Paint Over the Stars (This Filtered Sky Book 1)

by Letitia Glade

  Torch located. He flicked it on and sighed in relief as its beam landed on the rucksack sitting by the bricked up doorway at the end of the furnace tunnel. He ducked through the flue opening and crouch-walked to retrieve it. As soon as he could, he snagged an arm through one of the bag’s straps and started lugging it back to the entrance. Knowing climbing with such a load would be impossible, Zeke had fitted the flue with a button-activated pulley. The shiny cabling stood out against the grimy bricks. No need for light now. Zeke pocketed his torch and hooked his rucksack to the pulley and sent it flying up the chute. An explosion nearly sent his heart shooting after it. Shouting came next and a jumble of torchlights. Soldiers! They had blasted their way in. Zeke scrambled up the crumbling bricks.

  “Get down or we’ll shoot!” a man shouted.

  No chance! Zeke’s hands found the rim of the chute. Grunting, he pulled himself up. Whistling gunfire. The bricks pinged beneath him. Sharp pain. Something had stuck him in the leg. Panicking, he shoved hard with his feet, speeding his ascent and freeing loose bricks. There was a startled shout from below. Zeke pressed on. The cloakroom was so close. He stretched towards its musty floor and rotting workmen’s boots, but stopped on realising the grate was gone. Where is it? I always keep it closed. Did I forget to— Bony hands reached in, grasped his wrists and dragged him out into the cloakroom and onto his feet. Zeke squeezed his eyes shut and waited to be shot.

  “Ezzy, it’s me! Are you okay?”

  “Da—Stuart!” Zeke’s eyes shot open. My bag! He tried to crawl back to the furnace, but Stuart held him back.

  “It’s okay! It’s here,” Stuart said. He wasn’t lying. The rucksack was leaning against a cupboard nearby.

  Zeke immediately bent to retrieve it, but found himself pitching forwards as a wave of fatigue engulfed him. Stuart grabbed his shoulders and lowered him to the floor.

  “Where did they get you?” he demanded.

  “Right leg?” Zeke slurred. The sharp pain immediately dulled to a stinging ache. There was a glint of metal and a fuzz of red as Stuart threw something aside. Zeke’s eyelids drifted closed.

  “Fight it off! Come on,” Stuart shouted and slapped him hard.

  “Get off!” Zeke pushed the man away and struggled to his feet, blazing mad.

  “Thank God,” Stuart said, giving him room.

  Not something Zeke expected to hear from a staunch atheist, and you know what? He’d hit the limit of crazy he was prepared to take from this place. He grabbed his bag and hefted it onto his back.

  “Stop!” Stuart called.

  Zeke ignored him and staggered out into the corridor. Bad move. Three soldiers were waiting for him, fingers on the triggers of their chunky, long-barrelled pistols—tranquillizer guns. They can’t use those on people! In movies sure, but what the— Zeke’s view was blocked by a sudden blur of sky blue. Stuart. He stood in front of Zeke, facing the soldiers, his arms open wide.

  “Great idea,” Stuart said. “Shoot your only hope.”

  A sickening rush of confused admiration for the man washed through Zeke. Two of the soldiers hesitated and began to lower their weapons. The third, a sturdy man with a grey buzzcut and ‘L. Harker’ embroidered onto his uniform, merely shifted his aim a little.

  Zeke was already moving when he heard Harker take the shot. He slammed into the door opposite the cloakroom with enough force to bust it right open and keep going, stumbling past shelves stacked with food containers before colliding with a woman.

  Everything about her was faded; her tatty pink t-shirt, grimy denim shorts and shell-shocked eyes. She was a refugee, one of the late arrivals. Her hands were clutching two small packets of rice. Guilt, then fear flashed across her face as her eyes locked onto something over Zeke’s shoulder. He turned while she latched onto him, still gripping the rice. Harker had entered the storeroom. Behind him, the younger soldiers were wrestling Stuart into handcuffs. A little jolt of concern hit Zeke before that old anger took over again making him miss whatever Stuart was trying to tell him.

  “What?” Zeke said.

  “Eureka!” Stuart shouted.

  One of the soldiers gave the researcher an incredulous look and brought the butt of his gun down on the mad scientist’s head.

