Invisible Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 19. 19:01

  Vienne and I reach the temple as a farmer rushes inside, shouting, his face filled with panic. “Rebecca said to come quick! Now!”

  “Joad!” Riki-Tiki slams the door open. “What’s wrong?”

  Joad looks like a solidly built, blood and guts, steel- scrotum farmer, with cropped gray hair and a slight gait. “The collective!” he yells. “An attack! It’s on fire!”

  Shoei and Yadokai look to Ghannouj, who picks up a cup of tea, swirls the dregs, and dumps them onto the table. His lips move, eyes tracing a pattern that only he can see.

  A moment later, he nods. The master and mistress grab their staffs from the wall, and Riki-Tiki scoots out after them.

  “Come on!” Riki-Tiki waves us along as she leaves.

  Vienne looks to me.

  “Up for a fight?” I ask.

  She cocks an eyebrow as if to say Aren’t I always?

  I point to our gear bags stowed on a Peg-Board on the wall. “Need anything?”

  “Just my symbiarmor.” She also grabs her armalite and ammo belt. “And a couple of accessories.”

  Outside the gate, the monks pile into Joad’s vehicle.

  “Hurry up, damn it!” he yells at us.

  Vienne starts the engine of the motorbike as I stuff our gear in the cargo hold. I want to tell Joad that running off in a blind tizzy is more time-consuming than taking a few minutes to prepare. But this time, I shut my big yap.

  “Brilliant decision,” Mimi says.

  We’re about to go, when I notice that Stain hasn’t moved. He’s still sitting cross-legged in the corner, chanting, and staring into space.

  “Want to ask him for help?” I ask Vienne. “We could use all the hands we can get.”

  “Stain is not like you,” Vienne says with a tone that I can’t quite describe as she pops the clutch. “He is nobody’s hero.”

  Even if Joad weren’t leading us, it would be a snap to find the Freeman Collective—just follow the heavy, bulbous smoke that mushrooms high above the horizon, many shades darker than the evening sky. It’s a chemical fire. I can tell by the color of the fumes and the pungent stink that dances on the wind.

  “Mimi,” I ask. “Can you identify the source of the burn?”

  “Negative, not from this distance,” she says. “While I agree with your broad interpretation, your suit lacks the precision required to analyze the particular chemical makeup.”

  “Any advice?”

  “Don’t breathe.”

  “During an emergency response? Impossible.”

  “No one ever said being a Regulator was easy, cowboy.”

  As we reach the main gate, an explosion sends a percussive shock wave through the town. A moment later we hear panicked screams. A warning siren wails.

  “We’re on foot from here on out,” I tell the monks after leaving the vehicles. “Stay close to me and Vienne until we get a fix on the situation.”

  “The situation?” Joad yells at me. “The town’s fig-jammed with fire, and they’re shooting up the place.”

  “Show us,” I say, feeling the sense of calm that hits me whenever there’s an emergency.

  He leads us down the main street, a dirt road lined with Quonset huts. Everywhere I look, people are screaming and crying. In the bedlam, older jacks shout out orders that nobody follows. Seconds later a herd of farmers stampedes past us. A burly man blindsides Shoei, and she stumbles toward a pile of burning debris.

  I grab her belt and pull her back. “Watch out!”

  “Thank you.” She shakes off the blow. “Shah. Who knew something so big could run so fast?”

  Blind panic has that effect on people. “Keep moving,” I bark. “Time’s wasting.”

  “This way,” Joad says.

  He beckons us to follow him down a side street. It allows us to avoid foot traffic, and we reach the hot zone within a couple of minutes. Overhead, I hear the droning of engines. A silver aerofoil swoops low over us and dumps a payload of water. Steam roils into the night, full of cinders, ash, and remnants of chemicals.

  Dumping water on a chemical fire? How stupid can you get?

  “Cover up!” I yell. “Eyes and mouths!”

  Vienne pops her visor down.

  The monks don’t react—they’re too dazed by the smoke and light.

  Too slow.

