Uroboros Saga Book 2

by Arthur Walker

  “You two left her there. To die. Did you sit with her as I did? Did you beg her to sing and get nothing in response as she took her last breath? No, you were off trying to make yourselves as comfortable as you are now. You were thinking only of yourself. I am thief, but I still have a soul. I can love!” Truman stammered as tears began to streak down his face.

  “Truman, I’m really sorry, I...” Walter began, feeling genuine remorse.

  “I have killed men, and you may think I’m a monster. This, I accept. But, what you did on the street outside where you work shows that you are the real monsters. What will you do now? Alone in woods with no heated home, no machine to make you coffee, and no upper management people to tell you what to do? What do you do now, tiny men?!” Truman roared.

  “I have money. I’ve been funneling it away secretly for two years. Get me a terminal, I’ll put it into whatever account you like. Please, don’t kill us,” Phelps said, keeping his voice calm while raising his hands.

  Truman turned the handgun on Phelps and fired two rounds into his chest at point-blank range. Phelps fell to the ground, blood rushing to the surface of his clothes as he coughed more up onto the snow beside him. He cried out in pain, and grasped at the snow in a vain attempt to crawl away. Walter froze, holding up his hands and closing his eyes.

  “Yes, crawl like worm that you are. You can keep your money, all I ever wanted was Marjorie. To hear her sing. You cannot trade lives for a lifestyle and still be human!” Truman bellowed shooting Walter in the face.

  Phelps turned and raised a bloody hand in a vain attempt to protect himself. Truman picked up Walter’s still twitching corpse and placed it inside Phelp’s coat beside him. Phelps looked up, choking on blood and unable to speak, his eyes wide with shock.

  “I want you to die like she did. I am not monster, so I would not leave you with a dead child. Walter is next best thing, and I never liked him anyway. Talked too much. Now, do you know what I did after she died?” Truman said standing up, making sure Phelps was as comfortable as he could make him.

  Phelps shook his head.

  “I bury her with audio record of her singing. Was the only copy I had, but I could not bear to think of her without her voice, and I was not so selfish as to take from her. I wanted to take nothing from her, only give. Do you understand?” Truman explained.

  Phelps nodded as best he could.

  “Good. You will not get a burial by someone who love you. I do not know if they have wolves here, but if they do, they will be your pallbearers. Good day,” Truman said, giving a slight wave as he turned and headed down the other side of the hill toward the clearing.

  Phelps gurgled, trying to rise but fell back against the snow, the weight of Walter laying inside his long coat holding him down. He tried to push him off, but his chest burned like fire every time he tried. It was getting cold now, and the sun was going down.

  Truman finished walking into the clearing where a group of heavily armed men and women awaited him. He hugged his brother Dragos and his sister Tullia as he stepped close to their cooking fire and grasped hands with several other men. Matthias watched from the hold where they had him chained with casual interest.

  “Good to see you both,” Truman said warming his hands by the fire.

  “Everything okay? We heard shots,” Dragos asked, sitting down next to larger younger brother.

  “You look good, Dragos. Your hair is long, and you’ve put on the good kind of weight since I last see you,” Truman replied leaning to one side on his brother.

  Dragos had done two tours in South America for the cause in the last three years. He’d seen more bloodshed and war than soldiers working for the CGG twice his age. He’d grown hard from the experience, but nothing melted his icy heart like seeing the sorrow on his little brother’s face.

  “Tell Dragos, what is the matter?” Dragos inquired.

  “Remember woman I told you about?” Truman asked taking a plate of food from Tullia.

  “Yes-yes, do we go to get her now?” Dragos replied.

  Truman shook his head mournfully as he took a bite of some bacon.

  “She would not have you?” Tullia asked protectively.

  “I will never really know. She got hurt, and the people that should have been her friends left her in the cold. I found her too late,” Truman said, tears flowing freely.

  “These ‘friends’, you found them?” Tullia asked angrily, kneeling down beside Truman.

  “The shots you heard. I take care of it,” Truman said patting his younger sister on the shoulder.

  “Good. I would expect nothing less. You do always take care of things, brother,” Dragos said filling Truman’s steel cup with more coffee.

  “Sister, I like your ship very much. How is your work doing salvage?” Truman asked, feeling a little bit better.

  “Not exactly, and your English is getting better, Truman,” Tullia said.

  Dragos laughed a little bit.

  “What? Tell me,” Truman said smiling broadly.

  “I did a job up north, in the Arctic. Man that hire you to do job, hire us to go there and check out an abandoned installation. It was full of valuable things, Metasapients, and a Mechanic marooned there after a fight with bug things,” Tullia replied.

  “Mechanic? This is good?” Truman replied.

  “Not a regular mechanic. He is the psychic kind,” Dragos said raising his cup slightly.

  “Whole world is locked down tight? Defunded for repossession?” Truman asked.

  “The man that hire us to do jobs wants us to do more. We are in the repossession business, brother. He give us a list of things he wants,” Tullia replied.

  “He’ll pay us money? What good is that now?” Truman asked.

  “Colonies are still funded, the collapse did not shut down the moon or Mars, but we need input for navigation computer to dodge military satellites to break orbit. Calculations are too complex for normal computer,” Tullia replied with a nod.

