The URANUS Code (Citadel World Book #1)

by Kir Lukovkin

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky?” asked one of the warriors, hopefully.

  A week ago, he found a well-preserved jumpsuit made of warm and shiny cloth hidden away in a niche and he now slept in it to protect himself from the cold. Now, he wanted to find another one for his fiance.

  They often walked past entrances to side corridors that led into the depths of the Expanse and Rick stared into their darkness with trepidation in his heart, expecting to see cold, shining and inhuman eyes every time.

  But time marched on and nothing happened. They spent half of their shift patrolling the side corridors from the south. All five, apart from the upper corridor. They started with the large circular, turned into a parallel corridor, moved towards the Chorda and turned towards the smaller circular. They reached the guarded barrier and turned back to follow the same route. When they returned to their point of origin, they used a stairway to descend to the next corridor. At first, Rick did not even realize that they had gone beyond the barrier, as the shape of the corridor mirrored that of the one they had left. However, when long curtains of mold appeared to fur the walls and he saw the thick layer of dust upon the floor, he worked out the patrol's current location.

  “How far out have you been?” he asked Ivon at a convenient moment.

  “What, newbie, can’t wait to run off?”

  After he finished laughing with the others, the commander answered condescendingly.

  “As far as the next radial corridor, in both directions.”

  “Why didn’t you go any further?”

  Ivon’s smile faded. There was the glint of a threat in his eyes.

  “You come across as rather smart, don’t you Rick? Well, then, don’t disappoint me. You will freeze to death before you go hungry out there. Don’t you understand that the Expanse is full of beasts that you couldn't imagine in your worst nightmare? What you saw during the Spring Run was but a tiny part of all that Mother Darkness can throw at us.”

  Rick wanted to argue, but Ivon growled at him.

  “Eyes forward, private!”

  Five pairs of eyes darted in that direction—some sort of shapeless and dark mass lay upon the floor. Rick carefully edged forward, holding out his baton and torch in from of him. The mass did not move. A step, then another—the mass turned out to only be a dead rat.

  “Commander?”

  “Do you need a personal invitation, or something? Be quick and grab the carrion and bag it!”

  “Yes, commander,” Rick bent down over the rat.

  The body was the size of a human baby. Visibly disgusted, he put the dead thing in his bag and looked over his shoulder to report that he had followed the order.

  “Commander? Kurt?”

  Silence. The cold air howled through the pipes. The patrolmen seemed to have vanished. Rick returned where he came from, to the crossroads between the radial corridor and a small circular pathway. He called out again. A short echo bounced through the corridors and died away in the gloom.

  “Very funny,” Rick clapped his hands, “Great joke. Wanted a laugh?”

  No one answered. Rick decided to wait—they were bound to get tired and bored.

  “Come on,” he exclaimed, “Haven't you had enough?”

  “Enoooough”, a vile and gurgling sound whined right by his ear.

  Rick shouted and blindly shot out with his baton. The recoil threw him to the ground. Something made a pattering sound under the ceiling, quickly fading away into the distance. A sharp and disgusting smell reached his nostrils. The baton kept discharging, sending lighting sparkling across the ceiling. Rick was struggling on the floor, trying to switch off the jammed weapon. A strong arm suddenly grabbed the baton away from him and switched off the power. Rick was dragged onto his feet.

  “What d’you think you’re doing?”

  “I… You… There was…”

  “Shut up!” hissed Ivon, “You will tell me later. Let’s go. I will show you something interesting, I’m sure you’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Ivon dove into the gloom. Rick swallowed. He did not want to be alone in the corridor anymore. He followed the commander. He turned a few times, following the dark shape ahead of him and found himself in a small oval hall where the rest of the patrol was standing. Everyone stared at the center of the hall. Rick looked in that direction and was suddenly transfixed. At first, due to the blue flashes reflected off the walls, it seemed that there was an aquarium in front of him—like those that the workers used for breeding carp on the fifteenth level. But the pale light glowed evenly and moved in an uncanny way, much unlike light reflected from the surface of the water. A structure made of thick glass occupied the center of the hall, filled with some fluid that was thick, but clear enough to see the dark shapes inside.

