When I see how everyone rallies, I know we have a chance. But the guardian’s weapons are potent. One barrage from an electro-pulse can stun a few people at a time.
Then I hear it. The smallest cry. A young child left on the containment floor. How is she still here? Why haven’t I smuggled her out? She’s alone. A baby. It will only be moments until they kill her too.
I’ll fight with the rest of them.
“Rao, I’m going back,” I yell.
“What? No! You can’t.”
“Take the others down to transport. Ashiva will be waiting.”
He hugs me. “I’ll try to cover you. Go!”
It’s bloody chaos. When I reach her, I pick her up and hold her close.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you,” I whisper as I run.
All of containment is a blur. Bodies, fighting, adults taking guardians’ weapons and using those against them. There’s a chain of people sending survivors into the halls out to the transport.
But then, I feel a presence and the cold, white end of an electro-pulse rifle pointed right at me.
The guardian’s gaze is dead anger. I see his fingers turn the weapon to lethal. No amount of pleading will help me, I know it.
In the blink of an eye, I run, but another body comes between me and the rifle, and they intercept the blast of white-hot voltage.
“Dr. Qasim!”
He gasps, “Go! I’m sorry,” then lets out his last breath.
We run with the others. I don’t know how many die trying to leave, but fighting is all we can do. We have to try to survive.
I carry the child down the hall, all the way to the end, and outside into the sea air. I hand her to someone. “Take her on board.”
“Aren’t you coming?” the man asks.
“I have one more mission.”
I rush back to containment. I have one more job to finish. To make sure none of the work done here will continue.
47 //
Kid Synch
I watch her until the alarms bleat and the lights flash. I can’t let her pass by. “Mother!” I scream over the din.
The tablet in her hands falls to the ground, shattering. “Riza?”
People rush past, guardians, medical staff, others. But we stand locked in a gaze that can never communicate the truth necessary to bridge the gap between us.
She stumbles toward me. “My dear son, what happened to you? You should be at home, safely reset by now. Not here.”
I take her hand from my face, from the replacements, and throw it down. “You did this to me. You sent them to kill me.”
“I don’t know what you’re . . . Son?”
The alarms pulse, lights flash and we’re stuck in the middle of a moment of total and utter confusion.
The guardians run past us, and we are in a countdown. All who can get to the transport will, and it will take off as soon as it is full. We all agreed to that. And if Taru’s posse is right, no one will be standing at the end.
“Come on,” I pull my mother’s hand and drag her behind me.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up.” I can’t leave her. There is too much I need to know, too much I need to say. It is selfish, sure, but I also know if I leave her here, it’d be as good as leaving her for dead.
I’m not like her. Not a killer.
And, there is something off about her. Something strange, not connecting.
The battle on the dock is devastating, but someone gets ahold of a few electro-pulse batons and the strongest bodies are covering the entrance as guardians exit the containment. I see stray restraints on the ground and get an idea as I pick them up.
Where is Ashiva?
We make our way with the others through to the transport and pile in.
“Mother, you try anything and I’ll not have any control over the mob that wants to toss you overboard, you hear me?”
She presses her hands to me in offering. The restraints make a satisfying click as I slide them on her wrists.
I can’t hold it in. Sometimes the need to know is stronger than life itself. “How did you get my mecha plans? I encrypted everything.”
Her eyes plead with me. “But you shared them with someone, didn’t you?”
“Only MechTech and Generix.”
“Ever wonder who they really were? That you’d actually have real friends on the underweb? I hired them to befriend you on your silly games. Keep an eye on you. We have teams of agents online working for us. You mess up, and I’ll lose my job and so much more. You have no idea.”
“You?!” Heat fills my body and I want to smack the oddly calm look off of her face. “Why?”
“How else could I get the plans? You’d never share them with me. They were illicit in Central. I knew Kanwar left something with you, but we could never find it. We had to harvest information from the underweb.”
“Harvest? You stole from me. Your own son.” I push her forward and question keeping her on the transport. I look outside and it is a long way down. For a split moment, I consider it. But, no. Her fate won’t be so easy. “What happened to Uncle? You know.” I stop and search her face, ready to test my theory. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
“He might be, yes.” She acknowledges my words, but there’s no time. Not for this. I need more time.
We keep moving. We need to know the full extent of her plans, otherwise we’ll just be one step behind the whole time. Afterward, we can leave her to the highest planetary authorities for trial. We can’t stoop to her level; we must be humane now above all else.
I must find Ashiva. I have to take her with me.
The transport can hold hundreds. The space is a cargo hold, an open bay filling with people. She’ll be at the docks. I’d need to find the cockpit in this massive transport.
My heart races as I push past the injured and sick. Where is she? Surely, she made it. Otherwise this transport wouldn’t be open, these people wouldn’t have been able to enter. Doubt flashes in my mind along with the lights, sirens. What if we are being sent to our certain death, trapped in a loaded transport?
“Ashiva? Where is she?” I question those I pass. No one acknowledges me, they are so caught up in their own survival.
