Icharus_ARC Series

by Renee Sebastian

  I approached him and asked, "What exactly does this do?"

  The old man lit up at my question, but Kai said forcefully, "Talk later. Do it now." He flipped over and put his arms into the armrests. Nage then took a hold of one of the machines and wheeled it out in front of Kai.

  He began fiddling with some of the controls, and the opposite wall lit up with lights. I jumped and asked, "How do you power it?"

  “Methane.”

  “From Icharus?”

  "Well, it isn't Urania." Then after he fiddled a little more with the controls, he said, "This used to have a sanitation dome we could place over him, but that knowledge has been lost forever. They don't even have that capacity in that highfaluting city where all the snobs live."

  Then he went over and strapped Kai onto the table. After securing the head brace, he said, "Now hold tight Kai, this may hurt a little."

  Nage stepped back and then pressed a button. A beam of light struck Kai, and it seemed to cut a vertical slit along the length of his spine. There were lacerations and burn scars crisscrossing his torso. I had no idea how he had been wounded so often over the annos. What kind of people had he been assigned to be a Friend at the End for? I looked away.

  “Oh, you’ll want to see this boy, or you’ll be denying it ever happened.”

  I turned back around just in time to see the laser change in intensity and then slice through something under his skin. Kai called out, but as he was unable to move, he was subjected to the high-intensity beam. The smell of burning flesh filled the room, although I saw little in the way of blood.

  “Let him go,” I threatened. “It’s going to kill him.”

  “It will be over soon enough. We’ll make quick work of getting it into the other body though. The real trick will be making the scar disappear on a corpse.”

  “You’re faking his death?”

  "That's my full-time occupation, although I don't get paid near to what I deserve." Kai began screaming again, which riveted our attention firmly back on him before I could ask any more questions.

  “Look, here it comes!” Nage exclaimed.

  A two-foot length of wire was pulled free out of his back, thin wires wriggled on either side of it. Kai sighed in relief that the operation was over, even though his skin still needed to be sutured shut along his spine.

  “What is that?”

  “That is the implant they put in the infants before they leave the nursery to receive training. How else did you think you were able to track people on that little device you carry around?”

  “I thought it read chips located under a muscle in my hand.”

  “That’s what you’ve been told.” I had not really given it much thought as to how people were registering or not on my oculus. “Think about it. If it had been as easy as removing a chip in a hand, many more people would have removed it by now. The runners would outnumber the hunters, and then where would we be?”

  “Now,” said Kai. “Let’s get that into the cadaver before it registers your location.”

  “Yes, let’s do that. I’m tired of having to relocate. Do you know how hard it is to find habitable caves in this sector?”

  “Did you take Kull’s out?” I asked him.

  “Oh heavens no. I believe that he got a little inside help in removing his.” So he already knew Kull was a runner.

  “What about the girl?”

  He turned and looked at me beatifically. “I’m quite certain she never had one.”

  “Huh?”

  Kai plopped himself off the table and almost toppled over. I reached out for him and helped the steady his balance. “Where are the sutures?” I had done my fair share in the past, besides I received first aid training every anno. I barely even paid attention anymore.

  He pointed to a cabinet, and I brought the supplies to Kai. As I was sewing him up, I asked, "Where is the body old man?"

  “Let him get it, Nage,” Kai answered for him. “He’s strong and fit, at the prime of his age. Ah, to be virile once again.” Nage paused in his movement and waited for me to finish.

  After I was done, I helped Kai sit on the floor and then he said to me, "Get it, Jett."

  “Where is the body?” I asked while I returned the rest of Kai’s clothing to him.

  “In the room through that shaft,” Nage said while pointing to a cleft in the bedrock.

  I walked over to where he had pointed and had to shuffle through it sideways. Bringing a body back through this was not going to be easy. After about fifteen steps, it opened up again revealing another cavern, but this one was made of solid ice, presumably where the cave system ended. In the ice were about a dozen shaved out areas. Propped up inside each one was a body. Frost covered each of them, shielding their features from me.

  “Which one do I take?”

  “One of the males. The oldest one I think,” Nage called out to me and then laughed. I could hear Kai griping at him, although his words were lost to me.

  I walked along the line of bodies, chose the one that I thought resembled Kai the most and then reached out for him. His body was cold and heavy in my arms, but I dragged him back to the room, pulling him sideways through the cleft.

  Once I re-entered the o-room, I noted that Kai was dressed again, except for his shirt. Nage handed Kai two shirts, one of which Kai pulled on over his head. He was obviously still hurting as he held out a matching shirt to me in his shaking hand. “Put this on.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it for frack’s sake.” I grabbed it and put it on over my thermal shirt.

  “Now, can you put the body up on the table?” Kai asked me. “Then take my old shirt and put it on him once Nage is done.”

  I did as I was told and I flipped the body onto his belly, anticipating what was to come next. Nage went over to the mechanized arm, and after he pushed several more buttons, it began to insert the implant into the body. At one point it didn't want to fuse entirely onto the dead man's spine, so Nage went over and made some fine motor adjustments to the machine.

