Keystones: Altered Destinies (14 page)

He programmed the software to look for correlations. More than a minute ticked by, long for a simple information request. The grey areas had been organized and incorporated in a fashion that was intended to make them look unrelated, but under his scrutiny the masks came off. They were connected. Someone had taken control of over ten percent of Ring Three.

Jonny spent hours digging through further data requests and research, but he was unable to find the ultimate architect of what he had witnessed on the computer screens. It was time for a drastic course of action. It was time to talk to his supervisor, Lacey Lyndley.

“What do you mean that you don’t know what’s being done there?” asked Lacey with fire in her eyes.

Jonny flicked his fingers toward the holographic display hanging over her desk. It was his data. “I mean that I don’t have visual feeds, and I can’t find any specific documentation. I don’t know what the spaces are being used for. I don’t know who’s using them, and I don’t know what materials, if any, are there.”

“Well, who owns them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Jonny called up another display that showed a chain of linked legal documents. “They’re all shell corporations. I can’t trace them back to the original owners. Many sites are linked to the same corporations.”

“You’ve marked about half of the areas as high priority. Why?”

“Those represent areas that I think are ideal for manufacturing gravity-capable spaceships.”

Lacey’s fingers flew over her keyboard, executing the same commands that Jonny had used to identify the shell corporations’ owners. Jonny could see her hitting the same walls that had thwarted him. Lacey remained silent before saying, “This could be what we’ve been looking for. We need an on-site inspection.”

“What?”

“An on-site inspection. They can hide whatever they want with deceptive paper trails, but if we just go over there we can find some answers. The area involved is huge, so we’re going to need help.”

The Imperial Grand

The party of four walked into the main entrance of the Imperial Grand Hotel in Boa Vista. The lobby was huge, its architecture fully validating the establishment’s pretensions.

Brice Tobin craned his head, looking in all directions. “This is much nicer than I expected.”

“In America,” harped his wife, “check-in would be simpler. You’d just swipe your Uplink and get your keycard. Here we still have to deal with staff. When will they ever catch up?”

“Mom,” responded Deklan, “do you remember how when I was a child you taught to be polite?”

“Yes, you were a difficult child.”

Deklan let the comment roll off him. “Shouldn’t that lesson apply to all of us?”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re on a paid vacation. I know that things aren’t going perfectly, but couldn’t you at least be nicer about it? We haven’t yet reached our final destination. This is nothing more than a stopover.”

“I don’t appreciate being lectured,” declared his combative mother. “Brice, tell him to be more polite to me.”

“Deklan,” interjected his father, “I can’t say this strongly enough. Please don’t start any fights with your mother that I get drawn into. I get into enough fights with her on my own.”

Tricia’s stare changed targets, locking onto Brice with a laser-like focus. Deklan eyed the confrontation, impressed as always that his father’s skin failed to blister. “Brice!” added Tricia. “You are not helping.”

“Sorry dear.” Brice failed to sound repentant.

“You just wait until we get to our room.”

With his mother distracted, Deklan dashed over to a check-in desk.

The clerk addressed him in impeccable English. “Hello, sir. How may I help you?”

“Hi. I’ve got a reservation for three rooms under the name of Tobin.”

“May I see some ID, please?”

“Certainly.”

Susan drifted over while Deklan waited to be processed. “What’s your plan for the night?” she asked.

“Eat. Find out how to get to the Elevator from here.”

The check-in clerk popped into the conversation. “Oh, I hope you’re not here to use the Elevator.”

Deklan focused on her like a hawk. “Why not?”

“It’s the gangs. They’ve been taking control of the entire area surrounding the terminal. It’s all unofficial, but I’d hate to try to get there right now.”

The clerk glanced both ways and then leaned toward them, lowering her voice. “All of the new Keystones down here seem to be violent. When they’re not joining one gang, they’re starting a new one, fighting an old one, or attacking people in that general area. It’s dangerous. The police have been underwhelming. The news reports about their inefficiency are scathing.”

