Now Playing on Outworld 5730 Read online

  Now Playing on

  Outworld 5730

  Novels by R. T. W. Lipkin

  now playing on outworld 5730

  never enough time

  prediction

  origin phase cycle:

  book 1: origin phase

  book 2: robot academy

  book 3: oasis

  Now Playing on

  Outworld 5730

  R·T·W Lipkin

  Copyright © 2018 by R. T. W. Lipkin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  cover art by Rebecacovers | fiverr.com

  ISBN-13: 978-1-949059-11-3

  ISBN-10: 1-949059-11-1

  Eclipse Ink, Bronx, NY

  Now Playing on Outworld 5730 is a work of fiction. References to historical events or real people or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual anything or anyone is entirely coincidental.

  Visit my website at rtwlipkin.com

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Author’s notes, &c.

  For John and Bob,

  Now playing on 43rd Street

  Chapter 1

  87th Century

  Hollyhock Manor, Outworld 5730

  “Didn’t they have robots for this?” Lady Patience gazed at herself in the mirror as she fluttered her hand next to her hair, which her lady’s maid, Violet Aldrich, was pinning up.

  “No, my lady,” said Violet.

  “Fix that, will you?” Lady Patience Barrington pointed to an errant wisp of too-blond hair that Violet thought looked fine, but Lady Patience disagreed. Violet pinned it back into the place Lady Patience indicated.

  “Now I remember. Yes, yes. They didn’t have robots until maybe the end of the nineteenth century,” Lady Patience said, still gazing at herself, tilting her head, then straightening it, “and they wouldn’t’ve been used to take careful, dedicated, meticulous care of a lady even if they did. Not then. Robot servants weren’t in use until at least the mid-twentieth. You know, the Industrious Age. Before they got rid of them.”

  Lady Patience Barrington, who knew nothing at all about history except the shreds she half recalled from the historitor who helped arrange everything, was suddenly an expert on long-ago, obsoleted robot servants. She squirmed in her chair and touched the very hair that Violet had adjusted.

  “And we’re never to talk of this again,” Lady Patience said as she picked up a sugared almond, licked it, then put it back on the transparently thin, pseudo-hand-painted china plate on her dressing table.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Violet, who hadn’t talked of it at all.

  Yes, my lady and No, my lady were pretty much all Violet was supposed to say, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to be discussing ancient robots, not in Regency England, here on Outworld 5730. But many of the players had yet to arrive, so there was still a somewhat informal atmosphere about Hollyhock Manor, despite the instructions of the producer and resident historitor, Jewel Allman, that the majestic had indeed officially started.

  This majestic, like most of them, would span an Earth period of five months, which translated to about seven and a half months on Outworld 5730. Although no one cared about such trivialities. As long as they were being paid, as Violet was, or getting their money’s worth, as Lady Patience presumed she would be, everything was just fine, and whether it was five Earth months or seven and a half Outworld 5730 months had no impact on that fineness.

  “I suppose that looks all right,” said Lady Patience, sighing resignedly as she to
uched her hair again, then batted the lush, dark lashes of her too-blue eyes at her reflection while completely ignoring both Violet and Violet’s reflection. She was standing right behind Lady Patience.

  Violet Aldrich looked down at her own light gray dress, which, while not nearly as gorgeous as Lady Patience’s pale blue confection, was a damn sight nicer than anything she’d owned at home.

  Not home, she reminded herself. Violet no longer had a home. Although she still had her name, which she’d been allowed to keep, since it “wasn’t jarring,” per Jewel Allman.

  Lady Patience Barrington, however, was a fictitious name, and Violet had no idea who LP, as she’d immediately come to think of her, really was, in her actual life, the one she’d return to after the majestic was over, the one she’d arisen from. Perhaps the stopping point between majestics.

  But Lady Patience was definitely not an actor, not like Violet. No, LP was a straight-out player in this season’s most desired majestic, which was conceived, designed, constructed, and personally overseen by the great Jewel Allman herself.

