by Barry Kirwan
Micah retched again, his eyes watering. What looked like a towel, in the semi-darkness, dropped next to him.
"Clean yourself and stand up."
Micah pulled himself up, his legs trembling. Everyone knew about Cleansers, though most hoped they were only legend, something to scare children into behaving well; perfect assassins who knew no mercy. His only option for now was to obey.
"Turn around."
Micah did so, reluctantly, guessing that once he saw this man’s face he would not be left to live. He stared in disbelief at Ben the janitor, except that even in this half-light, something was wrong with the way he held himself – like a panther ready to lash out at a moment’s notice. Micah also noticed the hands – podgy, yet expressive, fluid in motion. Not Ben, for sure.
"I will ask you a question. I will only ask you once. You will only give one answer. I will know if you are lying. If you lie to me, you go into the furnace. Alive. Nod if you understand me."
The words were flat, but had the same effect on Micah as a saw cutting into exposed bone. His legs shook, though he tried to hide it. He sweated as he looked at the "janitor", who stood statue-like. His mind was racing, but there were only two logical outcomes – either he refused to answer and would die now, or else he told the truth and would probably also die, though not immediately. Trying to lie to this Cleanser was not an option. He thought again of his dad, a war hero – what would he have said or done?
"Do you understand your options?"
Micah nodded. He had already guessed the question.
"Where is Sandy?"
He didn’t want to answer. He envisioned Rudi’s skeleton disintegrating to ash down below. A hand shot out and closed around his throat, lifting him off the floor and pinning him against the wall. The Cleanser’s other hand threw open the furnace lid. A blast of hot air and a blood-red glow flooded into the small dark space.
"I will allow you to scream." He moved Micah’s body with pathetic ease towards the opening.
"Wait!" Micah cried, despite knowing that whatever he said his fate might be the same. But he had to cling on. The Cleanser did not let him down, but brought Micah’s face closer to his own. Micah looked into those eyes and knew there was no way to lie to them.
"Kane’s office." The words came of their own accord, before Micah could stop them.
The Cleanser stared a little longer, then released him so that he fell to the floor. Micah felt disgusted, as if he’d just signed Sandy’s death warrant, and his own. In what he realized was probably a futile act, he kicked hard at the Cleanser’s leg behind the knee, thinking maybe he could escape and summon help. But the target blurred out of reach, and Micah’s groin exploded with pain. As he lay on the floor, trying to breathe in, the cold voice spoke close to his ear.
"Don’t."
Micah managed to take in a few straggling breaths.
"Get up. Make yourself presentable."
Micah did his best to compose himself. As he rose he sneaked a glance at his wristcom: 6:05. He prayed Louise was on time and had found he was missing.
"Listen carefully," the Cleanser said. "We take the service elevator on the left. It is twenty meters. We come out on level 200 and turn left. You approach the security guards at the office and tell them Louise sent you."
Micah’s wide eyes betrayed his surprise – this man knew his stuff.
"Then what?"
"Once inside the office you show me where she is."
Micah forced himself to look into the Cleanser’s eyes. "What if they don’t let me in?"
The unwavering black pupils answered the question for Micah.
"And me?" Micah said.
"If I have to kill you, I’ll make it quick."
Micah didn’t know whether the "íf" was honest or just to gain his compliance. This assassin exuded professionalism, or fanaticism, he didn’t know which. But there was integrity about him – he appeared to take no sadistic joy from killing. At least the vids had that part wrong. But Micah had made up his own mind. He wouldn’t stand by while Sandy was killed, even if it only meant delaying the inevitable. He brushed himself down.
"I’m ready."
Moments later they emerged, Micah first, followed a few feet behind by the innocuous figure of a hunched over janitor pushing his trolley stuffed with brooms, cloths and bottles of detergent. He told Micah that if he did anything out of the ordinary or tried to run, he’d be dead in a second. Micah didn’t doubt it.