  “This way!” Picking the nearest hut, I kick open the door and hustle everyone inside. The moment after I slam the door, a toxic cloud drifts past the windows.

  “Get away from there!” I snap at Riki-Tiki, whose curiosity has led her to peer outside. “You all stay put! Let me and Vienne take it from here.”

  “Like hell I will!” Joad shouts. “You’re not the boss of me, son. This is my land, and I’ll defend it to the death.” Then the firecracker sound of battle rifle shots rings out, and the color drains from his face. “On second thought, maybe it’s best I show these folks to the infirmary.”

  “Good plan.” I turn to the master and mistress. “Once you’re at the infirmary, get any injured to safety, and do what you can to restore order. Lots of scared folks running about just makes a bad situation worse.”

  “You have a stern side.” Shoei pinches my cheeks. “It’s very sexy.”

  “Ha!” Yadokai folds his arms. Gives me the suspicious stink eye. “These men, they have guns.”

  “No problem,” I say. “We have guns, too.”

  “They are very dangerous men.”

  I shake my head. “Have you not met Vienne?”

  On that note, we’re out the door.

  When Vienne and I reach the town center, fire is immolating a cluster of large storage facilities. Great plumes of white smoke and flames soar into the night sky, the heat intense enough to melt the buildings’ aluminum skeletons and their sheet metal skins.

  A chain of men has formed a fire line. They toss bucket after bucket of water onto the blaze, but they only make it worse.

  “Stop! Water won’t work!” I yell at them. “Fall back!”

  They ignore me and keep tossing.

  Until another burst of gunfire sends them scrambling for cover.

  “Take point,” I tell Vienne. “Locate the target.”

  With a quick nod, she moves into position.

  “Mimi,” I say. “Give me a scan of the area. How many hostiles are we facing?”

  “No can do, cowboy. Too many signatures moving too quickly to map. Sensors indicate three hot spots on your twelve, two hundred meters ahead.”

  “Affirmative,” I say and move up.

  Vienne freezes. “I’ve got eyes on hostiles.”

  “Let’s end this.”

  Together, we drop into a crouch run. Take cover behind a trash barrel. Ahead, two shooters in tattered body armor are prancing about, firing their battle rifles into the air. The bigger of the two is a box of a man, sporting a plush gray-brown flattop and jowls dappled with ancient acne scars. His armor is too small, and a thick leather belt strains against his bulbous gut.

  “Brilliant shot, Richards!” the shorter one says.

  “Get your nose outta my butt, Franks.”

  “Wanker!”

  “Fossiker!”

  Silhouetted by the light of the blaze, they take swigs from a bottle, paying attention to only the fire and not the Regulators a few meters from the ends of their noses. It’s just the way I like my enemies—oblivious, overconfident, and overindulged.

  “I thought that was the way you liked your friends,” Mimi chimes in.

  “Ha-ha. Best work on that compiler, Mimi. Your code for funny is riddled with bugs.”

  Vienne drops a laser dot on the man named Richards. “Give the word.”

  “Hold your fire. Too many innocents about.”

  Franks throws back his head and lets out a high-pitched scream, mocking the group of would-be firefighters. “Run, you buggers! That’ll teach you to go messing with the Sturmnacht!”

  Sturmnacht. Lyme’s thugs. S
plendid. Just my luck to run into the last people on Mars I wanted to see. “Mimi, make yourself useful. Any more weapons being fired?”

  “Do you mean, can I detect any percussive sound vibrations similar to the supersonic waves created in, say, a ten-meter perimeter beyond this point of origin?”

  “Uh, yeah. That’s what I meant to say.”

  “The answer is, no other weapons being fired, cowboy.”

  “That’s all I needed to know.” I motion for Vienne to track left, and she moves sideways in an arc. “Mimi, open a telemetry link between me and Vienne.”

  “Read your mind, cowboy. Link open.”

  “Smart aleck.” I tap behind my ear. “Vienne?”

  “Read you loud and clear,” Vienne says.

  “Two meters ahead, cut behind that last hut. I’ll do the same to the right. Let’s catch these sȋ pì yaăns thugs not looking.”

