Cypher: Chronicles of Rah

by Scott Hopkins

  I considered my options. I was off the grid now, I had enough resources to drop off further and go freelance without directions from on high. Why did it matter so much to me that the world I knew had been crushed and torn to shreds? Maybe it was the fact that I’d always be looking over my shoulder, always worried I was being hunted. Making them think I was dead or too much trouble to chase anymore would have been the smart play.

  I grabbed the dagger and what little of the random items in the apartment that I thought might be useful before moving to the small kitchenette. Digging through the sparsely stocked cabinets, I found whatever I could that I thought would catch fire and threw it on top of the two thermal elements embedded into the countertop for cooking. Turning both on full power, I let them light the scrap and chemicals as I slipped out the back through the door to a long path running between rows of apartments. I walked nonchalantly away from the building as smoke began rising, blowing out glass and metal as fire overwhelmed the small building. Whatever they would find in the aftermath didn’t matter to me anymore. The fire would warn my assassin that there were still people snooping.

  ***

  I’d been sitting at a local interweb café, staring blankly at the little dot on the screen that beckoned me to insert words. I knew that whoever was chasing me had been given enough to fully compromise our operation. Clearly, there were a number of entities at work here, between the assassin and the men with guns. It was obvious they weren’t working together, but their true intentions were murky at best, and the last thing I needed was for them to start working together.

  The Cypher had to be the key to the soldiers. They had been the only group to show up at the drop with Mr. Hood. That could only mean they were tracking the Cypher, not me. Not completely unappealing, this prospect was one that could possibly represent an ace that I could play.

  It crossed my mind that I’d lost the assassin when I went to Sanctuary because I was working a contact outside my normal patterns. In order to reach the assassin, I would have to go through the threads that my handler and I used to communicate. I wondered if he knew what I had found. Unless he was blind to my movements that didn’t involve communication through regular channels, he probably did. Suffice it to say that my lack of confirmation on anything made this the only course of action.

  The events of the past month circled in my mind as I considered my next steps. Almost as if by divine intervention, I remembered the missing crystal drive from the computer. Of all the things the assassin could have taken, it was the one thing that would allow him to track communications and net traffic. Putting my fingers on the keyboard, I constructed my message to my would-be killer.

  Black Queen,

  Missed our last move. The White Knight had pawns covering the board. I was able to avoid the Bishop, but had to sacrifice a Rook to escape. Need to retreat back to the Castle. The following moves should bring me home: Kxc4Ne3+46.Kc5Nxf547.

  Bc7Ke648.Kb6Nd6.

  Black Knight.

  The board moves meant nothing to the casual observer and anyone who truly knew chess might try and figure out how the moves really worked. The key was in the crystals that the assassin took. If he knew enough about the operation, he’d know how to crack the coordinates. I hadn’t left any time or date, which was intentional. If the assassin knew enough about the operation to compromise it, he’d know how the support and supply system had been set up. A series of drops and safe points set up on specific planets or stations. When support or resources were requested, the handler would arrange a drop and the operator would pick up when able.

  If the assassin truly had lost track of me, he’d have no idea where I was or how long it would take me to arrive. The drop was on Haelstrom, a trade station in the Drandelion Freehold with controlled access I’d used many times in the past to vanish from pursuit. I’d picked Haelstrom because any transport from Drellic could reach the jump gate in a day. And unless the assassin was also on Drellic, it would be at least three days before he could reach the station.

  That would give me time to prepare.

  Chapter Three

  Haelstrom was still the bustling port I remembered. It was the primary trade port between three Drandelion Freehold systems and Republic space, so there was always a heavy amount of traffic. The constant flow of people in and out played to one of my bigger advantages: my ability to blend. It also played to the strength that I knew the station like the back of my hand; I hoped my assassin had ever been.

  My plan to track and subdue the assassin depended solely on how much information he had about the operation. Would he know that the drop was a security locker on the outer ring of the stations central core? The locker terminal was close to Adair’s Pub and across the way from several small apartments. The nice thing about the small apartments, with their views of the expansive cylindrical city in space and the spires that rose along the central core, was that they also looked down on the street near the lockers.

  The station had been built as a large cylinder, with multiple levels and multiple rings flowing out from the central spire that housed the transport system. The first ten levels of the station were docking bays, warehouses and repair facilities. From there down, every level housed a varying array of apartments, shops, restaurants and anything the weary traveler might need.

  I knew that tracking and subduing a professional assassin was a difficult proposition on a good day, but I needed to do it. Timing and resources would be critical. Haelstrom was over a mile long, housing hundreds of thousands of people who were mostly transients or took up permanent residence on the station. It wasn’t hard to imagine that a person could get lost on the station, or lose themselves on the station. As space stations went throughout the colonized Republic sphere of influence, Haelstrom was the largest and most active.

  The first piece of the plan involved the locker, and the second involved the apartment that went along with the locker. The level and ring where the locker and apartment were located seemed fairly deserted, considering the time I arrived; station night was what they called it, based on local Drandeloin time, I’d arrived in the middle of the night. It was a chance I had to take. Had I beat him to the station?

