Schemes of the Unknown Unknown Ch. 09

Story Info
Ecstasy - 3750 C.E.:Lofty attempts a hit on Beatrice.
4.1k words
4.69
8.4k
00

Part 9 of the 23 part series

Updated 10/24/2022
Created 07/28/2013
Share this Story

Font Size

Default Font Size

Font Spacing

Default Font Spacing

Font Face

Default Font Face

Reading Theme

Default Theme (White)
You need to Log In or Sign Up to have your customization saved in your Literotica profile.
PUBLIC BETA

Note: You can change font size, font face, and turn on dark mode by clicking the "A" icon tab in the Story Info Box.

You can temporarily switch back to a Classic Literotica® experience during our ongoing public Beta testing. Please consider leaving feedback on issues you experience or suggest improvements.

Click here

Chapter NineEcstasy - 3750 C.E.

The lights that illuminated the bar shimmered and flashed to the thunderous rhythm of the electronic music that accompanied the nude dancing on the podium. A serving android with a voluptuous bosom and a prominent arse was collecting the empty glasses left behind on the counter. There weren't very many customers and these consisted mostly of prostitutes, which was the occupation most often adopted by female refugees from the war-torn Asteroid Belt or the more impoverished colonies in Jupiter's orbit. Scattered about the bar was a small number of tourists. And sitting on a bar stool and nursing a glass of locally produced wine that he'd ordered well over an hour before was a tall man with persistent stubble and a jacket made from real leather.

Lofty brusquely ignored the attention of the prostitutes and they returned his indifference in kind. Perhaps he was more interested in men than women, although if that was so why should he pay a visit to Manu's bar in this twilight corner of Ecstasy? The homosexual district, mostly swarming with Saturnians, wasn't very far away. His pale blue eyes scanned the premises with intent interest. These were chilling eyes that betrayed no softness and matched well his chiselled features.

The bar door opened and Manu swept in with two male companions and three of his regular prostitutes. Judging from their thinness and pale brown skin, these were refugees from Vesta, the most ravaged of the Asteroids. Lofty lowered his head to regard the trace of red wine he'd left untouched for so long and sipped it slowly while his eyes carefully followed Manu and his comrades walk across the bar to the room at the back which was where the proprietor could most often be found. Only when the door slid shut did Lofty at last put down his empty glass and step down from the bar stool.

No one cared to watch as Lofty strode across the bar towards the same door through which Manu had entered. And no one noticed him aim a laser gun at the door's controls whose silent blast caused the door to slide open. It was only a few moments later that Lofty re-emerged from the room carrying a small bag with a barely noticeable rent in the sleeve of his leather jacket. He left the bar without comment while the women on the podium continued to dance and the prostitutes chatted with those male punters who were rather more susceptible than Lofty to their relatively inexpensive charms.

Nobody bothered to enter Manu's private room at the back of the bar for many more minutes. The first person to do so was Miharu who'd been biding her time all day for the opportunity to bargain with the delights of her body for a well-earned break from her duties and the opportunity to visit her children and husband in the crumbling slums on the sixteenth level.

The first unusual thing she noticed was that the door to Manu's room had been vandalised and could be slid open manually. Although that was strange enough, even more peculiar was the sight of Manu and his five companions. Their bloodied bodies were slumped in the exact spots where they'd been dispatched. The only evidence of anything resembling a struggle was around Manu whose face was coated in blood and whose nose was a crumpled ruin. Worse still was that his hand and most of his lower arm had been severed by a single slash from what could only have been a laser gun.

Miharu took in the scene rather slowly. She was, after all, still very high on the drugs that made her working day bearable and she wasn't at all sure whether what she saw was real or a drug-fuelled fantasy. When she'd established that what she was witnessing was indeed the aftermath of an appallingly efficient slaughter, she decided not to attract anyone's attention to what she'd found. Instead, she rifled through the men's pockets. There was no point in doing the same for the women's. It was only when she was sure she'd taken everything of value that she left the room by a back entrance. She was quite content to leave someone else to the risky business—for a bar full of illegal immigrants—of notifying the space colony's overworked police force.

Lofty disposed of his laser gun in a recycling unit not far from the bar. He hardly cared at all that it was one designed specifically for paper and organic waste. He then continued to walk with no sign of anxiety, remorse or haste across the city streets towards the luxury apartments on Ecstasy's upper levels where Adrian Xerxes lived.

