Unity

by Carl Stubblefield

  “Gu~u~u~s…” BoJack said. “Why are you asking about restraints? Aren’t all the other supers in the manor’s brig?”

  Before he could answer, Darik elbowed between the two and started directing where the connections and cables should be placed and the conversation shifted to the task at hand. Gus took the opportunity to keep the conversation elsewhere.

  “So are we making some type of shield?” Gus asked, looking at the ceiling and the odd pattern of wires and cables.

  “Do you know what a Faraday cage is?” BoJack replied, going on when Gus shook his head. “Well, it’s based on that principle. We have to mask the energy signatures of our Nth as there are scanners and sensors that can detect them. For obvious reasons, they do not want supers there that are uninvited, although there are a lot of citizens of Hinansho that have Nth.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, those newer supers who fought against the status quo were blacklisted and the Factions actively suppressed any attempts for them to find work, not only with Factions themselves but in industries they had a strong influence upon—basically everything legitimate. Places like Hinansho are a sanctuary, and they are accepted there. They do have to keep their markers on, but that’s not a big deal for most people.”

  “Markers?”

  “It kind of looks like a neon blue face-paint. Goes under the left eye. Plus anyone who uses an interface or display can read your stats and abilities. However, those who take the mark are free to live there as they please.”

  “So why don’t we just do that? Seems simpler to use what they already are doing.”

  “Well, for starters, it’s irreversible. Anyone can see your powers, their level and requirements, and your full complement of stats. Makes things a lot easier to exploit if there’s a weakness. Besides that, the marker is a tattoo filled with human-made nanobots. Also permanent. You’ve heard of the Scarlet Letter? That tattoo is lovingly referred to as the curse of the ‘Azure Bonds.’”

  “So what’s the Scarlet Letter? Was it some super’s logo, something on their suit?”

  BoJack shook his head in mock disgust. “What do they teach you kids in school anymore? Sheesh. Look it up on your display when you have the time.”

  A twinkling chime sounded over the comms.

  “Weather’s been good and we’ve made excellent time. I had my doubts with how this ship looks, but it’s been kitted out perfectly. We should be in Hinansho in less than an hour. How are we doing on cloaking preparations? Do I need to modify our speed to give you more time?” Seneschal asked in her polished Queen’s English.

  “No, lass, we’re finishing up. An hour will be plenty,” Darik replied as he wrestled more cords out of a pile and lined them up. Less than twenty minutes later, they were done and Yuki crawled out of the access port fanning herself.

  “Whoo, it gets hot in there… and dusty.” She attempted to brush off the gray lint that had accumulated on her stockings and arms as she crawled around inside. “They need to spring for a vacbot drone. I’m totally going to need a shower and we haven’t been out for even two hours,” Yuki said dismally.

  Aurora stepped away from a panel she was working on and raised her hands. They began to crackle and snap like a bug zapper and some of the bigger pieces of dust and lint leapt off of Yuki to a space in front of Aurora’s palms. Yuki took advantage and fluffed her hair and brushed herself off.

  “Thank you, Miss Lint!” Yuki said, giving Aurora a brief hug after they had removed anything not too ground in. Aurora let the waste fall into a nearby bin as she disengaged the static and went back to her project.

  Gus took in the wide room that reminded him of a dive bar. There was a countertop and bar along one side, with the drinks strapped in securely. Chairs lined the walls with four-point harnesses. Tables were bolted to the floor, and they could be spun to raise or lower their height.

  Pictures and memorabilia littered the walls, and Gus recognized some of the supers who came to take the manor in some of the pics. Apparently not all of the people working for Manticorps were mercs. He had let them slip out of his mind after the Crew showed up. Would he just leave them there indefinitely? Would someone come looking for them? Problems for another day.

  “Gus, lad, could you throw that switch?” Darik had climbed up to an interface hub and was checking a small display there.

  Gus looked around and saw a console. He pointed at different toggles and switches until he got the thumbs up. The cables lit up like Christmas lights.

