Chaos Cipher (80 page)

KILL
HIM

And his fangs
pealed, his eyes paled, his face tightened like assured leather to
an expression of acrid savagery. Looming over his bleeding,
defensive opponent, Kyo heard his calls for mercy, barely a whimper
in the vitriolic racket all around that called for more
bloodshed.

‘
FINISH IT!’
Called Krupin, as if to echo his own instincts.

But Kyo
backed down. His savagery placated, his face loosened to one of
sympathy, remorse, regret, loathing. No. How could this happen? He
hated what his new environment was doing to him. He despised what
his new home was turning him into. He was becoming a violent
monster, and learning that this was the only way to have a good
life here.

He offered
his bleeding hand to help up his wounded victim, but the union was
not returned. Instead, his opponent kicked Kyo hard in the groin
and forced him back. Before he could recover, he was over him,
laying punches to the cheer and jibe of the surrounding audience.
And Krupin threw in the towel before Kyo was killed in the
attack.

‘
HE’S DONE!
STOP!’ He ordered, having the referees pull the young fighter
back.

All was a
spacious blur for Kyo. The yammering and utterances and shouting of
disappointed voices filled the space all around as the bell rang,
and the crowd dispersed. He lay still on his side, tired eyes
locked onto some distant point in the camp’s cage fighting arena,
some dark gantry in the higher elevations that, from this angle,
looked like a chrome L shape in the poor light.

‘
Stupid
little fucker,’ Krupin’s voice croaked as his feet came stomping
over the cage platform. ‘It sickens me that you make me protect
you.’

‘
What now?’
Another voice issued.

Kyo tasted
onions as blood filled his cheeks. He hated onions, everybody knows
that. He lay still, drunkenly on the floor as things started to
spin, and his stomach began convulsing. And he could smell the
subtle corn starch of latex gloves as a medical person shone lights
into his eyes and started probing his dry, plastic fingers around
his teeth.

‘
Nothing
broken.’

‘
Check his
nose…’

‘
He’s
fine…nose is busted. One eye swollen. Possible
concussion.’

‘
So take
him.’ Krupin’s voice stated. ‘Get him some nutrition and path him
up.’

*

Two large men
in black uniform and padded armour dragged Kyo with his arms bound
behind him. His head was down and weak, his bare feet sliding over
the floor, the backs of which cut and grazed. They put him down on
a bench as he was starting to come to. He heard a racket of voices,
a din of mean laughter and a commotion of jaws chewing and talking
around their food. The old fart smell of rotten meat and onions, a
thick odour of something dead lingered in the air of the canteen.
Kyo was separated from the others. He had a table to himself, and
it provoked sneers and leering from the other inmates. One of the
guards stood behind Kyo and unfastened his shackles but didn’t
remove the ferromag-cuffs. Like permanent bracelets they stayed
with him always, ready at any moment to magnetise him to the floor
or a wall. The second guard slid of bowl under his bleeding face
and Kyo stared into it and grimaced.

‘
Eat!’ The
man said.

In the bowl
he saw all the wretched soft rotten meat swimming in watery gravy
veneered in thick, brown, oily juices and fat. He saw thick chunks
of onions in there, as though to spite him, however, he was sure
they didn’t know all that much about him. Kyo toyed with the fork,
saw the gelatinous balls of spam and tiny bones swimming around in
the bowl and felt immediately like adding his own stomach bile to
the mixture.

‘
I don’t eat
meat,’ Kyo complained meekly.

‘
Eat!’ The
guard demanded.

‘
No!’

One of the
guards stepped behind Kyo and seized his head. He cried out
furiously as the man tussled with his aching, beaten face, and
every movement caused pain to tear through his nose and eye. The
other man was trying to force the meat into his mouth and Kyo
choked and spat and growled in refusal, any bit that found its way
past his teeth was quickly spat out again. After a minute of this,
Krupin shouted for them to stop. He came wading over, full of
anger, and sat in front of Kyo.

