He shook his head. “Remember that night of your calling? When you puzzled the facilitators by sneaking in without trigger the alarms?”
“Yeah?”
“Star-jumpers are liminal beings. They exist both here and in other phases, which means they can interact on different frequencies. This means they can act like AIs … or with the correct protocol, can mimic the resident AI into acting as if it’s in accord with its directives. Remember the open doors?”
Nuri gave a sharp nod. “Yeah.”
“The flow of commands was traced back to the nymph. That day you nearly blasted Stasja? Well, there was a power surge that began in the hangar where the star-jumper is. And that day when those mercenaries broke in? You weren’t supposed to have access to AR, but when they traced back the workflow, the signal emanated from the AI unit in the hangar. Our friend has proved to have a lot of interest in you, in keeping you safe.”
Nuri shut her mouth; it would be unseemly to gape like a dehydrated rat. “Why has no one told me any of this until now?”
“The facilitators worried that it might affect your interaction with other Chosen before the winnowing. I, on the other hand, have no qualms doing so if it means I can boost your chances. I want you to believe in yourself, to have faith. Don’t allow this imposter syndrome of yours to hold you back. I feel it here” – he thumped his chest – “that you will be the one.”
Tears blurred Nuri’s vision, and she had to wipe at her face with her sleeve. “Thank you, Fadhil. I suppose this the part where I say that you’re the closest thing to family I currently have.” Ancestors, she wanted to trust him, wanted to believe all this he was telling her was true.
“I know this is a lot to take in. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”
“If …” Nuri huffed out a breath. “If this works out, I’d say you’re a better boss-thing than Vadith.”
* * *
The sun was slanting through the towers by the time they headed back, and to Nuri it was as if her world had become a little bigger, a little stranger, as she peered out of the window of the car at the holographic displays and screens coming to life with the diminishing daylight.
“At night this must look amazing,” Nuri said.
“Some consider it light pollution.” Fadhil sat opposite her, absorbing the view.
“From the barrens it looks like a festival here every night.”
He laughed. “That’s the brainchild of all the marketing algorithms and advertising artists. Most of this is to get people to buy things they don’t know they want until they think they need it.”
“What?” Nuri scrunched up her face.
“You’re still so pure. Stay that way.”
“I wish I knew where my parents were from,” Nuri said. It still burnt that Fadhil might be withholding information about her origin.
“Does it matter in the end?”
“You knew yours, didn’t you?”
His expression remained neutral. “I never did find out who my parents were. I grew up with some cousins. They told me my mother had left me one day when she went to look for money so she could buy drugs. She never came back. I don’t remember her at all. And she never did tell anyone who my father was. I can only guess he was dark of skin. He could have been any one of the men my mother saw regularly.”
Ouch. Nuri almost wished she hadn’t asked. “Yet here you are today.”
“Yes. Here I am today, and as you can guess, I’m paying it forward. Maybe one day you’ll do the same for someone.”
“Oh.” Nuri’s voice felt constricted.
“I had my hand up too, don’t you worry. I –” His eyes grew distant the same way Raphel and the others’ did when they communicated with their AR.
Abruptly, he snapped out of the fugue. “Strap yourself into your seat. Now.”
Even as Nuri complied, the vehicle accelerated. The moment she had the belt clipped, they plunged twenty or so storeys so that her stomach felt as if it had leapt into her throat. The normally quiet engines whined, and then they put on a burst of speed Nuri had only imagined used by military vehicles in combat. She gave a little scream.
“Hold on. It’s probably nothing,” Fadhil said through clenched teeth. But he was gripping the armrests.
“What’s going on?” Nuri asked, hardly daring to look out the window at the blurred landscape.
“Predator drones. Six of them on our tail.”
“What?” Nuri choked on the word. I thought you said we were safe, she wanted to say.
She closed her eyes, concentrated on breathing evenly and regularly. There was nothing she could do in this situation. Absolutely nothing but hold on and not panic, even if she was silently screaming inside. Her training had taught her that much.
