SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1 (8 page)

Another kick for good measure and then Zak
was on his way around the corner and heading for the stairs to the
upper level walkway.

The three from Underworld popped into view
just as Zak started up the steps, taking them two at a time. He
looked down in time to see one of the Orks draw a weapon. He had no
time to think about it; he ducked only in the nick of time,
propelling himself forward as laser pulses burned a running train
just behind him.

He kept moving, chased by the sound of the
laser searing the iron stairs behind him, thanking the gods that
the Ork doing the shooting was a lousy shot.

Before he reached the top of the stairs, he
heard a car horn from above. Kam pulled up level to the top of the
stairs and opened the front passenger door.

“Get in, man, quick!”

Zak raced across the platform and dove into
the front seat, dripping wet and panting for breath. He was more
than a little happy that he’d called Kam to pick him up before
leaving Underworld and happier still that the kid had showed
up.

“Go!” he yelled, slamming the door to the
cab. He looked down at the gang of Orks as Kam pulled away from the
pickup platform and confirmed what he’d suspected. The fragging
street punk had an Uk’glok CKP Energy Pulse handgun. He’d
recognized the unmistakable sound of the weapon as it burned hot
into the steel stair casing behind him. The Uk’glok was standard
issue of the Orkensha Ghanstap, the Orkensha Secret Guard. It was
also a common commodity on the Orkensha black market. It was no
surprise that the weapons were showing up among the street
gangs.

If Kam’s cab had been an old gas powered
vehicle with rubber tires, he’d have laid rubber. Instead, he blew
air. Zak’s head jerked back for the second time tonight, but this
time he didn’t mind the circumstances as they sped away from the
blood-red laser pulses streaming up past them. Several more shots
zipped through the air behind them, as Kam ignored the bad weather
ban on the upper levels and climbed to the maximum five hundred
meter mark and headed north.

“Geeze, man, I told ya...you shouldn’t go to
the Zone!”

“Well, if it’s any comfort, you were
right.”

“You some kind of thrill seeker or
something?” Kam asked, shaking his head in disapproval. “Before I
forget, give me my business card back. I don’t think I want to give
you any more rides, man.”

Zak laughed. But he kept the kid’s card.

Z
ak could tell something was wrong as soon
as he stepped off the old service elevator that led into the
kitchen area of his loft. Ke’aira was not acting her usual
enthusiastic self by jumping up on him as soon as he entered, her
tongue working overtime in a wet greeting. Ke’aira did meet him at
the lift, but she was subdued, her big brown eyes flicking from
side to side in nervous caution. It was something he had never seen
in her before.

“What is it, girl?” His concern for her made
him instantly forget the ache in his jaw from the punch he’d
received outside Underworld. His first reaction was to suspect
something was wrong inside the loft. He carefully scanned the
visible areas of his apartment, although with all the greenery
scattered about it was like trying to see through the dense
vegetation of a rain forest. There was nothing out of the ordinary
that he could see.

Ke’aira answered with an anxious whine.
Elvish Wilderdogs had a reputation for not only their intelligence,
but also for their courage. Zak considered Ke’aira to be
exceptional on both counts. She rose up on her hind legs, resting
her paws on Zak’s shoulders. Measuring seventy-six centimeters at
her shoulders and weighing in at forty-eight kilograms, Ke’aira was
hardly a small dog. He accepted her weight against his body,
scratching behind her ears as she met his eye contact. He knew she
was trying to tell him something but failed to understand what it
was.

With Zak returning home, she seemed to relax
a little and she began licking his face with some degree of
enthusiasm. She took time out to sniff around the bruise that
marked his swollen cheek. Then she began licking again, this time
more gently covering the swollen area, as though she was tending to
the wound.

“Don’t worry, you should see the other guy,”
he said to her.

