Exile- Arc

Exile: Arc 978-1-105-61691-4

_.Star Saga._ Copyright © Jack Lance "Let me tell you a story," Arc said, then gripped his hand at her and palmed the starry sky, "A wonderful, terrifying story."

Part I The Citadels Aren’t There

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Blood Money. An eye opens, taking in the sight of a hundred thousand stars flying by. The blazing fire of the stars burned within the man’s eye. He blinked slowly and then turned away as the view ahead cleared, and from the flames a single point of light flickered and glared out of the dark, only to be eclipsed a moment later by a large, bright red and blue planet. It’s surrounding rings angled and stopped, or rather, relatively the ship did so, and then all ahead was still and dead. Nine left the observatory, with the man leaving last. He affixed a helmet to an illuminous white suit and cocked a pistol ready, as did the others ahead of him. Their vessel slid slowly down into the planets orbit. No alarms sounded, no ships ran to intercept, since the solar defence grid had been fully hacked on approach. The space mainframe would recognize the ship as an innocent mineral hauler no matter what the circumstances that followed. From an opening in the side of the titanic bright white craft, the figures stepped out and walked toward the underside. As the ship approached close enough to burn against the atmosphere, it swivelled so to move the figures into the harsh blast.

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They stood within the fire looking at one another through the mockingly deformed animal shaped helmets. Once one had nodded to the rest they crouched and leapt up from the ship, falling down toward the planet. “Hello and welcome to Cequodus Prime.” the automatic tourist welcome message of the planet fed through as they dived down through the ionosphere, automatically mistaking them for nine visiting space craft. “This is the capital planet of the Cequodus Royal Dynasty. Adopted in 47133 for its central position between particle trade routes, while also being uniquely situated on a Lord layline within less than a light year, the planet has seen generations of Cequodus bring prosperity and hope to this quadrant of Lantis space, and provide goods and services to every species within the Eclipse Empire. We do hope you'll enjoy your stay!” The nine listened to or ignored this as they dropped down from the harsh upper air into the cloud belt and down through hills of grey gas. Lightning snarled ahead as they bombed through faster each moment, before suddenly the cloud ended and the ground, so much closer than on many other planets with less intense weather cycles, emerged and closed fast toward them. They dropped between tall, dark mountain peaks covered in black forests toward a palace’s grounds, built into one of the mountainsides. Seconds from impact the nine twisted with more power than the greatest of galactic gymnasts, and landed feet first in the courtyard of the Cequodus Dynastic Palace.

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The nano-scale pistons within the suits took all of the force of the fall, dispersing the impact across the wet marble courtyard, shattering it in nine shallow, wide craters. The rains continued as if nothing had occurred, as they each crouched in a ball for a moment, to get their bearings. Another snarl of lightning and its close thunder moved through the cloud above. They each stood up slowly, and looked around at the rain battered yard before a raised lawn, and the tall palace and mountain beyond it. The leader of the nine nodded again and they began to walk forward through the gardens toward the palace. In the main room the lights were on bright and inside through opaque glass could be seen silhouette figures sitting here and there and the sound of discourse between them. The nine moved to the glass wall fronting on to the lawns, and looked inward a moment before walking aside in two rows to the doors. At the mark of another nod from the tallest of them they shouldered through the doorways into the room and spread out aiming their wrist weapons and pistols at the seated figures. The one closest to the leader was clearly Pybus Cequodus. His fat, arrogant smile was spread all over his face. The leader shone the laser pointer of his weapon into his eyes and held it there for maximized discomfort, before pulling it away.

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The others looked between their leader and the sitting figures of the Cequodus family. Their leader reached and pressed the face of Pybus with the tips of his fingers and watched as his head fell backward and shattered upon the wooden floor. The nine stepped forward to see the rubble of the figurine. Within could be seen a small, old fashioned tape recorder playing back the voice of Pybus. “They made us.” one of the two women said. “Let’s get outa…” ”Check the vaults.” their leader said quietly, and the two women skipped and ran off toward the back of the building. One of the others walked close and whispered “Ace, we have to get out of here now.” Insanely, their leader screamed out and opened fire into the room. The others joined him in their frustration, spraying the huge room with hot sparks of plasma. The ceramic figurines of the Cequodus family burst and melted on fire, with the fire then quickly spreading and engulfing the entire room. When they had finally finished they heard over the suit's intercom the voices of the two women. “Can you read me?” one shouted. “The vaults are empty. I repeat they cleared em out.”

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“Teleporting in 5, 4, 3, 2…” their leader said, and in a crack of magnesium light all but one of them disappeared. Realizing the mistake, the man remained calm and walked out of palace onto the first of the damp lawns. The storm had cleared slightly, and through the gaps in cloud cover he could see their magnificent white ship in orbit. It was suffering a laser barrage from two other enormous ships that now surrounded it. It seemed that the others had taken control and were giving as good as they got, but in the confusion it seemed they hadn’t noticed one of their number had been left behind. Behind in the palace firebombs were being teleported in to cleanse it of the intruders. Such petty possessions were simple to replace, and one of thousands of palaces that the Cequodus family possessed. The man stood watching the sky, trying to remain calm, as the sounds of explosions drew nearer. The white ship banked away, ramming one of the Shadow Security ships out of its way, before engaging the backspace-drive and disappearing back into the night sky. The man heard slow footsteps approach from behind, and he turned to see the person through his visor. “Hello Arc.” Pybus Cequodus said as he stepped toward him on the lawn. His fat, over inflated appearance hissed and fizzed, denoting that it was a holographic projection of the Cequodus prince. A similar holographic projection of 7

Arc and the surrounding place would be seen at the opposite side. The prince stepped around the man called Arc and then stood staring at him in his suit. The deformed rabbit shaped helmet grinned back at him insanely, twisted bucked teeth and all. All in all it was not a scene the Cequodus would ideally like to portray to those pre-packaged tourists. “Ah. So very bold.” Pybus said leaning toward him slightly, and then faded away. Behind where he had stood, at the very far side of the lawn a tiny crack of magnesium light opened a small backspace gap, enough to pass through a firebomb. The object dropped to the lawn with a wet thump, and then a second later it exploded. The walls of the garden blew outwards and the grass and trees burst apart. Arc was thrown back from his feet like a ragdoll, and through the now splintering front windows of the palace. He flew into the room amongst a shower of glass, and slid up to the foot of the burning sofa. There he lay for a moment, a broken mess inside his suit of armour, before reaching to claw with the last of his meagre energy at the eye plate of his helmet. It squeaked against his fingertips slightly, and then he gave up. Arc lay panting and staring through the visor at the gaping mess where the front grounds of the palace had been, waiting now for his pain and injuries to take him into death. 8

He was delirious but noticed slowly that the garden had become occupied by a large host of cloaked figures. They glided slowly forward through the jagged windowframe and gathered in a group before him. A menacing sight to behold, they were draped from head to heel in a scaled shroud, with what seemed an impossibly thin body and limbs wrapped in a similar scaled fabric, at least so much as could be observed within the cloak. Around their faces it nipped quite tight, suggesting very alien features within, especially at the bulb of the mouth. There was a human chuckle, and Pybus walked between them, followed by the rest of his odious family. With no holographic interference this time it seemed they had come to finish him in person. “Welcome to Hell.” Pybus grinned nastily, and booted Arc hard in the face, killing him instantly.

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And where do I find my Soul now? A sarcophagus lay in the center of a cold room. Two hologramatic screens hovering an inch above each of the two halves of its lid chattered and churned through information about the occupant. Most were security analysis readings, with speeded-up checks and cross checks on the mobility of the man. Suddenly the data on the screen flushed red and orange and then disappeared. The room lay silent for a few moments save for the hiss of the nitrogen coolants in the walls spewing icy gas through vents and collecting on the floor all around. The lids of the sarcophagus whistled and hissed before moving aside spewing yet more cryo-gasses out to collect at the floor. A needle-like camera in the ceiling watched a man sit up and hold his head in his hands. He was mostly bald and pale skinned with a wiry muscular body. The camera watched and listened as the man groaned “Where am I?” “Where am I?” he yelled up at the camera, having apparently found it already. “Oh my word.” he said putting his head back in his hands for a moment, then looked up with wide eyes and spoke almost in a whisper. “Who am I?” 10

The funnel shaped speaker beside the camera howled hollowly for a moment as a charge was fed into it. A voice was then heard talking to someone else. “Is this some kind of a trick?” “No trick, sire. The bullet crushed a lot of the top part of his brain.” “Why wasn’t I told about this?” the man complained before clearing his throat and then talking more directly through the speaker. “My name is Horald Kinnyck. I am an emissary from the exile colony. I am in charge of… “ “Who am I?” the man yelled again putting his head back in his hands. After a pause Horald Kinnyck said “Your name is Arc Micormic. You are a terrorist and thief from the Lantis Colonies. You were caught while attacking a palace on Cequodus Prime.” “The dynasty?” the man said looking up hopelessly. “Oh my word… why would I…” “You and your brothers and sisters were attempting to steal diamond stores from the vaults. Our sensors showed there was an error in your ships teleportation cycle and you were stranded. Abandoned by your brothers and sisters. You 11

were taken into custody, and are now being taken to an exile colony under the supervision of Cequodus. You have nothing to worry about, and nobody at the colony will know your name or history if you don’t wish to divulge it. But you will not be able to leave the unit we assign for you. You will stay there until your death. Is this all clear?” “Perfect crystal.” the man who had been Arc said, almost sarcastically. “So who am I to be?” “Our computers have generated the name Aaron Bailey. You can change this now if you wish.” “Anything...” Aaron Bailey said softly and lay back below the mist of his cryo chamber. “You are entering the atmosphere of your new home, Mr Bailey.” Kinnyck said. “Please stay in that position for a moment.” Bailey leaned his head up through the mist and asked “Why? What’s the….hey!” The lids closed again over him and he could feel the sarcophagus being moved in the direction of the wall. It moved on runners into the wall and then a launch tube, fitting into it with a dull thud. Above the icy landscape of planet Narcosia the robotically piloted ship angled itself with its roaring jets and fired the sarcophagus out and into the deep snow. A burst of wet 12

snow sprayed up and out over the jet white walls of the prison unit. Figures in woolly, hooded jackets ran down from an open door in the massive wall, gathering up the sarcophagus between them and carrying it back into the place. One turned to watch as the ship banked away and blasted off toward the fast flowing snow clouds above. “Let me out of here!” Aaron Bailey hammered his fists on the insides of the lids. The room within the unit was a dank green mouldy enclosure behind the toppling waters of a fall. It was dark and looked nasty and natural, but for the portcullis in the smooth stone wall at the rear, that led from the real atmosphere outside. The figures pulled back their hoods once inside the open doorway. Behind them the snow blizzard fell into the room, while the heat from the place before them began to thaw the two shivering men. The white portcullis slowly lowered to the ground locking out the icy winds. The two men were from the colony, while the other, who was very much the one in command here, was a tall robot. It’s clear crystal encased computer brain flickered varying colours over the dull gold metal of its body, from its chin down to its feet. The metal moved like a canvas as the robot carried the heavy coffin to an area of clean rock near

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the falling water. The coffin lay in the light from behind the falls as the three figures stood back and looked it over. “Ok, everyone. Ready?” the robot looked around at the two men, although it was difficult to make out any features in it’s face. The steady black dots of it’s eyes were buried deep within the alternating colours of the positronic lights. The two men nodded, and watched as the robot leaned over the coffin and pulled aside the lids. Bailey sat up and grabbed the robot by the throat as the robot grabbed Bailey more gently by the throat and shoulders. Bailey glanced around at the scene within the robotic lightshow in the murky place. The robot pressed Bailey back down onto the cushions within the casket. “How are you?” the robot said very amiably. “What is your name?” “I’m… I’m… Aaron Bailey.” he said weakly and relaxed his grip. The robot let go and watched him a moment to make sure he had backed down, then went back beside the two men and waited to see what Bailey would do. Bailey leant his leg over the side of the lid and pulled himself out onto the muddy floor in his bare feet. He was

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wearing only a clinical overall which he had apparently been frozen in for transport. “Please don’t be afraid. We are all here to help you get well. Whatever you need…” the robot said. The two men nodded roughly, although something within Bailey found them unconvincing somehow. Bailey, half ignoring these words stepped closer to the ledge beside the casket and looked out over the drop of the waterfall. Through the water he could see a pool at the base of the falls, and then beyond that the room seemed to turn jet black strangely although he could see some folks milling around down there. Above was what could only be the scarlet canopies of tropical trees sourced from the planet Lantis, in lines on either side of the enclosure below. There was clearly some kind of memory still left behind he felt. “You must kneel on the line.” he heard the robot say, and he turned back to look at them. The robot was pointing at a white line in the rock plateau just behind his bare feet. Bailey thought for a moment then took a step back and lowered himself down, groaning quietly against the stiffness and aches that still remained from his slumber. Bailey glanced over his shoulder at the three people.

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Aside from the simple minded robot were the two thuggish men, that had the look and feel of a security detail. The first was a huge man with a deep rouge complexion. His eyes seemed trained on Bailey as if to denote that he meant business whoever he was. The other was a shorter man with a rat like face that looked more nurture than nature. Bailey couldn’t remember who or what he had been before he came here, but he seemed to have deduced a whole lot about these two already. The robot looked like it belonged in some old fashioned science fiction novel; only this wasn’t, and it was really happening, and in the only way it ever could. The robot gestured to the men. “These are Border Security officers. They are exiles just like yourself, but have earned a trustee role within the security force here in the unit. They will be your officers during your adjustment period. I am Zep Teppi, a robot as you will have guessed. I control this alteration unit here on Narcosia.” “Good good.” Bailey said, and then gathered thoughts that he found now raced through his mind. “How long was I in cryo stasis?” “We can’t say for sure.” Zep said. “But you were in orbit for over a week. They had to wait out a window in the weather warm enough to air drop you.”

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“Over a week. Ouch.” Bailey said. The robot droned on “The officers and I will show you your cell. It has already been assigned. They will be basic grade quarters to begin with, upgrading to better grades as you earn more levels and credits. It’s a system I invented…” Bailey looked at the robot square and said “Riiiiight.” There were no more words from the robot or the two men. They gestured for Bailey to stand and then guided him down one of two flights of stone steps at either side of the plateau. They led around the central line of falling water, and through another curtain of water that on passing through gave him a slightly better perspective on his situation. The enclosure he found, was a garden that had been torched, probably by one of the hopeless looking exiles he now saw milling around. The grass had been charred black and also the trunks of the trees on either side had been burnt narrow and twisted. The red foliage seemed to have been untouched and still clumped together high up at the arched ceiling. One of the trees had leaned steeply to the side so that they now had to duck underneath, looking almost as if it had been tugged by some fierce hurricane. As they walked under it Bailey glanced back at the cave and waterfall they’d come from. He found it to be a fountain of sorts, that extended from the wall, in the shape of cupped hands reaching out at different heights, with the largest 17

pool just above the cave ceiling. The dank water dropped between gaps in the fingers to lower pools down to the main pond at the base. Dirty yellow moss covered the wet parts, and seemed to illustrate how carelessly the place was maintained by the robot. “It’s this way.” the rat like officer pushed Bailey’s shoulder impatiently and Bailey continued toward a broad archway at the opposite side of the place. Only now, once away from the roar of the falling water Bailey heard a strange noise coming from above. It sounded like a pig or some other animal howling constantly and without pause. He looked at the two men that didn’t seem to give it much thought. Zep and the two goons took Bailey through the garden, avoiding some screeching kids that played around what he assumed to be their medicated parents. They sat on the burnt and slightly wet grass with other men and women that looked to be part of the wrong element of society. “Home sweet home.” Zep swung his arms around at the hydroponics garden majestically, and then marched down the mossy steps through the stone arch in the wall. Bailey followed them out into a smaller hall soaked through with water trickling from the arch. There was a stair case leading down to a dark place below, but Zep walked away to the side, toward another stone arch leading to what looked to be the first of a row of cells.

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Before it was a corridor leading back along the side of the gardens with small windows looking in at the nasty place. More rows of cells junctioned off from it, lined with uninviting cubicles. Bailey followed along the corridor to a stairwell at the end and then up past another similarly inhuman floor to the third, being the top. There was a door with a key coded lock that looked to lead to a further stair well and Bailey asked what it was. “Is this where the screams come from?” Bailey asked bluntly. Zep looked at him over his shoulder as he walked along the nearest row of cells, and said “Don’t go near there.” Bailey followed along the freezing corridor, its floor covered in shoe prints from the charcoal mud brought up from the gardens. He said “You know, this place is a bit of a dump yeah?” “This floor is actually the warmest in the unit.” the man with the rouge complexion said, barely selling the idea to himself. “Lucky me.” Bailey said into his face, causing him to flinch slightly. They took him to the open door of a cell, with a strip cut out of the wall to the right that was apparently meant to serve as a window. 19

“You can hang a drape over this door or anything you choose.” the rat faced goon said, pointing at the corners of the gaping holes. “But at 8 in the evening you must be within your quarters for lockdown. If not you’ll be left outside all night, which is sadly, unheated. You’ve already seen pretty much all there is here so there’s no excuse not to make it back. It’s a tiny unit, you won’t get lost.” “The air can freeze at certain times of the year.” Zep backed him up. “So get back here, son.” “I will.” Bailey sighed sarcastically. A smile dawned on the big goon’s face. “You’ll learn, I’m sure. And hopefully not the hard way. Watch your back for cattle, and don’t provoke them.” “Cattle?” Bailey asked. The goon looked to Zep Teppi, who sported a brief uneasy look and then went on “Cattle, you know? Murderers. Bull fags and the like. They cattle together in places like this, so be on your guard. It might be best if you just stayed in your cell.” “Can I call you if I need anything? I might need to talk to someone.” Bailey pushed. “Oh, I don’t know.” Zep said cluelessly. “You can talk to me about anything. But you must accept your place here,

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and all medication I prescribe for you. You aren't going to heal yourself after all...” He’s a very basic read-write artificial intelligence for the quantum processor. I’ll cave his robot head in! “What? I’m not crazy like them.” Bailey said emptily. “Of course… Well we have other duties to other exiles so we’ll leave you to get settled in.” Zep’s rat faced backup tried to smile. Bailey stepped back through the doorway of the dank room as Zep held up his fists and said “Yes! No! We’re on a roll! Let’s go!” Bailey watched Zep point away, then they turned and headed back along the corridor. Like Hell. “What?” Bailey said, then realized that neither of the men or the robot had said it. He continued to watch them leave down the stairwell before entering his dark, foul smelling quarters. He looked to the hammock on the far side, then looked to the small chalk board on the floor and the words “Points exam: What shape are you feeling?” permanently embedded at the top. The toilet was in a slight alcove near the bed, and the smell 21

of girly-poo was still in the air, suggesting that a woman had been here previous to him. He sighed and left again, listening to that strange guttural howling from above. He walked back to the adjoining corridor that he now saw had a number of porthole-like windows looking down on the gardens through the red leaves. He stood a moment looking down at the ugly folk there and felt his attention being dragged in the direction of the scream, to the locked door at the stair well. Cequodus security system PTY55-g. The default passcode programmed by the manufacturers is 3333. You know if the robot changed it we’ll need to beat the new code out of him. Go! “Go.” Bailey mouthed the word, then walked to the door and looked at the keypad. Bailey entered the code, not expecting anything to really happen, and watched the door click and open slightly. The scream suddenly washed over him and he dived through it onto the stairs, and closed the door behind him. He was sure nobody had seen him at least, and so turned and walked up the freezing steel steps toward the piercing screams. Finding a large fur lined coat on a hook at the top, much like the one worn by Zep’s Security guards, he put it on in the dark at the top of the stairwell.

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Here there was another small door, that looked to be half frozen to its metal frame. He pulled on the freezing handle and cracked it open and slowly moved inside. Beyond it was a large room that filled the entire upper floor of the unit, with just a sloping cabin holding the door to the stairs. At the far side, along the outer wall were a series of tall open gaps, allowing the harsh weather outside to spill inward. The whole room was frozen in ice, and if it weren’t for the steady, blood curdling scream he would have sworn he were alone in the glistening place. Bailey scanned his eyes around the whole of the room, and eventually found something that looked strange in the direction of the noise, beside one of the towering gaps to the outside. There was a crucifix there, lit by the small amount of light coming from the setting sun beyond a mountain range. He walked over to it, huddling in the warmth of the jacket. It had been jabbed into the solid ice floor and to it had been screwed a large, gaunt creature. He limped up to the foot of it, finding it to be at least twice the size of himself and looked up at what had been making the noise. For the first time since he had come to the place it stopped and coughed slightly, then lethargically looked down at him. He recognized it as anyone would from their society. It was a Grey, one of the ancient race that had created great space mainframe, The Lord. It was a massive AI network that served as the robotic foundation of their space faring society, the Eclipse Empire.

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They were an ancient race of engineers, totally absorbed by their magnificent creation, and jealously obsessive in their charitable goals. The Greys were indifferent by and large to the pettier politics of power dynasties they had liberated from their homeworlds, as they each squabbled over the democratic rights to be 'ruling house'. They instead enforced a common legal system over the whole of Empire space; a harsh reminder of their scientific monopoly. It was human in shape but starved thin and tortured by the freezing planet. It was screwed and chained to the crucifix and had been partially frozen to it so that parts of its limbs were encased in the ice. Only its pale, bulbous head seemed to hang completely free. It was clearly watching Bailey now with its dark, almond shaped eyes. “Hello?” Bailey said, and half expected it to scream back at him. “What are you doing here?” it said. “I’m a prisoner.” Bailey said. “Are you a prisoner?” It seemed to smile through its impossibly thin chin, and then said “What does it look like you Lantis halfwit.” “I dunno. I didn’t think we had authority to detain your kind.” Bailey said. “What happened?” The creature laughed slightly then said “It doesn’t matter. And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” 24

“Do you want me to set you free? I don’t care much.” Bailey said. “Kill me. I don’t want to live like this. Please, I’m sick of my dirty soul.” There was a honk of a siren and then the words “Lockdown in five minutes!” “Don’t say that.” Bailey said as he turned to leave. “I’ll come back tomorrow and set you free.” The alien creature laughed as Bailey turned and ran across the ice toward the door. A roll of thunder could be heard in the skies through the gaps in the wall. Bailey returned to his cell and stopped dead in its one, bleak room, still wearing the heavy winter coat. He walked forward and stared close at the hanging bulb that burned at the center of the ceiling, then bowed his head and stood, waiting. Night was falling and the time for lockdown had come. Bailey stayed with his head hung low, his eyes half closed as a harsh rasping voice shouted “Lockdown in 20, 19, 18… “ It counted down to two before omitting one and then lockdown began with the darkening of the bulb over his shoulders. The open doorway behind Bailey was sealed with an old plate sliding up from the ground. The window that 25

ran along the rest of the outer wall was filled first with strips running upward, and then by strips running from the left. For a second the room was in complete darkness, before a pattern of square holes in the seals lifted outward allowing light in through small, glass windows. The holes were no bigger than his hand but there were enough of them to light the room, but only just. Bailey casually turned on his heel to look at them, then walked over to the hammock and slumped into it. Outside the place, in the real atmosphere of the planet a storm began with another low roll of thunder. There were no more screams from the creature on the top floor, and Bailey wondered if he had done a little good here in this terrible place. Something within Bailey still was racing, like the quantum mind of that robot, but as for Bailey, it was time to fall asleep. He heard the sounds of the storm begin to rage as he sank into some dream. You know you’re so close to the end. Bailey opened his eyes as a harsh rasping of thunder sliced through the walls of the prison. Had he dreamt that voice? Or had the words been here just like the storm?

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“Hey Chico?” Bailey heard someone speaking and turned to look at the wall just over his shoulder. He saw in the low light, one of the bricks slide away and then someone began to speak through the hole in the wall. “Got any bread? Got any women? Got any bread?” it said. “Go away.” Bailey said flatly. “No need to be unfriendly. Pokey just wants to be friends with the new boy.” “We’re not friends. Up yours pal.” There was a sound a little like a laugh and then the brick was put back into its place. Straight away, the sound of extremely irritating music with an unnecessarily heavy beat began blaring on the other side of the wall. Whoever lived next door banged a few times just to indicate that he was doing it deliberately to annoy Bailey. The music continued into the mid-morning when the lockdown ended and the door and window were uncovered. Bailey immediately donned sandals, a t-shirt and cord pants that he found in an old chest beside the hammock. Casually he strolled around to his neighbors’ quarters, finding both the door and window closed off by reinforced metal. There was a strange knocker on the door and a keyhole the size of a child’s wrist.

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“Hmm.” he said, noticing a few of the other people eying him warily, apparently realizing that he had scored disfavour with the crazy person living at this address. Bailey nipped his mouth comically and knocked on the door. A moment later he heard someone scrabbling around at the large keyhole. “Pokey? Is that your name? It’s your neighbour.” he said. A small child’s voice answered him, whimpering through the hole “Daddy not in. Please help me. I can’t feel anything.” Into the dark. Go. “Hmn. I see.” Bailey said and then walked away. Straight past the corridor overlooking the gardens and ignoring the door leading up to the creature he walked down to the bottom level and around to the small hall by the gardens. Ignoring the gardens he stepped to the top of the broad stairs leading down to the dark place below. Wherever it led to was below the entire rock structure of the unit, including the gardens, but it was the only place he had not seen with his own eyes within the narrow limits of the place. He stepped cautiously down into it, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, and straight away heard a throng of voices within. 28

He found first the murky green tank of the underside of the garden pond, with its clear sides shedding a meagre amount of light on that far side of the basement. Next he found the glimmer of lights from a keypad to his right, illuminating the numbers on the pad. His feet reached the bottom and heard the creak of old wood, and as his eyes adjusted fully he saw he was standing on a set of old boards that had been suspended over what looked to be a bottomless drop. There was enough space between boards in places to fall through so he decided to be careful. “You want to be friends with Pokey now?” he heard that same voice from the hole. “We gonna be gooood friends.” He looked and saw the throng of men and women approaching him in the dark. “I’ve got friends.” Bailey said, and seemed to anger slightly the man called Pokey. “You no feel sorry for Pokey?” he said with a fake indignance. “You no feel sorry for Pokey’s childrens?” Kill them all! Butcher! Slaughter! Kill! “No!” Bailey cried out, then turned and ran back up the steps.

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He ran right back to the top level, and entered the door to the frozen attic. Forgetting to shut the door properly behind him he ran up and stumbled out onto the icy floor while fitting another of the big jackets over his shoulders. He ran across toward the dull crucifix and bowed before the alien, panting and said “I’m not meant to be here.” “That’s where you and I differ.” it said in quiet reply. “Oh Gosh. I am alone aren’t I?” Bailey whimpered. “You are not alone. I hear whispers. Millions of Lantis. Millions of halfwits!” it hissed. “I can hear shapes. Homes. Engines. I have something to show you. Take a look outside! Climb out to the ledge and tell me what you see.” Bailey said nothing, and stumbled around the crucifix to the first of the towering gaps in the wall. He looked out into the murky daylight of the planet, across a shallow valley to a gothically twisted power station just before the beginnings of a jagged mountain range. Wind farms reached up out of it, capturing the flow of air from between the peaks. Beyond it all the glowing multi coloured orb of a gas giant rested down into the horizon, with its plethora of moons littering the rest of the sky. “I had already guessed that this lost little place was a moon of some kind.” Bailey sighed as he stood in the gap. “Not quite sure how, but I seemed to… err… nice view.”

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He turned and looked at the Grey, who chuckled slightly and said “Not there. Go right outside and look up…” Bailey slid through one of the gaps slowly, and hugged one side of the metal divides as he stepped out onto a narrow outer ledge. It was a long drop below to a ring of floodlights around the entrance and the same bright blue and grey marbled rock that the moon seemed to be mostly made up of, besides the ice. Bailey steadied himself and looked upwards as directed. He had expected to see a short wall and then the roof, but here he saw a massive wall reaching up, and curving away into the grim clouds. The smooth white wall reached away to both sides for an equally gargantuan distance. A dome. Approximately 20 miles in diameter. A lie… A gust of wind threatened to budge him from his perch, and so he slowly slid back through the gap. He dropped down onto the icy floor and walked back around to the alien, who had a knowing smile on its gaunt face. “I know I’m right.” it hissed quietly as he walked around to face it. “Tell me I’m right. I haven’t lost it.” They’re testing to see how long it takes it to die! Kill!

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“This place is huge. You are quite right about that.” Bailey said, and walked back around to the side of the crucifix. His foot caught on something and looking down he saw it was a ladder. Bailey looked up sheepishly at the side of its alien face and then sat down on it and stared out at the mountains, and the flowing, milky cloud over it. He watched for a long time as the close orb of the planet sunk downward and the rest of the moons changed positions in ways that felt right but couldn’t be fathomed to look at. The skies began to dim as evening approached and for the first time Bailey felt a coldness move through him. How can we work such a bleak and smelly place? Ignoring the coldness Bailey stood up and slung a small pebble out through the wide gap and watched it arc through the air toward the planets above. “I’m not very good company, am I?” Bailey said as he walked around the enormous, encased feet of the thing. Outside a storm suddenly engulfed the prison, with the winds knocking Bailey forward slightly before steadying himself and huddling in the huge jacket.

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“That won’t do. You must get out of here quickly.” it said, and already Bailey could feel the cold grasping at his flesh through the layers. Suddenly he was startled by the sound of the door below opening and footsteps walking up the long stair. Bailey walked backward toward the Grey as men poured into the room from the metal stairwell hut. They were the ‘cattle’ he had met earlier, only now they had brought all of their friends, that made up a large contingent of this tiny unit. They looked vacant and prejudiced, and didn’t seem worried about the icy drafts. “How about we finish what we started sweet cheeks.” the man that fitted Pokey’s voice said while rubbing a deep scar along his chin. They were all glaring at him with a strange sort of amusement. Now is the time to kill. The cattle deserve to die. Feel that? Bailey looked at the alien over his shoulder and said “I’m sorry you had to see this.” He then turned to the crowd and began bobbing on his feet while slapping his hands together. Behind the crucified alien the razors of the snow blizzard were misting into the room, threatening to kill them all if it grew any more freezing.

