Freenet

by Steve Stanton

  Simara slanted a sneer in sarcasm. “I know the plan—three steps behind, a subservient bride. No problem, I got it.”

  Zen sighed as he struggled with anxiety. Would the bounty hunters be watching the spaceport? Would they dare to interfere with an untouchable Loki girl? In their breathers they were still anonymous, but on the other side of decontamination they would be exposed and vulnerable. Anything could happen, and an emergency getaway would be difficult.

  They walked single file to the airlock and cycled through to a locker area where they stowed their breathers. Stick-figure signs pointed women to the left and men to the right, and Zen watched Simara saunter away into a corridor buzzing with fluorescence before turning to run his own gauntlet of UV irradiation, foaming germicidal showers, and infrared dryers. Safe and sterile on the other side, his skin tingly with poison, he took a drab cellulose tunic and shorts from a fabricator and pulled them on over his money belt.

  Swathed in her purple sari, Simara stepped up quietly behind him as he made his way to the ticket counter. Zen paid her little heed, confident now in his chauvinistic role.

  “Two boosts to Babylon,” he told the attendant, an older man with grey hair at his temples wearing a pressed-linen uniform. A red Transolar insignia on his breast pocket shone like a beacon of authority.

  The man looked up, deadpan with boredom. “Palm on the pad, please.”

  “We’re not registered,” Zen said as he placed a stack of plastic bills on the counter. “I’ll have to pay cash.”

  The attendant tipped his head and studied him with wary eyes. “Do you have ID?”

  “No, I’m Zen of Valda, Star Clan.”

  “Governor Valda?” The man smiled with recognition at the name. “I haven’t seen him in a dragon’s age. How is he?”

  “My father’s dead. Almost two years now.”

  “Oh …” The attendant winced. “Sorry to hear. I can see his features in your face, now that you mention it.” He peered past Zen’s shoulder at Simara. “And this is …”

  “My wife, Kishandra. With a K. She’s Loki.”

  “Ahh.” The man nodded. “And what’s your business on Babylon?” He fingered the cash on the counter. “Did you win the lottery or something?”

  “We’re taking a honeymoon trip. The money was a wedding gift.”

  “A honeymoon on Babylon?” The man chuckled. “That’s a new one—not exactly a romantic destination.”

  “It was as far as we could get on limited funds,” Zen said with a hopeful smile. “We’ve never been offplanet. I can pay extra for your trouble.”

  The attendant swiped away the cash and began tapping a keyboard down below the counter. “Governor Valda was a good man,” he said. “Zen of Valda and Kishandra of …”

  “Pinion.”

  Two boarding passes spat up out of a slot. “Are you stowing any luggage or gear?”

  Zen took the passes with trembling fingers. “No, we’re travelling light. Keeping expense to a minimum.”

  The attendant returned a few bills to the counter along with a receipt slip. “You’re all set to boost to Trade Station on Gate Five in about two hours. It’s the only launch today. You’ll connect there with Infinity’s Choice and register for bunk selection to Babylon. Everything’s on schedule, but keep an eye on the board for any updates. Happy Vishan.” He smiled and looked past Zen for a token nod of religious observance to Simara. “Blessings, my lady. Pray for me.”

  Zen turned away with solemn dignity as Simara dutifully bowed in response. They shuffled slowly to a waiting area and picked up two bottles of carbonated water from a vending machine—past the first hurdle now and one step closer to freedom. The surrounding desert flatlands were visible through tall windows with no signs of trouble or plumes of dust from armoured vehicles. Simara slouched into a corner seat and feigned sleep behind her veil while Zen sat watching a public viewscreen—a recruitment vidi for the Transolar Security Guard, the vast corporate army that maintained authority throughout the solar system. The music was upbeat with blasts of trumpet horns and thumping drums as a deep male voice lured young men and women to sign up and see the universe: “Join the future with Transolar Security! Keeping the peace on three worlds without firing a weapon!” A promotional vidi followed about gold mining on Babylon where an apparent treasure trove of volcanic deposits lay hidden, and lucrative careers were available. Miners in orange coveralls worked without breathers, even above ground, but the craggy landscape looked forbidding and cold with white caps of snow on distant mountains.

