‘Look at this guy’ she said, ‘he doesn’t even twitch. He seems off and a little...creepy.’
‘Malik Serat,’ Rufus wondered as his surface thoughts now took their semi-qualia. ‘Three hundred years of space travel will do that I guess.’
‘Relative space time,’ Tanya added, ‘three hundred years earth time, not his.’
‘Did they say why he’s being taken to the surface? He under arrest? Think they’re going to put him in the maze?’
‘I doubt it,’ Max came in, ‘I think this guy’s being looked after.’
Malik Serat glared out at the planet’s curved horizon. Frost was creeping around the corners of the window like tiny branches of albino ivy. It reminded him of the early freezing process of cryonics on the Erebus, the dreadful embrace of ice penetrating into his nightmares where his blood ran cold and his consciousness pleaded to be awake and alive. So long had it been since he was last home that his memory of it was now a little hazy.
But he wanted at last to collapse into a bed, to feel earth’s natural gravity again without fear of collapsing through the hull of the Erebus and falling forever into the bottomless pit of a black hole. He wanted to forget what nightmares lurked in space, to leave nature’s forged and manifest horrors out where they belonged, far from mankind’s understanding, somewhere in God’s workshop and to hell with the infamous oath of new horizons. Everyone else had forgotten his cause for a better world, why shouldn’t he?
Simple comforts now seem to be all that resonate with appeal.
But Captain Zemi had been right what he told him that time during their struggle to survive the Charybdis. The horrors don’t stay out there, they follow you home. The core of their secret had followed them back to earth, sustained forever in the fabric of his being. He felt it. The lost Chrononaut’s haunting screams still followed them home, the singing static hum and hiss of the Charybdis, all still trapped within the communication systems of the sleeping Erebus, all trapped in his mind. This knowledge threatened everything they’d once known about reality, against which the walls came crashing down.
‘Are you a gambling man, Rufus?’ Malik said from his chair, addressing the Canary by his name to everyone’s surprise.
Ed Rufus looked confused.
‘Not really.’ He said.
‘I didn’t think so,’ he said, ‘you’ve a terrible poker face.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means,’ Serat grimaced leaning forth on his seat harness. ‘That while everyone else sits here contemplating a descent, or while the three of you neurophase a transqualia link to debate good old Malik Serat in the comfort of your personal mental space, you’re the only one with the stupid fucking face that gives your thoughts away.’
Ed Rufus flashed his teeth and Serat sat back and smiled.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know about neurophases. I know about transqualian links and semi-qualia techniques. I also know that some can manage it better than others. It seems you only just scrapped the licencing exams for the military hardware package, didn’t you?’
‘That’s enough Doctor!’ Max said.
Malik smiled at them wryly. It was a smile that held no pleasure, but rather an embittered deduction of scorn.
‘You can think what you will of me, Canaries,’ he said. ‘I’m the only one here on the right side of history.’
‘Open your mouth again Chrononaut and your balls will be history,’ Rufus seethed.
‘I said enough,’ Max said, addressing Rufus now. ‘Let’s try and be civil while we are in here.’
Rufus sat back, holding the handles at the front of his shoulder harness. He let his head drop back as his listened to Max’s semi-qualia.
‘Share my sense of calm,’ he said, ‘here’s a mnemonic quale from when I was at the ocean. Template from a beautiful day as you can tell. Just let that feeling sink in.’
Rufus suddenly felt euphoric, slightly intoxicated by a feeling of joy and Serat shook his head across from him and rolled his eyes as once more Rufus’ face was giving away what was happening. He couldn’t even enjoy a simple memory transfer without that bastard somehow knowing, and his smarmy grinning sucked the pleasure right back out of it.
‘Don’t let him get to you, Rufus. He’s testing us. He’s bored and he wants to humour himself. Best to just ignore him.’
‘So!’ Serat’s voice suddenly broke the silence, ‘whose for a game of charades?’
He smiled wide and unceasing as he glared at their blank faces and added: ‘-do people still play charades or do you prefer twenty questions?’
