Digital Venous

by Richard Gohl

  “Okay,” he said. Rather forlornly. Now that Ryan had experienced frequent and diverse human company, he really liked it. Although he found it tiring; the pace of a conversation was hard to keep up with. His new life, though rougher and less comfortable, was more exciting than his long days entertaining himself with his games, the Napean media, and with Robbie.

  Claire and Bes volunteered to go and stash the SCID tag. Outside it was twilight as usual. The two women turned right, descending down their street. At a fast pace, it took them just over ten minutes to reach the bottom of the street. The whole Blackwood township was made up of nine huge spiraling streets. The transdomes on the surface, arranged in a triangle formation, had three descending streets each. Horizontal streets connected the vertical ones through the middle and at the bottom. Building was prohibited in the lowest sections of the streets. These areas were kept free in case of ground water flooding or landslide and were full of debris of all kinds.

  Light was filtered down during the day through series of mirrors that reflected light through central column windows in each street, but after hours, battery-powered streetlights provided just enough watery brightness to show up the dust particles forever floating in the warm air.

  They found a large boulder and behind it enough rocky dirt to bury the tag, sealed in a small plastic bag. As Claire buried the bag, Bes stood keeping a watch over the streets leading off in the three different directions.

  The light coming from the street above was brighter than that along the bottom road, and as Bes looked upward to the left the silhouette of a man walking slowly down toward them. Bes whispered, “Hurry, someone’s coming!”

  “Hi,” said Bes. The man stopped. She then noticed he was holding a gun. At that moment Claire bobbed up from behind the rock. “Done!” she exclaimed.

  The man, shocked by Claire’s sudden appearance, fired at her. Claire was killed instantly. Bes fell to her knees. The man ran up and stifled her sobbing by covering her mouth.

  “Get up,” he said. “We’re going back to see Mark Luhrman.”

  Bes wished she could think of something brave to do. She struggled, but he now held both her arms from behind. His other hand wrapped around her mouth. She bit him and yelled,

  “No!” It was the best she had. Again he firmly gripped her face, covering her mouth. “If you don’t, you’ll end up over there behind that rock with your friend.” Bes wriggled

  furiously and tried to talk, but it came out as a series of muffled grunts.

  “Sh sh sh sh sh,” said the man. He slowly removed his hand from her mouth. “You’ll never find him without me,” she said, finally getting a good look at his face.

  Choking in fear, she realized he was a Napean.

  “I know he’s with Alia,” said the man, bluffing. “So you can come with me and maybe try to be part of the solution or you can stay down here—for a very long time.” Bes elbowed him away from her and started walking, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her back. “Take it easy,” he said calmly. “We don’t want any more casualties.”

  On their walk back several people went past in buggies. None of them gave a second glance to the couple walking upward along the road.

  “When we get there, you’re to walk in and tell everyone to get down on the floor and then you’ll fall on the floor too. Got it?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Bes pushed open the door and walked down the central corridor to the room where the meeting was being held. Just as they got to the door, she opened it, swung her left arm around, pushing his gun up into the air. It went off and a huge amount of dust and rock particles flew down into the passage. Bes ran into the room, attempting to slam the door behind her, yelling, “Napean! Napean! Get down!” The door was then blown off as the man fired a shot into it, which passed straight through the door and into the back of Mark Luhrman’s neck. He had been sitting tied to a chair but the force of the bolt sent him and the chair lurching forward in a mass of wood particles, smoke, and human vapor.

  Alia had reached for the gun, which was always taped under the table, but it was too late. His voice rang loud and deep: “Everyone on the floor!” In total shock, they obeyed. Except Madi, whose mouth was automatically engaged by stress. She was kneeling and started speaking: “We’re not armed. We’re all just friends here, really—there’s no threat.”

  “Quiet!” He knocked her in the forehead with his bottom of his gun knocking her onto her back, “Please!” he said. Madi was out cold.

  “Rest of you… palms flat on the floor where I can see them or you’ll lose a hand!” Their hands were bound behind their backs with their own plastic ties—except for Madi.

  As she was lying on her back, the Napean picked up her limp arms and bound her wrists together at the front. He walked out to the passage and quickly down to the other end of the house looking for signs of life.

  Ryan had been hiding behind the picture screen in the games room, adjacent to the meeting room. Hearing that it was quiet, he stirred from his hiding place. From the next room Alia heard something fall from a shelf and said, “Ryan! Hide and don’t come out until he’s gone!”

  The Napean was standing at the doorway. “Whoever is in that room come out now with your hands in the air where I can see them!’ he yelled. Movement was heard from the next room. “Real slow!” he said with his finger on the trigger. “Relax. It’s only a child,” said Alia.

  Ryan appeared slowly, cowering in the doorway. “Ryan? Buddy?”

  “Dad? Is that you? Why are you hurting everybody?” Shane Wing put the gun back in his holster and took four big steps over to his son.

  “How did you get here?” he asked, putting both hands on Ryan’s face. “I’ve been trying to reach you every night.”

