Son of Sedonia (31 page)

“Open up,” Utu said, holding out a pinched finger-full of ground leaf pulp. The fire died a little inside as Jogun focused on the green-black mush. Comprehension came slowly. He wrinkled his nose as he parted his lips only to have them instantly stuffed with pulp. Utu met his shocked glare with a deep, piercing look.

“Chew,” said Utu. The stuff was bitter as hell both on his tongue and in his nose. Cool menthol juice flooded his mouth as he bit down. Utu watched quietly. Jogun bit again. And again. Very slowly, the first effects did their work, calming the shaking in his belly. Utu walked to the roof ledge, interlaced his fingers, and twisted his arms up in a grand stretch. Relaxing, the doctor looked out to the Border. Beyond it.

“Did you know we come from the stars?” Utu asked without turning. Although Jogun just shook his head, Utu seemed to hear him. Continued.

“Not so long ago, some very bright men discovered this. Through study and observation, they traced the smallest pieces of our bodies to the deaths of faraway suns. And not just pieces of
us
, but of
all
things. The earth, the sky, the moon,” Utu faced the sky, then back down to earth. “...and the Border. Like us and the suns, nothing made of this...Stuff...seems to last forever. Through time, or the will of other Stuff, it all dies so that new Stuff can be born. Over and over.”

Jogun didn’t follow much of it, but the words had a kind of ring to them. He couldn’t place it.

“That supposed to help me?” Jogun asked, forgetting the numbing mouthful of pulp. A bit of dark green drool dripped on the blanket. Ashamed, he wiped his mouth.

“Nope,” said Utu, “That’s just what is. Keep chewing.”

The two of them waited there in the humid dawn as the sounds of the waking Slums drifted up to them. A distant echo of boards dropping. A baby crying. A dirt bike motor choking and sputtering to life. Then the morning metal-drum song of the Stepstones...the call to prayer for those who wished to pray. Hollow metallic tones bounced gently through the jagged streets and debris mounds.

“Can you feel it?” Utu asked. Jogun breathed a deep, mixed lungful of menthol vapor and the dusty Rasalla perfume. Nodded as he slowly chewed.

“No, fool, the caffeine! It should be coursing through those atrophied muscles of yours by now,” Utu said. Jogun snapped alert. Moving under the blanket, he realized he did feel stronger.

“We’ve got to get you moving as much as possible if we’re going to rebuild,” Utu said. Before Jogun could think about what ‘rebuild’ meant Utu clapped his hands together.

“Try to stand,” said the doctor, yanking Jogun’s blanket away. He folded it as Jogun leaned forward in the chair and flexed his toes. The roof felt rough and solid. Pushing with his arms and legs, Jogun began to rise. Utu braced him gently with a hand on the back. Every muscle tensed with the effort, pushing and pulling him into shape. Finally, he was upright. He lifted an arm for Utu to enter as a crutch.

They took one step together. Rising tremors in Jogun’s thighs quivered up his waist, into his core, and up his spine. He gritted his teeth. Took another step. Then another. And another. Acid pain tightened the vice on his limbs. Chanting rose above the Slums behind him, faint at first. As his heart pounded blood into his failing legs, the voices got louder. Though his will could have flipped a shuttle, his body was done. He went limp in Utu’s arms.

“I—I can’t,” Jogun said, “How the hell can I climb the Border if I can’t walk...” He stopped as the words of a rising chant took shape in the streets.

“
Die EXO, Die EXO, In pain all alone! Die EXO, Die EXO, In pain all alone!”
A crowd of dwellers, Healed, and T99 soldiers massed in the Temple below, led by a wagon carrying a corpse. The EXO’s body laid face up and sprawled on the wood in full uniform. Ragged, bloody gouges marred the signature urban camo and flak jacket. Kolpa and Oki emerged from the group.

“Healer!” they called out. On the roof, Utu lowered Jogun back to the chair and covered his feeble legs with the blanket. Returned to the roof ledge.

“Jogun!” they called again.

“He’s up here with me,” said Utu, “Bring the EXO.”

Oki and Kolpa exchanged glances, looked up at Utu, then lifted the corpse off the wagon. Carried it upstairs.

“Here! Here,” Utu said as they reached the top. He cleared a space among the heavy burlap sacks. They dropped the EXO in a bloody heap at the foot of Jogun’s chair.

“In the Pits last night,” Oki panted, “caught us stockin’ one of the ships.”

