by Barry Kirwan
Darkness loomed ahead. They set off at a brisk pace across a plaza he didn’t recognise. Sonja shoved him forward on the chair, and then he was startled as they emerged from the portico to find it snowing, but the snow was tinged cyan, an almost fluorescent lagoon blue. A few splotches landed on his cheeks and hands. It tingled, astringent at first, then numbed. He managed to turn his palms upwards, trying to catch snowflakes. Sonja placed a wide-brimmed hat on his head. At first he wasn’t sure why, guessing it was to stop the flakes going into his eyes. The snow looked so peaceful, so calming, but had an eerie feel to it, underlined as deep stinging pains spread in his hands and cheeks. He now knew why it was so quiet outside, this snow was perfect cover; no one would be out unless there was a good reason. It wouldn’t be good to get drunk and fall asleep in this weather.
Sonja sped up, joining Rashid on the other side of the plaza, where another man pushed out a skimmer. It was the same one he and Kat had ridden across Eden’s desert: the scarring on the sleek two-person hover-bike from the neutralino explosion was unmistakable. But all those events – the Hohash blowing up Rashid’s ship in order to kill a few Q’Roth; finding the underground lair brimming with hatching Q’Roth; and fighting the Q’Roth with nukes back on Eden – it all seemed a lifetime ago.
Sonja and Rashid helped him into an all-terrain jumpsuit and onto the skimmer’s pillion seat. They strapped a full-face visor and gloves onto him, and he found his muscles began to cooperate, remembering how to work. He tested his mouth – it moved, but his larynx didn’t – as if he’d forgotten how to speak. Just as well: Rashid and Sonja said goodbye, with a long kiss. She whispered something to him. Blake stared straight ahead, as Sonja came over to him, and saw his jaw set in stone.
“Don’t judge me too soon. A lot of bad things have happened. And Zack…” She touched his unresponsive shoulder. “Never mind. Now you’re back, the tide will turn.”
She made to leave, as Rashid climbed onto the seat in front of him.
With a supreme effort of will, he rasped one word. “Glenda.”
Sonja drew back. Rashid answered, without turning around. “She is safe. You will see her soon.”
Blake took little comfort from those words – Sonja’s expression told him a different story. The skimmer rose knee-height off the ground and accelerated through the houses and domes of Esperantia, whisking past in a blur of blue snowflakes and darkness – Rashid had no need of light.
They drove through the night into the scrubland, slowing down only once, as they passed a statue. Rashid turned on the skimmer’s headlights for a few seconds. Blake recognised the features of Vince and Louise locked in an embrace, and wondered how long he had been out. It flashed across his mind that perhaps he was still deep in a coma, dreaming, but he dismissed it – the stinging pain in his hands, now stretching up into his forearms like clawing roots of ice, suggested otherwise. A short while ago he’d been elated – humanity had survived. Now he had more questions than he thought there could possibly be good answers for.
After an hour’s riding at top speed, the engine’s whine stuttered into a low growl. Rashid braked hard and slewed the skimmer around a rocky outcrop, entering a small cavern at the foot of one of the low mountains. Blake had most of his muscle control back, but stayed immobile while Rashid powered the bike down and dismounted. The cavern was room-sized, a pool of stagnant water in the middle. Rashid activated a small black box, and yellow lights dappled the solid rock walls, casting eerie shadows.
Rashid took off his helmet and eyed him from a safe distance. “You should have muscle control by now,” he said. “Remember I was a paramedic too. So, the fact that you are acting as if you do not, means you do not trust me right now.”
Blake creaked an arm upwards and flicked up his visor. He recalled the first time he’d trusted Rashid. “Do you blame me?”
“Not at all. But there is much to tell, Commander.”
“No offence, Rashid, but I’d like to hear it from Glenda. Or Zack.” He noticed Rashid pause in reaction to the second name.
“You do not remember?”
