Tree: Live to give, give to live (Numbered Book 3)

by Magus Tor

  The pod shook as a door opened. Looking over, Aurelia could see a glass shield separating the back of the pod from the front, where the control console was. Three men climbed into the front part, including the scarred sec Worker who had been on the shuttle with them.

  “Off we go,” said the gap-toothed man.

  Sure enough, the pod hummed, hovered, and then began to move. They travelled for no more than a couple of minutes before stopping, and the door was opened. The addict and the two unconscious men were dragged out of the pod, and one of the three sec Workers tied their restraints together. The pod took off again, leaving the Worker with his prisoners, presumably waiting for help to get them into the holding cell.

  “Me and him'll be up next,” said the rough man, stretching his legs out. “Been nice meeting you and all. Guessing we won't meet again, what with y'all bein’ tortured and dead and that.” He gave a gravelly laugh, but it wasn't spiteful.

  Maybe he’s still drunk, thought Aurelia.

  The pod travelled further this time, but the man had been right. When they stopped again, he and his accomplice were dragged out by the second sec Worker; and before Aurelia could say a word, the door was closed. So now it was just them. Well, them and the scarred sec Worker. The Worker didn't even glance back, just hit the controls, and off they went.

  “So, any ideas?” asked Nicholas, now that they were alone.

  “Shh,” said Jonathon. His eyes closed.

  Nicholas and Aurelia both turned to Elza, but she shrugged. Maybe the sec Worker could hear what they were saying. So they sat in silence. The gap-toothed man had said that their holding cell was on the other side of the bay, so they could reasonably expect a long ride. Aurelia’s eyes flitted around, looking for any chance of escape, anything that could help them. But there was nothing. She stared at the back of the sec Worker's head through the glass. She should have known there was something off about him; she'd sensed something strange when she'd first seen him.

  The pod flew on, the minutes stretching out. Once Nicholas tried to speak, but again Jonathon hushed him. We have to be getting close to the other side of the shuttle bay by now, Aurelia thought. Maybe Jonathon already had a plan; maybe that's why he looked so strangely relaxed.

  The silence was shattered by a high-pitched shrieking sound that cut through the air.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Nicholas, sitting up straighter and looking around.

  “That, my friend,” said Jonathon, eyes still closed and smiling slightly now, “is the siren that warns of a pod leaving the limits of the shuttle bay.”

  Chapter Five

  “Wait for it,” warned Jonathon.

  There was a rumble, and the transport pod dropped to the ground.

  “Out, out!”

  The alarm was still screaming as the sec Worker opened the door and started yelling. Elza tumbled out alone, falling to the ground. The sec Worker grabbed Nicholas next and pulled him out.

  “Cut my bonds!” shouted Nicholas, over the screeching of the siren. “Now, fast!”

  The Worker pulled a knife from his belt and sliced through the rope around Nicholas's wrists. The Clone kicked at a panel on the side of the pod, denting it, then prying it off with his fingers. Aurelia was halfway out of the pod and could see Nicholas pulling at a wire behind the panel. The Worker pulled her arm to help her out, and as she hit the ground, the siren stopped wailing. Quickly, the Worker cut through the restraints of each of them.

  And then Aurelia heard something that she couldn't quite identify, it was so out of place. Laughter. She looked over and saw Jonathon, his head thrown back in laughter; then he opened his arms wide, engulfed the scarred sec Worker, and patted him hard on the back.

  “Lukas! You were incredible!”

  The sec Worker extricated himself from Jonathon's arms and grinned. “I was pretty good, wasn't I?” he said.

  Aurelia was amazed at how the smile changed his face. He was no longer a surly sec Worker; he looked like a boy, and his teeth were dazzlingly white and even.

  Nicholas had been faster on the uptake than any of them, and Aurelia was still trying to piece everything together when he said, “I've disabled the siren; it won't go off again.”

  The sec Worker looked at Jonathon. “Might as well,” he said.

  Jonathon nodded. “Everyone back in,” he said.