The rails and stairs that lead to the front of the transport shake as I climb them. There is a circle of people at the entrance to the flight deck. I hand my mother to a guard and tell him to keep her safe, that she’s vital to our survival. It’s the biggest transport I’ve seen—probably meant for a mass evac. It’s an air- and water-transport that can float and fly, so I hope we can stay high in the sky and get far away from the off-site, quickly.
“Don’t let her out of your sight and let me through.” The guards in front of the flight deck don’t budge.
“No one gets to the Commander,” one girl says.
Then a voice like a wish comes through, “Is that Synch? He’s okay.”
When I see her, I want to weep.
“I knew you’d get here,” she says.
Her replacement arm is missing and there’s a rag tied around her shoulder, heavy with blood. She’s standing behind two elderly people sitting in the captain chairs, charting our course: the elders of the Lal Hath.
I can’t help it. I need to hug her. Carefully. Thankfully, she doesn’t resist.
“You should see the other woman. Oh wait. You can’t. They’re at the bottom of the ocean.”
“You need medical attention,” I say.
“She’s going to be fine,” the old man says. I suddenly remember him from the Narrows. “She’s tough. It looks worse than it is.”
“Ghaazi?” I ask.
He bows. “We got a lift on a fishing transport when Ashiva sent the coordinates. Here just in time, I see.”
“I need to get us airborne,” Suri replies.
“We’ve got 120 seconds until we depart. How’re we looking?”
Ashiva turns to the others. “Still filling.”
“Once Taru che
cks in, we are out. Tell ‘em to get on board. Clock is ticking. Send the message to the entrance,” Suri says.
“Right,” Ashiva says and nods to a boy to send the message down.
“Ashiva, I have to tell you something.”
“What?” she says as she plugs in coordinates onto the screen.
“I don’t know how to say this . . .”
“Just spit it out then.”
“I brought my mother on board. I think she could give us answers. After that, she will go to the Planetary Courts.”
Her eyes are ghosts. I watch as anger, confusion, and then acknowledgement wash across her mind. “Bring her in.”
I nod to a guard.
When she stands before Ashiva, Ghaazi, and Suri, she looks so small and useless and powerless. How could one person do so much damage? They can’t. This is not all her doing.
A boy returns to the room. “Taru has arrived, Ashiva. She completed her mission.”
“Thank god,” Ashiva says. “She did it. She set the micro charge.”
“I’m surprised you let her do that,” I say.
Something in Ashiva’s expression shifts and I can’t tell if she is exhilarated by her surroundings or genuinely at peace. “She deserves to fight like everyone else.”
“Sit,” Suri says to my mother and the old man shoves her into a chair. Suri turns to her and smiles. Everything in that moment is surreal. I feel the floor beneath my feet shake as the engines roar.
Ashiva rises to her feet, the red of blood washing down her side. “You must have a lot of information in there, somewhere. If you want to earn a spot on this transport, you’re going to have to offer it up.”
Mother stammers and falls to pieces, trembling.
Suri says, “How do we make sure that Solace won’t hunt us down? Where can we go? What can we do to hide?”
My mother is pathetic as she weeps. But it’s not normal. Something’s way off. “I made a fail-safe in case I needed to start over. I’ve seen too many people on my team disappear to not cover myself. Wipe the records.”
Suri leans into my mother. “Minister, we don’t have time for your emotional reckoning. Just give us something.”
Mother’s eyes are desperate, pleading. “The fail-safe code has a request for armed UAVs. They’re airborne. Coming to cover this up. They’ll be here soon and they’ve already locked onto this quad-transport.”
Ashiva says, “Well, call it off!”
I look at my mother, begging her with my eyes to tell us something, anything. She fights for composure. “The beacon is linked to my fail-safe. We need to disengage the beacon if you want to get out of this transport alive. But if you do disengage it, it will also wipe my records. It’s all connected. I had to protect myself.”
“We’ve already sent the data packet of this hell place to the Space Colony,” I say.
“Not all of it.” Her eyes widen. What’s she playing at?
“There’s more?”
“If you don’t disengage my fail-safe code now, the UAVs will be here in two minutes and they won’t stop. They’ll never stop.”
“How?”
“My direct uplink.” She points to the glittering chrome device that feathers across her temple. Of course, her neural-synch. “You need to hack it, son.”
“Synch, get on it,” Suri says. “Do it now. We have to hope there’s enough in our comms to convict all of them. If we don’t survive this, what will be the point?”
I plug into her neural-synch with a cable connecting to the control panel of the transport.
“You mess with us, lady and you’ll learn what pain is.” Ashiva pushes up against her.
She nods. “It’ll work. If you don’t do it, Central will find this transport and blow it to dust as soon as you are in range. They have explosives at the ready, armed UAVs in the sky.”
“That’s a pity,” Ghaazi spits his words and readies the transport for take-off.
Ashiva looks at me. I know what she is thinking. Can we trust this woman? And I really don’t know. I shake my head.
Down at the dock, shadows gather around the entrance to the containment. “Ashiva, we have to get airborne.”
