Heir Ascendant (Faded Skies Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Genna raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind?”

  “Can I stay with you? I don’t want to be alone.” Maya looked down.

  “Okay.”

  Maya sat on a shaggy oval rug, vaguely aware of the distortion of dark brown skin on the other side of the translucent shower curtain to her left. Genna groaned in relief and spent a few minutes standing motionless under a spray of hot water, emitting noises of contentment.

  “I guess your arm is better.” Maya smiled.

  “Yeah.” Genna stretched her head side to side. “Doesn’t even hurt now.”

  “I promised someone I’d do them a favor.”

  A cloud of steam billowed out into the room as Genna pulled the shower curtain back to look at her. “Why do I get the feelin’ this is going to hurt?”

  “Remember that Xenodril you wanted for a ransom?” Maya opened and re-stuck the Velcro on her right sneaker.

  “Yeah.”

  “I set one of the production lines to repackage it like A-Profen and sent it to the Parkville warehouse. The security there sucks. They couldn’t seem to fix it, so Ascendant only uses the place for low-value meds now. No one cares about A-Profen since it’s cheap headache pills.”

  Genna slipped back inside the shower and lathered up. “So what’s this favor?”

  Maya explained about Doctor Janus, Ashley, and the people in the Fade ward she had promised to help. At her description of five-year-old Ashley, Genna’s jaw clenched tight.

  “How much Xeno we talkin’ about?”

  “Not that much.” Maya shrugged. “Six palettes.”

  A loud boom from the fiberglass bathtub startled a gasp out her. Maya jumped and whipped her head around to look―at Genna’s legs sticking straight up.

  “Ow.”

  “Are you okay?” Maya lunged to her feet and poked her head past the curtain.

  Genna sat up and rubbed her hip. “I slipped. Did you say six palettes?”

  Maya nodded.

  “Holy shit.” Genna wiped soap off her face. “We gotta get that out of there before someone catches it… that’s like―”

  “Equivalent of about sixty million dollars resale at what the bitch charges.” Maya returned to her seat on the rug. “Those people need help.”

  Genna clambered upright. “A lot of people do. Yeah. We’ll help them. Hey, lean your face in here again.”

  Maya did.

  Genna wiped the lipstick and eye makeup off her. “You don’t need that stuff on anymore. Makes you stand out.”

  “I got some vaccine shots too, but those are for Sarah, Emily, Pick, Anton, and Marcus… and probably Doctor Chang.”

  “Wow.” Genna whistled. “You’ve been busy. Where’d you find vac shots?”

  “Samples cabinet at the penthouse. I didn’t expect it to have anything good, but I had to check.” She smiled. “I got lucky.”

  Zeroice jumped out of his chair when Genna slammed the door open. Maya crept in behind her, clutching the doll by virtue of it being inside her bag. He stood and ran a hand over his hair. He had no shirt on, and wore a scrap of bright red for pants that barely covered his junk. The bit around his waist was as thin as the spaghetti straps on her nightie. Tufts of hair leaked out the sides.

  He gawked at her. “Maya… wow. Holy shit. You did it.”

  She blinked at his miniscule pants. “I feel like a crime is happening just by being in the room with you wearing that.”

  His face reddened with a tint of blush. Zeroice grabbed his shirt off the back of the chair and pulled it on.

  Genna looked around. “Damn. I’m glad I believed you ‘bout the bathroom. So you’re Zeroice?”

  “Yeah.” He scratched at the back of his neck.

  Maya pointed. “Go look.”

  “Need you to do us a few things, Zero.” Genna’s boots thumped on the floor as she walked across the room. She recoiled from the bathroom with an expression as though she’d seen actual zombies. “What the…”

  Satisfied at being proven right, Maya folded her arms and smiled.

  “Well, I already did quite a bit.” Zeroice flopped on the side of the bed and tapped his chin with one finger. “But after what that kid gave up, there’s still a whole lot of credit on the tab, per se, so consider me at your disposal for a while.”

  “What exactly did she ‘give up?’” Genna glared.

  “Jeva creeps. Does everyone think with their groin? Data, Genna… data.” He looked sick. “How could you even think that?”

