Chandra explained that they had, inevitably, lost the petition all those years ago. Jun realised now how very naïve they had been; they never stood a chance at all. They hadn’t wanted to believe Jun had sold them out, except Jonquil. She had taken great delight in Jun’s absence.
‘Adalbert made some calls to the media. No one would touch the story. A few days later, he vanished,’ he said, his voice cracked. ‘I didn’t hear from him. He wasn’t at his house – I waited and waited for him there – his work had no idea where he was either. I asked if they’d file a Police report, for all the good I knew it would do, I couldn’t be linked in that official kind of way. I hoped, rather than thought, he’d gone underground. But I knew he wouldn’t, that wasn’t his way. We were early days, but we were serious about one another. We would have done it together.’
Jun swallowed the knot in the back of her throat. She knew enough about the UA to guess the rest. Adalbert was soft and warm but had been militant against the UA. If he’d been erased, what hope did she have?
‘With Adalbert gone…’ Chandra swallowed thickly, his eyes glassed over, ‘I knew my days were numbered. They were executing an aggressive campaign both visibly and below radar to sniff out the dissenters – there were a few of us. Some good friends had managed to get out early, finding a smarter way to leave than I did. Mikhail and Jonquil got out too. Through Mikhail’s Autonarmy contacts, they both managed to cross the borders into the North Euro Province. I hung around for as long as I dare to try and find Adalbert, or word about what happened. Mikhail hooked me up to the guys at Ghetto West, so I’d be in good distance if Adalbert did show up. Before I left, I messed with satellite signals, bouncing them around so they’d thought I’d left the Province. I cut contact with my family – until recently.’
Chandra’s voice petered out. Lost in reflection, maybe regret.
‘I’m sorry about Adalbert,’ Jun reached for his hand. ‘And what you went through.’
Chandra shook his head and gave a half smile. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. I’m lucky still to be here, what with the resistances. Since the peace, the Autonarmy has laid low, till now, at least.’
Jun thought about Mikhail. His sincere commitment to ingratiate himself into the UA world. The last uprisings hit everyone involved hard, the lives lost, the torture and psychological warfare. Mikhail had wanted to conserve the peace, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, keep silent. He tried to do it their way, but he would not fall in line.
‘For a few years now, I’ve been using a secret comm channel that uses unique systems that the UA can’t – and haven’t yet – infiltrate, so we can connect with Mikhail and what’s left of the Autonarmies in other Ghettoes in Provinces around the world. Some loved ones too. The word is something’s happening centrally within the UA. We’re not quite sure what, but they’re mobilising and preparing for something. Chandra looked away. ‘While they left us alone, we left them alone, but now with Kodi…’, he merely shook his head.
If Kodi was part of this something, Jun wouldn’t let her be collateral damage. ‘Can you still access the comm networks?’
Chandra smiled. ‘How do you think Solo called you?’
They arrived at the other two rock formations, where Jun assumed the tunnels and East bunker were positioned. She put her hands over her eyes, as she had with the West Bunker, so she didn’t see the unlocking mechanism. ‘If they’ve made one play, would you counter it?’
Chandra pulled her hands from her face and knelt beside the smaller rock. Pressing his hand into the side of it, likely a DNA and blood check, then a green line scanned across his eyes. They needed to use older technology; ones unsupported by health chips.
‘Down these steps is the East Bunker and my workshop, it’s also the main feed to the tunnels, he said. ‘We don’t use them at the moment, but there are access points hidden for us to enter and exit the Ghetto. We’ve also got storage down here, where we keep CNC cutters to cut through and manipulate any metal, even tungsten. There’s also surveillance equipment, Voltarms, Immobilisers…’
The smaller rock had shifted away to reveal another mouth, another flinty tongue. Chandra had stepped inside and turned around to her. ‘What have you got in mind?’
