Icharus_ARC Series

by Renee Sebastian

  "See, this was what you were sensing." As if on cue, the image of it jumped up onto its muscular hind legs and began sniffing the air with its dual snout. “A tikus.”

  The sensor lens zoomed into the cab with us. It refracted and dilated a few times in the dim light of the cab. I noted that it had a light on top of its lens, and since my arm was not within sight of the camera, I quickly stabbed it with the butt end of my gun. It shattered, and I swiped the glass off my lap. Then there was a sizzle and a spark, as the machine attempted to turn on the light again. I looked to see if there was a backup telescoping lens, but this post was too remote, there was not one installed, and this device was antiquated even by Icharus standards.

  “We are in a hurry. May I go? I am in pursuit of a runner.”

  “Kore Β1.” It was a statement, rather than a question. This station must not have received the latest update.

  I took a steadying breath and corrected it, “No, Kull Α1.” I set down the oculus and dimmed it on the way down, hiding the holographic tikus in the shadows. I heard a scurrying of nails from behind me, and I'm sure the device could hear it too. Kore was a quick study at least.

  “You may enter. State your route.” I breathed out a slow breath.

  “I believe the suspect has fled to possibly three locations, Kinnopolis Aoki, or Ostrovo. The most likely location currently is Kinnopolis.”

  “The nesty are out in droves," it informed me. Instead of weather conditions, this post gave a wildlife report. "Do not stop en route to Kinnopolis." The wall barring our way came up, and our vehicle resumed its path into Senja.

  After we entered the territory, the skies slowly lightened to a ruddy red with crimson streaks, enough for us to see the graying landscape come back to life in dim shades of orange, green, and brown. I called Kore up from the back of the cab, and she sat down silently next to me. She stared out the window, and we observed several nesties foraging for food, their shaggy hair blowing from the lit side of Icharus. From a safe enough distance, they were graceful predators, but up close they were monstrous creatures. They were three times the height of humans with four trunks used for hunting and scavenging. Each appendage had long double tooth claws on the end of each, which were great for stalking and digging, but not so great if they caught a whiff of you within a three-mile range.

  "We are traveling to Kinnopolis? I thought we would be avoiding it," she asked.

  "We have to get close enough to the Aoiki border for my brethren to pick us up. Then we can abandon the vehicle."

  “Will they not think you have a lead on him, and they will close in on our location? These other hunters will want the credit of capturing Kull?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked out the window staring at the red ball whose location was moving ever higher in the sky as relative to our position to the equator. I folded my arms, closed my eyes, and leaned back in my seat. I had not slept in a long time, and I decided to catch a few oras before arriving at the metropolis, where things would get infinitely trickier.

  “They will not attack us?”

  I cracked one eye open and asked, “What? A nesty?”

  "Yes," she replied, making me wonder if fear was based more in instinct or emotion.

  “The track has an electrical lattice protecting it. They’ve learned over the annos to avoid it.”

  Content with my answer, she drew up her knees and resumed staring at the sun. Just as I was starting to drift off to sleep, she whispered, “You are not worried that I will stop the machine and escape while you sleep?”

  "No, but I am concerned that you don't seem to need sleep, however."

  She frowned and then turned away from me. It was just another piece of the puzzle. What else could she do or not do? I asked her one last question before I settled back down for a nap. “Did Nage find anything different in your blood?” I sample I took from her was missing from my pocket.

  She did not move an inch when she said, "Nothing." Which was, of course, a lie.

  I sighed. “I’m risking my life for yours. The least you can do is tell me what makes you so different… what I am killing people for?”

  “Your job is killing people,” she said, refusing to turn around and face me. “What is the difference if you kill a few more?”

  I grabbed her arm and jerked her towards me so I could stare into her eyes. “I’m not the killing half of my team.”

  “You find them so another hunter can kill them. You kill them too.”

  I frowned, not because of her accusation, but because she was right. Even if I were doing a service to my world, if that world was wrong, then I was too. The only thing I could do now was to keep her alive. Was I using her to assuage some sort of guilt? Probably. My synth levels must be dangerously low. I still had a healthy supply in my coat pocket, but I did not want it. I did not miss it. I needed to sell it to get some quick dira for us because we were going to need a lot of luck and dira to get where we were going.

  "That might be, sweetheart, but I just quit that job and joined the black market life-givers association. Now rest, you're going to need it for when we get to Kinnopolis."

  She stared at me and then turned back around to stare out the window.

  I fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 13

  “Wake up. We’re entering the outskirts of Jiniah.”

  The cab was lit from Aka's amber tinted light that hung at a perpetual forty-five-degree angle in the sky. My place was tigs from entering the capital city of Icharus. I had slept deeper than I thought I would, and that was not a good thing.

  “I want to shed what’s left of the electronic array that is inside me at my home before we leave this territory for good.”

  “Can you not do it outside the city?” she asked tensely.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t live in the city center. I live in one of the domicile complexes to the east.” I changed the tracking in the transport’s navigation system. “I’ll report that I needed to pick up a few things and take a short rest. That should buy us a few oras.”

