Divine Born

by O. J. Lowe

  He was being ridiculous again. Fully trained agents might be able to follow him without being seen. Ones in training with the exact same education as him wouldn’t. There’d be some hint. Of course, if he’d had more counter-surveillance training, he might find it easier to spot them. Admonishing himself came easy, he couldn’t help but think of all the things that might have been.

  Theo had mentioned to get supplies, he remembered, not that he had any credits to do it with right now. That hadn’t stopped them before, they’d still be working out how to get on the mag-rail if it had been left up to him. Theo had gotten them through it then, all it had taken was a little light-fingered action. Too bad he didn’t know how to do it.

  Didn’t meant that he couldn’t learn to understand the theory behind it. Because the two really are the same thing, he thought to himself sarcastically. Knowing how something should theoretically be done and how it’s really done are two entirely different things. Just because you know something should work, doesn’t mean that it will.

  What had he seen Theo do? A large crowd, people jostling each other so a casual bump didn’t look out of place. When there were so many of them about, it was only natural and not everyone who walked into you wanted to lift a wallet. Some people would be on their guard, others wouldn’t. They’d be so preoccupied with going about their day they wouldn’t expect it to happen to them.

  That had to be the second step. Pick a target, someone who looks like they’ve got plenty and won’t miss anything beyond the inconvenience. Someone distracted. Someone careless. Someone busy.

  Who though? People were few and far between here, easier back up on the platform for there had been many options there. When they were getting ready to travel, the concentration of the average person always lulled, in Pete’s personal experience. Everything else was forgotten and all thoughts went to the imminent journey.

  Screw it!

  That thought came to him violently, he rejected the notion of what he was thinking about almost immediately. What the hells was he thinking? He wasn’t a pickpocket, he didn’t know the first thing about it and therefore should leave it to the professionals. Disgust contorting his face, he picked up his pace, Akata Road the first thought in his mind. More than that, he was finding it easier to make it the only thought in his mind. He didn’t want to consider anything else, just getting there, meeting up with Theo and they could take it from there.

  The further he got from the mag-rail station, the faster he picked up his pace, in short order he’d moved into a jog, stopping just short of a flat-out run. That would draw attention, not that anyone was looking around here. This area looked like the sort where people didn’t put up videocams in case they were stolen and stripped for parts. Trust Theo to pick an area like this. Just went to prove even the most gleaming of metropolises could have their dingy bits, the parts people chose not to see unless they wanted to. This area lacked some of the gleam and polish of the others, a hint of grime shining through it. A young man running through here wouldn’t draw attention, it’d be considered the norm. He wondered what Akata Road looked like, a question answered in short order as he turned the corner and saw the sign. He came to a halt, looked up at it. The main wording was in a local dialect, something that he couldn’t read, but the translation underneath he could. They might like their local languages, but they were at least helpful to those that didn’t speak them. Not every place Pete had ever been could say that. It was the places in Serran that were the worst, he’d always found, they were way more insular than they needed to be. Plenty of places there, people would like to vacation, only to be put off by stroppy locals who’d take your credits and then set fire to you cheerfully.

  Theo was sat waiting for him on a wall, a look of impatience emblazoned across his face, arms folded. That was the one thing you could say about him; his face was never hard to read when he was angry or upset. All the other times, you had no chance.

  “Took you so long?” he asked. A bag sat at his feet, a bland generic convenience store logo emblazoned across it. Pete tilted his head, tried to read what it said. That he couldn’t meant nothing, images and branding were far more important than words. He recognised that he should know what it said, even if he couldn’t read the language. Food and water, the things they’d need to survive. If they could lie low somewhere, they’d be fine. The less they exposed themselves to the public, the less chance they had of being caught on a videocam, the less chance of them being tracked down by those hunting them.

  “Well there’s just so much to see,” he said. He made the choice right then he wasn’t going to take much more shit from Theo. They were partners in this, they failed, or they succeeded together. It wasn’t ‘Theo does all the work and Pete just tags along for the ride,’ he was determined to bring his own skills to the table. Cutting the crap out before it became an issue might just be one of those things. “I mean, this is one of the highest rated cities in Burykia and how many other chances am I going to get to run for my future through it?”

  Theo gave him a disgusted look. “At least try and take this seriously, Jacobs. We’ve got a lot of work to do if we want to even have a hope of success and you’re treating this like some sort of massive joke. Where’s the supply run I sent you on?”

  “You don’t own me, I’m not your bloody servant. I’m your partner. You show me how to lift someone’s wallet and I’ll do it. I’m not about to jeopardise everything by getting into a scuffle that I don’t have to when I don’t have the skills.”

  “We all have the skills, Jacobs. We just need to know how to put them into play. You need to know how to think like a criminal to do, well this.” He threw an arm out. “You think Unisco agents just happen overnight? I don’t. I think they’re forged in times like this. I think it’s another circumstance like the simulator. It’s not about winning. It’s about what you take from it.”

  “Are we sure we’re not in the simulator?” Pete asked, the thought striking him. The pain that shot through his face as Theo popped him on the jaw rapidly answered that question.

