Code Breakers: Beta

by Colin F. Barnes

  Code Breakers: Beta

  by

  Colin F. Barnes

  Colin F. Barnes’ Website: www.colinfbarnes.com

  Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/rFAtL

  All Rights Reserved

  This edition published in 2013 by Anachron Press

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Chapter 1

  Petal paced the eight steps back and forth within her cell: a grey-walled block, with a shelf for a bed and a hole for a toilet. A thick steel door with only a small window and a secure flap for passing things through gave it any detail.

  For two long weeks she’d ambled and shuffled to the left, to the right, all the time wondering what happened to Gerry back in City Earth. Jasper and his cronies had shot her and Len, but she’d no idea of Gerry’s fate.

  She thought she would have sensed something, somehow, if they had killed him off. Only a crushing Gerry-shaped void remained inside. She took some comfort in not knowing for sure. There was always hope, but still, the sickly rage crawled through her mind, constructed images of terrible vengeance. A series of circular questions ran through her mind on a constant loop: Was Gerry dead? Had the AI breached City Earth’s systems? What was happening if it had? Was everyone a gibbering AI-controlled zombie? Was Gabe still a double-crossing douche?

  The only thing she knew right now was that she was some distance from the Dome. After Jasper’s people had shot her and taken her out of the City, she was transported away in Enna’s Jaguar copter.

  During the evacuation, however, a group of robed fanatics attacked the transport and killed Jasper’s people. They had the glint of religious fanatics in their eyes: the fervent staring of the unhinged. For the most part they spoke Russian, or one of its sub-dialects. The group wore red scarves around their faces, and was made up entirely of women.

  While Petal was bagged and thrown into the back of a truck during her recapture she heard them wail then mumble, groan and exalt, all praising their leader ‘Natalya’.

  Petal didn’t know what to be more surprised by: that there were still fanatics of this sort, or that there were that many survivors in Russia. Enna had suggested there was an old military installation beyond the mountains that separated Mongolia and Russia. It was where she recovered and rebuilt the Jaguar from. However, the installation had faced some of the worst fighting during the Cataclysm. Clearly there were more things out there than Petal could ever know; like why the hell was she being held in a prison cell?

  Each day they would come, pass a pot of barely edible swill through the door. She gagged and choked with each mouthful, but would never give them the satisfaction of beating her, despite how they laughed at her through the small glass window. They would point at her goggles, pink mohican-hair, now growing out at the sides, or her tattooed lips, and gabble in their filthy language. Occasionally a more senior robe-wearer would stand at the window and stare at her while uttering some ugly sermon. Every one of them had a plain look like the desert, she thought. Not a one of them had their own style. They were nothing but a bunch of brainwashed drones.

  She would’ve been able to translate if the rude swines hadn’t ripped out her dermal implant. The wound on her wrist still throbbed. The poorly stitched cuts scarred into brutal reminders of the ‘procedure’. Without her implant she couldn’t use her concealed spikes within her forearms: none of her internal modifications worked. She was lesser now, a mere human.

  Those deadly retractable killing tools were of much fascination to their surgeons. Through a translator they asked how they worked, what she was, who made her. None of which she could answer. For the past five years she hadn’t known anything that came before. Her mind erased like an old, unwanted hard drive. Ever since Gabe had found her wandering the desert, she’d always wanted to know where she came from. Neither Gabe nor Enna could recover her memory.

  It was like she was dropped there, fully formed, from the sky one day.

  One of the fanatics must have entered the cell compound as the sounds of industry rumbled into her cell. She heard the familiar sound of Jaguars and trucks, which meant she must be in either GeoCity-1 or Darkhan. Or perhaps she had been taken across the border? Wherever they were they could go back from whence they came for all she cared.

  An hour later the distant sound of engines abated to be replaced by an electronic buzz and a heavy clunk. Her cell door opened. Petal shot to the back of the room and faced the door. She crouched slightly, one foot against the wall, ready to push off. This was her chance. No one had dared come into the cell since they had operated on her and dumped her here like a piece of meat.

