by S. K. Holder
He came to a rocky outcrop. Not thinking of what might lurk inside, he launched himself into a crevice too narrow for the alien to follow.
Outside, the alien clicked and hissed.
Connor cowered in the gloomy rock shelter.
He knew how he got himself into these predicaments. Now, how did he get himself out?
ELEVEN
Ted Carthy was attempting to extract a chocolate bar from the vending machine without putting in any money. He didn’t see why he should have to pay. He was staff after all. So he tipped the machine. His scrawny arms trembled to take its weight. And when that didn’t work, he kicked and punched it. A blow to the side of the head made him stumble. At first he was unsure what had caused it. He thought for one crazy second, the vending machine had fought back. He put one hand to his head and saw someone else’s reflection in the glass of the vending machine. It looked like Connor but it couldn’t have been Connor because he had sent him away. Something kicked his leg, and then he fell, crying out from shock, not pain. He felt a strong tug on his collar. His legs and feet fought to stay on the ground.
‘Get up!’ said a sharp, deep voice.
Ted swore under his breath and stood. His assailant stood eye to eye with him. It was Connor’s brother, Luke.
The kid hissed under his breath. ‘Bring him back.’
The shock of Luke’s blow began to wear off, and the burning, throbbing pain set in. Luke’s eyes were engorged with the blood of someone deranged and his jaw was set as tight as a vice. He could ruin his good looks with that face, thought Ted. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘I saw what you did.’
‘Really. What did you see?’ He would gladly liked to have known because Connor had disappeared from the capsule. He hadn’t expected him to do that, but he had been expecting something. Something strange. Strange things happened at Tridan Entertainment.
Luke clenched his fist. If Ted wasn’t careful, he would deal him another blow to the head. The kid had strength. Something Ted lacked. He survived on a diet of noodles, coffee and sandwiches. He had never set foot inside a gym. A short walk up the underground exit left him breathless.
Luke glared at him. ‘You did something. You made him−’
‘Disappear?’
Luke’s Adam’s apple shook as he attempted to restrain his rage. ‘Bring him back.’
Bring him back, thought Ted. How the hell was he supposed to do that? He massaged the painful spot on his head. ‘If you want me to bring him back, I’ll need a little something from you.’ He’d vouch that he could bring back the dead if there was a little something in it for him.
‘You’re going to blackmail me?’
‘I guess I am,’ Ted said quietly. ‘I’ll want paying.’
He wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity. Now that he had Luke’s attention, he may as well contrive his own plan. He had no choice. He needed the money. The money was more important to him than Howard Collins.
‘Is that why you did this − for money?’
‘Nope, but it’s a bonus.’ He felt a lot calmer. He didn’t need to worry about Connor when he had Luke in his pocket. ‘I’ll want twenty grand – no − make it thirty.’ He had a sizeable amount of loan and credit card payments he wanted to clear, and there were rent arrears, car payments, parking fines and the money he owed to his brother.
Luke hunched his shoulders and jammed his hands into his pockets. ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’
‘No, but your uncle does. And I guarantee he’ll pay it. I−’
Before he knew what was happening, Luke’s hand had encircled his throat. He felt the iron grip and the slow squeeze on his larynx. ‘Who are you working for?’
Ted’s eyes went wide with terror. ‘No-no one.’
Luke ground the heel of his boot into Ted’s left foot.
Ted squeezed tears from his eyes. ‘Ple-please.’ He tried to grab Luke’s hand, to move it away from his throat. The kid was going to kill him. He had it in him. This wasn’t a threat. ‘I’m the only one who can get him….ouaaa,’ he wheezed.
Luke released him. Ted took a deep rasping breath. Holding his neck, he crouched to tend to the burning pain in his foot. He was sure Luke had broken a couple of toes. He took off his shoe to check, which made the pain worse. He cradled his foot in his hand. Tears streamed down his face. He glanced up. Luke stood over him with watchful eyes.
‘Tell me your name and who you’re working for?’ he said.
