‘Who is Valdek?’
‘He’s a mercenary, a chief scout. He’s the one who always finds who needs finding and trains the militia. He flies a big fucking bird around the air zones to keep away other birds. I don’t know how, but it looks like he’s got a working neurophase with the animal. It’s had its eyes on me ever since he left, had to go somewhere quiet just to answer and duck the son of a bitch.’
‘His neurophase is working?’
‘Looks to be,’ said the Bear. He was moving, visibility wasn’t clear, and Lewis got more visuals of the man’s nostrils than he did of his face. ‘He told me the gene-freak took a SkyLark out of here.’
‘He’s not old enough to fly one solo,’ said Pierce, ‘he must be with someone who is authorised to activate the auto-pilot. Wherever he’s gone, he’s not alone.’
‘Who’d be with him?’ asked the Bear.
‘His parents I suppose,’ said Pierce. ‘Get to the air zone, check which SkyLark was logged out, maybe we can track it.’
‘Take a bit of digging,’ the Bear sighed. ‘I could call in a favour or two, get some help.’
‘Whatever, just do it,’ said Pierce. ‘Find the missing SkyLark and let me know when you do.’
He cancelled the call in time to see Krupin and Lyov enter the cabin with big proud smiles on their mugs.
‘Not sleeping well?’ he asked. ‘You’re my guests. I insist that you make yourselves comfortable.’
‘I’m being framed for the fire,’ said Pierce, rolling down his sleeve. Krupin rested his hand on Pierce’s shoulder and feigned a sympathetic look.
‘But you did the fire, no?’
Krupin’s countenance soured.
‘I’m sorry you don’t trust me enough to share with me your activities. I let you on my ship, offer you sanctuary.’
‘We caused the fire,’ Hattle suddenly said.
‘I said SHUT IT!’ Pierce snapped viciously, turning back to Krupin. ‘We did, yes. I wanted to put an end to those pests in Hangar-Fifteen. One of them is a highly engineered techno genius and inventor. I destroyed his equipment and, I’m sorry to say, I was not successful in killing that bastard Edge Fenris.’
Krupin nodded as Pierce spoke, taking everything in.
‘There is something else,’ said Krupin. ‘The Mercenaries and militia are getting uncomfortable, said we’re over staying our welcome. They want us off the air zone.’
‘My hands are tied,’ said Pierce.
‘So then, explain to me,’ Krupin said, putting his large stinking arm around Pierce. ‘How close are you to finding this gene-freak kid?’
‘I’m working on it,’ Pierce Lewis steadily promised.
There was a long silence and Lyov moved to sit with Hattle in the main cabin.
‘Vilen!’ Horace suddenly shouted from the cockpit. ‘The subroutine’s gotten through to the Federal building.’ He appeared at the doorway looking tired and frustrated. ‘Enaya wants to speak with you.’
‘Hold the thought, Mr Lewis.’ Krupin said, hitching his belt and striding towards the cockpit. ‘Things are just getting interesting.’
When he got to the main pilot seat, Krupin stepped up to the platform and squeezed into the seat with a determined huff of air and smiled his usual sleazy grin.
‘Greetings Enaya, I’ve been trying to reach you.’
‘For what reason?’ she asked, displayed on the large heads-up screen above the pilot seat.
‘For starters,’ said Krupin, picking his teeth as though oblivious to the usual cultural proprieties of polite conversation. ‘I am locked out of your Q-net servers it would seem.’
‘That’s right,’ she nodded, ‘and you want to know why?’
‘We used to be able to use it.’
‘Your privileges have come to an end Vilen,’ she said. ‘You should be on your way.’
‘Of course, I have been meaning to speak with you about something delicate indeed,’ he insisted.
‘Which is?’
‘My data has been scrambled. Everything since I got here, all scrambled. I want to know who did it and why?’
‘I do not know anything about this,’ she said, ‘nor do I care. This is your business, Vilen. You made your intentions clear after you decided you would frighten our people with the threat of Atominii violence.’
‘Because you are harbouring a gene-freak!’