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The crowd moved at him calmly at first, and Bailey met the first, tugging at their shoulder with one hand while planting his fist through their face with the other. The next he elbowed on the soft crown of the head, and then the next and the next were dispatched until he was so surrounded that he had to use the fallen as shields, kicking them into some of the crowd to divide them into more easily manageable groups. Eventually he had killed them all but two. Pokey had retreated to the back with a particularly tall and muscular man. He growled and ran at Bailey without any sense or fear, with his huge friend at his side. Bailey waited until they were close, and then dived down while twisting the back of his calves to strike Pokey’s legs. Pokey tripped and fell through the air, bouncing once on the ice before sliding up to the base of the crucifix. The tall man, a little disorientated stopped and watched with Bailey as the long, thin claws of the creatures feet burst out of the ice and wrapped around Pokey’s face. He screamed and grabbed at the toes as they squeezed tighter around his skull. The pressure built until the blood burst from his head. The taller, shaking man lunged at Bailey, who caught him and twisted him around in his own momentum. He stumbled across the blood soaked ice on the floor, and was making to get back up when Bailey ran and kicked him hard on the butt, throwing him forward toward the freezing blizzards beyond the gaps. He tripped and stumbled through one of the openings and immediately froze as the cold winds found him. The freezing liquids within him 34

expanded causing his body to bust out and grow like a tree from the outer ledge. Bailey stepped back in horror at the strange sight, and began panting uncontrollably. “Was that you in my head? How did I?” Bailey’s voice quivered as his fearful eyes flicked here and there. “No. It wasn’t you. What the hell am I thinking?” “You have to get out of here, Bailey.” it said while looking at him with a sadness. “How could you have survived this torture?” Bailey said, looking at the harsh storms that it must have suffered countless times. “Oh God! The Lantis are doomed, aren’t we?” “It’s not just your species, Mr Bailey.” it said as Bailey stood panting, looking over what he seemed to have done. “I was a spy. I have seen many planets, and all are the same. Bloody dramas without an audience. You want to do some good in this universe?” Bailey looked at the once majestic Grey alien hanging above it all, and stood up straight. It was looking at him with those sad, knowing eyes. “Now me.” it said, and cocked its head slightly, revealing its emaciated neck.

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Bailey walked closer to it crouching hard against the storm. He placed the frozen laddering at its side and then climbed up until he was at its head height, and then reached across to its throat. It was panting thick fog into the cold air, and seemed to grow more exited as the moment of its death drew near. Bailey sank his fingers into its leathery hide and twisted hard on its spine. His strength was immense for his size, being enough to snap the huge spinal column, killing it instantly. Its head flopped aside onto his wrist, and he slowly pulled his hand away. He left it hanging there with the litter of dead cattle around the floor at its feet, and then solemnly made his way back down to the cells. He stood and waited in his cord jeans and t shirt until night fell, and then it was time. My time. Bailey could hear the voices of Zep Teppi and his two goons somewhere, in another corridor. They don’t live in these cells, you moron. “Lockdown in 5, 4, 3…” Bailey listened to it and then casually stepped outside of his cell.

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The plate slid up covering the door and then the window slit. He stood outside of the barricaded cells in the corridor, and then turned and made his way to the top of the stairwell. The voices of the three men were approaching from the next corridor over, and so he quickly crept down to the bottom level. He took the stairs down to the basement level and tried what he believed to be the default manufacturers code for that keypad system. It returned an electronic groan as the code failed and so Bailey made a decision. Hide. Watch. Wait. Carefully navigating the wooden floor boards, he sat in the far back corner beside the tank containing the lime stained pond. He balanced where he crouched on a plank of wood over the dark precipice, near where the excess of the pond was drained out in a series of sluices, each dropping away into the darkness below. Bailey crouched just outside of the green glow and waited. Eventually he saw the backwash of the flickering lights from Zep Teppi’s head reflecting over the stairs. Then the two goons came down into sight, and walked across to the keypad, not seeing Bailey in the shadows. The lights of the brain of Zep the robot faded, as he walked away into his unit.

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The rat faced goon entered a key code as Bailey watched, then both men entered the doorway. It then slid forcefully shut, and the keypad reset to its dim green glow. 12, 14, 2, 19, 20, 2, 14, 8, 18, 18, 6 “I know. I don’t know how I could have seen that but I know.” Bailey said out aloud. He walked to the door and pushed his fingers through a grating near the top. There was warm air moving over his fingers beyond the door. Do it now. “I mustn’t!” Bailey cried out as he reached up to input the code. The door slid aside and Bailey found himself looking into the eyes of both officers, standing at the far side of a warmly lit corridor before an open doorway to what looked like a much larger cavern. There was a hollow echoing of what had to be a pretty huge place beyond. The old amber strip lighting overhead flickered and buzzed, as Bailey looked over the eyes of each of the goons. Nobody said a word as they stared at one another in the dusty corridor. Just that buzzing, that almost seemed to swallow up the other more natural sounds.

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They both then walked toward him side by side, flexing their fists for what would only be a harsh manhandling back to his cell. A tear escaped Bailey’s eye as the two men drew close enough to touch, and then they stopped and looked at one another for a moment. The smaller man filled with energy and swung a punch toward him, but somehow Bailey grabbed it, and twisted his whole body around in its own massive momentum. An arrowed hand found a pressure point on his neck sending him back and out of the way, giving Bailey just enough time to finish the job with the other. The big man grinned and loomed toward the smaller balding figure of Aaron Bailey. By the time the other had righted himself, the big man’s head was a battered mess. Bailey looked shaking and shivering at his hands covered in the man’s blood. The last officer saw that he wasn’t going to be able to control the situation and leapt to press a punch button on the wall. A strange bell suddenly started to ring outside in the big cavern, and the heavy, rusted door to the outside slowly began to slide down over. Bailey ran for it, landing a punch on the cowering rat faced officer as he passed. He hit the floor, dead behind him as he sprinted for the slowly lessening gap between the floor and the door.

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The corridor seemed like treacle to run through, and the buzzing of the warm light dragged his psyche back. He leaped feet first, skidding in sand through the door, and out, where he slid to a stop on the concrete beyond. The door moved down into its locking position with a heavy slam. Straight away in the silence of the new place he heard that strange, off-tone chime of a large bell. You will see. Look. Bailey sucked cool, dusty air into his lungs and turned around to look up at the outer wall of the place he had just escaped from. There was a text painted in massive lettering on the wall space between the cold concrete expanse he lay upon and the old beamed ceiling high above. It read “Red Sector: Psycho Wing” just below the huge rocking bell, rusted and old, chiming out into the cavern. Panicking Bailey kicked and scrambled to get away from the place. He ran blindly out into the dark cavern along the expansive concrete flooring, before coming to piles of coal and soot which he would have to climb over if he wanted to continue in this way.

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High above him a flock of seagulls began complaining loudly in their way, as they circled in the low light looking for something to scavenge. A dome. A lie. This huge cave could swallow that unit twenty times or more, and must be the first of many in this geographical imprisonment. Where in hell are you? He began to stagger between the gullies in between the piles, careful not to breathe in when one of the many gusts of strange wind in the giant cavern kicked up enough of the dust that lay over them. Time passed slowly and he walked far through them in a direction he judged to be away from that door. He gradually felt the moisture seep out of him and without any water in sight in the cold dark place he had no option to push on despite it. He staggered onward, eventually catching sight of the far side, and a relatively small light high in its wall. As he grew nearer to it he found it to be a wide opening with a balcony looking out over the expanse from which he had come. Two flights of steel steps squarely spiralled down to the cavern floor. Bailey dizzily walked away from the last of the soot piles toward the leftmost stairwell. It sat in the ground a meter or so away from the huge bricks that made up the outer wall and ceiling of the gigantic cave. Ahead, the huge wall of the cavern stretched away into the darkness to either side and above with only the small 41

rectangle of light half way up. Behind him now, the low moan of the circulating air over dusty desert steadily rattled the ancient metal pillars that held aloft the roof of the place here and there. He could hear low voices travel on the wind from up on the balcony, although looking he could only see the backs of a group leaning against the balcony wall. Bailey walked up the steps trying not to make a great deal of noise, and alarm whoever it was. Once at the top he found a group of younger men and women, all painted heavily on their bare arms, legs and face. They had a similar vacant look to the cattle gang he had faced off in Red Sector, but he doubted fate would be so unkind after such a tiring marathon. Skate punks. Insult them. Bailey stood staring at them, as one of them noticed and gestured curiously to the rest. Others looked at him, with one of the girls smiling a kind smile. I brought you this far. “Um…” Bailey said in confusion as he stepped across the balcony before them, and then through the gap in the mighty wall to the cavern on the other side, where a similar balcony looked out into a slightly better lit place. His eyes were sore as they adjusted to the change of luminance, and 42

slowly he found more and more of those shapes the alien had heard. Chimneys of factories could be seen immediately, and in the closest street below, Bailey saw a bus pull away from a stop, hissing with an archaic engine that seemed juxtaposed to the high tech nature of the colony itself. Within the overall dome it was another large cavern that hummed with machinery of industry, and distant fairground music. At the height of the balcony in its wall, the fairground and its four enormous merry go rounds could be seen beyond two industrial units, that billowed smoke up to a haze at the stone ceiling far above. From there at the top of a hillside where the true colony no doubt began, the whole cavern was packed tightly with factory units separated by narrow, badly kept roads, and two dry river beds running from storm drainage sluices at the top of the slope. They led to the main storm drainage river below the platform, which was dry enough to cross at this time of year. The steps to the balcony hung down into where the waters would have been, providing a meagre access to the soot fields and the psycho wing deeper in the dome shell. On looking closer Bailey saw that same design of robot as his former jailor, Zep Teppi. He cringed against the balcony rail, realizing that the place before him was full of these things.

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Standard, archaic design of service droid. Wirelessly networked, sadly. If they catch us, they’ll kill us. Or worse, send us back into that nowhere place. I can help, but you must do as I say. Behind, he heard crazy, piercing laughter from the punks. I said, insult them. I want you to trust me. Mind, body and soul. Unquestioningly. “Who the hell…” Bailey panted uncontrollably as he turned away from the colony to look back at the gang of tattooed yobs. “He… Ur… Hey!” Bailey started. “You look like a paint and decorating accident.” No more lies. Now it’s my turn to drive. The gang looked at each other calmly before pushing from the balcony ledge and approaching him, the men walking ahead of the girls. How can we work such a world? These bleak and smelly lives worth so little even to themselves. How can you win? We’ll see. Bailey chuckled hopelessly and said “Okay. I’ll trust y…” He was halted as one of the gang, smiling, hit him over the head with a thin steel rod that he had seemingly produced out of nowhere. 44

All of the gang had a chance to take out their aggression on Bailey’s unconscious body, until eventually they stole what little was in his pockets and stripped him of his shirt and pants. They then lifted his naked body to the balcony edge, and onto its thin stone wall. The noise of metal liquor crates sliding to and fro in bulk echoed in the cold air, as the gang threw Bailey’s naked body over the side. It fell down alongside the web of scaffolding that propped up the platform from the river. They watched, morbidly hoping to see it impact on the concrete, but some of the rusty scaffold was reaching out a little from the rest. Bailey’s naked body dropped into these, and slumped over one of the poles, where he hung unconscious over this outer city district “Meow.” one of the girls said and looked at the others.

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From the Depths, From The Dust… “C’mon Spunkers! Let’s make it! Oh yeah!” a young man skated fast along a pipe in the storm drainage system below the colony He was wearing oil stained work pants, shirt and bracers, and his head was encased in the gaseous haze of a hologram mask, with its mess of spinning infograms and commercials flickering in the low light. “The path is there and it’s meant to be shared!” He skated swiftly around each curved turn in the pipe, eventually finding a ramp leading up through a wide doorway into one of the huge caverns. He flew up it, leaping out high over a yard full of storm drain service robotics, and with enough momentum over the yard wall and down into the fairground opposite. The wheels of his rollerblades landed hard on its wet wooden circle, slowly spinning. It was one of a couple in the lame, mainly unused fairground. They had been turning slowly in their way since they were created along with the colony, long before it had been converted into a prison. The young man slid off the edge through one of the gaps in the wood walls, and landed on the gentle slope between it and the mainly empty ribbons leading to the gateway to a rollercoaster. The coaster swung by on its robotically timed journey as he passed. With a short kick to the concrete he accelerated toward the large arched gateway leading out of the fairground, atop a sloping bank, that led down to the outermost wall of the prison city.

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“Spunkers! Spunkers! Don’t care anymore!” he sang loud as he went. The robot attendant within the ghosttrain shed glanced at him as he passed, and left the place. The droid was much the same as Zep Teppi, but with a much reduced role, here selling tickets in a fairground. The skater launched out with speed onto the main road and then into a small parking lot opposite. With a few more kicks to the concrete he had built up enough speed to jump onto the front of one of the parked automobiles and launch up from the cracked windscreen over the fence at the end of the lot. He landed hard on the steep slope of a dry river bed, that would be fed at times by a grated hole from the storm drainage system. He rolled fast down the smooth concrete, which skaters such as himself used regularly to build up enormous amounts of speed. It led for a long way, and after a dangerous few moments of speeding he reached the bottom, where the river ran in tributary to the main emergency storm drainage river. “You can be a closed door…..” he sang the last line of the space-funk anthem as he descended toward the river. “Or a corridooooooor!” The sides of the dry river bed sloped steeply upwards in a smooth curve on both sides. Skaters used this feature for their own enjoyment, as this person now did, carefully hooking into the curve on the opposite side. The upward curve carried him in his speed up high through the rusty scaffolding along the wall. He slowed as he reached a dangerous height, noticing calmly the body of the naked man slumped over one of the railings. He passed by Bailey’s 47

body, scanning for it’s identity with the networked interface in the mask. He passed again on his descent back down to the curve and then skating over the river to the curve opposite he launched back up high and took another curious look at the half dead naked body. He dropped again to the river bed, skating back across, and up through the scaffolding again. With a little less height this time he was able to take hold of the closest railings and hang beside the body. He stared at it for a moment through the inconclusive identity readouts before reaching over with his left foot and kicking his butt with the skate. Bailey scoffed and grumbled, still unconscious. “Oh, deary moo.” the man said, and then looked curiously at the pattern of Lantis birth markings that ran across the back of his shoulders, upper arms and neck. “Strong puppy?” On saying this, an application installed into his mask apparatus began scanning over the naked torso. It identified many interesting markings and genetic patterns, highlighting them within the holographic display, and informational tags sprouted out from the highlights. The app tested for street combat ability, and the thicker the marks, the more savage the fight in the dog, or so the bookies always said.

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The man slowly smiled like an idea had dawned upon him and he looked around at the district for ways to make it work. Just across from the entrance to the soot caverns was a freight warehouse yard full of crates. A highspeed train was at this moment entering the city district and the yard through a tall arched tunnel that led to the inner city. He watched it roll up to the end of the tracks on its bridging and stop with a hiss as two tall robot operated cranes began their motion through the thick smog above. They began dropping their weighty hooks down to the crates below, then lifting them up through the air to the flat plates pulled between the magrail engines. Soon these crates full of manufactured goods would be taken back into the city and so a chance was there to be taken. The man watched as the holographic apparatus in his mask scanned the layout below for surveillance points and security weaknesses. It was another illegal application to install in the mask but such was life in the exiled world. A green hue overlaid his vision showing him the viewpoints of each camera and colony robot, and carefully he mapped out a path through the industrial jumble to where he needed to be. A hollow horn sounded within the factories and the man knew that he’d need to be quick to avoid the flood of rush hour. Already he could see the seething mass of men and 49

women spilling out of the buildings up and down the hillside, in full view of where they hung on the outer wall. Any one of those miserable dole boosters could easily spot and report them, and he had no doubt they would. He moved below and hoisted Bailey’s body onto his left shoulder, before letting go and dropping the distance to the bottom of the wall. Angling the skates carefully he hit the slope in a direction so to roll under the road bridge and back up the tributary he had come from. As he rolled up the bank his speed lessened and timing it just right he shouldered up the side of the river bed. Using the slope he leaped up and over the high wall of the warehouse yard, and with the right amount of speed cleared the wall and grabbed hold of a CCTV pole on the inside. He clasped at a bundle of wires while hugging his other arm around Bailey’s midriff, and stood against the pole with the skates. Above him the camera swivelled on its computer decided path, and he hung as silently as possible as the warehouse workers began filtering by below toward the gates. Seeing that he was in full view of these few commuters he quickly pressed his foot against the pole and kicked back, jumping down toward one of the many big freight crates that were to be filled and loaded onto the carriages. He stepped on the edge of the crate to slow himself and then stumbled as best he could down between it and the next crate over. He landed hard and felt like he had sprained an ankle in doing so.

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The man crouched holding his ankle with one hand, while on the far side of the yard he could see the freight train high up on its bridge, and that half of its carriage trays had already been loaded. Time was of the essence as the rest would be loaded soon, and so ignoring the pain he began skating hard along the narrow gully between the crates, with Bailey’s short body slung over his shoulder. Above him the train on its bridging of flyovers grew nearer and then he was forced to stop, as the crate beside him was lifted up high into the air by one of the two loading cranes. Having removed that box he was now in full view of the remaining robotic workers in the yard and so quickly he leaned onto the bar that opened the thick side door to the nearest crate, and pulling with all of his remaining strength he managed to tug open a gap just wide enough to slide through. He held Bailey close and disappeared into the shade within. Within this crate was a flamboyant pink and yellow car with a wide front and back bonnet and elaborate furry interior. Such was the popular style with certain sections of the populace. He lay Bailey’s naked body over the bonnet, and hearing a loud thud on the roof above him he leapt for the opening and pulled the door shut. Immediately he felt strain in his knees as the crane lifted the crate high over the yard and slammed it down on one of the

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empty train carriage trays. The man fell back and steadied himself against the car. Sighing, he then leaned back against the crate door as another box slammed down inches away on the adjacent carriage. These particular crates were carrying vehicles to be sold or leased it seemed, and so they would undoubtedly be taken directly to the central metropolis, which was where they needed to go. All he needed to do now was wait, and let the train travel the long distance across the radius of the city. The last crate had been loaded, and the train began to move. It rolled back into the tall archway and over the dirty, cemented cobblestone ground in the tunnel. The same cobblestones surrounded the next district over and served as the main substance used for the paths and lanes that ran between its buildings. The train slowly dragged its cargo out of the tunnel on the other side and turned on its tracks through tall apartment complexes, in the direction of the main tracks. Ahead, a passenger tram of workers rolled slowly onto the main tracks from a tunnel on the far side and raced off into the city. The skater opened the heavy door again and leaned out into the flowing air, and hung there smiling as the towering grey apartment buildings moved by at either side.

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They were filled with the equally grey lives of the others society hadn't wanted or needed, much like himself but with a difference. His work was of a slightly higher calibre in robotic science and so he was one of the luckier ones, holding his head slightly higher than the hell that sprawled below. Skating was his own way to commute, and a way a to keep fit in a place that threatened to rot you down with its stagnant inactivity. Below him cobbled lanes scrolled by all feeding into the elevated motorway, that wove its own path through the sprawl a little lower than the tracks. Other tunnels led through to other city districts, all carved out of the same rock in mega scale silos with reinforced beams along the mighty walls, that together held aloft the ceiling, and the much bigger place above the murky city. The train began to accelerate having hit the central rail track, that cut a path through the honeycombed places of the city. The skater took off his hologram mask and threw it carelessly out at the passing apartment blocks. He was a thin man of medium height with black hair and doe eyes, and had the vacant look of a man that would enjoy hanging out the side of a moving train. He was muscular however and able to hold on as the train reached its top speed. Cavern after cavern passed by in what had once been a thriving Cequodus colony, now refitted and filled with undesirables from the same system. The man let the wind flow through his hair.

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He had finally found a little luck. Suddenly he heard a loud noise from within the crate behind him, and looked into the dark over the naked body on the back bonnet. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw a crouching figure in the corner at the back. He closed the door carefully and then slowly walked around the car to the front door. He opened it and leaned inside, and flicked on the headlights. In the beams he saw the tiny figure of a boy crouching and shielding his eyes against the sudden light. He looked scared and the skater smiled cruelly as he stood back straight. “Don’t worry, I’m not a cop.” he said. “Come out here.” Slowly the boy unfurled his arms from over his head and slowly stood up in the light. “Who are you?” the boy asked, and pointed with an arm that was covered over with an oversized jumper that he had more than likely stolen. “Who’s the dead guy?” The skater chuckled and looked over his shoulder at the body. “He’s fine. Just sleeping. I’m taking him to people that can help him.”

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“Why are you helping him?” the boy said. “Because I’m one of the good guys.” he said, then spread his arms theatrically. “My name is Thom Gubichayan! I’m an intergalactic explorer! I’m a hero back on the Lantis colonies! Well, my father is, but it will be me soon enough.” “You have the South Syndicate tats. You part of a gang?” the boy said observantly. “Temporarily. A highly scientific means to an end... like this guy.” Thom said thumbing Bailey's limp body. “What’s your story anyway?” “Back at the orphanage they call me Allstar.” he said solemnly. “I escaped.” “Horrible places, public orphanages.” Thom said with a mock sympathy. “Just horrible” “So you’re taking him back to South Syndicate?” the boy asked. “He must be something special or they wouldn’t waste their time. What’s so great about this lump of meat?” “Wouldn’t you like to know, you silly little girl.” “Boy! I’m a boy!” “Yeah yeah.” Thom chuckled while turning away. “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, kid.” 55

“Oh yeah?” she said. “You’ve got it all worked out, huh?” “Heh, you know it.” Thom said looking over his shoulder at her. “Then why have we stopped?” she smiled, and Thom realized it was true. The train had come to a slow halt and now sat with its engines humming on the line. Thom opened the crate door and looked out into a blinding collection of blue flickering lights. He looked around from the gathering of police vehicles and colony droids on the motorway below, that seemed to spread out into the derelict neighbourhood behind them. He could see now that the train had stopped half in and out of the thick wall that enclosed the central district, and the old metropolis within. They had made it to the last wasted cavern before their destination, before one of those reports had caught up with them. At the metropolis wall the motorway sloped up to the height of the tracks and entered at adjacent tunnels. Around the tunnel and all across the wall were densely littered with holographic posters that leaned out from the wall over the district just far enough to match galactic regulations. As his eyes found one with an overly stylish ladies head, shoulders and cleavage hovering over the derelict buildings below, he heard faintly it’s commercial: “Sagar stores. Your… local? Comfort convenience?” 56

Thom's eyes flicked over the gathering of gold bodies below and their stationary vehicles pulsing their lights, and one wikied a siren to spur his decision to surrender. Thom closed the door and said “Ah. Shit. Okay.” Allstar watched in silence as Thom moved in a dull panic in the small space, picking up the naked body and placing it on the front passenger seat of the car. He buckled it in and then got into the driver seat and did the same. Allstar jumped into the back seat and strapped herself in. "I take it then this guy's worth a bit?" “Hold onto your tushy.” Thom said and turned the key in the ignition. With the gear in reverse he twisted hard on the steering wheel and rolled the car around, slamming it onto the side of the crate, that itself was a tightly chained door. The colony robots watched from below as the car slammed into it a second time, splitting it from its hinges and causing it to swing down over the sides of the tracks. They heard the thin voice of Allstar whimpering "Ohhh fffuuu..." From the place so high over the ground the car screeched in the confines of the crate and Thom reversed it out over the precipice, immediately cutting the engines as it began its descent. The car rocked back over as it accelerated toward 57

the ground, then landing with its back wheels against the slope of the motorway. Thom began to brake hard as the gentle incline caught the car, and took it down to the foot of the police blockade. The car halted in a cloud of rubber smoke and sat on the empty motorway as the colony droids took aim at the backs of their heads. Seeing this Thom turned the key in the ignition causing the large car to growl and spit flames from the rear exhaust over the damp cement. The wheels span as he floored the gas and took the car back up onto the slope toward the wall of flickering advertisements. They hadn’t taken the time to blockade that tunnel and so after dodging a few leering robots he took the car into the long tunnel alongside the train. The central district was much bigger than the rest, and octagonal in shape, with a ring of eight city retail blocks left over from the hayday of the original colony. Within that was a broad promenade of various features and events, before the central ring of blocks. Here at the center of the metropolis, and at the dead centre of the entire dome was what was called The Octagon where each of the eight smaller blocks contained the robot-run public services such as the hospital, AI court and police. Around the outer ring of buildings ran the central highway, with the train tracks to their side and a major commercial highstreet below. It was the hub of what passed for 58

commerce in the exile colony, whether it be legal or otherwise. There was a grouping of robots already at the entrance to the metropolis, but were dodged easily enough at the speeds they were now going. Thom swung the car around onto the motorway, clearing the last of the train that still sat half in and out of it’s tunnel, and then drove along the lanes swerving between the crawling traffic. The outer wall housed long lines of extractor fans, pumping the stale air away and fresher air back into the retail areas. On the left side was one of the eight retail blocks, that in this case happened to be owned by a restaurant and nightclub conglomerate, although any such ownership was again a token reality, and borrowed from the city system. Thom knocked the car into a higher gear and floored it as the cylinders growled loud in the confined space and spat another gulp of flames back over the highway. The car wormed in and out of the traffic ahead as they made their way forcefully along the length of the city block. Allstar looked up at the balconies hanging out from the block filled with dancers below the signs they were advertising. Each all day club reflected the culture that had taken over this particular part of the prison. Here it was the Sugalectrics, and it was always either those or their cold rivals the Spunkers. Where Spunker culture claimed to be 59

the perfect fusion of Space and Punk the Sugalectrics laid similar claims to a fusion of sugar and electricity. Each balcony passed by with the women dressed in suits and cold makeup, and the men dressed in frocks and glitter. Allstar cringed at seeing this so close up, and looked back to the direction they were headed. At both ends of that stretch of highway could be seen the coloured flickering of the quantum-positronic lights of the colony robots. With each passing second they were being isolated within the back street, and soon if not already it would be all too late. There was a slimline spaghetti junction at the middle point of the highway where on one hand lanes fed up into a hollowed section of the retail block, that served as the main parking port for those frequenting its services. On the other side a lane led down to the ground level street and despite the traffic lights being red and traffic already beginning to cross their path Thom floored the gas and charged in front of an omnibus, that skidded to stop as it saw this. There was a thin gap between vehicles on the slip road leading down into the bustling life of the streets. The car fitted through before descending to the main street, and hugging the merging lane at the side. The car emerged onto the street at a breakneck speed inches away from the packed sidewalk and then accelerated onward toward the turn at the end of the cavern, leading around to the next block. Already there were robots converging there with two antigravity bikes swinging down 60

over them. The flashing police lights were beginning to swamp out the natural features there, with the same happening behind, at the far side of the street. Thom reached a point were the store fronts ended and the wall dipped inward in a smooth alcove. He took the road into it, past a sign that read multi story car park. Immediately he skidded to a halt before the gaping entrance, that itself was blocked off by construction works. They sat in the car for a moment amongst teams of robots operating jack hammers and various construction machineries. The long line of windows at either side of the tall carpark entrance filled up with people coming to see what had caused such a commotion. The ways in to the ground level mall were totally blocked by half welded beams and piles of sand, so there was nothing for it. Thom gritted his teeth and took the car back around toward the highstreet but stopped as it filled with colony robots from either side, and the air above swarmed with hover bikes. Robots were flooding out of the shops here and the construction droids around them dropped what they were doing and took on their dual role as peace enforcement. All produced small pistols and held them at the three people in the car. Once they had converged together in the street a blue skinned robot pushed through the other gold bodies and ran a little toward them. The high ranking robot pointed its 61

pistol at Thom from a distance and emotionally screamed “Get the fuck out of the car! Now!” At that instance Bailey began to come around in the passenger seat, and began rubbing his eyes while clawing at the seatbelt. He moaned as he swam back into consciousness and on opening his eyes he saw the face of the high ranking robot, whose clear cranium and dancing gemstones of light within were a mirror of the robot, and the clutches he had just escaped from. He began writhing in his seat, while half realizing that he was naked. “He’s coming to get me!” Bailey moaned, but stopped as an irritated Thom elbowed him in the face, knocking him back unconscious. Bailey slumped back down into the chair and Thom began to survey the lethal blockade before him. “Maybe we should…” Allstar began. Thom twisted in his seat and looked over the young girls shoulder, and said “One more mile.” He knocked the gear stick into reverse and pressed his foot down on the gas. The car wheelspun slightly before racing backward toward a group of wooden planks resting loosely on a large pile of sand.