Ted had to fess up to something he supposed, place all the blame on Steve. And rightly so after what he had put him through. ‘My name’s Ted Car-Carthy. I work for Steve Lepton. He told-told me to−’
‘Get up!’ Luke flexed his hands as he took them from his pockets.
The sight of the kid’s bare hands and his commanding voice forced Ted back on his feet. It took a while for him to put down his injured foot. With a yelp and a grimace, he eventually managed it.
‘What did Steve Lepton tell you to do, Ted?’
‘Let’s go to the cafeteria,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t feel comfortable out here.’
Shoe in hand, Ted led Luke to the cafeteria. He thought about running for the exit. It was there on his left, but he’d need to make quick getaway and his poor foot wouldn’t have been up to it.
The cafeteria lights came on as soon as he opened the doors. Wincing, he pulled out a chair and sat down with his shoe in his lap.
Luke remained standing. ‘Go on, I’m listening.’
Ted started rambling. He imagined what would happen if he didn’t. There was a loose fire extinguisher on the wall. Knives in the kitchen. Chairs with sharp edges. Nowhere to run.
‘Your uncle mentioned to my boss, Steve Lepton, that you needed a new laptop. Steve told me to get you one of the special ones. Ones he’d been working on. Ones he had modified. He didn’t tell me why. It didn’t take me long to figure it out. You see those laptops make people disappear.
‘Later, he asked me to block your account and then send you an email about our internships. He wanted you to come here. When you left your laptop behind, he asked me to install our latest game on it and make it look as if you’d played a couple of levels. He also told me to unlock your account and to see to it that you took the laptop back. He didn’t want Kane involved – didn’t want him to know. That’s when I realised that he wants to send you away with the others.
‘Your brother came here asking questions. I guess he must have taken the laptop back when I wasn’t looking. He must have been down here mucking around with it. Steve Lepton’s got the rest of the laptops locked away somewhere.’
Most of what he said was true. For reasons unknown to him Steve had wanted Luke to disappear. Ted had worked that much out for himself. When Luke hadn’t taken the bait, Ted had set Connor up by leaving his key card on his desk. He was hoping the meddlesome kid would dredge up some fresh leads about Howard’s and Beth’s disappearance. He didn’t know he was going to vanish too, not until he had seen it with his own eyes.
‘You said others?’ said Luke. ‘Who else?’
‘Two company employees who had access to the laptops.’
‘You don’t know how to get my brother back, do you?’
Ted frowned. He had been concentrating on the money. On his blackmail. Fair enough, he didn’t know how to get Connor out. Steve would know. ‘Not without going to wherever he went. If you get me the money by midnight, I’ll figure out a quick way to get you in, I swear.’
Luke considered this for a moment. His eyes seemed to stare right through Ted. ‘If I hadn’t shown up, would you have blackmailed Kane?’
Ted shrugged. Not Kane. That would have been stupid. ‘You’ll never know. What I do know is that if you want to get Connor back, you’ll have to move fast. We’ll have to move fast. Steve Lepton’s dangerous. You can’t let him see you.’ The thought of Luke running into Steve would be catastrophic for him. Steve would know he had failed and he would lose a chunk of his leverage.
>
Luke crossed his arms nodding. ‘Okay Ted. I’ll get you your money. If you give me your word.’
‘My word is golden, no make that platinum.’
‘I still want to talk to Steve Lepton. Where can I find him?’
‘I’m afraid you can’t right now. He’s on sick leave.’
TWELVE
“The Peltarcks talk about the dunes as if they are a religion, as if they are sacred, and not mounds of sand and stone...”, Garis Kyson, Octane Resistance Fleet Commander.
Connor sat in the near dark staring at the grey wall of his tomb. He blew hesitantly through his teeth. They were out there somewhere. Everywhere. Waiting for him. He sat in an uncomfortable hunched position trying to remind himself that he ought to make an effort to escape his stone fortress. He sat on his knees with his calves aching under him. He had stayed still for so long he didn’t know if he would ever move again. The clicking sound had faded long ago.
