me.

I answer, - Yes, sir. And I'm very sorry. I never thought that that object was really the Iantor. Okay, it was guarded, but not like I thought it would have been, I thought that... -

He interrupts me raising a hand.

I freeze as if that gesture cut my throat.

It's just that once I start talking I...

He stares at me in silence and I would much rather be anywhere else, even in the flames of hell, but not there. Then he finally says.

- As I was saying, the ally sent to clean up your mistake, 156459 b... -

Zendaru. Thank you.

- ... has some difficulty in completing his mission. Your theft accomplice is a former ally, who had been deposed of and stripped of his powers through the Sirmh seal. Now, thanks to your contribution, not only has he got all his powers back by bypassing the seal and using the Iantor directly, but he has managed to cross the area controlled by the Shield and to come back here with the Iantor, leaving our world, Passing Zone excluded, without magic... -

Yeah I know, I screwed up.

Yes I know, I'm a jerk.

How many times must they tell me that I've done one of the greatest damages in the history of this and the other world?

This guy, as far as I know, or rather, as they explained to me afterwards, and I stress the word afterwards, was here to collect points.

Then he freaked out, and turned against the Confederacy. My Hero grabbed him by the hair and sent him back home to the other world.

He was tried and sealed in Akrem, so that he could not get access to the Iantor like we have always done in order to use magic. So he ran out of magic and got pissed off. And found nothing better to do than to make fun of me and commission that theft to me.

Once in possession of the Iantor, the seal put on him by the Confederation became useless, because he could take his dose of magic directly from the Iantor, by simply touching it.

And fuck the Sirmh seal.

However, to make everything worse, the above mentioned gentleman decided to play the refugee role and passed to this dimension. Being too far away from our world, the Iantor became unusable for my people, and magic is no longer working in the second world without its catalyst.

Bottom line: I stole a fucking tacky object and the whole world stopped using magic.

And that's not all. There is also the risk that, our catalyst being here, the people of this world realize that there IS magic, and that they start using it in our place, using up the last reserves of magical energy we have left. Which, as a matter of fact, resides in their world, even if they are not aware of that.

Throughout this summary the rest of us look bad.

Yes, we stole their magical energy. But in short, their world was full of it and they didn't even know they had it, and we were running out of it...

Meanwhile, the General goes on.

- Now, taking into account that you have been here for six months and have completed your thirtieth mission in such a short amount of time and, above all, that you are the cause of the damage that we are trying to fix, I have a deal for you. - He sits and stares at me with a look of, Either you accept it or I will make your life a living hell, and only because just give you to rabid dogs would entail too much paperwork.- The remaining seven hundred and ninety-three points you need to collect in order to be a free man again will be nullified if you complete a single mission: help the above mentioned Ally. Once you retrieve the Iantor and eliminate the man who now holds it, you will be able to return to your world as a free citizen. -

Sure, if I can go back.

He has the Iantor now. And from what I have heard, he was very powerful to begin with. Now that he has his powers back, without the restrictions of the bracelet that all Allies need to wear here, he's at least three times stronger than me. Not to mention that he was here to collect a ton of points for some multiple murder...

Shelv is only condemning me to a more twisted death.

He stares at me in silence and understands that I'm not stupid, even if my records say the opposite.

- Think about it, collecting seven hundred and ninety-three points, even if you deal with simpler enemies, is still a gamble. Just a simple distraction and the less powerful enemy will be able to kill you. Here you would only have one chance of being killed, not nearly eight hundred. -

He's trying to stun me with statistics, but I will resist.

- Not to mention that you wouldn't be alone. Yours will be a support job, you will have to cooperate with a much more experienced agent than you. Tears Eirdar is...-

- I accept. - I speak the words without thinking. Like that, in one go.

The General is surprised too. But only for a moment. He smiles and sits down.

- So you accept? -

-Y es, sir. -

The Eirdar.

For the love of God.

