by Patty Jansen
Veyada followed a few steps behind me, pulling sticky pads loose by gently tugging them and tucking them away in his armoured jacket as he went.
I reached the balcony without much trouble, helped over the railing by Sheydu who waited there.
I had expected her to go into the door on the balcony, but it seemed we hadn’t reached our destination yet.
Sheydu took the sticky pads Veyada had collected and flung a couple against the wall on the other side of the balcony. She climbed over the railing again.
My heart sank. I was hot and sweaty and my arms were screaming from holding on in the higher gravity. I was also carrying a lot more equipment on me than they were and was less suited to carry it.
Veyada helped me over the railing.
The ledge here was thinner. Sheydu disappeared around a corner. When I edged around, I couldn’t see her anymore. A light burned behind one of the alcove windows she had apparently already passed. Maybe the light had come on after she passed. Maybe the guards inside knew where we were and were waiting for us.
In any case, I was too hot to worry about it. If someone shot me, at least I wouldn’t be hot anymore.
I shuffled over the ledge, doing my best to concentrate on each step.
The lit room turned out to be empty. Shuffling around the corner of the alcove window was tricky, but once I passed the window, I spotted Sheydu, waiting in the next alcove. She pointed to the other side of her, where the wall joined up with a larger dome than the one that formed the foyer to the building below us.
I couldn’t see what she was pointing at. Wait, I could. Something moved up there. The light from the city glinted off a shiny object, black and about the size of a child, cresting the curve of the dome. A couple of lights blinked on the side that was pointed towards us. It was coming our way.
Shit. I pulled my comm out of my pocket and had one more look at the number I was supposed to give this drone.
“Stay here until it has passed,” Veyada said softly behind me. “Don’t move.”
We waited. My heart was thudding so loudly that I was sure Veyada would be able to hear it.
The thing came to Sheydu. It blinked a yellow light and sent out a blue scanner signal that traced Sheydu’s outline. She touched the machine. A couple of blue lights blinked and the drone trundled off, towards me this time. My heart sped up even more until I heard nothing except the roaring of blood in my ears.
From close up, the thing was much more bulky than I expected. Too bulky, in fact, to believably crawl over a vertical wall without falling and without any visible means to hold it up.
It resembled a black shiny spider. Its “body” had four wheels at the base. Its six “feet” were constantly moving, sensing and tasting. A dull red glow issued from a round window at the front.
Press buttons on its head, Veyada had said. That would be the two slightly outward-bulging things above the window?
It stopped in front of me with a soft whirring noise. The blue beam tracked over my suit. A little light flashed red.
Shit. What did that mean?
Text appeared on the round window: Speak authorisation code.
I reached out and pressed the bulbous buttons above the red glowing window. I spoke clearly.
“Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven.”
The red light kept flashing. Come to think of it, those buttons felt really solid, not like buttons at all. What about the two little dark spots above them?
I pressed those spots, which were soft and felt more like buttons. I repeated as clear as I could, “Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven.”
Come on, listen to me, you fucking thing.
The red light stopped flashing. Something whirred. The blue beams tracked over me again. It hadn’t done that with Sheydu.
Text popped up in the glowing red window. Input sequence.
“Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven.”
The screen replied with, Unauthorised language detected.
“Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven.” I couldn’t believe this. This thing was going to make a fuss over the fact that I spoke gamra Coldi with a more formal intonation than the locals?
“Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven.”
Unauthorised language detected. Warning expires in 12 . . . 11 . . . 10 . . .
“Six, nine, four, twelve, two, seven!”
9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . .
Fuck it. I fumbled to tie the rope to my belt.
6 . . . 5 . . .
Closed my hand on the gun and pulled it from its bracket.
4 . . . 3 . . .
Turned it on. A green light flashed fully charged.
2 . . .
Took off the safety and turned up the power as far as it would go.
1 . . .
Fired.
The kickback and subsequent explosion nearly blew me off the ledge. The drone exploded in a fireball and dropped from the wall to the roof below. On its way down, it broke into flaming chunks that rained down onto the pavement.
“Shit!” Sheydu called. “Why did you do that?”
“It wouldn’t recognise my accent. It was giving warnings.”
“Damn it. We’re gone, finished.”
“No, we’re not.” I remembered this chilling sense of determination that came over me when under threat. We were going to get into that room, and I was going to use that key. “Where is the command room?”
“We need to climb into the last window on the ledge. It’s right behind that wall, on the corner.”
Which wasn’t all that far. “Come on, let’s go. Go, go, now. Shoot everything in our way.”
Chapter 14
* * *
AS FAST as we could, we shuffled along the ledge. Two more drones came to check us out, and they were shot down in flames by Veyada as soon as they cleared the corner.
