Manifestations (21 page)

‘Yes. Or our minds. You can see why I don’t trust them.’ He was happy with what he had found. Evidence that the rival tech was untrustworthy.

It was then that Geof again noticed something amongst Morritz’s chains of trinkets. The bauble that he’d last seen being constructed in Shen’s lab.

‘What does the sphere do?’ he asked.

‘What sphere?’

‘That one on your wrist, next to the blue diamond.’

‘Oh, my charms.’ Morritz held his arm up to look. ‘Just something we are developing. It’s proprietary. I won’t say more.’

~ * ~

The morning they left West, Desh arrived with a large duffel bag over his shoulders, chunky with shapes. ‘What you got there?’ Ben asked.

‘Just a few little things I’ve been working on.’ He took out a hard vinyl case and opened the magnetic catch for Ben to see. ‘Meet our new nav.’ Desh picked the sylus up and shook it vigorously until it began moving in his hand. ‘Wake up, little fella, time to work.’

To keep the bus from becoming interesting to the eyes of the Weave, Desh disconnected the onboard computer, tagging the action as a systems check because they believed the unit faulty. He then put the sylus he’d brought in its place so they could still operate the vehicle manually. An uncommon but still standard procedure that would give them an hour.

They weren’t sure how long they could evade attention, but once they made it out of West’s airspace there was only the derelict midlands between them and the Cape.

When they got further from the city the sylus would parley with the Weave instead of the bus’s default controller, and ping that it was a truck transporting supplies to midlander farms. They would repeat this data camouflage trick as often as it worked, sending false reports of what the vehicle was and what it was doing. So long as no one sighted the bus and then cross-referenced the log they would be in the clear.

At the end of the first day, the adults quietly deactivated their symbs and dropped them from the windows.

The real deadline was when the children didn’t turn up to school the next day. One day was fine, two needed an explanation. That, correlated with the missed work hours by the parents, meant that pattern triggers would flag their activity to the higher ups. Luckily, Busan was pulling Services’ attentions elsewhere or they might not have made it so far.

Ben and his family had been flying nonstop for ten hours. The weather was clear and they flew as fast as the old bus could take them over the empty midlands. Most of it was a dust bowl, and they had to brace themselves as they passed through the top of a storm. Maybe he should have gone a less direct way, but they were worried the old bus might not make the distance. Ben and Desh were listening to the engine, taking turns casting their opinions on its health.

‘She won’t make it,’ Desh said.

‘She’ll be fine. Even if I have to hold her together myself.’

‘Wasn’t there an older, junkier bus you could’ve stolen?’

‘Nope, this was the worst I could find.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Do we have options? We keep flying.’

‘But...’

‘Yeah. But nothing. Instead of griping, why don’t you practise making in-flight repairs?’

Ben checked the children through the back-seat cameras. Molly was asleep on her mother’s lap behind him, and Bobby was lying in the back playing a maze game on a handscreen. Freya reached over and squeezed Ben’s shoulder.

We’re nearly there, love.

Two dark shapes winged in on either side, heavily armoured squibs with proboscis lasers twitching out from every angle. A third squib dropped from above, placing its shadow over the cockpit.

‘Desh?’ Ben called out.

R E A D Y, came the tip tap on his hand.

‘What is your business, Citizen?’ A harsh matronly voice reverberated through the bus. A takeover code ran through the controls trying to disable the sylus, but Ben was ready for that and jammed a disrupter into the circuit. The voice of Services cut off and Ben dove out from under the shadows, firing his emergency jets in a flare behind him. N O W, he tipped to Desh. ‘Let’s play sabotage.’

‘Done,’ Desh called forward. At his word the Services vehicles lost power and fell towards the ground. They watched as the crews ejected and glided to safety. The squibs dropped and hit the ground, raising craters in the fallow fields.

T O O E A S Y.

‘Yeah. But, they know about us now,’ Freya said.

‘Yeah, I’d say they do.’

Ben looked up at the sky ahead. There was a black ombré over the horizon. Dark swarms flying in swirling regulation. ‘Those aren’t birds, are they?’ Freya asked.

‘No.’

‘You got anything else in your bag there, Desh?’

His friend smiled. ‘As a matter of fact I do.’

~ * ~

Tamsin and her team flew out from Atlantic, crossing the twisted mix of exuberant and dilapidated streets, the once-bright buildings and the languishing edifices of debauchery, before the landscape broke into acres of farmland, algaeculture and grazing paddocks. The shadows of their ragtag squadron dipped and bobbed over the land below, jumping as they began passing over the parks that became more and more wild the further they were from the city.

‘People have been fleeing into the wilderness,’ Okonta reported. His squib flew close to hers.

‘Whatever makes them feel safe. At least they won’t bother us in there,’ she said.

He grunted. ‘You would chase them all into the wilds if you could.’ Okonta spoke with a flat voice and Tamsin had to probe for his thoughts on the matter. It wasn’t that he worried over the welfare of those fleeing into the woods, he just worried that it wasn’t a big enough solution. They were pushing certain groups to extremes.

There was only one other person in the squib with her, a young man called Emmett Sinclair, who was a weak tapper — more an empath than anything useful — but an experienced pilot.

Tamsin, Okonta, Salvator and Risom had scoured the Cape for everyone with psionic ability. Trying to bring them to the revolution before Chiggy got to them. Altogether, they made one hundred and seven.

Okonta patted her shoulder as if he was standing beside her.
He will come.

He has no reason to.

He has the same reasons you do.

