Fire and Steel

by Gavin Magson

  Aiko slammed her tablet down onto the table in front of her, internally cursing the man’s stupidity. Not so much as a word from his since the union, and now he was only recognising her existence to say he was leaving the sector. Did he really think that would be sufficient as an apology?

  “I’m going to guess that message was not good news.” said Rine.

  The man was peering at her over his spectacles, a familiar sight that she had experienced countless times over the years since meeting him. It was more out of curiosity than concern that he would use such leading phrases on her, but Aiko had never found it irritating. She liked to think that if things ever did get too bad that Rine would show real concern; thankfully her life had not required it since meeting him.

  “That was Ajax, he is on his way back to the slums. Actually, that isn’t the full story; I haven’t heard from him in days and it’s frustrating not knowing if he is okay or not. Before his silence he was becoming distant as if his mind was on anything but us. To be honest with you it feels like he has already lost interest in me.”

  Rine pushed aside the organised stacks of paper in front of him, tidying them up so that each subsequent sheet was perfectly in line with those it was stacked upon. When the reports no longer distracted him from Aiko he gave her his undivided attention.

  “I doubt that he has lost interest in you; he’d be an idiot to do so, and I’ve put a lot of faith in him possessing more intelligence than that. Was an excuse provided to explain his lack of communication?” asked Rine.

  “None, not one that covers for him anyway. I’ve a good idea what has been distracting him, but I don’t want to talk about it right now; just voicing it is enough to set me on edge. Let’s get back to the reports, we are losing bodies far too quickly in the slums that even Ajax can’t counterbalance that.”

  Rine pulled the sheets of paper back into view, sorting through until he held the newest print-out of the mercenary deaths in sector Seven. After the discovery that his personal tablet had been compromised Rine had taken to relying on paper and ink, both difficult to come by due to far more advanced replacements becoming commonplace, despite reassurances that the security of all his businesses systems had been strengthened to military grade standards.

  “Twenty-three dead in the last two days, more than double that number have had to be removed through injury that prevents their return to action. I don’t want to know the total death count; it’s obvious enough that Seven is proving too tough for our resources to handle.” Rine continued to scan the page after he finished speaking, his eyes moving swiftly across the depressing figures.

  “Not all of Seven is a loss,” she said, her tone hesitant but hopeful. “The mercenaries have formed a spearhead in the south of Seven and have banded together, as per your suggestion. Unfortunately, too many of them have ignored you. What ground had been taken all along the border with Six appears to have now been reclaimed.

  “I have tendered your requirements for more mercenaries and been contacted by Boden Shaw; he and his men are in the system and docked at Vantis. If we required his services they can be here in two days. After his business is concluded on Vantis he will most likely be found on Troy.”

  “Vantis? What business does he have on the water world?” asked Rine.

  “He did not say, but does it really matter at a time like this? He has two hundred men, all battle hardened and reliable, which is more than can be said for some of those fighting your cause. If we could get someone who is organised and has a proven track record when dealing with your trickier assignments, then this war might finally have its swift conclusion.”

  Rine considered the woman’s words, keeping his face expressionless and eyes relaxed. Boden was a fine soldier, and Aiko was not wrong about him proving his worth before. Yet the man was ruthless and disregarded any terms that did not suit his style of warfare. Rine had purchased the man’s service years ago, back when Boden worked alone. The last time Rine hired him It had taken thrice what he had paid Boden in order to clean up all traces of the mess he had left behind.

  “I have not dealt with the man in many years, not after he massacred his last marks entire family and was almost caught in the act. He is a loose cannon; I’ve no idea how he would act when given free reign over an entire sector. If he has two hundred likeminded men following his example I doubt my operations will continue to go overlooked; there is a limit to what my money has bought from the police. I shall keep him in mind if things do not turn around soon. For now, we follow the plan.

  “I have a meeting over in productions in an hour; I must leave you to deal with the distributions meeting. I don’t think there is much to discuss with them, but please update me of any complications. Enjoy your promotion, I’m more than aware that several staff feel aggrieved that they were overlooked as my second.” said Rine.

  Aiko watched him place the stacked paper into his black leather briefcase and walked with Rine to the office’s door. Arnold waited outside, along with five of Rine’s distributors. Their boss did not hesitate as he passed the group, only giving them a slight nod as he headed for the staircase that lead down to the warehouse floor. Aiko motioned for the woman and four men to step inside of the office.

  “Rine has a meeting in Productions and has left me to chair this meeting.” she said as they all took a seat around the rectangular table. “I see that Terrance is late, once again; are we to expect his participation today?”

  “He said that there was a small issue with deliveries that he had to deal with before the meeting, but that he would be here shortly.” said the other woman at the table, Joan.

  “Okay, but we will have to begin without him. Let us start with your weekly figures and move on to any personnel issues.”

  Aiko was weary, but not just because the meeting had run on for hours. The squabbling over territory had irritated her, the demands for more information on the progress in Seven were relentless, but it was the amount of restraint she had to show in order to remain calm that had sapped Aiko of energy.

