NAAN (The Rabanians Book 1)

by Dan Haronian

  The academic year ended. I decided to wait for the students to return in order to take advantage of the noise and chaos they created in the university corridors and in the network. I enrolled as a first year student under the second false identity the Doctor had arranged for me and received a temporary student ID card that allowed me to access most of the services offered by the university.

  I searched the flight schedules and found a shuttle that was on its way to Mampas from Kartik. It was scheduled to undergo a few days of maintenance before moving on. Naan was its first stop after the maintenance work was completed. It was the best opportunity I could find given the time window I planned to use. I was finally ready.

  The day arrived. I sat in front of a terminal at one of the information centers on the university campus and looked around at the young students filling the tables around me. Most of them were wandering around in search of a free terminal. They were all busy talking loudly about their courses and about unworthy lecturers who had lost their passion for teaching.

  I wore a hat and a white shirt that was made of a fluorescent material that made it glow even during the day. I surfed around aimlessly for a while and tried block out the noisy environment. When I felt comfortable I approached Seragon and exposed the door. I didn't go in. The first time I’d been there I hadn't known I was entering a minefield, but now, with what I knew about Shor, I feared that every step might alert them to my presence. My stomach began to turn over, and the commotion around me distracted me again.

  I wiped the sweat from my forehead and forced myself to focus on the terminal. Again I surfed and when the door opened I went in. I fed in the information we had put together about the plague and Shor asked me to wait. I waited. It was excruciating. The passing seconds frayed my nerves. Several Controllers were sitting at terminals on a raised dais at the back of the communication center. Others were walking along the banks of terminals. They hadn't noticed anything yet.

  “Is the plague genetic?” A question suddenly popped upon my screen.

  I was surprised by the question. It was a great question but this was the reason I had infiltrated Shor. No one knew the answer. As far as I knew Daio, Dug, and me were the only foreigners on the planet. I’d gotten sick, but it still wasn't clear if it was related to the plague.

  “Unknown,” I answered.

  A second passed and Shor again asked me to wait.

  “Does the cloud eruption also happen at other water reservoirs?” A new question appeared on the screen.

  I gritted my teeth. This was a good question as well, but I didn’t have the answer to it either. The Doctor and his incompetent helpers appeared in my head and I hurried to dismiss them.

  “Unknown,” I answered and was asked to wait again.

  I looked around, the noise suddenly flooded in on me.

  “How much time passed between the cloud eruption and the plague?” asked Shor.

  How much I wondered. I could only estimate. “A few Naanite months,” I answered.

  Again I waited.

  “What is the average age at death of the diseased?”

  I didn't have an answer to this either. Most of them were young but I wasn't sure. The whole lone of questioning was giving me a bad feeling. Was it possible that after all this effort I was not sufficiently prepared?

  “Most of them are children,” I answered and was asked again to wait.

  “Has a medicine been tried based on this…”

  A string of letters and numbers appeared on the screen. I smacked my head with both palms in frustration.

  “Unknown,” I replied.

  Again I was asked to wait, but my unease was so great now that I thought of immediately withdrawing from Shor and running out of the place. Somehow I didn’t, and a very slow minute passed. Finally my neck sensor vibrated and Shor output a short list to the screen. I scanned it rapidly and the word “options,” caught my eye.

  I didn't have time for a closer look. I quickly saved the list onto a memory card and erased the information I’d fed into Shor. I scrambled a few parameters into its secondary programs hoping to confuse it and cover my tracks. When I started to hop between information circles moving away from Seragon the transition speed suddenly slowed and my movement became heavy. I threw out baits all over, trying to lose myself among the other surfers. My surfing speed increased and I felt I might just get away.

  I surfed out of Seragon, and rushed back to the information circle of Mampas. The surfing was smooth and the network looked calm, but as soon as I penetrated the information circle of the university a deafening alarm went off in the building. I started to erase every bit of information that was associated with my face, my name, and in parallel, as if I was writing with both hands in different languages, I scrambled into the local network and threw out more baits in the nearby information circle.

  The students were already up on their feet, and starting to move toward the entrance raising their voices in anger at what seemed to be a drill. I stood up and let the flow of people sweep me towards the exit. The exit became clogged with people and our movement slowed to a crawl. Suddenly policemen appeared at the front of the building. They formed a human wall and told everyone to move back. The movement toward the exit completely stopped and the confusion and the noise grew. The students surged forward and tried to break through the line. The policemen lifted their weapons and pointed them at the crowd.

  I shoved my way to the stairs and went down to the lower floor where the information center offices were. I knew that the office at the end of the corridor belonged to two members of the center who were still on vacation despite the start of the new academic year. I went in and closed the door behind me. Rushing to the window I slid it up. The window was at ground level behind some bushes that surrounded the building. I went outside, closed the window, and walked along the building hidden by the bushes. In minutes I reached a trail that connected the building to the back door of the building next to it.

