Kymiera

by Steve Turnbull

  Yates walked up to them. ‘Afternoon, gents. I’m after some information and I won’t even arrest you if I hear what I want to hear.’

  Yates left Big Jim lying in the road with his hands and ankles cuffed. You couldn’t be too careful with someone that size and no backup. He bundled Greedo into the back of the car for a little more privacy. He unholstered his gun once more and laid it on his knee with the safety on, just for effect.

  Greedo sold hats. A convenient tool for your average ne’er-do-well. A good hat could block a riffy signal completely, while a cheaper one would blur it a bit and had to be pretty close to a pylon to register. Greedo made a wide range of them suitable for all pockets—though anyone buying a cheap one was a fool to himself. There was no doubt that Greedo’s own hat, sewn into his hoodie, would be the best he could make.

  Yates opened the backpack. There was a good selection with styles for both men and women. On the outside they looked perfectly normal, but turning any one of them inside out showed different layers of metal. There was one cloth hat with a lining of silver foil. Yates laughed. ‘What’s this one sell for?’

  ‘Whatever I can get for it. You interested?’

  Yates didn’t bother to answer. He threw it back into the bag then rummaged deeper and pulled out a very heavy woolly hat. The interior was crisscrossed with wires making an intricate mesh; there was a component board and a battery pack. ‘Sophisticated.’

  ‘For your more discerning hat wearer,’ said Greedo. ‘You said you weren’t going to arrest me.’

  ‘I did say that, but I can change my mind. I’m fickle like that. Just owning one of these is worth a month in the clink. And selling them?’ said Yates. ‘They’ll throw away the key. This sort of thing is putting the population at risk. It’s not something we can take lightly.’

  ‘It’s all a bloody lie, you know?’ said Greedo with sudden passion. ‘The Purity is a fascist organisation. They just use S.I.D to scare people so they can keep them under their thumb, keep them controlled. You should be helping me not interfering with me.’

  ‘So you’re doing this for the people?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s like a public service.’

  ‘Which you charge for.’

  ‘We’ve all got to make a living.’

  Yates threw the hat back in the pack, tied up the fasteners and tossed it into Greedo’s lap.

  ‘This is all very interesting, but I’m looking for something a bit more hi-tech.’

  ‘I don’t do hi-tech; I just do hats.’

  Yates picked up his gun casually and checked it. Greedo gave it all his attention.

  ‘What I’m looking for,’ said Yates, ‘is a device that can act like a riffy.’

  Greedo clutched his bag closer around him and tried to squeeze further into the bench corner. If he could have squeezed through the metal body of the car he would have.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that stuff. I mean, is that possible?’ he said in a sudden display of feigned innocence.

  ‘You know it is. And I want to know who I would talk to if I wanted to get hold of one.’

  ‘Honestly, I have no idea where you would get such a thing, if such a thing could possibly exist.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do know,’ said Yates, ‘and if I need to jog your memory, I will.’

  He slid off the safety catch of his gun with a very distinct click.

  Chapter 12

  Melinda

  The room was dark again, save for the eerie glow of the electrical wires. Melinda turned over, wondering whether she would ever get used to the weird sense she now seemed to possess. She suspected she had killed the man who dug the knife into her back. There was some faint feeling of remorse in her, after all she had been brought up to believe that, on the whole, killing people was wrong.

  Unless they were freaks, in which case you were doing them a favour.

  But it seemed she had now gone down that road and somehow she did not feel that dying was an option she would choose. Who were these people who had her? Were they the Purity?

  She didn’t think so.

  Did it mean the other girls that had been taken were like her? That they were freaks too? Probably. But how had they known? And how come they discovered and picked them up before the Purity?

  Melinda twisted slightly on the bed and pain shot through her back. The bastard. She was glad he was dead. Vivisection without an anaesthetic? What kind of monster did that? But she had zapped him, she had felt it. She remembered what had happened in the van when she was picked up. It had been confusing at the time, but she had used the zap twice, knocking one person out and stopping the freak.

  It wasn’t until they’d got the drug into her that she had stopped resisting. And the burner? She had seen it hit her. Smelled the burning clothes and skin, but it hadn’t even slowed her down.

  A burner worked by hitting the victim with a very high voltage transferred along the twin ionising beams.

  She sat up in the dark. It was obvious she was generating electricity as well as being able to perceive it. That’s why her captors wore rubber suits, so she couldn’t zap them too. But nerves ran on electricity, so if she was generating it she must also be blocking it from her own nerve tissue. And the burner had no effect because it works by hitting the nerves. Either that or her nerves were built to carry the current.

  For the first time in several days, she smiled. They were scared of her. She had the power. Literally.

  She had never really understood all the physics lessons she’d had about electricity, but she had made circuits with bulbs and motors, as well as seen static electricity experiments and spark machines. She reached her free hand across to her bound wrist—with a little concentration she could effectively see in the dark. At least she could see where her own body was. The all-round electrical sense showed the faint glow of her body in relation to the wires in the walls.