“You missed that, wonder boy, when you were doing your research?” said Susan acidly.

“You could have checked on too, and I don’t recall anyone’s forcing you to come along.”

The clerk returned to her former position, contrition writ large upon her face. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to cause a fight between you and your girlfriend.”

“We’re not together,” said Deklan and Susan simultaneously.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed. Still, there are many nice things to do in Boa Vista. We have a great nightlife, excellent restaurants, and beautiful natural scenery. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, the new zoo is immense and houses exotic creatures from around the world.”

“What kinds of exotic creatures?” asked Deklan dreading the answer.

“They have an Australian section with platypuses, poisonous snakes and spiders, and kangaroos. The African section is pretty impressive too. I went last month with my husband, and we had a great time. You should go.”

“I don’t know whether we’re zoo people, but I’ll think about your suggestion,” said Deklan. “In the meantime could we get those room keys? We were only a few hours on the plane, but I’m rather tired and would like to watch some of those news reports that you mentioned.”

Once in his room Deklan flipped through channels and stopped at an interesting news broadcast. He was joining the broadcast halfway through, but he caught the main gist.

The piece focused on a vigilante called Slate who was operating in the area around the Elevator. There were video clips of multiple violent assaults against gang members who were attempting to mug people. A disproportionate number of the people rescued appeared to be women, but that could have been because gang members preferred to prey on women. What was most striking was Slate’s appearance.

The figure looked terrifying—no eyes, ears, or hair, only the smallest suggestion of a nose, and no mouth. The entire face was an expanse of unblemished, pale white skin. In sharp contrast, he wore a black trench coat with dark pants and boots. He appeared to teleport into a fight, throw criminals around with vicious force, and then vanish again. Deklan didn’t know what he found more fascinating, the exotic appearance or the teleportation.

Deklan’s mind drifted to other things. So much had happened since his waking up at the morgue that he hadn’t given the experience the amount of personal reflection it deserved. Had he in fact died? Was The Sweep a second chance for him? “
Try to do the right thing.
” Helping people get to the Elevator seemed like the right thing, though now that he thought about it that wasn’t what he’d done. He’d set out on the most selfish course of action by saving only his parents, and Susan because she’d been nearby.

He still couldn’t imagine who his mysterious benefactor was or why said person was paying for their stay at the Imperial Grand, but he was alive when he had no right to be. He’d been in dozens of car crashes as a stuntman. He’d come to recognize what was safe and what was dangerous.

When his car had plummeted through the air, he hadn’t expected to escape the wreck.

Threading the Labyrinth

Cay was lost. He was in a building that he didn’t recognize. Nothing was familiar, and the more he tried to focus, the more things became indistinct. What was that pattern on the wall? Which floor was he on? Where were the windows? He couldn’t find an answer to any of these questions. Each unknown factor brought him closer and closer to panic.

He walked down long and meandering hallways that opened onto large rooms filled with overstuffed chairs and couches. There weren’t any people. He yelled and yelled and yelled but received no response. He knew that, wherever he was, he was alone.

Alone in a room his voice echoed back to him as though from a distance. And his footsteps sounded muffled. The more he wandered, the more desperate he became to find anything that he could hold on to and call real.

Everything felt alien.

The light was wrong. It didn’t match that of the FAME station or Callisto or the ship he’d been on. It didn’t match the light from anywhere he’d ever been.

The smell, or lack thereof, was also wrong. There were no smells at all, not even the musty odor of a long-unused and confined space.

Then there was the matter of touch. None of the textures felt right; none felt real. Cay had first noticed that when he touched a metal door handle that felt somehow insubstantial. Everything felt the same way—the wooden doors, the walls, the furniture—as though it might dissolve at any moment without warning.

Things were becoming less and less clear to him.

Cay panicked and ran headlong, opening doors at random, sometimes running through them and sometimes not. It didn’t seem to matter. A hallway could open onto a room that had one door or three or ten. Each door always opened onto a new room that gave him no further clues about where he was. As he ran, he found doors that were already open, but he didn’t know whether he had opened them or not. How was he supposed to know when all the decorations, lights, and smells were the same?