  They climbed back into the pod, feeling the familiar moment of weightlessness as it began to hover and then move. The sec Worker fiddled with something, and the glass partition between them slid down.

  “So what's the plan?” asked Jonathon, absentmindedly rubbing at his wrists where his ropes had been.

  “No, hold up a second,” said Aurelia, finally coming to her senses. “Why don't you start by telling us exactly what's going on here?”

  Jonathon chuckled again. “Haven’t worked it out yet?” he said. “Well, let's start with some introductions. I'd like you to meet Lukas, a friend of mine, a member of the Earth Resistance, and an influential member of the Earth-Lunar shuttle security force.”

  “Ex member,” said Lukas with a grimace. “I'm pretty sure I've been fired now that I've helped four prisoners to escape.”

  “Not to mention stealing a transport pod,” pointed out Jonathon.

  “So you knew all along who he was?” Elza asked.

  “Sure,” said Jonathon. “But I couldn't say anything, could I? It would have given the game away. Besides, I didn't know that Lukas would be on the shuttle himself; I only knew that he was going to get us out of the shuttle bay once we got to Earth.”

  “Something that you made especially easy,” said Lukas, turning around and looking at Aurelia. “I'm guessing that the ‘thank you, darling’ was accidental, right?”

  Aurelia felt herself blush and nodded.

  “But as it turned out, it was exactly the excuse I needed to arrest you all, so no harm done,” Lukas said, grinning again and holding out his hand.

  Aurelia shook his hand and smiled back. His grin was infectious, and she decided that she liked Lukas very much. Now that he wasn't staring stonily at her and trying to get her thrown into a holding cell, that is. “Where are you taking us?” she asked him.

  He looked thoughtful. “Well, the plan was to take you all to a safe house outside City 01 for the night, and arrange for your transfer tomorrow.”

  “Transfer to where?” Aurelia interrupted.

  “City 02,” he said. “It's the safest place for us right now. There's a strong Resistance group there, and all those little islands mean that it's a great place to hide.”

  Vaguely, Aurelia remembered seeing City 02 from the air on her first shuttle flight. Built on reclaimed swampland, the city was a series of interconnected islands surrounded by dark jungle.

  “But you're thinking we should skip the safe house in 01?” Jonathon said.

  “No point in taking the risk now, really,” said Lukas. “I mean, we've already got transport; we might be best just getting the hell out of here now whilst we can. Before anyone realises that you lot haven't shown up in your holding cell and that I've disappeared.”

  “That makes sense,” said Nicholas. “Think this pod will make it all the way?”

  Lukas looked down at the control console. “It's got a full charge,” he said, clicking on icons. “Might get us all the way there. Will definitely get us most of the way there.”

  “And if it doesn't?” Elza asked. She still looked suspicious, and Aurelia guessed that she was reluctant to trust Lukas because she hadn't known about him. Jonathon generally shared pretty much everything with Elza, and the woman must be mad because she'd been left out.

  “Retract your claws, Elza,” said Jonathon. “Lukas is one of the good ones. And the only reason I didn't tell you was because the fewer people who knew, the better. Besides, by not telling you, I made sure that your reaction was genuine when you were arrested, right?”

  “And what would have happened if something had happened to you and I was l
eft trying to get us to safety without your help?” Elza asked, anger showing in her voice.

  “Relax,” said Jonathon. “Lukas knew who to look for. He would have found you.”

  Elza sighed. “Fine.”

  Lukas smiled again. “In answer to your question, if the pod doesn't get us all the way there, then we'll have to walk the rest.” He looked solemnly at Elza. “But should that happen, you have my word that I will personally carry you the entire way to City 02.”

  Even Elza had to smile at that, and the tension in the air dissipated.

  “Er...I don't mean to push my luck,” said Nicholas, leaning forward over the front seats. “But I don't suppose there's any chance of something to eat, is there? I'm starving.”

  Lukas turned to look at Jonathon. “Yeah, that could be a small flaw in my plan. We've got nothing in here—no food, no blankets. What do you want to do?”

  The pod was sliding over dark ground, the lights of City 01 twinkling in the distance.