  The locker held the keycard to a cleaned apartment, smuggled self-defense hardware and whatever mission details needed to be passed. In his haste to strip the computer, the assassin hadn’t grabbed my handler’s drop keys, which I recovered among other items before blowing up the apartment. His disinterest in random items, or his lack of knowledge of how the system worked, gave me an advantage. I could watch and bait the locker.

  Making certain I wasn’t being followed, I slipped into the apartment, which hadn’t been used in several months. The musty scent of dust and recycled air filled the room. The state of the room confirmed that I had the upper hand, at least for now.

  I first set up a surveillance system in the window overlooking the “street.” A small camera connected to a data recorder perched on the window gave me constant coverage of the locker and surrounding areas. I had no illusions that picking this needle in a haystack would be difficult, but such was life.

  Once confident everything was in its place to watch for the assassin, I gathered up what items I didn’t need for the short term or couldn’t carry on me. I had rented a second apartment, up two levels and across the station, for me to hole up. My first run-in with the assassin reminded me that despite the fact that it was a “safe house,” the life of a spy is always filled with intrigue.

  Try as I might, I hadn’t been able to pinpoint an occurrence in the past months where any of this started. Of course, one downside of working as independent units was that we didn’t have regular board meetings to keep everyone abreast of the latest compromise or unexpected death of a team. There was net chatter between teams and the occasional tie together for big missions, but the whole network going silent in less than a month seemed rather disturbing. I didn’t know the real number of active units; I had my suspicions, and if correct, it wou
ld bother me even more if they were all gone.

  ***

  Three days of monitoring the locker, both from a distance and from my remote camera, began to look futile. As the hours dragged on, I wondered if the steady flow of different faces meant that I was barking up the wrong tree.

  As I contemplated the possibility that the plan was falling apart, I caught sight of a familiar face; someone who’d come by the locker a few times. In a station with this many people, the chances of seeing someone multiple times in the same place were slim. The particular interest he gave to the lockers and the area around the lockers on multiple occasions stood out as a reasonable flag.

  He picked a seat at a nearby café with a view on the locker; a spot he could observe discreetly for a few hours. He wasn't a memorable sort. Light brown skin, a long oval face with an equally long skinny nose. His curly black hair was cut short, a matching short beard cut above his jawbone faded into his cheeks. His dark green oval eyes scanned the faces. His dark blue hip-length sleeveless buckled coat hung open, revealing a hard muscular torso under a tight gray shirt. A slight bulge in the left side of his coat suggested a side holster of some sort. While he carried no obvious weapons, it wasn't hard to imagine he had one or more hidden somewhere.

  The caliber of the station’s security measures meant he had to rely on non-projectile or energy weapons within the station, unless he was able to smuggle or buy on the black market. While not impossible, the former would be hard, unless he was well connected. The latter would be expensive enough, and hopefully out of his profit margin. My one advantage was the support package set up for operatives on Haelstrom, support that would likely end with me provided me with reliable weapons.

  The heavy flow of traffic down the corridor allowed me to move undetected from my perch. I had to make my approach look credible. Ensuring I didn’t look in his direction, I searched the area for a minute, scanning the faces carefully. Reaching the locker, I used the swipe card to open it, then I removed the contents I had replaced the day I arrived. I pretended to ruffle through the contents before I closed the door and walked away.

  As I travelled along the long corridors, pretending to browse the multitude of shops and vendors, I used reflective surfaces to keep an eye out for any signs of pursuit. He caught me by surprise as I saw the reflection of him only a few feet behind me, the thin matte black knife showing in his hand. Tension took over as I realized that I was cornered. I began reaching for the pistol I carried inside my coat when I realized he was gone. He was good, I couldn’t deny that, but why had he vanished all of a sudden?

  Staying to the busy areas of the station, I moved away as quickly as I could, keeping a wary eye out for any sign of him. Using the opening to work out the rest of my plan, I stopped at an interweb café, hoping to force the original buyers of the Cypher to move. I used the original thread set up for the first sale.

  Crystal Goddess – Been traveling a while but finally passing through Haelstrom, thought we could meet for kava. Meet you at the Brown Five Dive when you’re free. Hope you like shiny things. It’s your turn to pay the tab this time! - Blackknight

  I figured those who wanted the Cypher were watching, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out where I wanted them; then it was a matter of how long till they joined us. I’d left the details vague on purpose to force them to set a time and date. The part of the station I suggested was not a place people just wandered through.

  As I waited for my trace crystal to scramble the activity on the terminal, I used the reflective surfaces to look for a sign of him. The last thing I needed was him knowing I knew of him. As long as he thought he controlled the board, I was free to move.

  I finally caught sight of him as I was leaving the café. Not wanting another close call, I wandered into the local casino, where the open floorplan and security could keep him at bay. Meandering through the various groupings of tables and throngs of people, I gravitated toward the high-risk games. Being good at most forms of gambling, I tended to favor Thrones and Ka Lon.

