Code Breakers: Prequel

by Colin F. Barnes

  “Sorry,” Gabe said, holding up his palms, trying to be the least threatening possible. “Did we do something we shouldn’t have? We’re new to the place, so don’t know the customs.”

  The eldest woman holstered her shotgun behind her back, placed her hands on the two younger girl’s shoulders, and pulled them back slightly as if holding back wild dogs. She looked Gabe up and down. He could barely make out her features in the darkness. The cracks in the walls allowed some light from the flames to flicker through, casting shifting shadows on her face. One second she looked sharp, cruel, and in another she seemed beautiful, ephemeral. She wore an interested smirk on her face as she took in Gabe and Petal.

  “No. You’re not, are you?” she said, her voice low and languid, smooth like velvet. “You appear to like spying, though. Who are you? What do you want?”

  “Just passing through,” Gabe said. ”We just wanna go about our business. Don’t wanna cause any trouble.”

  “Considering someone was shooting at you, I’d say you’ve brought trouble on yourself. And standing here, spying on a meeting is not exactly just passing through now, is it? I’ll give you one more chance. What do you want here?”

  “Food,” Gabe said. “That’s all. We’re travellers, and have run out of supplies.”

  “Hand over your bag and empty your pockets,” the eldest woman said.

  Petal clenched her teeth and raised her arms slightly.

  Gabe reached out a hand to her. “Do as they say.”

  There wasn’t much in their pockets or their bag anyway: only a few small canteens of water and scraps of protein bars long out of their use-by date. Petal emptied the stolen soy plants from her jacket pockets.

  “Fucking thieves!” the young girl in front of Petal said. The other one, who could have almost been the twin, had barely said anything, having not taken her eye off Gabe for one second. Her stare was unnerving, as if she knew something but wasn’t saying. Gabe wondered if their reputation had preceded them. Chances were the girl was just a psycho.

  “Come on, you’re going to explain your crimes to the Mayors,” the elder said. “Lead the way,”

  The two younger ones pushed Petal and Gabe away from the building, and with their guns inches from the back of their heads, made them walk round the building and in through the entrance where the circle of men, women and children awaited. The group watched them as if they were some kind of celebrity couple.

  Even the young girl in the middle with the bag at her feet stared up at them. Gabe noticed now that the bag seemed to contain hardware of some sort. He could make circuit boards and wires and what looked like replacement quantum drives.

  The girls forced Gabe and Petal into the middle so they were stood behind the young girl. She looked up at them, curious. Her face was covered in mud and her dirty blonde hair was matted into a short crop. She looked like a feral cat.

  The man in the suit looked up and past Gabe and Petal to address the elder woman. “What have you brought us, Keiko? Immigrants?”

  “Something like that, Tatsu. Thieves actually. Yoki and Yuri here found them stealing soy crops.”

  “Really now?” Tatsu said, raising an eyebrow and looking at Gabe. “Do you know, foreigner, what we do with thieves in this city?” With that, he also cast a look down at the young girl.

  “No. Why don’t ya tell me?”

  “We feed them to the dogs.”

  As if in response, a great howling echoed around the station as the group of people surrounding them dropped their heads back and howled together like a pack of wolves.

  Now he knew what the smell of roasted meat was.

  “And you would cook the girl, too?” Petal said. “Poor thing ain’t got an ounce of fat on her.”

  The lady Mayor smiled at this and leaned forward to regard Petal. “For girls, we have something else in store. Not enough meat on your little bodies to satisfy the wolves. No, you’ll satisfy other needs.”

  “Miyoko’s right,” Tatsu said. His sneered at Petal, looked her up and down. “I think you’ll do, for a few rounds at least. You look like you’ve got a bit of spirit about you. Like to put up a fight, eh? A little rough and tumble? Yeah, the wolves will enjoy you.” The Mayor leaned in close, ran his tongue up her neck.

  That was his first mistake.

