Chaos Cipher

by Den Harrington

  ‘Malik?’ Vance shouted, stepping back and tracing the cables with his eyes. ‘Is this you? What did you do, Malik?’

  ‘This isn’t me!’ Malik swore. It was the truth. He hadn’t expected anything to happen, in fact.

  And then a targeting beam shone upon Malik Serat and he gazed up into the lurid and powerful vent of light, trying to step out of its boundary, but it followed him like an all seeing eye.

  One of the metallic tentacles writhed nearby a soldier’s ankle. Spooked, he took aim and fired a burst of trigger happy rounds into the alloy, and he screamed as another tentacle swung and launched him fifty meters through the air, crashing in a puff of dust as he landed in the scrap-yard debris.

  ‘Malik.’ Vance shouted. ‘Stop this now, Malik.’

  But Malik Serat had his own problems now. The many silvery tendrils surrounded him, circling down like the funnel of a tornado to embrace him. He screamed into the light and heard her voice again.

  ‘Embrace greatness…’

  ‘I CAN’T.’ Malik screamed as the cables bifurcated into thinner and thinner wires, working into his flesh and bone, feeding into his bleeding body like ten thousand silver needles. ‘OH GOD! THE PAIN!’

  ‘Fear not destiny…seize it!’

  And Malik screamed a blood curdling cry that put chills even through Vance who could see nothing of his brother’s suffering through the twisting curling mass of mechanical tendrils. His screams choked out, begging for the pain to stop, begging for the burning and tearing agony to conclude his death at last.

  ‘It’s time to endure, to transcend, to become the gods we have dreamed of becoming.’

  Vance stared into the shining light from where the mass of tentacles worked. And one of the soldiers began shouting, demanding to get some distance, far away from this thing. Vance was quickly moving, stomping full speed through the graveyard of V-TOL chassis and tanks. A loud groaning echoed through the crater, the sound of a thousand iron struts contorting. And Vance lost his pace as something smashed into the ground ahead of him. Rock and dust exploded from the impact and he saw one of the tanks toppling through the chaos, tossed there as though it was a giant bowling ball. The troops dove down, changing direction and firing back at whatever the hell was happening behind him. Vance wanted out of this pit. He moved, powering the exo-skeletal suit to full output, stomping towards the distant crater’s incline. He saw the shadows of tentacles lashing through the air behind him, shadows cast like black lace across the barren sands. And just above the crater’s cliff face, he saw the wink of Arrowheads cruising through the sky, their engines tearing up the air as they passed thunderously above. And Vance almost jumped out of his skin as the echoes of deafening explosions erupted from the Xenotech as a cluster of submunitions rained fire over the machine.

  Vance dared to turn around. He saw troops shooting into the carnage. The twisting tentacles reaching out of black smoke and mushrooms of fire still bloating to swallow the blue sky. Screaming victims were pulled into the twisting arms of the Xenotech shredder. The loud groaning beaconed once more through the valley. Filipe was running out of the chaos, his face bleeding from lacerations. He was followed by one or two more troops who had abandoned hope of defending themselves.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Filipe called, approaching Vance and catching his breath. ‘Don’t stop.’ But the sounds coming from the mechanical creature had extinguished the fires and blown away the smoke. Once the veil had cleared they saw the spherical head of the machine was alive with illuminations and snaps of electricity. Spurious blue light shone from the sub gills beneath the head, the hundreds of slippery metallic cables still afloat in the air.

  And something else.

  A man now sat below the machine, a shrunken silhouetted figure down on his knees in the pale blue light. A man that now replaced Malik Serat, a man that looked remarkably similar, yet was entirely different.

  ‘By the God and stars,’ Vance whispered incredulously. ‘Malik?’

