Chaos Cipher (50 page)

The security
staff heard it, too. Lyov turned to the camp and saw the youngster
sprinting towards them, his head forth, his arms back, tail
extended into streamline reach. Kyo darted up to the hulking
security man, Lyov.

‘
RUN KYO! GET
OUT OF HERE!’ Dak was shouting.

The man
tossed Kyo aside but the boy was back on his feet and latched to
Lyov’s waist.

‘
LET HIM GO!’
He screamed. ‘LET HIM GO LET HIM GO!’

‘
Little
fucker!’ Lyov vented, striking Kyo with the back of his knuckles.
Kyo fell hard on his side and Vadim straddled over him, putting his
limbs into an effective hold he couldn’t reverse. Kyo growled and
kicked hopelessly against the dirt, unable to speak and Vadim
pulled his chin up, keeping his teeth together as he sat heavy
across his spine.

‘
We got him,’
Lyov genially reported into his communicator.

‘
Good,’ said
Krupin. ‘Kill the other two, the nigger and the bitch.’

Kyo squirmed
and Vadim held him tighter.

‘
Stop
fighting!’ He said into his ear. ‘You will make this more painful
for you.’

He slipped
his hand into his pocket and felt for the tablet Laux had given
him. His fingers pressed around the smooth surface, tightening into
a fist around it. He had to get his hand free, if only for a
second. Kyo wormed a little more now, grunting and groaning,
breathing through his nose.

‘
Wanna see
daddy take a fly?’ Vadim offered, dragging Kyo into a position so
he could view his father. And he suddenly got his arm free as Vadim
attempted to move him. His fist was in the air, but Vadim quickly
held his wrist and got it back down, and Kyo roared angrily and
struggled, then bit Vadim’s hand. He punched Kyo hard in the head
and repositioned the boy, and Kyo dropped the pill onto the floor.
It landed under his nose in the detritus, and he quickly lurched
forth, scooping a pile of leaves into his mouth and felt around
with his tongue to locate the pill, wincing bitterly on the soggy
dirty leaves as Raw Dog continued to twist him into submission.
Vadim yanked Kyo’s arm back up behind his spine and he wailed with
pain as his assailant’s knee pressed into his lower back. But he
swallowed the pill and spat out the leaves, coughing.

‘
You done?’
Vadim laughed after the struggle. ‘That it?’

He wasn’t
sure how long the bio-hack would take to react. Laux had never
mentioned, he just said something about bullets. Kyo watched
helplessly as Lyov dragged his father through the leaves, hitting
him repeatedly over the head as Dak fought back desperately. The
Perigrussia Skybus hovered above, looking for an appropriate
clearing to set down, its thruster engines unsettling the
surrounding vegetation.

The other
security man held a gun to Dak’s head, and Kyo saw the pleasure he
was taking in his father’s suffering. Vadim grabbed a fist full of
Kyo’s hair and pulled his head up and made sure he was watching.
Then, Kyo felt something strange happening in his chest. His heart
palpitations were surging. His muscles were tightening, growing
fatter and each constricting into tough sinewy knots.

He moved his
head slightly and saw everything was blurred, an after chase of
light following the motion of his eyes. He heard gunfire and
thought his father had been killed. But it wasn’t his father. Sonja
was running from the clearing. She was shouting with rage, wielding
a semi-automatic pistol and firing at Lyov and the other guy. The
security man pointed his weapon back at her while they ducked her
bullets. Even Vadim now had to drop low on top of Kyo to avoid
being shot.

And suddenly,
an explosion of fire erupted from Kyo’s stomach. He felt it spread
like hot metal, solidifying his skin, making him feel impervious to
bullets, making him feel indestructible. He sucked in a lung full
of air and exhausting it from his throat like a lion. He saw his
veins were glowing like rivers of light and wasn’t sure if it was
an illusion or if it was really happening to him. And Kyo got to
his feet, carrying a confused Vadim over his shoulder. He dropped
Raw Dog hard on his back and Kyo swung him by his ankle sliding
across the leaves like he was a curling stone. Lyov had been
returning fire towards Sonja when he heard rapid footsteps beating
towards him and Kyo appeared under his aim.

