Editing Eternity (Warhammer High) (section)

=== Mike's Disappointment ===


The plastic floor of the jail cell was really cold, that day.  Colder than most were, even.  Larson, long-time resident of Hive Tetra and more recent (and intermittent) resident of the Startseite and Cordoma Praetor lockups, was feeling the chill.  He was shivering head to toe, even with his booze-soaked arms wrapped around his legs.

“H-hey…” he tried.  He cleared his throat past the cold and tried again.  “Hey!”

The guard glanced over at the noise.  “Can you…please turn up the heat?” he managed through chattering teeth.  “I’m really going into…thermal shock, here…”

The guard shrugged under his nice, snug jacket.  “Sure.”  He fiddled with the thermostat under his desk and in minutes, the air warmed up a bit.
Larson buried his face in his knees and fought down his shivers.  It was almost over.

The door swung open.  Another guard walked in and leaned over the one sitting behind the desk.  Larson watched as the seated guard listened to what the newcomer was saying.  His face turned from a mask of surprise to complete disgust as the other officer spoke.  “Are you serious?” he asked.  Resentment cut through his quiet voice.  “For this clown?”  The new Praetor nodded.

The first guard glared at the prisoner through the bars.  Larson grinned right back.  Finally, the guard relented.  He fished some keys out of his pocket and unlatched the drunk tank, his eyes burning into the criminal the whole time.  “All right, get out,” he grunted.

Larson stood and stretched.  He took his time getting his things out of the little plastic bin the second guard offered him.  “Any idea what’s going on?” he asked innocently, despite knowing full well.

The second guard glared at him, too.  “You have a guardian angel.”


Outside, Larson walked casually up to the black hovercar parked behind the station house.  He slid in as the door closed behind him automatically.  The interior was padded with luxurious brown leather, he noted.  Worth more than the car, probably.

He smiled at the one other occupant of the passenger compartment.  “Thanks, man.”

The other occupant didn’t reply.  He just tapped the back of the driver’s compartment with his knuckle, and the car lifted off.  Larson continued.  “That’s one I owe you.”

“You owe me several,” the other man said.  Larson shrugged awkwardly.

“Well, still.  I appreciate it.”

“Drunk and disorderly, drunk in public, and public vulgarity?” the other person coldly listed.  “What did you do, find a scrumball team that liked you?”

“Just a bottle of amasec who wanted to be friends,” Larson joked feebly.  His sense of humor was evaporating under the other man’s chilling stare.
The other guy was far better dressed.  Everything about their surroundings screamed ‘money.’  It was the exact opposite of the description anyone would use to label Larson Grecco.

His brother Michael Grecco glared at him from across the cabin.  “Promise me you’ll at least bathe before you see Angela?”


The limo slid into the garage at the manor.  Larson exited from the black vehicle, not even noticing the stench of fuel over the haze of alcohol that surrounded him.  The aircraft’s driver walked past him to hold the door for his employer, who thanked the other man by name.  Turning to his brother, Mike gestured expressively at the door to the manor.  Larson took the hint and walked in, belatedly pausing to shuck his ragged jacket.  He uncaringly dropped it on the floor behind him.  Mike didn’t see it, and stumbled.  He caught himself on the coatrack immediately next to the door and glared at his brother, who was now wandering into the antechamber beyond.

“Seriously?” he demanded.  Larson blinked and backtracked.  He scooped up the jacket and hung it on the rack.

“Sorry.”

Mike shouldered past him.  He stormed into the ornamented greeting room.  The bloodied wings of the Angels were present on more than a few banners around the outside of the room, but the majority of the furnishings were a mixture of white and black leather in a style that could be described by the uncultured as ‘ugly’ and the cultured as ‘vibrant.’

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Larson said self-consciously.

Mike spun on his heel.  “All right.  What the hell happened?” he asked.  Before his brother could speak up, however, he raised hand and ran the other over his brow.  He dropped his gaze to the floor as he did.  “Just…no.  Go shave, shower.  Use the razor in the guest room on the third floor.  Go.”  His voice was thick with exasperation.

Larson hesitated.  “Mike, you…you’re still…I mean, we…” he stumbled over his drunken tongue.

His brother glared over at him.  Larson found his words.  “You’re still…you still love me as a brother, right?”

Mike exploded.  “Of course I do, you idiot!  Why else would I bail your ass out for the SIXTH TIME?”  He pointed his arm up the stairs like a condemnation.  “Go clean up!  We’ll speak when you’re dry!”  Without another word, he turned back and stomped down the hall to his private library.

Larson stared at his brother’s disappearing back until he was out of sight, then tiredly walked up the stairs with a slump in his gait.


Mike slammed the door to his library.  He walked up to the woman sitting in the small study chair and dropped onto the couch behind her with a bone-weary sigh.  “Guess who’s here for the evening,” he said grimly.

The woman didn’t look up from her tome.  “Does his name rhyme with larceny?”

“How did you guess?” Mike asked.  His tone was as bitter as quinine.  “Damn him.  Some day, I’m going to lose my patience with that imbecile.”

“Why hasn’t it happened yet?” Angela inquired over one feathered shoulder.

Mike didn’t answer.  Instead, he stood and walked up behind his wife, and placed one hand on her shoulder above her wing.  Angela caught his hand and looked up at him, noting the grim lines on his face.  “He’s my brother,” Mike muttered.

Angela nodded.  “I understand.”  She patted his hand and returned her gaze to the book on the table.

Mike looked down at it.  “What are you reading?”

“A book of absolute nonsense called The Implacable Minds,” Angela replied.  “It’s a pre-psychic era book of human psychology.”

“Is it nonsense if, at the time, people had no way to contradict it?” Mike asked.

Angela scoffed.  “This is.  Even by contemporary standards, it was considered fringe.  It says that every single possible human thought derives from nutrition hunger.”

“That’s…pretty silly, yeah,” Mike said.  He stayed quiet a while longer before offering her another shoulder squeeze and dropping back into his chair.  “Well.  He’ll be down soon.”


Larson scraped off the layer of growth on his chin and stared at himself in the mirror of the guest suite.  The bathroom was appointed like a regal hotel, without any homey touches.  The fans slowly drained the steamy air from the room, replacing it with the scent of poutporri.