  “Fight to survive, Ezzy,” Stuart whispered. He lost consciousness.

  Zeke’s mouth went dry as he tracked the line of glistening red marking brown skin as it travelled down the side of his father’s head. He was back in his mum’s tomato car, struggling to regain his senses while she bled out a few feet away. The last of her faint words reached his ears, ‘Survive Ezzy. Just survive.’ Fury welled up from somewhere deep inside him, building on the anger already rampaging through his veins. How dare he sound like her! The scalding lump of a heart in his chest threatened to melt a hole through his ribs. He’s never been there when we needed him! Even at the most crucial—Mum’s dead! She’s dead and where was he? Miles away, safe under a rock!

  One of the rice packets burst open. The woman yelped.

  “Stop what you’re doing!” Harker shouted.

  He had been beckoning to her as one would urge an ignorant child away from a venomous snake, but now his sole focus was Zeke.

  “I’m not doing anything!” Zeke yelled. “I came here to be safe from whatever’s out there, but you—What are you doing?”

  He scrunched his hands into fists. They were itching again. The scrape of his fingernails against his palms only increased the feeling until it was like a swarm of tiny invisible bugs going all out with their stingers. Worse, the sensation extended out around him as if the air was full of microscopic buzzing things that both fuelled and fed off his rage. Harker gave the order again, hands tight on his gun. No! The second rice packet burst. Harker fired.

  The dart flew at a leisurely pace towards Zeke. He reached out to snatch it—destroy it—by its fluffy red tail, but found his arm moving just as casually. Why is everything so slow? No, that’s not it. My mind is moving…faster. The dart was about to pierce his shoulder and he’d missed the opportunity to do something about it. I want it gone! As if reading his thoughts, the dart crumbled into dust, releasing its payload harmlessly into the air. Zeke turned his gaze on Harker’s weapon. I want that gone too. The gun became porous like a sponge, becoming scrap too. I want everything gone! The rage filled him and overflowed, seeking only to rip apart all within its reach. He revelled in its glory.

  “You’re just like them!” a woman sobbed.

  Zeke opened his eyes and wondered at the clouds of dust swirling around him. I am the eye of the storm. He frowned. Did I think that? Sort of. The woman was still speaking. Zeke struggled to concentrate, but it was hard to think past the fiery buzzing in and around him. I want to see her. The shifting window appeared in the clouds, large enough to see a mess of broken shelving and crates. There was the woman was cowering behind them. The storm was taking little bites out of her barricade, fragmenting them into smaller and smaller pieces until they joined the whirling dust. I am the eye of the storm. He closed his eyes. Leave her alone! The rage became agitated, wanting to know why it—no, they—were being prevented from doing what they wanted. Zeke blocked out their buzzing. You’re just like them. She’s saying that over and over. Like who, the quads? He remembered what they’d done, the people hurting in the streets as their world ended, some of them dying. I am not—I will never be like them!

  “Stop!” he shouted.

  The dust fell and silence with it. Zeke stubbornly kept his eyes closed for fear of riling things up again. The air was heavy with the promise of more destruction if he so chose. Do it. Zeke doubled over breathing hard. He shook his head and found his entire body shaking. I won’t. He wrested back his composure.

  Only when he was sure his mind was clear of ill intent, did he gingerly open his eyes. Nothing else disintegrated. Good. He stood at the centre of a ring of sand piled high, approximately eight feet in diameter. He realised the sand had once been shelves and containers of food, no
w good for nothing. A cold sweat broke out across his skin. What did I do? He looked to the woman. Her staring eyes were focused on another time and place.

  “The stars are falling,” she sang. “Oh God, Graham! What happened to you?”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks as she reached for something behind Zeke. He turned and fell to his knees. Harker was slumped, unmoving, against a wall. His arm, the one attached to the hand that last held his gun, was gone. No blood, no sleeve even…just the clean absence of a limb.

  Zeke forced himself to crawl to the soldier and check for a pulse. Relief. He was alive. Did I do this? I need to fix it…all of it.

  “Fix this,” he said, commanding the air.

