Chapter 1

The part where Nikolai wakes up and eventually goes to work.

Nikolai Volkov was one of the few people aboard the H.T.S. Goliath who did not use a carbon-14 regulated alarm as a part of his normal routine. The reason for this was because he had developed a well-wound internal clock. Nikolai would wake up without fail at seven o’clock every day. This was a result of what the significantly more relaxed passengers would call ‘military-like training’, but in reality it was nothing more than a habit he had picked up under the tutelage of his stricter teachers. However, his refusal to download an app commonly called ‘The Alarm’ which was patented by the Nielson Group, a conglomerate which had been in business with his family for generations, was portrayed as a personal affront against the group by the news media. As such, Nikolai was forced to explain that he didn’t cause the tumult intentionally in a three page email to the CEO of the Nielson Group which was ‘leaked’ to the general populace and the whole event was lowered to a Tabloid-grade scandal.
The quasi-autonomous teenager opened his eyes at the same time as yesterday and every day before that. Nikolai was aware of how it could be argued that the robotic efficiency in his sleep schedule made him even less autonomous than the rest of the passengers, but it was the concept of the thing. He wanted at least one thing in his life not to be regulated. He brought the bracelet on his left wrist up to his eyes where he could read it. Faded neon blue light lit up has squinting face, showing him a blinding white series of numbers. 7:02, it flashed. With a series of deft flicks, Nikolai turned the lights of his room on.
At this point in his routine, many people of a similar social standing would have an underling prepare his outfit. Instead Nikolai got out of bed, leaving it in a crumpled mess that he knew would be in pristine condition when he returned. He stumbled out of bed in his boxer shorts and white undershirt; Nikolai gripped the bridge of his nose as he made his way into an adjacent bathroom that jutted straight out of his room. Within five minutes, he was out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist and the waterproof bracelet clamped firmly around his left wrist.
Laying on Nikolai’s now perfectly made bed was his outfit for the day. In recent months the news media had noted his tendency toward wearing pinstripe suits, so before him was an expensive vertical striped suit and a deep blue tie. He sighed, defeated. The fact that everything was done for him reminded him of a book he had found in a nearby public library. Jack Williamson’s With Folded Hands told of a future where robots refused to allow humans to do anything that could possibly cause them to come to harm. This included even menial decisions. However, when Nikolai was in the perfectly fitted pinstripe suit and knee-length overcoat he had to marvel at the taste of whoever had picked out the outfit.
By 7:30 Nikolai was out of his room with his overcoat draped over one shoulder. They may be able to pick out what I wear he thought but they cannot decide how I wear it. He strode into a, by all accounts, bland waiting room. The room’s walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted a deep industrial gray. Everything in the room, even the two chairs and one table in the center were drab. All this might have bothered Nikolai if he wasn’t entirely color blind. This was the only completely private room in the manor; it was bullet-proof, blast-proof, and flood-proof (for some reason). Only a small portion of the passengers aboard the Goliath knew of its existence. Sitting at the opposite end of the stainless-steel table was a gray haired man of about fifty. Or rather, as the media had made painfully clear, the man was exactly fifty-one years old.
The old man was dressed in much warmer colors, it was as if the hue of his coat and tie was chosen to magnify the difference of their hair color. What Nikolai wore was almost entirely black, save for the stripes of his suit and gray shirt, while the old man’s attire was an entourage of navy blue. In the entire waiting room, the brightest color was the old man’s white dress shirt reflecting under his solid scarlet tie.
“That’s a lot of black. What, are you going to a funeral?” the old man pointed out, prompting an incredulous look from Nikolai down at his attire. Outside of that room everyone called the old man Duke Faust or even ‘my liege’, but within their five minutes of privacy between 7:30 and 7:35 it was ‘old man.’ Nikolai sat down across from Faust and slid a series Nutrition Tablets into an opening on the underside of his bracelet.
On the table immediately in front of Nikolai was a glass of water. He was meant to use it to wash down the first of his three Nutrition Tablets at exactly 7:32. “I don’t need someone to pick out my clothing for me. Actually, I don’t think any of us should need help when picking out clothing. Don’t you think its kind of odd how we’re in charge of a good portion of the government, yet we can’t even choose what we wear?”
Duke Faust smirked and said, “You might have a point there. However, your fan club might lose some of its reputation if you showed up to a dinner one day in a neon green dress shirt and bright pink polka dot pants.” Before Nikolai could rebuke the statement the old man said, “I get it, that’s not the point, and it’s great that you’ve managed to remain in control of some of your daily schedule. But we don’t want to create a ship-wide incident because of your color-blindness.”
“Come on, man,” Nikolai said; this was probably the only time anyone could use such language in front of a Duke. “Something like me showing up in unappealing colors couldn’t cause that much of a fuss,” Duke Faust only had to raise an eyebrow to completely rebuke this stance. “Okay,” Nikolai allowed, “maybe it could, I’m not exactly an expert on colors. But you know the alarm thing was different.”