  Part 5 - The Wolves

  At first there was no change. Tatsu, the Mayor, stood close to Petal as if in a lover’s embrace. Only the wicked grin on Petal’s face indicated to Gabe that something else had happened. When Gabe and the others looked closer, a chromed spike poked out of the Mayor’s back, tenting his shirt, while a dark red stain expanded around the point.

  He choked, coughed up blood. It hit the floor with a wet thud. He stumbled back, pain etched on his face in a fashion that pulled his lips back, exposing his rotting teeth and black gums. It reminded Gabe of Shelley. It was the dental hygiene of a cannibal.

  No one else moved. They just stared in shock, but Petal was one step ahead. She yanked back her left arm, removing the spike from Tatsu’s sternum, and thrust into his stomach with her right, sending her other spike up through his guts.

  As he danced and jerked on those spikes like a dying meat puppet, Petal spun, knocked the guns from the hands of the two girls, Yuri, and Yoki, in a wide, flashing arc. Gabe took advantage, quick-stepped into the girls, and punched them with a left-right jab. They didn’t even see his strikes.

  They hit the deck hard, their heads clanging against the wooden boards of the floor.

  The young girl with the bag looked up at them. With one hand she grabbed her bag of electronic items, and with the other she reached down and picked up one of the pistols. Without thinking, she put two rounds into the elder woman’s chest, sending her flying back.

  It was then that Miyoko screamed, and leant over the still body of her partner.

  “You fucking whore!” The enraged woman thrashed out her hands; her fingers bent like claws. She raked them towards Petal’s face, but she was too slow. She only caught Petal with a slight scratch before Petal twisted on her heel, caught Miyoko’s flailing arm, and judo-threw the woman over her hip. She landed in a crumpled mess.

  The young girl, now moving towards Petal and Gabe, aimed and shot Miyoko in the neck before following up with a second shot to the heart.

  The on-looking crowd were stunned. They haunted the place like statues. They no longer howled at the thought of ravaging Petal’s body, or eating Gabe’s meaty flesh. Dressed in rags, sacks, and what looked like old furs, they eventually gathered their thoughts.

  And that thought was: kill.

  “I’m Holly, by the way,” the young girl said. “Follow me.”

  She grabbed Petal’s hand, and led them back away from the front entrance of the train station. Gabe picked up the shotgun and the remaining pistol, placing it in a holster inside his long jacket. The shotgun, Gabe noticed, was a late issue assault model: eighteen rounds to a magazine, and semi-automatic firing. A second magazine was taped to the stock. It felt hefty in his hands, a real confidence-giver.

  The ranks of the unwashed and the deranged lurched like zombies after them as Holly led them through a door way and into a small, disused office. “Up here.” She pointed to the low ceiling. A tile was slightly set back from the other. “Give me a boost. Quick.”

  Petal clasped her hands, knelt down, and boosted the young girl upwards. Holly pushed the tile away to reveal a dark entrance. At first Gabe thought she had left them there. Her footsteps up in the roof space clattered away from them.

  The sound of the angry mob was getting closer. Soon they would rush them, lost to their lust for sex and meat, and he and Petal wouldn’t be able to hold them all back. Gabe stepped towards the doorway, lifted the shotgun, and fired eight shots in controlled two-shot bursts.

  Three of them collapsed to the floor in a mist of blood. The others just stepped over them, not even caring. The look in their eyes told Gabe they would not reason. They were beyond any normal r
ecognition.

  He fired a further two shots, taking down the two in the front. This bought him a bit more time as the pack tangled and collapsed in a heap. He guessed there to be about twenty or so left. They were only ten metres away now. He wouldn’t have time to take them all down.

  “We’ve gotta go,” Petal said.

  “Ya think? I’ll give ya a boost, and then hold these off,” Gabe said.

  “Like hell, you will. I ain’t leaving you behind.”

  Petal moved away from the hole in the ceiling to stand next to Gabe. She crouched, her forearm spikes held out and across each other.

  Before Gabe had a chance to raise the shotgun and fire again, he heard the clack of footsteps above him return.

  “She’s back,” Petal said. She dashed behind. Gabe looked over his shoulder to see the girl poking her head through the hole.

