Warp World

by Kristene Perron

  “Is it?” Maryel studied the images of the Cathind riots on the screen. “Sabotage, as Jarin described it. This is sabotage. We may find proof of Fi Costk’s hand, but that’s doubtful. At best, the CWA would pass the disaster off as the actions of a single member, leaving us no recourse. And what do the People care of Old Town? We will find no public support for retribution, especially in light of this evening’s events. Fi Costk has played this brilliantly.”

  “I understand how the public will view this, Maryel,” Ansin said. “But this is the most direct action the CWA has ever taken against us. This is war, and the Council must be made to see that, even if it is a war of shadows.”

  Jarin’s desk-comm chimed. “All council members are summoned to emergency session in ten minutes,” the voice of the Guild Accountancy announced.

  Jarin snatched a digifilm from his desk. “Four minutes from here to the chamber, approximately. We must have our preliminary position by then. Where in the Storm is—” he stopped as the door opened.

  “It’s a party!” Shyl said in a grim imitation of Ansin’s words from their previous meeting.

  “Now is not the time for this,” Ansin said.

  “What in the name of the Storm …” Maryel exclaimed over top of him.

  Shyl pulled off her coat, which was ripped across one side, and used it to wipe away dried blood from a cut over her eye. “Rioters outside my residence. I was caught in the melee.”

  “It was your decision to reside outside the Guild compound,” Ansin said.

  “Ansin, comport yourself,” Jarin said. “Shyl, to bring you up to the present, this was a CWA operation. The shield, that is. The riot was Segkel. We have a full Council meeting in ten minutes. I expect the priority will be, and should be, dealing with the spreading riots.” He glanced at the digifilm. “Theorist Marsetto has already begun contracting raider units in-city for riot suppression. That will be bloody work. Beyond that, we have to wait for the Storm to pass before we can go to Old Town and search for survivors. I will inform the Council that the CWA is responsible for the shield failure but I lack the hard evidence that would allow us to pursue open redress.”

  “Our position on the behavior of your student?” Ansin asked. “The whole World watched him stir that mob.”

  “At present, damage control,” Jarin said. “Recriminations can come when Segkel is located and returned to the compound to answer for his behavior, but it should be handled in-house. As you say, we are at war. We will not hand our enemies any leverage. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Maryel said, almost without thought.

  Shyl turned to Jarin. “Where is Eraranat?”

  He waved toward the screen—crowds hurled debris as wardens attempted to restore order.

  “Out there.”

  In the shelter beneath the warehouse floor, there were no means to tell if it was day or night but, above ground, there was only silence, and Seg was restless. Restless enough to risk his solitary piece of electronic equipment. He pulled his digifilm from his pocket and turned it on—the crono function indicated it was morning. As much as he hated to disturb Ama’s hard-won sleep, he was anxious to get back to the World and assess the Storm damage.

  Her head rested on his lap and he placed a hand on her cheek, which felt too hot. All the more reason to get out of the shelter; they needed to find a functional auto-med for her wounds.

  She woke slowly, returning to a black, painful reality. “I was swimming; there was a man with glowing blue eyes.” Her voice was thick with sleep, half lost in a dream.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  She nodded and shifted to free his legs.

  Seg climbed the ladder and twisted the latch to open the lid but it refused to budge. He maneuvered himself in the small landing area and brought his legs to bear on the bent metal of the cover to their hideaway. Whatever had pounded it had left the door warped and stuck in place. He kicked once, twice, the impacts jarring up his legs, but the metal finally popped loose.

  He stuck his head above floor level and looked around. Rays of morning light slanted down through the line of broken windows high above. The building was still standing, but the crates were shattered and destroyed. The goods he had spent his entire fortune, and more, accumulating were in pieces—another reminder of his impending demise in the society of the World.

  He cleared a spot on the floor with his boot and reached down to offer Ama a hand up. She sucked in a breath at the motion. In the pale light he could see that the perasul bite wound on her arm was leaking through his improvised bandage.

