Chaos Cipher (22 page)

‘
Come home,’
he said softly, wrapping a warm blanket over her shoulders. In the
distance she could hear the pump and vibe of festival life beating
out through Minerva Meadows.

‘
Why are you
dwelling on it so much?’

Sonja drew on
the end of her cigarette and puffed out a cloud of
smoke.

‘
Because of
Kyo,’ she said softly, as Dak sat down beside her. ‘He reminded me
of when we found Kyo.’

‘
Blue
Lycans,’ said Dak.

‘
Yes,’ she
nodded, pulling the cover around herself.

‘
Nobody is
coming for Kyo,’ he assured, ‘if those Blue Lycan soldiers wanted
him they would have been here years ago.’

‘
I’ve a
terrible feeling they’re coming for him.’

‘
We can’t
just assume that every city or precariat start-up zone is going to
fall to the hands of crazed mavericks like the Blue
Lycans…’

‘
They attack
every start-up in the area…Bolstered by the Atominii.’

‘
There’s been
no sign of them near this place, they won’t touch it, there’s too
many of us…’

‘
The Atominii
will find a way…’ She sniffled. ‘Christ what is wrong with those
people? Their thirst to control the world makes me sick. You know
they send shadow bosses here don’t you? They send people here
deliberately, those desperate enough to want to get their homes
back in the Atominii. They send them here to confuse our democracy,
to try and fuck with our heads, to infiltrate our Q-net with lies
and straw men. Every successful democracy like Cerise Timbers is
under attack. They want us to tumble and they want to make it look
like it was our fault. It works better for the bastards than a full
on invasion as though it confirms something in their own
ideological little minds.’

And Dak took
her hands.

‘
I will not
live in fear.’

What? – She
said it with her eyes.

‘
I won’t…’ he
insisted. ‘It’s what they want. Why should everything have a
consequence? Why – why should everything have a condition? I don’t
give a damn about condition, girl. I won’t give in to fear, Sonja.
I won’t.’

And he turned
to the flames.

‘
I had lived
in fear my whole damn life under those Syridan cyborgs. Ain’t never
been as happy as I am here. They only have one power so long as
we’re here, and that power is that our freedom can be taken from us
at any moment if we break their hardland laws. We’re precariats!’
He reminded, ‘they call us that because we’re in a precarious
situation. Delicate grounds n’ shit! We have our freedom, so long
as we still fear them.’ And Dak curled his lip with contempt and
shook his head. ‘Fuck that!’ He said. ‘To hell with them! To hell
with fear! My eyes are open, girl. And they can spray my eyes with
mace and burn them out my goddamn skull but I ain’t gonna close
‘em!’ And Dak nodded, assuring himself, and put his arm gently
around her. ‘I ain’t gonna close them and hide from truth. And I
ain’t gonna fear! People are coming here and we’re winning their
hearts every last one of them. And they’re staying, a community
growing in peace, anchored. No root, no fruit.’

They watched
the flames a while longer, Sonja curled into his arms and she told
him Fimble had died of shock.

‘
We treated
the wounds,’ she said, ‘he died of shock. We got a blood donor to
him and he looked like he was going to pull through for a
minute.’

Dak nodded,
but didn’t respond verbally, he held her a little tighter, lightly
squeezing her hands in his own.

‘
You’re
really not afraid of what they can do?’

‘
I don’t even
know who they are.’ He said. ‘But you’re a Doctor. You’re a medical
professional. You deal with keeping people alive on a daily basis,
you practice in health. Now tell me you really fear
death.’

‘
That’s not
what I fear.’

‘
Then
what?’

‘
I’m afraid
of losing those I love most.’ She said. ‘That’s the kind of fear
that…well it can get to you.’

‘
It almost
got me too,’ he quietly disclosed, whispering in her ear. ‘But I
was lucky, and you know why? You know why I got the word loyalty
tattooed on my back?’

She knew, and
as she lay in his arms and watched the fires he told her
why.

‘
It’s because
you found me.’ He said. ‘When I most needed you. I’d have long ago
blown myself to pieces putting a mark on the Atominii walls just to
put a dent in their slowly eroding paradigm…if it wasn’t for you.
And you showed me…it ain’t the destruction that leads the way. It’s
the healing. It’s the fixing up of things that are already falling,
and leaving out that which isn’t needed. People are needed. Those
people in the Atominii, they think they’re beyond their humanity by
calling themselves Titans. But they’re our brothers and sisters.
They need us too.’

As the dull
fires cracked they stared at the hypnotic flames.

‘
Do you think
there will be consequences for taking in Kyo?’ she wondered
aloud.

‘
Maybe,’ said
Dak, ‘we always knew there’d be a chance. But it ain’t because we
decided to shelter a kid. It’s because of twisted ideologies that
allow folk to solve problems with weapons instead of
words.’

And Sonja
agreed, she knew this to be true.

-14-

M
ax Elba had his arms crossed as he
watched Malik Serat playing chess with a computer in his quarters.
Tanya Medina was sat at the back of the observation room staring
through the window when Ed Rufus sauntered into the dark
room.

‘
What’s the
plan?’ he asked.

Nobody
answered.

The prolonged
silence drew Rufus over to the observation window. He stood beside
the Colonel and stared in at Serat.

‘
What’s the
plan?’ he whispered again.

‘
Duval wants
us to escort this guy to the surface,’ he said, ‘we’re on security
detail so it looks like we’ll be burning the midnight
oil.’

‘
That right?’
Rufus said casually, ‘shame, kind of like this station.’

‘
This man’s
crazy,’ Medina pointed out. ‘He’s been playing a computer at chess
and he hasn’t lost a game.’