Eventually slowing down in his pell-mell flight, Cay tried to retrace his steps, closing every door that he passed through, sometimes getting confused by rooms with multiple open doors but always trying to choose the right one. A mental fog began to overtake him. Utterly disoriented, he resumed walking about and opening doors. Bit by bit he felt the fog displaced by a steady breeze. The lights, sounds, and sensations were still wrong, but he felt better.

Cay’s sensory disorientation faded without vanishing. In its place arose a new awareness of self and, seemingly, of direction. He began to be able to guess which hallways to take, and through trial and error his guesses started to improve.

Day 4

Slate

Slate stood amid a pile of bodies in a dark alley. The men on the ground were either moaning or still. Slate hadn’t been trying to kill. Closed windows looked down on the scene, having slammed shut once the sounds of violence had begun.

The leather jacket that Slate wore acquired a new battle mark with each confrontation. This time it was a bullet hole near the armpit. Questing fingers roved around the torn entrance and plucked the bullet from where it lay embedded in the microfiber liner.

Slate sighed and drew in a deep breath. This new pale skin created such a contrast with the blood and grime resulting from a fight. It was the third interrupted gang beating in as many blocks. Violence had ramped up since The Sweep. Mangled bodies had become a common sight.

A handful of other Keystones were opposing the gangs, but those who had developed abilities with violent applications, and used them, had also shown an inclination to join the criminal element. Slate found that it was impossible to watch people getting hurt when it was possible to make a difference. Slate did not fear reprisals.

Having removed the bullet, Slate heard the sounds of another nearby scuffle and, tracing their origin, teleported to an adjacent alley and the predators it held. Slate honed in on three men grappling with a girl. Slate hated men who preyed on women. Needing no further encouragement, Slate entered the fray.

Slate yanked a knife-wielding thug off his intended victim and threw him into the air. Teleporting to catch the unfortunate criminal, Slate whirled, holding him by the ankle and using him as a blunt weapon against the second and third attackers. The first man crunched with a sound of breaking bone as he hit the other two. All three muggers went down in a heap.

Slate closed the distance to the cowering victim, a pretty girl in her late teens or early twenties. Disheveled raven hair splayed over her shoulders and framed a bruised, tanned, and terrified face that was struggling to process the events of the last few moments.

Slate reached down to help her up and asked, “Are you alright?”

The young woman didn’t accept the offered hand and backed away. “Who are you?”

“You can call me Slate. Are you alright?”

The girl did not respond.

“Do you need help getting home?”

She shook her head.

“Then be careful in this neighborhood. It seems that the closer you get to the Elevator, the more dangerous it becomes. The gangs are getting bolder. Do you understand?”

Seeming to gain some courage, the girl asked, “You’re not going to hurt me?”

“No. I just want you to get home safely. Will you do that?”

A single nod, somewhat uncertain, signaled the girl’s reply.

“Go, but be careful. These aren’t the first gang members I’ve beaten up tonight, and they won’t be the last.”

After the girl rounded the street corner, Slate relieved the downed men of their wallets and keys. Appropriating the wallets was an obvious side benefit. Taking the men’s keys was just to make their lives more difficult, assuming that their injuries hadn’t done that already.

Noises from yet another alley indicated a fight in progress. Slate teleported to a rooftop with a convenient vantage point to get a sense of the situation before intervening.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth sipped her coffee while reflecting on the fact that Boa Vista was a city in the early stages of its death throes. She didn’t see emergency response. She didn’t see a plan of action. She didn’t see how the city could save itself. Even she could only do so much.

She looked out from the balcony at the once beautiful view of the city. There were still green spaces unaffected by The Sweep, but they’d be fewer by tomorrow, and the day after that they’d be gone. Fires and smoke spread out before her. She didn’t deal well with fire, so there wasn’t much she could do in an area that was ablaze.