  Finally alone Aiko pressed her thumb onto her tablets screen until it illuminated. It still displayed the message Ajax had sent several hours before, along with the options to reply or call his tablet; she pressed call.

  She listened as the connection tone repeated itself, a dull chirp to let her know it was still trying to connect their tablets. When Aiko had grown impatient waiting for him to accept the call the connection stopped. An artificial voice repeated that the connection was lost until she ended the call. Aiko redialled, but this time she was instantly greeted with a message saying the connection could not be made.

  “Where the fuck is he?” she said aloud.

  Arnold tried to speak as she stormed out of the office, but she had no time to spare for him. Aiko took the stairs two at a time, one hand gliding along the rail to keep her balance. When she arrived on the ground floor Aiko paced across to a doorway set within a low ceiling room at the warehouses rear.

  The fingerprints of her right hand were scanned as Aiko gripped the doors handle, which unlocked with a loud clunk. She shut the door behind her as the room illuminated from the pale blue bulbs set into the ceiling.

  The desk pressed up against the opposite wall contained three metal cylinders laid out end to end in front of a glass sphere formed from countless small discs that shimmered in the light. Aiko waved a hand over each cylinder, causing the glass sphere to separate, moving so that each of the discs that formed it were angled in separate directions. The cylinders moved of their own accord until they stood upright; they then began to slowly rotate around the sphere, whilst the base of each cylinder hovered a hairs breadth above the tables surface.

  A gentle hum signified that several lasers within each cylinder were powering up, their light fracturing as they hit the glass and joining to project a three-dimensional image of Konar City suspended above the three cylinders. Aiko tapped her left thumb on the table, which caused the keys set within it to light up.

&
nbsp; She typed out a series of commands that resulted in the image rotating before then zooming in on sector Four. The image showed the Haven Inn and its courtyard, with a single red marker stationary towards the courtyards centre. The image showed no people, it was comprised of a recent three-dimensional scan of the city that modelled the externals of every building; not even the police had access to the software. The marker represented Ajax’s tablet, which she had to take on faith also represented where he was. Aiko fast forwarded, watching the marker eventually move back into the Haven. From there it travelled towards the train station of Four, and, according to the timestamp, paused whilst Ajax sent the message that had enraged her earlier.

  When the marker halted in its progress once more Aiko could not help but wonder what caused the hesitation. She was considering that he had stopped to purchase food, since he was near to several vendors, when he turned back and headed north, away from the station. Soon the pace increased, and Ajax was covering ground swiftly, doing so for over half an hour. When he came to a halt it was outside of a mansion set atop a large rise that overlooked a sizeable section of Four. She knew who the owner was; it was difficult not to.

  The marker moved inside of the mansions grounds and paused momentarily at the end of the driveway. Aiko watched as Ajax moved inside, then proceeded to wander around the building for several minutes. The image in front of her did not show any elevation, she could only guess by how he made two complete revolutions that Ajax was either ascending or descending a staircase. The marker moved in a line before turning right, where it paused once more. Aiko sped up the playback, watching the marker move rapidly in the same location before once more heading in the direction it came from, except this time it never left the building.

  When the marker finished moving and was stationary for some time Aiko fast forwarded to just before the connection between their tablets was mysteriously terminated. The marker had been in the same location for over an hour before it moved once more, except far slower than would represent a normal walking pace. When outside of the mansion Ajax ceased moving; a few moments later the marker disappeared from the image.

  Aiko stared in disbelief at what had happened. The tablets were capable of broadcasting tens of miles with brick, metal, even mountainside in the way, yet his had disappeared from the computers reach. It was possible that he had broken it, or removed the battery, but Aiko could think of no reason for him to do so.

  The image caught up to real time, still there was no sign of Ajax’s signal. Aiko stared at the image, pondering what could possibly have happened. Aiko pressed the call button on her tablet once more as her fingers typed out the identifier for Miles’ tablet, which caused the image to pan out from Four and focus in on Seven. A quick glance at her tablets screen confirmed that it still could not connect.

  In Sector Seven three red dots were grouped close-by inside of a small building, deep within the sector. Aiko rewound the tracking system and watched as the markers retreated from their current location, moving swiftly across to a much larger building. She halted the image as six more markers appeared within the building.

  Aiko typed in a short command that resulted in names appearing alongside each marker on the display in front of her. She did not recognise all the names but knew that they would have been hired by Rine or one of his associates at some stage. Aiko assumed that those she was not familiar with were probably recently recruited, which made their deaths even more unfortunate.

  As Aiko set the tracking system to resume she heard the looped message end on her tablet, replaced by a connection tone. Aiko scooped up the tablet and held it to one ear as her other hand typed in Ajax’s identifier.

  The display panned across Sector Seven, moving several streets away from Miles’ current location until it found the marker that represented Ajax. He was stationary and towards the centre of a long street, with a smattering of mercenaries indicated around him by more markers.

