Chaos Cipher (46 page)

Krupin
returned to the cabin and became vaguely aware of voices emanating
from the outside. He looked at the open cabin door and approached
the steps to hear a small commotion down on the lower air zone
strip.

‘
Sounds like
we’ve visitors,’ said Vadim Raw-Dog, slouched in his
chair.

‘
Go see.’
Krupin ordered.

Indignantly,
Vadim got to his feet and walked out of the cabin door to the top
of the stairway. He descended to meet them on the air zone where
the guards were stood holding back two visitors. Vadim faced Hattle
again for the first time since their encounter in the ring, and his
father Pierce Lewis.

‘
We come in
peace,’ Pierce promised, ‘and we have gifts.’ And he turned to his
son and Hattle picked up the box sitting by his feet and offered it
to Vadim.

‘
No offence,’
he said as Vadim took the box in his two hands.

The security
guards loomed over the box and ran a quick prognosis scan with
their bionic eyes and nodded to Vadim, quietly confirming it was
safe.

‘
This is the
very best of Cerise Timbers whiskey.’ Said Pierce.

‘
Friends!’
Krupin’s voice suddenly hollered from the top of the stairway. He
stood brazenly in the doorway with a half-smile jarred on his face
and his eyes shielded behind red shades. ‘Why don’t you come
aboard? Let us have big talk.’

Vadim led the
way and indicated with a nod that they should follow, and Hattle
and Pierce obediently did.

‘
Ladies,
offer our guests some comfort,’ Krupin ordered as the new guests
entered the Perigrussia Skybus. They each looked around the
interior, a strange environment they were eager to get accustomed
to. They felt privileged to finally see the insides of the
cadonavis.

The girls
took each man by the hand and led them to their own seats where
they settled in. Vadim watched consciously, picking a scab from his
swollen eye and propping his feet upon the boxed offerings handed
to him earlier.

‘
It’s good to
have visitors,’ said Krupin, ‘nobody wishes to come in here, and
they just stand at the steps and tell me I can leave.’ The coach
drank a huge gulp of wine and licked his lips. ‘What does it mean
no root no fruit?’

Pierce Lewis
was smiling as one of the women sat across his knee.

‘
It’s
something the anarchists say,’ he explained.

‘
The garden
weed needs roots,’ said Krupin. ‘But poison one root you poison the
supply. Can the water be poisoned, Mr Lewis? Only the Atominii will
find out.’

Krupin put
his cup down and walked into the middle of the room and hooked his
thumbs behind his tight leather belt.

‘
You should
get out of here Lewis,’ he said. ‘Right now, we’re trying to send
out information about the gene-freak boy here in the city. The
Atominii will send their special forces to deal with anarchists.
Olympians are not allowed on planet Earth. Only problem is we
getting no signal.’

‘
Actually
I’ve come to talk to you about that,’ said Pierce. ‘I’m glad you’ve
seen the boy. It shows how degraded things are around here. But
right now this city is turning against my kind.’

‘
In what
regard?’

‘
They’re
going to kick us out.’ Hattle suddenly came in.

‘
Shut up!’
Pierce Lewis snapped angrily, his eyes fierce. ‘I’ll do the
talking.’

Krupin raised
his brows and smiled his grilled teeth at Vadim and they shared
some secret glance that neither Pierce nor Hattle
caught.

‘
The thing
is,’ Pierce started, excusing the déshabillé woman sat on his chair
so he could adjust into his bargaining posture, elbows over knees,
palms together. ‘You remember, I once told you my family used to
own this city?’

‘
Your father
lost control,’ said Krupin.

It vexed
Pierce deeply, but he knew he had to be patient with Krupin. He was
a powerful man and he needed to earn his respect not through biting
his head but by roistering his past achievements.

‘
My father,’
he started, ‘was a good man. He was disciplined, controlled. And he
was already very old at the time of the revolution, too old to
notice things changing under his nose. He had undergone genetic
therapy so, as you can imagine, he was not a poor man
either.’

