Viggo felt the hot blood in his face, knew his ears were turning red. He realized his mouth was hanging open so he figured he’d try talking – make it look like it was supposed to be open. “Yeah, well, I guess you couldn’t… Hey! Wait!” He started to reach out but then recoiled at the probable reaction he saw.
Hallie stormed off angrily, her two friends not in on the secret but they threw him dirty looks out of solidarity with their friend.
And Viggo was left to sift through the memories and possible memories of their short conversation. He had no idea what she’d seen him say or do but it must have been pretty egregious. She’d seen something from her future, something he hadn’t and it had pissed her off, bad enough to storm off.
He sagged against the railing, wishing he’d gone with his original plan that morning and gone hunting. He’d be covered in chimera-salve and sweat right now, but he wouldn’t have insulted the girl who never failed to turn his knees to gelatin and his brain to mush.
Being a teen on any world was tough, but being seventeen on 3428 was a special kind of hell. Able to see endless possible paths in their conversation, Hallie would have seen every hormone-addled, socially inept response Viggo could have made.
“Sometimes you’re a real ass, Viggo Rickson!”
He looked up in alarm at Hallie’s friend, Cara. She’d managed to walk right up to him while he was absorbed in his misery. “I don’t even…”
“She can’t help what her family did in the past,” Cara insisted, voice shaking with good reason. Her own ancestors had been involved in the original mutiny of the Guadalcanal.
On rejoining the Alliance, many had been dismayed to learn that their ancestors’ perfidy, generations in their own past, remained fresh in living memory. The rest of the fleet, inoculated against the plague, had lifespans in the thousands of years.
“What?” he blurted in shock. “I would never… not to her…” He fell into inarticulate stammering for a few desperate heartbeats. “There must have been a misunderstanding! I’m not exactly great with words, you know…”
He searched wildly for something to say. “My family was on the short end of that mutiny for generations,” he reminded her. “We know what it’s like; we wouldn’t wish that on anyone!”
Cara looked at him for a moment, probably exploring several lines of inquiry, though Viggo had no idea what questions they were or what answers he would have given.
He was in a bit of a panic to go after Hallie and fix this mess. He was about to say something to that effect – minus mention of the word ‘panic’ – when Cara’s expression softened. She even smiled.
“You should go talk to her,” she insisted. “She’s headed for her family’s quarters.” She reached out and grabbed Viggo’s shoulder before he could turn. “Just take the time to think through what you’re saying. It has a bigger impact on her than you realize.”
Viggo nodded, eager to get going. He started off toward the main concourse, thinking of what he might say to Hallie. He passed out of the radial corridor and into a large atrial space where an ancient spicewood tree dominated the center.
He slowed his pace, checking for vehicle traffic before crossing to the railing, Cara’s advice percolating through his teenage mind. Stop and think this through, he told himself. If I just barge into her place and ask to see her without trying to understand what I want to say, I could make this worse. He sighed, staring at the mottled bark of the huge tree. I would make things worse, he thought ruefully.
His dad was enormously fond of this tree. The entire arco had been designed around it. Eighty-seven stories of flowing structure that surrounded the ancient sentinel. Smaller, normal-sized trees of various species sprouted from its larger branches, mostly myco-heterotrophs that fed on the larger tree’s fungal encrustations.
A carefully curated community of 3428’s less vicious animal life made their homes in the branches or on the three acres of park-land around its trunk. It was a comforting connection to nature in an arco designed to limit the Human footprint on the ecosystem. It had a bigger impact on the residents than…
Viggo’s heart, having just calmed down, began racing again. Cara said my words have a bigger impact on Hallie than I realize! He couldn’t be certain just how much that was supposed to mean but he didn’t think he was misinterpreting.
She did like him!
He thumped the rail. I’m just going to go there and tell her how I feel, he thought. He turned just in time to see the bag drop over his head.
A stunner to his gut ended any possibility of resistance.
