by Unknown
“Also, I can drop you at a local hospital. But you will die if you do not get help. I give you a day to live, max two.”
“No, I rather not go to the hospital yet.” Val didn’t know who was behind the attack on him, who exactly wanted him dead. How could he risk being in the open. Actually, he had to admit, for whatever reason it may be, this young woman did save his life… whoever she was.
“Do you have any pain suppressors?” He asked again
“Sure, but I don't know if I want to give it to you. You start to feel better and then what…What if you go after me? You emperor’s dogs can’t be really trusted.”
“I would not do that…you pose no threat to me. You even saved me, and I have a job to do.
“What clan do you belong to?” He asked as he got no answer.
“None. I belong to myself. That was my last job.”
“Yeah right. Don’t know of any clan like that, like they will ever let you go.”
“Well, it doesn't matter what you know. All I have to tell you is…”
“Sorry to bust your retirement, but you haven't finished the job.”
“Yes I have. His existence stopped. I checked it on the tracker.”
“You killed…” Val tried to move, but the pain starting in his back traveled through his body paralyzing him. He finally had to accept that there was no way he could take on an assassin in his state. He knew he had no chance if he moved against her.
He needed time; he needed time to think.
“Yes I killed…Many actually.”
“You didn’t kill the doctor.” He needed Timor’s help, needed him to come here, provide a distraction.
“What?” Mikka was not ready for jerking around.
“Your doctor is somewhere else, the one that had his tracking code was his decoy. You killed his humanoid.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am. I examined his body. He was full of droid plasma.” Val, through his implant tried frantically to contact him Timor. The headache was just overpowering.
“So, what are your employer going to say once they find out that you screwed up?”
“Maybe the android was a real doctor…Maybe the doctor was not real at all. Maybe he was an android left over centuries ago.”
“No, the doctor is real. He traveled throughout the empire, recently to ES. And, you may not know, but you can’t go through the space port scanners if you are an android. You should know that.”
Where are you Timor, where are you, why are you not answering? ‘Locate Timor’…And then he got another jolt of pain. The location came back, putting him in their Energa Hotel room.
What the hell is he doing there? Why, why are you there? Why, why did you disobey me? He suddenly felt a new low, feeling a sense of betrayal. There must be an explanation.
“Okay, okay…So the doctor knew he was in danger and used decoy…that makes sense..that makes some sense now…” Mikka said and suddenly, realizing how hard Val was trying to concentrate, took out a long metal stick, and with it went over the top of Val’s head.
“I should have fried your chip as soon as I got you. Who were you talking to?”
“No, didn’t have a chance to talk to anybody.”
She pressed her boot to his stomach.
“I couldn’t, or else he would be here already. You get nothing from killing me, but think, how much one ECI can help you?”
“You had me talking, thinking while you tried to establish a connection.” Mikka said with a half smile, with half a respect in it. “I knew I should not have trusted you. You are very tricky…”
“Yeah, that is something coming from you.”
“I better watch out myself next to you…And this is a decoy, right?” Val didn’t know what she was referring to.
Your body, your age, you chose it to make people a bit more relaxed, forget themselves, to underestimate you. That is a neat trick. What, that body of yours, is it like 50 or something?”
“Something.”
“Maybe I should try that sometimes too. Almost nobody pays attention to the old people…nobody even looks at them.”
“I would not recommend it. Do you know what the old body is the only good thing for?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” Val uttered with pain.
Mikka smiled again, took her boot off his belly.
“I thought you would say ‘dying’….Look. Maybe you are right. Maybe you can be useful. Maybe we can help each other out. You use your ECI capacities and you help me find the doctor-“
“So you can kill him?
“I'll kill him anyway. But if we work together and speed things up, you get to have a chat with him first. But if I have to find him on my own, you will never get your answers.”
“I can't do that. What I can do is this, I can promise that-“
Mikka walked over to the door; She knew that the conversation was over.
“...I will find him before you do. As you will, no doubt, die here.”
Strangely, since Mikka fried his implant, he felt slightly big better.
“Too bad...well, I saved your life this time. Consider the favor you did for me once returned in full. I owe you nothing anymore.”
Who, who is she? who is she? Someone I saved, but how, why, when? More blanks filled Val's brain, the pain erasing from his head anything other than more questions.
“Wait!!” He screamed. He felt the dizziness swoop over him as soon as he tried to stand up, and his muscles trembled like a falling leaves. He hasn’t felt that weak since he got neroblasted 2 years ago. Things were getting out of his hand. Without help, could he do anything himself? And if they tried to murder him today, that means that they might try to do the same to Timor...
There must be a logical explanation why he went back to hotel… He needs to be warned…Who knows, he might be already gone. But what if, what if there is a chance to save a young life. Maybe it would be worth it.
“Wait!” He said again almost begging, “We can work something out if...”
