As Happy as Pirates or Burglars by Jemma Topaz

Author:Jemma Topaz [Jemma Topaz]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-11-29T13:00:00+00:00

Magical Things

(A Prelude)

“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” - Bertrand Russell

Part I

The Commander and the Prince

Nada shivered. Not because the room was cold – although it was – or because of the red light that gave everything an ominous aura. She looked around for a chair, but found none, so sat on the floor instead. It was metal grating, uncomfortable, but she was used to that.

“Right,” she said, self-consciously. “Okay, where did it start? Well…”

* * *

My new bodyguard was probably too attractive; that was where the problem started. Not pretty, I think, prettiness has some hint of softness. The Commander was all hard lines and clean edges, like some computer-generated figure, or super-advanced robot. She was engineered for single-person combat; two metres tall, muscles and nerves augmented and senses refined.

The perfect police officer. I read her files, of course. My father had decided he approved of my asking for reports from Imperial Intelligence; it showed the caution and attention that someday would be worthy of an emperor. Not that he ever looked at an intelligence report, but he had already resigned himself to me being a sinister emperor, rather than a bullish one.

The Commander – Rajani – was not born into a wealthy family; not poor certainly, but middle-class, as far as I could tell. She did well enough at the cadet assessments that there were patrons lining up to pay for her modifications. Enough that she could choose the patrons that asked purely for monetary repayment, rather than those who offered “personal mentoring” as well.

It must have been fairly terrifying to go from having a normal teen body to a body that’s an augmented weapon. Having the augmentations done in the middle of puberty meant, at least, that there was only one set of surprises to adjust to. I suppose, though, that back when I was a teen, the idea of someone rearranging my gawky body was appealing. The royal family was expected to avoid augments though – just as well, or the emperor would have made me more muscular.

To start with, Rajani’s Imperial Police career did not go smoothly. She was “not a team player” and “lacked the necessary drive” – reading between the lines, the former referred to not being corrupt, and the latter to her not being unnecessarily cruel. There were also some references to “she should settle down”.

Finally, a patron got her a job in the Personal Protection Division. She did fairly well here; it was not particularly corrupt (because that might harm us rich folk) and less brutal (as they waited for trouble to come to them). There were still some difficulties with troublesome clients, but on the whole she was successful. But unknown. At least until the St. Vivianne attacks.

I will not bore you by repeating the well-known details; anti-royalist terrorists, massive explosives, an attempted kidnap, a commonwealth spy. And Rajani taking it all down.

After that she was famous, and her bosses stopped worrying, mostly, about the fact that she didn’t have a husband, or even a boyfriend.

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