by S. K. Holder
Kane Brailey and Steve Lepton each had a whole floor of offices to themselves. Steve had two personal assistants and a secretary, none of whom were ever at their desks. He had a modern office furnished with leather chairs, a flat screen TV, a coffee machine, a water dispenser, a treadmill and a vending machine filled with healthy snacks. Pieces from his lavish art collection lined the wall: labyrinths, metal sculptures and canvases splattered with oil paint.
Steve was slight in stature compared to Kane. He didn’t do weights. He liked to run on the treadmill in the mornings before work and made sure he ate his fruit and veg, ‘five-a-day’. No junk food for him. Rumour had it, he worked seventy hours a week. Ted believed it was close to one hundred. The man had a relentless drive and ambition that was beyond Ted’s grit and cunning.
Then again, he didn’t have a stake in the company.
Ted decided not to tell Steve about the blackmail. He didn’t want the man to think he was scum. He told him, in his own way, about Connor’s vanishing act. He didn’t want Steve to know he had been in a teleportation capsule that he had no business being in, nor that he had allowed Connor to take back his brother’s laptop.
‘Don’t ask me how, but Connor stole it back,’ said Ted. ‘I found him in the basement messing around with it. I turned away for a second and when I turned back he was gone. He couldn’t of got out, not that fast. The doors and lifts were all locked. I searched for him everywhere. I couldn’t find him.’
He didn’t see the slap coming. It landed hard on his face. He staggered back onto the sofa, howling like a baby. He thought if he made enough noise someone else in the building would hear him and come to his rescue.
‘You dumb gun,’ said Steve. His holiday glow had gone. He wore a dark suit and a tie embossed with the Tridan Entertainment crest. The veins on his temple bulged.
‘It wasn’t my fault.’ Ted dabbed his sore cheek, and then examined his fingers for fresh blood. ‘Connor must have got his hands on the laptop when he came back here nosing around.’
Steve paced around his desk, stroking his chin. ‘Where’s the laptop now?’
‘I locked it in my office drawer. I don’t know how to get him back. I’m guessing you do.’
‘As it happens I don’t. The only one who knows has disappeared. I mean he’s − well you know what I mean.’
‘You’re talking about Professor Hatleman?’
The professor had given him a welcoming smile on his first day at Tridan Entertainment. He couldn’t have been more grateful for it. He had been a nervous wreck when he stepped through the revolving doors.
He didn’t know much about Professor Hatleman’s other work. The professor had been happy to give him a tour of the basement some months ago, but he never talked about his other projects; the ones he discussed, in a low voice, with Steve.
He knew him as one of the freelance physicists who helped build the games engine. He specialised in cybernetics and was based at the Institute of Science and Technology in London. He hadn’t seen or heard from the professor in weeks. No one had.
Steve nodded. He paused behind his desk. ‘You let me down.’
Ted would always let Steve down. The man had high expectations. Impossible ones some might say. Ted also made the plausible assumption that murder was a deed close to Steve Lepton’s heart, and that he would forge ahead with his plans for Luke with or without his help. Howard and Beth’s disappearances were more than likely accidental. Luke’s had been thought out. He didn’t know why Steve had it in for Luke. Had Luke done something or seen something when he came to see his uncle two years ago?
He understood Steve’s frustration. This was his second shot at getting rid of Luke. To his knowledge, The Quest of Narrigh game hadn’t worked on Luke. He had played the game on the modified laptop and it had not made him disappear. Ted got to thinking that Steve was on a deadline, one he was in danger of missing.
‘I can still get to Luke,’ he said. ‘I’ll give him the laptop in person and tell him there’s a problem with the security settings on his Tridan account; get him to tinker around with it. You want Luke out of the way don’t you?’
Steve’s eyes narrowed. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’d have to be blind wouldn’t I? It does something, doesn’t it? It makes them disappear – somewhere.’
Steve stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘Don’t concern yourself with what the laptop does, Ted. If you get Luke to access The Plague of Pyridian and it must be The Plague of Pyridian, I’ll double your money and you’ll get it tonight.’
