‘That’s stupid,’ Vadim the Raw-Dog said cynically.
Enaya took a breath and prayed if there were Gods that they would get her out of this mess.
Some of the away supporters shared drinks and interests but their guests were mostly quiet and unresponsive, bringing down the happy attitude of many of the other members. Enaya was now getting used to their names. The one who called himself Raw Dog was still battered and bruised after fighting with Hattle. He’d needed his brow stitching and had a large plaster above his eye. Then there was Horace, a lank and skinny looking kid with long blond hair he greased back into stiff looking spines. Similar to Krupin, he liked to sport a menacing set of teeth grills, and his eyes she noticed were fully black and she was told these were not ocular contacts. Titans often had various bio-hacks and she supposed his had something to do with seeing in the dark. The biggest of the men was Lyov, Krupin’s personal body guard. He wore a smart, grey and black vicuna suit, tailor made from the Atominii’s Savile Row, his eyes shielded behind ocular visors. Finally, there was Nikkolai. She expected Nikkolai to be the most dangerous and crazy since his skin was covered in tattoos and tribal markings she had no idea about. But after speaking with Nikkolai he was the one she found most agreeable. Although still set in his ways with quiet mannerisms and a steely eyed stare, he seemed most eager to talk and did so with genuine curiosity. She’d asked him about his tattoos and Nikkolai had said he trained with various tribes in the Novus and around the Northern outlands. He’d told her that pain was his greatest ally and an experience he’d grown to understand. Then he’d asked her about her life, about her family and background, something she had not been asked about in a very long time. She was happy to share. He’d told her he thought they had both been marred by war. And where she took the path of politics, he embraced the Kalashnikov and the Molotov.
When they arrived at the training grounds Krupin was surprised to see a small band of militia walking around with weapons. They were smiling; some were laughing and playing games. Enaya walked them over to meet Artex Valdek, the mercenary overseeing training. Artex had agreed to meet with the guests and show them around the training areas.
Krupin approached the big man with the numbered armour. He noticed the etched number 5 on Artex suit and the scorpion tattoo by the side of his ear.
‘You like scorpion’s Valdek?’ he asked.
Artex smiled and nodded.
‘I know that mark,’ Krupin claimed. ‘The Scorpions were Atominii armed hardland police used for social control. Is this where you got your branding? Were you once a hardlander flesh pusher?’
Artex Valdek didn’t respond. He might have told Krupin he had the wrong Scorpions this time but decided against it. He wouldn’t let Krupin know exactly what the mark really meant, but he let him think it was something to do with hardland control. It wasn’t. Instead, Artex pointed to the gun ranges and redirected the conversation.
‘Interested in firing one of those?’ he asked.
‘I am,’ said Vadim Raw Dog.
‘Good,’ said Artex, ‘follow me.’
He led the guests and some of the supporters through the training yards. Some of the martial artists were slow fighting, going through the moves, counters and blocks and disarming one another so others could see how it was done.
‘There’s no order here,’ Krupin noticed, walking beside Artex.
‘There’s order,’ said Artex, ‘we have rules, a constitution. They call us anarchists, and although in many ways we practice it, the strict definition I think is holacracy. We practice new social systems through practical experimentation and we change our methods to meet the situation. We have to be dynamic.’
‘But I mean there’s no command.’
‘Chains of leadership command exist in the militia,’ Artex explained. ‘Here I’m a leader to my soldiers in the Eagle clan. But it is limited. If I overstep my bounds I can be removed from duty through majority veto. A Mercenary like me is a clan leader, that is to say I train them and help them perfect their skills based on my professionalism. I then start up a new Eagle clan faction elsewhere once my work is finished here. The constitution states I must finish my goals after I’ve defined them for myself.’
‘And you have a government here, yes?’
‘No,’ Enaya Chahuán came in, ‘we have an organisation.’