-15-
Enaya Chahuán didn’t know Fimble. She’d never met Jasper or Lexy. But she still felt it was important to attend the funeral. Like most occasions like this the proceedings were carried out in the night. The bodies were swathed in a special fabric, networked with spores and vines that would later digest the body nutrients and grow into a tree. They were like cocoons waiting to hatch, surrounded by wreaths on a carrying stack hitched onto shoulders. And sure enough the spore fabric would ensure that, from a corpse to a network of trees and roots. The fungal spores would take everything. And in the forest their new lives would continue their symbiotic cycle. Enaya held a candle as she followed the procession. The ones carrying them were close friends, military service people from the Novus, and one or two Mercs, private trainers from the Atominii. One of them she knew. He was the one with the bird who worked on the air zones keeping the skies clear, a large number 5 bevelled onto his armoured chest plate.
The procession wondered through the woods. They followed a path prepared for the ceremony. It was lit by bioluminescent plants, spliced weeds that were cultivated from experiments long forgotten in history. Today, they used them as guides, potted them in ceramic bowls to control their growth. The path wound through the dark forest, and now and again they would see an area of trees lit by luminous glow sticks and chemical lights. Once they reached the graves they saw a large dug out hole and gathered there. Enaya noticed the parents clinging to one another. Ceremonies like death in Cerise Timbers were usually more upbeat. The celebration was supposed to symbolise the continuity of life, their symbol of death being the mushroom, a vessel sprouting new life from old. But this time the tragedy was these youths were taken too soon. There were no jokes. No smiling faces. Artex noticed Enaya as the bodies were lowered into the hole by winch and rope. He bowed to her respectfully and she returned the nod. There was a pneumatan present. She gave praise, told others to lift their spirits. She said that the years these three had lost will continue through the Earth. They’ll soon run in our very veins as we feed on the fruits of the forest. They’ll be part of us. Enaya didn’t know how much of that she believed, she could appreciate nature, but was never one for nemophilist romanticism. They believed, somewhere in these forests somebody planted a seed on the day Fimble and his companions were born, and out there it grows yet. Through the network of fungi coursing beneath the forest’s soil, they hope he’ll find his way back to it, the new vessel by which he can reconnect to our dimension.
‘Did you know them?’ Enaya asked Artex on their walk back to the city.
‘No,’ he said, ‘they were on rotation shift, filling in for a work pattern for East B’ One’s Eagle-Clan scouts. All the Eagle-Clan is here.’ Artex looked around, recognising some familiar faces from other city districts, people he’d never spoken to but respected due to their Clan group affinities. ‘Eagle-Clans came from North A-Two and South West C district to be here. They’re all paying respects.’
‘Extended family,’ she noted.
‘They were out in the Novus for three days,’ Artex explained as they slowly wondered back toward the city. ‘They’d gone far.’
‘What is the limit for travelling the Novus?’ Enaya asked.
‘It’s no man’s land. The void between Moscowai and China. Even our boats don’t go that far north. Nobody is supposed to go in the Novus.’
‘Then why wer
e they out there?’
‘That’s what scout rangers do,’ said Artex. ‘They scout for enemies coming towards us. Mainly they’re drone hunters. They shoot down the drones and come back with new resources and information. Can get quite fun for some of them. Some of what they bring back we can use.’
‘So what happened to them?’
‘I dunno,’ he sighed, breathing heavy through his nose. ‘Ranger jeeps have recorder systems on them. We’ve got someone working on finding out what happened to these kids. But there’re hundreds of hours of data to shift through.’
‘Some of the doctors said before Fimble died-’
‘I heard,’ said Artex. ‘Blue Lycans.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well,’ he said looking up, ‘I’ve got old Cedalion up there keeping an eye on things. She can fly two hundred miles on a good day. Got a semi-qualia neurophase on her.’ He said tapping the communication unit plugged into his implants, a small circular node on the side of his head. ‘Let’s me use her eyes and feel the air.’
