Chaos Cipher

by Den Harrington

‘I want to speak with Edge Fenris,’ she said, ‘see if he knows anything about the vandalism.’

  ‘I’d call it more of a piece of art,’ Daryl smiled.

  Enaya looked at him curtly, her eyes quizzical. But Daryl held his smile and eventually she found hers too.

  ‘I haven’t seen it,’ she confessed. ‘Nor do I care to. But I will get it removed.’

  ‘It looks just like Lewis,’ Daryl informed, scratching under his nose and adding ‘with the small tash as well.’

  As they followed the gardens they reached at last their destination. Many of the old roadways in Cerise Timbers were now subject to various art installations and pick-up points for the open markets. People dropped off and took what they wanted or didn’t need and nobody worked on the stalls. The electronics and hardware stalls were a treasure for people like Edge Fenris and not out of character he was living close to these markets. People crowded around, discussing items they hadn’t seen before and comparing new components. Several of the technology students from the mechanics and electronics federation were discussing how they could test the new units or update old components and electronics. The SkyLark air zone was wide. Daryl could hear engines being tested in one of the large hangars nearby and he asked some of the students if anybody had seen Edge.

  ‘Not since yesterday,’ said a young woman with short red hair and a lab coat, ‘he was in the markets bartering with one of the students for a circuit node.’

  ‘Bartering?’ Enaya chuckled.

  Edge Fenris was in it for himself, a lone wolf. He had lived on the Megalo-Britai’s hardlands of the Neo-London Atominii. He once told Enaya it was a rat-bastard sprawl for parasites and corpses alike. She didn’t disbelieve it was a swarm of a place, old architecture crumbling into murky waters and held up by the cyber city that snaked around it. She understood that Edge was used to surviving by his own means and showed little interest in joining any of the city’s agencies or companies. But when individuals needed something like low grade electronics it was theirs to take. Bartering was a hardlander habit for those unable to produce crypto-coin.

  ‘I know,’ said the young student. ‘We just gave him a bunch and sent him packing. He looked real surprised. Said I’m a patronising ass-hat who takes things for granted. Asshole. I had a mind to take them nodes back I can tell you.’

  In Cerise Timbers, it didn’t take a genius to work out things were mostly done communally. Not unlike Pierce and his kind, Edge Fenris was not one for contribution when it came to volunteering. He preferred his own space and his own time. People seemed to frazzle him. There were a significant number of others like this in Cerise Timbers, but not so many had the conservative expectations of Pierce Lewis. When it came to Edge, Enaya suspected he was at best a creative asshole, at worst an uncooperative miscreant, but not dangerous.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Daryl said.

  ‘I think he’s staying in one of the Northern Blister Hangars. Number fifteen I think.’

  ‘He’s using the hangars?’

  ‘Yeah he’s with the Professor,’ she explained, ‘you know, the Atominii neuro electronics specialist.’ Then she laughed and shrugged. ‘I still don’t know what he’s a professor in to be fair, it seems his qualifications are…on-going.’

  ‘You mean Professor Aldous Laux?’ said another of the students, leaning over from a circuit locker. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit and eye goggles and had just finished tuning some kind of adjustment. He slammed the locker closed and pumped the power-handle built into the side, charging up the batteries.

  ‘He’s an odd-ball, isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know who that is,’ Enaya confessed.

  ‘Ah sure it’s just across the air zone,’ the student said, pointing toward the hangar behind the large moss covered airship. ‘Number fifteen, just go down there.’

  *

  The hangar was almost thirty feet high with an arching roof, one of a row of another five identical to it and used for storage. Large military stencils numerically numbered the hangar door, which was now open ajar. Daryl peered into the large space inside and stepped into the cool shade. A faint light was coming from the depth of the hangar somewhere behind an empty SkyLark chassis. Enaya followed through.

  ‘Edge Fenris!’ She called.

  ‘Fenris! Get out here!’ Daryl shouted more assertively.

  The smell of oil was strong in the cool hangar. Around the sides there were offices and a haze of light bled in from a window in the upper floors. The sound of a drill motor whirred as a bolt was getting tightened somewhere. They walked around machinery that had been covered with dust sheets and canvas.

