“Are you concerned at all that the device you use to communicate with your vehicle is traceable?”
“My skinner?” he asked, glancing at his wrist. “I had this one specially made. It’s not Grey issued hardware. There is no link other than between the helicar and this. It’s not traceable.”
I had no other choice than to accept his assurance, whatever my personal doubts.
“How does it work? Is the device implanted?”
“What? No, it’s not implanted.”
He palmed his wrist and the glowing circle slid off easily. He held it out and I lifted it carefully between thumb and forefinger.
“It’s very thin.”
“But tough as blazes,” he said. “It won’t come off until you palm it, not even if you go over a cliff.”
I got the impression he was literally speaking from experience.
The thin material appeared almost transparent. I rotated the device and studied the faint lines and markings. “This is a skinner? Called that, I assume, because it is worn on the skin?”
“Yep.” He took it back and slapped it on his wrist.
“What else can it do?” I asked.
He ignored me again.
Undoubtedly, it could also be used as a tracking instrument.
So that was the device I’d sat on back at the archive. That one, or another very much like it. No wonder I hadn’t noticed it.
He walked in front of me, choosing a path, and I carefully ran my hands over the back of my dress. There was nothing stuck to the material that I could feel, so he must have already removed the skinner he’d planted on me. Where was it now?
After leading us through the trees cautiously, he turned toward the city and started walking with more purpose.
I followed, calculating the probability that this mission would yield useful information.
The odds were slim, in my estimation. But Flick had insisted that his ‘gut’ was correct and I had no other choice but to go with him.
We slipped into the city via a drainage tunnel. The tunnel looked completely dry and unused, probably only having been installed for extreme flood events. After scrambling up a steep embankment and cutting between two buildings, we reached a busy thoroughfare.
The moment we stepped up to the main walkway I understood at once why Flick had warned me copiously about the anarchic atmosphere.
People mobbed the walkways, crushed tightly in a chaotic swarm of uncontrolled movement. It would be very difficult to follow someone trying to escape in such an environment and I kept that in mind.
There was no time for marveling at the surrounding milieu because Flick had a plan and he was determined to follow it quickly.
His logic seemed partially sound. Unless I was a former enforcement officer, which seemed unlikely, then Skee and I had a past acquaintance predating his assignment to New Dublin. Aukholm had been his childhood home, and possibly Skee and I had known each other here.
In what capacity? That was unclear. But at least we had a starting point.
Flick assured me before embarking on the trip that no one would recognize me in public unless they were a relative or a childhood friend, and now I understood why he was confident in saying so.
The place was a bewildering mess.
We dove into the foot traffic and started moving.
No garbage littered the streets and nothing was damaged or vandalized, but Aukholm had an aura of unruly mania bordering on mayhem.
I despised it at once. “I used to live here?”
Flick wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me snug into his hip. “Like I said. Don’t touch a thing.”
Presumably, if I palmed a single screenboard while moving around this city, that data would be stored somewhere. Flick was hesitant to rely on my invisible Grey to continue scrubbing my movements and had decided instead that I simply wouldn’t leave a trail to follow. Conveniently, that left me reliant on him to perform even the most basic of functions, such as opening doors, so that I would not contaminate them with my presence.
We entered the flow of moving bodies and Flick used his superior mass to navigate us through the hoard quickly.
Level indication based on clothing color appeared to be the standard social custom here as well, and yet, citizens dressed in brown, the service level, seemed to walk with as much confidence and determination as those dressed in black.
My black clothing would not provide the edge of intimidation here that it afforded me in New Dublin.
Flick had changed out of his normal clothing, and his new black apparel drew not a second glance from anyone. Some people actually ran into him as we moved. He was not accustomed to such treatment and his lip curled up with irritation.
Welcome to the commoner caste, master soldier.
We hurried along the walkway and I managed to scan the shops to orient myself without falling down, but it was difficult.
Loud music, changing with each new building we approached, blared from invisible sources overhead. Vendors sold food from small kiosks directly in the middle of the thoroughfares, inexplicably blocking the flow of movement and hampering progress. Flags and banners indicating who-knew-what waved from every corner, and the smells of alcohol and sickly-sweet smoke filled the air.
“This city is disconcerting.”
“We’re almost there,” he replied.
After what felt like a very long time, but was little more than seventeen minutes, we reached the education academy and Flick steered us up the wide steps leading to the entrance.
The steps looked like carved stone but glowed with an eerie, luminescent interior pink light. I recalled that pink was the primary identification color for childcare providers, and though it was appropriate, the effect was not attractive.
The building itself was not pink, thankfully, but white, built of the same stone as the steps, and it towered over the street below. The multiple windows, doorways and ostentatious tunnel entrance were ridiculously oversized and arched to a sharp point. The spires of each section of the building soared into the sky, ending at impossibly narrow tips that gave the structure a sinister, toothy appearance.