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The car hit them like a ramp and managed to clumsily jump just far enough to hit the nearest window into the mall. The car toppled inward in a spray of glass and slammed back over onto the stone tiles within. Only half regaining his bearings Thom began to reverse the car through the ground level gangway, avoiding bricked fountains and the delicate niche store fronts. People dived out of the way on seeing this and to make sure Thom nipped his thumb a few times on the horn. The line of shops and balcony bridges were quite long from one side of the retail block to the other, and it took a good deal of concentration not to hit the various men, women and children that were having a lazy day out here in the midweek. Finally the main set of doors drew close but to Thom’s dismay he saw a family standing more or less in the path of the car. They were smiling and licking on small ice cream cones they had bought from a robot-run stall nearby. Thom began hammering on the horn but they seemed still not to notice as the back bumper of the car hurtled toward them. “Dopey fucking family.” Thom muttered and turned the backside of the car into the corner of the closest fountain pool. It cracked away much of the low wall and kicked the car up onto its side wheels. The underside of the balancing car rolled by the parents and their children, that only now 63

seemed to vaguely notice that something weird was happening. Thom glanced at them through the sloped windscreen as the car rolled back through two sets of automatic sliding doors and then outside onto a pedestrian walkway. The walkway took a slight dip and then the car rolled down a ramp to the broad promenade that separated the outer and inner ring of blocks. The corner of the back bumper hit the first of the mosaicked tiles that covered the broad expanse of the central promenade, and then they continued to roll across the breadth of it. Thom steadied with the steering wheel to keep the car balanced while reversing as they journeyed between strolling couples swirling parasols and guiding their children through the garden features and stalls. They stopped and watched slightly stunned as the car rolled by quietly on its side wheels. The car rolled onward toward the opposite wall face with the huge sign of the ownership lit and shining out over the pedestrians below. Not quite a public service, it read ‘Beldin. Gambling and Virtual.’. The car rolled to the foot of the wall and then stopped, balanced precariously on its side and then toppled back over onto its roof.

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“Ow!” Allstar groaned as the car rocked to a stop. Already Thom could see through the cracked windscreen, the far side of the promenade being swarmed by the robot contingent that had found various ways through from the highstreet. He clipped off Bailey’s seatbelt and then shoved him out of that side door while piling out with him. Allstar crawled from her door groaning and then stood up and looked at the masses of coloured heads sprinting toward them across the wide open space. The swarm of antigravity bikes had braved the heights to fly up through the thin space between the roof of the block and the ceiling of the huge central cavern. Allstar turned to look at Thom, who was now hoisting Bailey over his shoulders, and shouted “Would you mind telling me why we’re doing this?” “Just get inside!” Thom growled at her, and pointed at a short ramp leading up to a tall glass fronted room within the block, that looked to be an emergency fire exit. Allstar ran for it while Thom skated behind her. They pushed up the narrow ramp and then reached the narrow but tall wall of glass set into the plastic sealed bricks. Quickly, and half motivated by the now audible clattering of a hundred metallic feet getting closer, he tapped in a numbered code to a box in the glass and then shouldered through an air sealed door.

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Allstar followed and then Thom handed her Bailey’s limp body, that pressed down on top of her causing her to fall back on the smooth plastic tiles within. The colony robots, headed by their blue skinned leader now sprinted up the ramp toward them, as Thom leaned hard on the air pressured door until it sealed shut. The robot leader stopped inches away from the glass on the other side with the rest of his army flooding the spaces behind and in the air. Thom looked at him eye to beady eye for a moment, noticing how the robot twitched with hunger to do its violent business, but stopped now by an in-coded jurisdiction boundary. Slowly the robot raised his tiny black eyes up to the lit sign of ‘Beldin. Gambling and Virtual’ and then looked back at Thom and the girl buried under the naked man. Thom smirked at them all, while behind him Allstar retched slightly and vomited a little onto the tiles. Thom waved his hands in the air as if to say “Checkmate”. The blue officer took a step forward at this gesture and pressed a gloved finger against the opposite side of the glass. It kept pointing at him momentarily before turning and pointing at the crowd to disperse.

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Allstar watched them all head back down to the central promenade, some of them re-joining the stalls and work duties they had been called from during the excitement. “I don’t get it.” she said. “Why are we still kicking?” “Friends in places kid. Friends in places.” Thom smiled calmly, and lifted the body up from her. He carried it over to a short flight of stone steps leading up to the inner emergency exit of the small dusty place. There was a thick metal door and keypad, that opened with a hiss on entering the code. Thom disappeared inside with Bailey slung over his right shoulder, while Allstar slammed the door shut behind. He began to skate lightly through the maze of barely used staff corridors, with the young girl keeping pace. They avoided the main customer walkways that led through gallerias of various gambling and virtual reality gaming enterprises, and pressed on for a long way through abandoned corridors and up stairwells until they finally reached a fast food restaurant called Big Beldin Burgers. Here they’d reached the inside of a fire exit that hadn’t been opened in decades. From its window they looked across the inner kitchens at the colony robots and the odd spotty adolescent pulling together bags of unhealthy food for the throng of customers out front. When it looked like the gangway at the rear of the kitchen was momentarily clear he

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opened the door and rolled behind them with Bailey and Allstar in tow. They reached the kitchen door and exitted quickly to a narrow space that was in view of a few of the Big Beldin fast food tables, that were luckily empty but for one little girl. To their left was a heavily reinforced door and keypad. Thom entered the correct code and they disappeared into an area hidden behind the fast food joint. Deep within the hidden place, a bare knuckle fighter stood behind a curtain listening to his opponent’s introduction. He hopped up on his toes and punched towards the floor, chewing on the bit between his teeth. He had yellow blonde hair and a muscular physique wrapped tight over a tall torso from his broad shoulders. At one time he may have been fair and even good looking, but his apparent life had long since grimaced those features. His arms snapped down at the floor as he forced his breath to panting. “Randall!” he heard his name from behind him, and turned to see someone he knew well enough to dislike, standing with what looked like a dead body slumped over his scrawny shoulder, its butt pointed in his direction. He gestured and beamed “Look what I found!” Randall shook his head, a little disorientated and said “I really don’t need this right now.”

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“Flyyyyyyynn Raaaaaandaaall!” the commentator’s voice yelled from within and the curtains pulled back. Now in view of the entire diamond shaped area that steamed with the lime green of mixed narcotics, Randall was spotted by the fighter in the ring at the center. Flynn Randall pointed at his friend and said “Get outa here, Thom.” He then turned and began hopping his way through the intense crowd beyond. A few of the closer members of the crowd saw the naked body, but knew not to ask too many questions about the illegal back-business of Beldin, Gambling and Virtual. A couple of staff corridors away from the combat arena Thom and Allstar came to two thin double doors with the sign “Medical Emergency” overhead. “Blade off. Pass, Aquinas.” Thom said, causing the wheels of the skates to melt into the rest of the fabric, turning them into regular trainers. Slowly, they sneaked inside. Within, nurses were treating a screaming fighter that wrestled against them on a bed. Thom looked at them, and seeing they were looking the other way they tip toed past them then ran toward two more doors signposted “InPatient”. 69

They entered and closed the door carefully behind. A thin nurse with light white hair swaggered away along the corridor, and Thom leaned at her hissing “Pssst! Faye!” Not hearing him she turned into the matron’s cubicle as they moved deeper into the place. The corridor beyond was a long ward with doors leading to large rooms on either side. He walked by each one, tired now and flagging, until he found one empty and entered. Together they laid Bailey gently onto the bed and leaned over him to pull the whole cover up to his neck. Thom stood back to look at the bruised and battered man he had brought here, to a wholey illegal establishment that could well murder him itself if it didn't find a use for him. He then looked to the orphan that he seemed to have picked up, then turned away sighing. There was a large arched window standing in the wall behind the bed that looked out over The Octagon, the centermost point in the city. Hanging from the bricked ceiling of the cavern here were glowing milky crystals that were actually made up of a billion smaller crystals, each transmitting orders to the millions of colony robots across the prison dome. There were a few such blue and red robots doing their business on the central promenades far 70

below, that tightly encircled the hovering Cequodus Dynasty logo. The other seven blocks of The Octagon mirrored the Beldin building, although they themselves housed public services such as the Border Security police force and the hospitals. It spoke of the influence the Beldin company had here in the city that they could occupy a building on the inner ring. There were hundreds of windows dotting the levels of the towering walls on all sides, although none of them would see into the mirrored windows of Beldin, Gambling and Virtual. “Faye!” he heard a woman screech angrily behind him. He turned on his heel like a gentleman and smiled at a woman with thick, red dyed hair. She wasn't smiling back and had the look of a girl that meant some bad business. “Your weird friend is here again.” she shouted down the corridor while glaring at him. “Nice to see you too, Scarlet.” Thom smiled. “Get fucking stuffed.” she replied and marched away along the corridor, to be replaced by Faye a moment later. She was a slender lady of medium height and a sharp pale complexion, offset with the lightness of her white hair and the darkness of her purple lipstick and makeup. The bright blue of her eyes seemed to melt into the cold white, with the piercing gaze of her pupils seeming to penetrate all and everything within the room. The name on the badge pinned to her nurse’s uniform read “Faye Scotia”, a name he knew 71

too well, but despite their friendship he couldn't forget the place and company he was in. She stood in the doorway for a moment looking at the skate punk in his oily work overalls, before nodding at the bed. “Who’s this, hm?” she said, and walked around the opposite side of the bed. “Dunno. Found him out back of some units. Looks like he’s had a good kicking.” Faye reached over Bailey and moved a device over him, producing a low hum like a moth wing. As it passed each swelling and bruise they grew back to normal. “You can’t bring every poor mugging victim here, Thom. This isn’t a charity. Far from it.” “But look…” Thom smiled, then reached down and pulled back the covers. He pulled gently on Bailey’s shoulder tipping him on his side so Faye could see his back. “My word.” she said and held her hand over her mouth. “Birth marks jet black, all the way across? Freakish…”

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“Mean’s he’s strong. I thought you’d be interested. Could be worth a bit of money, nai?” Thom smiled and rolled Bailey back onto his back. Faye began treating the wounding on his chest and arms with her pocket device. “It’s true there’s some evidence to suggest a link between thicker Lantis birth markings and physical prowess. Officially, it’s still only a myth.” “Might be a good selling point though, right?” Thom said. “And if I’m honest, I don’t think that blood on his hands is his. He already won one fight.” Standing up straight, Faye looked down at Bailey and said “You did the right thing. Leave it with me. I’ll bring the Beldins down to have a look.” “Well alright.” Thom grinned and stepped around toward her. “I know you won’t rip me off. You aren’t as dumb as you look… unlike that boyfriend of yours.” “I hope he’s alright.” she said biting her thumbnail. “He’s too stupid to get hurt.” he said smiling down at her arrogantly. “Well that’s very sweet of you.” Faye smiled momentarily. “Now, get outa here. I’ll call you when I get a price.” 73

"And you'll get your cut don't worry. Seventy thirty sound good?" "Sounds... great, Thom. I'm not going to rip you off, Thom. Just leave me to it." Faye said shaking her head slightly up at him. "Incentive don't hurt." Thom smiled slyly as they left the room together and walked around to the matron’s cubicle. "Made a little stink on the way in here. I’m going to need a hack and erasure from the police warrant board." The words drifted off along the corridor, and once they were out of sight and sound Bailey opened his eyes and looked at the door. I couldn’t have planned this better. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.” Bailey said in a low voice. Beside the matrons cubicle was a wide entrance, and a holographic book to be signed by visitors. Thom reached down and signed “Thom Gubichayan”. “Here’s lookin’ at you, Scarlet, ya stupid little freak." Thom waved creepily through the window at the girl, who grimaced and shook her head.

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With that Thom glided down the causeway leading to the public exit to the clinic. Faye watched him and the young girl until they disappeared into the light of the Beldin galleria. "What a waste you are, Thom." she muttered, as if to herself.

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Lost and Guidance. “Keep it up Erik. Hit it!” Barton Beldin snarled encouragingly at a tall well built man with a tall spiky Mohican hairstyle, attacking a padding enforced robot in the gymnasium. Faye stood waiting in conversation. “Well, how about it?” she said. “Have I ever let you down?” “Yes.” said Barton. “Well I won’t this time, ai?” “Hit it!” Barton yelled, as Faye flinched slightly with every plastic slap echoing in the tall hall. She glanced momentarily as Erik Luminaire jump-spin kicked the side of the de-networked colony robot before continuing to aim punches through its guarding arms. “I’m just asking you to take a look. There’s something a bit special about this one.” “Like what.” Barton eyed, having just lit a cigarette in his mouth. “You kind of have to see it. I’ve never seen a Lantis birth pattern like it.” “Black is it? Ok, I’m a sucker for those old granny tales.” 76

Erik stopped his assault on the robot and turned to the two, and yelled to them “Why bother? I mean, we’re escaping right?” “Faye isn’t coming, Erik.” Barton said. “And try not to yell about it, even back here!” “Sorry, but… Why aren’t you coming, Faye?” Erik said, with a hollow look across his face. “I’ll help you as I can. I’m just pulling out, is all.” Faye said looking away. Erik looked at her not knowing what to say, then Barton tapped her shoulder gently and said “Come along. Let’s see if we can make you a little money.” They walked together out of the secret gym and along a staff corridor to a fire door that opened in on a cosy shop selling many different kinds of ale. They walked through and out onto one of the upper gallerias of gambling joints in the Beldin building. In between each of the virtual reality stores along either side of the broad corridor were niche shops and market stalls selling everything that could be needed. As Barton passed a coffee stall he gestured to Faye to wait as the large man within poured out a dark coffee, and sandwich. “Black market coffee. The best coffee on the planet right here.” he said to Faye, then asked. “How much?” 77

“On the house, Mr Beldin. Please come again.” the man said warmly, sporting a mish-mash of accents. Beldin sipped it and insisted that Faye take a sip also, as they walked the rest of the distance along the galleria corridor. At the farthest end of the gallery of store fronts they entered the wide opening of the fast food restaurant, and waded through it’s playschool-esque décor to the common service door Thom had used the previous day. Entering the same code on the keypad they slipped into the place behind the restaurant packed with out of control families, and closed the door firmly behind them. Along another thin corridor of many code-locked doors, they took the one at the end and entered a large, noisy arena half full of fight fans, and bookmakers. In the centre of the arena were two rings, both hosting brutal bare knuckle fights. As Barton and Faye entered a spotlight shone around onto him and followed him as he walked through the crowd area to the VIP zone close to the rings. “Please welcome… “ the loud commentator yelled. “The man who made all this possible… Barton Beldin Junior!” Barton waved at the cheering crowds, smiling his rehearsed smile, while continuing on toward the curtains on the far side. At the point where Flynn Randall had entered the previous day, Barton and Faye left the arena and turned toward the Medical wing.

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“Now if I’m not interested in this guy, I can’t have him staying here any longer. You got that, Faye?” “Understood.” “I won't kill the poor fool, but the syndicate isn’t a place for waifs and strays. I mean we’ve only got so much medicine.” They walked through the Emergency ward, raising voices over the groaning fighters. “I understand. It's good of you to be concerned by what you leave behind.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Barton eyed her as they entered the In Patient ward and walked over to the closed door to Bailey’s room. Faye looked in at Bailey and he sat up straight in bed, watching them both through the small window. “Barton!” a voice shouted from the room beside Bailey’s. “Faye!” They stopped as Randall limped to the open door and shook their hands. His face was swollen and cut badly. “I heard you won. Congratulations, Flynn.” Barton said. “You know you don’t need to fight anymore. We’ll be gone in a week”

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Randall smiled at them, leaning against the door for support. “I like to fight. And I’m not sure if I’m coming with you, friend.” “I expected it.” Barton said leaning against the door in full view of Bailey. “You and Faye we’re meant to be together. We can all see that now.” “We will help you until the last hour. To the end, right?” Faye said, turning to Barton. “Heh, yeah. The South Syndicate way. Well this escape is going nowhere until we can find a good enough hacker to take those auto-guards offline. All our hackers seem to die mysteriously.” “Chester Barron.” Faye said bluntly. “I have every faith in Chester. He’s united the syndicates for the first time in more than a century. We don’t ask where we come from here in South Syndicate. Only where we want to go. You know this is the way.” “But escape? It’s a huge responsibility for someone with his past. You’re putting your lives in his hands.” Faye said. “So this is why you’ve pulled out.” Barton smiled. “It’s the main reason.” Randall looked at him with his one unswollen eye, 80

Bailey watched this conversation, unable to hear what was being said through the air-sealed medical door. Somewhere inside, something he possessed transcended this handicap. He watched their mouths closely, reading each word with the shape of their lips. South Syndicate? Escape? Shortage of hackers? Fate smiles on us my beautiful friend. Bailey had to concentrate hard to read their lips. The skill was so raw within him. So primal and basic it unnerved him with every word understood. “Well, let’s see this ‘prize fighter’ of yours then.” Barton said and opened the door for Faye. Faye walked in and to the bedside. “Aaron Bailey? I got your name right didn’t I? This is Barton Beldin. His family run the black market in this quadrant of the prison. I’ve brought him here… because uhh… Well, he might have some employment opportunities for you. Yes!” Faye said and looked to Barton for help. “Hello Mr Bailey.” he said. “Faye is right. I may have a place for you in our organization. I just need to take a look at you walking around for a few moments. That’s all. Can you do that for me?”

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Bailey, still instinctively scared from his ordeal with the gang pulled his covers up to his chin and closed his eyes. “Damn it Faye. He can’t even get out of bed. Look at him!” Get out of bed! Bailey, with a tear in his eye pulled the covers down baring his chest. He twisted and stepped out of bed in the hospital pants he’d been given. Barton, not saying anymore looked at Bailey intensely. He surveyed the Lantis markings, thick across his upper back in a near symmetrical pattern, and the broad spots up the bottom of his neck and the tops of his arms. “You are powerful.” Barton grinned intensely. “I can pay you 15 in diamond cubit.” “Million?” Faye asked, and looked to her partner who now stood in the doorway, also surveying Bailey’s markings. “See you in the ring.” Randall smirked and limped back to his room. Faye sighed at him, but it couldn’t spoil her excitement. “Thank you so much.”

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“My gift to you. My final gift.” Barton said walking Faye to the door. He turned and pointed to Bailey. ”That’s all for now. I’ll come back soon.” Do as I say. Solar defences. Hacks. “You haven’t even asked why I was sent here.” Bailey said. Barton turned back and walked to the end of his bed. “Where you’re from matters not here on South Syndicate. Only where you want to go. You don’t have to tell us anything if you don’t want to.” “It’s no secret.” Bailey shrugged. “I was working with terrorists. Hacking solar defence grids.” “That’s some complicated stuff. You can do all that?” Now reel him in. “I’m one of the best in the colonies. I strive to be better than the best.” “Well, I won’t argue with that. Seems like old Barton got his money’s worth again.” he smiled and Bailey smiled back. “You’re new to the colony right. Fresh out of psycho wing I hear. No, don’t worry. Even if you are loopy we can fix all of that. Faye, you fill him in on the prison details. I need him clued in by the time I get back.”

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Bailey liked Barton, and the easy connection he felt with him. Maybe it was a cool talent Barton used with everyone but still Bailey found it to his liking. Leaving, Barton said “I’ll bring my wife next time. She’s the clever one. And we may have a proposal for you. I’ll sign you onto the books as a fighter for now, so get healthy. Can you do that?” Still a little shy, Bailey nodded, and with a final smile, Barton Beldin was gone. Faye, in the doorway looked at Bailey a moment before following him. You told no lie. Only the sweetest poetry. “You’re getting on my nerves.” Bailey said in the empty room. At the far end of the corridor Barton said a few words to Faye and left, while Faye returned to her post with the matron. Bailey stood with the door standing slightly ajar until they had gone, and then leaned his head outside, checking up and down the way before looking across at the man on the bed in the opposite room. He’s not breathing. Who is he? He’s got a nice coat. Bailey looked around again before walking casually over and into the open door. He walked around the bed and knelt 84

down beside the old man’s face, covered partially over by the bed sheet. His lips were pulled back over his teeth, and he stared ahead coldly, on his side. Dead? Bailey pressed his fingers under then man’s neck, then whispered “Dunno.” He’s dead alright. Grab his wallet and anything else in his pockets. Bailey thought for a moment then did so and with the dead man’s belongings filling his pants pockets he strolled back out into the corridor. There he noticed the fighter, Flynn Randall standing in his own doorway, watching him with one eye. They stood a moment looking at one another, before Randall said “What are you up to?” We can use him. Bailey smirked and pointed at Randall’s swollen face “You might want to get that looked at.” Bailey then walked slowly back into his room and then in a panic emptied his pockets into a drawer he had been given, and pushed them to the back, out of sight. He looked at the door to see if Randall or anyone else was about to follow him, and seeing that they hadn’t, he reached back into the drawer and took to hand the dead man’s Stable-License, for the operation of automobiles and 85

airmobiles, not that there would be many airmobiles on this colony. It read “Gen Colec” for name, and “Importer/ Exporter” as a role. “Is this good?” Bailey asked quietly. Let’s find out.

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The Retro League. When Barton and his wife returned the next day, they saw though the window in the door, that the bed was empty. “Faye!” Barton yelled at her as she did something at the far end of the corridor. “Where is our man, Faye?” “Oh… You enrolled him in the fight leagues…” she said pointing with her clipboard. “No! No! No!” Barton yelled as he and his wife ran along the corridor in the direction of the hidden places housing the combat rings. “You’ll need to be quick!” Faye yelled after them as they disappeared though the Outpatient doors. The commentator was already introducing Bailey’s fight. “And in the blue corner, we have Flynn Randall! Bookies favorite versus the red corner, newcomer to these leagues, Aaron Bailey!” Bailey sat alone in his corner watching the man he had mocked and insulted the previous day opposite him as he was massaged and pep talked by his trainers.

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Suddenly he saw Barton and Cix Beldin crash through a group of officials at the side of the ring, and then leaned at him through the bottom of the ropes. “This is a mistake!” Barton yelled over the bloodthirsty crowd. “I’ll stop this right now. This man is a killer, Bailey.” Not seeing his boss at the ring side the commentator gestured for Bailey to come and start the fight. Randall had seen them but didn’t seem to care. “Relax.” Bailey said and walked to the center of the ring. “Last man breathing wins.” the official said and then jumped back, out of the way of the two men. Flynn Randall towered over Bailey, who was a clearly weaker character by far. He punched once into his palm and then lurched forward, as Bailey tap stepped aside. Randall had seen this move countless times before and righted himself to face Bailey again. Bailey pressed gently from one foot so that he stood on Randall’s slightly crouching knee, and then used that leverage to step up to kick at Randall’s head. He kicked at one temple and brought the same foot back over to slap the opposite temple. Bailey landed smoothly, then arrowing his fingers sliced forward into Randall’s throat, tearing the tubes within.

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Randall took a step back as the various ruptured pressure points began to smother him. He kicked slightly at the floor and then slipped down and flopped onto his back. Bailey casually stepped up to him and looked down at his twitching opponent, eclipsing the harsh glare of the ceiling lamps to his eyes. “All done?” Bailey smiled lazily. Randall stared up at him through his swelling face and using the last tiny bit of breath he had said “Fair fight.” Bailey turned and raised his arms over his head as Randall began slipping into the next world. Nurses ran up into the ring and began waving instruments over him. The crowd cheered and Bailey let it wash over him as he hurdled over the ropes and landed on the red carpet leading back a shower block. He passed through two curtains to the row of showers and locked himself in one of the ceramic cubicles, then noticing Barton and Cix Beldin filing into the room after him. “Get out! Everyone, get out!” Cix yelled at the others who were there.

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They all left without objection and then Bailey was alone with the South Syndicate family. Bailey continued to wash in the small cubicle, still able to see them over the ceramic door that closed it in. “That was pretty stupid but it was our fault I guess.” Barton said. “We need a quick word.” “I gathered that.” Bailey said eyeing them through a mass of soap bubbles he’d squeezed over his face. Barton gestured to his wife, a tall, slender woman with even whiter hair than Faye. “This is Cix Beldin, my wife. She wants to talk to you about your claims.” “Claims?” Bailey said cocking his head slightly at him. “Solar grid hacking is quite a skill.” Cix smiled at him. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Bailey blew air through his lips and thought for a second. “Where to begin?” he said, then listened to that dark impulse well up from its deep place within him. Specialty being defence grids. Parrot fashion, angel child.

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“I was caught helping a small band of terrorists hack a solar defence grid. I had specialized in testing defence grids for Cequodus Dynasty, but when my job was axed and replaced with a robot, I sold my knowledge to opposing forces.” “Cequodus defence grids, then?” she said. “So you know all about the parabol algorithm?” “Yeah.” Bailey smiled. “Only that’s a governmental code from Earth, not Lantis or Cequodus.” Cequodus was but one of many corporate dynasties that had evolved from the society of their home planet, Lantis. Each dynasty had their own defence codes, and nuances to their defence. Earth also, one of their neighbours in the galaxy, would have their own dynasties, authorities and defence programs. Bailey hoped they wouldn’t quiz him on them all. “Well that’s right.” she nodded solemnly. “But I’ll want a little more than that.” “Whatever you need.” Bailey smiled at them both, and they smiled back, seemingly exited by the direction their makeshift interview was going. Cix handed him a small, handheld computer from her handbag that he then rested on the top of the door, away from the spraying water.

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“Take this.” she said, and Bailey looked down into the touch-screen display, its display lifting slightly up from flat in a hologram. “It’s a simulation of the solar defence grid that secures this solar system. It has been custom designed to prevent us from escaping should we ever make it off the planet, which none of us ever have, so far as we know. I want you to confuse the defences so to….” Bailey, who had sunk his fingers into the hologram and had been tapping commands into the simulation with inhuman speed, handed her the computer and interrupted “The defences are down.” “Err.” she stammered and looked to Barton, who shrugged, grinning. “Completely down? Ah, I see. Well, I guess that’s… superlative!” “Easy when you know how, I suppose. Right Bailey?” Barton winked at Bailey. “We’ve had a lot of trouble finding someone with these talents. We admit we have a little shortage here in our syndicate. We’re not sure about the others. And if they have any, well they haven’t shared them with us.” “What do you want me to do? Hack the solar defences? Is that what you’re asking me to do?” Bailey pressed. “Well talk like that can get you killed here in the colony.” Barton said grimly. “This was just to test your claims. But I guess you passed, so…”

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“I believe you.” Cix said, patting the side of the cubicle gently. “We have many teams working under us here in South Syndicate. I’m sure we can find one that can use someone like you.” “Well done.” Barton shrugged as they turned to leave, then turned and asked “Oh one more thing. Where are you going to be living?” “I don’t know.” Bailey spoke with a note of fear. “We will assign you somewhere nice. Somewhere in South Syndicate village with us.” “Sounds delightful.” Bailey smiled shyly. “Think naught of it. When you’re ready, I’ll have someone take you there. Get your stuff together, whatever it may be.” Bailey’s cheeks flushed once they were gone, and he looked sadly at his shoulder bag on the bench opposite, containing Gen Colec’s stolen IDs. “They were nice?” Bailey sighed. There were no words from the darkness, and for once Bailey felt a little glad.