  “It’s clear,” Holly said. “Come on.”

  She threw down a rope ladder.

  Petal looked at Gabe. “You coming?”

  “Just get up there. I’ll be right behind ya.”

  Petal scaled the ladder, disappeared into the darkness. Her shouts of ‘Gabe!’ echoed down from the roof space.

  The pack had righted itself, focussed on him, and charged.

  He emptied the magazine, taking out three more of the mob, but it didn’t slow them. This time, they were prepared. They leapt over the bodies and lunged for him, their arms outstretched.

  Gabe dashed back and slammed the door, crushing a pair of hands. The owner of said hands yelped like a dog ahead of the assault on the wooden door. With the weight and fury of the mob behind it, the door buckled and shook within the frame with each crash.

  A small window next to it smashed as a rock flew through into the office, sending shards of glass spraying around the confined room.

  “Gabe, hurry!” Petal screamed, her head appearing in the hole in the ceiling.

  He rushed to the rope ladder just as the door burst open.

  Grabbing one rung after the other, he scrambled up, unable to get a footing as it swung away from him in his rush to escape. A member of the pack dived for him as he hung on to the ladder. He raised his feet just in time to see the crazed man crash to the floor. The rope ladder whipped around further, making it impossible for him to get his feet on the rungs.

  “Help me up!” Gabe said as the pack surged into the office. Only four of them could fit at one time, but they grabbed Gabe by the feet. He kicked out, crunching one person’s skull with the heavy heel of his boot. Another one collapsed under the force, tripping over the first pack member who had crumpled to the floor.

  Holly and Petal stood aside the hole, reached down, and grabbed his arms. With a swift yank, they had lifted him above the outstretched grabbing hands of the furious mob. Their eyes were wide and they slathered, drool dripping from their mouths. They were more animal than human. Hell only knew what had made them like that.

  They pulled up the rope ladder and placed an iron bar across the gap in the roof.

  The roof space was dark and dank and stunk of old mushrooms. Holly shone a flashlight and aimed the beam to the far side of the station’s roof. A door hung slightly open. “Over there,” she said. “Leads to a terrace. We can use that to get over to J’s place. That’ll be safe—for now.”

  “J?” Petal asked. Both she and Gabe raised their eyebrow at that as they dashed for the open door after lifting the rope ladder away from the baying mob.

  Holly stopped at the open door and let Petal and Gabe pass through it and out into the night.

  The terrace ran around the rear of the station. It was made of old iron and looked severely rusted in parts. It was at least a ten-metre drop below the metal grid that made up the terrace.

  A newer section, one that appeared to be welded and strapped together from repurposed girders, branched away a ninety-degree angle from the terrace. It stopped at what looked like an apartment building. On the top floor a light competed with the moon to illuminate the terrace and the grounds around it.

  It was a penthouse room.

  Petal stopped Holly before she could go further across the terrace. “Wait. Do you know Jericho?”

  The girl gave her a funny, incredulous look. “Well, yeah. Everyone knows Jericho.”

  Part 6 - The Deal

  Just don’t stare at him too long. That’s what Holly had warned them. Jericho was a nice guy as long as he didn’t feel threatened. If he did, then things went wrong real quick, apparently.

  Holly, with her tatty hooded jacket, smeared with mud and grease stood outside the door of the apartment building. She’d taken them out through a rat’s maze of ducting and hidden tunnels until they came out on the top floor. Gabe could hear music coming from the other side: an old reggae tune. He recognised the sound of it from his parents. Reggae was the soundtrack of the shelter back in Hong Kong.

  Holly knocked harder. Looked up into a swivelling camera lens. The music stopped. The door opened.

  A man appeared in the doorway. He wore a pair of floral shorts and a white tank top vest. It looked like he cared for himself. No malnutrition and plenty of body mass, sculpted into muscle. His dark skin was clean and clear, no indication of disease.

  When he smiled the whiteness of the teeth stood out in stark contrast: no sign of bad dental hygiene with this one.

