Chaos Cipher

by Den Harrington

  Berengar crashed on his side and before the man could recover his efforts, Hattle launched a kick into his face, spraying blood out of the Bear’s lips. He straddled, bringing down the fists.

  ‘Hattle!’

  He roared with triumph, and brought down his elbow onto the Bear’s lips, an elbow unpadded by protective guards.

  ‘HATTLE!’

  The Bear’s hand went up for submission. Hattle batted it away. He came down on Berengar the Bear and unfixed another tooth and before he lost himself in blood lust, Pierce dragged him up.

  ‘HATTLE!’ His father’s voice reached.

  Hattle pushed Pierce back and Pierce stepped forth, looming over his son with furious eyes burning intensely.

  ‘Are you out of your FUCKING mind?’ he yelled. ‘It’s over. The fight is over, you won!’

  Hattle gasped for breath. He saw the blood on his father’s shirt, a rusty maroon hand print spread on the fabric. Berengar groaned as he turned over like a half cooked slab of meat.

  ‘He could kill you,’ Pierce reminded Hattle, ‘you stupid fucking halfwit, remember who you’re dealing with there. He’s here to teach you.’

  Hattle spat his gum shield into the ring and rubbed the sweat from his short red hair.

  ‘From now on,’ Hattle gasped. ‘I’ll be giving the lessons.’

  ‘You arrogant little fucker,’ Pierce said as Hattle lumbered to the corner of the ring. ‘Get changed. I’ll get you an ice pack.’

  Pierce held out a hand to Berengar but the big man refused help and climbed gradually to his feet, unstrapping his gloves.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he growled, eyeing Hattle.

  ‘Up-stairs, both of you.’ Pierce said, stepping through the ropes. ‘I’ve got brandy. We’re resolving your differences there before they destroy this good working relationship you have.’

  *

  The Lewis property was one of the biggest areas an individual had in Cerise Timbers. East B’ One’s communities had allowed him to keep his land, but warned that it would alienate Pierce Lewis from them. It was a modern and conceptual design of unusual shapes, rendered during the commercial heights of the three dimensional printing revolution. It had been composed of geometric shapes he knew not the names for, rounded and structured honeycombs, each one a room with a cylindrical pillar centring the building. It had a square and plain looking shoulder to the right, a rather meaningless asymmetry to the design that said something about the architect’s signature. Lewis began by pouring himself a glass of brandy as he toured across the room’s varnished pine living room floor. He offered one to Berengar who was now dressed more formally and tonguing his broken dental. Hattle came in wearing a shirt and rubbing his head down with a towel. He took a sip of the brandy and hissed with pain as the alcohol stung his cut lip. It made his eyes water.

  The Lewis aesthetic sensibilities were minimalist; a space of white square sofas, couches, glass tables and neat wall lights the bulbs of which were hidden in the contours from where only light spilled onto the pale cream walls. Everything was meticulously paralleled, paintings of strange renaissance pop-art or meaningless colour splatter, hung upon doors and walls in an ascending order, as though to demonstrate some semblance of artistic appreciation, however, Pierce Lewis knew nothing about the art work itself, only that it was some twenty first century shit. The room was vacuous, neat, untarnished save the occasional ashtray on the glass gable littered with the stubs of previous smokes. Things were ordered and without statement.

  ‘What have we been preparing for?’ Pierce asked Hattle. ‘I’m inviting another champion from the Atominii hardlands of Moscowai. A cage fighter called Raw Dog who goes under the training of Vilen Krupin. You know who Krupin is, don’t you?’

  Hattle knew. He’d fought with some of Krupin’s champions before. He trains them in the hardlands and fights his students to near death in the street cages. Pierce and Krupin were in good communication. Pierce Lewis had worked hard keeping contact with such violent men and private military cyborgs and the likes. Krupin was working on getting a large following so he could return to the Atominii once more. He had many shady businesses, from human traffic to cage fighting and neuro-commerce. Hattle knew him as a bloated pervert with a sick sense of humour.