Only a hormone riddled teenager could have failed to see that coming. He’d been so focused on Hallie, he’d completely tuned out the possible futures in his immediate situation. While his brain was still coming to terms with the bag over his head, his electrically overloaded body was passing along the information that he was being bundled into a small vehicle.
The door slammed, dimming the sound of the surrounding traffic, and they started moving. His furtive twitches finally ceased and he started to get his head back in the game. He almost reached up to remove the bag. He knew where the hands would come from to stop him and he slapped them aside with ease.
Whoever these guys were, he had a good five seconds on them at the very least.
He twisted to the right, kicking a stun-gun back against its owner, grinning savagely at the results his mind sensed, even when his eyes couldn’t.
Then he stopped in confusion. What the hells? Ben?
“Viggo,” Ben Fletcher hissed urgently. “Calm down! This isn’t what it seems like.”
Viggo sat still, letting Ben pull off the hood. Sure enough, Ben Fletcher was sitting there, a look of concern on his craggy features. His brother, Eddie, was still twitching over by the door, stun gun by his side. Both men, abductor and abductee laughed and, a moment later, Eddie’s struggles brought him back into contact with the stunner, setting off a fresh round of mindless gyrations.
“Stupid bastard,” Ben commented with the ease of long-standing sibling rivalry. “Told him it was a bad idea to bring that thing along. I say we wait till the batteries run out…”
“Gotta say, Ben, this looks like a kidnapping,” Viggo turned his gaze away from Eddie to look his captor in the eye. “You said this wasn’t what it looked like, which is mildly reassuring, I suppose, but an explanation would be appreciated.”
Ben pressed his lips together in a thin line, looking down and away from Viggo. “Some of the families liked it better in the old days,” he began slowly. “Back before the Canal went back up into the black.”
The Guadalcanal, the Alliance carrier that had been taken during the mutiny, had been landed here on 3428 where she’d housed several generations of the original crew’s descendants. After Rick had escaped on a trading ship, he’d led a Midgaard force back to return the inhabitants to Alliance control.
It had turned their society upside down.
“You mean when the mutineers were the ‘good guys’ and my family, and others who’d stayed loyal to the Alliance, were the untouchables?” Viggo asked, a dark edge in his voice.
“Not so easy to accept that your ancestors dishonored your name,” Ben countered quietly. “Especially when there were plausible lies that gave you an excuse to ignore it. Stupid is an easily learned habit and it’s a hard one to change.” He frowned in irritation as Eddie bumped into his stunner yet again.
“That still doesn’t explain why I’m sitting in a greasy cargo-hauler that smells like a sea-lizard took a dump in it.” Viggo reached out with his foot and dragged the stunner away from Eddie. The hairs rose on the back of his neck at the response he was provoking.
“They’re launching a coup,” Ben said, finally looking Viggo in the eye. “They think they can seize the place while your parents are off-world; set everything back to the way it used to be.”
“Look, Ben, I know you said stupid is an easy habit, but this… this needs its own word. It goes beyond stupid by a fe
w orders of magnitude. The Alliance knows where we are now and there’s the small matter of my parents. I doubt the old families can muster enough force to prevent my parents from establishing orbital superiority.
“They’ll call for the Canal to be released from its current assignment – you know Barry would back them whether he’s a Fletcher or not – and he’d be here in a matter of days, landing ground troops…” He trailed off, eyes narrowing on Ben.
“Their only hope is if they have some kind of ace in the hole, something that gives them leverage when my parents show up.” A shiver went down his spine. Five minutes ago, I was envying Tim for all the exciting danger he’d be facing. Careful what you wish for, genius…
“The instant they start moving openly to seize control, they’d send someone to grab the heir to the planet.” He looked around meaningfully at the slimy interior of the vehicle’s cargo storage. “They’d send someone to put a bag over my head…”
“Viggo…”
“And shove me into the back of a cargo-hauler.” He turned a hard look on Ben. “I’d say it sounds exactly how it looks.”
