New London was the largest bulge in any string, but even it only spread to nearly two kilometers in width. It also housed the USF Assembly Building, which at fifty stories, was the tallest building on the planet that wasn’t a half-sunken ruin from the last age. The city fell along the Euro-String—the longest of the strings—which ran from the center of the European continent to the heart of Old Russia. Being that the aftereffects from the Meteorite had drowned half of Earth’s habitable land, and billions of people with it, settling along the middle ridges of continents was the best way to ensure that it didn’t repeat.
Every policy I could think of made perfect sense by that line of thinking. It was the world I’d always known: one of a people locked in constant vigil. Earthers weren’t even allowed to reproduce without clearance from doctors that the genes of the parents didn’t have any chance of resulting in disease. Most of us grew up in clan-families that numbered into the hundreds, mine being a family located a few dozen kilometers outside New London. Matching candidates for parenthood would join together to reproduce in phases and stick together so that nobody was ever alone and in danger. Call me a romantic, but I had a hard time with being promised to my clan-sisters, even if it wasn’t technically incest. My daughter was born off the grid after I left the clan-family behind, and I was proud of that.
The constant reminders of mass annihilation were the biggest reasons I could never bear to stay on Earth any longer than I had to. It usually took longer for them to wear on me, but the older I got, the more I preferred the blackness of Sol and all its mysteries. For if Zhaff was accurate about the chances of another colossal meteorite hitting, then almost every policy the USF decreed was as big of a waste as those of the Church of the Three Messiahs…
And we were all just as big of fools.
Longing for a drink to quiet my mind, I peered through my eyelashes to see if the train had gotten anywhere while I was lost in thought. I saw the profile of a factory on the edge of the New London Industrial Node. It sat like an island of steel amid the barren landscape—nothing green in sight.
Billows of black smoke rose from the stacks poking through the top of the factory the train raced by. They were quickly absorbed by a layer of dark clouds hanging overhead.
Unlike everything else, apparently, Earth’s sky was already too damaged to worry about.
SEVEN
Somewhere along the ride, the soft vibrations of the maglev train lulled me into a deep sleep. I woke abruptly to a tap on my shoulder. Zhaff’s face hovered above mine, the Cogent’s head cocked to the side and his yellow eye-lens shimmering.
“We’re here,” he said.
I rubbed my face and followed him off the train. As we stepped outside, frigid air slid down my throat like a rope of knives. I decided to take smaller breaths from there on out before reaching into the pocket of my trench coat and pulling out a pair of gloves. Once they were on, I inspected my surroundings.
Glazov station, which was closer to a platform, was in the glacial heart of Old Russia—a slum that stretched for hundreds of linear kilometers in either direction along the Euro-String. The luster of New London was completely lost there. On either side of the rail, rusty metal shanties were crammed so tightly together it was hard to tell where one ended or another began. If not for the few bright ads and signs flickering along their corrugated surfaces, many displaying outdated products, it would have looked like ancient Marrakesh. A nearly empty grid of snow-covered streets connected all of them, and security consisted only of a pair of guards huddled up in a post on the train platform. It looked like they were playing cards and drinking. Hell, I couldn’t blame them; it was freezing out, and I’d have killed for a few fingers of whiskey.
“We should head to the USF security post, see if they’ve heard any reports of a Ringer in the area,” I said.
“Unnecessary,” Zhaff quickly responded. His face was buried in his hand-terminal. “While you slept, I contacted every USF outpost in Old Russia. Surveillance in the area is scarce, but a camera spotted a man matching my description enter a hauler repair shop. I am presently uploading the location.”
I tried not to let my wounded pride show. I knew Cogents were supposed to be efficient, but I had no idea how efficient. It was like after I’d told him how I set up an express ride to reach Old Russia, he had to outdo me.
“Well, hurry up, then,” I grumbled.
While I waited, I moved beside a screen displaying an ad for a three-year-old line of heavy jackets designed by Venta Co. I had to admit, the thing wasn’t terrible. At least it emitted some warmth.
