Sci-Fi Fantasy Collection (A Citizen Tale Books 1 & 2)

by S. K. Holder

  ‘I no longer have the files,’ said Skelos. ‘And you?’

  Osaphar shook his head ‘Mine were destroyed in the fires. You remember.’

  Oh, yes, the fires. Years ago, the summer fires reached the Pareus perimeter and destroyed many homes, Osaphar’s among them.

  ‘I wonder now what was on it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to us what was on it. It matters to someone in the Parliamentary Elite. Don’t share what I have told you with Nylthia.’

  Skelos nodded. Evidently, Osaphar hadn’t heard that his wife had walked out on him.

  ~

  After Osaphar had left, Skelos packed up all he could carry. That night he went to the city vaults to retrieve the encrypted file. It was not there. There was no indication that the vault had been broken into. He could have taken it out, misplaced elsewhere. He was too tired to do a more thorough search. It was late, and he was desperate to lay his head on a pillow for the night − assassin or no assassin.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Skelos arrived home to a warm meal of roruck meat, fish eggs, and green roots courtesy of his efficient chef droid. He kicked off his shoes and sat down on the couch.

  A circular dining table rose from the floor, and a droid laid the plate of food before him. Skelos gulped it down as if it was water. After the day’s events, he needed a strong drink. He speared the roruck meat. It oozed purple blood. He liked his haunch of meat rare. He bit into it and summoned the droid for more wine.

  Amelia stared out of the window that looked on to the gardens, just as Nylthia had once done. He wondered if she secretly missed her. ‘How was your day, Uncle?’ she said, turning from the window.

  She is mocking me. Mocking my memory of Nylthia. He wanted to get the woman out of his mind. He had closed his heart to her as soon as she stepped out of the door. Sentiment and emotion would tear him apart and take him down a path from which there was no return. Despair was not tolerated in the House of Dorm.

  ‘Move from the window, Amelia. Move away at once!’

  The girl came away from the window. She wore a violet dress. The skirt of the dress made her look as if she were midway up a hill. And the bow on the neckline was so large, it almost eclipsed her face.

  ‘Is that the manner in which you greet me?’ he snapped.

  ‘No, Uncle. Sorry. I’m pleased to see you, Uncle.’ She gave a courtesy and sat down.

  ‘That’s better.’ He wiped the meat juice from his lips with his napkin.

  Amelia watched him eat. He found her stare was unbearable. She obviously had something to say.

  He was starting to lose his appetite. He gazed at her. ‘What did you want to say, Amelia?’

  ‘I was wondering what happened to my parents?’

  ‘They’re on Kaltharine where they have been for the past four months.’ He wondered what was on the encrypted file that Eron had given him and why he had entrusted him with it.

  ‘Not them. My real parents.’

  Skelos set down his fork. Why is she bringing this to me now? While I have this whole retched assassin business to contend with? ‘What are you talking about?’ He dare not look at her despite the fact her expression remained unchanged. She seldom smiled or cried, but she did laugh, often at things he didn’t find amusing.

  ‘Mother told me yesterday. She said that she and father adopted me after my real parents abandoned me.’

  Satcha was a cunning woman, he’d give her that. She must have relished telling Amelia that she had not given birth to her. Her motives were clear. She wanted to make her Skelos’s responsibility and chastise him for discrediting the House of Dorm name that she had married into.

  ‘I don’t know anything about your real parents. It was a closed adoption. You shouldn’t dwell on it.’

  He didn’t want Amelia to know that he was the one who had found her on his doorstep, and he had caught a glimpse of the man who had left her there. He was too dumbfounded to go after him. Reluctant to take on the burden of child, he had given her to his brother, Aughen, who at the time had been thinking of starting a family. Aughen had a son from his previous marriage, but he had borne no children with Satcha.

  Aughen had tracked down Amelia’s real father, a First Status Citizen from the city of Whirim.

  The child’s mother was dead. The father was wanted for murder and had been exiled shortly after. The details of his crime remained a mystery.

