Chaos Cipher

by Den Harrington

  It took almost twenty minutes on foot to reach the centre of the city. It was clear now to see all manner of plants pushing their way through the perimeter gap of the walkways and the lake’s lip, where algae had carpeted the water’s skin and stained the surfaces of nearby yachts moored into the reeds were murky green, dotted with barnacles. Verdure reeds had sprouted between the fissures of the paving and concrete, chaotically overrunning the once controlled harmony of architecture and plant life. Dak stared into the grimy windows of the yacht to spy any signs of activity within, but there was only a scattering of unused parts littered about in a nest of papers and maps and powerless devices.

  The signal grew more prominent on the map, drawing them deeper between the garish pyramids and into the welter of vegetation and vines. Dak could hardly believe his eyes. He held his hand up to stop Sonja, inching forward on a drift of carefully planted feet. Each delicate footstep arched quietly before the next, soft as a hunting cat on autumn leaves.

  He’d only heard of the infamous legends of the Blue Lycans. There were stories, dreadful rumours of the disappearances of villages and even cities massacred at their hands, though he’d never seen one, many who had fought them said they did not stay dead for long. Dak glared fearsomely at the enormous cadaver lying face down on the ground. It’s blue exo-suit, a segmented series of chrome alloy plates shaped to muscle and physical contours, shimmered in the sunlight. A large pool of dried black blood spread around its body. It was as big as the rumours held, almost ten feet from head to toe, just shy of three metres; it was true about the Blue Lycans, they were giants. The exo-suit flickered in the light, its photo-diffraction programs still malfunctioning from bullet punctures, making parts of it invisible while others remained in sight.

  ‘DAK!’ Sonja cried on seeing the corpses. ‘Oh! Oh God...is that...is that what I think it is?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Dak meekly, his lip contemptuously curled at the monster as Sonja stood close to him. ‘It’s a Blue Lycan. Dead I hope.’

  About twenty metres away was another body, a woman curled into a foetal position also in a patch of dry blood, her skinny arms a ghoulish, post-mortem pallor. Her hair had clotted to her face like oily webs. Dak moved a little closer and knelt beside the giant corpse. Between him and the dead woman was a rifle, its ammo cartridge spent.

  ‘They killed each other. Death by fatal wounds. From the looks of things they’ve been dead about a day.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Sonja whispered.

  Dak noticed a small white capsule on the woman’s back. ‘There, she’s something on her back. And the signal’s coming from her body...let’s find out,’ he said, standing to approach. Sonja looked around, eyes attuned to the high empty windows and the emerald pagodas and stone hollows. Not a sound could be heard, save the psithurism of dry leaves scratching and stirring over the sundried stones. And in the cold black waters lay the flakes of blossom, amaranth peels slanting through air.

  ‘I’m really uneasy about this.’ She muttered, ‘we should get out of here now...’

  ‘Wait!’ Dak said on a serrated breath. ‘Just a second.’ And Sonja’s head turned. Did she see something? She wasn’t sure; maybe her mind was playing tricks now. What was she hearing?

  ‘Dak let’s go!’ She whispered pressingly.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Dak, glaring at the spherical capsule on the woman’s back.

  ‘What is it?’ Sonja said startled, eyes like soap bubbles in a soft zephyr.

  And Dak held his gaze down at the pod.

  ‘Dak?’ he heard her say again. ‘What is it?’

  *

  It was an hour’s flight to Cerise Timbers, a micro city constructed for mineral mining just on the boarders of South East Siberia. It had existed there for the best part of a century, a sanctuary for the itinerant precariat escaping neo-economic violence.

  Dak leaned forward to confirm the destination on the dashboard. The V-TOL SkyLark angled its nose down, rotating the duel compression thrusters forth and killing their forward momentum before adjusting the thruster engines earth wise to balance their descent. Where the forests opened into a glade of hilly fields it was easy to discern the tall standing towers of the mines. There were nine in total, each standing almost one hundred meters tall and shaped like the fins of sharks. They were spaced over two or three kilometres apart, and pulsed with lilac skylights. Only three were still active, elevators towing back and forth vertically into the deep earth. Between the towers arched the apex of the huge carapace city dome, which opened up in the centre to receive SkyLark through the top of the geodesic structure.