  She frowned and remained silent.

  We entered the part of the territory that I was familiar, and it was not long before I pulled the vehicle in a loose circle around my building. I saw Astrid talking to a strange man who was wearing hunting gear. My oculus beeped, and I looked down and read something that disturbed me.

  “What does it say?”

  “They are assigning me a new partner.” They knew Damus was dead.

  She looked up at the entrance of my building and asked, “Is that him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is the girl talking to him?”

  I cringed a little when I said, “She was my occasional bedmate.”

  Kore nodded her head once and then said, “How are you going to evade them?”

  “I can’t. We are going to have to do this the hard way.” I took off the automatic controls and manually took control of the vehicle. I jerked the machine into a nearby underground housing facility that was just two buildings down from my own. There was a standard magnetic resonance checkpoint in the garage for added security.

  I powered down my oculus and prepared to be admitted. My presence would be noticed, and dependent upon the OS, hers may not since she did not have an implant. She should show up as a simple animal… I hoped. Everything will appear normal, until I did not show up to meet with my new partner, Leric. I had heard through the hunter network, he was ten times worse than Damus ever was. Knowing him, he would be hunting me soon enough. I began thinking that we needed a lot of luck right now. I looked at Kore and hoped she was lucky enough for the both of us.

  The machine went through the magnetic security system and then the most curious thing happened. Sparks flew out from the system that was mounted onto the wall and then there was a big bang. The tell-tale sounds of the machine shutting down rapidly followed. Well, that was going to throw some red flags.

  “Pull it out!” I yelled, scrambling to get my sh
irt opened so I could pull the array out of myself.

  “What? Now? We should get out of this machine first!”

  “Do it!” I yelled.

  Her mouth became a tight line and then she bent over to begin the process of removing the last of the connections in a way that I only hoped would not kill me. Pain radiated up my arm as I stared down at her white head, her hair swaying as she worked. I could not resist my other arm’s hand coming down on her head to touch it. Would it feel softer than Astrid’s? She paused only a microreal, but then a radiating pain stretched up through my arm and then to my chest took my breath away. I blacked out for a real, and then I was free of the implant. We had also garnered a witness, a woman who was busily pushing buttons on her oculus.

  “Out now!”

  We both leaped out of the vehicle, and I landed with a forceful roll. I swiftly took out my medclub, pressed for a sedative, and then slammed it against the woman's arm. She fell like a leaf to the ground. I quickly looked around, and even though most people were on their work shift, there might have been surveillance devices to protect the property in this storage facility. I did not see any, but that did not mean there was none.

  I looked back at the fried circuitry of the scanner and considered once again if I was making the right choice in helping her. Logically, I should have just cut her loose, but something drew me to her, and it wasn't just her attractiveness. Astrid was attractive, and I could have had her anytime I wanted. Kore was something more.

  Just then, the floor of the garage heaved under our feet, and even Kore lost her balance for a moment. Then it settled back to normal again. Quakes were not ordinary occurrences on this planet, but they happened. Was it the fried security machinery or something natural? Worse yet, did the Overseers push up their timeline in their rush to find Kore?

  I picked up the woman's oculus, abandoning my own, and then grabbed Kore's hand. She looked at me with her dark gray eyes, and then I dragged her out of the facility into the road. I deliberately did not look down the way where my home was to see if Leric had noticed us or not. Most of the people in the roads were confused about the quake, but I knew we were going to be noticed soon. The smoke was beginning to bellow out from the parking garage into the weak Aka light. I darted into a plant nursery that was only a few reals down the road pulling Kore in tow.

  "Boren!" We ran down the central aisle, passing mushrooms, broccoli, and a native species called keil. All were plants that people wanted to plant in porch gardens for extra food. After synth, water and food were the most prized and negotiable items between people.

  "Who is this Boren?" Kore asked while trying to slow me down by pulling at my arm.

  “He owns this store. He should be able to hide us or at least let us out his back door.”

  I spotted him coming out from the greenhouse entrance. “Boren. Hide or escape?”

  His body grew tense as we approached him and he said, “Out the door in the storeroom.” Then he ran past us to the front door, keys jangling in his hands.

  “Thanks.”

  I gripped Kore more firmly and then headed through the swing door leading to the back room. I faced a wall of shelves filled with boxes of bulbs and gardening supplies. I considered pulling them down, but Boren would need a way out too. I heard the sound of glass shattering, and as the exit was not apparent to us, I considered turning left or right.

  The door behind us burst open, and Boren called out, "Left," and then he streamed past us. We followed him through two more turns and then we were confronted with a double metal door. He said, "I'll lock it behind you and then go to my bolt hole." He saw my expression and said, "There is only room for one in it." I nodded my head in understanding.

  “I don’t think I’ll be seeing you again, will I?”