“Viggo…”
Viggo grabbed the stunner that he’d dragged closer with his foot. He jabbed it into Ben’s midsection, wrinkling his nose at the sudden blast of black-onion in his captor’s involuntary exhalation.
He reached for the latch to open the door but he caught himself. For one thing, he still had the stun-gun in his hand and would have electrified the handle and possibly himself.
He calmed his breathing and looked ahead, searching for the right time to exit the vehicle. Finally he turned, gave both men another quick jab with the stunner, shut it off, and stuffed it into his shirt.
He opened the door and hopped out at a traffic bottleneck where several cargo-handling units were waiting for a merge slot at one of the city’s vertical paths. He closed the door and walked away as nonchalantly as possible.
With a coup trying to seize his birthright, Viggo thought he was doing a decent job with the nonchalance but he needed a plan and he needed it last week at the latest. Most kids growing up on 3428 were educated in all the basic subjects but Viggo, heir to a Midgaard household, also received more specialized training.
A series of semi-retired Midgaard courtiers had spent time on 3428, rapping Viggo’s knuckles, stuffing his brain with case-studies, beating the living hells out of him, challenging him in virtual combat scenarios at the tactical, strategic and operational levels.
Being groomed to lead a noble house was, much like becoming an effective archer, a lifelong process. In a way, Viggo saw this as his greatest test so far. First, he had to ensure room to maneuver. He’d escaped immediate captivity, leaving him free, for the moment.
“Always best to assess your options before committing,” Thorstein always told him. Though he wasn’t an official participant in the house tutoring system – still being on active service with the family – Thorstein was Viggo’s favorite teacher. “Nothing worse than having to say ‘Oh, hells! Wish I’d thought of doing that,’” the engineer would say, harping on his favorite theme.
Viggo thrust aside sentimental ideas like rallying the loyal members of the populace to his banner and nipping the rebellion in the bud. For one thing, he didn’t know who he could rely on in the midst of a city where he was now being actively sought by his enemies. Enemies who knew who they could rely on.
There was opportunity to be found in chaos. For one thing, an open revolt would bring the troublemakers out into the open. In the absence of resistance, those who backed the revolt would declare openly so they’d be entitled to a slice of the pie in the new regime.
He shelved that thought for the moment as there was little he could do with such knowledge in his current position. He had to concentrate on what actions were available to him at the moment. He was limited for choices. In fact, his options boiled down to the classics.
Fight or flight.
He’d already ruled out fighting, so flight was what he had to work with. He’d get out of the city and deny his opponents their strongest weapon against his parents. That meant hiding in the jungle and he thought longingly of the weapons in his quarters. That went on the shelf as well. If Ben had come after him on the concourse, there were likely to be others watching his family’s home.
No, he told himself. Straight outside and head for the hideout. He almost started walking but he imagined he could feel Thorstein thumping the side of his head. He looked back at the cargo-haulers, their indicator-panels showing their destinations.
“Wish I’d thought of doing that!” he muttered quietly, grinning. He stepped over to a hauler that indicated a trip down to the upper levels of the industrial zone, just below surface level. He knew there were air-exchangers there that led out into the jungle, a much better idea than trying to stroll nonchalantly down eighty-odd levels in plain sight.
And Ben was unlikely to expect him, after just escaping from one cargo-hauler, to climb into the next one in line…
He opened the door, shoving aside the lightly packed textiles that were being sent down for re-cycling. He clambered in and pulled the door shut behind himself. He reached up, almost activating the interior maintenance holo so he could turn on the interior light but caught himself just in time.
He closed his fist, telling the system he’d changed his mind. “Never act on autopilot,” some tutor had told him. His desire for light would have resulted in a corresponding light on the outside panel.
He heard a door opening nearby, followed by a grunt.
