Invisible Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  The next feed shows Vienne shackled in a cell, wearing only a dirty gown and a metal choker. Archibald enters the cell, along with a guard. Vienne lunges for them. The guard zaps her with an electric prod. She grabs the prod and jams it against his neck. Archibald claps like it’s a show, and the feed ends.

  “Nǐ shì shénme dōngxi,” I whisper.

  Then the last feed pops up. It’s the same cell. Vienne is still shackled, the metal choker partially covering a ring of burns on her neck. Her hair is tangled and matted, hands and feet black with filth. Another guard enters the room. She ignores him until the choker on her neck starts to glow, then she claws the floor as if she could dig her way through it.

  “No, no, no!”

  I slam a fist through the screen. Glass shatters, and I don’t give a damn. I drop to the floor, defeated. I bow my head. Tears flow.

  “Had enough?” Stain says, intruding on my grief.

  I turn off the power to the vids. “I didn’t hear you knock.” Wanker.

  “See what your vanity has led to?” he says, arms folded and looking so smug, I wish I could scrub his face empty. “Your search is over. Believe me: The Vienne you knew no longer exists.”

  I start to leave. “My search is over when I say it’s over.”

  “If you really loved her,” he says, again blocking my path, “you would wish her a merciful death.”

  If you keep getting in my way, I think, the only death I’ll wish for is yours. “Not loved. Love. I’m still in present tense. So is Vienne.”

  “Cowboy!” Mimi barks. “I am picking a mass of sensor sweeps associated with heavy combat forces. Hellbender velocicopters. Two units of eight, standard combat frequencies. Equipped with Seneca guns and onboard Varlamov rockets. Twelve hundred meters and closing fast.”

  Oh shimatta, I curse and shove Stain aside. “We can do this pissing contest later. There’s a CorpCom air demolition unit inbound, and it’s coming in hot.”

  Stain follows on my heels. “How the hell do you know and what does your jargon mean?”

  “It means that in about ten minutes,” I shout while trying to run on a gimpy leg, “this whole carking compound is coming down, and if we don’t move, we’ll go down with it!”

  Out on the tarmac, I limp to the closest Düsseldorf and fire up the engine. Steering the unwieldy monster with one hand, I drive to the guard shack, where Riki-Tiki is leading the hostages out. Somehow she’s convinced them to link hands, leading them like children into the back of the truck.

  Shoei and Yadokai bring up the rear of the line.

  I park and jump out.

  “Is that all of them?” I shout to the mistress as I round the truck. “We’ve got to bug out, stat! There’s a CorpCom air unit bearing down on us!”

  “No!” Riki-Tiki says. “There are others still inside!”

  “Damn it!” I pull her away. “Show me!”

  Leaving Shoei and Yadokai to load the rest, Riki-Tiki leads me inside the building. Down the corridor. Up a flight of stairs.

  I slam into the holding room and gag from the wretched smell of human waste and vomit. There, sitting in a pile of filth, is a small girl. Vienne’s pendant is around her neck.

  “Go back!” I tell Riki-Tiki, then scoop up the little girl.

  Seconds later we slam through the exit doors. Riki-Tiki runs ahead to the cab. I stop at the tailgate and hand the girl to Yadokai.

  “Wait,” I say, and slip the necklace off her. I hang it around my own neck.

  Above us, the thump-thump-thump of velocicopter rotors chops the air.

  I start toward the cabin, but Stain is already jumping behind the wheel. He shuts the door and gives me the ready sign.

  By ready sign, I mean the middle finger.

  Fine. He can drive. “All aboard!” I hop onto the rear bumper. “Go! Go!”

  Gears grinding, Stain makes the truck lumber to life as the lights of the velocicopters appear on the horizon.

  “Floor it, Stain!” I bellow. “A Hellbender is on our tail!”

  The pavement behind us erupts with small explosions as hot tracers coated with white phosphorous chase us down. With a whump and a clatter, we crash through the front gate, and seconds later, the rear wheels spit out the leftovers.

  The bump throws me into the air, and I almost fall off.

