The Unfathomable Beast of Xanadu IV (PART ONE)

Fly in, Capture the Thing, Get out. Simple, right?

The Planet of Xanadu IV

Click here for PART TWO, or click here for PART THREE.

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I didn’t know it was possible to hate someone as much as I hated Freddie Montauk, the kingpin of the Darlucian Syndicate.

He was an untouchable, irredeemable pile of sentient shit, but more than that, he was directly responsible for my wife’s death.

Plenty of people had reasons to hate him, but mine was a special case. And yet, somehow, I found myself in his debt.

“Hey, are you fucking paying attention?” Freddie asked.

Pain shot through my jaw as I realized how violently I was clenching it. My hands were balled into fists. My blood was boiling. I hated every second I had to look at his greasy, wrinkled, hairless face.

“I’m listening,” I said.

Freddie snapped at a scantily clad android woman standing in the corner of the room, still as a statue. Her eyes lit up with a soft blue light, and a smile crossed her face, as fake as the synthetic skin covering her body. She walked over to him and stood waiting for orders.

“Get this miserable prick the job brief so I can stop looking at him.”

The feeling’s mutual.

She nodded and turned to face me. The moment we made eye contact, a tingling sensation crawled down the right side of my face. The cybernetic implant in my eye synced with the woman’s own, and my vision was overlaid with data on a nearby desert planet.

Most people with Cyberdex implants used them for porn, but it was an efficient way to transmit information wirelessly. Of course, you had to be able to afford one, and most people couldn’t.

Working for Freddie, though, came with its perks. He subsidized the implant in return for your undying loyalty. What a sweet deal.

My eyes scanned everything, but the visuals were just a formality. The implant absorbed everything I needed to know, downloading it directly into my brain.

In just a few seconds, I would know the most important details about the job without listening to any more of Freddie’s mindless drivel. The rest I could catch up on later.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“That’ll be all Johnny. Go get me my new pet!”

I forced a weak smile and turned to leave. The data from the transfer was slowly trickling into my brain, like a computer processing a large file.

Details started coming to me like Déjà vu, half-remembered memories, the only way to avoid overloading the brain and killing the recipient.

Freddie Montauk had a menagerie of the galaxy's most dangerous and rare creatures. His own personal zoo, where everything was either ready to kill you, fuck you, or both, and not necessarily in that order.

No one was allowed in, but everyone knew about it because he told people every chance he got.

There are also “unverified” stories that he’s also used his pets to get rid of people he dislikes, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

The job’s details were as follows: join a squad of mercs and fly to a nearby desert world uninhabited for centuries.

Xanadu-IV was classified as an Omega-level threat with all kinds of red tape. It’s not the kind of place where you’d plan a vacation; let me put it that way. If the thing down there Freddie wanted ever escaped, it could wipe out the entire galaxy.

A couple of decades ago, an archaeological team was permitted to study some ruins on the surface, but you can imagine how that went. The archaeologists were wiped out, and the powers that be put the whole planet on lockdown to ensure no one would ever set foot there again.

Of course, rules like that don’t apply to people like Freddie, so we’re supposed to capture whatever is down there and bring it back so he can add it to his collection.

Now, mind you, he already has a few apocalyptic monsters locked up there, so what’s one more, right?

I had twenty-four hours before I was supposed to join the mercs and fly to Xanadu-IV. I rode the elevator down from Freddie’s penthouse, The glass walls around provided one hell of a view.

Darluca was one of the largest mobile space stations in the galaxy. Shaped like a giant cylinder, the interior walls were lined with apartment buildings, casinos, shops, and bars. The Darlucian syndicate runs every single one.

The streets of Darluca

They even had their own currency here. It was a self-contained slice of hell, and if you worked for Freddie or anyone else in the syndicate, this is the place you called home.

Freddie’s penthouse sat atop a tower in the station's center. It was equal parts decadent and dystopian, but you’d never hear Freddie admit that. If you’re starting to get the idea that he’s compensating for something, though, you’d be right.

Walking through my district's entertainment and shopping areas was like bathing in neon light. Businesses had to compete for your attention, with redundancies everywhere.

You couldn’t take a step without getting slapped in the face by glowing text promising pleasure in the form of food, booze, or a warm body. There were no rules regarding the economy or the markets in Darluca.

It was every sentient being for themselves. The only rule was to follow orders, and when a job came, you took it without question.

Of course, no one comes to Darluca looking for a better life. The Darlucian syndicate may be headquartered here, but its tendrils spread to all corners of the galaxy. They had plenty of ways to pull you into debt with them.

They prey on the weak, the poor, and the underdogs. When the inevitable time came that you couldn’t pay, they’d contract you for a decade or more on the Darluca under Freddie’s watchful eye.

It’s how I got here, what brought my late wife here, and probably how all these sorry souls got here, too. We’re all just cogs in Freddie’s machine.

“Hey Johnny, fancy a drink?” a voice asked.

I was at the edge of the business district, about to set foot into the slums. A bar was situated right at the line, owned by a Hindrax whose name I could never pronounce. I don’t think it’s something human tongues can say.

“Hey, uh, man, how’s business?” I asked.

The owner stepped out into the neon light. Hindrax were mostly humanoid in body shape but had claws instead of fingers. They also had twelve eyes, six on either side of their head.

