Anaze looked around, taking in his new location.
Jet’s eyes followed his.
She didn’t recognize the setting from any of her own runs, but the place bore some resemblance to an ancient history video she’d once seen about Astet. It didn’t look exactly the same, but it might be a fantastical version, or an older historical period.
The pullers certainly weren’t above creating purely fictional environments, so trying to ID the exact location was likely pointless. Jet doubted it would help him to know the precise virtual setting for his planned torture and murder anyway, and she couldn’t communicate with him even if she figured it out.
It wasn’t like back home, where he had a prayer of winning this thing.
Still, Jet didn’t get the feeling this place was purely fictional.
In fact, something about it struck her as almost familiar, even though she was positive she’d never done a run here herself.
She’d forgotten Laksri sat beside her, touching her, until he spoke.
“You are right,” he said. “It is not purely fictional. Nor is it prehistory. This is present day. It is the wildlife refuge of Green Zone Ubati, on Earth.”
Pausing, he met Jet’s gaze, his eyes faintly outlined in the virtual landscape.
“You have never been there before, Jet, but it takes up the entire land-mass of the largest Green Zone on Earth. Much of it is reserved for the non-human indigenous life forms that still exist on your world. It was thought they could be used to re-populate species, following the environmental repair.”
Laksri paused, then added in a flatter voice,
“It is also where the spiritual branch of the Royal family lives, Jet,” he added. “The Shinkara live in Ubati. Those who are said to be directly descended from our gods. The Shinkara do not rule on the secular plane. However, they still technically wield power over the ultimate fate of the Nirreth Empire. They do not generally exercise this power, or intervene in the making of laws, the governing of bodies, or the use of the military… but that power is there.”
“Why not?” Jet said, still watching Anaze. “Why don’t they intervene?”
Laksri smiled faintly in the virtual landscape.
“They would likely say… it is not their place,” he said, softer. “But, as I said, they are the ultimate decision-makers for our people. They wield a power that has never been questioned, nor stolen, nor usurped… not once in the history of our civilization. The Shinkara last exercised that power over three hundred of your Earth years ago, to remove a government that they felt would set the history of the Nirreth on a course so dangerous that it threatened the survival of our very species.”
Laksri let out a purring sigh.
“…Once that branch of the Royals had been excised, they returned to their reclusive ways. The Shinkara have since stayed out of all factional struggles. More recently, there have been attempts to involve them, as well as appeals to get them to speak as to which branch of the family they feel is most fit to rule, for the better future of our people. There are many who would like the Shinkara to name the rightful rulers of the Nirreth, but so far they have refused to answer such pleas.”
Jet nodded, but felt a kind of uneasiness steal over her as she stared around at the virtual landscape.
She’d heard of the Shinkara… vaguely.
As part of her assimilation classes, Jet had been forced to study Nirreth history, at least in broad brush-strokes. She remembered reading about the intervention Laksri just mentioned, as well as its aftermath, when that branch of the Royals got removed from the family tree.
Jet remembered reading about the mysteriousness of the Shinkara themselves, and how little even the Nirreth seemed to know about them.
Most Nirreth worshipped the Shinkara.
No one passed one of the monuments of the Shinkara without pausing to pay respect.
It was one of the few quasi-religious expressions Jet had witnessed among the Nirreth. It also seemed to be completely consistent across all Nirreth, no matter their caste or family. Even Laksri did not question the holy nature of the Shinkara.
No one even knew what they looked like.
Supposedly, their appearance differed from that of regular Nirreth.
None of that alleviated the sick feeling pooling in Jet’s stomach.
“This is going to be like my first run, isn’t it?” Turning, she looked in the direction of Laksri, even though she couldn’t see him through the virtual net. “They’re going to have him go after a real target. They’re going to have him go after the Shinkara.”
Looking back at Anaze, Jet felt her nausea worsen.
“It’ll be an excuse to tear him apart,” she added under her breath. “It’ll be the excuse to rip him to shreds before they kill him.”
Laksri didn’t answer.
Then again, he didn’t really need to.
23
Death Run
Dense jungle surrounded Anaze.
He’d been walking for at least a half-hour, but the environment hadn’t noticeably changed.
Jet could see his eyes well enough to know he hadn’t figured out where they had him. Even as she thought it, he looked down, examining his clothes, which Jet realized she’d forgotten to look at, as well. Instead of the black sense-suit, he wore camouflage pants, dark to blend with the tree trunks and shadows.
He also wore a gun belt, and a black tank top.
A second weapons belt looped around one shoulder. Holsters strapped a gun to his right thigh, and he wore a longer rifle slung over his back.
He also wore at least one knife, along with a headset, black gloves, and a coil of wire-like rope on the gun belt.
They’d probably having him rappelling down something soon.
Or maybe up something.
Like the walls to the Shinkara compound, perhaps.
