Indexiv had already been to Swakupmund. As if to confirm her worst fears the Hound said, “The town is dead.” His nose still stuck in the air.
“Thanks for that,” said Helena, dark strains of despair coursing through her blood.
She thought for a moment and then asked, “Is anyone left alive here?”
The Hound lowered his chin, turned his eyes to hers. She noticed their iridescence and knew he was looking at the world on a variety of different wavelengths, few of them visible. For the first time she acknowledged he had a greater range than her.
He shook his head and went back to sniffing the air. After a few moments, he turned to walk in the direction of the town centre. He appeared to have no regard for his surroundings, concerned only with the story the air was telling him. It wasn’t necessary to have his advantages though; Helena could smell the dead. They had not been in the grave long enough for their bodies to begin to give off the rank sweetness of human decay, but in the warmth of the sun that was on its way.
Denholme watched Rex go and sighed.
Helena followed Rex into town along the main highway. Denholme traipsed after her. By the time they had reached the town itself they had seen more than two dozen bodies, mostly those of the young or extremely elderly. They had either been shot or, as in the case of five young children, flung up against the nearest vertical object until their minds had come out through their ears. Helena tried not to pay too much attention; her main fear was that the boy was dead. Besides she couldn’t let herself dwell on what had been done and hope to function.
If Indexiv had already been through it was not because they were concerned with the productive validity of the town, but because, as Schmerl had claimed, they knew where the boy had been stashed. She did not hold out much hope of finding him at all, let alone alive. Although, from her perspective, such a prize would best be paraded in public by Indexiv. Euros would have to be shown that it had lost before egos were satisfied. Humiliation was more important than victory. Except, she was a long way from the boardrooms where that kind of logic made sense.
Dust blew through the streets, covered the tarmac road so that its markings were only vaguely visible running down the centre strip. It did not take them long to find the exact location given by the datastore. Standing there, amidst the hundreds lying dead in the streets around them, Helena fished the datastore from her pocket.
Which of the dead children crushed on the pavements is the one I’m seeking? she thought numbly. She was sure that many of the people living there had been taken, just like those in Noenieput: she was equally certain they were all dead by now.
Most of the executed had been herded together, rustled up until they took their final positions against the walls of official buildings or stood together on the seashore. Crabs and other scavengers did not know where to start. There simply weren’t enough of them to dispose of the feast. Helena knew that nature would, given time, prove equal to the task, but for the moment the world around Swakupmund was overwhelmed by the carcasses of those who had created this outpost of humanity.
They were standing just north of the council chambers; an old railroad ran through the street in front of them. The building itself was whitewashed, in hollowly pristine condition.
The datastore warmed up. Helena looked at it expectantly. The panel folded open, wider than the first time it had shown information. When the screen was almost as wide as the store it stopped. There was no message and nothing happened. Both her travelling companions watched her for the next move. They believed she was in control of the data and not the other way round.
Another set of coordinates flashed on screen, followed rapidly by a map. The image was highly detailed, showing the street plan of exactly where they were stood.
An arrow superimposed itself onto the street plan at the point where they were standing and then began to wind through the town, along the edge of the shore. Helena looked up in the direction of the arrow, then followed its journey through the town. The other two came with her. Gulls hopped nervously away between the scattered human remains as they navigated through them.
The guide led them to the outside of an aged aquarium that had now fallen into ruin. The facade was of peeling white and blue paint. The door to the building hung from one hinge. The street plan faded from the screen to be replaced by a floor plan of the interior of the aquarium. Helena raised her eyebrows slightly; she’d never come across this side of Euros before.
She breathed in and stepped across the threshold only to find she was able to look up into the sky. At some point recently fire had gutted the building. The roof had fallen in and now covered the floor. A few of the internal load-bearing walls remained in place, as did an occasional temporary divider. Helena looked down at a bleached poster for the aquarium, advertising the wonders of the Atlantic Ocean. An image of a smiling child’s face, disfigured first by rainwater and then by fire, stared up at her. The arrow stopped its advance, blinking over their location. Rainwater had collected in small puddles around their feet, wood lice fed lazily on the rotting detritus.
Of the boy, there was no sign.
Chapter 8
HELENA KICKED a piece of driftwood at her feet, watching as it clattered across the street. The silence of the town pressed in, the calls of black backed gulls echoed around the dilapidated aquarium, their screeches drained of depth. The tired crashing of small breakers could be heard in the distance, a continuous rumble that mocked the absence of human noise.
Denholme watched Helena. She read his emotional state as one of sympathy, or perhaps even pity. The Hound had his head in the air as normal, seeing the world more clearly with his nose than with his eyes. Helena understood that for Rex there could be no failure, simply a new trail to follow.
She suspected that he couldn’t comprehend their situation.