Jogun looked down at the EXO’s face, it’s expression stretched in a sort of disgust. The eyelids sagged heavy and still, but just barely open. As if the man’s hate made him hang on for every last drop of life. A fever chill rushed through Jogun. Utu crouched beside the body and closed its eyes, soundlessly murmuring to the dead man. He paused, breathing deeply.

“Now,” Utu said, brightening, “Send for a Lifter.”

“What would I need a Lifter fo—” Jogun stopped, realizing.

Within fifteen minutes, Yasin, one of the Black Hoods, followed Rusaam up the stairs to the garden with a blanket-roll under his massive arm. He stopped and looked at Jogun. The giant’s dark eyes glittered in the shadow of his hood.

“This him?” asked Yasin.

“It is,” Utu answered. Yasin stooped, put the blanket-roll on the ground, and got down on his knees. Bowed until his forehead touched the ground.

“Nah, man...stand up. I ain’t the son of God, just a busted ass Nine,” said Jogun. Yasin looked up, paused, then stood as commanded. He unrolled his tools on a crate beside Jogun. Tiny, delicate surgical tools beside bits of tech. Circuits, wires, Wi-Fi cards, all cobbled together and connected to a tiny rectangular screen. One of the ‘phones’ from before the Border. After turning all of it on, Yasin crossed to the EXO.

The giant’s hands were shockingly fast with the tools. A few cuts, pulls, and tugs in the officer’s forearm, and the RFID chip was torn free. He cleaned it gently, mounted it to the device, and keyed a flurry of buttons on the screen.

“It’s ready,” Yasin said, “DNA and BioSigs are wiped. Go ahead an’ get the Augs.”

Utu stooped by the EXO and popped each of the seals on the smooth, urban camo panels. Jogun watched as his forearm was cleaned. Stared as the razor blade cut into his flesh. It burned like a son-of-a-bitch. He jerked when tiny jets of vapor puffed out of the Aug rig sections. Piece by piece they took it off.

“Aight,” said Yasin, pulling the last stitch closed, “Check this out.” He tapped a button on the screen and rocked Jogun’s world. Nanotech coursed from the chip into his body, introducing itself as it reached his brain. He felt the nausea disappear. The headache vanished. Yasin seemed to know. The stoic Black Hood nodded to Rusaam and Kolpa. With reverent care, the two of them fitted the gear onto Jogun’s withered body.

It came online all at once. A million pinpricks of fire rippled through him then faded to a low, steady hum.
They’re a part of me now
. The fact came to him. He lifted one leg, then the other. Panels and joints shifted with his muscles underneath, obeying his commands with the soft buzzing of servo-motors. He stood up, quick as a soldier. Laughed out loud.

“What was taken, let it thus be restored,” Utu intoned, “through this joining of flesh and invention.”

Jogun grinned, taking a few solid steps on the roof. Yasin smiled.

“That ain’t shit,” said Yasin, “It’s still in Neutral.”

“Yeah,” Oki said, turning to Kolpa, ”
’Legs On.’
” Anyone who’d ever fought the EXOs and escaped knew the phrase. It usually meant it was time to run.

“Time to run,” Jogun said. He crouched, turned the dial on the right hip. The high-pitched whine that all of Rasalla learned to fear sliced through the dense morning air. Jogun stood, walked to the edge of the roof, and jumped.

Maybe too high. He hadn’t expected a ten meter leap from flat feet. The animal fear in his brain faded as all focus shifted to full body awareness. Midair, he pitched himself perfectly to land in the street below. In the center of a group of T99s. They staggered back. As they recognized him and cheered, Jogun jumped again, planted his foot on a ship’s hull wall, then pushed off to the nearest roofline.
Step-step-step-step-JUMP-step-step-JUMP-step-JUMP
. He sprinted like a demon over concrete, gravel, shingle, fiberglass, and tin.

Soon, Utu’s green island was a tiny patch in the haze. Jogun ran a giant circle around it across the rooftops, streets, and bridges. All of Rasalla spun around him.

He landed like a cat on the edge of the Temple roof, and stepped carefully into the swaying rows of spinach and kale. Yasin, Oki, Rusaam, and Kolpa waited at the end of the row, kneeling with heads bowed. Utu stood behind them smiling. He simply nodded.

“Those should do,” Utu said, “Now what?” Jogun flexed each muscle in his legs one after the other. He grabbed the steaming bowl of chicken broth. Chugged it.

