Chaos Cipher (49 page)

‘
The flight
deck!’ He shouted.

‘
I WANT MY
DATA!’ Krupin screamed.

‘
THE FLIGHT
DECK!’ Horace screamed back, holding Krupin back from kicking the
shit out of the Perigrussia controls. He pulled himself from his
chair and stormed into the main cabin. Pierce had his arms folded
and a wry smile on his face.

‘
I told you
it was them.’ He said.

‘
Of course it
was them,’ Krupin seethed. ‘Question is what do we do
now?’

‘
We have to
leave,’ said Pierce. ‘Let’s give them what they want. Let them
think we’re out of their hair for a while. Tell the federation
we’re leaving in the morning.’

‘
And then?’
Krupin acerbically declared.

‘
We wait for
The Bear to finish his investigation.’ Said Pierce, ‘don’t worry,
he’ll find out one way or another where that gene-freak got
to.’

*

The sun was
rising on Cerise Timbers, a bright and hot orange climbing into the
beautiful blue azure. Pania had woken early. She’d been up and down
the air zone on her routine runs. Fitness was an absolute for any
body guard and she knew, if she was going to stay sharp, she had to
keep in shape. The fire had been a disaster for her, but she wasn’t
letting her guard down again, no way! Cerise Timbers was a safe
place usually, and this had caught many people off guard, including
herself. It was only sad that it was Laux and his inventions that
suffered and she knew nobody here who deserved it less. He was such
a hard working a committed person that it made her feel angry
knowing this. Much of her time she liked to spend doing
callisthenics exercises on the bars in the training yard, a
dedicated space for fitness at the North Western part of the air
zone. Pania hung from the bar by her legs, sweat dripping from her
face as she tried to beat her inverted sit-ups record. She dropped
down when she heard a racket coming from the furthest parts of the
runway and squinted into the sunlight. About a kilometre away she
saw movement, as the silver Perigrussia Skybus tilted into the sky
and left the air zone racing for the clouds. She wiped the sweat
from her forehead and breathed deep, looking around for any more
activity but there was none save the occasional pilot and engineer
repairing a SkyLark on the pedestals. Suddenly, her Quantic issued
a sound and she accepted a call.

‘
Hey!’ Pania
breathed heavily, ‘good to hear from you. What’s up?’

‘
Just a
little bored,’ Kyo reported. ‘Thought I’d find out what’s the
scoop. You busy or something?’

‘
Just
finished,’ she said. ‘What are you sleeping? Just woke
up?’

‘
Yeah,’ Kyo
said with a stretch, ‘was a strange night. Air’s really fresh in
the woods, makes you sleep like a rock. How’s Edge
doing?’

‘
He’s taking
things into his own hands,’ Pania smiled deviously.

‘
What do you
mean?’

‘
Pierce Lewis
is off the radar,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows where the hell he is.
Hattle too. I guess he’s pissed too many people off this
time.’

Pania started
to head back towards Hangar 15, passing several parked SkyLark on
the way from the free-weight training park. She closed the gate
behind her and grabbed her water flask.

‘
A whole
group of the community are coming forward demanding
justice.’

‘
Wow!’ Kyo
laughed. ‘He done goofed this time, huh?’

‘
He done
goofed!’ She repeated.

‘
So do you
think he ran away?’

‘
Hard to
tell,’ she answered, turning her Quantic-W momentarily to wipe her
forehead.

‘
Anyway Edge
is doing a spot of his own investigation, apparently. Top secret.
He’s not speaking to me about it.’

‘
That’s old
Edge,’ said Kyo.

Pania stopped
by one of the pedestals and sat in the shade of a SkyLark, getting
out of the sweltering sun for a moment.

‘
So you
camping out, Biter?’

‘
Yeah,’ he
sighed. ‘Dak’s showing us around the abandoned city Onyx Waters.
Apparently, it’s historical.’ He said, whispering that it’s a crock
of shit. She laughed as he pulled faces and groaned irritably. ‘So
that’s my life at the moment, squatting in the woods.’