  Thrones was a great way to spend hours fleecing other men out of their money, but Ka Lon was high stakes and chance. Two things I needed.

  Typically a game designed to suck the savings out of your average travelers, Ka Lon required the smart gambler to observe the table and understand where the table was trending. A lot of the decisions came from both the cards active on the table and the sequence of the dice rolls. More than just a matter of luck or random chance, strategy and planning were involved, as well.

  The assassin took up a perch on a far wall, where he could keep an eye on me. A mirrored pillar behind the table across from me gave me an unobstructed view.

  As the dealer started the next hand, I ordered a black martini with a twist of narange, a local Drandelion fruit, from a roaming waitress and considered the four men and two women at the table with me. Usually searching for tells or signals, my senses were heightened even more as I searched for the assassin.

  I guessed that two of the men and the women were together by, the way they talked and hung on each other. They wore sport coats and slacks, and skimpy form-fitting dresses. Their demeanor was relaxed and friendly which I read as tourists here for the fun side of Haelstrom.

  The other two men were more likely here on business, passing through with an opportunity to stop at the casino. The gruff face of one man led me to assume that he either had a hard day of meetings or hard luck at the table. The lack of chips in front of him had me leaning toward the latter, but either way, he wasn’t having a good day.

  The other man’s laissez faire attitude about the whole game seemed like a bad sign to me; men who had nothing to lose were not men I wanted to gamble against.

  I played through a few small hands, trying to get a feel for the table. Not long after my fourth less-than-amazing hand and two very strong drinks, a woman stepped up to the table, seemingly watching the game and deciding if she wanted to join in. She was taller than me, and long raven hair framed her soft angular face. Her athletic figure was tightly bound up in a violet bodysuit. The leather top was zipped halfway down her full chest, and it seemed to strain to contain its fleshy contents.

  There was something so dangerous and alluring about her. I found my eyes drifting to her, no matter how I tried to avoid it. Eventually, our eyes locked, then a twisted smirk pulled one side of her cheek and lips up before she broke eye contact.

  There was something intimidating about that smile, but I let the feeling go as I realized that this was one of those rare women who were immune to my natural charms.

  My thoughts and attention slid back to the game, and without reason, I realized that the mysterious woman had vanished. I hadn’t seen her leave, but then my thoughts had pulled me out of reality for a moment.

  Not feeling any real energy at the table, I waited for the latest hand to end, then I cashed out and headed for the door. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d lost focus on the assassin. A quick search of the area where I’d last seen him came up empty.

  Cursing myself for losing contact with a man determined to kill me, realizing that the toll of the past few weeks was starting to have an effect on my focus, I fixed my mildly intoxicated mind on safety. The safe apartment I’d rented wasn’t far from the casino; perhaps subconsciously I’d done that on purpose, but right now I was thankful for the short walk.

  ***

  I was having a lovely dream about a pair of gorgeous beauties getting ready to inflict all sorts of adult-orientated pleasures upon my more-than-willing self. I smiled with the deep contentment of a man who doesn’t care if he’s dreaming, as long as he dies before the dream ends.

  “Oh, Rah,” Beauty one began, her warm hands caressing me in many places, “I can’t wait to buzz your buzz...”

  “What the BUZZ?” I questioned, frowning. Then Beauty One turned to Beauty Two, a look of confusion on her face.

  “Buzz- Buzz - Buzz,” she asked the second who responded with an equally quizzical “Buzz buzz- bu
zz - BUZZ!”

  I was pulled rather brusquely from the delicious depths of the deepest slumber, a pharmaceutical-induced heaven, and dragged back into the reality of a dimly lit room. A Promium-and-vodka-induced hangover pounded through my head almost as boisterously as the asshole assailing my door. A faint whiff of something strange that smelled like cheese filled my mind. I groaned. The buzzing continued.

  I reached to the nightstand next to the bed for the RendarCorp GX55 High Yield Slug thrower. With the instrument of mass destruction in my hand, I growled in frustration and aimed it at the incessant buzzing coming from behind the door. For a brief moment, I considered firing, but then wisdom caught up with the hangover and I decided against it.

  For one thing, I had to admit that I have an unnerving and disgusting respect for human life, and for another, the GX55 was anything but silent. The last thing my headache needed at this moment was the thundering detonation of my hand-sized cannon. Instead, I rolled to the side of the bed and vomited.

  As I wretched my guts on the floor, the fog in my head dissipated, bringing me back to the reality of my situation. It was reasonable that the person assailing my door was not the assassin. Why announce himself in this way? Who even knew I was here?

  Questions raced through my pounding head as I rose with difficulty, groping for something to wear. I clamored my way into my dress pants from earlier in the evening, slipping the GX55 into the waistband along my back; I stepped up and opened the door.

  As the door slid open, the error of my action came crashing through my mind. First, I’d opened myself to whatever was outside the door without regard to my current situation. Second, I’d put the gun in my waistband. Had I a moment to consider the situation, I might have taken said moment to blame my still drunken disoriented state of mind.