  “This thing is horribly uncomfortable,” Lady Patience said as she shimmied her torso around in her corset and pushed her breasts up. “How annoying. Shouldn’t these be powdered?” she said, putting her hands on her chest.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Violet. Should they? She located a puff, waved it an inch above the powder box, then pretended to powder LP’s impressive chest.

  “That’s better,” Lady Patience said. “Remember to lay out everything for bedtime and tomorrow morning. There’s so much clothing. And some of those underthings.” She shivered slightly. “What was your name?”

  “Violet, my lady,” said Violet. This was the first time since the two had met that morning that Lady Patience had asked Violet her name, and Violet was surprised that LP realized she was a person or had a name or even existed.

  “Lettie,” said Lady Patience. “Violet’s too grand for a servant.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Violet said.

  Who would want to be called Lettie? Certainly not Violet. Vi, maybe, which is what her dead husband had called her. Not that he’d had much of a chance to call her anything, having had the bad manners to, among other insults, die a week after their wedding. The bastard.

  “Lettie, this is the best it’s going to be today, but I heard there are only a few people at dinner, so it will have to do.”

  Lady Patience got up, adjusted her breasts again, walked over to the full-length mirror, and twirled about a few times to admire how the even paler blue sheer overlay looked as it swung and swayed over the pale blue dress and around her not-quite-acceptable form.

  “Food is just too delicious,” she said to Violet as she sighed, sucked in her breath, and readjusted her breasts yet again.

  “Yes, my lady,” Violet, who’d hardly eaten in the last two months, said.

  The effects of a newly dead husband, the loss of her home, and the trip to Outworld 5730, when what she’d hoped for was a role in the just-launched Mirage series, yet they’d rejected her outright after the briefest of auditions.

  Chapter 2

  Violet handed Lady Patience her fan just as she was about to go downstairs.

  “I almost forgot,” said Lady Patience, glancing at herself yet again in the full-length mirror.

  “Yes, my lady,” Violet said.

  “But I didn’t forget,” Lady Patience said, stringing the fan around her wrist and hoping she remembered all those different things that could be communicated using the fan.

  She’d already forgotten most of them, so decided the fan could just hang there as a nice accessory. So she wouldn’t accidentally tell someone she wanted to have a tryst with them, if that were in fact something one could do with the flick of a wrist. She didn’t remember. Although a tryst . . .

  “Oh, Lettie,” Lady Patience said absently as she left the room and went down the hallway. Violet was already gathering up LP’s afternoon wardrobe and her back was to the door.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Violet to herself.

  Violet had desperately wanted the role of Vernie Dalston, Lady Patience Barrington’s childhood best friend, but rumor was that the part had gone to an actual school friend of the woman playing LP.

  Vernie, at least, would get to talk and have an opinion, which Violet had loads of and was under orders not to express. Unless specifically asked, and even then . . . And Vernie ate with the important people at the dinner table instead of downstairs with the servants. And had a fine wardrobe, although Violet’s dresses were not all that bad and a couple of them were quite nice.

  Violet had been told she could audition for Vernie, but when she went to the audition, she hadn’t been allowed to.

  “You”—Jewel Allman had pointed her closed fan at Violet—“lady’s maid to Lady Patience Barrington. Violet Aldrich? Yes, okay, you can keep that. Not too jarring.”

  Violet hadn’t even read a line or seen a script or put on a costume at that point. She’d run to the audition that afternoon after three unsuccessful tryouts that morning, including the one for Mirage, which she’d been dreaming of being in. Which she still wanted to be in.

  Two weeks earlier she’d told Booker Holm, her extremely dead, very short-term husband, that she was hoping for that show, planning on it. Booker himself never engaged in any “fictional pursuits,” so he hadn’t cared and probably cared even less now that his molecules were mixing it up with the dense Los Angeles smog. But she had told him. While he was still alive.

  While she was still under the completely totally fatally dead dead dead wrong impression that Booker owned the home they lived in, had some kind of boring business empire, and was quite well off financially. Before she found out that he was one minute away from eviction, hadn’t had the business empire in years, and had not just no assets but Alpine mountains of debt.

