The Golden Circuit (The Smith Chronicles)

by John K. Irvine

  Suddenly, Mikita began to sense the beginnings of the energy within her; that painful shock of power and light that seemed to come when she least expected it.

  Hanoi grabbed her arms and tried to bring her close to him, tried to hug her, to kiss her, as if he was seeking some sort of desperate absolution. He pawed at her, like he wanted to possess her.

  Mikita could feel the fire inside increasing, that awful flame gaining in its ability. “No, Hanoi Stop it, Hanoi, stop! Keep away from me!”

  Still he came at her, his neck straining to reach her face, his lips aggressively pursed.

  Mikita felt the overwhelming, aurulent strength surge along the length of her spine and up the back of her neck, sending a hot jet of potency out to her extremities. It filled her with an unbelievable force that she felt powerless to control. She thrashed out, blindly, but somehow landing a thunderous blow to Hanoi’s chest.

  It sent him flying across the room.

  Hanoi crashed into a large mirror on the wall, his neck whipping back with the horrific sound of tendons snapping and bones breaking - then fell to the floor with a heavy thud as shards of reflective glass dropped down on top of his now motionless body.

  Mikita looked down at her hands.

  Then reality kicked in - like it always did in Mikita’s life.

  No… No… NO!

  She ran over to Hanoi and knelt down beside him. There was blood, everywhere. So much of it, everywhere. She began to sob. “Hanoi? Hanoi, wake up. Wake up, you fool! Don’t just lie there! You said you loved me! If you really loved me, you’d draining well wake up!”

  She crumpled, racked with guilt, as tears began to stream down her face.

  She felt sick. Sick to her stomach.

  She threw up onto the floor beside her.

  Ugh, what is happening to me!

  Her mind began to flood with panic, her thoughts jumping from one thing to the other:

  Oh fire, I was so angry. I’ve never been that angry before…

  And now I’ve killed someone! I’ve actually killed another human being! With my bare hands!

  No. It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it. I only meant to push him away.

  I’ll phone the TTF and explain to them what happened, that it was all a big mistake. Yes, that’s what I’ll do…

  They’ll never believe me. Look at this place, it’s a mess.

  And the block, it’s full of people - people like Vannerman and Taarja…

  Polo. I’ll text Polo…

  She went to her bag, found her meta-file and began a message:

  [Polo, I think I’ve killed Hanoi? Help Me! M]

  She was about to press send, when…

  No! Wait! she thought. What am I doing! TAPCON could easily pick that up! Short and simple, Mikita, keep it short and simple.

  She changed the message, hastily.

  [P, I’m in trouble. Meet me? Please? M]

  She pressed send.

  She started to walk around Hanoi’s lounge, waiting for Polo to text her back.

  She looked again at Hanoi’s body and thought, for a second, that she saw it move. Maybe he’s not dead… But her eyes were playing tricks on her and blood was still seeping out of the wound to his head. A long pool of dark red was moving along the floor towards her.

  This can’t be real!

  At that very moment, Mikita felt a sharp nudging of neurones from somewhere in the back her mind, as a long-forgotten memory was triggered and then shunted to the forefront of her consciousness.

  Maybe I could try and heal him? Like the qi-bird… with mother.

  Mikita put her meta-file into her pocket and went over to Hanoi’s body. She knelt down beside him and reached out to touch him. His hair was matted with blood. It felt sticky in her hands and his head felt heavy. She forced herself to carry on.

  Mikita tried to clear her thoughts, tried to blank out what had just happened. She needed to focus her concentration on something – anything! But it was so hard to do. In vain she searched her mind for a suitable image or object, something calming, something peaceful. But what? She closed her eyes and tried to think. Nothing came. She breathed in through her nose and out slowly through her mouth, as if blowing out a… candle. Yes, that’s it! She steadied herself and brought the image of a candle flame to her mind’s eye - the centre, burning soft and yellow - and there, she could see it, the calm azure of the blue zone, giving heat, giving light, giving life.

  …

  Nothing.

