Aedre's Firesnake

by Rayner Ye

  “I don’t know, Boss.”

  Aedre touched the base of her neck. Surely this man wasn’t Bamdar. She couldn’t kill him until she knew for sure.

  A Sax scientist entered. He wore a long white lab coat. “Bamdar?”

  “Yes?” the handsome man said.

  A ringing buzzed in her ears. Her face went slack.

  “Would you come and see her clone?”

  Aedre followed this Native-Red called Bamdar, and his scientist. They went down a corridor and into a medical infirmary. A gust of wind blew her away—positive pressure fans like those Somare had used to deter Bamdar’s mosquito drone in the labour camp.

  Her pulse pounded in her ears as she tried to find her bearings. “Help me inhabit a CCTV device where Bamdar is.”

  She looked down at her own body, lying on a bed.

  “Aedre’s clone fully works now.” The scientist picked up her floppy hand. “We’ve tested her clone with someone else’s memory chip. Her body is as good as yours.”

  The Native-Red rubbed his hands together. “Thankfully, she won’t need plastic surgery. That hurt me more than having a new body.”

  The scientist looked down at his shoes, forming a double chin. “Yes. I’m sorry about that. But you must agree that I had to do it. Aedre would never fall for you if she knew who you were.”

  Static electricity shot all over her electronic body. This man was Bamdar, and she had to kill him. But how would she do it?

  “Once I raise enough money, this clone will be good to go into cryosponge.”

  The scientist beamed. “Most definitely, Pak’Bamdar. Your fake passport is ready, your visa is ready, and your men are planning to rob Mayleeda’s bank as we speak.”

  “Good. Aedre and her father will never get to Nerthus’s spaceport. A bag of sleeping gas has been implanted in her father’s android maid.”

  Aedre had to control her breathing back at the river. She focused on Bamdar.

  Bamdar walked over to her clone, bent over, and kissed it on its cheek. “She will thank me when I help her walk again.”

  Aedre blushed, and her chin dipped to her chest. Did he want to help her?

  She sucked in a harsh breath through her nose. Bamdar was sick, and she had to kill him. With a set jaw, she waited and watched.

  “Would you like a test run?”

  Bamdar asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I can insert a memory chip. Take a walk with her. You could talk to her if you like.”

  Bamdar flashed a grin. “That would be fun.”

  The scientist pulled back red curls from the clone’s left ear, fiddled around with its skull, then opened a small hole. He dug a hand into his pocket, pulled out a tiny microchip, and inserted it into her head.

  The clone smiled, swung her legs over the bed, and stood. “Hello.”

  The scientist smiled at her. “Your name’s Katie, isn’t it?”

  She nodded and held out her hands. “What’s happened to my body?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Bamdar said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  She nodded submissively.

  Aedre’s jaw clenched. Katy must have been a slave.

  They walked farther along the corridor. Aedre shape-shifted into a fly and followed them up a ladder, through a hatch, and above ground.

  She pursued them along a path which led between tea bushes and overlooked hillsides. Her extended memories told her Roobish had once lived here. As she watched the clone walking, giggling, and conversing, Aedre’s stomach hardened. If only she could walk like her.

  “I’ll be a new man,” Bamdar said to Aedre’s clone. “No more crime. As long as I can make Aedre happy, I’ll take any job.”

  Did Bamdar intend to send her clone to Oxfire? If she waited for him in Nerthus, she wouldn’t have to sleep in cryosponge for four years.

  “Are you sure you want to hand the mafia to Pak’Lyfee?” his scientist asked.

  Bamdar nodded.

  The hair rose on Aedre’s fly-thorax. Could he be a new man? She had always longed to be loved, but she shook her head. He would surely rape her again.

  The scientist stopped and faced Bamdar.

  Bamdar and Aerdre’s clone stopped too.

  “How would you show her the clone?”

  Bamdar laughed. “I won’t. That’ll be my last crime. When her father’s android releases sleeping gas, my man in Nerthus will steal her memory chip and dispose of her paralysed body.”

  “And her father?”

  “Make it look like he had an accident.”