  He didn’t have to see her feet to know they were almost as bad; Ama had never moved so slowly.

  “Stay here.” He directed her to the cleared patch of floor. “You need an auto-med and some footwear. I’ll see what I can find in this mess.”

  At her nod, he set off.

  Ama’s mouth hung open at the sight of the wreckage. The flattened contents of the warehouse were strewn from end to end, along with shards of glass from the blown out windows and a fine layer of dust carried in from the wind that now blew unchecked. She blinked her eyes against the light, then sat down on the cleared space with her only possessions in this world—a blanket, a knife, and a book.

  Now that the Storm had passed, the reason for her mad dash to her bunk came back into focus. The book: it had been open on her bunk, as if left out there for her to find. Fismar! Had he left a note? In her panic, she had simply grabbed it along with the knife and blanket, a few precious items salvaged. Anxiously, she flipped through the pages.

  A quarter of the way through, she stopped. Scrawled across one page in some kind of black grease was a large 4. She turned more pages, found a 2 in the same hand, then a 1, then a 3. Those four numbers and nothing more.

  Returning to the first number, she read the surrounding text, hoping for clues, but if there was a secret message it was beyond her. “Why didn’t you write a note?” She flipped back and forth between the inexplicable numbers.

  Seg eventually returned, carrying a battered pair of boots. “No auto-med; the Storm wiped out any electronics above ground.” He pointed to the number scrawled across the open page of the book. “What’s that?”

  “I thought it might be a message.” Ama exchanged the book for boots. The boots were only slightly too large, and despite their condition would afford good protection “When we came in, I saw the book open on my bunk. I never leave it out and Fismar would never let anyone mess with my things. I thought maybe someone left it there purposefully. But these numbers don’t make any sense.”

  Seg stared at the number for a moment, flipped back a page, then through the other pages. “It’s … something.” He flipped back and forth several times.

  “The words on the pages? Do they mean something to you?” Ama asked.

  Suddenly he handed the book back to her, reached into his pocket and pulled out his digifilm. His fingers flew across the surface.

  “Oh, Fismar.” His face lit up. “It’s a message all right. Coordinates.”

  “Coordinates?” Ama sucked in a painful breath as she knotted the laces of the boots. She rose and pressed her shoulder against Seg’s as she looked down at the digifilm.

  “Coordinates!” Seg turned to face her with a broad grin.

  Ama burst into a grin of her own.

  He reached out both hands and pulled her face to his. In the instant their lips met, she was consumed by their familiar fire. The book dropped from her hands. She closed her eyes and disappeared into the kiss, the warmth of his mouth, the scent of dust and sweat and blood on his skin. In that second, it was as if they were back on her world. Just the two of them, on the run.

  A distant pop—possibly weapons fire—brought them back to the moment, and the task ahead. They pulled apart slowly. Seg nodded to the book.

  “Those
handwritten numbers point to the page numbers of the book. When you take them in order—” He held the digifilm up and showed her an aerial image of a rocky outcropping. “It’s a location not far outside of Old Town, out in the wastes.”

  “Do you think they went there? What about the Storm? Could they survive?”

  Seg’s newly ignited optimism dimmed. “They only had four Storm cells before this happened, and those were two-person units. At best, you could cram three people into each one. Likely most of them didn’t survive.”

  A long silence trailed behind his words. Ama scooped the book off the ground and tucked it under her arm. “We have to find them. Even if— We have to go.”

  “Of course. But first we’ll need some supplies. The wastes are dangerous.” He glanced toward the door. “And these are the wastes now.”

  As if to underscore his point, a keening animal scream cut the air.

  Ama’s head turned at the sound. She nodded and started searching through mounds of broken metal and scraps of materials.