Xerxes much preferred to be known by the exotic surname by which he may or may not have been christened. And who would know? Like most of the prostitutes and criminal underworld living in Ecstasy his origins were far from the Kuiper Belt.

His penthouse was one of the most luxurious in Ecstasy. The garden extended for several hectares at the very top of a monstrous tower block, almost within a hundred metres of the ceiling of the first, and therefore most exclusive, level of the city.

Unlike Manu's residence, it wasn't easy for Lofty to gain admittance to Xerxes' penthouse. Even entering his exclusive escalator, which travelled uninterrupted from the ground floor to the top, wasn't straightforward. Robots couldn't be trusted to check that Lofty wasn't carrying lethal weaponry or, indeed, anything else which could be used as an assassination weapon. The women who guarded the escalator and as good as lived in it not only scanned Lofty with sophisticated equipment but stripped him of his clothes so that he was totally naked when he exited the escalator on the top floor. He carried only the bag which not long before had been squeezed in Manu's tight grip when Lofty relieved its previous owner not only of his bag but of the hand and much of the arm that had tried desperately to keep it in his possession. The worst thing about the whole encounter had been the sharp blade Manu's other hand managed to sneak out from his sleeve and with which he slashed Lofty's expensive real leather jacket. Chamois leather wasn't that easy to find in this part of the Solar System.

The only person in Xerxes' huge living room wearing any clothes was Xerxes himself. He was surrounded by several naked women and a pair of stern, exceptionally burly, male escorts who were entrusted with laser guns that were strapped to their wrists and forearms. Xerxes was also built well and showed no evidence that he was now living well into his second century. Even the unhealthy consequences of a life such as his that was dedicated to every conceivable species of debauchery and perversion—to which the bruised and battered body of a prostitute lying on the patio with her entrails sprawled about her bore uncomfortable witness—had been well remedied by hugely expensive life-extending surgery.

"You have the bag?" Xerxes asked.

Lofty raised the hand in which he held the valuable object.

"Put it down on the floor and stand back," his boss ordered.

Lofty did as he was told, while one of the women, somehow more favoured than the others, stepped forward and opened the bag with a sophisticated tool that easily cracked the encrypted code that secured the bag's lock. She put in a hand and withdrew a small hexagonal box which she studied with a small pen-shaped monitor.

"It's seventy-five percent pure," she announced.

"Fuck!" said Xerxes angrily. "Seventy-five fucking percent! Hardly worth the effort of getting it."

"It's still likely to attract bids of at least a million credits," said the woman in a measured but cautious tone.

Despite her diplomacy, this reassurance earned her a sharp slap across the face which drew blood from her nose and upper lip. Xerxes rubbed his knuckles with grim satisfaction and studied the item inside the hexagonal box.

"I was fucking hoping for at least ten million," he said angrily. "That Manu boasted it was ninety-five percent pure. He should have kept his fucking mouth shut. Then he'd still be alive and his whores could even now be serving him coke and fanny. What a cunt!"

Everyone in the room was quiet and even Lofty was anxious. Xerxes was a man who often took out his anger and disappointment on his immediate company. Even Lofty, after all these decades, had reason to fear Xerxes' temper. He'd seen the extent to which the man's sadistic urges could go to be satisfied, even if his cock hardened only very occasionally. One penalty that resulted from Xerxes' appetite for depravity was that even the most violent and murderous sexual acts were no longer guaranteed to bring him the sexual satisfaction he so avidly sought.

Xerxes sat down on the divan with a clink and a jangle from the thick gold and platinum jewellery that he wore not only on his body but in many places threaded into his flesh. He placed the hexagonal box carefully on the table in front of him and shook his head.

"Still," he said uncharacteristically reflectively. "A million credits are better than nothing at all. Thank you, Lofty. You did a good job."

Lofty could at last venture a smile, which on a face like his was still tinged with a hint of malice.

"I aim only to do my best, boss," he said modestly.

"I have another job for you," said Xerxes. "Shall we go outside into the garden?"

"Yes, boss," said Lofty obediently.