Blake eased off his helmet with difficulty. It got stuck halfway, and Rashid had to yank it off for him. Rashid unfastened the straps and Blake half-fell off the bike with a groan – he’d intended to dismount alone, but was glad for Rashid’s helping hands.
“You will make a full recovery, but Zack… Please, Commander tell me what you remember. Everything.”
He told him what he remembered, then Rashid told him Zack’s version of events, and filled him in on the fatal encounter between Louise and Vince, the rapid political ascendance of Josefsson and Shakirvasta, and Micah and Zack’s departure.
Blake brooded for a long time, while Rashid used a field stove to boil water and make tea.
“It wasn’t Zack’s fault,” Blake said, finally. But he heard the tinge of anger in his own voice. He raised his hand to touch his throat, where Zack had caused a micro-stroke; Rashid had said it had been repaired since. He told himself again – it wasn’t his fault – and this time expunged all anger. He recalled Zack pulling him out of the nightmare that had been Kurana Bay. That did the trick. He added, “Nothing to forgive.”
Rashid paused, teapot in one hand, cup in the other. “Now I am blind, I hear things more clearly. Normally, I have to sift carefully for the truth… Your integrity has been missed.”
Blake accepted a cup of steaming chai. “So, what happened after Micah and the others left?”
Rashid sat down cross-legged, blowing across the top of his tea. He took a sip, then set down the antique china cup, the same one Blake had seen on Eden when he first met Rashid. The Indistani’s dolphin glistened as he faced Blake with uncanny accuracy. “When we left Eden, Commander, I had hoped for a turning point. But it seems we brought our darkness with us.”
* * *
“How exactly did he escape?” Shakirvasta’s voice clawed at the air, like fingernails etching gravestone marble. Marvin Klempfer, Ourshiwann’s second Chief of Police in a month, shifted uneasily.
“They… They must have planned this for a long time.”
“They?”
“Yes, well, there must have been many. And they will pay when we find out exactly who it was.”
“Who it was?”
The man’s face flushed. “Obviously we have suspicions, but we need evidence.”
“Evidence?”
The man wrung his hands. He stopped talking.
Shakirvasta tapped the end of a cheroot, the ash tumbling onto the floor. He took a long draught of the cigarillo, inhaling deeply so that its end blazed. “What do you think, my sweet?”
Jen appeared from behind a wooden screen decorated with semi-clad Indistani women. Barefoot, she wore a turquoise kimono. “I think anyone would be pleased to do their civic duty.”
Klempfer, standing to attention, kept his eyes on Shakirvasta.
“Well put,” Shakirvasta said. He eyed Klempfer. “Well?”
Marvin’s eyebrows knitted together. “Right. Right away, then. We’ll bring some people in –”
“To help us with our enquiries.”
Marvin nodded, and backed away to the door, then slipped out into the night.
Jen sidled up to Shakirvasta. “Remind me why exactly you gave an ex-cyberspace security hound the job of Chief of Police? He’s clearly an imbecile.”
Shakirvasta sat down and pulled Jen around so that she sat atop his bony knees.
“Good people aren’t hard to find, they’re just hard to manage.”
She cocked her head. “Do you manage me?”
“Barely.”
She smiled, kissed him on the cheek, and walked over to the oval window, staring out at the snow.
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“Who?” she said.
Shakirvasta said nothing.
“It was Dimitri’s choice to go off on his quest to find other spider cities. It’s a luxury I decided I could not afford – we, humanity
, couldn’t afford.”
He stubbed out the dying cheroot, crushing the last embers of light. “Your new defence corps. How are they coming along?”
She turned back to him. “Ready for some field practice, I’d say.”
“Blake is out there. I doubt he is in the city. You know, if he comes back, there’s a chance he could gain popularity again.”
Her glow faded. She folded her arms. “He should join us in the fight. Seek out the Alicians and destroy them, before they find us again.”
“Agreed, he should. Humanity is working out nicely here: people are finding their way either in farming, services, or in your little army. It would be a shame to upset the balance.”