Enaya smiled. She noticed a tattoo of a scorpion behind his ear but decided not to ask about it. For a moment there she thought it was a real bug crawling behind his ear.
‘I thought the Atominii shut down your neural hardware when you’re thrown out of the city?’ she asked. ‘-And your nanoctors too, I thought.’
‘There’s a guy around here who helped me,’ he said, ‘comes from the Atominii. Apparently he’s a whiz with neurophasing technology and nanomes…’
Enaya laughed slightly. ‘His name wouldn’t be Professor Aldous Laux, would it?’
‘Sounds like you know him,’ he said. ‘Then you know what he can do.’
-16-
The fortification garrison stood tall, a conical shaped building amongst the conifers, almost a hundred metres high, solid and windowless. An array of satellites and microwave transmission disks for its power grid set upon its crown. Cerise Timbers had once had a satellite transmitting solar energy to the network using microwave transmission, but since the rebellion rising, the city’s old autocracy disengaged the satellite. It was later destroyed by Atominii solar naval forces. Outside the garrison stood a group of militia enduring training drills under the watch of mercenaries. The Mercs were the only ones in uniform, their copper coloured visors encased in black helmets, armour thick and silver and black with huge powerful boots.
Inside the garrison was a matrix of security levels, a spiral stairway occupied the centre and reached every floor, the spine of the building. Soldiers in a mixture of uniforms operated the gate house, carefully planning, watching maps and keeping an eye on the forest activity. It was a mix of defensive militia and ecological research parties. Artex headed into the forensics lab where he knew parts of the ranger jeep from the Novus had been taken. Hans Greiber had been checking the data records for the ranger. He’d spent many evenings flipping back and forth through the image data files. His room was dark and quiet at the top floor of the garrison. Artex took a moment after climbing the stairwell to appreciate the view of the forest through the panoramic window.
‘Any progress?’ he asked Hans as he entered the dark room.
‘Yes,’ said Hans Greiber, fingers crossed and elbows at the table surface. He stared ahead at several monitors where he’d been unscrambling the damaged data files.
‘Talk to me.’
‘Actually,’ said Hans. ‘Think you ought to see for yourself.’
Artex stood behind the man’s seat as he played out the data. They saw the jeep bounding through various terrains as though out of the vehicles headlights, from the highland frozen tundra to the low land dusty and rocky lands. The data was coming from several perspectives, one of which was a camera at the front of the jeep, the other a headlamp attached to Lexy’s helmet. They saw Fimble tapping on the dashboard and rapping. Jasper was smiling and nodding along and Alexis challenged Jasper to make a similar effort. There was a moment where Fimble was laughing as he taught Jasper to rap and match words. Fimble’s hand was on Jasper’s shoulder as he spoke to him. Artex smiled at the interaction. The three of them joking and teasing and playing. He knew they were close, these three friends.
There was a visual from Lexy’s helmet, something in the sky. It wasn’t a drone.
‘Freeze it,’ Artex said. ‘Zoom into that.’
‘I can already tell you what it is,’ Hans said sitting back and stretching his arms. ‘That is a supply drop.’
‘From where?’
‘High altitude.’
Artex was about to ask his next question but Hans had already anticipated.
‘You’re about to see for whom,’ he said.
He leaned forth and touched one of the screens, dragging the next data file over to the player software. He played it in slow motion. The jeep was shooting around a corner. Artex saw dust scatter ahead as it veered and there was something in the road, something made visible by the cloud of dust. It was the semi-visible glimmer of a man. A giant, he thought. The jeep seemed to bolt ahead as though unaware of what obstruction stood before it, and the figure moved, wedging something into the wheel, after which he saw cloud and sky and dust and blackness.
‘The girl’s headlamp and camera mount was damaged in the crash,’ Hans sighed. ‘But I got what I could out of it.’
Hans found the one still image and unscrambled the static and lighting and rendered the final image onto the screen. Artex saw it. The infamous Blue Lycan. For almost a century they stalked the Novus as ghosts. This was the most recent image they had on them. Artex analysed the suits, the armour, the photo-diffraction plates, the weapons.