  As if we weren’t having enough fun already, a line of bullets tears through the canvas covering, ripping off the section that I’m clinging to. I grab hold with my good hand, the canvas shredding as I get closer and closer to the road.

  “Mimi, think this cloth’s going to hold up?”

  “Do not even ask,” she says. “Just hang on.”

  The pilot brings the Hellbender to bear, and a Varlamov rocket detaches from its mounts. A burst of fire to its aft, and it’s whistling toward us.

  “Evade!” I shout, knowing it’s a waste of breath.

  But somehow, the Düsseldorf bounces, and instead of finding our tailpipe, the rocket sinks into the ground. I have just enough time to duck before it explodes, spraying chunks of pavement everywhere.

  A sizeable bit bounces off my helmet. “Ouch!”

  Enough of this kuso.

  Wrapping my arm in the torn canvas, I draw my armalite from its holster and let my legs drop. My feet hit the pavement and I’m skiing on the road, praying the symbiarmor can dissipate heat long enough for me to pull the trigger and spray a ridiculously wild clip of ammo at the Hellbender.

  In a perfect world, my bullets would find the pilot, the spotter, and the gunner in his nest. In reality, having a bad eye screws up my aim, but emptying a clip on full automatic is enough to give the pilot pause. He takes evasive action, pulling the velocicopter into a climb that takes it high out of my range—and the Düsseldorf out of its.

  For a few seconds the copter hangs there, spotlights sweeping the ground after us. Then, as if the pilot has decided his mission is to attack a compound, not chase down stragglers, he breaks off and rejoins the others.

  A few seconds later, the Hellbenders release their rockets, which begins the process of blowing Tharsis Two all to hell.

  I wonder, as I pull myself back into the bed of the Düsseldorf—with Yadokai and Shoei giving me looks of pity and frustration—if Archibald left the outpost because he knew the attack was coming.

  It doesn’t matter, I think as I settle in for the long ride back. All that matters is Vienne wasn’t being held in Tharsis Two, and now, I have no idea where to find her.

  Chapter 18

  Bishop’s Road, Tharsis Plain

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 25. 06:42

  By the time a new day rose over the Labyrinth of the Night, I was long gone.

  It took us a few hours to get the prisoners back to the collective and into the infirmary. Afterward, I parted ways with the Tengu. They had injured to heal, and it was obvious that their hopes for Vienne was a light that had dimmed. Only Riki-Tiki wanted to continue on with me, and it took Shoei’s sharpest tongue to keep her from leaving. Truthfully, I preferred to go it alone, and after a couple of fitful hours on an infirmary cot, I hit the road without telling anyone I’d left.

  The morning sun is a heatless white ghost that casts dim light through the monsoon clouds, and I can smell ozone in the air. The red stone formations lining the highway shoot past, and disintegrating biodomes pass into and out of my peripheral vision. From the corner of my left eye, I can see black-gray smoke in the distance.

  My visor is painted with streaks of mud. High winds pound my bike, and the cylinders roar as I hit the gas. The speedometer climbs. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty. Eighty-five.

  The Bishop’s Highway cuts the Tharsis Plain in half. Designed as the first major roadway to expand trade past the original colonies, the Bishop was built with four lanes on each side of a median, each with its own speed. For a century on Mars, it was the way to move about if you were in a hurry. Then, when the oceans rose and the valleys greened, settlements moved
to more fertile ground, and the Bishop fell into disuse. Unlike the other construction projects built by the Orthocracy, though, the highway is still structurally sound. In most places the lanes are intact, and you can make it all the way from the Labyrinth to Base Camp, where the Founders created the first settlement on Mars. However, if you aren’t careful and if you aren’t lucky, you can find yourself riding across the barren plains on a rough stretch of road full of potholes big enough to swallow your motorbike whole. Oh, and you’ll be low on hydrofuel, hungry, and shivering in the wind because you’re not dressed for the rainy season on the Tharsis Plateau.

  “I told you to wear a raincoat,” Mimi says, clearly audible over the roar of the wind. “And to take provisions.”

  “I brought food.”

  “You brought snacks. How do you expect to track down Vienne on a diet of honey and rice cakes?”