  Jonathon bit his lip in thought. “We should probably make a supply stop,” he said finally. “Should the pod not make it, we could have a way to walk; and doing that cold, sleepless, and on empty stomachs isn't ideal.” He looked at Lukas. “Have you got somewhere close to the edge of the City where we could stop?”

  Lukas thought for a second and then nodded and bent over the central console, plugging in new coordinates. “I know somewhere,” he said.

  The transport pod veered off to the right, towards the City, flying low and so close to the ground that Aurelia worried that they might hit something. Not a lot to hit outside of City 01, though, she thought. The ground seemed flat and empty, no sign of trees or ruins or anything else.

  “What happened out here?” she asked, partly to make conversation and partly because she was genuinely interested.

  “Hmm?” asked Jonathon, distracted by the coordinates that Lukas had put into the console.

  “I mean, it's so flat,” explained Aurelia. “Too flat.”

  “Ah,” said Elza. “That's because it was deliberately flattened.”

  “Why?”

  “This all used to be part of City 01—well, kind of,” Elza said. “Suburbs, maybe. City 01 is the biggest Earth city in the Empire, but it was also the biggest city on Old Earth. It stretched for kilometres without end. They said that in a transport pod, it would take more than a day to cross it. And then the War came.”

  “What happened then?” asked Aurelia, sitting back in her seat and watching Elza.

  “Some of the City was destroyed, of course. But when the War was over, there were still huge expanses of derelict ruins. The government decided to flatten an area around the City, as a cordon, a safety zone.”

  “Safety from what?” Aurelia wanted to know.

  “From rogue soldiers, partly,” answered Elza. “But also from those that lived outside of the City. The wasteland out here was patrolled up until about fifteen years ago, probably still was when you were a child, though you don't remember it. Anyone out here would be shot without warning.”

  “I don't understand,” Aurelia said. “Why would the City want to kill people who were trying to get in?”

  Nicholas took over the story. “Because resources were rare, food even rarer. The Earth Cities kept a certain number of their inhabitants, but anyone caught outside of the Cities when the decision was made to close them was left out there. Left to die,” he said, disgusted. “The pollution was even worse then than it is now, and the chances of survival outside of a City were slim. Again, you probably can't remember, but until relatively recently everyone had to wear breathing masks, even in the City centres.”

  Aurelia shook her head; she didn't remember. For as long as she'd known, the air in the centre of City 01 had been pretty breathable.

  “In basic terms,” said Nicholas, “it was population control. Earth could handle only a limited number of people, so the others were left to die.”

  “And did they?”

  “In large numbers, yes,” Nicholas said.

  “But not everyone,” Lukas added, turning around in his seat to face her. “There were those that survived, either because they were stronger or because they were innovative.”

  “So there are settlements outside of the Cities?” pressed Aurelia.

  Lukas shared a glance with Jonathon, who nodded at him. “Yes,” he answered, cautiously.

  Aurelia sat back, satisfied. She'd known that there had to be settlements on Earth, just like on Lunar. It was nice to have it confirmed, though. She wondered, as the pod grew closer to the City, what these Earth settlements were like. She imagined them to be rough places, the people tough. It seemed like a good guess. People like that could be useful, she thought.

  “What about mutants?” she asked.

  Lukas laughed. “You mean the fairy tales for kids? Nonsense, all of it, as far as I know. The tales were allowed, even encouraged, because they scared people enough to keep them inside the confines of the City, made them stop wondering what was outside. After a while, most people believed that anything seen moving outside of the City was a nuclear waste-created mutant.”

  “Two heads, three legs, that sort of thing,” added Jonathon, as the pod skirted the edge of the City.

  “At least it means that we're not co-opted into doing guard duty along the strip,” Lukas said. “No one wants to come in these days, and not many want to go out either.”

  The buildings around the outskirts of the City were dirty, though familiar to Aurelia, since all constructions looked more or less the same in City 01. She saw a couple of broken windows here and there, and no other transport pods at all.

