Chaos Cipher (17 page)

‘
Much of his
older property once extended to the entirety of this city,’ Enaya
reminded, ‘I think he’s a little bitter that property today is a
shared ideal and not an exclusive parameter.’

‘
You think he
wants to own this place again?’

‘
I’m sure of
it,’ she explained as they followed the garden paths and walkways
leading between various crops. She smiled and nodded to familiar
faces who were working the fields. Daryl moved aside as some kids
scurried past holding a small remote plane.

‘
You could be
right,’ Daryl nodded, ‘suppose he’s furious to be losing his legacy
and inheritance.’

‘
I want to
speak with Edge Fenris,’ she said, ‘see if he knows anything about
the vandalism.’

‘
I’d call it
more of a piece of art,’ Daryl smiled.

Enaya looked
at him curtly, her eyes quizzical. But Daryl held his smile and
eventually she found hers too.

‘
I haven’t
seen it,’ she confessed. ‘Nor do I care to. But I will get it
removed.’

‘
It looks
just like Lewis,’ Daryl informed, scratching under his nose and
adding ‘with the small tash as well.’

As they
followed the gardens they reached at last their destination. Many
of the old roadways in Cerise Timbers were now subject to various
art installations and pick-up points for the open markets. People
dropped off and took what they wanted or didn’t need and nobody
worked on the stalls. The electronics and hardware stalls were a
treasure for people like Edge Fenris and not out of character he
was living close to these markets. People crowded around,
discussing items they hadn’t seen before and comparing new
components. Several of the technology students from the mechanics
and electronics federation were discussing how they could test the
new units or update old components and electronics. The SkyLark air
zone was wide. Daryl could hear engines being tested in one of the
large hangars nearby and he asked some of the students if anybody
had seen Edge.

‘
Not since
yesterday,’ said a young woman with short red hair and a lab coat,
‘he was in the markets bartering with one of the students for a
circuit node.’

‘
Bartering?’
Enaya chuckled.

Edge Fenris
was in it for himself, a lone wolf. He had lived on the
Megalo-Britai’s hardlands of the Neo-London Atominii. He once told
Enaya it was a rat-bastard sprawl for parasites and corpses alike.
She didn’t disbelieve it was a swarm of a place, old architecture
crumbling into murky waters and held up by the cyber city that
snaked around it. She understood that Edge was used to surviving by
his own means and showed little interest in joining any of the
city’s agencies or companies. But when individuals needed something
like low grade electronics it was theirs to take. Bartering was a
hardlander habit for those unable to produce
crypto-coin.

‘
I know,’
said the young student. ‘We just gave him a bunch and sent him
packing. He looked real surprised. Said I’m a patronising ass-hat
who takes things for granted. Asshole. I had a mind to take them
nodes back I can tell you.’

In Cerise
Timbers, it didn’t take a genius to work out things were mostly
done communally. Not unlike Pierce and his kind, Edge Fenris was
not one for contribution when it came to volunteering. He preferred
his own space and his own time. People seemed to frazzle him. There
were a significant number of others like this in Cerise Timbers,
but not so many had the conservative expectations of Pierce Lewis.
When it came to Edge, Enaya suspected he was at best a creative
asshole, at worst an uncooperative miscreant, but not
dangerous.

‘
Where is he
now?’ Daryl said.

‘
I think he’s
staying in one of the Northern Blister Hangars. Number fifteen I
think.’

‘
He’s using
the hangars?’

‘
Yeah he’s
with the Professor,’ she explained, ‘you know, the Atominii neuro
electronics specialist.’ Then she laughed and shrugged. ‘I still
don’t know what he’s a professor in to be fair, it seems his
qualifications are…on-going.’

‘
You mean
Professor Aldous Laux?’ said another of the students, leaning over
from a circuit locker. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and eye
goggles and had just finished tuning some kind of adjustment. He
slammed the locker closed and pumped the power-handle built into
the side, charging up the batteries.