  “We’re in business, boys!” Darik cheered, dropping down to the floor. “How’re our power levels, Yuki?”

  She gave a thumbs up and kept typing on her laptop, periodically unjacking and moving to another cluster of electronics.

  “We are linked,” Grimdark responded over the ship’s comms.

  “That was a right bit of fun.” Darik clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “And I think I’ve earned myself a reward.” He made his way behind the bar and took stock of the bottles, ooh-ing and aah-ing with pleasure as he saw what was available.

  Aurora also finished whatever she was working on and waved Gus over.

  “If you’ve never seen Hinansho, I’d check it out as we approach. It’s pretty impressive.”

  “You’ve been there?” Gus said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Of course not. The Academy has a whole rotation where they show you the sanctuary cities. Then warns you that if some rebellious young super wants to go exploring—you are on your own. No one from the Faction will come rescue you. Then they show what happened to the four or five students who did just that.”

  “Pretty bad?”

  “You would think gruesome, but that wasn’t what made it disturbing. From what the intelligence shows, they’re still there. Being tortured or experimented on, who knows what. Those who were directly involved in the Rockland conflict have long memories, and I’ll just say their ethics are a bit more flexible than most people.”

  “And we’re waltzing in with a jury-rigged cloaking device and some dated shrouds. Awesome. Good times.”

  “We should be fine. But listen and follow orders implicitly. It’s no joke if one of us is detained for any reason.”

  “No problems here, I don’t mind if I just stay aboard. I don’t even know what the plan is.”

  “We’re meeting Leto’s courier outside of Hinansho and delivering this encrypted data cube to a group inside. We then collect their payment and return it to the same courier. He’ll have the shrouds and codes we need to get in. Problem is this group moves their headquarters around a lot. I guess among hybrids there are a lot of attempts at demonstrating who is the alpha and attempting to climb up their caste system. It’s complicated and I don’t know much about it, but step one is finding out where they even are.”

  “Then all we have to do is beat the other teams trying to do the same job, avoiding detection the entire time, and trusting that Leto won’t just turn us in anyways at any point along the way.”

  “Yep. Pretty standard,” Aurora quipped. “Oh look—you can see it from here.” She pointed out one window.

  They were flying above the clouds, and despite the height there was a large, dark cylinder in front of them. Upon closer inspection it looked like a dark storm, grayish-black clouds roiling around and around.

  “That’s wild. How does it stay there like that?” Gus squinted and used his perception boosts to zoom in and see the spectacle with more clarity.

  “Some type of containment field. Keeps out deep scans and prying eyes from any satellites and such. Trade off is that it’s perpetually night and always rainy. Or at least damp.”

  “Small price to pay for freedom, I guess.”

  “Hinansho is the biggest of the sanctuary cities; there are thirteen around the world. Hinansho isn’t only big, it’s tall. To take advantage of the field, they grew upwards, buildings upon buildings. They were lucky they had tons of engineers among the augments. The higher up you are, the better things are
there.”

  “What’s on the lower levels?”

  “You don’t want to know.” Aurora hugged herself, feeling a sudden chill.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Devil You Know

  “What was this place called before it was transformed? Correia?” Darik asked no one in particular as he joined the group staring out the window.

  “Something like that. It’s been so long and who knows what really happened there. The fact that the existence of sanctuary cities is not taught in schools should tell you something,” Harmony said bitterly. “If you all don’t mind, I’d rather stay on the ship while we’re there. This place gives me the creeps.”

  The ship banked to the left and the column veered away. Everyone had to grab something to hold on to while they dropped into the clouds and their speed slowed.

  “Sorry for that,” Seneschal apologized over the comm, “just got the rendezvous coordinates. Good news, we’ll be the first team to arrive. ETA fifteen minutes. No need to strap in, we’re making the transfer while airborne and then heading to Hinansho. Remote city scans are about fifty miles from here, so we should be fine. Darik and Yuki will have to integrate everything, but it’s plug and play. Should only take a couple of minutes if everything is set up. Seneschal out.”