‘
Best the
computer can do is run out a stale mate situation.’ Max added.
‘It’s either check or loose to Serat.’

‘
He’s a good
chess player then.’ Rufus noted.

‘
No,’ said
Max, ‘according to the psych wards…it’s never been done before.
Nobody can beat a computer at chess.’

‘
That
right?’

‘
It’s far
from right.’ Medina said. ‘It’s damn well freaky that’s what it
is.’

Max was
biting his nail as he analysed Malik Serat. Something had stirred
the Colonel. Ed Rufus had never seen him this way, not fearful, but
bothered by something.

‘
This one’s
unpredictable,’ he said. ‘No slip ups, got it? I don’t want us
biting off more than we can chew.’

‘
Right sir.’
Rufus agreed.

‘
Damn right,
sir.’ Medina added.

‘
You
seriously that worried about him?’ asked Rufus.

‘
Scott Barnes
wasn’t crying wolf when he told us he’s insane,’ Max Elba
explained. ‘He is. Now look at this guy. Cool composure, right? But
there’s anger in him. I’ve been watching his conversations with
Yerma to get an idea of what I’m dealing with. Duval told me he was
a live wire. I can see what he means.’

‘
Because he’s
playing chess?’

‘
No,’ Max
clarified. ‘But because he’s smart. And a smart psychopath is much
more dangerous than a mere lunatic. I want to know who is in charge
from the onset. Moreover I want him to know that it is
us.’

‘
Right,’
Rufus huffed. ‘Got it.’

‘
What’s
happening with the other guy?’ Medina said, ‘the one we found
wondering around the Erebus?’

‘
Barnes is
staying here.’ Said Max. ‘He is sedated and restrained. After the
way he tore up his own face like that Yerma predicts he’s a danger
to himself or worse.’

‘
So we’re
just dealing with this guy?’ asked Rufus with a devious half-smile.
‘Piece of cake.’

‘
Smoothly
does it,’ Max smiled back, patting his shoulder. ‘It’s a long trip
down. Let’s make it an easy one.’

*

Eight glowing
lights activated around the locking hatch to signal the departure
of the Erebus crew member Malik Serat. The moment the elevator
detached from the
Orandoré
station’s port, it descended slowly along one of
the collimated light beams feeding power into the elevator’s head
and the rollers clamped securely around the ribbon. Below the
elevator, the nocturnal Earth awaited them; neon lights peppered
the dark surface like radioactive dust below the blustering
super-cell hurricanes. Silently the elevator capsule cruised down
the light column, chasing the ribbon for the planetary surface.
Inside, the elevator windows remained transparent while they began
the initial descent. Ten seats were arranged in a circle facing out
from the centre of the elevator. The few seats facing back were for
security personnel, of which Max, Tanya and Rufus were specifically
assigned.

‘
Please
remain seated during the descent,’ the automated voice commanded,
‘as the descent progresses, windows and view fields will be
obscured. Earth’s gravity will take effect shortly, until then
refrain from removing your harnesses. Harnesses can be deactivated
only by a ribbon-drop associate…’

As the
sunlight slipped once more behind the Earth, her all-embracing
darkness engulfed the view below. Much like the Charybdis black
hole, Serat pondered.

Tanya
neuromitted her audible thoughts through the sensorium, setting her
signal to a semi-transqualia. She wanted Rufus and the Colonel only
to hear her surface thoughts, not to have them know she was feeling
nervous. Her voice slipped through the basic sensorium and her two
peers realised her words.

‘
Look at this
guy
’ she said, ‘
he doesn’t even twitch. He seems off and a
little...creepy.
’

‘
Malik
Serat
,’ Rufus wondered as his surface
thoughts now took their semi-qualia. ‘
Three hundred years of space travel will do that I
guess
.’

‘
Relative space
time
,’ Tanya added, ‘
three hundred years earth time, not his
.’

‘
Did they say why
he’s being taken to the surface? He under arrest? Think they’re
going to put him in the maze?
’

‘
I doubt
it
,’ Max came in, ‘
I think this guy’s being looked after.
’

Malik Serat
glared out at the planet’s curved horizon. Frost was creeping
around the corners of the window like tiny branches of albino ivy.
It reminded him of the early freezing process of cryonics on the
Erebus, the dreadful embrace of ice penetrating into his nightmares
where his blood ran cold and his consciousness pleaded to be awake
and alive. So long had it been since he was last home that his
memory of it was now a little hazy.

But he wanted
at last to collapse into a bed, to feel earth’s natural gravity
again without fear of collapsing through the hull of the Erebus and
falling forever into the bottomless pit of a black hole. He wanted
to forget what nightmares lurked in space, to leave nature’s forged
and manifest horrors out where they belonged, far from mankind’s
understanding, somewhere in God’s workshop and to hell with the
infamous oath of new horizons. Everyone else had forgotten his
cause for a better world, why shouldn’t he?

Simple
comforts now seem to be all that resonate with appeal.

But Captain
Zemi had been right what he told him that time during their
struggle to survive the Charybdis. The horrors don’t stay out
there, they follow you home. The core of their secret had followed
them back to earth, sustained forever in the fabric of his being.
He felt it. The lost Chrononaut’s haunting screams still followed
them home, the singing static hum and hiss of the Charybdis, all
still trapped within the communication systems of the sleeping
Erebus, all trapped in his mind. This knowledge threatened
everything they’d once known about reality, against which the walls
came crashing down.

‘
Are you a
gambling man, Rufus?’ Malik said from his chair, addressing the
Canary by his name to everyone’s surprise.

Ed Rufus
looked confused.

‘
Not really.’
He said.

‘
I didn’t
think so,’ he said, ‘you’ve a terrible poker face.’