“If?”
“First, contact Timor, the tracker l.234234kl3, I know you have tracker. Send message to him right now, 'your existence is in danger, get out. Meet you in the safe house.' Then go and get him. On your tracker, you can see he is in the Energan Suite Hotel right now.”
“He is the person you were trying to connect to?”
“Yes. Do we have a deal?”
“Sure. I’ll bring him here.”
“Bring him here safe, and you can have the doctor after I am finished with him.”
“That's all I needed to hear.”
Chapter 10 All Together
Timor decided he could not stay in the hotel anymore. He checked his pockets to make sure he had everything he needed, and decided to go back to the safe house which Val directed him to.
But as soon as he stepped out of the hotel room, two men wearing uniforms of the local Police Department grabbed him by his elbows.
“EJI Timor, you have to come with us.” They said with their faces as firm as a marble table.
He felt fear and indecision overcome him…Should he protest, should he pretend to be stupid. Their grip firmed. It was like they could not tell if he was going to fight them or not. He himself didn’t know if he had a fight inside of him.
One reached and took his gun out. And then his head exploded as his brain, blood and skull bones splashed Timor’s face. The other lost a head a split second later as he tried to turn around and see who fired the first shot.
“If you want to continue living, you better be still.” Mikka was already next to Timor, but Timor just could not cope with the blood that run down his neck.
It was actually the first time he ever saw blood being spilled, the man being killed, and the shock of it had him pinned against the hotel door like he was hanged there on an oversized butcher’s meat hook.
Without looking at his horrified face, Mikka scanned his whole body, then pulled out a long nee
dle and stick it deep into Timor’s back. She injected Timor with the liquid that will freeze Timor’s tracking ID which was planted there, permanently disabling it.
The pain shoot through Timor’s face, almost popping his eyes out of their sockets, causing his mouth to open unnaturally wide, ready to scream.
Mikka gave him a hard slap on a face as she took the needle out.
“You better not scream. Come with me.” Not my fault you let them put it there. Why could you not place it just under your skin, you dumb kid?
Timor tried walking, but his legs would not listen. So Mikka took a few steps back, made him take her neurorelaxate pill, and as his muscles relaxed, she threw him over her shoulder. As she took him on her jetter, she had a bad sense of déjà-vu, wondering if she should drop this kid as well.
In less than an hour, he woke up violently feeling Mikka on top of him, slapping his face hard with the palm of her left hand.
“You better wake up, ‘cause I can slap much harder.”
“I’m up, I’m up…” he yelled trying to stop the slapping, his face burning. “Couldn’t you just give me a pill instead…””
“I could, but I like this way much better. Slapping someone looking so stupid always makes me feel better.” She said looking very serious not moving from being on top of him.
He waited for her to get up and only then slowly got up,. The towel Mikka threw at him he used to in complete disgust try to wipe clean his still blood-covered face. It took him a few moments to notice Val laying silently on the spread down futon. His face seemed cramped with pain, but his eyes were steady and lucidly shining. Timor could not interpret that look.
“What happened to you?” He asked with uncertainty not understanding the situation, his immobility, and why he was staring at him so calmly without saying a word.
“I had an accident. It seems you had an accident as well.”
“I was trying to reach you like crazy.”
“Do you have the android?”
“Yes…I took it to the safe house you told me to go. I left it there.”
“Why didn’t you stay there?”
“I had to go back to the hotel room.”
“Why?”
Suddenly, Timor became very silent.
“Who is she?” He remembered to ask… “Besides being someone who likes to slap people for fun and take people’s heads off.”
“She is the one that took the android down…She is an assassin, Chitka clan, if I am guessing right.” Val was just testing her, and actually had no idea what clan she was from.
But Mikka was not ready for Val’s guessing games and all she said was “I need to see that android.”
“You don’t trust an ECI? What’s wrong with you?” Val wanted to see her relax, to start talk more, not just a word here and there. He doubted though that Timor could do anything even if he had a chance.
I have only myself to blame for that, he thought.
“I want to see that droid.” Mikka insisted again.
“Look, I cannot go out bloody like this to get it for you. I need a shower. And then I can go-”
“No, I will go and get it. Police is probably already looking into your most recent movements…They will find your safe house if they haven’t already. Give me the key. I want to take care of it right away.”
Timor didn’t think of protesting and the next second the key was already with Mikka.
“You are safe here. I disabled all your implants before bringing you here. You are safe here for now…Just, don’t betray me…Ever!” She said as she left.
”I cannot move…It hurts too much. I do not know if it is because of the fall or because of something she gave me. But anyway, what happened to you? “
“Two cops were trying to take me in when she came and blew them away. Why would they do that, why would she do that?” Timor had questions, with a complete confusion clouding his mind.
“Didn’t you get my message?”
