Catastrophe in the Firesnake

by Rayner Ye

  “Part luck and part bribery. I managed to stash my diamonds there. During my holidays, I would take one or two back to Mayleeda to sell and invest in property.”

  “Unbelievable.” Apek gulped his hot tea and set his cup down with a clink.

  “I needed to stash my diamonds elsewhere on Tai. The energy company I worked for planned to drill for methane near the caves where I’d hidden them. So, I retrieved the diamonds, stashed them on my space-boat, and flew farther east.”

  “You had a space-boat?” Yasmin asked.

  “Only a small one. Every methane rig worker has one. Anyway, on my journey, a Yiksaan pirate ship hijacked my vessel, found my diamonds, and took me and the diamonds with them to the Yiksaan mafia in Rajka.”

  “I wondered why the Yiksaan was holding you, prisoner,” Yasmin said. “D’you think the Mayleedian mafia is looking for you?”

  “The Hwaider?”

  “Yes. I mean, forgive me..." She touched her throat with a slender hand as if it hurt her to speak. "But you did steal their diamonds?"

  “Yeah, I did steal them. Dunno if they’re looking for me. They shouldn't have found me on Tai. You have as much privacy as a spy if you work for Tanmixan. Their security is the best in all Plan8. The Hwaider Brotherhood might find me in the Firesnake."

  He told them about living at Bamdar’s compound and escaping, but left out the parts about killing people. They couldn’t find out. He needed to recover here before making the next move. Plastic surgery, perhaps. He also had to work out what these dreams were. Yasmin and Apek were good listeners and had become good friends.

  YeLi burst into the room. She ran to Apek, waving a newspaper. “YuFang’s on the run from the police! He’s a murderer. Look!”

  YuFang’s stomach grew heavy, and he couldn’t speak. He looked at his palms. Should he emit the poison?

  Chapter 8*Akachi

  Akachi met Scarn inside his buzzing airSphere. A rare smile spread across her purple face, and she blinked her four eyes sequentially. “The data’s downloaded to your cerebral cortex. Wait at home for the technical engineers to retrieve it.”

  “Will someone analyse the data with me?”

  “You’ll do it on your own.” She rubbed the end of her nose and sniffed. “Z’Das hasn’t found you a new partner yet.”

  His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. He’d wanted to view the information independently. Then, he could follow leads dating back thirty-three years.

  “There’ll be copies of the slaves’ memory chips too,” she said. “Some were sold as porn.”

  “Even better. That’ll be plenty of evidence to bust other human traffickers.”

  Scarn slumped in her seat. “The hard drive in the memory wiping room melted in the fire. Engineers hope your internal microchip received the data beforehand.”

  That evening, after the engineers left, Akachi sat at the kitchen counter with three airSpheres hovering overhead and a bowl of noodles steaming before him.

  As he twisted his fork into the bowl and slurped, he analysed account files on the comings and goings of weaponry, drugs, dirty money, and humans. Whoever put the data together had been careful not to include clientele information. None of the human trafficking files went beyond twenty years—Bamdar’s reign.

  He accessed copies of the slaves’ memory chips. The MSS could bust so many criminals with evidence from these. But the airSphere went black, and capital letters flashed in white—DAMAGED FILES. ACCESS UNAVAILABLE.

  Akachi’s chest grew tight, restricting his breath. He marched into the living room and collapsed onto the settee. Should’ve known it’d be hopeless.

  Later that night, after moping about, Akachi did the job he’d been expected to do. Both Yiksaan CCTV footage and 3D moving image scans from nano bugs would reveal how the androids rebelled and how the slaves escaped.

  The cameras revealed karaoke clients having fun, mobsters snorting lines of coca powder, and clubbers dancing. Nothing unusual.

  A bitter taste filled his mouth when he viewed the cages of naked women, some of them no more than girls.

  The android maids went about their duties. He’d have to view one thousand individual maids to discern which of them initiated the rebellion.