Helena let her eyes rove over the scene. Was there some sort of secret entrance she had missed? The map showing on the datastore did not reveal any such opening but she was at a dead end. The Hound was unperturbed but he was watching her, tracking her movements. Helena picked her way through the rubble, half-heartedly lifting a piece of brittle hardboard here, a warped plank of wood there. Nothing presented itself as a lead.
The Hound took a long sharp sniff of the air and froze. Helena stopped immediately. She hoped it was not Indexiv in any shape or form. They were ill equipped and lacked a means of escape if discovered.
You are being watched, said her AI.
Despite her lack of energy reserves she let her senses widen their range, searching for signs of life. The Hound did the same. Denholme found a sheltered spot under the lee of a collapsed ceiling. He crouched down and watched the two of them intently.
She picked out faint but statistically significant traces of carbon dioxide coming from the far side of the building, still inside. Whoever was there would have seen them from the moment they entered. She tried peering into the darkness with her eyes sensitised to infrared, hoping to pick out a heat signature, but there was nothing. They were well hidden, probably alone. Returning her eyesight to normal, she tried to catch Rex’s eye, only to find that he had gone.
She snapped her head all around, trying to spot him, but he had disappeared. Helena rubbed her lips with her fingertips, annoyed that he was always one step ahead. She found Rex frightening, his capacity for violence, his unknown goals, but she was at a loss to explain why she found herself so shaken by his capability. She gained even less comfort from the knowledge that he was utterly ignorant of her emotions.
Denholme pointed to her side; when she turned she saw a small ragged hole about a third of a meter across in the wall of the aquarium between two long shattered tanks. She smiled; it was a good place to have watched them from.
She stepped forward, trying to reach the voyeur before the Hound got there. If it was the child, she feared he would kill it. Not wanting to scare the boy, she left her weapons sheathed. Denholme stood up and went outside. Helena hoped he was goi
ng to cover her back.
She toyed with trying to creep forward, but decided it was fruitless.
“Hello?” she called out.
Her direct approach was met by the sound of snapping wood and footfalls. Cursing her luck, she leapt forward to a closed door in the far wall. A lack of debris and dust around the doorway betrayed recent use. She threw herself into it in her haste. Coming out into the next room she was greeted by daylight. The room had no rear wall, opened straight onto the street behind the aquarium. A desk lay overturned, on one side; rusting filing cabinets leaned crookedly across it.
Where is he? She asked her AI.
Her AI laid the sight of a fleeting shadow a few dozen metres away to her left over her vision. She ran after it.
Reaching the point from where the shadow had flitted across her vision, she saw footprints in the sand that had piled up across the street. They were cut off by the wall of another building. She jumped up to the roof of the building. Landing comfortably, she noted scuff marks on the edge of the roof, the smell of sweat and adrenaline. Whoever she was chasing was not an Oligarch, they had needed to climb the building.
She had assumed all along that the boy was an Oligarch, one of her own. Either she wasn’t chasing the boy or he wasn’t an Oligarch.
Why are you certain it’s the boy? asked her AI.
She couldn’t say why she’d made such a leap of faith. The tracks continued across the roof, leading to a ladder that ascended to the top of an adjacent building. Peering round the side of the wall Helena was pleased to see that the far side of the next building was the end of the run, it bordered a side street. All that remained of the other side of the street was half ruined walls, dusty scrub and rubble.
Helena unsheathed her knives and leapt upwards. She rose over the lip of the next roof to the sight of two men facing off against each other. Denholme stood with his back to her; he was the one who had climbed the building. The other was a tall man, easily as tall as Helena. He was obviously an Oligarch.
Who else is hunting this bloody child?
Denholme ducked instinctively as Helena leapt high and passed just to the left of his head.
The man watched her arrive without changing stance.
“The boy is mine,” she said. He did not move or show any sign of aggression. Helena did not want to have to fight anyone. She had the advantage and hoped it would persuade him not to engage. At first glance he wasn’t armed, which meant nothing. She asked her Secondary AI to begin making antivenoms in the event that he was using contact poisons. Her own nanomachines were capable of creating simple nerve agents, and their cures, for self-defence in the most desperate of situations. There was no reason to suppose his couldn’t do the same.
Raising an eyebrow he asked, “Do you think I’m going to attack?”
“I hope not,” said Helena. He exhaled softly.
“You do have the datastore don’t you?” he asked gently.
Helena did not answer, carefully reading the situation. He knew.
He was just shy of two metres tall, with shoulder length hazel hair. His eyes were a deep brown, as was his skin, which appeared naturally dark rather than altered. When Helena darkened her own skin, the massaging of her melanin left traces of its artificiality obvious to other Oligarchs. Helena could not recall anyone matching his description inside Euros.
He frowned at her when she did not respond. She could smell fear coming from Denholme, in anticipation of what was going to happen next. How had he found the Oligarch before her?
It occurred to her that perhaps he wanted to be found.
Where was the Hound?
“Ma’am, he’s a telepath,” said Denholme, his teeth almost chattering.