The faint sound of the water in the drain faded away, leaving him with his thoughts.  The thirty-five year old heir-on-paper to the Grecco throne ran his hand over his chin, trying to piece together the last few days.  It was mostly a blur.  He recalled leaving a hotel after a meeting…with whom?  No clue.  He went to the bar and started working his way through the scotch and amasec supplies until…when?

He clenched a fist around the handle of the razor.  When was it?  He realized he had no idea.  He looked around for a clock and couldn’t find one.  Was it even still Thursday?  The razor slapped against the marble countertop as he threw it down in disgust.

What the hell difference did it even make?  He was here, now.  He finished cleaning himself up, grumbling about how unfair it all was.  He walked out into the suite to find a servitor or maid had deposited some fresh clothes – in his size – on the bed.  He glanced them over, noting the tags with surprise that even cut through his mounting headache.  They cost more than his car.  Where was his car, anyway?  Had he left it at the second bar?  The Praetors didn’t have it, did they?

Whatever, he would find it later.  He slipped into the underwear and soft pants, noting the exquisite texture of the shirt and jacket as he picked them up.  He lowballed an estimate of eight hundred threadcount.  “Weren’t you always the one who didn’t give a shit about fashion, Mike?” he grunted.


Down below, Angela tilted her head at her husband, who was still busily brooding in the same seat.  “Mike?”

“Mmm?”

“He’s coming.”

Mike sighed.  “Yeah.”

“Does he know where you are?”

“Probably.  Let him look.  I’m not ready yet,” he said testily.  He slammed his hands down on the armrests and launched himself straight up.  “To hell with this!  We’re having it out this time!”

Angela looked up at him, pained.  He paced around the room, hands clasped at his back.  The elegance of his evening jacket was effective, even when he was fuming.  He looked every inch like the first grandson-in-law of the Emperor he was.  Despite his brush with the constabulary, his clothes and hair were immaculate.  His blue eyes closed tight as he reached the end of one circuit of the little room and started another.  “Blast him!  He’s my bloody BROTHER!  Can he not see how much he’s damaging himself and everyone else he knows with this?  He KNOWS he’s an alcoholic, and he STILL gets smashed every bloody month!  This is the sixth time this year!” he snarled.

His winged love looked away.  “Mike…he’s not weak-willed.  He’s an addict.  Addiction has only a cursory relationship with willpower,” she said.

He stopped his pacing to redirect his ire to his wife.  “Oh?  Then why?  He’s never had the impetus or desire to clean up?”

“I don’t understand it entirely,” Angela said.  “I’ve seen his mind, though, Mike, and he’s not stupid.”

“Oh no, nobody could call him stupid,” Mike said coldly.  “Goodness knows he’s got a two-year degree in accounting, a double-major five-year degree in business management and economics, and a doctorate in economic theory,” he listed off on his fingers.  “The man knows more about money than I do!  Just not when it is and when it isn’t alright to spend it on booze!” he nearly shouted.  He dropped into a different chair and crossed his arm over his chest, but immediately launched back up to resume his pacing.  “Where the bloody hell is he?”


Larson paused on the landing between the first and second floors.  His mind was racing.  How was he going to even talk to his brother now?  And why the hell would he?  What happened was none of his business!  Sure, he had bailed him out, but one mention of the Grecco name would have worked just as well.  The last thing he needed was help, right now.  Hadn’t he just tried to secure a sixty eight millions credit contract with House True?  He didn’t need his brother’s patronage.

He turned around on the landing and marched back up.  Screw Mike, he thought.  He was going to go to bed.


Mike ran his hands over his face.  “What’s taking him?” he grumbled.

“He’s scared and ashamed, love,” Angela said.  She fluttered her wings for balance as she stood.  “Maybe you should go talk to him, instead of making him come to you.”

He dismissed that idea with a gesture.  “And make the mountain move?  He’s the one who screwed up.  Let him take the knee.”

Angela digested that statement and the sentiment behind it.  “He’s a proud man, Mike,” she said quietly.

Mike nodded, recalling their family when they were all younger.  “He always belonged to Father, you know.  Liz and me, we were Mother’s kids, but not Larson.  The man’s nothing if not traditional.”

“Lord Grecco is certainly a stickler for the ways of the past,” Angela agreed.  “And he’s proud, too.”

Mike sighed, this time in regret.  “Should I call Father?”

“Would he want to know that one son was drunk and reckless, and the other used the family name to get the first from out beneath the gavel?” Angela asked.

Mike shook his head.  “No…no, he wouldn’t.”

“So call him anyway,” Angela suggested.  “Just…after Larson leaves.”

Her husband snorted a grim laugh.  “I should.  We’re still kids, to him, you know.”

“He wants grandchildren,” Angela said knowingly.

“Bloody right,” Mike grunted.  “He’ll be waiting a while.  Elizabeth’s married to the work, Larson’s not interested in women, and your genes are being uncooperative.”

Angela nodded again.  “Indeed.  So…Larson.”

“Oh, to the Warp with him,” Mike said, dropping back into a chair.  “Let him stew.”


Larson reached a floor in his climbing and paused.  The vestiges of amasec in his blood were making it hard to navigate.  Was the bathroom on the third floor or the fourth?  What floor was this?  He started down the hallway, trying to find a landmark.

The first door he passed was locked.  The one beside it opened with a push, and revealed a little study, complete with fancy gas fireplace.  The far wall was dominated by a tasteful stainless steel array of grates, covering a gas burner that stood beneath a narrow smokestack.

Larson sank into the chair beside it, then pushed experimentally with his slippered feet.  The chair slid over behind the wooden desk in the corner.  It was covered in papers and slates, none of which was written in Gothic.  Baalish, perhaps?  Who knew.

Little holopicts switched on as the seat slid into position.  They rose from concealed slots in the edge of the desk.  One, Larson recognized, was him, Mike, their sister Elizabeth, and their parents.  Another was Mike himself, arm around Angela’s shoulder, posing before a statue of a Marine in unmarked Iron armor, helmet under his arm, smiling triumphantly.  The third was a cluster of six men including Mike; none of the others were identifiable, though all were familiar in a distant way.

