by Imran Siddiq
With one cup from a tub of water into the saucepan, then, nostrils squeezed, he slid the lid over it.
Zachary drew back the curtain next to the stove. Inside the alcove, a Haulage-404 droid hung mid-way from bolts secured to the wall. The Haulages were ancient, labour-efficient droids used for construction purposes. Oblong headed with two circular eyes and a blocky plated jaw, the droid resembled a muscular human clad in copper armour. With one defunct eye, its left arm removed, and nothing below its waist this was a little more complete than the one on Biro’s table. Skin. Zachary wriggled the image from his mind as he stroked the droid’s torso. No – this was how droids were meant to be. Metal and screws.
To the rear section of his home sat the Bombay core-generator. He often wondered how his bulky-framed dad managed to step over the toilet-hole to reach it. Five LEDs along the Bombay’s top remained empty. Zachary swapped two crocodile clips over, and then rotated the generator’s wheel. The LEDs remained unchanged, even after a third rotation.
“Come on.”
His dad had paid the Resourcers their twice-weekly charge – hadn’t he? Loosening his tense fingers, he banged the top of the generator. An internal component whirred as two of the LEDs lit up with a soft aqua tone.
“Next time you do that, I’ll shove my screwdriver in and dismantle you,” Zachary growled at it.
Back at the droid, Zachary took the coiled-tube that ran the length of his home from the stove’s socket. Clearing dust from an exposed chest-plate on the droid, he thrust the coiled-tube inward. A current sizzled along twisted circuitry. Tiny blue lights illuminated its functioning eye.
“Hello, Patch,” said Zachary pulling over a chair.
“I feel rusty,” sounded the droid’s deep voice emitter. His jaw crunched for a few seconds.
“You say that all the time.”
“Detecting anomalies is all I am good for. I detect a peculiar stench.”
Zachary clicked his fingers. “Forget that. I need your help.”
A flicker erupted from his broken eye. “I can offer little in my present state.” Four digits on his large hand twitched in isolation.
“Do you know what this is?” Zachary held up the Intercom.
“A transmitting variant. Yours?”
“Kind of. Can you hack it?”
The droid’s arm dropped limp. “For what purpose? Hacking is an illegal act.”
Zachary frowned. “Why does it matter? You used to hack all the time.”
“For reconnaissance.”
“Reconnor-what? Look, I just need you to clear the image.”
“To delete?”
“No. Make the image clearer. I found it in the Wastelands, and I want to see what it’s got.”
“I am past hacking. That was then.”
“And this is now.” Zachary rammed the Intercom into Patch’s hand. “You need to slacken your stiff upper lip.”
“Difficult given my build.” Two of the droid’s fingers clasped the Intercom. Needles and green-lit prods protruded like hungry insects from the other two digits, invading the device. They quickly disassembled the middle region of the Intercom to expose reams of wires and miniature circuit boards.
“Don’t damage it,” whined Zachary.
“To hack is to break. What do we have here? Damaged interface. Password locks. Corrupted files. Secure protocols. Deficient backdoors. Difficult. Halt, I have found something.”
Zachary almost pushed forward out of the chair. The blue-tinted face reappeared for a second, scrambled with thicker lines than when he’d seen it in the Wastelands. He slapped the air. “You had it.”
“Unworthy to expose,” monotonously replied Patch. “However, four partial segments have been located.”
Four! Better than expected. “Go on. Show me.”
The Intercom burst up an unscrambled, blue-tinted photograph. Zachary concentrated on the girl between two adults. Six or seven years of age? Rounded cheeks fit her cheerful smile and frilly dress. Was she the Intercom’s owner? Didn’t the voice he’d heard sound older?
“The file’s signature states the year 2331,” said Patch.
Nine years ago, thought Zachary.
The woman to the child’s right showed a dominant pose with hair matching the crinkles of her thin dress. On the left, a tall, formal-suited man glanced downward at the child with a look of admiration. Something perfect that Zachary didn’t have shone between the three of them. Nowhere in his home did a collective image exist of his family. Smashed. Broken. Banished. He sucked back the unwanted wobble of his lower lip.