  Aughen had kept the details of whatever arrangement he had made with the girl’s fugitive father to himself. And there had to have been some arrangement as the adoption was never official, and her abandonment was never made public.

  ‘Is it true they abandoned me?’ she asked. ‘Mother said, you asked them to take me, that you were the one who found me. Is it true?’

  He thought about denying it, but he wanted Amelia to trust him when nobody else did.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘They abandoned you. I was too busy to give you the attention you required, and my brother and sister-in-law can’t have children−’

  ‘But father has a son, doesn’t he? There’s a picture of him in their flower garden.’

  Curse Satcha and her vengefulness. He had forgotten about that one picture in the flower garden. ‘He’s gone. They hardly speak of him.’ This was true. Aughen hadn’t spoken to his son in eight years; hadn’t seen him in two. ‘Don’t tell me you want to go looking for them because we haven’t the time or the work force.’

  ‘I don’t want to find them. My life is in the palm of the Maker. What is to become of us, Uncle?’

  Skelos helped himself to a drink from the cabinet. What is to become of me? Experiments were not always successful on the first attempt and before a live audience when one’s nerves were frayed. He would use theses excuses to form the basis of his appeal. There was no harm in trying. It was better than drinking himself into a stupor every night.

  ‘Uncle?’

  ‘You needn’t worry, Amelia.’

  ‘Mother and father haven’t called today.’ She gulped. ‘And they didn’t call yesterday.’

  He gazed at her. She had taken his seat on the couch. Is she going to cry?

  To appease the child, Skelos contacted his brother. He knew Aughen’s lack of contact had nothing to do with the child and everything to do with his failed demonstration and the unfortunate Thruen. His brother was always cautious in matters that might be detrimental to the family name.

  Aughen and Satcha appeared on the holo-display dressed in matching blue tunics. His brother’s shoulders were as broad as the back of the chair in which he sat. Satcha sat so close to her husband their was hair entangled; his brother’s coarse locks with his wife’s spikey mane. The Kaltharine sun had turned Satcha’s skin a mottled blue.

  ‘We heard what happened…oh, hello, Amelia,’ said Aughen.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ said Amelia. ‘Hello, Mother. How are you?’

  ‘Very well, my treasure,’ said Satcha, flashing her jagged teeth. She looked at Skelos, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘I think we should have this conversation in private,’ said Aughen.

  Skelos sent Amelia away.

  ‘It was obviously an accident,’ said Skelos, after she had gone. ‘The nature of the job.’

  Satcha grimaced and sighed.

  Skelos didn’t want to give Satcha the satisfaction of knowing that she had angered him by telling Amelia about her adoption.

  ‘Rent Stores outside the city and continue your neurorobotics work there,’ Aughen advised. ‘Regain the Establishment’s trust.’

  ‘I tire of such work.’

  ‘Don’t you understand the implications of what you have done? The Parliamentary Elite see you as a threat. It is one thing to create cybernetic organisms with Citizen DNA and quite another to try to delve into the workings of a Citizen’s minds, to read it. Such exploration is dangerous and could be misinterpreted. Some believe that you are plotting against the government.’

  ‘That’s absurd,’ said Skelos. ‘I h
ave no reason to plot against anyone.’ But given time…

  ‘What you think doesn’t matter,’ said Aughen. ‘It’s what they think.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Skelos had been dreaming about the time he spent in the Red Caves as a child; a time when he, Osaphar, and Eron were still friends, when he sensed there was someone or something in the room with him. He felt a chill on his leg. He jerked it back under the covers and found himself carted to the floor. He thrashed his arms about in the semi-darkness. He didn’t cry out at first; part of his brain was still locked in the dream.

  The sharp barb that sprung from the droid’s head missed Skelos’s own and struck him in the shoulder. He had spun away at just the right moment. A barb to the head may have been the end for him. He gave a yelp of pain as the barb pierced his shoulder.