Krupin showed
he was listening.

‘
I do not
wish for the Atominii to destroy this place,’ said Lewis. ‘I’ve
been organising these fights not just to entertain or compete, but
for a bigger purpose Mr Krupin. I want you to help me build back
the city to what it was. I want to see people motivated, invested
into the city, not celebrating and partying and growing crops on
the roads and in the streets. I want a place of order and I want to
be the head of state. I can do it. If you help me you will have
great allies here. This is my birth right.’

‘
And the
gene-freak?’ Krupin asked.

‘
We’ll kill
him.’ Hattle offered.

Krupin
suddenly started to laugh and he turned back to the boxer. ‘I don’t
want him killed.’ He said. ‘I want him trained. I want him my
secret weapon. You know he is Blue Lycan, don’t you? They are only
Olympians left on this planet; he has to be one of
them.’

‘
We had our
own theories,’ said Pierce. ‘But the kid is dangerous. I can see
why you’d want him trained.’

‘
The problem
is,’ said Krupin. ‘This city’s leaders have forced my hand. They
will not hand him over. They tell me the boy is gone. So now I get
Atominii to destroy them. I’ll hand over evidence of boy’s
existence and-’

‘
Wait!’
Pierce said standing. ‘Please don’t do that. I want to be restored
as the leader of this place, not the king of ruin.
Understand?’

Krupin smiled
and lifted his great palm to Pierce’s face, patting
softly.

‘
I
understand,’ he assured. ‘But anarchist disrespected me in front of
my men and women. This is not good thing. So now I show them these
image files, evidence that gene-freaks are hiding here.’

Krupin held
his hand to the holofield projection unit and they beheld a
scrambled screen, static and voice of all information. Cyrillic
letters printed out for them all to read and Krupin knew those
words well, they were telling him that their HDD image files were
deleted.

‘
That’s
impossible…’ he grunted. ‘Where are the files? HORACE!’

‘
I’m
working,’ said Horace, hurrying to the pilot seat and taking
command of the archives. He began swiping through layers of data,
touching different screens and working through his neural-headset.
He shook his head, baffled, and turned to Krupin.

‘
Everything
is gone.’

‘
NO!’ Krupin
screamed, punching his cup and sending it flying through the cabin.
And the startled girls hurried out and began hiding in the lower
levels of the ship. Lyov guarded the exit and folded his arms as
Krupin seethed, approaching Pierce.

‘
What did you
do?’ he asked.

‘
It wasn’t
me, I swear it,’ Pierce promised, holding up his hands. ‘I came
here to offer a business deal. This has nothing to do with me. I
can’t even work a computer.’

Suspiciously
Krupin panned around each of them, assessing mutiny, but he knew it
would make no sense after reconsideration.

‘
Horace,’
Krupin started. ‘How likely is it we can be hacked?’

‘
The
Perigrussia Skybus has defences.’ He said. ‘There should be no way
without us realising it.’

‘
Oh, it’s
them alright,’ Pierce Lewis assured, straightening up and brushing
down his top. ‘You can be sure it’s them. They’ve destroyed your
data. I can help you.’

Krupin
scowled and rubbed his skinny head and reluctantly glared for a
moment at Pierce.

‘
Let me find
out who did this to your property,’ said Pierce, ‘let’s work
something out.’

‘
Work what
out?’ Krupin sneered menacingly.

‘
Help me get
control of this place again,’ he said, ‘and instead of informing
the Atominii, you let me find out where the gene-freak is
hiding.’