I disliked it instantly. “This building is hideous.”
“It’s not like we are moving in. Relax. You look worried.”
“I’m merely disgusted.”
He pushed open the heavy transparent door, taking great care to hold it for me so that I would not accidentally come into contact with the plastene. There was no way to tell if a door had surveillance capabilities or not. So I simply wouldn’t touch anything.
We found ourselves inside a vast atrium. Children, perhaps twelve years of age, dressed in pink, yellow, soft peach, and lime colors hurried through the area, virtually ignoring us as they rushed by.
For such a large building, there were remarkably few students.
Flick tugged my arm and I followed him to the right, down a long corridor, up a flight of steps and into a cavernous, vast hall filled with rows and rows of plastene desks that each held an individual screenboard. They were spotlessly clean.
Flick scanned the enormous hall quickly, but it was deserted.
He walked to one of the desks and sat down. “This was the only primary academy in the city until five years ago, so every child your age who received an education here will be listed in these rolls. The system should have a record of Skee.”
He palmed the screenboard. It chimed pleasantly to life, indicating that he was an authorized person.
I surveyed the room, searching for anything that looked remotely familiar.
Nothing did.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Just stand there and don’t touch anything.”
I hovered over his shoulder. “They won’t have him recorded with his tag.”
“I know that.”
“If you search for his given name directly, there will be a record of it and someone might notice, so maybe you should avoid it.”
He glanced up. Tolerant/paternalistic.
“I’ve done this before, Keeley. I’ll recover a group still-frame of individual classes at yearly graduation, starting around the time he would have been a student. We can check them all and see if we recognize him.”
I closed my eyes and called an image of Skee’s face to mind. I noted the width of his nasal bone and compared it to the supraorbital arch. Then I recalled the condition, tone, and color of his skin. I thought about his lifestyle, the likelihood that he would be exposed to the elements a great deal for his work, and concluded his age.
My shoulder pressed into his. “Try thirteen years ago.”
With my assistance, he managed to find the correct still-frame for that year. After a quick scan, I found what I was looking for.
I pointed at a specific boy in the group of children. “There he is.”
“How did you find him so fast?” Flick asked.
“I suggest we spend our time examining the records, not covering the basics of mandible and ocular differential markers.”
Flick squinted at me for a moment. “Basics of ocular what?”
I read over his shoulder. “Steedman Ray, and beside him Doe Smale. It’s alphabetical.”
“They all are. Kids spend their entire primary school years sitting beside the same person, according to their last name.”
“I don’t suppose you see a Dorn at the beginning of the row?” I asked.
“Devan, and then Ettis. But look, someone between them has been scrubbed,” Flick said. “There. See it? This record has been folded.”
I looked at the place he indicated. “I cannot see any difference.”
“Believe me,” he replied. “You were here. But someone did a sloppy job of scrubbing you. Probably because they were in a hurry.”
I stared hard at Skee. His boyish face grinned back at me. Had I known him? Had we been friends?
Considering the size of the group, 27 students, it was likely we had been acquainted. If indeed I had also attended this institution.
Flick certainly seemed to think so.
As interesting as the information was, it wasn’t particularly useful. But as I stood looking at his face on the screen something else occurred to me.
I would have spent my entire twelve-year primary education ordeal with the same people, and chances were excellent they would know about my background.
What if they were still living in Aukholm?
“The student ahead of my name alphabetically is Devan, Ule Devan. The student after is Rin Ettis. See if they are still living in the city.”
Flick raised his eyebrows. “Good idea. Maybe you kept in touch with a few of your old classmates. Or maybe they kept track of you.”
“It is a possibility.”
He scanned for current records. “Rin is no longer in Aukholm. Devan is listed as a progress engineer for a big local product development facility.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I have it,” he said, rising from the seat.
For a moment I stood looking at the screenboard while it shut down automatically. “Why is Skee’s image still on file?”
“Let’s go. We can talk about it while we move.”
The irrationality of it bothered me. “Why would they preserve his record and not scrub it immediately while they were scrubbing mine?”
Flick tugged my arm. “Keeley, let’s get out of here. Now.”
His urgency became clear when I looked up.
A young woman, dressed in pink, stood watching us from across the vast hall. Based on the cut and color of her clothing, her and posture, it was obvious she was an instructor.
Her face was all too easy to read. Disbelief/alarm.
Flick hauled me away from the desk and we jogged from the building.
Once we’d descended the steps and made it onto the main walkway he seemed to relax.
“What’s the name of the research facility?” I asked.
“Bahnam.” He turned a sharp corner and pulled me along beside him. “It’s this way.”
“How could you possibly know that?” I asked,
“I memorized the location of every major building in the city, and a few of the minor ones, to save us time.”
The throng of bodies engulfed us, and we blended into the crowd almost instantly.