  ‘You’ll be fighting Raw Dog,’ said Pierce, ‘and just like last time you’ll win! You got lucky last time god knows. I want you to keep that running streak. Krupin holds us in high regard since last time and he’s going to promote the family name on your shoulders.’

  ‘He’s a sloppy defence,’ said Berengar eyeing Hattle, his tongue running over the bloody gum where his tooth was knocked out.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ Hattle said, adding his moniker with splenetic emphasis, ‘Berengar the Bear.’

  ‘Boy,’ Pierce said sharply. ‘You will show some respect. If it wasn’t for Berengar’s patience and his time you would not have gotten to this stage. You’d do well to show some fucking gratitude.’

  ‘It was just one victory,’ said the Bear. ‘Out of many fights we’ve had. The times when you lay in my arms after I knocked you unconscious, like a little baby. But I didn’t knock your teeth out kid. You are not ready.’

  ‘My victory was overdue,’ Hattle assured. ‘I won, Bear. And I’ll stay on top. From here I’ll only get stronger and faster.’

  ‘You’ll get cocky,’ said Berengar, ‘and make stupid mistakes.’

  ‘You saw me.’ Hattle told his father. ‘I got his teeth! He’ll remember training with me. Everyone I face I will leave them something to remember me by…’

  ‘I saw a maniac in there today,’ Pierce said. ‘Not a skilled fighter, a young man who wants to prove something rather than fighting honourably. You need to be more careful.’

  Hattle scowled and drank more brandy, wincing slightly with the pain. He finished the glass and hurled it smashing to the floor. Berengar sat forward but Pierce held out his hand, instructing Berengar to make no bones about it. And Hattle was already leaving the room in stride.

  *

  That afternoon was raining. He thought he’d wash the wounds down in it. Hattle zipped the hooded jacket but left the hood down. He hurried along the garden strip to the security gate and passed through the spin cage where the house computer’s signal discrimination recognised his Quantic-W and granted his departure. The sky was pale and grey, spilling dull silver beads rattling across the fields. He looked on at the great shell of the city dome just a few kilometres ahead, upon which rain sang like a detuned radio. Hattle began to jog, lifting his legs high. He made his way onto a path, let the rain soak his short red hair, trickling down his neck and shoulders. After a couple of minutes he made his way onto a dirt path, one of many traversing the forest lines to the city. He passed several people talking under their hoods and carting organic food in a small cart. Just up ahead was another runner on the road. He was short, a grey hood up over his head attached to a white, short sleeve shirt. He had a large backpack slung over his shoulders, stacked with equipment, a short rope dangling from the bottom. Hattle decided this runner was in the way. He pursued and overtook, almost brushing the kid’s shoulder as he passed and once his point was proven, Hattle bared no further notice of him. He decided he was going to make his usual route, a ninety minute easy jog, nothing too strenuous. He’d keep a steady pace, just enough to burn off his anger.

  Suddenly, the kid in the white shirt and grey hood overtook Hattle, his bag of equipment jingling.

  ‘No you don’t!’ He said playfully as he passed. There was joy in his tone. He was making fun of his training. As though it were a fucking game!

  Hattle seethed. He picked up pace, burning muscular legs getting faster. The kid was ten meters ahead, and he was fast for a scrawny little weasel. And he was getting faster. Hattle picked up the pace but the little rat bastard was really quick, and they’d already pushed over a hundred meters and he’d not gained on him much. Hattle pushed harder until his legs burned like fire. He noticed something
unusual about the kid just ahead. The rope trailing behind him, it wasn’t a rope. He got a little closer, sucking in huge gulps of air and he could see now…That’s a tail. It’s the gene-freak!

  I will not be mocked by this mutant kid.

  Filled with confidence Hattle put all he had left into sprinting. He was still sore after his fight, but this one he could not lose. Kyo held his thumb out.

  ‘Hey you’re real fast!’ He shouted back as though the race was effortless. ‘But I’m the runner in these parts. What’s your name?’

