Chaos Cipher (35 page)

He took a
pause. Kyo got the point, not to take things for granted. But he
did it every day, how was it possible not to?

‘
Wanna hear
what happened to Laux?’ Edge said on a puff of smoke.

‘
Hell yes!’
Kyo chirped, taking a big swig of his mead. ‘He’s gotta be the most
mysterious man around here. And a genius.’

‘
Well,’ Edge
smiled. ‘That much is true. Laux has many secrets, shit that I
don’t even know and I’m his buddy.’ And Edge thought about where to
start. ‘So I guess I’ll start with how I met old Laux. Well that
day I’d gotten myself into a real stir. The Syridan army had just
surrounded an amateur back-street neurophase lab. I was there
getting a certain investigation erased from my memory when out of
nowhere…’

‘
There you
are!’ A familiar voice suddenly interrupted.

Kyo looked
over his shoulder and stood as Dak walked over. He put his arm
around his son and patted his shoulder.

‘
I’ve been
looking for you,’ he said, ‘I was by the hanger. Your quantics are
switched off, Professor Laux helped me track you down, he said
you’re with somebody.’

‘
Uh yeah…hi
pops,’ he smiled nervously. ‘Dak, this is Edge Fenris. Edge…my
father.’

‘
So, you’re
the legendary Dak Gibson’ Edge said, leaning forward to shake Dak’s
hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

‘
Same,’ Dak
nodded, turning to Kyo. ‘Will you come home? Your mother and I need
to talk to you.’

‘
Family
reunion!’ Edge suddenly interrupted. ‘You ought to go see your
parents, kid. Seriously, I’m running out of pens…does this kid eat
your things Mr Dak?’

‘
Just Dak,’
he said.

‘
Alright,’
Kyo nodded. ‘I’ll come home. Just…give me a second here,
okay?’

Dak
stalled.

‘
Please pop,
just two minutes.’

He picked up
what was left of Kyo’s mead and took it with him. Kyo rolled his
eyes and sighed.

‘
Hey, thanks
for today,’ he told Edge. ‘I’ll be round again soon.’

‘
You bet,’
Edge tipped his flask. ‘I imagine for Professor Laux’s big
unveiling, right?’

‘
His
what?’

‘
Yeah,’ Edge
knocked back another cap and gasped. ‘He said he’s unveiling a
science show or something to promote his inventions to other areas
around Cerise Timbers. He’s hoping some of the agencies would be
willing to offer him working placement, lord knows they’ve been
apparently knocking at his door since he got here. Now Laux wants
to look at contracts and pick the most suitable.’

‘
But we don’t
do contracts here,’ said Kyo.

‘
What?’

‘
You can work
anywhere,’ he shrugged. ‘Wherever your services are needed. There
are no restrictions; you do what you’re passionate for.’

‘
Oh,’ Edge
said thoughtfully.

‘
Didn’t you
know that?’

‘
Honestly I
haven’t been paying attention,’ Edge shrugged, filling another cap
and raising it to Kyo. ‘But I’ll be sure to tell Laux.’

‘
I think you
should.’ Kyo laughed.

‘
Now beat it
scamp.’

*

‘
What do you
know about Edge?’ said Dak.

Kyo followed
at his side as they strolled under the city dome’s perimeter, under
the convex shade of the large geodesic structure. Several gondolas
travelled overhead on long cables, traversing the higher buildings
of the dome back and forth and out into the fields and surrounding
hamlets.

‘
That he’s
largely misunderstood,’ Kyo explained. ‘Look, I know he looks crazy
but the guy’s had a crazy life.’

‘
So have I,’
Dak reminded, ‘and I’m cautious about people like Edge. I think
he’s a complicated person who doesn’t even understand himself. I
want you to keep some distance.’

‘
Oh come on
pops,’ Kyo groaned. ‘Pania likes him. I like him. I like Laux too;
they’ve always been really nice.’