Sheydu reached the window first. She yanked at the safety grille that covered the window but it wouldn’t come out. She retreated a bit along the ledge and fired at it at maximum power setting. The metal glowed red hot and then the whole thing disintegrated. Bits of metal exploded everywhere. The explosion left a ragged hole which she had to clean up with the cutting setting. Sparks flew into the air and rained down over her arms and down the side of the building.
Guards were streaming into the courtyard below.
Sheydu heaved herself onto the windowsill and disappeared inside. I was the next one to reach the window.
Someone on the ground yelled, “Up there!”
A gun discharged. The charge hit the window frame next to my hand.
Veyada grabbed me by the legs and unceremoniously tipped me over the windowsill. A charge flashed across the window. I landed hard on the floor. Veyada fell on top of me.
Oof.
He rolled off me. “Damn it, did you hear that? That was Reynu’s voice down there.”
“Your association?” I asked.
“Ezhya’s. Those guards should have been loyal to us.”
Sheydu cursed. “Should have been. Like the ones at the checkpoint. What the fuck is going on?”
Veyada said, “I guess we’ll find out soon, because something has happened in that hub room.”
Sheydu pushed herself to her feet, “There is going to have to be so much sorting out of associations when this is all over.”
We had come out in an empty corridor. I took off my helmet so that at least I didn’t have to peer through fogged-up glass. Sheydu set off at a brisk pace. Veyada grabbed my arm and more or less dragged me along, around the corner and into another corridor that ran at right angles and then to the right through an open door.
They stopped. The circular room beyond was shrouded in semi-darkness. In the middle stood a circular bench with a tall stool at its centre. Around it were two tiers of benches of controls, screens and holo displays and a bevy of sensors and feeder stations. Huge
screens on the walls showed fast-scrolling text and images.
“What the fuck?” Sheydu whispered. “It’s on and operating.”
“Shhh,” Veyada said.
They frowned at each other. Sheydu mouthed, “There’s someone here.”
Veyada whispered, “You two, walk calmly to the middle. I’ll cover you.” He inched into the room, his gun aimed at the empty command chair.
Sheydu took one step, but there was a noise, a soft snick somewhere in the room. She froze, gesturing me back to the door.
Veyada called, “Come out and we won’t harm you.”
There was no reply, no movement.
He turned around and scanned all the walls—made from white material floor to ceiling. There was nowhere to hide in the room except in the middle of the circular hub benches.
Sheydu unclipped her gun.
“Stay here until I tell you it’s all right to come in. Get the key ready.” She inched past me, also with her gun raised in her left hand. In her right hand, she held a small object that I guessed to be a sleeping gas bomb.
“We are not here to harm you. Come out please. We can help. We have the command key.”
I stuck my hand into the pocket of my jacket and closed my fingers around the smooth metal of the key’s casing.
There was a small noise, the scuffing of a foot, or a sniff.
Veyada said, “Show yourself now or I’ll have no option but to fire. The entire Inner Circle security force is about to come in. There are at least three challengers in the building.” His voice sounded strained.
There was another small noise, a faint squeak as if a frightened animal hid under the stool and behind the benches.
I noticed that the outer casing of the circular bench didn’t quite reach the floor. I sunk to my knees so that I could look underneath the casing through a gap as wide as my hand.
There was a bed of sorts on the floor. Pillows. A maroon blanket. A couple of small devices, one of them bright yellow. A floppy thing made from dirty rags.
That looked suspiciously like . . . The head of a doll?
“Wait, Veyada. Hold fire.”
I went a few steps into the room, bending down so that whoever hid behind the bench couldn’t see me.
“Cory, be careful,” Sheydu warned me.
I reached the gap in the circular bench that allowed the user to enter the hub, and crouched on the floor.
Tucked away under the bench sat someone small. Two bare feet belonging to a little girl stuck out of the shadows. Two trembling and dirty hands held a very lethal gun, turned to a wide-spray setting, pointed at me.
“Hello. We come here to help you. What’s your name?”
Eyes blinked in the darkness. “My daddy says anyone who comes in this room is bad. Why didn’t the guard stop you? I said they should keep everyone away.”
Oh shit. I didn’t even know Ezhya had a daughter. How old was she?
Wait. “You told the guards not to let in anyone?”
“I used Daddy’s feeder, up there.” Her gaze flicked to the bench above her.
I almost laughed. The whole of the Inner Circle guard had been confused because of one cute little girl?
“Where is my daddy?”
“He’s safe. You’re safe now.”
“I’ll sit here until he comes back. No one comes in here.”
“I won’t be happy until we have that gun of hers,” Sheydu whispered behind me. “The little brat should be disciplined. He’s always too soft on her.”
“Shhh,” I hissed at her. That was no way to talk to a frightened child.
The girl glanced aside. “Who are you and who is there with you?” She used disturbingly mature pronouns.