Although it was something he rarely admitted even to himself, Lofty was as much tied to Xerxes' service as were his courtesans or prostitutes. If he were ever to attempt to leave Ecstasy or even just retire, it would only be a matter of time until he would be dead. It mightn't happen, however, for several years. His death would be prolonged, extremely painful and most certainly humiliating. He knew this for sure as he had several times been the emissary of such justice. Although he wasn't a man easily aroused by the punishment he meted out, especially when it was another man who was the victim, there was always a sexual element to it that very rarely accorded with what the victim might ever desire. It was a bizarre reward for service to the wealthiest gang leader on Ecstasy that the longer and more faithful the service given the more terrible the inevitable death would be. Xerxes was unlikely to be content with serving abrupt and relatively painless justice. Lofty had nailed men and women to ceilings. He had impaled them with garden implements. He had forced men to eat their genitals. Women to murder their own children. And roasted others on slowly burning spits.

"It's a small job," said Xerxes when he and Lofty were sitting on a bench in his extensive garden under the shade of a sycamore tree.

Several parrots were resting on the branches. Deer were strolling about the lawn mindful as ever of the leopard that Xerxes chose to keep in their midst. The body of the recently murdered woman on the patio would keep the leopard and the huge domestic dogs well-fed when they were sure that she was properly dead, but the deer had every reason to fear that they would also soon be prey. Above their heads a small cloud passed by, but this would do nothing more than obscure the sight of the first level's ceiling. The rain that fell regularly on the garden came from the colony's internal sprinkler system and not from the clouds that resulted from its evaporation.

"How small?" wondered Lofty.

"It's just one guy," said Xerxes. "He's called Paul Morris. Weird name, but he comes from Godwin where they've all got weird names."

"Godwin?" said Lofty. "Never heard of it."

"Most people haven't," said Xerxes. "It's a kind of anarchist colony. No money. No government. Fuck all."

"No pickings there then," Lofty remarked.

"Load of fucking utopian idealists," said Xerxes dismissively. "Only a fucking idiot would try and do business with them. So, not surprisingly, not me nor anyone else in the family has a presence there. But this cunt's on his way here to Ecstasy. Short visit, mind. Then he's on his way to Saturn and even, I've heard, Earth. That's one place in the Solar System I've always wanted to go."

"And you haven't?"

"The fuckers won't let me," said Xerxes ruefully. His fame was as great as his criminal record and Earth was very choosy about the calibre of tourist it allowed on its surface, irrespective of however many billion credits that tourist might choose to spend.

"He won't make it to Earth, will he?" said Lofty. "The cunt won't even make it to Saturn."

"You've got the idea," said Xerxes approvingly. "What we want is a quick job. In and out. But no collateral. It's got to look like a professional job but fallout has got to be minimal. The more casualties other than this one little wanker and the less we'll get. They're using a sliding scale. Each extra death halves what we get."

"One death. No collateral. No problem."

"Good," said Xerxes. "You understand all you need."

"So, if the people paying for this are so squeamish they must be government, right?"

"Fuck if I know," admitted Xerxes. "This didn't come through the usual channels, you understand. But there's been enough upfront to convince me it's worth our while."

"And why's this guy gotta get whacked?" asked Lofty not unreasonably.

"Fuck knows. Why should I care? This is a strictly need-to-know job. Just make sure you bring back evidence of a job well done. Bring me the head of Paul Morris."

"Consider it done."

"Now, you're gonna stay awhile, aren't you? I've got some prime virgin meat on the menu. Should be plenty of blood. And not just the usual."

Lofty nodded. Although he had little appetite for his boss's preferences, he knew that such a proposal was as good as an order. And anyway he'd get plenty of cream on his dick before the inevitable disembowelling or whatever else Xerxes had in mind to climax his evening's entertainment.

This job was so important that Lofty wasn't the only man entrusted to carry it out. He had to work with Grimaldi and Foo Yong whose records as hitmen were at least as impressive as Lofty's. This wasn't going to be as easy a job as whacking Manu had been. The mark was as much tailed by Lofty and his associates as he was by some Saturnian bodyguards who kept their presence discreet, but not so much that Lofty couldn't identify them. Clearly, this was a two-stage job. First, they'd have to neutralise the bodyguards and that without any lasting damage. Only then could he and his companions complete their mission. Although he was probably the least impressive mark Lofty ever had to eliminate, Paul Morris was also a guy that Saturn thought worth keeping alive. But no way was he someone who'd put up much of a fight. He was very unlikely to rip up the new leather jacket that had cost Lofty most of the proceeds of Manu's execution. But okapi was never going to come cheap.

