I grabbed a couple of the crates, stacked them up just out of the alcove, and looked both ways. I spotted her making her way to the landing docks. She probably thought that since she knew how to open containers now, she would go hide in one, hoping it would be loaded onto a ship to leave the planet.
Then I heard a wrenching metal sound behind me. I turned around and saw Damus crawling out of the hole. He should have been down for two oras. I had chosen wrong.
He looked up at me and paused long enough to tell me, “My reconditioning included building up a resistance to the meds in your club.” Then he continued pulling himself through it.
I jumped away from the crates and started running in the same direction she had gone. People became blurs in the dim light. I bumped into a few people, but they did little to slow my progress, and most just got out of my way. I saw her hood flapping behind her as I caught up to her.
I was finally close enough to grab her coat, but I needed a place for us to hide first, so I kept my hands to myself for the time being. I wound up running alongside her, and she only spared me a glance once, before looking behind us. Abruptly, she stopped, and I nearly stumbled when I followed suit too quickly. She took out the gun she had taken from me and aimed it into the crowd.
“How good is your aim?” I asked her as I cautiously kept an arm space distance between us.
“My aim does not need to be great if there is only a little distance between me and my target.”
“If you kill him, we will be mobbed here.”
Her stance remained frozen, but I did see her arm lower minutely.
People moved away from us, giving us a wide berth.
A fast-moving dark-haired head bobbed in and out of view through the growing throng. He was almost here.
I moved to the side, behind a few people who might shield me and foster a surprise attack should she miss. I was banking that he had been instructed to not hurt her, so long as she did not point the gun on herself.
Damus came into view, and she did not move an inch. He drew an arcgun at her. Then he said, “I don’t want to hurt you. I am a hunter. My goal is to simply find and return you to your home. I know you miss living in Kinnopolis. Life was good there for you. There are people there who care for you. You never have to work, can have as much synth as you want, and your life is precious. The people of Donkerstad don't want you here. Why don't you come with me now?"
While it was the longest speech that I had ever heard Damus speak, something about it seemed rehearsed, and it had an astounding effect on the crowd. People suddenly lost interest in the affair, having better things to do other than watching the capture of an escaped love slave of some wealthy Kinnopolis resident. Only a meager few stayed to watch this play out. Those who remained threw angry glances her way, wanting to hurt her for wasting time and resources on a planet that had little of either to offer most of its inhabitants.
A ring grew tighter around them. Things were about to get nasty. I took out my oculus and opened it to my identification page. It was still valid. I called out, “That is Damus, and he is a rogue hunter, illegally hunting his lover who spurned him. He is highly dangerous. Please stand back everyone, I am a trained hunter authorized to terminate him.”
It had the desired effect, as everyone backed up, which left the three of us in a triangle formation.
“He is lying,” Damus sputtered.
Kore kept her stance and appeared unmoved by the crowd, Damus or me.
“Hand me the weapon, so I can carry out my orders, mam.”
She hesitated, her arm dropping down for a real, which was enough time for Damus to run at her. He only needed to land one punch for her to die from a brain injury.
My hand shot out, but before I could commandeer the gun, she flinched and triggered it. Her shot went wide, but another shot sizzled out behind me and down Damus went. Someone else had shot him. I looked around and found Kai walking briskly towards us. He walked straight up to Kore and said, "Don't take another man's gun, unless you are willing to use it."
Then he handed it back to me, while never taking Kore out of his sights. “From what I can see she has only one advantage over us, so don’t let that pretty face blind you.”
She stared at him and then spun on a dira to dart away from us. He threw a handful of inch-wide balls from his pocket on the ground. She tripped over them, falling hard onto the metal floor. "Grab her, while I strip him." I felt like I was his apprentice all over again. I was trying to gain her trust, where he was acting the hunter through and through. Maybe she could not experience trust. Was that something too akin to emotion?
I grabbed her as gently as I could, but she struggled fiercely. I finally got a hold of both of her shoulders, while using the rest of my body to pin her to the floor. “Stop, or you’ll injure yourself,” I told her while shaking her.
“I want to be free,” she replied calmly.
“Freedom has its price,” I returned.
“I’m your price for freedom,” she correctly guessed.
“Calm down, or I’ll have to injure you, and then you won’t be able to escape again.”
"I doubt you could hold me unless I allowed it." How I loathed nab-and-bags. Kai threw me a pair of cuffs and said, "Set it to the highest setting of s-synth to dose her."
"She's too small for a full dose. I'm giving her half."
“Fine, but you’ll have to entertain her when she wakes. Hurry, I’m almost done tripping his oculus, so it should buy us about a dag.”
I flipped her over and grabbed one of her arms. After placing it into the device, I leaned over her and said, "I can really press the button, and you will fall asleep for a long time, or you can pretend to. Which will it be?"
She instantly relaxed, and I finished cuffing her other hand with little resistance. I then picked her up and slung her over my shoulder. She did not make a peep as she hung limply.