‘
It’s not
that,’ Dak sighed. ‘We miss you. You hardly visit, you’re out all
night. You never tell us where you’re going; you never answer our
quantic messages-.’

‘
But-’

‘
Now I know
it’s that age thing,’ Dak cut him off, ‘everything’s a new
experience and stuff. And if you were hanging out with anybody else
I wouldn’t mind. What I don’t like about Edge Fenris and Professor
Laux is that they are still new here, they don’t really know yet
how things are, and I’ve heard stories. This guy’s had many names
and identities. You’re probably thinking that’s not unusual for new
comers but I heard he’s been involved in some questionable agencies
of the Atominii.’

‘
He used to
be an investigator, that’s why.’

‘
I don’t know
if I believe that,’ Dak said. ‘And why didn’t you come to us about
Hattle Lewis?’

‘
Well I did
if you remember,’ Kyo folded his arms. ‘Are you really going to
give me a hard time over this? I just wanna forget it.’

‘
You’re gonna
let this go?’

‘
Damn
straight!’ Kyo smiled.

‘
You
sure.’

‘
Yup!’

Dak smiled
and put his hand on his son’s shoulder. He took a moment to check
if he was serious and Kyo held his countenance
assuredly.

‘
Alright,’
Dak chuckled. ‘If you can let it go then so can I.’

‘
Good.’

‘
You make me
happy, Kyo,’ Dak said pulling him in. ‘You got intuition. I trust
it. If you say they’re good people then I’m sure they mean
well.’

‘
Ah get off!’
Kyo pulled away snickering. ‘Let’s just go home.’

*

When Kyo
arrived at the communal gardens of his home, he found his mother
Sonja, sat drinking tea with her friends. She stood to hug him and
they shared their apologies. Boris patted Kyo hard on the back,
always a burly man with a friendly smile. He sported a beard now;
something Dak thought suited him well. Boris crouched down to one
of the crop lids and twisted the handle on the five foot wide
circular plate. A moment later, the mechanism sprung and a vertical
farming tower raised fifteen feet from the ground where it had been
bathing in UV lighting. And Boris picked from the contained
nut-tree and passed around walnuts.

Kyo spent the
rest of the night sat with his family and friends. Sonja talked
with him a little more about as they drank a viscous lemon juice
from small pouches while Boris roasted walnuts over a naked flame
burning from a small gas canister.

‘
There are
people here,’ Sonja had said in her soft contralto, ‘who think Dak
and I made a mistake bringing you here. They think we decided for
the community, that we put the city at risk, that we made a choice
without consulting our democracy on a decision that was
dangerous.’

‘
I know,’ Kyo
nodded, familiar with the story.

‘
But I didn’t
decide to threaten our city,’ she explained, regarding him with a
warm and filial smile. ‘I decided to help someone in need. I
decided to show them love, to love him with all my heart
unconditionally, even given the odd chance of them being unable to
return it. And I do still. You are my son. If the Atominii see that
as a threatening gesture then it is their own humanity they must
revise, not mine. It’s their own laws they should mind. And I
believe we were always threatened by them with or without you
involved. That’s why they call us precariats, because our
situation, no matter what we do, is precarious.’

Kyo smiled
and she squeezed his hand affectionately.

‘
Thank you,’
he said tenderly. ‘Sorry I ran out on you before. And I’m sorry if
I showed you any disrespect. I was hurt. But I know you’re
worried.’

‘
It’s
alright,’ she assured, ‘another thing, you’re not the only one
Hattle’s been bothering,’ she divulged. ‘Quite a number of people
have come forward, do you know?’

‘
Like who?’
Kyo asked, leaning his elbows on his knees to listen.