Lofty and his two companions spent a frustrating day following Paul as he wandered apparently aimlessly about the colony's bars and tourist resorts. Every step their mark made was shadowed by the two bodyguards who only the most green would ever fail to recognise for what they were. Paul was clearly oblivious to their presence and must have been about as naïve as it was possible to be. The bodyguards made no effort to disguise themselves as natives. It was obvious they were Saturnians. They didn't even wear wigs to hide their shaven pates. And if they were the tourists they pretended to be, why was one female and the other male? Very few Saturnians were comfortable in such an apparently heterosexual coupling.

Lofty's luck turned when Paul entered a bar and finally strolled off several hours later with a woman. Lofty was sure she wasn't a prostitute. If she was, it wasn't because she was an economic migrant. There was nothing about her that suggested she needed to make her living as a prostitute. With a body like hers she'd be far better off as a model or a pornographic actress. What convinced Lofty that all would go well was when this woman escorted Paul into a tall apartment block where it would be piss easy to isolate him from the attention of his bodyguards. This was no well-defended hotel or crowded public space. It was somewhere in which a person would expect privacy and where Paul's guards wouldn't be able to follow his every step.

"The bitch is gonna let him fuck her, isn't she?" Grimaldi remarked.

"She can't be that fucking desperate, can she?" Foo Yong remarked. "It takes more than luck to get to look like her. She could fuck anyone she fancied."

"Perhaps she's just got piss poor taste," commented Lofty. "There's no accounting for people's tastes."

"Well, it's gonna be one guy's lucky day," Grimaldi said. "The skirt has got the scent of a bitch in heat. That fucking Morris wanker looks like the most he normally tucks up in bed with is a book. And a fucking boring book at that."

"His academic research on Ecstasy isn't just facts and figures," Lofty observed. "There can't be many bars on Ecstasy he's not looked through the door of. Perhaps the best he can get back on Godwin is cybersex."

"Yeah, I can see him plugged into cyberspace permanently," Foo Yong admitted. "That's one place you're guaranteed to score. No digital bitch is gonna know how to say no to no one."

"I guess you'd know about that," Lofty joked, but with a touch of malevolence to his slight.

"What you saying, you fucking faggot?" Foo Yong retorted with no sign that he was taking Lofty's comment in good humour.

"Fucking leave it!" interceded Grimaldi. "Once we've disposed of this Morris cunt, we can take turns at this bitch of his until he lapses into rigor mortis."

"And then we'll see what kind of faggot you are," Foo Yong remarked to Lofty who diplomatically chose to ignore the comment.

Lofty was well aware that the collateral damage that Xerxes wanted to avoid almost certainly didn't extend to this lippy Uranian.

The three assassins chose to bide their time before going into action. They walked into a milk bar that was stationed just opposite the woman's apartment block where they could keep an eye on whether Paul might leave prematurely. They had to frighten off the tourists who were occupying the table just by the window, confident that no one would object to their rudeness. Even the serving robots were programmed to recognise when trouble was best avoided. The three men sat idly together sipping coffee and milk shakes at a table nobody else was foolish enough to share.

While they sat together, Lofty's eyes silently scanned about him, Grimaldi deconstructed song lyrics and Foo Yong leered at the women in the bar. Their jackets were pulled tight across their chests, but it would be an easy matter for any of them to reach for a piece if circumstances so required.

After a couple of lazy hours during which Lofty's eyes strayed hardly at all from the doors to the apartment block opposite and Grimaldi barely paused in his near monologue, it felt about right to move into action. Even Grimaldi shut up as the three men stood up and strode purposefully across the wide street. They accompanied two excitable girls whose conversation trailed off abruptly as Lofty held open the door behind them before it closed and they were inside. It was then a simple matter of following the nano-radio signal that had been discreetly planted in Paul's hair to establish which floor he was on and in which apartment.

The floor in which Paul was no doubt enjoying sex with the bitch whose fuckability Foo Yong had several times remarked upon was no different from any other but it was at quite an elevation. When the elevator paused at the woman's floor, there was nothing to distinguish one apartment from another along a corridor that extended for several hundred metres.

There was no difficulty at all in identifying Paul's bodyguards. They were standing together in the middle distance and began strolling slowly towards the elevator when Lofty and his companions appeared. They knew as well as did Lofty that two people walking along a corridor was far less suspicious than two people standing in one spot. The bodyguards were dressed in what they thought was appropriate for Ecstasy which served to accentuate the woman's bosom and the man's arse rather more than it would if they were dressed for the relatively staid streets of the Socialist Republics of Saturn.

12