  Like synchronized dancers, we silently approach the Sturmnacht.

  “Go,” I whisper into the mic.

  On cue, Vienne drops Richards with a rabbit punch.

  Franks, firing the last of a clip of ammo, notices a sudden movement as his buddy face-plants on the hot gravel road.

  “Richards!” He turns to find the barrel of my armalite three centimeters from his nasal septum. His breath stinks like a fermented sewer. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, dirt worm?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I say. “I’m about to shoot you.”

  His arm holding the battle rifle starts to drop.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I warn him.

  He grins.

  Vienne pops him in the jaw, and he crumbles like a statue made of sand. “He thought about it,” she says.

  “Fair enough,” I say. “Remind me to never make you mad.”

  “Never make me mad.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Still, that was a crafty punch. You haven’t lost your touch.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Just the ones that can kick my ass.”

  “How many would that be?”

  “One.”

  “Good.” She smiles, wiping dirt off her cheeks. “I’d hate to find out you were getting your ass kicked behind my back.”

  My cheeks flush, and I turn back to the Quonset huts, which are a mass of flame. “The buildings are totally fragged.” I say to Mimi, “Nobody inside, right?”

  “I read no biorhythmic signatures at this moment.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that there is no one living still in the buildings.”

  “I catch your drift.” I turn back to Vienne. “I’m hoping the farmers got everybody out before they torched the place. Let’s get these gentlemen under wraps before they wake up.”

  With some effort, I flip Richards over and secure his bulky arms using a length of zip cord. His body odor is as bad as his partner’s foul breath.

  I repeat the process for Franks. Then I notice the scorpion tattoo on his neck. “That’s weird,” I tell Vienne. “See that mark? Didn’t we see that on the Scorpions at the Favela? Why does one of Lyme’s enforcers have it, too?”

  Vienne shrugs. “You understand these scum better than I do.”

  “Yeah, well. I wish I didn’t.” I stand up and stretch my back. “Let’s take them back to the infirmary for questioning. We’ll have to drag them, I reckon. Name your poison.”

  “Which one stinks less?”

  “Eh.” I make a gesture, meaning so-so.

  She grabs Franks’s ankle. “Six of one, half dozen the other.”

  As we move away from the blaze, dragging the men along, the heat still on the back of my neck, an idea occurs to me. “Mimi, what do you think? Possible? Doable?”

  “Doable,” Mimi says. “I calculate a seventy percent chance of success.”

  Good enough for me. “Hey, Vienne. What would you say if I came up with an ingenious way of sneaking into Tharsis Two and snatching the rest of the MUSE data?”

  “Does this method of breaking in,” Vienne asks as she pulls Franks over a pile of smoking debris, his chin leaving a trail in the ground, “happen to involve dressing in this man’s disgusting clothes?”

  “Something like that.”

  She drops the leg. Hands on her hips, she says, “The prospect of wearing armor drenched in sweat and whisky is supposed to entice me?”

  “But there will be fighting.” I flash an overly enthusiastic grin. “Maybe even gunfire.”

  “Well.” She takes hold of Franks’s ankle again. “At least that gives me something to look forward to.”

  Chapter 9

  Freeman Farming Collective

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 19. 22:31

  After dragging our prisoners across the collective, Vienne and I find the infirmary building. There is a line of injured victims at the door. Even though the emergency siren is still blasting and the air is thick with smoke and fumes from the dying fire, most of the people queued up are almost silent—the first sign that traumatic shock is getting a toehold.

  “Cover your mouth and nose,” I warn a young mother holding a toddler on her hip. “The baby’s, too. This smoke is toxic.”

  She stares through me like I’m a ghost.

  “Let it go,” Vienne says.

  But I can’t. “Try this.” I pull the woman’s soot-covered shirt over her face. I do the same for the baby. “It’s better than nothing. Leave it.”

  A young farmer in a duster swings a side door open for us. He disappears as we pull Franks and Richards inside. I strap their hands to a radiator while Vienne guards them. They don’t move a muscle.