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ Enaya told. ‘Furthermore, you’ll be requiring proof. The Atominii won’t be drawing attention to alternative societies like ours unless it is failing. As you can see, we are a growing success in Cerise Timbers and destroying such a place will get people in the hardlands wondering why they bother to chase the lost Atominii dream when another way is obtainable.’
‘You think they won’t be afraid?’ Krupin challenged, ‘afraid to start-up their own settlement for fear of being fire-bombed? You will be made example of.’
‘I suspect you are aiming to tarnish our success,’ Enaya continued unabated, ‘because you lost a fair fight with one of our citizens Hattle Lewis.’
‘Oh,’ Krupin spoke darkly. ‘That’s how you want to play it? I know this game well, Enaya. I know how dirty tricks can work.’
‘Yes we’ve already witnessed that when you threatened Atominii force for human traffic. I’m afraid our citizens are not for sale, neither do we give ourselves over to threats and empty bargains. We’ve lived under tyranny and beaten it. You can enforce no threats on us Krupin. We are seed to a free world.’
‘Where’s my information?’ he thundered, slamming his fists.
‘You need to leave Cerise Timbers.’ She said, finishing the call. And Krupin raged, pulling at the screens and thumping the dashboards until Horace hurried inside to stop him.
‘The flight deck!’ He shouted.
‘I WANT MY DATA!’ Krupin screamed.
‘THE FLIGHT DECK!’ Horace screamed back, holding Krupin back from kicking the shit out of the Perigrussia controls. He pulled himself from his chair and stormed into the main cabin. Pierce had his arms folded and a wry smile on his face.
‘I told you it was them.’ He said.
‘Of course it was them,’ Krupin seethed. ‘Question is what do we do now?’
‘We have to leave,’ said Pierce. ‘Let’s give them what they want. Let them think we’re out of their hair for a while. Tell the federation we’re leaving in the morning.’
‘And then?’ Krupin acerbically declared.
‘We wait for The Bear to finish his investigation.’ Said Pierce, ‘don’t worry, he’ll find out one way or another where that gene-freak got to.’
*
The sun was rising on Cerise Timbers, a bright and hot orange climbing into the beautiful blue azure. Pania had woken early. She’d been up and down the air zone on her routine runs. Fitness was an absolute for any body guard and she knew, if she was going to stay sharp, she had to keep in shape. The fire had been a disaster for her, but she wasn’t letting her guard down again, no way! Cerise Timbers was a safe place usually, and this had caught many people off guard, including herself. It was only sad that it was Laux and his inventions that suffered and she knew nobody here who deserved it less. He was such a hard working a committed person that it made her feel angry knowing this. Much of her time she liked to spend doing callisthenics exercises on the bars in the training yard, a dedicated space for fitness at the North Western part of the air zone. Pania hung from the bar by her legs, sweat dripping from her face as she tried to beat her inverted sit-ups record. She dropped down when she heard a racket coming from the furthest parts of the runway and squinted into the sunlight. About a kilometre away she saw movement, as the silver Perigrussia Skybus tilted into the sky and left the air zone racing for the clouds. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and breathed deep, looking around for any more activity but there was none save the occasional pilot and engineer repairing a SkyLark on the pedestals. Suddenly, her Quantic issued a sound and she accepted a ca
ll.
‘Hey!’ Pania breathed heavily, ‘good to hear from you. What’s up?’
‘Just a little bored,’ Kyo reported. ‘Thought I’d find out what’s the scoop. You busy or something?’
‘Just finished,’ she said. ‘What are you sleeping? Just woke up?’
‘Yeah,’ Kyo said with a stretch, ‘was a strange night. Air’s really fresh in the woods, makes you sleep like a rock. How’s Edge doing?’
‘He’s taking things into his own hands,’ Pania smiled deviously.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Pierce Lewis is off the radar,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows where the hell he is. Hattle too. I guess he’s pissed too many people off this time.’
Pania started to head back towards Hangar 15, passing several parked SkyLark on the way from the free-weight training park. She closed the gate behind her and grabbed her water flask.
‘A whole group of the community are coming forward demanding justice.’