The vehicle dipped and dived, going ever faster. When she peeped again, they’d shot out across the barrens on the eastern side, far into territory she’d only ever heard about. A loud bang reverberated through the car and they were knocked sideways into a barrel roll. She bit her mouth so hard she tasted metal, and Fadhil grunted as if in physical pain. The straps dug into her, but she was still thrown about, her head knocking a glancing blow off the side of the car. Her world exploded in blinding pain.
The vehicle righted by the time she’d gathered herself again, but it was listing severely to the left and the engine screamed. A red light pulsed sickly in the interior.
“What’s happening?” Nuri yelled.
“We’ve been hit. Hold –”
This time an object struck from above, and they plunged as the car tilted upright before pulling itself out of falling.
This was it. She’d nearly made it to age thirteen. Not that she really knew how old she was. She’d never kissed a girl or a boy. She’d never gotten to grow up and do adult things. This was all she’d had, and she wasn’t really okay with it, but what could she do? Strapped in, she prayed that the car’s AI would be able to outwit the predator drones. Six of them. Someone must hate her or Fadhil very much if they were going to this kind of trouble.
She wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but then a savage smash from the side flipped them into another barrel roll. Thick smoke began to seep in through the back panel, acrid stuff of burning synthetic materials and oil, which stung her eyes and made her choke.
Amid her gasping and coughing, Nuri could barely see Fadhil in the smoke-filled cabin. He was slumped, clearly unconscious, held up by the safety harness. Through the window, she saw the horizon flip drunkenly as the car’s AI attempted to bring them down, skimming dangerously low over rooftops. An explosion from behind, perhaps one of the engines blowing, and they tilted upside down.
Nuri squeezed shut her eyes. No prayers came to her but please, please, please over and over until she was screaming that one word. Every second she expected the impact followed by nothingness, but it didn’t come.
Be strong came the sending to her, accompanied by a blanket warmth of love that almost made her weep with joy. You are not alone. I will guide the transportation intelligence.
The vehicle shook, then half-righted itself, hurtling along like a wounded thing. They’d lost so much altitude, but their progress stabilised as thrusters came into play, slowing them, pushing against the incredible forward momentum. Nuri pressed the cloth of her overalls against her mouth in an attempt to filter the cloying, smoke-filled air. Her eyes teared so much she could not see, and a horrible rattling shook the chassis, followed by bangs and jolts as they clipped structures on their way down.
The end was sharp and sudden, a squeal of tortured metal and the crashing and splintering of barrens structures as they ploughed through the top storeys of flimsy shanties.
They rolled and bounced, but this time Nuri was prepared; she made herself as small as possible, tucking her head between her arms.
And then, nothing. Just the tick-tick-ticking of the cooling metal. Sprayers went on within the cabin, a gas from the internal fire extinguishers that had
only kicked in now, and the door mechanisms unlocked.
Nuri coughed and groaned, then slowly felt about her, where the harness straps had chafed into her skin. She was hanging at an angle, with Fadhil’s still form hunched below her. Alarmed people were calling from outside, banging on the exterior, as Nuri struggled to figure out what was up and down.
A chill of fear cut through her fuzziness. The predator drones must still be circling – they had to move. Now. With shaking hands, she unclipped herself and dropped clumsily, half landing on Fadhil. He didn’t respond, his limbs limp. The way his head lolled to the side and his eyes stared off into eternity said everything.
“Ancestors,” she said with a sob.
But then the old survival instincts kicked in. Run now; grieve later.
She was still relatively whole, so far as she could see – a testament to the designers of the vehicle and its AI who, with help, had managed to bring the car down in a controlled crash.
Everything hurt, though, and she felt the side of her head where it’d connected with the panel. An ugly lump was slightly pudgy beneath her fingers.
“This can’t be happening,” she mumbled. But it was.
Fadhil was dead.
Move, move, move.
