Information Cloud: Science fiction and fantasy series (Tales of Cinnamon City Book 1)

by Peter James West

  'Not much. I said I was trying to find my unit. He asked where Commander Chambers was. I told him he's already here somewhere.'

  'Okay,' Rachel glanced up and down the corridor. She couldn't let her guard down in this place. Anything could happen. 'Come on,' she said, breaking into a jog.

  The corridor was lined with black metal doors on both sides, most of them already open. Rachel ran ahead, glancing from door to door as she went. The rooms were all empty. Dust and rubble lay in heaps as though recently swept against the walls. She ran around the two bodies on the floor and continued to the end of the corridor where it turned ninety degrees to the right. As she approached the corner, she saw that the corridor continued as before with yet more doors.

  Thin cracks riddled the surface of the white stone walls, and moss grew in clumps where the cracks had opened up to allow enough moisture into them. The walls were in poor repair, but there were also some signs of recent activity. New cabling had been pinned to the ceiling nearby, and power lines ran over doorways and through small holes in the walls. The cabling looked expensive compared to those used at Beacon Station. The Kamari obviously had access to plenty of resources.

  Royce was the first to see them. He put a hand on Rachel's arm pulling her to the side wall. He pointed ahead with his impact pistol already in his hand. Two Kamari soldiers ran out from one of the doors ahead. Their loose white combat trousers were held tight at the waist by thin black belts. One of them turned and opened fire. A chunk of stone split away from the wall, narrowly missing Rachel's ear.

  Royce was already firing back but he hadn't hit anything. Mathews leapt to the other side of the corridor and knelt down. He fired twice, hitting a soldier in the shoulder.

  Rachel fired at the other Kamari soldier. He was already aiming at her so she knew she didn't have much time. As soon as she had fired, she ducked and rolled to her right. Something whistled past her ear just as her own shot struck home. The soldier tumbled backwards, landing heavily on the ground.

  Royce was still firing, his shots echoing along the corridor. The remaining Kamari soldier went down with three wounds bursting open across his jacket.

  Rachel kept her eyes on the fallen soldiers as she got back to her feet and crept along the corridor towards them. Royce and Mathews followed close behind her. She examined the bodies while they kept her covered. Both soldiers were dead. She could feel the absence of life within them even before she checked their pulse. She didn't know how. She didn't want to think about it.

  'What now?' Royce said in a quiet voice.

  'We go on.' Rachel poked her head through one of the many doors that lined the corridor. Inside, she could see yet another corridor, darker than the first but made of the same white stone. She wondered just how many rooms and corridors there were inside Havers Compound. From the outside, the building had looked impressively large, but the back of the building hadn't been visible from where the Crocs had been. It was difficult to judge the true size of the building now that she was inside.

  Rachel signalled for the others to follow her as she stepped into the adjacent corridor. Royce flinched when he saw the Bull Ranger standing against the far wall.

  'It's okay,' Rachel said. 'It's not active.'

  She stepped closer to examine it, tapping its head with the butt of her impact pistol. It wasn't something she would do unless she was sure it was offline.

  'Do you have to do that?' Royce said, gripping his pistol in both hands.

  Rachel grinned in his direction. The Bull Ranger showed no sign that it knew she was there. It was undamaged except for one small dent on the side of its head. Stepping away from it, she wondered what kind of weapon could have done such a thing. Bull Rangers had a reputation for being extremely difficult to stop. There were no burn marks around the dent so she doubted it had been a missile or hand-held proton cannon. She couldn't see anything else wrong with it.

  It was then that she noticed a pile of bodies behind the Bull Ranger. Slick blood had flooded the corridor on both sides, and the smell of death filled the air. Shaking her head, she held her impact pistol at shoulder height and made her way further into the labyrinth of rooms and corridors beyond.

  She could hear the sounds of fierce fighting coming from several directions. She looked forward to finding some of it.

  Sphynx-II

  A net-feed droid misses nothing, so the saying went. Its operator, however, misses everything. When such vast quantities of information gets collected and channelled into a soft wet clump of human brain cells it's not surprising that most events go unnoticed. That was why the Sphynx-II controller rack included extensive logging and retrieval systems. Every piece of information was recorded for later analysis. Riser had a suspicion. Somewhere in that huge data store was the information that could prove or disprove his theory. He just had no idea how to find it.

  A shaded area of his mind, reserved for input, lit up as though active. Riser checked his wrist controller to see if he had accidentally selected it, but he hadn't. His other hand was resting on his knee, well away from the projected keypad on his desk, but there was definitely something going on. Letters were appearing as though he was entering them himself.

  'Hey, asshole,' the message said.

  What the hell? Had someone hacked into his system? No, that wasn't possible. In any case this was coming from his own input systems, not from outside.

  'Quit wanking, and take a look outside.'

