The Orb

by Tara Basi

  After a moment of staring into space, the Tramp’s face softened, but he wasn’t smiling. “It’s verified, though that doesn’t prove it was the Trust that tried to kill me. What about any number of governments or religious groups who want me dead? The crazy Pilgrimists are wreaking havoc in the Middle East, and everyone blames me.”

  Peter relaxed a little. “Our sources indicate the Trust is the most likely culprit. Director Horacio has provided a motive.”

  The Tramp shook his head and clenched his jaw. “It’s my Trust, my creation, my administrators. I don’t believe it.”

  Kiki leaned forwards. Her smile had faded; she looked very serious. “What if they were ordered by a higher authority?”

  A surprised Tramp stared at Kiki. “What are you talking about?”

  This is it, Peter thought. He signalled to Bunny and the Suit not to interrupt. Even though he knew it wasn’t really Kiki, he felt proud of his daughter; she’d always been very clever, able to win over the most difficult people and get them to talk. Those skills had led her to a career in journalism.

  “You must have heard the rumours? The Orb is supposed to be talking. Maybe it’s talking to the Trust.”

  The Tramp’s face turned red with rage. He abruptly stood up, pushing his chair over. “Are you crazy? Even if it were true, why in God’s name would a big ball want me dead?”

  Kiki shrugged, then continued, “Most Pilgrims are like me. We believe it is God and not a damn, bloody ball. Maybe it’s your punishment.”

  For a moment, the Tramp seemed utterly flabbergasted. He hung his head and breathed slowly and deliberately before answering, “It’s a pleasant surprise to find yet another Pilgrim working for Orb Industries. Is this your idea?” He looked to Peter. “Are you trying to rattle me?”

  Peter knew he had to respond. “We are an equal opportunities employer,” he said. “But I had no idea Kiki was a Pilgrim.” His surprise was genuine. Kiki must be lying. Wasn’t she?

  The Tramp didn’t look completely convinced. “Kiki, I’ve said many times that the Orb is a powerful symbol and pivotal to the creation of the Revelation.”

  Kiki’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve never acknowledged that the Orb is divine, God taken physical form.”

  The man was visibly struggling with his temper. He’d probably never been challenged so directly about his views before. No one questioned the Tramp.

  “I would like to leave now and return to Paris.”

  They needed more time.

  “Tramp, I have to advise you that it’s not safe outside, and if the Trust is behind this, returning to Paris may be very unwise.”

  The Tramp thumped the table. “Get me a helicopter and a bloody Net connection. I want to leave.”

  Kiki gently reached over and touched the Tramp’s hand, who immediately pulled away. She smiled and said, “Please, you’re here, in the Cuboid. Make your peace with the Orb. It will protect you.”

  The Tramp smashed both fists on the table. His body was vibrating with rage. Corded veins pulsed under the skin of his forehead and neck. His eyes threatened to pop out of his head. He spat his words at Kiki through a wall of clenched teeth. “Listen, you stupid bitch, the Orb is not a god; it’s a piece of space junk that fell off an interstellar dump truck. I’m not interested in what a ball of rubbish has to say. The Revelation is mine. It’s mine.”

  The Suit cut the VR dead, and they were back in the lab.

  “Brilliant! Not exactly what we wanted, but it will suffice. We’ll show it to the Church, threaten to release it unless they back off. It’ll work. They have even more to lose than us if the whole basis of their religion is threatened. We won’t need Professor Simmons’ Record. It’ll be destroyed. We can’t take a chance that it might fall into the Church’s hands. If it did, they’d produce a false accusation that Industries assassinated Professor Simmons.”

  While the Suit was speaking, Peter was holding his head, still reeling from the abrupt termination of the VR. As his stomach stopped churning, he absorbed what the Suit was saying. It was good news. Industries would let them go; he wouldn’t need to rely on the weird Bunny to get them out. He was sorry that Quattro wouldn’t be able to ask Professor Simmons about the Orb, but it was probably for the best; she was likely to be disappointed and so was he. Professor Simmons was best left for dead.

  Peter looked towards the Suit. “Can we leave now?”

  The Suit floated up towards the lab ceiling. “Quattro is far too dangerous to let loose. She’ll stay down here with Bunny.”