  They scoured the warehouse until the muted pops of more weapons fire in the distance halted them. Without a word, they picked their way back to the hatch and compared finds: a few tubes of veg paste, some food and water canisters, a field jacket and belt that Ama slipped over the flimsy, torn party dress. The best find was a chack and two powerpacks.

  “We’d best be going.” Seg glanced outside the open doors. Small bands of survivors were moving through the street, some obviously hunting through the wreckage in search of loot rather than survivors.

  Ama didn’t answer, just headed for the door. The thought that the Storm could return while they were out and exposed lingered in her subconscious, but there were more immediate concerns. When she had first arrived on Seg’s world, the shield had felt confining, sinister, and alien. Now, looking out at the open sky, she longed for that protective cover. Who knew what monsters roamed the lands now? Not to mention the people who had survived the previous night. Or Seg’s enemies.

  “Will anyone be looking for you?” she asked.

  “Probably everyone at this point—the CWA, the Guild, facilitators, my creditors.” He slid the chack to the ready. “Stay close,” he said, and he slipped out of the building.

  Lamenting the loss of her own chack on the slideway, she pressed even closer to Seg’s side. “Hunted. Feels like old times.”

  “Well, at least it’s less dangerous than going to a party.”

  Jarin looked around the sterile corridors of the medfac. Everywhere, Citizens lay in beds or sagged in chairs. Some even stretched out on the floor. The moans of the wounded echoed down the hallway, worse even than the aftermath of a raid gone awry.

  Ironically, this was perhaps the best place in the World for such a crisis to occur. Medfacs in Cathind were used to sudden influxes of injured People, the byproduct and expended human treasure of raids on other worlds.

  With the facility so crowded, it would be fruitless to inquire at the desk to find one man. He knew that Manatu Dibeld was here and if anyone knew where Seg was it would be his most faithful companion. Jarin rounded the corner, covertly consulting his digifilm. Manatu’s comm placed him—there.

  As Jarin approached, he noted Segkel’s bodyguard, and his servant, Lissil, but their employer and Amadahy were nowhere to be seen. His heart skipped. Manatu had proven to be doggedly loyal, unlikely to leave his employer’s side. Unless—

  “Where is Segkel?” he asked Manatu, without preamble.

  “Theorist.” Manatu groaned and tried to stand. Jarin motioned for him to sit, which he did, gratefully. “He ordered me back here.” Manatu nodded to Lissil. “Wounded in the shootout. I left him at the slideway station.”

  “He went to Old Town? Before the shield came down?” Jarin raised his hands and shook them, exasperated. “How did he— What was he thinking?”

  “Don’t know,” Manatu said. “He makes up his mind, nothing stops him.”

  “Theorist Svestil,” Lissil said. Her voice was faint and her once-grand costume was in bloody tatters. “Have you not heard from him?”

  “No, I have not.” Jarin bent down and put his hand on her shoulder. “You will be cared for, you have my promise. Trooper Dibeld, if nothing else occurs I would contract you for the short term to the Guild and see to your medical expenses, if you are willing.”

  “Kind of you, Theorist,” Manatu said. “But he’ll be back.”

  “Very well. You can wait for word at his residence, I’m sure.”

  Jarin turned and marched away before they could see the worried expression forming on his face.

  Efectuary Akbas stood against the far wall outside of Director Fi Costk’s office, waiting. When it came to the Director, waiting was expected. He was a man who believed in frequent reminders of status. With his employees, this translated into moments such as this—he sitting at his desk, casually scrolling through a digifilm, while she stood motionless outside the door, silent until he beckoned.

  While this unnerved others, Jul Akbas was never one to waste time. She used this opportunity to review what little she knew of the current situation. Fi Costk had been close-lipped for most of the ride from the Haffset estate to Orhalze but she had an idea that he had been very busy of late.