Anaze touched the headset without slowing his strides through the dense underbrush. The audio came through the virtual feed, almost as if from inside Jet’s own head.
“How close are you?” a voice asked him in English, distinctly human.
“I don’t know,” Anaze said, hardly missing a beat.
“Can you see the perimeter markings?”
“No.” He continued to walk. “Wait… yes.”
Jet’s eyes followed the direction of Anaze’s stare. In seconds, she saw it as well, a dark metal projection protruding from what she’d dismissed as another tree.
She could see now that it was a disguised fence line.
“Yes,” Anaze repeated. “I see it. Do I proceed?”
“Affirmative. We couldn’t disable this one, so we know the field is on. Find a way through, then contact us again. We’ll guide you the rest of the way in.”
“Understood,” Anaze said, his voice matter-of-fact. “How much time do I have?”
“None,” the voice said grimly.
“Copy,” Anaze said, even as his hand dropped from the headset.
Again, Jet found herself watching him, as if remembering who he was.
How had she ever believed he could be just another pawn of Richter’s? The Anaze she’d known at the pits was definitely his own person. She’d forgotten that somehow, in the months since she’d been culled.
Anaze approached the line of the fence, his face concentrated.
His eyes went to where Jet’s own probably would have gone, to the surrounding trees. He was looking to see if he could get over the fence that way, by dropping over if he got high enough to jump from one tree to the next.
Unfortunately, Jet didn’t see any trees spaced close enough to serve that purpose.
Anaze must not have, either, because Jet saw him frown.
His eyes followed the length of the fence’s line, visible now that he stood at the correct angle to the post. Nothing grew where the energy field lived, leaving an oddly straight line through the dense jungle, invisible until one stood almost directly on top of it.
Jet wondered why Anaze was playi
ng along.
Granted, he didn’t have any good choices, no matter what he did.
But why give them their show, when he could just as easily stand there, force them shoot him where he stood?
“They have ways of getting you to cooperate, Jet,” Laksri said.
“Like what?” Jet muttered.
Laksri didn’t answer at first.
Then she heard him give a purring kind of sigh.
“I did the same,” he said. “I ran for them.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Because it was that, or stand there while they cut off my sister’s fingers, one by one. Then her toes. Then her feet…”
Jet felt her sickness worsen.
“…Then they would cut her eyes out of her face. Then her tongue––”
“Okay. Stop. Stop, Laksri. I get it.”
She felt his fingers curl around her arm, although she couldn’t see them. His voice grew lower, and she felt his breath against her ear.
“Jet,” he said to her softly. “It will not be easy, to watch this. You don’t have to be here for it. No one would think less of you if you left.”
“I thought I did,” she said, feeling her arms tense. “…Have to be here for it, I mean.”
Laksri made a vague noise in the back of his throat, vibrating her ear.
“I can work around it. Leave, if you do not wish to witness this. I mean it, Jet.”
Thinking about his offer for a few seconds, she shook her head, reaching over to grip his leg, although she couldn’t see that, either.
“No,” she said. “Thanks, but no. I’ll stay.”
Laksri made another soft sound, a kind of suit yourself in Nirreth.
She could tell her decision saddened him, though.
Jet’s eyes returned to Anaze, who was walking up to the metal, tree-like fence post, staring at a transformer atop a higher branch. The metal and glass bulb stood at least ten meters off the ground. The manmade “tree” wasn’t shaped in a way that invited climbing, even if Jet didn’t suspect it would be suicide to try.
The thing was probably electrified.
After another pause, Anaze shrugged, pulling the rifle off his back and aiming it up at the transformer.
Jet immediately tensed.
If he shot that thing out, he’d have every security guard in the complex after him. She remembered what the guy on the headset told him about time a beat later, and realized Anaze’s approach actually made a lot of sense.
Trying to get too clever would likely just prolong things.
Anaze squeezed off a shot.
He hit the very end of the transformer, which promptly exploded in a shower of sparks. The fence-line lit up, flashing a bright, reddish-orange. Then the segment to the left of the transformer pole flashed white, right before it faded to a dull nothing.
Anaze didn’t wait.
Jet probably would have thrown a branch at the thing, just to make sure, but he didn’t do that, either. It occurred to her again that no one expected to survive Retribution.
The reasons Jet used caution in the Rings weren’t relevant here.
The image shifted around her, following Anaze as he ran through the jungle, faster now, the rifle still in his hands. It amazed her that he didn’t show any fear, much less panic on his narrow face. His eyes looked concentrated, focused entirely on where he placed his feet, on putting distance between himself and the fence.
He continued to run as he touched the headset in his ear a second time.
“I’m through,” he said, only slightly out of breath.
“Yeah.” The voice sounded irritated. “We noticed.”
“You said time was a factor.”
“I didn’t tell you to commit suicide,” the other muttered. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Where now?” Anaze said, without missing a beat. “You said you could guide me from here. I’m running…”
He paused, glancing right and left, as if calculating something in his head.