‘When was the last reported sighting?’
‘About thirteen years ago,’ said Hans. ‘Young couple went out to the city Onyx Waters.’
‘They get a visual?’
‘I think so,’ said Hans. ‘Recorded on ocular contacts.’
‘Show me.’
Hans took a few minutes to dig up the folder and eventually found what he was looking for. Artex mused over the images.
‘They’ve been upgraded,’ he explained. ‘They’re not rogue militants like we thought. They’re getting help.’
-17-
The smell of sweat was thick, even through blood filled nostrils. It was a taste that saturated the small gym, the air salty, humid. His breaths rasped from swollen lips, and sizzled through his narrow clotted nasals.
‘You gotta want it,’ Pierce Lewis was saying ‘nobody is going to give it to you, boy.’ His motivational speech was like a montage to a run off of water stained pink from Hattle’s blood. The stained water spilled from the decanter crashing over the back of his neck to a bucket between his knees, skeltering down his arms and shoulders. ‘Nobody will hand it on a plate!’ Pierce was shouting. ‘It wouldn’t be worth doing if it was given to you.’
Hattle Lewis spat to his side. His mouth was cut, his right eye swollen over. But he wasn’t giving up. He just needed to breathe. Fifteen seconds left to get back his breath. Fifteen seconds to suck whatever nutrients was in the sweat filled air, to regain his strength. In the ring, fifteen seconds felt like a long time. He could work with it now.
‘Are you going back in there?’
He’d said yes, though his shoulders were weak from holding up his guard and his stomach was burning from a tension of cramped muscles he said he was going back in the ring.
‘You don’t sound sure to me-’
‘YES!’
‘You better go back in there,’ Pierce simmered, ‘you little fucking worm, you’re the reason your mother left, you know that? Said you were too busy wanting to play in the garden. Said you wanted to learn how to grow flowers, you pathetic fucking wimp. She said no son of mine is growing up a fucking fairy…’
‘No sir!’ He growled as Pierce slipped a gum shield into his son’s mouth.
‘No sir won’t get her back you gotta want it! Show me you got the balls.’ Pierce snapped. ‘I’m not taking my faggot son to visit his mother i
f he doesn’t have a set of balls!’
‘Yes sir!’
‘Get the fuck in there!’
The countdown was over. The bell rang on the automated wall clock. Hattle shifted into the middle of the ring where his sparring partner was waiting. He clenched his fists, the spring of the leather gloves bending and creaking with tension. Berengar lifted his huge arms. He was a good deal taller than Hattle, a mercenary who acted as his personal trainer and sparring shadow. Back in the hardlands of the Ameritropolis they called him Berengar the Bear. It was said that he mauled cyborg fighters and tore out their hardware. And he was under instructions not to go easy on Hattle. Sometimes, Hattle felt like the fight was more than just about winning, but about survival. Even when Berengar had choked him into a blackout he could hear his father yelling, bellowing for him to fight back, salted with every verbal insult he could think up in his blind rage, to get up, to man up.
More often than not, Hattle would wake up to Berengar telling him to get some rest. His father gone, a bloody damp towel would lie in his place somewhere in ring. But not this time!
Hattle felt his nose crunch as Berengar’s fists hammered down on its fattened bridge and he countered and struck the man’s lower jaw with a swift uppercut. He danced around, careful not to stay too close to the Bear. Hattle cleared a whole lot of blood from his nose and encouraged Berengar to bring more. The Bear wasn’t shy. Those powerful blows came at Hattle’s defence. Like hammers they crashed against his arms and shoulders, like bricks they collided and shook his bones. But Hattle kept his ground. It was the first time he’d ever seen Berengar drop his guard. It was just a fleeting moment, but it was all Hattle needed. It was the first time he’d ever seen him slip up. And as Hattle launched his right hook crashing into Berengar’s face, making it the first time he’d ever put the Bear down. Oh and how he’d make it count.
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