‘
Well,’ she
sighed, ‘a boy who had his arm broken for using sports equipment
that Hattle was claiming belonged to him. He was in the hospital
for a while. As you know we don’t believe in such things here, one
person has no leverage over the property of many. Hattle seems to
have some sort of craving for power, I assume considering his
upbringing it’s not hard to understand. He assumed his identity is
about what he owns, not what he learns and contributes. Well this
false sense of self makes him believe he has the right to protect
this claim. Also, there was a young woman who said she had been
harassed by Hattle, called some terrible and hurtful
names.’

Kyo sighed
and looked on at the stars up high, through the open window of the
city dome.

‘
We have
enough to make a strong case to get him kicked-out,’ she said. ‘It
would be in everyone’s interest.’

‘
So what
you’re saying it you think I should come forward?’

‘
Yes,’ Sonja
nodded. ‘But we can’t just yet.’

‘
Oh -
Why?’

‘
Because the
Lewis family have Atominii visitors.’ She explained. ‘If they see
you-’

‘
Oh,’ he
sighed, reminded once more about his differences. Sonja touched his
shoulder gently.

‘
It’s not our
fault,’ she whispered. ‘People here love you. You know they do. But
those in the Atominii and surrounding hardlands…they don’t
understand sweet heart. Their humanity is corrupted. But, look at
me. I promise I’ll get you through this, we’ll never have to face
this problem again.’

Kyo forced a
smile and nodded. He cast his attention up to the sky and saw
narrow streaks of light silently flair into space, curving a
suddenly visible pale arch from the dark above.

‘
Starnavis!’
They heard children calling on the roads, dashing through the
plants and tall stalks of grass and pointing to the early twilight.
‘Starnavis, starnavis!’ They called to the spectacle, aware of
their distant cousins out in space, aware of the legends and tales
of humanity’s first attempt to reach beyond our world.

-25-

W
hen Adamoss opened his eyes, his
consciousness had been diminished by a factor of twenty six
experiences, their individual life patterns lost from his reach and
only the memory of the Hephaestus One now remained. He looked upon
the room where he was now positioned in a new physical avatar.
Unlike the majority of his avatars, this one was anthropomorphic
and it used it strictly when addressing his human subjects. Adamoss
stood to wonder, stepping out of his deep meditation. His legs
unfolded and raised his steady body of naked artificial muscle
fibres, straightening the rigging and plates of his complex and
delicately designed spine to align his head with the doors of the
Buddhist temple. His feet flattened out, the complicated small
polymer bones spreading through their liquid and silicon
epithelium, under which his regular and lineal arteries branched
into straight service canals like copper and solder on a circuit
board, the arteries glowing as they supplied nanomes to regulate
the motion of the synergising ligaments and synthetic sinew. He
moved lightly and quietly across the floor, his skin shining with a
translucent quality like the larvae of fish, bones flexing, with
dynamic supplicate designs all too human. The android crossed the
cold stone floor with ease, conscious of each part of the avatar’s
anatomically intricate design. He reached the temple’s door and
opened it.

Adamoss
entered a new room now, far from his meditation cushion on which he
once perched. It was high above a nocturnal city of gold and neon
blemished by a raging storm, all alight within the spotted windows
of electric topaz and distant bubbles of transparent domes, visible
from the penthouse suite of his head-quarters.

Waiting to
meet with the android were a large group of multi-cultured men and
women, scientists and eternals and world leaders, all dressed
accordingly in their black opticidyne suits and black ocular
lenses, their breath thick in the cold laboratory air.

The space
here was dimly lit and amassed with wires and cables adjoining
delicate computers with super freezers and temperature regulation
machines and environment alternators all coordinated to operate the
quantic relays of Adamoss’ consciousness.

It was the
commander and chief of the Ameritropolis Atominii states who
stepped forward. He was a bald and pale skinned fat man, with
spotless eyes the colour of milk, staring out with a displeased
concern.

‘
Adamoss,’ he
began, ‘what happened to the Hephaestus One?’

‘
A most
tragic event,’ he concluded. ‘I no longer have a signal with my
relative avatar personalities working aboard the Hephaestus One. It
would seem the avatars have been obliterated.’