Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  “I can’t lose you now. What’s your number?” he said. A cheeky smile formed.

  “Look. I want to end this. I don’t want to get with you,” she replied.

  “Too late. All your information is in there from your chip.” His eyes widened with a victory smile. “I promise I won’t ring late at night.”

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes with exasperation. “Just get us out of this mess.”

  Both looked out over the city, its movement a disco of lights.

  Dylan said, “You know lately I’ve been thinking about my life. About what to do? Where to go? Who I want to be? I thought I was getting there. You know, ready to find the right path, so to speak. Thinking about everything: a career, Intake and even girls. I never believed in fate or coincidence or destiny. I always looked at life and saw it as a simple straight line, you could take a left when you wanted to, or a right when you wanted to. Then you were back on another line until you made another decision. I guess it doesn’t always work out that way, I guess you aren’t always in control. I guess life has a funny way of taking you where it wants you to go.”

  “Hey, it could be worse,” she said. “We could be dead. Things happen. I mean how should I know? I grew up on a god dammed space craft. The only thing that could go wrong there was the ship exploding, but that never happened. So here I am, sitting with you on top of a building, alive. Thank you for doing what you did, you saved our asses, you know.” She clutched his arm with her free hand and smiled gratefully.

  Her eyes caught the night stars. Their beautiful green glow ignited and melted his heart.

  Dylan said, “We have to think about what to do. You know, the Authoritarians will think it’s us. Those guys who were chasing us will have told them that. I can’t work out if they were Authoritarians or not. But I’m sure as hell positive that they were a nasty piece of work. And I’m sure they will do anything to stop us from identifying them.”

  “You must have friends we can go to. I mean surely our distributors will be able to do something about it. Surely the Authoritarians will listen to us. Surely.”

  “We can’t take that chance just yet, not without speaking to people. The sky-way is the only way to travel around within the city without detection. If we leave the city and head to the next, a toll would click us, so we must stay within these walls. We must get to Leon. He could hook us up with something. Maybe even help us out with our chip problem, although I haven’t ever heard of a successful attempt at chip manipulation. Man, I think we’re screwed.”

  “We have to face facts, Dylan. We aren’t going to get far like this.” She’d fully awoken and her foxy bite had returned. Hope filled her eyes. “I do think we could speak with someone else before we go to the Authoritarians. Maybe a camera picked up the incident.”

  “Maybe. They have them at intersections, but on the open sky, not many places, or not that I’ve seen on my travels. And if they did, they’d have seen the Authoritarians, or whoever they were, chasing us.”

  “What could Leon do for us?”

  “He’s my best friend. He’d do anything for me. He’d help us out for at least another night, before we pluck up the courage to hand ourselves over.”

  Both sat silently. The stickiness of the situation was nightmarish. Every possibility of it falling in their favour moved further and further away. Like a bad dream, the harder Dylan tried to reach for innocence the more glued to guilt he became. The frustration boiled. He had to keep his composure. If he freaked, then so would Lecodia, and his chances of redemption with her would all but vanish like an ill-kept promise.

  Dylan leaned to a recumbent position with a deflated huff and placed his arms behind his head as a cushion. She followed, and they sank into each other’s eyes again.

  “Are you cold or are you comfortable?” he asked.

  “I’ve been better, Dylan. I’m a little cold, a little uncomfortable. It certainly isn’t as nice as the club. I’m sorry about the kiss. And I’m sorry I accused you back there of taking advantage. It’s all coming back to me. Thank you for looking after me,” she said. Her sincerity surprised Dylan.

  Dylan could see that she was a resilient person. Attractive yes, usually he’d associated attractiveness with brittleness when it came to the female kind. All the good lookers would cry over a broken nail, the attractive ones he knew, but Lecodia she had something inside that was stronger, tougher, harder.

  “No need to be sorry. It was a good night by the way. I really liked seeing-in the millennium with you. If we ever get the chance let’s do it again.”