I looked down the walkway both ways and said, “Hurry Kai, they are bound to send someone to investigate, if only to take care of the body.”
He split open Damus's oculus and donned a hacker's eyepiece. It was difficult to alter an agent's oculus device, especially under such an extreme time constraint, but if anyone could do it, Kai could.
I considered leaving Kai and taking Kore somewhere away from him, but I knew that we were too close. I would have to either convince him that taking Kore to Kull would be a mistake, find a way to shake him off our trail, or kill him. I considered Kore and didn't think she warranted the death of my friend… yet.
“Done,” he said as he put away his piece.
“What did you do?”
“I erased the last thirty tigs. I tried to make it look like it was a radiation problem, but we don’t know if a transmission was sent after the storm.”
“How did you get in here?” I asked as he headed back towards the entrance. Without an implant, he would have triggered every alarm at the security checkpoints.
“Scanners are on the blitz.” Must have been due to the storm.
“Let’s hope they still are,” I commented.
We wove our way through the growing mass of people coming out of hiding, leaving Damus behind for the authorities and cleaning crew. The interior was getting colder by the moment, with the emergency generators falling far behind the actual need. This would never have happened in Kinnopolis, where I was sure they were bouncing back quickly from the dangerous waves of radiation.
Oculi all around us abruptly sparked to life with a sizzle and a snap which got everyone’s attention, except for Kai, who refused to be distracted. I wanted to glance at my screen, but carrying Kore required my complete attention. I did glance at some of the other people who were glued to their screens, however. Static filled their eyes and ears, but just before we reached the entrance of the facility, I noticed that the static had resolved itself into a person’s face that I did not recognize.
I said, “Kai we need to stop, something is happening.”
"No t
ime, we are almost there, and we need to be gone before the scanners reach full capacity again."
I slowed my pace and took out my device. I bumped into a few people trying to keep up with Kai while balancing Kore over my shoulder. Finally, I stopped and stared at my oculus. An ancient face stared back at me. Heavy-lidded eyes floated in a mug with more wrinkles than my bedsheets after I had been on a three-dag synth binge with Astrid. His head was topped with a close-cropped, white hairstyle, which reminded me of Kore's hair. The only other person I knew with entirely white hair on Icharus was Tetra, the Council Prime. The face was also quite pale by Icharus standards, excepting of course those who lived in Torva. There was no doubt that this man must have been alive for a long time.
I did not dare put Kore down, but I pushed a button to receive the audio portion of the transmission to the transplant in my ear. A crackly voice whispered, “Attention Colony I, you have violated code thirteen section forty-two of the interplanetary covenants. If you do not turn over test subject Kore Β1, a planetary exodus shall be ordered. We have been informed that she is alive, but should she perish before delivery, this planet shall be scheduled for harvesting and then it will be pushed into your star. Anyone forthcoming with information leading to her retrieval shall be added to the harvesting list. We are transmitting her biochemical signature along with the identification program. Send affirmative transmissions to the third planet’s moon within three dags time. This message will be repeated.”
Since implants allowed the government to track everyone neatly on the planet, the need for such devices had become obsolete. Apparently, the ARC still maintained such programs. I had no idea as to how they had initially received her biochemical signature, but I hoped it wasn't Kull who had provided it to them.
I tried to remember what history told us of living in the ARC, but those were dark dags for our people. Our founding fathers consisted of a few scientists and the rest was mostly from the dregs of society within the ship, who sought better lives for their children. They knew it was going to be hard going, which was why they developed the synth system of drug distribution, but since I was seven generations removed, I had no idea what life might actually have been like on that vessel in the sky. Would they relocate me to another planet if I turned her into them, or would I slave on their engines all dag? Either way, it would make what I do now look like a dream.
People started talking all around us at the same time. A few even turned around to look suspiciously at every single person in the corridor. Kai was out of view, presumably outside waiting for me. I saw that a downloaded program had automatically installed into my oculus. The transmission only got through one and a half more times before the Prime, Tetra Α1, came in over the broadcast in sharp clarity.
"People of Icharus, disregard the previous message. The Overseers transmitted this message in error, and everything is being worked out. Please resume your daily activities and work schedules. When they acknowledge their error, we will inform you. Thank you for your trust and patience in regards to this matter. This message will be repeated on all emergency channels." After five reals into the next transmission, I turned it off.
Kore was best left upside down for the moment, behind my back, with her hair covering her face, preventing anyone trying to get a breath sample. Visual pictures were so obscure and unnecessary on Icharus, but it would be our luck that it would be the one identifier sent to everyone that might work in identifying her.
I had no doubt that any one of these people surrounding us would kill me to get to her. I did not want to waste a real longer in this deathtrap. I took her straight through the turnstiles and out into the perpetual night.