  The shapes were human bodies. Connected to twisting pipes, they were suspended as if they were half hanging, half lying down, separated from each other into sections. Rick was mesmerized by the half-naked woman nearest to him, who was wrapped in tapes and complex pipes with mysterious devices at the end. His eyes moved to her neighbor, an elderly man, and then onto the section which contained something slimy and covered in hair, a terrible, amorphous mass the sight of which turned Rick’s stomach.

  Once he finished retching, Rick asked in an unsteady whisper.

  “What is that?”

  Ivon signed for the patrol to leave, and only answered when they had come back out.

  “We don’t know. Franz from the third shift noticed that the door wasn't locked. Now we have yet another Interesting Place.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Ivon winked.

  “There’s all sorts of stuff around here. People think that the Expanse is a cold, dark desert, and that there is nothing here apart from monsters and barbarians. That is wrong. I have been up and down these corridors for the last eight years, but that means nothing. Look at all of these doors down the sides of the corridor. They are locked, and no mortal man can unlock them. But they do open sometimes.”

  Rick looked at the rows of dark doors extending into the distance, labeled with incomprehensible symbols and glyphs. Meanwhile, Kurt marked the wall by the entrance and the squad continued on their way.

  “There are empty bedrooms behind some of these doors, just like in our sector,” Ivon continued as he walked, “some of the rooms have shelves and cabinets full of all kinds of things along the walls. Others are completely empty. Just walls, floors and ceilings. There are rooms which are alive, rooms full of traps and gigantic rooms that are the size of our square or even bigger. But there are also rooms like that one,” he motioned behind his back towards the hall of aquaria filled with human bodies, “where you can’t understand anything. Why are the bodies in the aquariums? Are those people alive?”

  “Commander, tell him about the ghost,” asked patrolman Sid.

  “There’s an empty room in one of the corridors below,” Ivon readily continued, “It has a red circle in the center. As soon as you enter that room and look at the circle, the ghost of a man appears in it. Yuri, a man under my command that fell into the chasm a year ago, entered the room first. Yuri used to have black hair, but it went gray. The ghost spoke to him.”

  “So what did it say?”

  “It kept on repeating, “Give me the code, give me the code”. It seemed to be an incantation. No one goes in there anymore—the room has been marked as dangerous. I’ve got a whole list of them—the rooms that were forbidden by the Committee and those where our warriors perished,” Ivon looked around, getting his bearings, “Now then. We’ve covered the whole of this wing. All quiet. So, we’re going to turn towards the Chorda and you will get to see the chasm. I will show you the Stairway.”

  However, before they had the chance to take even a few steps, the Ether Voice on the shoulder of the commander came to life.

  “All external Patrol squads! Red alert! Urgently attend level thirty-seven, north wing, minor circular corridor! I repeat…”

 
“Squad!” commanded Ivon, “Adopt battle formation. Follow me!”

  There was no time for fear. Rick got himself together and ran, looking at the back of the warrior ahead of him. The squad quickly reached the end of the corridor and turned towards the stairway. A rapid ascent of almost thirty levels was required. The stairs sapped strength, while fighters needed to keep it when going into battle. The warriors swiftly jumped over several stairs a time. Rick saw their flashing heels ahead and counted the levels under his breath. At last, they ran out into a corridor.

  “After me!” shouted the commander. “Don’t fall behind!”

  They did not run around the perimeter of the sector but cut across using a small radial corridor, pushing the Commune members passing through aside. Breathing heavily, the squad reached the barrier and rushed into the Expanse from the north. A corridor, a left turn, another corridor, another left turn, a section stairway, then down three floors… They almost careened into the other patrolmen that started their patrol from this wing. Rick saw the reason for all the trouble.

  Three barbarians were on their knees before the patrolmen with their hands behind their heads. Two men and a woman. Their skin was much darker than that of the people of the Commune, their bodies looked quite athletic and they stared straight ahead. Their silvery clothing looked new and hugged tight around their bodies. The men were bearded and wore headwear on their heads. Confiscated items lay in front of the barbarians. Some of these looked like they may have been weapons—smooth tubes with holes at one end and handles on the other.

