Lorelei Chen was forty-eight years old. She’d been training hard for many years in order to achieve her goal on this night. It had been a long road, a life’s work, even; she had gone to extraordinary lengths to make it here, to this exact moment in time, but everything would culminate here: what she hoped would be her final act on this perilous and maddening journey. Perhaps once this was all over, she could finally rest, safe in the knowledge that history had been changed for the better…
Her perch seemed somewhat precarious, considering the strength of the wind at this altitude, but to one as agile and experienced as Chen, this was nothing out of the ordinary. Right on time, a public airbus pulled up on the street far below and hovered there, awaiting passengers.
The moment was upon her.
Carefully, she sank into a comfortable firing position, or as comfortable as she could expect to be given the situation, and her weapon – a Lat’ari sniper rifle loaded with ten 9.64 armour-piercing projectile rounds – was readied for action on its bipod. It was an unseasonably cold night – the ledge had almost completely stiffened with frost – but the adrenaline racing around Chen’s system anaesthetised her to the cold, to the icy flint of the ledge, to everything except her own intense concentration.
She waited.
Under the dark evening sky, the superstructures around her seemed to become gigantic natural monoliths glistening under the twinkling starlight. All the vast and majestic buildings that dominated this city were now amplified green, with light bleeding through the millions of tiny windows, their edges blazing with it. After her actions tonight, Chen wondered what would eventually, inevitably, become of the great city and the great civilisation contained within it.
After some time, Cristian Stefánsson emerged, walking slowly in the direction of the airbus. He was carrying a holocube, just as she’d expected, and was looking lost and confused.
Get ready to die, you bastard, thought Chen, her heart thumping hard at her ribs. Get ready to die.
Gently exhaling, Chen aimed the weapon’s sight just above Cris’ shoulders, and moved a gloved finger over the trigger. Inhaled. The sight focused just forward of Cris’ ear.
She hesitated, licking her lips. Was this really the right thing to do? He looked so young, so innocent… all the bad things he was going to do hadn’t even happened yet. He was still the Cristian Stefánsson she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
She blinked, watching his youthful features through the scope. She had been so young back then… but her feelings had been genuine. She loved this man with all of her heart, and to ask herself to destroy him now was almost too much to bear.
Her face was suddenly contorted with grief, tears streaming down her face. She felt desperate. Maybe there would be another chance, another way to change things. Maybe he didn’t have to die yet.
“I still love you, Cris,” she wept, and cursed herself. “Damn you.”
Cris had reached the airbus by now. As he got there he seemed to mouth a single word to the mechanised driver, and the door opened – a blare of green-white light. After another moment, the light extinguished and he was inside.
Chen took a deep breath. She had decided to let him go, for now.
There would be another chance to set things right.
She hoped.
There had to be more impressive ways to travel in this city, thought Cris, looking doubtfully at the poorly designed, plastic-like interior of the public airbus. The vehicle moved slowly, and it seemed to be designed to fit in the maximum number of passengers with the minimum of comfort. But it was the only transportation available to him right now, and if the holographic recording of his future self was to be believed, he didn’t have the time to get to the Lazarus Spaceport on foot. It hadn’t taken him long to find the ponderous, graffiti-covered bus from the perimeter of the prison building, only a brief walk, in fact, and he’d instinctively waved his left arm in a beckoning gesture from a distance of a hundred yards or so, as its robotic driver flew hesitantly up to the stop and waited for him.
He was the only passenger right now, and he sat anxiously in a small, hard seat at the rear of the craft as the driver flew them out of a crowd of medical shuttles, security floaters, and fire fighting platforms, and aimed the bus southwards.
In the distance lay the glowing, mountain-like Palace. Cris stared at it blankly, wondering what had happened to the others… to Paramo, and his ‘children’. Hopefully, they were okay. Cris felt a certain sense of guilt and responsibility about the whole situation; if Paramo hadn’t rescued him from Lahmia, none of them would be in this mess right now. Paramo was a good man and he didn’t deserve to be punished for helping him out. Then again, the Sentinels would have found that bioship whether Paramo had come for them or not. And then of course there was Lora – now being kept prisoner by her abusive husband ‘Lenton’ – or so Cris had been led to believe by the recording. He saw no reason why the recording shouldn’t be trusted. It was a crazy scenario – his future self giving him instructions about what to do next… but after the Makaton’s revelations back in Lahmia, about him travelling through time… this had to be the next logical step. Presumably, he was now being thrust onto the course that would eventually lead to his inevitable time travel, whether that meant going through the Heaven’s Gate wormhole or whatever else, and he was expecting things to get a little crazy and confusing from here on out. Actually, that was an understatement. This was fucking lunacy, as his wife would have said, and he wondered if this was all just some bad dream he hadn’t woken up from yet.
He took a deep breath, his thoughts turning to Alexis, and Kimberley. He wished he could see them again, wished he could feel their tender embrace. He closed his eyes, trying his best not to be swept away into the pit of despair that loomed over his heart. Then he blinked them open again, realising that Lora was in real trouble now. He hoped to God that she was alright, that she could hold out until he could reach her. Her bastard of a husband was going to pay if he even laid a finger on her. He was going to rescue her, and they were going to escape to the Silver City.
