Jon had been on the ground-floor level several times in his life, always on a holiday.
The second lowest tier was the opposite of ground level. New London was mostly underground, the many tiers or levels providing living space for the teeming population.
Jon realized that he was in the dirty part of New London, the industrial wastes area. The hot liquid drop that had struck his neck—he wiped the back of his neck and smelled his fingers.
The scrunch of his nose—the drop smelled putrid. It was industrial waste product all right.
Yet, why was he down here? Why was he running so hard?
A shout behind him caused him to look back through the gloom. He saw three goons, three enemy gang members chasing him. They were big and muscular, wearing black vests so everyone could see their steroid-pumped pectorals and heavy biceps. Each of them had flowing long hair like Vikings of old.
They were Berserkers, a notorious gang known for their fighting prowess. They were also the enforcers of the sand trade down here. Sand was a synthetic drug that induced wonderful dreams.
That’s when Jon became aware of several things that did not make immediate sense to him. He was much skinnier than he remembered. He had thought he was a man. But he could see that he wasn’t a man but a mid-teen, maybe sixteen. He wore a heavy, bulging belt and he knew it was loaded with sand. In his right hand, he clutched a knife. It was short, very sharp and it meant something important to him, but he didn’t know what right then.
He didn’t recall being a teen anymore. He—
As Jon sprinted from the bigger, gaining Berserkers, he scowled. This was wrong somehow. He’d faced a different dilemma that had nothing to do with knife fighting, sand or New London for that matter.
“We’re going to kill you, you slow punk!” one of the Berserkers shouted.
Jon splashed through more puddles as he wheezed. The air coming down his throat was almost painful. A sharp pain stitched his side. He couldn’t keep running like this much longer.
Damn it, he couldn’t win this race. The three musclebound clods were catching up. He was going to die—again.
The scowl returned. What did he mean “again?”
Jon swore, and he skidded to a stop. He panted harder as he breathed in and out, in and out. He refused to hunch over, turning and standing straight as sweat slid down his face.
The three charged him hard and fast. Each of them had a long knife in his right hand. The knives gleamed in the dim lighting. Each of the Berserkers had a pair of brass knuckles over his left fist.
There was no way he could defeat three of them at one time. Could he appeal to their sense of honor?
Despite the fear that boiled in his guts, Jon forced himself to laugh.
The three reached him then. They also panted as they slowed to a stop. The leader faced him head on, the other two fanning out on his sides.
“You made a big mistake, mule,” the leader said.
“You and me,” Jon said. “I can take you in a straight fight.”
The leftmost Berserker lunged at him, stabbing with the point. Jon barely avoided the strike by twisting and backpedalling.
“You and me,” Jon said again in a panicked way.
“We three against you,” the leader said, grinning evilly. He was missing an upper tooth. “We’re going to cut you until you drop your knife. Then, we’re going to throw you down and stomp your hands and feet to mush. After that, you know what we’re going to use you for?”
Jon knew their rep. The Berserkers were man-rapists, a brutal gang of vicious thugs that everyone hated.
“This is personal,” the leader told him. “I’m going to make you my bitch.”
Fear made Jon want to beg for his life, but that wasn’t going to help him any.
“If you beg me, though,” the leader said. “Well, I could make you my boy for a time. I might even let you try out for the gang.”
“But…” Jon said.
“But what?” the leader said.
“Berserkers never let anyone live.”
“This is different,” the leader told him.
Jon took a step back.
The leader watched him, tracking everything.
That was all wrong. The Berserkers should have just charged in and attacked. Why had they stopped to talk like this?
“I want to see you beg, Hawkins. Beg for your life.”
“Is this a trick?” Jon asked.
“No,” the Berserker said. “This is real.”
Jon frowned at the way the leader said “real.” There seemed to be a hidden meaning in the word.
“It is what it is,” the leader told him.
“Are you reading my mind?” Jon asked.
“Let’s torture him,” said the enforcer to the left. “He may be too smart for this.”
“You are reading my mind,” Jon said. “That doesn’t make sense. This place…”
The three Berserkers began closing in on him. Jon stepped back, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed him a nearing wall. They had him trapped.
“I was somewhere else just before this,” Jon said.
“Yeah, becoming a mule,” the leader said.
“No. I never was a mule. This isn’t me.”
“You can’t wriggle out of this, Hawkins.”
Jon grabbed the belt buckle and unsnapped it. In a swift move, he tore the belt of sand from his waist. Inspiration struck as he walked backward through a puddle. He held out the belt of sand and brought his knife to it.
“You come any closer and I’ll slice the belt,” Jon said, “and spill the sand into the water. It’ll be ruined.”
“You think we care about the sand?” the leader mocked.
“This much sand?” Jon said. “Yeah. It’s worth a fortune.”
“We don’t care.”
“You’re lying,” Jon said. “If you don’t come back with the sand, your dealers are going to be furious. They’ll figure you kept it for yourselves. They won’t believe that three of you weren’t able to take care of me.”
“You’re quick to strike a bargain,” the leftmost Berserker said.
“Why not?” asked Jon. “I’ll give you the sand if you let me go. I’ll ruin the product, though, if you step any closer.”
