Chaos Cipher (70 page)

Pierce turned
to Hattle, eyes mink and bloodshot he spoke through shivers and
jitters to his son on his knees down beside him.

‘
Be strong,’
he blubbered. ‘Been preparing for this all your life. All your
life, alright son?’

Hattle shook
his head quizzically, shocked at seeing his father reduced to fear
this way, and sick with the fear of death himself.

‘
Jhu-just be
strong.’ He said. ‘Understand why I was tough on you.
U-understand…I wanted you strong. That’s it.’

‘
Tell him to
fight like champion.’

‘
F-fhu-fight
like a champ,’ Pierce said with a dithering nod.

‘
Tell him to
fight everyone I ask him to.’ Krupin sang.

‘
You have to
fight everyone,’ Pierce agreed, ‘don’t let anybody question you.
You are strong son. Ru-remember when I told you you’ve more to - to
fear from me than anyone?’

‘
I remember,’
Hattle whispered.

‘
Well,’ and
Pierce braved a smile. ‘No need to fear anyone anymore.’

And a
widening grin eased across Krupin’s twisted face as he leaned back
into the darkness.

‘
That’s good,
Mr Lewis’ he said, and gave Vadim the nod.

And Vadim Raw
Dog shouldered the weapon tight and aimed at Pierce’s head. And Kyo
continued to scream objections while the rifle chattered and
flashed.

-52-

G
liding through the clouds and high
altitude winds, Cedalion cut above the murky cold tundra which
rolled beneath her wings as she surveyed the areas, feeding back
the transqualian data through an optical neurophase with Artex. She
sensed a powerful electro-magnetic disturbance on the horizon, a
visible generation of forces layering the magnetic waves like an
incandescent and lurid onion slice.

Artex dropped
the relay and leaned on the jeep, looking up and consulting his
compass. Gus was loading supplies onto the back of the vehicle,
while Pania already occupied the driver seat, lodging her rifle by
the door.

‘
I don’t have
to tell you,’ said Gus, hurling a supply box into the jeep’s
compartment, ‘if we’re spotted out in the Novus, this vehicle won’t
be armoured enough to withstand any velociter round. If one a’them
Blue Lycans is packing heat, like a rail gun or something, our
armour’ll put up about as much resistance as paper
Mache.’

‘
We don’t aim
to be crossing those guys,’ Pania said over her shoulder, checking
the electrical display on the dashboard settings.

‘
It’s not the
finding them that bothers me,’ said Gus, jumping up on the back.
‘It’s them finding us.’

‘
You say it
like there’s a difference.’

‘
I got eyes
in the sky,’ Artex assured. ‘Cedalion has seen the Blue Lycans a
few times. She knows their general movements. We just stay clear of
those areas and we’ll be fine.’

‘
I thought
they were drifters?’ Pania said.

‘
Even
drifters have habitual haunts.’

Artex saw
Enaya and Daryl approaching from the nearby garrison. She seemed
shocked by the large sniper cannon on the back of the jeep where
Gus was sat smoking.

‘
Come to say
farewell?’ Artex asked.

‘
No,’ Enaya
said. ‘You’re coming back. We need you Artex. You’re the best and I
don’t want you to go out there pessimistic.’

‘
I’m not,’ he
said neutrally. ‘I’m realistic, gotta prepare for the
worst.’

She smiled
faintly and handed him something. ‘Laux said you should have this.
It’ll help.’

‘
What is
that?’

‘
Targeting
laser,’ said Daryl.

Artex
analysed the slender cylindrical device and closed his hand around
it, impressed with the gift. ‘He’s right, it’ll help.’

‘
Good luck
Artex,’ Daryl said shaking his hand. ‘Get back to us safely. Bring
back our friends.’

‘
I will,’ he
nodded.