Krupin began to laugh. ‘The Atominii have an organisation. The Atominii do not need a government because the technology has freed the market. People can trade however they wish with whatever resources they have.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong Mr Krupin,’ Enaya Chahuán felt it prudent to report. ‘The Atominii most definitely do have a government, a hidden one, one that serves the interest of the already powerful, a hidden state government that infiltrates the mind of its population to believe that no other way of life is possible apart from the Atominii. And its cyber-markets have enslaved the population, not freed them. It instils fear of practicing anything new and dispossesses people of attempting to live differently through Atominii dependency. These people are PR for what you refer to as a high-tech market. It presumes everybody to be a consumer and only great company owners to be creators to which people rent their services. Here we do not agree with authority unless it is legitimate.’
‘Legitimate?’ Horace suddenly snapped. ‘The fuck is that, lady?’
‘It means,’ she started calmly, ‘the people here have an impact on decisions to the proportion and degree they are affected by them as stated by our constitution. The Three Circles. You may have seen them around the city?’
They hadn’t, but she illustrated their meaning anyway. Enaya pointed to one of the symbols of the Three Circles on a door above the military building and they saw it at last. The circles, triangulated evenly; in the top circle was the profile of a human head with what looked like a set of gears and cogs titled cognition, in the lower two circles there was a fist raised to the air titled liberty, and in the other a smiling emotocon with the gender signs signified and titled as ludus.
‘Cerise Timbers has a constitution based on the Three Circles, Cognition, Liberty and Ludus which means play and leisure. Between cognition and liberty arises self-consciousness, between Liberty and Ludus arises the secular, between Ludus and Cognition, fulfilment emerges, and centring them all is Utopia.’
‘Utopia?’ Krupin grinned looking around.
‘Don’t be fooled by utopia, Krupin. The emergent culture here put it in the centre of our symbol because it is a guide to our progress, it signifies only our orientation, not an actual thing that can be realised, but a reason for bringing together the circles. Because it can never be achieved, you see, it simply orients our direction. Because of our ideology we are able to organise society without hierarchical systems of authority while promoting thought and wisdom. We don’t cast a vote on everything. Instead we facilitate an open dynamic discussion. Because in places like the Atominii, those who seek the highest points of hierarchy and reach it, too often do not live by the rules they apply to others. Here, everyone is empowered, leadership is distributed by consensus and shared. We welcome criticism, especially by those who take pains to understand our ways, while in the Atominii, people aren’t even aware they’re imprisoned.’
Krupin started to laugh again, forcefully now, as though to drown out Enaya’s words.
‘The Atominii is not a prison, why do you think so many want to get inside?’ Horace said.
‘Yes, the Atominii offers freedom, it’s the hardlands that is the prison,’ Lyov agreed, arms folded in his nice neat suit.
‘When they’ve got your minds, your souls, your friends and loved ones, all you can do is want in,’ said Artex, ‘you pay with your thoughts, sacrifice your creativity and receive brownie points and snippets of paradise for your services to their neuro-commerce. It’s that, or risk being an outcast, alone in the hardlands. It’s known as a false choice.’
‘That what happened to you?’ Krupin bit, staring at th
e Mercenary.
‘No,’ he answered with an even temper. ‘I got sick of killing my brothers for a paradise nobody believes we can share.’
‘Because it doesn’t belong to everyone,’ Krupin argued.
Artex didn’t care. He opened a locker and retrieved a rifle, slamming a cartridge under the handle and loading the chamber. He smiled to Raw Dog and handed him the weapon, then pointed with his chin at the sandbags downfield.
‘There’s your target,’ he told him. ‘Safety’s on.’
Vadim turned and held the weapon up and then Artex whistled loud, getting his attention before he started shooting.
‘The protection!’ He said, pointing to a pair of goggles and ear protectors hanging from a nail at the shooting gallery’s booth. Vadim smiled and began to take aim again when Artex whistled for the second time.
‘I strongly advise it,’ he said with no humour. ‘And if you want to shoot that, keep the rifle’s stock tight into your shoulder. And lean in as you fire. Understand?’