‘Wow!’ Kyo laughed. ‘He done goofed this time, huh?’
‘He done goofed!’ She repeated.
‘So do you think he ran away?’
‘Hard to tell,’ she answered, turning her Quantic-W momentarily to wipe her forehead.
‘Anyway Edge is doing a spot of his own investigation, apparently. Top secret. He’s not speaking to me about it.’
‘That’s old Edge,’ said Kyo.
Pania stopped by one of the pedestals and sat in the shade of a SkyLark, getting out of the sweltering sun for a moment.
‘So you camping out, Biter?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘Dak’s showing us around the abandoned city Onyx Waters. Apparently, it’s historical.’ He said, whispering that it’s a crock of shit. She laughed as he pulled faces and groaned irritably. ‘So that’s my life at the moment, squatting in the woods.’
‘I’ll let you know as things develop,’ she said, cutting the connection. Pania fastened the bottle top back onto her flask and started to get to her feet again when she heard footsteps coming around from the other side of the SkyLark. He almost collided with her, a big shadow silhouetted in the daylight, someone she didn’t make out right away.
‘Excuse me,’ Berengar said in a low voice, smiling as she stepped around him.
Pania didn’t seem fazed but she wasn’t pleased by the encounter. She stepped around him and frowned back at the Bear as she sauntered back to the hangars. She had a mind to say something but thought against it. He waited until she was out of sight until he accessed his quantics again.
‘Got an update for ya,’ said The Bear. ‘I’ve got a lead on the kid. He’s in Onyx Waters.’
-36-
The tent’s pale blue fabric was illuminated by the daylight outside and Kyo had been woken by the distant cries of birds and the distant crackling of fireglass. After calling Pania, he lay back and listened to his sown slow restive heart beating, enjoying the steady pulse and the fresh air that carried in the subtle scent of burnt wood. After yawning and scratching his head and the other slow waking rituals of rubbing his eyes and rolling onto his side, Kyo finally unzipped his sleeping bag and quickly shifted into his pants and shirt. The ground was hard and cold, but he’d been provided with a foam sleeping mat that provided little support but at least kept him warm, and he sat on it while he dressed. Swiping the hood from over his face to hang back behind him, he stepped into the five finger glove shoes, the usual running gear he wore while doing errands for Laux, then walked into the main room of the tent. His parent’s compartment was empty; the seal pulled away from its nano-springs revealing the two ruffled sleeping bags and bunched up expansion foam pillows.
‘Pops?’ he said.
He heard voices outside the tent and took a moment to look around. Dak had left some beans in a small mug outside his compartment and a spoon prodded out of them. Kyo quickly grabbed the mug and scooped out a mouth full of beans and cooked mushrooms with shoots. They were still warm. The main compartment was open and a wind unsettled the drapes of the tent’s entranceway and Kyo stepped outside to look around. Things had grown colder overnight and the air still nipped the backs of his arms. Kyo opened an access program on his Quantic-W and searched through the menu on his sleeve to find a thermal option to warm his shirt and set it to five minutes.
Dak was by the lake looking in at the empty basin and Sonja was close by inspecting something on the floor.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked approaching.
‘Morning sleepy,’ said Sonja with a hand full of bulbs she’d dug from the ground. She cut into one of the root bulbs and spilled clean water into a cup.
‘We keep getting a signal,’ said Dak looking at his Quantic-W, as it crackled and fizzed with activity. ‘It’s very unusual. I was hoping Enaya or Daryl would update us on what’s going on.’
‘Apparently,’ said Sonja, ‘nothing but static.’
‘Can I see?’ Kyo said approaching Dak.
He took Dak’s arm and he looked down as Kyo analysed the Quantic-W and pouted thoughtfully, tapping at some of the options.
‘That’s weird,’ said Kyo, looking at his own Quantic and trying to call Pania, but the same phenomenon occurred. ‘Damn…I can’t reach Pania. Strange.’
‘Do you know what’s causing it?’ asked Dak.
He hummed thoughtfully. It was unusual for Quantics to go down this way. ‘I don’t know but something’s wrong, it looks like…are we being jammed?’ he asked aloud.