The fourth gave him pause.  It was Angela, clad in a breathtaking red dress that lent her regal profile a haunting beauty, arms crossed at her waist, kneeling before Sanguinius and receiving a tiara of rubies and silver.  The name of the occasion returned to Larson in a rush: the Crowning of Baal, in which Sanguinius had formally named his daughter the heiress and Lady Regent of the Baal system upon her marriage.  Mike was visible kneeling behind her, face soaked in tears.

The last picture, though...Larson’s face tightened.  He knew that one.  He had taken it.  It was Mike, clad in a Grecco Family uniform aboard their void platform in the Centauri cluster, looking grave and dignified, and surrounded by literally hundreds of Navigators.  That was the source of the family’s power, after all: there wasn’t anyone in the galaxy short of Horus, Leman Russ, and the Emperor himself with as much experience negotiating with the Houses of the Navis Nobilite as the Grecco family.  That was how they made their first million, their first billion, their first trillion, and the next two as well.  Now safely ensconced in the incalculable wealth of a diplomatic and trading empire worth more than several systems’ colonies and the stars they orbited, they had a manor on Terra, another on Macragge, and another two each on Goromis and Bekke.  They had ruling ownership in not one, but three major Imperial shipyards, and of course…the second son of the family was the first mortal to marry into the Royal Family.

“Naturally,” Larson whispered.  “Of course.”


Mike flipped his wrist implant open and stared at the number it displayed.  0004.  “Time’s up,” he declared, and he rose to his feet.

Angela looked up at him with sadness etched on her face.  “Mike…please don’t yell at him.  Believe me, he’s miserable enough as it is.”

“No, he isn’t,” Mike growled, and he shut the door behind him.

Angela stared at the door , tearing up.  Even with her vast psychic powers, she was unable to comprehend the rifts in the Grecco family.  Elizabeth and Mike got along perfectly, to the extent that they got to see each other.  The Grecco parents and their parents got along swimmingly with their youngest son and middle daughter.  But Larson?

She couldn’t think of a member of her generation of the Royal family that the others ostracized.  Kelly and Petra were loners, but the others loved them.  Six of them were married, three with children, and all of them still had their mortal mothers except Morticia.  The idea of losing a sibling, to her, seemed alien.

Angela ran her hands over her face, thinking.  At length, she reached for her vox and tapped in a number.  It rang three times before picking up.  “Hello?” a deep voice answered.

“Father,” Angela said, grateful she had caught him up.  “Do you have a moment to talk?”

Sanguinius looked down at the speakerphone on his desk.  “Of course, little one.  What troubles you?”


Mike stormed up the stairs to the third floor and blew into the guest suite, glaring at everything in sight.  After a moment’s searching, he discovered that Larson was indeed not in the suite.  “Where is that drunken fool?” he snarled under his breath.  He walked back out and looked side to side in the hall.  Every door he could see was closed.  He swore and made for the nearest set of stairs.


Larson cradled his head in his hands, staring into the picture of Mike in his little cluster of friends.  The six men were lined up in a room that looked like the guest wing of the Palace.  They were an eclectic bunch.  One was Mike himself, wearing the most expensive ‘casual’ shirt Larson had ever seen.  The man beside him was a tall, slender man with close cut brown hair and the clothing of a ''very'' senior member of the Astra Telepathica, including what looked like a Refraction Field Rosette encrusted with Star Gems around his neck.  The third had a brilliant red glare in his eyes, from the camera maybe, and tanned skin; he also had what looked like a ceremonial Army pin on his collar.  The fourth looked like a commoner, with a loose and rumpled outfit on that didn’t do a very good job of hiding his tattoos and scars, which crossed his arms and neck like a tic-tac-toe board.  The fifth was standing straight as an arrow, smiling politely, and wore a Power Sabre at his hip.  The sixth had a business suit on, complete with tailored coat, and a polished, crafty smile on his clean-shaven face.

The errant Grecco stared at the picture, trying to figure it out.  He knew the one with the Rosette was married to one of the other Royal Daughters, but the other four men were more enigmatic.  He thought he knew the last one’s name from somewhere; he was the chairman and founder of the Dynamic Stellar Frontiers corporation, and had made headlines several years before by discovering an STC artifact on one of his corporation’s construction sites.  The fifth man looked a bit like a news pict he had seen once.  The third and fourth, he had never seen in his life.

He gave up the mystery and slumped back into his chair, rubbing his forehead.  The alcohol cloud in his mind was vanishing after several cups of water from the cooler in the corner.  He still had the bruises from the fight on his arms and face; no drink of atomic-purity water could eliminate that.

The weariness of his day was dragging him down, he realized.  He stood and tried to focus on the surrounding study, but his vision swam.  Distantly, he wondered if he had had anything to eat besides breakfast pastries at meetings for the last day or two.  He suspected he hadn’t.

He made for the door and stumbled.  He caught himself on the edge of the desk and winced at the pain as his arm twisted.  Hunger, tiredness, anger, and shame twisted in his stomach until he couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Damn you,” he whispered of and to nobody.  He dropped back into the chair and slammed his hand on the corner of the desk.  The lights, perhaps reacting to the noise, turned off, and he started.  “Fucking…lights,” he muttered bitterly.  He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingers over them, trying to focus.


Mike walked quickly down the halls of the second floor, looking for his brother.  Each room was empty, so far.  A few startled servants reported having seen nobody.  A slight worry was worming into Mike’s huffy anger, and it wasn’t doing his temper any good.  He moved up the stairs to the fourth floor and resumed his search.


Angela finished her summary of the situation over the vox to her father.  He sat silently, feeling many emotions pull at his mind.  To be sure, the situation was a complex one.  “Little one, before I continue, I will say that I and your mother have an inviolable and absolute trust in your ability to do what is best for the Grecco and Royal families, despite it all,” he began.  “Do you want my personal advice as a married man, or my paternal advice?”

“Both, piecemeal, starting with the latter,” Angela said.  “Small words.”

Her father smiled at her witticism.  “Larson’s a fool and deeply jealous of your husband, Mike’s worried sick about his older brother, the fact that neither can admit it despite the obvious need is wearing at their sanity, and you shouldn’t be up this late.”

Angela laughed, her tension easing a fraction.  “So sorry.”

“Next thing you know, you’ll be spending all night with boys and wearing skirts above the knee,” Robin, Angela’s mother, put in from the door of her husband’s study.