  I could still hear the commotion behind me, but I didn't look back.

  “Stop,” I heard someone shout.

  I ignored him, and continued to walk towards the door. A familiar buzzing of wings came to my ears. My heart was going crazy and I was breathing so fast that I force myself to relax. I widened my legs to the sides and started to run in an odd way. I’d seen once in the network that running in this way prevented Flyeyes from identifying you by your style of walking.

  “Stop,” he called again.

  I could tell he was moving fast by the sound of his steps. I opened the door, closed it behind me without looking back, and walked into a corridor. There were service rooms to the left and a bathroom to the right. I pushed the bathroom door open, went in and closed the door quickly behind me. I went into a booth, locked the door behind me, and immediately removed the hat and my glowing shirt. I was wearing a dark shirt underneath. I pushed them behind the water tank, unzipped my pants and peed.

  The bathroom door slammed open. I flushed, opened the door, and went out, arranging my pants. A policeman stood there staring at me, and a Flyeye hovered above him. I turned my hips to the side while zipping and tucking in my shirt. The Flyeye flew quickly over to the toilet booth, made a quick turn and faced me.

  “Did you see anyone?” asked the policeman.

  “Anyone?” I asked trying to sound confused despite the Flyeye in front of me.

  “Did someone come in here?” he asked, raising his voice angrily.

  I widened my eyes, trying to look completely surprised and looked around me. The Flyeye tilted downwards slowly and scanned me. I tried to keep calm but nevertheless my heart was racing and my face started to get hot. I knew the Flyeye sensed my fear but I also knew that any normal person would fear a Flyeye facing him, even if he were completely innocent.

  The policeman said something and the Flyeye moved towards the ceiling.

  I walked to one of the sinks and started to wash my hands. The policeman open the bathroom door and the Flyeye
sprang outside. From the mirror I noticed he glared at me. I wiped my hands and looked at my face on the mirror. I leaned forward as if I saw something in my refection.

  When he left I leaned on the sink and let out a silent sigh of relief. I washed my face to cool myself down a bit and went back to the same door I came in and walked outside. I followed the trail leading to the information center, as calmly as I could, and approached the policemen surrounding the main entrance. I was relieved to see they no longer were pointing their guns at the students.

  Dozens of people were gathered on the lawn some distance behind the police line. A policeman stood in front of them and told them the building was closed until further notice. I joined the gathering and stood in front of the policeman looking at the building. A few seconds later I wandered away with a few other students.

  The university was usually mostly open space, but now, as if in the middle of a major security drill, where everyone knows what's going to happen, blockages appeared at the entrances and policemen started to flood the campus. Only it was no drill. None of the students or faculty members knew what it was all about and how serious things were.

  I walked to one of the entrances and noticed a long line of people snaking back from it as I approached. Flyeyes hovered over them. From time to time one of them would dive down to face one of the people and a policeman would walk over and start interrogate him. I had known getting into Shor would not be easy and that I would find it hard to get out cleanly, but now that I had time to think about it, I needed to analyze the details of my retreat. I thought back to those critical seconds. The surfing delay had stopped every time I threw baits, but I didn’t think they’d worked properly. It seemed like whoever was after me had allowed me to flee so they could trace me back to the access point I was using. That could explain all of the commotion on the campus.

  Policemen stood at the barrier and were scanning the ID’s of the people who were leaving. I rushed to stand in the line. A few minutes later I made it up to the barrier. My student ID was scanned and I left the university.

  I rushed to my car and pulled onto the belt road to the airport feeling relieved. Half of the mission was completed, although thinking about the interaction with Shor I wasn't sure this half had provided anything value. I pushed that thought aside. I didn't have time to think too much about that though. My goal now was to sneak onto the shuttle and get back to Naan. As I calmed down though, I started to think again about the memory card in my pocket. Shor had offered two possible solutions. I guessed there were so few because I hadn't had answers to his questions. We would need to decide which was the right course and we needed to get it right. With the way things were on Naan there wouldn’t be a second chance.

  Only a few cars were on the belt road. Even though I was anxious to get to the airport fast, I did my best to drive the speed limit. The last thing I needed now was to be stopped by a policeman. The communication interface lit up. A woman with a smile on her face appeared on the left side of the windshield. Her image blinked several times and, although her words were broken, I understood she was asking me to get off the belt road at the next exit and drive to one of the renting agency offices. The map on the front panel changed and a route to the nearest office appeared.

  I wasn't surprised to see her. She had appeared several times in the past, asking if I was happy with the car and if I would like an upgrade. I ignored her, but she came back after few minutes and repeated the message. Lines of static broke her image up as if there was a communication problem. I ignored her again. She reappeared a third time immediately after I passed the exit. Suddenly the car stopped responding. My speed dropped off and I steered the car to the side of the road.