  “This man, this Uroboros, will give us money and the trajectory. He says we should meet him in Helsinki for this. Do not worry, we are wary and brought many friends and their guns in case he tries to double cross,” Dragos said, again filling Truman’s cup with more coffee.

  “And then, we can go into space and make real money on the trade routes?” Truman ventured.

  “Yes.” Tullia smiled.

  They stood together after sharing their meal and walked into the frigid confines of the cargo hold. Truman looked down at the Mechanic they claimed to have found, his hands and feet wrapped in a grayish foil. He looked back at them from beneath long white hair and a beard to match.

  “This is the Mechanic. He won’t speak, so I’ve taken to calling him Mr. Frumples for the time being,” Tullia said gesturing to Matthias.

  “What if he will not cooperate?” Truman asked.

  “Our employer, Uroboros, has said that he will provide us with the necessary incentive,” Dragos replied.

  Their prisoner suddenly began to laugh. It was a hearty laugh accompanied by the shaking of his head, his long hair almost reaching to the ground. Tullia looked at her brothers somewhat startled as this was the only sound she’d heard him make in two months.

  “What, you know something, Mr. Frumples?” Tullia asked. She knelt down next to Matthias.

  Matthias just looked at her with a smile, mirth dancing in his grey-blue eyes. To Matthias, she was just a brown haired girl in a flight suit that did her best to not let everyone around her know she barely knew what she was doing. She could barely fly the commercial craft she’d stolen and the navigation computer was going out.

  “Would you like some flying lessons?” Matthias said.

  Tullia sneered and delivered a solid kick to Matthias’ face, her work boots giving him a wide gash
across his forehead.

  “What are you doing? Man was very specific, that we could not hurt this man,” Dragos exclaimed trying to get control of his sister.

  Tullia fought her way free of her brother’s grasp and stormed out of the cargo hold.

  “You should be more careful. Sister does not take insults so well. None of her boyfriends live very long for this reason,” Truman joked.

  Matthias just smiled at them, his teeth bloody from the blow he’d sustained. Dragos and Truman walked back outside together, taking their time down the icy loading ramp. Truman turned to his brother once they were alone at the edge of the clearing.

  “Thank you for not telling others about how I botched the job,” Truman whispered.

  “You loved that woman?” Dragos asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes, I loved her. I wish you could have heard her sing,” Truman said, fighting back tears again.

  “You shot our cousin. That was hard to square with everyone,” Dragos replied.

  “He was going to sell her to a skin merchant! He did not consider my feelings,” Truman replied tearfully.

  “We have many more cousins, what is the loss of but one? Love is more important than job,” Dragos said, patting Truman in an ardent attempt to console him.

  “Love is more important than job?” Truman meeting his brother’s gaze.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  Truman nodded, still numb from everything that had happened. He was glad his brother was there to give him perspective in his darkest hour. He was thankful he had the love of family to give him strength to persist after the loss of true love.

  “I love you, Dragos.”

  “I love you, too, brother. Let’s find you some clothes, you look both cold and ridiculous.”

  “Thank you.”

  Meanwhile, Tullia crouched down beside Matthias after everyone left. The anger across her face melted away instantly after making sure the hold was clear. She turned Matthias’ face toward her and looked at the gash in his forehead.

  “Sorry, but you cannot talk to me like that in front of my brothers. Earning their respect is hard enough without you trying to make me look bad,” Tullia said, dabbing at the wound with a cloth soaked in black vodka from her hip flask.

  “I was serious. Do you want to me to teach you how to fly this thing?” Matthias asked. “Or do you want your brothers to find out you barely know what you’re doing?”

  Tullia looked at the white haired man and wondered what he would look like with a shave and a trim. She couldn’t have her brothers thinking she wasn’t able to handle herself, but she nearly put the transport into the side of a hill getting here. She looked down shamefully at her flight suit, two sizes too big, and despaired for a moment.

  Dragos and Truman came into the hold looking for her. Dragos could tell something was wrong, but knew better than to just ask his sister. Truman stretched, breaking all the seams in his coveralls, then smiled.

  “Fits better now,” he reported, rowing his arms back and forth.

  “Brothers, I must tell you something,” Tullia began slowly.

  “Yes?” Dragos said, adopting his most serious face.

  “I can only barely fly this transport. Navigation computer has done most of the work, and when I fly alone I am unsteady, unsure,” Tullia began.

  Matthias looked on, stunned at her admission. Dragos and Truman looked at one another then back to their sister, their faces like stone.

  “Mr. Frumples has offered to teach me how to fly transport, but I could not do such a thing behind your backs. I do not know what to do,” Tullia said, her face turning bright red.

  Matthias looked up at Dragos, fearful of what he might do. He was a hardened FLF fighter who did not accept weakness in others or forgive the same. Truman stood beside him, his face hopelessly impassive.

  “Fortunately, sister, I know what to do,” Dragos said kneeling down next to Matthias.

  Matthias looked up at Dragos. The young man seemed lost in thought for a moment as if he was trying to set everything into its proper place mentally.