“Is that you, Mother?  Good to hear you,” Angela said, glad for the diversion.

“Maybe even driving,” Robin continued, crossing the room to stand beside the gigantic mahogany table.  “It’s unbecoming, a daughter of the Primarch driving herself.”

“Mother, as welcome as your voice is, your advice is a shade worse than useless right now,” Angela said wryly.

“Oh fine, see what my contributions get me,” Robin said with faux sadness.

“Mother…” Angela huffed.

“Angela, let the boys work it out on their own,” Robin counseled.  “Larson envies your relationship with Michael.  Your getting involved before they reach closure on their own could be problematic.”

“I agree,” Sanguinius said with a nod.  “Allow them to resolve this.  Urge it on, but don’t weigh in unless asked.”

Angela’s head and wings drooped.  “Collected passivity isn’t a strength of mine, Father.”

“No kidding,” Sanguinius said, his kingly voice dropping to a conspiratorial stage whisper.

“Didn’t catch that,” Angela said darkly.

“Nothing,” Robin said innocently, winking at her beloved.  “Go to sleep and let Mike and Larson hammer this out.”

“Right.”  Angela fingered the vox, turning their advice over in her mind.  “You know that this is the sixth time this has happened in as many months?  What makes this one different for both?”

Sanguinius thought about that.  “That is a perfectly reasonable question that you should lay before Michael,” he said at last.  “My interpretation is that Larson is starting to confront the reasoning behind his irresponsible behavior in a way that frustrates Michael immensely.”

“And…my means of helping is confined to ‘ensure Mike has a shoulder to lean on?’” Angela asked incredulously.  “If he’s angry, why shouldn’t I help?”

“As I said, Angela,” Sanguinius reminded her.  “I think that whatever you decide to do will be the right thing.  I simply know what I would do were our positions reversed.”

“Mmm.”  His daughter sighed her assent.  “Thank you, Mother, Father.”

“Of course, Angela,” Robin said.  “You be safe out there.”

“Cordoma has the lowest crime rate of any habitable part of the Solar system, Mother,” Angela said.  “The Palace has a higher incidence of misdemeanor.”

“Doesn’t mean I can stop worrying,” Robin chided lightly.  “Good night.”


Mike blew through the door to the private study, still searching for his brother.  His eyes alighted on Larson’s sleeping form, sitting behind his desk, and his anger flared back up.  “Larson!  What the hell are you doing at my desk?” he demanded, crossing the room to his brother’s side.

His brother stirred in his sleep, but didn’t awake from his amasec-drenched slumber.  Mike groaned in exasperation and rounded the table to drag his brother from the chair…and paused.  The pictures behind the desk were up and displayed, as they were when anyone sat there, but one had been dismounted.  Larson had removed the picture of Mike, Nate, Jake, Thangir, Julius, and Armin from its slot, and judging by the fingerprints and tearstains on it, had been staring into it for quite a long time.

Mike’s rage faded in an instant.  Rather than the tempest it had been, it was now little more than a flickering grudge.  “How does he do that?” Mike asked under his breath.  He looped his arms under his brother’s robed armpits and lifted, heaving Larson’s sleeping body onto the small couch on the outer wall of the room.  He tugged his evening jacket off of his own shoulders and draped it over his brother’s body, then snapped his fingers once to turn the fire in the corner on to a low setting.  “That’s seven you owe me, you bastard,” he muttered under his breath as he walked out the door.


On the fifth and top floor of the mansion, Angela was already snuggled into the bed and lying, as she rather had to be, on her side, reading a holomag.  Mike walked in, and immediately made for the changing closet.  “Found the lunkhead,” he reported, unceremoniously tugging off his shirt and chucking it into the laundry hamper.

Angela looked up at him.  “Oh?”

Mike tugged a sleeping shirt on as he continued his conversation through the open door of the closet.  “The fool fell asleep at the desk in my study on the fourth floor.”

“What?”  Angela sat up, awkwardly folding her wings as she did.  “What was he doing in there?”

Mike sighed heavily.  “…Looking at family photos and crying.”

Angela closed her eyes.  “Mike…”

“Don’t say it,” her husband groused.  “Hang on.”

Angela duly waited until Mike had changed into sleeping clothes and climbed into the colossal bed beside her before asking the question.  “What are you going to do about him?” she asked.  Trepidation colored her voice.  Mike was rarely roused to anger.  His brother was one of the very few things that could do it.

He sank into the pillows and wearily rubbed his eyes.  “I don’t know any more.  What did Sanguinius suggest?”

“How did you know I called Father?” Angela asked in surprise.

Mike looked up at her.

Angela smiled faintly.  The two had shared souls with one another, in their foolish youth.  Predicting the other’s actions was hardly a challenge.  “Right.  I did call him, and he and Mother suggested that Larson is…well, jealous.”

“That, I figured out on my own,” Mike grunted.

“And…that you’re worried sick about him,” Angela continued.

Mike stared at the ceiling, trying to disprove her.  It didn’t work.  “I’m worried, I’ll grant them that,” he finally allowed.

His wife laid one hand on the headboard over his neatly-trimmed blonde hair.  “Mike, I think the two of you need to have a long and personal talk.”

His voice was small and bitter.  “I know.”

Angela sensed his anger turning to resentment.  She averted it completely.  “Well.  Time to sleep, then,” she decided.

Mike smiled despite it all.  “Angela, are you reading my mind?” he asked.  It wasn’t unprecedented.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.  Her hair tickled his ears.  “I don’t need to,” she said coyly.  “I just do what I think will make this work out happily.”

“Then by all means, continue,” Mike said with a yawn of fading adrenaline.  He pulled up the covers and caressed his wife’s hand as she settled down, facing him from her side.  “Good night.”


Larson awoke slowly the next morning.  His head was bursting with a hangover migraine.  Moving quickly would have been too overwhelming.  He gradually cracked his eyes open to see that the study was lit solely by a disconnected holo on the desk, running on a battery, and by a flickering fire in the grated fireplace.

He struggled to sit up, pushing back the blanket over his chest – no.  It was a jacket.  Not his?

Larson rubbed sleep from his eyes with a wince of pain.  The jacket was crushed velvet, and monogrammed with mGs.  Mike’s jacket, then.  Hell.  He tossed it over the couch and gingerly stood, hesitating as the pain flared up in his head.  “Now if only I was married to a psyker, that wouldn’t even be a problem,” he muttered.