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A little later the nurse, Faye Scotia came and told Bailey it was time to go. Bailey gathered up the small shoulder sling while Faye finished her run down of the dangers of the colony. She sat on the corner of the bench beside the lockers and spoke to him where he stood, drying off slightly in his clothes. "You'd be wise to stick with us. There is no central authority here." Faye said. "The robots are all one hive mind. This is their system and they don't give a fuck about us. Make no mistake about that. Get a stake here or you'll dissolve away like the rest of them." "Sure, yeah." Bailey said shaking a hand through his damp hair. “Now like I said, you have South and East syndicates, that essentially concentrate bootlegged material from the civil rationing systems, with a backbone of gambling and other hardline shit. But the biggest game in town is Old Gang. They are the oldest and biggest syndicate on the colony, and they have spies everywhere. If they see you somewhere alone they’ll radio back and send a band of cattle to intercept. Then they’ll strip you to the bone for anything they can sell back for drugs.” “Do they run another black market?” Bailey said turning to her while tightening the noose on the small shoulder bag. “Not exactly. Anything they gather up they sell back to our markets. If we didn’t buy up we’d have no control over

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them, and they’d burn us out of house and home. Believe it.” Like a violent marriage. “Sounds complex. .” Bailey smiled at her. “I’ll take your word for it.” "Just remember the territories and you should be alright. Old Gang are established in the North. There isn't much of interest West so far as syndicates go, it's mainly a place for people who don't want to get involved." "And rot away quietly. Just like the system told them to." Bailey said smarmily. "That's one way of looking at it I suppose." Faye looked away. "You just won a fight so we can't leave through the fight areas. You'll get mobbed by people after your... notable win." "Your boyfriend right? He alright?" Bailey said slinging his bag over his shoulder. "He was dead for a few minutes but recovering now. I don't know why he does it. We don't need money." "I understand. But it's hard to explain politely." "Follow me." Faye said bluntly. 95

He followed her out of the hidden place, through a filthy side exit, and out into the black market concourse. Unable to get his bearings he followed her through the hustle and bustle across the chipped, mosaicked floor of what would have been a normal mall galleria at one time. Aside from the markets that spilled out of the open fronts of what would have been windowed stores, there were holographic readouts of the many fights that were taking place throughout the hidden backquarters of the block. They hovered over the strand here and there flickering neon light over the greasy bartering below. There were bookmaker stalls here and there, and some of them seemed to recognize him and tip their hats. "Didn't realize I was on television." Bailey said. "Quite an interesting place... 'busy'." "It's a crude set up but has worked for over a century this way. It's easy to pack up and move it all elsewhere in the block. There's quite a few places like this hidden within the building." At the far end they walked through a rusty door in the tiled wall to a dark back room that led to a perfectly flat wall, caked in dust. The room wormed away around corners to other places and seemed to be a back room for service and maintenance for the main public galleries. There were funky people killing

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around here, coming and going, and it seemed as though this was the main access route to the black market strands. Faye pushed through a small door in the dusty wall and they walked out to a dead ended corridor filled almost completely by a fountain. The dead end was the wall, that he now saw was a huge mirror with seamless fire exits along it, one of which they now closed behind them. The black market was well hidden it seemed, and only accessible along these lonely offshoots from the main concourses of Beldin, Gambling and Virtual. "Try to look natural." Faye said as they headed toward the sounds of life. "This is a public place now. The colony droids and Border Sec cops are everywhere, and both are on the lookout for behavioural anomalies... much like yourself let’s face it." They walked down the short corridor, with the continued mosaicked floor and gaunt, disused retail units on either side. Bailey noticed within each niche store was a nonfunctioning colony robot, slumped over the cash counter. It was eerie to think of old Zep sitting there decade after decade, waiting for instructions. They reached the end and stepped over a small ribbon cornering off the dead end from passing bodies of the main retail corridor. It was a wide, mall like hall with a line of gambling and alcohol ventures on either side. The Big Beldin burger joint 97

was just to the left, beside a small corridor leading through to the public part of the mall infirmary. They walked from them and along the concourse passing various flickering amusement arcades and virtual entertainment services, and Bailey noted the vast amount of people going in and out of their gaping maws. Others were sitting around on benches beneath trees or beside small fountains with drunken and lamenting looks about them, but all seemed to be happily giving their money away to the place. Eventually they reached the end wall, and a broad hole in the floor, covered by the blue glow of a force field. They stopped behind a small crowd of people, and waited for a matching rectangle of glass to slide up into it. It came and they got onto it, and let one of the other people tap commands into a hovering holo-slate that appeared at the corner. The elevator slid back down through the building, carrying the small throng of people down by other levels of the block. They passed by two other floors without stopping and then emerged in a huge open space, that he found to be the parking hollow within the retail block. From this angle Bailey could see it's many lanes running from the main road at the far side, all bustling with the life of the metropolis, and fed by bridges through the openings at either side. He was looking at it all through a huge glass wall that cut off the elevator area from the rest of the hollow. There 98

were other similar elevators taking people up and down to other concourses at either side of them. Each parking lane reached the glass and ramped up and through it in an enclosed tunnel. They ferried noisy cars between the glass elevators and into the parking lot of the block, just behind them. The activity here was thick with people going boldly to and from the soporific amusements within. The elevator travelled to the bottom and Bailey followed Faye to an arched exit in the glass wall. Here they walked out onto one of the broad, gardened pathways between lanes. There was a wind flowing through the place from the central Octagon behind them, kicking up grit in gusts that Bailey had to shield his face against with his hand. It made it hard to look into that strange hall, and its huge glowing crystals in the ceiling that pulsed and throbbed as though they were alive. Faye walked the opposite way, through a few underpasses leading under the lanes to the lane running along the outer edge, overlooking the promenade. They stood there for a moment looking out over the broad space, and the nightclub building opposite, that was but one of a few block faces that they could see from their position. Other buildings with equally intense advertisements continued around on their path around the central ring. It was interesting to Bailey to see so much activity after his 99

brief but memorable time in the Psych-unit, but despite his strange awe the sheer amount of constantly selling robot vendors and holographic displays were beginning to make him feel a little queasy. Faye had noticed him looking a little green, and said "Let's get outa here, yeah?" The man, Thom had brought him here through all that. It was as though nothing had happened a day before, although on closer inspection Bailey could see the tire tracks left by the car. He glazed over watching the people and robots milling about below as Faye pressed a button on something Bailey recognized as an automobile key, or rather a ‘stablekey’ as was the slang term. They watched as a car drove itself from one of the openings between the elevators, then down a ramp leading through the glass front to the lane at its base. It rolled quietly along to them spewing a small amount of steam behind it, giving away that the fact that it ran on a primitive water fusion system. Bailey found he knew so much, beyond that missing core of knowledge of who he actually was. He knew clear as day the slang terms such as ‘stable-lane’, and that the car had been parked in the ‘stables’, which was the space slang way of referring to the parking lot. They were terms that commonly referred to air and solar mobiles, but in this place there would be little need or use for those.

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They got in, and Bailey relaxed back as Faye drove it from the hollow and across the promenade bridgeway. Bailey looked down at the patchwork of raised gardens and open spaces as Faye took them across to the nightclub building’s parking hollow, and then through it's steaming mess to the streets at the other side. She drove down onto the spaghetti junction suspended over the street, and then took a sliproad up into a tunnel in the thick metropolis cavern wall. It curved up into it, in a carriageway running through the old stone. There were a series of carved openings looking back into the cavern that progressively became higher and higher over the streets until Bailey felt he couldn’t look. He squirmed in his chair as they left the metropolis cavern behind and turned through a darkly lit tunnel through the rock and steel. It curved around toward more natural light, and emerged from a lake bed and up through a glass-like road that emerged from the water between two glistening bergs of ice. The crystal road was encased by a half pipe of the same crystal, and was clearly designed for larger speeds. The carriageway ran up and above a field of icebergs, and Bailey, who had almost stopped squirming against the height over the lower city district, now took in the massive place he had been taken to. It was a biosphere filling the whole top half of the dome. The town beneath it, and all of its caverned districts supported above it a giant island, separated into four zones reflecting the various climates of Lantis, their homeworld. The center most zone they had entered at looked to be arctic, with its huge bergs of ice jutting up high above the rest of the island. Surrounding the whole landmass was 101

what looked to be a broad moat of water, that merged into a holographic projection of an ocean, giving the illusion that it were an actual island and ecosystem, although for all purposes it was. The holographic sky was clear cyan blue and the sun shone bright and intense, most likely from a powerful lamp just beyond the projected illusion, so Bailey estimated. Faye took the car away from the central ice and over an area of dark green moors that surrounded it. They were entering a huge network of crystal carriageways suspended high over the land like a thin but expansive snowflake. They reflected many faint rainbows of light from the artificial sun at angles that felt a little too man made and unnatural. They took the longer lanes avoiding the main bulk of crystal highways and ringroads, that webbed together more densely here and there over the island. Looking back Bailey saw the highways congregated at the center at a huge roundabout that hung over the central ice and around a tower that rose up from the bergs. The dark grey tower faded as it reached the illusion of the sky, most likely merging with and supporting the ceiling of the huge cavern. “That’s the central control tower for the colony robots.” she said pointing back at the distant spinning lighthouselike lamp that shone out just above the ice. “The robots pretty much run everything for us, but you can top up your money ration by replacing one of them if you wish. But if 102

you’re working for South Syndicate you can make a lot more money with us.” “Crime you mean?” Bailey said sarcastically, while trying to keep his mind off the dizzying drop below. “There’s worse organizations in the city. Like I told you…” she said dismissively, then looked at him. “This ain’t the colonies. This is exile. It’s a whole other world, baby. Oh, yeah, do you need a cigarette? It's a bit of a drive.” She looked at him where he squirmed in the passenger seat, and flicked a rolly that landed in his lap. Bailey took and lit it on the dashboard. “I think I do.” he said, and sucked long and hard on the toxins before muttering. “Fine, crime it is.” They travelled across a series of crossroads and junctions that were controlled by sets of cold glowing traffic lights. They travelled South for a long time at high speeds until the simulated sun above had dimmed for evening. Bailey tried not to look at the land moving by below. The moors had turned to a thick canopy of overgrown forest, that filled the whole of the southern quarter of the island. It had been allowed to overgrow, controlled only by the faint gaseous glow of a plasma film here and there, that separated the forest into more easily farmable chunks.

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Bailey braved to look down at the enclosed wildlife in the forests. It was reflective of his homeworld, not alien to him at all but a sight for sore eyes. His eyes moved across the emerald green of the leaves descending to the wispy tall grass that filled the clearings within the forest. Each enclosed clearing was as congregation place for the animals that were homed here in the forest, serving as a wild place where they’d wrestle and bully each other for a drinking spot at the muddy ponds. The rusty mud would have been brought from Lantis originally and then fed and churned by the plants and animals over the seasons. Bailey sucked on another self destroying cigarette as he gazed at a beady eyed stalk pecking the mud at the feet of a long legged elephant. There was what looked to be a white lion stalking aimlessly though the long grass at the other side, but then it was all behind them as the crystal tunnel dipped down into the canopies. The clear tunnel dropped down into the darkness of the tall forest between fattened and aging trunks, and turned toward a tunnel in the forest floor, with a holographic signpost overhead telling that it was Apartment District S18. They drove down another steep sloping road through the stone wall of a cavern, only this time the windows looked out over a slightly different kind of district. The green land inside the place was paub hazy with mist from the grass and plants. He didn’t get a chance to see much more as an exit drew up, and they slowly turned through it and out onto a road 104

leading around the enclosed park. There was the vague evidence of where apartment blocks had been torn out to make way for this inner city simulation of normality, where the grass of the field was dried in the shape of the old foundations. Birds flew overhead through the pink and blue haze of the biosphere mists, and insects hummed their way lazily here and there. Bailey casually soaked it all in as Faye drove into the place. She carefully swung the car around and onto the opposite lane, pointing back toward the gap to the tunnel in the district wall. The car stopped and Faye flicked her finger for Bailey to get out. He stepped out of the door, and looked around at the mostly empty enclosure over the top of the car. It had been densely terraformed so to be a mini biosphere under a series of harsh sunlamps hard-welded along the length of the roof. With so few buildings cluttering the place the first thing to strike you was the sheer size and weight of the bricked ceiling above. Although the bricks were structured so to spread their shape and weight against each other, and although they had held fast for close to a thousand years already, you still would instinctively double take as if it were on the verge of collapse. But it was perfectly safe, and the serenity in the place was the second thing to catch your mind. It was mainly a wide open space of fields surrounded by a road junctioning to the various sized tunnels leading through to other districts. At the center of the fields and gardens was a grouping of 105

old fashioned Lantis homes, a neighbourhood with what looked to be a compact village center within. Bailey walked from the car across the road just before an embankment topped by swaying white roses, and noticed that Faye hadn’t followed. He turned to Faye, who still sat in the car with the side window down, and said “Not coming?” “You’ll be safe from here.” she said sourly, and threw him a small green card. “You’ll need to keep that signature card on you while you’re here until they get your gene print added to the surveillance grid. Go to the village green and meet with the Beldins. They’ll show you where you live now.” Bailey smirked at her and said “You and Randall don’t live here too?” She scowled at him slightly and said “We live in apartments... a little to the north” “Thank you.” Bailey said stepping back onto the grass bank. ”I will prove to you all that I deserve these promotions. I promise.” Pass the bucket. I’m going to hurl. Slap her and go get drunk on the lawn.

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“Ok, Bailey.” she looked down. “The Beldins will be bringing more people by to meet you later today. So get washed and changed before then. You need to start acting like a member of the syndicate family.” Slap her! “Please don’t worry. Aaron Bailey is a name you will all learn to respect.” Bailey said, and Faye thought about this, then smiled, slightly concerned. Bailey smiled goofily as she started the car and pulled away. Once she was out of sight, Bailey stopped smiling and turned, and walked across the embankment to the wide open space of the first grass field. As he crossed the perfectly laid and maintained grass he noticed the colourful birds and insects of Lantis that had made their home here. He strolled across it leisurely in the direction of the village, and watched the first line of huge, stilted houses slowly draw near. A road to the left led from the encircling road he had come from, and looked to lead into the village as a main street of sorts. Rubbing his slightly running nose he headed toward it, and walked out into the middle of its grey surface.

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He looked both ways to make sure he wasn’t about to be run down, and then began walking into the village, toward what looked to be the village green near the center. There were small apartments at either side that looked to be guest houses, and through the gaps between buildings he could see other more private streets running out from the village center. It was kind of a half star within the semicircular place that backed onto what looked to be a tall and looming forest. As he drew closer to it he saw within the darkness of the tall tree trunks the glimmer of multi coloured lights. There were more robots here, no doubt picking the fruits from this private food forest. At the end of the road he walked across a broad ring road that connected the different streets, that was broad enough to surround a small village square, that didn’t look like it ever got much use. Circumnavigating it he then passed through a tall metal archway that led into a misty field with garden features. The grass led up to the first of the forest, that already looked to be a tangled mess of different sizes of plant life. It’s not what you know, but who’s ass you kiss. Just before it was a raised flower garden with Barton and Cix Beldin tending to it with the aid of a large, spider-like droid. Within its mesh of tentacles could be seen that same clear and coloured cranium as the others.

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Bailey jogged up to them where they stood with their backs to him, and hearing his approach they spun around and smiled. “Bailey!” Barton smiled widely. “Glad you made it.” “Your food, Sire.” the droid spoke in an electronically drowned tone as it handed a cardboard twist filled with steaming foods to Barton. Cix was also given one, but she handed it to Bailey. “Freshly grown, freshly roasted.” she said and Bailey picked a few out with his fingers, and eating them found them to be to his liking. “Simply delicious.” he said quietly. “We have a place for you here, now.” Barton said fishing in his back pocket, and then pulled out a keyring with a set of old fashioned keys. “Stay away from the fight leagues from now on. You’re too important to us.” “Important, how?” Bailey said, looking up from his food. “We will discuss this with you later today. I’m bringing together a group of syndicate leaders from all sides to meet you. That is… all three crime syndicates here in the city. We all need to speak with you urgently.”

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“Golly!” Bailey said with a strained sincerity. “This sounds pretty serious. I really hope I can assist you... with whatever it is.” “You can.” Cix nodded. “I’m sure of it.” “Go find your home and get freshened up. It will be the perfect place to rest up after everything you’ve been through.” Barton said. Bailey looked down at the keys and then squinted at them and said “Alright then. That’s good for me.” With that Bailey turned and walked back across the green and pink grasses, and then out onto the ring road. He found his street, Carter Lane to his left and began walking along it, searching for number seventeen. These houses were large detached properties not unlike the kind you’d see back on any custom-terraformed planet. They were quaint and secluded along the side road, blocked off at the end by the down turning subway that led to the private automobile stables. Bailey had already noticed the wireless stable key on the chain, that could only be for some car they had decided to shovel into the bribery package they had set out. He strolled along the right path that was darker beneath the shedding tops of the old trees that reached up from each of the front gardens along the way. They were broad, tall, 110

temperate trees from their homeworld, gently dropping their blue brown leaves at the end of the autumn. Ahead he saw the mail shed for number seventeen and walked casually toward it, it being only one home away from the end of the row. There the road ended and the sink of the stables began, surrounded by a cluster of the same large trees. Nearer to it he could almost see down into the yellow-lit underground parking bays where his car would now be waiting. It can keep waiting for now. As can the rest of the city. Bailey licked the food from one of his incisors, momentarily reminding him of the river animals his species had evolved from. They were arguably still carnivorous even in human form, as was the optimal shape of evolution for those born into vertical gravity environments. He doted on this as he ate the rest of the roasted vegetables, and then threw the card wrapper into the gutter, not caring much that it was the only piece of litter in sight. Bailey looked back up and down the street and then began walking up the curving drive toward his new home. What a dump. He kind of agreed, but didn’t know why. Was he used to something far better? If he was he couldn’t remember, along with the other traces of before. Being a terrorist must have its’ own rewards, he guessed.

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There was a marble arch in the white face of the wall that led into the ground floor lobby of the home. The lobby ran under the whole of the house and then out through other archways into the back gardens, where the loom of a stilted section of the home darkened the area. As he approached the center of the cold stone floor a glass and steel elevator plate floated down automatically as he approached with the keys, and he stepped up onto it. “Living one, two, three, Basement or Attic.” a tinny voice said after a while of standing in confusion. “Err… Living… one.” he said and the elevator tugged upward briefly and delivered him into the dining room of the house, on the first floor. He looked around the tall hall with its wood floor and dining table close to a half open bay window. The tall, lace curtains blew gently in the breeze around the first chairs of the table. Then suddenly in front of him gasses blurred momentarily and the figure of a thin man dressed in formal wear materialized and cupped his hands together. “Hello master.” he said in a matching formal accent. “Would you like to view your holo screens?” Bailey said nothing and stepped back onto the elevator plate. 112

“Living two, please.” Again the antigravity tugged the glass flooring upward and he found himself in the main living space of the house. He stared at it all for a moment, with its two tiers of floor and far windows looking out over the gardens. The ceiling was slightly lower here but still continued the same style of décor, as if someone had lived here and left. The same laced curtains blew out of control across the arranged sofas and living room floor at the far side. A dizziness was taking hold, and he could feel the walls leaning inward, although they obviously were not. He steeled his mind against those sensations as the same holographic tv guide materialized in front of him. “Would you like to view your holo screens, sir?” it said formally, and Bailey walked forward and around him. “The others who lived here. Where did they go?” “They were caught in a terrorist bomb blast three days ago. None survived.” It said. “Their holo-theatre presets now belong to you, unless you wish to change them.” “No, it’s fine.” Bailey said, rubbing his now throbbing forehead. “Start it, please.”

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Without another word the man smiled slightly and bowed his head, then disappeared. Behind him, along the wall close to where the elevator had arisen, the wall faded away to be replaced by a view of a clapping audience. The live noise hit him, giving the acute illusion that he were actually looking through into another room of the house. The applause died down and the view moved to the stage where it focused closer on two men that were about to begin some sort of interview. As the last of the applause died the interviewer cut in “Welcome to the show kind viewer, and also our guest, Morton Fincle. Thank you to those of you joining us live and also to our subscribers who will watch a saved archive as it becomes available later in the week.” Bailey assumed this had been saved, and set to begin when whoever had lived here had returned, which now would never happen. “Now Mr Fincle, you are the oldest living member of the Old Gang crime fraternity, or rather their representative group here on Narcosia. This is your first real interview since being exiled, so I suppose the question on mine and I assume all of our lips is… why now?” Bailey listened intently, and could feel a harsh analysis of every finest detail the ultra definition holographic cameras picked up.

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He could feel the cool breeze on his back as he stood, alert with his hands on his hips. Morton Fincle seemed to squirm slightly, and clearly was at odds with even being there. He had a large beard that he seemed to hide behind, glancing with narrow eyes every now and again at the interviewer. After a pause he began “I have lived a long time, and living here in this city has seemed like an eternity. Like everyone in exile I have had all age inhibitors revoked and so soon I know that I will die.” Bailey sucked in a breath of the cool air. “My family has a bad reputation, I accept this, so I guess what I really want is to give some sort of explanation. We, like all of you feel the pressures of prison life. We are used to far greater things and to be sent here affects us more than most. We realize now that we have acted inappropriately, and we want to change. I’ve wanted to change our operation for years but with our family, well change can be slow.” The interviewer tried to cut in here and said “This will be welcome news to the average lifer here in the city, but going from your record of the past two hundred years you have murdered over sixteen thousand people that we know of, been responsible for the creation of hundreds of terrorist cells that have been responsible for many more fatalities. Torture and extortion of…”

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“You’re not hearing me…” Morton quietly cut in, with more than an undercurrent of threat. “People can change. I’ve changed. And soon, everything will change. I’m making a promise here, okay? Anyone can change.” Bailey closed his eyes, and waited for his rapid mind to cool. After about an hour of switching between the various saved and live channels available on the local city network he went up to the top floor and began the large shower. It filled a quarter of the floor with the rest of the room being a toilet and washbasin for two. The rest of the floor was filled with dusty dressing rooms that had been used at one time to ready the occupants for life and formal occasions. The steam had built up in the room and Bailey swept the condensation from the mirror over the broad washbasin. He stared back at himself momentarily before turning and stepping into the shower basin. After washing he walked naked through to the closest of the dressing rooms and began to get dried beside those same white curtains, blowing from the light winds outside. With a towel around his shoulders he walked to the window and looked down the four floors at the garden below, and noticed beyond his back fence, some kids climbing in an old tree.

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It was one of many trees on the triangle of grass between the back of his row and the next row over. He turned around smiling momentarily and then looked over his shoulder at them as they climbed and hung from the branches. He made brief eye contact with one of the younger boys who smiled a naughty smile back to him, and then started pointing at Bailey and shouting for the others to look. “You dirty bastard!” he yelled and dropped from the branch. The boy ran away along the houses, as Bailey frowned at them all. The others stared at him a little confused and one looked to be on the edge of tears. That little shit. Bailey watched the kid run away, no doubt to start some gossip snake that would come back to bite him. But Bailey found that he didn’t care, and carried on drying his shoulders. As time rolled on he instinctively felt that gossip was being generated somewhere, and so closed the dressing room windows and then the heavier, gold curtains. The room was too dark to see, and he stood there for a few moments.

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Outside the kid must have brought his father or something, as he heard him cry “Bastard!” Responding to the darkness the home lit a single buzzing bulb in the middle of the ceiling. This looks strangely familiar. We’re not out of the cell yet. Bailey looked around at the tall mirrors that surrounded him. You must listen and obey or you’re going to get yourself into more trouble. He looked between his reflections as they each turned to look in a different direction. We need to create a false ID print from the cards you stole from Gen Colec’s body. There had been a family here at one time. Perhaps a father, mother and child. For whatever horrible reason they didn’t live here anymore and the place had been retouched for a new occupant. Still, the scars of their life could be seen on everything, but Bailey set it aside in his mind. He needed to gather his thoughts, this much was obvious. But beyond all of it he saw one single priority glaring out of the night like a piercing star.

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“Who the hell are you?” he hissed, finding a reflection that stared back. “I thought you were… that weird thing I killed on the edge of town. But it can’t speak to me now it’s dead.” There was no answer and he stood for a while, trying to ignore the piercing screeches of the children that still played at the tree. “What are you?” he repeated. He suddenly felt lonely, but Bailey was still too happy to care, having found a place to call home. Right follows right. You will listen and obey, angel child. “These people have been so good to me.” Bailey whispered in the twilight. These people aren’t your friends. They are a drug and gambling syndicate and cannot be trusted. “But they’ve given me a home?” This place is no use to us. We need to find Gen Colec’s home. There we will make our world away from these worthless people. Bailey lay back against the canvas curtains, crumpling them against the glass, and in the darkness he sighed.

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For the rest of the morning Bailey examined the layout of the perfectly reconstructed suburban home they had given him. He quickly found the home computer in the study on the top floor of the house, and taking the crystal sphere in hand, he returned to the ground floor and walked out to the area below the stilts. There were a few ponds connected by slate covered rivulets, and Bailey watched the fattened fish as they bobbed dopily together in their enclosed world. He sat at a stone table by one of the ponds closer to the light of the gardens, and then rolled the sphere onto it. “On.” he said, assuming it was the command to start it. A pin prick of light could be seen within the glass and then above the table a set of icons sprouted out in a holographic operating system. He had brought a pocketful of stationary too, and placed it neatly to the side of the now hologram swamped tabletop. Now we must forge an identity here in the city. A simple double identity. “What for?” Bailey blurted out as the hologram icons encircled him, awaiting his touch. The clock is ticking. Those gangsters will be here in a couple of hours. We need a faith between us.

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“I trust you. I’m sure of it. But why a double identity? I assume you mean Gen Colec?” Bailey said, looking down at the spinning face of the old man on the left third of the card. “We don’t need it if we are escaping, right? That was the whole plan right?” A second skin can always come in handy, especially in a technocratic hell hole like this. “Okay, whatever I guess. But I don’t know how.” I will guide you, always. We must create a double identity amongst identities. Expand the central window, and let’s poke about the guts of this measly city. He sat back and looked at the floating collection of pages that had appeared within the orbiting icons. They had appeared by default as chosen by the family, with hardly any of them interesting him. Bailey followed that dark potential from within, and tapped the centermost page, which was what passed for a search engine here on the prison. As he did the others flew away, as did the spinning icons, only to be replaced a moment later by new icons. The page spread out before him in two pages for forward and backward navigation. The search engine displayed its search box that Bailey then pressed a finger to and began speaking aloud his commands. “Gen Colec?” he said first, and the pages filled with random information posted about the man on various networks.

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The prison internet would no doubt track and record everything biometrically according to the dna print of whoever was touching the hologram surface. No matter. We’ll unplug from the internetwork before we begin reskinning the identity card. It was much like the early internet, that had matrixed their society near the end of the 'Age of Acceleration'. It wasn’t anything like the super-mind that the internet had eventually evolved into but it was a quick way to dip into colony life. After a few more encyclopaedic searches he found that it connected to a handful of primary networks, with lesser search results pushed way to the back of the listing. It was all pretty mundane information, and he found already that the most important information was that which he already possessed. As he surfed and linked between each headline and article about city life he found it a harsh shadow of what their lives would have been had they not been exiled. A video submission site called ‘We Are Megacity’ showed the sardonic view the exiles had of their prison. There was nothing mega about it, it being locked at a primitive, pre Harmony level.

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Each site reflected the city and its cultures, that themselves reflected the popular cultures back in the free world. Bailey remembered everything about life back in the empire, only he couldn’t remember when and where he had learnt it, or who he had been at that time. Everything he found on these networks were a sad reminder of that lofty existence, and the world they had come from. The Lantis species were just one of many in the Eclipse Empire, that was the largest of a few similar empires that had gained dominion over the vastness of intergalactic space. From early in history, like most human cultures the Lantis civilization had come up through its ages. After the first metal ages there had been the industrial age, and then the Age of Acceleration, where people wanted more and faster. And then finally The Harmony, where many sciences combined over the quantum, and from it a new society was born. Time began again at this point, so it was said, since The Harmony had brought into people’s lives a new blissful form of existence. Advancements had unchained man from his natural limits, from curses such as boredom, aging and disease. It was a harmony on one hand between man and his nature, but also with powerful artificial intelligence, made conscious to the point of a new life form itself. Under jealous and suspicious regulation, these new robot-programs took the 123

reigns of their world, evolving and conserving it for mutual benefit to both. This ascension of man and robot grew more powerful with every minute of every year, on and then up into the space age, where they encountered similar cultures with more or less success in their harmonization. The Eclipse Empire and its mainframe had taken them into space. The Greys had contacted them eventually, as was the way, only when it was judged that they had fully entered into the Age of Harmony. It was written in stone that they would not interfere with any civilization until a crux point such as this. The Grey aliens that began the empire brought with them a powerful Artificial Intelligence that they called simply The Lord. It was in fact a chimera of multiple virtual personalities, almost schizophrenically harmonized as one in service to the peoples of the empire. Their own artificial intelligences were offered up to integrate into it as a trust gesture, then allowing them to share in the mutual benefits of The Lord. This mega-mainframe served to accommodate the AIs of each homeworld, while empire space was open and free to the humans, and any of those rare species that had evolved in a non human way. Under the Grey’s imperial reign, all citizens were allowed a basic Harmony set, halting their aging and conserving their health, with the option of more intense technologies on a scale closer to the bio-androids that The Lord used like gloves to service the people. With little or no necessary employment remaining, The Lord and its robotic hands had 124

taken away the old pressures of nation and state, and replaced it in their lives with a unique kind of bliss. A unique kind of boredom... Such was the technology, and the responsibility, but there was none of that here in the world of exile, but for scraps here and there as a small mercy. As he surfed each social networking hub he looked over identity after identity, and what limited information they used in shorthand to get to know one another, those times when they bothered to do that in any real way. He closed down the hovering internetwork windows and sighed, and although he felt empty and directionless he had a sense that he had gleaned all that he had needed in that small space of time. Following the darkness within him, he took 3D photographs of himself with the social networking camera built into a holo-projected screen. With various images of his head and shoulders rotating slowly he rescaled them to a thumb size and set them to ‘print out’ on 3D paper. Beside the crystal sphere, after a slight yellow flicker and gaseous blur the piece of paper materialized on the table. He picked it up and looked at the rows of self images rotating before him. Lastly he cut away the ones he liked and glued a small piece of a metal paperclip to the back. After a moments churn of thought he got up and returned to the house, and brought from the kitchen some work 125

tools, cutlery, and bottles of detergent. He placed Gen Colec’s ID cards on the garden table and began applying a combination of detergents, before peeling back a few layers of protective lining. He peeled back the final lining only enough to access the text on the left, without breaking an electronic seal that ran down the middle over a spinning DNA graphic. He used a combination of slicing away the embossed numbers of the date of exile, rearranging what he had stripped away, and then filling in any blanks left over with simple black pen. He then resealed that side and peeled back the right side so to access the spinning photograph of Colec. He sliced within a golden electronic seal, designed to prevent the removal of the photograph, and using the knife as an electric bridge to the earth at the back, slid in the photograph he had taken. He then resealed the right side of the card and carefully placed back the rest of the protective layering. At the last he glued them all into one with the common stationary glue. With this technique he did the same with the rest, until each of the ID cards read “Gen Colec, 30 years natural age” and with his own photograph. The Biometric DNA print within the card was still that of Colec’s however, and this is all that would be read by authenticating programs, unless he happened to be stopped, at which juncture the face and name would match himself. There were risks involved in such a technique, but without more time it would have to do. Bailey had understood all of the commands the darkness had provided, but still doubted

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whether a full identity print could realistically be achieved in a place such as this. We need to steal his entire life, and it's doable. These biometric systems make a thousand mistakes each day. Our trick is finding these gaps, and constructing a tunnel through them. Time was marching on, and soon the gangsters would arrive. He returned upstairs and fished through the walk-in wardrobe in the master bedroom, eventually finding something the darkness liked. The father of the household looked to be the outdoors type and with a few robotic refits he got dressed in the old clothes. Wearing a silk t-shirt and sandy suede jacket with tight jeans and hiking boots he wandered back outside, and sat at the table while staring at the expansive back lawn. He studied it in the late afternoon light, with its line of flowers at either side, leading down to a glass house at the end. The broad glass house looked to be full of a variety of plants, with a huge tree at the center practically bursting out the top. Over its roof he could see that old tree where the kids were still playing, including the one that had caused the trouble earlier. On catching sight of Bailey he took on a note of concern, but looked to be scheming still. He's obviously terrified, look at him... he will be.