Damarus was waiting for them. Why, Cris didn’t have much clue, but he knew that it was key to whatever events were still to come. He had no choice but to go along with it all.
12
The ride in the airbus lasted for several tense, agonising minutes. Cris sat and contemplated his situation in a nervous silence, watching the buildings of the majestic city of Einek go past through the circular windows. The architecture here, he had to admit, was nothing short of amazing – unlike anything he had ever known in his former life in the late twentieth to early twenty-first century. Not even the grandest Hollywood motion pictures could have prepared him for the titanic scale of the city, and the plethora of bizarre sights that whispered past as the airbus navigated the traffic lanes. It was awe-inspiring, enchanting, and certainly a sharp contrast to the empty, barren deserts of the Shadowlands where this journey began.
Soon, the robotic driver landed the airbus on top of an enormous, featureless landing platform at the lip of a vast spaceport complex. Multiple dome-shaped buildings stood evenly spread out between huge spacefaring vessels, sitting in vertical launch positions and being loaded with cargo and passengers; smaller craft, of all manner of shapes and sizes, were docked in bays that stood as high as the tallest skyscraper, undergoing repairs, refuelling. The entire scene was a hive of activity. Cris got to his feet, his heart thumping with anticipation, holding the holocube like it was a lifeline, and made his way to the front of the airbus, where the door cranked open. The icy blast of the cold air outside hitting his face almost knocked him from his feet. He took a deep breath, thanked the driver, then ran down the extendable steps to the landing platform below.
He squinted his eyes against the ferocity of the cold wind and watched as the airbus lifted up from the platform and sped away, then turned his attention to his surroundings. From here, the dull colours of the city and the sky above seemed to merge into o
ne mystical opalescent void with no visible horizon to mark the junction of the two. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of artificial lights glowed through the thick fog that kept much of the great Lazarus Spaceport cloaked from view.
Cris held himself steady, trying not to appear outwardly nervous (even though he was shitting himself) as he faced a stern and haughty security guard surrounded by several specialised Sentinel robots, who were approaching him through the fog. He knew he must have looked like a mess, with his heavily damaged Rãvier suit, his hair and skin filthy, and huge bags of exhaustion under his eyes. But he faced the guard’s sneering disdain, holding on to his dignity as if it were a rope, and he, suspended over a chasm. He was authorised by Damarus himself, at least for now, and he intended to take full advantage of this position while it lasted.
“What have we here?” asked the Captain of Security in clipped tones. He was a large man, towering over Cris at six feet seven, maybe six eight – yet still dwarfed by the red-eyed Sentinels who stood watching in an eerie silence. He was somewhere in his late fifties, with a full head of silver hair tucked neatly beneath a uniform hat. “Were you kicked off that bus, or is this some sort of prank? Either way, you’ll regret your choice of destinations. This is a restricted area, and the penalties for trespass are very harsh indeed.”
Cris looked the man straight in the eye, his expression gravely serious, his jaw muscles clenched. His desperation, his need, to see Lora again and rescue her from whatever peril she was in gave him the strength and confidence he needed to speak. “Don’t be misled by my appearance, sir,” he said, his voice tired and gruff. “I’m an agent of Lord Damarus on an urgent assignment. I need a fuelled Meta’thron-class bioship released to me at once.”
One of the Sentinels stepped forward, emitting the muffled sound of its bio scanners, then blurted suddenly, “Anomaly. No biological profile found for subject.”
The Security Captain’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Cris. “This is not amusing me. You are in serious trouble here. Without a biological profile you are in breach of several primary laws. Now tell me your name, and show me some identification at once. I don’t have time for this juvenile nonsense.”
Cris swallowed dryly, then gave a grim, tight smile. “I’ll show you some identification.” He held up the holocube with his right hand as if it were a weapon. “It’s right here, in this holocube. And check it quickly. Lord Damarus will not be pleased if you delay me.”
The Captain continued to frown deeply, uncertain now what to make of this. After a few moments, he grumbled in irritation and punched a few commands into the Vei’nl he carried. He held the device close to the holocube as it began transmitting, watching its small, crystal-like display with a doubtful expression. After another moment, his expression changed. He stared at the readout, blinking, then stared at Cris. Abruptly, his resistance crumbled. “Very well... this seems to be in order... and it instructs me to supply you with whatever you shall require.” He stared straight ahead, looking over Cris’ head to avoid the look of satisfaction on the younger man’s face.
“A fuelled Meta’thron-class bioship then, as fast as possible,” Cris repeated, his confidence growing. “Fully charged weapons, of course. And two brand new Rãvier suits.” He smiled, licking his lips.
The Captain briskly gave the orders, and the Sentinels scurried to make the bioship ready. He stayed with Cris while he waited, a grain of suspicion remaining in him. He whispered something into his Vei’nl, double checking something. Finally, he sighed. “What is your mission... what did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t say,” Cris replied. “And my mission is… classified. However, I can tell you that you did the right thing here. What I’m doing is very important.”
“Yes, well,” the Captain said uncomfortably, “it’s not the usual kind of occurrence around here, Mister…”
“Just call me Cristian,” he said with a small smile. “Cristian Stefánsson.”
