Twist of fate, p.1
Twist of Fate, page 1
Twist of Fate
Pam Uphoff
Copyright 2023 Pamela Uphoff
All Rights Reserved
ISBN
978-1-962073-01-1
Cover Image by
Design by P. A. McWhorter
Image elements from Midjourney
This is a work of fiction.
All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.
Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Home Sweet Home
Chapter Two
A Clean Sweep
Chapter Three
The Office
Chapter Four
Mr. Fixit
Chapter Five
Oddities
Chapter Six
Not Just Another Day
Chapter Seven
Shred!
Chapter Eight
Notoriety
Chapter Nine
Commuting
Chapter Ten
Visitors
Chapter Eleven
A Nice Quiet Weekend
Chapter Twelve
Family Business
Chapter Thirteen
Frustration and Amusement
Chapter Fourteen
Not Looking Back
Chapter Fifteen
Devin
Chapter Sixteen
G-8
Chapter Seventeen
Party Hearty
Chapter Eighteen
Getting Real
Chapter Nineteen
Planning
Chapter Twenty
Running and Camping
Chapter Twenty-one
Empty House
Chapter Twenty-two
Servants or Students?
Chapter Twenty-three
Undiplomatic
Chapter Twenty-four
Drills and Thrills
Chapter Twenty-five
Intel Agent
Chapter Twenty-six
Advertising Works
Chapter Twenty-seven
Politics
Chapter Twenty-eight
For Science!
Chapter Twenty-nine
Peace, Quiet, and Panic
Chapter Thirty
Plague
Chapter Thirty-one
Experiments in Camping
Chapter Thirty-two
Kirov and the Enemy
Chapter Thirty-three
Old Secrets
Chapter Thirty-four
Secret Agent
Chapter Thirty-five
Ambush
Chapter Thirty-six
Home
Chapter Thirty-seven
Contact!
Chapter Thirty-eight
Literary Matters
Chapter Thirty-nine
Back to the Beginning
Chapter Forty
Risky Politics
Chapter Forty-one
Once Again . . .
Chapter Forty-two
And A Package Deal
Bonus Scene One
Bonus Scene Two
Excerpt from an Upcoming Release
Other Titles by Pam Uphoff
Chapter One
Home Sweet Home
Saturday, 4 February, 3737
Lord Yuri Egorov eyed his inheritance as he slowed, looking for the driveway.
The hedge out front had gone wild, and hardly deserved the name. He spotted the driveway, nearly concealed by the branches reaching from both sides.
Yuri stopped on the street and got out to reach out mentally, and slashed back the hedge.
No point in scratching the car’s paint. Even if it is low class to use power for a servant’s task.
And a push to get the trimmings out of the way . . .
The driveway was covered with years of leaves and blown dirt. The grass that had taken root was dead in the winter cold, and he was glad to see nothing larger had grown. The meadow, no doubt once a lawn, sported a few large trees and several groves of smaller trees.
He got back into his car and drove carefully up and around a curve. Pulled up to the big glass double doors of the entry. All the shrubbery around the house was overgrown and half either dead or dormant.
But the late afternoon sun reflected off the intact glass of all the west-facing windows. Two floors on the left, north side. The roof, a long simple slope down to the single floor on the right. Modern clean architecture.
Nothing fancy. Needs paint.
So how bad can the interior be?
He had the keys the lawyer had handed over, and had brought a can of spray lubricant . . . which he needed.
But the locks yielded and he pushed the doors . . . pushed harder and they opened, not warped, but pushing detritus . . . leaves . . . he stepped in and surveyed the ruins. The entry was open all around, and he could see all the way to the back wall. A step down to a big living room, the stone fireplace, the column of stones all the way to the ceiling. The flanking doors, the windows, all the glass gone, all the way to the ceiling. The floor was covered with leaves. Old, brown . . . obviously blown through the ruined windows.
“Well, they said there’d been a bad hail storm six years ago . . . I guess Uncle Vitoli thought fixing the front was good enough?”
The two small rooms flanking the entry weren’t in too bad a shape. Formal parlor and maybe a breakfast room? Some leaves blown in, but not much water damage.
He eyed the big room again, stepped down and crunched though last fall’s leaves on top of the composted layers of previous years. He walked out to the center of the room. Swept a foot across, kicked a hole down to warped, rotten, hardwood floors. Concrete below that.
“Umm, this is going to take some shoveling.”
The stairs on the left didn’t look damaged. The master bedroom would be through the door beyond, that gave to a strong heave. It had protected the room fairly well. Well, except for around the corner, where a window and what must have been a glass door had been shattered . . .
And the broken windows in the master bath, and the sagging ceiling . . .
He walked back out and waded through the leaves to the dining room on the far side, trashed, the kitchen . . . where the cabinets appeared to be sagging as they rotted . . . on the west side, the laundry room and servants’ quarters were . . . merely grubby.
Upstairs, the three bedrooms on the west had a little water damage to the floors, the two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the east all had broken windows. The floors were warped.
