Digital Venous

by Richard Gohl

  Meanwhile, Shane and Wez had been spending the last few hours discussing in detail the facts about the space program and what it all meant. And, as Shane was just starting to wonder about his son, there he was; he could feel and hear Ryan’s voice:

  Guards took us, Dad! They’ve taken us to our old house. They were looking for you. They tied us up! We waited there for a while, and then something happened and they all just left. We’re still here. Dad come up! There’s no one here! Help us!

  Shane: Okay we’re coming. Tell me if they return.

  Shane and Wez wasted no time.

  “Here, take your gun,” said Wez. “I’m not much of a shot.” Shane shoved it down his trousers.

  The street outside the house was empty but as they reached the upmost level it was a whole different story. Inside the transdome it was virtually standing room only. The mood was rough. Everyone had a weapon. There were guns, knives, swords, mining tools, steel bars, and wooden sticks. Shane pulled his hat down low over his face.

  They made their way around the outer edge of the dome towards the exit. Shane said to Wez,

  “Ask them what the hell they’re doing! Tell them the guards have bolt guns that can shoot a hole through half a dozen of them at once.” Progress through the crowd was slow. Wez turned to a man and asked, “What’s going on?”

  “You haven’t heard? When the parents and the children get back, we’re going in!” said the man.

  “Fuckin’ nano!” somebody yelled. Shane had been spotted. Two men lunged at him, pushing him back into the sloping roof of the dome. Shane slid awkwardly down onto the ground but had the presence of mind to somehow produce his weapon. He was on his back, waving the gun in the general direction of the attackers, who immediately saw that it was a bolt gun. They all pulled back in a rapidly increasing semi-circle.

  “He’s with us!” yelled Wez, finding his voice.

  Shane stood up and said. “Go. Wez. Run!” Wez busted the door open and Shane followed. It was a more than unusually bad day outside. The hot wind howled and sand stung their faces. Several men tried to pursue but were pulled back; the people of the underground settlements had agreed to wait for the return of the women and children before storming Napea.

  Without looking back, Shane and Wez sprinted like madmen up the covered walkway. They could see the huge gates were open and unguarded. The real people, the parents leaving the city, looked up to see a man being chased into the city—by a Napean.

  At that moment, Alia and Bes having escorted the children back to the trains, turned and headed back toward the Belair gate when, in the distance, they noticed guards flooding down the main road. They hid and saw them heading out the gate into the underground.

  Chapter 43

  Exile on Shane

  LOFTY MOUNTAIN NAPEANS were told that Subs had attempted to launch a powerful new virus. The network was temporarily disabled until the perpetrators were brought to justice.

  The whole incident had raised alarm bells among Napean Service officials worldwide. A number of other Napean cities had been experiencing their own particular problems with their own satellite or underground populations and it was widely agreed that on utilitarian grounds, enough was enough. Tolerance had been worthwhile, had been a means to an end but now that they were losing control; the integrity of the future was being undermined. A more militarized response was required.

  As it was daylight, guards in radiation armor surrounded the transdomes and rolled hundreds of narco-spray, canister balls down the streets. They then sealed off all exit points. Central ventilation shafts were used to the same effect with devastating consequences. The vapor was immediately debilitating and in larger doses absolutely lethal. All people in underground settlements were destroyed except for Greenhill, which was protected for purposes known only to the Service.

  Despite having been a Captain in the East for nearly a hundred years, influencing many younger Napeans in the job and with a legendary hit-rate, Shane was now persona-non-grata. His command in that area had now been given to another Captain. The change had caused some dispute in the ranks, but in the end it was clear: he had become one of them. Service officials expected Shane would be dispatched in the underground with all the rest but just to be sure, guards across Napea, were still hunting for the hunter. Not only had the closing of the ETP network meant that Alia couldn’t publish the medical and astronomical information, but it also meant that Shane couldn’t contact the Service. His survival now depended on the women he’d been commissioned to destroy.