‘
I’ll let you
know as things develop,’ she said, cutting the connection. Pania
fastened the bottle top back onto her flask and started to get to
her feet again when she heard footsteps coming around from the
other side of the SkyLark. He almost collided with her, a big
shadow silhouetted in the daylight, someone she didn’t make out
right away.

‘
Excuse me,’
Berengar said in a low voice, smiling as she stepped around
him.

Pania didn’t
seem fazed but she wasn’t pleased by the encounter. She stepped
around him and frowned back at the Bear as she sauntered back to
the hangars. She had a mind to say something but thought against
it. He waited until she was out of sight until he accessed his
quantics again.

‘
Got an
update for ya,’ said The Bear. ‘I’ve got a lead on the kid. He’s in
Onyx Waters.’

-36-

T
he tent’s pale blue fabric was
illuminated by the daylight outside and Kyo had been woken by the
distant cries of birds and the distant crackling of fireglass.
After calling Pania, he lay back and listened to his sown slow
restive heart beating, enjoying the steady pulse and the fresh air
that carried in the subtle scent of burnt wood. After yawning and
scratching his head and the other slow waking rituals of rubbing
his eyes and rolling onto his side, Kyo finally unzipped his
sleeping bag and quickly shifted into his pants and shirt. The
ground was hard and cold, but he’d been provided with a foam
sleeping mat that provided little support but at least kept him
warm, and he sat on it while he dressed. Swiping the hood from over
his face to hang back behind him, he stepped into the five finger
glove shoes, the usual running gear he wore while doing errands for
Laux, then walked into the main room of the tent. His parent’s
compartment was empty; the seal pulled away from its nano-springs
revealing the two ruffled sleeping bags and bunched up expansion
foam pillows.

‘
Pops?’ he
said.

He heard
voices outside the tent and took a moment to look around. Dak had
left some beans in a small mug outside his compartment and a spoon
prodded out of them. Kyo quickly grabbed the mug and scooped out a
mouth full of beans and cooked mushrooms with shoots. They were
still warm. The main compartment was open and a wind unsettled the
drapes of the tent’s entranceway and Kyo stepped outside to look
around. Things had grown colder overnight and the air still nipped
the backs of his arms. Kyo opened an access program on his
Quantic-W and searched through the menu on his sleeve to find a
thermal option to warm his shirt and set it to five
minutes.

Dak was by
the lake looking in at the empty basin and Sonja was close by
inspecting something on the floor.

‘
What’s going
on?’ he asked approaching.

‘
Morning
sleepy,’ said Sonja with a hand full of bulbs she’d dug from the
ground. She cut into one of the root bulbs and spilled clean water
into a cup.

‘
We keep
getting a signal,’ said Dak looking at his Quantic-W, as it
crackled and fizzed with activity. ‘It’s very unusual. I was hoping
Enaya or Daryl would update us on what’s going on.’

‘
Apparently,’
said Sonja, ‘nothing but static.’

‘
Can I see?’
Kyo said approaching Dak.

He took Dak’s
arm and he looked down as Kyo analysed the Quantic-W and pouted
thoughtfully, tapping at some of the options.

‘
That’s
weird,’ said Kyo, looking at his own Quantic and trying to call
Pania, but the same phenomenon occurred. ‘Damn…I can’t reach Pania.
Strange.’

‘
Do you know
what’s causing it?’ asked Dak.

He hummed
thoughtfully. It was unusual for Quantics to go down this way. ‘I
don’t know but something’s wrong, it looks like…are we being
jammed?’ he asked aloud.

‘
Jammed?’
asked Dak.

‘
I think
somebody’s blocking our signal.’

No sooner had
he said it did the zinc pale clouds above break with the tearing
sound of thruster engines cutting through the sky. They each cast
their eyes to gaze around the mountain ridges and above the stone
carved city and the towering trees that swayed in the wind to find
no visible sign of the noise. Yet, the stirring of engines were
emerging louder like a rising tempest.

‘
A SkyLark?’
asked Dak.