  Had he have heard the name, Malik, the Mekhos would have denounced it. The Mekhos needed only this corporeal form in so far as this dimensional existence required it, and until he found a more efficient one. He stood at last, eyes as tenebrous as the pits of Charybdis, an infectious blackening that spread through his veins like ink, webbing around his sockets and the dark lips of his attenuated smirk. His bare flesh padded, each segmented muscle fiber defined by renewed material, between organic and metallic, an exo-shell that padded his upper body to the elbows and knees. Mekhos braced himself for his first breath, braced himself to take up tenure at the court of Judgement Day, the end of the old and the next genesis: the second horizon.

  -72-

  Ed Rufus, Tanya Medina and Max Elba were assigned to escort Scott Barnes from the cognoputic therapy lounges of Orandoré to the Shield of Spheres conference room. He hadn’t been told much, only that he was due to meet a very gifted child and that he had to tell her as much as possible about the Erebus.

  When they arrived, the room was occupied by three individuals, Nitro Harbeck, Avenoir and the immutable Raven Protos who stood at the back like a long shadow.

  ‘Take a seat, professor,’ Nitro offered, though he knew the gesture was no request. Scott Barnes was seated at the table with the assistance of Max, before the Canaries waited orderly to be excused. Nitro gave them the nod and thanked them for the escort. Barnes looked at the diamond freckled child and realised her unusual eyes, one green and the other red. And Avenoir stared back at him and there was pity in her eyes.

  ‘She has eyes like…’ and Barnes covered his mouth with surprise. ‘She looks like Penelope.’

  ‘The Chrononaut Penelope Hurt, correct?’ Nitro asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Avenoir here, is a Chronomancer.’

  ‘I know,’ he assured. ‘The pigment mutation is a common feature.’

  ‘Why did you hurt yourself?’ Avenoir asked.

  Barnes had forgotten about his own appearance, the scars left on his face.

  ‘I ran out of ink,’ he explained with a nervous smile. ‘I had to know when, or where, I was.’

  Nitro sat back and tongued the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, wondering where to start with this mess he was so dutifully supposed to organise.

  ‘Adamoss,’ he requested. ‘Play the file transmitting from that Xenotech.’

  They watched the reaction of Scott Barnes change to shock and awe when he heard her voice.

  ‘That’s Penelope,’ he realised. He continued to listen, centring his focus on her words but it sounded foreign, something about embracing greatness and transcendence. ‘I’m afraid, I don’t know what she’s talking about.’

  ‘Neither do we,’ Nitro submitted. ‘But right now there’s a real mess in Havenband in the middle of the Nevada desert.’

  Then, in the hologram field they witnessed the damage being caused by the Xenotech. And footage from one of the V-TOLs got a good image of Mekho Serat, a minacious being with a fowl smile of blackened lips and eyes and teeth like silver. He stalked from beneath the machine, his arms outreached to where he wished to direct its destructive force.

  Scott Barnes glared at the image in disbelief as Nitro updated him.

  ‘His brother, Vance Serat, wanted to crack the chaos cipher. Apparently, he’s had some of the world’s most ingenious people try to understand the pattern. He believed that Malik was taking him to find an unfinished piece of the puzzle. Now this.’

  ‘But what is that thing?’ Scott asked.

  ‘Whatever it is it is very old,’ Nitro added. ‘Over thirty thousand years they say. And somehow, it contains a message from Penelope Hurt and is empowering Malik Serat and assisting him in some meaningless mayhem. Unless you know something more, then your guess is as good as ours.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about this,’ said Scott. ‘We killed Penelope Hurt. We killed her to avoid this from happening.’

  ‘Who killed her?’ Nitro asked. ‘You said you didn’t know anything
about her death, you told our therapists, you told our interrogation people.’

  ‘We did it,’ said Avenoir suddenly. ‘You were there, weren’t you?’

  And Scott nodded.

  ‘Don’t you see?’ he pleaded. ‘I didn’t want to affect the time line. I couldn’t tell anybody in case it altered something, we are going to find a way back into the past and stop her.’

  ‘And that’s what we’re about to do again,’ said Avenoir, turning to see Nitro. ‘We’re going back on the Erebus again, I can see it. We’re going to try and kill Penelope before she can create the chaos cipher.’

  Nitro nodded. ‘We are planning a campaign on the Erebus, yes.’