  Alia and Bes considered their options. There weren’t many. The flow of guards out of the gate had stopped: something major was going on at Belair. Two Napean armored vehicles and a medical transporter turned into the street and headed down in the same direction. Alia and Bes decided they would have to move to another underground city.

  “Oh no… This is not good.” Said Alia. “We’re too late—it’s all too late!” They hurried back to the cover of the dark archways of the coliseum building.

  “What are we going to do now?” asked Bes.

  “We can check the Stirling gate… their attack might only be on Belair.” Said Alia. “And if it is?”

  “Shane’s.”

  “It’ll be crawling with guards. They’re looking for him!”

  “We know where all the guards are.” Said Alia, turning her head toward the gate. “Where is Shane’s?”

  “Spiral precinct building 8, top 3 floors.” Said Alia. Bes was taken aback. “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “Ryan. Told me all about it. There’s water—apparently he’s got a heap of fibrezyme.”

  “Which is?”

  “An add water food.”

  “Sounds lovely… but right now I’d eat anything—I’m starving!” They both paused and thought about how long it was since they had eaten.

  “Going to Shane’s…are you sure? ” said Bes “I know. We take it very slow and blend in.”

  “Let’s put our faces on.” Bes indicated the makeup and accessories she had in her backpack. She had skin glue for facial scarring and black pencil to darken all her features beyond recognition. The she used a heavy-duty wax to force her hair up in to a thirty-centimeter black halo. Alia went full facial coloring, watermelon red and nasturtium green clashing with her deep chocolate eyes. She used an oil to render her wavy black hair into a slick flat helmet.

  Arriving in Shane’s precinct, the women saw two guards rushing from a private transport vehicle and into the building. They dropped back, their hearts sinking as they realized that it was Shane’s building. Eight towering black spirals—his was the last one on the eastern side.

  The two women walked calmly in through the front door, passing through the lobby and straight up the stairs—Napeans never used them. They were only up to the fourth floor when they could hear the sizzling and cracking sound of Napean guns. By the time they were on the ninth floor, the sound of intermittent gunfire had grown so loud that they wondered if there would be anything left of the building or anyone else. Alia opened the stairwell door slightly and saw Shane’s apartment entrance was in full view. Three guards, one crouched and two standing, were looking in. The smell of laser vapor and burning Lunatex was familiar and triggered a rush of adrenalin.

  Alia always had a sense of the imminence of death in such situations. She had seen people killed and knew how easily a well-placed shot or even just a stray bullet could end a life, as quick as shaking hands with someone. The flesh was weak.

  Bes, on the other hand, seemed to lack that kind of fear. Yes, she was scared of being shot, but she didn’t seem to think of this as something final. She knew that being shot would make her angry and that she’d be embarrassed to have lost a fight but she didn’t think it would be “the end.”

  The guards fired more rounds into Shane’s apartment. They didn’t look like they were intending to take prisoners.

  Bes had an old sawn-off pump action rifle—the Cartridges were homemade—that
she knew worked. Standing with the gun poking round the corner, she shot the guard standing closest to them right between the shoulder blades. The force of the shot pushed him falling into his companion on the other side of the doorway, but this colleague had little time to react. Alia fired her pistol almost at the same time but her first shot missed. The surprise element had worked so well, however, that she had time to fire again. This time the bullet went straight through the Napean’s forehead and into the wall. The third guard was now between a rock and a hard place. Although the other guards were just ahead of him, he dropped to floor, slithered forward, and disappeared.

  Inside the shots continued—Bes and Alia darted through the stairwell door, across the hallway, and stood with their backs against the wall, shuffling along towards the doorway.

  They both needed to be able to fire in through the doorway. Bes dived across the open doorway but shots meant for the guards collected her as she was in mid-air.