I'd give up a hand just to be able to say that I tied one of his shoes, imagine having the chance to fight at his side.

Okay, I'm still shitting in my pants, but if I must die, fuck, I'll do it alongside my Hero.

Code N° 002 Field Work

I enter and check the place out.

It’s a hospital room. Maybe a private one, since it is modern and well kept.

There is a bed but it is empty. After two seconds of silence, General Shelv thunders.

– Lieutenant! –

The lieutenant, who was standing guard outside with another special agent, enters with his colleague and they both are evidently surprised. Their eyes wander from the bed to the rest of the room, desperately looking for something, or someone.

- General, I assure you that he was here ten minutes ago! I came in to check on him and... -

- Silence! – There are three of us in the room and we all freeze, even our minds freeze up.

The other agent, evidently of a lower rank, looks at his supervisor with terrified eyes.

Shelv feels it, turns and stares at him straight in the eyes. - What’s the problem, besides the fact that he has slipped away from you!? –

The young agent, terrified, stutters, - The transfer… chart… He took it. -

The white linen curtain on the window flutters in the warm night breeze.

It’s almost 4am and I haven't slept in at least 20 hours.

****

We all walk behind general Shelv, or better, we plod behind him because he is almost running.

– The last point checked on those charts is the industrial area south of Gallarate. The passage area, as you well know, is not stable. It moves erratically, giving refugees new locations to pass the border undisturbed. We have reason to suppose that Sin, who carries the Iantor with him, uses refugees to attack our Ally, probably to get rid of him without getting his hands dirty. - He stops and I nearly slam into him.

- You will go there, now. -

Panic. - But how can we be sure that he went there? –

He doesn’t listen to me and starts walking.

I try again. - And how do I recognize him? I don't even know what he looks like and... -

- He has already been informed that he's being given help. He will recognize you. -

He enters a room and I'm left in the hallway.

I turn towards the two agents. - Somebody must take me there, I doubt there’s a bus going there and I don't have a driver’s license. -

****

Those two chicken shits practically kicked me out at the curb and then left so fast that there are tire marks on the car park tarmac.

That’s okay. Having to deal with two pencil pushers is not what I need right now.

I snort and check how many shots I've got left in the Glock.

Five, I’d better reload.

I sit on the curb and pull the bullet box out of my pocket.

I swear.

I’ve only got five more which, with those already in the magazine, sum up to 10.

– Good job, Zendaru. You’ve just left the Confederation headquarters, where they also have tanks, and you haven’t even thought about asking if they had a box of 9mm parabellum cartridges for your Glock 17.

Talking to yourself, first sign of madness.

I throw the empty box of bullets and insert the magazine back in.

I feel something. I turn around. I look around me for a while. Then I shrug and put the gun in my sweatshirt pocket.

Seeing things, second sign of madness.

I get up and decide to check the place out. Hands in my pockets, I start walking down the wide and deserted streets of the industrial area.

Obviously there isn't a soul around at this hour.

Now and then the tar glistens as a result of the little rain of a few hours ago. Some street lights have been out for some time. Moths and some bats are flying around the lit ones, the neon signs and the lights at the entrances of the buildings sizzle tiredly and weakly.

My sneakers are extremely quiet, yet my steps make a disturbing noise: the sound bounces and booms off the shutters of the closed shops.

There are bins overflowing with rubbish and some cans on the ground. I kick one.

Someone is sprawled against a wall. It’s a bum, flopped down with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hands. As I pass near him, I hear him snore.

I continue for some ten meters until I get to the center of an intersection. I look around but there's nobody.

Duck!

I spring, I walk three steps down, I jump to the ground, roll and aim at the nearby roof. I fire twice, but the figure I was shooting at has disappeared.

– Shit. –

I stay behind the lamp post and I look around. My ponytail is getting loose and some azure locks are escaping the hair-tie. I curse and quickly try to put it behind my ears.

I'm exposed.

Two shots, I roll to the