  “It worked?” Maya looked up at him.

  “Damn straight it worked. I’m all over that shit, but I’m taking it slow. Don’t want them noticing. Lot of hard ICE in there. So what do you need?”

  “Can you get me off Ascendant’s radar?” Genna glanced around the room. “Ah, shit this place is foul.”

  “Already done. Replaced you in the records and all the video feeds with a computer-generated version that almost sorta kinda looks like you, but isn’t. You won’t come up on facial recognition scans anymore… unless you get caught doing something again. Only problem you might run into is if you get seen in person by one of the fine, upstanding blueberries who dealt with you at the prison.”

  “Those fat bastards don’t go on sweeps in the Hab.” Genna sighed, relieved.

  “I wish I could cover the little one’s tracks, but she’s uhh… unique.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Maya shook her head. “I can be replaced. Besides, they have enough roll of me to make digital composites of anything.”

  “Can’t believe you let Head die.” Zeroice shook his head. “He was strange, but kinda cool.”

  Maya looked sideways at Genna. “Moth killed him.”

  “Damn, that dude was as tweaked as Head.” He squinted at Genna. “Where did you find that guy?”

  Genna clapped Zeroice on the shoulder twice. “We’re all a little tweaked. Second thing. Need cyber cover for an op. We’re hitting an Ascendant warehouse. I also need to get a ninja pigeon to Longball.”

  “Right.” Zeroice dragged himself upright and shambled over to his desk to plug in. “Yeah, I know about the warehouse. Helped her hide the stuff a little deeper so it wouldn’t get noticed. Figured that was coming.”

  “What did you just say?” Maya leaned against Genna.

  “I asked him to send an encoded message to Barnes. We’re going to need help to move all that Xeno.”

  Maya furrowed her brows. “How do you get Barnes out of Longball?”

  Genna grinned. “It’s his old callsign. He used to run a MRLS unit. Artillery rockets from miles away.”

  “Oh.” Maya grimaced at the way the rug squished underfoot. “Can we go? I think I’m getting sick through my shoes.”

  “Everyone’s a critic,” muttered Zeroice. “Place is cheap and the berries hate coming here.”

  “I can see why.” Genna took Maya’s hand and headed for the door. “We’ll contact you soon.”

  “I shiver with anticipation.” Zeroice winked.

  pleasant-sounding female voice filtered out of the sky, announcing that cyberterrorists responsible for causing drone malfunctions resulting in thirteen confirmed deaths had been captured. The reporter continued in a monotone, “Four men from a reclusive free-living group based in the Wildlands attacked our peaceful society as a protest of technology and civilization.”

  Maya looked up toward the sound, where a five-story-tall screen on the side of a gleaming silver building showed video of the drone Genna shot down. They replayed the close up of the machinegun tearing apart the windows of nearby buildings in a loop.

  Genna, walking at her side, chuckled. “Ironic. The one time it actually is Brigade responsible, they blame some nonexistent group.”

  “Maybe they got tired of blaming the Brigade all the time?”

  “Heh.” Genna laughed. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  They followed the flow of the 7:00 p.m. commuter surge, indistinct among hundreds of other weary bodies. Maya’s wrist hurt fro
m how tight Genna held her, but she didn’t dare complain since she had her mother back. Thinking of all the ways anything could’ve gone wrong over the past few days made her sick to her stomach. A four-fanned Authority drone passed twenty feet overhead in a slow glide, the sensor ball on its nose panning side to side. Maya bowed her head, and the flying gun passed above them without incident.

  Whispers and grumbles emanated from the crowd. It seemed everyone resented being under the constant eye of armed drones. Maya looked up at people. No one made eye contact and no one smiled, yet they all seemed to agree on hating the drones.

  If everyone here is unhappy, why does no one say anything?

  She glanced up at Genna. Unlike the crowd, she kept her gaze levelled at her surroundings rather than dragging it along the ground. She had the air of a wolf on the hunt, hiding among thousands of grey sheep. Maya’s heartbeat picked up. Genna’s presence made her want to get up and do something.