I turned to Zhaff, wondering if the Cogent had intended not to bring a coat. He didn’t seem affected by the temperature at all. I cupped my hands over my mouth and then looked up past the rail station’s rippling canopy. It was snowing, and like most of Earth, the sky of Old Russia was congested with the usual mixture of dark clouds polluted both by centuries-old dust from the first M-Day and human-made toxins. Sometimes I wished that I’d known the blue and sunny skies of old. The omnipresent shroud was one of the many gifts bestowed upon Earth by the Meteorite.
The climate never fully recovered after it hit. Worldwide, temperatures dropped, making it impossible to differentiate between seasons. Among the places that remained above water, New London was considered warm—and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone outside without needing a winter coat. Compared with Old Russia, New London was a tropical paradise. Any farther north, and we may as well have been standing outside on Titan. An exaggeration for sure, being that the orange moon’s surface was cold enough to turn a man into a popsicle in seconds, but at a certain point, I don’t think it matters. Cold is cold, and I hated it.
“It is only six blocks east,” Zhaff said finally.
“You’re telling me he went through all the trouble of falsifying his identification only to clumsily be caught by one of the few surveillance cameras in Glazov?” I said. “Right around the corner from the rail station no less.”
“It is likely he expected to be followed and is trying to confuse his pursuers.”
“Maybe, but I’m not going to stand around here waiting until I’m a block of ice. We’ll see what we find at the shop and go from there.”
To my relief, Zhaff nodded and said, “I agree. Also, Malcolm, during our trip, the body of Jack Fletcher was discovered in the bathroom of the Molten Crater after they cleaned up what remained of the bar. It was missing an eye.”
“Right under my damn nose,” I said under my breath, making sure to turn my face away from Zhaff so he wouldn’t see how embarrassed I most likely looked. Again, the notion that maybe the directors were right about me slipping popped into my head. I promptly shoved it out of mind. Arresting the first Ringer to ever bomb New London was too good an opportunity to allow doubt to get a hold on me.
“Finding Fletcher means that other collectors will be bearing down on us in no time now,” I said. “I have no desire to watch someone else cash in. We better not waste any more time. Let’s go.”
We marched down one of the bleak cross streets of the slums, my long duster kicking up the accumulated white powder. The sound of electronic music echoed on either side of us, through thin metal walls and windows plastered with glowing advertisements. I could hear boisterous laughter and people hollering from inside in the Russo-English lingo typical of the area. As in New London, most of the M-Day celebrations in Old Russia had been forced indoors, though, for them, it was due to the unrelenting cold and not a bomb.
A few bearded Earthers lounged against the walls outside, but that was all. They accompanied the countless bottles rolling lazily across the metal-paved walkways. One bumped into my foot, and I knelt to pick it up. It was empty, a layer of frost built up around the nozzle.
“You’d think it’d be easier to get a drink today,” I groused.
“It is not wise to ingest alcohol, Malcolm,” Zhaff said.
“Now, or ever?”
“Both.”
; I chuckled, and before I could think of some sage piece of advice about how after so many years on the job it was the best thing for you, Zhaff turned with soldierly precision and headed left down a narrow alley.
“This way,” he instructed.
A group of emaciated Earthers with scraggly beards stood clustered around a grille that spit up billows of hot steam. They wore heavy coats that would’ve been enough to keep them warm on their own if they weren’t so worn down.
“Zdravstvuj, friends,” one of them croaked as we approached.
Their sullen eyes watched us nervously, and I knew why. One look at us and they knew exactly why we'd come: There was a collection to be made. It was an expression I’d recognize no matter what colony I was on, although at least on Earth, people mostly stayed quiet and kept their distance so they didn’t get hurt. Once Zhaff and I passed, I heard them let out a collective sigh, relieved to know that one of them wasn’t the target.
“They saw something,” Zhaff stated.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I had a USF warning sent out to all citizens in the area to keep a lookout for any elderly men braving the cold.”