‘
No,’ Kyo
said, he’d lived on the air zone long enough to know the sound of
SkyLark engines, this was something much bigger. ‘I don’t think
so.’

Then they saw
it, a silver craft jutting up over the far mountains, its V-TOL
thrusters pointed at a forty five degree angle and with enough
power to glide steadily over the city of Onyx Waters. As it drew
closer Dak recognised the craft, he’d seen it before not two days
ago now.

‘
Krupin!’ He
glowered.

The
Perigrussia Skybus kept its sleek nose on the horizon and levelled
out over the empty basin of the dried lake. The belly of the ship
was open revealing stacks of cargo within its hold and a faint
crimson light shone behind some dark figures balancing precariously
above the precipitous edge of the cargo bay’s elevation platform.
The engines stirred and kicked up a fierce breeze that ruffled the
fabric of the tents behind them as it drew steadily closer, and a
megaphone amplified and echoed through the abandoned
city.

‘
Howdy
folks!’ A familiar voice bellowed through the valley. ‘A romantic
couple and their gene-freak adoptee, out to pick some berries. Can
we offer you a lift home?’

‘
Is that
Pierce?’ Dak gasped. ‘What’s that bastard doing here?’

‘
How did he
find us?’ Sonja shrieked, taking Kyo’s wrist and pulling him
away.

‘
What’s going
on?’ Kyo fretted.

‘
Go!’ Sonja
shouted, pulling him away. ‘You’ve got to run!’

As The
Perigrussia Skybus positioned over the camp as three sail lines
dangled from above, unfurling to the ground. And Krupin’s two
security personnel abseiled along them accompanied by Vadim who
soared down the central line. Now, clad in baggy camouflage combat
pants and thick shear-phasing armour which clung to every
definition of his upper body, Vadim was literally dressed to kill.
Their heavy boots landed on the floor and they unhooked from the
lines and Vadim strutted confidently over to Dak, a dangerous smirk
on his face.

‘
You get
back!’ Dak hissed caustically.

‘
We want
Olympian Genetic,’ he said politely, ‘nothing more. He’s not your
real boy anyway so…you get back.’

The two
security men unlatched from their lines, Lyov sinisterly scowling
as he unlatched a weapon from his belt that looked to Dak like some
sort of baton.

‘
Bring him
here or it’ll get ugly,’ said one of the security staff as the two
hulking giants approached. Dak stood firm, squaring up to the
men.

‘
I’m not
doing that,’ he told.

Vadim the
Raw-Dog threw a punch and it landed square in Dak’s jaw and the man
was hurled to one side. Dak spat blood and blinked away the stars.
Furious, he jumped to his feet quick and returned the assault. His
ferocity knocked Vadim off his feet much to the young fighter’s
surprise, but before Dak could finish his attack, Lyov moved to
restrain him, dropping Dak in a half-Nelson and twisting his arm
back into a hammerlock.

Vadim was
wiping blood from his mouth as he got back on his feet. Dak
struggled as Lyov held his face to the dirt, his arms locked,
wriggling and blowing clouds of dry dirt. Vadim’s injury wasn’t
bad, but it hurt like hell.

‘
Quite a good
punch nigger,’ he said fiercely. And Vadim took one of the batons
and held it by the side of Dak’s temple and Dak breathed heavily
and kept his eyes securely on the baton.

Kyo dared
look back and he saw the first blow and screamed for his father as
the baton struck him hard across the head. They dragged the
semi-conscious man over to the basin’s edge and glared into the
deep empty chasm of Onyx Water’s drained superior lake, a sixty
foot drop to shallow swamp below.

‘
Stay here!’
Sonja told him through tears, grabbing Kyo and pulling him toward
the SkyLark hidden out somewhere in the forest. ‘Don’t say
anything, just stay here...’

But Kyo
couldn’t stay. His heart began to beat and his lips pealed back
over his gnashing teeth. Kyo broke free of her grip and dashed from
the bushes to help his father.

‘
KYO!’ He
heard his mother scream after him.