…
and
then…

In one
forceful shove a powerful explosion threw them apart. Dak was
hurtled to the floor as thunder broke with such ferocity it
impaired his hearing with tinnitus, and Lyov had vanished
completely over the basin edge. Dak had slid through the leaves and
seen one of the security men fall to the ground for cover. And in
the shock of it all Kyo stood panting for breath, his hands
shaking, and the very hands that had just shoved a hundred and ten
kilogram man flying through the air over the edge of the drained
lake and into the swamp and marsh below. Kyo looked around his slow
motion world and knew he had not the capacity to communicate with
it. He just had to move!

Kyo saw the
other security man start to sit up and aim his pistol at him, but
he ducked way below the first shot and darted through the air,
standing on the body guard’s chest as he ran over him. The shots
fired after Kyo but they all missed, a confused rattle of
ballistics finding the leaves and branches and dust. Sonja wasted
no time to take advantage of the situation. She knelt down beside
Dak and aimed steady, unloading the rest of her cartridge into the
security man’s head.

Kyo slid to
her side, quick breaths of air venting in and out, eyes
wild.

‘
I took the
capsule!’ He said quickly, hands dithering. ‘I took Laux’s capsule.
Too much energy! Gottagogottagogottago!’

With all his
strength Kyo helped Dak to his feet and started jogging into the
forests, and Sonja reloaded her pistol and followed close, helping
Kyo with Dak’s other arm. Overhead, they heard the Perigrussia
Skybus giving chase, the indiscernible orders vocally echoing from
the megaphone through the valley.

‘
There’s
nowhere to run!’ Sonja heard Krupin calling.

*

The body
guard, Lyov, was nowhere to be seen. Vadim had been stunned by the
explosion, where the hell it came from he had no idea. He’d heard
legends about Olympian warriors but he was starting to understand
at last what was so special about them, and why they were globally
a threat. Vadim jumped to his feet and tapped the receiver in his
earpiece.

‘
Lyov?’ he
said, tapping again. ‘Lyov...where the fuck are you?’

Vadim darted
over to the basin of the lake and glared into the deep chasm to see
a plume of smoke rising from the bottom and a body spread out on
the rocks below. His armour had been shattered and the man was
rolling around and groaning and bawling with pain.

‘
LYOV!’ Vadim
shouted. ‘SHIT! LYOV, ARE YOU ALIVE?’

‘
Fuck him!’
Said Horace on the earpiece. ‘We’ve got a tail on them. Get after
them! They’re on the move.’

Vadim snapped
around in time to catch sight of their prey now heading deeper into
the trees. He could hear Krupin’s voice echo from the Perigrussia
Skybus which droned in the sky above.

‘
Lyov took
the plunge,’ Vadim said to his earpiece, ‘he’s in the basin,
repeat, he’s in the basin, wounded badly, I think.’

The silver
cadonavis lowered into the huge empty basin of what was once Onyx
Water’s beautiful reservoir. And two more crew members abseiled
down the lines to pick up the injured man who lay squirming in the
swamp and rocks below.

‘
Krupin,’
Vadim transmitted, ‘I need to track their movements. Send me aerial
view. You have to deactivate magnetic field scrambler.’

‘
Okay, is
already done.’ Said Krupin.

*

As they
shifted down the stone steps to the Yenisei River, Sonja was
supporting Dak beside her son. Dak lifted his bleeding head almost
drunkenly and tried to work his legs, which mostly seemed to dangle
and scrape behind him.

‘
Kyo, the
SkyLark’ Sonja directed. ‘Where did we leave it?’

‘
Over here!’
Kyo urged. His memory was now open and accessible, working like
lightning even in the confusion. ‘C’mon c’mon!’

As Dak’s arm
lay heavily around Kyo’s shoulder, he suddenly noticed a strange
colour blinking across Dak’s Quantic-W. Kyo looked at his own
device coiled around his forearm and he activated the signal and
received the message.