  ‘And what about Serat?’ asked Scott.

  ‘The only thing that can slay a monster,’ Raven’s voice boomed from the darkness, ‘is another monster.’ And the Olympian’s eyes started to glow rapaciously.

  ‘Leave Serat to us,’ said Nitro. ‘Avenoir will be able to navigate the chaos cipher on the Erebus. She’ll be your guide.’

  Avenoir nodded contritely, pursing her lips. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Then, you agree to this mission?’ Nitro asked Professor Barnes. The man shrugged uncertainly.

  ‘I already have.’

  ‘Good,’ Nitro said standing, ‘your training begins immediately.’

  Raven shifted into the light and stopped Avenoir from leaving. She gazed up at the large Olympian and he lowered to his knee so they could be at eye level.

  ‘Why did’st thou hold thy tongue so many years?’ asked the giant, daring to stare through an endless web of memory. She took his hand apologetically.

  ‘You would never have trusted me, had I spoken before,’ she said. ‘I was too young to know I was affecting people’s lives. I was too young to see the damage.’

  ‘Thou art still young, my child,’ Raven reminded.

  ‘Old enough to know better,’ she forced a smile. ‘It was my mother. Old Osmond wanted to know. I didn’t realise what I was doing I-’

  Avenoir began to pule and Raven held her quietly in his large arms and hushed her into quiescence again.

  ‘He wanted to know how he would die,’ she whispered. ‘And that’s how my mother died. He panicked. I didn’t see the connection. I just didn’t see it. I was too young. So I stopped speaking until I knew I absolutely had to.’

  Raven Protos understood now. Old Osmond had crashed a starnavis while they were in the Cygnus system. It had killed both Malla and he, leaving Raven to tend to Avenoir.

  ‘You wouldn’t have trusted me,’ she said again. ‘I saw it over and over, each time I came close to telling you, I saw the ripple effect that would change our course dramatically. I couldn’t risk it, Raven.’

  ‘And what of our present destiny?’ the Olympian asked.

  ‘You’ll get your artefact,’ Avenoir told. ‘And you will succeed in your mission.’

  ‘My mission?’ he asked. ‘Or thine?’

  And Avenoir clung tightly to him, throwing her arms around Raven one last time and he knew this was goodbye.

  ‘You will always be the pride of Kyklos.’ Avenoir whispered tenderly.

  -73-

  The Nova Storm was prepped and ready to go. With a large carriage area the cadonavis was no small craft by any means, and its streamlined nose and canopy was long enough to house two pilot seats. The Nova Storm cadonavis had four wings over lapping, the ones more to the rear were the longest, but the ship’s main feature were the duel thrusters, long and powerful engine nacelles reaching from the front of the ship to tail far behind the carrier section. It was held in place by couplings and cranes clamped to its slightly hunched back, positioned over the stars and ready to be released, hurled out and away from the station’s spin.

  Encompassing the drop-ship carrier was a walkway with a transparent surrounding wall so that station personnel and Adamoss units could view it during maintenance and flight preparation.

  Nitro and Raven approached the machine, circling around the observation walls they gazed on at The Nova Storm commandingly as they followed the path to the airlock leading into the back of the ship. There, the large titanium loading door awaited them. Its surface tainted by radiation burns and scratched from the weathering of cosmic collisions from different atmospheric conditions.

  ‘This is the Nova Storm,’ Nitro introduced, ‘it’s a cadonavis class combat carrier. Adamoss has already prepped her, we should have plenty of weapons so let’s hope all that ordnance training will come in handy.’

  In his usual laconic manner, Raven grunted, speaking only when he thought there was something of importance to say.

  ‘You remember everything?’ Nitro asked.

  ‘Of course,’ his deep voice growled.

  Raven stooped under the airlock as he followed Nitro into the carrier section of the Nova Storm and took a moment to admire the ship’s arsenal.

  ‘Doth thou knowest who shalt keep watch of The Griffin’s Claw and her crew while thou art absent?’