  Maya lifted her head, looking up at a video version of herself reminding people to update their Xenodril supply. The mantra of ‘It might not be a cold, better to be safe’ in her two-years-ago voice echoed down from on high. She was everywhere; at any point in this city, a person could turn in place and find at least four―if not more―screens showing her trying to sell drugs. The recorded girl fed the Citizens whatever Vanessa wanted them to believe. Could she possibly inspire the same feelings in other people that Genna did in her? Maya let her head droop.

  Yeah right. The only thing I can inspire is ‘aww how cute’ or ‘ooh, I wanna be that thin so I’ll eat this pill.’

  The endless crowd shifted and swelled. Each time a drone went overhead, the same routine repeated. People got quiet, walked slower, and no one looked up. As soon as it passed, the grumbling and bitching started. They walked for at least an hour, as best Maya could tell, toward the western part of town.

  Shadows in the sky traced black smudges down from the clouds, hinting at the distant towers in the Spread. She peered past the shifting bodies surrounding her at the distant gloom and lost a few minutes wondering if Pope had heard her screaming at him. She let off a startled gasp when Genna pulled her to the right.

  Maya stumbled to keep up with her mother’s motivated stride, wincing at the pressure around her wrist. “Ow.”

  Genna slowed a little and eased back on her death grip. “Sorry. Nervous in this part of town. Lot of blue here.”

  They headed for a steel-faced building with a sign made to look like riveted letters spelling out ‘The Hangar.’ A tall man with a shiny-bald head and dark glasses stood sentry at the door in a tight black tank and white/grey camouflage pants. He might’ve been taller than Moth even, but nowhere near as thick. He pulled his glasses to the end of his nose, giving Maya a ‘seriously?’ look when it became evident Genna meant to go inside.

  “Gotta be eighteen.” He shook his head at Genna. “I don’t give a shit what kind of fake ID you try to show me for that kid, I ain’t gonna believe it.”

  “Nice to see you too, Rodolfo. Why don’t you run it by Harlowe and see what he thinks?”

  “Oh, shit. I didn’t recognize you without all that shit in your dreads.” He looked left and right before leaning forward to whisper, “Get her in the back fast. Someone sees a kid in there, it’ll cause problems.”

  “Love you too.” Genna winked.

  Air-conditioning mixed with the scent of beer and motor oil blew Maya’s hair back when the door opened. Airplane parts, bombs, and missiles hung from chains on the roof, some of which appeared genuine and scavenged from wrecks while others had the obvious artificiality of plastic models. Two women and a man waited tables, dressed in blue uniforms that reminded her of history e-learns.

  Maya rolled her eyes. “You’d think the branch of the military responsible for fighter planes could come up with a cooler sounding name than just ‘Air Force.’ How… literal.”

  Genna hustled her down a wood-floored passageway between a long wraparound bar and an area full of restaurant-style tables. One of the servers winked at Maya on the way by and whispered, “your daughter’s so pretty.” Sporting a huge grin, Genna stiff-armed the kitchen door out of their way and guided her past people in white preparing food. Another set of doors in the back led to a storeroom. She walked up to a shelf full of huge cans.

  Maya glanced at chicken soup, ketchup, tomato puree, and peanut butter in giant steel cylinders she could almost hide in. After a moment of standing there doing nothing, she looked up. “Umm?”

  “Give them a minute.” Genna tapped her foot.

  “Okay.”

  They waited in silence for a little while until the shelf emitted a belabored mechanical whine and rose half an inch into the air, then slid left on rails to expose a hole in the ground and a basic metal stairway. Maya went down first, still with her wrist in a death grip. She raised her arm up over her head so Genna could keep holding it.

  Two green pipes as big around as Genna’s thigh ran along the left wall over dusty cinderblocks painted beige. Maya jumped when loud machinery behind the stairs roared to life and moved the shelf closed over the stairway, sealing them in.

  “Is it safe?” whispered Maya.

  “Not the most dangerous place you’ve been recently.” Genna smiled. “Yeah. They’re good people.”

  They walked a short distance to a ninety-degree right corner and a longer corridor that ended with a reinforced metal door. A small view port opened, from which a man’s eyes regarded them. At Genna’s approach, he backed away and opened the door, letting them into an underground lounge.