As they waited for the service elevator, Antonia came around the corner. She stopped when she saw Micah, but the anger that had suddenly drawn like a curtain across her face melted as she saw Micah’s taut, resolute expression. She glanced at the janitor fiddling with his trolley, then walked towards them. Micah turned back to the elevator lamp – the lift was descending, but was still five floors above them. He didn’t want her caught up in this, and wouldn’t look at her. Don’t stop now. Walk on past! To his relief, just as she sauntered past, the lift arrived. He wondered if she would ask him why he was taking the service elevator, but instead she addressed the janitor.
"Hi there Pops, how you doing today?"
Without missing a beat, he answered, in a reasonable impression of Ben’s voice. "Why, fine, sweetheart, mighty nice of you to ask, but must be going now, one more floor to clean."
As Micah stepped inside the elevator, the Cleanser pushed the trolley in too, blocking Micah in, all the time watching his eyes. But she had already passed. The Cleanser closed the door and hit the button for floor 200.
Micah usually had a strong urge to speak in lifts, but he could find nothing to say as they swept upwards. The lift pinged and the door slid open.
"Remember my instructions. You go on ahead; I’ll be right behind you. But first, put this on. Lift your arms."
It was a black waist band that fit under Micah’s jacket. Micah had no idea what it was, but complied.
"If you want to live, don’t touch it."
Micah looked down briefly and then back to the Cleanser.
"Go. Now."
Micah walked slowly at first, then at a brisker pace. The creaking of the trolley wheels tracked behind him. He came around the corner to Sandy’s office, which acted as antechamber to Kane’s suite. Two Eden Security guards, not Chorazin, stood outside, fully armed. As he started to say he’d been asked to come here at six o’clock to meet with Agent Louise, one of the guards deftly pushed him face to the wall, a pistol against the nape of his neck. A firm nudge behind his legs knocked Micah to his knees. His hands went to the wall to maintain balance. While one guard held a gun on him, the other patted him down. When he got to the waistband, he patted it once and then stopped. He tried to say something, and then keeled over backwards. Micah heard a whoosh and as he turned he saw the second man, the one with the gun, crumpled on top of the first, a knife handle sticking out of his throat. Yellow gelatinous fluid bubbled around the blade – Micah guessed it stopped the blood spraying. The man’s eyes were wide open. The Cleanser was already there, next to Micah.
"Don’t move," he said. He removed the waistband. "Get up."
Micah tried, but the first man had fallen across his legs. Before he knew what was happening the Cleanser pulled the man off him, and was searching for a key card in his pocket. He held it out, but Micah was transfixed by the first man, not yet dead, eyes blinking fast, his body convulsing. The guard’s jaw moved as if he were trying to say something. Micah looked to the Cleanser.
"Contact poison," said the Cleanser. "Colombian kokai frog. Instant paralysis –his lungs cannot work anymore. He’ll be dead shortly. Open the door."
Micah took the key card but still couldn’t move his feet. He gaped at the dying man whose face was turning blue, his eyes screaming in silence for help.
With a muted crunch, the Cleanser’s right hand whipped out and snapped the man’s neck.
"Open the door," he repeated.
Micah obeyed, fumbling to get the key card in. At the third attempt he heard
the soft magnetic click and the door slid open. The room was empty. Micah was followed by the Cleanser carrying one man across his shoulder. He had pushed the other one on top of the trolley and wheeled him in. He closed the door behind them and locked it, backed the trolley up against it, shoving the second corpse in front of the trolley. Micah drew away from the doors, and leant unsteadily against Sandy’s desk. He saw the letter opener lying there, and wondered if he could slip it inside his jacket.
"Don’t even think about it, Micah." The Cleanser stood up, and with a tearing motion, removed the sim-skin mask, so that he no longer looked like the janitor. For the first time Micah saw the lean, tan face underneath.
"Where?" The Cleanser ripped off the overalls revealing a black, one-piece jumpsuit underneath. He appeared unarmed. Micah was puzzled because he still appeared to be carrying body fat, but moved like a gymnast. The Cleanser raised an eyebrow. Micah nodded to the two doors that led to Kane’s suite. The Cleanser gestured to him to go first.