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The other kids looked quite sweet and seemed to be happy at seeing Bailey’s return. Bailey smiled at seeing this but felt the darkness grimace. Bailey sat staring ahead at the gardens and the small wildlife that came to and from it, until he heard a voice behind him. “Sorry.” Barton said leaning around the archway, as Bailey calmly palmed the new ID cards from the table, and into his trouser pockets. “I couldn’t get an answer at the front.” He walked out onto the stone garden followed by Cix, who formally said “Hello, Mr Bailey.” Others followed behind them. First came two people that moved as if they were another couple. They were older, the man a tall and perfectly bald with a lightly muscular build, and the woman medium height and broad. All, including the others that followed behind seemed to be dressed in black but for the broad woman, that wore a heavy knitted cardigan and dress. “Come with me.” Barton said as he passed by the table “Doing a little spring cleaning?” Cix said as she passed, with an amused look at the detergents stacked up on the table. “No. I was actually going to pour them down the drain. I hate chemicals.” Bailey said, unable to think of a decent 128

explanation so quickly, and then hoped they wouldn’t ask about the pile of cutlery and tools. As he stood up he noticed that one of the others following the old couple was none other than the man he’d seen being interviewed earlier that day. The sight of Morton Fincle of the now infamous Old Gang made his gut clench. Bailey made haste after the younger Beldins, while keeping ahead of the older couple. They marched down the lawn, within sight of the long line of lawns, most with a mass of white linen and clothes blowing on the lines in the flow of the wind. Bailey followed them as they walked into the glass house, and into the spread of tall leaves and growing trays. “Mr Bailey.” the heavily dressed woman said as she entered. Bailey leaned back against a water-filled tray at the glass wall, and stood there watching as the others filed in before him. He crossed one foot over the other as he wiggled his fingers in the shallow water. There was a damp metal table in the middle, just before the trunk of what he now found to be a thick growing fruit tree. They all gathered before it, while a younger man with what looked like a fat wire reaching out of the back of his head walked around the tree to the back of the glass house. He opened a door there and threw a pebble at the kids in the 129

tree, who screamed and dropped to the ground, crying and ran away. He returned to the others with his wire gathered in his arms. “Are you sure this turkey can do it?” Morton Fincle wagged a dirty hand just before Baileys face, and Bailey stretched a silent smile back at him. Almost cutting into the conversation, the tall man stepped forward “Hello, Mr Bailey. My name is Lon Sagar of the Sagar East Syndicate. This is my fiancée Dora Beldin…” He gestured to the heavily dressed woman and then to a tubby man beside her. “And her brother, Rupe Beldin. Rupe’s son, Ting and you’ve already met his older son Barton and his wife. Finally, Morton Fincle representing Old Gang.” “All three syndicates? I’m honoured.” Bailey smiled at them all. Dora Beldin stepped up beside her partner and said “Well, you must have already guessed that we are in need of someone like yourself.” “Indeed, but I can’t imagine why.” Bailey lied, giving them just the right line to get on with what they had assembled to do.

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“Well, here’s the crux.” Lon said, while ghouling over a computer crystal of his own. “Collectively we have decided that we simply cannot live here anymore. We are, all of us, ascended men and women. Ascended in our mind, body and spirit, and used to much more opulence in our lives. Our syndicates are at war back in the colonies, but here we are all in agreement on one thing, we need to get out.” “We are of course too old to escape ourselves, but our children can escape from this place.” Dora carried it, as her partner began to waffle. “Escaping this moon, the system, maybe even exile itself. Ideally they’d like to return to empire, but it might not be possible.” Lon continued “They may not need to if we can pull this off. But in order to do this we need someone like you to do the complicated shit.” Dora went on, “Cix seems convinced that you can hack the solar grid, so that’s good enough for me. But what do you say? Most people would jump at the chance to get out of here.” Bailey smiled an embarrassed smile as all eyes suddenly fell on him, for that answer they had all come here to get. He shrugged and said “Well, it sounds good enough. I’d need to know more about it of course.” Shut the hell up fool! Just agree! “But of course.” Lon said and slid his crystal onto the wet tabletop behind him. “I’ve brought with me a crude 131

diagram we’ve created, mapping out the basic scheme of the escape.” Above the table a hologramatic representation of the marbled planet and its moons sprouted into living colour. A bird that was on its way to drink some of the collected water stopped in mid air and flapped madly around the top of the planet before turning and flying back out of the skylight. The diagram zoomed in to center on one of the orbiting moons. It was an ice covered world. “The planet you see is the sixth in the solar system, a non ignited star stabilized as a gas giant in a binary orbit with the sun, Narcosia. We are on its largest moon, a planet large enough to swallow our homeworld three times. We have no idea where we are in the galaxy, but it must be remote. Somewhere deep in the Outlands.” Lon walked around the model slightly and pointed at one side of the moon. “We are there, in a domed city.” he then pointed at a small space station orbiting overhead. “This is the Narcoisa weather station. Every season a rocket is launched from the side of the dome, taking samples of the atmosphere as it journeys into orbit.” Lon had begun a demonstration, and Bailey watched as small dot lifted from the moon’s surface trailing a comical line behind it. The weather station journeyed almost too perfectly toward it.

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“Once in orbit it is collected by the weather station for analysis.” Lon said and turned to Bailey. “And you’re going to use that to get into space?” Bailey said with a note of sarcasm. “Precisely. Once on board the weather station you can take control, and our compscans have shown that it is fitted with an old but working Backspace drive. If you take the station you can go anywhere you wish, but only if the solar defence grid is disabled. That’s where you come in.” “Do you think you can do all of this?” Morton said bluntly. Agree. “Oh yes. It’s like second nature to me.” Bailey blurted nervously with an inane smile. Dora pointed up at the weather station and said “If you can escape in this vehicle you can live there indefinitely. It was designed as a home for army and navy units, as part of the original pioneering years. You can sell space merchant services to the Outland colonies and live out there like kings. You’d need to stay on the move of course but you’ll be free. At least that.” “Sounds perfect.” Bailey said quietly and smiled up at her. “Consider me on board.”

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Just then the artificial sunlamps went out, immediately replaced by the cool blue moonlight lamps of evening. “Drat.” Dora said, smiling at Bailey. “I guess its time for bed.” “Barton will fill you in with the rest. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Aaron Bailey.” Lon said and shook his hand with a gentle firmness. Behind him Dora scooped up the computer crystal and dropped it into her cardigan pocket. “Thanks.” she smiled as she passed him by. Morton followed them and then Bailey walked out onto the grass with the remaining Beldins. Barton walked up beside him and smiled “That went well. I think you have a lot to add to this.” Cix approached and said “We’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll take you to one of our labs. You’ll be assigned a compartmentalized team and report only to them, and to the overall project coordinator, Dr Chester Barron.” “You may hear gossip about Dr Barron. He was on other escape attempts that failed. Just remember we have every faith in him, and that should be good enough for you.” Barton said. “Certainly.” Bailey lied. 134

“You’re really a solar hacker?” Barton’s younger brother, Ting leaned at him in the moonlight. “Err, well yeah?” Bailey said with a sardonic note. “I play a solar hacker in my Star Marines RPG. South Syndicate runs Star Marines. I can get you a free account. Do you want a free account?” Ting said as he walked around him like a circling shark. His brain-link wire trailed along the lawn behind him, leaving a small trace of blood on the dark grass as it did. It was a primitive technology used to connect these virtual reality junkies into the fake world of RPGs and the like. “We’ll see how it rolls.” Bailey said and turned away from him, to his older brother. “Nine tomorrow morning. Be ready for a full day.” Barton said. “And stay indoors tonight.” Cix added as if suddenly realizing something. “We have syndicate guards all around here but the dickheads still get in sometimes. We don’t want any harm coming to you… and maybe keep the curtains drawn too.” “Anything you say.” Bailey said, pointing at her cheesily on the ‘you’. Their father, Rupe stepped around them and put his hand on Tings shoulder. 135

“Take this multi-com phone.” he said handing him a small pebble shaped computer, that fitted just perfectly inside the hand. “I locked all the important numbers and addies you’ll need into it. Also the diagram you saw earlier. Nerd up on this stuff as quick as you can.” Bailey nodded slightly while looking down at the multi-com, which was basically a more ergonomic version of the computer crystals. “Good evening, Mr Bailey.” he said, and with that they all left across the gardens. Bailey watched them until they were out of sight and then began to walk back up to the tall house. Inside the lobby he stood on the hovering elevator and leaned against the wall as he watched the cars of the visiting party pull away along the street. There was a piercing screech from a distance behind, followed by a set of gunshots and then more screeching. “Attic.” he said, and stood straight as the elevator lifted the full height of the house to the topmost floor. He walked into the long, dusty room stepping by sets of wooden boxes toward a boarded up window he had seen from the garden below. He stepped up to it and looked through one of the gaps in the old boards. With a clear view over the fields of the 136

district he was able to see figures running at a distance while colony robots tried to chase them down. They looked insane, possibly high as kites and running with their arms flailing. There was the flicker of laser light and two of the figures fell to the grass. Other figures turned and ran toward one of the many tunnels out of the district. We can’t stay in. The night is young. We need to find Gen Colec’s pad. “Looks fucking dangerous out there.” Bailey muttered and then looked down at the nearest wooden removal crate. It's lid had been popped and inside he could see a few living photographs of the parents and child that had lived here. From the scattering of snaps he could see the hopes and faiths of them, and that coldness in knowing that they had died quickly somewhere out in that dangerous place. He picked up a pair of sunglasses that had been resting on a holiday snap. It was a moving picture of the family burying their father in the sand, most probably one of the shores up in the biosphere. We can’t waste time. So much yet to do. He watched as it looped again, and then put on the sunglasses and walked up to the closest light. He gazed at the flickering lightbulb through the sun shades and sighed slightly before turning away.

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“Let’s ride.” he muttered sombrely and moved toward the elevator again. Moments later he walked down the drive to the night-lit street and pressed the button on the stable key, calling his car from the garages. After a moment of standing in silence there was a hollow growl from within the subway at the end of the road and then the roof of the car came to view as it turned to mount the ramp. It popped its headlights on as it sensed the night and cruised up onto the street, and then along to park where Bailey was waiting. There was a slight screech as it did, and then Bailey began to walk around it looking the beast over in the artificial moonlight. It was a beautiful machine; a sleek, brown sports automobile with low back and modest spoil. At the front the bonnet curved over the brims leading to the seal-eyed lights. Responding to his biometric dna touch he opened the driver side door and slid into the wood and leather furnished interior, kicking up that newly refitted smell as he did. We can’t dawdle. We need to get out into the city as fast as possible, preferably without anyone here noticing. “Relax.” Bailey said, as if to himself. “They are all tucked up nice and cosy in bed.”

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“Are you addressing me, sire?” the inbuilt roboconsciousness within the car said in an electronically drowned male voice. “Where would you like to go?” “Err. Gen Colec, please?” Bailey said while wiggling his fingers. A search result was displayed in the windscreen opposite, with only one exact match for ‘Exile: Gen Colec’ reading his address and date of death. Date of death: 72551.281. That’s three days ago. Bailey frowned and said “They left him lying there for a day?” Place of residence: Apartment district E-19, Block K, Floor 18, 5E. “Is that East Syndicate?” Bailey said, and was replied by the male voice of the cars navi-com. “Affirmative.” it said. “And how do I get there?” Bailey asked, realizing how ignorant he was of the lay of the city. “Would you like to take the upper or lower highways.” it said.

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“Err. Not the crystal highways. I don’t like those.” Bailey stammered, remembering that dizzying height. “Lower city highway route found.” it said, and the windscreen filled with a transparent overlay of the road, filling in half or unpainted signs and covering the road surface with lines for speed and etiquette. There was also a prominent red line bisected by arrows, indicating that this was the first route to take. “Manual or Auto drive?” it said Auto. Auto! “Err, manual I think.” Bailey said, and a green light came on beside the gear stick. His feet and hands found the right places and he took the car along the street. At the end he saw a group of men and women talking outside of a house and hoping that none of them were the Beldins or anybody related he speeded up on the junction and away along the road from the village. After taking the car around the road at the cavern wall he found a tunnel leading East and started on the first highway out into the city. The small highway ran over the cemented grounds in the tunnel and then raised up to the main motorway system that streamlined traffic through the districts. He took the car up onto them and drove between the top halves of 140

apartment blocks bathed in the blue and white streetlamps from below. It was mostly dark however with very little electricity visible and only the odd window illuminated. He took the car through district after district, using broader tunnels cut only for those carriageways. This place was a science outpost once? I wonder what they’d think knowing their homes had been built upon countless times to house scum in these apartments. Well I guess its all part of the imperial council’s plan. It probably took longer than it would have done on the upper highways over the biosphere but Bailey was interested in the city. It seemed far quieter than he had expected and feared. There was an electric tension in the air, but he wondered now if it were coming only from himself. Maybe it won’t be so bad. A few districts out from the destination he saw a static flash in one of the back streets below and then a plume of flames roll up into view at the height of the motorway. He passed by it and into the next district, realizing that it must have been some sort of terrorist strike, or perhaps something drug related. Either way he had no interest in it and continued on to the district containing Gen Colec’s apartment.

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There was a strange activity coming from the streets ahead and the navigation arrows seemed to be pulling him toward it. As he journeyed through the dark apartment buildings and drew closer to the lights he found them to be spotlamps shining up to the ceiling and moving around to the thick beat of what he believed to be Spunker music. This is it. Here we can achieve miracles. Just do as I say and stay safe. Get into the apartment building as quick as you can. “Who the hell is this?” Bailey said as he indicated to pull off the highway, following the red arrow down a slip road to ground level. “You didn’t answer me?” Who I am? Who are you? “You’ll tell me.” Bailey smirked, as the car left the slip road and drove out into the darker highstreets. Following the guide he drove around and into the glare of the party that he now saw to comprise of a town square filled with jumping hooligans, some in cheap cars that they were wheel spinning or crashing into public property. He drove along a street just out of the way of it all, and by one of the huge floodlamp boxes. The guide brought him around onto a broad street and stopped before steps leading up to one of the larger apartment blocks.

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Bailey got out of the car, feeling the harsh blast of the music from the party, that was now still in sight just meters away. He was standing on one of many white boulevards bathed in the blue streetlamps and the pink from signs over the bars around the square nearby. He heard someone shout “Whoah! Fuckin’ nice wheels man! Whooo!” Looking in the direction he couldn’t see who had shouted it through the bright glare and the jumping mass of flesh. Park the thing and get inside. Quick! “Park?” Bailey said to the car, and the door pulled gently out of his hand and closed. “Parking in A17 Stable 3.” the drowned voice said on the outside of the car this time. It then pulled away on its own and drove along the street, by the party, and then turned along another road out of sight. You need to get out of here! Bailey then walked away from the steps, and along the street slightly so that he was in a better view of the violent partying. He stopped at a lamppost and leaned against it, and glanced casually around it at what was causing this voice so much distress. 143

“I want to know.” Bailey said. I’ve brought you this far. Showered you with things this riff raff only ever dream about. I will explain all, but inside. “That’s all you had to say.” Bailey said and then walked back and up the flight of white stone steps to the doors. You will learn not to question me. It’s either work with me or join with the riff raff. You’ll work like a dog for chicken feed. And dogs can’t live on chicken feed. “Wise words.” Bailey said sarcastically as he entered and glanced at the robot guard that stood century. “Pass?” it said, and Bailey held up Gen Colec’s ID card that he had doctored with his own image earlier. There was no objection from the snake eyed droid and so Bailey strolled into the opaque lobby and waited. A holo plate for control appeared beside him, hovering over the worn red carpet. On it were the numbers of each floor to be chosen by touch. He tapped the floor required and below him a sheet of glass merged from the floor and began lifting him up through a tunnel in the ceiling. There was the distorted glow of antigravity at the edges that cradled him on his journey up and slightly along to be then lowered down onto another red carpet. 144

The glass disappeared into the floor again, and Bailey found himself to be standing in a wide corridor at the back wall of the apartments. There were windows here looking down over what seemed to be a spaghetti junction, leading off in many directions to other tunnels and districts. There was a little traffic down there but little enough to remind him of how late it was getting. At the other side were a series of nicely carved doors, in an equally nice chocolate coloured stone wall. It had the mark of somewhere that had had a lot of money spent on it, with the intention of it lasting a long time without maintenance. Bailey found the door to Colec’s apartment but as he stepped up to it Bailey felt a flush to his head and a dizziness that made him reach for a thick radiator on the wall. He tapped it gently before righting himself and stepping on through the corridor toward the door. Bailey pressed Colec’s home keycard to the magnetic plate of brass and the door clipped open slightly. A bright light from within spilled through the crack, and on opening it he found it to be from a harsh bulb on a tall pole. He heard a rasping snarl and through the blinding light fur and teeth and claws grew in size as something quite deadly jumped at him.

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Without any conscious thought but for an instinct fuelled by shock, Bailey found he had swung his foot up and booted it into the oncoming face of the beast. He stumbled back slightly into the corridor as the dog, or was it a cat, flopped onto its back and twitched its legs through its carpet of fur. Bailey seeing this all now twisted away holding a hand over his mouth to muffle any cry he might make. He looked at it and crouched toward it, feeling slightly sorry for the thing, since he had rendered it unconscious. A Romano fighting dog, and a big one. Maneaters. Colec must have expected us, or someone. There’s something to find here, no doubt. Bailey reached to touch its fur but as the thing snarled out in its sleep he pulled his hand away. Drag it inside. Tie it’s mouth to something with wire. Bailey, still somewhat shocked and on the verge of crying pulled the knee high lump of fur and teeth into the landing and up a step onto the wood floor of Colec’s front room. Switching off the bright lamp near the front door, he closed it then began scanning over the dark, dusty interior of the place. There was an extractor fan in the wall slowly turning and an old clock ticking each second away. The man, Colec seemed like quite a gentle soul from his antique décor, and love of old fashioned books. 146

Bailey walked around the half dead dog and toward the windows looking out over the cityscape, and the fingers of light reaching up from the now muffled party below. Panting slightly, he surveyed the similarly panting hound, then seeing a small harp in the corner of the room took one of its longer strings and rapped it around the Romano’s flat face. The jaws were easy to open but not so easy to feed a wire through since the teeth were all long and pointy and shooting off at irregular angles. He tied the other end to the pipe behind the toilet which was a room far away and out of sight of the front room. As he stood back up from the dog his own reflection caught him again in the huge washbasin mirror, only this time dizziness and rage welled up inside himself and he lashed out, punching into the center of the glass. It shattered inward held together by a plastic preservative film. After another glance at the fragmented reflections of himself he stepped away from the mirror, toilet and the snoring animal beside it. He just hoped he didn’t need to go while he was here. Pull yourself together, child! We can use this place, but we need Colec first. Bring anything you can find to this room regarding Gen Colec. In a kind of daze, Bailey looked around and began fishing through drawers, cupboards, and coats. Having piled everything he could find from the front room onto the floor where the dog had been, he proceeded to the bedroom and study, finishing up with the kitchen. In the end he had accumulated a waist high pile of papers and

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info-needles. Gen Colec's multi-com was also salvaged which he threw on a thick wood table before the window. Now the fun. Open Colec’s multi-com, and surf to his business’s login page. We will need a password. The password is somewhere in that pile. Bailey looked at it, his eyesight shaking slightly, as it had before the dizziness. “I’m a little tired. What’s happening to me?” Bailey asked as his eyesight hazed and faded, and the wood floor rushed closer. Bailey looked around suddenly, half realizing that he was now in a kind of dream. There were slimy, vacuous clouds swirling around him, close to him like a mist he could touch. After turning a couple of times, and not getting his bearings, he saw a shade growing behind the mist. You’re becoming more like me. Or maybe I’m becoming you. Either way I think I’m stuck with you. “Arc?” Bailey asked, then wished he hadn’t. I am Arc Micormic, or what used to be Arc Micormic. I am what I do, and so are you. “You were a terrorist. A thief!”

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This world stole from me first. Bailey listened and saw the shade grow larger and lean at him through the mists. You have no idea what they did to me. How could you know? Bailey saw momentarily his indignant face, before it returned back to the shade and mist. His own face, only different. Another life. “I guess Aaron Bailey never really existed. I’m a joke... an insane joke.” You are just what you do. Bailey heard the words in his wet ear as if they had been spoken in the room a moment earlier. His eyesight cleared, seeing the words of an East Syndicate invoice close up. He leaned up gently, finding he had slumped over the paper pile he had created, and now drooled over in his sleep. He looked at the clock standing by the wall, seeing that it was now late into the night. A tropical Lantis lizard that Colec had apparently kept as a pet stood atop it waving its long antennae in his direction.

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Standing, he looked down at the pile and sighed “So a password. And then what?” He heard nothing, but then he guessed he had something to do.

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Spelling Mistakes. Bailey sat in silence with his feet on the desk beside the lizard that had joined him. They sat watching the holographic display above the multi-com as Bailey took it to the internet sites Arc had advised. Hours had passed during his quest to safely steal Gen Colec’s possibly unneeded identity, and he was starting to get very tired. He sat in an old rocking chair Colec had put beside the window, where he could look out through the wood blinds at the town square below. During the day it might actually look pleasant, but now was filled with the noisy ‘riff raff’ as Arc had called them. Colec’s multi-com had not been passworded, so Bailey had used it to wirelessly cloud dial the login page for business affiliates of East Syndicate, that overall had the corporate guise of Sagar Warehousing. Since Colec’s own business was part of the criminal enterprises of East Syndicate he thought it might be a good site to start the hack. Where a gene print for the city grid itself would be valuable, an East Syndicate gene print would be more so, and so with time as a factor it had become tonight's priority. He had been going through the pile, searching for possible passwords each page at a time, scanning them with a speed that alarmed himself. Each time he found something that resembled a name or repeated string of letters he tried them in the password field of the profile page for Sagar employees. 151

Nothing had worked and he had already gone through half of the pile. He now knew a great deal about Gen Colec's Import/ Export business, like how it was a front for mass drug distribution to smaller gangs in the east. Much had been gleaned from the documents, but not how to bypass his security clearance. He doubted that there would be anything new in the rest of the pile, just the same information repeated over and over. Bailey then caught sight of a thick book with a very elaborate hard cover. He had dismissed it before due to its gaiety, but now he took it to hand and found it to be Gen Colec’s personal diary. He shut down the multi-com to standby mode and pushed it to the back of the desk. Beside the lizard he opened the book, and found it to be a hologramatic recorder. He had expected it to be like the rest of the belongings that had all been made in the old fashioned method of wood based paper. As he opened it he saw the face of a man projected over the flat pages, with the high definition hologram attracting some affectionate attention from the lizard. He placed the book flat on the table and looked over Gen Colec’s features. He was a kindly man but old and worn out. He had a sly smile on his lips like someone ready to tell a joke. “Here are three options.” he said in Gen Colec’s voice. “One, recording. Two, scroll to date. Three, delete date.” 152

“Err. Two. Two weeks ago.” Bailey said, in awe of this new development. “Lord Date 72551 point 270.” it said, and was then replaced by a front on recording of Gen Colec, sitting at roughly the same position as Bailey like an off centered mirror image. He leaned at the diary as if confiding with some beloved confidant, or maybe just himself. “It’s a weekday and I can’t bring myself to go to the warehouse. Francine can handle the books today. My plan has failed. I have been unable to raise the cash needed to pay back Old Gang, and now it’s just a matter of time before they discover this. I’m getting old. There are many things I find I cannot do any longer. Francine joked that I should submit myself to the South Syndicate combat league. I can’t bring myself to tell her how serious things are for me. But I will not sell the firm. Too many of my workers rely on it, not to mention the gangs… I will leave it and the warehouse lease to Francine in the event of my death. I will now never tell Francine how I truly feel for her, after so many times I have spoken of it. I see no way my love can bloom, but then it never does in this place. Maybe Francine’s idea wasn’t so crazy after all.” They screen blinked and with a static bleep, the hologram was replaced the menu hologram. Bailey reached over and rebooted the multi-com. He leaned inside the encircling holographic icons to the central terminal and typed “Francine.”

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“Access Granted.” the Sagar Warehousing internal network replied, and the display filled with a complex economic menu system. Bailey was at a loss, but felt his actions swept along by the powerful intellect of the darkness. By my command. Open a raw root command window. Do you remember how? Ah good. Type GET NETWORK ADDRESS. Type SCAN NETWORK ADDRESS. Type CONNECT WINDOW 21. Ah, running Branch Operating System. Old version, weak calculator. Easy to crash. Type FLOOD EMAIL BRANCH CALCULATOR. Ah, more passwords. Type ACCESS BRANCH CALCULATOR PASS LONISDON. Ah. Now type, ACCESS IMPORTEREXPORTER DATABASE. Ah, hello Mr Colec. Now type, OPEN GEN COLEC PROFILE FILE. Now type, CHANGE NEXT OF KIN TO AARON BAILEY. Now type, CHANGE GEN COLEC DNA PRINT TO INPUT, PASS FRANCINE. Now press your thumb anywhere on the multi-com. Bailey pressed his thumb on the scratched pebble shell of Colec’s multi-com and a line of light within scanned his DNA and fingerprint. The random string of data beside the database field ‘Biometric Signature’ changed to match Bailey’s DNA print. This was mirrored on the identity cards that were updated by the central dna database. Now type, SAVE. Now switch off the multi-com. Bailey sat in the deepening dark for a second. The fingers of light and the bright glare from below had gone leaving only 154

the dim blue glow that filled most of the prison. He looked down at Gen Colec’s fully stolen Stable-License on the desk, and then sat back thinking gently. He saw through a thin gap in the blinds, younger men and women left behind by the revelling had congregated in the concrete park in the square. He watched them calmly for a while, hidden in the dark behind the window so high above them. He started as someone at the front door began rattling a magnetic key against the plate. Whoever it was whistled and said “Just me boy. Who’s a good boy?” Cry. And get those papers into the bathroom. Panicking slightly, he pulled the multi-com and diary into a drawer and slammed it shut. Once done, Bailey gathered as much of the paper pile as he could and ran into the side corridor to the toilet, and threw it in on top of the sleeping dog. When he came back to the front room, a tall thin woman holding a paper bag full of food was standing staring at him. Bailey, tears streaking his cheeks stared at her a moment, so she could get an eye full. “Why are you here?” she said. “What the hell happened here? You’ve made a complete mess.”

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“You must be Francine.” Bailey said, forcing a warm smile. “He told me so much about you.” ”Gen?” she said, putting the bag on the table, on top of the Stable-License and other items he shouldn’t have had. “Yes. My name is Aaron Bailey, Gen’s cousin. I will be administering his will.” “Strange he never mentioned a cousin. I thought he was one of the few people that had no family here on the colony.” “We weren’t very close. In fact we haven’t spoken in years. But family is family. I will put Gen’s business to rest.” “His business? He said he was handing it over to me.” “I’m afraid not. All business will be under my control until further notice. There is still an outstanding debt payable to Old Gang. They could come to take their money by force. I will hand it to you once this matter is clear.” Francine began crying and sat down in the rocking chair. Bailey walked to her and hugged her head to his stomach. “Oh Gen. God I’ll miss you.” she cried and buried her head against him.

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Bailey sighed then said “How are you for money? With Gen gone where do you go?” She looked up at him through her tears and said “Well, nowhere…” “Gen worked out of three warehouses in the Sagar metbuilding? I want you to reopen them in a week.” “A week? We’re losing money by the day…” “You’re right. Begin business first thing tomorrow. I think that’s what Gen would have wanted.” Hold up. “Which of the three warehouses is the smallest?” Bailey asked. “B’s the smallest.” “Okay. I want you to open A and C, and begin work immediately. Just work through the old address book. Can I trust you with that?” “I will do my best. What if Old Gang show up?” “You call me.” Bailey said.

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Once she had gone, Bailey pulled the multi-com out of the drawer, expanding the holoprojection again. Location, Location, Location. Seeing that it was still connected to the East Syndicate internal network, he brought up details of Gen Colec’s Importer/ Export company. Scanning down the premises details he found the Sagar Warehousing block to be in the outer metropolis ring, and served as a cover for East Syndicate proper. Colec’s business was part of an intricate hive of drug production and distribution within the block. After he had a small paper print out of the company address, Bailey tidied the apartment and gathered all identification together. The night is young. We aren’t done yet. Now, let’s test this double identity. “I will do this one last thing. Then I must sleep.” Bailey said as he jumped down from the living room toward the door. The corridor outside had taken on a chill when it came time to make his way back to the elevator. He let it carry him back along its route through the tunnels to the lobby, and then ran out through the cool air to the top of the steps, and down to the road.

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Bailey walked to the curb and pressed the button, hearing immediately the noise of an engine from a subway in a concrete bunker somewhere in the unseen backstreets. A moment later he saw the low raindrop of his car turn the corner and roll at a safe speed along the road. It stopped before Bailey with a cool hiss, before opening the closest door and returning to standby mode. “Auto or manual, sir?” the voice spoke from the dashboard as he climbed into the driver side. “Auto.” Bailey sighed and rested his forehead in his palm. “You’re a pretty weird-assed terrorist, you know?” Whatever, asshole. Now we must find the East Syndicate building. “East Syndicate.” Bailey whispered, and was pleased to see on the opposite side of the windscreen a hologram appear of the route to the Sagar Warehousing building through the prison. Hacked navi-com. South Syndicate vehicle. A ‘Yes or No’ confirmation blinked to the left of it within reach of the driver seat, so Bailey tapped the ‘Yes’ and the car found its way back up onto the motorway. Forgetting Bailey’s earlier request to avoid the crystal highways the car took an offshoot into the cavern wall and then up the steep banking lane leading up and out of the lower city. 159

The car emerged from the tunnel in the land of the biosphere island, and then up through a thick brush of fences covered in salad vegetables. As the clear road emerged above it, the rising sun glared into the windscreen. It immediately tinted to accommodate the yellow glare, and then Bailey found he was looking out over a forest of intensively grown foods that dominated the terrain to the distance at either side. As he drove along the merging crystal highways, light glinted within the clear road just ahead of the car every now and again, guiding it where and when to change between the two lanes. The car stays within the blue light. “I remember.” Bailey dawned a smile and continued to study the Lantis roads, despite the distractions from the height and sights scrolling below. The whole contained landscape of the biosphere could be seen more and more as the tube raised up and over it toward the centermost ring road system. The car reached it and slowed, and Bailey looked down at the arctic region at the centre of the island. The robot control tower reached up out of it before him, and looked quite menacing to him in the low light.

