Forgotten (The Forgotten Book 1)

by M. R. Forbes

  “She’s incredible,” Hayden agreed. The poker had a chance of being useful against the creature. The blade? He might even be able to kill it, or any others like it. “I want it.”

  “I told you, sprocket, she ain’t for sale. You want to deal, take a look at anything else I’ve got. Something to match that poker there, maybe? I see Gary traded with you.”

  “You could say that,” Hayden said, reaching behind his back. “Those were some turbs we had earlier.”

  “Oh, man, that was crezz. One of the worst in my lifetime. I thought the whole ship was going to snap open. One leak, that’s all it takes, you know? One leak and we all die. Live in the moment. That’s what my pops always said. Live in the moment because every moment might be your last. This is all there is, am I right, Dezz? We’re traveling, but we ain’t got a destination.”

  “It’s good advice,” Hayden agreed.

  He pulled his stunner, swinging it around and pointing it at Hector’s head.

  “What the fezz is this?” Hector said, surprised by the weapon. “You stole a fezzing stunner from Law? Are you crezz, sprocket?”

  The two guards saw him holding the weapon, and they started toward him. He turned quickly, firing a pair of rounds that caught the kids in their chests. They shook slightly as the charges knocked them to the ground.

  Hayden spun back. Hector had a blade in his hand, and he slashed at Hayden’s shoulder. Hayden swung his poker defensively, his trained reflexes the only thing that kept him from being sliced. He knocked the knife away, returning the stunner to Hector.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Drop it.”

  Hector dropped the knife. “I don’t get it, sprocket? What do you think you’re going to accomplish by messing with me?”

  “I’m living in the moment,” Hayden said. “Now give me the blade. I need it.”

  Hector looked pained at the idea. “You can’t get away with this. You have to know that, right? The Source won’t take Baby for trade. She’s too well known.”

  “I don’t give a fezz about the Source or about you,” Hayden said. “I’m not worried about your reprisal.”

  “You should be, sprocket.”

  “Where do you think a man gets a stunner, sprocket?” Sarah said. “You have no idea who you’re talking to. This is Sheriff Duke.”

  Hayden could have killed Sarah for opening her mouth.

  “Sheriff Duke?” Hector said. “Oh fezz me on a fezzing gear shaft. You’re breaking a few laws with this action, ain’t you, Sheriff?”

  “Are you going to report me?” Hayden asked. “I’d love to read it.”

  Hector stared at him in silence.

  “The blade,” Hayden repeated. “You’ve got five seconds before I use this on you.”

  He only had one round left. He didn’t want to waste it on this kid.

  Hector stepped back to the wall and lifted the weapon from it. He held it by the handle.

  “Don’t get any stupid ideas,” Hayden said.

  Hector returned, putting the weapon he called Baby in its sheath and then putting it down on the table. “She’s been in my family a long time, Sheriff. What do you need it for?”

  Hayden put Gary’s poker on the table and picked up the real blade. It felt much better in his grip. “Believe it or not, I intend to use it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know a guy about this high?” Sarah asked. “Skillet cut, pale, skinny sprocket?”

  “You’re looking for Jonas? Why?”

  “That’s my business,” Hayden said. “You know where to find him?”

  “He’s upstairs. Cube 430. You gotta have serious nits to get up there.”

  “I don’t,” Hayden said. He slipped the stunner back into his pants. “I’ll return Baby to you when I’m done with her. Make sure Gary gets that back. You could be doing a lot more to help everyone in Metro, you know.”

  “What’s the point, Sheriff?” Hector said. “Metro is fezzed. We’re all fezzed. Everyone knows it. We’re just trying to get as much as we can out of it before we all vaporize or suffocate, or whatever kills us. We’re almost a century past our arrival date, did you know that?”

  “So I heard,” Hayden said. “Did you know Francis?”

  Hector put up his hands. “I heard what happened to him. Cube 430, Sheriff. I don’t want to get involved in that shit.”

  “Is there anything specific you want to tell me?”

  “The PASS lies, Sheriff.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ask Jonas.”

  That’s exactly what he intended to do.

  “Sarah, let’s go.”

  She nodded, waving at Hector. “See you around, sprocket. Thanks for the sharpy.”

  Hector glowered at her but didn’t say another word as they left.

  20

  “I have a bad feeling about all of this,” Sarah said as they reached the stairwell again.

  Gary had noticed Baby in Hayden’s hand and hadn’t bothered to ask him about his own makeshift weapon, allowing them both to pass without a word.

  “Did you have to antagonize him?” Hayden said. “For that matter, did you have to tell him who I am? You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  “I am helping you, Sheriff,” Sarah insisted. “You would have had a lot more trouble if Hector thought you were just some crezz sprocket instead of the Sheriff of Metro. Believe me.”

  She was probably right. He was out of his element down here. There was so much going on in Metro that he hadn’t known about. Judging by Hector’s comment, there was a lot going on in Metro that nobody knew about.

  “Okay, I believe you,” Hayden said.

  Sarah smiled. “I’m a good girl, aren’t I, Sheriff?”