  Simara stirred after an hour to visit the restroom and find a food dispenser. She returned in a few minutes and tossed a slender tube into Zen’s lap.

  “What’s this?” he asked as he eyed the fiery-horned Transolar shield on top.

  Simara tore the end of her own tube with her teeth. “This is goop. They serve it on every Transolar station. And almost everywhere else, for that matter.”

  “Goop?”

  “It’s factory protein laced with nutrients. All you really need.” She squeezed a glop of grey paste onto her tongue and masticated.

  Zen followed her example and tasted unfamiliar spices, perhaps a hint of pepper.

  “Pretty bland, I know,” Simara said, “but it’s free and ubiquitous, so get used to it.” She sucked her tube empty and tucked the roll of plastic into a pocket in her shorts. “Low in sodium, low in sugar, but filled with every trace vitamin necessary for a healthy body.”

  Zen rubbed his tongue over his teeth and gums, trying to decide if he liked the stuff. “Do they have any other flavours?”

  “No, goop is goop, but nobody starves. Specialty products in space are for people with money to burn, but that’s not us at the moment. And really, solid food is not all that healthy.”

  Zen nodded with controlled doubt. Only water to drink and grey goop to eat? No wonder spacers were so thin. He glanced over at three passengers ambling nearby—executives with their noses buried in data tablets as they took their seats. They didn’t look dangerous. “You’d better cover back up. Just a few more minutes until boarding.”

  Simara pulled her veil across her face with mock obedience. “Yes, husband.” The mischief in her eyes made him feel better, as though their charade was an elaborate game and she knew all the rules. She was close to home and gaining confidence.

  Their boarding call came over the intercom, and the small group of travellers rose and began to gather belongings. Zen’s stomach roiled with unease, and he burped a taste of goop. He hoped the strange food would stay down during his first experience of rocket flight. The acceleration of thrust he understood from his early days racing buggies across the dunes, but flying was new to him and foreign. Humans were not made to fly—only dino-birds with leathery wings and pilots who crashed and died in the desert. Zen swiped two boarding passes at the launch portal and led his veiled wife down a narrow walkway into the rocket. They climbed ladders up a central tunnel to their double payload slot and crawled into cramped launch beds facing upward. The windowless compartment had no room to manoeuvre and barely room to breathe, the next row of passengers overhead reclining in similar slots like corpses in stacked coffins. Mass was a liability in this place and every centimetre expensive. The stale air reeked of polyvinyl chloride and chemical solvents, but Simara seemed not to notice the smell. Perhaps it was the natural scent of space and a reminder of home—hot circuitry and warming ceramic shielding. Viewscreens came to life inches from their faces and relayed a long and laborious series of safety procedures as Zen struggled to compose his nervousness, all sense of adventure having dissipated to dread.

  A five-second countdown sounded during a rumble of pre-­ignition, and Zen braced himself for violence. Thrusters exploded below him like an erupting volcano, and Simara reached to grasp his hand as gravity began to claw his bones back toward Bali amid a grinding torrent of noise. All he could think about was sex at her touch as a thunder of rockets pushed him skyward. She was a lovely girl, and he
was blessed by Kiva to have and hold her so close—she was the most exhilarating person he had ever met! His cheeks flattened into his face as he clenched his jaw against brutal acceleration, travelling faster and harder than he had ever imagined. One full minute passed before a jolt shook the craft as the rocket booster disengaged, then another thrust of acceleration pressed him back into his couch as the shuttle engines ignited briefly for a trajectory correction.

  Suddenly they were weightless and floating free from the clutches of gravity. With a bubble of buoyancy in his stomach, Zen looked over to see Simara convulsing in her bunk as though charged with electric shock, her eyeballs moving frenetically under closed lids and her lips quivering with half-formed speech. What in Kiva’s name?

  “Are you okay?” he asked, but she continued to twitch and shake in silence, her face pasty white with panic. Was she having an epileptic seizure? A brain hemorrhage? Was she dying before his eyes?