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The central roundabout that encircled it was large and littered with a jumble of holographic signposts, cryptically scribed with abbreviated district names. The navigation computer found the one he needed, and skirting around a couple of maintenance robots drove under the holographic sign and onto a dual carriage highway. At the first slip the navigator took him off and down through the ice to a tunnel leading to the central metropolis. Then suddenly, as he drove down the last of the bank toward the metropolis cavern the full weight of what he was doing impacted him. Stealing and actually using someone’s whole identity? He was way out on a limb here, breaking all the rules he’d been given. On his own he would have to maintain a masquerade of innocence, given he was about to commit a string of very serious crimes, not to the law but to the crime families of the city. The car drove down through the gap in the cavern wall, and out under the block signposted as “Sagar Warehousing LTD”. The car paused at the main highway that encircled the metropolis, giving Bailey a little time to study the place at night. The lighting strips in the ceiling of the cavern and also much the ambient lighting from the buildings had been dimmed. 161

After a brief look up at the Sagar sign the computerized navigator took him across from slip road to slip road, and up into the hollow area of the building to park. It turned slowly into the first of the lanes and stopped in one of the bays. Bailey got out of the car feeling the press of a cold morning draft through the hollow place. He squinted against its bite and said “Park.” The car rolled off along the lane in the direction of a high walled slip road that ramped up and around the side of the block, skimming over some tram rails and then into the parking lot of Sagar Warehousing. Bailey looked across the wide open space within the building, searching for a decent route to the elevators. There were a number of people walking here, some maybe people who worked in this or the other blocks in the district. Bailey was a visitor, or so he would say if questioned, and if he were too deep into the place he would use his new identity, but only as a last resort. For now this would have to do. Bailey walked down stone steps leading to the perfectly flat, tiled expanse between two raised lanes. He followed it along in the direction of the lobby of the Sagar building, situated in the center of the same styled line of glass elevators he’d seen in the Beldin block. Along the walkway was a row of palm trees that bent against the uncomfortably strong wind that seemed to be flowing through here. It was a harsh blast that stung the eyes, but the others here didn’t seem to mind.

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He stepped up to the wide base of the building, stopping for a second to look over the large glass wall and the elevators behind. At the direct center between them was an open doorway leading inside the block. Within would be a robotically manned identity scanner, which would probably require a DNA print. Assuming that his little hack had worked, he could only hope it wouldn’t contradict the signature on Colec’s key card, or worse still be checked against the central DNA database of the prison, which he hadn't had time to hack yet. Still he wasn't sure how he could be so sure of these impulses, these voices, but in the absence of anything else in the world they had undeniably guided him in the right direction. But now was the test, he realized. If they saw he wasn’t meant to be in the building he could get sent away at the gate, and never get to see the inside of Mr Colec’s keep. They could even hand him over to the police, who would probably have him dragged back to that lonely lunatic wing. Bailey walked boldly in to the glass space, out of the wind and then on through the lobby door, and then marched past the detector. He glanced at the robot over his shoulder, seeing it standing stiff to attention looking directly forward through those flickering coloured lights within its cranium. He marched forward as the lobby fanned out into a wider bay, and pressed the button on the hovering holo-plate to call.

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The elevator came fast and silent from the floor beneath his feet, and Bailey looked down at the crumpled print out of the company address. It read 34thth Floor, Warehouse 1417, so he tapped through the relevant menus in the hovering holo-plate. Bailey trained his eyes on the side of the robots face as the elevator raised upward, seeing it cock its head toward him curiously just as he entered the shaft. The elevator hissed as it sped up the levels and along a shaft, then descended into a darkly lit but nicely furbished lobby. Its’ spread of carpet looked to have been stampeded by the hundreds of warehouse workers that had come and gone over the years, and it seemed nobody took a great deal of interest in cleaning it anymore. He stepped through it in silence, and out onto a steel balcony looking out over a long, tall hall that looked to span the whole width of the block. There would be a lot of such halls on the many warehousing floors in the building, with the main storage spaces linked into from massive doors all along each side. The main loading would be done from a hall at the opposite side, as this area had been filled with large sited cabins for administration and office space. Bailey looked along both of the high concrete walls at the numbering painted in large letters over the roofs of the relevant offices that served as an admin center for each warehouse. Along the oily roadway in between them, where worming freight tracks which would feed the typically goods to the gaping doors at the side of each unit, only now most were cemented over with the cabin foundations. 164

It was all shut up tight at this late hour. All the lights were off save for a couple of dim spot lamps along the lane. The elevator had brought him to a lobby closest to Colec's three cabins that looked to be one of a few along the wall. The two largest lay at either side of the balcony connected to warehouses A and C behind him beyond the lobby. Opposite to C was a cabin around one third in size at the side of an enormous freight door that looked almost rusted to its cradle base. The mesh of rail tracks leading into it looked rusted and rotten also, and so any import or export would need to be conducted at the far side. That cabin was his destination though, and looked to be a perfect spot to commandeer just out of the way of the main activity of the business. Bailey walked down the steel steps to an oily path leading between the cabins of A and C. He walked out onto the central lane and along until he reached the office unit of Colec Warehouse B. Bailey skipped up to it's metal doorway, beside a larger portcullis door to the left that looked to be for vehicle access. He punched in the code numerically for “Francine” and was answered by a red light and a frustrating snarl indicating it was the wrong code. Bailey’s mind flashed through all he’d read. Gen Colec’s date of birth was a number large enough to be the code. He can’t have been that dumb.

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The code was punched in and the lock emitted a pleasant ping. Within the door could be heard an automatic unhinging of the locking mechanism. Bailey smiled and pushed the door open. Now all we need is a… err… eh? “Good evening, Sir.” Bailey heard the words pierce from behind. “Border Security Inspection.” He turned to see a medium sized man with a slim build in a heavy armoured uniform and domed helmet. The emblem on the uniform sleeve read “B-Sec”. “Identification please?” he leaned at him with that same piercing voice. “Have I done anything wrong?” “This is an Orange security zone. If you are off limits without a permit it can lead to a fine or a punishment term in solitary confinement? So please Sir, your identification.” Bailey fished in his pocket for Gen Colec’s modded StableLicense. He produced it and held it to the officer. “This identification is clearly a forgery. I have seen some good forgeries in my time, not that this happens to be one. I’m afraid I will have to place you into custody.” 166

“Is this really necessary? I assure you this is real.” Bailey pleaded unenthusiastically. “You are off limits and under the Border Security act under the Royal House of Cequodus, page 115, paragraph C, it clearly states no unauthorized personnel shall be off limits for any reason without a produced orange permit in an orange class security sector. You have been found in violation of said paragraph and hence I must treat you as an extremist.” “Do I really seem like an extremist?” Bailey looked him over lazily. “Well you get a lot of strange folk wandering around in a place such as this. You could be an extremist. You could be a prowler, a hacker, a terrorist! It’s a judgment call. I’m going to have to call it in…” The officer leaned his mouth to his shoulder where Bailey saw a small microphone that he would no doubt use to call for backup, and turn this into quite a hot experience. The Border-Sec officer’s head snapped almost to breaking point, helmet and all as Bailey punched down. The officer didn’t make the call but instead fell like a rag doll to the cold concrete road. Bailey sadly looked up at a camera pointing more or less directly at him from above, recording what would usually be the uneventful goings on in the night.

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AI hasn't spotted it yet. Maybe the camera's rusted too. Inside now. Let’s turn this to our advantage. Bailey sighed and lazily picked up the body and dragged it into the admin unit of Colec Warehouse B. Bailey hauled the body through the narrow reception and through another door into the main space of the unit. There was a trailer parked just behind the vehicle door, to the side of a narrow gangway with two old cars stacked on its uppermost level, and a few old motorbikes piled on top of one another on the bottom. It looked like it could be towed as part of a convoy of trailers should it be taken to and lifted onto a rail cart. Bailey passed these by to a workshop at the rear of the place. The old man has stripped the office out for us. Maybe everyone has the same ideas. In the workshop he let the body go and glanced around. Colec had been in the business of repairing automobiles and other micro-engineered equipment it seemed. Something within him smiled. Suddenly he felt the dizziness return, and tried to make it to one of the encompassing workbenches before he could fall. He seemed to regain control this time, but felt a little odd. His fatigue had weakened him, and in doing so something else had grown stronger. It was Arc, and in his schizophrenic state he now felt much, much closer to him. Let go. Let me drive. 168

“No! I’m not mad.” Bailey whispered weakly. Bailey tied the cops hands together with some old plastic covered chain and lifted the body of the officer effortlessly over him, hooking the chain over a hook dangling from the ceiling. The officer hung as Bailey sat back against the scarred work bench that lined the rear wall. There was an old half smoked cigar in a tin tray to his right, so he lit it with a slightly shaking hand and tried to assess what he had done. He took a long draw on the old stick, but it didn’t seem to help. “I feel… faint?” Bailey hissed as he exhaled. What does your heart tell you to do? "You're trying to..." Bailey said while shaking his head and looking around the lost place he had come to for some sign of familiarity or console. He caught sight of himself again in a tall, warped mirror leaning against the side bench. His own face was stretched in three directions by the pummelling the mirror’s face had taken. This universe is a dream. Life is a dream. You are a dream. Listen to my voice. Bailey stood up and walked over to the officer with a swagger like an old gangster from a cheesy movie. He took his domed helmet off and dropped it at his feet, then 169

proceeded to blow cigar smoke into his face, waking him slightly. “Uhh. You’ll never get away with this.” he said coming to. “They’ll notice I am missing and search this place with prejudice.” Bailey, having seemingly heard enough turned to the officer, stepping at him, and side kicked into his stomach. The officer’s body swung back and then forward, as Bailey side stepped to be missed. “I’m telling you straight…” the officer began, cut short as Bailey winded the words short with a punch, followed by a furious barrage of more punches to his chest and stomach. The officer coughed and swung before Bailey who stood staring at him, a crazed, fixated look on his face. The codes… “The codes.” Bailey said with a kind of childlike drama. “Your passcodes for Border-Sec intra networks.” “I am a trustee! Go to hell you…” he said before being stuck hard across the head. Bailey followed with more punches, bending his face left and right.

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The officer’s face was pouring blood from cuts afterward, but he still spoke “You can kill me. I swore allegiance to Cequodus Border-Security. I swore allegiance to my homeworld. Oh why was I sent here to this place? I am a police officer!” “All this will end. Just tell me the codes.” “You know you will have to kill me anyway. My integrity! I’ll never tell you!” the officer whimpered, injecting fury into Arc Micormic. Bailey struck him some more before catching sight of the cop's identity wallet hanging half out of his jacket pocket. He took it from his shaking body and took from it a picture of the man’s family. It had been taken in the biosphere, indicating he had made his family here on the colony. “Oh God no.” the officer panted as he saw the photograph. “Just tell me the codes… And only you have to die.” Bailey spoke. “Password is Seikonjelles. It’s the colony where I was born. Security code is 1357, should it be required. It never is.” he panted, and Bailey turned away smirking like some comic book villain. Bailey took a jagged, oil stained knife from the backmost work bench, and brought it up to the chest of the hanging officer. Slowly Bailey fed it through the buttons of 171

the armoured uniform, and into the chest, piercing the heart. Bailey stepped away from the officer slowly, watching the body buck and jerk against the blade. Eventually it stopped moving and hung lifeless between the cul de sac of workbenches. Bailey stepped back and sat up on the rear workbench, and rubbed his sore eyes, wondering if it was all a dream. He looked at his fingers and saw a streak of blood and felt even more dizzy and unreal. He was noticeably being guided now, with the lack of morals only experienced in dreams, but with far more grace and precision. As if watching someone else his hand took the multi-com from his pocket and threw it onto the floor just below the dead cop’s feet, skimming through the growing pool of blood. Immediately the Branch operating system began within the multi-com, and a huge, high definition holo-terminal projected over it, swamping out the view of the corpse and the trailer behind it. Bailey looked over the display with glazed eyes, as the square options orbited slowly around the point of light. He chose “Public Internetwork” written within a dark green square, reaching up to tap it as it flew by.

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We need some friends. On selecting it, all options fluttered over his shoulder with a thrum. The terminal expanded into two white pages, while spewing out new options that orbited at a wider distance, so to pass by behind him. Bailey suddenly found himself sitting within a strange collage of moving colour and light, with his arms compelled to manipulate the pages and options that hovered before him. Somehow he seemed to know the intricacies and nuances of computer sign language, so to zoom, select, copy, paste, delete and a host more within the Branch operating system. His finger pressed against the search box while he seemed to say “Civil service trustee login page, flag, secure web protocols.” A number of search results came back, with the third being the one he needed, and so his finger tapped there. He now looked at the login page for colony trustees, that were just exiles like himself that had been granted an especially trustworthy role to top up their allowance a little higher than a regular job. He tapped the name field and said the name of the cop, then the pass field and said “Seikonjelles.” Both pages fizzed and then became the Civil Service internal network. The left page was entitled “City Archives” and amongst it’s long list was the option for “Advanced 173

Census”, and so he double tapped there, opening a third page that he dragged away to the side. The new window began to populate with the names and expandable details of everyone recently brought into the colony, with other tabbed pages for histories going back a decade at a time. While it did so he left it for a moment and turned his attention to the rightmost page, that was entitled “High Security Services”. Within it’s lists was the option for “Raw Command” at the very bottom, illustrating how rarely it was selected. Bailey double tapped it, entered the passcodes, and both pages turned black. The left most page filled with a green line that danced as Bailey spoke, while the one on the right filled with the text spoken. With this window brought much more control over the services on the network, but only if you knew the complex computer language that ran the services. Arc apparently did. “Open surveillance grid.” Bailey said, and a new window popped out of the pages and hovered just above them. It filled with a complex inventory of camera hubs at various points within the prison. “Individual, search by name.” he said and then turned to the city census, and reached out to the search box at the top of the long list.

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Pressing the box he said “Find me exiles with the following attributes. Identity theft. Concealed murder. Mutilation of corpses. Hacking. Marksmanship. Honour. Persistent sexual inadequacy…” Bailey continued to lay out the attributes the darkness required, and desired. For each attribute a new window popped out of the main and populated with the relevant names and addresses. He dragged them to the left and right stacking them in a mini totem like pole at either side of the main windows. Once each new window had been created he worked through them, sorting the list by extremity of that attribute in the life of the person. At the top of each list he double tapped the name and watched as the two main pages dimmed and minimized, and were replaced in the center of the room by a slowly rotating hologram of the person. He linked the surveillance grid to the name and found a live feed of what the person was doing in a set of windows just over the shoulders of the hologram. With each person he recorded their data onto the drive within the multi-com. Chester Barron, a tall muscular man, and coincidentally the man he had been told was leading the escape. He was sipping a coffee alone at a café along the promenade somewhere in the city center. Wendall Jayne, a demure but intelligent looking lady, that was busy taking a morning bubble bath, according to the infrared camera nested within trees opposite her cottage in the outer neighbourhood belt. Nash Fincle, one of the notorious Fincle twins, and current 175

primary leaders of Old Gang syndicate. Currently, he was watching a gang of thugs beating an old man to death, safely hidden behind a one way window in the Old Gang building, that didn’t look to be part of the metropolis. Name after name and person after person. He found the ones he wanted and saved them to disk. The last window was a search for someone with starship command experience. The field was empty but for one cryptic entry. It read “Incoming” and on double tapping it he expanded the hologram of a short stocky black skinned man wearing reverend garb, dog collar and all. “Incoming?” Bailey murmured, and the civil network help system answered “Affirmative. Exile currently inbound to prison.” “Where?” “Reverend Dane Angell is currently being deployed into hatch 7-Y. He is to be collected by colony robot 647933UAX.” it said. “Connect surveillance. Show me!” Bailey said and watched the surveillance screens that suddenly began to focus in on one of the golden robots as it walked from a police vehicle in a place that looked to be beneath the sea. The whole roof of the room was glass and viewed schools of real Lantis fish that must live all around the island.

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It was where the sea met the outer wall and within the room the grey stone seemed to stand ominously over the tiny figures within. There was a waterfall flowing from a large stone pipe above, toppling to the ground and down through a grated drain. This is how exiles normally enter the place. Be thankful you had a softer landing. Bailey turned one of the cameras to look directly at the waterfall, that looked eerily similar to the fountain in Red Sector, and watched as a chubby girl with long blonde hair flew out of the pipe. She fell down the long drop and landed on her knees on the jagged metal drain. She grabbed her thigh and screamed out at the ceiling, with one of the sharp lengths of metal cutting deep into her knee. The robot that had been assigned to collect her ran over to her and pulled her roughly from the drain, then began running a medical device over her body to heal her. A tiny black streak entered the water flow from above and then a man wearing a dark suit fell from the pipe and landed like a coil on his feet and hands within the falling water. He slowly righted himself and walked out of the falls to the robot, and was then escorted away. “Where is he going?” Bailey watched himself say, and then watched the reply from a great distance within his daze. “He is a reverend of the Church of the Naturalistic Mind, and will be stationed at the cathedral in Old Gang Central.”

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“Old Gang ai?” Bailey said rubbing his stubbly face. “Save data and presets, and exit.” Bailey jumped down from his perch on the workbench as the gases were deionized and the huge hologram faded. With all the digital razzmatazz gone he was once again standing in a dingy workshop with a cold corpse hanging from a hook. Bailey stepped forward and unhooked the body, then dragging it to a walk in cupboard at the right. He looked at it lying on the plastic sealed floor, a new pool of blood growing, and then staying the same size around it. This is bad. We will need to get rid of the body, and fast. And that includes all traces of it on the surveillance grid. You can't sleep just yet. Bailey, still somewhat entranced, closed the cupboard door, and then dozily headed out of the building, and then back across the city to Colec’s apartment. Without turning on the lights he grabbed the body of the savage dog and dropped it into a large sports bag. Racing back the same way he took the sports bag to the warehouse and tipped the sleeping man eater on top of the corpse. Bailey locked the door of the cupboard and turned, looking around the interior of the warehouse. His eyes were a deep red and shaking slightly like a madman.

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“No.” he hissed. You know, I wouldn’t have thought of that.

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The Hot Situation. By morning the next day Bailey had returned to his own house on the row, and was reclining in the garden under the buzzing sun lamps. He had been reading through a newspaper he’d found in Gen Colec’s workshop, but now simply sprawled in a pair of shorts under the heat. During the early morning he had hacked the Border Security records beginning with the dead officer’s passcodes, then spring boarding to higher and higher security clearance levels. The higher clearance allowed him to delete that nights surveillance records for the warehouse, replacing them with garbled data as if a virus had had its way. Eventually he got some sleep, but only after handing in the officer’s notice and a crazy sounding letter suggesting he had gone somewhat insane and turned to an undisclosed religious cult. Whether this would be believed was another matter, but it would stall a man hunt for a long while to come. And by then the cop will be dog shit. “Today’s the day, Mr Bailey.” he heard the voice of Barton Beldin approach from behind, and the lighter footsteps of his wife. “Time to meet the guys you will be working with. They know a lot more about your role than I could ever explain, and they're eager to meet our new golden boy.” “What? Right now?” Bailey looked at him through his shades. 180

Cix leant down and closed the magazine on his lap, and said “Right now.” Bailey got dressed quickly, and left the house feeling refreshed, having caught a few hours sleep under the sun. The Beldins had brought a nice car, larger and more valuable than the one they had given him. Bailey sat in the center of the back seat, while they took the car up onto the crystal highways. The car drove over a route leading to the west, over where the cultivated land became dustier, and then desert. They drove down to the desert where the tunnels of the crystal highway ended, leading out onto the biosphere island. An obviously filled-in concrete road took them across the boiling sand. It ran up over a hill and down a long slope toward the edge of the island. Here a large beach ran down to the water. So close to the sea now, it looked as if it stretched out into infinity, almost unnaturally so. They got out of the car and walked along the coast to the beginnings of a pier that seemed to lead out into that infinity. They walked up onto it and the couple took heavy fur-lined blazers from a white wood hut. Bailey took one, looking up at the blazing artificial sun in the roof of the biosphere cavern.

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“You want me to put this on?” Bailey said, as the other two put on their blazers. “Now.” Cix pointed, and so Bailey shrugged and pulled it over his shoulders. Bailey walked slightly behind them as they walked out to sea along the pier. The sweat poured from him. They had brought with them a shoulder bag each from the car, not mentioning what was in it, not that they had mentioned a great deal so far. “Oh Gosh!” Bailey said, feeling a little light headed. Barton looked at him over his shoulder and smiled “Build up your heat. You’ll need it.” Bailey nodded and followed them further out to sea. The shore grew smaller and smaller, until it was just a thin yellow blur in the intense heat waves. “Here.” Cix said and ran forward slightly. “Watch.” Bailey stepped up, watching as she picked a small pebble from the pier, and threw it forward, along it. The pebble seemed to hit a forcefield, causing the view ahead to ripple and hiss with static. 182

“Come.” Barton said and Bailey followed them to the forcefield’s edge. Together they pushed through its membrane. The static tried to grab them at the touch, but with a little shouldering they made it through to the pier beyond. Bailey scanned around the interior, finding they were at the inner dome wall, where the sea ended, crashing up and along it in fair sized waves. Ahead, at the end of the pier it widened slightly, unlike any pier he had ever seen, to an area afore a large grey door in the wall. As they got closer he appreciated more and more its size and height. A relatively small panel to its left changed its display and bleeped a couple of times, almost as if to say “Come on, just try and open me.” Barton took a small remote control from the front pouch of his bag and pressed a button, aiming it toward the flickering panel. The giant door groaned slightly then began sliding to the left, spilling bright white light onto the dark place between the forcefield and the dome. “Took us ages to crack the codes for this door.” Barton said, with a loaded sigh. “Come along.” Bailey followed them through the doorway squinting against the brightness until the interior became visible. A corridor came to sight, first the bright blue domed lighting on the ceiling high above, then the white walls and rail track that ran along its length.

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They walked along the corridor than ran down in a broad spiral. Bailey squinted against the clinical, brightly illuminated sheen that seemed to wash over everything within. “We’re in the dome wall.” Cix said. “Can you hear that, and the vibrations? They are the recycling plants. It’s a big part of our way off the planet.” Bailey could hear a hum every few seconds, and the vibration all around them. They walked along the huge corridor until they reached its end. The clinical paint ended and the old stone and brick below it stretched out into a tall hexagonal hall. Bailey realized now why they needed the heavy coats, as a freezing wind flowed over him. He put up his hood as he stepped into the cold, wet concrete place. The railway turned as it entered and ended at an archway to the right, which itself had been sealed shut by melted steel. There was a circular pit at the other side of the hexagonal floor, and a matching hole above it. Barton moved to it and took a box with two punch buttons hanging on a long wire from the ceiling. Bailey could hear a groaning of metal from above and then a thick grated platform was lowered on chains from the hole in the ceiling. It stopped in the hole in the floor and the couple walked through a gap in the thin pole fencing around its edge. Bailey followed and then Barton pressed

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the top button on a similar box atop a pole attached to the elevator. The chain tugged and pulled the grated industrial elevator up, fitting neatly into and up through the circular shaft in the ceiling. As the elevator began to accelerate upward, Cix raised her voice “We’re going to introduce you to the prison defences. You’ll be working with the team in charge of hacking and disabling them.” “This is one of the few views out of the colony wall. It’s a nature observation tower we think was used by the original scientists that lived here, before the ice age.” Barton spoke. Ice age? Bailey looked upward seeing light from above, and feeling the cold winds intensify. “The ice age?” Bailey asked. Cix said “Yeah. The colony used to be a Cequodus science outpost during the first colonization era. Narcosia was a prehistoric planet, but like most planets in that era it suffered a bombardment of meteors. Star nursery leftovers on a cosmic timer returning or some such. The planet was thrust into an ice age and so the colony was converted to this.”

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She gestured toward the colony behind them, and Bailey felt a tinge of sadness. “Goggles.” Barton shouted, as the cold winds intensified, and handed them both a pair. Bailey put his on and hugged against the harsh bite of the swirling draft. The elevator slid to the top, and stopped within the observation room looking out onto the snowy landscape, through narrow slits encircling them. There was no storm outside but the winds were savage and fierce. The view beyond was clear, with a full view of the atmosphere beyond the prison wall. Through two of the narrow slits could only be seen a rock face leading upward, but at the other three could be seen greater distances. One looked out over the same rock face from a side angle, showing how it led down to an outcropping and series of hangars. There were lights down there denoting robot activity in the area. From the other two, beyond a short ledge of rock could be seen a massive expanse of undisturbed snow reaching off into the misty distance. The Citadels aren’t there? Through each slit a strange slogan could be easily read. Through the two blocked by the rock face, the words were scribbled in red paint and easy to read across the rock. The Citadels aren’t there. Through the slit looking down over the hangars, the words were painted on the side of the first 186

hangar, clear as day. Lastly, though the two slits looking out over the wide flat of white, the words could be seen at a distance, scribbled on a huge wooden sign, much like an old sign from the pre industrial period. It had been stabbed into the snow a few miles out, and had been blown slightly askew in the time it had stood there. It echoed mockery. The Citadels aren’t there. “Citadels?” Bailey asked. “Slow down.” Cix said. “Well explain all that we can.” Barton had opened the control box and was switching a pin from one resistor to another that looked like an earth. A single fat spark flew out as the connection was made and the box was closed. Barton pushed the button to go back down and the elevator dropped back along the shaft. It slowed and stopped just before the opening in the hall roof. To the side, in the direction of the hangars, a tall metal panel sat in the wall of the shaft. Barton unclipped the handle and opened it, revealing a tunnel through the rock, ending at an opening to the outer environment. “This way.” Barton said, and began crawling on his knees through the tunnel. Cix followed then Bailey. Ahead, Barton reached a round, glass hatch that snapped open forcefully at the press of a switch. It was the last door before the outer world of the planet and Bailey followed them out into the grip of it's brutal weather. 187

They emerged from the hole on the outside, and he found himself looking down the slope of a snow covered hill, that led to the gangway between the sealed hangars. Barton pulled him down by his sleeve and said "Stay low." Bailey followed the couple as they crouched behind a low ridge of rock and headed away from the round doorway. Looking around he saw how the observation tower had been built into a protruding shape of rock that was part of a taller cliff face. The pasty white walls of the dome towered miles higher to the left and right, just beyond the top of it. Bailey saw Barton smiling as he watched him try to weigh up the outer topography. “The base of the dome is just beyond that cliff. We’re at the perimeter of the colony. Don’t worry, they can’t see us down here.” Barton said, then began crawling in the opposite direction, toward what looked like another cliff face falling far down to the flat expanse and the weird sign. “You’ll see more around this way. Stay out of sight of those buildings.” Bailey followed them along to the edge of the cliff, and then around the base of the tall rock tower. As they moved to the other side of it they lost sight of the buildings and stood up.

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From here the cliffs merged into one, and far along could be seen a huge outflowing pipe, spewing the leftovers of the recycling process down into the misty places far below. “God, it’s cold!” Bailey hissed, trying not to look at the cliff edge. “Look.” Barton said, and walked cautiously back the way they had come. Bailey looked around the side of the rock wall at the hangars, catching sight of a shorter tower close by, caked in snow, with an arm and ear radar spinning slowly atop. There was a robot standing sentry at its base, close to a box that would probably be used to interface its firmware. It held before it a huge rifle topped by a long, jagged bayonet. Gently ushering Bailey back out of sight, Barton said “This is where we can access the solar grid. If we can set up an override in that radar, it can be used to send the signals needed to spoof commands from the Citadels.” “The Citadels that aren’t there?” Bailey smirked. “The Citadels most certainly are there.” Barton said. “There are a few things you should know.” Barton went on “For years we had no comprehension of who was in command of this colony. We assumed it was all run robotically or perhaps from the weather station in orbit. You can’t see the station right now, but it’s clear most 189

nights. But even the station is robot-run, according to our experts. Seventeen years ago there was a rumour put around by a new exile, who had worked in the inner command circles of the Cequodus military, that when the research colony was converted to a prison, there had been three citadels built in the center of the crater.” Barton gestured at the wide expanse of snow. The sign still signalled its creepy message. The dome is built within a crater. Interesting… “The citadels were cloaked to invisible, so he said, and a smaller colony of guards posted permanently within.” Barton said, stopping to take a breath in the thin air. Bailey digested this and looked out over the gigantic crater, the other side of which could not be seen. His eyes caught sight of a strange shape in the distance, wondering momentarily if it were a citadel or something related. Looking at it further he saw it was another dome, miles to the fogged distance. Pointing to it Bailey said “Another dome? Here within the crater?” “That’s right.” Cix said. “As far as we know there are only two, but there is a third smaller dome in the opposite direction. That, we are told reliably is the robot center of the prison. It’s all coordinated from there. You can’t see it today, but on a really clear day you can see it with a telescope from the tower.” 190

“What about that?” Bailey pointed at the crooked sign post. “The Citadels aren’t there?” “Shortly after the rumour of the citadels began, this slogan began appearing all over the prison. At first we thought it must be a new cult or a gang of kids. Surveillance cameras would go offline, miss whoever did it, and then we found it painted on the outside of the dome, in places inaccessible by anyone. It became apparent that we were dealing with something... else. We think it must be something robotic, programmed by those living in the citadels. But to what ends? We don't know.” “How can you be sure there are citadels?” Bailey said. “Maybe they aren’t there after all.” Barton smiled and walked past him toward the cliff edge. From his back pack he brought two stands, placing one at one point and the other a few meters along. He knelt beside it and pressed a control. A line of holographic light reached from it to the other stand, and a screen reached up from the line. It was transparent, colouring the view beyond a dark blue. Barton stepped back beside the other two and they looked up at the landscape, and three tall buildings, the citadels reaching up out of it. They stood miles high merging into the slow rolling clouds above. Barton walked back toward the screen, and pointed up to the citadels. 191

“Centuries of redesign and planning has developed layer upon layer of security systems for this dome. Many minds create one mind, but the same applies to us. We have stripped away that layering, and are now ready to break free.” Barton latticed his fingers, staring intensely at him. “And there’s one last thing.” Barton reached inside his backpack, and produced a dark grey human skull. He threw the skull and Bailey caught it. It looked as if it had been burnt. Barton continued “This was found in the waste system, at a point we found flows from the citadels. They mustn’t have recycling facilities at their side, so food and water is no doubt sent to them through pipes, and their waste sent here for reprocessing. This is the skull of a man who disappeared a few months back. He is one of many that have disappeared. We believe they are kidnapping, and killing them.” “The families up there, how many generations are between them?” Bailey asked. Cix gulped and said “Not many.” “And you’re suggesting they cooked and ate this person?” Bailey gestured with the skull, grimacing. “The guy’s fried…” “We don’t know. We’re telling you all that we know.” Barton said.