“No…what message?”
“We definitely have a problem with communications. You were not supposed to be in the hotel room.”
“Look, Chief, I have to tell you something …” Val stared at Timor whose head felt down. He felt his insecurity at proceeding, waited until he was ready to go on.
“I had to go back to the hotel room.”
“Why?”
“Because I left there something…”
“What?”
Timor put his hand inside his pocket and pulled out a piece of leathery black substance big enough to cover half of his hand.
“What is that?”
“I do not know… I have not seen anything like it before. That is why I got it… See how soft it is. It is certainly of a biological origin… ” Timor said as he had passed it over to Val’s hand.
“Where did you get it from?”
“At the dome…The first time we went there… You probably could not see it well from the place you were standing, but… On a far right corner, there were about 4 uniformed officers going through debris, remember?”
“Yes-”
“Well, as I approached them I noticed that their scanners were not even turned on. So, I got curious, and started observing them, secretly, glancing at them when I thought they were not looking at me. I noticed that they were just walking around and picking some stuff up between the pieces of rubble, placing it in the black bag.
“They stopped doing it as soon as they realized I was looking at them, but I still saw what they were doing. So, I looked at the debris to find the same piece they were gathering, and when I finally found one, I put it into my pocket. I was going to ask them what they were doing and what was it, but they didn’t look very friendly, looked not friendly at all and I…I just moved away hoping to get an answer from you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“I am sorry…I forgot to mention it to you on the first day when we were there on the observation desk, I really did,
…and then the next day, I wasn’t sure how you would react since I took the evidence out of the police care without filing proper forms. And you seem so busy with analyzing everything. So I ran a scan of it to see what it is, why it would be so important, to see if it is important at all…”
“And?”
“But nothing came out. Our scans could not identify it…So I got worried. So, last night I used your clearance to connect with the database back home, and run in-depth search for it…”
“Nothing?”
Timor shook his head. “I got results this morning, and when I found out that it is ‘unknown substance’, I knew it was extremely important. I knew something was very wrong.
‘I had its gene blueprint inside the communication pod, but the sample itself was left in a hotel room.”
“And that is why you went back?”
“Yes…I thought if they get to it, we would never see it again.”
“Are you sure you could not find the match in the database?”
“Yes.”
“You know, there is a logical explanation for that…What do you know about the Great Saris Revolution? “ Val asked suddenly.
“I know that it happened a long time ago, like 1000 years ago, that the empire was suffering and people were starving everywhere, millions were dying…war, diseases, poverty.. So the emperor wrote the Book of Rules and Rights to help that mankind survives and prospers.”
“Well, something like that is what they teach in books and most of it is true, well as much as I can tell. But, what most people are really not fully aware of is that before the Great Revolution, the time that we are increasingly forgetting about, there was no empire to begin with.
“Some say, I cannot confirm that for sure, but many scientists I met are ready to swear on their lives, that the human kind lived over thousands of different planets. They say that space stations and click stations were stretching among all the stars you can see, and further away.“
“Not just thirty-one
, like we do now?”
“Well, originally there were thirty three planets that made up the empire, but then planets of Salixus, VViliniz and Vazz rebelled about 200 years ago, and as you know without doubt, the first two were destroyed in the great war.”
“Yes, yes, I know all of that. But what happened to the other planets, to all the outside space?”
“Some say that during the war, the emperor ordered all the click stations outside our home system be destroyed so that the enemy could not send their ships to conquer us. That’s why we only live in this relatively small part of the universe. All the gates to the outside got shot down.”
“Incredible, you know, as a kid, I always wondered why we are not among other stars, why are we just here , in this galaxy. I guess that answer makes sense now to me…So you think this stuff might be from the outside?”
“Maybe, but…Well, I do not know this for certain. We need proofs. We need to find someone who knows about this.”
“Do you think it was all bad back then, back 1000s of years ago, the way they teach us in schools and they put in the books?”
“No, I don’t think it was. But, you have to understand, the life can be very comfortable right now. If you are hardworking and follow the rules, you can earn enough credits to buy a new body. Those that are not contributing anything to the system probably never earn enough, but hey, what can you do? It’s a working system.”
“I am not so sure about that…” Timor said frankly surprising Val.
“You know Timor, maybe people do not understand how good they have it now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I have been alive for over 800 years now, and I can tell you, it has not been always like this. Right now, there is very little bit of poverty, almost nobody is dying because of hunger. There is almost no crime, and corruption is brought down to a bare minimum…
“In the days of old, many centuries ago, it has not been like that. People died almost for nothing. The life was cheap, and people did crazy things to survive.
“But, I am getting away from what I wanted to tell you, on a negative side, what else happened during the great revolution is that a lot of information, the information that seemed to contrast with the law the emperor was trying to implement, was erased from the modern databases.”