  Aedre cocked her head. He was still an evil bastard.

  ***

  She waited until Bamdar was alone. He lay in bed for an afternoon nap.

  “Give me a laser gun to shoot that bastard and transform me to myself so he can see me.”

  He tilted his head to the side, then his eyes buldged when she aimed the gun at him.

  “Oh, no,” he said, terrified.

  “I can’t believe you made yourself a clone to escape moon prison.”

  “Who are you? What are you talking about?”

  She gritted her teeth. “You know who I am—your beloved, who you beat and raped. The girl whose life savings you took away before tagging her and her friends with mosquito drones.” Her bottom lip trembled. “You killed my friends, even though they kept your secret.”

  “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I made a mistake.”

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  He held out his opened palms. “Can’t you forgive me? I’ve repented my sins.”

  Her gaze hardened. “I’m surprised you don’t know by now that I’m not a Bogan and don’t believe in Derek forgiving sins. I’m a pagan and always have been. I believe in laws of nature, not the laws of humans like you!”

  “But I can help you walk again!”

  She gulped, and her face went cold. She pulled the trigger.

  Bamdar evaporated.

  Hands still trembling, Aedre slumped.

  Mayleeda

  Aedre awoke to muffled tapping and scraping above her head. Suspended upright within a translucent white egg, she couldn’t discern the dark shape which stood outside, next to her.

  Chiselling came from above, and cold air chilled her face. She tilted her chin upwards. Through a semicircular hole, a small saw attached to a robotic hand cut the remaining cryosponge section. The saw retracted, and another device protruded—a clamp, which grabbed the circle of gelatinous matter and removed it.

  Aedre nibbled her lip. Would her other body parts become cool and gain feeling once exposed to air? Could tachyon thrust in any way bring sense and movement to her paralysed body?

  The robot cut and tore cryosponge away from her face and head. It didn’t have a human face, but blue lights flashed when it spoke in a soft female voice. “Hello, Aedre. My name’s Margo. I’ll be your assistant throughout your time in rehabilitation.”

  Margo slashed and disconnected her egg from the front, back, and sides until discarded cryosponge lay in a heap on the floor beside a magnetic plate under her suspended feet.

  Her body remained numb to sensation, and while she could move her face and head, she couldn’t wriggle her fingers or toes.

  She let out a hard sigh and closed her eyes. Wishful thinking. At least she’d be cured once she and Dad left rehabilitation and found a doctor who regenerated nervous systems.

  Occupants, in different stages of release, bent their knees or stretched their arms. Others, yet to awake, floated upright within their egg. The robots brought hoverchairs for travellers to land in once disconnected from their magnetic force.

  Aedre’s body remained stupefied as Margo lowered her into her hoverchair. They joined the procession to the room at the end. Robots left their humanoids in a cue and marched away through a door. The Hoverchairs carried humanoids through a shower tunnel, where soap and water washed away remaining sticky residue, and fans blew them dry.

  Aedre turned her head from side t
o side. Where was Dad?

  Hoverchairs carried them through the same door robots had used, then stopped and inched forward one at a time onto a conveyer belt which transported them to a maglev suction tube platform.

  Their hoverchairs stretched until they were parallel to the Biluiglass floor, then they floated into maglev carriages without external assistance.

  An automated male’s voice said, “Welcome to Mayleeda. We are orbiting the moon at one hundred kilometres above sea level. After you have been robed via Biludress, you will be escorted to a rehabilitation centre, fifty kilometres above sea level. Don’t panic when your carriage rotates. You are safe. From the Mayleedian rehabilitation team, we hope you enjoy your stay.”

  Blue material wound around her pelvis from underneath and joined at her navel. It spread all over her naked body, except for her head, hands and feet.

  She gave a small yelp. This technology was different. Fabric from Biluglass? Or had the material come from her hoverchair turned hoverbed? Why didn’t Nerthus have Biluglass like this? Perhaps it wasn’t rich enough.

  As the maglev followed its suction tube’s incline, the ceiling displayed its speed—only five hundred kilometres per hour. From their inverted position, the spaceship they’d vacated gleamed silver in starlight.