  Aiko had been staring at the stationary marker for nearly a minute when she gave up on Ajax answering the call. She typed in the same command as earlier, with all the markers now displaying their owner’s names alongside them. Aiko ended the call and opened her contacts, searching the list for any of the names displayed in front of her. When she came across the first match Aiko clicked the name twice and raised the tablet to her ear.

  “Is this Jason?” she asked as the connection was made.

  “I can’t talk at the moment, we’re under fi-.” the called ended with a click, replaced by silence.

  Aiko stared wide eyed in fear at the display in front of her as every red marker in sight blinked out at once. What she saw in front of her was not possible; twelve mercenaries and Ajax, their markers stretching from one side of the street to the other, gone in an instance.

  She could not tear her eyes away from the display, willing for the red markers to reappear. Aiko typed at the keys in front of her, commanding the system to reboot. She held her breath as the image disappeared momentarily, flickering back into view to show all of the city once again. When she typed in Ajax’s identifier the system did not respond.

  Manually inputting the last coordinates that had been displayed caused the image to once again focus in on Sector Seven. Aiko let out a muted whine as she was greeted with an image free of markers, devoid of life.

  Chapter 4

  “I thought you were pulling my leg; I haven’t seen a working exo in at least a decade, and it looks as if they’ve been left to rust that long. Some have fared far better than others,” Miles pointed towards the suits closer to the buildings entrance, where components had come free from the suits body. “I cannot believe that so many would just be left lying around in Seven of all places. Who would leave this much firepower behind?” mused Miles.

  Miles ran his hand along the exo-suit, feeling for any indicators of damage to the metal plating that formed the chest piece. Despite the numerous spots of rust from neglected maintenance and exposure to the winter weather there were no visible signs that this suit had seen battle.

  Rex watched on, amused by Miles’ mumbling which, he thought, sounded positive as to returning the suit to service, even if Rex could not distinguish the words. His hopes were raised that Miles would support attempting to salvage some of the suits for a considerable profit.

  Miles turned as he heard footsteps on the wooden steps of the staircase. Rose appeared into view, the small figure of her son following in her shadow. Her gun was now slung across her back in a makeshift holster, allowing the men to relax a little around Rose. She hesitated when greeted with the sight of the unfolded exo-suit, but rather than show caution Miles was surprised by her intrigue.

  “Have you seen an exo-suit before?” asked Miles.

  “Only recently, and they were setup for transport and handling of heavy loads; I’ve never heard of a weaponised suit.” Rose stepped closer, moving around the suit in order to better inspect the mechanisms that controlled it. “It looks to operate similarly to a pair of suits that Ward and I scavenged in Six, only in far better condition. We could not repair both suits but were able to patch up one with the choice parts of the other, though the bastard scrap merchant charged me for both. If it weren’t for your war I would have sold the suit on for a nice profit.”

  Miles took a moment to process this information, all the while watching Rose study the machine. The boy moved towards his mother and followed her movements in inspecting the condition of the suit.

  “Do you think that you could restore some of these suits, assuming that any failed parts can be replaced from other suits?” asked Miles.

  “Given enough time I’m confident that Ward and I could restore a few of the suits. What would be in it for us though? And would we be safe from out there,” Rose pointed a thumb at the damaged doorway, just in case any of the men did not follow, “because something that would hamper any progress is ducking for cover every twenty minutes.”

  “Protection is an issue in Seven. One of my men could sta
y behind to guard against attack, but I would feel more comfortable if all three of us were present, after we collected some supplies and confirmed there was a buyer for the suits. Should we be successful, would a sizeable chunk of the profits of any sale be enough to incentivise you?”

  “We’d take no less than fifty percent.” stated Rose.

  Miles considered, briefly, haggling with the woman, but he knew an even split would be a fair share for the risk and work both parties would put in. The big-eyed boy at her side helped win over his more cutthroat side.

  “Then fifty it is. Do you have a tablet that I can contact you on when we are back in this part of Seven?”

  “No, they are scarcer than an honest merchant in the slums. Save from looting one from a corpse I don’t think I’d be able to acquire one either.”

  “I can show you the way to one of our old safehouses in Six, if you are willing to bed down there for a few days. Let me show you on a map.”

  Jerry moved over to the ruined doorway of the building, leaving Miles and Rose to discuss how to rendezvous without a direct line of communication. He quietly chuckled to himself as he heard Miles describe the sisters Angelica and Katherine.

  The snowstorm had finally died down to a smattering of snow, increasing visibility considerably. Jerry could now make out the blanketed buildings that surrounded the area, the dull grey brick that formed them mostly hidden by pure white snow. Thankfully no figures were visible to him either on the ground or through any of the windows, yet in the distance Jerry could just distinguish the faint sounds of gunfire.

  “At least it looks like we aren’t being followed,” said Jerry from the doorway. “Not so much as - oh shit!”