“I do hope this doesn’t change your perception of him.”
“No sir, other than he might have been holding back all these years is all.”
“Ha, well yes, you will have to ask him that.”
“I will have to do that. If you don’t mind me asking, is that a second HaLO on your wrist?”
A smile flashes across his face. “Very perceptive of you. I see your training has been effective. This was my father’s. It’s inert, but something of him. He died a long time ago, and I like to think he is here with me when I wear this.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
“No, please. That is a very good question for a Paladin to be asking. You just showed me you are true to your path.”
Vernon nod his head toward Selief in respect. He looks over to Duke. “So, were you holding back all those years practicing with me?”
Duke says, “No way I’m telling you now, it might harm that simplistic mind of yours to think you weren’t actually showing me up all those years.”
Vernon evens at glance at Duke. “Oh really.”
Everyone in the room lets out a laugh.
Selief says, “Since it seems that you are fine, I will leave you to recover. As you know there are duties I need to get back to.”
Duke says, “I know, the sage rituals are coming up. I guess you have a few planned out already, as usual?”
Selief smiles, “I do. Thank you son, I hope you recover quickly.”
“I should check on the other patients too.” Ashley says.
“Thanks for coming by Master, I’ll come see you when I get out.”
“Please do.” He tips his head to both Vernon and Ashley. “It was a pleasure to meet you both, and anytime you wish it you can come out to Sage Temple here in the dome. I would be excited to show off my work to my son’s friends and girlfriend.”
Ashley and Vernon say thank you, she walks over to his bed and gives him a kiss. After everyone left the room there was a silence there for a few moments. Vernon wanted to have his friend along with him, but knew it wasn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t let it happen. Like Tyler said it was all for training.
“There is something else I wanted to talk to you about?” Duke says firmly.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Flint got in contact with me, and he needs your help.”
“He does? What happened to him?”
“He’s been… addicted for a few years to X’cel,”
Vernon got a cold chill that ran down his spine. Flint was a good friend from high school that he went through a lot with during the mma tournaments he and Duke went to. Flint was also a highly decorated runic marksmen, winning several shooting tournaments when he was younger. Vernon never knew or even saw anything that would lead to that.
“Is he still using?” Vernon asks.
“I don’t know to be honest. I just know that he asked me to get into contact with you. He said something about not wanting to talk to you until you were face to face.”
“Well that’s not odd at all.”
“I know. He’s been using since high school, and I have tried to help him a few times but nothing ever seemed to stick. He got worse after high school. I went into solitary sage training, you went to the Paladin Academy, Emma went off to Pharis College with her father, and he was left in Saint Anthony all alone.”
“What about his father, wasn’t he around?”
“That was the problem. He was always pushing him, never letting him just be. After winning the tournament, it got worse.”
Vernon remembered the days after the final tournament like a drunken haze. Congratulations, graduation, then saying goodbye to Marie and Duke. It all happened so quickly he didn’t get to see Flint or Emma before he left. Emma showed up to his wedding recently, and she seemed happy enough, but Flint didn’t show.
He says, “Did he tell you what I was going to help him with?”
“Nope. Let me give you his address. He’s… not living on the good side of the dome. Then there is one other thing.”
“Oh great, what is this one for.”
“It won’t be anything like what’s going on with Flint, I just need you to pick up something from my Master. I couldn’t ask him with Ashley here, but he has a ring for me.”
Vernon gets a big smile on his face. “So you finally taking the plunge huh?”
“Yea yea, you seem to be doing fine, so I think I can handle it.”
“Alright, I go get your ring, as long as I don’t have to go on a quest to throw it in a mountain I should be good.”
13
Getting out of his car, he looks up at the seven-story apartment building in the oldest district in New Atlantis. The buildings look to have been in disrepair for years, and trash is everywhere. Vernon didn’t even realize that any place inside a dome could get like this. With so many people moving around from dome to dome, and the population increasing, there shouldn’t be any space that would be left to look this way.
There are children playing around a solitary tree in the space between buildings. Vernon watches them for a minute, and then notices they are using an overlay. He accepts the overlay they are using. The download is done in a few seconds, and the area shifts. Lava appears around the tree, and the children are in suits of armor. A tiny lizard looking head pops out of the lava, breathing fire. They laugh and run away. Rolling on the ground away from the circle of lava surrounding the tree. There is a shimmer around the truck, and necklaces that dangle from a few hooks.
Vernon smiles as he watches them. There were times when he was younger, playing with Marie around the neighborhood, where they would imagine themselves to be other things in other places. All He and Marie could do was hid digital objects, and then go look for them. Overlay programs were getting better and better, and he wished he had something similar when he was their age.
He walks over to the door, and finds it’s locked. There is a panel with different room number on them. Pulling up the directions Duke gave him for Flint, his room was 701. Vernon looks for the button to press, and there was only one for that floor, which was 701. Flint it seems, may have been living on a bad part of town, but was still living well it seemed. He presses the button, which lets out a horrible ringing noise.