‘Consider it done.’
Ted punched the air with his fist as he closed the door to Steve’s office. As they said in Texas, ‘He could draw a pat hand from a stacked deck.’
SIXTEEN
They had walked for three miles without stopping along the barren terrain with its eroded rocks and ridges, its stacked boulders and spheres, when the beast’s head emerged from around a looming corner. Skelos had lost his bolt-shot whip, he knew not when or where. He had a little binding dust and a handful of keys, which were no good here.
The beast sprung at him and he scuttled backwards. To his horror, he discovered that Vastra had made himself scarce. The beast opened its mouth and Skelos opened his and screamed. He managed to jump to one side of the cave wall. Not high enough. It caught the bottom of his robe in its jaws. He heard the fabric tear.
It wasn’t the first time a beast had come after him. This one stood fifteen feet and had a streak of thorny spikes running down its spine. It slobbered muddy brown saliva. It didn’t move as skilfully as some of the other monsters that had crossed his path. In the past, he had managed to avoid them. No luck today. This one moved awkwardly weighed down by the boils on its legs and the dung wedged between its claws. Its skin was wet with the rainbow coloured residue notable in the underground terrain. Skelos suspected it had something to do with the poisonous rainbow caused by the fall of the Zichronite rock from his own planet into Narrigh’s. He suspected the beast once had a more lustrous form, now it looked as weary and as sickly as he did. It bared a mouthful of broken, jagged teeth. Grunting, it head-butted the wall. The rock face trembled and crumbled, showering it with rocks.
He watched the beast move away shaking its great head. A yawning wound appeared along its flank. The beast fell and Vastra materialised next to it with a long blade in his hand, slick with blood.
The Second Status Citizen sheathed the sword. The weapon didn’t look like the Lightning swords Skelos had commonly seen used in Narrigh. Vastra appeared to have a liking for ancient weapons. While he appreciated that the Second Status Citizen had spent enough time on Narrigh to master them, a sword that only possessed the ability to cut wasn’t a good weapon in his eyes. He sincerely hoped it wasn’t the only one Vastra had brought with him.
‘Thank you,’ said Skelos. ‘You are tremendously skilful with a sword.’ Conscious of his F.A.C.S. he gave a thin smile. ‘Do you have anything with which I might arm myself in case of any future attacks? A Bolt-Shot whip perhaps or a Lightning sword?’
‘I lost my whip and I never had a Lightning sword,’ said Vastra. He offered Skelos a hand up, and Skelos took it, jerking to his feet. His bones creaked and cracked.
‘Some invisibility potion then?’
‘Now that would put me at a disadvantage, so I’m going to say no. When we reach the site, our journey will be short. Where is it you want to go?’
Skelos had been thinking about where he wanted to get to for quite some time. He always imagined himself in Prascar, but since embarking on this nightmare journey, he had decided that Prascar wasn’t for him; in fact he had started to think that any planet within the Andromeda galaxy no longer suited him. They were too close to home. The Citizen race were scattered throughout the Andromeda galaxy. He couldn’t rely on the governments’ planets for protection. If they learned his identity, they would return him to exile. If not in Narrigh, somewhere else worse than Narrigh. An
d there was worse than Narrigh. He was sure of that.
‘Where are you going? Not back to Odisiris?’ It would have been daring indeed if Vastra returned to Odisiris. If you had a case to plead, no one would hear it, least of all the Presidential Elite.
‘Pyridian.’ He wiped the blade on the beast’s corpse before thrusting the sword back in its scabbard.
‘Narrigh is a better option than Pyridian.’ The planet’s Citizens may be opulent but the landscape wasn’t pretty. ‘There are too many alien life forms for my taste.’
‘I have cousins there, though I have never been.’
‘Even family wouldn’t be enough to tempt me to that horrendous globe. The planet is rife with aliens and Peltarcks, but I suppose we have to find somewhere to go, if our home planet won’t have us. No, Pyridian is not for me.’