  “We'll be in and out,” promised Lukas, as the pod hovered and then landed in the courtyard of one of the buildings. “Jonathon will come with me to grab what we need; you guys stay in here. Three minutes max, okay?”

  Nicholas was about to protest, but he stopped when Jonathon handed over a stunner and told him to look after Aurelia. For her part, Aurelia was a little insulted but guessed that it was diplomatic to keep quiet, so that's exactly what she did as Jonathon and Lukas disappeared through a low door in front of the pod.

  The pod door was slightly open, and without thinking—and before Elza or Nicholas could stop her—Aurelia got out. This was Earth. This was her City. She wanted to feel the ground beneath her feet, to smell the air. Even as she climbed out, a gentle rain started to fall; and she lifted her face to the sky, letting the drops land on her face.

  “Aurelia, get back inside,” Nicholas said from the open door.

  “Just give me a second,” she said, eyes closed and face still tilted up.

  She heard him sigh but ignored it. Opening her eyes, she scanned the skyline of the City, wondering where her parents were, what they were doing. So close yet so far away from them. She'd had no idea that they were bound for City 02, had just assumed that they would be in 01 and that she'd be able to at least try to contact her parents. But no. Now it was her turn to sigh.

  She was about to get back into the pod when a small movement caught her eye. The building itself formed one side of the courtyard, but a brick wall stretched out over the remaining space, fencing it in. The wall had once been painted white, but it had faded to a dirty grey, and for a second she thought the movement was just a trick of the light and shadows. But then she saw it again. She took a step towards it, before realising what she was seeing and jumping back.

  “What?” Nicholas said, his voice alarmed.

  “We need to get out of here, now,” whispered Aurelia. “Where are the others?”

  “They'll be another minute or so,” Nicholas said equally quietly. “Why? What have you seen?”

  Aurelia still had her back to the open pod door, but she heard Elza's voice clearly from behind her.

  “I see it too,” the woman said. “Move slowly back into the pod, Aurelia. Don't make sudden movements.”

  Holding her breath, Aurelia carefully took a step backwards, making the moti
on as fluid as she could. Then she took another, and another, until, heart pounding, she felt the firmness of metal on her back.

  “Keep still,” Nicholas warned her. He'd obviously seen it too now.

  She froze, felt hands on her arms, and then she was gently lifted back into the pod. Elza was ready, and as soon as Aurelia was inside, she began to slowly inch the door closed.

  “What the hell?” said Aurelia, finally breathing out as the door clicked shut.

  “It's one of the shuttle bay security drones,” Nicholas said. “It must have followed from the bay. Probably got some kind of tracking device embedded in it.”

  “Stun it,” Elza said, pointing at the shiny metal device in Nicholas's hand.

  “Nope. As soon as I stun that thing, a screaming alarm is going to go off,” he said.

  “Jonathon and Lukas are going to be back any second, and it's sure to see them. They won't know to move slowly, so we'd better come up with a plan fast,” Aurelia said, climbing over the seats and into the front of the pod.

  “Right.” Nicholas nodded. “Aurelia, programme in coordinates, anything you want; as long as it's not here, we can change them later. We want to be ready to go immediately. In a second I'm going to open that door again, so the two of you sit tight and don't make a sound, got it?”

  Elza nodded, and Aurelia's fingers flew over the console.

  “Should I engage the coordinates?” she asked.

  “Good thinking. Do it.”

  She pressed the icon, and the pod hummed, lifted, and hovered a half metre or so off the ground. She heard the soft hiss of the door and felt a cool breeze waft in, so she kept as still as possible. Her eyes constantly skimmed over the building, looking for any signs of the two men inside. Then she saw the door handle bend down and knew they were coming.

  It happened fast. As soon as the door opened and Jonathon and Lukas appeared, heavily laden with boxes, Nicholas gave a sharp yell and jumped from the pod. His sudden movement was just what the motion detectors on the drone had been waiting for. As Jonathon and Lukas began to run, eating up the few metres between them and the pod, the drone flew straight at Nicholas, who raised his stunner.