  She opened her eyes - try harder, Mikita, concentrate! - and took another deep breath.

  Closing her eyes again, she thought of her mother. She focused on the grief; on the pain that she'd felt the day her mother had killed herself; when she was told what had happened by the nice, tall man from the airbase. ‘She was a special person,’ he’d said. ‘And so are you.’ She’d remembered those kind words he'd said to her. Then slowly, steadily, she felt the sensation begin again. It was very faint, like a soft tickle, except unpleasant and with an ominous latency, like the origins of an approaching fulmination - but it was working this time. The force was transforming the very matter within her, the very substance of her being. And then, it came - up and out - giving Mikita a near voltaic surge down her arms and onwards to her fingertips. An impossible eruption of warmth emanated from her now; a glorious healing power moving towards Hanoi’s skull, his head began to glow underneath her hands.

  “Open up, Miss Smith! Open this door immediately!” shouted a voice from outside Hanoi’s flat.

  Mikita flinched in surprise, and all the power, she’d worked so hard to summon up, suddenly drained from her body in a whoosh - like a huge electronic system powering down.

  “This is the TTF! Open the door! Immediately!”

  Oh, fire!

  “Miss Smith! You must open the door, or we will have to break it down! Let’s deal with this peacefully! We don’t want to have to use force! We don’t want to hurt you!”

  Oh, Fire! Fire! Draining Fire!

  She looked around the flat for inspiration, for a getaway.

  The TAPCON agents were shouting and yelling to each other outside in the corridor.

  Then, it hit her.

  Fire. Of course! This building is a Brownstone replica, they had fire escapes in the back!

  It was her only chance. There was no other way out of the tenement, except the front door, but that wasn’t an option. Not with an entire Task Force squadron out there waiting for her.

  But it’s so high up! I’m on the 12th floor!

  “Miss Smith!” warned the agent, again. “We are now breaking down the door! Please stand clear!”

  Mikita hadn’t a second to lose. She rushed over to the window of the lounge and opened it wide. A gust of wind tore into the room. She thrust her head outside and looked down.

  12 draining floors!

  The fire escape was located about 10ft to the right of the window.

  She would need to walk along a thin ledge to get there and it was beginning to get dark outside.

  Taking a deep breath Mikita put her right leg out over the sill and felt for a foothold. Her foot slipped a few times, but eventually she found her footing and ducked down under the window and out into the gale. She steadied herself and tried not to look down, keeping her back hard up against the stonework. The wind was gusting so much now, she could barely maintain her balance, yet, somehow, steeling herself, she started to make her way, inch by inch, towards the fire escape.

  There was an almighty crash from inside the apartment. The door had been broken down and she could tell from the men’s angry vociferations that they were in the flat looking for her.

  She had to hurry.

  And now the wind was really picking up!

  Mikita made her way along the slender precipice until eventually she ran out of ledge. The fire escape was only a few feet away, if she could just reach out and grab the railing…

  Then, suddenly, Mikita felt the building lurch towards o
ne side and she was thrown off in the direction of the escape. The railings caught her painfully in the midriff as she toppled forwards and flipped over the bar onto the platform. She landed on her rear with a thump. So, Dontai was right, she thought. It really does move in the wind.

  Mikita got up. The escape was in a bad state of repair and it wobbled uncertainly under her weight. She made for the connecting stairs, the structure creaking with every step she took. Some of the iron railings gave way when she grabbed at them, but she carried on.

  At the window of Hanoi’s flat a TAPCON agent stuck his head out. He caught sight of Mikita and yelled down at her: “Miss Smith! Stop where you are!”

  Mikita carried on down the stairs as fast as she could. She was running for her life.

  “Miss Smith, I do not want to have to shoot! Please stop where you are!”

  No, I won’t stop! Not now!

  “Stop, Miss Smith! This is your last warning!”

  No! Not ever!

  A shot rang out and ricocheted off the grating above her head. Mikita ducked in fright, then stumbled, but still managed to keep her legs moving. Down, down the stairs she went, like a pinball bouncing off the bumpers.