“File two,” said Patch. “Signature stamped as 2332.”
Another image replaced the first with the assumed parents and their child. Less round, the girl continued to smile, this time dressed in a tank top. Stone-faced, the mum’s fingertips half hung over her daughter’s shoulder, and the dad stared to his side away from them. What had changed in the spent year?
“Should I go on?” asked Patch.
Zachary nodded. “More images?”
“No – a motion recording dated five weeks ago.”
“Motion – like a movie?”
A large room flickered into view. The recording had been taken from high up, giving the figure in the centre the height of Zachary’s thumb. He couldn’t make out much except that she had long hair and wore a wavy skirt. Her back turned towards him, she walked away, making a soft thudding sound with her bare feet.
Zachary gasped at the huge curved wall ahead of her. It was transparent, and gave a tremendous view of Jupiter’s bands. She had it all to herself.
With a sudden turn, letting her skirt spin around her legs, the girl whirled around. Hands tracing down the front of her top, she kept her head down as her body straightened. All of a sudden static-polluted blurs interrupted her face.
“Hey,” cried Zachary.
Patch prodded the Intercom. “Stabilising.”
Two delicate claps from her coincided with a windswept chime playing from left to right. A flute began ahead of a verse of panpipes, then the patter of hands from a hundred unseen collaborators. He recognised the tune. The Harmon bracelet.
Holding her long skirt up to her knees, matching her strides to the strums, the figure glided across the floor. When a second guitar forced the pitch of the first to increase, she raised her hands and hit out like a thrashing wave. Her hair again fell over her face. Zachary’s breaths quickened with the building drumbeat. Never losing her balance, she span, arms out, then with a smacking wrap of her body, she jumped. At the final crash of a cymbal, she collapsed onto her front with her arms spread forward. Blurry lines blended to a sharp resolution. Zachary didn’t know whether it was Patch’s doing, or the recorder’s, as the screen zoomed to her head. Straight hair covered it. The girl’s hand flicked several strands right before the recording ended.
“Patch!”
The Haulage-404’s solitary shoulder shrugged. “Defective file.”
Zachary restrained from punching the droid. “What about the last file?”
As Patch’s bulky fingers loosened off the Intercom. Crackles sprinkled from the device. The sound of someone moving or shuffling items back and forth came out.
“Fourth of August 2340, 15:16 … Ro … pzzzt … Kade’s diary,” a female spoke. “I hate today more than ever. I thought they’d be mature enough to handle it by now.” She chuckled. “Who am I kidding? What do my parents get from banning joy in our home every year on this day? All I can say is, congratulations to me on this anniversary. I wish I could sob with mother, but I can’t grab her sorrow and bring it as my own. Why does she whisper like something inside has to be said? And father, quiet as ever … pzzzt.”
“Is that it?” Zachary stared at the device. It’d been years since a female spoke to him without running her fingers through his pockets. He cursed under his breath. She wasn’t talking to him.
Patch fiddled with the Intercom. “Irreparable. Did you gain what you sought?”
Exc
itement dried Zachary’s mouth. He forced his back into the hard chair, glancing up at the rusty pipes in the ceiling, imagining the polished floors of another world above them. “Why don’t the girls around here talk like her?”
Tilting his head, Patch stammered, “I c-c-cannot comment.”
The skin above Zachary’s ears pulled back. He bolted up, facing the generator. One LED flashed. Using Patch had sucked away two days’ worth of energy.
“Zach-ach-ach-ach.” The Haulage-404’s eye sunk into darkness.
Frozen, Zachary’s limbs shivered as the door opened.
Only one other person had a key.
Chapter 3 - The Job
Zachary feared the knowing glare fixed on his dad’s face.
Marcus Connor’s weathered brown eyes scanned the room as he dropped his bulging sack. “You been powering that rust-bucket again?”
Eyes dropped, Zachary winced at the invisible choke.
“How many times must I tell you?” Marcus’s hand scraped over his formidable chest under his black-tarred vest. “I slave for us, every day, and what do I find when I get home? This? Two more days, Zach … two more days until I have enough to buy more.”