  Her muscles tensed like knotted ropes, ready to unleash their kinetic energy into a scene of violence and escape. The door opened wider. A shadow entered the room. Petal readied her attack.

  Okay you bitches. One. Two—

  “Gabe? What the? Holy crap! You...” All the fight drained from her at the sight of her ex-companion dressed as one of those crazed women. He looked drastically different without his padre’s hat. She could actually see his wide face and the shape of his head. Such an odd thought to be having, she considered as Gabe stared at her, freezing her to the spot. Her brain struggled to catch up with the consequences and ramifications. Where the hell had he been all this time?

  A thousand questions filled her mouth so that none came out. Her heart ached for her to reach out for him, to trust him again. She ached for him to be the man that found her that hot day in the middle of nowhere and kept her alive. His face gave nothing away. It was like she looked upon a sculpture of him.

  “Hey,” Gabe said.

  “Hey? Really? That all you got? You damned traitor! You nearly got Gez and me killed with your double-crossing act. What the hell was that all about? Paid you well did they?” She spat at his feet, shook with rage.

  “Shut ya mouth, prisoner,” Gabe said, his voice intentionally loud. There was a different quality to it. It didn’t feel right to her somehow. “Ya comin’ with me.” Gabe pointed a shotgun at her chest, held out a pair of electromagnetic wrist-cuffs. “Put ‘em on, girl.”

  “Go screw yourself.”

  “Language, Petal,” Gabe said with a slight wink.

  She was taken back to when Gabe first brought Gez to their safe house. He’d said the same thing when she got over-excited at meeting their new recruit. There was something about Gabe’s face. It was too serious, dead straight as if he were acting. And she could swear he was trying to communicate something with his eyes: a warning perhaps.

  She’d known him too long not to notice that subtle difference in his voice. Even his body language seemed off. Gone was the languid bravado. He was too professional now—a suit that didn’t hang right on him.

  She took the cuffs and put them on her wrists as requested while raising an eyebrow. Gabe shook his head and took a chain from under his robes. Keeping the shotgun aimed at her, he attached the clasp on the chain to a belt around her waist. All part of her wonderfully ugly prison outfit: a grey one-piece that chafed everywhere. She’d no idea what they’d done with her leather biker’s jacket that she won in a bare-knuckle fight a few years ago. It hurt not having it more than it hurt winning it. She had few possessions that she truly cared about, and that was one of them.

  “Out,” he ordered as he walked b
ehind and pushed her out of the door.

  In the dull-lit corridor, three more female guards stood with stun-batons, and a weapon she hadn’t seen before: a curved sickle-like blade that hummed with electricity. The small hairs on her arms tingled as she passed by.

  “They’re new,” she said, nodding to the sickles.

  Gabe kicked her in the back, although she noticed it wasn’t too hard, and tripped forward onto the rough Steelcrete floor, scraping her knees through the flimsy one-piece.

  “Ya’ll speak when I tell ya. Understand?”

  Petal hauled herself up and nodded. What the hell was he playing at? This wasn’t him, but neither was selling her and Gez out like he had. So what did he have up his sleeve this time? Whatever it was she’d bide her time, wait for an opportunity. At least she was out of that damned cell.

  Petal vaguely recognised the rest of the compound as Gabe led her through various corridors and lab rooms. It seemed like Seca’s place in Darkhan. She wanted to ask Gabe if it was when he pulled on the chain and dragged her through more lab rooms. A number of robed women busied themselves with assigned tasks in each room. Some worked on holoscreens, while others hunched over slates. They all wore that dark-eyed look of suspicion and piety about them: the look of the self-righteous. Each one gazed upon her with judgement, but she stuck out her chin and curled her lip in defiance.

