The Golden Circuit (The Smith Chronicles)

by John K. Irvine

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

  Budgie did a little bow and walked out of the room backwards and still bent over, as Jon-7 liked him to do. He bumped his butt on the doorframe then sidled to his right, and out.

  Jon-7 positioned himself with his best side forward as David Sempre’s face juddered onto the screen.

  “Ah, Mr. 7. I thought The Zip interview went very well last night. My congratulations,” began Sempre.

  “Yes, I was quite pleased with my little ‘barging in’ bit, I’m getting pretty good at those, even if I say so myself,” said Jon-7, flashing some teeth.

  But Sempre was already done with the compliments.

  “Now, what is it you need that couldn’t wait until after my breakfast?”

  “Yeah, right. Well, I’m just checking on a few ideas I’ve been running up the flag pole here at HQ.”

  HQ? Surely Jon-7 meant the raggle-taggle, semi-permanent bolt hole with limited sanitation facilities?

  “I was wondering, Sempre -”

  “That’s Mr. Sempre to you, 7.”

  “Yeah, sure, man. Whatever you like, Mr. Semps.” He was such a wag. “So, we’ll do a bit of damage then, around the Muhaze area, as per usual?”

  “Yes, please. If it’s not too much trouble?” said Sempre, sarcastically - already growing tired of Jon-7’s company.

  “No trouble at all. And where do you want the damage done? The Shopping Centre, the Mu-U, the Sports Stadium? Somewhere else?”

  “Yes, The Sports Stadium, why not. I hate sports. All those tall people running around and jumping about, trying to be clever. Yes, blast it up a bit. Not too much, mind you. Money is very tight these days.”

  “Sure, I understand. And while we’re on that topic, Mr. Sempre.” Jon-7 was about to make his move. “You know, it’s been good. We’ve worked together real well over the years. We do a bit for you, you do a bit for us, et cetera, et shmetera - yet, where’s it all heading? What’s it going to lead to? Where are we going with all this?”

  “Oh, terrific,” muttered Sempre. “That’s all I need. An existentialist terrorist. A thug that thinks. Marvellous.”

  “Oh, come off it. You know what I’m getting at. What’s at the end of the rainbow for me… um… for the Froome? I’ve got a lot of people up here to look after. People that are demanding a bigger slice of the pie. A bit more of the takedown from the shakedown. Ya get me, Daddy-O?”

  For some reason, best known (and kept) to himself, Jon-7 was lapsing into Earth-based beatnik poetics. And, needless to say, David Sempre was getting more and more annoyed - his Mu-Egg and soldiers were getting cold.

  “Mr. 7. You asking me to treat you like an equal, aren’t you? You want me to share in some kind of ‘hands-across-the-water’ scenario; some kind of ‘cosying-up-to-each-other’ business. You want a ‘happy-ever-after-ending’, Mr. 7, don’t you?” Clearly, he was not pleased with the Froome leader’s new thinking. “Tell me, 7, how tall are you?”

  “What? What do you want to know that for?”

  “Tall! How tall are you, Mr. 7? Tell me!”

  “6 foot 4 inches… But I still don’t see what that has got to do with -”

  “No! No, you don’t, do you! Well, let me enlighten you! You, Mr. 7, are tall… AND expendable!”

  Jon-7 was stunned - and very confused. He'd not expected Sempre to lose his temper quite like this. Tall? Expendable? What on Kloq-888 was he talking about? But Jon-7 was clever enough to realise that their meeting wasn’t going well.

  “OK, OK, forget I said it.” said Jon-7, backing down. “I’ll sort it out at my end, don’t you worry, Mr. Sempre.” In reality, he was not at all interested in improving the lot of his rabble - he was really Earth-based fishing for something else. He cast out his line.

  “Mr. Sempre, sir… And this is the last thing, I promise.”

  Sempre nodded, having slightly regained his composure - he needed to keep Jon-7 onside.

  “Tell me, please. This Mikita Smith, I keep seeing everywhere. What is the story with her?”

  “Not much,” Sempre began. “A murder, that’s all. Not the first one in Muhaze, and certainly not the last,” he said, with a gleam in his eye. “Why do you ask?”

  “Let me put it this way… I’m interested in her,” he replied, feeling the twitch of a nibble on his hook.

