The Legend of Ivan (16 page)

"Who in the hell
is
this guy?" Gregor stared at the monitors, unable to look away from the chaos. No one had an answer.

Rearing back, the intruder placed a savage kick to the doors leading into the security back area. He disappeared from the cameras, and the sounds of chaos and fighting came not from the intercom but from the hallways nearby. The cameras, which quickly were disabled, detailed the continuing fight and systematic pummeling of Luna Casino's well-trained security team.

"This place
is
protected, right?" Gregor asked Bertram again. When no response was given, as his manager/assistant was too busy staring in horror at the wrecked main floor, Gregor shook Bertram. "Are we safe?"

The assistant gave a dazed expression before blinking. "Oh! Ah, yes, we should be fine in here."

A heavy pound resounded as something collided with the door. Four security people snapped their weapons to bear, terrified and aiming at the entrance. The camera in the hallway outside was out, and no one knew if the man would be coming in.

Several seconds bled by, and nothing happened.

A few more shouts resounded from the hallway, and there was a spot of intermittent gunfire, but nothing more seemed to assault the main security room.

Gregor, realizing he was holding his breath, turned back to the display panels. "Where is he?" he asked the man at the station.

"I-I don't know, sir." Several angles in different locations flickered, but there was no sign of the large man. Considerable numbers of fleeing individuals and security personnel could be seen, but no intruder.

"Christ dammit almighty..." Gregor took a deep breath. "The guy's pulling a job. Get everyone we got left down to the vault! Kill the prick if you have to!"

One of the techs relayed the order, and the casino owner prodded the man controlling the camera displays. Over the course of a few minutes, images flashed by, but more and more of the cameras seemed to be going out. A couple of glimpses of the man resulted from the search, and frantic yelling into communicators directed personnel to intercept.

Scattered security teams dragged through the hallways, checking and rechecking the vault, but no one knew where the man went. More minutes dripped by, and the few cameras remaining could occasionally catch the group of security men cautiously moving through the halls. Other shots featured cracked walls and strewn, hopefully only unconscious bodies.

All at once, the main security room was plunged into complete darkness.

The chaos which ensued was a mess of shouting, flailing, shoving, and people being knocked sprawling. Gregor was one such individual, who was bowled over by a panicking Bertram. His head struck the edge of a desk, and bright stars filled his vision.

Clinging to consciousness and through muddy senses, he heard the continued panic as individuals in the security office scrambled around. Stepped on and kicked, Gregor tried to shout, voice weak and unheeded in the mayhem.

Out of breath and warm blood spilling down his face, the proprietor crawled until he found a wall, away from the panicking individuals. He huddled there, dazed until he faded out.

He woke to find himself alone, the doors to the office wide open and dim, flickering light spilling in from the outside. Clamoring to his feet, Gregor tried to ignore the waves of nausea and head-splitting pain as he stumbled into the hallway.

Bodies lay strewn about, unconscious or dead he couldn't determine. Gregor wiped the sticky blood out of his eyes and stumbled past his downed security guards.

Similar scenes greeted him as he progressed through the back areas of his casino. Chips of plaster, ceramic, and paint crumbled off smashed sections of wall and ceiling in every area. Fallen guards adorned near every corridor.

The dim lighting, provided by the emergency back-up generator, flickered, and exposed wiring sparked where fixtures or cameras had been torn loose. Gregor stumbled through the mostly dark halls, lost and tripping over the numerous bodies. He didn't know where he was going.

As Gregor came around a corner, he nearly collided with a man coming in the opposite direction. Gawking, the proprietor looked up, dwarfed by the man's massive frame.

Cold blue eyes narrowed, glaring down at Gregor. The man who assaulted the casino drew his lips back, baring teeth.

Terror clouded the proprietor's mind, and he pressed himself up against the wall, trembling. The huge man regarded him with a hostile expression for a moment before stalking off in another direction.

Heart hammering, Gregor slid down to a sitting position. His head, ribs, arms, and everything else throbbed with every beat of his racing heart, and he huddled there, waiting for someone to come help him.

******

"I was lucky you know. The head injury was pretty bad." Gregor said, grinning. He tilted his head and pointed to a long scar near the crown. "But Bertram was luckier I didn't have him flayed alive for hurting me and running off!" He tossed his head and laughed as though this was somehow funny.

I asked, "What else happened?"

"Eh," he shrugged, "not very much, really. Two hours later, GSA authorities responded to the scene and found me huddled there. I then spent a week in a hospital, screaming at the orderlies to find out how much money was stolen from me."

"How much was it?"

"Ten million credits," he said with an air of pride.

As he said it, I gained a sudden sense of something missing. "Ten million?" I asked. "How is that possible? I was under the impression everything was handled via microtransactions from account to account. Does your vault even contain hard currency?"

Gregor Wilhelm grinned. "Ah, very perceptive. We found, through years of research, dealing with such behind-the-scenes financial gain and loss
does
boost our profits in the short term. People don't manage to see their accounts drifting, dwindling away."

"However," he held up an index finger, "individuals also don't seem to gain the same level of entertainment, and we experience fewer returnees. In the long run, it's better to cultivate the highest possible levels of excitement, and having a physical form of money to be gained and lost is one such method. The currency we hold here for betting is in simple chips. Each one is coded with credits in their proper expressed increment." He laughed. "It might get you a funny look, but you could take one to any proper store and use it as legal tender."

It wasn't the currency system which caused me to wonder about his story. Most people utilized temporary digital chits to carry small amounts of their money regardless. Having any device linked to full access of an account was risking a lot to theft and fraud. Still, bits of the story and parts not quite fitting clung to my thoughts.

"You're certain Ivan was the one who stole the money."