  The SkyLark broached for the landing ports, swooping above the buildings that were cultivated with vegetation projects. The sky was populated with gliders today. The weather was good for flying, he saw the pilots in their wheel cages, the fans strapped to their backs as the gliders ascended and descended through the air, wheeling playfully.

  The Cerise Timbers dome had several roles in its past. Dak was told it was originally designed to house huge logistic dirigibles during the oil investment crisis in the period before the New Transformation. But the inception had been blind to how deep the crisis of that time was, until the biggest financial bubble burst, along with their logistical airships. What was left became a prison camp for slavery, not just here but in largely populated areas now called the hardlands. Only here, however, labourers were held to constantly mine and maintain digging machines. Today, it was a micro paradise for those exiled from the Atominii worlds, hardlanders left unable to deal with their stark new reality and seeking something of a more pleasant existence. And Cerise Timbers was expanding fast, drawing a migration from all over, its social democratic experiment travelling like a legend. The welcome committees met new comers always with open arms. Their motto had been; no root, no fruit.

  As the SkyLark hovered towards its landing zone, Dak and Sonja stared out at the topography. The small city was composed of structures that had been swallowed by vegetation in the spring and summer season, beautiful pale buildings grown in moss and vines and plants, trees populating once barren roads while frequently efficient train systems encompassed the designation zones from area to area, encompassing the subterranean roads for underground auto-vehicles. They saw people playing games on the rooftops, or exercising in Yoga groups or gardening and selecting foods for their pre-planned communal cook-offs. They saw kids hurrying across a bridge with a ball and waving to the V-TOL SkyLark and they smiled and waved back as they cruised overhead. They saw domed houses being constructed on the fringes of the huge central dome. Even now the inner walls of new buildings were being inflated with the fabric of old zeppelins. Dak spotted architectural schools putting the remains of old city ruins to better use. He saw the area all being fixed, without planning permission, without law, and all aligned with their other motto; hands that can, to build and plan. Vinyl and nylon balloons, previously used for war and aero-commerce, now inflated at ground level to be coated with concrete by power-hoses, then cross-meshed with wires before another concrete layer was rendered to build many houses fast around already dug aqueduct trenches. Other structures were being printed, a task that required a lot more planning, but was better for mass production of homes once it got going. Above the city dome was the city’s symbolic identity. The society here did not believe in nationalism, there was no flag, but their way of life was symbolised by Three Circles, Cognition, Liberty and Ludus. The Three Circles could be seen around the dome and in different areas of the city; it was a symbol that all the different factions of the city agreed upon, a symbol that orientated their livelihoods.

  The SkyLark approached a landing zone and some of the agency members were out on the airstrip testing SkyLark engines and new ion thruster cylinders and nano-powered devices. Apparently there had been some development in creating ion-thrusters, but there was no means of getting them into space where they would be useful. All they had for the SkyLarks were power jets and hydro-fuels, but no
design was powerful enough for an orbital climb. That would take some serious engineering.

  There were two striking characteristics on the airstrip that always drew Sonja’s attention. One was the city’s only dirigible airship, a huge titanium white egg-like craft that was mostly hollow. It had been converted into a fungi house for their mushroom gardens and pharmacology labs. Much of the mycelium was developed for natural-plastics, moulding everything with 3D printers from chairs to containers for long term food storage. The sleek-looking cockpit at the nose of the craft often glowed with UV black lights where purple figures went about their testing and substance control in the fungi-labs. The other was a passenger plane, sat in a pool of rust and iron on damper days and overgrown with moss and trees that pushed out of its engine nacelles.

