by LK Walker
“It’s only a distraction,” Ryan explains.
There’s limited lighting on the streets, enough for us to see where we’re going but not a lot more. I take a quick glance back at the building we’ve exited. It looks like it’s an old factory of some sort, solid concrete but poorly maintained. The area may have once been trendy, now it’s run down. I trip on an uneven section of footpath, only to be saved by JT grabbing my arm at the last second and pulling me upright.
Ryan leads us through a few side streets. None of the buildings have lights on. There are indications that people have been here recently. Pieces of rubbish are strewn on the road, but they haven’t been there long enough to be coated in dirt. Signs are hanging above the doors. They’re all clean, new looking. One of the buildings has pictures of skin pigmentation designs. The shop is similar to the one Zander had pointed out to me while we had sat and had a beer. These are all shops and businesses. All closed for the night. Not a sign of life anywhere.
Above our heads a metallic ball flies towards us, slowing as it nears. It keeps pace with us as we run on the streets below it. Its purple eye watching every move.
“Shit. We’re being tracked.” I gasp. The shiny ball is the same as the police drone that I’d seen with Zander.
Indigo catches up, falling into step beside me. “Don’t worry about it, it’s only market security. So long as we don’t touch any of the buildings, it’ll stop following us once we leave the precinct. And it won’t report back to anyone who might be looking.” Her backpack jostles along behind her as we jog down the street.
“There’s a drone ID code coming through,” Ryan says. “It’s one of ours.” I can see a pale glow from his comms unit, as if it is back-lit. “They’re going to be pissed to find we’ve left all that equipment behind. At least they can collect it.”
He lifts his head to look up at the sky, pointing at something moving swiftly towards the factory. “There they are.” I’ve lost sight of the object he’s pointing at, but I follow his finger all the same.
The explosion is deafening.
A massive ball of flames burns my retinas, as the dark night vanishes in a split second. A shockwave hits, making me stagger, the pressure surges past me and in its wake, I’m surrounded by a discharge of heat from the flames that are bursting out of the shattered windows of the building we have just left. We’re far enough away that the flying debris falls short, but I fall to my knees anyway, cowering. The orange flames recede and the darkness is reinstated. My eyes take a while to adjust. Indigo is on the ground only a yard from me with her mouth hanging wide open, still staring back at the fragmented building. I can hear the crackle of burning shrapnel as pieces of the structure intermittently fall in.
“Everyone alright?” Ryan asks, his voice trembling. He’s behind Indigo, hands under her armpits, picking her up off the street. Her legs appear unstable, unable to hold her body weight.
“Oh, god, no, no,” Indigo cries out. “They tried to kill us.”
A lazy billow of black smoke reaches us and I smell an acrid mix of wood and unidentifiable chemicals.
“I thought you said it was your own people. How can that be right?” I’m glad JT asks, I thought I must have been hearing things.
“It was.” Ryan’s voice hasn’t steadied at all. Indigo and Ryan stand side by side gaping at where the factory should be. “We expected them to shut us down, as in pull the plug, and send you two back to where you came from. But not this, not…”
Ryan places his arm around Indigo, trying to comfort her. I grab at JT’s hand for some reassurance. If Ryan and Indigo hadn’t rushed us out, we would all be dead. Killed by the good guys. What would the bad guys do to us? I begin to shake uncontrollably.
“Fucker,” Indigo screams to the night sky. “I’m going to hunt down that son-of-a-bitch and make him pay.”
“Who? Who did this?” I call to Indigo.
“Joseph Truman. The man who took over from you when you died. You never liked the arsehole.” Indigo practically spits the words at me.
“We need to keep moving,” Ryan says. “We need to get somewhere safe. The enforcement drones will be swarming soon.”
“This is bullshit,” I scream. “You never hinted the people I’d be working for, the Cypher, or whatever the hell you call them, would be trying to kill me.”
“I’m so sorry. We had no idea he’d go this far.” Ryan is attempting to calm me. He’s taking small steps in the opposite direction to the warehouse, trying to get us to move. He appears to be on the verge of shock himself but holding himself together enough to lead us away from the blaze.
“Do you really think we had any idea he’d do that? We would’ve been in there too. I can’t believe—Fuck, I can’t believe he’d do that.” Indigo’s arms are waving wildly as she talks, her voice loud, bouncing off the buildings around us.
“We can’t go back, Cara, not now. We need to keep moving forward,” JT says.
“How can you be so calm?” I ask.
“You can’t blame Ryan and Indigo, they’re in the same boat we are. We need to keep moving. If they find us,” he points to the sky, “they’re not going to shake our hands and say hello.”
JT drops my hand and follows Ryan.
Indigo is standing in front of me, not moving. “Anyway,” she says, recovering some of her composure, although her jaw is noticeably locked, “Eli still needs you. Needs you to protect him. Perhaps even more now.”
“From the Cypher?”
“No. Peche and Coby,” Indigo tells me.