  But, while he was alive, for that week, he was Booker Holm, her husband, taking care of everything, and very convincing at seeming to be a lot of things he wasn’t. She often thought he was the better actor of the couple, since she’d suspected nothing. Or perhaps she was just that gullible.

  “I guess this isn’t my room, then, is it?” said a deep, masculine voice from the vicinity of the doorway.

  Violet was bent over a dresser drawer, trying to figure out what LP would wear to bed, what LP would wear in the morning when she went for a “ride,” which had something to do with a horse, which mythic beast Violet had never seen except in fabulas, and how she herself would have any time for anything other than taking care of LP’s innumerable needs and more innumerable costume changes.

  “No,” Violet said as she rearranged LP’s ten thousand undergarments, making neat rows.

  A cough, and then the deep male voice said, “Lord Trevelton, or my lord.”

  Violet got up, turned around, saw the most devastatingly gorgeous male creature she’d ever beheld, and tripped over the hem of her floor-length dress, which she’d caught in the tip of her shoe while attempting a poorly conceived curtsy.

  Lord Trevelton swiftly crossed the room and caught Violet’s elbow before she made contact with the gigantic carved mahogany bedpost on the corner of Lady Patience’s grand bedstead.

  “Lord Trevelton,” Violet said.

  Even with all the rehearsal, it wasn’t easy to call someone Lord So-and-So, and she felt like giggling. But instead she sighed as she looked up into the deepest, darkest eyes set perfectly on the palest face under a thatch of lush, unruly black hair. “My lord,” she said to make up for having merely said no a moment ago. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, my lady,” Trevelton said, grinning a somewhat possessive grin.

  “Oh no, my lord,” said Violet. “I’m the lady’s maid to Lady Patience Barrington.”

  “And here I thought she was slumming,” Trevelton said, still holding on to Violet’s elbow as he stared at her unadorned pale gray dress. “I’d promised to escort Lady Patience down to dinner, but I see I’ve missed her.”


  “Yes, my lord,” Violet said, nicely catching herself before she accidentally said your lord, which made more sense to her.

  Sometimes when she had only two or three lines to learn—in this case, two or three words—she forgot them. Much easier to memorize an entire fabula. Much easier.

  “I suppose I must go find her,” said Trevelton, sighing and finally releasing Violet’s elbow. “If that meets with your approval.” He threw Violet what must have been a carefully worked-over look.

  Had Booker ever induced these sensations that were now electrifying her? And they’d had sex, although only those two times, and the first time hardly counted. At least to Violet.

  “Do you have a name, lady’s maid to Lady Patience Barrington?” A wicked smile graced Trevelton’s pale countenance as he leaned back against the footboard of LP’s ostentatiously huge bed. He crossed one foot over his other ankle, looking like someone out of a painting in that boring museum that Violet and Booker had gone to on their third date. While he was still alive.

  “I do, my lord,” said Violet. But she’d be damned if she was going to tell him.

  She was going to be LP’s lady’s maid for the next few months, and she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to get involved with anyone at the majestic, much less this obvious rakehell. Although whether that was just the part he was playing or his underlying self was hard, maybe impossible, to discern.

  Unfortunately, being an actor had given Violet no clue as to other people’s true selves. And her recent exposure to Booker’s avalanche of lies had caused her even more uncertainty when it came to judging anyone.

  Trevelton got up from his perch and crossed the room like he’d spent his entire life dressed like a dandy in a tailcoat, crisp white cravat, and tailored black pants, enunciating like he was practicing for a speech in the House of Lords, and carrying the whole farce off without a hiccup. Violet did think the cravat was rather nice, though. As cravats went. She was very happy, however, to have nothing strangling her throat.

  “I shall see you again, my lady,” Trevelton said, mocking her with the honorific and an accompanying half bow.

  As he leaned over, his hair fell across his forehead, and Violet thought she’d never seen anyone so handsome, so attractive, so appealing, so unnerving, so infuriating, so desirable. So disturbing.