Lost Words, The Unauthorized Biography of Liam Munson (Patreon)

Claimings edits are going slow, probably because I just finished another round of Aberrant Magic edits and I hate editing.  But reading the story made me want to write more.  So, did anyone wonder who wrote that book the linguists professor hated??

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“Luke Munson?”

Luke turned to see a middle-aged man in a uniform standing in the open door. “Lieutenant Spooner?”

The man smiled and held out his hand. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“You’re paying.” Luke had no idea what this was about, but now that he was here with Lieutenant Spooner, he was a little nervous. The socnet café was largely empty, leaving Luke feeling entirely too exposed. “You wanted to talk about my brother?”

“I do. Would you like a drink?” Spooner headed into the café. Since Luke already had his payment, he felt obligated to follow. 

“You wanted to talk about my brother? You said you served with him.”

“For years,” Lieutenant Spooner said as he took a seat at a long communal table. “Tap in your order. My treat.”

Luke chose a seat catty corner from the lieutenant and put in for a large coffee with taco spices. The lieutenant tapped his card on Luke’s display.

“Are you asking about him for the military?” Luke figured the higher-ups had to be worried about whether Liam would abandoned the service and give human secrets to the Rownt.

“No. I’m actually on leave. I’m about to get a promotion to captain, and I’m taking a couple of months off before my new posting. I haven’t had a chance to use any leave in several years.”

“Then why do you want to talk?” The top of the table flashed and then the recessed area opened to allow two drinks to rise up. Luke took his and savored the smell. He and Dana had each quit one of their jobs. Liam’s money made that possible, but he still didn’t have credits to waste on something like spiced coffee. 

“I’m writing a biography.”

“Of Liam?”

Spooner nodded. “People deserve to know the real Liam Munson, and what I’m seeing on the vids… that’s not the Liam I know.”

“No joke,” Luke said with a snort. “He abandons us, leaves Mom to die, and the vids all make him out to be some hero who saved the military supply lines with his powers of negotiation.” It disgusted Luke.

A frown darted across Spooner’s face. “So, you didn’t have a good relationship with your brother growing up?”

“I didn’t have a relationship at all. He was a lot older.” They had six and a half years between them. Betty had only been two years younger than Liam and shared a father with him, but she had died before Luke had even been born. 

“You were eleven or twelve when he left Earth, right? You must have had some sort of relationship. I was the little brother in my family, and I’m sure my older brothers could tell all sorts of stories about what a pest I was, following him around.”

“Yeah, well Liam never really liked me hanging around.” Luke didn’t want to be an asshole and take Spooner’s money with offering anything of value in return, so he added, “You should talk to Chak Maylti. That was his best friend.” 

Spooner nodded. “I spoke to him. Do you know Mortimer Telfer?”

Luke shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“So, he never came around the house? You never saw Liam talking to him?”

Luke had assumed Mortimer was a school friend, but then Spooner pushed a vidpad toward him. The mugshot showed a man twice Liam’s age. His hair was streaked with gray and he had a long scar on his face, but he still had a sort of roguish charm, at least until Luke read the scrolling charges. Extortion, assault, attempted murder, domestic battery, conspiracy to engage in prostitution, running a gambling institution without a license, facilitating gladiator fights, kidnapping… the guy was a piece of shit.

“He died in prison two years ago,” Spooner said. 

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” Luke pushed the vidpad back. “What does this have to do with Liam?”

“When you were seven, Telfer started paying half your mother’s rent.”

Luke shot out of his seat. “My mother had nothing to do with scum like that.”

Spooner held out his hands. “I never even considered the possibility. Your mom was a straight shooter.”

“She was.” Luke fidgeted. He didn’t want to sit down again because this whole conversation was intensely uncomfortable. He’d expected to give this guy a few names, a story or two, and then walk away. He wasn’t sure how their mother had gotten involved.

“Was your father ever around?” Spooner asked.

“My father was until I was eight or nine. I never met Liam’s father. What exactly are you doing with this research?”