Soon, Cris was led away by the Sentinels, to a small conveyor vehicle which resembled some sort of floating canoe, moored at the edge of the landing platform. He climbed in at their urging, followed by two of the robots who would ‘escort’ him. The conveyor vehicle unmoored automatically, and began to lift away, heading toward a large docking area some distance away, where a menagerie of bioships numbering in their hundreds loomed darkly through the gathering fog.
Cris couldn’t believe what was happening. Being authorised by Damarus himself to do this… seemed so unreal. The man – if he could even be called a man, Cris had no idea at this point – was effectively the ruler of the world, and a religious icon to millions of people. This guy had re-written the goddamned Bible and was now, as far as Cris understood it, some kind of prince of the universe who held sovereignty over all the kings, queens and other rulers of this scorched planet. What possible interest someone so powerful could have in plain old Cristian Stefánsson, how he could even know of his existence here, was beyond Cris’ understanding. It was crazy, and coupled with the fact that his future self was urging him on to meet Damarus at the Silver City… made the whole situation a lucid, unpredictable nightmare. It was taking everything he had, and his fierce determination to find Lora, to cling on to whatever shred of sanity he had left in this bewildering twenty-fifth century world.
The conveyor stopped beside a large bioship which resembled an impossible hawk’s beak; three hundred feet in length, an image of brutal strength and ingenious efficiency, with a forest of antennae protruding from the vessel’s nose. Cris blinked, marvelling at the beauty of the thing, the intricate detail of its construction, before a door whispered open silently beside the ship’s bridge deck. A swathe of violet light glowed warmly from within.
“Your Meta’thron-class vessel, as ordered,” one of the Sentinels said in its uncaring, electronic tone. “Fuelled, with three fully-charged Anode Particle Stream turrets.”
Cris took a deep breath and nodded. “Thankyou.”
Once he was safely on board, he saw that the ship had a spacious bridge, minimalistic in design, with two seated crew positions, seated in tandem. Two Rãvier units had been placed neatly on the right-hand seat, sealed in some kind of vacuum pack. There were no manual controls to the ship, at least not that Cris could see at first glance; evidently, the ship was capable of flying itself completely automatically – which was fine by him. He had no idea what he was doing, after all.
Feeling somewhat confused, Cris sat down in the seat to his left, frowning at the lack of any padding. The hard, bone-like structure wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world to sit in, and he wondered how people in this century could fly bioships for long periods of time without suffering a severe case of haemorrhoids. He sighed, and shook the thought aside, then held the holocube out in front of him, unsure of what to do next. As if by magic, the holocube began to emit a rhythmic pulsing sound, and the bioship responded, powering up. The sound of the large engines somewhere in the craft’s belly whined, building to a steady roar, then fell quickly to a barely audible hum. A moment later, the ship was moving, flying through the night air, and Cris opened his mouth and howled, like an excited child on a rollercoaster ride.
In a lavishly decorated apartment suite, Lenton Yaka was furiously drunk, drinking straight from a bottle of vodka. He sat sprawled on an expensive handmade couch, looking out the large convex windows at the sweeping night-time cityscape outside. The apartment suite itself was located on the thirty-third level of a residential arcology, deep in Einek’s Sendaya district, one of the city’s more exclusive habitats, and the view from here was fantastic. But he wasn’t in the mood to appreciate such things.
Lenton washed the vile taste of the vodka away by dunking his mouth into a crystal ice bucket, then spat it out, grimacing. It was four in the morning, and his insolent wife had finally returned home – under the escort of a group of Sentinel robots. There had been a time when he would have been delighted by her return, but he’d stopped worrying
about the whore some time ago. He wasn’t a stupid man, and he knew she’d fled the city in order to escape him, all that time ago. Now all he felt was anger; anger that she even considered she had a right to leave him. He was her husband. He owned her.
His wife was standing behind him, not moving. He turned to look at her, and saw that her face was a picture of guilt and remorse. Despite how he felt about her, despite the feelings of anger and resentment, Lorelei Chen was to him so very beautiful, her face angelic, with soulful emerald-green eyes, her perfectly formed body and radiant skin. And her smell – like sweet apples, it magnified her beauty, made it seem more spiritual, more invigorating. He’d been such a lucky man to be betrothed to this girl from an early age. If only they would see eye-to-eye.
“Lorelei,” he said, growing impatient. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Where the hell have you been for the past two years?”
“Out fucking,” she said.
She had misjudged his drunkenness. He sprang off the couch and grabbed her by the throat. She was propelled back into the wall by his forward momentum, his hands tightening around her neck, crushing her oesophagus, spots flaring in front of her eyes so that all she could see was his vengeful leer.
She choked and fell to the floor. He fell on top of her. He could smell her fragrant breath as she choked for air, her entire body trembling. He punched her on the arms and thigh muscles of her silky tanned legs, hissing with anger. He beat her as he had beaten her before, before she had decided to run away and hide.
He spat down into her face. “Here, Lorelei, have a little air – I’ll loosen my hand a bit. Now I choke the air off again…”
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 10