“…due south-west. There’s a slope. I can see mountains on my left.”
It occurred to Jet that Anaze had figured out he was on Earth.
If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have used Earth reference points.
She wondered if he knew exactly where he was on Earth.
For some reason, looking at him, she suspected he did.
“I’m waiting,” he said, still running, still without seeming to be overly short of breath. “Time is a factor, right? They’ll have deployed by now.”
“Keep going that way,” the voice cut in. “You’ll reach a lake in another ten clicks. Move fast, Lieutenant. They’re on their way. It won’t take them long to pick up your heat signature.”
“What then? At the lake?” Anaze pressed.
“Swim,” the other said promptly. “Your next check point is on the other side, at the mouth of the river. If you get there fast enough, the water might even shield you from their heat sensors.”
Anaze didn’t answer, but dropped his hand from the headset.
He increased his pace, making the landscape blur slightly as he ran and leapt through the dense trees. He slowed only when he had to wind his way around trunks and other debris, or change direction to make his way through dense underbrush.
He didn’t alter his basic course, and Jet noticed his strides remained controlled, no matter how fast he went.
He’d done this before, she realized.
Meaning, he’d been in the field, even beyond what she’d seen at the skag pits. The thought hit at her somehow, and made her wonder again how much she really knew about Anaze.
She heard culler ships overhead, even as she thought it.
Not cullers. Something else.
Ships appeared in the sky, of a type Jet had never seen before, not even in vids.
She watched Anaze look up, right before he began running faster.
The ships were pretty far west from the line he ran, maybe too far for their sensors to pick him up, but he didn’t seem to want to take any chances. The same understanding made Jet realize how big the ships must be, for them to be so loud at that distance.
Whatever protected the Shinkara, they weren’t equipped like the Royal Guard, or even the Nirreth military.
Jet seemed to remember something about that too, but the specifics eluded her when she tried to recall what her tutors said.
Her damned audio memory never worked as well as the visual kind.
Anaze disappeared, diving through a hole in the dense greenery.
It confused Jet until she heard a loud splash and found herself on the other side as the virtual image altered, showing her a deep, clear-watered lake, blue-tinted from the artificial sky and large enough, she could only just make out the opposite shore.
Anaze swam hard across the lake’s surface.
He swam breaststroke, like Jet had in her last run; only he likely did it to minimize the chances of being seen from the air, since he wouldn’t splash as much. He’d thrown the rifle strap over his shoulder and back, and Jet could see the drag on him from the weapons, his arms straining as he pulled himself through the water.
He was a strong swimmer, but even she could see that he would be exhausted by the time he reached the other side.
She couldn’t help thinking that wasn’t an accident.
They would probably hit him hard when he got there.
She tried to remember what rimmed the lake inside the physical arena, and how long the lake was, in terms of its physical size. Of course, they could easily shift the virtual view to force Anaze to swim in circles, moving it again and again so that he exhausted himself trying to reach the opposite shore.
Pushing that out of her mind, she tugged on that part of her that retained the image of the physical arena, reforming it behind her eyes and doing her best to overlay it on the virtual landscape. She knew she could do the same with the monitor inside the sense-cubicle, but tried to do it herself instead, if only to occupy her mind.
&n
bsp; The side of the real lake where it made the most sense to have Anaze land lay on the furthest shore from where she sat, opposite the main door to the walled arena.
That side housed a platform that led to a series of ladders, as well as several clusters of gun turrets. Eventually it led up a ramp that would bring him to the second floor. A rope swing hung from one of those poles, a possible escape route, if Anaze remembered it.
Jet had to remind herself he couldn’t win this.
He couldn’t.
She wished like hell she knew when and how Richter and Laksri intended to get him out.
At the thought, she remembered Trazen, and the fact that he’d designed this run.
That meant he’d also chosen the Shinkara as a target.
For some reason, the realization puzzled her, forcing her again to try and align in her head what Laksri told her about Trazen, what she felt off him that day in the recovery room, and what she’d seen in the Ringmaster since.
It seemed like it took hours for Anaze to cross the lake.
Jet felt exhausted just watching him.
The silence felt debilitating.
A few times, he disappeared under the waves as one of those ships cruised overhead, presumably so the water might disguise his heat signature. Jet didn’t know if it worked, or if they were just attempting to drive him faster to shore, but they never shot at him from the sky while he swam.
She watched the ships hover over the water, wondering how accurate the images might be. Each looked the size of one of those livestock barns that filled the Royal Gardens, big enough to swallow three of the regular cullers.
She watched one float silently over the lake, its shadow darkening the blue-tinted waters. It paused longest where Anaze entered the water, before accelerating over the trees.
She got the point of some of this.
Trazen was, if nothing else, an artist with the suspense aspect of the Rings. If he started off guns blazing, it would gut that tension too soon.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 67