“What?” I can still see the trademark on all the equipment Indigo and Ryan were using. The logo was appealing, designed in the shape of a smile, the P and C as eyes with an upside-down crescent for the mouth.
“Peche and Coby, it’s the name of the corporation we’re up against,” she says.
“You use their gear.”
“We stole their gear,” she corrects me.
“Come on,” Ryan calls out. He and JT are far enough in front that I can only just make out their silhouettes moving in the distance.
“Let’s go. We need to get somewhere safe,” Indigo says.
She doesn’t wait for a response before jogging away from me. I’m left standing in the darkened street alone. I try to weigh my options, stay here and mourn my old life or follow them and find out what’s going on. Not much of a decision to make.
I run to catch up.
“Why is this corporation trying to kill Eli?” I ask as soon as I’m near enough to be heard. We are jogging at a quick pace and it’s hard to carry on this conversation when I can only see the back of Ryan and Indigo’s heads bobbing along.
“They’re not trying to kill him. He works for them. A few years back, tech companies made a shift into being more family friendly, you could say. So, P & C Corp became Peche & Coby.” Indigo pants.
The penny drops. It’s the same corporation that was funding Eli’s chip development and my job. In the past. I give my head a shake to try to reconcile the timeframes in my mind. “Why is he working for them. He doesn’t trust them.”
“He doesn’t trust anybody.” Ryan sounds sulky.
“Eli’s doing his best to ensure the Si chips are used ethically,” Indigo adds.
“That’s a good thing.” I declare. It’s what Eli always intended to do. I can’t see why she’s so bent about that.
“It would be, but he’s being manipulated.”
“How?”
“It’s a lot easier if we show you. Let’s get to the safe house. We can do it there.”
I try to persuade them to tell me now, but they’re adamant it should wait. At least the pace has slowed to a brisk walk and I settle into step next to JT.
Chapter 40
We’ve been walking for at least two hours now. I can see the sun peaking above the horizon. The landscape has changed. Houses surround us, all sitting uniformly along the road frontage. There are a few people out on the streets, but no one appears to care th
at we’re here.
Indigo and Ryan are lugging the backpacks they took from the factory. I’ve offered a couple of times to take one. But they both decline.
My feet are throbbing and I’m thankful when Indigo points out the house we’re heading to. Within its walls there might be a reprieve from the pain and fear that have swamped me.
Inside, the house seems to have a life of its own. Lights come on as Indigo crosses the threshold, a voice welcomes her. I haven’t seen her comms unit activated, but when she turns towards me, I see a dark gray, thatched pattern over her eye.
She sees me looking at it. “Just turning a few things on in the house and making sure it’s secure.” I nod along like that’s normal.
I leave my shoes at the door, eager to be rid of them, and follow Indigo further in. The lights come on in the lounge, dim at first. Then an organic pattern starts to form next to a small panel inset in the wall where a light switch should be, before it snakes up the wall, slithering its way towards the bulb. As it reaches the light, the brightness steadily increases.
“What is that?” I point out the trail on the wall which is fading into nothing.
“It’s to show the light coming on, purely aesthetic,” Indigo replies.
I prefer my walls still and lights to come on without any flamboyancy. Perhaps if I was expecting the light show I might feel differently. Moving my attention on, the room is sparsly furnished and dotted with lush vegetation.
“Is this your place?” I ask Indigo.
“No. We set it up so you’d have somewhere to acclimatize while we brought you both up to speed. We’ve rented it in false names. It will be safe enough for now but we’ll have to move on, find a more secure base. And we can’t do that until we know who we can still trust.”
I nod in sympathy. My body aches and I look for somewhere to rest. At least couches still look the same. I lie down on one and JT slouches into the armchair next to it. Ryan says something about finding us food and then disappears from the room, followed by Indigo.
Neither of them has caught their composure since the blast. No doubt they want some time alone, some time to grieve their loss. I can only imagine how hard it is to come to terms with finding those you trusted have turned on you, tried to kill you.
This is now my life. Not the exciting adventure I had imagined, but a world where I am being hunted. I feel a rush of anger towards Zander. He enticed me into this world with his good looks and his latent charm. I know it is unfair to blame him. He never made promises or portrayed a life of ease. All the same, I need a target for the pent-up rage. If he was here I could pound my fists against his chest and he could hold me tight until my anger dissolved into tears.
I glance over at JT. He is staring at the greenery growing up the inside wall. His face is emotionless. His hands clench and I wonder if, in his head, he is punching the daylights out of the bastards who tried to kill us.
As hard as I try, I can’t hold my eyes open any longer. I let myself sink towards sleep and I pray I will dream of a life, my life, still fresh in my mind, but now twenty-six years ago. A life where I knew the rules, where I knew who I could depend on, who would watch my back.
From now on, each time I wake, those memories will weaken. No matter how hard I try to hold on to them, they’ll disintegrate. It’ll be like trying to hold on to smoke. I know I’ll wish for them every time I go to sleep. They’ll be my comfort, my escape from the terrors of this world, the terrors I am yet to face.
I fall asleep hoping those dreams will come.
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