‘
What is it
now?’ He said. ‘Well? Why can’t you just accept what is happening
to you? Why are you making things so difficult?’

‘
I don’t eat
meat!’ Kyo gasped weakly.

‘
Then just
eat the onions.’

‘
I hate
onions.’

‘
What would
you like to eat then, your majesty?’ Krupin hissed through tightly
clenched teeth.

‘
Nothing,’
said Kyo. ‘I don’t want to eat anything.’

‘
Then tell me
when you are hungry,’ Krupin offered, ‘perhaps I’ll be able to get
you some gene-freak food.’

‘
I’m done
eating,’ said Kyo, ‘I’m done eating. No more. That’s my choice.
It’s my freedom.’

The guards
laughed a little and Krupin was shaking his head in
dismay.

‘
Here, the
word freedom is like anathema.’ Krupin caustically reminded. ‘Taboo
words like this can give you big trouble, Two, one, nine. I could
dangle your feet into a bucket of water and throw in electric
wires, if you want?’

Kyo didn’t
doubt Krupin would do it. He looked down at the meat soup and shook
his head.

‘
I won’t
eat.’

‘
No more
food?’ Krupin said with an inflection of feigned disbelief. ‘Fine.
Then starve if you can. I’ve seen people try it. I’ve seen people
wasting away, boy. Let’s see if you still think same when you’re a
skeleton and your teeth and hair is falling out.’ And Krupin
snapped his fingers to the guards. ‘Get him to his
cell.’

*

Kyo’s feet
shuffled forward, ankles laden with magnetic manacles trailing a
chain, squeezing his orange overalls into muddy flares around his
feet. The guards led him to a large gate with a security
feature.

‘
That’s a big
fucking bird,’ the second guard said, looking up and noticing the
large hawk perched on the wire fencing. Cedalion twisted her head,
discerning Kyo between them and slowly, he raised his eyes to see
the animal for himself. Cedalion cawed into the sky, opening up her
great wingspan and flapping to balance. And he saw it. The Three
Circles marked upon the bird’s wings. The constitution of Cerise
Timbers;
Cognition, Liberty and
Ludus!

They found
me!!!

Kyo smiled at
the hawk with numbed jubilation. Whoever it was, they were letting
him know they were close. Then a loud electronic buzzer sounded,
disturbing Cedalion and setting her off flapping into the dull sky.
Access to the prison’s hidden confines were confirmed and the
buzzer diminished the moment the gate was pushed open by the
guards. Kyo was led down a long muddy path towards the facility, a
corridor of mesh fencing and canvas covers, but he couldn’t take
his eye of the sky.

They’re
coming
he told himself close to
tears,
they see me. They see
me!

*

The sun had
not long been over the Novus, but the Cerise Timbers search team
had found a renewed motivation.

‘
Faster, come
on!’ Artex was yelling as Pania lowered the jeep’s hood and started
the engine. Gus threw the covers and camping equipment into the
back, folding away the last of the armadillo tent. He jumped into
the back with the sniper rifle and patted the cabin
hard.

‘
Go!’ He
shouted.

Artex was
already pin-pointing Cedalion’s position on the map, giving Pania
the coordinates.

‘
He’s alive?’
she gasped with a wide and excited smile. ‘HE’S ALIVE?’

‘
Yes! Yes!’
Artex shouted, ‘Foot down, eyes forward!’

The jeep
threw up a hail of stones as it raced over the talus side of the
tundra, screeching up the vast wastelands. They bounded on, roaring
full speed towards their destination and Gus was thrown momentarily
into the air as they bunny-hopped a small hillock.

‘
Easy, easy!’
Gus shouted expressing his indignation.

‘
He’s alive!’
Pania wailed close to tears. ‘Hold on Biter, we’re coming. We’re
coming for you, just hold on.’

-66-

P
awel had encountered various
problems while navigating the orbital planes of the exo-sphere’s
flight paths. Demands were being made on
The Griffin’s Claw
from every
direction.