  Ryan embraced his father around the waist and then pulled back and, looking at him said, “I was sent to stay with people over in…” Then his little green eyes wandered off to the left. Shane turned quickly to see what had caught his attention and received a double-fisted uppercut from Madi, who had woken up. He stumbled back into the wall.

  “That’s for hitting me…” Then she plunged her hands deep into his diaphragm. “And that’s for stealing my son…” As a finale, she used her elbow across the right side of his face. “… And that’s for...” She couldn’t think of anything. Shane went down like the proverbial sack of potatoes.

  Ryan’s mouth was wide open. He found his voice: “Mum! Stop it!”

  “I have.”

  Madi looked at Ryan’s father in a pile on the rug. She looked at Ryan staring in disbelief at what his mother had just done to his father. The others, still face down on the floor, were straining, arching their backs to see what was going to happen next.

  Bes, with her cheek resting on the floor, said out of the side of her mouth: “Dad, meet Mum.”

  Neither Ryan nor Madi saw the funny side to the situation.

  Ryan knelt down next to his father’s body. “You’ve killed him!” he yelled. “He’s not dead. Now you… go to your room!” yelled Madi.

  “You’re not the boss of me anymore—Dad is!”

  “Oh, really?” said Madi sarcastically, looking down at Shane. “Dad, please talk to your son.”

  Shane groaned loudly.

  “He means go to your room! And bring me some scissors!” Madi sat down on the table, staring at the floor, and sighed deeply. She looked at Bes and asked, “What happened to Claire?”

  “He shot her…” said Bes, suddenly remembering. She started blubbering. “She’s dead…for no reason!”

  After the ordeal they’d just been through, this information took them beyond emotional limits—and maybe it was for this reason that none of the others shed a tear. Everything seemed futile. A heavy silence weighed them down. No one spoke until Ryan came into the room again. He asked: “Mum? What happened?”

  “He killed Claire,” said Madi “Dad did?” the boy frowned.

  “He…” Madi motioned with her head towards
the prostrate Shane. “He… shot her outside.”

  “Dad!” said Ryan reproachfully. “You killed my teacher?”

  “No homework tonight,” grunted Shane.

  Madi nudged him hard in the stomach with her foot. “Quiet!” she said.

  They cut off their wrist ties. Alia moved close to Shane and said, “I know you can hear me, so let me make it clear that if you contact anyone from above, you will lose everything. We’ve left copies of all the information we’ve gathered with friends to be released if anything happens to us—information that will cause widespread destruction in Napea and beyond— so… no ETP.”

  She looked at Shane; he was lying on his side eyes shut. Alia slapped his face. “Oi! Did you hear what I said?”

  “I heard you,” he said.

  Madi said, “Wow, anyone would think he’d been hit by a train or something, the way he’s carrying on.”

  Ryan was looking distressed.

  “He’ll be okay,” said Alia. “The Napean head’s not as thick as ours, that’s all…”

  Alia, Wez, and Bes went down with a buggy to collect Claire. Madi stayed back with Ryan and watched over Shane, still lying on the floor. Madi tried to talk to Shane: “Listen, your son is one of us now…”

  Shane, still with eyes closed said quietly, “He’s my son. He’s a Napean.”

  Chapter 38

  Napean Prisoner

  MADI HAD QUITE a task trying to explain to Ryan the “politics” of the situation. The boy couldn’t reconcile the two different pictures he had of his father: good guy and bad guy. He loved his father but this new man was a mystery. He liked the mystery.

  The others took Claire’s body to the morgue in Stirling. She had no surviving family to contact but, as a well-known teacher, there would be many wishing to pay their respects.

  It was nearly impossible for the group to have Shane under their roof. But it soon became apparent that hatred would have to be put aside for the sake of the boy.

  Ryan wouldn’t leave his father’s side. When told to go to bed, he refused, thinking that more harm would come to his father.

  Bes tried to help: “You must sleep, little man. Tomorrow’s a really big day—we have to make a lot of important decisions…”

  “About what?”

  “Well, the other Napeans don’t know much about the things you’ve helped us to find out; we have to decide what we are going to do.”

  “What’s going to happen to Dad?”

  “He’s going to stay here with us for now. We hope he’s going to be on our side and that he won’t try and hurt us again. Now, come on, let’s get you into bed.”

  “Thanks, T,” said Madi.

  The next day Shane seemed to be fine. Ryan awoke early and was already in questioning his father about everything. As soon as they were up, the women had breakfast and went in to talk to Shane, who was now upright on the couch.

  Alia said, “I want you to relay a message to the rest of Napea…”

  Shane replied, “I don’t think I can. We’re too far down. There needs to be a relay point for connection.”

  “Try,” said Alia.

  Shane activated IN and used his tongue on the roof of his mouth to navigate across to the ETP section of his iris to make contact.

  “I can’t,” he said. “We’re just too far…”

  “We’ll just have to move you closer to the surface. Wez, who’s home at yours?”

  “No one, I don’t think… but it’s a mess …”

  “Oh, shut up,” said Alia, smiling. “Let’s go.”

  “Can I have my weapon back?” asked Shane.

  “What a good idea,” said Alia. “Wez, you’ve got a new toy,” she said, handing Wez the bolt gun.