  When they entered a medical bay she noticed rows of tanks in which bodies were maintained in a NanoStem solution. It instantly reminded her of Enna’s transcendents. Were they creating their own? An army perhaps? She tried to commit every detail to memory.

  A number of them turned to face Gabe as they passed through. They nodded professionally at each other. Did they know what he was going to do? Was he following orders, or giving them?

  A particularly large woman, with strong, square shoulders stood hunched over a metal desk. She wore a great gold chain around her neck, clutching it in a claw-like grip, while with the other she manipulated models across a map. Petal recognised the land mass and location of Darkhan, and the borderline between old Mongolia and Russia.

  The woman’s eyes glowed red like OLED rubies. Clearly implants. Curious, Petal thought. So far all the other women were completely free of any tech. She guessed this one was the leader. Petal stopped, stared at the woman, and tried to ascertain who or what she was, but she just smirked at Petal, then turned to Gabe and said in a thick, guttural Russian accent, “This your little project, eh?”

  “Yeah, Natalya, this is the one. I’m taking ‘er to interrogation.”

  “Make sure she sings loud and clear. We need those servers. We move in three days.”

  “She’ll sing, all right. I guarantee it.”

  “Good,” Natalya said with a blank expression, eyeing up Petal as if analysing her.

  So this woman, this Natalya, was the group’s leader. Like the others, she too wore that red scarf. Unlike the others, however, it didn’t obscure her face. She wore it around her neck. If she didn’t scowl or clench her jaw so much she might have once been pretty, but even in those upgraded OLED eyes of hers, Petal detected pain and grief. It was an expression one wore unconsciously. Petal had seen it so many times. She probably wore it herself.

  Gabe pushed her forward through the lab and past the woman and her map. Petal memorised a fragment of the layout, noticed what looked like a small army somewhere in the grounds of their location. Given its westerly position beyond the great Sludge, it appeared they were indeed in the compound beneath the city of Darkhan.

  Were they planning some kind of invasion on the Dome perhaps? What of the rest of Seca’s security and followers? When she escaped and saved Gerry from the compound, the place still had at least fifty men and women within it. Without Seca, his life ended by Gerry, she wondered if they had melted in with the rest of the survivors and Upsiders within Darkhan. Or perhaps this mad cult had butchered them and taken the compound for their own.

  Gabe kicked her again and pushed onwards past Natalya, out of the lab, and into a small room. He locked the door behind, and the foundations of the place rumbled as a group of trucks rumbled outside. Through the door, Petal heard Natalya’s muffled orders and the sound of frantic steps clattering against the floor at her command.

  With a heavy shove, Gabe forced Petal to sit on a chair. He sat opposite. Between them a pair of cups with a steaming black liquid inside sat on a low table next to a plate of protein rations. They looked like flat wheat biscuits: discs the size of her hands. Her stomach knotted with the thought of eating something more substantial than liquid.

  Gabe regarded her with his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide and with a hint of sincerity.

  “Ya have to stay calm, ya understand?” He still pointed the shotgun at her chest with one hand. He stood, unclasped the chain, and slowly released her from the EM cuffs. He sat back down opposite and said. “Please, drink, girl.” And with barely a whisper added, “Ya don’t have much time.”

  Petal eyed him with suspicion. What was his game? Was this a poison, a truth serum? Gabe picked up his cup and took a deep draw.

  Not trusting him, Petal leant forward, snatched the cup from his hands, and drunk the remains. That’s damned good, she thought. It’d been so long since she had had a good cup of coffee in her belly. She’d only ever had it twice before when she and Gabe had once stumbled on a secure ration container in one of the many abandoned shelters throughout the abandoned lands.

  The hot, rich drink, freshly brewed by the taste of it, settled in her stomach. She closed her eyes, delighting in the warmth and flavour. It made such a difference to the usual dirty water they’d been giving her. Heat radiated through her body. For a short while she felt human again. If I even am human.

  Finally Gabe spoke, his voice low and rumbling. She had to strain to hear it.