  Peter screamed at the drifting man shape, “You can’t do that! You promised! I won’t lose her, not again.”

  The Suit started to disappear as it answered. “Exactly the way we thought you’d feel, so you can stay too and continue your research. Goodbye, Peter.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Zip Goes to the Seaside

  Mathew was effortlessly pulling Q’s cart, laden with their gear and the flat-packed gyrocopter. He led Zip right around the shiny remembrance mountain and on past the stinking outhouses. The steep slopes were still swarming with Sediment Town residents searching for the reminiscences that made the prettiest patterns in the cold quartz. Zip wondered what kind of memories made the most beautiful markings. If it was the ugly memories, her Record would be an exceptional jewel.

  Mathew glided on into new territory for Zip. They were heading towards an ugly, grey slagheap piled high against the cavern wall on the far side. Zip looked up at the cavern ceiling, noting the direction the fans were blowing. With an involuntary shiver, she realised that this was where the mortuary ash fell. Did most mourners prefer VR ash? It wouldn’t surprise Zip.

  There was another busy gang of locals working at the base of the dead dune, shovelling the fine powder into hand carts that were much larger than Q’s. Full carts, piled high with ash, were being dragged away by two-man teams towards a wide tunnel entrance. On their way, they passed empty wagons returning from wherever they went. Mathew was heading for the tunnel.

  As Mathew drew closer, the dust-covered diggers and tired-looking cart handlers retreated nervously, giving him plenty of room to pass by.

  A curious Zip called out to the nearest local, “What are you doing?”

  A slight, suited figure covered in mortal dust turned in Zip’s direction and drew the back of a gloved hand across its visor, leaving a clear streak. The figure looked out at Zip with hidden eyes and didn’t immediately answer. The worker turned to its neighbours and there was a lot of low whispering. Zip was about to move on when they spoke.

  “Outsiders buy it. We’re not doing any harm.”

  By the sound of her voice, she was quite young. It could have been Zip’s granddaughter inside that dirty suit doing this filthy job.

  “I was just curious. We’ll be going.”

  Outside. Outsiders. Anyone, anything, beyond the wall. Outside, nothing much grew. Life needed any help it could get, even from beyond the grave. The kid was right, they weren’t doing any harm, and this was how trickledown economics was supposed to work, wasn’t it?

  Mathew hadn’t slowed down, so she hurried to catch up, following him into the tunnel. Overhead, a snaking cable strung from the roof supported dim, brown lights at regular intervals. Underfoot, there was a carpet of ash. Ahead, full carts trundled on and empty carts passed them by. In-between, small, suited figures swept up ash spill into baskets on their backs. Everyone stopped what they were doing to let Mathew past.

  The tunnel was long and rose on a steady incline. After many hours, and fewer words exchanged, Mathew and Zip emerged from the underground into the devastation of the Sevenoaks crater. Hours before, she’d changed into combat gear. Headgear warnings about rising radiation levels were almost superfluous as they passed an ever-increasing number of toiling Sediment Town folk, who had swapped their thermals for hazard suits.

  Zip was standing on a narrow ledge, near the bottom of the vast crater. The crater wall towered over them. Below her was a dead lake; its surface
was puckered by a hard rain and strong winds. Greasy water drops thudded rhythmically against her visor, to an urgent tick-tock beat. She wiped the rain away and looked for Mathew, who was already halfway up the muddy path, in the wall of the crater that spiralled up from the tunnel exit to the rim. Dotted along the path, behind and ahead of Mathew, was a convoy of ash carts covered with tattered plastic sheeting to protect their cargo from the sulphurous downpour. The plastic fluttered in the howling wind, occasionally yielding to the gale and releasing short-lived puffs of grey smoke. It was like a scene from some gulag hell, a scene she’d seen repeated in many places, many times – people surviving in ways they once could never have imagined wanting to.

  She started trudging up the path, leaving the lifeless lake behind. By the time she’d topped the rim, she could see that Mathew had found some shelter in the remnants of a nearby building and had already assembled the gyrocopter. Her attention was immediately drawn elsewhere. A huge airship was fighting against its tethers only a few hundred metres ahead. The giant cigar shape was sculpted out of a multi-coloured patchwork of equally assorted materials. Hanging below the blimp was a small passenger compartment and a large battered container. The steady downpour had completely washed away the dull ash coating from the Sediment Town workers’ hazard suits, revealing garish plastic coverings of yellow, orange and green. The contents of the carts were being shovelled into the container by what looked like brightly coloured children’s toys.

