Uroboros Saga Book 1

by Arthur Walker

  Perfidy let himself in, the man’s visual and chemical signature guiding him from the street through several cold rooms to a back room where he detected several men and one woman. The room was cold, and lined with wooden slats and commercial thickness cardboard for insulation. There were several cribs heated with convection style space heaters and cupboards of formula and baby food.

  The men and woman looked up at Perfidy in surprise as he entered the room. One went for a handgun, but Perfidy already had his own in hand, leveled at the man’s face. All were dressed as one might expect someone living downtown, like discarded hand-me-downs. The woman had a lab coat on, and wore a clean pair of gloves.

  “I’m looking for a child, about two years old, female,” Perfidy said, turning his obviously mechanical eyes toward the woman.

  “We have several, and they can be altered to suit. I assume you’re here shopping for someone else?” the woman responded nervously.

  “No, I’m looking for a specific child. She’d have come in very recently, within the last hour,” Perfidy replied coolly, handgun held on the guard.

  “We don’t buy them that way, we’ve a farm and--”

  “Who does?” Perfidy interrupted the woman.

  “Devils,” she replied.

  “Excuse me?” Perfidy replied, comically pretending as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “That’s what they call themselves, or Red Coats some people call them. They don’t have a lab or a farm so they buy and sell,” the woman replied.

  Perfidy knew leaving any of them alive was against procedure, but he would have to shoot the infants as well. He wondered if he even had a soul to fetter with such actions, but he wasn’t going to shoot the kids or leave them without minders to freeze to death either. He shot the guard in the face, turning his gun quickly toward the woman. She gave out a short scream as Perfidy grabbed her and watched the others scramble away for their lives.

  “I’ll know if you told anyone I was here. I’ll come back, and I’ll do worse than kill you. Do you know what a Skin Slave is?” Perfidy said, his tone even and professional.

  “Y-yes, I know what one is,” the woman said shaking in terror.

  Perfidy let her go and went over to one of the cribs. The infant was startled by the loud noise, but was the only one that hadn’t started crying. The child reached up grasping at the air as Perfidy holstered his sidearm.

  “This is when we learn to want,” Perfidy whispered, pulling a small blanket up over the child, his mechanical eyes sensing its body temperature was lower than what would have been comfortable.

  He stepped out of the cold house knowing one of the men who fled would likely approach a Red Coat to tell of a man with mechanical eyes. He decided to follow the signature of the thinnest of the group, and likely the hungriest. He was heading east toward the under-harbor, a good sign. The other downtown dwellers parted as they pushed past him going about their business.

  Perfidy knew he was an oddity down here, but the time for subtlety had ended. It had been almost three hours since the crash and the window of opportunity for reacquiring the asset was beginning to close. He followed the hungry man relentlessly, scoffing quietly at some of the precautions he took to avoid being followed. Apparently, he had some understanding of his capabilities, which meant there were likely cyborgs among the Red Coats.

  The under-harbor was mostly owned by oil companies that employed welders and ship-builders to make repairs to their huge and rapidly aging fleet of tankers. Some of the tankers were the size of military aircraft carriers and there were only a handful of harbors deep enough to accommodate them. Silt draggers and other countermeasures work around the clock to keep the Port Montaigne harbor ideal and the money flowing upward.

  Perfidy hadn’t been down here for years, but little had changed in that time. Soot covered, and ramshackle living accommodations clung to the support structure beneath the primary harbor some forty feet overhead, echoing with the sounds of heavy equipment further east near the water. It was dark, and Perfidy was relying on his own enhanced senses to travel away from the more common means of ingress to the interior of the under-harbor.

  Dock workers walked back and forth, going to and from work not far away as Perfidy followed his quarry along the final legs to what was a forbidding and decidedly secret location. The entrance had been constructed between two long abandoned pipelines that hadn’t been used to transport oil in probably fifty years. Reaching them required a special knowledge of the area and all its many underground passages and portals. Perfidy hoped he’d be able to remember the way out once he’d finished.

  The entrance was unguarded and unlocked. They were either very careless, or they already knew they had a visitor. There was no choice at this point but to head in and deal with whatever lay in wait. The interior hall was constructed and reformed pipe, bent to a roughly oblong shape and allowing access by a single person at a time to the interior.

  The first chamber was large, almost thirty feet in diameter, and set up to be guarded from several fortified positions made of metal sheets welded together in a semi-circle at both far corners. The floor was made of salvaged expanded metal that met with walls made of metal sheeting riveted together across an unseen frame.

  No one guarded the room but a single older gentleman smoking a cigarette. The tobacco was imported and the man stank of chemicals common to longevity treatments. Both odors oozed from the man’s pores, if Perfidy’s enhanced senses were to be trusted.

  “Hello. I assume you aren’t here to buy or sell?” the elderly man asked, sticking to the shadows in the doorframe.

  “No.”

  “Your senses won’t work as effectively in here as you’d like. We’ve taken measures to avoid the attention of law enforcement and customs agents.”