  ‘Fenris!’ Daryl called again.

  ‘Keep your hair on man!’ A voice droned within earshot.

  From the office sector they saw a shadow moving in the darkness, walking on the upper platforms. The shadow leaned over the rails, face glowing amber behind the fire of his cigarette.

  ‘So,’ he said on a vale on smoke. ‘Is this a late welcoming committee from the venerable echelons of the Fed or you just poaching a bad egg?’

  ‘We’re poaching a bad egg,’ said Daryl dryly.

  ‘Actually we’ve a few questions about the Lewis property?’

  ‘What is it this time did somebody ruffle his hedges again?’

  ‘Somebody stencilled fascist onto his wall,’ Enaya explained, ‘portraying him as a Hitler caricature.’

  ‘So?’ Edge asked, ‘he is a fascist. Rat-bastard isn’t even meek about it. It’s only a problem when somebody else points it out.’

  ‘We need to ask around.’ Daryl said.

  ‘And you think I did it?’

  ‘We think you might know who is responsible.’

  Edge Fenris puffed on the cigarette, a burning end flaring vermilion, streams of smoke venting from his nostrils. He stooped down the walkway to a ladder, sliding boots first to the ground along its rails. Edge came into the dim light slanting in from outside. He was bald except for a short spiky Mohawk that ran through the middle of his head and some kind of cybernetic implant that was attached to his left cheek, curving around the eye. His jacket was black leather, studded, and he had a loose fitting fishnet shirt underneath, and torn grey jeans patched with tartan material. He threw his cigarette ahead of him and stomped it out as he passed, wreaths of smoke puffing from of his nose. He was a skinny man and as short as Enaya, but he had a reputation for sinking in the teeth so to speak. As he got closer, Enaya noticed his nose piercing, a curved semi-ring that hung from his septum.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Haven’t a clue. If you ask me about the weather I’d be happy to talk to death about it, the whole birds and the bees thing too. Ask me about whiskey I’ll tell you a few crazy stories. Ask me about neuro-narcotics and I’ll tell you even more. But when it comes to the whole racket of this city’s fine dwellers I know about as much as the next geezer.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’ Daryl noted.

  ‘Well, believe what you want, pongo,’ Edge smiled, ‘shows that you’re thinking for yourself at least. But you’re talking to a man who sleeps with a semi-automatic cradling a bottle of gin. The world ain't for people like me, catch my drift?’

  He started walking away and dug into his inner pocket for another cigarette.

  ‘Not enough liquor in Cerise Timbers,’ he said, lips pressed around the cigarette butt as he sprung his lighter open. ‘That’s my bag. Got the professor to ferment some using yeast from that dirigible outside, you know, the one where they’re cultivating fungi?’

  ‘You’ll be waiting a long time,’ said Enaya.

  ‘Found a way to speed up the process,’ he smiled avariciously. ‘Wanna see?’

  Daryl looked to Enaya and he nodded approvingly. Enaya didn’t imagine she would try any but was curious to check out his operation, if anything to get him blabbing a little more, perhaps he’d let something slip after a boozer.

  ‘Okay Fenris,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Let’s see what
you got.’

  Edge stuffed his hands in his pockets as he led them around the various machines. The drilling was getting louder the deeper into the hangar they went.

  ‘As you can hear-’ Edge shouted back over his shoulder, ‘got the professor testing out some tools in here for the schools. Wacko claims to be building modern art or I dunno…’ he said, circulating his hand around his ear as he spoke, cigarette pivoting in his mouth. ‘So yeah. Y’know. Gives him something to do.’

  ‘He tests the equipment you said?’

  ‘General maintenance,’ Edge called. ‘-CAN YOU HEAR ME?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daryl assured.