They were as prepared as they could be. Jun had taken all the gadgets Chandra had been willing to give her, though she hoped not to use Voltarms and Immobilisers. She didn’t want physical tussles if she could help it. But if she couldn’t persuade them, then there would be no other way around it. Some of the Ghettoites would be called upon, and they would be armed. Jun knew there was a secret passageway and gave them instruction on how to get there. She couldn’t for the life of her remember how she knew about it, but prayed it was still in use, and that the door code remained the same. It was a stretch, so they’d brought CNC cutters in case.
Lucas had blocked her and Solo’s Intuimoto GPS and comms systems. He had been an Intuimoto engineer for many years and knew colleagues that had programmed cars at the will of the UA. Jun had thought of Mikhail’s family. Chandra probably had the same thought too, but neither of them had said a word. ‘He, like us,’ Chandra had said with tender sincerity, ‘had to walk away too.’
Jun glanced into the rear mirror of the car. Kau still trundled behind them. The plan was, he was supposed to go back home, but he’d missed two turnings already.
He’d been quiet since they’d arrived at the Ghetto. When Jun had talked through her idea, Solo and Chandra picked holes, identified weaknesses, but Kau’s mind had been elsewhere. As she and Solo removed their health chips, his remained cushioned in cytoplasm. Jun wasn’t ignorant of the repercussions for him. She knew the position he was in, and what breaking Kodi out would mean for them all, but she couldn’t let them get away with it, not again. She was somewhere in between who she was, and the person she would become, but she couldn’t go back to how it was before.
Kau, of course, was the newest, brightest jewel in the UA’s crown. Could he still work for them, and did he want to? When she’d asked him, his face had furrowed, and his mouth clammed up. She wouldn’t ask him again.
As they came to the intersection where the road lead to her old lab, an Intuimoto flashed its beams at her. Even at their distance, Fan’s silhouette was unmistakable, hands in his pockets awkwardly leaning against the car.
‘Just keep the courage of your conviction,’ Solo said, under her breath as they pulled up behind it. Jun wished they could keep moving. She didn’t want Lucas, Batz and the other Ghettoites to arrive at the base before she did.
Jun looked in her mirror for Kau. He must have called his father. ‘It’s not Fan I’m worried about.’
Kau had got out of the car and walked over to Fan. They stood by the Jacarandas that lined the freeway, parallel to bushes and shrubs that marked the plotlines from public to private land.
‘But you’ll be staying in the Ghetto for good now, right? What will he do?’ Solo said.
Hers and Fan’s years of marriage, their life together, it had been built on a lie. She’d given him the power so that she’d always, eventually, see it his way. Aside from Kau, what else did they have? At that moment, Jun didn’t recognise him as her husband but as someone from a borrowed, distant life.
‘I suppose I’ll find out,’ Jun said. ‘How about you? Will you be staying in the Ghetto for good?’
Solo shrugged. ‘There’s only so far I can push Batz, before we break. I’ve pushed him pretty far already. This thing with Kodi, and now I’m rushing off when he came to talk things out…’
‘He knows about your mother?’
Solo gave a slow, resolute nod. ‘We grew up together. He knows everything about my life, well, almost everything. His mother and mine were best friends. His father left them when he was little, so we both grew up without a parent. We’ve lived through each other’s worst times. He’s never not been by my side. Till recently.’ Solo let out a belly-deep sigh.
Jun knew this wasn’t easy for her. Solo kept everything ti
ghtly wound around her, like one of Jun’s threads around her finger. But millimetre by millimetre, she was uncoiling.
‘You never know,’ Solo said, changing the subject and coiling herself again. ‘Fan might surprise you.’
The question was, did she want him to? The white moon filtered the grey-black sky, like Pl-ilk, their plant milk, infusing itself into tea. Though the night air was warm as Jun opened the Intuimoto door, goosepimples pricked her skin and shivered down her back.
Fan stood looking at her, his wattle quivering in reproach, liver-marks blotched his cheeks. He’d slowly been turning into an old man, and she hadn’t noticed.
‘Why did you speak to your father?’ Jun said to Kau. As her eyes met him, he looked down at the ground.
‘I couldn’t let you go on your own,’ Kau said and hugged her. ‘I love you, Mama, get back safe.’