Near-imperceptible, the proprietor's eyes darted to the side before he grinned. "Of course. He disabled the power generator, entered the vault, and made off with my money. It took years to repair the damage he caused. Not to the resort itself, but to my reputation! It's hard to convince people of coming to a facility so far from help. They say, 'Why wouldn't we go to Finzle's Resort? It might be smaller, but it's right there in the core.' Heathen pigs." He puffed on his pipe. "Novelty doesn't win when people think your place is a death trap."

I nodded.

"But after the mess at the Garden a few years later, having a location which survived the terror of Ivan was a new level of novelty in itself. And again close to another catastrophe of so long ago." Gregor wagged a finger at me. "Did you know there are some silly theorists who posit that
Ivan
caused the problems which ruined Old Earth?" He laughed. "Ridiculous nonsense, but the rumor doesn't hurt business, so..."

"How do you know the man who assaulted the casino was Ivan?" I asked.

"Hah!" The old man scoffed, folding his arms. "One man against my highly-trained security force? When the colony at the Garden was destroyed not long after, I knew it had to be the same person."

There was still something off about his story. It wasn't regarding Ivan himself, if indeed it actually was the man, but the actions he took. Ivan's scattered behavior in not simply hitting the vault but traveling throughout the facility in random fashion appeared unfocused. Perhaps the man relied on brute force and his inhuman strength to manage his tasks rather than strategic planning. However, his systematic dismantling of Voux Hanatar suggested otherwise.

My assumptions told me Ivan was moderately intelligent and clever. The behavior of the attacker appeared angry and sporadic. Even Hanatar spoke of Ivan taking his revenge with relative calm. Perhaps the man who assaulted Luna Colony was not Ivan after all.

"Anything else of importance you can think of?" I asked.

Gregor tilted his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Something was scrawled in the hallway outside the security office. Even with the blood dripping in my eyes, I saw it when the GSA authorities brought me out. The writing said
OLGA WAS HERE
. I thought it might have been a brave civilian vandal coming through in the wake of destruction, but I never knew what it meant."

I rubbed my chin and didn't respond, swinging my thoughts back to the culprit as being Ivan in light of his statement.

"Well there's that story." Gregor folded his hands. "Would you like to hear another? My days of dealing with matters in the casino have again fallen away, but I've kept myself busy. As I said, I've done my own research into Ivan's little tales of valor." He grinned, too eager.

I gauged the mere possibility of him knowing something useful against how irritating I found his enthusiasm. I put forth an arbitrary time limit.

"One hour?" Gregor said, eyes wide and a pouting expression on his face. "I could talk for a week about what I've discovered!"

I didn't express how I felt about such an endeavor. Instead, I said, "I have a very busy schedule to attend. I'm sure you understand I can't take such a large amount of time out."

"Just hear me out. I'm sure you'll change your mind. Give me a moment, I must retrieve my files." He stood, set down his glass and pipe, and shuffled out of the room.

In the few minutes while waiting, I again weighed the odds and considered leaving without a word. Before I could consider much further, he scurried into the room carrying a datapad.

"Here's my little research project. Bertram must have moved it out from my study." He grinned, sliding a finger across the pad. "I've got quite a collection here, but only summaries. Most of the information I have is stored up here," he tapped the side of his head, "and of course backed up on my computer system. Why don't you take a look, and maybe I can tell you about anything catching your eye."

He passed the datapad over to me, and I silently perused its contents. Gregor on the other hand, without any prompting, launched into explanations of how he managed to come by such important and difficult information.

I could barely keep myself from bursting out with laughter. The information he gathered wasn't completely worthless, but it might as well have been. Every summary and piece of data was rather sloppy in presentation. There was no organization, no uniformity or cataloguing, and each entry dealt with some manner of adventure, emphasizing action over truth. The entire collection seemed a series of elaborate fabrications.

I saw a few materials on Hanatar and the ever-illusive battles of Caldonis and New Prague, but they hinted at some greater dramatic flair with little grounding in reality. The datapad did contain a few still images, gathered from the security tapes during Ivan's assault. Though indistinct, they featured a large man with sharp features, corresponding to the principle descriptions I'd gathered prior. Again I wondered if this truly was Ivan. If it was, I further wondered if his actual intention at Luna was nothing more than a robbery.

A couple of the stories caught my eye, and as much humoring him as searching for more details, I allowed Gregor to prattle on. I even let him speak past the allotted time, but I quickly realized no further useful information would be obtained there.

"Mr. Wilhelm, I thank you for your time," I said, rising. "Your information has been most helpful, and I hope you won't think me rude to refuse your kind offer of hospitality."

He stood up and held out his hands. "You can't be thinking of leaving, good Archivist. We've barely begun to scratch the surface of my findings!"

I forced a chuckle. "Even so, I'm afraid I have appointments and will have to return at some later time to hear them." The offer was an outright lie, but it appeared to boost his spirits.

"Oh, well, I of course understand. I did spend all hours of my youth building this resort, you see. Busy busy busy, all the time." Gregor laughed. "Youngsters never quite get how to take things easy, do they?"

With a thin smile, I replied, "No, I suppose not."

He patted me on the back while we walked over to the exit. "Bertram will show you to your vessel. You must make sure to contact me ahead of time for your return. I'll be wanting to block off a couple of days to talk to you, and I'll make sure our finest suite is available for your comfort."

I nodded, and we shook hands. The doors to the lift slid open, and Bertram was standing inside. "Please follow me, sir," he said.

The servant/manager held the same level of silence as he brought me back to my ship. With a slight bow and a, "Good day, sir," he walked away when we arrived. A few more minutes and a proper exit procedure later, Minerva slid out of the docking bay.

After a quick and curious flyby to the iridescent pollution of Old Earth, I set my thrusters to full and moved away from the system.