-33-

M
alik Serat sat back as the chair
moulded to his limbs. The room, he was told, was a Sensorium
projection chamber. For Malik, it was like stepping into a thirty
foot rounded cave. The ceiling reached up over his head like a
dome, below him was a bridge that crossed a shallow lake of black
water to the mechanical chair that stood in the centre. It was
illuminated only by four small spotlights shining down into the
black lagoon, and the space was mostly otherwise dark and metallic.
The chamber echoed and there was the occasional drip and slap of
water provoked by vibrations. Malik was aware of a multitude of
Sensorium projector rooms around this level of the Atominus
Phalange analogous to this one. He settled into the chair and
rested back, the adjustments tipping him into recline.

‘
Comfortable?’ Vance asked with an awry smile beset on his
pallid features, his long face lined with fine wrinkles. Vance
patted Malik’s arm approvingly as he walked around the
chair.

‘
Very,’ Malik
said dryly. ‘Is this going to be like those tests already conducted
on
Orandoré
?’

‘
No,’ Vance
whispered eerily. ‘Activating these memories will be quite intense.
It’ll be like living the moments again almost.’

Malik
suddenly looked worried. ‘I will experience my
memories?’

‘
It’s
necessary,’ said Vance.

‘
-there’s no
other way to access them? Maybe passively or-?’

‘
Don’t worry
Malik,’ Vance chuckled slightly. ‘Your memories can’t hurt
you.’

‘
No,’ Malik
stated, ‘it’s not just my memories that concerns me.’

He felt the
cold ring of metal touch his skin as Vance fed the straps over his
arms and tightened the nylon.

‘
You’re not a
prisoner,’ Vance explained, moving around to strap down his other
arm. ‘It’s simply that some people react violently to certain
memory stimulations. I can’t be sure what you’ve been through on
the Erebus but I don’t want to take any chances.’

‘
Do you
imagine I’ll attack you?’ Malik almost laughed.

‘
It’s not
that, Malik,’ Vance explained. ‘Your neurophase is still new, and
everybody’s brain is configured differently. If the neuro-ligature
isn’t able to stimulate the correct neurotransmitters, then I won’t
be able to inhibit your motor functions. I need to provoke your
natural neuro-chemistry to regulate glycine and other amino acids.
Long story short, without this process you will be acting out your
dreams. That’s why I need restraints, in case the paralysis does
not work.’

‘
Is the
process physically painful?’ Malik inquired as Vance strung down
his other arm.

‘
No,’ he
assured. ‘This process has been very successful in therapeutic
terms. Our memories can be like baggage, Malik. It does one a good
deal to purge them.’

‘
Vance,’
Malik whispered, turning his head slightly in the chair. ‘If you
happen to find the chaos cipher in there, don’t organise the codes
into understanding,’ he caveated. ‘If you translate the code
without me the consequences will be grave.’

‘
Of course,’
Vance said, walking back down the bridge to the observation room.
‘I can’t be in the room with you throughout this process. It could
disturb your attention.’

He reached
the entrance door and walked through the large sliding panels.
Vance turned in the doorway and nodded to his brother.

‘
It’ll be
over very quickly,’ he promised. ‘Just like waking up from a deep
sleep, you’ll hardly remember anything that happened.’

‘
Good,’ Malik
breathed, turning his head up to the convex ceiling. The doors slid
shut and pushed inward to align with the walls, sealing off all
sound and light from the outside. Malik was aware that his brother
was on the other side of a one-way panel looking in, but it was
impossible to tell where. He was stood somewhere in the corridor
serving tens of rooms identical to this one.

‘
I’m shutting
down the lights now, Malik,’ said Vance through an audio amplifier
inside the room. ‘Try and relax. The next thing you’re going to see
in the Sensorium will be the neurosphere interface. I’ll teach you
to navigate.’

In the
observation corridors Vance glared momentarily at one of the Nexus
servers and logged in his avatar. Then he initialised Malik’s
neuro-ligature for the first time, harmonising the
neurophase.

Vance took a
seat at the haptic controls and held out his hands, then initiated
Malik’s neurophase. Malik felt the space unfold through his mind,
and right away he recognised it as four dimensional, opening his
mind to all the visible angles.