Undercover Truths: Undercover Lies

Undercover Truths / Undercover Lies

A Novella by Stephen H. King (TOSK)

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Published by the author,

Copyright 2012 Stephen H. King (TOSK)

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles at http://www.TheOtherStephenKing.com

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Undercover Truths

Undercover Lies

A Message from the Author

Excerpt from CATACLYSM: Return of the Gods (Volume 1)

Excerpt from PROPHECY: Elf Queen of Kiirajanna (Volume 1)

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This novella is written to be enjoyed as a standalone work, but it also tells the back story for some of the major characters in my Return of the Gods series. The novels in the Return of the Gods series are available in both ebook and print book format. Additionally, an excerpt from Cataclysm is included at the end of this novella.

All three novels in the trilogy are also available under the title Married to Mars, an electronic boxed set available at online retailers everywhere. For links to all options, visit the author’s web site at http://www.TheOtherStephenKing.com.

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I wish to again thank my daughter, Jessalyn Perry, for granting me use of her artwork to make the cover of this book. See more of her work on my site: http://www.TheOtherStephenKing.com

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Undercover Truths

I almost didn’t get on the elevator. Sometimes, even now, I wonder why I decided to go ahead and step in. Granted, I had to step onto one of them, since I wasn’t going to walk the five flights of stairs down from the command center to the meeting room level, but there were other lifts I could’ve taken. The advantage of taking one of the others was that it likely wouldn’t have contained him.

The disadvantage? I was already late for the damn meeting, and waiting for another lift at that time of the morning would have made me even later. Besides, you didn’t walk into a meeting after the Governor.

I’m really not sure why the thought of riding the elevator with the Governor turned my stomach. I sat in his council meetings every week, after all. As the technician who ran the primary reactor center in the colony, in fact, I ranked a seat at the main table. Matter of fact, I was a direct report. There was never anything particularly negative said at the meetings, but of course there was never anything particularly positive said either. He wasn’t offensive so much as just a single-dimensional man, the one dimension of his personality being arrogance.

As the elevator doors closed to begin the descent, I couldn’t help but check for my blaster at my hip. Of course, I snuck a glance to check whether the Governor was following protocol also. He was; his energy gun rested in a sleek black holster. Mark, the director of security, had decreed that no one could so much as leave his or her office without their sidearm, what with all the threats and terrorism going on in the world. I’d thought he was nuts; the station seemed pretty much invulnerable. Still, he’d decreed it, and the Governor himself had signed off on it.

Mornin’, Governor, I said, my smile wrapping its way from one cheek to the other without bothering to infect my eyes. Luckily I wasn’t expecting more than a nod and a grunt in reply. If I had, I would have been disappointed. Geez, what arrogance. His office was housed in my building, for crying out loud. The entire sprawling reactor complex that also served as the Colony of America headquarters was mine to command. He could at least have acknowledged one of his direct subordinates.

Hell, I didn’t even know my own boss’s name. Nobody did. In the old days—a funny thing for a twenty-seven year old technology prodigy to say, but still—this colony was a sovereign country with elected leadership. Nobody would’ve been elected without people knowing their name. Hell, nobody as arrogant as the Governor would’ve been elected at all, or at least I hope that was the case. I remember watching as a teenager, though, as an international council disbanded all sovereign governments for the sake of peace. Peace, hell; it was to prevent nuclear holocausts, a concern that became crucial once every nation on the planet had mastered the trick of splitting atoms. The treaty centralized all power generation in one area, stripped all nuclear equipment out of every other nation-turned-colony, and set up a system of rule by oligarchy. The Governor played a significant part in the negotiations and the later constructions and deconstructions, and in reward for his efforts the leadership of the large, wealthy power generation colony, America, was bestowed upon him. We met not much later when I took over the main station.

Wait. You’re probably wondering what a twenty-seven-year-old anything was doing running the biggest nuclear station on the whole damn planet. Aren’t you?

I was good. Still am. Anyway, I finished high school math back in tenth grade. All of it. Took a year off from math my junior year to learn the three primary languages of robotics. Senior year, my physics teacher signed off on an independent study class on integral calculus with some partial differentiation. I finished the book and then went for more, and along the way learned the theories behind nuclear fission.

College was pretty damn boring after that. At least, it was academically boring. Technically, I majored in nuclear physics and minored in mathematics, graduating summa cum laude. Unofficially, I majored in love—no, not falling in it like many of my poor sappy girlfriends did. I mastered the art of manipulating it. It’s easy enough; boys have three distinct disadvantages in this arena. First, very few of them spend more than a laughably small percentage of their childhoods looking away from sports on the vid screen long enough to seriously consider what makes us girls tick. Second, the male psyche is set up to always assume that it’s in charge, that we simpering, fragile little songbirds are too stupid or frail, or both, to lead them on. Third—boobs. Mine may not be the largest, but I have them, and they don’t, and that simple difference turns even the smartest man into a hormonal dumpling.

I chose the thesis option for grad school, thinking I could just get the damn thing out of the way quickly. I was right. I continued my other, more important, studies, of course. The male grad students were all too busy trying to solve the technical problems in life to think about me as anything more than one of them, so I turned my efforts to the faculty. Most of them were bored of their lives in academia, anyway, so it turned out to be pretty easy. It got me a little more time in the labs than the other grad students, which in turn helped me finish even faster.

I’ll bet you can figure out the rest of the story on your own, yes? It’s amazing how much a girl can accomplish in a short time with a fair amount of technical brilliance as well as a pair of breasts. Amazing.

Not with him, though. You were thinking that, right? That the only way for a girl to be second in charge to the Governor is to sleep with him? I might think that too if I didn’t know the secret about how station directors are chosen. But no, the guild chooses. The Governor has to accept whoever the guild puts up to the task. At least, I think he does. He never gave me any indication of whether he thought I was right or wrong for the task, honestly. Doesn’t matter, the guild leaders picked me as the best candidate to direct the newly-connected main power station. Something about my brilliance, and my energetic youth. And no, I didn’t even sleep with all that many of them.

Let’s move on, though. My studies aren’t what this story is about.

The elevator had just started down when the cell at my hip sprang violently to life. I’d programmed every system in the reactor to send exception reports, either primary or copied, to my cell, which in turn was programmed to buzz once per report. Right then, the cell felt like it was trying to buzz its way through its holster. I snatched the small rectangle of high-tech gadgetry out of the nylon pouch