  “I survived on CorpCom MREs for months on end. Rice cakes and honey are delicacies in comparison.”

  I gun the engine again, struggling to maintain a hold on the left grip. It’s hard enough to drive with a broken arm, but add a missing finger, and it gets downright flummoxing. The pinkie doesn’t seem important until it’s gone.

  Funny how Vienne and I are united by a thing that isn’t there. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. We were both supposed to have a Beautiful Death at the Ceremony of Allegiances, not become outcasts.

  The ceremony is as old as the Regulators. With the rise of the CorpComs, it has become a ritualized public spectacle that’s telecast on the multinets for the whole world to see. The purpose of the ceremony is to show ultimate allegiance by committing suicide, a life offering to both the Tenets of the Regulator and the individual Regulator’s Lord. According to tradition, a Regulator is bound to his chief, who in turn is bound to his Lord. When the Bishop was alive, the Lord meant the Bishop’s Council Nine, each of whom had his or her own standing army. With the advent of the Orthocracy, the Lord became the head of the Nine Families, and with the CorpComs, the Lord became the CEO of the CorpCom.

  Being CEO of Zealand Corporate Command, my father was both my Lord and my father, which meant that when he fell from grace, I and my fellow Regulators fell with him. We had a choice: We could end our lives in the ceremony or we could refuse and enter a life of disgrace as a dalit by cutting off a pinkie finger as a symbolic gesture—a gesture that served as a permanent reminder of our failure and let everyone else know that we are outcasts.

  After my father was convicted, they led him out to the courtyard in front of Parliament Tower. There he stood on a wooden platform, hands and legs shackled, as three hundred loyal Regulators stood in line behind a tent. One by one, they walked through darkness for a few meters, then climbed nine steps to a dais, where they knelt on a tatami mat and pulled the cowl from their heads. Before them was a simple box covered with a synsilk cloth. On a signal, a second pulled the cloth aside to reveal a glass vial and a sharp knife. The vial contained poison. All a loyal Regulator had to do was drink the poison, rise to his feet, and climb down the dais. By the time she reached the ground, her life would be over. Attendants would quickly wrap her body in a shroud and carry her away to another tent, where her family would be waiting. Later, they would cremate the remains and celebrate her Beautiful Death. All of this took hours. The morning and afternoon dripped away while Vienne and I waited at the end of the line. It was determined that I should go last, being the son of the failed CEO. But because my father was a criminal, that honor was taken away from me and given to Vienne, who was considered the bravest and fiercest of all the Zealand Regulators.

  When it was finally my time, I followed the carpet through the tent to the dais. I climbed the stairs and knelt. With more of a flourish than I expected, the second pulled the cloth aside. I blinked twice. There was no vial. Only the knife. My response was followed by a roar from the crowd, as the cameras were trained on the box and telecast both what I saw and my reaction on the huge monitors above the tents. In unison, the crowd, the second, and I looked to the platform where my father was standing tall. Chin held high. Shoulders back. The meaning was clear. The Ceremony of Allegiances was first and foremost a way of honoring one’s Lord. My Lord did not want me dead. He wanted me alive—and disgraced. What could I do? I stared at the knife, then at my father. I snatched the knife, slapped my hand on the mat before me and severed my finger at the second joint. I stood and held the bloody hand aloft, ashamed and defiant at the same time, as the attendants rushed me down the steps and quickly set about the business of tourniqueting the wound. The crowd was still buzzing when Vienne took her place on the mat and waited for the second to reveal the vial and the knife in the box, then calmly repeated my action.

  “Why?” I asked, my head light from the loss of blood and endorphins.

  “You are my crew and my chief,” she said. “My loyalty is first to you. If you are dalit, then I must be dalit, too.”

  I must be dalit, too. The words still ring in my ears. Vienne’s sacrifice brought us together, and yet every time I look at her missing finger, I feel guilt vibrating like a death knell inside. Yes, that sacrifice brought us together, but does it also keep us apart?

  “I have taken the liberty of checking my database for maps while you were wallowing in ironic self-loathing,” Mimi says, interrupting my train of thought. “Four kilometers ahead, there is an off-ramp that connects to Highway one-seventeen. Two kilometers north from there, you will find a roadhouse.”