  “Well… I suppose the information can be made available to you,” relented Sempre.

  Sempre liked to show off his methods. He enjoyed playing the big man (even if only metaphorically). “Miss Smith killed one of our operatives. A certain Hanoi Jones who worked for me as a Sourcer. The students at the Mu-U, you see – essentially it’s a psychometric testing centre disguised as a University. We need to work our way through them to find the superior minds suitable for employment at the top end of the TAPCON empire. Primos, we call them. Miss Smith was one of them. Of course, our teachers and lecturers do a lot of the preliminary groundwork, but after the Primos have been filtered it’s the Sourcer’s job to get to know them more ‘intimately’, so to speak, male or female. They get involved with them, learn what their weaknesses are, and their strengths. So, when it comes time for their interview, I have a first-hand psychological profile of each applicant. It saves endless amounts of money if we can single out the ones who will go the distance, find the ones who will do the job without questioning authority, without being overly problematic. Then, you see, Mr. 7, there is no need for coercion and ugly scenes, loss of blood and the like. Do you understand me?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course, Mr. Sempre.” The catch had bitten, but was putting up a fight. And for some reason, Jon-7 had the vague idea he was being warned, or possibly threatened, about something he'd done wrong, even though the conversation was about somebody else entirely. But he didn't understand why. His brain was not so far removed from Budgie’s in many respects.

  Sempre carried on. “Jones tailed her for a while, then something went wrong. He was new to the game. He lost it. There’s nothing more to say…” Then, Sempre began to wonder at Jon-7’s inquisitiveness. “Why? What’s it to you, anyway? Eh, 7? Fallen in love with a murderer, have we? Ha, ha, ha!” That laugh, again. “Oh, he HAS! I can see it in his face!”

  “No, no, no, Mr. Sempre,” lied Jon-7. “Nothing of the kind, honestly.”

  But Sempre knew he was fibbing. This is going to be fun, he thought. I’ll wind him up a little bit. Sempre loved tormenting Jon-7, though he had been known to go too far sometimes and ended up regretting it later.

  “So, what will you do, in order for me to give her to you, 7?”

  “But Mr. Sempre, you don’t have her to give, do you?”

  Sempre was nonplussed. “No, not yet. But we will, soon enough.”

  “What? With the TTF after her? That bunch? You’re having a laugh!”

  “Well, at least they can actually explode bombs in the correct places!”

  Jon-7 felt insulted by this. “Sempre, you mock me -”

  “That’s Mr. Sempre, to you.”

  “No! Listen! If you don’t let me have her then I really will do some shizzing damage! This is a two-way relationship, remember, and you need to do your bit! The Froome are ready to kick some major gluteus max! We are ready to rumble, believe you me!”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Don’t be stupid, 7. I’ll wipe you out,” Sempre said, calmly. “Look, I don’t have time for this nonsense. My breakfast is getting cold.”

  Jon-7 was incensed. “Right then! We WILL attack Muhaze. And PROPERLY this time!”

  Sempre leaned back in his chair and began to laugh. It was a slightly different laugh to his usual one. This was more of a ‘ho, ho, ho you must be mad’ kind of thing. Still evil - but more condescending.

  Jon-7 impulsively yanked his computer’s power-plug out of its socket and the screen peeeeeeeoooow’d into a tiny central dot. The PC’s hard-drive made a harsh, grating sound - then slowly ground to a bemused, and somewhat relieved halt.

  Jon-7 nervously nibbled at his well-man
icured nails - then stopped suddenly.

  Only then did he realise he’d already bitten off more than he could chew.

  Chapter 17

  09.37 - Sunday, July 29, 2187 (nr. Grafuulen, Tapi-36)

  The morning light was streaming in through the blinds as Mikita woke up after a long, heavy sleep. For a split second, she thought she was at home in her bed and turned over to doze for a while. But her hopes of a lie-in were dashed when she felt the dull ache in her right arm - then it all came back to her, in a flood of emotion that was almost sickening…

  The journey from Lojikaal Parc had passed undramatically. The suitcase she’d managed to steal from the Muhaze shuttle contained clothes that allowed Mikita to dress in a colourful, printed dress and a summer hat. It was the opposite of what she would normally wear, but she didn’t think twice when putting on the flowery shift. And the hat did a good job of hiding her shorn locks. But it was her facial lineaments that the mutants were reacting to and nothing else, so she still needed to be careful. Mikita looked the other way when the guard-mutant came through the cabin asking for tickets, while Vannerman kept him distracted and Taarja paid for the three of them. In the end, she went unnoticed all the way to Grafuulen.

