Chaos Cipher (39 page)

*

It had been
an anti-climax to what should have been a great night for all. Kyo
sat over a burnt out polymerite airless tire, head in his palms.
Pania lumbered over a broken crate. Smoke still issued from the
hangar’s depth in mild wisps. Several air zone engineers and
helpers were volunteering to clear the disaster and search for
anything salvageable, but so far they came up empty.

Laux stared
into the void for what felt like a long time. Enaya and Daryl
Sanders were around the area, Daryl doing his bit to help others
shift burnt out and broken equipment. For the first time since Laux
arrived he could see the hangar door fully open, burnt out and
charred guts exposed for all to see, his work burned to
cinders.

‘
I’m so sorry
Laux,’ Enaya said, touching his arm. He looked down to see she was
offering a mug of tea but he shook his head.

‘
Any sign of
Edge?’

‘
No,’ she
sighed. ‘But it’s not likely anybody would have
survived.’

‘
Who the hell
could have done this?’ Kyo shouted angrily, standing suddenly and
kicking a spare scrap of metal. The cylinder bounced down the air
zone road but it was heavier than he was expecting and Kyo cursed
to himself and hobbled around to walk off the pain. ‘Did Edge fall
a-sleep smoking or something? What the hell?’

‘
I don’t
think so,’ said Daryl, coming out of the hangar holding what looked
to be charred metal oil canisters. ‘Somebody poured it around the
hangar.’

‘
Vandalism?’
Laux said with surprise. ‘Why? Who would do that?’

‘
I bet I know
who!’ Pania suddenly realised, also climbing to her feet now. ‘I
bet it’s that swine Pierce Lewis.’

‘
I bet you’re
right!’ Kyo agreed, fangs flashing with rage.

‘
That’s a
heavy accusation,’ said Enaya, ‘we need to deal with this issue
carefully. If he’s guilty then we can have him exiled, and not just
from our district but from the whole damn city.’

‘
Perhaps I
can take a look at this evidence?’ Laux asked. ‘It’ll take me a
little longer to determine without my lab and workshop, but I
believe I can get to the bottom of it somehow.’

‘
We brought
Hattle Lewis in to have his finger prints stored in the database,’
said Daryl. ‘He’s been in trouble before. Nothing to warrant
getting him exiled but people wanted him to be put on file. He was
monitored by the community for years and it calmed him down…until
recent events it seems.’

‘
Alright,’
Laux nodded, receiving the evidence.

‘
Excuse me,’
a new voice suddenly said.

They turned
to find Vilen Krupin and Lyov approaching from the air zone. The
silver Perigrussia Skybus sat distantly, shining in the sun like a
titanium arrow.

‘
I’m badly
sorry to hear about celebrations last night,’ he smiled wide. ‘We
come to pay regards.’

‘
Thank you
Krupin.’ Said Daryl, ‘as you can see this is a disaster, I don’t
think there’s anything more you can do to help.’

‘
No,’ said
Krupin, far too happy with himself for Enaya’s comfort. ‘However I
do see the rumours I heard are true.’

Enaya
suddenly realised he was looking at Kyo. The Olympian kid stood
with his back to them, hands behind his head, analysing the hangar
in search of his missing friend, tail swinging from the back of his
pants.

‘
Hey boy!’
Lyov shouted.

Kyo turned
around and they saw his eyes.

‘
Give me a
smile,’ Krupin said, smiling wide.

Kyo had been
provoked this way before, usually by Atominii hardlanders, so he
was familiar with the subtle hostilities. He hated Krupin right
away, and right now he wasn’t afraid to show this asshole that his
tolerance for bullshit was at its peak.

‘
There’s
nothing funny about this!’ Kyo said, ‘but if you wanna see me smile
you can go piss on your crappy boots, how’s that?’

Lyov and
Krupin burst into laughter, patting one another’s shoulders. Enaya
didn’t like the tension they were creating and felt it necessary to
interrupt.

‘
Vilen Krupin
we have a lot to do here,’ she started. ‘Please give us
space.’