A voice connection was established on Vernon’s HaLO. A nervous male voice answers. “Yes, who is it?”
“It’s Vernon Douglas. I’m looking for Flint Westrock.”
“Vernon!? It’s me, I can’t believe you actually came. Come on up.”
The voice connection was cut, and the door clicked open. Vernon grabs the door and walks in. There was debris everywhere. Ceiling tiles, wood door fragments, glass, and wires. A few of the residents got one look at Vernon, and hurried back inside their home. The locks on their doors clicking loudly. Vernon thought the Knights must have been there recently, and the residents must not like the authorities. They already didn’t have much, and they come in breaking everything down even more. He just shakes his head and walks up the stairs.
Two floors up Vernon got a view of where all the debris came from, walls were torn to shreds, doors in half, with a couple of elderly men sweeping everything. They stare at Vernon clutching their brooms close to their chests. He lowers his head and nods at them, then just walks away. He can hear the sweeping pick back up as he reaches the next floor. The fourth and sixth floors were in much the same state of repair, someone had recently come through and hit this place hard.
Vernon takes a step onto the seventh floor, and everything changes. The floor is carpeted, and new. Paint on the walls was fresh, he could still smell the fumes, and the single door down a small hallway was new as well. This level could rival any of the apartments he and Marie went to go look at while they were searching. they didn’t have a lot of money to throw around.
He knocks on the door, wondering what his old friend was going to look like. Pictures of dead victims fill him mind in the silence. Everything he saw, and Vick told him ab
out X’cel was something he hoped his friend hadn’t gotten too far into.
Flint opens the door. He hadn’t changed too much from what Vernon remembered. His blond hair was longer, around his shoulders. He was shorter than Vernon, and built lean. Flint was wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and flip flops. There was a mustache, which was new, nicely trimmed. Regret filled brown eyes stare at him before words come out of his mouth.
“Hey Vernon. How are you?”
Vernon just smiles, “I’m good Flint, how are you?”
He turns to walk in, and Vernon can see a single blue vein on the back of his neck, running up into his head. Flint takes a few steps into his apartment, limping with each step off his left leg. The apartment was furnished with new everything. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen anywhere. Leather couches, seats, stocked bar with crystal glassware, and a view to kill for out the back windows of New Atlantis. Hard wood floors fill every space that Vernon could see that furniture didn’t. It was a great contrast to what the rest of the building looked like, he almost forgot he had walked through it.
“I’ve been busy, I guess you could say. Lots of people and product to move. The Knights try to see if there is anything stored in the rooms below, but there isn’t. I guess you saw the other floors on the way up?”
That got Vernon’s attention. “I did. Business going well for you?”
“It is. You don’t know what I do, do you?”
Vernon shakes his head.
“I figured Duke didn’t tell you. I don’t think Duke even really knows. I’m a dealer now, or have been for a while. I stopped takin the stuff myself, but I guess you saw my vein.”
Vernon nods.
“I got out of using before the mix changed the first time. It affects people differently, and some people die from it. All it takes is just one hit.”
“Do you know what you’re doing Flint, what happened to you? Where is the shy guy that was head over heels for the red-head transfer student?”
Flint flops down into an leather easy chair. Grabs a light brown drink, looks into the glass, and takes a long sip. “It hasn’t been sunshine and roses over here Vernon. While you and everyone else when off to do your own things, I was left here. With my father.” Flints words got heated. “You don’t know what he’s like. Always taking, never giving. Doesn’t even know I’m there unless something happens.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t know. You were too caught up in Marie, Duke and Emma to see what was going on with me. Emma went off to college and left me here. She didn’t care about me at all after high school. She just left.”
“I’m sorry Flint. I really…”
Flint cuts off Vernon, “I don’t care. I didn’t call you over here for this.” He stands up, bracing himself on the chair as he does. “I need your help with something. I flipped recently. I didn’t like the way the formula kept changing, and the reaction that people were having. It’s one thing to sell something to someone knowing they’re just going to get high, than knowing they are going to die just using the stuff.”
This was news to Vernon. From what the Knights knew there was only one dealer of X’cel, and a second one could be trouble. Fights for territory with amped up magic users in an underwater city what could go wrong, right.
“Ok… What can I do? You know I’m a Paladin now right?”
“I do, and I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to try to bring me in. I did just tell you I was a dealer.”
Vernon already could feel that just being here was a bad idea. Flint was a friend, and a close one. The last four years had not been kind to Flint like it had been to him. This wasn’t something he was ready for. Duke had hinted about all this, but it was kind of hard for him to realize that his friend was in this bad of a situation.
“If I help you, which I’m not sure if I will depending on what you want. How is that going to help you?”
“My new boss needs some files from the Archive, on an Ian Markson. He was a businessman from a hundred years ago or so. I would go, but the HaLO reader they have there can detect fake HaLOs.”
“Fake HaLOs?”
“I’m a wanted man on two sides Vernon. I needed a new identity, and you need a HaLO to get around.”