‘
They want me
turn left, they want me turn right,’ Pawel glowered angrily from
the pilot stand.

‘
Take it
easy,’ Nitro instructed, ‘I’ve got us clearance. Remember, you’re
flying now as a Plato Wing crew member. Special privileges, Mr
Adamsky.’

‘
Shit...there
is a lot of this mess everywhere,’ said Pawel.

On the view
screen, below earth’s lambent horizontal plane where the clouds
obscured the lands; they saw the scatterings of fire and debris,
and explosions still burst there.

‘
Open all
channels,’ said Nitro. ‘I want all channels,
unfiltered.’

‘
Moment,’
said Pawel, his eyes flickering with digital incandescence as he
neuromitted the order with the ship.

The bridge
command became imbued with various sounds, the distress calls of
ships, the beacon of SOS signals and the distressed screams for
help and the unknown alien signals emanating from the Xenotech
still floating around somewhere in orbit with a small fleet of
Stymphalions ensnared by it.

‘
Jesus,’
Nitro Harbeck uttered. ‘What the hell is going on out
there?’

As
The Griffin’s Claw
reached across the sky, a coherent network opened with
Orandoré’s
orbital
station and the starnavis shuttle moved gradually towards the large
disk shaped structure. Nitro allowed the view of the station to
magnify and he spotted the harbour designation purchased by the
Shield of Spheres for private use. Around the disk shaped station a
swarm of orbital starnavis were travelling to and fro as the
elevators climbed along the almost invisible carbon ribbon that
tied the station to the Earth.

‘
Alright,
meridian compellers locked and Periapsis set,’ said Pawel, ‘making
a coordinated approach for docking, matching station’s velocity,
awaiting automated tethers.’

‘
Nitro, is
that you?’ Chief Noble’s voice channelled through.

‘
I’m here,
Chief,’ he said solemnly. ‘We’re bringing
The Griffin’s Claw
in for a
landing.’

‘
Jesus,
where’ve you been?’ she asked her voice tight with stress, ‘our
orbital defence has fallen to hell. How could this have happened?
People have been requesting the use of our harbour. You better dock
with the station fast. There’s a lot of people pissed off that
they’ve not been able to run emergency services through our port.
Our harbours are currently in high demand.’

‘
Almost
there, Chief,’ said Nitro. ‘Where the hell is Ace Ripley? I need to
speak with him about his past missions with
Solar Navy Bravo
and the
Kyklos
...’

‘
He’s dead,
Nick,’ she said.

Nitro Harbeck
scratched behind his ear like a wild dog, almost unaware of what
she’d just said.

‘
Good, so let
him know I’m on the station and...’

‘
He’s dead!’
She repeated.

‘
-
Dead?’

‘
We lost him,
Nick,’ said the Chief, ‘he sacrificed himself taking out one of
those Spydrones.’

‘
Not Ace,’ he
said shaking his head, ‘no fucking way. Ace is
indestructible...’

‘
Apparently,
not,’ said the Chief lugubriously, ‘and he proved that neither are
these things. He ejected but not long after that there was an
explosion. We lost his reading.’

‘
What about
Dwight?’

‘
Gone.’

‘
Estelle?’

The Chief’s
silence was answer enough, and Nitro huffed and puffed in
disbelief, cheeks filling with air.

‘
I’m sorry,
Harbeck,’ she added.

‘
...Plato
Wing is down,’ he realised. ‘Guess our years of terrorist bashing
is over...huh?’ and Nitro bit his finger hard to control himself.
‘Son of a bitch.’ He uttered. ‘Son of a fucking bitch...I can’t
believe it.’

‘
Harbeck, I
want you to dock
The Griffin’s Claw
with
Orandoré
. We’ve got a Dreadnaught
arriving at the station shortly. They’re assembling another orbital
fleet to nuke that Xenotech, there’s one still hovering around
orbit.’