  “Yeah, I’m sure we’re not in the simulator,” Theo said, rubbing his knuckles.

  “Oww! Bitch!” Pete favoured his jaw, wondered if punching Theo in retaliation would improve his mood. He desisted. Just. If he was going to make a go of this, he’d occasionally have to work with people he didn’t like. They’d really thought through every aspect of this. Nobody ever had a one hundred percent ideal relationship with everyone they ever had to work with. Given the problems the two of them had had, it was clearly deliberate. Force them to work together, learn the value of teamwork… A children’s entertainment network could have written the script and put it on the air.

  “Yep. Don’t ask stupid questions.” Theo jerked his head up the road. “Come on, this way. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Do I really want to know what sort of shit you’re going to get us both into with this?” Pete asked, watching the smaller man turn to stride away.

  “You can stand here moaning or you can follow me. If you want to do the former, tell me now because I don’t want to fail this because you wanted to find every excuse under the sun to fail.”

  “I don’t want to fail!” Pete almost snarled, kept the true venom he wanted to let rip in his words back. “I’m not going to fail. I just think we need a better plan than running around in circles.”

  “They always said to keep moving. The longer you stay in one place, it’s easier for you to be discovered.”

  “Yes, and the more we move about, the more chance we’ve got of being seen. We need to hole up some place where there’s no videocams. Some place private. It’s easy to track us if they can spot us every time we walk in front of one of their eyes.”

  “That’s why we’re staying here,” Theo said. “This area is a lot less gentrified. They don’t like to acknowledge places like it exist. They’re blind spots in the city surveillance network. You can get up to a lot of trouble in a place like this and they’re no
ne the wiser.”

  He shot him a sullen grin, the sort of expression that’d make someone who didn’t know him question what was going on inside that head. “Besides, I know what they said in the lectures. Who says I am just wandering aimlessly? That’s your thought, not my plan.”

  That took him aback, he hadn’t expected that. His face must have gone red, Theo laughed. It wasn’t a sound he was used to hearing, harsh like the sound was scraping against sandpaper in his throat. “Surprised?”

  “Yeah, a little,” Pete said. “It’s just, you’ve got to give me something, man. A little trust goes a long way.”

  “Trust is earned, not given. You see if you can keep up with me and then maybe we’ll see where we end up.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t able to call him on it. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s a few old apartment blocks around the corner, I don’t know what they call them in the local tongue, but they’re the sort of place you go if you don’t want to be found.”

  “Isn’t that the first place you’d think they’d look for us though?” He felt his own logic was sound, saw the glare at him and felt the satisfaction stab at him, quick jabs in the gut but satisfaction regardless. “And how do you know so much about this city?”

  Theo glanced back at him, shrugged his shoulders uneasily. He looked like a man who didn’t want to answer the question posed to him. “Not my first time here. Not by a long way, okay?”

  Huh. That answered absolutely nothing. Most people who came to this city didn’t end up in places like this, not unless they were up to something they shouldn’t be. The sort of people doing things not entirely… Oh! Things clicked into place, he looked at Theo and nodded.

  “Okay. Okay, I follow you. Lead on. Show me the way. We’ll lay low there a bit. Can’t hurt, can it?”

  “I’d certainly hope not,” Theo said. “Maybe they’re not there any longer, it’s been at least ten years.”

  “And you remember it?”

  “Kind of hard to forget it really.” He didn’t say anything else on the subject, Pete wanted to press but decided to let it drop. No point pissing his partner off unnecessarily. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it and sometimes you needed to respect boundaries, let them work it out by themselves until they were ready to reveal. Everyone had a time and a place in which they felt comfortable. Forcing them to do otherwise only built resentment and there was enough between them so far without letting more build up.

  “Okay,” he said again. “Show me the place.” He looked around, saw the roads abandoned, a speeder crashed into a garden ahead, only the back half visible, its inner workings exposed where the locals had stripped away everything they could. The house next to it looked abandoned, the windows papered over with months old newspaper. If someone lived there, they were keeping quiet about it. None of the homes up the road were in mint condition, he’d not noticed it at first but now he had the chance, he was starting to realise Theo was right. This area was the sort people would rather didn’t exist.

  Strangely enough, he found that he wasn’t overly concerned with safety. They’d had six months of training, both self-defence and offence, unless a gang of locals came at them with blasters, between him and Theo they’d probably have a chance of not winding up in the nearest hospital. He hadn’t even seen anyone since he’d come away from the good streets, the mag-rail high above them both. He wondered if people were looking down on the area and curious as to the how and the why, the whom and the what were down here. From so high up, it was hard to imagine what happened down this low.

  That said, he hadn’t seen anyone. Glancing around, he felt like they were being watched, eyes everywhere following them. That couldn’t be good. People only watched when they couldn’t interact, snooped because they couldn’t confront. Idly, he wondered how many unlicensed blasters were floating about in this area and his armed mugger theory suddenly didn’t seem so farfetched.