  The dust stirred a little, but that was it. Whatever force he was controlling had intelligence; it could hear him, so why wouldn’t it obey him now? Maybe it can’t. Maybe it doesn’t want to.

  “Fix this!”

  Roused by his voice, Harker groaned, opened his eyes and immediately swiped at him, or tried to with his missing arm. Zeke raised his hands and backed off.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Your arm…that wasn’t me! Well, yeah it was, but not really. Something…took over.”

  There was movement in the corridor, a slight shuffle of feet. Harker gave a grim smile before slumping back into unconsciousness. No doubt his men were poised outside moments from making a failed surprise entrance. I can’t let them capture me. I’m too dangerous for them to keep. Zeke stood on shaky legs. Okay brain, think fast! The world slowed as it had before. I need a dust storm, like the one earlier, but just a smokescreen—no melting things or whatever. A subdued buzz filled his mind as the dust rose again and reluctantly gathered into a ball that hovered above his hand. With so much of it in one small patch of space, it took on a silver sheen. That’s you isn’t it, holding the dust? So many of you! You’re not invisible, you’re tiny. What are you? The buzz threw the question back at him. I asked first! He felt something root around in his brain for words.

  We are destroyers, desolation, nanites.

  Not…quads?

  We are their tool.

  I’m controlling miniature AI machines…‘dessites’ that are helping interdimensional beings take over the world. He choked back a manic giggle and surveyed the carnage of the room again, pausing on the woman and the unconscious Harker. He couldn’t organise his thoughts to form a conclusion on the matter. The first gun barrel peeked around the doorway. I’ll figure it out later. Let’s get out of here.

  Time streamed forwards. The first soldier entered. Zeke threw the dust ball and watched as it exploded into an ochre cloud that engulfed the door and the space beyond. He put on his safety goggles and dove in. Tranquilizer darts came flitting through the dust, but the dessites scrapped them and the guns they came from. Zeke could feel them reaching for more, but the image of Harker, now missing an arm, gave him the strength to rein them in.

  We control humans, but you control us. What are you?

  That was the dessites talking. It was maddening hearing their thoughts as his own, feeling their desire to destroy, but he could handle it. He had to. They were his eyes in the blinding dust, sensing everything they came in contact with and transmitting it directly to his brain. Navigation wasn’t a problem as long as he trusted them.

  The ache of the bruises received from smacking into more than a few obstacles was just starting to dim as Zeke arrived at the trader’s market, a wide concourse that was once an exhibition hall for science and engineering projects. The combined funk of ill-washed people and experimental cooking made his stomach turn even more than the troops guarding the market. They looked bored. Good. It meant they didn’t know to look out for him yet. Zeke had sent his mobile dustscreen away to divert the soldiers pursuing him and he hoped the dessites would stay away forever. Sure, he wanted to get close to the quads so he could learn enough to fight them and win…but to have their “tools” living beneath his skin? Nope.

  Goggles off, hood up, he joined the flow of downcast basement dwellers vacating the hall. The lockdown alarms had started a little while ago—most definitely a measure to help catch him. Soon, everywhere would be shut tight, Ridetech exits included, and all citizens accounted for. Here and there rapid-fire bartering was taking place as frantic punters and harried vendors struggled to make the most of a shortened market day. Some of the stalls were closed already. Zeke spotted the beady eyes of their owners, peering over the battlements of their cardboard forts and folding tables. Occasional glimpses of sharpened metal told Zeke they were armed and ready to fend off whoever posed a threat to their livelihood, military or otherwise.

  By the time I get out of the market, all routes to the surface will be secure. I need a plan. His hands prickled. He rubbed them against his cargo trousers then froze. Dessites? I thought I got rid of them all! A weak buzz in his head told him enough remained perhaps to destroy the locks and maybe even doors that stood in his way. They wanted to do it so badly. He shuddered. Not an option. I’m not about to endanger the security of all these people just so we—I can escape. So then what? He scoured the thinning crowd for a solution. A splotch of blue caught his attention. He wasn’t keen on following the silly game rules a bad father gave his trusting little boy, but desperation made him work his way to the makeshift bar where an Azureus researcher, a man in his early thirties, was trading a pair of AA batteries for a can of probably flat lemonade.