  A bullet passed through her lung and broke her spine. She didn’t get up again. Alia knew better than to go to her. Instead she dropped onto her knees, elbows, kicked her legs out behind, tipped the point of pistol around the corner, and fired five shots, two of which found their mark.

  Meanwhile, inside, Wez and Madi were under assault and were firing from an upper-level balcony which spiraled up three times, leading to the different room inside the building. Wez had surprised himself by hitting a guard with his first shot. They had the advantage of being able to move around the wall, and pop up at different places to give fire. Although they appeared to have plenty of cover, the thick Lunatex mezzanine wall wasn’t standing up to the sheer force of the Napean firepower.

  Wez had less combat experience than Madi. Although he had won an early hit in the fight, he was becoming increasingly paralyzed with fear. His judgment and intuition faltered but he kept trying nonetheless. He forced himself to take a shot, pushing his gun over the top of the balcony wall. But his luck was running out. All he had done was alert the guards as to his exact location. He was slightly lower around the spiraling wall than Madi. She had seen the tip of his gun pop up over wall, firing haphazardly, desperately way off target. She rushed a few shots down toward the door, hoping to divert some of the attention away from Wez. She then crawled around the balcony to a point where she could see Wez. There he was, grasping his gun with both arms as if it was alive. His chest was heaving up and down. His eyes were closed and he was mumbling to himself. A bolt cracked into the top of the balcony just above Wez’s head. A hundred shards and a spray of Lunatex dust showered the whole area.

  “Oi!” hissed Madi. He didn’t hear her. He was building himself up for another shot. He had to look where he was firing! He swung around and onto his knees, pushing upwards to fire a shot over the balcony but didn’t get that far. Another bolt was fired from below and passed straight through the weakened top section of the balcony, instantly killing Wez as it also passed through the top of his head.

  “Wez!” Madi threw herself on her stomach towards him. He was some distance away, close enough for her to see that he was gone. Now it was she who couldn’t move. She just lay there stricken with shock, splayed out like a fallen star, her forehead on the ground. She looked up at Wez again, hoping to see a different image. But she remained in that world of horror and panic. She heard movement down below—footsteps.

  Breathe, she thought. Breathe. An instinctual residue of self-preservation forced her, as if on wheels, back; back around the bend and into a bedroom where she sat for a few seconds trying to reconstitute what was left of her mind. To her own surprise she was made of a harder material than she knew, getting to her feet and reappearing at the other entrance to that bedroom with a barrage of fire.

  Shane, who knew the building better than anyone, had stayed on the ground floor for the duration of the battle and had been moving from room to room. These guys were well-trained and quite fearless—he knew Wez or Madi were gone—or both. Then someone had started attacking the guards from behind, giving him time to move down to the rec room at the end of the atrium.

  The firing had stopped. He crouched down and peered around the corner toward the front door. The guard had the rest of the room covered but maybe didn’t know that all the rooms were connected. From this vantage point Shane had a three-centimeter opening through which to hit him. Using his left arm as a rest, he slowly took aim and fired.

  As the sixth guard crumpled, Alia moved in on the seventh guard from the front door, flushing him out, giving Shane an almost point blank shot at him. As Shane fired he realized it was his old friend Charles, the Crafer’s Captain. Shane pushed down hard on the butt of the gun as the bolt left the barrel, sending the crackling charge just passed Charles’ left shoulder and up into the ceiling. Charles knew when to give up. He put down his gun and dropped his belt to the floor, holding his hands in front of him.

  Not a person accustomed to thinking independently or laterally, Charles had accepted unquestioningly the information from the Lofty Service official Jeffery telling him that Shane Wing had betrayed Napea and was now fighting in league with a group of real rebels planning a coup. There had been a great deal of talk among the guards about Shane’s disappearance from duty several days earlier and their worst fears were confirmed when the Service officer informed them further that “Shane Wing was so corrupt that he was now living in the Sub world with his illegal child continuing to pursue his self-interest.” Of course, that made sense to everyone—he had been ousted only months before. Charles was appointed commander of the team to seek and destroy Shane Wing and anyone else in his association.