Micah pressed the gold door handles and opened the doors wide and walked in. At first he thought the Cleanser had stayed outside, but then he heard the soft click of the doors being closed, and saw him checking around the suite. After a moment, including a brief bathroom inspection, he came back to face Micah. Micah suddenly felt cold steel being pressed against his neck.
"Last chance."
Micah tried hard not to glance toward the bathroom. "I lied. She’s gone. You’ll never find her."
Micah had expected to feel the blade slice into his throat, to see those eyes flash in anger, but the Cleanser lowered the knife, and stood between Micah and the bathroom.
"Listen to me, Micah. I’m not here to –"
The Cleanser spun away from him as the bathroom mirror shattered outwards. A pulse bullet ricocheted off the Cleanser into Micah’s shoulder, sending him reeling backwards. Another shot fired but the Cleanser had vaulted out of the line of sight from the bathroom. Micah saw Sandy kneeling behind stalactites of glass, gun aimed outwards, her hand unsteady. Instinctively Micah crouched down on the carpet.
At the other end of the suite, the double doors burst open. A black-helmeted, body-armored female Chorazin agent hurtled through the air, rolled across the floor, slammed a round object onto the floor then sprung up, leveling a rifle at the Cleanser.
Two bullets from the Cleanser knocked the rifle out of her hands. He stood, legs splayed, rapid-firing his weapon, both arms locked out in front. Micah saw the agent driven back by repeated gunfire hitting exactly the same place on her helmet’s visor. A loud keening shriek erupted from the object on the floor, making Micah clasp his hands around his ears. He knew what it was – an audio grenade to make them all black out. He tried to hang on.
The Cleanser fired again and again. No matter where the agent ducked and dived, he always hit the same spot, denting the shaded visor. Micah glanced to Sandy, but like him, she was incapacitated by pain that felt like a needle piercing his eardrums. He turned back to the agent and saw a crack appear on the visor as she tried to regain her balance. She dived sideways and flung something in the Cleanser’s direction, but he launched himself upwards, still firing even in mid air as he twisted out of the way of a stream of darts spitting across the room, impaling the wall behind him. The rising crescendo shattered the windows, as Micah rolled onto his back in agony, but still he watched through pain-slitted eyes.
The agent tried to protect her visor – now a spider web of fractures – with her forearm, but a bullet slammed into her elbow, flinging her arm to the side, as another punched into her visor. She somersaulted backwards, a bullet pounding into her back, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Micah’s eyesight began to blur. Sandy was already slumped in her hiding place. The Cleanser stepped toward the woman’s prone form, and aimed the weapon down towards her head. Micah lost consciousness.
***
Louise waited, panting, but the kill-shot never came. One of the drill-darts had gotten through; it had just taken longer than normal to paralyse him. She stared up into the assassin’s eyes, knowing that he was using every ounce of will to pull the trigger, but it was too late. She yanked off the helmet, removed the protective earphones, and manoeuvred into a seated position. She kicked out hard at Gabriel’s stomach, and he toppled over backwards like a broken statue. Getting to her feet, she checked that Micah and Sandy were out cold, then knelt over the Cleanser, lifting his face towards hers.
"I know you can hear me, Brother Matthias, although you shouldn’t hear anything after that sonic grenade. Nice shooting by the way," she said, showing him the helmet visor. "One more and I’d be dead." She tossed it to the floor.
His lips twitched. She grabbed his jaw.
"No, no. Shhh. Don’t try to speak," she whispered. "I know what you want to say. That you came here to find Sandy, to protect her from the Alicians, not to kill her, and that there’s a double-agent in the Chorazin." She unpeeled her right hand glove. "Did you really think you could fool Sister Esma?" She smiled, forcing his mouth open with her forefinger and thumb. "Don’t worry, Sandy’s safe with me now. Relax, your part in this is over. Time to die." She found the false tooth at the back of his throat. She squeezed and snapped it open. His eyes widened a fraction. "Good to be awake when you die, that’s what you Cleansers say, isn’t it?" She let his head slip to the floor.
Four other Chorazin agents charged into the room. She stood up, facing them. ‘Medic, get a goddammed medic, fast,’ she screamed at them. "He’s taken poison!"
***
Micah felt his face being slapped gently. He heard a female voice.