“Of course, you did…”
“One of them displayed signs of guilt, as if he has seen one.”
“You can go back and ask them if you’d like,” I said, “but people way out here don’t tend to talk to collectors.”
“It is irrelevant. He can no longer help us.”
Zhaff again stopped suddenly and turned to face a rusty door sunk into the corrugated metal backside of a structure beside an overflowing dumpster. It belonged to the hauler repair shop we were looking for. The door was slightly ajar, rattling as the cold air breezed through. I quickly positioned myself at the corner and pulled out my pistol. Zhaff did the same.
“They don’t leave their doors open either,” I said. With my left hand, I removed Aria’s Ark figurine and gave it a kiss for good luck, like I always did before I got the feeling a job was about to get hairy.
“What is that?” Zhaff asked.
“Nothing,” I lied, stuffing it back into my pocket. I slipped my heavy boot between the door and the jamb, pushing the door open just enough to edge in with my pistol aimed. Zhaff stayed right on my heels.
We rushed into an open space filled with inactive machine belts and broken-down vehicles. The only sound came from a newscast on the view-screen by the front desk that was left on. A report about the bombing in New London played, the news finally making its way to the forlorn slums of Old Russia. The garage door adjacent to the view-screen was wide open, flakes of snow wafting in.
I ducked behind the frame of a deconstructed hauler and signaled Zhaff to take cover by a workbench up ahead. As soon as I moved to follow him, a bullet glanced off the chassis, the sparks shooting out directly in front of my eyes. I fired off a frantic shot and dove, slamming into the workbench and landing beside Zhaff.
“You never should have come here!” a man yelled. It was without question the Ringer from the Molten Crater. His voice was hoarse from coughing.
“You are in violation of four federation laws,” Zhaff responded as calmly as ever. “Lay down your weapon.”
“Come and take it, mud stompers!”
The noisy engine of a hauler facing the open garage door turned over. Images of Undina flashed through my mind until I peered around the corner of the table to see the Ringer’s pale arm sticking out the window. He had a pre-Meteorite, powder-based revolver aimed at us—a slug-chucker, we called them. I pulled my head back behind cover when he continued firing in our direction. I counted five more shots, and then it clicked. That was when he hit the gas.
Zhaff and I simultaneously sprang up to return fire. Our pulse-pistols were quieter at the barrel, but they packed three times the punch. Bullets clanged loudly off metal parts and shattered the narrow glass window on the back of the hauler. One of us managed to nick the Ringer’s forearm as his vehicle swerved out onto the streets. It caused him to shriek, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Soon after, he was out of view, and I was left shooting at nothing but snowflakes. Zhaff had stopped as soon as he knew he was wasting rounds.
“Damn!” I grunted and lowered my pistol once the sound of the hauler disappeared. “You hit?”
“No,” Zhaff answered. He bent down to examine one of the bullet holes left behind by the Ringer’s gun.
I realized instantly that if it was his first time on Earth, he’d probably never seen an ancient weapon like the one the Ringer had wielded.
“It’s an old-fashioned revolver, pre-Meteorite,” I said. “He probably found it in the owner’s desk. Shopkeepers like them out in the slums. They’re small, unregistered, and easy to hide from robbers… or security.” Despite their age, they were also actually fairly cheap on the black market. The wealthy preferred their old-world relics to at least be attractive if they weren’t going to be useful.
Zhaff’s eye-lens angled in my direction and he nodded. It felt good to finally have something to teach him.
I gestured for him to get up, and we continued to investigate the room. I raised my gun as we did, making sure to check every corner. Zhaff had his holstered. He strolled along calmly, as though he already knew we wouldn’t find anybody alive.
“Dead,” he declared, right on cue. He pointed at something behind the front desk, and I skirted my way around a machine belt to see.