  The apartment block was everything he’d expected it to be, and not in a good way either. Calling it rundown was giving it too much credit, it looked like the building time had forgotten about, hadn’t been touched since it was built while the world around it had crawled on.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Theo said. There was almost a hint of pride in his voice as he looked skywards to the tower block. “But there’s a room up on the top floor owned by someone who doesn’t come here anymore.” That pride faded in an instant. “He’s above it now. Doesn’t mean that he’s not a sentimental old fool who likes his memories of the past.”

  “You’re talking about your father, aren’t you?” Pete said gently.

  Theo said nothing, pursed his lips and folded his arms in front of him, hugging himself. “Let’s see if the door code still works.”

  He was amazed to hear the door had a code lock, was less surprised to see that the box in question had been ripped out, only a few stray wires left dangling down impotently to show their sadness at being left alone. The door itself swung open lazily on its hinges, creaking as it failed to shut. “Guess we don’t need it,” Pete said. “Looks like the people around here are a destructive bunch of bastards.”

  He didn’t say it to infuriate whoever might be listening, more stating a fact as he saw it. Anyone who could leave something in that sort of state was missing a few screws in the head. Senseless destruction wasn’t good for anyone, it hurt everyone in some small way. The door did look like it might have been moderately secure under other standards, thick metal driving it back and forth under its own weight, now though it offered as much protection as a condom on a knife.

  “Yeah but what better deterrent than a hundred possibly armed criminals between here and where we’re going,” Theo said. Again, almost a grin that managed to mutate into a scowl before it fully developed ghosted across his face. “Anyone would struggle getting through that.”

  “I’m worried we might struggle getting through that, fuck anyone else,” Pete said. “We don’t exactly fit in around here, do we?”

  “We’re on the run from Unisco with nobody to turn to. I think we fit in just fine,” Theo said. He cracked his knuckles, pushed the door open. “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I think I left it at the door.”

  “This is why they don’t want you in the field,” Theo said, Pete couldn’t miss the sneer in his voice. “Inquisitors play it safe.”

  “Yeah, they really don’t,” Pete said. “I’m not sure walking into a place like this is the smartest play we could make.”

  “It’s not the smartest play we’ve got, it’s the only play we have,” Theo said. “Trust me, nobody knows about this safehouse. Even that bastard I’ve got for a father forgot about it long ago. We hide out here and play the game to the finish.”

  “This isn’t a game, Theo!”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Theo said, giving him a cold smile. “It’s a game you play to win, or you might as well go home. What’s the point in not winning? And don’t give me that shit about taking part.”

  “I think that’s the most words I’ve ever heard you use at one time.”

  “Better to use too few than too many, Jacobs.”

  Pete rolled his eyes at the back of Theo’s head, wondered if they’d fail the test if he shoved him down the stairs. Why wasn’t he surprised to see the elevators out of action, he thought as they ascended the building, one flight of steps after another. Any notion the Unisco life was a glamorous one had long since been knocked out of him, but this felt like a fresh new level of grime and squalor. Graffiti stained the walls, weirdly in a language he could understand. Someone had spray-painted the words ‘She Will Come’ across the stairs, multicoloured, multi-sized letters, uneven words left wonky by an unsteady hand. Some of them had been underlined, a thick black smudge emphasising the message. He wondered who She was meant to be. Coppinger, perhaps? That was paranoia moving to an entire new level. When the people in a place like
this were throwing up tribute, it made things unsettling to say the least.

  Final flight of stairs, the top floor and if there’d been a carpet here, it had been stolen long ago. There were things on the bare ground he couldn’t even start to describe, wasn’t sure what they were or what they’d been at their conception. So much had been ground into the stone that he couldn’t tell where the stains started and ended, a myriad patchwork of colours and crusts that made distressing sounds beneath his boots.

  “Apartment five-twenty,” Theo said. “The last door on the left.”

  “You remember that after all this time?” Pete asked. His partner craned his head around, gave him a sour look.

  “Clearly.”

  “Really? I can’t remember stuff like that. I struggle with what I had for dinner a few nights back.”

  “Every time you open your mouth, you surprise me less and less. I’m amazed you’ve lasted the six months to this point.”

  Asshole. He pushed the ire back down. He knew what he was like by this point, he could suffer through it a little longer. Where Theo had developed the superiority complex in his life, he didn’t know but it had been a trip they all could have done without him taking.

  “I know where my father kept a lot of his safehouses across the kingdoms,” Theo added. “Not going to forget those, if it sounds like I’m bragging.”

  “Yeah, because it’s really the sort of thing that normal people brag about.”

  “I paid the price for this knowledge, Jacobs. He used to make me lead him to them, fastest possible route. I got the address wrong or took too long, I’d get a whack round the head.”

  “Divines, that’s awful!” Pete meant it as well. As much of an abrasive asshole as Theo could be, he didn’t deserve that. More to the point, it explained much if that was the sort of parenting he’d received throughout his life.

  His partner’s face flushed red as he heard the words, like he hadn’t expected and wasn’t comfortable with it either. He scowled, shrugged his shoulders like he’d said too much. “Was a long damn time ago.”