Ke’aira dropped to the floor. Sniffing the
air, she turned in a tight circle and sat down. She lowered her
head for a moment before looking up at him with those wide-set
brown eyes of hers, drool sliding off the tip of her pink tongue as
she panted nervously. When she whined and she sniffed at the air
again, Zak knew for certain that there was something bothering
her...something that she sensed...but what?

He considered the possibility that it was the
weather that was bothering her. But storms had never bothered her
before, no matter how severe. And this storm had been hanging
around for two days now. She hadn’t shown any sign of... Well
actually, now that he thought about it, Ke’aira had been acting
differently since just before the bad weather set in two days ago.
The dog was normally glued to his side whenever they were together,
so that behavior hadn’t set off any alarms for him. But there had
been a subtle uneasiness about her over the past few days. He
cursed himself for not noticing sooner.

There was no excuse for him not to have
picked up on the change in Ke’aira’s behavior. He had been so
preoccupied with the Crandell account these past few days that he
had developed tunnel vision. When had he become so concerned about
business that he began overlooking the truly important things in
his life?

Off on a tangent of momentary guilt, he
forgot about identifying the reason for Ke’aira’s uneasiness in
favor of making it up to her for his neglect. He was tired and his
muscles ached, but he was not about to pass on his obligation to
her. “So, how about you let me take a shower and then we’ll go for
a walk?”

If Ke’aira had noticed any neglect lately, it
was instantly forgiven with those words. Her head lifted, her ears
perked and she began to prance around him, urging him to hurry.
Whatever was bothering her seemed to suddenly become unimportant
with the prospect of going for their evening walk.

Rain or star-filled sky, they had walked
every night since the very first night he had found the dog near
the Serpent River. She had only been a pup at the time, nothing
more than a dirty mottled little fur ball, abandoned and in rough
shape. As Ke’aira grew, she became more and more obsessive over the
nightly walks, not giving Zak a moments peace until he opened the
lift and they headed out the door.

Zak knew even a loft-size apartment wasn’t
the best home for her. He had never planned on owning a dog, though
even now he didn’t feel that he actually
owned
her. They
were companions. When he found her, he had intended to keep her
only long enough to nurse her back to health and then give her up
for adoption. That was two years ago. Now, he could not imagine
life without her.

She’d grown into a very solid specimen of her
breed. Her strong shoulders, muscular neck and deep chest were
classic to the Elvish Wilderdog. Her coat was a mottled patchwork
of blue-grey and black, pure white on her chest, belly and paws
with copper spats on each of her four legs. The shaggy camouflage
complimented her excellent hunting skills. She was a beautiful dog
by any standards. But Zak’s pride came more from the bond they
shared than from her classic purebred appearance. Ke’aira offered
him her undying love, something that he had only ever felt from his
mother before she died, and that had been a very long time ago.

He scratched affectionately behind the dog’s
ears once more and she accepted it gracefully. The bark that
followed told him to hurry up with the shower and let’s get going.
Her impatience eased his concern over her nervousness. Whatever had
been bothering her, she didn’t find it serious enough to interfere
with their nightly walk.

“Okay, let me take a quick shower and change,
and then we’ll go.” He had to force his aching body into motion,
but the thought of cancelling their walk never entered his mind.
This was his commitment to Ke’aira.

Zak had turned the spacious fourth floor loft
literally into a greenhouse. Amaryllis, Begonias, Avocado,
Caladium, Dwarf Climbers, Elfin Lilies, Dragon Sprouts, and even
some species of small trees; a multitude of plant-life turned the
expanse of the loft into a jungle of color, more than filling the
empty spaces between the limited furniture.

While the only room built into the apartment
was the bathroom at the far end of the loft, it was still necessary
to navigate around the clusters of dense vegetation that formed
living walls separating the various areas. It was time consuming
for Zak to care for all this plant-life, but the rich fragrances
permeating the air was pleasing to the senses and well worth the
effort.