‘
I’ll be
giving you quite a lot of space from now on Miss Chahuán.’ He said,
leaning sideways to speak quietly by her ear. ‘I wonder how much
time you’re going to need to think about the hard evidence I’m
about to give the Atominii? Hmm? Two days? Three? What do you
suppose will happen when I tell them there’s an Olympian Genetic
child living in an anarchist city?’

Enaya’s heart
pumped, her eyes tried to fix on something as she thought about a
clever response but nothing came. Only the fear now dwelled in her
heart, the fear of the threat of war.

‘
Interesting,’ he went on. ‘I believe you say in English that
the shit really hit the fan.’

-28-

D
aryl Sanders chose a discussion
room at a district’s Local Federation of concurrence for their
private meeting. He wanted to do his best to appease the irascible
visitors of any ill tempers in the calm of the room’s large rounded
walls. He’d reached Dak and Sonja for the arrangement, Kyo had no
idea this meeting was taking place. A giant circular table sat
densely in the centre, displaying a thousand bits of touch-reactive
information floating around its surface. Dak and Sonja sat at one
side while Enaya Chahuán and Daryl Sanders took the head of the
table.

The visitors
settled into chairs, only the coach Vilen Krupin and Lyov decided
to show. Behind them, the panoramic view of the city shimmered with
a bustle of daily activity. Krupin slumped heavily into one of the
boardroom chairs and his body guard stood attentively by his
side.

‘
The
gene-freak is Olympian genetic,’ coach Krupin continued in his
cavalier manner. ‘I cannot overlook it. Olympians are
illegal.’

‘
Kyo is of no
danger to you,’ said Daryl with his arms folded.

‘
Of course
not now,’ said Krupin, ‘he is boy only. But later, when he is man,
he will be monstrous. He will spread his seed and make more; he
will pollute the world with his race. This cannot be
accepted.’

‘
How dare
you,’ Sonja heaved bitterly. ‘And who are you to say his kind is
pollution, as though he’s not human?’

‘
He is
dangerous. They are violent, you know this, yes?’

‘
As opposed
to who?’ Dak re-joined, punching his hands down on the table and
sending a shockwave of luminosity rippling across its unyielding
electronic surface. ‘You talk as though the human race has existed
with undisturbed peace all this time? As though the Titans are not
right now imposing their ideological edifice onto everyone in the
world? They seem to believe being elites they have all the answers
and know what’s best for everyone. Or locking out their own
citizens with huge walls in three hundred mile an hour winds with
no food or water!’

‘
You are
anarchists,’ said coach Krupin with an offhanded shrug, ‘Trotsky
fuckers!’

‘
You’ve no
idea,’ Daryl sighed, ‘as though we follow the work of one man, are
you so ignorant you assume we’re Trotsky’s children? That his word
is truth and cannot be progressed? You should keep talking about
things you know about, like training humans to tear each other to
pieces.’

‘
Even now you
think you are above law. That law does not occur to you. So you
breed shit! Breed shit and try to train it to be human, to be good.
They are not like dogs. They are too smart for parlour tricks, when
he learns to outsmart you, he will realise his potential and take
this city for himself.’

‘
Don’t you
pretend to care about this city!’ Sonja quickly snapped. ‘That’s
for us to worry about. Not you!’

‘
He is
gene-freak. They were bred for self-interest and to make power
claim.’ Krupin maintained.

‘
Oh listen to
this horse-shit! Like I don’t know my own son...’ Sonja vehemently
ascended.

‘
It’s not
your son,’ said the coach obstinately, holding up his finger. ‘It’s
a mutant. It is boy of some Olympian scum, perhaps even Blue
Lycan.’

‘
Alright
that’s enough!’ Daryl called. ‘Settle down. We need to get to the
root of this. Enaya Chahuán was coordinator when Kyo came here; she
will help describe the situation moderately. I believe she was
informed of the facts and I’m sure they were recorded in the
Q-net’s sub-data schedule.’