  Damen! It had to be. The silly bastard was typing on Riser's keypad. Riser had no way to insult him back, which was grating. He was loathe to remove the sensor cap, remembering the feelings of nausea and discomfort it had caused last time. He could try to speak, but while wearing the sensor cap it was difficult to articulate words correctly, and even more difficult to work out what you had actually said, or if you had even spoken at all. There must be some other way to communicate with his stupid brother?

  Riser searched through the building's registered communication systems and managed to locate an old public address system that was still functional on the lower levels of the basement. It was over fifteen years old, and had once been used by Neech back in the days when the basement had been full of busy technicians and reporter types. But that was a long time ago. The whole place was empty now.

  It was difficult to think in terms of his immediate surroundings. His own sensations were drowned out by the massive input from the swarm of net-feed droids. The thick manual had said that the more he used the sensor cap, the more difficult it would be to sense his own surroundings. Eventually, his own voice would become little more than a distant buzz that made no sense at all. Another of the endless disclaimers that came with the Sphynx-II controller rack said that speech may become slurred, but that this was only a temporary effect. Riser wondered whether they measured temporary in terms of days or years.

  Opening a channel to the PA system, he formed the words in his mind that he wanted to say. The voice that came from the dusty speakers sounded like a woman half of Risers age but it didn't matter.

  + + +

  'What do you want, dickhead? Stay off my console.'

  Damen blinked, looking around the room to see who had spoken. A woman's voice was coming from the corridor outside. He took a step towards the door, reaching for his knife, and then laughed. There wasn't anyone out there. Only one person talked like that. Damen didn't know how he was doing it, but he knew it had to be Riser being some kind of fool. He tried to think of the most insulting thing to say but nothing came to mind. It was unusual for him to be short of an insult. He was about to type asshole again, the woman's voice spoke once more.

  'Just speak, Damen. I've opened a channel. I can hear you through the sensor cap now.'

  Damen grunted, 'Oh. Okay.'

  'What do you want? I haven't got time for this.'

  'I didn't mean to disturb your... whatever it is you do all day, but there's something outside that you might want to take a look at. You'll see it sooner or later, when
they come down here and smash your skull in, but I figured you might want to take a look a bit sooner than that.'

  'Outside where? What are you talking about?'

  'We're in the basement aren't we? In the Mekinet News building. Outside there.'

  + + +

  Riser wondered what his brother was talking about. He didn't have time to be distracted with whatever it was. He had the droids to keep control of, and he didn't want to lose even more of them while his attention was being wasted elsewhere.

  Reluctantly, he started checking the visual logs throughout the Mekinet News building. Most of them had no power but some were still running on their residual batteries. Riser managed to redirect some power from the Hand-Box Generator to the security systems on the upper levels. The lower levels were all blackness, that much he already knew. The lights were out and there was nothing to see. Somewhere on the thirty-eighth level, a cleaning bot was stuck behind a plant pot. On the twenty-second level, a couple were making out in the lift. At any other time, he might have lingered on that visual log for longer, but right now he had too many other things on his mind.

  Riser continued flicking through the visual logs, hoping to find an external view, but he paused when he saw the lobby. A visual log recorder mounted high above the reception desk was angled down towards a set of empty padded chairs and an antique mahogany table. The thick grey carpets were illuminated with bright lights. The room was far too bright considering that the building had no power. That wasn't the only thing that bothered Riser. He could see broken glass scattered all over the carpet, much of it well trampled in.

  Riser found the visual log recorder's control systems and managed to turn it towards what had once been the tall glass doors that led to the street. The door frames were still there, stretching up to the ceiling of the lobby, but the windows were now gone. Only small fragments of jagged glass remained around their edges. Wind and rain blew in from the street outside, soaking the edge of the carpet.

  Several Cage Carriers were parked outside with adjustable spotlights mounted on their roofs. All the spotlights had been directed towards the lobby. It was hard to see through so many bright lights, but Riser thought he could make out the silhouettes of Security Forces milling around near the entrance. So many figures were pacing around outside, preparing for something.

  Panic rose up in Riser's chest, forming a lump in his throat. What were they doing? Surely the Security Forces hadn't come to storm the building just because he was broadcasting the battle of Havers Compound? He had expected complaints and angry outbursts, negotiations and bitter arguments, but this was open warfare. He hadn't planned for this. Where was Neech? Weren't they negotiating with him? How had things descended into open hostilities without any of the usual backhanded deals happening first?

  A bunch of armed soldiers passed through the lobby with their impact pistols held high. They wore shoulder mounted spotlights like Damen had used, but there's were much more powerful, filling the lobby with even more bright light. Their heavy boots crunched broken glass further into the carpet as they disappeared down a short corridor that led to the stairwell at the back of the lobby.

  Riser's heart raced. How many soldiers had already entered the building? He flicked through more visual logs until he found one that was mounted high above the main stairwell. It was offline, but he managed to redirect some power from his own systems, bringing it back to life. Riser adjusted its angle until it was pointing straight down the deep stairwell. It was mounted on level eighty-six above ground so it couldn't see all the way down to the basement, but from the levels that it could see, one thing was very clear. Security Forces were crawling all over the building. Small white lights wandered amongst the empty offices and deserted corridors like foraging insects. One other thing was clear too, and for that Riser felt an immense sense of relief. They didn't know where he was.