  He smiled a satisfied smile.

  She smiled back and nudged his side. “What are you so happy about? I said I was sorry, that I didn’t mean it, that I shouldn’t have kissed you. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  “You’ve got to admit I made you hot,” he said. He smiled smugly.

  Lecodia giggled quietly, then sighed and looked to the sky. “I can’t do that again, take that stuff. Who was I?”

  The hundred-metre wide, and fifty-metre-high advert ignited the roof top in a violaceous ultra-violet glow. The advert itself, Dylan viewed from his inverted position, worded out in giant opaque neon tubes. Make a date with destiny. Find the one you love. Red luminous arrows pierced the writing all over with large deep red lips surrounding. At the advert’s bottom the writing continued. “Find them at cyber page 11674 on the E- Network. Make a date.”

  Lecodia’s eyes caught the advert and she giggled louder. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”

  “Hey, you know I never believed in fate. But this? Come on, it’s a sign.”

  Lecodia giggled again. It warmed Dylan and relieved him to see her happy. It hurt when the charade began. All he wanted was a fair shot with her, even if they were just friends. He had a crush. There was no escaping it, and it was unstoppable. If she stayed close for much longer, he was going to fall.

  If I do fall, was love always like this? A fight?

  “You’re a cute guy, Dylan. I’m sure you have lots of lady friends who would, you know, want to be with you.”

  “Maybe I have.” He smirked with playful innocence. “But what if the one I really wanted wasn’t one of them.”

  “That could prove a tricky proposition. Chasing after someone you can’t have leads to misery.”

  “Maybe it’s worth it. Everyone needs someone. I suppose it’s a contagious human condition, something that gets everybody. A fact of life.”

  “Maybe.”

  Silence held momentarily as they gazed at the heavens. The constellations structured the clear sky like a shattered diamond, and a thin breeze cooled.

  The lady next to him was beautiful and she still wore the revealing club attire. Her skin absorbed the light’s glow, and it pulled Dylan deeper into the chasm of infatuation. There was nothing that could stop the feeling of attraction. It was like a magnet had grabbed his heart and pulled at it, but he knew that the probability of rejection outweighed the possibility of acceptance. It was a confused, ill at ease state. Did relationships always feel this way, like a mild flu? It muddled him inside, and irrationality began creeping in. His crush was holding him down.

  He said, “It’s beautiful, the night sky.”

  With a bubbly tone she replied, “It’s sparkly. I like sparkle, Dylan Ajax,”

  “Maybe Destiny is written in the stars, maybe we’re all meant to do what we’re meant to do, like life is one big story. We all have our characters picked out, our roles chosen. I wasn’t looking for anyone until I met you, Lecodia Ale. I’m not asking you to marry me, but at least stay friends. Take a ride and see where it goes,” he said. He waited for the backlash. He could feel her eyes on him. He didn’t want to look at her and find rejection.

  “You see that star there?” she said, pointing with her fantastic finger. “That big bright one right there. That one holds my destiny, my fate.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says I was meant to get trashed last night, fal
l into your arms, and lie under destiny right here, right now. I’d be lying to you, Dylan, if I said I wasn’t attracted to you. I’d be lying to you if I said you weren’t the nicest guy I’d ever met.” Her eyes burrowed deep into his. “I’d love to know you always, and I admit, I am attracted to you. This was not part of my plans. This ruins everything. This is a complication. I am hell bent on being the Elysees queen. I am taking chicness to a new level, Dylan, I am going to win everyone over and be Miss Popular,” she said with feminine factuality. “If you’d like to help or be part of it, then it’s a yes.”

  “A yes to what?”

  Her hand moved over his chest as she turned on her side and looked over him with unprecedented beauty. The indigo light caught her eyes and her hair dropped left of his head, shutting out the world. If her eyes were water he’d have already drowned.

  “A yes to this,” she said with sweetness that could only originate from within the heart of a strawberry. She lowered her head and pressed her lips against his.