The pictures on the desk had retracted when he – or Mike – had moved him to the couch.  One of them was unplugged, sitting on the table, running on battery power.  Larson lifted it, trying to remember what they had been.  It was Mike and some of the senior members of the government, wasn’t it?  One of them was Princess Miranda’s boyfriend –

No.  They were the men who had married into the Royal family.  That was it.  Mike Grecco, Nathaniel Romanvene, J. Something, Something Russ, Julius Pius, and Armin Napier.  Larson let out a heavy breath.  That was why he hadn’t recognized them, some of them had been commoners.  Of course.  Well, wasn’t that peachy.

He nearly slammed the holo back down into its charging cradle, and it descended into the desk.  The slot closed with a quiet *click*, and he glared at it so hard he could have melted the plastic cover clean off.

Whatever.  Let Mike and Elizabeth and Dad and Mom and the Emperor himself pick their own ways, he thought to himself in a huff as he went looking for his shoes.  He had picked his own way, and he was sticking to it.  He patted down the pockets of his borrowed clothes, looking for his keys.  His fingers ticked against something hard on the left side pocket, and he reached in.  His fingers closed around a small metal chain, and he tugged, curious now.  He extracted a set of silver keys, looped on a twisted metal ring, and each was emblazoned with a room number.  He stared, wondering what it was, when it clicked.  They were the keys to the guest suite in which he was supposed to have been sleeping overnight.  Hadn’t the door been unlocked, though?

Suddenly weary beyond measure, he slumped down onto the couch before the flickering fire and cradled the keys in his hands.  They were so blasted fragile, he thought blearily, dropping them onto the floor between his legs.  Humans and keys alike.  And fireplaces, and cars, and self-esteem, and relationships, and love…

The door swung open.  Larson scrambled to his feet as his youngest sibling turned on the lights.  Mike stared at him.  “What were you doing on the floor?”

Larson stammered.  “I, uh, I dropped the keys to the guest suite,” he said, gesturing at them where they lay.

Mike shrugged.  “Mm.  Alright.  Get real clothes on, we’re going,” he said, turning away.

“You’re throwing me out already, huh?” Larson said feebly.

Mike glared over his shoulder.  “No, you imbecile, I’m buying you breakfast.”


Angela watched, half an hour later, as a small, compact silver car drove – on wheels – out of the garage and made for the Cordoma business district.  The little town was expanding so fast that half the skyline was construction cranes and Mechanicum auto-assembly scaffolds, and there was an abundance of busy, cheap places for the laborers and techpriests to find repast.  The blonde angel shook her head and turned away to find a maid.  She needed breakfast too, and she was booked solid with meetings that day.


Larson looked out the windows of the car as Mike drove them down the narrow streets.  “So this is Cordoma in the daylight, huh?” he asked.

“More used to it at night?” Mike asked, false levity dripping from his voice.

“Too bloody right,” Larson said dryly.  “Nice town.”

“Where do you live nowadays?” Mike asked.

“Oh, Startseite, but the aircars now can do the trip in twenty minutes.  I just booked a cab here, a few nights back, I think,” Larson recalled through the post-binge haze.

Mike drove them in silence for nearly thirty seconds.  “…You’ve been wandering around the city, drunk and lost, for a day and a half?” he asked quietly.

Larson looked back at Mike.  His brother’s jaw was clenched so tight his cheeks were white.  “…I guess I have,” Larson said.  “Not proud of it.”

Mike gripped the wheel and turned them down a side road, maybe a bit too fast.  “I’d have come get you before you wound up in the drunk tank if you called me, you know.”

Larson shook his head.  “I wouldn’t have asked.”

“I’d rather pick you up so you can sleep in a real bed than abuse my power to get you out of a misdemeanor charge,” Mike said curtly.  “And either way it would have given you a place to rest that night.”

“I know,” Larson said testily, then regretted it.  “Sorry.”

Mike stepped on the brakes, slowing them down so he could park.  “We’re here,” he announced.  Larson looked at the place they had stopped.  It was a featureless concrete wall.

“Uh…”

“It’s behind the wall, best kept secret in Cordoma,” Mike said.

“Ah.  I was gonna say, I’m hungry, but cement mix just goes right through me,” Larson said.  Mike snorted and unlocked the doors.

Behind the concrete blast wall was a small, even clandestine restaurant with an unlit sign over the door that said ‘Baker’s Bakers.’  Larson looked up at the sign as they walked under it.  “We’re eating at a place that is literally a pun.  Excellent.”

Mike held the door open for his brother.  Larson walked past him and took stock of the place.  It was utterly vacant.  No waitstaff or diners were visible anywhere.  “Uh, Mike, I don’t see anyone,” he said.

“I called ahead,” Mike said, dropping into the table next to the door.  “The owner owes me a favor.”

“What for?” Larson asked.

“Getting his land construction approval passed after he bollocks-ed the tax form up,” Mike said.  The kitchen door swung open and a portly man in his fifties emerged, rubbing his hands on a towel.

He spotted the Royal son and the disheveled man beside him and beamed a smile at them.  “Michael, my good man, so glad we can square things,” he announced in a booming voice overflowing with joi de vivre.  Larson liked him instantly.  “How can I serve you and your friend?”

“Brother, actually, and we’ll start with two Sewer Worker Emergency Plates,” Mike said with an easy grin of his own.

“Bit early in the day to be committing suicide, isn’t it?” the man, presumably Baker, asked with mock concern.

Mike waved a dismissive hand.  “I fear nothing,” he said with regal disdain.

“Indeed!  Two SWEPs, coming right up,” the man said, and back into the kitchen he went.

Larson stared.  “What in the hell is a Sewer Worker’s Emergency Plate?”

“The best food you’ve never tasted,” Mike said.  “Three blackberry pancakes over a pad of butter with imported tree sugar syrup, four links of mini-pork sausage and a slice of Butcher’s Bacon, two pieces of rye toast, and two cups of sugar-drenched quadruple-caffeine-rationed black coffee, served white hot.”

“Good Lord.”

Mike shrugged.  “I know, it’s risky business, but if you’ve dredged a Terran sewer, sometimes you need a few trillion volts of fat and stimulants in your system immediately,” he said.  “And like I said, I knew the place was closed.”