  ‘Adamoss keeps watch,’ Nitro explained, climbing into the leading pilot seat and settling down.

  ‘And thou trusts so readily in clever animatronics?’ Raven declared, ‘and with the same redoubled naivety thou demonstrates trust further in thy enemy?’

  ‘Oh come on, Raven,’ Nitro smiled, ‘lighten up big guy, we’re friends now. Also, those guys are in better hands with Adamoss than they ever were with you. Strange…didn’t know you care so much for you hostages, big-guy.’

  ‘Big-guy.’ Raven repeated. ‘Thy should imagine prudence in distastefully drawing attention to one’s differences.’

  ‘Raven, you are big, right?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He reminded. ‘I could crush thy skull with my palm.’

  ‘So, you’re the one drawing attention, pally.’

  ‘Thou art a disparaging and repugnant creature, Harbeck.’

  ‘Thanks, hot shot,’ he said with his most debonair smile. ‘See, now you’re getting it. A little fun and name calling and a few stabs, this is team building, we’re bonding, big-guy, we’re bonding.’

  Raven grimaced and uttered another indignant grunt as he climbed into the seat and pulled down the harness. A whole array of esoteric symbols and holographic layers encompassed the seats as they settled back and Nitro began working the operations.

  ‘Here’s where we are headed,’ said Nitro pointing to a map projection on the heads-up display. ‘ATLAS, Advanced Testing Laboratory for Applications of Science. That’s where you’ll find your artefact. They stored loads of shit in there from the Kyklos disaster.’

  ‘T’was not defecated remains thou stored,’ Raven reminded. ‘T’was a culture, my culture. Do not refer to it as shit again.’

  ‘Okay, sorry. Just being colloquial.’ Nitro adjusted himself into his seat and began initiating launch sequences. ‘This is Commander Nitro Harbeck from the Shield of Spheres requesting confirmation of reserved launch window.’

  ‘Copy commander,’ said a voice on the network, ‘Orandoré Orbital station clearance granted, window is now open. Standby, two minutes.’

  ‘Copy.’

  Chief Claudia Noble’s symbol pulsed through the hologram fields and Nitro held out his hand to touch it and answered an audio only frequency with an oscillation graph that peaked and troughed to the patterns of her voice.

  ‘Okay, Nitro,’ she said, ‘good luck with your mission. And Raven, don’t worry about Avenoir. She’s completely safe on our base on the Orandoré station.’

  ‘She would be safer in my care,’ he insisted. ‘So, let my hands be sullied in the blood of thine enemies. T’will be the last time I affiliate my interests with devils worse them myself.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said levelly. ‘I’m sending over your coordinates for the ground base ATLAS. Be careful on approach, it looks dormant but who knows what security measures it has. I’m working on getting you full access but I need to reach certain high officials to do so. It could take time, there’s an in
ternational emergency going on.’

  ‘Roger that,’ said Nitro, setting up the Nova Storm for flight and locking the carrier door. ‘If that place has any SAMs, then rest assured I’ve boosted the ion-shields to a ten meter range. Magneto-tailoring on this baby has some purely splendid features, don’t you honey?’ he asked the cadonavis rhetorically as he petted the flight deck.

  ‘Right,’ Claudia sighed irritably. ‘Good luck, Commander. Update me by neuro-ligature, when you land.’

  ‘That’s if I’m able to get the Nexus servers up and running when we’re down on ATLAS, but sure thing, Chief. Over-and-out.’

  The window was cleared and green lights shone around the circular launch cradle. Couplers that were attached to the Nova Storm’s back released and the ship eased down belly first out of the cradle and into the high orbit of Earth. Silently, the thrusters blasted at the rear of the ship and gave them a gradual acceleration towards the curved horizon which hung above them until they rolled the Nova Storm belly down in preparation for re-entry. Raven did his best to compose himself, he didn’t wish the human Titan to know he was feeling sick but he wanted to tell him his manual flight skills were sloppy. Nitro plotted the flight course and sat comfortably as the cadonavis took them down the rest of the way on auto-pilot.