“Now,” he said, clearing his throat, “Storehouses, safe houses, bunkers, dead drops, personal collections. Empty ‘em all. Weapons for anyone old enough and willing to hold ‘em. Same goes for supplies, so spread the word down in the Market. Bring all they can spare to the Pits.”

35

History

SATO AWOKE TO
the feeling of falling. He gasped and shot glances around the room, scrambling through the foggy panic for a point of reference. The curving surface of his ashwood desk felt smooth and cold. A glass cup with a splash of bourbon backwash sat in front of a picture frame…Jada in her twenties, mid-swing on the Mesa Park swingsets. He squinted at the sunlight cascading through the thirty-foot-tall windows of his top floor executive office.

How long have I been out?
Pre-lunch traffic drifted silently outside through the ivory pillars of the Center Ring. He leaned back in his leather chair and impulsively pressed his finger to his temple. The gold square under the skin of his forearm blinked three times then the Neural home-screen shimmered to life in front of him. He blinked at the familiar vibration behind his eyes.

“Good God...” he said, grabbing the side of his head. ‘
Thirty-two New Messages
’... The little envelope icon seemed to blink in sync with the pounding in his skull. He expanded his settings menu. Told his implants to dull the sensation.

Most of the messages complained at length about the same things they had for the last twenty-four hours: Helium-3 shipments have ceased, Virton is unresponsive, and supplies are running out. Fast. The super fuel could run the entire early twenty-first century United States for a year on a single shuttle load. Sedonia City torched through at least half that every day. Utopia on the outside. Insatiable monster inside. Or rather a swarm of locusts.

For the hundredth time, he hit the shortcut tab for Elias Finley’s direct line. The call tone beeped eight times then clicked over.

“Hello, Enota Sato, and thank you for calling Virton Energy Industries. How may I assist you today?” The clipped female speech of the AI answering program buzzed in Sato’s ear as it had the previous ninety-nine attempts. Sato hung up, snatched up the bourbon glass, and chucked it across the lavish office. It bounced once then skittered to a soundless, pathetic stop on the Sixteenth Century Spanish rug. Sato bit his teeth together until it hurt. Calmed.

Finley had always been ready with some sort of tailored political response. Didn’t matter how catastrophic the situation, the almighty Bottom Line kept the man in check. But now. To hear nothing at all. It had to mean the bastard was in the wind. That left only one other number to try.

“Call Janice Prescott,” Sato said, holding the command key. It rang the characteristic three times before her spider silk voice answered.

“Hello, Enota. Good news? —Christ...you look like hell,” she said, leaning forward in the video feed. A tickle on Sato’s scalp told him his thinning hair must be an abomination. He smoothed down the cow lick as best he could then straightened in his chair.

“Considering the Devil has skipped town on our deal and left me to manage Hell, I should think so,” Sato said.

“Yes. Finley. He’s emptied his accounts and fled the country. Wise, considering Virton Energy is ruined,” she said like it was gossip at a lunch meeting. Sato blinked.

“Ruined...” Sato’s heart flopped in his chest.

“Oh yes,” she said, “Themis is quite inoperable. Most of the staff dead, equipment destroyed or missing. Literally ruined.”

The news punched Sato in the throat.

“An attack. One of the hostile firms: Qin Industrial or the Alhaka Group,” said Sato. It had to be.
Who else could?
Prescott coughed a dry laugh.

“I’m afraid it was your little army of, shall we say, ‘civil servants.’ We’re not sure how they reversed Finley’s illegal mind-jacking operation, but they did, and they’re coming,” she said. Sato felt like his legs had been cut off underneath him.

“Oh, don’t look so terrified,” Janice scolded, “Something like this was always on the horizon and it fits the program, so you can rest assured that intervention will occur when it needs to. As for the fuel, our people have established a foothold and are restoring basic function to the Themis facility. It will be a while before it’s back to production strength again, but it’s at least a viable bargaining chip.”

The pieces of their plan floated in Sato’s awareness and settled into shape, but the blatant gaps defied him. He formed pointed questions, grasping for some semblance of control.

“When does Nobidyne take over?” he asked.

“Once their check clears, they should start retrofitting Themis within the week. We’ve purchased a quantity of product for immediate distribution, but Sato, there isn’t much and it isn’t cheap. Austerity measures and rationing will have to be put into effect,” Janice sighed, “Your constituents will have their lifeblood, but they’ll want their pound of flesh too. Yours, I’m afraid.”

You fucking bitch
. The hangover made it hard to hide the shaking in his hands. He curled his fingers into fists.