  Vannerman managed to hot-wire a vehicle in the overland-shuttle car park and they were soon setting off through the sporadic late-night traffic of the small, northern town. Mikita sat in the back seat with Taarja. But the enormity of what had happened to her that evening finally sunk in and she began to weep uncontrollably.

  “Hey, Mikita. It’s all right,” comforted Taarja. “We’ll make sure you’re OK, don’t you worry.”

  Why is Taarja being so nice? thought Mikita. Taarja is never nice.

  “Yeah, Mikita,” said Vannerman. “Sorry to get you tangled up in all of this. It’s all our fault. We’ll get you back to your flat tomorrow if you want, or to your Aunt Fizz’s?”

  “Yes, thanks, Vannerman,” Mikita snivelled. “That would probably be best. It doesn’t matter, either one.”

  She knew she would have to tell them about what had happened, eventually, but she was so exhausted she couldn’t summon the energy or the courage to do it now - and her arm was so painful. But even that discomfort couldn’t stop her from drifting off to sleep as they sped on through the outskirts of Grafuulen…

  Mikita looked out of the bedroom window and could see that the house was surrounded by woodland. The trees were mainly of the Bleubaak variety with their white trunks, azure leaves, while the long, red grasses of the Steppes (the same kind to be found on neatly trimmed Muhaze lawns) were blowing in a light breeze that was circling the grounds. She could hear qi-birds in the trees, bringing a brief smile to her face. But even that joyous sound soon served as a cruel reminder of yesterday, and how little happiness she now felt. And the unexplained power that was to be found hidden within her.

  Oh, Hanoi…

  She began to reflect on the dormant energy inside her body, lying there, waiting to make her life hell with its random intentions. The uncertainty of not knowing when it was going to rear itself was maddening. And the destruction it had already caused to the people around her was unbearable to contemplate.

  She shook off her feelings, got dressed and wandered through to the front room of the house. Vannerman and Taarja were already up and talking together as she came in. They stopped abruptly when they saw her. Then Taarja spoke:

  “Good morning, Mikita. Did you have a pleasant sleep?”

  “Um, yes, I suppose so, thanks. All things considered.”

  “Good, that’s good,” she said, looking over at Vannerman.

  “Where are we?” asked Mikita. “This isn’t Grafuulen?”

  “No. We’re about 10km to the north-east of Grafuulen. In the middle of nowhere, really,” said Vannerman. “Mikita, there is something we need to tell you.”

  “Um, OK,” stammered Mikita, blearily. “What is it? Go ahead.”

  “Mikita,” began Vannerman. “We are not who you think we are.”

  Mikita looked at Vannerman blankly.

  “Let me put it like this. We are not Vannerman and Taarja. Those are names that we use when we are here on Tapi-36. They are characters that we portray when on your planet. But I see I am confusing you.”

  Vannerman took a breath and started again.

  “We are here to help you. We have been here to help you for sometime. We’ve been watching you, and waiting for you to come of age. That time is now. Here. And you have arrived Mikita - to us.”

  “Wait, wait, wait… You’ve been watching me? What are you talking about? What have you seen?” demanded Mikita.

  “It’s all right. We already know - we know everything - almost. And the things we don’t… well, you can fill in for us in due course. There is no immediate rush. There is no immediate danger, either. We are safe here, for the time being. We have not been followed by the agents.”

  Mikita looked relieved by this, though her head was reeling. Everything was spinning around in her mind.

  “You see, we are not from Tapi-36,” said Taarja. “We were sent here by the Guardians of the Oort Cloud. They are our masters.”

  “The what? The Oort Cloud? Oh, this just gets better, and better!” said Mikita.

  “Yes, Mikita, it does,” replied Vannerman, taking her literally. He and Taarja looked at each other, nodded, then reached down underneath their chins. They grabbed at the skin near the bottom of their necks and then pulled at it - upwards. Suddenly, a sticky, elastic material began to peel away from their faces accompanied by a shimmering, gold and russet aura. Mikita recognised the colour. It was the same one that appeared to her during her episodes.