When the door wouldn’t budge, she shoved at it with her shoulder, and it gave slightly. Another coughing fit wracked her body, and she accidentally nudged Fadhil’s leg, hating the heavy weight of the man reduced to so much meat.
It wasn’t the first corpse she’d seen – there’d been plenty in the barrens, in all sorts of states – but it was worse because it was someone close to her. Someone she’d begun to care about.
“Open, damn you.” She scooted onto her butt and kicked at the door. The hinges squeaked and the panel juddered.
A person from the outside yanked repeatedly, and Nuri coordinated the timing of her shoving well enough that a gap formed just wide enough for her to slide through.
She fell into the debris of crushed adobe and glass fragments, rolled and was up on her feet within a heartbeat.
About a score or so of barrens dwellers thronged around the crash site, but Nuri didn’t stay to take stock. Any moment now one of those predator drones would catch her on its sensors, and then she’d be as dead as Fadhil. Her body protesting, she put on a burst of speed despite the twinge in her left ankle – that was still not fully healed – and sprinted for the gap between two rickety structures covered in scavenged vehicle parts.
While she might not be in a part of the barrens she knew, Nuri intuitively understood the space. The back of her neck itched in anticipation of laser bolts, so she remained on the ground for the time being, losing herself in a main thoroughfare teeming with folks of all sorts. This time of day it was mostly workers coming off or onto shift, so no one really paid much mind to one more person wearing dusty coveralls.
Nuri kept her head down, her hands jammed in her pockets, and shadowed first this person then another. Every now and then she’d glimpse up between the awnings. She felt at the implant that made her a Citizen, and a cold lump of fear spread through her belly. She’d have to get rid of that, and fast. That was one sure way for her to be tracked.
Was she willing to take a wager that the facility would reach her before the predator drones?
But if she dug it out … Neither the drones nor the programme would be able to find her. She’d be invisible long enough to take stock of her situation.
She could always ask them for another one once she reached the facility, and ancestors alone knew how long that would take. The Calan City centre lay between her and her intended destination, and that would involve an awful lot of running with predator drones on her heels.
This was going to suck so badly. She ducked into a gap between two rows of stalls and felt at the slight protrusion at the base of her skull. In theory, thanks to all her lessons, she understood what she had to do, but the practicalities were … Her stomach folded in on itself as she thought of the pain and the blood. Head wounds always bled. A lot.
And every moment that she rested she gave those predator drones a signal to lock on to. So, she needed to keep missioning between the crowds, keep changing directories as much as possible.
Nuri found what she was looking for at a stall that sold roasted meat. The old J’Veth who was loudly peddling his wares missed her snitching a skewer as she passed. Once she was done, the thing could double as a weapon – all thirty centimetres of gleaming solar-steel. After that, she found a lane between stalls where the dumpsters leant drunkenly, bursting with decaying food and the stars alone knew what else. Her running shoes made awful squelching noises as she hunkered down in their shadow. Hardly the most hygienic of spots, but what choice did she have?
Ancestors guide me.
Even as she brought the sharp tip of the skewer to her skin, her AR screamed into life: Danger! Danger! Danger!
The pain started needle bright, flooding her mouth with saliva as she loosened the skin around the chip. Blood made her fingers slippery, and she lost her grip three times before she was able to get a hold on the thing. It was small, but she felt tentacles of sick agony as far forward as her eyes and teeth as she worried at the chip. Her world blurred at the edges, grew bright and then dark, and Nuri swallowed back her need to vomit as she slowly drew out the implant.
For a moment, all she could do was gulp the rancid, garbage-laden air as she regained control of her rebellious stomach. Blood ran freely down her neck, no doubt painting her coveralls scarlet. Great, and she had nothing with which she could staunch the flow. It’d heal. It was a skin wound. So long as she didn’t get an infection that reached her brain, she’d be fine.