  The infirmary is one large, brightly lit room partitioned off with bamboo screens and white linen curtains. The whole place has a medicinal odor, stronger than the smoke outside.

  “What next?” Vienne says.

  “I reckon we find that Joad person and ask him what to do with these two fossikers.”

  “You can go searching.” She turns her back to the bleeding and broken farmers lined up on the far wall, flinching ever so slightly when a child cries out. “I’ll keep watch on the prisoners.”

  Vienne obviously doesn’t much care for Joad, so I nod in agreement. “But you’re not going to curb stomp them or anything, right?”

  “Of course not.” She blows a strand of hair out of her face. “The Tenets forbid harming prisoners, and I’m still a Regulator.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Be back soon. I want to find the monks, too. They’ll want to know that you’re safe.”

  But I don’t leave.

  She nudges me with the barrel of her armalite. “Why are you still here?”

  “I’m going now,” I say, because she obviously doesn’t want me poking around her psyche.

  “Joad,” Mimi says as I wind my way through the farmers, “is not the problem. It is the injured that are bothering her.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “A complex multi-variant calculation often referred to as women’s intuition.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, since I’m not a woman, and technically you aren’t, either.”

  A couple minutes later, I find Riki-Tiki behind a white cloth curtain. When I walk in, she’s talking quietly with a tall, skinny kid who looks like a transplant from the Hellespontus territories. His hair’s long, with a pilot’s hat pulled over it, and his hands are delicate. Not the kind of mitts you’d expect on a collective.

  “Durango!” Riki-Tiki says, her face lighting up. From the space next door, Shoei shushes her. “Sorry, mistress.”

  “Are you the aerofoil pilot who dumped water on the fire?” I ask the kid.

  “Yes, sir,” he says. “My name’s Tychon, and I—”

  “That was stupid.”

  Riki-Tiki’s face falls. She leans against the kid, and I realize they’re more than just buddies. Which explains why they’re behind the
curtains. Which explains why she’d want to leave the Tengu, who take a strict vow of celibacy.

  “Sir?” Tychon says.

  “I said, that was stupid. That was a chemical fire, and all the water did was vaporize and spread toxins in the air.” I realize I’m coming on too strong and crank it down a notch. “Don’t get me wrong, I know you were trying to help, but if you act without a plan, you end up doing more harm than good.”

  He swallows hard. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. “I didn’t realize.”

  “Next time,” I say, before I draw the curtain on them, “use your nose. It’s more dependable than your eyes.”

  Shoei and Yadokai are behind the next curtain, tending to a child whose left arm is severely burned. The flesh is one long blister. It has burst and is contaminated with gravel and dirt. Shoei dresses the wound like a physician, and Yadokai comforts the child with soft touches and quiet noises. Quite a change from my demanding dance teacher. I’m reminded again that first impressions are often the worst ones.

  I draw the curtain and let them work in peace. I can tell them about Vienne later.

  Durango, I think as I return to the waiting area, you are such a carking mu’dak! Why the `tchyo za ga`lima did you come down so hard on Tychon for one mistake. Eto piz`dets! You’re not your father, for pity’s sake. Do the decent thing. Go back and make it up to the kid.

  The doors swing open. Joad enters the infirmary, followed by a woman and two bodyguards. The woman is dressed in bright maize and blue robes with a homespun shawl draped over one shoulder. Her face is more handsome than beautiful, with high, broad cheekbones and a mane of wavy auburn hair.

  As she passes through the farmers, all heads turn to her, and the noise dies down. Her face is a mask of consternation, but when a woman dressed in dirt-caked overalls cries out and rushes across the room, she manages a smile. The bodyguards move to step in. She shakes them off as the woman falls to her knees, hands clasped together.

  “Rebecca! Thank the Bishop you’ve come! They took my sister, Thela!”

  Rebecca lifts the woman from the floor. “Stand up, now. I hear you, and we will get her back. Were others taken?”

  The woman nods vehemently. “But I don’t know how many.”