“Taru checked in?” she asks.
I nod. “Yes, she’s on board.”
“Well, what are we waiting for then?”
Then suddenly the entire transport shakes with such violence that most of us fall onto the hard, metal ground.
BOOM.
48 //
Ashiva
“There’s something holding us at the dock,” Ghaazi says.
“I’m going down. Push off as soon as we are able,” I yell to the ones at the helm.
“No, Ashiva,” Suri holds me back. “You’re badly injured. Let me go.”
“We need two to pilot this thing. You and Ghaazi. Without you, none of us will survive. I’ll be back, but you know what to do if it goes badly. Promise me.”
“Got it.” I know in my soul that Suri understands.
“Synch, take care of the fail-safe. And Ghaazi, give me three minutes. If I’m not back by then, get this thing in the sky and to the Northern District. Got it?”
“Copy.” Ghaazi tips his fingers to his forehead. I know I can count on him, even if it means leaving me behind.
The transport comes heavily armed with weapons I’ve never even dreamed of holding. Hardware lines the walls of the cockpit of the transport for easy access in an emergency. From small, handheld weapons for the crew and for hand-to-hand combat, to controls for massive cannons that line the exterior of the ship, the transport designer thought of many potential dire scenarios a Central captain might encounter. The electro-pulse pistol is compact but basic and I can manage it on my own, so I take it and run down the stairs, through the bay packed with people, and all the way back to through to the massive ramp that’s still sitting open, like the mouth of a metal monster.
BOOM.
Metal creaks and aches. I know what it is. Another nightmare come to life. The mecha-suit guardian is holding the transport’s massive ramp door in its fist. The door is halfway closed, like a gaping mouth. It can’t close fully.
“Everyone, back to the highest level inside. Now!” I scream to the few stragglers still lingering by the entryway. “Head into the main cargo hold and take cover.”
Before I get there, the C.O.R.E turns away from me and lets go of the ramp. The metal falls with a thunderous slam that shakes the entire transport.
“What the—?”
The C.O.R.E. guardian takes on fire from the distance and staggers backward before ending up on one knee. I crane my neck and see another guardian leaning against the deck, taking aim with a rifle at the beast, at its own.
I have to get the ramp up, and now that it’s damaged, I’ll have to bring it up manually. Which means I’ll have to set the crank, and that can take more time than we have.
The guardian open fires again on the C.O.R.E and when it turns, I see who is driving the machine: Masiji. Her expression is shock and apology and fight. Half of her suit has been badly damaged, already-shredded metal, scalded by the firefight.
She leans down on one knee and with the massive cannon on her fist, she aims and takes out the other guardian and half of the entrance too. The fire scorches the structure. What’s she doing? Defending us or hurting us?
“Get inside the transport, Ashiva! I’ve got the ramp.”
“Masiji!” I don’t know whether we can trust her or not. That she sacrificed herself for our escape tells me volumes, but not everything. “Don’t do this!”
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to end like this,” was all she says as she pushes the gate ramp up with her robotic arms and holds it half closed. “The children, our children, were stronger than theirs. I made sure of it. I ran experiments on them, more than just the replacements. I made them stronger. Central found out about my genetic modifications to make them resistant to the harsh world. Because of the immunologic updates, they became immune to t
he Fever.”
“What? What do you mean?” I think about Masiji’s replacement surgery being more than a cyborg addition. There was always something else we couldn’t figure out. I think about all the people who died in the Narrows, every day.
“What about the people in the Narrows who died?”
“Think, Ashiva. All heat deaths, water-borne illnesses, or starvation. But not the children. I couldn’t help everyone, but I had to help a few.”
I watch the fire behind her grow, and I know we only have a minute or two, but there are so many questions I need to know.
“Why are you working with the Minister of Comms?”
Her head shakes. “I knew they were going to flood the Narrows to clean up the slums before AllianceCon, so I promised they could test the children to make a vaccine for Uplanders, as long as they gave the children a place inside Central afterward. They were meant to live inside the Ring. They were made to withstand everything. They’re the cure. The Fever was going to decimate Central. I had to get the children out somehow. Even if I promised them as tests for the inoculation. Forgive me. Promise me, Ashiva. Live.” She pushes the transport ramp closed, with me inside and her out.
The last thing I see is her face, and her smile.
“NO!”
My tears come like a monsoon, uncontrollably, all-consuming. I feel the transport lift off into the sky. And a few moments later, we all hear the micro charge explosion consume the nightmare below. I watch the facility explode and vaporize, pieces of it flying into the air, with the heavy parts sinking into the sea. I watch until we are carried high into the clouds and into a world I’ve never seen.
49 //
Ashiva
South Asian Province, Northern District—Ladakh Region
“The transport won’t make it. We need to land—now!” Ghaazi yells above the roar of the engines.
“Can’t we go a little further, just over the Pass at least?” I can feel the aircraft dropping several feet at a time, rebalance, then drop again.
Rise of the Red Hand Page 29