  Mikita realised that she was only exposed to the gunman at one end of the fire escape, so she tried to go as quickly as possible through these sections. She kept her limbs pumping and continually dodged from side to side making it as difficult as she could for the agent to draw a bead on her. It was getting quite dark now and this would help, but she needed all the assistance she could get.

  Mikita was at the fifth story of the building. Not far to go now, Mikita, keep moving, she told herself, as another shot was fired from Hanoi’s window. She felt a strong rush of air go fizzing past her temple, yet still she sped on.

  At last she'd reached the bottom of the escape. This final platform was about 20ft from the ground and had a hinged ladder connected to the underside that, normally, could swing down to the street below. There was only a small section of it left. The rest had been broken off or damaged somehow leaving a rusty, mangled mass of metal. Mikita would have to jump the last 20ft.

  She turned around to climb down onto the remaining scrap of ladder as a further shot was fired from above.

  She felt contact - a sharp, searing pain in her arm - and let go of the top rung.

  She felt herself falling.

  Falling down, head first, towards the dark alley below.

  Chapter 7

  20:25 - Saturday, July 28, 2187 (Aarmaten District, Baal-500)

  Phil Jameson and Tina Gössner had known each other since their Space Academy days - but they had gone their separate ways after that. Tina, into the Interplanetary Medical School, and Jameson, to Starship Pilot Training and Flight Management. They both got married and, further down the line, both ended up on their own - albeit for different reasons.

  Tina had made her way through Med School with ease. Her main scientific interests were in alien life forms and she'd published several papers on various creatures from nearby planets whilst still studying. Her work on the tiny, and seldom seen, Seba Lynx (a feline furball from the planet Seba-23) had set the scientific world alight and brought her a PhD from the Med School. Her personal life, however, was not nearly as rewarding.

  Tina married Jack Gössner (a surgeon, specialising in advanced alien to human transplants) and stayed with him for 12 years, until his philandering ways finally took its toll on her, and she left him. ‘There’s only so many times your best friend can treat you like dirt before you say enough is enough’ - Tina was fond of saying. They’d had a child, Jana, so, at least in Tina’s eyes, the marriage had not been an entire waste of time. Out here in space though she was on her own - except for Jameson, that is. But sometimes she didn’t know if hanging around with the Captain was worth all the effort.

  Philip Stephen Jameson was your archetypal airman. He came top of his class in Pilot Training, and soon found himself moving up the ranks of TAPCON’s burgeoning airforce. The captain of a Space Cruiser by the age of 26 and, then, the newly built Starship Hawk, at the tender age of 31, such a speedy line of ascension had never been achieved amongst TAPCON’s graduates. Needless to say, starships became his life - and they still were. He was a flyer through and through.

  His marriage to his wife Mharianne was fraught with difficulty. It was a tempestuous union, both of them young, ambitious types, passionate in their work. Mharianne’s job was at the airbase in security, high up the ranks and very well paid. However, things started to go wrong for them while she was putting together a report on in-house corruption: Mharianne suddenly became gravely ill. The TAPCON doctors put it down to some new super-bug, but she never got better - the illness simply wouldn’t go away.

  Mharianne would eventually die from a gunshot wound under the chin, not the super-bug. It was presumed to be suicide, though no note, no letter of explanation, no real clue as to why (or if) she’d done it, was ever found. The case was quickly closed, but Jameson had never agreed with the verdict. Mharianne just wouldn’t do that, he told himself, time and time again.

  He backed-off on his workload and got some help from the psyche team. Over the next few months his friends started to tell him to let it go, that it was crushing him. “Get back to flying, Phil. Do what you love. Move on with your life,” they said.

  And gradually, he did.

