The URANUS Code (Citadel World Book #1)

by Kir Lukovkin

  The night was not over yet, so the corridors were empty. The door to Maya Kappa's room was open. Maya herself was not here—she was in a deep sleep in the neighboring room. Aurora was lying on the bed instead of her. Rick wanted to shut the door, but his sister called him by name and he stopped in the doorway.

  “Is that you?” Aurora propped herself up on the bed. “Why aren't you sleeping?”

  “And why aren't you?”

  “I had a bad dream. Sit with me.”

  Rick slid into the room, stepped over to the bed and perched himself on the edge, looking at his sister. Following their old habit, they did not turn on the light to save power. Aurora gave Rick a hug, pressing her cheek to his chest. Rick smoothed her messy hair—Aurora's forehead seemed too cold and slick with sweat, even though it was obviously hot.

  “What did you dream of, little one?”

  “That the black people came and took you and uncle Kyoto away and put me into a pit.”

  “It was only a dream. Don't be afraid.”

  “They had no eyes. Or noses. Only mouths.”

  Rick put his sister to bed and covered her with a blanket.

  “I will stay with you for a while.”

  “Please don't go anywhere.”

  “All right. Do you want me to tell you a fairy tale?”

  There was a pause—Aurora was obviously fighting back temptation. Then she firmly declared, “No. I remember them all. I thought I would never see you again. I was very sad when you left. Uncle Kyoto kept saying that you would be back soon, but I did not believe him.” She sighed. “Uncle Kyoto made me learn some words about dad. Before the strange people came and took me here.”

  “Which words?”

  “Wait.” She was quiet for a moment, as she gathered her thoughts. “Here. Rick, your father is alive and he is down below, there where Omega and Aqua end and even lower. The password is “infinity”.

  Now it was Rick's turn to get his thoughts together. After a short pause to think, he asked, “Was that it?”

  “Yes. Is dad alive? Or was that a joke?”

  “I don't know Aurora. Go to sleep.”

  His sister started to fidget in the darkness of the room. He sat by her side for around half an hour and then sneaked towards the exit. He close the door in complete silence, feeling vigilant eyes on his back...

  It was no problem to get the other half of the key that he had left in his room. Maya was fast asleep and did not hear him enter. At least he got lucky here and did not have to explain himself.

  His second journey along the narrow ledge turned out to be easier. And this was not because Rick was looking at the wall and there was almost no wind. His perception of it had changed. It seemed to him that he was not standing, but lying flat on a huge flat surface and that he must get into a deep burrow. When he clambered into the niche before the entrance to the corridor, he looked down into a chasm.

  The darkness was receding. A pale yellow light was spreading below, painting the gray walls of the lower sectors in copper. The gap had also become narrower in some places. Closed shutters appeared between the segments—the gates which had been open for many years had closed at their appointed hour. And Rick knew the reason for that very well.

  The chasm had visibly come to life. He could hear the distant rumble of moving mechanisms and the hum of the generators sending energy along the lines like blood flowing through the veins of a gigantic organism.

  Without wasting any more time, Rick ran along the corridor to the Stellar Hall and then to the east wing to get to the genetic engineering room. The body in the sarcophagus had almost completed its transformation and he already recognized its familiar features. Tommo had connected himself to the computer and lay on a table that was pushed by the side of the sarcophagus. Half of the mask had been cut away from his head, revealing the open upper part of his plastic skull and the wires snaking out of it.

  Rick came back in time to glance at the screens. The modeling of a clone using Rick's DNA was almost complete. Once the process reached its end, he looked at the prole. He was lying completely still. Rick came right up to the table—the red lights no longer shone in the dark ocular lenses. The prole's body was now only an empty shell.

  He heard a quiet hissing. Rick turned around and saw the glass lid of the sarcophagus open, as the nutrient feeding pipes disconnected from the clone's body. The clone suddenly sat up and waved his hands, almost falling to the floor. Rick caught him by the arm right on time and helped him get to his feet.

