Chaos Cipher (34 page)

‘
Did you not
hear what I was saying?’ Laux said, standing from his lab chair and
hurrying over. ‘No more exposure Edge. We can’t get up to old
tricks here.’

‘
Like you’ve
been keeping a low profile with your gadgets and
gizmos!’

‘
I have a
compulsive disorder and you know it!’ Laux shouted.

‘
So do I, you
lab coat wearing scarecrow!’ Edge shouted back, pulling Biter
reluctantly under his foul smelling and sweat slickened arm. Kyo
tried to squirm away but Edge seized tighter. ‘And I’m about to use
my skills to save this young man’s dignity.’

‘
What do you
have in mind?’ Pania asked.

‘
We use Biter
as bait.’ Said Edge, ‘flush out Hattle. Catch him assaulting the
boy. I’ll publish the pictures on the Q-net and BAM! We leverage
the democratic consensus to get his ass exiled.’

Kyo stepped
back nervously, pacing around and scratching his head.

‘
That’s
wrong. Just forget it,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t wanna do this
anymore. Let’s just call it a day and go have some fun.’

‘
You’re
giving in?’ asked Edge. ‘You let Pania do all that demonstrating
without trying it yourself?’

‘
Look the
guy’s an ass-hat and we all know it. But what’s done is done. He
isn’t interested in me anymore and that’s great. I just want to get
on with my life.’

‘
You sure
kid?’ Pania asked.

‘
Yeah, I’m
sure’ Kyo nodded. ‘Remember the old story in Cerise Timbers, the
one about the swamp monster? A creature so greedy it devours
people. It eats and eats and even when it has its fill it just
keeps on going. Well, the way I see it is Hattle is kind of like
the swamp monster.’

‘
What, you
mean his belly will burst and out pops a beautiful egg which
hatches into a paradise for all?’ asked Edge, confused.

‘
Metaphorically,’ Kyo nodded, ‘yeah. His stomach will burst,
or something bad will happen, and he’ll learn from it, and things
will get better. Or he’ll kill himself continuing to be a
dick.’

‘
Well I think
Kyo’s a remarkably intelligent boy,’ Laux said sallying forth and
shaking a tangled shoelace from his boot. He kicked the spare shoe
and thread back into the Hangar and nodded resolutely. ‘He’s right.
You all could make things worse and not just for him. The last
thing I want is to draw any more attention to our
whereabouts.’

‘
But if he
does come at you again-’

‘
Then what?’
Kyo said falling backwards into Edge’s sun chair. ‘I can’t stop it.
If he’s gonna bring it he’s gonna bring it. So what? I’m not scared
of him.’

‘
So what?’
Pania gasped. ‘So he can’t do it.’

‘
Look, we’ll
cross the bridge when we come to it. Maybe I’ll get lucky and kick
his ass. But I’m not gonna be scared. Screw that guy. I don’t want
to be scheming!’ Kyo said, leaning over his knees. ‘I don’t want to
be planning and wasting my time thinking about him. Okay? I’ve got
a life Pania! Let’s just…y’know…move on. Look at me, I’m okay
now.’

‘
Alright,’
Pania sighed. ‘It’s your life.’

And she
stepped back and hurled her fist as hard as she could into the
sandbags, making the sack swing back and forth. Pania dumped her
gloves disappointedly aside and roamed past Laux, climbing the
ladder and vanishing to her personal space somewhere on the wing
support.

‘
Is she mad?’
Kyo asked, raising his head and squinting in the sun.

‘
Absolutely
fucking insane,’ Edge smiled with a wink. He knew that wasn’t what
Kyo was implying but he felt the need to express some wit.
‘Say…you’re a responsible drinker, right?’