  One android maid caught his attention as she washed a bruised and battered teenager. Android number sixty-two of the south-west wing talked. No other maids talked.

  There were no cameras in the closet which the android maid had visited on several occasions.

  The camera positioning changed in the girl’s room, so it focused on the ceiling. Then, when the camera was repositioned. It looked as though the girl had gone to bed, though the shape under the covers seemed a little bulky.

  The passageway cameras focused on the ceiling too, as did the cameras in the lift, basement, and furnace room.

  Footage of the CCTV monitoring room showed no one had noticed the cameras’ repositioning as the security team gambled and smoked. The nano bugs’ 3-D scans of room forty-two showed something remarkable—in place of the android maid, stood a six-foot-tall by two-foot-wide, black egg.

  His thoughts froze, and he shook his head slightly. “Huh?”

  The nano bugs’ footage showed that for one hour, maid number sixty-two was this black egg. But the last time she entered her closet as a black egg, she didn’t leave again for forty minutes. During that time, the cameras in her pathway between room forty-two and the furnace room focused elsewhere.

  When the black egg disappeared, leaving the image of the original android maid, she went about her duties while nodding at other maids. That set off a chain reaction of maids unlocking doors and cages, taking weapons, attacking guards and mobsters who got in their way, and freeing slaves.

  Chaos, carnage, fire.

  Akachi rubbed his head. The black egg had stuffed the bed with pillows and a wig, then freed the girl.

  What was so special about that girl it had freed? The account files gave no hints from where in Plan8 the slaves had come. And what was this black egg?

  He might not find out about his sister’s whereabouts today, but he’d sure as hell get to the bottom of this mystery. Superior technology had been used to control the android and instruct the other maids to rebel. Perhaps the culprit was a computer hacker or a spy like him.

  He needed help from a nanotechnology expert in the MSS. A person outside of humanoid trafficking. Someone who invented and developed the most recent nano-wear—the quantum physicist, Pak’Thor.

  ***

  Dressed in all black Bogan funeral gear, Akachi was opening his front door, when an airSphere remote buzzed from his invisible shelf. He went back inside to access the airSphere, and the door clicked in several places.

  “Sorry,” Scarn said. “I know you’re about to catch a flight to Tanjung. Just a quick update, in case it helps with your data analysis. All of Bamdar’s goods—including drugs, weapons and antiques—are currently being held in underground vaults at the Mayleedian Bank in Southern Rajka.”

  “And Bamdar?”

  “Convicted of mass human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling, and forgery. Every crime you can think of.”

  “Punishment?”

  “Under Mayleedian law, he’ll go to lunar confinement. He’s already in cryosleep.”

  “Good to know. Which moon?”

  “One around Tushing.”

  He cocked his head, then shook it. “Yeah, of course. But which one?”

  Scarn’s indigo cheeks flushed a shade of violet. “Sorry I don’t know. Is it important?”

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. Bamdar could go to any of the twelve prisons on Tushing’s twenty-seven moons and asteroids, not to mention prisons orbiting some of Tushing’s biggest asteroids. “Don’t worry.”

  She nodded, about to switch off.

  “Scarn?”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  “Could you find out the name of the prison he’s been sent to?”

  “Sure.”

 
***

  When Akachi entered the Bogan church, he tried to hold back his tears, but they streamed out of his nostrils and eyes. Velina had been a bitch, but he still loved her as much as before.

  Dav sat in the front pew, staring at his empty hands. Akachi wanted to embrace his old friend, but then remembered all of his evil deeds. With Velina out of the way, Dav wanted to cosy up to his new woman. To do that, he was prepared to get rid of the boy who’d called him dad since he could speak.

  Akachi’s hands tightened into fists. His blurred vision cleared as his gaze bored into the back of Dav’s neck. Dav looked around and nodded at Akachi.

  He ignored Velina’s friends and ex-colleagues from Tanjung’s Homicide Department. No family attended. Velina had abandoned them when she’d left Nerthus two decades ago. That said something important about her character. Dav hadn’t been the only villain.