He knew first hand how difficult it was to get around the city with out a HaLO, but HaLO’s couldn’t be faked. He thought. The Paladins had a machine on hand that could activate one, but it was behind two heavy security doors, and a whole squad of Paladins. There could have been someone who could get it, they did have them at hospitals.
“So,” Vernon asks, “You have a fake HaLO, you’re were working for a drug lord, and you need Archive file for a hundred year old business man for you new drug lord. Does that about sum it all up?”
“Sounds right.”
“Why doesn’t your boss go get them for himself?”
“Can’t. There’s a digital trail, and he doesn’t like to leave those.”
Vernon considers this for a moment. He wanted to go to the Archive anyway, there was a few things he wanted to look up, now more than ever, and this would give him the excuse. Then he had to think what was some important about these files that they needed them. Nothing in the Archive should be that hidden or needed to where you would hide your searches. The whole deal was getting worse and worse. It was still Flint, and maybe he might be able to turn things around for him.
Vernon says, “If I do this, I want you out.”
Flint looks at him in shock. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. I want you out, of all this.” Vernon waves his hands around the room. “I don’t want to just help you with a single request from this new boss of yours. I want you free of it all. I can talk to some people, and they can help you.”
Flint looks down to the floor. “I’m not sure that will happen Vernon. I’m in pretty deep. My old boss doesn’t really let failure stick around with the living, and the new one won’t tolerate me leaving just like that. Not after all the time and money he just put into me. He wouldn’t think it was a good business move.”
“Don’t care. You’re out, or I am.”
Flint stared at Vernon for a moment, and then back to the floor. He turns toward the wall, where there was a bar full of liquor. It was silent in the room as Vernon waits for the answer. Flint limps over to the bar, pouring himself a drink.
He finally speaks. “Do like scotch?”
“Never had it before. The Paladin Academy is… strict on that while you’re there.”
Flint nods thoughtfully, “It helps. Burns memories away, and numbs the pain.” He rubs at his leg. “I can’t promise that I will stay out, but I can promise that I will try. I don’t want to lose my life. I’m in a safe place right now, and the new boss is good to me.” He looks away from Vernon. “I just, don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“We can figure that out Flint.”
He smiles wearily, “Yea, I guess we can. Alright Vernon, deal.”
Vernon walks over to his friend, and places a hand on his shoulder. “Ian Markson, right?”
“Yea, anything and everything on him. That’s what the boss wants.”
The Archive is a storehouse of knowledge. HaLOs connect together on the HaLO Virtual Network, allowing altered reality skins, known as overlays, to be used and streamed over the air. The network can only hold so much data before it gets bogged down. Thus the need for a storehouse, and the Archive was born. All data is run through the Archive, or any of it’s redundancy nodes around Astrum, but anything over fifty years old is stored there offline. Newspaper articles, peoples history, videos, virtual worlds (not currently being hosted), and any other form of data that can be stored is store there.
Vernon stands outside of the pyramid looking building. The top is a black glass, and below that reflective. Trees are scattered throughout the lot, where people who are registered can read what they have checked out. This was the first time that he had ever seen the Archive in pe
rson, and it was massive. Vernon had always pictured the place to be some like a small store where he would just check out the data he needed. Nothing close to this scale came to his mind when he envisioned this place.
He walked into the building through double sliding glass doors, opening as he approached. There was a reception desk near the entrance, and a pair of Paladins were behind it. They were both from the infantry division, as per their uniforms. Vernon goes to them, waving.
“Hey how are you two today?”
They both look at him with a disinterested glare. The left one had a badly broken nose which looked like the letter z, and the other had tiny little eyes almost like pinpoints. Z looked at him and smugness rolled off his tongue like a waterfall.
“What’s a dragon squader doing here?”
“I’m here to find some information on a guy for a case I’m working on with the Knights.”
That made him nod. “You must be that new guy, Vernon whatsit.”
“Douglas, yea that’s me.”
Pinpoint laughed, “So they got you slumming it with the Knights to break you in huh?”
“If that’s what you call this. A drug lord named Hood took out half the warehouse district last night, and got away. Commander Tyler was going toe-to-toe with him. How am I supposed to handle that?”
Z’s eyes got big, and a little wow sound came from Pinpoint.
Z says, “The Commander too huh. Crazy.”
Vernon nods. “So like I said, I need some information for this case. I think there may be some connects to information and I need to look it up.” Lying wasn’t really Vernon’s thing, but he had to come up with something, and this was as good as anything.
“Alright Douglas,” Z says, “Just swipe here, and let me log that you were here.”
Vernon swipes his HaLO across the reader, and it beeps. Z looks at the display funny. He then elbows Pinpoint to get him to look at the display.
“You know who Baxter Boch is?”
Vernon lets out a sigh. “My HaLO has been say that name ever since the drigh hole I cleaned out yesterday.”
Cypher Theorem Series Box Set: Books 1-3, The Zero Class, Shadow Moon, Dragon Fire: A Science Fiction Fantasy Page 48