*

‘
Let me tell
you a story about the good old Olympian Genetics!’ Edge Fenris
declared after his second chaser. Kyo had talked him into getting
changed before they left. It seemed no matter how comfortable Edge
felt in his boxers he was apparently the only one. They were out in
the Meadows by a small café. Many of the buildings were like domed
concrete bubbles painted with frescos and individual pieces of art.
Some of them were spectacular indeed and far too psychedelic to
have been done without the assistance of hallucinogens. The café
was a real bohemian place and Edge’s favourite, filled with
eco-punks who turned their spikey hair into plants and wore daisy
chains contrasting with old worn leather. Everything here, from
tables and chairs to glasses and mugs was made from mycelium
plastics. Even some of the chairs spores mycelium sponges for extra
padding. And they were indeed comfortable. They’d chosen some
chairs and a table not far from the bar and drinks were coming out
fast from a recently brewed batch of mead. Kyo held onto his mug
with both hands, tail swaying like a contented feline as he
listened to Edge’s story. Edge rolled a cigarette and popped it
between his uneven teeth, then sparked it up with a little
nano-flint paste. He pinched the gum between his fingers, stretched
it into a long string until it reddened like hot wire. He set his
cigarette alight on the cooling putty until it hardened to ash and
disintegrated on the table.

‘
I’ve heard
this story,’ Kyo said. ‘I know about the Olympians.’

‘
Not from me
you haven’t,’ Edge assured, ever the purveyor of new and exclusive
knowledge. ‘So wise up.’ He uncapped one of Laux’s flasks and
poured himself another chaser. Edge offered one to Kyo but he
declined. ‘A long time ago,’ Edge drank, and down went the cap with
a slam. ‘The so called civilised world held great competing events
called the Olympic Games. Today you might know them as the Atominii
Grand Tournament. Wanna know what happened?’

‘
I’m
listening.’ Kyo nodded, tasting the syrupy mead.

‘
Investments,
that’s what happened.’ Said Edge Fenris slamming his fist down hard
on the table and sending a wave of tintinnabulations around him.
His eyes were fire and brimstone, smoke fuming from his nostrils.
‘Those greedy bastard ass-hats!’ He bawled. ‘State and corporate,
part of a bio-transitions movement, a sect of belief in bio-hacking
and bio-engineering which overstated our mastery of biology,
genetics and disease to spur humanity’s evolutionary path, making
us smarter, faster, stronger. It was all arrogance, kid! All of it
in the name of science, reasoned by the same insane logic of that
time, the same logic that discovered how to make stars become black
holes, a manufacturing process they call quanti-magnus. All that’s
going on right now in space but you won’t hear a whisper of it
nowadays. Did you know we have a colony on another planet! It’s
true, somewhere in Cygnus. Anyway, the same logic sent people out
into black holes and called them Chrononauts. The logic to know all
things, for ultimate knowledge and power no matter the consequence!
These twisted bastards got some athletes signed on to the Olympian
program. They donated a sample of their genetics for a small token
of course. Those samples were then tampered to create test-tube
babies; the next fastest, smartest, bounciest little SOB’s to ever
come into existence. Imagine a soldier that never sleeps, never
eats, and simply takes a single pill for everything. Imagine a
creature that was psychic, able to communicate with others without
the need of a Neurophase, or a creature that could heal very
quickly.’

Edge lurched
forth and removed Kyo’s plaster, and he yelped as it tore away from
his skin revealing his nose to be restored.

‘
Just like
that.’ He pointed out. ‘These people were using nano-cybiology to
make such things happen. Early tests proved that these specimens
with progressive healing abilities would not neurophase with the
Atominii Nexus. Every introduction of the algae virus into the
neuron failed, the Olympian genetics were too strong. The viral
introduction couldn’t touch them. So, researchers went back to the
drawing board, and on every level of neurophase introduction those
Olympians just wouldn’t integrate. You’re probably thinking so
what? You’re probably wondering what the problem is. Since the
Olympians could simply use non-invasive means for computer to brain
interfaces there shouldn’t be an issue, right? WRONG!’ And Edge
Fenris pivoted back on his chair, boots up on the table.

‘
Those
Olympians accidentally exposed the biggest social control program
in human history. The bio-transitions research program was undoing
the Atominii’s own political and structural ideology. By not
integrating into the system’s Nexus, Olympians proved themselves to
be free thinkers. Their demand for non-invasive neural headsets was
making people question why they needed invasive neurophase methods
at all since noopic drugs could make people just as smart. So…the
Atominii leaders started to have them assassinated. Then
came…pardon my vernacular kid, the gene-freaks. These Olympians
were experimental. A second generation that could be recognised in
society should they ever leak into social circles, an inevitability
considering the abilities of these creatures. The optogenetic
department of the bio-transition’s genetic research, wanted to see
if it was possible to integrate an Olympian with a neurophase kit.
These bastard neuro-evangelists toyed with them. They blended
everything from animal DNA to genetic diseases into those poor
bastards. There was still no success in neurophase. Many of the
subjects were incinerated…but some of the security personnel
working in the labs had bonded with the subjects in a way the
scientists and investors had overlooked. Despite their
neurophasing, these security teams felt empathy and sympathy for
these creatures. They fought to get them out. Some of them
escaped.’