  He cringed to hear her speak like that. “You’re not a girl, you’re a woman, and you’re helping me out a ton. Don’t let people talk down to you. Not me, not your mother. Not anybody.”

  She looked at him like she was going to cry. She didn’t say anything.

  They reached the next floor. There was no guard at the door here. There was no gathering. The level was quiet, the doors all closed. He could hear the light strain of Leyla’s music coming up through the floor, but otherwise there was no evidence anything out of the ordinary was happening in the Block.

  They made their way to Cube 430. Hayden put his ear against the door to listen. A light hum and occasional tapping. Someone was inside. Jonas?

  He knocked on the door.

  The tapping stopped. He heard motion in the cube like a mad scramble. The hum silenced. Then he heard footsteps approaching.

  “Stand here,” he said to Sarah, positioning her in front of the door.

  She did as he asked, acting like she had been the one to knock. He pulled his stunner, standing to the side.

  The door opened a couple of inches. A big blue eye peered out through it.

  “You?” Jonas said. “How did you find me?”

  “You owe me a chit,” Sarah said.

  “What?” Jonas replied. “We didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s not my fault that other sprocket showed up. You owe me, and I came to collect.”

  “Get out of here. It’s not safe.”

  “Give me my chit and I’ll rezz out, but not before then.”

  “Forget it.”

  Hayden took that as his cue. He shoved the front of the stunner into the doorway, jamming it as Jonas tried to slam it closed. Sarah stepped aside, and he shoved into it, knocking the other man back and storming into the room.

  “What the hell is this?” Jonas said. “Sheriff Duke? Shit. Don’t kill me. Please. Don’t kill me.”

  Hayden kept the stunner trained on him. “Sarah, can you close the door?”

  “Yes, sir,” Sarah said, shutting the door behind them.

  “Don’t kill me,” Jonas repeated. “Please.”

  “Why would I kill you?” Hayden said.

  “They killed Francis. They killed Saul. Fezz, I’m ne
xt.”

  Hayden lowered the stunner. “What are you talking about?”

  “Law. They killed my friends. Shit. Francis told me not to go to you. I didn’t listen. I would have if he hadn’t stopped me. Now he’s dead, and it’s your fault.”

  He had tears in his eyes. He was a skinny kid, a little hunched, in clothes that hadn’t been changed in a few days.

  “Francis attacked them,” Hayden said. “He came at Deputy Bradshaw with a knife.”

  “That’s crezz,” Jonas said. “Franco wouldn’t do that. He only carried the knife to threaten. He’d never use it on anybody, especially Law.”

  “He jumped me in the strands. He sure seemed like he wanted to hurt me.”

  “With his fists, maybe. Not with a blade. I don’t know what you heard, Sheriff, but if they say Francis stabbed anyone, it’s a lie.”

  A lie? Why would Hicks lie to him? That didn’t make sense. “Who’s Saul?”

  “A friend. A dead friend. They got him, too.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. Someone from Law. That’s what I heard. They went into his Block, and when they came out, he was dead.”

  “That can’t be.”

  “I heard it from good sources, Sheriff. Why don’t you know about it?”

  Hayden couldn’t answer that question. He should have. There was only one person with the authority to go around him with his deputies.

  The Governor.

  Was he having Francis and his friends systematically killed because of what they knew? Because they could open the maintenance boxes?

  Were his officers really going along with it?

  “I’m not with Law anymore,” Hayden said. “They’re after me, too.”

  “Why?” Jonas asked, looking confused and relieved at the same time.

  “Something took my wife. Something from beyond the Metro perimeter. He’s trying to pin it on me. He’s trying to keep it a secret.”

  “Who?”

  “Governor Malcolm.”

  Jonas shook his head, his expression sullen. “I knew it. Damn it. I can’t believe we were right about this.”

  “Right about what?”

  Jonas raised his head, looking him in the eye. “You know about the PASS, right Sheriff? The corruption?”

  “Everyone knows about the PASS,” Hayden said. “So much of our history lost.”

  “No. That’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t lost, Sheriff. It was deleted. Erased. Intentionally.”

  21

  Hayden wanted to feel shocked, but after what he had been experiencing since the turbs, he found it difficult to be surprised.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why was it deleted?” Jonas said. “I don’t know the exact reason. But I’m pretty confident that they wanted us to forget where we came from. They wanted us to forget where we were going.”

  “Or that we might never arrive?” Hayden said.

  “Yes,” Jonas agreed. “That, too.”

  “Does Law know you’re here?”

  “No. I’m not stupid. This isn’t my assigned cube. I moved everything out when Francis didn’t come back last night.”

  “The Governor told me they hadn’t figured out who Francis’ friends were,” Hayden said, remembering the conversation. “They took one of his circuit boards to Engineering.”

  He looked past Jonas. He didn’t see any of the same kinds of equipment they had found in Francis’ cube in this one. He didn’t see whatever had been making the humming sound. Of course, if Jonas was afraid Law was looking for him, and they probably were, he wouldn’t leave his stuff out in the open.

  “It was a binary filter,” Jonas said. “A basic tool to scrub the data from the PASS.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I should probably go back to the beginning,” Jonas said. “But I’m not sure if I can trust you.”