  He first looked at Gabe, seemed to size him up like some men do. A kind of internal ranking system. The thought being whether he could handle Gabe. This made Gabe realise he hadn’t seen much of the world. For one thing, you can never tell what a person is capable of just by looking at them.

  There was this little Chinese kid back in the gang he ran with. To look at him, you’d have thought he was some weak little teenage boy. But Gabe had watched him take down guys twice his size without breaking a sweat. And he could take a punch like no one he’d ever seen before or since.

  “Hi,” Gabe said, nodding at Jericho, keeping his distance, being respectful.

  Jericho nodded back, didn’t say anything as his eyes found Petal.

  Gabe saw a familiar look in his eyes as he took her in. She stood there all bravado as usual. Her mohican was matted with sweat and dirt, but she still strutted, held out her chin. Gabe stepped closer to her, subconsciously protective. Not that she needed his help, of course. She’d been more than capable of handling her own safety from scumbags over the years.

  “What you want?” Jericho finally said to Holly, all the while keeping an eye on Gabe and Petal.

  She held up the bag of parts.

  “Got you a delivery. Same deal as before, yeah? Oh, and d’ya mind if we chill out here for a while? Things got a bit hot in the station.”

  His eyes darted then, looked past Gabe and Petal into the darkened corridor. “Hot? What happened?”

  “This crazy bitch only went and killed Tatsu. Stabbed him right in the chest and guts. It was epic! Oh, and Miyoko and her bitches are dead too.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “This true?” he said to Petal.

  She just shrugged.

  “We had to defend ourselves,” Gabe said.

  Jericho laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure ya’ll did.” He took the bag from Holly, peered inside, and smiled. “Ok, ya’ll can chill for a bit. But don’t be pulling any bullshit. I ain’t a patient man. You get me?”

  “Yeah, we get you,” Gabe said.

  Jericho turned his back, waited for the others to come through. He was clearly confident of his own safety to just casually turn his back like that. When Gabe entered the room, he could understand why.

  Within the penthouse, two of the four walls lit up with holo-projectors, showing what looked like live feeds. When he inspected further, he noticed he had the apartment building covered and the surrounding parts of the city. In one square of the screen he saw the rabid pack that were chasing him outside the train station, standing below the terrace gantry looking for a way of getting up to it. One of them had a rope with a piece of metal tied to the end. H
e was swinging it up and over and trying to pull himself up, but he just fell to the floor.

  On the other wall was an open-plan kitchen. Still in good, and by the smells of the place, working condition. The kitchen was separated from a living area by a low dividing wall and in front of that sat a perfect-condition sofa.

  Opposite the sofa was a wide window over-looking the city. The glass had the telltale grid of graphene reinforcement. He noticed that on his way up to the apartment all the other windows were broken, blasted through. It seemed that not only did the penthouse give you the best view and space but also the safety of graphene-glass.

  “Nice place,” Petal said. “Rent high?”

  “You’re a funny girl,” Jericho said. He tossed the bag casually onto the sofa, fell next to them sinking into the cushions. He patted the space next to him. “Why don’t you come sit here, tell me a story.” He leered, but Gabe knew it was posturing—all part of his image.

  “Nah, no offence,” Petal said, “but I don’t have a story. What you see is what you get.”

  “A little punky killer?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Hey Holly, these are good’uns,” he said, rummaging through the parts and holding them up to the pale-blue light of the holoscreens. “What poor bastard did you kill for these?”

  “No one this time. I made a deal with ‘em. Basically, they give ‘em to me and they don’t die. I was low on ammo.”

  “Smart thinking.”

  Gabe hovered around, taking in the place, noticing the various servers he had running and wired up to the place. He could sense with his internal interface that he was running a network here; either sending or receiving data but Gabe couldn’t access it. He had excellent stealth tech running. Probably military, if the information Shelley was anything to go by.

  “Fuck, man, sit down, will ya? Take some weight off. You’re making me nervous.” Jericho indicated to Gabe the free armchair set against the wall, next to the floating speaker-globe of his sound system. Nice bit of kit. Ancient now, but from what he heard outside, it still sounded good.