  He slammed open the door to the balcony and leapt over the wall. The droid followed, zipping through the air, its barb whirring angrily. He ran quite some distance in his nightwear, yelling with hysteria, until he calmed down, came to his senses and realised that he had control of the droid. He closed his eyes for one split second, seized the droid with one hand and slammed into the ground. It died as only droids can die, with a spark, a screech and a hiss.

  That was close. Too close. The Thruens were getting better. He strode back into the house and immediately went to check on Amelia. He discovered she had slept through the whole ordeal.

  He contacted a company called Secure Homes and asked them to provide high-grade sentinel cyborgs: the type that were difficult to hijack. He then contacted Nylthia via a visual link and informed her of the threat.

  ‘We’ll step up our enquiries,’ she advised him. ‘And I shall see to it you have every protection.’ She then signed off without saying any more.

  Skelos accessed the surveillance records from the previous night. He saw no one enter, but he did see a house droid drift into the gardens overlooking the living room area and reappear an hour later. He could have sworn he saw a shadow by the trees. He replayed the footage over and over again until his head hurt and he no longer knew what he was seeing. The shadow became a branch, and then the moon, and then nothing.

  He took the house droid apart. It was fitted with a tiny tracking device, which could have caused the droid to malfunction. He checked the other two house droids. He found no irregularities in either of them.

  ~

  By mid-morning he had put the attack on his life to the back of his mind. He thought about what his brother had said. He trusted his word. He should try to regain the Establishment’s trust. He thought about renting Stores outside the city.

  A droid brought him food. It wasn’t until he had finished eating it that he noticed Amelia had not appeared for breakfast. She usually rose before him.

  He went to look for her. She was not in her room. He went into the gardens and visited the glass bench where she often sat. He found it bare. His heart started to beat a little faster. His throat felt tight. He sat on the glass bench trying to catch his breath. He tried to call Amelia’s name, but in the throes of his panic attack he only managed rasping breaths. His sixth sense told him she was gone. He clutched his hand to his chest to quell his palpations. He stalked inside and opened the drinks cabinet. He downed half a bottle of Primnicott. He felt world his collapse around him, his Status fading.

  Could she had have gone to see his brother and sister-in-law? I should have let her talk to them a while longer before sending her to bed.

  He called Osaphar and told him of Amelia’s disappearance. He arrived within the hour.

  ‘I warned you,’ said Osaphar, the moment he stepped through the door. ‘Did you not take any of the precautionary measures I advised?’

  Skelos led him into the living room. ‘There is no trace of her on the Nano databank.’

  All Citizens had a nano-chip inserted under their skin, six weeks after birth. But if the nano-chip was faulty or had been tampered with, it didn’t always show up on the databank.

  Skelos helped himself to a glass of Primnicott and offered one to Osaphar, which he declined. ‘This hasn’t anything to do with the conspiracy theories of yesteryear. She may have run away.’ He stared out of the window at the glass bench. The aerial drone had skimmed over the garden. He thought about sending it out again – to be certain.

  ‘Then why call me?’

  ‘I didn’t know who else to call.’

  Osaphar raised his eyebrows. ‘Her parents?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We have to find her first. She can’t have gone far. I’ve sent out an aerial drone and the sentinels are on alert. If someone had abducted her, we would have received some communication from her captors by now.’ He glugged down his glass of wine. ‘Can you not sit? You’re making me nervous.’

  Osaphar leaned against the wall, his arms folded. ‘I think you’re doing that all by yourself. I’ll get a search party organised. You should lay off the drink. You need to stay alert.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he set his glass down. ‘Be discreet.’

  ‘I think you should leave here.’

  Can he make no practical suggestions? ‘No. They have my Stores. They cannot have my home as well. Besides, Amelia will not know where to look if I were to leave now.’ He poured himself another glass of wine and stared out of the window as he sipped it.