  “You can trust him,” Sarah said. “His wife is missing.”

  “And someone came into Metro through the secure hatch where she vanished,” Hayden said, fighting the emotions that wanted to pour out. It was hard for him to think about. He wasn’t ready to tell them what he had seen wasn’t a human but some kind of demon. “They’ve been killing people in the strands.”

  “Oh, fezz,” Jonas said. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. We’ve both lost people we cared about since yesterday.”

  “And my question is, why?” Hayden said. “What’s happening on the Pilgrim?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. All I know is that Law is willing to kill to keep what little we discovered quiet.”

  “And charge me with murder.” Hayden sighed. “Okay, Jonas. Start at the beginning.”

  Jonas nodded and motioned them to a small table in the corner of the room. It only had two chairs, so he stood while Sarah and Hayden took them.

  “You know the PASS is public. Open to all. And there are a few terminals around Metro that let us access the main database.”

  “Yes,” Hayden said. “There’s a terminal in the Law Station.”

  “Okay, so I knew Francis since we were eight years old. We both grew up in Block Seventeen. He was always the brain and the brawn, big and smart. He wanted to be an Engineer more than anything. We used to go into the strands together, and he would play with the maintenance boxes. He tried to open them, so he could see how everything worked. I was always the lookout, and we had to run away from Law ten, fifteen times over the years.

  “This went on for ten years. He never cracked the access codes, but we also never got caught. Anyway, Francis applied for Engineer training. So did I. He was accepted into the program. I wasn’t. But Francis was the kind of guy; he was loyal to a fault. He refused to go in without me, even when I told him he was making a huge mistake. I wanted to see him become an Engineer. I was certain he would excel and become a lead one day. But he insisted. He declined the invite, and decided to get into Cleaning instead.”

  Cleaning was the lowest level occupation on the Pilgrim. It seemed a terrible fit for the man if he was as intelligent as Jonas claimed.

  “He didn’t only want to clean,” Hayden said.

  “No. He had managed to open up one of the conduits near Block Thirty without anyone noticing. He started taking things from it. Bits and pieces of wires, scraps of metal. He showed me how to pirate the stuff, too. He said as long as nothing stopped working, nobody would notice, and he was right. He also started getting more and more curious about the state of the Pilgrim. When we were kids, we would access the PASS a couple of times a week. He started dragging me to the nearest terminal every day. I would watch while he ran all of these queries. History of the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim’s launch. The Pilgrim’s destination. He had compiled a list of queries that the PASS returned as lost or corrupt. He showed me how all of them linked together, and how all of them were obscuring critical information about the ship’s mission, its age, its speed, its vector. Stuff that wouldn’t be obvious on the surface, but if you questioned it hard enough it became pretty obvious.”

  He paused, going over to the door and putting his ear against it. Satisfied, he returned to them.

  “He said that if the data had been corrupted like the system claimed, it would have been more random. He had been talking to some of the Engineering students, and they said data was stored wherever there were available bits, with pointers that told the system where to find them. It shouldn’t have lost everything related to a specific subject.”

  “Which is what led him to believe the data was deleted?” Hayden asked.

  “Yes. He was sure of it. So he started talking to a couple of others. Saul and Neila.”

  “You said Saul is dead. What about Neila?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her in a few days.”

  “The four of you started working to prove his theory?”

  “Yes. It took almost a year, but we managed to hack the PASS terminal and get to the source code. He was able to print the
raw storage data to the terminal display. Do you know what he found?”

  “Evidence?”

  “Damning evidence, in the form of a pattern. An algorithm.”

  “Algorithm?”

  “A set of rules followed by a process. In this case to alter the bits in the PASS storage unit. It was too perfect to be an accident.”

  “So someone deleted it. Who? Why? When?”

  “All good questions, Sheriff. It took Francis almost another year to break the algorithm. Once he had, he made the filter. But it’s low power. Slow. And even though the data was related it was still removed at random. We had to filter the entire storage system to get the bits and pieces we wanted. But in learning how the PASS worked, we also learned how some of the networked systems in Metro worked.”

  “The maintenances boxes?”

  “For one, yes. We had the codes. We were hoping to pillage them for more processors, to speed up our work. We didn’t get the chance.”

  “What about the secure hatches?”

  “That’s where it gets interesting. Well, one of the places where it gets interesting. We got into Metro’s network, and do you know what we found?”

  “I can’t even guess.”

  “Another network. One internal to the city, and one external.”

  “You mean-”

  “The Pilgrim has a network managing the critical systems, propulsion for instance, and it has a direct connection to the Metro network. I’m not saying if you have access to one you can see everything on the other because you can’t. Every node on the external network is protected, and figuring out the keys has been a long process. But, we did get into one of the nodes.”

  He stopped, checking the door again before heading into the bathroom. There was a shifting sound as he moved some things around, and then he emerged with a board similar to the one Aahro had shown him and a small display. He put them both on the table, running a wire from the device to the cube’s power supply.

  The board had a fan attached to it, and it hummed as Jonas turned the device on. Within a few seconds, some text appeared on the display, and a red beam came on, projecting a keyboard to the surface of the table.