  “Sit here,” said Shane, sliding a chair across the floor towards him. “And don’t move.” Shane removed all of Charles’ other equipment, placing it in the far corner of the room. Alia ran out to check Bes.

  Shane went to the staircase and yelled down to his son.

  “Ryan!” The boy was hiding in a robe on the lowest level of the apartment. A small voice called back.

  “I’m here, Dad.”

  “I’ll come and get you when it’s safe. Stay where you are.”

  Charles stood up, yelling, “You’ve had your son all this time! Despite what you always said, you were so against it. You don’t deserve to be alive!” spat Charles.

  Shane tried to reason with Charles and explain to him about the Service conspiracies. But, despite being beaten, Charles was too angry to listen.

  Alia ran back in, breathless, her face squinting. “She’s gone… Bes’s… ” She stopped short, pointing the gun at Charles. “You know this guy?” she asked Shane.

  “Technically I’m his Commander…”

  “On the floor hands in front!” she ordered him. Charles got down on the floor.

  “It’s okay,” said Shane.

  “You murdered my friends!” said Alia, seeking immediate revenge and moving toward the kneeling Charles, her gun pointed at his head. “Was it you?” Alia knew her question was absurd but she’d been taken over by a voice from a distant place.

  “It wasn’t me,” said Charles adamantly. “I was just cover for those two at the front.” He gestured with his head toward the two Napean bodies on the floor to the left and to the right.

  Alia forced the muzzle up against his head. “It wasn’t you…” repeated Alia, trying to process the killing of her friends, the pain she was feeling, while thinking that revenge would be relief. Revenge was the right thing to do; revenge was justice. Her feelings were a mix of disgust, hatred, and pity—not just for Charles, but for herself.

  “It was him!” Madi appeared on the walkway above. Alia turned her head for an instant, seeing Madi looking down at her, but was so consumed with retribution that she leaned closer over Charles.

  “Alia!” yelled Shane, moving very slowly towards her. Her face was twisting into a grimace as she started grinding the muzzle harder into Charles’ head.

  “Alia! Don’t do that. He’s our last hope for contact! With the Service! Remember?” A
shiver like an electric shock ran up the back of her neck. She let the gun swing away

  in one hand, turning her head away with eyes closed. She unconsciously placed her foot on the back of Charles’ neck.

  Shane put his arm around her and she instinctively turned and hugged him. He wrapped his other arm around her too, pulling her in close. She cried for a while, conscious of the fact that she was taking comfort in a person who had killed a friend, was the father of child she loved, yet was now her ally. She looked up at his face, feeling something unexpected.

  She pulled away and headed up the staircase, choking and spluttering. “Madi! You okay?” Madi was sitting next to Wez’s body.

  “I’m pretty far from okay,” said Madi, staring.

  It was a horrid scene. Alia too could only stare; the futility was overwhelming. The image burnt onto her synapses. But there was no time for grief now. Although the Napean communication network had been cut, there would soon be other guards. The image of Wez would appear to her thereafter with perfect clarity; the unconscious storage of trauma for some later use.

  Charles was still restrained on the floor. “Why did you do it?” he asked quietly. “Why did you betray us?”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” said Shane. “The Service betrayed us—nothing is what it seems. I could prove it to you if we had the time but we don’t. Why would I make this up? Ryan provided the information. He merely read what he saw. Why would a child who knows nothing about world affairs make that up? Why would I want to believe any of that?” Shane was getting angry. “I’ve been following the dream too!”

  “You’re just trying to justify your son… to protect him! That means you must discredit the Service anyway you can!” Charles wasn’t as thick as he seemed.

  Alia and Madi came back down from the upper levels. Hearing the Napean guard getting angry, Madi came across and stood over him. She said to Shane, “If you don’t shut him up I will!”