“Your daddy has sent us to fix the hub before he comes home.”
“My daddy?” She had come a little bit further into the light.
I guessed she would be about seven or eight in gamra years—which were shorter than Earth years by a couple of days.
She wore a child-sized silver suit and red sash. Her eyes were wide, and her irises spotted through with the gold flecking that was so distinctive of Ezhya’s eyes.
“What is your name?”
“Raanu.”
“Raanu, I’m Cory. I’m one of your father’s associates. Please put the gun down. There are a lot of bad men on their way here. I can stop them if you let me.”
“Only Natanu can. She has a key.”
“She gave it to me.”
She frowned. “My daddy says that anyone who has a key except him or Natanu is someone who will try to kill him.”
“Not me. Natanu trusted me with the key. Come out. Look at me.”
A small silence. She shuffled forward a bit. And then, “Why does your hair have that funny colour? You talk funny, too.” Well, hadn’t I just paid the price for that. Somewhere in the building an alarm was going off. Those guards in the courtyard would be on their way up here.
“I’m not Coldi, which is why Natanu trusted me with the key. I have no interest in taking over or killing anyone. I am an associate of your father’s, from Barresh.”
She frowned. A flicker of interest went over that sincere face. She had a smudge over her forehead and her skin looked sallow.
“Come, please put the gun down so I can use the key and we will all be safe until your father comes back. We have food.” There were shouts somewhere closer in the building. “Please, hurry up, before the guards come.”
She still looked dubious.
I held out my hand.
The people were definitely in the corridor now.
“Please . . .”
She shifted forward. Then she saw Sheydu. Her face became suspicious. “You’re with the nasty woman.”
“Sheydu is not nasty.”
“Yes, she is. She calls me a brat. I heard it.”
“She’s not—”
“She always does that. She says I am annoying. Well, puh, my father is more powerful than she is, and he—”
“Please, come with us. There are angry Inner Circle guards coming.” I held out my hand motioning for Sheydu to retreat.
At the same time, Veyada, of whom I’d lost sight, came into the hub area from the other opening between the circular benches. He looped an arm around her chest, while grabbing hold of the gun with the other.
Raanu screamed. “Let go of me. I order you to let go of me!”
I whole line of lights flashed on the control bench. An alarm started beeping in the room.
“What’s that?” Veyada called. “Sheydu, what’s that?”
Sheydu studied the screens. “Oh, fuck it. She’s still wearing his feeder.” And it tapped into the hub and was now probably sending all sorts of distress signals to the Inner Circle guards.
Veyada did his best to hold the girl with one arm and search the back of her head between her hair with the other.
“Ha, got it.” His hand came away with a dark spidery thing that dangled off his fingers.
Raanu screamed. “Let go of me. That’s mine. You have no right to take it. Give it back to me!”
Sheydu shut off the alarm with a few touches on the panel. The beeping stopped but the lights still flashed.
“Cory, quick, the key. I have no idea what orders just went out with her alarm call.”
I scanned the array of screens and buttons. Hell, I was glad she was with me. I had no clue what to do with this key.
“There,” she pointed at the top left-hand side of the panel.
Something flashed at the door. Veyada yelled. He handed the girl to me and flung the feeder onto the bench top. H
e and Sheydu ran for the door with guns raised.
With one hand, I reached over the bench and slotted the metal strip of the key into the hole.
The entire bench in front of me lit up. A holo display sprang up and asked for input. Key sequence. What was that?
Sheydu and Veyada had disappeared out the door. Flashes went off outside the room.
Damn I needed to get this thing working.
A small voice said next to me, “It’s the number on the display up there.”
She pointed a chubby hand at the screen next to the slot where I’d stuck the key.
I sat on the stool and lifted the girl onto my lap. “You help me.”
“I need that.” She reached out, scooped up the feeder and put it back in her hair. It took a second or so to connect, at which time a solemn look came over her face.
Her chubby hands went over the controls as she typed numbers. The holo input vanished, having accepted the code. Text and images scrolled over the walls and ceiling. Orders carried given, completed, carried out. Pre-programmed routines by Ezhya.
Phew.
We did it.
Only then was I aware that the disturbance in the corridor had stopped. Sheydu and Veyada were standing wide-eyed by the door with a group of guards. I realised what this must look like to them: a foreigner in the chair normally reserved only for their absolute leader, with a child on his lap.
I set the girl on the ground and pushed myself off the stool. “I’m sorry, I . . .”
All those guards had come to check out the breach of security, and were soldiers loyal to who knew whom within the Inner Circle. They were all staring at me, not all of them in a friendly way.
Sheydu said softly, “Cory, let’s get out of here. The hub is stable now. Put on your helmet.”
I had no idea what the urgency was, but we’d done what we set out to do, and we could go and find Thayu and Nicha.
I put on my helmet and attached the tank.