“How and why did he need your help with the tax forms?” Larson asked as he reached for a napkin.

“Because I’m dumber than the day is long and listed two dependents I didn’t have when I filed my taxes for the place,” the man called from inside the kitchen.  “Mike here is a dear old friend and he spoke to someone in the Administratum for me.  So he gets to eat whatever the blazes he wants, once per week until the Grand Opening…” he said as he exited the kitchen with the toast on a plate, “which I had to delay because of the bureaucrats.”  He set the toast down with some butter and jelly packets.  “Eat up, sir, you look famished.”

“Indeed,” Larson said.  “Thank you kindly.”  He set into the toast with a vengeance as Mike sipped a glass of ice water.  The cook or proprietor or whatever he was vanished into the kitchen again, and moments later the sounds and smells of frying fat wafted through the old-fashioned swing doors.

Larson looked over his bread at his brother.  Mike was staring into his ice water, watching the cubes melt.  “So…thanks for this,” he said.

Mike didn’t look up.  “Yes.”  He looked down at the unopened menus on the table.  “Found my personal pictures last night?”

“I did.”  Larson hesitated.  “Sorry.”

“I left the room unlocked.”  Mike sighed.  “The one you looked at…that was a few weeks ago.  At the Palace.  After Cora and Armin got married.”

“Yeah, I remembered the wedding,” Larson said.  “Was it nice?”

Mike looked over the rim of his cup with one raised brow.  “Well, it was…wealthy.  The most successful businesswoman on the planet and the most successful galactic explorer outside the Mechanicum can throw on quite a party when the mood takes them.”

Larson snorted.  “Oh, I bet.”  He sipped at his water too, to wash down the sticky jelly.  “What’s he like?”

“Dashing.  Very old-schooled, very elegant.  Fancies himself an action hero,” Mike said.  “No desire for home life.  Not like me.”

“Mmm.”  They ate in silence as the sounds of eggs whipping emerged from the far room.  Larson looked back at Mike with strain lines appearing at the corners of his eyes.  “Any plans on children, yet?  I know you wanted to wait…”

“We’re trying now,” Mike said.  “It’s hard to predict the timing on such things, but…it’s fun, anyway,” he said with the ghost of a grin.  “Angela wanted to wait until I felt comfortable around the Royal Family, and she wanted to get settled in at the Astra Telepathica before committing to motherhood.”

“Sensible.”  Larson downed his drink and reached for the pitcher.  “Good on you.”

“Thanks.”  Mike finished his own water and set it aside.  “So…are you ready to talk about last night?” he asked.

“Can we wait until I have actual nutrients in me?” Larson asked evasively.  Mike heaved a sigh.

“Very well.”

Larson inclined his head.  “Thank you, Mike.”

Mike’s vox beeped.  He swore under his breath and extracted it.  “Hell.  I need to take this,” he said, and flipped it open.  “What?”

“Lord Michael, this is Principe Fordin,” the voice on the other side said.  “I was asked to inform you when the Nimbus is ready.”

Mike sat up, listening intently.  “I see.”

“The vessel departs at your will, your Lordship,” the voice continued.

“Good!  That was bloody quick, pass along my thanks to the Lord Techmarine,” Mike said.  “Keep me informed.”

“Of course, your Lordship.  Thank you, sir,” the man said, and hung up.

Mike set the vox down and sighed again.  “We’re heading back to Baal in a few days,” he said for his brother’s benefit.  “We waited until the wedding was over.”

“You have your own ship?” Larson asked, avoiding his brother’s eyes again.

“Well, it’s the Royal yacht,” Mike said.  “Sanguinius, Robin, Angela, me…any of us can use it.”

“Hmm.”  Larson finished his toast.  “Why didn’t you take one of Fleet Grecco’s ships?”

“Inconvenience a Grecco ship because my wife wants to be home while she’s expecting?  I think not,” Mike said.  “The Nimbus was going back to Baal for upgrades anyway.  Bloody thing’s getting old.”

They waited in awkward silence as the rest of the food cooked.  When it was done, Baker emerged with two steaming plates of food and deposited them at the table with a fresh smile.  “Gentlemen, enjoy,” he said.

“Goodness, I’m glad I haven’t eaten in two days,” Larson said, staring at the mountain of calories.

“That’s what I’m here for.  Sirs,” Baker said, and backed away.

Mike tore into the food, as did his brother, and the room was quiet except for chewing and cleaning noises from the dining hall and kitchen in turn.  The pancakes and meat vanished under the concerted forces of hunger from the Grecco boys, and for a few brief minutes, they were eight and ten in their mother’s kitchen again.  Larson finished first, and sat back in his chair with a groan that was half fulfillment and half regret.

“Well.”

“Yeah, a Sewer Worker Emergency Plate will cure what ails you,” Mike said around a mouthful of bacon.

“If what ails you is anorexia,” Larson sighed.  He pushed his plate away.  “Thanks.”

“Yes.”  Mike hefted his coffee and sipped it.  “Army folk call this caffeine-enriched stuff recaf.  I think it’s a portmanteau of something.”

“Recycled Caffeine?” Larson guessed.

“Who knows.”  Mike stared at his brother through the steam.

Larson relented.  “Then…I guess…”

“What’s happening?” Mike asked bluntly.

Larson shuddered a sigh he had been holding in.  “I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Yes.  For what?” Mike pressed.

Larson looked away from him and drummed his fingers on the table.  “How does this happen?” he asked aloud.

“What?”

“I want to know how this sort of conversation goes, but I’m sort of stumbling,” Larson admitted.

“Does it ever go smoothly?” Mike rhetorically inquired.  Larson answered anyway.

“Probably not.  Well, I should say…hell, Mike, I know this is unfair of me.”

“No kidding,” Mike said coldly.  Larson’s return glare was half-hearted.

“Why do you bail me out?”

“You’re my brother.”

“I mean why you?  Why not Liz?  Why not Mother or Father?  Is it because you have some power over the Arbites?” Larson asked.

Mike shook his head.  “My power ends at the doorstep of the Arbites’ Precincts.  Thank goodness you’ve never been in one.  The Praetors, however…half of the Survivors’ Fund is bankrolled by me.”