  “Kishandra?” He wondered if he should dare call out for help and draw attention to her plight. Perhaps this was just a side effect of her skullrider implant, some strange digital delirium. She might be getting a wi-fi signal now that they were above the geomagnetic storms of Bali. Maybe she would snap out of it in time, if only he was patient. But what if she needed immediate medical aid in this state of crisis? What if she suffered permanent damage because of his neglect? He felt helpless, paralyzed with indecision. “Simara, can you hear me?”

  “It’s okay, Zen. I’m getting good bandwidth. Give me a minute to catch up on things.” She kept her eyes closed as her face contorted through dozens of expressions in rapid-fire sequence. Tears slid onto her cheeks as she rode a roller coaster of emotional drama inside her mind, her body bucking with tension as the muscles in her arms and legs contracted in response to secret imaginings.

  Zen exhaled with relief, cursing Kiva under his breath. He should never have said her real name out loud where it might be monitored and recorded. Simara should have warned him. How was he supposed to know anything about crazy skullrider culture? He watched her quake and convulse for a while, and finally could take it no longer. “Kishandra, wake up and tell me what’s going on!”

  She blinked her eyes open and smeared the weightless beads of tears pebbled on her cheeks. “Everything has changed, Zen. Our situation is much more complicated now.”

  “What?”

  “You may be in danger from legal authorities.”

  “What sort of danger?”

  “I can’t say. The less you know, the better.”

  “That’s never true. I need to know.”

  Simara closed her eyes as though ready to return to her wi-fi catatonia, but Zen grabbed her hand and fondled her palm in the most intimate manner he knew, trying to draw her back. “We’re bonded in partnership. You have to tell me.”

  She turned to face him. “Two of my friends have been killed in an accident. Everything has changed, but I can’t tell you the details without compromising your plausible deniability. Bali is the only place you’ll be safe.”

  He continued to caress her hand in sensual union, intense in his care for her, though he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Plausible deniability? A serious accident? “I’m so sorry for your loss. But it’s okay to share with me. I love you.”

  Simara frowned and pulled her hand away. “No, you can’t love me.”

  “Why not? We’re supposed to be married.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not a lovable person. I’m not like you, or any normal human. I have special brain enhancements known as ‘omnidroid.’ That’s my job on the net. I fix things and streamline rootkit systems for mothership. There’s just so much automated surveillance data coming in all the time, it tends to pile up in convoluted folds like dirty laundry. Information degrades into unmanageable garbage without the omnidroids keeping it straight.” She held up a finger. “Just a sec,” she said as her eyes rolled up under closing lids.

  “So you organize things in an imaginary world?”

  Simara’s body shivered with a pulse of galvanic electricity. She blinked and smiled with grim forbearance. “Your naïveté is truly refreshing, Zen, but the real world is not that of the physical senses and the vagaries of consciousness. The true essence of humanity is contained within the data generated by behaviour as recorded digitally in the virtual domain. That’s why my work in cryptologic management is so vitally important, both historically and prophetically. I get a kick out of it, really. There’s a hardwire in my pleasure centre that reacts to order, so I feel satisfaction when I see numbers in neat rows or names in alphabetical sequence, that sort of thing. I have an octahedral array of surgical implants that allow for data evolution through several transmission nodes, building complex algorithms into architectural subsystems for mothership. Most of it is subconscious.”

  Zen studied his marriage partner, speechless in wonder as her eyes rolled up for another mysterious connection in virtual space. An omnidroid with skullrider technology in her pleasure centre? How could he compete with that? Simara seemed like a different person, aloof and devoid of emotion like a robot, a machine of vast intellect. How could things change so quickly?

  “You can’t give up on me because of some secret message from your virtual world. This is real. You and me. Right here, right now.”

  “I’m not giving up on you. I’m trying to protect you. Wouldn’t you withhold information from Luaz to keep her from danger?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Your own mother? Someone you care about more than anything? Wouldn’t you want to save her from harm?”

  “Luaz went to jail for you. That’s what family does.”