  The Search

  Things were not going well. Riser did his best to prevent the Security Forces from locating his underground office but the building wasn't really intended for such things. The Mekinet News building was just a news centre. It didn't have any weapons or security features. The best he could manage was to lock some doors and take control of two or three cleaning droids. It wasn't much to work with.

  After several attempts, Riser had finally managed to knock one of the soldiers down a flight of stairs by navigating a floor cleaning droid right up behind him, just before he stepped backwards. It was a dirty trick, and not something he was very proud of. The man had cried out, toppling backwards down the stone steps and landing heavily on his arm before flipping over twice and smacking his head against one of the balusters, knocking himself unconscious. Riser didn't let the success go to his head. He knew there were plenty more members of the Security Forces to replace the unconscious soldier. Even if he spent all day tripping soldiers in the dark, it wouldn't be long before someone noticed and destroyed all the cleaning droids.

  There were some things that he could do though. The building had many automated features intended for use by employees or security staff. Riser could lock and unlock many of the doors on the upper levels. He could also change the access controls on each level, revoking security passes and triggering security alarms on demand. He could trigger alerts, flash lights on walls or ceilings, and broadcast a whole range of audible health and safety warnings.

  With some practice, he managed to work out how to rapidly alternate the power on and off for many of the systems. Riser applied his new technique to a few of the lights on the upper levels, turning them on and off so rapidly that it gave them the appearance of strobe lights. He triggered the health and safety warnings in a sequence too so that every two seconds a different voice made an announcement about being careful on the steps, or not leaving cables lying around in working areas, or what to do in case of fire. The voices quickly became annoying, and the strobe lights caused considerable disorientation amongst the soldiers as they tried to find their way around the building's maze of corridors and staircases.

  Riser was pleased with the result, considering what little he had to work with. The Security Forces were completely confused by all the locked doors, flashing lights and loud piercing alarms. It didn't stop them advancing, but it did slow their progress, and it made them unsure of what was happening. The soldiers were more cautious so it took them longer to search each room. Riser even managed to activate a fire alarm throughout the whole building. He had hoped the soldiers would turn and go back to the surface. Some did - the ones who followed procedures just to get paid - but others remained and continued their grim search with determined expressions.

  Riser took some time to think about his situation. He had to think this through before things got out of hand. This was just another sticky situation in a long list of sticky situations that he had been scraping through ever since he was a kid. This was the worst situation he had been in for sure, by an order of magnitude, but it wasn't really any different from the others. If he took his time and thought it through, he would be okay. He just had to focus. He had to stand tall and show the world who Riser Trent really was.

  Stretching his fingers, he recalled that it had taken Damen nearly one and a half hours to make his way down from the lobby to the basement. Riser had helped his brother navigate some of the more obscure parts of the journey, and his brother had been down to the basement once before, several months ago. Damen's memory was shit but he still had some advantages over someone who was completely new to the building.

  What stood in Riser's favour was that the Mekinet News building was not as logically laid out as many other buildings. It was becoming dated now but it had been one of a new generation of building designs when it had first been built. It gave more freedom to the architect's imagination. The building was more about the architect's ego and the Mekinet News corporation's ambitions to stamp an authoritative landmark onto Cinnamon City's skyline than any practical considerations for the poor bastards who lived and worked inside it.
>
  There were levels where you couldn't go down without first taking a detour to the south side of the building. There were places where you had to go up one staircase before you could go down another. What had no doubt looked delightful and artistic on the architect's drawings didn't translate well into a logical living space.

  The lower levels had many narrow staircases that doubled back and forth, and several doors that looked like they led to side rooms but turned into separate corridors. What was even better, was that the building's lift shafts only ran down as far as sub-level five. The architect had probably won some award for such a dumb design, but right now it all counted in Riser's favour.

  The soldiers were making much slower progress than Damen had. They were searching every level, room by room. They didn't know what level Riser was on, so they couldn't just skip past rows of doors to progress faster. There were hundreds of rooms to go through. At their current rate, Riser estimated it might take them between three and four hours to reach the basement. That would buy him some time at least, and time was what he needed most.

  It was true that he needed to get rid of the Security Forces before they could get too close to the lower levels, but he didn't need to panic just yet. Ideally, he wanted Damen to deal with the Security Forces, but could he trust him to deal with them without fucking it up? Probably, yes. Damen might be a little heavy handed at times, and he certainly lacked finesse, but he should be able to do it. Damen only needed to impede the Security Forces by doing the same kinds of things that Riser had been doing already, just playing around with the simple mechanised functions of the building. Every minute added to their search would be a minute longer for Riser to do what he needed to do.

  Riser opened a comms channel through the PA system in the corridor outside the basement. His words were spoken in a young woman's voice like before. 'Damen. They're coming in.'