“It was only meant to be for a minute,” muttered Zachary, wishing he had at least reattached the coiled-tube to the stove in time. He could have blamed an anomaly for sucking the volts in one go.
The lantern glowed close to his dad’s bald head. “Is that uncooked rabbit?” An overlapped tooth jutted from his snarl. “So, son, tell me what was so important that you had to ruin dinner?”
The Intercom! Zachary exhaled at the droid’s closed grasp.
“I was trying to repair his eye.” His own rolled at the stupid suggestion. He’d be caught and suffer another tirade if his dad asked to see the parts.
“He’s fine with one.” Marcus walked to his room. “It’s time you gave up on treasure-hunting rubbish and joined the Wallers. I’ll have a word to get you apprentice status.”
Zachary mouthed his groan. The Far-Wallers, the largest employer in District Two, sent men to batter sludge along the distant hydro-wall where circulating fans operated. To many, the preservation of the oxygen supply exceeded the need to scavenge. Not to Zachary. He was the wrong build to start with, and the common scars of acidic leakages didn’t appeal to him. Zachary didn’t consider himself to be handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either.
“I could haggle with upstairs to use their stove,” suggested Zachary. Half of the rabbit as a trade should be enough.
Marcus emerged pushing padded gloves into the front pocket of his murky-green sweatshirt. “I got a job for tonight with Gerry.”
Gerry Brennan, his dad’s old friend, lived in District One, known as IOTA, which stood for Invited Only, Trespassers Annihilated. Cordoned off from the unwelcome, it was the only zone in Underworld with a bay to outer space.
Zachary’s hands dropped to his side. “What kind of job?”
“There’s been some damage on the upper port side of Galilei. Pirates tried to take out an ex-ambassador’s home. Full-on assault or something like that.”
“In Overworld?” Zachary asked, his fingers restless. “What else?”
“The pirated shuttle exploded onto the hull. External sensors bombed out and the engine’s belly spilt into the shell. Gerry needs me to dig out the gunk.”
“But why would they contact Gerry?” Didn’t the mighty Overworlders know how to deal with a breach themselves?
“Everyone’s off doing something else.” Marcus sniffed with a tense screw of his lips. “Anyway, I don’t care. It pays well.” His eyes faded with the decreasing wick of the candlelight.
“How much?”
“Thirty Gallis.”
“Thirty,” guffawed Zachary. His mouth enlarged under raised eyebrows. A Galli was ten Leo-coins. Three hundred Leo-coins. The smell of the rabbit felt far away. No more mushrooms, for a while.
“Gerry’s prepping his ship now.” No fear showed on Marcus’s face.
“You’re going into space?” gasped Zachary. Strange that his dad had never mentioned experiencing this before, or even the last time that he’d visited IOTA. Was he a regular visitor? “Will you be safe?”
Marcus patted him as he passed. “Sure. Plus there will probably be beefed-up security at the Kade residence in case the pirates decide to have another go.”
Zachary’s toes flicked the leather inside his boots. Kade. The girl used that name. How many Kades could there be in Overworld? “I want to go with you.”
Doubt shook his lip. Why did he want to go? On a single name, he suspected that the girl from the Intercom would be there. How stupid to even consider that, yet, it was possible. He had to know.
Marcus took a moment to stare. “Fine.”
* * *
It took a thousand steps to reach the gate to IOTA. Wide enough to push three homes through, it showed dents across the fortified sheets of metal that made it. Faces peered downward from the high compound walls linked to the opening gate. They knew his dad was coming.
On entering, the smell of aromatic spices hit Zachary. The towering homes of Shantytown didn’t exist here. Space was plentiful for the dwellers here with energy beams lighting lanes. Tingles shot up Zachary’s spine at the fast approaching docking bay. He’d deemed himself mad for tagging along on something that could amount to nothing.
Six ships stood ahead like creatures awaiting commands and their different sized wings seized his attention. Long. Wide. Short. Thick engines. Single-seated cockpits. Multiple windows. Sitting furthest away, one ship teased a grin. The Muirne. It resembled a rusty overturned bug with six connector-like legs protruding from the top. Four cylindrical propulsion-drives glowed blue beneath it, the same shade as the photograph in his dad’s room.