He had made his decision. Jun clutched him tightly and prayed she would see him again. ‘You know where I’ll be,’ she said almost in a whisper, the pain of it strangled her throat. He walked away, and part of her wanted to walk with him, but she couldn’t turn back now.
Fan’s eyes searched Jun’s, but she couldn’t meet them. Flashes of earlier that afternoon came back to her, and what he had kept hidden all those years. An engine fired up, and Kau’s car sped away.
‘I don’t want to fight,’ she said, more to herself than to Fan.
‘I don’t either,’ he said and reached out his palm to her shoulder, sliding down her arm to clasp her hand.
Jun shook his hand away. ‘But, I don’t want you to try and stop me.’
His reserve faltered, and he sloped his hand to his pocket. ‘You’ve got to see sense. Do you think they’ll just let you just walk away with Kodi? That they won’t come after you both?’
‘I have an insurance policy that they won’t.’
He shrugged. ‘The UA have mitigation teams, specialists. They’re not worried about a has-been neuroscientist approaching sixty,’ he sputtered.
He had meant those words to cut, but she saw through them for what they were, desperate grasps to hurt and stop her. There was a rustle and a sudden movement behind Fan. Something had crawled into the shrubs and bushes, maybe a badger or a mongoose. She couldn’t make it out.
‘Think about our position. My job! Our livelihood… their power. It’s not easy for me to walk away,’ Fan’s voice rose into a bluster.
‘I didn’t imagine you’d be walking away from the UA.’
‘You’ve already factored me out of the equation.’
He was right, she had.
Fan took his hands out of his pockets and pulled a flower from the Jacarandas, pinching its purple trumpet between his fingers. ‘All these years and what we’ve built together… I love you, Jun,’ he looked up at her. ‘But I won’t let you put Kau in danger.’ The flower fell from his fingers onto the grass.
The shrubs behind him rustled again. Two animals hissed and screeched at one another like murdering banshees. Jun tightened her arms around her body.
Fan pushed the discarded flower around on the floor. ‘Now he’s working for the UA, it only makes it more complicated…’
‘And whose fault is that? You’re the one that encouraged him to work for…’ she quietened her shouts to a whisper, ‘murderers.’
He grimaced as she said it. ‘It was a unique incident.’
Kodi’s family, Pav, Adalbert and Mikhail’s family. The list went on, and who knows how many others had died at the hands of them. She faced him: ‘He’s made his decision, and I’ve made mine.’
Fan kneaded the flower into the brittle soil. Its purple trumpet shredded, bleeding oily plasma into the ground.
The shrubs rustled again. Whatever animals were in there let out another curdling screech, followed by endless silence. One of the phantom animals darted from the bushes and bolted into the blanket of black. Maybe with its quarry back to its den, or perhaps it had been the prey, luckily escaping from its usual fate.
For the second time that day in over twenty-five years, Jun prayed.
* * *
Save a few crickets chirping blithely, the base was lifeless, only broken by the monosyllabic hum of Solo’s Intuimoto powering down. They were hidden in the woodland next to Jun’s old department building. It was as bright in the evening as it was during the day. Neuro-connections may rest, but neuro-analysis did not.
Jun and Solo sat in a tense silence. Anxiety fluttered like a butterfly in a terrarium. In five minutes, Chandra would be bouncing, blocking and subverting signals to send her recording to Wei, Markov and whoever else was in the lab. Every Interface, Telestream, and phone in their department would see her message – PSA-style – of Jun, asking them to release Kodi. It served two objectives. Firstly, it showed Wei, Markov and whoever else the capabilities she had at her disposal. The other served to pique their interest enough for them to sanction her through into the lab.
‘I would much rather come with you…’ Solo said, through gritted teeth. ‘I want to see their faces. I want them to see mine.’
‘The only chance of bargaining with them is if they think I’ve acted alone,’ Jun said.
‘And my mother,’ Solo said quietly. ‘I want them to return my mother’s body so that I can give her a proper burial. She would have wanted that.’
Jun squeezed Solo’s hand. Solo let her keep it there.
‘Do you know,’ Solo started, but struggled to get her words out, ‘the reason Kodi wasn’t in the tunnels?’