  "Would have been easier if you had come to me annos ago. These things have a mind of their own you know." Then he cursed a few times, but eventually, the job was done.

  “Now get out with the both of you before it is noticed that you have both dropped off the radar. If they ask Jett why they lost your location for a while, tell them that you must have fallen into some radioactive bedrock somewhere out here. Besides, the signal is not as strong here as it is on the sunny side.”

  “Come on Jett, I think we’ve outstayed our welcome. Grab that body with you. I have to deposit him outside of Donkerstad. You can report that you found me. They’ll be none the wiser.”

  Once we were back outside, I slung the body over the back of his vehicle. I then turned to him and asked, “Why are we really here? Was it only so I could help you break free of your implant and run?”

  “You’re here for the future of our world.”

  I grimaced and said, “I’m no one’s hero and especially not yours. Let someone else find and report your body. Get me back to Donkerstad.”

  That was when he rushed me, which was surprising since he had to have still been in considerable pain. “You know I won’t be found, no matter how many teams they send for me.”

  I slowly and deliberately said, so there would be no misunderstanding between us, "I won't hunt you, Kai."

  He eased back a little. The wind sucked our hair and clothing towards the perpetual night. The winds always blew that way. Abruptly, the planet’s aurora flashed orange above us.

  "You have a choice to make. You can help Kore, or you can get in our way. I was hoping bringing you out here would show you that there is another way… a better way."

  “All I saw was an old man who probably stole a whole bunch of government equipment to help criminals escape justice.”

  “So now I’m a criminal?”

  “You weren’t when you went in, but you are now,” I told him.

  “I’m not l
ooking for a hero Jett. I need a simple man on the inside, willing to keep us informed of other team’s movements.”

  “They’ll kill me if they found out. That sounds like something a hero would do to me.” I crossed my arms waiting for something more from him.

  “When they are on to you, we’ll do to you what was just done to me,” he informed me.

  “What is so special about Kore Β1? And don’t feed me anymore frack. If I’m going to risk my life for you and her, then I deserve to know.”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I can do better. I can bring you to her.”

  Chapter 6

  W e drove back to the twilight city of Donkerstad. I was not sure I wanted to be a part of some grand scheme that would most likely end in my death… but I did yearn for something. It would have been easy to blame boredom, but ever since I saw the word Zει, I knew I was ready for something more.

  Kai had once told me that our ancestors had developed close bonds with each other. People committed to each other for life, and they even had children they cared for themselves. People grew old, and even in the frailty of old age, people cared for them, even expending vast amounts of resources to prolong their life.

  All of these practices led to their demise. All the extra people stressed their planet's resources. The planet's atmosphere became polluted, which in turn caused planetary overheating. The crops withered and died. Much of the fresh water evaporated, and the water cycle became disrupted. The oceans turned green and red, thick with dangerous algae blooms and bacteria, and the salinity rose to deadly levels. Both of which had the same effect, killing the animals that lived within them.

  When the Overseers finally built the ARC, resources in its construction were so limited that only three million could board it. Only the healthiest and most fertile people were chosen. The rest had been told to wait until ARC II was built.

  The inhabitants of the ARC learned swiftly how best to appropriate food and supplies. Relationships had to be forfeited for a new order. Children were genetically pre-selected, created in laboratories and raised in communal nurseries. Each child receiving the same as the next. Potentials were tested young, and education tracks were determined. Bonds between families were broken, and new relationships were established with the government.

  I had heard that there was a time on the ARC, over thousands of generations while it explored space, that governmental styles were experimented with until just the right one was developed. This was the one we used on Icharus. Of course, that was eons ago, and we were only one small colony from the ship. There might be hundreds of planets inhabited now from other colonies that left the ship while we have been here. Who knew what the rules and regulations were now on the ARC or in those other colonies. Those not on the Council were rarely privy to the communications between our planet and the ARC, although the Council claimed they were in easy contact with them. Somehow, I doubted that.

  I allowed myself to ponder these things while I felt the wind in my hair, the grit in my eyes, and the cold on my nose. Maybe it was time for Icharus to change… for me to change.

  Once we arrived back at the edges of the city, Kai stopped just outside of civilization and pushed the body off our vehicle with a grunt.

  “It would be better if it was found in a more populated region,” I told him.

  “How do you propose we do that?”

  “If we prop him up between us that should get us a little further into the city. You taught me long ago that people see only what they want to believe.”

  He thought about it a moment and said, “All right. I know a public room with a recycling area behind it. We’ll use it to hide the body. If they haven’t picked up on it in another couple of dags, you can report it.”

  “Won’t they send an investigator?” I asked.

  “They were going to have to kill me sooner or later. They’ll have most of their agents out finding the real quarry. They’ll want to conserve their resources.”

  “Kore and Kull.”

  “Precisely.”