  A feeling burst through Dylan’s body that would weaken the strongest. Every drop of blood circulating in his veins came alive like a winning crowd at a football game. His mind blanked like amnesia. His rational thinking was gone. His eyes closed, where a dance of light swam around, it was ecstasy. His hand ran through her hair as they sat up. As her hand ran over his neck where a million nerves prickled like static, his body became a sensitive touch pad. Warmth gently coursed his body, like his blood had chemically reacted.

  Please don’t end, he thought. Please let this moment last an eternity.

  Her lips were as soft as a pillow, delicate as a petal at the height of summer. Did love really feel like this? Dylan had never felt like this before.

  Slowly Lecodia stopped and pulled away.

  Finally, he opened his eyes.

  She stared at him. The world was different. “You how to kiss, Dylan Ajax, and you really are cute.”

  He smiled with as much happiness as could come from one, then laid back down and looked up at her. She pressed her palms down either side of him and lowered a soft kiss onto him, then backed again.

  “Just so you know, this stays between you and me. At least until we take it further.”

  “Hey, I don’t think anyone saw it, so I’m pretty sure our secret is safe. So, what’re we going to do?”

  “Take it one step at a time and promise we always stay friends no matter what,” she said.

  “Sounds good. So, what do you think about this place?”

  “I think it’s incredible. There is so much to do. The place is hazardous to a fashion queen, credit wise I mean. But I would love to walk around freely if you don’t mind, so what is going to happen now?”

  “Let’s go see Leon, see if he can help. At least we’ll have someone who can get things we need until we have evidence, or at least until people we know get behind us.”

  “Where do we find him?”

  “Where he always is, a certain theme park.”

  Dylan didn’t know what to expect from Leon. He just needed to speak to someone he knew and trusted. Someone had to hear their side of the story before he tried the law.

  Chapter 19

  Uncovering Death

  “Okay, based on what we’ve seen, I think we can round our assumptions up as fact guys. What do you think?” Helena said.

  She was huddled behind a stationary red luxurious sky-mobile. Its front end was large, square, and executive, which gave her, Eddie, Vander, and Mark the cover they required.

  The sun was shining, the air breezy, and the goings-on mysterious. They’d parked the broadcast vehicle half a mile back, after deciding to follow up the suspicious people carriers. She had to find out what was behind the illusive activity.

  She and her new team were praised by the Channel after the successful broadcast of the sky-chase story. All through the night they had presented it to the Capital. She had successfully uncovered that an unnamed couple, and some men impersonating officers, were indeed behind the destruction. All was thanks to her clinical investigative techniques.

  The Authoritarians stated that “tracers and chip readers were put in place” on the criminals. That it was only a matter of time before they found the killers.

  After accepting praise from Jeffrey Howard, the channel’s CEO, she began explaining that there were many mysterious carriers moving the globe. She was told, by her CEO, of numerous rumours that had whispered around the channel’s headquarters. Many broadcast teams were investigating the story. She was told get something, and to let them know as soon as she did.

  What she was witnessing now was something very out of the ordinary. The Quazar military, in their grey and white uniforms, were ushering citizens in tight lines out of near buildings at blaster point. They moved them into a large carrier that stood a hundred feet tall and three hundred feet long. The ship’s grey lenticular body was layered with four levels of windows. It was like a stretched diamond of huge presence.

  The carrier was squeezed between two glass-shelled ten-story buildings. Ed Ryan Intergalactic Transport boldly scribed the towering craft. Its geometry resembled a curvy arrow’s head at both the stern and bow of the ship. Its size overwhelmed up close. Its shadow cast an ominous atmosphere over the area. Three solid grey legs supported the craft and ran to the ground at a tri-pod angle.

  Carriers came in many shapes and sizes, from oblong cigar like geometries to rounded pentagon shapes. All were multi-layered with levels for optimal human capacity. This was the closest Helena had been to one.