  The old clothing that he had thoughtfully fetched from the room turned out to be a perfect fit for the new Tommo. He dressed himself into the clean uniform of the Omicron Commune Patrol and looked at himself in the mirror on the door of a cabinet. He turned towards Rick.

  “Not bad,” Rick said.

  “Not bad for now,” Tommo suddenly answered and started to stretch his arms and legs as he got used to his new body. “The operational lifetime is not too long, but that doesn't matter. The main thing is to complete the mission.”

  “Would you want to come back into your previous shell?” Rick was not particularly surprised that Tommo could speak as the cloning program and the new body had that sort of function.

  Tommo looked at his former body, which lay there in its own jumpsuit, and said, “I lack desires. I complete what is mandated by the program they loaded into me, completing tasks in order of priority. I do not need my old body at the moment.”

  They left the room and entered the Stellar Hall.

  “Did you pick up the second half of the key?” Tommo asked on the way.

  Rick showed him the fragments of the cross. Tommo took both halves from him and skilfully joined them together. They made a dull metal cross with barely perceptible carved patterns on the sides.

  “The launch of the program is synchronized,” Tommo stated. “Those are the conditions of the security protocol. One input device is located in the Control Center above and the other is below on level zero, which is underground.”

  “But there is only one key.”

  “Yes. One in two terminals. Alpha and Omega, that form infinity.”

  Tommo pointed at the symbol engraved on the cross. Then, he pressed a notch on the key and the cross divided in half. Tommo gave one of the halves to Rick and continued.

  “Now we need to decide who goes where.”

  “How do I get down below?”

  “Using the main elevator. But the elevators are blocked. The system is put into hibernation before switching to a new level of self sufficiency. Thermopolis adapts itself before the launch of the program. The residential and storage sectors move to the top and the technical sectors move to the bottom.”

  “The aeons are not isolated yet.”

  “It is risky and time consuming to descend through the sectors, without even mentioning the segments between the aeons. This is why there is one and only option. It is quick and simple.”

  They said it at the same time.

  “There is outside space.”

  “That's right,” Tommo confirmed. “There are flying machine hangars in sector Alpha. One of them must be taken and flown down to the bottom of the Thermopolis. A perimeter was built there, with shafts leading to underground bunkers. One of them is connected by corridors to sector zero. The door is blocked and it opens using a genetic code and a password. There is a control hall inside. I will do this myself.”

  “No.” Rick shook his head. “I will do this. You must obey my orders.”

  “This is a high risk decision,” Tommo noted. “The probability of your success is approximately fifty-fifty. I would have a better chance. We have no right to make a mistake.”

  “The Architect said that I was not the first. This means I won't be the last. You can test your luck with someone else again.”

  “I do not understand why you insist.” Tommo blinked indifferently, without expressing any emotion on his face.

  “I have my reasons. I will manage—remember that
I went through an accelerated learning course and my new knowledge should be enough. Take care of my sister and Maya. Be careful with Paris. It is no easy task to get into the Control Center, but I am sure you will do it. While we still have an advantage. However, they will understand what is going on in about an hour and raise the alarm.”

  “I concur. There is a shaft nearby. Let's use it to go up.”

  He led Rick to a grille over a wide ventilation shaft, easily opened it and they climbed upwards together.

  The rumble of the generators soon became noticeably louder. Rick had to constantly swallow to unblock his ears. They were climbing for around half an hour, stopping for quick rests, until they saw light appear in a side branch above.

  “We must go further,” Tommo said in his even tone of voice, and they continued moving.

  A strong and dry wind was blowing through the shaft. The temperature rose with every level, as if they were approaching a red hot oven.

  “Can you feel that?” Rick asked as he wiped away sweat.

  “That is the cooling system of the Main Computer,” Tommo replied. “Endure it.”