  “Ready,” Mathew said. Another rare word from the reticent machine.

  She joined him beside the copter and moved to climb into the passenger seat. Mathew stopped her with a burnished metal hand and indicated the pilot’s chair.

  “I can’t fly this. You can. I know you can,” Zip said, surprised by Mathew’s actions.

  “Too heavy. Autopilot set. Finetune speed.” Mathew pointed out a lever on the control panel. “Here. You’re overwatch.”

  “What?”

  “You fly. I’ll run. Many defences between here and the coast, against a Church invasion. You snipe if I encounter excessive resistance. Maintain speed to stay overhead. Exceed eighty K, ground missiles will launch.”

  Zip recoiled from the idea, just as if she’d seen a snake slithering past her foot. “That’s crazy. We can take the blimp. It’s obviously slow enough.”

  “I’m too heavy. Blimp crew will kill you, for the gear.” He touched a heavy-duty gauss sniper rifle to his metal head and then pushed it into her hands. “It’s on auto target tracking. I’m a designated friendly. Leave now.”

  The rifle felt familiar in her hands: an ugly, cowardly weapon that had saved her life many times in the hands of unseen comrades kilometres away. It liquidised flesh and bone and punched head-sized holes in the toughest armour. She didn’t want it, she didn’t want to use it, even against lifeless machines. When Zip looked down that scope, old images would resurface, terrible images she didn’t need a Record to recall – heads disappearing in a burst of red smoke; bodies ripped in half; living flesh becoming bloody joints of meat flying through the air – but Mathew was right: the lives of her family were at stake.

  Zip brought the rifle to her forehead and pressed her visor against the stock. Old memories of Mathew resurfaced, as he was when they’d fucked and fought together, for each other, against anything. That’s how it had to be again.

  Weapon and Headgear pinged in unison. They were synced. She lowered the weapon and climbed into the pilot’s seat, secured herself and then wound the weapon’s strap around her body and tightly about her arm. She wasn’t going to lose her weapon this time.

  She hit the ignition. The engine roared into life before settling into a steady growl. The ash diggers stopped shovelling and looked up as the copter rose awkwardly, like a baby pigeon. When it reached ten metres, it hovered in place. In their brightly coloured outfits, her audience looked like an artwork, but movement inside the blimp passenger section suggested she might be attracting less innocent attention. Gently, Zip pushed the accelerator forward, and the little copter turned to face southeast and moved off. Down below, Mathew matched her speed and direction, gradually accelerating until they were both flying over the broken landscape at a steady fifty kmh.

  “Going dark, now.” And Mathew disappeared.

  Zip brought the rifle sight to her eye. A green blip indicated he was still directly below but otherwise invisible. She scanned to the left, then right and ahead. Nothing.

  The South of England, compared to the North beyond the wall where she’d travelled with Q, was both the same and different. There were the familiar ruins and scarred earth, but the scene was dotted with more stretches of open water that served to soften the landscape, only to the eye: it was all deadly; the water filling the craters was irradiated and chemically poisoned.

  “Defences ahead,” said Mathew.

  His calm voice in her Headgear refocused her attention. She scanned with her scope. Multiple targets blinked into existence as little red dots. Zip’s finger caressed the trigger. Old, hard-wired experience took over. If she fired now, she’d unleash defences and attract more predators. She waited. Mathew snaked around the threat and on they went.

  Above her, a carpet of unbroken cloud peppered her with raindrops. Far ahead, a narrow strip of lighter sky was followed by a line of pitch-black storm clouds piled one upon another like tar pillows, a line that marked the coast, probably only a couple of hours away.

  After a long while, a slit of dark sea became visible, sandwiched between the ravaged landscape and layers of cloud that looked like rancid fat appeared on the horizon. The coast and the channel were not far now.

  “Unavoidable massed defences ahead,” Mathew said.