  Her heart seemed to freeze, then pound. Round at the front and pointed at the end, their spaceship could have housed all of Rajka. What else had it carried besides passengers? Goods for trade?

  The maglev rotated, and the living moon—Mayleeda—lay dark beneath, except for street lights in cities. Sunlight gleamed on the horizon, then spread across Mayleeda’s surface. Landscapes became green and yellow and grey, and oceans twinkled through holes in a cloudy quilt.

  After five minutes, the landscape darkened, as the maglev rotated and followed a decline. The reason for the shadow then became apparent. Mayleeda’s gas giant covered its binary suns. Tushing’s purple and brown storms churned, and its gold rings glittered.

  Aedre’s heart banged in her eardrums, and her breaths came shallow. The gas giant could swallow them whole. Even her paraplegia couldn’t undermine how its magnetic frequency affected her body.

  As the suction tube levelled out, the maglev decelerated and proceeded towards a white pod shaped like an aubergine on its side.

  The maglev continued into the pod’s basement and came to a halt at a platform. Once carriage doors separated, all hoverbeds levitated onto the platform and transformed into chairs, which carried humanoids along a corridor, then forked off left and right. Groups split off.

  Aedre’s hoverchair followed nineteen others into a ward, then metamorphosed into a bed’s upper surface. Without straps, the Biluglass of the bed supported and propped her so she could look around. Transparent medical airSpheres encircled every patient. Violet and turquoise patterns within the orbs monitored occupants’ health.

  A mixture of ethnicities’ slept in their weakened state, too exhausted from travelling fifteen light-years at four times the speed of light. Some patients had dark red skin and long earlobes. Others were coloured sparkly orange or yellow. There were Nerthling Saxs and Papsnens too, but, not a single Native Red.

  Who could she speak Inarmuzzan too? She’d feel empty to lose that part of her soul. She’d have to get used to cultural differences in Mayleeda.

  The same biped robots from the spaceship filed into the ward, one to each bed. Constructed from Biluglass and metal, they seemed too bulky in their surroundings. Some of Dad’s robots seemed far more agile and slender. Nerthus was more advanced in android and robot engineering. Didn’t Mayleeda import them from Nerthus? Perhaps not.

  Aedre’s robot set up an intravenous drip beside her bed. Unlike IV drips in Nerthling hospitals, these levitated.

  Blue lights flashed in a row on the front panel of the robot’s box-shaped face. “Hello, Aedre. Welcome to Mayleeda. Nice to see you again. I’m Margo. Do you remember me?”

  Aedre drew in a breath and smiled. “Yes.”

  “Good. I will administer your IV fluids now. I’ll insert this needle into your arm. You won’t feel it because of your paraplegia.”

  “Where’s my father?”

  “He will join you in approximately two minutes.”

  When Dad arrived on his hoverchair, with his drip floating beside him, his gaze rested on Aedre, and he gave a shaky laugh. “You’re alright?”

  She nodded. “How’re you?”

  “Weak.”

  “That’s normal. We’ll feel a bit better in a month.”

  “Is that how long it takes?”

  “No. I had rehabilitation for one month on Kuanja but still didn’t feel right. That journey was only five light-years.”

  “Oh, dear.” He scratched his head. “The gravitational force is higher on Kuanja. Mayleeda and Nerthus have a similar one. It might be better this time around.”

  “Not sure if gravity affects paraplegics so much.”

  “We’ll know when we reach land. I wonder if Soozan and Joshua are on their way yet. I expect she’s left an email, though--always the great organiser.”

  Aedre swallowed and smiled. Her sister had always been his favourite. It should be that way because his mental breakdown had been Aedre’s fault, not Soozan’s.

  During the next month, while rehabilitation patients exercised in airSpheres over hoverpads, Aedre levitated, and Margo stretched and bent her limbs to keep her body supple. Dad’s self-engineered rod was confiscated because it didn’t meet Mayleedian health and safety requirements. “It’s okay,” he’d said. “We can buy a nifty gadget for your paraplegia here. It’ll be much better than your rod.”