There was a reason the Peltarcks had made a home below ground and the Citizens above it; Citizens had a better chance of surviving an alien attack. He assumed their ability to self-heal made them more courageous. However, it didn’t deaden the pain, not at first. And it didn’t heal the emotional scars caused by the trauma of the attacks.
In Narrigh, he had almost been buried alive by flesh-eating giant birds.
And now this.
He had to go back out there. He didn’t have a choice. He needed food and water. He had no plans to become a hearty meal for any alien life forms lurking on the planet’s surface. His fearlessness came in spurts, at a time when the danger had reached its crest and he had enough adrenaline pumping through him to outweigh the risks.
He thought of the dead man without a face. The man didn’t have red blood and had shown no signs of self-healing. He swallowed. It occurred to him that Citizens didn’t have the ability to regrow their brains. He went through the pockets of his torn, soiled uniform and ran his hands over his chest and legs in search of a concealed weapon. As he suspected, he was unarmed.
He peered through the narrow opening he had come through, lit partially by moonlight. Unable to see the alien shadows skittering on the ground’s surface, he left his hiding place and clambered up the ash rock formation.
When he reached the top, he had a good view of the land. He saw a solitary peak in the distance. Not far from where he stood, he saw a metallic grey object poking from behind a tree. It looked like some sort of hover-bike. With a final 360 degree turn, he shot down the side of the rock with his arms outstretched.
He made a break for the tree, the air catching in his lungs as his feet pounded on the craggy ground. When he reached it, he examined the vehicle. It had handles and no wheels. He reckoned he could ride it. How hard could it be? All he had to do was find a start button and a stop button. There were no pedals, dashboard, or other visible controls. He gave one of the handlebars a squeeze. It crossed his mind that the bike had been abandoned because it didn’t work and that it might explode on him the moment he attempted to start it. He tentatively slotted one foot into one of two groove marks in the base of the vehicle. The bike made a peculiar droning noise. He quickly removed his foot, fretting again. What if it took off and sent him flying? And how would he know when to slow down and when to stop?
‘Coward,’ said the Authoritative Voice. ‘Hop on.’
Connor shook his head. He didn’t appreciate anyone calling him a coward. ‘Being cautious that’s all.’ His arms quivered as he gripped the handlebars again. He swung himself onto the bike’s platform and slotted his feet into the marked footrests.
‘New passenger detected,’ the vehicle announced in a robotic voice.
He gripped the handlebars. A vibration shot through the bike. He resisted the temptation to jump off it. Any mode of transportation was safer than getting about on foot.
‘New passenger identified. Citizen First Status. Citizen Connor. House of Brailey. State your destination or override for cruise control.’
How did the bike know his name? What did it matter? He couldn’t state his destination when he had no clue where he was going. He didn’t particularly want to cruise either. He wanted to get away from the alien zone. The quicker the better.
As he didn’t know the name of the over ground city, he said, ‘Citizen city.’ He hoped the bike would know what he meant.
‘Citizen city,’ he said, raising his voice. He pumped his feet on the footrest and jerked the handlebars back and forth. The bike rose a few feet off the ground. Now to test it. He tilted his body to the left and the bike tilted with him. He tilted to the right and the bike obliged by tilting in the same direction. He swivelled his feet in the footrest and the bike shot off. He found he could control the speed by lessening his grip on the bars and the footrest. If he wanted to climb higher he tilted the bars towards him. If he wanted to go lower, he pushed them away.
He increased his speed. The trees and rocks became distorted shapes and the sandbanks flashing blurs.
He saw the snag of rock too late to swerve. The bike flung him off and he rolled across the ground with his hands clamped over his head and his eyes squeezed shut.
No wonder the rider had discarded it. He staggered to his feet, his head swimming. He had landed by a tree. Its charcoal-like branches grew in huge arcs. The bike lay on the other side of it. He was determined to get back on and not be thrown off again. He just needed a bit more practice that was all.
As he approached the dented vehicle, he saw out of the corner of his eye, a transparent form slithering along one of the tree branches. The tree itself looked as if it was vibrating. The near invisible form skulked towards the base of the tree.