Chapter 11
We made it outside. I wasn’t sure where Kai had disappeared to, but. I hoped he was retrieving the stolen vehicle for us to escape. After I deemed we were a safe enough distance away from the transport facility, I unceremoniously dumped Kore on the ground in front of me.
I had to give her credit when she fell face down on the cold and muddy slush because she did not flinch. After a few reals, she quietly said, "Am I still not supposed to move?"
“Stand up.”
She scrambled up, her hands were still tied behind her back. If she thought I was going to remove the cuffs, she was mistaken. She was an unknown. Someone many factions wanted. There must been odd anomalies about her biological makeup, but I was merely a hunter, low down on the sector scales. I could not identify what they were, but I was sure there were some. It was a heady thought realizing I was with the most wanted person on Icharus. I had decisions to make, but what I really needed now were answers.
I roughly grabbed her wrists, jerked her backwards, and hid us behind a dark receptacle meant for refuse. After I slid us between it and the wall, it effectively hid us from view.
“It smells here,” she said.
“Why is everyone after you?”
“I do not know. I just want to live my life like you do.”
“There was a transmission. It was from people who do not live in this solar system. They have come to collect you. What do you know about that?”
“There are people who do not live on this planet?” she asked innocently.
“What game are you playing?”
“I do not know what you mean.”
“What makes you so special that they would be willing to destroy our entire colony and planet to get to you?”
“I do not know.”
“Are you even alive?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I opened up a bin next to us and looked inside. Fortunately, it was full, and I pulled out a scrap piece of metal. Then I lifted her arm higher and cut her. She did not say a word, but she did jerk her arm away when it bit into her skin. So she must be able to at least experience pain.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she cradled her arm.
“I’m deciding if you are human.” I stared at the dark red blood that ran down her arm. I leaned in and sniffed it. It did not smell any different than any other person smelled when they bled out. Next, I pulled out a plastic sleeve, intending to collect a sample of her blood. I had to test it, but I could not use my oculus, as it would alert all the players that I had her.
I checked the original transmission that was sent by presumably the Overseers. There was an additional transmission warning us that we had only thirty oras to find Kore. Thirty oras. That would be the time it took the ARC representatives to reach our planet from Kahel. Rumors and myths surrounded the Overseers. Everything I had heard indicated that we should avoid a confrontation with them at all costs. Thirty oras… that was not that long at all.
“Of course, I’m human,” she said as she wiped the blood from her arm onto her coat, preventing me from taking my sample.
“They say you have no emotions.”
“And you thought I was a machine?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“As in artificial intelligence?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“If I had artificial intelligence, I would not be standing here with cuffs around my wrists.”
“What do you know about yourself?”
“I know that I was kept in a building my entire life,” she replied in a guarded manner.
“Were you attempting to leave on one of the transport vessels?”
“I was trying to escape the prison of this planet, yes.”
“The other moons are even more inhospitable than this planet. Where were you hoping to go?”
“Away.”
Maybe I should alert the overseers to take her. Then our planet would not be evacuated, and even if it were, then we all would go back to the Arc until another suitable world could be found. We would have to start all over again. This was an extreme measure for a simple problem. Something was not adding up here. She was just a girl.
“There has to be something more. They are willing to destroy our planet to get you.”
While she did not look p
uzzled at the news, she said, “They are.” Then she added, “Then you should turn me over to them.”
I frowned. While I knew people who had broken the law deserved their punishments, I was well down the road of questioning why now. I was not ready to notify them of her location. She was something more to me now, not unlike a very dangerous puzzle.
"Time to go, sweethearts," Kai said in front of the bin. I jumped at being so easily snuck up upon, while she merely stared at Kai from over the receptacle. I led her back out into the alleyway so we were face to face with Kai. With a sinking feeling, I thought she was going to be the death of me.
“Where are we going?”
"We are bringing you to Kull after I bring her to a friend to look over," Kai replied.
“I thought you were going to do a test or two, not take her to someone else. Who is this person? Nage?”
Menace painted his tone, “Frack no. These people specialize in the sort of thing I think needs to be done.”
“Are we really taking her to Kull?” I asked.
“Eventually.”
I hated doing it, but I had too. I was certain that if it had been anyone other than me, he would have not only seen it coming but would have expected it. I pressed the button on my club and then hit him in the leg with it. The needle instantly pierced through his skin, and he collapsed in a heap. If I left him here, he might actually die due to exposure. I looked around the bin and spotted the delivery vehicle.
I told Kore, “Turn around.”
She was staring at Kai who was lying prone on the ground. "Is that what he wanted you to do to me?"
“Yes, but I didn’t. Now turn around.”
She eyed my medclub warily but did as I asked. I removed the cuffs and proceeded to put them on him. "I could have activated the same serum into you remotely through the cuffs," I said quietly. "It's a lot easier that way."
She reacted just the way I predicted, which is to not react at all. I finished cuffing him and then I took a chance and asked her, "Do you understand how an oculus works?"
Icharus_ARC Series Page 8