  Dad phoned Soozan’s inlaws and discovered Soozan and Joshua had left a Nerthus year after them. Aedre and Dad had also talked to doctors about a cure for paraplegia. After rehabilitation, they’d fly to Teeyen, then find the neural regeneration department at Nervous System Hospital, in the Capital of Medicine—Eeshwair Sher.

  ***

  Teeyen, Moon Mayleeda

  Before leaving rehabilitation, Dad bought Aedre a hoverchair. He’d wanted to buy Margo too, but couldn’t. Aedre would need another nurse to change her catheter and stool bag every day. She’d never ask Dad.

  A maglev ferried them twenty-five kilometres to a skyport below, and then they flew in an electric plane to one of Teeyen’s thirteen capitals—Kershwair Sher, the Capital of Science.

  In the ground port, Dad pushed her through crowds of travellers to a clearing and rotated her to face him. “Are you alright?”

  “Yep.”

  “Just about to open my translation and interpretation device. Wait a few minutes.”

  “No worries.”

  Dad’s airSphere opened as a ball in his palm. He pressed icons inside, then stretched it around his head like a helmet. “Want the same?”

  She nodded.

  “You wouldn’t let Mum teach you Mayleedian script, would you?”

  She shook her head.

  “At least you can speak it, though. I’m useless.”

  “I couldn’t understand much in rehabilitation.”

  “I saw you speaking and laughing with Mayleedians.”

  “They were speaking baby-language for me.” She smiled.

  He shrugged. “So you want interpretation on your airSphere too?”

  “Please.”

  After Dad assembled her airSphere around her head, he pushed her past open kiosks with holographic advertisements offering travel and tourism services, then stopped outside vehicle rentals. The kiosk’s hologram displayed a pretty woman with sparkly yellow hair and skin, who stepped into a blue hover-vehicle, which looked like a fish and zoomed off. Then it replayed again and again.

  Dad pushed Aedre through the image and approached a man at the counter.

  His cherrywood skin was a similar shade to Aedre’s dear dead friend, Nabi, and his earlobes hung over his shoulders. He looked at Dad and ignored her despite her disability. “Hello, Z. How can I help you?”
/>   “We need to get to Eeshwair Sher. I hear there isn’t public transport at ground level.”

  The man’s earlobes swayed when he nodded. “Partially correct. No one owns private vehicles either, except inner-city vehicles such as hoverboards and hovershoes.”

  “No public tubes?” Aedre asked.

  “The only tubes are from skyports and above—used for international flights and space travel. Then, there are those underground and ocean—used for trade.”

  “How do people travel in Teeyen?”

  “Suspension transport.”

  Dad gestured at the hologram. “This fish thing?”

  The assistant nodded. “There are suspension boards, disks and chairs too. But these are slow-moving and mostly used in cities.”

  He opened an airSphere and tapped away. “Eeshwair Sher is three thousand miles away. You’ll need fast suspension transport with a planned route pre-programmed.”

  “We’ll sit and enjoy it?” Aedre asked.

  “Exactly.” He rubbed his hands together. “Do you plan to stay inside or outside the city?”

  “We need to go the Hospital of the Nervous System,” Dad said.

  The assistant fiddled inside his airSphere again. “Biology Street is in northern Eeshwair Sher, so you must rent two vehicles—a susplan followed by a susman.”

  Dad showed his palms and shrugged.

  The assistant opened an orange hologram in one hand. It looked like a smaller version of the fish. “First, you’ll travel in a susplan up to five hundred kilometres per hour, suspending between two hundred metres and five thousand kilometres.”

  Aedre and Dad exchanged surprised looks.

  “Don’t worry,” he continued. “It can’t crash because it’s pre-programmed and calculated via an advanced computer network.” He opened his other palm, which seemed to contain small toys—a hoverdisc, a hoverboard, a hoverchair, and hovershoes. “Once you reach the city’s outskirts, your susplan will stop beside the closest available susman. Susmans travel sixteen kilometres per hour max and use heights between ground level and two hundred and fifty metres.”