  After the funeral and burial, he approached Dav outside of the church. “Where’s Mak?”

  “With a babysitter.”

  “Told him yet?”

  Dav crossed his arms and shook his head.

  “When you gonna tell him?”

  Dav shrugged.

  Heat flooded Akachi’s body, and he nodded rigidly. This guy was a fucking imbecile.

  “I looked at the school links,” Dav said. “They look good. Especially the most expensive one. What’s the name?”

  Akachi frowned. “Blueleaf?”

  “That’s it.”

  Akachi’s shoulder relaxed. “D’you agree?”

  “Can you afford it?”

  “Yes.”

  Dav’s face reddened, and he kicked at a piece of gravel. “Let’s go for it.”

  “You gonna tell him first?”

  “About Velina?”

  Akachi narrowed his eyes. “What d’you think?”

  “About you being his dad?”

  “You should tell him both. He’ll find out sooner or later that you don’t want anything to do with him.”

  Dav’s jaw tightened, and he looked around. “It’s not like that.”

  “Look. Let’s get this over with. I’ll contact the school and make the arrangements. You book an appointment with the adoption agency and tell them I’m his biological father. Hand over all rights to me. I’ll return when you need me. It’s quiet at work.”

  ***

  At hour thirty-eight, Akachi took a cab across the sleeping city of Rajka. Two hours into the drive, the cab rumbled through dark tea plantations, and windy jungle roads, all the way to the south coast.

  The cab stopped outside a large house with a tall and sturdy gold-painted gate. It looked more like a Jerjen’s home than a Nerthling Sax’s.

  Akachi pressed the button at the gate and looked up at the camera. The gate opened and closed behind him.

  A young Jerjen woman opened the front door. “Come in.” She beamed at him and stepped back, then grabbed a pair of large plastic slip-ons for him to wear.

  He wiggled his feet into them.

  “Thor is on his way. He is returning from the lab. Please, come this way.”

  She led him down a wide passageway lined with white and beige marble into a spacious living room decked in the same fashion. A winding, oak staircase dissected the living space, and cream leather settees leaned against the walls.

  “Sit. Please, sit.”

  “Thank you.”

  “A drink?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  Her pretty face became stern.

  He flinched. “Oh, okay. Whatever you’re having.”

  “Me?” She laughed and covered her mouth. “No, no, no. I only drink tea.”

  “I’d love tea.”

  She took two steps back as she processed what he’d said. Then she giggled and covered her mouth again. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  “No. I mean it. I like tea.”

  She clapped her hands. “Okay. Whatever tea I’m drinking?”

  “Yes.”

  She returned with a large mug of sweet tea. Dried plums floated on its surface. “This tea is good in the evening. No caffeine, you see.” She sat on another settee and asked an array of questions. None of them included his work, which seemed more suspicious than him having to lie about what he did. Perhaps Thor had told her he was a secret agent.

  When Thor arrived fifteen minutes later, his wife went upstairs. Akachi relaxed and followed Thor into his underground study, which spanned the entire floor area of their seven-bedroom house and contained an array of gadgets and instruments. Pak’Thor wasn’t the older man Akachi had expected. His blond hair flopped to the side of his beige face and rosy cheeks. He looked to be about twenty-five.

  A clicking came from one of the machines. Thor ran over to a monitor. His elbows leaned on the table as he bent his tall, skinny body over the equipment. He straightened and adjusted his glasses. “So, how can I help you?”

  “I received unusual nano bug information from the recently raided Yiksaan complex. I’d like you to take a look.”

  Akachi opened his airSphere and stretched it around them, so they stood facing the black egg.

  Thor staggered backwards and took off his glasses. “Any others like this?”

  “No.”

  “She’s an android maid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my. Can you leave this with me for the night while I run it through some tests?”

  “Sorry, can’t do that. Can I stick around?”