  “I’m here to find an infant, likely recovered from the wreckage of a transport that fell through Uptown, the substructure beneath, and the Downtown streets below,” Perfidy stated patiently.

  “That crash happened scarcely a few hours ago,” the elder man said as he smoked. “What makes you think she was brought here?”

  “If you know about the crash, you probably know why,” Perfidy replied.

  “She’d have to be pretty special to have survived, or the equipment used to transport her was anyway.”

  “Something like that,” Perfidy replied, betraying no emotion.

  “If she gets bought or sold, I’ll let you know,” the old man replied. “If I can procure her, is there a finder’s fee?”

  “I’m not authorized to make any deals,” Perfidy replied.

  “I don’t have to let you leave this place,” the elderly man said, crushing out what remained of his cigarette on the door frame.

  Perfidy stood, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The old man stepped into room, the light illuminating his varied features. Perfidy could see a man ravaged by addiction to surgical procedure, his features having been altered too many times probably to count. He wore a red jacket adorned with a single set of demonic horns that curled back from his chest to the collarbones.

  “I’ll look for the girl, if she’s to be found. I’ll procure her, and you’ll pay me to hand her over,” the old man offered, looking back at the darkened fortified positions.

  “I never said I was looking for a girl,” Perfidy replied, drawing his sidearm in one fluid motion.

  The room filled with gunfire as the old man lunged forward and several cloaked cyborgs opened fire. Perfidy threw himself to the floor and rolled backward. It wasn’t quick enough, and the old man was on him now, foot falls from unseen guards coming up quickly behind him. The metal structure echoed oddly, playing havoc with Perfidy’s senses as he struggled with the inhumanly strong trafficker.

  The old man clawed savagely at Perfidy, his fingernails altered to be as hard as steel. Sparks flew as
Perfidy rolled clear and bolted for the door. Rounds fired from guns loaded with caseless ammunition punched through the steel wall and floor around him as his auditory dampeners activated. The dark exterior of the building welcomed Perfidy as he moved quickly out of the path of continuing small arms fire.

  “Confirmed contact,” Perfidy said, activating an auditory implant.

  The signal didn’t go far down here, and he knew it was unlikely his handler would hear the transmission. He tried again anyway. No response.

  He knelt down beside the entrance and waited for pursuit, but there was none. The whole area went suddenly quiet. He waited another sixty seconds, but no one emerged from the hideout and no sound issued forth from within during that time. Puzzled, Perfidy entered cautiously, leading with his sidearm.

  The darkened corridor was empty, only a few fresh bullet holes lay about as evidence of what had happened moments before. Passing through the doorway beyond the fortified room, Perfidy found a network of tunnels, each leading to a place where human beings had been kept. The place stank of death, but every room and cell was empty.

  He could still sense the faint signature of several individuals but he could tell they’d probably been left there just to slow him down. What was worse was that he could not find any means of escape from within. He knew there had to be one, as folks didn’t just vanish in such a way he couldn’t find them. There was a secret passage somewhere within, but after almost forty-five minutes of looking, he couldn’t find it.

  It would be another four hours before he could get somewhere to transmit and his handler and reinforcements could arrive. They would be long gone by then, but at least he’d discovered the asset had indeed survived and was out there somewhere. Unfortunately, he may not get the chance to look. His employer would likely see this situation as a failure on his part.

  The conditions in the human trafficker’s hideout were abysmal. Perfidy had seen his own fair share of this sort of thing working in Mexico and South America, but nothing that scaled with what the Red Coats had been doing. They had been moving dozens of people a week and must have had access to a sophisticated means of shipping them overseas.

  “This couldn’t have been done without help,” Perfidy said aloud, standing in what he thought was the most recently vacated chamber.

  “No,” a voice replied over his auditory implant.

  “My employer will find you,” Perfidy replied calmly. “They will retrieve what you’ve taken.”

  “I’ve released her back into the wild,” the voice replied, the signal that carried it heavily encrypted. “You can’t take back what I’ve chosen not to keep.”

  “Why?” Perfidy replied, trying to keep the individual connected as long as he could.

  “You’ve got some of the most advanced cybernetic firmware and implants, and you were a talented agent before gaining them. What do you think motivates me?”

  “This isn’t about money or power. I’m not sure what else people kill and die for,” Perfidy replied, trying to get the voice to reveal more about itself.

  “You’re right. This is about something else entirely,” the voice replied, signal rapidly weakening.

  “A love of children?” Perfidy ventured, his words oozing with sarcasm.

  “I can claim nothing of what motivates me to be so idealistic, but like you, I am more than I was designed to be.”

  “A machine. I’m talking to a machine?” Perfidy replied, suddenly understanding why he couldn’t perceive the egress used by the human traffickers to escape. It would take someone with biological eyes and a flashlight to perceive all the secrets of this place.

  “Aren’t we all?”