  There was an irregular shuddering as the ship slowed, pulses and halting jerks as they stopped in the air. Through the window, Gus could only see the haze of inter-cloud ‘fog.’

  Tempest came out of the pilot’s cabin and nodded to Yuki. She grabbed her laptop and followed Tempest as they went down the gangway. Gus could feel the vibration of the cargo hatch opening on the back of the ship.

  Less than five minutes later the same vibration occurred as Yuki came up the stairs. She handed Darik a handful of modules and disappeared into a panel, contorting with more agility than Gus had ever seen her exhibit.

  “I’m reading everything connected up here. You need to make any more adjustments before we head for Hinansho?” Yuki called out from the panel.

  “Nah, we’re good to go here, lassie,” Darik countered. “We’re ready when you are!”

  “Brace yourselves, this is going to be a bit annoying,” Seneschal warned. A shriek like a banshee knocked the supers who weren’t seated to their knees. Slowly the high-pitched tone slowed and everyone recovered as it faded into a pulse that diminished in intensity until it became white noise in the background.

  Gus thought it wasn’t even an audible sound, but something that their Nth could perceive by signal overlay. Once they regained their composure, the ship began moving again, turning and exiting the clouds and they set course to intersect the large column.

  With the rattle of chains, the cargo elevator opened, revealing Tempest sitting on a crate. As everyone approached, he opened it and addressed the Crew.

  “Looks like we only have four shrouds for this mission, and while they are newer than the ones I have used before, they are still about two generations behind the latest models. Whether that means anything or not remains to be seen. The scanners may be able to easily see through this type of shroud, depending on how sophisticated they are themselves. I’m confident that Darik and Yuki got the cage working, so I’ll have Seneschal keep the transport as inconspicuous as possible.”

  “If she’s piloting, how will she fly the ship from inside the cage?” Gus asked.

  “She won’t. She’s not a super, she’s an augment. She’ll show up unregistered, but that means the same as ‘tourist’ to the locals. Shouldn’t raise too many red flags unless we attract unwanted attention. I’m sure this old bucket has an autopilot feature though, in case we need her. Just like before—I’ll only take volunteers, so none of you have to do this. The shrouds have to be configured, so let me know who’s willing and we’ll choose our team.”

  Gus would have liked to visit, but recognized that he would probably be the least helpful choice. He was ignorant of what was ‘normal’ and expected of the typical resident of Hinansho and imagined he would stick out no matter how hard he tried.

  Kind of weird, since I was super good at not being noticed before I had powers.

  “What do you mean it won’t work on me?” Darik shouted, interrupting Gus’ thoughts.

  “These must have been used previously and customized for other supers whose powers aren’t compatible with yours.”

  “Well, this could be a problem, doncha think?” Darik gruffed, folding his arms and frowning at Tempest.

  The other supers who were willing to try the shrouds found that only Tempest, Aurora and Grimdark were compatible. And that was after two had to switch, a particular shroud being specialized so Grimdark alone could wear it.

  Prime hesitantly stepped forward.

  “My suit has a stealth mode that would shield me too. I could come and go in Hinansho and no one would know the difference.” The voice was modulated through the helmet, filtering out even slight emotional cues.

  “Every little bit will help; it gives us more options.”

  “I don’t want to go, if you don’t need me, just to be clear.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind. If you’re uncomfortable, I won’t ask you to do anything, don’t feel obligated.”

  Prime nodded and retreated to a corner to be alone.

  “Well that looks like all of us. Still a suit left. Are you in or out, Gus? If not, we’ll just have to do this with three,” Tempest asked.

  Gus accepted the suit, sliding the shroud over his shoulders and fastening it near his collarbones. Once in place, someone made some adjustments from behind and a green light pulsed on the fasteners in the front.