  “You can, but it’ll take several hours. Might be boring.”

  “That’s alright. I’m used to waiting.”

  Thor pointed to a coffee machine. “Want one?”

  Several hours and coffees later, Thor dragged his hand through his hair. “I’ve used other nano apparels to assess the scans, but none of them come up with anything other than air with a high electromagnetic discharge of particles. The gas discharge visualisation method based on light emissions in high voltage electromagnetic fields shows the same thing.”

  “Any idea what that thing is? Advanced spy wear?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s astounding. The black energy body has no colour or mass, yet appears solid in the footage, picking up the tub of water, opening doors, pushing the trolley—”

  “Scanning her iris into the device.”

  “Yes, but nano-imaging shows the droid’s energy body’s completely foreign compared to the other androids.” He pinched his lips together. “If it was happening now, I could send a twin photon into that black space and observe its partners’ reaction.”

  “I wonder if Bamdar knew about this technology. Perhaps it was something he was delving into, and it went wrong. He used Mayleedian mosquito drones.”

  “But even the MSS has nothing like this.”

  “Bamdar has an array of scientists working for him.”

  “Have you observed him? Do you know what Bamdar was doing during that period?”

  “No.”

  “Can we look now?”

  They watched Bamdar take his woman from behind. Then the black egg took over his body and space around it.

  A sudden chill expanded in Akachi’s core. He exchanged looks with Thor, whose jaw had gone slack.

  “This is Bamdar’s technology?” Akachi asked.

  “Let’s keep watching to see.”

  After ten minutes, it was evident that Bamdar hadn’t wanted to be tied up and that someone or something had ambushed him.

  Thor took off his glasses to rub his eyes. “You think this thing escaped with the slave from room forty-two?”

  Akachi nodded. “I think they went down the laundry chute.”

  “Are there cameras down there?”

  “No.”

  “When’s the laundry taken away?”

  “Not sure. I’ll check.”

  As Thor put the scans through more tests, Akachi looked through the Yiksaan files and found the laundry went straight into an 18-wheeler’s container and should have been driven to a dump not long after
the black egg had left Bamdar’s body.

  “You wanna access Rajka’s CCTV network?” Thor asked after Akachi explained his findings.

  “I do, but is it safe to view fragile information here?”

  “Of course, it is. I work for the MSS, don’t I? I test top-secret equipment and technology here all the time. I only went to an external lab to pick up electronics for my next project—the invisible suit.”

  Akachi scratched his head.

  “This is safer than a spy’s place,” Thor said. “I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  Using CCTV footage, Akachi tracked the 18-wheeler to a landfill. Before the container tipped its contents into a pit, a giant spider carrying a silken bundle crawled out and attached itself to the semi’s roof, then jumped off.

  He leaned over and pulled his chair into the airSphere, pausing and commanding replay to examine closer.

  “Found something interesting?” Thor asked.

  Akachi expanded the airSphere around them both. Thor’s mouth gaped open as he scrutinised the spider. “What the...”

  They watched the spider transform into a young Sax woman, and the silk parcel disappear to reveal a bruised man and woman.

  “The woman from room forty-two.” Akachi pointed.

  “And this redhead,” Thor said. “This is the woman you want.”

  Akachi snorted and rolled his eyes. “You mean this is the woman you want to experiment on.”

  Thor chuckled. “That too.”

  “You have to keep this secret,” Akachi said.

  “Even from your superior?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you should’ve mentioned that before you came. Unless you include me in your findings, I’ll bring it to Z'Das.”

  Chapter 9*YuFang

  YuFang had to kill them all. Shame. Yasmin and Apek were helpful. If only he could target YeLi, or put them to sleep for a few hours while he escaped.

  But he had to save himself. YeLi knew, and he couldn’t risk her calling the cops, so he’d have to release the poisonous gas.

  He held his breath and pumped his abdomen. Holes opened up in his palms. “Sorry, guys. Never wanted to do this.”