The Puzzler's War

by Eyal Kless

  How did he know that? Despite my training I tensed on my seat.

  The Healer held his marked hands up in a sign of peace. “Worry not, Miss Peach, I am here for da helping. Say what you need and if this is in my power, I will make it happen.”

  Things which were too good to be true were usually a lie, but if this man was willing to help me . . .

  “I need to get to the City of Towers,” I said, unwilling to expose the rest of my mission.

  “Then da man called Trevil will pay da price of taking you there.”

  “And my own price? You said yesterday that the price is always steep.”

  “There is always a price,” the Healer agreed, “but by helping you I pay a debt.” The Healer put both of his hands on his heart. “My own debt.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Hear my story, then.” The man straightened on his pillow. “My first mark appeared when I was already seventeen, and it was not in an obvious place . . .” The Healer smiled for the first time, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “It was actually discovered by someone else, the girl I was going to marry. I was twice a fool, to think our love would endure and to believe she would not betray me. I was seized the very next day and taken to the elder and he who put the knife to me.” The Healer pointed at his crotch. “He cut the essence of my manhood. I was put in a cage and left outside da village, to heal or die. I wanted to die, but my body be strong even when my spirit be broken and the mark tainted my skin. On the fifth night, a man came and saved me, a special man. I be marked on my body, but he be marked on his soul. This man helped me heal, and his price was that I would help whenever you showed up at my door. He described you to me, said you will be moving like the marked and that you would bring death wherever you go.”

  “That is . . . impossible.”

  “Only for those who do not accept truth.” The Healer indicated himself. “I can cure people and take their wounds on me. You can move like the wind without having a mark on your body, and the man who saved me foresaw that you would come here and ask me to help you. He told me that this would be the best of the foreseeable futures.”

  “Who was this prophet?” I asked.

  The healer leaned over and whispered, “His name . . . was Nakamura.”

  Chapter 15

  Twinkle Eyes

  It materialised out of the darkness, slowly and from afar, and I knew what it was even before it filled my entire field of vision. I have heard Vincha tell me about it in detail, even though she herself never saw it and only relayed Rafik’s story secondhand. Nevertheless, here I was, standing, mesmerised, in front of a puzzle wall, or perhaps the Great Puzzle Wall Rafik had mentioned. Hundreds, no, thousands of strange symbols raced before my eyes in all directions. How someone, even a Puzzler, could find a pattern within this chaos was beyond me.

  I reached out, my arm extending farther than my eyes could see, and stopped a symbol with my finger. It felt cool but vibrant. I extended my other arm and after several attempts and failures managed to stop a similar symbol, not the exact same, but close enough in resemblance.

  Now what?

  Symbols kept floating all around my hands, but I knew that if I let go of the ones I was holding I would lose them all.

  Suddenly another symbol changed course, slowly moving to the one I was holding and attaching itself to it with a mental click. Soon after another symbol moved on its own accord towards the three I was holding, as if someone else was helping me from beyond the wall. When the pattern was complete it shimmered and detached itself from the wall completely. The symbols spanned before me to create a metal double door. They slid apart and I stepped forward and into the chamber of the Leviathan. I saw Galinak sitting, examining his machine gun in his lap. He did not acknowledge me or look at the doors. My own body was lying motionless, but in this reality I was wearing the helmet. My transparent image drew closer to my body until we merged into one.

  A little later I woke up.

  Galinak turned his head towards me. Maybe he asked something, but I was already in the process of fastening the helmet on my head. Like waking up from a vivid dream, the images were slowly fading from my mind, and I had no idea how long they would linger.

  The Leviathan sprang back to life, and I let my hands move and touch the transparent screens around me. Galinak put his own helmet on, but this time he took care not to touch anything.

  We could both hear a hissing noise.

  “What’s that?” Galinak’s voice rang inside my head as I somehow established a link between us.

  “How long was I out?” I asked, more to keep him from distracting me with questions than anything else.