  “Hey, can we talk a sec?” Zeke asked.

  The researcher paused mid-trade to give him a look of irritation. The PA system blared on announcing the last call to leave the exhibition hall before it was sealed shut. The bartender paled and started for the nearest door taking the can of lemonade with him. The researcher rounded on Zeke, batteries still in hand.

  “You’d better make that up to me,” he said.

  “Probably saved you getting ripped off, unless it was the aluminium you really wanted.”

  “The drink too.” The researcher looked him up and down. “You’re Stuart’s kid.”

  “Ezekiel.” Zeke didn’t hide his chagrin.

  A new alarm sounded, a low-pitched screeching accompanied by the grinding of the market’s large metal gates as they started to close. There was a surge of movement as the few remaining shoppers raced for the narrowing exits. No need for words, Zeke and the researcher made a dash for the nearest gate. A couple of market guards on the outside saw them coming and pulled at the gate in an effort to slow its stubborn progress. The researcher shot through the gap followed by Zeke who had to wiggle to get his rucksack through. Everyone took a moment to catch their breaths, but the researcher was quick to start gushing his thanks to the soldiers while commenting on the stupidity of his latest assistant, the cause of his delay. Zeke took the cue and did his best to look gormless beneath his hood. I should be losing my mind right now. How am I so calm? Because I found a friend? I’m not some primary school kid.

  He and the researcher ran with the citizen stampede for a while, heading towards the designated residential areas, before turning into a small dead-end corridor that featured a little utilities alcove. Once everyone was settled in their rightful places, the soldiers would be out hunting for stragglers, specifically Zeke. Knowing this, Zeke positioned himself so he could see the analogue clock fixed to the wall. He wasn’t interested in the fact it was just after midday, but in the reflection that showed him the mouth of the corridor and the people hurrying by. The researcher followed the direction of Zeke’s gaze and checked his watch.

  “We probably have five, maybe ten minutes freedom of movement left,” the researcher whispered. “What do you need?”

  “A way out,” Zeke whispered back.

  “Like, out out? To the surface, out?” The researcher looked at Zeke like he should be sectioned.

  “Yes…please!”

  The researcher seemed ready to walk away, but then rubbed a hand over his chin stubble and said, “I don’t know what I can do. The exits will be sealed by now and my security
clearance isn’t high enough to override their lockdown protocols.”

  “Whose is high enough?”

  “The facility managers, but they’ll be in a safe room remotely opening and closing whatever doors the soldiers need.”

  “So unless there’s some way to get a soldier working for us—” Zeke was hit by a rush of scorching pins and needles followed by a furious hunger that forced him to double over. What was that?

  We return.

  What, for a recharge? It was the dessites he’d sent away. There was now zero doubt that he was host to artificial parasites. Couldn’t find someone else?

  Only you…suitable.

  The researcher placed a hand on his arm. Zeke growled and shook him off, almost throwing a punch while he was at it. He could hear his mum telling him to watch his temper. He drew a steadying breath and tried to think calm thoughts; fluffy clouds and bunnies. The hot pounding in his head faded enough to realise the researcher had been whispering to him urgently throughout the ordeal.

  “Ezekiel, are you okay?”

  No. Zeke wasn’t about to test the limits of the man’s trickle down loyalty by telling him he was infected by microscopic alien—no, interdimensional—AI that had wrecked part of Ridtech’s meagre food supply, vanished a guy’s arm, likely had some nefarious role to play in this apocalypse and were probably using him to hitch a ride back to their murdering overlords.

  “Hungry!” he gasped out.

  The researcher, brow furrowed in grim concern, fished a chocolate bar out of a zipped pocket, unwrapped it and gave him a chunk. More! Zeke, half choking on nougat, demanded the rest. Warren was quick to surrender it. Zeke seriously considered asking for the wrapper too, but what human would eat the wrapper? The nearby sink on the other hand was too appealing to resist. He rushed to turn on the tap, scarcely in control of his actions as he stuck his head beneath the flow of water. Only when his stomach was full to bursting did he stop drinking. The discomfort didn’t last long as the dessites presumably took what they needed. Sated, Zeke couldn’t meet the researcher’s gaze.