“No deal,” the leader said. “But if you give us the sand, I’ll make it a clean kill.”
“Sure,” Jon said. “Here,” and he sliced the belt as they relaxed. Some of the sand particles poured from the slice and into the water.
The three Berserkers shouted with rage.
Jon hurled the belt at the leftmost Berserker. The muscular gang-member tried to catch it. Jon followed the belt and he struck low in the man’s side. He did not attempt to stab directly, but sliced belly muscle and around the side as he skipped around the man.
The Berserker screamed in agony. Particles of sand also struck his face, some of it getting into his eyes.
Jon shoved the Berserker from behind, making the heavier man stumble toward the other two. Jon charged them in desperation, knowing this was his only chance.
The knives must have struck him hard, punching into his body, because coherence fled as the world around him dissolved into nothingness and Jon Hawkins knew no more…
-2-
At first, there was nothing. It wasn’t sleep. Jon was conscious—in a manner of speaking. There was a strange alien-ness to all of this. He could not quite fathom it, could not understand the why of it or how he had come to be here.
Where was here, exactly? It would seem that he lay on a hard bed with a mask over his mouth. That allowed him to breathe. There were electrodes attached to his face and they fed him electrical impulses that stimulated certain areas of his brain. He strove to open to his eyes and see this for himself. The more he struggled, though…
He almost opened his eyes. A drug, another brain shock—something—broke his concentration.
All his knowledge fled from him leaving nothingness in its place again. He alm
ost felt as if he’d done this before.
As Jon thought about it, the world filled in around him. There were clouds, colored clouds, and they moved fast across the colorful sky below him.
Hadn’t there been other clouds in another time and place? Those had been ammonia clouds.
Jon grunted as pain stabbed his mind.
Forget about the ammonia clouds.
Yes. He could do that.
You’re on Saturn.
What am I standing on if I’m on a gas giant?
You’re on a cloud city that drifts in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. At this level, you have normal Earth gravities tugging at you.
Oh. Yes, he knew about the Saturn cloud cities. He’d always wanted to visit one.
This isn’t a visit. You are a repairman. You’re crawling through a vent and have to attend to one of the anchoring balloons that are on the bottom of the cloud city.
I don’t know anything about that. Besides, I hate heights.
Exactly. You are going to have to crawl out on an under-deck walkway and repair a rip in an anchoring balloon. The entire city—its populace—are counting on you.
Why me, though? I hate heights.
You are the balloon repairman. It is your duty to fix the balloons that give the cloud city its buoyancy. Are you ready?
No, I’m not ready. I don’t want to be here.
The words didn’t help. Slowly, Jon became aware that he crouched low as he walked through a narrow under-city access tube. He wore a special patch unit on his back, and it was heavy. He had been trudging through the access tube for a long time. His stomach rumbled because he was hungry, and he desperately wanted something to drink. It was hard to focus because he was so tired, hungry and thirsty.
Still, he was the balloon man. This was his duty. Medina-hab jihadists had been down here. One had escaped the SWAT team. The lone jihadist had blown one of the smaller, balancing balloons and he had put a rip in one of the main buoyancy balloons. The jihadist could be anywhere down here.
Jon did not like that, but he had a job to do. He took a deep breath and continued trudging. Finally, he reached a metal hatch. On the other side of the hatch—
Jon’s hands trembled as he reached for the control pad. He did not want to punch in the access code. Weren’t there supposed to be more balloon men down here with him?
They are all dead.
Dead? Jon thought to himself. How could all the other balloon men be dead?
The jihadist from Medina Hab shot them. Now, the jihadist is hunting for you, Jon Hawkins.
Jon glanced warily over his shoulder, expecting to see the fanatical killer coming for him. To his vast relief, he saw nothing but the long access tube.
Right. The killer had blown a balancing balloon and put a gash in a main buoyancy balloon. He couldn’t do anything to fix the first one. But he could repair the rip to the anchoring balloon.
Hardening his resolve, Jon tapped in the access code. Abruptly, the hatch slid up, revealing the vast panorama of Saturn below. Great roiling clouds slid past at an amazing speed.
Jon stared at the clouds, transfixed. He dearly hated heights, and here he stood on the edge of an access hatch. He realized sickly that he was able to see because no balloon was in the way. He had come the wrong way. He would have to backtrack kilometers to reach the balloon to his left.
He could see that the main buoyancy balloon was sagging as air hissed from the rip into the atmosphere.
That’s when he wondered how he was able to breathe without a mask over his face.
He felt sudden disorientation. Then he breathed audibly through his oxygen mask. He realized that he was peering through a glass visor.
That was odd. He could have sworn that he hadn’t had a mask on just a second ago.
“It must be my nerves,” he muttered under the mask.
There was a metal walkway before him, a walkway with handrails on the sides. The walkway had nothing below but the gases of Saturn.
Jon did not want to go out on the walkway. It would be a thousand times worse than walking across an Inca grass bridge over a thousand-foot chasm.
Look!