He always did this thing where he winked at me with one set of eyes, and honestly, it was fucking weird.

“Shitty Johnny, business is always shitty on Darluca. You’ve got that walk about you, though, like you got something shoved up your ass. You go to see Freddie or something?”

I nodded. “Yeah, new job on Xanadu-IV. Heard of it?”

All twelve of the owner’s eyes went wide.

“Yeah, of course, I know about Xanadu-IV. What the hell are you going there for?”

“Freddie’s got his eyes on a new pet living there.”

The owner shook his head. “We all know what happened last time he sent someone to fetch a pet for him.”

Don’t remind me.

“Listen, I’m shipping out in the morning, so I should get going. I’ll take you up on that drink when I’m back. Well, if I make it back.”

The owner chuckled. “If you make it back, Johnny, the drinks are on me.”

I crossed over to the slums. Like someone hitting a light switch on their way out, the street went dark, save for some sterile streetlamps mounted from the roof of apartment buildings.

No more neon lights or promises of hedonistic indulgences, just the stench of garbage and depression that hung like a cloud everywhere you went.

It was here where I lived, tucked into a tiny one-bedroom apartment. Hell, the whole thing was one room. The toilet was in the corner, the sink and fridge were on the other side of the room, and the bed was in the middle.

Believe it or not, it was one of the nicer apartments they had on Darluca.

Perks of working for Freddie for as long as I had. I shut the door behind me and collapsed onto the bed. I tapped my right temple as I rolled onto my back, and a digital menu appeared above me.

“Set an alarm for eight hundred hours and play memory-217,” I said.

The menu navigated itself, selecting the alarm and booting up a program called Remembrance. Cyberdex implants can let you relive any memory stored in the subject’s brain after installation.

Every detail, down to the smells of that moment, could be recreated in real time. It was the closest you could get to time travel. It was the closest I could get to seeing her again.

A digital wave swept over the room, taking me back to that day three months ago. A beautiful woman appeared beside me in the bed in the blink of an eye.

Her name was Selena. My incredible, intelligent, drop-dead gorgeous, very much dead wife. She had jet-black shoulder-length hair, skin the color of moonlight, and piercing green eyes. She was wearing one of my shirts, which looked like a dress on her slender form.

Her fingertips danced across my bare chest, and I could feel her breath hot against my skin. I took a deep breath, smiling as the scent of her shampoo brought back a rush of familiarity.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

I’d relived this memory hundreds of times, yet I never knew how to answer. Remembrance does everything it can to preserve the original memory, but its generative AI capabilities allow it to adapt and adjust how things play out based on your inputs.

Each trip back to that moment was slightly different as a result.

Johnny and Selena. The perfect moment.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I said.

She turned her eyes up toward me. My heart skipped a beat every time I gazed into them.

“You know just as well as I do that no one says no to Freddie.”

“I know; I just worry about you.”

Selena smiled and pressed her lips against my chest before laying her head back down.

“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.”

I brought my hand up the curve of her back and ran my fingers through her hair, gently massaging her scalp as I rested my head against the wall behind me.

“Just a little longer, and then our contracts are up. We can finally get out of this hellhole. Where do you want to go when we’re free?” I asked.

Selena took a moment to think it over.

“Oh, what about Neptune? They have those amazing all-inclusive resorts in the upper atmosphere. Could you imagine the view?”

She always wanted to visit Neptune. It was one of those trips we’d always talked about taking.

“I agree. Neptune is the perfect first stop. Should just tour the whole solar system,” I said.

Selena’s head shot up. A smile crawled across her face as I saw her eyes light up.

“Don’t fuck with me, Johnny. Are you serious?” she asked.

“Of course! I’ll get a big payout at the end of my contract and finally give you the honeymoon you deserve.”

Selena wrapped her arms around my torso and squeezed.

“Thanks, babe, I’m going to hold you to that. It’s getting late, though; I’ve got to be at the docks early for that job tomorrow.”

“That’s fine, we can get some sleep. Do me a favor, though?”

“Of course, my love, what do you need?”

“I just want you to stay here. Just like this.”

Selena climbed onto her arms and legs and leaned forward, pressing her soft lips against mine—the perfect kiss.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.

Fuck, I wish that were true.

Selena curled up next to me, resting her leg on mine as she laid her head on my chest. I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could to hold onto that moment as I fell asleep.

My shitty alarm took me out of what was a nice dream several hours later. I crawled out of bed and took a quick shower.

I stopped just as I was about to leave my apartment. My whole life was confined to a single room. These jobs were often dangerous, I never knew if I would make it back.

Usually, I wouldn’t take anything with me. Freddie makes sure we’ve all got the gear we need. This time, though, I had something in mind—a good luck charm.

I walked over to the nightstand beside my bed and opened the drawer. Inside was a single photo, printed on glossy paper and taken with an antique camera. A Polaroid is what it’s called if I remember correctly.

It was Selena, standing under a blue sky on Earth. She was wearing a white dress and smiling like she had her whole life ahead of her. I picked up the photo and slid it into my pants pocket before leaving for the docks.

Click here to read Part 2!

Author’s Note: This piece was originally published on Vocal.