‘Mumble, mumble, mumbittle bastard!’ There were muffled footsteps. “Mumble, mumbut the hells up, asshumble!’ Two sets of footsteps faded to nothing.
Viggo realized he was holding his breath. He let it out, the sound alarmingly loud inside the metal-walled cube. He held it again, afraid his would-be captors might hear him, although he knew it would be difficult, even standing next to the damned thing.
He lurched sideways as the vehicle moved forward and slotted into a down-shaft, and then the floor dropped away from him. He realized he might not survive his own clever scheme and spent the next few millidays racking his implant to see if he could find any technical specs for this transport system.
It wasn’t until just before he reached his destination that he could see his own safe arrival. Got a new one for you, Thorstein, he thought. Don’t let your own cleverness kill you. He scrambled to get out, seeing a sudden acceleration to the south side of the sorting facility.
He dropped into a literal no-man’s-land. This was the province of the machines. Material flowed onto grav-conveyors where it was scanned, sorted and prepped, which was a euphemistic way of saying ‘cut to tiny shreds’.
There were grids of focused energy everywhere he looked. They were used to turn large items into smaller items of various sizes, based on their material. There were even grids facing upward in areas where materials might have fallen off the grav-belting.
Ordinarily it wasn’t an issue. The machinery down here knew better than to wander through the grids and any Human stupid enough to wander around the place would be doing the gene-pool a favor by getting sliced and recycled.
Viggo used his implant to bring up a plan of the recycling center and overlay it on the real thing. The big round tube at his back was one of the air-exchangers used to keep the atrium at the right temperature and humidity levels for the ancient tree. There was an inspection access-hatch twenty meters to his left and in the middle of a small left-hand jog in the tube’s path.
He started moving that way, climbing up over a parked maintenance bot only to find that a shredding grid had come loose from its hangar and now dangled in his path, blocking the way for any who wished to remain in one piece. He grabbed the frame, gently turning the crackling shredder until he could slip past.
He came around the corner to find the hatch, as advertised in the specs, but it was equipped with a security control. Of course it has a security control, Viggo told himself angri
ly. ’Cause it would be too easy, otherwise! There must have been a critical sub-system in the immediate area. He could open the hatch, of course, given his status in the city. The problem was he’d pop up on the security system, telling his enemies exactly where he was.
Sure, he’d make it into the jungle but they’d be one step ahead of him instead of just hot on his heels. For all he knew, they had teams heading out there already. The last thing he needed was for someone to tell them where to concentrate.
He nearly jumped out of his skin at the noise he was about to hear, then he smiled, amused at his luck. He jogged back to the loose shredding grid. He caught the frame after it banged against the side of the large ventilation tube and tried to align it but it was hanging a half-meter too high for what he had in mind.
He opened a pull-down in his HUD overlay, examining the specs for the grid assembly. It had capacitors built in to mitigate the power fluctuations common in an arco still under construction.
He looked up at the wires that barely suspended the frame, considering. He grabbed the two upper corners and hauled down, trying to ignore the fact that a network of merciless energy beams were crisscrossing each other a hand’s breadth from his chest.
He was ready for the break and dropped to his left as the frame fell to the decking and toppled over against the large duct. He rolled out of the way and stood as the grid hissed its way through the material of the duct, small square pieces clattering to the bottom of the ventilation tube.
The beams had been tightly focused and, even as he approached the new opening, the heated edges dissipated the extra energy into the surrounding air and the fabric of the duct itself.
He leaned over, stepping into the warm, humid breeze of the tube, fighting the sudden feeling of security that the change in atmosphere had brought about. Danger doesn’t just breathe city air, Vigs, he reminded himself.
He moved forward, against the incoming air, aided in the dark by his HUD’s outline of the tunnel. That warned him of any protruding air-sensors but didn’t stop him from banging a shin against a forgotten tool-case from the original construction drones. Some faulty algorithm from more than a decade ago had reached out from the grave to keep him alert…
Asymmetry Page 3