‘Jammed?’ asked Dak.
‘I think somebody’s blocking our signal.’
No sooner had he said it did the zinc pale clouds above break with the tearing sound of thruster engines cutting through the sky. They each cast their eyes to gaze around the mountain ridges and above the stone carved city and the towering trees that swayed in the wind to find no visible sign of the noise. Yet, the stirring of engines were emerging louder like a rising tempest.
‘A SkyLark?’ asked Dak.
‘No,’ Kyo said, he’d lived on the air zone long enough to know the sound of SkyLark engines, this was something much bigger. ‘I don’t think so.’
Then they saw it, a silver craft jutting up over the far mountains, its V-TOL thrusters pointed at a forty five degree angle and with enough power to glide steadily over the city of Onyx Waters. As it drew closer Dak recognised the craft, he’d seen it before not two days ago now.
‘Krupin!’ He glowered.
The Perigrussia Skybus kept its sleek nose on the horizon and levelled out over the empty basin of the dried lake. The belly of the ship was open revealing stacks of cargo within its hold and a faint crimson light shone behind some dark figures balancing precariously above the precipitous edge of the cargo bay’s elevation platform. The engines stirred and kicked up a fierce breeze that ruffled the fabric of the tents behind them as it drew steadily closer, and a megaphone amplified and echoed through the abandoned city.
‘Howdy folks!’ A familiar voice bellowed through the valley. ‘A romantic couple and their gene-freak adoptee, out to pick some berries. Can we offer you a lift home?’
‘Is that Pierce?’ Dak gasped. ‘What’s that bastard doing here?’
‘How did he find us?’ Sonja shrieked, taking Kyo’s wrist and pulling him away.
‘What’s going on?’ Kyo fretted.
‘Go!’ Sonja shouted, pulling him away. ‘You’ve got to run!’
As The Perigrussia Skybus positioned over the camp as three sail lines dangled from above, unfurling to the ground. And Krupin’s two security personnel abseiled along them accompanied by Vadim who soared down the central line. Now, clad in baggy camouflage combat pants and thick shear-phasing armour which clung to every definition of his upper body, Vadim was literally dressed to kill. Their heavy boots landed on the floor and they unhooked from the lines and Vadim strutted confidently over to Dak, a dangerous smirk on his face.
‘You get back!’ Dak hissed caustically.
‘We want Olympian Genetic,’ he said politel
y, ‘nothing more. He’s not your real boy anyway so…you get back.’
The two security men unlatched from their lines, Lyov sinisterly scowling as he unlatched a weapon from his belt that looked to Dak like some sort of baton.
‘Bring him here or it’ll get ugly,’ said one of the security staff as the two hulking giants approached. Dak stood firm, squaring up to the men.
‘I’m not doing that,’ he told.
Vadim the Raw-Dog threw a punch and it landed square in Dak’s jaw and the man was hurled to one side. Dak spat blood and blinked away the stars. Furious, he jumped to his feet quick and returned the assault. His ferocity knocked Vadim off his feet much to the young fighter’s surprise, but before Dak could finish his attack, Lyov moved to restrain him, dropping Dak in a half-Nelson and twisting his arm back into a hammerlock.
Vadim was wiping blood from his mouth as he got back on his feet. Dak struggled as Lyov held his face to the dirt, his arms locked, wriggling and blowing clouds of dry dirt. Vadim’s injury wasn’t bad, but it hurt like hell.
‘Quite a good punch nigger,’ he said fiercely. And Vadim took one of the batons and held it by the side of Dak’s temple and Dak breathed heavily and kept his eyes securely on the baton.
Kyo dared look back and he saw the first blow and screamed for his father as the baton struck him hard across the head. They dragged the semi-conscious man over to the basin’s edge and glared into the deep empty chasm of Onyx Water’s drained superior lake, a sixty foot drop to shallow swamp below.
‘Stay here!’ Sonja told him through tears, grabbing Kyo and pulling him toward the SkyLark hidden out somewhere in the forest. ‘Don’t say anything, just stay here...’
Chaos Cipher Page 34