  “Not long, but you were out cold. What are you doing?”

  “Not sure, but I know what to do.” I touched two transparent buttons and turned a dial.

  “That is a contradi—”

  The music caught both of us by surprise.

  “Whoa.” Galinak grabbed the seat with one hand. “What is that?”

  “I think it is the music Rafik and Vincha used to listen to,” I said, still fiddling with the numbers on my screen. “It’s called Beethoven.”

  Galinak sat motionless for a while. “Rust,” he finally muttered, “that was what we heard when Vincha was strapped to that chair. Rust, that half-man Jakov was a piece of work.”

  I nodded but kept fiddling with the buttons as the music grew louder. Jakov was the weapons merchant who had stolen Rafik and sold him to the Keenan guild. Years later he returned with us to the City Within the Mountain, hoping to reestablish a supply route, or perhaps looking for redemption. He got neither.

  “I’m trying to find a way in,” I said. “There is a pattern I need to latch on to and then we can establish a link with Tarakan, but I need to find the right channel. It involves delicate fine tuning.”

  “And you know how to do this because . . . ?”

  I stopped myself from turning my head towards him. “I dreamt it. No, don’t ask. Find out what is going on outside instead, but don’t . . . touch . . . anything.”

  As the music grew louder Galinak turned his head left and right, seeing through the metal wall of the Leviathan. “They established a perimeter around us,” he informed me, his voice growing into a shout as the music became almost unbearably loud. “Two snipers with long rifles on either side, the rest spread out. Guess they’ll wait us out. Bukra’s balls, how long is this gonna take?”

  It took a lot of willpower not to throw the helmet off my head as the music got louder and louder.

  “Getting there,” I shouted back, but Galinak unfastened his own helmet and took it off his head.

  Suddenly the music ceased and Rafik’s face filled my field of vision.

  “Hello,” he said.

  I leaned back in my seat and let out a long sigh.

  Rafik nodded in approval. “You did well.”

  “Well? We did well?” My inner voice was rising with every word I uttered. “We woke up in a room filled with poisonous air and no idea what to do and where to go. You bet we did well, no thanks to you.”

  Rafik remained calm. “We did not expect such a malfunction in transmitting you, but these things were bound to happen over time, even with Tarakan technology.”

  Galinak watched me solemnly. Without the helmet he could not hear the conversation.

  I turned to him. “It’s them,” I whispered and motioned at his helmet.

  “Rust ’em,” he muttered. “I don’t want to hear anything they have to say. You talk to them and tell me the gist of it afterwards. Besides, the Dwaines might find a way inside. Someone should take watch.” He turned and left the cabin before I could react.

  “Perhaps it was more than that?” I said to Rafik, turning back on my chair. “You told me this Mannes was dangerous. Maybe this was sabotage?”

  “This is also a possibility within the realm of reason.” When I did not respond Rafik added, “I see you got yourself some gear. That is good.”

&
nbsp; I could understand Galinak’s reaction. We had been cheated by the Tarkanians, only to be forced to work for them again and almost be killed before we even started. Now we were stuck inside a Sky Bird, surrounded by the hostile Dwaines, and none of that seemed to register with Rafik. The whole situation was infuriating.

  “We managed to reconstruct the vessel, or body, the hibernating agent was downloaded into,” Rafik ploughed on.

  A picture of a woman appeared in front of my eyes.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” I commented without thinking.

  “Don’t let appearances fool you,” Rafik admonished. “Luckily for you, this is not a full combat vessel, but Colonel Major Vera Geer is a veteran of many battles. She is one of our most experienced operatives, capable and dangerous, and she has a two-month head start on you.

  “If Cain takes control and extracts the code from Emilija it would allow him even deeper access into Adam. There is no telling how much damage he could do, but it would be severe, perhaps even lethal.”

  “So, you want us to find Emilija and bring her back to you.”

  “And if at all possible, eliminate Mannes Holtz.”