The remains of a man were slumped against the wall, his head cracked open like a melon. The pool of blood that had formed beneath him was frozen, with a sullied wrench resting in the center, right beside his outstretched hand. Signs of struggle were evident, with many of the items from on top of the desk carelessly strewn about. An open drawer revealed a pile of loose bullets that had been left behind in the Ringer’s apparent rush. I got near enough to make sure nobody else was hiding behind the desk before finally stowing my gun.
“Poor bastard,” I said. Upon closer inspection, I found that the dead man had a fairly youthful look to him. My guess was that he was an apprentice put to work while the shop’s owner was out celebrating M-Day. That was when it hit me exactly how sloppy the Ringer really was. He had taken every precaution to get out of New London safely, but as soon as he disembarked the train at Glazov station, it was like he didn’t care about being captured. Murder weapon lying out in the open. Getting spotted on camera right outside. None of it seemed right.
“It appears he is no longer disguised,” Zhaff said.
I buried the unsettling feeling deep inside, hoping that Zhaff hadn’t noticed, and then glanced up. The Cogent had already moved past finding a corpse and was crouched nearby, examining something on the floor. I would’ve been relieved to find someone else as numb to death as I was, if I hadn’t already discovered how young Zhaff was.
Beneath his hand lay a cane wrapped by a tattered scarf, with a sprinkle of blood on the frayed end. Whether it belonged to the murdered apprentice or to Jack Fletcher’s now frozen eyeball lying on top of it, I wasn’t sure.
“The Ringer’s death toll is starting to pile up,” I said. “This other one probably startled him and got himself killed.”
Zhaff got to his feet and approached the gaping garage door. He stared outside for a few moments before turning back to me. “His tracks continue toward the border of the Euro-String and into the wilderness.”
“What the hell would he want out there?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he replied, using those words for the first time in our short partnership.
“So you’re human after all.”
I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. Zhaff knelt by the spots of the Ringer’s blood outside and placed a drop into a reader on his hand-terminal for analysis. I started perusing the shop to see if there were any haulers left in good condition. They weren’t complicated. They were basic, land-based vehicles used to transport goods across distances too short to require the rail line.
“No DNA record on file,” Zhaff said, prec
isely loud enough for me to hear him across the shop.
“An illegitimate Ringer who’s never been to the doctor?” I replied. “I doubt that.” I spotted a decent hauler in the corner. The belted wheels were a little off track, but it looked like it would run.
“Let’s take this hauler after him and find out,” I said. I strolled up next to the vehicle. It was apparently due for repairs because the physical key was left dangling right outside the ignition. “We’ll call in USF security to clean up this mess on our way,” I said, reaching into the vehicle and cranking the ignition a few times. The engine merely sputtered. “This thing—” I was cut off by a clank near the back door. Both Zhaff and I drew our guns and aimed, though I found myself worrying about how he was a hair faster and not who the intruder might be.
“Hold your fire!” whoever it was shouted.
A pair of hands rose up from behind a machine belt. I wasn’t sure who they belonged to until I saw a pistol identical to my own held in one of them. I fired a shot five or so meters to the left of him on purpose. It made me feel better.
“Whoa, hold it!” Trevor Cross yelled. He popped up farther so we could see his face.
“Oh, sorry,” I responded. “I couldn’t tell it was you from here. Old eyes and all.”
Trevor released a nervous laugh and shuffled toward us. He went to lower his arms, but Zhaff said, “Why are you here, Collector?”
“I heard shooting,” Trevor said. “Thought it might be a lead.”
“Holster your weapon at once,” Zhaff ordered.
“All right, all right.” Trevor lowered his weapon slowly and slid it into his side holster. “No need to get angry. We’re all on the same side here.”
I tapped Zhaff on the shoulder and whispered, “I’ll handle this.” Zhaff nodded, stowed his pistol, and lifted the hood of the hauler I’d selected to start tooling around with the engine.
I kept my gun aimed and my eye on Trevor. There was no way I was going to trust a Venta Co rat when we had a real lead to follow.
Children of Titan Series: Books 1-4: (A Space Opera Thriller Box Set) Page 7