Jen thrust an arm outside, so that snowflakes danced on her fingers.
“My sweet, I wish you would not do that.”
She continued, until the pain began. She retracted her arm, and swept back into the room, casting off her kimono before she reached the screen. Shakirvasta listened to the snapping buckles of her commando gear and boots.
She reappeared, Valkyrie-like, fully armed. “Later,” she said.
He knew that most people would have waited until after the snow had stopped. He recalled one of his father’s epithets: A good horse runs at the sight of the whip. Sometimes you don’t find good people, he thought, but the right people: so much easier. He lit another cheroot.
As it too came to an end, Josefsson arrived, brushing the blue snow noisily from his raincoat with thick gloves, ignoring the mess it made on the floor.
“You know Blake is gone, of course. If he comes back, rallies people around him…” He took off his raincoat and draped it over the wooden screen. One of the semi-clad ladies began to melt under the acid snow.
Shakirvasta stared at the irreplaceable art dissolving for a moment, then looked at Josefsson. “Yes: our brave new world could falter. Order would be replaced by liberal democracy; society would fall apart within a year. Humanity would disappear into the mire. The feudal system we have re-introduced, with wise but firm overlords, is the best basis for humanity to get back on its feet again.” He studied Josefsson, but the latter’s expression had not changed. “Don’t worry, Jen has gone to look for him.”
Josefsson jabbed a finger in Shakirvasta’s direction. “You put too much trust in that girl. She could turn again, you know, you mark my words!”
He watched as twin spirals of smoke snaked around each other in the cool night air, circling but never mixing; like Jen and Josefsson. “I always mark your words, believe me.” But he also hedged his bets, and he had put Jen in charge of the military. He stubbed out the cheroot. “Some of my men will be with her, just in case she suffers a crisis of conscience.”
* * *
“What about Vasquez?” Blake railed - his earlier state of epiphany, based on humanity’s survival and defeat of Louise, had quickly foundered, dragging him downward into political quicksand.
“The military was disbanded, and Colonel Vasquez and a contingent of his men were sent on a six month exploration of the far reaches of the main continent.”
“Kostakis, then? Antonia?” Blake was running out of options.
Rashid retained his equanimity, making Blake feel all the worse. “The Professor went to search for other spider cities after Jennifer headed up a new militia, reporting directly to Chairman Shakirvasta.”
“Chairman?”
“Antonia remains within the Council, our only firm ally there. She has a hard time of it but knows that while she stays she can curb some of the excesses. New laws are passed every week, ever more stringent, centralising power and crushing dissent. People occasionally disappear, followed by announcements that they have gone on survey missions.”
Blake paced the small cavern. His heart thumped loudly in his veins. He’d had enough. He pressed his eyes closed, then thought of his priorities. And there lay the solution, he realised. His priorities, not ‘the people’s’. His heart eased off.
“So, Glenda is in this new central complex at the heart of the city?” He picked up and checked the pulse rifle: fully charged.
“It is not so simple. The city is effectively under martial law.”
“She’s my wife, and neither of us is technically a prisoner, right?”
Rashid sighed, and hung his head. “Your good wife told me to give you a message, if you became…”
“Difficult?” He rammed the rifle into the one of the skimmer’s gun slots.
“She said use it only as a last resort, to stop you doing something … foolish.”
“Rashid, after what I’ve been through – after what we’ve all been through – I can’t just leave her there. Even if Shakirvasta takes me prisoner, I’ll be closer to her.” He parked the second pulse rifle in the remaining gun slot. “Coming?”
Rashid squatted down. His hand glazed across the sandy floor. “Please, reconsider. At least, let us form a strategy, gather support. Give time for the rumours of your escape to reach the population, and let Shakirvasta’s true nature be exposed by his actions.”