"Come on, Micah, wake up, there you go, only a flesh wound this time. Not bad for your first day. Found the girl, found the assassin – maybe we should hire you." She smiled, but Micah was in too much pain to return the favor. His ears rang.
He stared up into Louise’s face. "Sandy… alive?"
"In custody. We’ll protect her."
Micah was still trying to come round. "The Cleanser?"
Louise helped him sit up so he could see. The Cleanser lay prone, eyes and mouth open with a look of surprise – not pain or fear. His body was much thinner now, surrounded by a pool of pinkish water.
"Pretty good disguise, don’t you think?" she said. "Temporary extreme water retention. Intensely uncomfortable, but these Alicians, well, you know what fanatics will go through. At least now you do."
"You killed him?"
"We wanted to interrogate him, but he had a failsafe device. Died instantly. He couldn’t penetrate my armor, although the sonofabitch hit my visor, the weakest point, nine times before I dropped him.
"How did you know we were here?" Micah asked, wincing from the shoulder wound. Every movement felt like a knife cutting him open.
Louise smiled, and moved aside so he could see. "Your little friend told me, you know, the one you like to share coffee with."
Standing at the doorway was a white-faced Antonia.
"When she saw you with Ben, or whatever his real name was, she noticed something was wrong. So she called him Pops. Apparently the real Ben hated that word. When he didn’t react, well, things just fell into place."
Micah nodded towards Antonia. "Thanks." But as he said it, he remembered her simulacrum crying, reaching out for Katrina. He didn’t know how she read his face.
She spoke to Louise, her voice quiet. "May I leave?"
"I’m afraid you’re involved now, Miss Laschtiva, you’ll need to be processed. Agent Montaigue will handle you; we have several rooms set up for de-briefing."
Before she left, Antonia gave Micah a long, measuring look.
"Come on Micah," Louise said, helping him up. "You need debriefing too, I’m afraid. Vince will want to question you."
He struggled to his feet. He knew he should feel relieved, but something didn’t seem right. He was glad to be alive, but it was all a little too neat. He remembered the Cleanser had been about to say something to him before Louise had burst in, something impo
rtant. Louise was acting as if everything had all been wrapped up nicely, but his intuition told him it was far from over.
His analytical mind kicked in as he was escorted groggily down the corridor, and he came to an irrevocable conclusion: Sandy was the key. She knew something, maybe didn’t even know she knew it, probably something Kane had known. Kane, Rudi, and the Cleanser – they’d all died to protect a piece of knowledge – he had no idea what. But it meant she was still in mortal danger. He wanted to tell Louise, but something held him back. He wasn’t even sure he could trust Vince. Still, he had to do something. Rudi’s landscape – he had to go back in. Somewhere in there was the answer. Rudi was smart enough to have left a clue, an insurance policy in case he was betrayed. Micah had to find it.
Chapter 18
Quarantine
Zack lowered his voice. "Don’t let the Skipper hear you talking like that."
"What seems to be the problem?" Blake strode in and stood behind them.
Zack winced, and sat back in his chair. "Too late," he muttered.
Kat turned to face Blake directly, her back to Eden vista’d by the external 3D cameras. "It’s perfect, Sir. Mountains, lakes, grass. No animals. Like renting an unfurnished apartment. We can move in tomorrow."
Blake looked beyond her, and uncorked a smile. Perfect indeed! At last mankind had the second chance it needed. Eden had been the right name after all. He itched to get out there, recalling running around his grandpa’s fields as a young boy, not a care in the world. He wanted that back so badly, not for him, but for everyone, so humanity could heal itself.
"Sir, don’t you think it’s just too perfect?" She peered around him. "Pierre, back me up here, what are the probabilities?"
Blake tore his eyes from the panoramic vista, towards Pierre. "Well, what does science have to say?"
Pierre touched a control and the data encircling his head collapsed like a waterfall that had just run out of juice. "Sir, there’s been a lot of debate on that since Prometheus first sent back images. Basically, we only have our solar system to go on; this is the first planet we’ve visited outside it. The Bayesians and the Frequentists have been arguing--"