Artex Valdek
checked with Cedalion’s semi-qualia once more and matched a compass
orientation. As he hopped upside the jeep, Artex dropped into the
seat and dug into his pockets to fish for a map. Pania stood over
her seat to salute Daryl and Enaya as they waved and she started up
the engine. With Artex pointing the way the jeep rolled into the
forest. Gus bobbed and rocked in the back, smiling and holding up a
farewell hand to them as they bounded over the fields down the off
road path. Pania watched them vanish from the wing-mirror as she
steered over the terrain. Artex had a foot up on the dash, reading
the map from a large sheet of paper. She saw the animations sliding
seamlessly over the paper as he zoomed in and out of the
touch-adjustable map. He’d put his own symbols and markings on it
and she saw motion there that was significant only to him. Gus
suddenly leaned over the seat and passed Pania a newly rolled
cigarette. He popped it in her lips and lit the tip as she
drove.

‘
Do you smoke
Valdek?’ he asked.

‘
No,’ Artex
responded.

They followed
the river north, trailing upstream past old abandoned villages and
cities. After the first three hours of driving Pania was completely
reliant on Artex for directions. To her, this was all new, the
whole Novus a place unknown. She knew there had been hardlanders
out here, torn apart by a war that once fired up between the
Oligarchs and state rebels. She’d known the Blue Lycans were all
that was left of those times, the only things roaming the Novus
between the rubbles and ruin and skulls and bones. The forests
gradually became fewer, the trees becoming more sporadically spread
until the land evened off and flattened into an endless chase. She
followed a long asphalt strip that lay across it, splintered into
islands as myriad vines and roots pushed up out of the unused roads
to overwhelm it. Out here, the air was thinner and the land was
hostile. Temperatures in the day could hit thirty-eight degrees,
and flip to minus sixteen towards the evening, dropping to negative
forty on some winter twilights. A haemorrhagic sun bled crimson
light around the horizon and turned the streams of cloud to a
salmon flesh, and Pania activated the jeep’s hood as a canopy
hunched up over Gus from the rear, sheltering the sniper weapon and
hunching over them until it connected with the top of the
windshield and locked out the cold air. Artex was not taking the
quickest point from A to B. He was tactically avoiding Blue Lycan
hotspots, leading them as safely as possible to where they needed
to go.

‘
So what do
you think happened?’ Pania said as the cold wind whispered through
the fissures of the jeep’s cabin.

‘
What do you
mean?’ Artex asked, folding up the map.

‘
I mean with
Kyo,’ she said. ‘Why do you think Krupin took him?’

‘
He thinks he
can train him as a fighter, so I heard,’ said Artex. ‘But all that
isn’t worth thinking about. We just need to get them
back.’

‘
Think he
killed them?’

‘
No.’ Artex
said with a sniffle, rubbing his hands from the cold. ‘I don’t
think so. He wants that kid to use as a weapon.’

‘
Why?’ Pania
asked. ‘Thought Olympians were illegal.’

‘
They are,’
Artex smiled. ‘Don’t stop people working with them. Since when did
legislation stop anything? Fact is Krupin is banking on people
keeping their mouths shut. Anyone associated with gene-freaks are
liable to be killed.’

‘
I never
understood that,’ said Pania. ‘I never understood what everyone’s
so worked up about. Ain’t nothing special about Kyo.’ She frowned
thoughtfully. ‘You know what I mean, right? He’s special to me.
Special to his family and stuff. But he ain’t no harm.’

Artex nodded,
staring ahead at the long broken road.

‘
Blue Lycans
are adult Olympians,’ he said. ‘All I know is they kill without
discretion. I guess the fear is the kid will turn out like
that.’

‘
Those things
are different,’ said Pania. ‘They were trained to be like that. Kyo
doesn’t even care to fire a gun.’

‘
You ever
heard of the tabula rasa?’ Gus suddenly shouted from the
back.

‘
No,’ said
Pania, turning momentarily. ‘What’s that?’

‘
It’s the
idea we’re all born blank slates,’ he said, looking at a cigarette
as it burned down, the only light in the darkness of the jeep’s
rear.