“Time to get some estimates. And a damn good thing I’ve got two months left on my apartment lease.” He looked back around the ruins. “And I’d better plan on renewing it for another year.”
He walked out to his car. Shaking his head and wondering why he was bothering to lock the doors.
An older woman stood at the end of the driveway. Frowning. Yuri stopped and stepped out.
“I read in the news that old Vitoli had died. Are you family?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Lord Yuri Aleksandr Egorov. Lord Vitoli’s nephew.”
“Well, I’m Lady Elmira Portnov, and all I can say is, get this ugly excuse of a hedge trimmed immediately!” A stiff nod and she marched away.
Yuri sank back into his car. “And hire a landscaping company. And figure out how to pay for it on a low level Bureau salary.”
The estimates were . . . high.
“For this, I could buy a nice house in town with a short commute to the office.” Yuri sighed at the third estimate. “I’ll call when I decide whether or not to just bulldoze it.”
The contractor shrugged and went away.
“And now, this bloody meeting!”
“Lord Yuri Aleksandr Egorov, Penza Colony Founder Representative.”
A big booming voice, unsuccessfully subdued for a small meeting room.
Heads turned in surprise.
The men at the front of the room, gray-haired, all of them, studied him. He knew all of them from various venues and pictures. And of course he’d met the Governor and Chief of Police as the Bureaus kept a loose connection with the local government and police.
Assemblyman Leontiy Portnov, he knew only from news reports. “So sorry to hear about your uncle’s death, but it is nice to have an Egorov show up for the annual meeting.”
“Thank you, sir.” Yuri glanced up at the spectator’s gallery. “I have observed a few. But now I have Proxy for half the Egorov shares.”
“Only half?” Governor Foma Utkin, stuck out a hand to shake. “Oh, I suppose your uncle sold his half?”
“I suspect so, as they weren’t mentioned in the will. The lawyer just handed me the keys to the house, and wished me luck. It needs a lot of work.”
Ivan Novikov, the Chief of Police, winced. “I understand it’s been abandoned for . . . ten years perhaps?”
Yuri nodded. “Yes. And apparently there was a hailstorm six years ago. Uncle Vitoli replaced the glass at the front of the house, and just left the rest open to the weather. He was not . . . well.”
They all nodded. Alcohol or drugs, I suspect. And I don’t really want to know.
“And it’s going to be expensive to repair it.”
Portnov snorted. “What you do is buy some laborers to do the work, then sell them when it’s done. Then you just have to buy the materials. Much cheaper that way.”
Right. I just have to become a slave owner.
Not that I wasn’t raised with servants, but . . .
Then Lord Andre Rybakov tapped the table, and it was time for the . . . a quick count of heads . . . twelve of the original twenty families that bought the World and opened it for colonization, to sit down and check the state of the world and deal with the problems that had come up since the meeting last year.
First, a count of owners and proxies.
One hundred million shares for each of the twenty founding families, at a ruble a share, for the two billion rubles to buy the World. Dirt cheap, because of no natives for cheap labor, and the first owners—a mining company in default of their loan—still working and in business, it had been fairly low risk, and paid off well enough, and attracted colonists.
Seventy years since it was discovered, fifty years since the Penza Colony Founders Corporation had bought it, it was a going concern, and the home of almost a hundred million people.
They managed a bare quorum, and got down to business.
The standard minutes of the last meeting, the treasurer’s report, and then the fortunately few problems. The meeting was over in two hours, and Yuri was left to contemplate the house. I’m running out of time. I could at least look and see what a common laborer would cost . . .
***
The Board was an electronic bazaar, selling an amazing array of things.
Including people. Or maybe especially people. How else do you sell a living breathing human being? Well, some Worlds have actual market places, but that always sounded worse.
Is clean and antiseptic, over the Netz better, or worse?
Male laborers went from experienced builders for twenty thousand rubles, into the inexperienced for half that, or unhealthy, old or . . . sheesh, a big muscular guy glowering in the picture on the screen, yellow light on the chip, from damage, a violence warning . . . five thousand.
Listed six days ago, he’ll go to the auction tomorrow. Sold, or euthanized.
Shit.
Yuri put in an anonymous cash bid for five hundred.
I hate the thought of having a record of buying people. Stupid. All of us Lords are supposed to have servants. What did Dad write back when I told him Uncle Vitoli had died, and I was left the house?
“You’ll need a cook, a maid, and a gardener at a minimum. Probably more, when you’re ready to start looking for a wife. Chauffeur, housekeeper, butler. And a few promotions from now, an Exec.”
The computer dinged, the Board site informed him his bid had been accepted.
Yuri winced. Pulled out a cash card and tapped the payment button. Received a code and directions to the pickup bay.
Good God! The picture didn’t do him justice! He looks like a Viking warrior, size extra large.
Wolf Gästehaus Wilde Seite.
Six foot eight of muscles. Ruggedly handsome face, wavy golden blond hair and dark blue, nearly purple, eyes. Goosebumps, standing there in nothing but white shorts.
Dye his hair brown and he could be the model for my book covers.