“The what?”

“Orphans and widows.”  Mike sipped his drink.  “They owe me.  Which is a problem for you.”

“Indeed.”  Larson put his head in his hands and his elbows on the table, staring down at the cheery patterns on the table.

“Why do you do it, Larson?” Mike asked quietly.  “Do you just enjoy drinking that much?”

“It’s not…I mean, I don’t function properly,” Larson mumbled.  “I can’t understand…why people don’t want to feel that good all the time…”

Mike shook his head.  Larson continued.  “It’s…it’s not like I’m stupid, I don’t think it’s natural.”

“Nobody thinks you’re stupid,” Mike said.  “Or lack willpower.  But that doesn’t leave much else.”

“I’m an addict, Mike,” Larson said bitterly.  “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

The two men sat in silence as Baker collected their dishes and went to wash them.  He discreetly locked the kitchen door behind himself to grant the Grecco sons some privacy.  Mike sent silent thanks for his sense of decorum.

At length, Larson raised his head and looked over at his younger brother.  The bags under his eyes made him look ten years older.  “Mike, do you ever feel like life isn’t something you can control?”

“No.”  Mike downed the last of his recaf and set the mug on the table behind him.  “I don’t.”

“I do.  It’s not fun.”

“I imagine not.  Do something about it,” Mike said flatly.  “Six times in six months?  Sooner or later, nobody’s going to take your call.  I certainly won’t, not for the next ten months.  I won’t even be on Earth.”

Larson snorted.  “Think I’ve worn out the Grecco family welcome mat?”

“No.  The Royal family doesn’t care about you, particularly, and their public image isn’t going to be destroyed by one drunken relative, but brother, Mom and Dad and Liz are just as embarrassed of your behavior as you’d expect,” Mike said angrily.  “There’ll be a point when they force you to go to rehab, and you’ll thank them for it, even as you curse yourself for not doing it voluntarily.”

“Oh, like I could do that!” Larson snapped.  “Like I can find the time for that!”

Mike shrugged.  “I guess it would be hard to find an opportunity with your schedule.  I mean, you spent the last two weeks stumbling around a strange city, drinking heavily.  No time for rehab in there.”

Larson’s hands gripped the edge of the table like he was going to flip it over, when Mike’s hand snaked out and grabbed his brother’s wrist.  He twisted, exposing Larson’s palm to the lights of the room.  “Look at yourself!” Mike snapped.  “You can’t live like this, Larson!  We’re worried about you!”

Larson wrenched his hand away from his genehanced brother with some difficulty.  “You don’t…you don’t know what I’m going through!” he shouted.

“No!”  Mike shot back.  “But I’m sitting across from you in an abandoned restaurant, with no time commitments for the next few hours, Angela’s busy at work, you’ve got nowhere to be in more ways than one, and I just dragged your carcass out of a Praetor drunk tank!  Get to talking!”

Larson’s teeth clenched, even as he sank back down in his seat.  “You’re right,” he bit out.  “You’re always fucking right, aren’t you?”

“I am this time,” Mike said darkly.  “Get to talking.”

“It was always you,” Larson said bitterly.  “You married into the Royal Family, you got the accolades at Imperator, you’re the one the Navigators would rather work with…”

“So this is sibling rivalry gone horribly awry?” Mike demanded.  “How convenient that your addiction is now someone else’s fault.”

“No, you bastard!” Larson suddenly bellowed.  “Not like…not like that…”

The fire vanished from his tone and he deflated as if he had been pricked with a pin.  He sank down into his seat and cradled his head on his hands again.  “It’s…not…”

“Is it the fact that I married first that bothers you?  I know it bothered Liz, at first,” Mike said.

His brother shook his head as a tear leaked past his hand.  “Of course I’m jealous,” Larson whispered.  “But…”

Mike stared at him.  “Why Cordoma?” he asked.

Larson pulled his hands away from his eyes and blinked at Mike.  “Huh?”

“Why are you in Cordoma?” Mike asked him, trying to keep his voice level.  “Last I heard, you were in Startseite.”

“I was,” Larson said.  He looked back down.  “I had a business meeting.”

Mike leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.  “So how did you get from there to getting beaten up in a bar?”

“How does a celebration after a meeting ever turn out?” Larson asked with an attempt at a quip.  “I just…well, I don’t…ever reach the point where I think I need to stop.”

Mike sighed as he sensed the conversation turning in circles.  “What was the meeting?”

Larson hesitated.  “I was meeting with a representative from House True.”

“What for?”

“I, er…” Larson’s hesitation caught Mike’s attention, and he leaned forward to try to match his older brother’s eye.

Mike’s tone was harsh.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m…” Larson fidgeted like a kid called before their teacher for breaking the chalk.

Mike sat up as a piece slid into place.  “Larson, you’ve known you had a drinking problem since you were twenty years old,” he said slowly.  “Why did I suddenly have to bail you out six times in half a year?”

“I’ve…I said already, I’m just jealous of your life sometimes,” Larson said angrily.

“Not after I’ve been married for twenty six years,” Mike said.  “What’s going on?”

Larson glared at his brother across the table for a moment longer, before Mike sat back in his chair and stared at him, crossing his arms over his chest.  He relented at last, slumping into his seat.

“…I’m in trouble, Mike,” he finally admitted.  His brother bade him continue with a wave.  “You know Vuaso Management?”

“Mutual fund brokerage,” Mike recalled.

“My company’s retirement funds are invested through them, and so are a bunch of my own personal accounts,” Larson said heavily.  He felt the hand of shame squeeze his heart.  “They’re in deep shit.”

“What’s going on?” Mike asked again, this time in concern.

Larson slowly leaned forward and lowered his voice, despite the room’s vacancy.  “They’re…about to get investigated by the Imperial Fraud Investigation and Prevention Panel.”

Mike’s jaw dropped.  “IFIPP is investigating your mutual fund brokerage?”

The older man nodded and bit back a frustrated groan at the thought.  “I have so much tied up in those guys…Mike, we have over seventy five thousand employees with accounts there.  And those are just the retirement plans.  If you count personal insurance plans and stock portfolios, it’s over ninety thousand.  If they’re really running a scheme…I’m destroyed.”

Mike was stunned.  The young Prince took a moment to think it over, running his hand across his jaw as he did.  “Well…wow.  What are you going to do?”