  We had never been particularly close, but I had bought many plants from him. Many could die while I was on a typical run, but I hoped that Boren would not be one of them on this one. "I hope not," he replied curtly. A pang of guilt washed over me. She might not be able to experience emotion, but the longer I was around her, the more I seemed to feel them.

  “Thank you.”

  “Go.” He pushed me through the opening.

  We heard crashing noises emanating from the main shop, followed by a string of curses. We next picked up the sound of chains being slid into place, followed by a fading click as we darted down the alley behind the store. Goodbye. She was growing more expensive by the real with all the lives she was costing.

  We circled back to the main street, and after seeing nothing unusual, we melted back onto the crowded walkway. A work shift had just ended, and people were in a rush to get home in these trying times, unsure whether they would need to pack up at a moment's notice. Still, it was not as busy as it should have been. I was certain many people canceled going into to work this dag. The Overseers were here; the apocalypse was at hand.

  Walking as casually as I dared to the nearest apparel shop. We walked in and instantly knew that credit was no longer a viable option. Most of the store had been wiped out, leaving little left to choose. Money meant nothing to many now. I bypassed the only salesperson and meandered to the hat section.

  “Find a hat for yourself and me. I have to send a message to my people.” But she wasn’t paying me any attention. It had been diverted to a large screen broadcasting a new message from the Overseers. “Kore Β1 must be caught. If she is not returned within a dag’s time, we will begin the nudging process of your planet. It will spiral into Aka. If you want to live, find her and turn her over to us now.”

  I pulled her away from the screen and repeated the request for her to find us some hats. She seemed dazed but did as I asked. I watched as she quickly scanned the mostly barren wall of hats and quickly zeroed in on two and retrieved them. There was definitely something more significant about her than never having an implant. I was beginning to suspect that she was the reason that the magnetic detector malfunctioned back at the garage.

  I redirected my attention to the stolen oculus and popped off a message to Koda, my brother in spirit. He would make sure Malik got it. We needed to get to the southern border of Senja, where he would smuggle us across into Aoki, the land of sand, moss, and lichens; home.

  “Who are you contacting?”

  “My family. They’ll help us.”

  “That man in the plant store, do you think he is all right?”

  “Probably not.” I thought about how Damus treated that man back in the cleaning supply shop and knew that Leric was much more lethal. Thinking about that led to more bad feelings, so I redirected the conversation. “What the frack happened back in that building with the magnetic resonance machine?” I heatedly whispered.

  “How am I supposed to know? Maybe it was your implant or the machine you were driving,” she replied.

  “Unlikely,” I said, allowing suspicion to taint my words.

  “Can we leave now that we have our disguises?”

  "The best disguise we have is that neither of us has an implant." The stolen oculus buzzed in my pocket and I received an incoming message. I scanned it and sent a simple confirmation. “We can leave now. I have our rendezvous coordinates.”

  I gave one last look at the news being broadcasted on the largest screen in the store. Our Council was making a new declaration. "Jett Ρ2, a former Friend at the End officer, is harboring fugitive, Kore B1. Both are off the grid and must be found. Anyone with forthcoming information will receive a free apartment in Kinnopolis with free medical treatments for life." Then pictures of us flashed across the screen.

  I glanced over at the shopkeeper. While we were never chummy, there was a sort of loyalty to those who served the residents of Kinnopolis. He held up five fingers while staring straight at me. He would give us five tigs to run before calling it in. I dropped off a few clips of synth and a wad full of diras, like those would be worth anything in a few dags anyway.

  He nodded at it and said, “If you have a couple of more of those synth
packs, you can take my roadrunner from around back, so long as you don’t wreck it. They’ll get you sooner or later, but I bear no love for our government. I will need for you to sedate me first before you take the key from my left pocket. I can’t erase the surveillance film, but there is no audio.”

  “Thanks.” I did as he requested and he collapsed onto the ground. I checked his pocket for the digital key, which turned out to be an old ring starter for the roadrunner. After finding it, we headed towards the back door.

  Once outside again, his so-called roadrunner, which must have been rebuilt from the engine up at least three times in its lifespan, was far older than me. When we hopped onto it, rust showered the ground. When was the last time he rode this thing? I checked, and it did not even have automated steering.

  “Will it even start?” she asked as she slid in behind me.

  "Only one way to find out." I pressed the ring to the contact disc, and nothing happened. I tried again and again, and each time I failed, I grew more frustrated, until I almost smashed the ring key.

  She slid off the machine and took my hand in hers. "Give it to me. I opened my hand, and she took the ring and pressed it to the disc. It started with a spluttering sound followed by a burp and a puff of smoke erupting from the engine. The machine rose off the ground about a foot, but when she pulled her hand away, the machine idled down.

  I scooted back and patted the seat in front of me. She complied, placed the ring over the disc, and once again we were air born. I took every back alley and ghost road I knew. Even though fewer people were milling around between the shift changes, there were still too many for my liking with the pool of potential bounty hunters expanding. We were the most wanted people alive on Icharus right now.