He had seen enough. He hopped on the vehicle and, in a state of panic, jumped up and down on the footrest, which now had a yawning crack in it from the crash. The crack deepened further with his mistreatment. He didn’t care. He broke out in a feverish sweat and his heart galloped with fear as his mind reeled with thoughts of the gory fate that awaited him. He cranked the handlebars and tilted his body left, right, forward and back. The stupid bike wouldn’t start. He gave it a kick, sending a metal rod from under the bodywork clanging to the ground. He heard footsteps behind him and saw the outline of a figure striding towards him, its thick arms swinging at its side. He stood frozen to the spot. Through its transparency, he could make out some of its features: a jutting jaw and ridged flesh.
‘Well what are you waiting for?’ said the Authoritative Voice. ‘Run.’
Connor abandoned the vehicle, as its last owner had clearly done, and took off running. Something zoomed over his head. He gazed up to see a silver airship gliding through the sky, leaving white streaks over the rocky landscape. He frantically waved his arms, willing the pilot to spot him from the ground and come to his rescue. Far ahead of him, a figure rode on the same bike that he had abandoned. The rider had the bike well under his control. He witnessed him weaving and ducking among the sandbanks with a sure amount of skill and lithe.
Something brushed Connor’s spine and he yelled before plunging, with some recklessness, into a thorny purple shrub. He chopped his way out of the shrub with his arms and legs, plucking out the thorns that had pierced his skin.
‘Here.’ The voice came from one of the sandbanks not more than three feet away. A doorway had appeared. Connor pitched himself through it and landed in the dark on his belly. To the rear of the sandbank, he made out human shapes. He looked back at the entrance and watched it vanish before his eyes.
A light came on and he found himself in the company of a woman and a small boy. The woman wore a white shirt and black trousers tucked into knee length boots. Her fair hair was partly shaven. The bald part was covered in tattoos. The boy couldn’t have been older than five. He had a full head of short spiky hair and wore a pair of grubby trousers and an ink-stained vest.
‘What are you doing out here on your own?’ asked the woman. ‘Have you any idea how dangerous it is?’
Connor knew the
dangers only too well. ‘Thanks for letting me in.’
She cast a wary eye over him. ‘I take it you’re a Citizen?’
‘Yes.’ He showed her the palm of his right hand, proud to show the mark that had once made him cower in fear.
She and the boy gave a deep bow.
The custom made Connor flush with embarrassment. No one had ever bowed to him, not even as a joke.
‘Are you part of the fleet?’ asked the boy, wide-eyed. ‘Have you got a laser gun?’
‘No,’ replied Connor, wishing that he had.
‘Stowaway then,’ she said, nodding at the boy as if confirming the answer to an earlier discussion that had passed between them. ‘I can take you back to Swordul. I take it that’s where you’re from.’
‘Swordul?’ Connor frowned.
The woman frowned back. ‘Your city here?’
He eagerly nodded his head to mask his uncertainty. ‘Do you know if there are any ships leaving for Swordul today?’
‘There’s a lot coming in,’ she said, ‘few going out, and not every day. I can get you to the city gates by nightfall. It’s safer then.’
‘Isn’t it nightfall already?’
‘Not for Peltarcks.’ She slotted her hand inside a metal box attached to the wall. ‘Come with me.’
The ground spiralled open, exposing a lift. They entered it by climbing down a ladder fixed to the lift wall.
The lift roof crashed shut.
The woman jammed her hand into a cavity set in the wall.
The lift ground into motion making Connor’s stomach heave. The speed at which it descended gave him a brief feeling of exhilaration; the ride was over almost as soon as it had begun.
The doors opened onto a short walkway leading to a flight of stairs.
He followed the woman and the boy down the twisting stairway and into an open apartment with grey brick walls and a ceiling impaled with light fixtures that looked like spears. There were patches of condensation on the walls and ceiling. The blue sky peeped between the partially closed window blinds. The sun spilled into the space immersing it in light.