  The SkyLark hovered gently on a pillow of undulating hot air as Dak turned to monitor the computer’s feedback. He made sure the navigational systems were operative, looking out for any failures on landing, as instructed to him by the technicians during flight training. The vessel lowered towards the landing zone further still, and Dak and Sonja watched the computer tentatively. A single arm mechanism reached up from the landing ports to receive them in its magnetic platform. The arm latched onto the SkyLark’s underside and drew it carefully down to the hangars as Dak powered down the plasma thrusters, lilac flames easing to gaseous wreaths. Automated landing was a new thing in Cerise Timbers; it had taken a lot of research and training from the local agencies and SkyLark developers to get it right. Automatics were nothing new, they’d been around for a while, but in Cerise Timbers, they had done a lot scratch.

  The cockpit unlatched and slid backwards, allowing Dak and Sonja the space to climb out onto a walkway. Already the automated refuelling wagon arrived with new oxygen tanks for the fuel compressors.

  Dak mounted the side of the cockpit and shouted over for assistance. Stepping down onto the concrete runway he reached back to receive the life-casket from Sonja. He peered in through the ovular blue window in the ovular sealed casket and saw the sleeping baby inside, oblivious to its dead mother, oblivious to the commotion now bustling around it, locked in its blissful cocoon, audio synthesisers mollifying his premature and tender mind.

  ‘Did you have a good flight?’ shouted a familiar voice as the SkyLark engines whirred gradually down. He saw their good friend Boris Isaac heading over, an affable smile wide under his bushy brown beard. Dak always thought Boris had a welcoming smile, one that would start a chain reaction of other smiles, something Dak was conscious about doing.

  Boris was wearing khaki shorts and a black sleeveless top. His face was smudged with what looked like engine oil and he was sweating, slightly exasperated from running and carried a back-pack that looked full. He hadn’t been living in Cerise Timbers for very long but like Dak he quickly adjusted to city’s sociocratic way of life quickly. Boris was an old-fashioned handyman, a trade he’d learned in the hardland boarders of the Atominii. He was a fixer and builder, he’d cut his teeth renovating dilapidated homes for the homeless, repairing vehicles ditched in old factories from spare parts, and since the Atominii military police were constantly undoing his good work he’d learned how to fix things fast. He’d taken well to the hands that can motto.

  ‘Got your hands full, Boris?’ Sonja asked. ‘How are you settling in?’

  ‘Very well thanks Sonja,’ he nodded, catching his breath. ‘I’m just heading over to the technical school,’ he said and pointed with his chin, ‘they needed some tools, said I’d take them over. Didn’t think you guys would be back so soon. What you got there?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ said Dak.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘We found a baby,’ said Sonja, ‘out in Onyx Waters.’

  ‘What?’ Boris gasped. ‘A kid? Jesus…I was told nobody survived the massacre.’

  ‘I need to get to the hospital,’ Sonja announced in a speed walk.

  ‘Hey, just down here,’ Boris pointed, leading Sonja towards the technical school where Boris had a vehicle waiting. It was a makeshift box under constant change and innovation by various mechanics and recently fit to run on fusion lithium cells designed by the open source collective of scientific syndicates, ‘I’ll give you both a lift. Just hop in.’

  *

  They’d found a room at the far end of the maternity ward in the hospital. It was a quiet place, and Sonja settled the casket onto a table.

  ‘Dak, get the curtains,’ said Sonja in a low voice.

  Getting access was the easy part; Sonja had been working as a doctor in the hospital for the last two years now. The lights were very dim and Dak looked up as he drew the curtains and switched on a bedside lamp. A soft and ambient blue halo of light breathed gentle illuminations around them and he shaded the direct light with another curtain. Sonja found a pressure lock in the side of the capsule and with a gentle press unsealed the casket, which opened with a light pop. The top semi-cup drifted up like a wing to reveal the sleeping baby within, wrapped snugly in handcrafted linen. Sonja began to scan the infant with her Quantic-W, sweeping her forearm device over the child’s body. The infant was projected onto the material’s screen and she saw his bones from the ultrasonic and thermal imaging and gazed in amazement.