  Hattle focussed on his breathing. To hell with introductions. He was going to make sure this kid would never forget his name. His legs burned, he pushed but Kyo always seemed slightly ahead. Acid bubbled through his guts now. His muscles were seizing up with cramp but his mind pushed on. He wasn’t going to be able to overtake Kyo, but he could get close. He knew he had the energy to get close. If he could just get close enough he’d get hold of him. Hattle could hear the jingling heavy equipment in Kyo’s backpack now and he made a grab, his fist clenched around the gene-freak’s tail.

  ‘Hey!’ Kyo shouted.

  But before he could react Hattle kicked the kid’s legs out from under him. Kyo crashed to the floor, the backpack spilling bottles and jars, electronics and gadgets everywhere. He bounded over Kyo as he rolled to a painful stop, hopping between the debris of spilled equipment. Hattle came to a stop. With his hands on his hips he gasped for air, leaning back. He looked around the road. Nobody had witnessed the assault. Most people were indoors, sagely out of the rain. He pulled his hood up at that moment to conceal his face. Hattle panted for air as he walked back over to the kid sprawling in the dirt. Kyo groaned painfully and rolled onto his back to see Hattle standing over him.

  ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Kyo snapped angrily.

  Hattle squatted beside Kyo, pressed his knee over his chest and pinned him down.

  ‘You wanna know my name?’ he wheezed. ‘Hmm? Little gene-freak faggot!’

  Hattle brought his fist down hard and bust the kid’s face. Kyo cried out as pain tore through his nose and lips like lightning, blood spilling down to his chin.

  ‘It’s Hattle!’ He told him. ‘Remember who broke your face. Cross me again gene-freak and I’ll break a whole lot more.’

  -18-

  The hexagonal web of encircling spires pulsed apricot-blue at the apex of Orandoré’s Atlantic Anchor Base. It was the crown of a huge industrial looking station set out at sea where upon it towered the astro-elevator’s pinnacle reception harbour. The rig platform was over four hundred metres from end to end, layered with multiple operation stages for maintaining the orbital elevator. The air whistled as it lashed around the tension ribbon leading up into the sky, and as the elevator dropped below cloud level, the rollers tightened their grip on the carbon nanotube-ribbon to control their vertical descent. Anchor Base awaited their arrival as the automated altitude breaks controlled their decline into the recess pit awaiting at the highest platform.

  The elevator arrived on schedule at 6pm local time, fixing gently into the photon reception and launch platform. The runners unlocked and their pincer-like grip wedged open as robotic davits reached up and detached the cabin from the reception and launch zone, dislodging and hauling it down onto lower runners where the elevator cabins were stacked for docking designations. Locking clamps secured the cabin in their new platform grips and rolled it around a circular track encompassing the crown of the structure, winding below the reception launch zone in a conical manner, running vertically along the length of the tower’s sides. It stopped finally into its terminal docking cradle to be unmanned.

  Malik’s ossified face stared gravely out of the window as it gave way to limpidity, revealing the auspicious seascape of black treacherous oceans bulging and falling, webbed with streaks of saline foam and turquoise sprays blasting from the tidal collisions. The charcoal welkin stirred and crumbled beset a dark and tawny sunset, allowing subtle transformations of golden rays to seep through the broken froths, igniting silvery strings of amber rainfall as they lashed over the ethereal mist on the ocean rig’s industrial macabre.

  A strange quivering had taken hold of his arms. Malik could see them in terrible and uncontrollable jitters as the sky’s light fell over his marked skin where he’d penned X’s smudged and faded across the skin. It had been so long since he’d felt the warmth of natural sunlight. It was like being born again. His body was treating it the same way he felt before his first meal on Orandoré, desperate to receive nutrients yet quivering from the lack of it.

  ‘We’re home!’ Serat gasped. ‘We’re really here.’

  When the elevator doors opened, a battalion of soldiers marched in pairs into the room and dispersed; heavily armoured in shear-phasing vest protection. In the vice like hold of their gloves, were light plastic looking weapons that Malik may have once mistaken for toys were he not already privy to the devastating effects of resonant nerve harmonics. He had been forewarned by Duval and Felix that Colonel Max Elba would use them if he became hysterical in anyway.