  “You’re giving me directions like I’m some kind of wanker,” I say. “What’re you trying to tell me?”

  “You are suffering from exhaustion and your blood glucose levels are precariously low,” Mimi says. “So in effect, I am telling you to pull over and get something to eat. Note that I did not call you a wanker, even though there is enough relevant data to draw that conclusion.”

  “Okay, Mom! Geez. Can’t I be single-minded once in a while?”

  “You have an AI flash-cloned to your brain. Your days of single-mindedness are long gone.”

  “Touché.” I slow down to avoid the wreck of a school bus left to gather rust in the open. “How do you know that roadhouse is still open?”

  “I do not know if it is,” she says. “But it is the only establishment within forty kilometers on this map, so it is worth the chance.”

  “In other words, you’re acting on blind faith.”

  “No, acting on the only information available and hoping that it is still accurate,” she says. “Hope, unlike love, is never blind.”

  After hours of nothing but road, my motorbike, and the never-ending horizon, I started feeling something gnawing in my gut. It’s just hunger, I tell myself, and for almost a hundred kilometers, I believe the lie. When my appetite kicks in, along with it comes the realization that the pangs are from loneliness. For years Vienne and I fought side by side, starting out as crew and ending up as . . . something. Without her, I feel exposed, my back unprotected.

  There’s an adage on Mars: A man will drink himself to death before he starves. There’s some truth to that, so it’s not really a surprise to me that the roadhouse is still open for business. Like almost every other building in this territory, the roadhouse is a rectangle made of shipping containers welded together. It is separated from a village by a low fence made of scavenged wire. The roof is a quilt work of metal sheets laid over a latticed work of rebar posts, and with the wind blowing, a few of the sheets rise and fall like loose flaps of skin.

  “Water,” I tell the proprietor as I take a seat. When he pops a bottle of carbonated water on the counter, I ask, “Got anything without bubbles?”

  “Only that which would poison you,” he says.

  “I’ll take the bubbles.”

  I empty the bottle. The carbonation eats at my throat, burning like the grief that’s dissolving my insides. I can’t get the image of Vienne on that video feed out of my mind. I hate the way the Sturmnacht stared and laughed at her, the way her eyes were ashed over like a c
harcoal fire. Is that the last image I’m going to have of her?

  “Anything to eat?” the proprietor asks. “The cook just fried up a mess of hot beignets, and they sure are good.”

  “Cowboy, you need to eat.”

  “Ha. You just want beignets because they trigger the endorphin centers of my brain.”

  “It is a gift.”

  “What is?”

  “Your ability to state the obvious.”

  While I’m eating the beignets for Mimi, I scan the other patrons of the roadhouse. Three jacks in coveralls sit near the other hearth. Next to them, an old man and woman argue, their table full of empty bottles. Then I notice a familiar face, one that I last saw right before he and his buddy threw me into a canyon.

  Franks is sitting at the bar, a cigar cupped in his hand. A waitress passes by him with a tray of food on her shoulder. She stops cold and blushes. Laughing, Franks stands up like he’s going to leave the bar, then, as the waitress is turning away, taps the ash from his cigar into a bowl of amino grits.

  “Watch my plate,” Franks growls as he slides off his stool. “I got to take a whiz.”

  He heads for the latrine. After giving him a thirty- second head start, I follow him. I wait outside the latrine until a clanging sound tells me that Franks is in a stall. Then I slip inside, holding the door so it won’t make noise, and find a place to hide. The wretched smell reminds me of New Savannah, the old city in the south where we used to do mercenary work.

  The sound of Franks’s coughing fit brings me back to reality.

  “Hello?” he says after the fit ends. He’s on a wireless call. I take the chance to park myself atop a toilet tank, where the acoustics are better.

  “No, we ain’t found him yet. Thought you was too busy starting his fires to bother with us. You’ve done burnt down half the territory. We can see the smoke twenty kilometers away.”

  “Mimi,” I ask. “Can you intercept the wireless signal? I want to hear both sides of the conversation.”