  Simara tilted her head as though surprised by an innovative thought. Perhaps he had finally gotten through to her. He decided to press the point. “A few minutes ago we were partners on a honeymoon trip to Babylon. You can’t change that in a blink of an eye.”

  Simara sighed. “It pains me to think of losing you, Zen—you’re so beautiful and have such a genuine spirit—but I’ve always prepared for that eventuality in my heart and mind. You’re the only person ever to take a personal interest in me, sorry to say, but from the first moment I saw you, I could not let myself believe in love. It’s too dangerous to be that vulnerable. You must understand—it’s just so obvious. Love can only hurt.”

  “But we’re legally married. We’ve been joined by Kiva.”

  Simara shook her head sadly. “Our marriage is a civil sham forced on us by circumstance and not worthy of any constraint. We both know that.”

  “Kiva works in mysterious ways. It’s not up to us to question his methods.” Zen braced himself with determination. “Give me a chance to prove myself, no strings attached. We’re still on track, and nothing has changed between us. We have a good plan, Kishandra, and we should stick with it.” He arched his eyebrows and gave her the boyish grin that had worked so well for him over the years, the one the ladies always loved, giving it his best effort now that it truly mattered. “I’ll protect you.”

  Simara smiled with amusement as she dropped her eyes, and in that moment Zen saw that he had lost her. He noticed a softening in her stance, a relinquishment of purpose as her identity shifted. “Very well, husband,” she said with smug assurance as she reached for the purple sari at her neck. She draped it overtop her head and wrapped the Loki veil across her nose. “Whatever you say.” Her actions spoke louder than epic poetry. She was playing a façade, hiding behind a double veil of secrecy. She would not give him her heart, just a stage version of her splintered persona—like a computer taking a preferred route of maximum efficiency, the best strategy for the situation.

  Jula had been like that as well, a woman with multiple characters, a personality for every occasion. In public she portrayed a social charade, snide and showy, at family events she affected genuine concern and empathy, but only when she was alone with him and naked in his hands did he feel connected to the foundational archive of her personality
. The vulva was the secret gateway to the heart of a woman, and Zen was a dedicated master at tactile manipulation. At the height of a cyclic orgasm, gazing into the eyes of his lover as his hands worked a magic massage, Zen knew he had access to the true soul of a woman in a shared revelation of intimacy—something he might never experience with Simara, hidden to him in her kaleidoscopic virtual reality. He had won the argument, but lost the reason behind it. He had lost the girl.

  Zen felt a wave of dizziness and hopelessness, a cosmic disorientation like a sand lizard spinning in shifting dunes trying to reorient to familiar landmarks. A burst of deceleration rocked them in their couches, and Zen realized that his body had adjusted to a standing position in his mind, falling back to common grounder training. Though weightless, he now felt that he was propped upright, and as he glanced around he could see nothing to cancel that perception. A small exit sign above the closed hatch at his feet pointed left along the now horizontal floor. A tremor shook the craft as they docked with Trade Station, and lights flashed green as the portal below slid open with a hum of hydraulics. An intercom relayed a series of instructions for disembarking, and he swallowed a few times to clear the pressure in his ears as air exchangers pumped in an oily smell mixed with a stench of disinfectant.

  Simara tucked the trailing ends of her sari under her arms as they floated down out of their passenger slot into the central tunnel of the shuttle. Pressing back buoyant nausea, Zen gripped handrails to propel himself after her toward a flashing exit sign. The area was cramped, and every edge was rounded to prevent snags or injury, every handle recessed and every conduit inlaid. A few spots on the wall were scraped bare of paint and a few corners were burnished with wear, the craft showing age but not disrepair, the fiery Transolar insignias bright and clean.

  Outside the shuttle door, they squirmed down a short orifice into a wider antechamber where uniformed clerks redirected passengers into launch gates for connecting flights to Babylon and Cromeus. A male Security officer in a blue Transolar uniform pulled Simara out of line and locked her wrists in a nylon handcuff as another guard approached Zen with a grim expression of authority. What was this? Bounty hunters? Zen craned for view as Simara cast him a backward glance filled with dismay, but he had lost purchase for the moment and could only twist and flail for a surface to reorient his weightless body.