‘Then where is?’ said Vastra with interest. He raised an eyebrow. ‘You have no idea where you’re going do you? No wonder you look as if you’ve been trodden on.’
Skelos had no answer. Was Vastra suggesting that his indecisiveness was preventing him from reaching his destination? ‘How long since you left Baruch?’ he asked.
Vastra smiled for the first time. ‘A week.’
So there may be some truth in Vastra’s analysis of his plight. Skelos had been wandering around for weeks and Vastra had already caught up with him.
‘Kaltharine is your best option then,’ said Vastra, his smile vanishing. ‘Ships frequently leave from Pyridian to Kaltharine.’
‘I’m fond of their Zaskian export but I’m known to merchants there. They will turn me over to the Odisirian authorities before I could take a sip of the beloved beverage.’ He didn’t mention that his brother and mother also inhabited the planet. He didn’t want Vastra to think that he had no love for his own family. Unfortunately, the rift between them was as big as the one between Narrigh and Odisiris.
‘What about Volstar?’
Skelos felt his knees weaken. He sunk onto a smooth rock and sucked in the smell of dung and blood. Volstar was a group of islands in the Bolgar galaxy. Desert islands devoid of humans and modern day amenities. ‘You think me desperate?’ I’m so desperate I could cry.
‘No. I think you’re a Citizen with few options and you baulk at the ones offered to you. The Pyridian’s Citizen city is vast. Its walls protected. They don’t have drones to track your every move. You won’t come under the Establishment’s radar.’
The Establishment was composed of the most powerful orders in Odisiris: the Parliamentary Elite, the P.D.P.C: Planetary Data Protection Committee, and the P.S.R.F.D: the Pareus Scientific Research and Funding Division.
Skelos shook his head and repeated to himself. ‘Pyridian is not for me.’
SEVENTEEN
Unless you want to attract the attention of the Citizen fleet, you cannot teleport at will anywhere on Pyridian. Teleporters must use the Teleport Stations: two of which are based in Hiburild city. There are four in Swordul City: one specifically reserved for high-ranking Citizens and members of the Octane Resistance. Outside of these stations, teleportation may be requested by fleet soldiers only in the event of an emergency…
Connor stood rooted in the doorway of an empty unit, steadying himself against a concrete boulder that split the entrance in two. He had tried to enter the unit only to find the doors locked. The entrance to the opposite unit had been concealed behind a wall of barbed wire. A strip of shadow lay between the two buildings.
He had run forever. His lungs were screaming in his chest and his entire body felt as if it was consumed by fire. He removed his cloak and gloves and flung them to the ground in anger. The disguise had not helped him and if Lin didn’t come back, if she was dead, he had no one to turn to. This wasn’t Narrigh: a place filled with cobbled streets, quaint houses and fearless folk, who would more likely run away from you than towards you. The upper surface of the planet was a war zone and the underground teemed with evacuees, deserters and fleet officers trying to keep some sort of order. No matter what he did, he would never fit in. So what was the point in trying?
For reasons unknown to him, the alien life forms were not his only enemies. He grunted in annoyance; he should have worked that one out when he arrived on the planet in someone else’s uniform.
He sunk to his knees, took his Worral Stone in his hands and closed his eyes. He was too afraid for sleep to come upon him, but if he could blot the world out just for a short while…
‘Up!’
Connor’s eyes jerked open as Lin jostled him to his feet with a kick to his boot. He stood quickly, cementing his hand to the wall for support.
She nodded at the discarded cloak and gloves. ‘Put them back on. We’re not out of danger yet.’
He couldn’t fail to notice that Lin had the young officer’s laser gun latched to her belt holster and his bag slung across her back.
He gathered up the cloak and gloves and put them back on unhurried. He was woozy and hoped Lin wasn’t expecting him to run again. He gawked at her boots smeared with fresh blood. She had an orange mark on the palm of her hand, one he hadn’t noticed before.
He nodded at her hand. ‘You’re a Citizen.’