“Oh yes, your dress style and your sleeping habits are two entirely different things,” Nikolai thought it was odd how a duke could use sarcasm. “Nikolai, when you get to be my age you’ll realize that the media... they’ll grab on to any story and slap a -gate on the end of it just to fill the pages of their e-newspapers.”
They paused the conversation for half a moment while they simultaneously removed a Nutrition Tablet from their respective bracelets and swallowed them with the glasses of water sitting on the table. Years ago, before the war, Nutrition Tablets had completely replaced the need for food. No one on the entirety of the H.T.S. Goliath was ever hungry because, if someone followed the guidelines, they would never want for sustenance.
Nikolai in turn said, “Well…” he cleared his throat, “I like to imagine that the whole alarm thing was just a misinterpretation on the part of the Associated News Media. They caught wind that I had one or two weird tendencies and, of course, told the rest of the ship about them. So when the Nielson Group heard about this, they had to demand an apology or else risk losing some business.”
“You’re too optimistic,” Faust said. A rap sounded from the door at the Duke’s side, prompting them both to stand up and Nikolai to cover his shoulders with the overcoat. “You like to imagine that everything is so nuanced while I think that all happened because the ANM had nothing else to write about and the Nielson Group is run by a bunch of… good morning.” They passed by a bodyguard standing at the hidden entrance of the Private Room. “...idiots who don’t know the difference between a personal affront and business.”
This was why Nikolai was partial toward the Duke, “Don’t let the Nielson Group hear you say that. If me not using their product almost caused a -gate just imagine what would happen if they heard from a reliable source that you said that.”
Some aids walked by, temporarily gawking at the Duke and Prince. After the customary smile and wave, Duke Faust visibly cringed. “Months of paperwork and people being laid off. Guh, I never asked for this job.”
Nikolai flashed his half-smile that created the fan club. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t ask for this job either. Not only that, but I’ll have to inherit yours in a couple of years.”
“Don’t tell anyone this, seriously it would cause an uproar, but I plan on retiring soon after I turn sixty-five. Or even when you turn twenty-eight,” the two shared a brief chuckle at the thought of such a young Duke.
Prince Nikolai, as some of the dreamier members of his fan club called him, said, “Are you sure about that, old man? Suzie, your daughter, will only be twenty-five when that happens. Some might say that you’re trying to create an empress in your bloodline. Also, the Volkov family might be just a bit miffed that you’re taking away one of their own so early.”
Duke Faust thought this over for a second, “No one ever said this gig was supposed to last a lifetime.” Nikolai thought, did he just say gig?
“It doesn’t have to last a lifetime,” Nikolai had to talk quickly because they were about to exit out of the manor, “with our medical technology you can look at another seventy years if you’re lucky.”
“Christ.” Duke Faust muttered the last private word he would be able to have that day. As the door was opened by two guards, they were swarmed by a handful of ANM people armed with microphones attached to their bracelets. The Duke was quickly ushered away from Nikolai by a guard, leaving the prince to answer questions until his car showed up. Nikolai ran some of the more recent events through his mind as he prepared to answer their questions. Okay, economy is up two points, don’t expect anything there. The Nielson Group likes us right about now. Oh yeah, Suzie has a martial arts meeting later today and I’m supposed to attend that.
One of the pushier ANM people asked Nikolai, “What is the Faust family planning on doing about the teacher strike on floors ninety, ninety-one, and ninety-three?” The first thought to push its way into reality was I wasn’t expecting that question then Why don’t I know about this?
Nikolai gave a winning smile toward the camera, “Sharon,” he said, noting the engraving on her bracelet, “we at the Faust household are planning on dealing with this event to the best of our abilities. But it just wouldn’t do if you knew everything we were going to do before we did it. Trust me, it’s going to be good,” he winked.
Next question, mental note: destroy aid in charge of intel. Some other ANM newscaster, a man of about thirty this time, stepped up and said in his most serious tone, “Are you going to attend Ms. Reynolds martial arts meeting tonight? If so, are there any meaningful security concerns?”
No meaningful security concerns, but the Osiris family has been camping out at the dojo for three days. “Yes, and with the training they give their students at the Red Shepherd Dojo, they’re like a security force themselves. I know Suzie probably knows ten ways to kill me with her bracelet.” Oops, that might have just been a blunder. “To answer your question, the Osiris family is looking in to any possible security issues but there’s nothing that would garner a serious threat.”
Okay, that’s two questions and I’m Nikolai Volkov, a two-question sort of guy. Three questions would take up too much of my time and one question wouldn’t do the general populace justice. I think I managed to get through that with only a minor hiccup. “Thank you,” Nikolai said as he stepped into a rectangular Mover which was completely indistinguishable from every other automatic Mover on the road except for the circular Faust family crest painted on one side of it.