  Manuel, commander of the northern Patrol, greeted Ivon with a ritual salute signifying the Circle of Life. The other patrolmen followed their lead.

  “You’re right on time,” exclaimed Manuel, “These barbarians decided that they can test our mettle, and this is what they got.”

  He nodded at the dead body of a man lying off to the side. The body lay on its back and it was being searched by patrolmen.

  “Listen…” said the larger of the barbarians.

  “Shut up!” Manuel shouted, barely hiding his fear, “It is forbidden to speak to barbarians! All eyes on the floor!”

  The barbarian shrugged, but followed the order.

  “Where did you catch them?” asked Ivon.

  “They were trying to get in using the outside terrace and climb down using this equipment,” Manuel kicked the pile of ropes and hooks with the toe of his boot, “We thought that it was rats, but Yeshua persuaded me to check. That’s how they got caught, the bastards! They were crawling down one after another like cockroaches. Well done, Yeshua!”

  While the commander of the northern squad described how his warriors captured and tied up the barbarians, Rick’s eyes met those of the woman. He recognized her. This was the girl he saw on the route of the Circle of Life. That girl. Rick looked away indifferently.

  “I see,” Ivon got his breath back, “We’re at your service.”

  “Thanks. We need to take them to the Warden. Let him sort them out. All rise!”

  The barbarians obeyed. One stumbled, and another caught him. Manuel’s warriors picked up their possessions and put them into bags.

  “Forward! Over there!” Manuel waved the large barbarian towards the stairs. The other patrolman poked him in the ribs with a deactivated baton.

  “Understood,” the barbarian calmly replied.

  This enraged Manuel.

  “Get on with it, you swine!”

  The barbarian glanced sharply at the commander, and Rick could swear that in another situation, if the commander did not have a weapon, he would be in for a hard time. The procession moved along the corridor. The men of the north patrol walked in front and those of the south patrol at the back. The escort group went up the section stairway and entered the radial corridor. The barbarians walked with their heads down, seemingly resigned to their fate. When they all started towards the smaller curving corridor, the girl smoothly moved to the side. Most of the patrolmen did not immediately understand what was going on—only Rick managed to grab her by the shoulder in time. The mysterious girl made another smooth turn and hit Rick in the stomach hard enough for him to double over. Then, the girl was running, running in the direction of the Chorda.

  “Get her!” Ivon shouted.

  “I’m on it!” Yeshua screamed, vaulting over Rick.

  “I’ll help!” barked Rick.

  They gave chase—a slight barbarian girl that seemed to glide along the corridor, wiry Yeshua, and Rick, who had not yet recovered from her precise and painful punch. The chase lasted no longer than five minutes, but everything had to be decided in those moments. The chain of ceiling lights led to something that emitted a strong, deathly pale light. The corridor suddenly came to an end, and the three sprung into an open space that looked like a balcony. The girl ran to the very edge of the platform where the chasm began. Yeshua slowed his pace. Rick did too. He saw the Chorda for the first time.

  A gigantic vertical pillar of incalculable breadth extended from below, piercing the Expanse. Rick did not know what he could compare its immense size to. The pillar of the Chorda was right in the middle of an even greater well, with the platform at the end of the corridor extending from one of its sides. A wide spiral stairway twisted upwards from the very edge, piercing the floors and ceiling of the level. This was the spine of the world, the backbone of the universe in which Rick was born and raised.

  The barbarian girl was standing on the edge, quickly extending a thin wire from a circular spool with three hooks on the end. Yeshua slowly approached the escapee, like a predator about to pounce. The Expanse was suffocating him, but he was stubborn and would not retreat from his target. It seemed that the barbarian girl did not notice the appearance of the patrolmen—she kept unwinding the metallic wire, preparing to either descend or climb. Yeshua extended his baton and aimed.

  “No!” shouted Rick.