‘
When Sonja
and Dak brought him in,’ said Enaya Chahuán, folding her arms.
‘They appealed to the local Federation to keep the child and raise
him as their own. Here, we take everyone in. We are a world of
rejects. That gene-freak as you call him is no different from any
normal thirteen year old kid. But you’re right about one
thing...he’s smart…because he already realises that the values he
has learnt here are all about freedom and compassion and altruism
the Atominii is incapable of offering and in fact they would simply
kill him. He is of no danger to us or to you.’

‘
I said
already, not today he isn’t,’ Krupin explained, picking at his
teeth with a thumb nail. ‘And I must inform the authorities. This
situation is a political one.’

‘
How can you
do this?’ Daryl said. ‘You know damn well what the Atominii would
do to us if they discover this kid here. They’d wipe us out.
Hundreds of thousands will be executed or homeless. And why?
Because you say law is law?’

‘
Exactly.’

‘
See reason,
Mr Krupin.’ Enaya Chahuán pleaded. ‘We are a culture; you’ve no
right to impose a national law on a transnational scale if you
believe in national borders at all.’

‘
I do see
reason,’ he simpered leaning on his elbows. ‘The law is not
national one, it is global one. But...we can making deal, I
think.’

‘
What deal?’
Dak said.

‘
Give boy to
me.’

‘
What?’ Sonja
gasped.

‘
I can look
after him. I can make him powerful, mould his mind. I can give him
warrior discipline and the Atominii need never know of him. This is
what he was made for...’

‘
No!’ Dak
said obdurately. ‘No way. Not a chance.’

‘
Give boy to
me,’ said coach Krupin again, ‘I can give him good home. You are
fair democracy, so maybe let your people decide. Tell them this.
Either they give up gene-freak to me, or Atominii cities will know
about his existence on earth and action will be taken to remove him
by force and condemn the anarchists to global rule like everyone
else.’

Krupin’s eyes
began to scintillate with electronic data, as ocular contacts
started panning across his vision in luminous flavescent fields.
Krupin smiled broadly as he reviewed the images.

‘
I have many
pictures of witnessing mutant as evidence,’ he claimed, ‘I see
clearly your gene-freak on the air zone runway and I have
authenticity stamps already associated to prove this is no AI
forged imagery.’

‘
Don’t do
this Mr Krupin,’ Enaya Chahuán once more tried. ‘All you’re doing
is turning a city against a child. He needs us; he wants to be
here...’

‘
You make him
soft,’ said the coach.

‘
If you take
him,’ said Dak, ‘I will report you to the Atominii for having an
Olympian. They’ll wrap your head around a wheel.’

Coach Krupin
chuckled delightedly and Lyov smiled frigidly.

‘
No my
anarchist friend. They will do much worse to him than to me. I
could be vaporised at worst. But boy will be tortured until someone
else makes him asset. Of course on black market, he would be worth
many Atomons after obedience training. You should know they have
certain criteria for that. Illegal genetics cannot breed. They’d
have to castrate him. Maybe even remove mutations he has. Those
teeth too. They’re only good for war, don’t you know that? He would
be fine soldier. Boy will be killed horribly if he resists them. I
will at least be merciful, I am good leader.’ And Krupin fingered
something out of his teeth nonchalantly and concluded with a
thoughtful hum.

‘
No, I think
you won’t report me. Besides, I give him good home, feed him well,
train him to fight and look after himself. Why rely on hopeless
fools who care not to fight? ey? You don’t care if his muscles go
soft?’

‘
You’ll
condition him to be a killer!’ Sonja growled standing and pointing.
‘You would have him murder precariats!’

‘
To be
assassin only,’ he promised, leaning forward, ‘he would be perfect
for it. Our Atominii need good assassin leaders.’

Sonja dropped
into her seat and shook her head, her skin overcome with a sickly
pallor. ‘You are a bastard, Krupin.’ She said. ‘And I am a doctor.
I must clean up the shit you leave behind. Sickness I can handle.
Most of the times the body can manage, it’s just a matter of
guidance. But war…you bastards turn suffering into a game and run
away from the responsibilities of cleaning up the mess.’