The only significant open space in the entire
loft was the regulation size basketball court he had constructed
against the back wall. He walked across the hardwood court,
dripping rain water on the highly waxed finish as he made his way
for the shower. Ke’aira kept pace with him, her nails tapping a
steady rhythm as she walked at his side. The warm water stung his
bruised jaw, but felt revitalizing just the same. He applied a
herbal cream to his jaw after. It was one of the few things
Elvish
that Zak accepted, but only because its healing
properties were superior to anything he could find at an Aragne
pharmacy.

Ke’aira was waiting for him just outside the
bathroom. As he moved to his sleeping area, she again positioned
herself where she could keep a discrete eye on her master. She
remained patient as she monitored Zak’s progress with dressing and
preparing himself for their expedition, only becoming excited again
when he finally said, “Okay, guess we’re good to go.”

Jumping up, she raced for the elevator door,
where she began prancing in a tight circle waiting for him to catch
up and open the lift gate. He was pleased to see her enthusiasm had
fully returned. Whatever had been bothering her evidently was no
longer a concern.

Luck was with him when they reached the
sidewalk. The rain had slacked off to a light drizzle, although the
thunder and lightning promised more heavy rain again in the near
future. Zak felt a pulse of concern when Ke’aira winced at each
flash and rumble of the weather, but she seemed determined to
continue. She trotted off down the street with as much enthusiasm
as she could gather. Zak followed, wondering about her sudden
sensitivity to the weather and hoping that they could do this walk
before any serious rain returned.

Although Slough Street was not as well lit as
some other areas of the city, the sky above them was not dark. True
night had been denied Sol Kappur for centuries, ever since the
small harbor town began its growth into a major city of street
lamps, neon lit storefronts and lighted Skyscrapers. The massive
collection of city lights now pushed against the night sky,
although tonight the illumination was quickly absorbed by low
hanging thunderclouds and reflected back in an angry orange that
seemed both alive and threatening.

From behind his loft a brighter, more intense
luminosity made the clouds appear even more livid. Sol Kappur’s
massive seaport stretched across the northern shoreline of the
city. It had not only become the largest remaining seaport in a
world of hover-transport, but its eastern end had been expanded
into an international spaceport. The loud rumbling of engines shook
the surrounding neighborhoods on a regular basis, as large space
shuttles lifted off and returned from cross-planet flights and
trips to the colonies on the two moons revolving around Amaco Loch.
Both Zak and Ke’aira had become so used to the noise that it had
faded into the background. In fact, since the arrival of the storm
two days ago, the noise had become noticeable to Zak only by its
absence due to flight cancellations.

Heavy salt scented sea air drifted from the
Dragon Sea as Zak and Ke’aira headed west along Slough Street. It
was only a short walk to the Serpent River and the old boardwalk
that ran along it to the south. Years ago the Serpent Walk, as it
was called, had been a busy place. Street vendors, musicians and an
assortment of other entertainers had once thrived along the five
kilometer wooden walkway. Crowds of people once swarmed over the
long stretch of sandy man-made beach, enjoying a day in the sun or
a warm evening under the two moons. Children used to sit for hours
watching the assortment of large ships and small boats that made
their way up and down the Serpent.

But now the Walk was mostly deserted. In a
day of space travel and virtual reality games, the slow restricted
movements of a sea-going vessel and the slow-paced entertainment of
the buskers had somehow become mundane to adults and children
alike. The focus had now shifted to the northeast, to those streets
nearest the spaceport, a more modern setting that fulfilled a more
modern demand for entertainment.

Only a few of the locals now used the Walk.
Mostly dog walkers like Zak and, occasionally on a warm summer’s
evening, you could find a couple that still found romance in an
evening stroll along the river. Unfortunately, the Walk was no
longer an entirely safe arena for leisurely strolls or romantic
interludes. All the bright lights were now gone and with the
darkness inevitably the predators came. They often hid within the
deep shadows, waiting for easy prey.

Zak never overly worried about the muggers
and other unsavory characters that slinked through the darkness of
the Walk. Between his combat training and Ke’aira’s protective
nature, these undesirables tended to keep their distance.