As Flick steered us toward our destination I thought about the young woman in pink. Her reaction troubled me. It suggested that she knew who I was, but she did not look familiar. Then again, I had allegedly known Skee for years and he looked like a total stranger when I first saw him.
Whatever it was that caused me to feel a sense of foreboding, there was no time for thoughtful reflection.
“Our goal is to reach Ule Devan quickly, contrive a meeting, and coerce any information about my past that we can get, correct?” I asked.
“That’s the idea,” Flick replied.
It was a weak plan at best, but new data could bring insight into what had led to my circumstances.
“Perhaps observing him from a safe distance for a few hours would be smarter?” I suggested.
He turned us toward a short flight of stairs. “I would argue talking to him now is a better tactic than waiting around for the next team of thugs to arrive.”
He kept one arm around my waist as we hurried up the steps and arrived at the correct location.
The Bahnam building was the opposite of what I’d expected.
We stood before a single story beige structure that occupied a tiny footprint, had no windows, and sat a discreet distance back from the walkway.
I stared at it, confused. “How is this a thriving product development facility?”
Flick examined the area and his eyes stopped on a shaded bench not far from the entrance. “It goes down twenty floors. You wait for me over there and I will go get him.”
I grabbed his arm. “No. If you antagonize him and drag him outside there will be a commotion.”
“I wasn’t planning on dragging him.”
“And how do you expect to convince him to exit the building voluntarily? You plan to…what, ask nicely?”
He stammered. “I… I can be nice.”
“You can also be tremendously intimidating.”
“I’m not letting you just walk in there alone,” he said.
“You want to draw attention to us deliberately?” I asked. “Or would you prefer it if I handled this discreetly?”
Flick grumbled an agreement. “Just be careful. When you find him tell him you hit your head last year and can’t recall your school days very well.”
“I don’t need advice on how to manage a verbal exchange,” I said.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the bench. “I’ll be here when you come out. Don’t waste any time. And use the stairs. Remember, you can’t palm anything.”
He waved me toward the front door and went to sit on the bench.
As I walked to the building I calculated the chances of escaping. It would be relatively simple to stroll out the back door, make my way to the harbor, and disappear on a ship heading to another city.
But Flick would only begin the process of hunting me down once again and I would be in exactly the same predicament, except he would no longer trust me and would most likely have received new instructions to terminate me on sight.
Hardly an ideal situation.
Better to carry out this task and think of a way to justify separating from him later by agreement. If he needed to leave to pursue some other line of inquiry, I would be out of his sight for several hours. That was probably the best time for me to attempt to escape. Until then? Working together was the best option.
It was not preferable, but it was the most logical move.
Reluctantly I went into the building and stood before the central screenboard. The directory display indicated that the building inclinator moved horizontally and vertically, down thirty-five floors and horizontally fifteen. This building was massive.
T
his would be time-consuming.
I didn’t have the minutes to spare and needed to find a way to use the inclinator, or this would take all afternoon.
Since I couldn’t touch anything, using the search function on the building directory or palming the inclinator was out of the question. Someone else would have to do it for me.
I walked with purpose through the tiny reception area and rounded the corner. A seldom-used stairwell descended below the main entrance, and though it was narrow and dimly lit, it was adequate for my purposes and I trotted down the steps quickly.
After going five stories down, I left the stairwell and roamed through the hallways, passing room after room of discarded junk. This floor was obviously used for storage and utilities, and it didn’t take long until I found what I was searching for.
A flimsy box, well used and tattered, sat forgotten on a table just inside a doorway. The box contained steel springs, aluminum coils and two large cylindrical tubes that did not look heavy, but were long and unwieldy.
Perfect.
I snatched it up and continued on my way until I reached the inclinator.
As I stood there trying to hold the unruly box, a young man approached and saw me trying in vain to manage my load and palm the panel at the same time.
“Let me,” he said, rushing forward.
“Thank you,” I gushed.
We stepped inside together and he held his hand over the floor selector.
“Room?” he asked.
“You know I’m supposed to take these to Ule Devan?” I said meekly. “But I don’t know where he is.”
“Oh, I can find him,” he said.
He palmed the panel and activated the building directory. “Ule Devan.”
A pleasant female voice spoke overhead. “Ule Devan is located in the product testing area.”
Since I had no way of knowing where the testing area was, I shifted the awkward box and cast pleading eyes at the young man. “Could you?”
He proudly selected the correct floor, seventeen stories down, and I rewarded him with a beaming smile.
The doors closed and we were momentarily jostled somewhat, but when they opened again we had arrived at a gigantic concourse after only a few seconds. I thanked my inclinator operator and stepped out.
I found myself entering an enormous, brightly lit space, several stories high, filled with activity.
The New Authority Conspiracy (The Keeley Dorn Adventures Book 1) Page 12