  Three sofas, a television, a pool table, bookshelves, and a number of chairs surrounded an octagonal table littered with rifles, gun parts, hand grenades, and ammo. Two women, one pale with snow-white hair down to her shoulders, the other Indian, reclined on the middle couch watching some old war movie. Four men sat around the octagonal table, all of whom looked their way. The guy who opened the door sealed it again and followed Genna to the group.

  Maya walked up to the table’s edge. A dark-skinned man with a long nose and short, dense hair did a double take at the sight of her. Next to him, a younger man with sandy brown hair covered his face and chuckled. In the middle, a silver-haired man with military bearing stared between her and Genna with an expression as if she carried a live bomb.

  “I’m not one of those androids that explode.” Maya tilted her head and smiled.

  Wisps of smoke rose from the center man’s fingers, gliding past his head. He took a drag from an actual burning cigarette butt rather than a vape machine before stuffing it into an ashtray and exhaling a cloud to the side. “Barnes said you got pinched.”

  Genna let go of Maya’s arm and folded hers. “He’s right. They let me out early on good behavior.”

  Everyone but the two women chuckled, though they seemed more focused on the film.

  “How’s that?” asked the dark-skinned guy on the left. “Never heard of anyone getting out of the roach motel.”

  “I almost didn’t.” Genna glanced at the silver-haired man. “New guy?”

  “Genna, Sidiqi. Sidiqi, Genna. Now that introductions are out of the way, I need to hear something to convince me you’re not on the other side of the fence.”

  Genna nodded at Maya. “She pulled it off.”

  Maya stared down at her sneakers. “I had help.”

  “I’m feelin’ like I got a C5-E coming in with 5,000 pounds of grade A fermented horseshit, and no runway big enough for the bastard.”

  Genna laughed.

  Maya tugged on her mother’s arm. “Who’s that?”

  She helped herself to a chair and pulled Maya into her lap. “That is Captain Harlowe, former USAF, current big cheese in the area.”

  “That is who I think it is, isn’t it?” Harlowe sat up straight. “This better be a good story.”

  “She is, and she’s on our side. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity. Before she got me out of Arlington, she redirected six palettes of Xeno
to a low-security warehouse at Parkville.” Genna went back and forth over the need to locate the disguised drugs and get them out before someone noticed them as being more than headache pills.

  When all eyes fell on Maya, she cleared her throat and tried to project confidence. She gave a basic retelling of her initial kidnapping, how she twisted everyone into a chaotic meltdown, and once Genna figured her out as real and didn’t tell anyone, decided to trust her. She detailed the Authority raid, Sarah being knocked out by a rifle butt (and what she did to Baxter), her trip to the city, the prison break, and how they had Zeroice on standby for assistance with Authority security. “He’ll be able to suppress drone activity in the entire area around Parkview while we go in as well as turn off their security systems and locks. The biggest variables are somewhere between six and ten on-site guards as well as the physical location of the palettes in the warehouse. I don’t have that information.”

  “Whoa, hold on.” Harlowe held his hand up at her for a second before pointing at Genna. “One, this kid is fucking scary. Two… she’s still a kid and we are not bringing her in on an operation.”

  “I’m not leaving her side again,” said Genna. “Not until I get her home first. We don’t have time to run out to the Hab and drop her off. I ain’t sayin’ we bring her inside. We can plant her outside with a comm. She can be our eyes.”

  Harlowe scratched his chin. “Kris, Ravindra.” The two women looked over the couch at him. “Need recon on the Ascendant shipping facility at Parkview. Yesterday.”

  They nodded and hurried out―after pausing the movie.

  “How soon can we do this?” asked Genna.

  “Two hours?” asked Sidiqi.

  “That’s pushing it, but not impossible,” said the sandy-haired man.

  “If we move too fast, we risk a screw up. If we wait too long, we risk them figuring it out. That’s a lot of Xeno to gamble with.” Harlowe gestured at the men around him. “Sid, take Jameson and Binks with you. I’ll get word to Carver to bring a transport. We still have one with Ascendant markings from that mess in Jerz last month.”

  Genna shivered. “Did they get all the blood off it?”