  “You can teach my sister to fly?” Dragos asked Matthias.

  “This is an old style freight hauler, designed to work off the grid before all SATNAV went global. I’d have to look at the engine core to tell if it’s a Mark III or Mark IV. It’s a large VTOL capable ship with two cargo chambers sixty feet in length, 102 inches wide, and 13.5 feet tall, each allowing the vehicle to carry 160,000 pounds gross weight. They require a single pilot and have quarters allowing up to eight other crew members,” Matthias said.

  “I know what it is,” Dragos said smiling. “Can you teach my sister to fly?”

  “CGG standard is eighty training hours for one of these. I can teach her to be an ace pilot in forty, but not while sitting restrained in the cargo hold,” Matthias replied.

  Dragos pulled the grayish foil meant to dampen Matthias’ powers off his hands and clasped them with his own.

  “If you do this, you will never fear anything from my people again. I will let you go, no questions asked,” Dragos said.

  “What about Uroboros? Won’t he be mad that you let the Mechanic that is supposed to open all those doors for you go?” Matthias asked.

  “To hell with this Uroboros. Sister’s happiness is more important. She has wanted her own ship, like our father, our whole lives. It is all she wants. You will help me give this to her, yes?” Dragos whispered, locking eyes with Matthias.

  Matthias was taken aback by the warmth Drago had for his sister. It was as if he would forsake the whole world and everyone in it for her. It reminded him of someone else he knew.

  “Yes, I’ll help you,” Matthias said, holding up his shackles.

  “Do you want Mr. Frumples stitched on your flight suit? Or should we call you some other name?” Truman asked with a smile.

  “I’m Matthias.”

  Dragos stopped dead in his tracks.

  “I know you,” Dragos said, the color draining from his face.

  “I would imagine everyone in the FLF movement does,” Matthias replied.

  “You know me then,” Dragos replied, his siblings looking to each other and shrugging.

  Matthias merely nodded.

  “Then you know what I will do to you and everything you love if you do not hold up your end of the bargain,” Dragos said, the corners of his mouth drooping.

  “I also know you are a man who keeps his word. I’ll make your sister the best pilot I possibly can, then I walk away. We still have a deal?” Matthias asked as he rubbed the feeling back into his wrists.

  “Truman, Tullia, if something happens to me, make sure that my oath to this man is kept,” Dragos replied.

  “I will make sure of it, brother,” Truman said, unnerved slightly by the passion behind his brother’s words.

  Tullia nodded slightly, taking a quick drink from her hip flask.

  “I think it best that you follow through with Uroboros’ plan to pick up and provide me incentive with regard to the mission,” Matthias said. “We need to buy you as much time as we possibly can before he realizes you aren’t going through with the job.”

  Chapter 6

  Guarulhos International Airport -

  SÃo Paulo, Brazil

  January 3rd, 2160 — 39 years prior to shutdown.

  Revelation Machine

  The airport was crowded with travelers, most trying to leave the chaos as protestors clashed with riot police across much of the city. Matthias paused just outside of customs to gaze up at a large view screen displaying the local news. The smiling correspondent reported that several hundred riot police were clashing with less than a thousand protestors. Matthias new it was far more dire, with protestors numbering in the hundreds of thousands a
nd that every soldier, police officer, and private military contractor the CGG could muster was attempting to restore order.

  Matthias blinked and looked away from the screen to his mobile. He would be late if he didn’t hurry. He had to move through the airport like everyone else, in just enough of a hurry to look authentic, but not frantic, even if he felt frantic. National security agents were at every corner and CGG pattern drones hovered in the rafters, multitudinous cameras pointing in every direction. The whole airport was a surveillance minefield. Walking as one would normally walk would be dangerous depending on how much documentation the government had on you.

  The outside of the airport was a swarm of people moving mostly toward the airport and only a trickle trying to leave. Every cab driver and public transportation technician, pilot, and mechanic was on strike leaving people to walk or ride a rusty rickshaw from place to place. The air was thick with cologne and bawdy shouting as scalpers stood along the rows trying to sell tickets to Hong Kong, New York, Amsterdam, and other places reputed to be free of the fiscal chaos engulfing places like Brazil, Peru, and much of South America. Matthias wished he could tell the people trading away all they had for a ticket that there would be nowhere to run.

  Keeping to the main streets and out in the open, Matthias traversed the strictly controlled area immediately around the airport. Moving with the crowd, keeping your head down, and being predicable was the simplest way to fool surveillance drones and systems. The checkpoint felt like a formality as the CGG border patrol agents had to process a hundred people a minute to keep people from rioting or trampling each other. There were no portable bathrooms and thousands of unhappy people to contend with.

  The city air was unusually clean with almost seventy percent of the vehicular traffic grounded due to the strikes and unrest. Matthias breathed it in deeply, looking toward the sun that was usually just a blurry haze. He’d been to the region many times, but always as a tourist. There was the staccato of gunfire in the distance and the low thrum of sonic anti-protestor weapons being deployed. The night would certainly bring bloodshed as the local authorities were scheduled to meet and pass legislation further outlawing demonstrations and political action against the established CGG-backed government.