Blake felt the anger brewing inside him like a thunderstorm. He’d not given up everything just so Shakirvasta and his cronies could turn their new society into a dictatorship, with people working the land as effective forced-labour or as minions in ‘services’. And as for Jennifer – how had he misjudged her so? But he recognised a deeper seat to his anger. His mentor, General Kilaney, had warned him about it. He’d said that given enough time, every career soldier, at least once, will seriously question if the people he’s prepared to fight and die for are worth it. He realised he was boiling inside that particular crucible right now. He’d done his part, freed people from the Alician menace, only to see them hand power to a megalomaniac. How could they be so stupid? The only person he wanted to save now was Glenda. Nothing else, and no one else, mattered.
“Sorry, Rashid, but I’m done with saving other people all the time. I went to Eden knowing my wife had terminal cancer, knowing I might never see her again. Then I ran a suicide mission against Louise, saying goodbye to Glenda again. And now she’s a prisoner. This is personal, Rashid, I’m done being the Commander; I just want to save my wife, you understand that, don’t you?” He knew damn well Rashid understood – Rashid had gone to Eden leaving his wife behind, never to see her again. Blake knew he shouldn’t have said it, but it was out now.
Rashid’s dolphin dimmed. He found a pebble on the floor, and weighed it in his hand, saying nothing. Blake mounted the skimmer, and grabbed his helmet.
“Commander, here is the message.” Rashid spoke to the floor. “She said that Zack told her about Robert. That was all she said. I do not know what it –”
Rashid winced as Blake’s helmet slammed into the wall, then ricocheted off onto the floor several times before sloshing to rest in the pool of water.
Blake sat on the skimmer, breathing hard, his arms hanging by his sides. His right hand trembled, the one that had pulled the trigger all those years ago. “Zack had no right,” he whispered, his voice almost breaking. He gritted his teeth, remembering his and Zack’s botched rescue attempt to save those captive boys near the end of the War in Kurana Bay. His own son, Robert, had been… transformed by the enemy into a mindless fighting machine… And Blake had shot him, after Robert had killed the rest of his platoon, and was about to kill Zack. He’d shot his own son. There was no reason, no justification or excuse worthy of such an act, in his book. Only he and Zack had known. Robert had been declared missing in action, presumed dead.
The fight drained out of him. Glenda’s message was as clear as it was brutal. No more botched rescues: use your head. He knew she was right. And the message was double-edged – she might well be angry with him, or not, he couldn’t tell. He could imagine her pounding him with her fists, tears running down her cheeks, screaming ‘How could you?’ Maybe that was what he wanted.
His breathing slowed. He remembered Pierre once used a French expression about the need to maintain one’s sang fro
id – cold blood. His right hand stilled.
He dismounted, walked past Rashid, and retrieved his helmet, shaking it a couple of times to rinse out the fetid water. He went over to the field stove and began preparing tea. ‘Names, Rashid. I need names of those you trust with your life, those who are on Shakirvasta’s side, and those who could be turned to our advantage. And I need schematics of the city, as well as the political infrastructure.’
Rashid came to Blake’s side. He saluted. “Good to have you back, Commander.
Chapter 17
Galactic Barrier
“One minute to impact.” The timbre of the voice was calm, dispassionate, belying the fact that Grid Society was facing the most serious threat it had seen in more than a million angts of recorded history.
Drone A27243, Dapsilon to his friends, knew his organic colleagues in the fleet scattered along this section of the galaxy’s edge would be sweating, shedding scales, or exuding pus, according to their physiology. Their digits and tentacles would be twitching, hovering above buttons and triggers, ready to unleash awesome weaponry at the first sight of their foe. But to a war-drone, one minute was a long time to reflect.
Dapsilon’s primary function was intel, to gain knowledge of the inbound threat and its weapons capability, and feed data back to the Tla Beth War Council. Other drones in their thousands had been deployed to combat – correction – to annihilate the enemy, presumed to be the Kalaheii, though there was no definitive confirmation, because everything in the storm-front’s path had been obliterated before signals could be dispatched. And so he – for he possessed male attributes compared to other drones which could be considered female in their orientation – had been charged with one simple directive: inform.