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“Lording over you all these centuries, up there all alone? They could be completely insane. Nice...” Bailey said, failing to see the irony. “It’s hard to believe they haven’t been removed from their position.” “What do Cequodus care if they keep doing their jobs?” Cix said. “They are hackers just like you. They reprogram the robots to be stronger every year.” Bailey looked up at the towering buildings, standing in the snow far beyond the contradictory sign. Barton turned off the screen and gathered the stands. “Let’s go back now. You’ve yet to meet your team. They should be more on your wavelength.” Barton said, and crawled back around the rock face. They crouched along the ridge out of sight of the robot sentries, and on reaching the tunnel to the elevator, Barton tapped Baileys shoulder and said “One last thing.” Barton took a large rock and stood up in sight of the robot at the radar. He threw the rock, as the robot readied its rifle. Bailey watched the rock sail down and strike it on its flickering head. Immediately it aimed the rifle at them and sprayed the other side of the ridge with plasma shots. Snow kicked up high into the air over them, as Bailey held his hands over his ears and crouched down out of sight.

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He felt a powerful hand grab his coat and pull him into the tunnel. “Don’t freeze up.” Barton said, an inch away from his face. They sat cramped in the rock tunnel as the footsteps, metal on rock, approached up the face of the hill. The lights came, and then the robot stopped just beyond the ridge, looking left and right as if they weren’t in plain view. “As long as we’re within the borders of the colony, it won’t attack.” Cix whispered. “Is that what you wanted to show me?” Bailey said, as the robot walked back the way it had come. “No. Wait.” Cix said, and so they waited. Bailey, being the closest to the end of the tunnel had a wider view over the hangars and what looked like the top of a weather rocket beyond them. It was white with red and blue stripes spiralling down over it. Are they really thinking of getting off the planet in that? “Hmmn.” Bailey said concerned. Just then, a large black vehicle emerged from beyond the cliff face, flying up around the rocket and encircling the hangars with incredible agility. It had two archaic helicopter propellers reaching up from its wings, that angled as the body itself twisted slightly with its every movement. It 194

looked to be a living creature but for the fact that it was clearly robotic. Massive bays of chain guns and missiles hung below it. “There’s our real problem.” Barton said. “We call it the Heletank. A work-horse artificial intelligence completely independent of the robotic grid. Un-networked so we can’t hack it.” “Shit.” Bailey said, watching it. The massive AI shone alternating colours of flood lamps around the hangars and observation tower, screeching a hideous siren in frustration as it searched for whoever had hurled the rock. “Let’s get back before it sees us.” Barton pulled at Bailey’s coat. “I’m not so sure that it won’t attack.” Bailey closed the hatch, and then followed them through the tunnel. They dropped back onto the elevator, and shook the caked snow from their coats to the metal grating. “We think it comes from the robot dome, but we don’t know for sure. It could come from the citadels for all we know.” Cix said, shaking her head side to side, having caught some snow flakes in her length of white hair. Barton lit a cigarette before changing the wires back to normal in the control box. He pressed the down button

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twice and the elevator slid down into the hexagonal hall and directly on into the floor. The shaft continued deep down into the rock until finally the walls became plastic and portholes showed that they were underwater. The water was a tanned colour from what looked to be soil or biomatter. “We’re in an underground lake.” Barton said “It’s the waste water from the biosphere. We’ve commandeered one of the recycling plants on the lake bed. The terminals in the plant are connected to certain networks we need to access… or something. This is where you and your team take over, I’m afraid.” The tunnel suddenly moved through a dark stretch and then they emerged in a room completely surrounded by clear walls. Like a glass hut on the bed of the lake, with the damp, rocky floor of the room covered flat by metal grating. Through the clear roof could be seen the tidal eb and flow of muddy water, and long illuminous eels higher up that looked as though they belonged in some deep ocean trench on their homeworld. The water was flowing all around the outside of the walls, thick with bits of wood and insect that had washed down from the upper dome. There was obviously plenty to recycle, since a colony such as this wouldn’t wish to waste organic matter. He noticed vaguely a group of short eels fighting in frenzy over a piece of fish.

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Bailey looked around at the laboratory interior, and the men and women in lab coats running here and there between terminals. One of the men, noticing their arrival shouted out “Ahh! A new addition to our order!” He ran up steps from the lab to their level, and Barton introduced him. “Bailey this is Lloyd Oric, team leader. Lloyd, this is the big hacker we promised, Aaron Bailey.” “Welcome comrade!” Lloyd yelled and held a hand to Bailey, who shook it, a little disorientated. “Let me introduce you to our mission.” the geeky scientist took Bailey by the wrist and practically dragged him down the steps to the lab. He moved around the outside from terminal to terminal showing him what systems each member of the team were working on. “And this is the primary system dealing with the robotic ability to call for assistance. If we succeed in severing this link we can localize the alert during the break.” Lloyd spat in his toothy way. “Simply put, we here seek to sever all connection with the outside world from the specific areas utilized within the escape plan. Although we aren’t privy to the other teams work, and rightly so given the failures of 197

security in previous escape attempts, we possess all the data required to bring our tasks to completion. Any questions?” Lloyd leaned at Bailey smiling slightly “How come it’s taking so long?” Bailey shrugged. “You have the connections by the look of it. Why not install the programs on standby?” “We have encountered a number of unanticipated hurdles.” he confessed. “Hurdles?” Bailey tried not to smile. “There are gaps in our understanding of the requirements to spoof such commands to the robotic mainframe.” he nodded. “Can I take a little look?” Bailed asked laconically, and Lloyd began walking him to an unused computer terminal, that could have been Lloyd’s. “I do admit that we could do with a few pointers.” said Lloyd. “This particular terminal has been set up to deal with security surrounding the weather rocket…” Oh dear. Lloyd went on “I hypothesize that a source signal spoofed to come from the citadels…” 198

“No.” Bailey interrupted, and leant down to work on the computer. “They will only take command from the robotic center, which I’m told is another dome. If we can take a sample signal from that dome… Ah I see you have a couple. Well with that sample you can recalculate the key to the signal and then simply encode each signal with the key. Normal this would take a long time but luckily I can do the calculations myself. Looks like it’s in the 600 range so that’s…. tsk-tsk-tsk…” Bailey typed a command into the computer and then said “There’s your key, comrade! Simply feed your commands through that program. The metal heads will respond.” Lloyd looked at the screen, then back to Bailey, then beamed “Superlative!” He clapped and strode around the lab to gather the attention of the others. “Oh my word, you’ve won the day!” “So, where do I work?” Bailey asked, and the applause stopped. Barton shrugged and said “It's this way?” Bailey followed the Beldins and Lloyd onto the elevator again, and Barton handed them all strap-on gas masks. Bailey, not asking anything further grabbed the nozzle of the gasmask in his teeth and tied the ribbons behind his head. Bailey followed them all in affixing his goggles again, and then Barton pressed the button to go down.

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The elevator shuddered and then was lowered below the rock bed of the lake. The walls were damp rock and there were some worrying trickles of water in places. The smell was damp and mossy, and then invaded by a fouler smell. The elevator reached the bottom and Bailey looked around, surveying the broad hall within. There was a thin walkway around a large oval lake of black coloured liquid, that boiled and churned. The smell was terrible, and Barton, realizing that Bailey had failed to affix the nose clip part of his has mask, reached over and did it for him. Bailey nodded and breathed through the nozzle in his mouth. He followed them around to the opposite side where a thin walkway reached out half a meter or so to a wide oval shed that covered that quarter of the lake. The whole interior of the lake room and the outside of the smaller shed within were all a corrugated plastic, seamless as if constructed for maximum containment. Barton stepped across a walkway to the door to the room and swiped a blue card in a reader. The door slid aside and Bailey followed as they entered. The door slid shut and they removed their masks and goggles. “Oh my God! What the fuck?” Bailey cried out. “You could have warned me!” Barton looked to Cix worriedly and said “This is one of the oil processing plants. It’s the last point of titration in the recycling process. It combines everything from biosphere to

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human wastes. Not nice, but this room is where you must work from. It’s has the highest level of access.” “No matter. But still you could have warned me.” Bailey said, surveying the inside of the room. There were computer panels all along the wall close to the door, and at the other side of the oval interior a small pool of the horrible liquid lapped up on a metal shore. Instruments hung over it that would be dipped down into the lake for testing purposes. “I take it these computers link to the main robotic communications trunk?” Bailey asked, eyeing Lloyd Oric. “Yes indeed, my good sir!” he said clapping his hand together. “It’s possible to bounce a signal down through the reprocessing mainframe, into the main trunk, and back up through to the weather testing mainframe.“ Bailey listened then tapped a few commands on the main terminal. One of the screens above suddenly changed its view from the interior of a section of the lake, to a camera looking out over the crater. The camera turned, stopping as it found the radar tower. “I’m at the site. I’m in. The connection is open.” Bailey muttered, then smiled at the Beldins. “The robots think I’m one of them.” “Wonderful!” Barton shouted to him. 201

“I’ll set up the connection to the radar tower. Then when the day comes, we just feed in the command to release a signal to the solar grids. The solar defences will fall and you should be able to pilot a ship out into the galaxy.” But we won’t do that. “We… we won’t?” Bailey stammered. Barton eyed him patiently and said “We will or we won’t?” “Will.” Bailey chuckled nervously. “It will all be ready to roll out. I’ve done part of it already just opening the connection.” “We could use a little of your aid on a few more minor problems we’ve encountered.” Lloyd said. “Well just let us know when it’s all ready.” Barton said as the Beldins walked toward the exit. "Make it as soon as possible, we have news there’s a good storm coming. Good reason for a weather missile run. In truth the other teams are pretty much ready to roll. But take your time. We need this tech stuff done right. It’s the foundation of everything we’re trying to do.” Cix turned and said “I’ll have Barron come down to the lake room. He can coordinate you on what’s expected of you during the actual break. It will be a little work by each of us, but together, it will be just enough. I’ll tell him to come before end of play this evening.” 202

Bailey watched as they donned gas mask and goggles, and quickly exited and closed the door behind them. “How much do you think we can achieve in today’s timeframe?” Lloyd asked. “What?” Bailey looked at him, squinting. Bailey and Lloyd worked for a few hours more in the foul smelling place, until they had almost achieved their overall task. It was then Bailey made an excuse that he’d need to rest before completing it and so they returned to the upper lake room for the rest of the day. Bailey did not truly need to rest however and so was at full energy when he first met Chester Barron.

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South Syndicate. “Good afternoon, Mr Bailey!” Chester Barron strode wide legged down the steps from the elevator to the lake room, and held his huge hand out to Aaron Bailey. “My name is Dr Chester Barron, but you probably know that already.” “I didn’t know the doctor part.” Bailey smiled and shook his hand. “Oh yes.” Barron said stepping around him, looking out through each of the walls. “I was a scientist for many years back on the colonies.” Barron was a huge man, with long, thick dark blonde hair that rested on and off the shoulder. His muscular appearance bulged through his suit and evening jacket almost as if they couldn't quite find a size that properly fit him. He seemed to have a permanent smile burning around the eyes that themselves seemed to be buried within folds of excess muscle. His smile permeated everything he did and said, and he'd win over most people instantly with his force and prowess, but Bailey knew better already. I've been round and round the block, Bailey. “You people don’t seem to regard this as being part of those colonies.” Bailey sighed. “Most people wouldn’t want to. Most people wouldn’t even want to escape.” Barron said sitting down in somebody’s 204

chair. “This is a colony for those exiled from the colonies of Lantis, and a few other alien factions in the empire. You should accept your situation. Even if we do make it out of this solar system, we still won’t be returning to the empire any time soon, and likely not at all.” “I accept this. I just hope we’re going somewhere we can live half way decent lives.” Bailey said, throwing out a query about other areas of the overall plan. Barron smiled realizing this and said “Rest assured we will. Part of what you will need to know revolves around the weather rocket that you may or may not have seen during your tour of the hangar district. The weather missile is launched into orbit during particularly heavy storms. We will pick one such storm and hide within the rocket during its flight into space. Once in space it, and other missiles around the crater are collected by the weather station that orbits Narcosia. It is all done robotically and quickly enough for us to commandeer the control deck of the station. It is fortunate for us that the station has a backspace-drive, capable of jumping directly out of the system, to anywhere in the galaxy it has the power to reach, and with a station of that size it should possess quite a lot of power.” “So this is your plan?” Bailey said. “Everybody involved will be given a bracelet to wear. When the bracelet turns red you’ll need to leave your station and get to the rocket as quickly as possible. People will be there to help you. But it is important for you, being one of the

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folks that will be out in the field, that you complete your assignment before leaving. We all succeed or we all fail.” “I understand completely.” Bailey said dismissively. “I won’t be able to get to the rocket in time from all the way down in the oil room though.” “Oh really?” Barron sat back crossing his legs, interested by the feedback. “I’ll have to virus the radar tower and patch into it manually.” Barron shook his head slightly, confused by the jargon. “I’ll need to be up there beside the radar tower to hack the solar defences. It’s the only other way. And there’s a robot sentry right beside it to stop people like me doing things like this.” “I see. Well, this should be taken care of. I can tell you all now that part of the plan is to blow up the robot control antenna for the base. We believe this will sever it from the central intelligence for a few minutes until an override engages. This should disable your sentry long enough for you to hack the grid and get the hell outa there.” Barron thumbed as he said this, and Bailey thought a moment before nodding. “And you’re sure they won’t attack. You’re sure?” Lloyd asked quite forcefully, apparently worried for Bailey’s safety. 206

“Sure as eggs.” Barron said standing up, and glanced disdainfully at Lloyd as he passed. Barron walked back to the elevator and said “That should be everything. We will hand out the bracelets in the next day or so. Wear them at all times, and when the light turns amber you need to get to your positions and wait for the lights to go red. That’s the time when your task must be complete, and to get your ass to the rocket.” Chester Barron. God has sent me another angel. Only this angel will fall to the earth in flames. “Then we wait.” Bailey nodded, and Barron nodded back with a mighty smile. Bailey and the other technicians watched Chester Barron disappear up through the shaft, and then turned to one another closely. Bailey leant in to hear the chatter. “So long as we do our very own jobs we can at least cover our own names and reputations should all of this end in collapse.” one of the darker skinned Lantians said, whose ancestors appeared to have come from the North continents. “I have no concern for my reputation. I have more concern for the repercussions on those caught and sent back. I won’t survive in the shells. Solitary confinement will crush 207

my intellect. I will fade like the setting sun.” another interjected, apparently one of the more classically educated of the high brow technicians. Bailey interjected “Surely not? What is this talk of collapse and failure? Dr Barron seems confident, does he not? And I’m told he’s had the most experience of any other on the colony of escapes such as this… I know there are rumours…” “Rumours?” Lloyd smiled to him. “Facts comrade. The Beldins have forgiven him of his sin, but the sin remains.” “What is it that you know. I have heard many versions of this story.” Bailey lied. “Only what is said. Barron was second in command of the biggest escape attempt the prison had ever seen. Everything was set to work, until Barron was contacted and bribed by Border-Sec, who we believe were working on behalf of those that live in the Citadels.” “The ones that aren’t there.” Bailey jibed. “The Beldins showed you them I’m sure. It pains me to leave the colony in this state. Nothing will change for those we leave behind.” Lloyd hung his head slightly, as if thinking of people or things important to him.

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“The plan will work. I am sure of it.” Bailey nodded to them, and pressed with a repressed passion. “I will help you with everything. I will make it work.” Lloyd chuckled and slapped a hand on Bailey’s arm. “I know you will, comrade. I have every faith in you.” “We must all believe in one another.” one of the lady technicians said shyly. “Let’s call that close of play for today. Bailey has worked particularly hard for his first day. I have to inform you all that I was impressed.” Lloyd spoke to the small crowd. “So let’s call it a day, and reconvene tomorrow at…. Eight forty five in the morn.” They tidied their work areas and went to the elevator. Once in the hexagonal room above, Lloyd stopped Bailey and said “Come with me, Bailey. I’ll drive you home later.” Bailey looked at the other technicians walking away up the first of the spiralling corridor, and then followed Lloyd back onto the hanging elevator platform. Lloyd did the same trick with the control box and then pressed the button to go up, taking the elevator adjacent to the tunnel to the outside. Bailey followed Lloyd through and out into the night. They hid behind the rock ridge and made their way around to the small ledge where the Beldins had taken him earlier that 209

morning. Lloyd sat down on the rock, and lay back looking at the clear night sky. “Come hither, comrade.” he said in his nerdy way. Bailey lay beside him and looked up. Lloyd passed him a small, high fibre confectionary bar. Bailey smiled taking it then took a bite enthusiastically, accidentally biting the side of his tongue as he did, and then cringing against the pain. He was hungry though, and although the sweet bar was tainted by the taste of his own blood he swallowed it anyway. As he did he glanced slightly at the place where he’d seen the revealed citadels earlier, and considered something abstract. Lloyd sucked in the icy, fresh air and sighed as he watched the perfectly clear sky above. “Must be the calm before the storm.” Bailey said. “That’s right. It often happens this way on Narcosia. The night before the storms begin the sky clears completely, and you can see it all. I don’t recognize any of these star patterns, so we must be somewhere far, far away from the colonies. Probably close to the outer rim.” “That’s a long way home.” “But we aren’t going home.” Lloyd looked at him. “You can abandon all hope of ever returning. You need real 210

citizenship to live your life in those worlds. They’ll spot a fake eventually, there’s no way to fool them. And even if you could go back would you really want to? I certainly wouldn’t. Anything I called home died long ago. The Eclipse Empire, saw to that, and all the corrupted dynasties within it. Worst by far being Cequodus and the others involved with the Shadow Alliance. Good deeds happen in the light, comrade. Evil in the dark. Choice of symbolism can reveal so much motive in these things.” “I agree, I guess. And no, I don’t think I have anything to go back to either.” Bailey said truthfully. “Look up there.” Lloyd pointed with his thin hand at the end of the huge furry coat arm. “See the weather station?” Bailey looked up, searching the black between the stars. He found it, a close collection of lights like the stars, but with a few slowly flashing red and green lights. And then he saw something else. “What is that?” Bailey pointed at it. Lloyd looked, seeing the brightly lit ship a little over toward the horizon. “It’s big whatever it is.” Lloyd began. I recognize it.

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“Looks like a Shadow Security ship. Sheriff class.” Lloyd said. “Sheriffs hunt down exiles in the empire then bring them back here to the prison. Like glorified bounty hunters I suppose. I don’t know why it’s still here though. They dropped off the last batch of exiles weeks ago. I’ve never seen one stay in orbit when it doesn’t need to. It will be costing money to keep it there after all.” I know who it is. I met them on the colonies. They beat me. “What species are the Sheriffs? Are they from Lantis like us?” They weren’t Lantians. “No. I saw one once, just before I was captured and brought here. They wear scarlet robes at all times, and dark green canvas masks. But the shape of it… the body… that face. They weren’t from Lantis, I’m sure.” Lloyd said. They’re waiting. “Waiting for what?” Bailey said out aloud, and Lloyd looked at him, considering his thoughts. “They’re waiting for something.” Lloyd agreed. They’re waiting for me. And let them wait.

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Bailey lay a while longer with Lloyd Oric, talking about various mundane things that had happened in the colony, and how South Syndicate had approached him and his ‘comrades’ to help with their escape. The next day, Bailey awoke on the sofa in his home’s front room. The large holo-theatre at the opposite side played out its news report like a tank of violence. He had forgotten to turn it off before falling asleep. Bailey opened his eyes to see the aftermath of some terror attack on a neighbourhood in a district he didn’t recognize. It was being reported on enthusiastically by what he had found to be the colonies only live broadcaster. It was mainly an open access system where members of the colony could produce and have scheduled their own programs, most of which were of a low standard Bailey had decided. The hourly news bulletin was quite well produced however as well as a few select shows that he had seen just before sleep that night. There was another day of work ahead, and it was going to be the hardest he’d done in his short life. Bailey stood up in the morning sunlight and slowly turned his head surveying his home and the sounds of parents and children milling around the other homes on the way to school. He felt nothing, and he found it strange. Before anything else he stopped by Gen Colec’s apartment, finding it much the same as last time, but for a slightly mustier smell, and that the lizard had knocked over a floor vase. It watched Bailey as he moved through the place,

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expecting some sort of punishment, but Bailey was in a hurry. He gathered the rest of Colec’s ID cards and dashed back out. Nobody saw him as he made his way back to the beach at the edge of the desert, and ran along the pier to the door. He had his own control for the door now which he used as he dived through the forcefield, not stopping but squeezing through the opening gap, and then onward down the spiralling corridor. When he reached the bottom he found he had caught up with two others, who had walked a more casual pace to work. He nodded to them trying not to show how blustered he’d become from the run. They took the elevator down to the lake bed and Bailey took goggles, gasmask and a grey-silver plastic body suit from the rack. With these protecting his body he pressed the button to go down, waving at a couple of the technicians who were looking at him worriedly. It was a horrible place to work but Bailey could see the logic in it. Since the computers there truly did connect into the main communications trunk of the prison, it was an extremely useful means to their end. It remains to be seen just how deep the trunk goes. The elevator reached the oil room, and Bailey walked around the hideous, hissing pool.

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Once inside the control hut he set about completing the set task, which took less than a minute. The room was thick with insects today. It seemed that some insect exterminator machine had malfunctioned, filling the room with white-striped flies, which buzzed close to his face now and again looking for a place to lay their eggs. He brushed them aside and continued. Bailey thought for a moment, then typed in commands enough to hack down into the top security layer of the communication trunk. So, it not only links to the Border Security offices. It also links into the Citadels as well. Bailey thought for a moment, then tapped into the citadels’ local area network, masquerading as the citadels’ antivirus program, scanning not for viruses, but for certain programs. He found most of the ones he needed, first, out of sheer curiosity, feeding through the internal surveillance cameras to the screens near the ceiling of the control room. All were static snow but for one, which simply looked at the corner of a window, which itself looked down on the dome of the prison, or maybe it was the other dome, he couldn’t tell. Bailey watched for a moment before seeing a dark silhouette move in the reflection of the window, and in a slight panic disconnected all video feeds.

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He stood head bowed, thinking and fiddling with the nozzle in his mouth. He breathed regularly as he planned out the hack. He needed to swim through the citadels networks, and precisely so to minimize the risks. Bailey felt it in a sense of shadow. He entered line after line of commands into the archaic console, until eventually he had navigated his way to a folder, and downloaded its contents to an adjacent console, where he began printing it all out in a tiny paper receipt. Security codes for every trusted system on the grid; every lock and key. Even the heletank? I’m laming my ass off! And now... Let’s say hello to Dr Chester Barron. He entered more commands, tapping into established lines of communication between the citadels and the highest ranking officers of Border Sec. Spoofing the identity of Horald Kinnyck himself, since this was the only member of this citadel culture that he had encountered, he opened an emergency communiqué with an officer general of Border Security, by the name of Dogan Lerrock. Dogan appeared on the screen, and Bailey double checked his monitoring program so to ensure that he couldn’t be seen himself. The screen at Officer General Lerrock’s side was mainly black snow, but for the insignia of Cequodus and below it the insignia of the Citadels validated the transmission. Bailey had found that this was a common method of communication between Border Security and the Citadels. 216

He wondered if he, having spoken with Horald Kinnyck only briefly, had been one of the few people on the planet to have actually met anyone from the citadels. This made him even curiouser since he was only a terrorist, and why would he be given such unique treatment? Stop trying to think. Just do what I say. Part of the system of communication set up here was a text to voice program, which Bailey now used, being careful to erase the logs of his activity as he went, since he didn’t want anyone in the citadels to actually discover that their impenetrable systems had been hacked. He typed out his message “We have uncovered a plot by South Syndicate to escape from the planet. We do not wish you to intervene, but instead to contact their leader, Chester Barron. You will offer him a deal. He must wait until the escape is in progress, then turn guns on the people escaping. Nobody must be left alive. If he succeeds he will be transferred to the other dome city, and given a high ranking position in Border Sec there. Understood?” There was a pregnant pause then Dogan reached forward and typed “Understood. I will see to it personally.” “If Barron declines, kill him in the usual way. Then offer the deal to each of the Beldins, and if they will not bend, offer it to Aaron Bailey. Understood?” “Understood perfectly, High General Kinnyck.” Dogan typed. 217

So, Kinnyck has a rank too. Bailey disconnected, while brushing away more of the persistent flies. He more than wondered how this could possibly be the right thing. This plan is doomed to fail. If we want any chance of getting away from this place, we need to let this pipe dream die out. And we will also see the prison defences at work. You must watch them. Study them. Remember them for later. Do you really care about a handful of worthless criminals? “I don’t care.” Bailey said around the nozzle between his teeth. Later that evening, Barron sat naked at the end of a long table with his huge hands cupped over his private parts. He was a massive man, thick with muscles from his shoulders to upper and lower body. The rest of the table, and the room around were filled with Border Security officers, all staring at him furiously, having told him what they knew. Barron raised his head, with tears dropping from his eyes and cheeks. “How…“ he whimpered. “Why haven’t you arrested them? What do you want from me?”

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Barron raised his voice slightly at them, but the officers just coughed arrogantly, chuckling to one another. From their position of power it seemed rather strange that they wouldn’t act. “We want to make you a deal.” a dinosaur of a man leaned at him from his right. Barron sniffed, and then composed himself. The following morning, Barron met with the Beldins, and told them the news that all teams were now ready, and they should make their break as soon as possible. The Beldins then travelled to each team in turn to tell them of a meeting to be held that evening in the South Syndicates village. They alerted each team, moving through Bailey’s team as they did all the others, ending finally at the team in charge of aerial combat operations. “How’s it going up there?” Barton Beldin yelled up to the men working on the plane, which was hung from the crane high above. “Well hey!” Flynn Randall took off a pair of huge engineering goggles, and looked down at the three over the wing of the plane. The room commandeered for their team was a long and high tunnel running around the entire circumference of the dome. It was one of many interconnected places within the dome wall used to circulate the different consistencies of air within the various districts, and biosphere of the colony. 219

The air, rarely motionless, would change heat and smell every few minutes as the environment was regulated. Their team had taken over a small stretch of it, shipping in three huge cranes, from which were suspended three antique airplanes. The planes had been restored from wrecks that they had found in a museum leftover from the original colony. They were highly manoeuvrable fighters from the great world war of Lantis. It had surprised all species venturing out into space, just how similar the patterns within their histories were. The planes had been refitted with high powered jets, and anti-grav guidance systems. They also held beneath them an arsenal of firepower, from spark-based machine guns, to fire-and-forget micro-missiles. Flynn Randall had been working on these systems with his team when they were paid this unexpected visit. “We have some good news.” Cix yelled. “Please come down! All of you come down now!” There were five people on the team, led by a lady called Bethany Lux. The rest of the team comprised of the three pilots, Flynn Randall the fighter, Port Farnon from Border Security, and Mitchell R’Oskvikg, who came from an undisclosed role in East Syndicate. All three had extensive piloting experience in their lives before prison. The others were the main mechanics, Erik Luminaire the famed punk

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fighter from South Syndicate, and Rhia NoVakahn, a black skinned girl who worked in haulage for Old Gang. The men and women in overalls gathered around, and Cix Beldin stepped forward. “We think we have a window.” she said. “So we’re bringing the teams together this afternoon for an official meeting. It will look like part of the Autumnal Solstice celebrations so feel free to come dressed in party gear. Costumes may be a little inappropriate though. Bethany, you don’t need to come unless you’ve changed your mind about coming?” Their leader, Bethany said “I’m afraid not. It’s too much for my partner. There’s no way she could handle something like this right now.” “Thanks for helping.” Barton nodded. “I guess I’ll wish you luck now. Not that I think you’re gonna need it.” “I’ll miss you, girl.” Cix said and kissed her. Barton took over “Gathering is at South Syndicate village, on the east field. Right beside the old market wheel, which you will all have driven past countless times no doubt, but never thought of visiting. Well the same will apply to everyone else hopefully, and so we’ll get a little privacy.”