She felt a moment of sympathy for her pilot’s bizarre assertion. Only a Normal she reflected, easily spooked and ready to believe almost anything.
“Nonsense,” said Helena firmly. “There’s no such thing.”
Helena didn’t mention that before he’d disappeared, her father had led the efforts to develop telepathy for Euros. Despite decades of research looking for ways to create it in each new generation of Oligarchs, it remained no more than a dream. The emergent nature of consciousness proved too ephemeral and contingent for any real sense of personalities to be recognisably linked or shared. He had given lectures whose whole thrust to question whether it was a desirable goal. Linked minds, shared consciousness and connected thoughts were not viewed favourably by the corporations, who knew exactly what the weaknesses of such a state would be. Technological sharing of information was easy, as was developing the ability to crudely manipulate motion and memory, but the content, the real meaning of the self, remained as hard to grasp as a breeze in a field.
Despite his views he was passionately committed to his research. His view that espionage would become ridiculously easy, intellectual property irrelevant, and secrets moot gave him a reason to find it before others did.
“Your man is, of course, wrong,” said the Oligarch in front of her.
Her AI confirmed that they hadn’t met before, nor was there any record of him having worked for, or having been associated with, Euros. It had performed its own threat assessment, reporting back to her with some curiosity that he did not appear to have an external set of nanomachines. It concluded that if he appeared to be in his late twenties it was because he actually was.
He was, therefore, unarmed. Helena stood more erect, slackened her stance. She reasoned that if he had spooked Denholme, it showed he did at least have personal Artificial Intelligences installed.
Still, he was less of a danger.
The man stepped back. He had been standing in front of a door, which led down into the building. Denholme breathed his warning again; this time Helena ignored him.
“Where’s the boy?” asked Helena, guessing he knew.
“The boy?” responded the man looking puzzled, then his eyes brightened and almost laughing he said “The boy!” He folded his arms across his chest, a satisfied smile curled across his face.
“None of your business; If you don’t know now, then tough shit.” Her AI flashed something up. She ignored it. The Oligarch was about to try something, he knew she knew where the boy was and they were both working out how to make the first move.
He feinted, diving to the side only to flee through the door behind him. Helena ran after him calling to Denholme to meet her at the bottom of the building. Chasing him down the stairs, she found it only too easy to catch him. She did not want to risk damaging herself taking him down on the stairs so waited until he reached the ground floor.
The final flight of stairs finished next to the entrance and, as he charged through the door, she pulled up, twisted sideways so that with her feet flat against the wall she could push herself through the air into his back. She linked her arms around his chest bringing him down, face first into the dusty tarmac just outside the front door.
She sat on him to encourage surrender then, when he’d stopped wriggling, got to her feet. He groaned, pushed himself up onto his elbows. Blood streamed from his nose, the skin had been scraped from his chin. He seemed otherwise intact.
“Get up,” she said. He crawled up onto his knees and then stood, wincing with one hand to his nose, trying to stem the flow.
“Where’s the boy?” said Helena, fed up with the whole world.
“Give me the datastore,” he replied.
“You don’t get to have it,” said Helena.
“Then you don’t get to have the boy,” said the Oligarch. He took his hand from the bridge of his nose to check that the dripping had ceased. He wiped his hands on his sand stained trousers, adding smears of dark red.
Helena was losing her patience. She could feel the Hound getting ahead of her. While she was there, diddling with an idiot, he would be tracking down the child.
“Where is the boy?” She asked.
A broad smiled tripped its way across his face, as if he were impressed by her blunt headed tenacity.
>
“I’ll deal with you,” he said, as if he were talking to himself.
It was Helena’s turn to be impressed. “What can you offer me?” she asked, curious to find out what he would bargain with.
“I’ll lead you to the boy,” said the Oligarch; he thrust his bloodied hands into his pockets, looking every bit the youth he was.
Helena decided to take a chance. “Fine then; you get the datastore.”
The Oligarch smiled impishly, “Let’s get out of the light. The soldiers who were here did not seem to discriminate between rich or poor, just those who were alive or dead. They preferred the dead.” He curled his lip in distaste, motioning for them to follow. She followed immediately, comfortable that he represented no serious danger. Denholme hesitated but, looking around him at the ubiquitous signs of mass execution, chased after them into a nearby building.
Denholme almost bumped into Helena as he ducked through the doorway after the Oligarchs.
She stepped forward as she felt Denholme move up behind her. The Oligarch had stopped in the first room they had come to.
“And?” she asked suspiciously.
“The boy is in this building; now give me the datastore.” He was confident, bordering on arrogant.
“Show me the boy,” said Helena.
He sighed, looked thoughtful for a while, “You’ve already seen him,” he tried.
Denholme snorted, but Helena narrowed her eyes, trying to think where the Oligarch might have placed the child so that they would have walked past without noticing.
You can’t be serious, she thought.
He smiled gleefully, and then shook his head.
A Family War: The Oligarchy - Book 1 Page 17