‘
He’s an
odd-ball, isn’t he?’

‘
I’m afraid I
don’t know who that is,’ Enaya confessed.

‘
Ah sure it’s
just across the air zone,’ the student said, pointing toward the
hangar behind the large moss covered airship. ‘Number fifteen, just
go down there.’

*

The hangar
was almost thirty feet high with an arching roof, one of a row of
another five identical to it and used for storage. Large military
stencils numerically numbered the hangar door, which was now open
ajar. Daryl peered into the large space inside and stepped into the
cool shade. A faint light was coming from the depth of the hangar
somewhere behind an empty SkyLark chassis. Enaya followed
through.

‘
Edge
Fenris!’ She called.

‘
Fenris! Get
out here!’ Daryl shouted more assertively.

The smell of
oil was strong in the cool hangar. Around the sides there were
offices and a haze of light bled in from a window in the upper
floors. The sound of a drill motor whirred as a bolt was getting
tightened somewhere. They walked around machinery that had been
covered with dust sheets and canvas.

‘
Fenris!’
Daryl called again.

‘
Keep your
hair on man!’ A voice droned within earshot.

From the
office sector they saw a shadow moving in the darkness, walking on
the upper platforms. The shadow leaned over the rails, face glowing
amber behind the fire of his cigarette.

‘
So,’ he said
on a vale on smoke. ‘Is this a late welcoming committee from the
venerable echelons of the Fed or you just poaching a bad
egg?’

‘
We’re
poaching a bad egg,’ said Daryl dryly.

‘
Actually
we’ve a few questions about the Lewis property?’

‘
What is it
this time did somebody ruffle his hedges again?’

‘
Somebody
stencilled fascist onto his wall,’ Enaya explained, ‘portraying him
as a Hitler caricature.’

‘
So?’ Edge
asked, ‘he is a fascist. Rat-bastard isn’t even meek about it. It’s
only a problem when somebody else points it out.’

‘
We need to
ask around.’ Daryl said.

‘
And you
think I did it?’

‘
We think you
might know who is responsible.’

Edge Fenris
puffed on the cigarette, a burning end flaring vermilion, streams
of smoke venting from his nostrils. He stooped down the walkway to
a ladder, sliding boots first to the ground along its rails. Edge
came into the dim light slanting in from outside. He was bald
except for a short spiky Mohawk that ran through the middle of his
head and some kind of cybernetic implant that was attached to his
left cheek, curving around the eye. His jacket was black leather,
studded, and he had a loose fitting fishnet shirt underneath, and
torn grey jeans patched with tartan material. He threw his
cigarette ahead of him and stomped it out as he passed, wreaths of
smoke puffing from of his nose. He was a skinny man and as short as
Enaya, but he had a reputation for sinking in the teeth so to
speak. As he got closer, Enaya noticed his nose piercing, a curved
semi-ring that hung from his septum.

‘
Nope,’ he
said. ‘Haven’t a clue. If you ask me about the weather I’d be happy
to talk to death about it, the whole birds and the bees thing too.
Ask me about whiskey I’ll tell you a few crazy stories. Ask me
about neuro-narcotics and I’ll tell you even more. But when it
comes to the whole racket of this city’s fine dwellers I know about
as much as the next geezer.’

‘
I find that
hard to believe.’ Daryl noted.

‘
Well,
believe what you want, pongo,’ Edge smiled, ‘shows that you’re
thinking for yourself at least. But you’re talking to a man who
sleeps with a semi-automatic cradling a bottle of gin. The world
ain't for people like me, catch my drift?’

He started
walking away and dug into his inner pocket for another
cigarette.

‘
Not enough
liquor in Cerise Timbers,’ he said, lips pressed around the
cigarette butt as he sprung his lighter open. ‘That’s my bag. Got
the professor to ferment some using yeast from that dirigible
outside, you know, the one where they’re cultivating
fungi?’