  “If possible . . .” I stopped myself from pointlessly arguing. Instead, I changed the subject. “How did I know how to do”—I gestured all around us—“all of this? The dream, the puzzle wall . . .”

  “When Tarakan began cloning agents, we used to grow their bodies filled with hardware, but it didn’t take the others long to realise this and they began scanning for it. Hardware was too easy to spot. We needed a different method to send information to our operatives. One which did not involve detectable hardware.”

  “Dreams? You communicate in dreams?”

  “Brain waves, thoughts, they are but a shot of neurons, an electric pulse. Too weak to be transmitted under normal conditions, but when biological humans sleep deeply enough, the brain becomes much more susceptible, and with some DNA manipulation and mental practice it could be a reliable, effective tool.”

  Rafik correctly interpreted my expression because he added, “No, we cannot read your minds, control your actions, or even send you complex orders. The subconscious cannot be fully controlled like that.”

  “So every time I want to talk to you I should find a bed?”

  “No. This time you fell into a deep sleep with a definite problem on your mind. We were trying to find you and we managed to do just that, but it doesn’t work every time. You should just be aware we may try to contact you. It is part of how you were made, how you are wired, so it might get easier with time.”

  “Rust,” I cursed, it was almost too much to sink in. “What now?”

  “Find Vincha’s daughter. Your best course of action is to find Vincha herself and convince”—Rafik tilted his head slightly—“or coerce her to lead you to her daughter.”

  “You want me to look for Vincha again?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of it.

  Rafik ignored my reaction. “Vincha is not in the City of Towers, and she does her best to reduce her communication presence, but from the few activities she was unable to cover, we believe she operates along a long stretch of a Tarakan highway, not too far from the city itself.”

  “It is still a very large area to look for a woman who does not want to be found.”

  Rafik’s deep eyes found mine. “It’s a good start.”

  “Galinak is not going to like this idea. Neither will Vincha, if we find her, to put it mildly.”

  Rafik’s face didn’t show any sign of sympathy as he said, “Deal with it as you need to, but bring the girl to us.”

  “Fine.” I was getting tired of this. “Anything else? I need to deal with an angry Troll and an entire tribe of Secluders who are as pissed as hell.”

  “Actually, yes, there is more. Mannes had a personal log in his brain amp—all high-ranking Tarkanians used to have it. With all but the furthest communication devices down, it took a long time but we managed to reconstruct some of the data that was transmitted before it abruptly stopped. Only a severe head trauma or a very delicate medical operation could stop an amp from transmitting. That’s why we concluded the man died but now we know he lived, so he must have found a way to physically remove the brain amp from his head.”

  “That must have been a painful experience.”

  “We deemed it improbable that anyone could survive such a process.”

  “But he did. Score two for this Mannes, if you count the Catastrophe as a win.”

  “You should watch this as long as we are in direct communication.” Rafik’s image began to blur slowly. “You should know who you are up against.”

  Chapter 16

  Mannes

  Mannes stepped out of the air train’s private cabin onto the platform of the arrival hall, masking the familiar mix of excitement and dread he felt under a blank expression and a pair of old fashioned, rimless black sunglasses. He checked his internal clock. It was 06:33, eleventh of December, 2247. He’d planned a short snooze on the way, but that hadn’t happened, so a coffee or other stimulant was needed. The doors to the public cabins were just opening, so he quickly walked ahead of the rest of the passengers spilling out of the air train. He surveyed his surroundings impatiently as the Guardian Angel guard checked his credentials.

  Facing the hulking guard always made him feel discomfort. He reminded himself again, it was actually an artificial fighting machine. The Guardian Angel’s heightened senses must have picked up on Mannes’s nervousness because he, or it, was taking a little longer than expected, checking his credentials again before pointing Mannes to the empty VIP aisle.

  The people waiting in the public lanes, especially the couples and, in several noisy cases, the families, did not hide their excitement. Loud chatter blended into a thick blanket of mind-numbing noise and everyone, everyone, was posing for photos, using their ever-popular implanted thumb cameras.