  Chapter 39

  In Orbit

  THE THREE SERVICEMEN sat in a darkened room in the docking station in orbit over the Napean city. They were using a function of the network and ETP which allowed them to inhabit a virtual space. They were able to follow each other’s train of thought, examine myriad documents and view images, simultaneously: all without lifting a finger or even batting an eyelid. It was the practical application of the idea that three brains are better than one.

  Jeffery: Wing’s been loyal and effective but he is wayward. A number of decisions demonstrate an increased level self importance. View the record…

  Pato: His last point of contact was at a Blackwood relay point—he was using ETP—multiple messages trying to contact someone called Ryan.

  Jeffery: Yes but not in the usual way.

  Magellan: What does that mean; not in the usual way?

  Jeffery was alleging something more serious: If you want to find someone specific you go to contact and check your list. Similarly if there’s someone you wish to meet you leave the calling card. He was wandering around in Roam looking for this Ryan…

  Pato: Maybe he was trying to divert attention.

  Jeffery: Wait a minute, yes here it is—the son was called Ryan…

  Magellan: It’s simply not possible for him to be contacting a non Napean on the ETP network. It says here Wing used a grief program called ‘afterlife’ where one can contact departed loved ones. That has already explained his irregular use of ETP.

  Pato: The son received therapy.

  Magellan: So?

  Pato: how does the child maintain his blood without update.

  Magellan: We’ve been through this before—it’s done in exactly the same way. Male to male; female to female. A Napean can update another just by giving refreshed blood. It’s enough—it works.

  Pato: But does the son have an ID number or access?

  Magellan: of course not—the number of people using the system does not change; any difference in volume would be obvious.

  Jeffery: True enough. But then, organic telepathy?

  Pato: It would explain the record of unidentified action on the network... and we’ve lost how many guards now?

  Jeffery: Being killed for their eyes you think?

  Magellan: Conjecture: Subs kill guards—they don’t need a reason.

  Jeffery: We know but the point remains, parts of the network have been altered and rearranged, without any reference to a user.

  Magellan: It was just a glitch Jeffery—it’s a huge international system…

  Jeffery: …with only a handful of users. And foreigners don’t use our hex area of the data bank. Wing has been operating outside all acceptable parameters for a long time now. His time has come. You let him and his son go. He’s obviously gone against all protocol, left Napea to find his son.

  Magellan: That’s not true. He was…is on a covert mission to find the female terrorist unit. Reputedly, the same group responsible for the last major network virus and other crimes... he was getting very close.

  Jeffery: Not close enough. We end his tenure now.

  Pato: Agreed. A valuable resource but… arrogant, unpredictable; a bad combination.

  Magellan: Yet he knows everything about the job. There’s no-one better…

  Pato: But he has no loyalty. It’s one of the many reasons we always outlawed children—they only create instability in a population.

  Jeffery: At this stage in the exit plan all we need to do is simply maintain the status quo—quell hysteria. We don’t want radical change now.

  Magellan disagreed: You call it instability but are you sure these are small isolated problems?

  Jeffery was firm: There are similar problems in some of the American cities—we’ve just been too soft…

  Pato: …And this is the thanks we get.

  Jeffery continued: All our attention needs to be focused on selecting the transportation colony and fleet engineering. There’s no time for any more of this nonsense. On this occasion the majority has it. Bring in the Wing.

  Magellan relented: You’re both sure?

  Jeffery sensed victory: And the son… if he encounters an accident in the meantime—such is life. I can’t imagine what inspired such leniency in the fir
st instance… Wing’s had five years to sort out this rebel problem. It’s time.

  Chapter 40

  Interrogation

  AT THE WOMEN’S house, Shane was being interrogated. They sat in the main room, the knives and guns out on the table like salt and pepper. Madi sat with an arm resting on a Glock G22, a handgun hundreds of years old for which they’d managed to secure a huge quantity of ammunition. Bes scraped the palm of her hand with the blade of an old hunting knife.

  Alia pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of Shane at eye level. “Who’s your superior?”

  “I only know him as Magellan,” said Shane.

  “Magellan? What sort of a name is that?” said Bes. Alia glanced toward Bes briefly before continuing.

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “No.”

  “Well how have you been in contact with him?”

  “We do everything using ETP.”

  “ETP only?” asked Alia. “Correct,” answered Shane.

  “What do you see when you’re talking on ETP? Do you see the person?” asked Madi. “No, but you get a complete sense of who they are without… you feel like you see them and you…”

  Alia was getting frustrated with the interruptions and asked the two women: “May I?”

  “Hey, I…” shrugged Bes.

  “Yeah, go for it,” agreed Madi.

  “Thank you. Now, what have you heard about the space program?”

  “I don’t get any information like that. As far as I know we’re still searching for an Earth-like planet to settle,” said Shane.

  “You know about the space ship waiting up there? And that there’s another CME predicted in six months?”

  Shane’s eyebrows raised slightly hearing this. “No.” He seemed genuinely surprised. Alia continued. “The Service are planning on leaving Earth, soon; they haven’t told