  ‘What in the world is…?’ she whispered leaning in.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, approaching to see the scans.

  A wall screen was not far away and she threw the image onto the wall, the Quantic-W applications responding to her arm’s movement, sent the readouts live while recording the baby.

  There displayed the sonic-resonance imaging of the new-born’s physiognomy and they saw the mutation, a long prehensile tail. Sonja reached in and pulled away part of the linen to see the tail coil and move around the blanket.

  ‘It’s an Olympian Genetic,’ Boris had heard Sonja whisper. ‘It’s not human.’

  Immediately, Boris turned his head to them, stepping into the light and studied the image carefully.

  ‘Uh-ho,’ he uttered crestfallen. ‘That’s not good news.’

  ‘What will we do?’ asked Dak.

  ‘Put that thing back where you found it.’

  ‘Boris!’ Sonja shouted.

  ‘What?’ he shrugged. ‘Those things spell trouble Sonja.’

  ‘Those things?’ she snapped angrily. ‘For heaven’s sake it’s a baby.’

  ‘It’s an Olympian!’ Boris interjected. ‘It’s an off-worlder, a cosmonaut, a creature that isn’t supposed to be here…’

  ‘That’s not the history of the Olympians and you know it,’ Sonja barked protectively. ‘They were kicked off the planet for being Olympian the way we were kicked out of the Atominii for our humanity.’

  Sonja reached in and lifted the frail baby into her arms and smiled affectionately. Her motherly impulses buoyed as the baby uttered and wailed for the first time, unhappy to be disturbed from its sleep. Moved by the whimpering Sonja hushed softly into its ears as she took the baby into her bosom and bobbed lightly on her feet.

  ‘We can’t take him back,’ she told Boris.

  ‘People are going to find out,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Dak realised. ‘What if we can surgically remove the tail? It shouldn’t be difficult.’

  ‘For all you know,’ said Boris, ‘that could kill it anyway. Do you know anything about Olympians?’

  ‘I know a lot about anatomy,’ Sonja frowned. ‘He won’t be much different from you and I.’ and she pondered aloud, considering the option. ‘Remove the tail.’

  ‘Can you do it?’ asked Dak.

  ‘I don’t see any physiological reason why not,’ Sonja said looking again at the scan. ‘No major arteries. The difficult part will be making sure the nervous system around the ala and sacral hiatus are properly managed. I wouldn’t want to risk him having any spinal defects.’ Sonja caught a glimpse of the child’s opening eyes and she shook her head. ‘What if it grows back?’

  Boris was nodding in ag
reement.

  ‘Are you going to explain to him later that we must mutilate him again to keep living a lie and all because we were dishonest from the start?’

  ‘Right,’ Dak sighed. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘These things are deadly,’ said Boris, ‘you’ve seen what those Blue Lycans can do. We all have! We don’t know enough about the Olympian race, there’s a reason they’re illegal.’

  Dak’s eyes flared as he regarded Boris and he folded his arms confidently.

  ‘You wanna talk to me about race?’ he challenged. ‘I know something about discrimination, my white brother. Those Olympians were mutilated to begin with, their genes mutilated, their figures distorted, as though denied their humanity, all in the name of deep-space hibernation projects.’

  Boris, increasingly uncomfortable, muttered something unintelligible and shifted on his leg.

  ‘I’ve lived with enough stereotyping in the hardlands to recognise what follows once a person is dehumanised. But you need to remember, Boris.’ He reminded him. ‘The human race is one race, not a different set of species. A lot’a folk don’t like hearing it, a’right, but it’s gotta be heard.’

  ‘We are a home for those who need one,’ Sonja added in agreement. ‘We don’t struggle here for anything. We make happen what is possible and turn nobody away. Why should we start now?’

  There was a long silence, but Boris felt the need to push again, just to be sure.

  ‘But Sonja,’ he started, ‘these Olympian Genetics are illegal. They’re rated more deadly on the Atominii listings than nukes. This isn’t about race. Maybe it’s just their culture to be violent.’