  Osaphar left without saying goodbye. Skelos failed to notice. He spent two long hours gazing out of the window before grabbing a half-finished bottle of Primnicott and sinking into his chair. After a few swigs from the bottle, he fell fast asleep.

  He had the most vicious nightmares. The Thruens attacked him in his bed, slashing at him with spears and long knives. Like savages. This nightmare was followed by an army of cyborgs who shot him at Nylthia’s command.

  He woke in a cold sweat. The near empty bottle of Primnicott rolled off his lap and smashed onto the floor. He scrambled up and grabbed his father’s Bolt-Shot whip from a cabinet on the wall. Then in the eerie silence, he patrolled the great house, vowing to stay awake in case anyone or anything came in or out of it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Two days had passed, and Amelia had not been found. As Osaphar had said it would be a discreet operation. So discreet was it, in fact, Skelos questioned whether or not a search was being conducted. Finding her should not have been an issue. However, if her disappearance were to be made public, it would bring him enough unwarranted attention, and he had enough to last him a lifetime. He could only imagine the burgeoning of his brother’s wrath if he learned of his daughter’s disappearance, in light of his catastrophic demonstration.

  He has spent the past two nights wrapped up in his woes, sleeping on a chair. His supply of Primnicott was running dry, and he turned to his beloved Zaskian with a price tag so high that every sip was bittersweet.

  He heaved himself from the chair and stretched his arms above his head. He glanced at the window.

  And there he saw her, sitting on the glass bench with her hands in her lap. She wore a silk crepe dress and a rose garland headband. Skelos opened the patio doors in haste, afraid that he was in some half-crazed dream. He lunged at Amelia, pulling her to his chest in a tight, almost manic embrace. Yes, it was her. She was real. He let her go. She moved past him, staring ahead of her. He followed her gaze. She was looking at the arched Pylori tree with its thick green buds and flagella blowing in the light morning breeze. Its bows were heavy with dark fruit.

  Is this a trap? Is another assassin waiting in the garden for me?

  ‘Amelia,’ he grabbed her shoulders and pivoted her in his direction. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve been here.’

  ‘You can’t have been here. You’ve been missing for two days. What do you remember?’

  ‘I remember going for a walk in the gardens and sitting on this bench, and then, I think I saw a ghost. Yes, that was it, Uncle. I saw a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost? Where did you learn that word?’ Ghosts did not exist, nor mor
e so than the Maker. Such words had been created to annotate the unexplained; they carried no true meaning.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did this-this ghost ask you for something?’

  ‘It asked me if I lived here?’

  ‘That was all?’

  ‘There might have been more. I don’t remember.’

  He ushered the child inside. My enemies are trying to put fear in me. Ghosts were things of myth and legend, often aligned with other worlds, but not their world. Amelia captors must have modified her mind. It was the only explanation. He was certain of it. They had planted the ‘ghost’ in her head to make her forget the events leading up to her abduction. He didn’t want another night of uninvited guests in his home.

  ~

  That night he took Amelia to a Secure Homes safe house and returned home alone. He informed Osaphar of Amelia’s unexplained return and instructed him to call off the search.

  He went out into the garden and sat where she sat, on the glass bench that looked on to the Pylori tree. He sat there for close to an hour before he saw it. It wasn’t the tree she had been looking at, he realised. It was the glasshouse behind the tree. He had only ever entered it twice. It was where Nylthia grew her exotic and sometimes deadly plants. He hastened to the glass house armed with his Bolt-Shot whip, and an extendable metal rod, good enough to knock someone off their feet if they were to catch him up.

  The interior of the glasshouse was hot and sticky. Someone had shut the skylight.

  Nylthia harboured a large collection of the Opis plant. Its stringy purple tentacles were poisonous if digested. The release of poison was slow, too slow to kill a Citizen. There were orange flowers and blue bulbs that had not yet opened. Some of the plants grew in small life-chambers, others were in modified pots that gave them all the nourishment and artificial sunlight they needed. One of the plant life-chambers had been smashed.