‘
We are,’
Pania said. ‘We’re all born the same-’

‘
We’re all
born the same and we learn our prejudices,’ said Gus. ‘But we’re
not born blank slates.’

‘
What do you
mean?’ she said.

‘
Well, we’re
doing all this for your love of Kyo, right?’ he asked rhetorically.
‘Even if it’s sibling love, it’s still love. You don’t learn your
emotions they’re innate. They’re already firing through us. You
don’t learn what a smile means…it’s a language you already
know.’

Artex turned
back over his seat.

‘
Do you
believe that?’ he asked.

‘
I don’t
know,’ said Gus noncommittally. ‘I haven’t decided yet. But my
guess is there are not absolutions. Do we learn our emotions? I
don’t know. It’s worth thinking about, that’s what I know.
Especially, now.’

-53-

‘I
am number two, one,
nine.
SAY IT!
’

‘
I am
nh-number two, one nine…’

‘
LOUDER
WORM!
’

‘
I am number
two, one, nine!’

The rings he
had collected over the years, carved delicately by creative artists
in Minerva Meadows, slipped off his tail gently and rattled as they
landed into a plastic box. Trinkets of brass and silver, fishnet
bandages all unwound from the long appendage and joined the
collection. He had removed his necklaces, gifts also made by his
friends, bracelets, leather wrist straps delicately woven and
watched as they were dumped into a furnace, shovelled into a fire
where inmates had fed lumps of coal to keep the boilers hot. In the
darkness, Kyo saw his belongings smouldering to ash as new
prisoners just like him also surrendered their possessions to the
fire. They were ordered to undress, and to fold their clothes
neatly, stacked by the furnace for burning.

‘
Who are
you?’

‘
I am number
two, one, nine!’ He shouted again.

‘
I don’t
believe it! SAY IT AGAIN!’

‘
I am number
two, one, nine. I am number two, one, nine.’

He had
watched his valuables perish before being passed the boiler suit
and stood in line with a dozen other naked newbies, men and women
young and old, pulled from all walks of life and marched for
inspection. He had received the same dehumanising treatment as the
others, told to squat, told to bend over and spread the cheeks,
told to open his mouth to the taste of corn-starch and latex as a
so called medical examiner thumbed his lips and shone a torch down
his throat. And someone had held his balls and told him to cough
and he found a place to stare and did as instructed, five times.
Someone checked his tonsils with a wooden stick and told him to say
AHHH as clearly as possible while holding his tongue down. After
lifting his arms and getting him to walk back and forth on his
tiptoes, he had been told to dress into the boiler suit provided
and leave the examination room where others had watched him endure
the sinister treatment. Where his treatment differed to the others,
however, would be the conditioning training to follow. He had only
heard them mention it, but Krupin was invested in Kyo more than the
other prisoners. They were here for other reasons, hired labour
hands, prostitution and human traffic, meat for the neuro-commerce
cyber-bio neurology labs at Encybleron’s fulfilment centre.
Whatever value Krupin saw in them, he associated
appropriately.

‘
I am number
two, one, nine!’

‘
LOUDER!’

‘
I AM NUMBER
TWO, ONE, NINE!’ He screamed at the top of his lungs.

Kyo gasped as
he was hauled to his feet now for what felt like the tenth time and
hurled up against the bars of a prison cell. How he envied the
other prisoners, who by his standards seemed well treated and
relatively happy. Kyo’s face pressed fast against the cold steel,
looking in at the other boiler suits eating in the canteen on the
other side of those bars, glaring at his maltreatment and laughing
as they ate. The aching vertical bars all but stopped his head from
being eaten alive by one of the fierce inmates standing by the
cell. The big glaring inmate snarled, promising Kyo he would cut
him up, promising he would beat him like he was tenderising
meat.

‘
You looking
at me?’ the tattoo profaned mammoth seethed as he came up to the
bars to meet Kyo. Vadim pushed Kyo’s face tight against them on his
side as the inmate on the other threatened to bite off Kyo’s
nose.