  “Looks like you’re in if you want, Gus. What do you say?” Aurora asked, something in her voice sounded almost pleading.

  It’d be a chance to try to ‘connect’ as BoJack suggested… Gus thought before finally saying, “Okay, I’m in.”

  “If I’m not going to throw things off, I’d like to check it out.” Yuki said, lifting her laptop, displaying it like a model in a game show. Tempest nodded in approval then returned to the cockpit to speak with Seneschal.

  “Everybody get in the cage. We’re about to enter in five…” Seneschal warned over the comm soon after Tempest had spoken with her.

  Gus found a seat by a window and buckled in. They were now so close to the barrier that the interior lighting of the common room became distinct as the light from outside disappeared. Tempest was the last to buckle in and the ship penetrated the barrier.

  Rain began to pelt the windows, moving like a screen swipe as they passed through the field. Bright lights guided traffic down large tunnels. If this didn’t work, their ship would be boxed in and easily captured. Slowly, they worked their way forward in the queue until they hovered by the checkpoint. After what seemed like an extra long wait, they were waved through.

  On the other side of the tunnel, bright lights strobed and flickered off the mists. Large buildings materialized out of the mist, hidden until the holo-ads came to life, detecting the motion of their ship. A beautiful woman brought a hand to her face as she pursed her lips indicating ‘shh.’ The image panned back, revealing more women, all exotic and beckoning them to visit the ‘Kitty Club.’

  “Look at this place,” Pulse said in wonder, face plastered to the window. Dark and brooding, it looked like Gotham and Blade Runner’s version of Los Angeles had an ugly baby. Neon signs in kanji and holograms illuminated the foggy, overcast city. Hovercars and the bike-like craft similar to the ones Gus had nicknamed ‘jet-skies’ raced through the gloom, somehow avoiding accidents in the tumultuous traffic.

  “Kind of makes you wonder what we could do if there weren’t so many restrictions by the Factions, eh?” Darik grumbled.

  “No—it does not! This is what happens when people run amok. You know what goes on down there—” Harmony objected, eyes wide and pointing downward.

  “You can’t believe all those urban legends,” he sighed, waving a hand in dismissal, “that’s just stuff
for horror holos.”

  “Those people are willing to do anything. Illegal cybernetics to try some twisted attempt to be like a super. Wet-ware shops that will perform all sorts of dangerous surgeries and transplants, no questions asked. It’s chaos, and people somewhere down the chain are getting hurt. Don’t even get me started on those abominations they call neo-furries!”

  “Neo-furries?” Gus whispered to Aurora unfamiliar with the term.

  “People who insert animal DNA into themselves to grow wings, talons, scales, or some other trait. Not very compatible with human physiology, but those people are tenacious, and some of the wet docs love experimentation. Apparently there’s more work for them than they can handle.”

  Gus shivered at the thought. He had wanted to be popular and noticed when he was a teenager, but never even dared coloring his hair a wild shade, let alone getting a tattoo or piercing for fear of how his father would react. He was still mad at himself that he had been so cowed. Still, those people were only affecting themselves, so what was the harm? Harmony seemed to act like they were being exploited.

  Darik put up his arms placatingly. “All I’m saying is that there’s probably a happy middle ground somewhere in there. Sure, we maintain order with Purple Faction, but it stifles innovation. People are afraid to step out of line, and that only lasts so long.”

  “You should have joined Orange. They love augments and tinkering with DNA,” Grimdark said archly.

  “Aw, shuddup. Things have been stagnant, and you know it. People are getting restless, and we’ve had to step in to manage more civil disturbances the last five years than in the previous ten. Eventually rebellion springs when people are oppressed.”

  The ship slipped down into the fog, following the pre-programmed course given by Seneschal.

  “I don’t like this. Leto was never that trustworthy, and I trust him even less now that he has what he wants and doesn’t need to keep us happy for future trades,” Yuki murmured.

  Tempest grimaced, hearing his own fears verbalized.