  Jameson disliked David Sempre and the whole TAPCON set-up, but he would do a lot of things he didn’t like in order to keep flying. And TAPCON were true to their word, they’d held his job for him. He was reliable. Solid. A paradigm of workman-like application. He was someone they valued and, thereafter, Jameson’s achievements were of the highest order:

  1. Defeating the Hoqut’al Kuo in their attempt to conquer Meai-18533.

  2. Leading a one-starship attack on the Moonsmen Group - notorious illegal arms dealers from the planet Yolanda-CDI.

  3. Rescuing two TAPCON pilots stranded on Fuschia-2609(b) after they had jettisoned from their maimed spacecraft in the Pocket Rocket-16.

  The list went on, and on.

  And now, he was with Tina, attractive, intelligent, with a razor-sharp wit. But even she didn’t know everything about Jameson - not many people did. And those that did, had been dead now for some time.

  Jameson got out of the lift and made his way through Sub-Section 1 towards the Medical Lab.

  Tina was still running what tests she could on Zanthu’s muidog. It was in bad shape from continually gnawing and biting itself, and from whatever else was causing the dog’s physical and mental distress.

  “How’s the pooch, Tina?” asked Jameson.

  “It doesn’t look good, Phil. I’d hazard that this will turn out to be a post-mortem rather than a rehab.”

  “That bad, huh? Well, the Code youth is very attached to the thing. He’ll take it hard. I would have a sedative handy for him when he hears the news.”

  “Gotcha, will do. And Phil, there’s something else I need to tell -” Tina was interrupted.

  “How is my Spoolu? Has she recovered yet?” It was Zanthu, with Lead-Out running up behind him.

  “Sorry, sir, ma’am,” she offered. “He was desperate for news of his dog. I couldn’t stop him.”

  “It’s OK, Lead-Out,” said Tina, looking over at Jameson. He nodded. “Zanthu. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the prognosis is not good for Spoolu. She has multiple lacerations to her entire body and has lost a lot of blood. We could lose her at any moment. I’m so sorry.”

  Zanthu’s face was ashen.

  “We will do our best for her, to make her as comfortable as possible, for what little time she has left.”

  Zanthu managed a smile of thanks, but underneath he was stricken with anguish.

  “Lead-Out,” began the Captain. “Could you take Zanthu back to his room?”

  “No! No! I want to be with Spoolu! Please? Let me hold her?” implored the young Code. “Please, Captain Jameson? For a few minutes?”


  “Yes, yes, of course Zanthu. You can have a moment or two. Corporal, sit with Zanthu for a few minutes will you? But don’t let him get in Dr. Gössner’s way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then, taking Jameson aside to where they could talk in private, Tina said: “Phil, listen - what I was trying to tell you before? About the muidog? We found something. In its ear, there was a device of some kind. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  She took Jameson into the lab’s anteroom where she'd setup the Argon’s transmission electron microscope. “Take a look at this,” she said, ominously.

  Jameson stooped over the scope and looked down through the eyepiece. He adjusted the fine focus a notch or two and there, pinioned by a force-field mechanism, was what looked to be a tiny, winged insect. Except this one appeared to be metallic, like it had on some kind of hi-tech armour. And it was struggling to free itself from the electromagnetic prison Gössner had set for it.

  “What the heck is that?” asked Jameson, looking up at her.

  “I’m not sure. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this little mite here is the cause of what’s been happening on Baal-500.”

  “Is it a Code device? Maybe it’s got something do to with the Linking process? We can ask Zanthu about this, right now. He may be able to shed some light.”

  “Wait, Phil. I don’t think this technology belongs to the Codes. This has more than an essence of malice about it. It’s definitely come from the mind of one angry individual.”

  “But that would mean either the Codes are lying about being peace-loving zealots or there’s another party involved.”

  “I’m going with your second interpretation.”

  Jameson thought to himself for a second. “We need Gadget in on this.”

  Tina nodded.

  Jameson went back into the main lab area. “Lead-Out, get down to Technical and ask Corporal Gadget to come up here. And I want every member of the crew down here in Medical, now. Tell them we have an emergency!”

  He didn’t show it on his granite-like visage, but Jameson was already beginning to reappreciate why he normally did things ‘by-the-book’.