  ‘Not you padre, LAUX!’ Edge shouted again as they walked around more covered machines and dusty sheets. All at once the drilling and grinding of metal came to a stop. A tall and wiry man suddenly appeared from behind a workshop table. Various computer screens and modified radio equipment were blinking and going about their programming nearby. He was wearing a welding mask and a long white lab coat. His skinny arms stuffed into padded black gloves that looked far too big for his bony fingers until he quickly pulled them off and put them on the table. Aldous Laux held out his hand to introduce himself as he moved around the table, dragging screens and wires spilling to the ground behind him. He tripped slightly and scurried for balance, approaching Enaya right away.

  ‘Miss Chahuán!’ He muffled from behind the mask.

  ‘Enaya,’ she smiled. ‘We don’t carry titles here. We’re all equals.’

  Professor Aldous Laux pulled back his mask and smiled his wrinkly nervous smile.

  ‘Enaya Chahuán.’ He said, his big brown eyes wild and sharp, staring unabashedly into hers. He had a slim and long face, a chin that was large and dimpled in the middle, his smile she knew would have been very handsome in his youth. Laux had frowsy white eyebrows and a bald head. She could see the neural implants freckled in logically patterned cerebral areas around his skull. And he took her hand and kissed the back of it gently.

  ‘Really?’ she chuckled flatly, amused by the gesture. ‘Please… alright, stop that.’

  ‘I am an admirer of your work,’ he spoke quickly, vested with energy and enthusiasm. ‘I read the sociocratic progress reports you’ve written on the continuing research of East B’ One and the Three Circles of the constitution. Although, not my preferred taste for civilisation your insights are nevertheless honest and professional. I’d say you are a fascinating young woman with natural leadership values and a consistent respect for democratic consensus. You have an adept understanding of social dynamic order and I see a keen sense for information technologies from what I gathered. I’ve many questions about your insights for motivation, I read your papers on countering the challenges of group burn-outs and factionalism within anarchi-’

  ‘Nobody reads those reports,’ she interrupted with surprise. ‘It’s just my hobby really. Something to put on the Q-net for new comers like yourself when they’re in rare cases like yours actually interested…’

  ‘I am interested!’ He assured her, stepping close, his gaze unblinking, caught up in his own romanticising.

  Daryl was growing uncomfortable, but it was Edge who gently linked the professor’s arm and slowly paced him walking backwards.

  ‘Excuse the professor,’ he said flicking ash with his other hand, ‘he doesn’t mean to be creepy. He sometimes forgets himself. Years of isolation isn’t good for anyone. It’s been a long time since he’s been around normal people.’

  ‘Normal?’ Laux asked feeling insulted.

  ‘Chahuán looks normal enough to me,’ Edge checked himself. ‘Now, Laux. Where’s the whiskey, man?’

  Laux pointed to a cabinet across the room marked with a caduceus symbol, stencilled above it were the words first aid.

  ‘Here’s where the magic happens,’ said Edge as he strutted over to the cabinet. He opened the shutters to reveal several pickle jars, beakers, flasks and vials all filled with different substances. He turned back to the professor looking puzzled.

  ‘It’s in the big Erlenmeyer flask.’

  ‘Th’fuck is that?’

  ‘The one that looks like a cone!’ Laux snapped with frustrated disbelief, holding out his arm and smacking his own forehead. Edge popped the cork and offered Daryl the first sip.

  ‘Changed my mind,’ he said shaking his head.

  ‘You?’ he offered Enaya.

  She leaned in to smell the flask and also shook her head. Laux was looking hopeful until she declined.

  ‘Suit yourselves.’

  Edge Fenris chugged back the golden liquid and quickly lurched forward and spat out the contents, angrily hurling the flask shattering at the professor’s feet.

  ‘DAMNIT LAUX!’ He yowled. ‘Tastes like piss and vinegar.’

  ‘Because you have to let it mature, the nanomes can only do so much!’

  ‘You’re using nanomes?’ asked Enaya.