Zachary followed Marcus up the Muirne’s rear-side ramp into a compartmentalised portion encircled by shelves. Padded seats fitted the midsection beyond that.
The tall, rough-bearded captain of the ship entered from the opposite corridor. Shaking his dad’s hand, Gerry cocked his head. “And you brought your little squirt as well. Never a bad time to experience your first flight. Just make sure you hold onto your tummy, cos it’s gonna feel like you swallowed it whole.”
“Pulsars maxed, good to go,” said a man in a crimson jumpsuit behind Zachary.
“Deadly,” said Gerry. “Get your mob in. The payload awaits.”
Marcus tugged the Captain’s hand. “Thirty Gallis. Just for drilling. Right?”
“Would an Irishman lie to you?” Gerry gestured for them to join him in the cockpit. “I ain’t no holy-Joe to question Kade’s rush or how much he pays.”
Glass all over gave the cockpit an open view of the docking bay. With his jeans scraping the coarse texture of the rear seat, Zachary eased onto it.
Gerry flicked a switch on the hub. A drone started under the ship. “Control, this is Muirne. Request for force fields to be reversed for exit.”
Zachary imitated his dad’s motion in slipping the green clasp over the black button. It self-tightened. Looking to the side, Zachary clutched his seat. Dust particles wafted upwards around the bellowing Muirne. Queasy pangs in his stomach juddered. He felt the ship rise with a leap toward the curved ceiling, and then it hovered, aiming towards the growing hole at the end of the bay. Zachary lifted his legs as a wallop of force humped the ship forward. Fast. For five seconds, he sucked his breath in.
Gerry twiddled the hub’s lever. “Sick yet?”
Zachary felt pressure in his stomach. “N-n-no.”
The Muirne banked sharp left.
The muscles in his neck could have torn with the strain he made to catch sight of the Galilei Research-Base. The blocky substructure of the Base seemed misaligned and crooked in direct contrast to the smoother panels above. The other side of the Base shot into view. He’d heard of what lay there, and as dull as some made the Europa moon to be, it was a mesmerising ball of smudged white.
The Muirne glided upwar
d presenting the gas-giant to view. Dense orange streams pulled Zachary, making the belt-strap across his waist dig into him. Never had the planet’s grainy bands looked so sharp. Jupiter’s massive red eye studied him.
“Back on the old world, they said heaven rested in the sky and hell below your feet. They had it wrong,” said Gerry. “That there is hell.”
* * *
In the short time that passed, Zachary gave up on trying to pierce through Galilei’s upper hull to see what lay beneath.
Gerry pointed to the flattened slopes of the Base’s port side. “This ambassador must have annoyed serious people in his time to be placed this far from Assayer.” He pressed a blue pad. “Dock Twenty-Two. This is the Muirne, requesting permission to land on authority of Jordan Kade.”
Zachary’s throat smouldered. The Kade girl could be here.
“Consent granted,” replied a stern voice over the speaker. “Tracker activated.”
With the engines of the Muirne nearly silent, humming whirrs sounded as the ship nudged forwards in a smooth path into a rectangular opening.
“Zach,” said Marcus. “Stay on the ship.”
Zachary slumped into his seat. Any other day, he would have obeyed, but to let the chance to see this girl slip away was wrong. “Dad, please.”
“Stay. It’s no place for a boy. Look after the ship.”
Choosing to stay silent, Zachary peered out into Dock Twenty-Two. Men and women in white suits zipped up to their necks, with full-on shades, walked by holding digital tablets. Everything was clean and polished.
Quiet gripped the Muirne.
They’d gone, and the ship hadn’t been locked. Anybody could enter and leave. Lips pinched, he looked out of the cockpit. Gerry and his dad were heading toward a slope. Behind, six of the crimson men pushed a couple of large table-sized cylinders attached to rolling wheels.
The Kade girl’s home had to be close. Maybe she’d come to the docking bay. How long does it take to clean a breach? Zachary thumped the seat’s armrests. They’d never know that he’d left the ship. Stay low. Keep quiet. Sneak. Seize the opportunity.