  Malik for the most part ignored them anyway; he was grassing on his own thoughts, too deep in contemplation to appreciate the reality he was now involved. Max and his team stood and spoke with the soldiers; he noticed an almost jovial relationship existed between them as he was dragged to his feet like some common prisoner.

  ‘Malik!’ A voice said.

  The tinnitus ringing in his ears ebbed, and Malik regained some awareness again. The journey had been tiring and his concentration was disturbed by the welter of new sights bleeding into his eyes from the realm of this new reality. ‘Malik, it’s alright, I’m here to help,’ said the young man in a high-tech and elegant looking jumpsuit. ‘My name’s Felipe.’

  A soldier forced Malik to stand and scanned him up and down with some device, ticking-off another safety regulation from his list. While the soldier ran through his routine checks, Malik gazed up at the rather dapper looking young man who had addressed him. He was no older than his mid-twenties, short, slim and very trimmed and greased black hair. His eyes were a distinct green and he had a barcode branded onto his forehead. Felipe also wore a white and grey jumpsuit which had baggy pockets designed into the legs. He was staring deep into Malik’s eyes to check for some strangeness in colour or pupil dilation.

  ‘My name’s Filipe,’ he repeated, a mildly French accent, ‘you’re my ancestor. We’re related, Doctor Serat. It’s a great honour to meet you, monsieur.’

  *

  When the party dispatched from the reception and launch station the foyer was brimming with reporters and photographers and journalists from The Randian News Corporation. Malik looked around at the walkways amassed with people, metal railings with caution signs and steel and piping all twisted together behind them like some multi-layered spider-web. Saffron lights burned around the rig, and motion from the operational red lights stencilled the silhouettes, of figures shifting at the top of the rig, somewhere in the panoramic window of the control station. Gliders swerved through the storm, their ion thrusters flaring through the rain. Their central rotary blades chain-punched above and pilots glared down from the safety of their canopy. As the spotlights shifted over the rig’s platform, it lit the heads and shoulders of the crowds gathering with their advanced recording equipment, baying for the front. A surge of soldiers marched in to intercept them and hold them at their designated distance and they screamed unheard questions at the Erebus Chrononaut through the blustering storm. Rain lashed across the flat iron and asphalt platform beneath their feet, washing across the surface beneath the beams of spotlights in sweeping shimmers.

  Giant coloured balloons hovered high above the people, and internal windows were populated with hundreds of thousands of ogling eyes and faces, more crowds of individuals in boiler suit habiliments, hurrying to the elevators leading down from the service reception foyers. Malik glared, eyes once idle now wide with distress, as the strange twelve foot tall android
s, pale, faceless and rubber skinned creatures, loped forth and helped to push back the paparazzi as they screamed fanatical questions at Serat. The faces of some of these monsters resembled large gas masks, with two small black eyes and a large snout hanging down and connecting to the torso like starved elephants rearing up on hind legs. What’s this madness? He wondered. Is this really the home? Of all the monsters and faces not one of them seemed human. He’d returned to a circus of desperate and mindless beings all locked into some level of consciousness he was excluded from.

  Max led them towards the debriefing complex across the rain swept platform, and they held their heads and strode across the storm blown rig surface.

  ‘Just this way, sir,’ Felipe shouted excitedly.

  And they were followed by swarms of drones and mechanical insects designed to record for new channels until the military hampered their advance with EMP waves that confused their programming and signals.

  A phosphorous flare seared up high into the sky and burst into a chemical glow that bleached their faces in a monochrome pale mint as the light arched above and burned out into a fading hot ember. And the light still burned in Malik’s eye since he’d craned back to see what was there. Another flare shot and seared above and more troops dispatched from within the oil-rig to control their excited guests. The Nexus issued trans-data conditioning into the minds of journalists and occupants on the rig to control their behaviour, directing them to stay in position or clear the way for soldiers. And although they continued to yammer and squall in the excitement their legs seemed to coordinate a path as though their subconscious was under direction. And a team of soldiers hurried towards them to meet Max and his Canaries.