  My heart started to pump and my thoughts ran. Had they spotted me, or was this just a malfunction? I thought that if they’d spotted me surely they would have sent a small fleet of hovercrafts to detain me. I couldn’t risk trusting reasonable thought right now though. I quickly got out of the car and walked away from it. I headed toward the exit behind me. Some distance away from the exit road, close to the outskirts of the city, were several low buildings.

  I started to run, worrying about how completely exposed I was. I quickly ran out of breath and slowed to a fast walk. I started to wonder what could have given me away. I decided that they probably could map all traffic leaving the university but couldn’t send hovercrafts after each and every car. But they could send Flyeyes, I thought, and started to look around me. Maybe they contacted every vehicle and observed the people's behavior. If so, my behavior could only mean one thing. I went back to running. The road was elevated above its surroundings. The exit road descended gradually towards the surface roads that passed beneath it. Despite the moderate slope my legs and throat started to burn. A taxi came up behind me. I waved it down. When it stopped, I ran towards it, pulled open the door, and collapsed onto the back seat.

  “To the airport,” I said breathing heavily.

  The driver turned to me. “The airport is closed,” he said.

  “Closed?”

  “They canceled all flights,” he continued staring at my sweaty face. “The network is down too,” he continued and sounded worried.

  “My car froze up,” I said with a deep breath.

  “Rental?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe it's related,” he said. “I don't remember the last time the network crashed, but it’s not a good thing. It could lead to all sorts of accidents.”

  “Take me to the city,” I said and he started to drive.

  We went under the belt road and turned left onto the entrance ramp that circled back in the opposite direction. The rental car appeared on my left. Two police cars were parked in front of it and the taxi driver gave me a quick look. He didn't say anything but I had no doubt he suspected I was not as innocent as I was trying to look.

  I forced myself to think as the city approached. Had I been spotted? Had my innocent drive from the university directly to the airport been enough to incriminate me? I thought of the hundreds of people that had left the university and tried to convince myself that them tracing me was impossible. But how many of them driven directly to the airport?

  I thought of my hotel. Butu hotel. Clearly I could not go back there. I’d parked the car next to the hotel countless times and if this damn drive from the university turned me in, they’d know who I was and where I was staying. I decided it was time to switch identities, and pulled the credit card in the name of the last false identity from my pocket.

  “Where do you want to go?” asked the driver when we reached the tall buildings of the city.

  “The shopping center along Third Avenue,” I said.

  He nodded, turned left and entered an alley. He crossed it, passed several junctions, then turned left again and stopped outside the shopping center. I paid him with the new card. After he left, I folded the old one several times until it broke in half, and then threw it into the nearest trash can.

  I crossed the road and walked for two blocks before I saw a sign with a man in a black cape above a messenger agency. Everywhere at any cost, said the slogan underneath sign. I went inside and the old and mysterious atmosphere captivated me at once. The hall was a bit dark. In the front were two lines of terminals. Beyond them was a small open space. There was a low fence on the other side of the space with a two-way gate. At four small desks, beyond the gate sat agents facing the hall.

  One agent had long black hair running down her shoulder. It caught my eye. I sat down at a terminal that hid my face from anyone entering through the door and started to surf. The network was barely moving. All of the information was flowing in slow motion. The events at the university and at the airport were being described as joint security drills. They were reported to be a success. There were complaints about the fact they are having this drill during the first days of the new academic year, but these answered by a statement saying that the systems needed to be checked and verified during such critical ti
mes if the test results were to be accurate. There were no reports about scrambling. I thought maybe it was too early for that. Maybe they still don’t know what exactly happened. Seragon would need to be creative to manage their investigation without explaining what exactly had happened.

  I went over the other reports that were on the network. One described the plans to build a big dam in Amner, another one discussed the changes in the status quo with the Desertians, and another talked about the new elections and about a successful business man named Thesh Manash, who was about to become the hottest man in Mampas politics.

  The slow information flow made me think of the agent with the black hair. While I waited for the main page of one of the news channels to load, I shifted my head a bit to look at her face. She didn't look too threatening, nor as aware as I’d heard these agents were supposed to be. I glanced at the entrance door and wondered how fast I could escape If I had to. I didn't really have a plan. I scrolled through the report list when the main page finally appeared.

  I thought about the Desertians and their odd accent. I looked back at the report about the changes to status quo between them and the city dwellers. I wondered if this could deflect attention from me. I read the report again just to make sure I was not missing anything, but the discussion about the status quo and the fact that everyone in Butu hotel looked Desertian seemed to fit perfectly with my plans. Anyway that would need to wait. I rose and walked towards the gate and pushed it forward.

  Messengers, like the ones offered in this agency, transferred information across the galaxy with a reliability factor of 1. They were the basic answer to the scrambling disease. Messenger agencies were in every civilized city and provided their expensive services only to those who could afford it. Needless to say I’d never used such an agency and had never met a messenger, but I did know they were carefully picked and that only a handful manage to pass through the long and difficult training.