Larson glared at him again.  “Would I be drinking myself half to death if I had an answer?” he snapped.  “I came to Cordoma to meet with a rep from House True to see if we could secure a contract for some shipping work with them, scrounge up some trade money to buy me some time.”

“So did you go get blasted because it did work, or because it didn’t?” Mike asked pointedly.

Larson’s shoulders drooped.  “I fucked it up,” he mumbled.  “My price was a shade too high, and they got spooked.”

Mike sighed.  “Damn.  Well…huh.  I couldn’t help with the money, but…”

Larson’s head jerked back as if stung.  “Did I ask for your help with that?” he demanded.  “No, really, did I ask for money?”

“No.”

“Then…ah, hell.”  He dropped his hands to the seat and plaintively looked across the table.  “Mike, I’m scared.”

“Why didn’t you check them out?” Mike asked.

“I did!  I hired a PI to check out the firm’s history,” Larson wailed.  “They were clean!  They may have started after we opened the account with them, I don’t know.”

“Then did you commit any crimes?” Mike asked.

“No, no, I didn’t do anything,” Larson said, wounded.

“Then it’ll suck, you’ll lose a fortune, and your employees will be in hot water,” Mike summarized.  “It’s horrible, but it’s life.”

Larson gaped.  “Those are the retirement accounts of my entire staff you’re dismissing!”

“And there’s nothing you can do!” Mike said.  “Look, I sympathize, but what else is there?”

“Mike, what the hell do you mean?  I have to fight this!” Larson said.

“Brother, you can do NOTHING but co-operate with the government and hope for the best!” Mike said.  “If you really want to help your people, then go get some real work done!  How much is getting smashed on the streets of Cordoma helping your employees?”

His brother sighed and ground his hands into his eyes again.  “I feel guilty, Mike, like I let them down.”

“Your board will stand with you if you present a tough face and gut this out,” Mike assured him.  “Do you think they’ll back you if you’re disappearing days at a time into lockups and bars?  Get your ass back to Startseite and sit down with the Panel, and get your accounts squared.”

Larson closed his eyes.  “…I know.”

“But it’s easier not to, isn’t it,” Mike said heavily as the truth emerged at last.  “You don’t want to look your guys in the eye and say what happened.”

Larson didn’t answer.  Mike stood after another minute of silence.  “If you want my support, Larson, you have it,” he said.  His brother looked up at him in surprise.  “I can’t offer you money, not legally, but I can testify before the Panel.”

“Mike…”

“But not for another ten months or so,” Mike finished.  “I won’t interrupt our plans to start a family over this.”

“Would you do it if I asked you to?” Larson asked.

Mike froze, staring at his brother in shock.  “…What?”

“Would you wait a bit longer to have a child if I asked you to?”  Larson was sitting still, now, not fidgeting, and staring straight back at Mike with a steely look in his eyes.

The silence in the room was deafening.  Mike’s hands gripped the back of his chair.  “…I suppose I would.”

“Then I won’t,” Larson said, nodding as if in conformation of something.  “Go start a family.  I’ll pick up after myself.”

Mike narrowed his eyes.  “Why did you just ask me that?”

Larson grimaced as he stood.  “Because I needed to be sure.”

“If you get arrested again, I’m not helping you,” Mike said flatly.  “I won’t even be on Terra.”

“I know.”

“I mean it.  Ask Liz if it happens again,” Mike pressured him.

“I know.  Thanks,” Larson said.  “You’re a real son of a bitch, though, you know that?”

“We have the same parents,” Mike reminded him.

“This is true.”  Larson followed his brother out the door and back to the car without another word, and sat in the passenger’s seat.  Mike started up the car and they were on the way back to the house.

Partway back, Larson suddenly snorted in amusement.  “I feel as tired now as I did last night.”

“Despite all that recaf?” Mike asked.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.  Soul-searching does that.”  Mike pulled them up in the manor’s driveway and secured the car in the garage.

Inside, Larson went to collect his things.  Mike sat down in a chair in the antechamber and tried to muddle through the last hour.  The room fell quiet as Larson went up to the guest suite and the study, and left Mike alone with his thoughts.  He let the news of his brother’s financial trouble tumble through his mind.  The instincts he felt as he did pulled him in at least two directions, unfortunately.

Still.  The food was eaten, the talk had been had, and now they had to act.  The onus was on Larson now.  If he decided not to reform his ways, that was on him; if he did, then Mike would be there for him, he decided.  And either way, they were still brothers.  The Greccos looked out for their own.

Larson returned in his own clothes, cleaned and pressed by the servants in his absence.  He tucked them under his arm and hesitated as he reached Mike.  “Well…thanks for breakfast, Mike,” he said.

Mike nodded and rose.  “Sure.  Drop by before we fly to Baal, please.”

“Listen…don’t tell Dad about all this, all right?  I don’t want to embarrass him,” Larson awkwardly said.

“I understand.”  Mike briefly hugged him before stepping back to hold him at arm’s length.  He gave Larson a hard stare.  “You understand why we’re concerned?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”  Juvenat treatments couldn’t hide the age in Larson’s eyes, but at least he wasn’t walking with a slump in his spine any more.  “All right.  Where’s my car?”

“It’s at the Praetor’s stationhouse, I asked them to tow it.  Here, use this if they give you crap about the bill,” Mike said, passing his brother a money card.

“Thanks.”  Larson pocketed it and shook Mike’s hand.  “I’ll…if you’re back from Baal, I’ll call you when you can testify before the Panel.”

“Do so.  Goodbye.”  Mike held the door as his brother exited with one last look, and stepped into the cab Mike had called on the drive home.  He clambered in and took off towards the town without another word.


Upstairs, one of the house servants was dusting the trophy room when Mike wandered in, hands in his pockets.  The servant sketched a quick bow, but Mike wasn’t even looking around.  He acknowledged the bow with a distracted wave, then turned to look at a picture on the wall.  The servant turned back to his cleaning.

Mike stared at the picture in silence.  The image was nearly as old as he was.  It was him, at the age of two, cradled in Elizabeth’s arms, and Larson standing behind them.  Angela, no older than him, was fast asleep in Robin’s lap where she sat next to his own mother.  He sighed under his breath and walked away, head hung low.