  He tried not to blame them. After all, for the vast majority of Tarkanians, a trip up the space elevator was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Mannes guessed he had already made several dozen ascensions this year alone. He did not need to guess the amount; by accessing his brain amp he could have found out the exact number of ascensions along with what he ate each day or the average number of steps he walked, but he chose not to bother. Lately he’d been avoiding accessing his brain amp altogether, using his phenomenal yet primitive tool of natural memory, a genetic gift from his ancestors. He wondered whether that precaution had raised suspicion somewhere and whether that was the real reason for this unscheduled, strange trip.

  An involuntary shudder shot up Mannes’s spine, and he shook his head before he could regain control of himself. Maybe something had gone wrong with the code. Maybe one of the thousands of Daichi’s subroutines he had copied into the mainframe was clashing with the spinal program. Maybe . . .

  No, everything is fine. Professor Vitor would have set this up through the normal channels and besides, the time for such clandestine operations is over. This is just what it is, Mannes, and you are being dangerously paranoid, so relax.

  The line on the other side of the VIP lane was especially long, and despite himself Mannes felt a guilty pleasure walking past all the people. He felt their eyes watching him with a mixture of curiosity and envy. Who was he? Without consciously thinking about it, Mannes slowed his steps, squared his shoulders and raised his chin. He even tucked in what Deborah nicknamed “Daddy’s cushion,” as he marched through passport control and went underground and into the private bullet pod that would bring him directly into the base of Mount Iztaccihuatl. The tall, dormant volcano served as the base for the most expensive elevator in human history. Tarakan had permanently leased it from the bankrupt Mexican government. At the time the deal was criticised by many of its citizens, bonding together an odd mixture of Mexican nationalists and concerned environmentalists. The space elevator—or “Star Pillar,” as the Tarakan advertising agency persisted in calling it—was now a fact, and the hund
reds of thousands of demonstrators, terrorist threats, and international political shenanigans had diminished to a manageable problem.

  Mannes stepped out of the bullet pod and had one last credential and DNA check before being ushered into the biocleansing area. Normal travellers were not allowed to bring anything into space. Most of them simply came with the blue or yellow disposable body suit that was readily available in almost any store. Once they passed security, everything from clothes to personal items and toys were destroyed and recycled. Mannes’s VIP status gave him permission to carry the items he needed for work and also made it possible to store his clothes on Earth, but as usual he just chucked them away for recycling, choosing a simple traveller’s outfit instead, spreading his hands while the machine measured him with quick efficiency. The tunic came out with the Tarakan emblem in silver and gold, marking his rank. He was always proud of his achievements and status, but now the emblem just reminded him how exposed he really was.

  The rest of his personal belongings were already waiting for him outside the changing room after being thoroughly disinfected. Mannes was guided by a small flying bot to the executive elevator. It was not the kind of space one usually implied when using the word elevator—this was a spacious room lavishly decorated with antiques, with a beautiful oak writing table placed in front of a panoramic viewing wall. The top-of-the-line executive seat was comfortable, and he had to make an effort to feel or test the restraints that snaked around his body. Mannes declined the offer for a light meal but ordered coffee and, knowing his security status allowed it, turned on his personal pad. The newsline flashed up in front of his eyes as soon as he turned it on. The Mars accelerator project had hit another obstacle, and a new international board committee had to be assembled after several non-Tarkanian members had been arrested on suspicion of fraud. The rest of the news was just the usual crap. Another condemnation of Tarakan after a terrorist bio attack in Australia killed thirteen thousand and infected Sydney’s water supply. Ridiculously, Tarakan was blamed for the atrocity, and despite strong denials by Central Command, the UN had released a formal condemnation. There were the usual calls for stronger boycotts by several enemy states, and all the while the Asian market kept plummeting, mass demonstrations were held in front of Tarakan embassies in several countries . . .