‘
You’ll be
waiting a long time,’ said Enaya.

‘
Found a way
to speed up the process,’ he smiled avariciously. ‘Wanna
see?’

Daryl looked
to Enaya and he nodded approvingly. Enaya didn’t imagine she would
try any but was curious to check out his operation, if anything to
get him blabbing a little more, perhaps he’d let something slip
after a boozer.

‘
Okay
Fenris,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Let’s see what you got.’

Edge stuffed
his hands in his pockets as he led them around the various
machines. The drilling was getting louder the deeper into the
hangar they went.

‘
As you can
hear-’ Edge shouted back over his shoulder, ‘got the professor
testing out some tools in here for the schools. Wacko claims to be
building modern art or I dunno…’ he said, circulating his hand
around his ear as he spoke, cigarette pivoting in his mouth. ‘So
yeah. Y’know. Gives him something to do.’

‘
He tests the
equipment you said?’

‘
General
maintenance,’ Edge called. ‘-CAN YOU HEAR ME?’

‘
Yes,’ Daryl
assured.

‘
Not you
padre, LAUX!’ Edge shouted again as they walked around more covered
machines and dusty sheets. All at once the drilling and grinding of
metal came to a stop. A tall and wiry man suddenly appeared from
behind a workshop table. Various computer screens and modified
radio equipment were blinking and going about their programming
nearby. He was wearing a welding mask and a long white lab coat.
His skinny arms stuffed into padded black gloves that looked far
too big for his bony fingers until he quickly pulled them off and
put them on the table. Aldous Laux held out his hand to introduce
himself as he moved around the table, dragging screens and wires
spilling to the ground behind him. He tripped slightly and scurried
for balance, approaching Enaya right away.

‘
Miss
Chahuán!’ He muffled from behind the mask.

‘
Enaya,’ she
smiled. ‘We don’t carry titles here. We’re all equals.’

Professor
Aldous Laux pulled back his mask and smiled his wrinkly nervous
smile.

‘
Enaya
Chahuán.’ He said, his big brown eyes wild and sharp, staring
unabashedly into hers. He had a slim and long face, a chin that was
large and dimpled in the middle, his smile she knew would have been
very handsome in his youth. Laux had frowsy white eyebrows and a
bald head. She could see the neural implants freckled in logically
patterned cerebral areas around his skull. And he took her hand and
kissed the back of it gently.

‘
Really?’ she
chuckled flatly, amused by the gesture. ‘Please… alright, stop
that.’

‘
I am an
admirer of your work,’ he spoke quickly, vested with energy and
enthusiasm. ‘I read the sociocratic progress reports you’ve written
on the continuing research of East B’ One and the Three Circles of
the constitution. Although, not my preferred taste for civilisation
your insights are nevertheless honest and professional. I’d say you
are a fascinating young woman with natural leadership values and a
consistent respect for democratic consensus. You have an adept
understanding of social dynamic order and I see a keen sense for
information technologies from what I gathered. I’ve many questions
about your insights for motivation, I read your papers on
countering the challenges of group burn-outs and factionalism
within anarchi-’

‘
Nobody reads
those reports,’ she interrupted with surprise. ‘It’s just my hobby
really. Something to put on the Q-net for new comers like yourself
when they’re in rare cases like yours actually
interested…’

‘
I am
interested!’ He assured her, stepping close, his gaze unblinking,
caught up in his own romanticising.

Daryl was
growing uncomfortable, but it was Edge who gently linked the
professor’s arm and slowly paced him walking backwards.

‘
Excuse the
professor,’ he said flicking ash with his other hand, ‘he doesn’t
mean to be creepy. He sometimes forgets himself. Years of isolation
isn’t good for anyone. It’s been a long time since he’s been
around
normal
people.’

‘
Normal?’
Laux asked feeling insulted.

‘
Chahuán
looks normal enough to me,’ Edge checked himself. ‘Now, Laux.
Where’s the whiskey, man?’