‘
Kyo! What
the hell happened to you?’ said Pania.

Kyo responded
with a frustrated long yell, as though he’d just fallen over a
cliff, trying to express everything with the expletive cries of
help. His long exasperated scream conveyed everything that needed
to be said and managed to vent some of the excess energy the
capsule was producing.

‘
Wow! What is
it?’ she uttered. ‘Jesus, chill! CHILL!’

Suddenly,
Laux took Pania’s arm and he gazed at Kyo, his big brown eyes
glaring from the screen.

‘
Eureka
Supreme!’ He yelled. ‘You took the capsule! Be frugal with that
energy. I expressly said not to do so unless you’re in
trouble!’

‘
Big
trouble!’ Kyo shouted. ‘Big big big big trouble! Krupin’s here!
They’re shooting at us!’

‘
Kyo!’ Laux
bawled, ‘listen! The capsule is catalysing your geobacter, they’re
bionetic nanomes produced by your body.’

‘
What?’ he
cried with frustrated bewilderment.

‘
It’s
designed to activate your dormant Olympian genetics,’ he said. ‘It
works like an adrenaline shot. You’ll have increased power, reduced
pain receptors, maximum strength. But it will burn out fast so keep
moving!’

‘
Krupin has
been jamming our signal!’ Sonja shouted.

‘
What
happened to your friend, is he alive?’

‘
He’s
concussed,’ Sonja reported, checking behind them and gasping as she
struggled to support Dak. ‘He has a closed head injury with
swelling and scalp wounds. I need to get him to an infirmary to
check for cranial fractures!’

Suddenly, the
ground ahead spat up unfurling clouds of dust. Artillery punched
into the path ahead of them as Vadim fired from the high point of
the steps, herding them away from the SkyLark they left parked by
the river. Kyo dragged them away from the fire, leading them into
the cover of the herbage and coppice.

Vadim aimed
along his sight, a perfectly aligned nozzle spitting out rounds
into the ground, forcing them into the fields. Vadim descended the
stone steps with the assault rifle hard into his shoulder and the
nozzle under his chin, both hands aiming at his victims. He fired a
burst of warning shots at their toes, guiding them further into to
where the Perigrussia Skybus could intercept them. Vadim tracked
their position and discharged more shots towards his prey, forcing
them into a new direction.

‘
We have to
get away from that maniac!’ Kyo cried, gaining better control of
his father’s weight.

Overhead they
heard the stirring engines again and the Perigrussia Skybus soared
above, and a dramatic wake of hot air parted the conifers and
highest trees as it raced overhead. Vadim’s relentless gunshots
forced them to run into a glade and they stopped when they saw the
Perigrussia Skybus settling down in the open space. Other than the
forests they’d just left there was no more cover here, they were
exposed and surrounded.

The
Perigrussia Skybus settled on its landing feet, and the cabin’s
main door opened, unfolding a stairway from the mechanisms of the
volt door that reached down to the bottom. And Vilen Krupin was
already marching eagerly from the head of the ship.

Horace jumped
out of the Perigrussia Skybus cargo platform with Nikkolai. They
were aiming rifles steadily towards them, walking quickly in
military fashion to meet them in the glade.

Still
weakened by the head wound, Dak fell on his knees panting and Sonja
sat beside him, holding his bleeding head into her
bosom.

‘
That’s far
enough,’ said Vadim, levelling an assault rifle onto them. He had a
big smile of relief on his face, which still poured with blood from
his lip. Maliciously, he kicked Dak rolling onto his back and Sonja
held up her hands both fearful and enraged. She was still holding
the pistol.

‘
You stay
very still bitch,’ said Vadim, the rifle aimed steadily at her
cheek. Sonja did just that, her face stone and weeping eyes alight
with vengeance. Vadim reached forth and removed her weapon. With
his thumb, he triggered the switch to unload the cartridge and it
fell to the floor with a dull thump, and he kicked it away. Vadim
aimed into the sky and fired the pistol’s last loaded bullet, then
hurled it in the other direction, far into the field. He reassigned
the nozzle of his rifle under Sonja’s chin.