She gazed at the palm of her right hand. ‘Oh this. No, Tuon was a Citizen. I’m a Peltarck, who has the ability to temporarily absorb powers. It can be painful for the recipient.’
‘So you killed him.’
‘No. What I do doesn’t kill. Let’s just say, I detained him for a while.’
‘I thought you said Peltarcks respected Citizens.’ In his opinion, Lin’s respect was scant and the bow she had given him was nothing more than a meaningless gesture. Doubt crept into his mind, he didn’t know if he could trust her at all. He was beginning to feel more like a hostage than someone who had been saved.
‘We do, which is why he still lives. I tied him up and locked him in one of the empty units. I can’t say if it will be hours or days before he’s found. Nevertheless, you can’t be here when he is. You didn’t tell those Peltarcks back in the dune your real name did you?’
Connor shook his head. ‘I didn’t tell them anything.’
She nodded with approval. ‘Remember this is not your home planet, nor will it ever be. The majority of Narrigh inhabitants are ignorant of technology and of other worlds. In Pyridian, they are not. You must never mention the planet Earth here or tell anyone who you are, and I mean anyone.
‘I belong to a specialist division within the fleet, known as the Octane Resistance or O.R. A small number of our unit know of Earth’s location. We propose to keep it that way. I’m your protector here. Do not converse with anyone else about what we have discussed.’
Connor shivered and sunk back into the doorway on his hands and knees. He was still unsteady on his feet and sickened by the sight and smell of the Citizen blood Lin had brought with her. He didn’t care about the Octane Resistance. All he cared about was getting back to his family, to the reality that he knew, not one conjured up from a game.
Lin watched him with impassive eyes. So much for her protection. She hadn’t even asked if he was okay.
‘You’re very different from your brother,’ she said. ‘He suffered one bout of weakness alone whilst on our Narrigh quest. He didn’t know that I had borne witness to the tears he cried thinking he had lost you from his life and his world. At all times, he remained in my presence, brave and determined. He had an iron-will and never once complained, such was his intent on bringing you safely home. It’s a shame you dishonour him in this way.’
Connor staggered back as if Lin had struck him, blushing with both humiliation and rage. His brother was braver than him. He had never seen him cry. He hadn’t thought about what Luke had gone through in his absence, or considered the fact that the memories of his disappearance from their home would stay with his brother forever. He didn’t need Lin to echo what he already knew: he was weak, he had brought his troubles upon himself and given little thought to his brother’s anguish when he had disappea
red the first time around. He knew he should have confronted Luke when he left Kane’s office and he shouldn’t have touched the laptop. He wasn’t about to admit his misgivings to Lin. She had no right to place all the blame at his feet. If Luke hadn’t lied to him in the first place, then he would have had no trouble to get himself into.
‘I’m not dishonouring him,’ he muttered. ‘He lied to me.’
Lin nodded as this was perfectly understandable given his own dishonesty. ‘Trust and respect is earned,’ she said. She took his hand and dragged him to his feet.
Lin had not lied to officer Tuon when she said she had a ship close by. It looked like the one Connor had seen on his arrival: a metal pod with eight landing struts sprouting from its hexagonal base. It sat in front of a building with a terraced slope. Gnarled plants broke through the garden’s cracked soil.
A traction platform took them into the ship’s core. The ship’s controls were built into a column surrounded by a circular chair with seating for four people.
Connor lowered himself into a seat. A safety belt snapped over his shoulders and waist, strapping him in.
Lin squeezed one of her sleeve cuffs. The action made the spikes retract into the fabric of her armour. She then sat down and tapped seamlessly at the complex controls. She paused to pick up a flask from the seat. She opened it and put it to her lips, one hand still fingering the controls. To Connor’s disappointment, she resealed it and propped it against her thigh without offering him a drop.
He didn’t feel the ship take off but noted its ascent through the viewing window set in the central control column. He saw the false blue sky streaming past and layers of dense white clouds disappear in a shaft of red and black rock. An inky-purple sky soon came into view. The rugged landscape was strewn with dunes, meagre vegetation, aliens and destruction.