  Melinda liked horror films, even the less effective TV ones from before. She had seen the special effects where people’s bodies had been stripped of their flesh, showing muscles, or blood vessels. When she focused her sense on her own body that was just what it was like, except it was the nerves she could see. Most nerves were in the outer layers of the body, so that helped with the illusion, but there were also major nerve channels that ran deeper. And then there were those great blocks of light located above where her lungs should be. If she had been using her eyes they would have been hard to see, but her perception worked through her own muscle and bone.

  She stared at the glowing tissues inside her. She knew they were her batteries, generating electricity biologically and storing it. They would have some maximum capacity, and would run out if she used the power faster than it could be recharged.

  Thinking about herself in this way was odd.

  On the previous occasions she had used the power it had been as a reaction. She had not initiated it, but simply reacted to a threat. The big question was whether she could do it at will, and whether she could control it.

  She focused her attention on the batteries and held up her finger. She tried to imagine the electricity flowing from the battery to her finger. Nothing happened.

  She remembered her physics teacher, Mr O’Neill: ‘Electricity has to flow from a high potential to a low potential.’ The whole flow thing was important, but there was also ‘ground’ which was ...? Nope, she couldn’t recall the thing about ground.

  So did she have to complete the circuit? She brought the tips of her index fingers together and concentrated. And jumped as the upper part of her body flashed with inner light, as did her fingers. She pulled them apart and rubbed with her thumbs. Her skin was hot. It was almost painful.

  She laughed out loud. It could be controlled, maybe not a lot of control, but she could make it happen when she wanted to. Those people in their rubber suits, they didn’t need them, she couldn’t just zap anyone, she had to get both ... she searched for the word ... poles in contact. She had done it with the people
who had attacked her, but the man yesterday?

  How had she done that? There must be more to this trick.

  Her happiness was cut short as the truth hit her. She must have been infected with S.I.D, maybe not from her uncle, but from somewhere, and she had been given, what? Electric eel genes? There was all sorts of speculation about freaks in school. Despite the lessons, they all knew there were things they weren’t told. Whether there was a limit to the DNA that could be inserted, and what would cause a real mutation.

  But it didn’t really matter. She was here and she was going to die, but there was one thought in her mind: she was not going to let them experiment on her. She might be a freak, but she was still a person. At least for now.

  If she was here, where were the other girls that had been kidnapped?

  Were they here as well? Or were they elsewhere? Or were they already dead? If they liked to cut people up alive, she supposed they might be.

  But now the thought was in her head she needed to know.

  She needed to escape this room.

  Chapter 13

  Sapphire

  Sapphire Kepple settled down into a large armchair with a large cup of coffee, and relaxed. She was glad to be home, and, as a Purity officer, she was able to demand and get reasonable lodgings. The lounge-kitchen with the table and the big chairs also had her terminal, which was currently playing some old movie. She had a separate bedroom with good-size wardrobe for all her clothes, and she did like her clothes. The bathroom was small, but it had a bath and the building had hot running water in the evenings.

  She jumped when somebody banged on the door. Hot coffee splashed over her thin dressing gown and soaked through to her skin. She swore, and then stared in fear at the door. Who could it be? There were guards at the entrance, people couldn’t just walk in. That meant it was somebody from the building, but she didn’t talk to anybody from the building. Except the daughter of Mrs James at number 33. Not that Sapphire fancied her or anything, she wasn’t very bright.

  The hand thumped on the door again. ‘Saffie, let me in. Or I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your door down.’

  Sapphire’s thoughts ground to a halt. He was here. ‘Oh God,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘I know you’re in there, Saffie. I’m going to count to three and if the door is not open by that time, you may regret it. But you’ll enjoy it too, of course.’

  The thought he might touch her galvanised her. Still clutching the mug of coffee, she pulled herself out of the armchair and across the room just as he reached two.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here! I’m opening it.’

  She fumbled at the lock and managed to get the bolt back and the door open as he reached the final number. ‘What do you want?’

  He glanced down at the mug in her hand and the wet patch across her breast, and then back up to look her in the eye. ‘Cup of coffee and a chat. That would be lovely.’

  He took a seat at the table with the wall behind him, so that he could see the whole room and across into her bedroom. She busied herself in the kitchen area making another cup of coffee.

  ‘This is a nice place.’

  ‘Yes. I’m glad you like it.’

  ‘What’s important is whether you like it.’

  The hot water boiled and she gave it a few moments to cool slightly. ‘I do like it. But I think it needs a coat of paint.’

  ‘Yes, the white walls are a bit sterile.’

  With her arms wrapped tightly around herself she turned and faced him but couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes. ‘What is it you want, Chris?’

  ‘We need to talk about Chloe Dark again,’ he said.

  She panicked; her heart pounded, how could he know what she had decided? How could he have found out that she wanted Chloe and to hell with the rules of the Purity? Even thinking such a sacrilege tore at her.

  He smiled that irritating, perfect smile. ‘Is that coffee ready?’

  ‘I don’t have any milk.’

  ‘Milk spoils it. I’m fine without. Why don’t you bring it over, sit down and we’ll talk.’ Sapphire did as she was told. She could feel herself going cold as she sat there, so close to him, her body reacting with the fear. But he made no effort to touch her. He didn’t need to, his presence was enough and his voice too much.