I wonder if he can act? Not that anyone’s shown any inclination to turn my stories into movies. It’s more of a hobby than a business. I’d starve without a real job.
And I didn’t need that wreck of a house. But here’s the man I hope can do the work.
“I’m Yuri Egorov.”
A cautious nod. “Wolf. What sort of work will I be doing?”
“I have inherited an absolutely hideous old house that’s stood empty for about ten years.” Yuri Egorov eyed his new acquisition.
“The house is filthy, and it needs lots of repairs. Massive cleaning, glass replaced in broken windows, paint, inside and out. The yard’s gone to wilderness.
“And everyone says I need a gardener, a chauffeur, a butler, a housekeeper, a cook, and a maid.”
The big muscular man looked at him, perfectly serious as he nodded. “I can do all that, so long as I don’t have to wear a black dress and white apron. High heels just kill my feet.”
Yuri choked, snorted, started laughing. “That’s bad! Now I’m going to be tempted.” Trying to stifle giggles as he waved the man into the seat of the car. I think we’re going to get along just fine
“So, I guess I’d better buy you some clothes. First thing.”
The man shook his head. “My former owner, well, his executor, allowed me to pack clothes and personal possessions into a public storage room. If we could stop there, I’ll have everything I need to turn your inheritance into a showplace.”
Yuri gave him a skeptical look. “Uh, Wolf? Really? Or is your chip yellow lighting because of compulsive overconfidence?”
That got a grin. “No, that was a board to the head for insolence . . . about ten years ago.”
“You know . . . I don’t doubt that. So where is this storeroom?”
“3400 Federal.”
It was a large room, and opened to a code number. It was stuffed.
“Furniture?”
“Used stuff, unless it’s antique or very well made, is more trouble to sell than it’s worth.” A flashed grin. “So the executor told me to take it all. Clothes . . . is your kitchen stocked? I’ve got the old everyday stuff . . .”
“Uh, why don’t we repair the house first, before moving in. I have three weeks left on my apartment lease, so . . .”
“That’s the deadline.” The man eyed the stacks and retrieved four boxes, a suit bag and a duffle bag. He fit them all into the trunk of the car, pulling a bundle of cloth out of the duffle “This’ll get me started. Now, could I talk you into some food?”
“Good plan.” Yuri eyed him. “You are the managing sort, aren’t you?”
Wolf unrolled a pair of pants from around the bundle and stepped into them. “Not excessively, but my previous household had children. I can be quite diplomatic, when appropriate.”
“Uh . . . definitely the managing type.”
He sat back in the car, pulling on a shirt, then leaning to don socks and shoes.
“You came prepared.”
“Well . . . hoping for the opportunity. Are you married? Children?”
“No. I’m a bit young for all that. An uncle I’d met twice—Dad hated his guts—died and his lawyer just handed me keys, all the documents, and wished me luck.” Yuri turned into a restaurant parking lot. “What the hell, since you’re dressed, let’s have a civilized lunch.” And I’ve never been here before and never will be again, so if you embarrass me, who cares?
The only embarrassment was the waitress flirting with Wolf and ignoring Yuri.
You know . . . this could be really useful research material.
The waitress delivered the bill to Wolf, and Yuri snickered and handed over his card. “No, really I insist!”
“Oh, very well, if you must show off!” Wolf sounded mildly amused. But as they head back to the car, he gave Yuri a worried look. “Sorry, that wasn’t proper.”
“No, it was perfect.” Yuri grinned. “I’m an Intel agent, and occasionally . . . being overshadowed and overlooked can be a good thing.”
“Agent, as in works for, or agent as in spies?”
“Office work mostly. Occasionally hand delivering things. No undercover work. Yet. I keep hoping.” He eyed the other man. “So how did you wind up on the Board? Actually, at your size, how did you wind up not Cyborged?” He turned out of the parking lot and headed into town.
“Oh, I was a late bloomer. So I was a scrawny, undersized seventeen-year-old. That was on Tier Four Neumunster, out of Holstein.”
Ah. Neumunster. The World best known for its whorehouses and raising and selling all the whores’ kids.
“My father wanted to buy and adopt me, but he was killed in a traffic accident.” The man shrugged. “My owner took a batch of teenagers to Holstein to chip and sell. I guess they get buyers from everywhere. I wound up on Stalin.
“Just for a few years, then my owner retired and moved here to Penza because of the lower cost of living out on Tier Four. He’d married late, had a wife and three kids. He died two months ago. The authorities contacted his younger brother back on Stalin, and he took the wife and kids back to Stalin, sold most of us servants as soon as we had the house all spiffed up to sell, the last of us when it sold. Hence my storeroom full of used furniture and whatnot. He needed it all gone and didn’t care if I kept it instead of taking it to the landfill.”
Yuri nodded. “Huh. Well, I was born here, raised on Home from the age of five, and after I graduated from UAH with a Masters in Statistics, I worked for the Intel Bureau for six months there, then got posted back out here. Where what I mostly do is collect data, and troop back and forth through Kirov to Stalin carrying reports both ways.”