Edge filled
his cap with whiskey and pointed to the kid. ‘Just so you
know…they’ll tell you this was about science and discovery. But in
truth the whole thing was about torture, depravity, systemic
violence against a so called race of people that was soon
understood to be a subhuman specimen. They hated their
creations.’

‘
That I did
not know.’ Kyo said wide eyed and ironic.

‘
No you
didn’t!’ Edge said. ‘Well, maybe you know about some idiots hating
so called gene-freaks but they’re usually racist about other
cultures as well.’

‘
You must
have had a crazy life in the hardlands, huh?’ said Kyo, drinking
some of his mead.

‘
I’ll tell
you a story about my friend Karla.’ He smiled. Edge Fenris sat
forth, suddenly growing reflective, melancholy. ‘She was a dancer.
She had physical differences similar to yours, the tail, the teeth,
those eyes. In the hardlands, they called her the Chimera Girl. She
knew she’d never make it in the Atominii, the cyborg cops at the
Syridan military would send her to the fires. I knew her from her
late night shows in the red light districts of Soho. They call them
the satin streets. In those alleys…anything goes.’

Edge Fenris
looked to his side, almost envisioning the Chimera Girl as though
she was sat next to him and for a moment Kyo felt the vision, he
almost saw her too. And she would smile warmly and take Edge’s hand
like in the old days and he’d swoon and tease.

‘
Her clients
knew her as some late night object of perversion and God knows I’m
not without my own intemperance. She knew that. She knew a lot. But
she didn’t judge me for it.’ And Edge would kiss her cheek and tell
her he was a friend. Slowly, his smile unpursed as the rest of it
came flooding back. ‘She knew the meaning of friendship and I had
the pleasure of hers. But then some sick son of a bitch took things
too far one night. I heard it was one of her clients.’

Kyo watched
Edge grind his teeth and he thought he saw a tear in the man’s
eye.

‘
They branded
her,’ he explained softly. ‘Marked the poor girl’s skin, scarred
her forever with that name. The Chimera Girl gene-freak. An object
of dreams. Not a person. But she ended things on her own before I
could find out about any of this. Another broken piece of property
to some titty bar out in the debauched streets of the hardlands.
Who cares right? Nobody wept for the Chimera Girl.’ Edge would have
kissed those wounds away. And softly she would smile in her bashful
way and share with him a part of her transqualia, that eminent warm
empathy that resonated not from the mind like many in the Atominii
presumed, but from the memory cells of the heart. He felt her yet,
occupying his heart, a part of her that never went away, living
forever in pulsing patterns, the part that didn’t die. All at once
his daydream was over, the Chimera Girl’s smile fades from his
memory, and kissing his ear she’s gone. ‘And a lone wolf carries
his own broken heart into the Siberian tundra, seeking a myth and
expecting to lay his bones on the stones beneath the ablating sun.’
And Edge took a long draw on his cigarette.

Kyo hadn’t
said a word. He’d listened unblinkingly, his hands cupped around
his half drunken mead. Edge Fenris sighed and smiled. He landed his
elbow and leaned towards Kyo.

‘
The most
powerful commodity in the world is the ability to think for
yourself!’ He told Kyo. ‘You might say…hey…no problem. I can do
that. But how much about yourself do you really know? One should
take what you learn with a pinch of salt and draw your own ideas on
it. But test those ideas, don’t believe them. How much of yourself
is not informed by those you’ve met? People have an influence on
you Biter. Some touch your heart, others get a little deeper. Some
you think you’ll know for the rest of your life and all of a sudden
everyone you’ve ever known is gone.’ And Edge sat back, stubbed out
his cigarette and sparked up another. ‘And that’s the saddest damn
thing that can happen to a person.’