  “Oh – My - Herra,” whispered Mikita.

  Vannerman paused. His face half on, half off. “Don’t be afraid, Mikita. Please. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  Mikita steadied herself. No, this is too much. She closed her eyes.

  There was a silence, save for the sound of faces being removed.

  Mikita fought down her fear as curiosity got the better of her and she peered out, first through her right eye, and then through her left.

  There before her, stood Vannerman and Taarja – except, it wasn’t them. Not now. They both had the most beautiful, peaceful faces she'd ever seen. Ageless, quiet and tranquil. You couldn’t even begin to put a year on them. They looked old and young at the same time. But not ‘old’ as you would normally think - not lined and wrinkled - but rather, sagacious, and full of knowledge. A look of having seen all the secrets that existed in the galaxy; of having had the experience of inscrutable and ancient insights; an awareness of an all-encompassing wisdom and logic.

  “But… you’re both so… beautiful,” began Mikita, full of wonder. “Who…? What…? I mean… Where did you…? How…?”

  “It’s OK, Mikita. We understand your confusion,” said Taarja, smiling.

  The sound of her voice! It’s like she’s speaking and singing at the same time!

  Taarja’s voice now had a tunefulness to it, a lightness and delicacy, like it was wreathed in a distant melody. Far removed from Taarja’s usual voice - that one was like a slipper-eel in labour.

  “But, you were both so horrible to me at Hanoi’s,” Mikita said. “And that ‘thing’ you had with you. What was that?”

  “That,” began Taarja, “was Aldoorin Anoote. Leader of The Guardians. Our leader,” she said, proudly.

  “Then why was he all chained up - on a leash? Vannerman had a leash around his neck.”

  “It was another disguise,” explained Vannerman. “Aldoorin wanted to see you at first hand, up close. However, we can only remain in our original forms here on Tapi-36 for so long. An alien pet was the perfect veil. It was his own choice, actually. He is not without humour, regardless of what some might say,” said Vannerman, with a grin.

  “It is rare that we find someone as strong as yourself,” continued Taarja. “Someone with such power. It is very rare, Mikita. Very rare and special
. You are special.”

  “Me? No, no. You’ve got the wrong person. I’m not special,” said Mikita, shaking her head.

  “Yes, Mikita,” said Taarja. “Yes, you are. You must believe me.”

  “My name, is Gildan,” said Vannerman. “And Taarja? She is called Florina. Please, call us by these names from now on.”

  “You see, Mikita,” continued Florina. “Throughout your life you have experienced random connections to the Golden Circuit. It is the power that governs all things: the way the universe is formed, the equilibrium of the stars, gravity, the manner in which everything is held together and balanced. The Golden Circuit determines all this. It is a gift you possess. The qi-bird, your dog Marta, Hanoi - you healed them, or did harm to them, with your ability to access the Golden Circuit. You are what we call a ‘conductor’, Mikita.”

  “The Golden Circuit,” said Mikita, almost savouring the words. “And you know about all of those things? The things I’ve done?”

  “Yes, and there have been more, Mikita. Smaller, lesser events. You were just unaware of them when they happened. Or asleep - you can conduct from your dreams, too.”

  “Well, drain me.”

  “Indeed, they certainly do,” said Gildan, once again interpreting her remark at face value. “They take so much energy from you when used uncontrolled. And that is why you must come with us to Plaateux-5 and learn from the Guardians. You must learn the correct methods of use. It is essential. For your safety and for the safety of those around you. An unharnessed gift like yours? It is very, very dangerous. As you have found to your great cost.”

  At that moment, Mikita heard a familiar squelching sound coming from the back of the house. It was accompanied by the tread of several feet on the ground and a gurgling of liquids passing through a tube. Mikita looked at Gildan and Florina in dumb surprise. Then, through the door, walked Leo-317!

  “Ah-ha!” exclaimed Mikita. “It’s him!”

  “Yes, Mikita. It is him,” laughed Florina. “Mikita Smith, meet Aldoorin Anoote, leader of the Guardians of the Oort Cloud.”