  ‘The filtering process is experimental,’ Laux explained. ‘Unfortunately the nanomes here are in limited supply. They take a long time and a lot of equipment to create them. We don’t have good resources for that kind of technology. But it just so happens we do have dead nanoctors in our blood just waiting to be reactivated.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Course,’ he said, trying his best to come across as charming now, downplaying his technicalities to romance mode. Laux cleared his throat and leaned back. ‘Yes I can. Easy. The problem is reprogramming them. After we leave the Atominii these nanomes usually cause tumours and kill the person, or blood clots and other such nasty things. If you survive that things get worse, eventually they stop functioning as an immune system, making us vulnerable to other diseases, some natural, some designed. It keeps people dependent on the Atominii you see, in order to live you have to update.’

  ‘Yes I know, I used to live in the Atominii once myself,’ Enaya revealed.

  ‘But…’ Laux went on, holding up his finger proudly. ‘I have managed to isolate and extract nanomes from my own blood, some of which I put in that flask to ferment the yeast and barley.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ they heard Edge heave, still spitting and salivating over his knees and clearly now privy to Laux’s techniques.

  Laux put his welding mask on the worktable beside him and brushed down his lab coat. He leaned over the table, still regarding Enaya.

  ‘After which I attempted to make some adjustments under that microscope. With the right tools they can build themselves, but I need things like polymers and alloys. With nano-metallurgists we will be able to advance Cerise Timbers electronics. With nanoctors we can upgrade our medicines.’

  He pulled back a dustcover from one of his machines, a huge iron coffin with levers and valves and pressure gauges clocking the internal temperature. Laux kicked the machine hard and the coffin opened up to reveal a deep bath of cold water, within which floated hundreds of petri dishes like Lilly pads.

  ‘In each of these petri dishes I’m cultivating nanomes, but they are very delicate. Just shining a torch on them will disturb their development. And they have to be kept reasonably cold. That’s why the water is…’ Laux stared at the external thermometer reading and suddenly shouted. ‘DAMNIT!’

  ‘What?’ Enaya cried.

  ‘They’re at room temperature.’

  And he slammed the coffin closed and pulled down the dust cover.

  ‘I’ve been working on that batch for three months.’ He said shaking his head. ‘Three months for nothing.’

  ‘The Atominii are very careful with nanome controls,’ said Enaya, ‘if they learn about this they’ll nuke us.’

  ‘They won’t learn about it,’ Laux assured. ‘By the time they do, we’ll be advanced enough to defend ourselves, providing I can read a simple external thermometer.’

  ‘Laux,’ Daryl started, ‘just what the hell are you a professor in? Didn’t you study quantum electronics?’

  ‘Why, nanalchemy and neuro-ligature engineering of course.’ He said it
as though it was obvious. ‘It’s a branch of quantum electronics.’

  Enaya had been more interested in one of the upper levels above them. She could see a plane wing had been constructed as a bridge platform from one side of the hangar to the other.

  ‘What’s up there?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s where we sleep,’ Edge spat.

  ‘You and the professor?’

  ‘Actually my place is in the lab,’ said Laux. ‘As a matter of fact I don’t sleep. My neurophase with the Atominii reprogrammed my cranial activity. The sleeping process can be cancelled out with the release of certain chemicals. I rest my brain when I’m awake so basically my life feels like a constant dream. It’s a common phenomenon for those unplugged from the Atominii.’

  ‘Not for all of us,’ said Edge. ‘I personally like to sleep after a good old rousing drink.’

  ‘And who else sleeps here?’

  ‘Pan,’ said Edge Fenris. ‘She’s our security officer. She’s on an errand right now with Biter.’

  ‘You have a dog?’ Enaya asked.

  ‘No,’ Edge Fenris scowled folding his arms. ‘Just a smartass gene-freak with an oral fixation!’

  *

  Kyo chewed on his necklace relentlessly as it hung upside down over his chin. He liked to wedge the wire behind his front fangs and tongue the beads of wood and it disgusted the hell out of Pania. He clacked his teeth as he bit the wooden carvings, a gift from the fields of Minerva Meadows he’d bitten and chewed into near disintegration. He did this all while in a handstand, balancing inverted through the fields. He had wooden carvings and rings threaded onto his tail, which was plastered in areas from the many times he’d stepped on himself. Kyo wore a white hooded shirt, his favourite jogging tracksuit pants and bare foot finger-shoes.