The inside of the probably-the-same-color-as-every-other automatic Mover had no windows or any other way to see out. Only two leather-padded booths and one table in the middle adorned the relatively cramped space. If it weren’t for the occasional minor feelings of acceleration and deceleration, Nikolai would not have been able to tell the difference between the inside of the Mover and a stationary room designed to look the same.
Immediately after entering the Mover, Nikolai went over his morning briefing. On the front page in big bold writing were the words, Teacher’s Protesting Higher Wages Throughout Floors 90 to 99. Okay, we can deal with this. The protests are only in heavily industrialized areas of the ship. I’m pretty sure none of the nineties contain any Hard Labor penitentiaries or agricultural zones. Great, this falls entirely into the lap of the Fausts. He brought up his bracelet and sent a brief verbal message to the head of Osiris. “Hello, this is Nikolai Volkov. I would like to request that a copy of my morning briefings be kept in the Private Room as well as my Mover. This is confidential, but earlier I was asked about an event that was in the morning briefing before I reached the Mover. We barely dodged a ship-wide incident there, guys.” He ended the transmission; unnecessarily pushing Osiris toward action.
Elsewhere in the briefing there was just the customary tabloid stories which popped up twice every day. Cognoscenti Priestess Tells of Upcoming Faustian Wedding. Yeah, no. I’m not looking forward to getting married anytime soon. Especially not to Suzie, bleh. Duchess Smith Planning Temporary Outing to Silver Garden? Okay, I might have had something to do with that; just not directly. Nikolai set up a call to Duke Faust who would be arriving at his destination in a few minutes.
“What is it?”
“I may or may not have given an endorsement to the Red Shepherd Dojo at the morning press briefing,” Nikolai understood that anything he said here would be liable to potential ‘leaking’ so he shouldn’t say anything confidential when making such a high-profile call. “My exact words were, ‘they’re like a security force themselves,’ expect the Nielson Group to demand me say the same thing about them and for the Red Shepherd Dojo’s stock to skyrocket. Heh, if it weren’t a felony, I’d say you should invest.” See, I’m a law abiding citizen.
A grunt could be heard from the other end of the audio call, “What would possibly possess you to say something like that?”
Nikolai frowned in a way that could be heard by Duke Faust, “I was flabbergasted with all those cameras watching me like that. Also, it tore me apart when I was ripped away from Sharon.” The code phrase cameras watching signified that Nikolai couldn’t elaborate over an open line.
Duke Faust begrudgingly gave Nikolai a few points for pandering. “If you keep mentioning girls like that you just might get on my bad side.” Oh, another codeword. The phrase ‘bad side’ meant that trouble was looming.
Nikolai forced a fake-sounding chuckle; he decided that anyone listening probably wouldn’t blame him for it, “I’m messing with you, Sharon is just some reporter that I could ascertain the name of very quickly. Anyone listening to today’s morning briefing might think I know her, therein lies the joke. Plus, I’ve been ‘betrothed’, hate that word, to Suzie for the last seven years. I wouldn’t mess that up now.” Wow, that much lying actually physically hurt me.
“Uh huh,” Duke Faust said, attempting to skate over the subject, “also, do you know anything about this whole ‘faustian wedding’ thing?”
Unshielded loathing took over Nikolai’s tone when he said, “Oh, you mean the Cognoscenti? Yeah, they’re probably just making another reference to the whole Dr. Faustus and the Demon Mephistopheles story.” Somehow, Nikolai managed to sigh in a way that displayed both contempt and exhaustion, “You know seers, they can never just get to the point. If we mixed every prophecy with allusions to that story and prophecies actually about us, we’d have to be conquerors of the Universe. Hey, is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“Stop pandering to the audience.”
“Oh, so we’re acknowledging that?” Great, now we’re going to be hearing about that one sentence for months.
A robotic voice on the other end of the call informed Duke Faust that he would be arriving at the Floor 96 Teachers’ Union Building shortly. He’ll be dealing with that while I have to attend a martial arts tournament. “Anyway, I have to leave now because, unfortunately, this event with the teachers rioting falls squarely into our lap.”
“You know, it’s interesting that I used that exact phrasing a little while ago,” Nikolai Volkov said as a final tabloid-feeding statement, “Anyway, I’ll let you get to that fun little venture, adiós boss.”
“Be careful with the amount of respect you show me, I’m still a Duke you know,” anyone listening would know this was fake, but the two of them assumed the general public wouldn’t mind a little companionship between a powerful man and his successor. Granted, this wasn’t the kind of conversation Nikolai would want playing on the general news but the ANM, with its tendency to put bugs in every politician’s car, probably would not risk their equipment over a story so boring.

Author's Note

-AD