I just hope it doesn’t cost us too much.

What will be will be.

Their squibs were all different, collected from the good people of Atlantic, mostly personal transport vehicles and delivery trucks. They had twenty squibs in total, each one holding a tapper for silent communications, and the benders who hadn’t joined Chiggy in Bendertown.

They were just coming up on the barricade. The line of defences had been thickening ever since the Cape had declared: armies of remote-controlled bots, tanks and drones that could patrol or invade, with or without human command. All it took was a program and preference settings. Services had perfected the art of semi-automated war; they didn’t lose any people, just mass-produced weapons that could be replaced in minutes.

On the ground a dotted line of artillery tanks ringed the outskirts, following the traditional claimed territory of Atlantic, circling the farms and wild lands that were part of the megapolis. The desolate midlands were on the western side of the line.

The sky was patrolled by drone jets that flew up and down the demarcation like flocks of swallows and were about the same size.

What’s our plan, Grey
? Risom asked. He was flying a little way ahead. She’d given him a more sporty squib, donated by the late Ligure.

We find out where they are coming through and help them out.

Do you really think we have a chance?
Risom asked. Tamsin looked at the face of her pilot and felt the trepidation coming from the other squibs. She tapped on the comms and spoke to all of them.

‘We can see what Services have laid before us, but don’t underestimate yourselves. It only takes a moment to break a circuit board, or kill a sylus. Go for the brains and work fast.’

And you
, she focused her thoughts solely to Risom,
you go when you see an opportunity.

If Chiggy doesn’t come, we’re all dead.

You just do your bit. That’s more important.

As you wish, Tamsin. If mayhem is what you want, mayhem is what you will get. This is going to be fun.

The psis spread out, staying well back in Cape territory and watching the barricade for any change.

Flocks heading north
, one of the other pilots called. They looked to see two clusters of black dashes speeding across the sky.

I see them. Everyone, follow,
Tamsin ordered. For the most part, they weren’t to communicate over radio. Her commands would be passed from tapper to tapper to avoid Services hakking.

Can anyone sense the runners yet
?

‘We have them on radar,’ her pilot reported.

Plot their course. We’ll target the barricade at their intersect point.

‘Let’s get ahead of them and give them some cover.’

The group accelerated, keeping a loose formation. This certainly wasn’t a military operation, unlike the perfectly timed lines of the Services barricade.

Okonta, go low and take out some of those tanks. Risom, take the rest of the squibs and start knocking out the drones. Don’t waste your first pass, once the barricade is armed it’s armed.

Tamsin herself went straight towards the intersect point. She could see it on the horizon now, a dot becoming a rectangle as it got closer.

A ball of fire sprang up from the ground, drawing her eyes. Okonta had begun his strafing run, flying low, fast and erratic, while he and his onboard kinetics tore open the machines, sparks and smoke burping from their seams before they tilted over. They only got one run before the line of artillery began firing. The airspace below Tamsin became carpeted in grey and black clouds and she could no longer see them.

Okonta
?

We’re fine.

Above her, the drones were thickening. Like a flock of birds they swooped, dived and turned as a dynamic black cloud. From north and south more dark pins rushed to join in the defence.

The sky was soon cut with bright lines of light as the drones opened fire on the psi attackers. Risom ploughed through the main swarm, getting the benders close enough to reach and tear at the vital circuits. Two squibs in the vanguard were hit immediately and drew back, but the vast majority of the drone swarm fell from the sky like so many twigs.

Come on, people. Speed it up.
It was no good, they were too far off to hear her.

One of Risom’s squibs was clipped and spun out of control, a spiral of steam following its descent. Tamsin could hear them screaming in her head until they dropped below her range and were lost in the barrage of tank fire.

Everyone pull back to me. We don’t want to lose any more people. Okonta, get up to level.

It was clear that the machines were too fast and too accurate for them to make a hole that would last. The broken drones were falling around them, but more were arriving by the second, and still the bus wasn’t moving any faster. It was like they were waiting for something.

Come on, people.
She still couldn’t pick up their minds, and a swarm of drones was now turning its attention towards them.

Are we retreating?
Okonta asked.

Not yet. They’re nearly here
—

Another of Risom’s squadron went down and the telepaths went silent as another voice was lost.

The bus changed angle, floating north away from the huddle of defences. It was a futile move as the drones could easily match its speed and the line of tanks was unbroken all the way to the coast — where it was replaced with sea tanks, mines and submarines.

‘Where are they going?’

‘They must think they can find a hole.’

‘What, are they stupid?’

‘They are just frightened, Risom.’

‘Miz Grey, there is a communication coming in,’ Sinclair, the pilot, said.

‘Who from? The runners?’

‘No, from behind us. There is something on the radar now.’ From this distance it was only a rash of black dots on the blue sky.

‘I hope that’s what I think it is. Put it on speaker. Hello? Who is that?’ Tamsin asked.

A deep, slow drawl dragged itself from the speakers. ‘Chiggy has come.’

‘Thank you, Chiggy. We need your help to get these people through,’ Tamsin said.

‘Chiggy is not afraid.’

‘No. Chiggy is brave and strong. Chiggy will bring the people through.’

‘Get out of Chiggy’s way.’

Everyone, let’s fly north and meet the bus’s new trajectory. Risom, go.

They retreated two kilometres, leaving the barricade to redistribute, tightening its gaps like a spring pulling together. More armaments were on the way from either end of the chain.

The benders approached. One of the squibs was bigger than the others and Tamsin’s cameras followed it. That one was Chiggy.