She dropped the chip in one of the dumpsters. Let the drones waste precious time digging through that lot. Her hand putting pressure on the wound, Nuri started moving again. One foot after the other. She could do this. The exposed skin of her arms was smeared with blood and dirt, and her face and hair most likely fared no better. No one would mistake her for a Chosen gone truant just yet. Her main aim now was to see how close she could get to the facility before she absolutely had to rest.
Damn, the world spun crazily as she stumbled to her feet, and she had to lean against the dumpster, fighting waves of nausea.
“Not. A. Good. Idea.”
Only rats were present to hear her, and they stared at her, their whiskers twitching, before they scurried away. Always rats everywhere, she’d learnt. The one Terran species that had colonised most of the galaxy wherever humans had travelled. Barrens rats were particularly large and nasty, and if she stayed in one place long enough, bleeding like a half-slaughtered pandor, the rats would eventually come to nibble on her.
A shadow passed overhead. Nuri whipped her head around too quickly, and nearly toppled over from the light-headedness. Whatever it was, it was all the goading she needed to start moving again, to follow her old instinct to run and stay hidden.
Perhaps she could risk making a call to the facility via the Net, but there were no secure connection points here, so she’d have to go public. If whoever was hunting her triangulated her position, chances were good they’d be onto her before help arrived.
She’d make herself a target again.
A target like they’d been strapped into Fadhil’s car …
Fadhil.
It was inconceivable that he was dead, but she knew what dead looked like. Dead, dead, dead. A good girl would’ve stayed by the car, would’ve waited for help to arrive. But a good girl would’ve been dead too.
Nuri staggered on, her legs not working right.
“Buzz off, you chem-head!” someone yelled when she bumped into them in an alley – she’d not seen them coming around the corner.
An ancestors-cursed maze. That’s where she was. Whether it was blood loss or the shock of the crash, she couldn’t tell, but her surroundings were starting to all look the same. Sheets of corroded metal panels that might have been scrounged from a hulk. Tattered plastic sheets
. Assorted stenches hit her nose – unidentifiable stuff fried in rancid oil and laden with too many spices, excrement, fermented fruit from an illegal hole-in-the-wall distillery. Tacky mud and unidentifiable gunk clogged her shoes’ soles. From time to time she caught the whiff of dead things. It all slapped her senses, adding to her overall nausea.
At a corner that served as a communal garbage dump she paused long enough to vomit. Her stomach heaved and acidic liquid flooded her sinuses – an aberration of the delightful confectionary she’d enjoyed with Fadhil a few hours back.
When she was only bringing up air, Nuri wiped at her face with the back of her wrist and straightened. Her sinuses stung from the stomach acid, and she doubted she’d ever be rid of the smell. What patches of sky she could see between the flapping tarps was dusky already, and around her, through the slits for windows covered in vinyl scavenged from old billboards, the warm light from the interiors mocked her.
Her entire being throbbed, and exhaustion whispered at her to lie down. Was she concussed? Would she go to sleep and never wake up again? Her thoughts tumbled end over end, and she couldn’t figure out where, what and why.
Trembling, and near the end of her strength, Nuri lost herself thoroughly as she wandered between the shacks. Guard-beasts barked, yowled or hissed at her. Once, a scaly thing with too many teeth narrowly missed driving its fangs into her thigh.
The best course of action would be to hit the roofs, but she could barely keep herself upright, let alone summon the agility and stamina required for serious running. Also, she’d be vulnerable. Eventually she squeezed between panels into an empty backyard – no more than a square of mud where yellowy wisps of swamp grass had tried to grow. She could go no further, and she sank to her knees. A soft, sifting rain had begun to fall, and she shivered so hard her teeth clattered in her head.
I could use some help round about now, she sent to the nymph.
No response.
Bitter disappointment flooded her as she inched forward on her hands and knees to what looked like an old kennel filled with empty food containers and bundles of plastic sheeting. It might not be entirely warm, but it was dry. Even if it smelt faintly of beast, it didn’t look as if anything had denned here for a long time.
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