‘I shot gun before,’ Vadim grunted, putting on the goggles and ear protection. It took him a moment to get set up. He seemed unsure about the safety setting and eventually figured out how to take it off. Then a few rounds burst from the assault rifle and pelted the sandbags down the range. He turned back to smile at Krupin and his friends when Artex shouted at him for turning around with a weapon. Irked by this, Vadim unloaded the rest of the weapon’s cartridge at the targets and removed his goggles.
‘No ammo-’ he shouted at Artex, turning around, ‘so no danger.’
Vadim put the weapon’s butt down to the floor and took the weapon by the muzzle, crying out suddenly as he burned his hand on the hot metal. Artex caught the rifle before it hit the ground as the others burst into laughter, mocking Raw Dog’s stupidity.
*
With Enaya Chahuán leading the way back towards the festivals and air zone, Krupin was curious to know how Cerise Timbers kept the Atominii off their backs.
‘Not always successfully,’ she dejectedly revealed. ‘Actually not long ago we lost a few of our scouts in the Novus.’
‘That so?’ Krupin asked.
‘They were killed by the Blue Lycans,’ she explained.
‘Yes the gene-freaks of war.’ He said. ‘Olympian genetic soldiers, we’ve been trying to catch them a long time. Every time anybody gets close they never are heard from again.’
‘The idea is to stay away,’ she responded.
‘Yes,’ Krupin smiled his gold tooth visible between his uneven grey incisors. ‘Only imagine if one could be tamed? You could have very strong army I think.’
Enaya didn’t comment. Lips pursed she looked on at the festivals, hoping soon the music would be too loud for them to continue their discussion.
‘If one were inclined,’ she said, ‘perhaps.’
A stage was set up not far from the air zone and groups of people were piling in from all sections of the dome. They came from the hamlets, from the tree-homes, areas of East B’ One and Two and North A One and Two. There was singing and chanting as groups of people got onto the stage. They were the cymatic blues and psychedelic rock band, Lieutenant Jack-Wire and the Mystic Racket! Their guitars wailed and licked with blues rhythms, projection screens mapped moving screens and displayed wonderful illusions to the musicians on stage. The licks were fun, kicking, a voice sang, a voice with stones in his throat, a grinding, gravelly voice that hit well with the offbeat and kicking guitar licks. And the audience screamed as they knew the song well. A huge fire burst onto the stage and as the beat dropped, a sinusoid of electric bass took over, musical interference that controlled how the fire burned, sonic cymatic sounds distorting the flames. And all at once the band started up again, mixing with the trance of electronics.
Pania wondered through the heads and shoulders, Kyo squeezing through the crowds behind her.
‘You ever heard of the Cymorgs?’ she shouted back to Kyo.
‘No!’ He shouted back over the elated cries and blasts of sound. He hopped up over the towering heads to catch a glimpse of the avant-garde visuals and projection mapping lightshows taking place on stage.
‘They are a culture from the Atominii,’ she explained. ‘They’re cyborgs who created a whole new subgenre of music. They use ultra-sound as a kind of communication. They use music to speak to each other, really complex tones which we can’t pick up or sense. But because they’re cyborgs, they can detect higher and lower frequencies. You and I would need an ear piece or an implant.’
‘Cymorgs?’
‘Yeah!’
Pania pointed onstage and Kyo saw one. He was a skinny man, his chest and arms bare and sinewy. He wore gloves that vibrated with sound, pads giving off beats by which he could manipulate the fire. His mouth was covered by a sort of speaker, a round plate that also vibrated, translating his words into a technical language, turning poetry into electronic resonance.
‘Awesome!’ Kyo cried as Pania led him deeper into the crowd. They danced together and raised their hands, calling out to the stage. A circulation of bodies in the middle began to move around and began a pattern of waving arms that spread right to the back of the crowd, and it went this way for hours.