  They climbed upwards, level after level. His mouth had gone dry and the muscles of his arms and legs ached with the strain. But Tommo kept moving in front of him and fatigue did not seem to affect him. After thirty floors, Rick could not resist asking, “So what's going on? Is there long left?”

  “Thirty floors. Don't interrupt your breathing patterns.”

  Rick clenched his teeth and decided to listen to Tommo's advice. It really did make things a little easier. However, after some time fatigue did take its toll. Rick started to breath heavily as the sweat poured into his eyes and his hands slipped from the bars built into the walls.

  All he needed was to fall at the very end of his journey.

  “We're almost there,” Tommo reported from above, as if he a mind reader.

  Rick was so happy that he missed a bar with his hand and nearly fell. Tommo saved him yet again by grabbing him by the collar and dragging him into a side opening, letting him get his breath back and helping him to get up.

  Rick saw colorful circles grow and melt in his vision. Rick closed his eyes for a while, opened them and understood that they were on a... he would call it a hangar deck. The walls and ceiling were covered with a thin layer of hoarfrost. Rick finally felt how cold it was there and regretted leaving his warm jacket in his room.

  This was a serious problem—how could he go outside now? It was deadly cold out there and he would freeze immediately!

  Tommo had already opened up a wide panel and started digging around inside the closest machine—a silvery, flattened vehicle with smooth, arrow shaped wing and a cabin with a clear cockpit at the front.

  “What are you doing?” asked Rick, shivering.

  “I am checking the charge. Look for the blue battery cylinders in boxes marked with a yellow diamond.”

  Rick walked over to the boxes and opened one of them—the batteries Tommo needed lay inside, but all of their cylindrical shells had been breached with something sharp, probably an axe, and were obviously broken. Someone had done some housekeeping here before them. The shell of one of the batteries looked untouched. Rick carefully took it out and shouted, “There's one, but the rest are broken!”

  Tommo nodded and slammed the panel on the fuselage shut, running over to another vehicle standing nearby. Rick dragged the battery over and watched Tommo run from vehicle to vehicle on the deck, digging around in their instrument panel.

  “Things are bad,” the prole concluded. “Important parts have been torn out. Someone deliberately ruined the vehicles. The battery is useless.”

  “Aren't you cold?” Rick rubbed his frozen palms and waved his arms energetically.

  “My nerve receptors are switched off.”

  “I envy you.”

  Rick approached the closed cargo elevator and pressed the call button. He did not expect it to work, but the doors smoothly opened and a light came on in the cabin.

  “Let's have a look at what's higher up,” Rick offered. “Isn't this a multi-level hangar?”

  Tommo nodded. They started rising up, but the elevator's gears suddenly squealed and it came to a halt. Rick tried to unsuccessfully press all the buttons, but the cabin remained in place. They were stuck. He tried to slide the doors open with his hands, but he could not do it. Then, Tommo jumped up and broke the maintenance hatch in the roof open with his fist. They clambered out onto the roof of the cabin and stared at a wide shaft which was lit with emergency lighting and the elevator cabins stuck at different levels nearby. There was a rumble and the howl of an activated alarm coming from below.

  “You must go back there,” Rick said. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I feel a sense of worry about you. Are you sure you can do it?”

  “I have no choice.”

  Tommo looked at him for a couple of seconds. Rick knew that the prole was now analyzing the situation and his program was rearranging priorities and calculating different solution algorithms. Tommo finally declared, “All right, we shall split up. I will go to the Thermopolis Control Center and you will look for a way to reach level zero. Examine the vehicles on the other decks. Remember, the entrance to the bunker is in segment “O”. You need the command post.”

  He pointed at a wide opening that led to a hangar deck above their heads, grabbed the cable of an adjacent elevator and stepped into the shaft. He swiftly slid down a floor, opened a maintenance hatch on the roof of a cabin and disappeared.