  “I don’t have much time. I’m s’posed to interrogate ya, but ya’ve gotta believe me, girl. Everything I did was for a reason.”

  She shook her head. “You sold us out to that crazed nutter, Seca, and for what?”

  He closed his eyes, bowed his head. “I had to. I can’t explain now, not fully. Just listen if ya wanna live and get outta this damned place.”

  Learning forward and concerned others were listening, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “What’s going on? Why am I here?”

  “They found something on ya implant. I managed to sneak it away.” He passed it to her. “Look on the underside.”

  She’d never seen her wrist implant up close. It was smaller than it seemed under her skin. But now in her hands it seemed so alien, and yet it was, and presumably always was, a part of her. At thirty-millimetres square, grey, and metallic, it felt light and cold in her hand. She flipped it over. On the back, stamped into its surface, was the word CRIBORG, followed by a serial number.

  A scintilla of recognition tried to bubble up from deep inside, buried somewhere inaccessible.

  “What’s Criborg? Is that what I am? Is it a manufacturer?”

  Gabe shook his head.

  “Then what?”

  Checking a slate that he took from his robes, Gabe stood and said in a hurry, “It’s time to go. Follow me and do as I say. Ya might just make it outta here.” He glanced back to the door, waited, and then moved towards to her.

  “How the hell can I trust you after what you did?” Petal said.

  “Please, Petal. It’s me. Ya know me! I’m trying to help ya, girl.”

  Petal refused to move. “I’d rather die in this place.” Which of course was ridiculous, but she could see the sweat bead on his forehead. He was definitely working against these people in some manner. Getting her out seemed important, and she’d take that opportunity to get the truth from him. She damned well deserved it after he abandoned her. He was always supposed to back her up. That’s what they did for each other.

  His voice was thick with sincerity, and despite everything, deep down she wanted to trust him again. He was Gabe, after all, her mentor, fath
er figure, and best friend. She thought about her options: trust him and potentially escape, or trust him and what? Get captured again? They already had her captive. They could do anything they wanted with her.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Is Gerry alive? What happened when these bitches took me from Jasper’s men?”

  “I don’t know if Gerry made it. I know that he defeated the AI. Trapped it inside Jasper’s body. The Family took him away. Since then, everything’s gone quiet, and the Meshwork’s offline, or being suppressed by something. There’re no communications. Enna’s working on it though.”

  She knew in her heart Gerry could still be alive. Especially if The Family had taken him away. She had no real way of knowing for sure beyond a hunch, but while she had it, she’d cling to it until proven otherwise. Without that, she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to acknowledge he was gone. The fact The Family had taken him meant something. Promised a glimmer of hope. “What happened to me? Why was I brought here? Who the hell are they?” she said.

  Gabe fidgeted with impatience. He frequently turned towards the door at the slightest sound. With a sigh, realising Petal wasn’t going anywhere voluntarily, he said. “This group call ‘emselves the Red Widows. They took ya from the wreckage of Jasper’s Jaguar, and brought ya here.”

  “Where’s here? It’s Seca’s place, ain’t it?”

  A knowing smile stretched his wrinkled and worn face. “Yeah, we’re in Darkhan. Red Widow took it over. They’re slowly taking over the whole city. Wiped out all Seca’s followers in a single assault. I’d have sympathy for ‘em if they weren’t just as brutal.”

  “So what’s their story? What do they want from me?”

  “They’re fanatics,” Gabe said. “Mostly an alliance of survivors from Russia and Chechnya. There’s more than any of us, including The Family, ever realised. Most of ‘em lived underground like bugs waiting to swarm the earth. Enna had me infiltrate their ranks, which weren’t easy. Ya see, they are the descendants of the widows of the men that were killed during the war. They blame men for it all: the war, the deaths, the loss of their sons and fathers. Look, we gotta move, gotta get ya out of it. They’ll kill ya eventually. Ya can’t help ‘em with what they want.”