At the closing of the set, the music went down and only the mutterings and murmurs and laughter could be heard. On stage, the lights went dark and a single line of flames kindled at the back like candles. A silhouetted figure shifted before the light, stalking toward centre front. A moment later and a spotlight shone onto a man in a long white lab coat, and both Kyo and Pania saw that it was Laux. Together they jumped up and down excitedly as Laux held up his right hand to the sky, and a single key tone bled through the audio amplifiers. From the stars he summoned a single pink mote of light, drifting down to his palm. It hovered there a moment, and Laux, doing his best to demonstrate his dramatic skills, turned away from the light as though in fear, and gently peered back, drawing the pink light into his grasp.
Then it vanished.
The lights cut to darkness, and the holographic image of a woman appeared on stage, dressed elegantly in a long hemming skirt. The hologram woman had a monotone colour of pink, with shades and depths to her. She moved, dancing on stage, circulating Laux and he pretended to chase her. And she vanished, only to reappear behind him. He approached again and fell to his knees, the hologram vanishing once more. Laux was alone, the subtle and doleful music bolstering his performance. Then cries of astonishment from the crowd. Pania and Kyo felt squashed as bodies moved backwards, parting to make a space for the hologram woman that now appeared in the audience. She interacted with them, holding out her hand to strangers, inviting them to dance. She drew them one by one into the space they’d created, curtseying, waltzing beneath their arching arms. She vanished. The stage lights returned to Laux, he was smiling, holding his arms out to the audience. They saw now that Lieutenant Jack-Wire and the Magic Racket had all returned to their instruments, and an epic ostinato of sound commenced. The stage lights were thrown up and a multitude of holographic personalities appeared. Laux began to tap-dance, leading the way for the holograms programmed to follow his lead. A roar of cheer and laughter erupted as he interacted, playfully responding to the holograms while in turn the projections also responded to him. And a razzmatazz of improvised music carried the crowd long into the night.
*
In the darkness of Hangar 15, the celebrations were still within earshot from the nearby forest, and the long drunken snores of Edge Fenris droned through the hollow space. He slept on his back with his head hanging off the end of his bed, an empty flask tucked into his armpit. The headache started to kick in early this time. Since he was out drinking with Kyo the night before he’d assumed the hangover would have no end in sight, so maybe a few more hours sleep wouldn’t hurt. On the wing support, three beds were set up, arranged around a dressing area where hangar stands supported coats and hats and shirts. All kinds of attire lay across the floor and bed sheets sat ruffled into the midd
le of the mattresses like unsolved homeomorphic bundles.
A single light from above shone on it all, the only light left on in the oil scented workshop. And beneath it, shadows did creep. Quietly, the figures ascended the metal ladder and around the stairs to see where Edge Fenris was sleeping. They loomed above him, disturbing the light over his eyelids and Edge Fenris, being a light sleeper, reacts to this. He sucked up his last snore and humbled himself awake, gradually growing aware of the intense pain surging through his head.
‘Oh shit my head’s banging!’ He complained. ‘Pania…are you you back early or are you late? For god sake I hope it is early.’
‘If you think your head’s hurting now,’ said a familiar and unwelcomed voice, ‘just give me a minute.’
And before Edge Fenris could react a fist came down heavily against his head. He was dragged into the air in an instant and found himself being flung over the railing Laux had welded to the wing support. He dropped almost twenty feet towards the solid ground but before he hit the floor Edge cried out in pain as his leg snagged him back, suspending him in the air. A noose tightened around his ankle and he thought he felt something dislodge.
‘You assholes aren’t gonna get away with this!’ he roared, punching the air as he spun above the ground. His head tracked them on the ladder, dark figures climbing down to his level, eager to discern who was there.
‘Cut me loose and fight like the shit-slinging gorilla you are!’
One man stepped into the light. He was especially big, his smile damaged, a set of teeth that weren’t quite full. He’d seen this bloke before, knocking around with the Mercs in the garrison, he was one of them. Then a face he wished he hadn’t seen.
Chaos Cipher Page 26