  Rick wasted no more time and climbed a cable to the deck of the second hangar. The vehicles here had long blades over their fuselages—they were helicopters and the name had come into his head by itself. But even a quick examination was enough to understand that the vehicles were damaged. Rick climbed further up, investigating the third and fourth hangars. A piercing, cold wind swept the decks. He managed to find a hooded workman's raincoat among the junk in a cold closet covered with hoarfrost.

  Each level contained a particular type of flying vehicle, but he still could not find one in working order. Rick was pushing his alarming thoughts away. Once he reached the very top, he stopped, looking up through the transparent dome at the blue of the sky amongst the clouds above.

  Outside space. A world which was still mysterious and terrifying, a world where humans had lived before. A world that he already knew so much about, but never visited.

  Rick was unable to resist temptation and walked towards the pillar of light that pierced the clouds and the transparent dome. This was the light of a star called the Sun. A star—wasn't that amazing? He entered the light and shut his eyes, as he was not used to it and they burned. Rick knew that he could not look at the Sun as it would make him go blind, but the space far below was visible and he saw a snow covered plain stretch out as far as the eye could see. Once he determined the directions of the compass, he figured out that there were mountains towering far to the east and that there were man-made structures over to the west. It was unknown whether they were inhabited and there was no time to look for allies in outside space anyway.

  Chuckling at his own thoughts, as he would have been guessing at what it was that surrounded him without the accelerated learning course, Rick quickly returned to the vehicles and stopped to think things over.

  He heard a rumbling growing louder outside and the vibration of the floor started to be a lot more noticeable. Thermopolis was preparing for the launch of the Uranus program. He could not afford to waste a single minute, as Tommo may have already reached his goal and could be waiting for a signal, but there was not much point in checking the vehicles again. He had to find a way to descend to the foot of Thermopolis no matter what.

  But how?

  Rick looked around. The Architect was right when he called Thermopolis an Ark that collected every achievement and all that had ever been studied, grown and created by the hands of man. His gaze stopped on a dark, far corner, where he could see a container wi
th corrugated sides. Rick had already walked past the container, but paid no attention to what was written on it. He changed from a walk into a run when he made out the letters on the doors and read “Glider model No.21-2...” He never worked out the serial number of that particular model as the numbers had been erased by time, but he now had a chance to descend to the bottom. He just needed to make sure he could roll the flying vehicle out of the container and take off.

  Once he opened the doors he looked at the fuselage first—the wings were stored here as well, but in separate boxes. It was no problem to roll the glider onto the deck. The vehicle turned out to be surprisingly light. Rick managed to take the wings out of the boxes and slide them into the slots on the fuselage by himself.

  Now he could fly. But how and where could he open the hangar deck?

  Tommo's words about the hibernation of the Thermopolis system came into his head. It was doubtful that any mechanisms that would open the gates worked right now—so there was no way to open the deck using electronic control panels. Where would he find them, anyway?

  Rick spun around on his heels and stared at a helicopter painted in a combat camouflage pattern—a long, rapid fire cannon which was controlled from the cabin was fixed below the fuselage and rockets were still attached to its stub-wings.

  This was a solution! All he needed to do was to supply power to the weapon system of the vehicle and... Rick rushed to the lower deck to get the battery. All of this took him around a quarter of an hour. He even forgot about the cold when he got into the combat pilot's chair and switched on the power.

  The dull glow of the instruments and screens reported on the readiness and faults in the systems. Rick did not wait for the reports, activated the weapons system, flipped the safety catches on the controls, breathed out and pressed all the buttons he could find.

  A deafening hammering noise came from below the fuselage and the helicopter shuddered when the rockets flew out from the stub wings, leaving smoke trails behind. A blindingly bright fireball exploded on the glass wall in front.

  Rick closed his eyes, and instinctively covered up his face with his hand, turning away. The sound of the explosion had deafened him and he felt the smell of smoke and cordite. In a second, the cloud of smoke was sucked outside through the breach.