Spooner smiled. “Like I said, I’m writing the story of the real Liam Munson. I have a lot of respect for him. His ability with language is amazing. Was he a good student as a kid?”

“Sure. Mom had several academic awards he’d won hanging on our living room wall.”

Spooner leaned forward. “Why did he quit school?”

Luke frowned. “He never quit.”

“School records show he last attended when he was fourteen years, eight months.”

Luke frowned. If Liam had quit school, their mother would have killed him. Luke definitely would have remembered that fight. Besides, quitting would be stupid since education was one of the few ways to either delay mandatory military service or claim a spot in officer training. Liam wouldn’t have done that.

“You didn’t know,” Spooner said softly.

Luke shook his head. “He wouldn’t have done that. That would be stupid, and he wasn’t stupid. Hell, the military wouldn’t have promoted him to lieutenant without a college degree, so he must have been on the path before he joined up.”

Spooner’s gaze dropped, and Luke’s discomfort grew so intense that his chest felt like it was in a vice.

“Before this book comes out, you should know the truth,” Spooner said, and the gentleness in his tone made Luke even more apprehensive. “Liam was a sergeant when I served with him, and he never would have risen any higher in the ranks if it wasn’t for the Rownt because he doesn’t even have a secondary degree. That promotion is the military’s way of keeping some level of control. If he doesn’t give them some access to Rownt trading networks, they can cut off the money.”

That made no sense. “Couldn’t they order him back?”

Spooner’s laugh was dark and low. “He wouldn’t listen to Command. Not anymore. He left earth, and after what happened to him at the front, after the abuse, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never wanted to have anything to do with the planet again. But he left money for you, for your siblings, for the families of the men and women who served with him at the front. He won’t screw them over, and Command knows that.”

“He never cared about me,” Luke said, but his mind was already racing in circles, putting patterns together. Liam was fourteen when that scumbag started paying the rent. He dropped out months later. Mortimer Telfer ran a prostitution ring, and Dana always said that the Munson men were cute as hell. Luke didn’t see himself that way, but he’d seen pictures of Liam at fourteen. His stomach churned and he slowly sat back down. The spiced coffee pressed against the base of his throat until he thought he might vomit.

A warm hand pressed against his, and Luke looked down to see Spooner pressing a tube of antacids into his palm. Luke took four.

“I didn’t know you’d never figured it out. Mr. Maylti said that Mortimer Telfer used to hang around the school, buy kids treats or just listen to their woes. He’d like the man, but his mother ordered him to steer clear. I thought your mother had just lost that fight. I’m sorry.”

Luke closed his eyes and thought about his mom dragging herself home after dark. When school was out, she would take them along to the houses and make them sit on the curb outside so they didn’t track dirt in. He did remember her arguing with Liam, telling him he needed to come with her and watch the younger kids. Luke had resented that their mother hadn’t trusted him, but in the end he had babysat. He’d always thought of Liam as selfish—as off having fun and leaving their mother to do all the work.

“I guess she didn’t know.”

Luke thought about the way their mother would sometimes sit in the dark staring at a picture of Liam. She’d aged twenty years the day she’d come home to find the military notice of Liam’s enlistment, but she refused to ever talk to Luke about it.

Even when she’d been dying and Luke had been so angry about Liam’s silence, she would catch Luke’s hands in her skeletal ones and tell him to be kind. It had made Luke more angry.

“Did he get any of our letters?” Luke asked.

“After Liam joined the Rownt, I went through his personal effects and accounts. I never found anything.”

Luke closed his eyes.

“Even before Liam joined the Rownt, he had a rare ability to get them to trade. Command wouldn’t have wanted him distracted from that. They would have done a lot to protect Liam’s position. Truth be told, when we got a new commander who verbally abused Liam, they probably would have pulled the commander even without the Rownt getting involved.”

“A commander abused him?” Luke sat up. “And what abuse happened at the front?”