Jon turned to the left, and he saw a man with a portable rocket launcher cradled in his arms running along a walkway. The man wore a red cloth over his face. He was the last jihadist. He ran for a better shot at another main balloon.
Jon began to tremble. If the jihadist were able to destroy more balloons, the entire city would sink down into the lower atmosphere. The greater gravities of lower Saturn would crush and kill everyone.
You have to stop him.
“How am I supposed to stop him?” Jon asked himself aloud.
Chase him down. Tackle him if you have to.
Jon blinked rapidly behind his visor. He began to shake as his fear of heights really took hold. He would never catch the sprinting jihadist in time, not with his heavy patch kit on his back.
Before he knew what he was going to do, Jon shed the patch kit so it thudded behind him. Then, moaning in fear, not really understanding how he was able to do this, Jon took his first step onto the under-deck walkway. Dizziness threatened to cause him to crash down onto his knees. He fought it off as his breathing became heavier. He took a second step, a third and then a fourth.
At that point, Jon broke into a trot that made the walkway shiver at each of his steps. He looked up and saw the under-plate of the city. He looked around and saw the great balloons that gave the cloud city its buoyancy.
I can do this, he told himself.
He refused to look past the walkway but concentrated solely on the plating before him. He increased speed, dared a quick glance to the side and saw that he was catching up on the jihadist on a different walkway. He ran harder—and yelled in terror as he noticed a great gap in the walkway before him. He could see the lower clouds through the gap.
Jon barely halted in time. Winds whistled up through the walkway gap. The wind buffeted him, and the walkway trembled.
Jon moaned. He needed to go back to the access tube. He hated it out here and his stomach shriveled in terror. His knees knocked. Oh, he wished that he could close his eyes and just leave this horrible place.
Yet, despite the horror, Jon found himself grabbing the railing. He closed his eyes and began to sing a litany to himself. Singing louder, his hands gripping the rail like vises, he found his footing on the side and began to shuffle to the side of the gap. He did not dare to open his eyes lest he see that there was nothing to support him by the railing.
Then, his hands slipped, and his body lurched. He noticed that someone had greased the hand railing.
Who would do such a wicked deed?
Somehow—Jon had no idea how—he heard evil laughter.
Jon opened his eyes as he clung to the railing. He was over the open hole in the walkway. On a nearby walkway, the jihadist aimed a rocket launcher at him. The man’s words tumbled toward him.
What was the jihadist trying to say to him? And how could he hear the man anyway?
This is not real, a voice in his head told him.
It seemed, then, that other voices panicked. What said that? How can he break the conditioning? He is a substandard creature. He cannot have outer awareness.
“What’s going on?” Jon whispered to himself.
Remember the monstrous AI vessel rising out of Hydri II’s upper ammonia clouds?
“What?” asked Jon.
He waited for the voice in his head to speak again, but it did not.
What was an AI monster ship? Had he ever… Yes! He did have a dim recollection of such a thing. Yet, how could that—
It hit Jon then. This was unreal. It was…
He forced his eyes open and stared at the jihadist. He should not be able to hear anything the man would shout. The jihadist should be wearing a mask. If the man had a voice amplifier, the winds down here would still rip the words away before the sounds reached him.
The railing he gripped became even slipperier.
He shouted in dread as his left foot slipped. He had to keep going even though it would be easier to go back. If he didn’t keep going…
Jon closed his eyes and tried to conjure up the image of an AI vessel. A memory of a time—
Jon’s eyes flew open. He had been fighting the monstrous AI. The Nathan Graham had entered the void. Was he in the grip of the void aliens?
His knowledge nullifies the test.
Test? This was a test?
Jon was deathly afraid of heights. Were they testing that? But who were they? The void aliens?
“This is not real,” Jon told himself. “This is an illusion.”
This is real. You will die if you let go.
“No,” Jon said stubbornly. “This is—”
In that moment, he remembered an old truism. It wasn’t what you said that counted, it was what you did.
Did he really believe this was an illusion? While trembling with fear, he closed his eyes, deliberately let go of the railing and stepped back. He dropped through the gap in the walkway. He felt the horrible lurch in his stomach, but he refused to open his eyes.
As he plunged deeper into Saturn, Jon lost consciousness until he was drifting in a different semi-unconsciousness once more. He tried to open his eyes then, but a heavy drowsiness overcame him, and then he remembered no more…
-3-
“You’re cheating!” Ree said. “This is deliberate sabotage. I do not know why you would commit such obvious fraud, but you may rest assured that I shall notify the highest archons of the Sisterhood once we return from our patrol.”
The glowing ball of energy that was Ree radiated a red color, showing her highly agitated state.
In the same large area of the void ship lay a number of humans. One of them was Jon Hawkins. He wore a shimmering energy helmet but nothing else. His eyes were tightly shut but he twitched from time to time. Perhaps he was in a dream state.
Zeta stood as before, a humanoid lightning bolt of brilliant energy.
The area around them was foggy and dimly lit, making it hard to visualize beyond the immediate region with the naked humans laid out in rows and columns. Each nude human wore an energy helmet similar to the one Hawkins wore. The helmets gave Zeta and Ree direct access to the biological brains.
A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 13