Jun tried to nod calmly, but her stomach turned like rolling dice.
‘It was because Batz came to the Ghetto looking for me, to talk, but I was chasing after you. Rather than staying put in the tunnel, Kodi left to speak with him, on my behalf. Try and make things right. It was my fault,’ she said, tears began to spring in the corner of her eye. ‘That’s why I should come with you.’ She let them fall down her cheek.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Jun said and squeezed her hand again.
Something close to worry broke on Solo’s face. ‘It’s a brave thing you’re doing,’ she said and put her arms around Jun for a moment, before hastily pulling away.
Jun couldn’t stop the fear clutching at her; for better or worse it was happening. She hoped there had been a sense of forgiveness from Solo and from beyond. That some relief might come, a reassuring whisper that said she was forgiven. All that came was a voice that scratched like claws dragging down wood. It said those were the last affectionate words she would ever hear again.
Walking to security felt like walking to the underworld. Wei, Markov, Yeung and whoever else was inside would be watching the pre-recorded message now. It had been two minutes since Chandra confirmed it had gone live.
Jun looked up to the car park lamps and the portico ceiling. Digital eyes everywhere, but she has eyes watching on her side too. Lucas, Batz and the Ghettoites had arrived at the base and were walking to the secret passageway, armed with Voltarms and Immobilisers. Jun hoped it was still used and could grant them access. She could have used the secret passageway herself, but she’d rather keep that up her sleeve. If things got bad, they had the potential to use it as an escape route too.
She came to the front desk and was greeted by a guard Ai-ssistant security team. The words that she’d memorised on her way here wouldn’t come. When she was finally able to ask for Wei and Markov, the Ai-ssistant guard motioned to the Interface behind them, in a separate transparent enclosure. They seemed to talk for ages.
‘Dr. Xie?’ Her body tingled. That wasn’t who she was anymore.
One of the Ai-ssistant guards motioned to her, and the other two motioned to block her exit routes. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Was this the end, before it had even begun?
‘Dr. Markov is on his way. Please stand in front of the Tomograph so it can scan you.’
Markov came into view through the glass doors, his body angling itself through the corridor. She was taken back to twenty-five years ago, but his face
had changed. Lines wrinkled his skin, and the scar on his temple had faded from angry aubergine to cool silver-grey.
‘Dr. Markov,’ she said with conviction.
‘Your message suggested we should expect you,’ he said affably, his neck leant towards her in that conspiratorial way he had about him. ‘I’m sure you remember the way but follow me.’
They came to the corridor of the living quarters, and through the one-way glass, Jun recognised Wei at once. His pompous stance and despotic ranting.
Kodi was sat down on the bed, her limbs wrapped around her body. Her hair had been shorn right down to her scalp, which looked like it was alive, crawling with micro-filaments doused in cytoplasm. They’d changed her clothes; she was wearing piercing-white lab trousers, and a top that swamped her body. Wei hovered beside her. He saw Jun at once. His squirrel eyes moved about her, disgust infiltrating his face. He left Kodi’s side and charged, as quickly as his gaunt body would allow, to a mini-Interface on a wheeled table. His fingers furiously prodded the screen, probably removing the data and information. As soon as they entered the room, Markov jumped to his master’s coattails, both guarded the Interface.
When Kodi realised Jun was walking towards her, she uncoiled herself, limb by limb. A warmth spread across Jun’s body. Despite her shorn head and the obvious shock, Kodi seemed in reasonable health. Her vision was focused, there were no marks or lacerations on her body, and she appeared hydrated.
Jun put her hand in her pocket to check for the comm. Chandra had connected a micro-CC on her dress. It would pick up audio so they could all hear, and she would press it if she needed their support – and the weapons.
‘I would say hello, but I don’t think any of us are interested in pleasantries,’ Jun said calmly and controlled, surprising herself.
‘All this time and you’re still a caustic child,’ Wei hissed.
Jun walked over to Kodi and put her arms around her. She turned Kodi’s head to the light and checked her retinas and the pallor of her face. They seemed agreeable.
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