  Chapter 6

  Downtown, Port Montaigne - Taylor’s Apartment

  11:53 AM, December 22nd, 2199

  Taylor’s Diary, Part 1

  We looked everywhere in the apartment for a bug, but it was nowhere to be found. In the end, Silverstein told me to pack a bag. For someone recently rendered an amnesiac, it was probably an easy thing to just pack a bag. I have a lot of stuff, and I wasn’t willing to leave any of it behind, particularly if someone was spying on my apartment.

  I know it’s irrational to worry about people spying on my stuff while I’m not there, but I’m really attached to my stuff. I carefully packed my paint, sewing, beadwork, crochet, needlepoint, quilting, rubber stamping, cross-stitch, and a few other supplies. Then I packed my clothing, including enough hats, shoes, purses, umbrellas, socks, and pajamas for a week.

  “Is all this stuff really necessary?” Silverstein asked, looking at the rapidly multiplying pile of bags, totes, and duffle bags I was filling. “We’re going to be down there a couple of days at the most.”

  “I’m aware. I’m packing light. See?” I said pointing to the wall of my apartment only just visible under the mountain of empty hand bags, totes, backpacks, rucksacks, and similar.

  “You’re allowed to take only what can fit in this,” Silverstein said, handing me a smallish duffle bag from the pile.

  “Are you serious? Are you going to send some drones up for the rest?” I asked, looking at the bag dejectedly.

  I was joking of course, which usually got a laugh from my new friend. Trading a smile for one of Silverstein’s looks of general dissatisfaction hadn’t been common practice so far. What I liked about him at the time, was that even in the dire all too serious world he seemed to indulge me. Often, he would encourage me.

  “What do the Drones want me to do? I mean, spicing up their underground hovel shouldn’t be too hard,” I said as I pushed fabric into a trash bag.

  “I just hope it’s legitimate. Everything about the transaction thus far has been more eventful than I would have liked. I wish I hadn’t agreed to any of it,” Silverstein replied sullenly.

  “Why?”

  “I did this to try to help you. The Drones said they’d make trouble if we didn’t help them, shutting off the heat and such. All I’ve done so far is put you in even greater danger.”

  It was a quandary. The downtown area wasn’t exactly rife with warm places to sleep in the winter time. Huddling next to a steam pipe in the sub-tran tunnels wasn’t a particularly exciting prospect. Aside from the people staring at me in my pajamas, there was the smell to contend with.

  While I hesitated to think what would have happened if Ezra hadn’t been with us, I was beginning to agree with Silverstein. It was always my hypothesis that the best way to avoid getting hurt in a fight is to never be in one in the first place. Going underground didn’t seem like a good way to test the theory.

  “Grab your stuff, whatever you think we’ll need. Let’s take the passage beneath the building and begin walking down. Hopefully we bump into the Drones.”

  “What if we’re being watched? Wasn’t that why we avoided it last time?”

  “We’ve got no guide. Seems to me if we’re walking into an ambush, taking the access that’s below the building is less walking.”

  He was right of course, and I was fine with never going back to the concrete plant, or the industrial district for that matter. I was still having nightmares about what Ezra did to those guys, even if they were there to hurt us. I’d seen some bad things Downtown, but nothing like that.

  I dragged my duffle to the elevator where Silverstein was holding the door. We descended to the lobby where Russ was waiting for us. It had all been arranged the night before, and Russ had his own part to play.

  Russ opened the access and told us that he’d be locking it from his side, and to call him with my mobile when we needed him to come and let us out. It was less than reassuring to say the least. The tunnels below smelled of every unpleasant thing possible and that stench was only amplified by the confined space.

  I checked to make sure I could still get a signal sitting below the heavy lid. The signal
was weak, but I could still send a text message to Russ when we got back. Silverstein grabbed me by the waist and lowered me down to what looked like a concrete platform beside a tunnel half submerged in slowly moving water.

  We wrapped up our supplies with trash bags, then donned coveralls, waders, and breathing masks. Silverstein chuckled as I tried in vain to stuff the rolled up legs of my coveralls into the waders.

  “Here, hold the flashlight,” Silverstein said. Then, he lifted me up to his shoulders.

  Tucking my overstuffed bag under his arm, and a large pipe wrench in his other hand he dropped down into the water. I tucked my feet into the front of his overalls to keep them dry as he navigated the water flowing briskly past us. Holding the flash light tightly in one hand, I looped my other arm around Silverstein’s hardhat.

  The underground is much as you’d expect. It’s a tangle of pipes, tubes, wires, and hoses flowing through the ceilings and walls. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear the expanded metal walkway creaking just below the water flowing past us. Occasionally, I’d catch sight of something small swimming past us, but otherwise, the place was completely lifeless.

  Silverstein had to stop and rest here and there, taking refuge on the occasional metal stairs that led upward. Most of them were guarded by steel doors or lids designed to suppress floodwaters from rising into the upper levels. They probably worked pretty well to keep whatever lived below out as well.

  Few had the space to spread out until we got lower in the tunnels and found a decent place to at least lay down for a moment or two. The concrete block appeared to have acted as some sort of foundation for heavy machinery, but all that remained were the bolts embedded in the concrete. The whole of whatever apparatus once dwelled there was completely missing.