Lieutenant Spooner sighed. “I liked Liam, and so did a lot of other people. But bullies… they were drawn to Liam like moths to a flame. He was quiet and gentle and when you hurt him, he showed every ounce of pain. If it weren’t for the fact he was gay, our head of security would have taken him into her bed and never let him out. I’ve never seen Gina love someone quite as much as she loved your brother. But bullies… they loved Liam for a different reason.”

Luke thought about that huge alien and the way he had hovered over Liam. The images took on a more ominous meaning now. “The Rownt… are they bullies?” Luke gritted his teeth and braced himself.

“No,” Spooner blurted. “No, not at all. In fact, Tuk-Ondry took custody of Liam because he saw abuse and he wouldn’t allow it to happen. I saw them together both before and after Liam moved in with the Rownt, and Liam is safe with them.”

“But he wasn’t safe here.” Luke swallowed as a million facts suddenly slotted into place. The second he took his own distorted impressions out of the equation, he could see the data compiling like the moment an AI processor first self-arranged a dataset. Chak had told him that Liam wouldn’t come back, that he needed space. It hadn’t been space from his family—it had been from that monster. And his mother’s pain wasn’t anger at her oldest son, it had been guilt. And no one had ever told him anything. “You’re writing a book.”

“Yes,” Spooner said slowly, as if uncertain.

Luke looked the lieutenant in the eye. “I want to read it. I want to read all your raw research. I want everything.”

Spooner frowned. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I have my mother’s datachip from when we were kids,” Luke said. “Every report card, every teacher or psychologist evaluation, every school award and discipline record. I’ll give them all to you if you let me see everything you have, whether it makes it into the final book or not.”

“There are things you don’t need to see.” Spooner looked absolutely nauseated at the idea of Luke seeing his research. Luke’s stomach churned despite the antacids. Mortimer had run prostitutes, so Luke could guess what he might see. But he was suddenly overwhelmed with a need to see it anyway.

“Full disclosure or nothing,” Luke said firmly. There was no way that a stranger was going to know his brother better than he did. 

Slowly Spooner nodded. “Deal, but… Don’t judge your brother. He was a kid doing the best he could. He always did the best he could, even when he knew people would disapprove. It’s part of his charm.” There was a sadness that didn’t match the words.

“And he charmed you,” Luke guessed. That would explain why Spooner was so determined to make sure the real story got out in front of the government propaganda. Command certainly wouldn’t thank him for it, so this wasn’t some move calculated to get him faster promotions.

“Yeah.” Spooner looked out the plate glass window. “We worked together for years, and when he would come back with a new Rownt recording or storyscroll, he would get so excited that he would light a room with his enthusiasm. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if he wasn’t in my unit, but ethically, I wouldn’t go there—not when he worked for me.” Spooner shook himself and gave Luke a cocky grin. “Besides, he never looked at me twice. He was madly in love with Ondry. I am sorry Mortimer Telfer is dead though. I was looking forward to sending his information to the Rownt and letting them handle it. Sadly, the man got stabbed in prison before I could sell him out.”

“Would the Rownt care?” Luke asked. He hadn’t paid all that much attention to the Rownt gossip or government announcements because they reminded him too much of his brother.

Spooner’s smile was malicious. “They would have ripped his head off his body. Literally. I’m hoping to find one or two others, so there’s still a chance someone will pay for what happened to Liam.”

Luke felt better knowing that Liam had good friends in his corner, even if Luke had spent most of his life condemning his brother. “Do you want to go get my mother’s datachip or do you want to go back to your place and look through your research?”

“Why don’t you come to my place,” Spooner said. “I just need to stop and pick up some alcohol before we go there.” Maybe Luke let his confusion show because Spooner added, “You’re going to need it before we’re done, but remember.  If Rownt rip a head off someone’s neck, it leads to diplomatic immunity warrants. You and I would go to prison.”

Luke had no words, especially since he didn’t know what he was going to see in those records. Clearly Liam had been hurt far more than Luke had understood. Maybe their mother hadn’t even known the full story. But now Luke felt like he had an obligation to get to know his brother. He wanted to know the sort of man who could inspire such loyalty.