  It was too late. The bolt of lightning hit the runaway, making her shudder. Rick suddenly understood Yeshua’s true intent. He leaped over and knocked the baton from the hands of the patrolman. Yeshua growled. The girl fell like a motionless doll at the very edge of the platform. Yeshua and Rick fought, giving each other a taste of fists and elbows.

  “Scum! You again!” Yeshua hissed, “I will throw you into the chasm!”

  They rolled to the edge of the platform. The wind blew there, with the rising streams of air tearing at their clothes and hair. Rick felt the icy breath of the abyss. Just one more step, and it would be all over. Yeshua managed to twist and smash a fist into Rick's face, making his eyes go dark. Rick lost his spatial orientation for a moment and tried to grab his opponent, blindly feeling ahead of him with his hands and standing on his knees...

  “There they are!” he heard from afar, “What happened here?”

  “Quick! Grab the girl!” the voices approached.

  “She's out cold!”

  “Hey, what's wrong with Rick?”

  “I don't know... I think she tried to push him off!” Rick recognized Yeshua's voice, “I managed to knock her out just in time!”

  “Well done! She really did him in! Come on, get the guy up.”

  A strong pair of hands grabbed Rick and put him on his unsteady feet. With great difficulty, he opened his sticky left eye, while the right would not open—it looked like it was badly swollen. His head was throbbing. The patrolmen carried the unconscious barbarian girl to the side of the corridor entrance, while Yeshua picked up his baton off the floor.

  “Everything's all right, man,” Ivon said approvingly.

  Rick had a somewhat different opinion on the matter. Before he lost consciousness and fell back, he saw the vague shining outline human figure far above, at a height where the darkness of chaos began. The mysterious stranger seemed to balance on the edge of reality, waving at Rick with his hand.

  5

  THE HALLS of the Committee were clean and well-kept spaces with high ceilings, well suited for those who were in power. Starting from level
forty upwards, the heating operated at full capacity and it was possible to walk around without an insulated uniform. This is why Rick suffered from the heat as he sat in the reception. The light was also far brighter here on the upper levels, which is why everything seemed to be unbearably luminous and the colors were incredibly full. He was sitting on a soft sofa—a criminally soft sofa, and a platter of cookies stood on the table in front of him. The cookies smelled delicious—Rick was trying to guess how many minutes it would take him to eat them all. Five? No, he was sure he would manage to in three.

  A girl wearing the golden tunic worn by all of the Highers emerged.

  “Warden Croesus is ready to receive Brother Rick of the Commune. Please follow me.”

  Feeling relaxed and tired from the heat, Rick only managed to get up on his second attempt and shakily followed the girl. At first, he did not understand where he was—the corridor seemed unending. Then he realized that this was an extremely long room and that the Warden was sitting at a desk at the end. Croesus rose and came to greet him, arms wide open in an embrace, kissed him on the cheek and proffered his hand. Rick clumsily shook his hand, feeling confused.

  “Hah!” Croesus exclaimed, “I had no doubt.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I wanted to give my personal thanks and shake the hand of the patrolman that showed such bravery and prevented the escape of the infiltrators. I kept thinking who could it be, and I thought of you.”

  “Oh, it was just a coincidence.”

  “I doubt it,” Croesus shook his head. “In my experience, there are no coincidences in our line of work. People like you are the bulwark of the Commune.”

  “Well, I am sure you see best,” Rick agreed.

  “The seniors of each level tell me about every brother and sister in the Commune. It is my direct responsibility to know everything about the people so that I can protect and look after them. This is what all Wardens did before me. This may be why the Commune has such a glorious and long history… So, this is why I always pay special attention to the new generation, because the young are the future. I noticed you a long while ago, and I sometimes showed an interest in your life. Physical training, contest results, knowledge of the Catechism and industrial production levels—everything you did always came to you easily, straightforwardly and without any particular issues. And then, it came to the current Spring Dance. You could have chosen the Pit Fight or the Stand Above the Chasm. Actually, no, you are terrified of heights. Basically, you could have chosen any of the trials, but signed up for the most dangerous one. Your actions speak for themselves. However, your bravery does have a negative side to it.”