  At the craft’s entrance, heavily armed military personnel where ticking names off a list as the public began their walk up the steps of the carrier. People were screaming with echoed harshness, begging to be told what they’d done. One man, trying to protect his family, had been struck across the head with the butt of an assault blaster. Then he was dragged unconscious by two guards to the carrier’s entrance. The family shivered in frightful tears.

  Other members of the public, who weren’t being taken by the military, were shouted at to, “Be quiet and go about your business. A huge crime has been uncovered.”

  When questioned further the military threatened force. The public were being taken hostage by their protectors. The entire situation was irrational. Helena’s inductive method of assessing the situation was not building a picture. Nothing solid was forming. There was something terrible behind the happenings, something that was bigger than she.

  With two worthy stories in the space of twenty-four hours, she’d hit the jackpot. The channel would love her for it. This was her chance, her pass into the big time. She could see talk shows, documentaries, her face all over the channel. Hell, she could even touch movies. All she had to do was get something, just catch the unfolding events.

  “Eddie, I need you get some footage of this right now,” she whispered.

  “Should we approach them, start asking questions?” Vander asked quietly.

  Wearily, Mark said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, guys. They mean it. I think they’ll do something drastic if we start prying.”

  Eddie shuffled forward from the rear of the sky-mobile. He carried his portable camera that was ideal for the situation. “What do you want me to catch?” he asked.

  Vander and Mark shuffled back to let Eddie in next to Helena.

  “Get the people carrier. Get the military holding the public at gun point. Get it all. Sweep the scene and get some close ups of the people walking the steps with those blasters pointing at them. I’m going to communicate with the channel’s offices, tell them what we’re seeing. I need orders from them. Remember the focus, get mid to close ups, with some neat focus pulls and pans, and soften the background.”

  Helena moved back and sat against the sky-mobile. She flipped open her round yellow communicator and dialled the channel’s headquarters from the floating holo-dial that digitally stretched from the device.

  Vander asked, “What do you think’s going on Helena? Do
you think some kind of cue?”

  “I don’t know. There’s certainly no crime being committed. Those people are scared. They don’t know why it’s happening and— Hang on. I’m through.”

  Vander and Mark looked on expectantly.

  “Get me Jeffrey Howard please.”

  Helena looked to Eddie, who perched behind the vehicle recording the footage. His camera lens peeked above the hood of the vehicle as he played with the focus and eyed the viewfinder.

  “I don’t care what meeting he’s in. This is the most important thing he needs to hear. Tell him it’s Helena Reeves and I have what he wants.”

  Helena had only meet Jeffrey Howard once before in person. He was a dashing, dark-haired, stylish man. He ran the channel. Whatever the CEO said went. Every broadcast or story had to get approved by him personally, or by one of his close team that worked directly under him, before airing.

  “Yes sir, it’s Helena. We are currently on location at the outskirts of Central Capital 8, Boulevard Residential Plaza. There are ground force military holding members of the public at blaster point. They’re being forced into a people carrier. It all seems pre-planned. They’re rounding up individuals from inside buildings, families as well, then checking their identities before forcing them into the craft. People who begin prying are threatened. They’re saying it’s a massive crime, but if it was—” The communication cut. Helena frowned. “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

  Helena lowered her communicator and looked at its reception signal. She’d never lost it before. Above the communicator’s tiny holo-screen floated Satellite Lost.

  “God damn it, the network’s gone down.”

  Vander said, “Fucking communicators. Try getting a signal on the monorails. It’s like trying to get blood out of stone. What do we do? Do we approach, or do we leave with what we’ve got?”

  Mark said, “I vote we leave. There’s something seriously wrong with this whole thing. I don’t think we’ll get treated nicely if we hang around.”

  Helena said, “I think we should go over there. This is too important to leave. Let’s get right in on them. They’ll think we’re just ordinary public. Let’s just see how we get treated, question them a little, get in on the action. This only happens once in a lifetime.”