  The shield over Old Town had been decommissioned with no warning. Obviously the Director’s doing, though he would be sure to keep his name out of it. Undoubtedly, the event would be framed as an unfortunate accident. With no means of escape from the Storm, it could be assumed that the majority of Old Town’s thirty thousand Citizens must be dead. Rescue crews had been dispatched from Cathind and Orhalze—the latter with a tremendous public display of concern—and were busy searching through the rubble. They wouldn’t find much and once the shock had worn off life would continue as usual.

  Perhaps not as usual in every respect. The loss of two hundred and fifty thousand warehoused caj would be a serious blow to Cathind’s economy.

  Old Town was a relic. A decaying reminder of the Guild’s past glory. Sentimental nonsense. And wasteful. The shield should have come down decades ago, though admittedly the timing had worked in their favor. Eraranat’s barbarians would have been caught unprepared, a thought that lifted the corners of Akbas’s thin lips.

  As for Eraranat, the riot in Cathind was his doing, but a boon nonetheless. Svestil’s protégé, with a few words to the brainless herd, had done more damage to the Guild than decades of CWA political maneuvering.

  It took a concerted effort to keep the smile off her face. She had known all along the obnoxious deviant would be the Guild’s undoing.

  The doors to Fi Costk’s office cycled open and a pair of uniformed caj stepped out. Their heads were shaved and their clothing was nothing but bland, loose coveralls that concealed their gender. They could well have been twins; their height and facial structure were nearly identical. Each caj took station on the opposite side of the door and, with the appropriate hand, gestured that the way was open.

  Akbas stepped forward, then almost stumbled. A frightened gasp escaped her lips. There was no floor below her feet. At least, that was the illusion. Her former superior had warned her about Fi Costk’s favorite toy when she had accepted her promotion to Efectuary, but hearing about and experiencing were two different matters.

  The floor is solid, she told herself, and she forced her legs to move. But the effect of staring down at the city of Orhalze far, far below her was dizzying. When she finally arrived at Fi Costk’s desk, she fought the urge to clutch it with both hands.

  Behind her, the wall projectors hummed to life to complete the illusion. Around them, above and below, projectors created the simulation that the office floated above all of Orhalze. The desk and the two simple chairs in front of it seemed to hover in the air. The floor, slightly padded, made no sound as one walked over it, completing the illusion. Fi
Costk did not look up as she entered; he studied the digipad in front of him for several long moments before he put it down on his desk. He reached forward and folded his hands together as he looked at her.

  “Efectuary Akbas,” he said.

  She waited for him to continue. When he did not, she cleared her throat. “Yes, Director?” She hated the tone of her voice, so juvenile and pathetic.

  “You have pursued a non-directed vendetta against Theorist Segkel Eraranat, to the extent of diverting Authority resources to this end. This is a criminal act, for which you could be divested of position, fined for the expense and interest, imprisoned, or possibly even grafted. You have determined by this point that I will not be doing any of these things.”

  She choked down the words she wanted to use in defense and merely nodded. “Yes, Director. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me, Efectuary. My judgment was made purely on the basis that you could well produce effective work once more. If this turns out to be incorrect, the Authority will have no further use for your services. This will be the last opportunity, Akbas.”

  “Understood,” she said. “What comes next, if you’ll pardon the boldness, Director?”

  Fi Costk tapped a control on his desk. Behind him the Orhalze skyline faded away and was replaced by a series of images—the devastation of Old Town, the aftermath of the riots in Cathind, and images of Segkel Eraranat and Jarin Svestil.

  “Next, we finish this war, Efectuary. Until such time as we confirm his death or grafting, your sole objective and focus will be on Segkel Eraranat.”

  Once more, the floor seemed to drop away beneath her, though the ground was solid under her feet. Her actions had not only been pardoned, they had been sanctioned. At last, she could hunt.

  Jarin rubbed his face with both hands as the Guild Council chamber degenerated into yelling once more. Rather than dealing with the issues at hand, his esteemed colleagues were busy carving up responsibility and doling it out to those who could be blamed.