  He knew her name all along. He was trying to ascertain precisely how much I knew earlier about them at the hotel or how much I was willing to share with him. Now I needed the truth, "Then they are together, hiding?"

  “According to my sources, yes. Let’s dispose of this body first and then I’ll take you to them.”

  “They are in a secured location?”

  “Of a sorts.”

  I nodded my head, and then we positioned the body between us, propping him up to give the appearance that he was merely sleeping or passed out from synth.

  We drove on until we reached the synthbar and since we were in the middle of shifts, few people were about on the walks or in their vehicles. We swiftly deposited the body.

  “I think I’m going to leave my vehicle here since I don’t frequent this part of town enough to have walked here.”

  We took to the walkways, and he led me to an innocent enough looking noshery. We sat down at the counter, and the attendant was a woman who was past her prime with dark hair that was heavily streaked with gray. It was close to her telos time, and you could see it in her eyes as she stared at me. She was going to run.

  "What would you like to order, boys?" she asked as she handed us a short menu. On it was the standard fare, you could usually find in establishments like these. There were several flavored seaweeds, which was a catch-all for any of the plants that grew in the oceans below the ice. As expected in this region there were several kinds of mushrooms, probably produced from chemosynthesis. There were other food items also, from romantoes and purpleplants too. Those were raised in the xeriscaping farms from the Aoki region. There were also the usual assortments of protein drinks, made from a mix of beans and a flying animals that were indigenous to the planet. The first geners called them pluckers because they had no feathers.

  Kai turned to me and asked, “What do you want?”

  “I’ll take a regular protein, berry flavored.”

  “And I’ll have a kale and a starch bar, unflavored.”

  “You got diras for it?” she asked.

  I took out my oculus, and she took what was required.

  She nodded her head and retrieved our items. Her movements belied her nervousness, as her eyes traveled over me warily, acknowledging my hunter status and the fact that I was a stranger.

  We ate in silence, just two people receiving nourishment, until Kai told her, “Saw Nage.” Kai must have known her.

  She licked her clay stained lips and shifted her gaze to me. “You did?” she asked Kai while staring at me.

  “Yep. He didn’t ask about you,” Kai said, clearly taunting her. That got her attention.

  “That fracker. I wouldn’t expect him to.”

  Kai finished his food and reached for the complimentary glass of water.

  “We’re ready now, where is the sky darkest this dag?”

  “You sure?” she asked him cryptically.

  He looked at me for a few reals and then said to her, “Yes. I think he’s ready.”

  Her gaze shifted to my jacket, which hid my weapons. There was my usual med grade club and a CO2 gun. I preferred it to the more violent weapons. My grade wouldn’t kill anyone, that was Damus job, but it could incapacitate a person quite swiftly.

  Her pause was awkward, and a loner down the bar looked our way.

  “Rena,” Kai said, clearly indicating that his patience was gone. “I’m in pretty bad shape. I want this dag to be over.”

  “Where the two moons meet.” She chuckled and then said, “But they won’t be there for much longer.” Then she turned to me and said, “And you don’t ever come here again.” Rena turned around and then stormed through a door to a storage room.

  "Thanks," Kai said to no one, and then he turned to me. "Come on, your destiny awaits." I then followed him out into the cold night.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we stepped onto a travellator.

  “To the Donker
stad observatory.”

  “You didn’t know where they were?”

  “It changes almost every dag. Rena is a gatekeeper. She and a precious few others know.”

  We traveled onward for the next ora, across the town, until the lights came further and further apart. Buildings swathed in darkness would show their teeth when road lights put a spotlight on them, revealing in stark relief their mechanized guts. In Torva, all of its buildings had been built in deicers from methane-fueled heating systems. Perpetual puddles laid in reflective pools around them, while enclosed bridges led people into the factories to prevent them from getting wet or slipping on the ice. Injuries might just sign their death warrants.

  Kai finally got off the walkway, and then we took another route off of the automated transportation system. As we traveled into a deeper darkness, the heaters on the walkway became unreliable, and before long we were traversing ice and snow.

  “Doesn’t the government control the observatory station?” I asked.

  “They think they do.”

  Whereas I used to think that this was all impossible, I now knew it to be ludicrous. How could they have commandeered something as important as an observatory?

  “Do you believe that you are really doing what is best for humanity by circumventing the government?” I asked. “They were elected by the people.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Kai shot back at me.

  Probably not, I thought. “We’ve done well under our present government,” I countered.

  “I wonder where we would be if we allowed our wisest people to reach the end of their life expectancy naturally.”

  “Why not form a party on that platform if you truly believe it. Allow all the people of Icharus to decide what would be best.”

  “Jett, the last generation tried to do just that. After the bloody 120 massacre, it forced many into hiding for the last forty annos.”

  “I recall this so-called massacre.”

  “You’ve only heard about it. It was before you were born. As it is, anyone near the end of their life barely recalls it now.”

  “Except people like Nage,” I added.