  Zip jerked against her harness in surprise – he had been silent for an hour – and lifted the rifle to her visor. Her scope lit up with red dots surrounding a single blip of green. The rifle clip had forty rounds. Reloading took four seconds, if she remembered how to do it right. Mathew might not survive four seconds without cover fire. She waited. Waited. She could burst-fire four shots in a second and then have to wait two slow, cool-down seconds before she could fire again.

  The six red dots closest to Mathew started to converge on his position.

  “Fuck it,” she said. Zip ticked the closest four and fired. Mathew would have to deal with the other two. Four then two red dots disappeared. Hundreds of red dots lay ahead.

  Mathew’s stealth technology was exceptional, she thought. Professor Simmons was a genius. An evil one.

  Hundreds more metres flew past before any more of the defences were actively triggered. The bot field grew denser as the coastline neared. Twelve responded to Mathew’s passage. Zip repeated her targeting strategy, hoping the four she took down would impede the attack closing on Mathew long enough for the rifle to cool and allow her to fire again.

  She disliked herself for finding it exciting. The view through the scope turned it into a game. When she’d been where Mathew was, surrounded by crazed Hasidic Jews, it wasn’t a game. She’d shot, stabbed and kicked a few to death, while watching the rest being turned into a blood mist by unseen sniper support. Terrible memories. The scope pinged ready and she shot the next four targets. Mathew was still green and pulling away from his pursuers. Zip speeded up.

  Her scope pinged a single, bright-red alarm

  “Shit,” she whispered. She was going too fast. Zip decelerated and dropped her speed back below eighty kmh. With the scope re-fixed to her eye, she scanned right and left, forward and then backwards in rapid sweeps, nervously searching for any signs of surface-to-air fire. A harsh buzzing and a flashing, red icon warned her that a missile had locked onto her position. Zip wrenched her whole body around, so that she was almost facing backwards, and burst-fired four shots.

  The missile erupted into a fireball right on her tail. It threw her copter out of the sky and spiralling towards the earth. Zip had as much control as a passenger on a fairground rollercoaster. All she could do was hold on. S
ky, ruins, scarred earth and dull expanses of water flickered before her eyes as she spun and tumbled downwards.

  The splash was a good sign; sinking under the weight of the copter wasn’t. It was a deep crater. She was tangled up with the wreck of the gyro, and it dragged her down into ever-darkening depths. Switching her visor rapidly between light spectrums didn’t help. Q’s dead copter was sinking into a lightless cold soup of water, toxic chemicals and intense radiation. Finally, the rocky bottom embraced her, and then nothing was moving. Zip was pinned to the crater floor by the weight of the gyro. She struggled pointlessly for a few minutes as a ribbon of warnings raced across her visor. Death by suffocation, death by radiation, death by loneliness were all just a matter of time. She probably wouldn’t survive long enough to be lonely. Zip screamed in despair; not for herself – her death was long overdue – but the Church would kill Alice and her grandchildren, probably out of spite.

  The rifle was still securely strapped to her body. She pulled the scope to her visor and scanned the nothingness. Red dots were few and far away. Mathew’s green dot was faint and crossing out of her view. Zip panned towards Mathew. He was searching for her, in all the wrong places and moving further away. The depth of water was blocking her Headgear signal. The rifle scope was barely detecting Mathew; his green blip flickered then winked out, leaving only a memory on her retina and a couple of forlorn red dots lurking at the periphery.

  Strange, a week ago she would have been convulsed with a debilitating panic attack just being out in the open. Now, here she was, dying at the bottom of a flooded crater, thinking about surviving. It was Alice and the kids, saving them and maybe putting things right that kept her from being swamped by fear.

  She ticked two red dots and fired a four-shot burst. The depth of water would reduce the impact of her projectiles, but unless they were leviathan-class land cruisers, they wouldn’t survive. Thankfully, they winked out. Six more red dots appeared in an arc, probably along the crater edge. The alarms in her visor grew more strident; her life support was failing. Zip fired again and took out four of the newcomers. Her eyes were filled with purple and crimson warning flashes that only abated to display a gaudy yellow countdown showing a minute, and then less, of scrubbed air left. Ten red dots had appeared. Zip ticked and fired, waited, ticked and fired, waited, ticked and fired.