  ‘This Chloe thing has been going on a bit too long for my liking,’ he said. ‘It’s been, what, five days? And apart from that ridiculous attack last night, they haven’t tried to take her again.’

  Sapphire frowned. ‘What attack? The chippy? Chloe was there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, that was someone overstepping their mark. Unfortunately they shot him before we could get any further information. Quite honestly, after the first attack and now this, one wonders whether they have any competence at all. It’s a miracle they managed to abduct anybody.’

  ‘But is she all right?’ She realised the stupidity of the question: Chloe had been at school today, she had seemed fine. She wrenched herself back to the present. He had said something about things taking too long. ‘What are you planning to do?’

  He gave her that smile again. ‘It’s less what I’m going to do, Saffie, it’s what you’re going to do. You are going to arrange to meet her, tomorrow evening at this restaurant in the middle of town.’ With careful deliberation he took out his wallet, pulled a card from it, placed it on the table and slid it across to her. ‘It’s in a position that makes it relatively easy for someone to set an ambush. You get her there, the abductors will try to take her and then we will get them.’

  ‘But she might get hurt.’

  ‘I know, Saffie. She might even be killed. But if you don’t do this, that could happen anyway. And, after all, it’s not as if you’re personally attached to her. Is it?’

  She finally looked up into his face. His eyes ground through her defences and she knew he knew everything. And his unspoken threat was a chain round her neck.

  Chapter 14

  Chloe

  It was lunchtime, but the light outside, under the cloudy sky, was so dull it might as well have been evening. Chloe found herself once more summoned to Miss Kepple’s office. She shook her head as she wandered down the empty corridors. Seriously, if everybody knew that Miss Kepple fancied her they were going to be completely convinced that they would be doing something they shouldn’t in the woman’s office. It was really embarrassing.

  There was a weird contradiction on the subject of homosexuality under the Purity. There were plenty of people old enough to remember the acceptance of other sorts of relationships than just man and woman. Of course, there were those who still claimed the reason for the plague was that it was vengeance on immoral behaviour. But the Purity also seemed to frown on such things. The definition of purity seemed to extend beyond just genetics, it was something that affected all behaviour since, they said, all behaviour was derived from your DNA.

  It made Chloe’s dad a bit difficult to be with, to be honest. He was proud of having the name Dark to go with his skin, and would repeat to anyone how some people thought that their ‘kind’ was somehow less intelligent. Something that was patently untrue; the fact was human DNA was basically the same regardless of who you were.

  So it seemed to Chloe it was a bit unfair to say that people who liked people of the same gender were somehow deviants, like S.I.D freaks. But they didn’t come right out and say it, it was just implied.

  But then, she was less than human now, with whatever it was infecting her. The foreign DNA that the S.I.D virus had somehow managed to slip into her. She couldn’t imagine when it had happened but now she was going to die.

  She found she had come to a halt outside Miss Kepple’s office. She stared at the door.

  Well, if she was going to die because she was a freak, she would make sure she helped all the kidnapped girls first, before she lost her mind.

  She knocked on the door and heard Miss Kepple’s voice inviting her in.

  Sapphire

&nbs
p; Sapphire sat at her desk and watched the door open. Poor Chloe. She was bearing it well, but that was why Sapphire loved her: she was so strong. She wanted to deny Chris and be able to say no to his face. But she wasn’t like Chloe, she just wasn’t that strong. But there were things she could do behind his back.

  Chloe stood at the door, still holding the handle and looking uncertain. Sapphire realised she was daydreaming. ‘Come in, Chloe. Shut the door, sit down.’

  The girl came in but again hesitated, as if she was not sure whether she was supposed to sit on the sofa or the hard-back chair on the other side of the table.

  Sapphire waved her hand at the chair in the middle of the room. ‘Just there, sweetie, we don’t really have time for a cosy chat at the moment.’ She studied Chloe’s movements as she came to the chair, dropped her shoulder bag and sat. It was amazing how graceful she was. It was her training, of course.

  Once Chloe was settled, Sapphire thought over the things she had been planning to say, and what Chris wanted.

  ‘Chloe, thank you for coming.’

  She paused for Chloe to speak. But she didn’t. Her eyes were dead.

  ‘Well, the first thing was I wanted to apologise for what I—I mean, what happened before. You see I wasn’t feeling very well, and my reaction, what I did, had nothing to do with you personally.’

  Sapphire looked into Chloe’s eyes. They were dark brown, almost black. Eyes you could fall into. She shook herself mentally. ‘And what I said, I was just embarrassed. Really I’m very sorry for what I said and what I did.’

  Still Chloe said nothing, just looked across the space between them. Sapphire was the first to break their gaze. She looked down at her desk and leant forward with both elbows pressed against the wood laminate. She held her hands together as if she was praying, but Sapphire Kepple did not know how to pray. She glanced back up at Chloe’s immobile face.

  She knows, Sapphire thought to herself. Of course she does, she’s not a fool.

  With her head still down, Sapphire spoke again.