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“Well, at last.” Mitchell said, slapping Randall’s shoulder hard. Randall smiled slightly and said “What time?” Cix looked at Barton and shrugged “We’ll be getting it going right away, but you can say… Eight in evening?” “Eight then.” Mitchell grinned. “We’ll be starting the countdown from ten.” Barron said “Your wristbands will be synchronized automatically. All you have to do is show up.” “Even if you don’t they’ll still be synchronized.” Barton said. “But we’d like to have everyone there for the beginning. Including you, Randall. Are you still sure you want to come?” “Yeah. Me and Faye have been having a few problems. Don’t think it’s going to last.” Randall said sadly. “Sorry to hear that, friend.” Barton said. “But it’s good to have you on board.” “Just Old Gang to inform now.” Barron said. “I’ll do that myself. You don’t need to come along for this.” Barton nodded “That would be good of you, Chester. The bad blood isn’t going away on this or any other planet.” 222

“I have to settle up with a lady friend of mine anyway, so…” Barron smiled. “Be careful.” Rhia said. “This truce is hanging by a thread.” “What are you thinking, Barron?” Mitchell hissed. “Let’s not get sidetracked like last time, ok?” “It’ll be fine. Trust me please?” Rhia nodded and she, and the others walked back to the planes. “Oh, Mitchell?” Barron said “Can I have a word? Just a sec?” Mitchell looked at the others and then walked back to Barron and the Beldins. Barron walked away from the couple while gesturing to Mitchell, and so Mitchell followed. Once they were out of earshot of everybody, Barron said “I’m sensing a certain mistrust from you, Mitchell.” “Oh, you think?” he said sarcastically, looking back at the others as they continued their work. Barron smirked at him arrogantly, and said “Is there anything I can do to rectify this situation?” 223

“I don’t get why you would gamble the whole truce on the eve of our escape like this.” “You mean Byder?” Barron smirked again. “We could all die tomorrow, Mitchell. This could be our last chance to be together.” “Byder and Josep are a couple. Do you even understand the importance of this? The importance to Josep? If he sees you two together it will destroy the truce. It will destroy this escape. There is no escape without their team.” Mitchell said emphatically, while Barron only stood and smirked in his disconnected way. Barron blinked and looked away. “You know I’ve longed for the day when I could be free of this planet. I should never have been sent here, like many others here. But for me, although I do like a lot of the people I’ve met while here, I do find them hideously ignorant. People like yourself, completely uninformed of anything other than what exists in the tiny tunnel of your life. And I hope you believe me, I don’t mean any offense by this. But I’ve had to put up with this intelligence gap for almost ten years now. It’s ten years of my life stolen away forever. They’re never coming back…” Mitchell, who was indeed furiously offended, said “You’re going to get us all killed. And you know it. What’s going on, Chester?” Barron smirked and chuckled, turning away.

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“I think we’re done here.” he said in a low voice, and walked away toward the exit. He gestured and the Beldins left with him. Mitchell stood staring at the exit, panting with the fear and anger of what he knew. “Come on, Mitchell!” Randall yelled from the far side of the place. Mitchell looked at him, then began running to the door. “Where are you going?” Rhia yelled. Skipping sideways he yelled back “We don’t need to run another check. I need to sort a few things out before tomorrow.” “They should have been done already, Mitch.” Rhia yelled, as Mitchell ducked through the dark door. At ground level, Mitchell managed to catch up to Barron and the couple, remaining out of sight behind them until they reached the exit to the sea. As the three left through the door, Mitchell ran to slip through just before it closed again.

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Mitchell stood in the dank space between the end of the pier and the forcefield, watching them through the grey haze of it as they walked away across the sea. As they reached what he judged to be the shore, Mitchell leaned his face through the field, emerging through the fake projection of a seascape. He could tell they were far enough away not to see him, and so began to sprint toward the shore. Two automobiles revved up and began rolling away toward the highway, but Mitchell was fast and reached the shore as they sped up onto the roads above. It was the temperate north zone, filled with patches of heavily overgrown fields, utilizing the perfect balance of a combination of plants, animals and insects to produce masses of food on an industrial scale. Small octopus-like robots gathered the harvest with greater precision than a human could achieve. Mitchell ran into the thick smell of the plants, pushing on to his own car and then sped at illegal speed onto the glass carriageways, and accelerated to catch up to the two cars. He could see them after the central ring road and so slowed to give a little distance. The Beldins turned away toward South Syndicate, while Barron, as he promised, turned toward the northern cavern containing the Old Gang headquarters.

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In the north was another city center that had been abandoned by the original colony, and had not been touched during the refurbishment and conversion to a prison. It now lay to the north, a series of half rings of derelict retail districts, with stagnant rivers instead of promenades surrounding a central district, that rested up against the dome wall. This one district in the middle of them all had been rebuilt and populated. Old Gang Central, as it had been named, now served as a remote hub of drugs, misery and crime in the gigantic colony. Hordes of cattle and other degenerates spread out from it by day and night clawing and feeding at the belly of the otherwise depressed and peaceful city. But the drugs they made were in demand at the end of the day, and business was always booming. Mitchell followed a car behind as they drove down into the wall of this central district, which itself was alive with the beginnings of the Autumnal Solstice carnival. It was a carnival organized by Old Gang so was hugely financed, and proved quite distracting to drive through as he left the tunnel and joined the outer highway. Old Gang central was much like the metropolis only halved by the outer dome wall. There was the outer ring of retail blocks surrounding an inner space, and the road systems hugging around the circumference. There was a lot of activity spilling onto the lower street, highway, and even some on the tram tracks. Seeing where Barron was heading, Mitchell drove slowly around the dancing crowd and made it up the slip road to the parking hollow of the Fincle Harvesting building, which 227

was a front company thinly veiling Old Gang headquarters. The whole outer ring here had been taken over and so it would be no problem parking in any of the outer blocks. At that height you could see right into the enormous, darker space on the other side, that throbbed and hummed with the vibrancy of a dance party. It was full of bodies and steam from the substances being cooked up between them, all jumping and dancing to the sound and lightshow pumping over them. The blocks on the inner ring of the district had been demolished and concreted flat with one, single building, a tiny cathedral built in the middle of the sea of people and flashing lights. Behind it all was a disused tram line that had been broken and twisted in shapes to read “Old Gang Central”. The district played host to this never ending party, thinly veiling the buying of stolen goods and the selling of hard narcotics. Tonight the party had a carnival vibe, and spilled over into the rest of the colony, drugs and all. It represented everything they wanted to escape from. Mitchell sat in the car and watched Barron at the far end of the stable-lane get out of his car, and allow it to drive away toward the parking lot. Barron, instead of turning toward the lobbies, turned to walk along the path to one of the graffiti abused glass elevators at the side, that then took him down in a perspex cubicle to the high street below.

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Mitchell left the car and ran to catch him once he was out of sight, then took an adjacent elevator down into the bustling crowd below. Staring along the length of the main street he found Barron walking along the side path under the loom of the highway. Above, a train rocketed by on the railroad, over the party filled highways. A girl with tanned skin wearing a wide feathery costume ran up to him and kissed his cheek shouting something in a language he didn’t recognize. He ignored her and continued to trace Barron’s steps. The early starters of the carnival were mainly on the road, with only a couple of people on the path between himself and Barron. They themselves seemed to be people uninterested in the carnival, and simply trying to get to wherever they were going unmolested. The carnivals would be in full swing very soon, which would make it almost impossible to follow anyone at this distance. For now, Mitchell watched as Barron reached the end of the long street where one block met the next, and stood with his hands on his hips looking out over a roundabout there. Mitchell squinted to see what he would do next, seeing Barron turn and look in his direction. He dived behind one of the old supports for the highway as a train raced by above cutting out the street lights momentarily. 229

Mitchell was sure he hadn’t been seen, and to confirm it he looked back, seeing Barron heading to the right and downhill. “What the hell?” he said and ran the length of the street to the road-blocked roundabout. Opposite the looming face of the buildings, the wide road downhill led to what was clearly signposted as the Geothermic Catacombs. Beneath town level were a complex network of old catacombs that, if followed deep enough would lead you to the lava of the giant volcano that housed the city domes. Mitchell could see Barron stepping his weight carefully down a steeper incline of the road, moving deeper into the catacombs. He had no idea where he could be going, since there was nothing down there but for the geothermic power generators, which provided the largest percentage of energy for the colony. Mitchell followed, but cautiously, hiding behind the ridge of the tunnel to allow Barron a little distance through the first of the damp catacombs, and seeing him disappear to the right he entered the place and followed. The catacombs were old, and grew more rich in stalagmites and rock pools as he followed Barron deeper down below town level. Eventually he entered a large cavern with a wide, shallow pool fed by a subterranean waterfall. Pipes were feeding the water to a network of others on the walls, 230

taking away the excess for cooling purposes no doubt. The cavern was dark mostly, illuminated in three places by old, crooked lanterns at the cave roof. There was no sign of Chester Barron, and looking to each of the walls no other way out could be seen, but for a small hole in the wall so high that it would be impossible to reach. He looked around for a moment before stepping into the cave and walking toward the wide pool. It seemed that Barron was gone, and for a moment Mitchell thought that maybe, everything was going to be alright. Barron however, who had been hiding in a dark shadow behind an ancient stalactite ran out behind Mitchell with his arms hung like a beast and sliced the blade of a knife across a small region of his back. Mitchell was frozen, paralyzed from the neck down. He watched as Barron, who had stripped down to his underpants, walked around to face him. “Hypophine nerve. Just above the fourth vertebrae. Instant paralysis.” he smiled, with a vacant, empty look about him. “Bastard.” Mitchell mumbled. “You’ll kill us all!” Barron laughed silently to himself then said “You first.” He reached a huge hand to Mitchell’s neckline and sank his powerful fingers into the flesh of his shoulder. He screamed 231

out a long hopeless cry as the blood dripped and squirted from him. Barron, giggling like a beast wrapped the fingers of his other hand around the top of Mitchell’s head, and with a large fraction of his strength, ripped his head away from his shoulders. He dropped the head and then kicked body to the cave floor, before holding his head back and roaring to the roof like an animal. With or without a carnival winding up in the town above, nobody would have heard the screams. Nobody ventured this deep but for the robots and the occasional group of kids, and even then the kids wouldn’t go this deep, so close to the molten core of the terrific Narcosian mountain. There were three other volcanic mountains of the same scale around the planet, separated by other lesser mounts and deep gorges, all encased in impenetrable ice and snow. It was indeed the perfect location for a prison colony within the empire. Chester Barron, having been covered in the blood of his murder victim, went to the underground fall, which he had conveniently lured Mitchell to. He stripped naked and stood beneath the flow as the water erased the evidence of his sin. Afterward he sat on the edge on a dry plate of rock, while the heat from the lava a few levels below dried his body. From here he redressed and walked back through the caves to the roundabout, which had now been completely 232

overrun by tents and carnival trailers, backing up traffic along all highstreets and the spaghetti junction above. Barron walked back the way he had come, wading through the thick crowd toward the public elevators leading up to the parking lanes. Once there he ran across the concrete park toward the central lobby of Fincle Harvesting, seeing that a crowd had reached the hollow place and was now filling it with party and dance. He ran in through the glass front and through the lobby door. Just missing the elevator’s departure he ran up the stairs behind it, now a little giddy, excited by how well things had gone so far. It was only two levels up, where he needed to be, so reached it ahead of the elevator. He walked past the descending plate of glass and whoever was on it, and past the reception desk, who knew him well enough not to bother asking for ID. Barron walked through glass doors into a corporate lounge area, filled with rough faced, cigar smoking men and women. Barron snapped his fingers and gestured at the short, thin woman sitting beside one of their leaders, Josep Fincle. The woman looked at Josep and his twin brother Nash and then stood up and walked to Barron. She stood beside him as he said “Have you heard?”

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The gang, looking solemn and offended remained silent. “Meeting at eight beside the market wheel at South Syndicate village. The one day timer will be set tonight. I have my date, so be there or be squared.” “That’s Josep’s girl, fool.” Nash Fincle said. “She’s been mine as well for the past few months. Right, Byder?” he smiled warmly and kissed her cheek. “I did promise to get you all out of here. Party’s at Eight. Don’t get left behind!” After another angry silence he turned and laughed arrogantly as he walked out, with Byder Mauv at his side. She glanced around at Josep and the others, smirking slightly before following Barron out of the door. Outside, the carnival grew louder with song and dancing. At the South Syndicate village, at the edge of the east field beside a tunnel entrance in the wall, a U-shape of tents and tables had been constructed. They blew in the sweet gale that channeled down from the highways and biosphere. A large stone wheel lay on its side with a thicker grass and weeds growing up around its edge. It was meant as some kind of modern art statement, but actually looked quite hideous, and only served as something for the younger children to run around on.

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In the rest of the village, balloons and blimps had been raised from the fields as others that lived in the surrounding South Syndicate apartment districts came to enjoy the place, as invited. It would serve as added cover for their meeting, but none of these people were interested in such things anymore. “Darn.” Barton said taking the microphone on the stage before the huge crowd that had gathered. “Been locked up in this place so long, I’ve forgotten how to do this!” “Speech…” someone yelled followed by a chorus of “Speeech!” Modest street and house parties were beginning and could be heard on the air from the rest of the district. Barton coughed then tentatively said “In a few minutes from now, we will begin the one day countdown.” Cix Beldin gestured theatrically like a gameshow assistant to the holographic image on the steel table behind him. It showed an hour and minute readout, ready to be started. “It is so good to see everybody here in one place for the first time. Look to one another. It will be the first time some of you have ever seen one another. You are looking at heroes. You are looking at men and women who believe in a world beyond ice and blizzards. A good world of heart and soul… and I know some of you will have noticed the absence of Old Gang, but we have been assured by Chester

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that they have been told, and we have every faith in their determination to make this project work!” Barton noticed a young girl run across from the road, where she had run her automobile onto the embankment. He continued, as she stood at the side of the tents, gesturing at him. “We are leaving.” he said. “We will fly off into the depths of space and find a new world where we can be free. The days will turn to weeks, the weeks to months, and the months to years, and this place will fade to memory, and matter not. So for now we dance. Our final solstice!” He held his beer glass in the air and the crowd did also, crying out in chorus as the music began. Barton jumped down to the grass and held Cix by her arms, lowering her slowly beside him. He kissed her and they hugged cheek to cheek, smiling with hope for the future. Riley Sagar, one of the Sagar elders from East Syndicate took the microphone, and shouted over the music “Here’s to South Syndicate! I don’t know how they did it!” They all toasted Barton and Cix Beldin and their final party on Narcosia began. Bailey sat at one of a few arranged tables with the technicians, watching the festivities.

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The girl that had arrived half way though the speech moved across the dance area and took Barton away from Cix and the others. She leaned in so nobody else could hear and said “Something bad. It’s your pilot, Mitchell. He’s been killed, Barton. Robots found him murdered, down in Geothermic, in the north.” Barton hissed and said “Shit! What can we do? We need three pilots.” “They ripped his head off, Barton. Who would do that?” she said on the edge of tears. “I wonder.” Barton said with a mild sarcasm. “And we have the absence of Old Gang…” “Oh God!” she said, finally breaking down, and Cix having seen this walked over to them. “Go get Chester.” he patted her and she ran off toward Barron and his lady friend. “It’s Mitchell. Got himself killed.” Barton said to Cix. “Old Gang?” she said, then went on. “Do we really need them now? We have all the intel we need. We only used them for their ties to Border Sec.”

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“But if they tell Border Sec?” Barton eyed her with a shaky look. Cix shrugged and said “Then we’ll die.” “It’s all too much to fight. To the end, no matter what.” he said, and turned to Chester Barron as he approached. “Bad news, friend.” he said to Barron. “Mitchell is out. Murdered we think. Do we have any other pilots, no matter how inexperienced. Just for backup to the other two.” “There’s always me.” he said, and the others looked shocked. “I have a full atmospheric pilot’s license. I didn’t want to volunteer for pilot duty too early. Seemed like suicide to me.” “Well it might be.” Cix said. “But if we don’t have this covered then we’re all dead anyway.” “I’ll do it.” Barron smiled. “You know you can count on me.”

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Making a Mockery. As usual Thom Gubichayan was on his way to work the next morning. He followed his usual route via tram from the south to the robot maintenance factory in the east. He stopped off, as he always did at the neighbourhood adjacent to the factory outskirts, and skated the rest of the way via the central shopping mall. As always he took a route via the unisex perfume counter, stopping only briefly to apply one of the samples. Above he and the others present, including the gold robot cashiers, the lights dimmed and a scratchy siren honked out over the mall. “Perimeter compromised! Everyone remain where you are!” the equally scratchy voice boomed out over every public speaker throughout the old city. “Martial lockdown is in effect!” Thom smiled bitterly and shook his head. “Stiffed us again.” he hissed quietly. Thom and the others in his gang hadn’t been told of the escape, that was now in progress. “T minus five minutes!” the feminine computer voice cried over the engineering floor, and pilots now ready in the planes.

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“All set?” Rhia yelled up at the men in the cockpits, and each gave her a thumbs up, apart from Barron who simply ignored her. “Good, good.” she said to herself and ran over to Erik near the crane controls. “T minus four minutes.” the same voice of the communications computer spoke over the wristbands of those waiting in the hexagonal room. “Come on. Now.” Barton said to Bailey and the others, they began affixing their goggles and ceramic hot water bottles that they strapped around their chests, close to their hearts. They followed him onto the elevator, and Barton took them up to the tunnel through the rock. Barton and Bailey stood watching as the technicians and others who had already completed their tasks crawled into the narrow tunnel. They carefully worked their way along, through the open hatch on the other side and crawled around the rock tower, out of sight of the hangars. The harsh storms battered them with thick snow and sleet. Bailey and Barton waited as they each made their way. “Do you ever dream, Bailey?” Barton said, as if in a trance. “Dream?” Bailey looked at him.

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“I only ever have the same dream. In one place, a house in a field. It’s snowing, but not like this snow. It’s nicer somehow. I meet someone there each time. Someone I’ve never met anywhere else.” he said. “It’s strange, Bailey.” Bailey thought a moment then with a note of sarcasm said “Yup.” A voice on the wristband said “Robotic grid disabled. Good to go.” The last of them crawled into the tunnel and Barton said “Let’s hope those planes sever the connection soon, or the grid will reboot, and then we need to start shooting. Ok. Get into position. I’ve got your back.” Bailey crawled ahead, and they both emerged on the other side, and flinched as the wet snow from the blizzard slapped them in the face. It continued to pour from the fast scrolling clouds above. Seeing that Bailey had forgotten to fix the goggles Barton did it for him. They stood looking down at the still robots near the hangars, and the sentry beside the radar. Barton held up his wrist band and said “Family team, where are you?” “Family team?” Bailey asked.

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A voice crackled over the band “Almost there, keep some seats warm.” “Come on.” Barton said, starting down the sleet covered hill. “We don’t have a lot of time here. Get to the radar tower.” Bailey half walked and half slid down the slope as the others emerged from behind the rock. He walked past them to the radar tower, and around the frozen robot sentry. “Looks like it worked.” he said to Barton. “Professor Hickam will assist you.” Barton said, and a tall thin man with strawberry blonde hair pushing out of his hood walked up to them. “I don’t really need help but…” Bailey tried to raise his voice over the storm, but Barton had moved on. Holding his wristband to his mouth he shouted “Radio silence starting now. Coordination only!” Barton and Cix ran off along the way between the buildings with the others closely behind. They shot at each of the robots as they passed, shattering them into fragments in the snow. Bailey looked at the face of the sentry beside him, that they had seemingly forgotten about. They ran to the far side, toward a rocky slope down to a lower ridge atop the huge cliff. From this ridge the weather 242

rocket stood on its platform, with a single thin ladder leading up to a service point for the gathering module within. The rocket had already been programmed not to take samples of the storm, but to simply fly up into orbit for collection by the station. They would be able to hide within the air tight container for the whole voyage. The Beldins led everyone down a flight of icy stone steps cut into the rocky slope, steadied by the thick boots they were told to wear. Rhia NoVakahn had worn high heels however, which actually worked better at holding her in place. “This way!” Cix shouted over the blizzard. The storm was lessening its assault but the temperatures were still dangerously low. Crouching beside the radar, Bailey looked up at his new assistant and smiled as if annoyed. “Try not to get in my way.” Bailey said and turned to the control box below the spinning arm and ear. Don’t use the Cequodus default passwords. If you use them and this fails, they’ll change them. He opened the thin door and plugged in a specialized palm computer that expanded to a holographic keyboard and monitor when connected. The radar was overridden and above it stopped spinning and turned to face up at the sky. 243

A few more commands involving a series of nice looking system overrides within the city itself, and he turned and smiled at his assistant Bailey held up his wristband and said “Solar defence grid down.” “Holy shit!” Barton crackled over the band. “Thanks.” He turned and smiled again at his assistant, who was now craning to see the holo display on his computer. “Those aren’t the solar defences.” he said with his nose turned high in the air. “Why did you tell them it was done?” At the planes, the engineers fed instructions to the cranes and on each a yellow industrial warning light began spinning. A rectangular hole that had been cut into the wall in front of the planes slid upward, and the cranes moved the planes forward until the nose of each hung out over the precipice beyond. Each pilot now looked out from the steep side of the dome. The long white wall stretched away below to the jagged rocky ridge before the cliff. Rhia shouted over bands “Release in three, two, one.” A piston within the end of the cranes kicked each of the jets out of the hole, sending them falling down along the wall, 244

and then past the ridge and down along the abyssal cliff face. There was plenty of time to right themselves, so they took it easy pulling back on the controls to begin their flight. Each of the three jets banked upward and arrowed off in different directions across the flat center of the crater. Randall tested his guns on the morbid sign as they passed it, bursting it into a thousand splintered pieces. They then turned back around and flew up and over the upper curve of the dome. Port Farnon took his jet along his designated path, toward a target he’d seen countless times in a simulator. He knew Randall and Barron would be heading toward the hangar field to protect the others while escaping. The heletank would reach them very soon, and so two planes would be ample diversion for it. Farnon was heading for the wireless antenna array that connected the robots in the dome to the citadels over an old fashioned radio line. It stood on the direct top centre of the dome comprising of a small black hut with huge antenna reaching up into the first of the cloud. It was hard to see much through the blizzard of snow pouring out of the clouds, and it got worse the closer he got to them. Then suddenly he saw it emerge from the murky distance, but felt no relief just yet.

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He thought for a moment that he could hear the roar from another plane’s engine, then it was confirmed as one of the other planes darted at him out of the distance ahead. It fired its chain guns and would have hit Farnon if his military training hadn’t kicked in, and dodged slightly aside with a flick of the control stick. He hadn’t dodged quite far enough however, and the other plane rammed the glass roof of the cockpit. The strike split a crack along it and the blizzards began to pour into the cockpit. He flinched against the spitting slush as it sprayed his face and shoulders. “Superb.” he hissed, and pulled around having missed the control antenna a mile or so back. “Can anyone read me? Over!” At the radar tower, Bailey’s assistant began to step forward, and Bailey began to step away. He analysed the display further. “What’s going on here?” Hickam said looking at him sternly. Kill him! Kill him quick! “Do you think I should?” Bailey said in a worried panic. “Who are you talking to?” the man said, and then heard the voice of Port Farnon over the wrist band shouting.

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“I’m under attack! It’s one of the planes!” his words were followed by a barrage of chain gun fire. “A double cross!” Hickam hissed looking up at the sky, and then accusingly back to Bailey. Bailey stepped toward him and dived to grab his face. He punched at his long thin neck and then pushed the man back, and watched as Hickam gasped for air in the freezing storms. Quickly he grabbed him by the hair and began hitting his head repeatedly on the corner of the radar tower, and kept doing it until the blood was pouring out of him. He let go and the man’s body fell to the ground. Panting he looked around to make sure nobody had seen, and seeing up on the ridge, a woman escorting a group of children out of the hatch, he grabbed the body and dragged it around to the back of the radar tower. He dragged it to the cliff edge and after slipping a few times in the sleet, he toppled the corpse over the side. It span away into the murky fog below. Bailey went back and peered around the side of the tower at the group of children and their escort. “Children?” he said. “I didn’t know there’d be…” Just then a plane flew overhead. 247

Randall had reached the platform with the hangars and rocket, and arrowed low over them to catch everyone’s attention. “Farnon, what’s going on? Please come in. Clarify your last message, over.” Randall said. He took his jet over the upper ridge, along the base of the dome, and then saw a black spot far across the white crater floor. “Here he comes.” he said, referring to the heletank. He took the plane over the ridge and in a direction roughly toward the robotic killer. As he glided closer he heard over the wire, Port Farnon sounding scared and flustered. “Please copy. I’m being chased out by another plane. It’s either Randall or Barron. Please copy.” “It’s not me, friend.” Randall said. “Barron!” Farnon said angrily, and over the wire Randall heard more chain gun fire. “Barron you hear me?” Randall shouted. “Break off attack immediately. Don’t make me shoot you down.”

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Randall took the plane down and swooped over the heletank. It immediately howled it’s off tone notes, and gave chase, firing it’s array of spark-cannon weaponry. The rainbow targeting scanner almost blinded Randall in the cockpit but then it stopped. The blizzard had thickened the air but Randall could still see that the heletank had turned around, and was heading toward the hangars. He sighed as he began to bank the plane around over the flat snow. Back at the hangars, Bailey hid from the view of the children and their escort. “What do I do?” he whimpered, crouching down and biting on his thumb. Look out! Suddenly, the heletank arose from behind the ledge of the cliff, and howled strangely at Bailey. It hung in the air beyond the drop, steadying precisely with its weak antigrav stabilizers. “Aaaaagh!” he cried out, as the heletank bowed forward, lowering one of its rotor blades toward him. Bailey crouched back against the base of the radar, closing his eyes and crying in panic. Move you dumb cunt! 249

Bailey couldn’t move. He was scared to the spot, and the blades were lowered so close to him he could feel their rhythm on his skin. Then suddenly, Port Farnon flew down, and crashed his jet’s wing across the heletank’s upper side. The plane flew down and crashed on fire into the side of the cliff, while the heletank, knocked off balance and out of its senses shouldered to the side and crashed on the edge of the cliff. It lay on its back for a moment like a stunned turtle, before tipping over the cliff edge and falling away into the mists below. Bailey opened his eyes and looked at where the heletank had been, and saw Port Farnon dropping by having ejected and deployed his parachute. “Help me, Bailey!” he shouted at him with frustration as he wriggled with the chords. “I’ve missed the platform help meeee!” There was nothing Bailey could do even if he had wanted to. Instead he walked to the cliff edge and watched Port Farnon sail away into the grey below. “Good work, Farnon.” Bailey heard Randall’s voice over the wireless, but there was no reply. “I’m going to go for Barron. You get safe, buddy.” Bailey skulked around the side of the radar tower to get another look at the children.

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He heard a tinny voice say “Hold it right there. Trespassers will be killed.” He looked around as the robot sentry that had been previously disabled, now stalked its way toward the children, and Byder Mauv that stood before them like a human shield. “Please.” she said. “We just want to go back to the prison.” “You do not have a permit?” the robot said, and raised its huge rifle. “Trespassers will be killed.” It shot a single precise round that burst the woman’s thin chest. Bailey watched her corpse fall in silence to the snow between himself and the gaggle of kids. “The family team….” Bailey said in his hiding place. “What was that, Bailey?” the voice of Barton said, having overheard him. “Be careful the robot grid has rebooted.” Shmamily team. We’ll wipe em all out. Stupid worthless fucks! “I am what I do!” he said louder, as he watched the robot step toward the children. “I am Bailey!” You do what I say.

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“Go to heeeeeeeeeeeeeeell!” Bailey yelled, and ran out between the buildings. “Aaaaaaaaaaagh!” He dived and tackled the robot to the ground, snatching up it’s rifle, before rolling on his shoulders, and back to his feet. He turned and aimed the gun at the robot, who now stood facing him with the scared and crying children at their side. It slowly held its golden arms up, from which extended two long thin blades. Bailey grinned and pulled the trigger, hearing only a hollow ‘clunk’ sound. “Biometric authorization required.” the faint computer voice spoke to him from within the gun. “Son of a…” Bailey began but stopped as the robot sailed forward, and swung one of the long blades down at him. He caught it, blocking it with the jagged bayonet of the rifle, and then having seen what he had done, unclipped the bayonet and dropped the useless rifle to the snow. As the robot made its next move to strike, Bailey swung the military bayonet back around to meet it. He blocked each of its fast attacks with the huge bayonet, then began to attack himself, swinging and lunging with skills he had no memory acquiring. With no gun or anything

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else he was left with only the thick blade as a primitive means of attack. Although he would need to stop the evil bastard somehow, right now he was content just to gradually draw it away from the children. The robot was fast and technical in its strikes, pushing Bailey back toward the steps down to the rocket. The narrow rock steps were slippery with blackened ice, but Bailey managed to keep his stance, blocking and replying each of the robots relentless blows. He walked back along the steps toward the battle that was raging below around the base of the rocket. The South and East syndicate leaders, and members of Old Gang were locked in gunfire with heavily armed robot sentries. Robots were blown apart, but a number of Old Gang were killed as they fumbled out of their comfort zone. Josep cried out at this and ran for the rocky slope to get away, along with a few others who had decided it was all hopeless now too. The children looked up at her hopefully as she trotted by and up to the hatch. Erik Luminaire, who had stood his ground was caught in a blast of plasma fire so heated that it incinerated his body until only the burning top half of his mohicaned skull remained. It span and hit the rocks beside Josep, who panicked more and scrambled on.

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Josep escaped from the mayhem and ran back toward the prison, pushing through the group of children and then up to the hatch. Through all of this Bailey was driven down close to the base of the rocket. The robot pushed him back with its hand and readied to deal the last blow, when in the corner of his eye he saw Rhia running toward them. He allowed himself to be pushed onto the floor by his opponent and then covered his face theatrically, as if beaten. “Baiileeeeeeeeey!” Rhia yelled and leaped through the air at the robot, spinning and then kicking hard against the side of its head with her high heel shoe. The robot staggered left and right clutching at its slightly dented head and the positronic lights that had been slightly scrambled within. The heel had stabbed through the plastic covering and now hung out of its brain as it struggled to gather its thoughts. Bailey, now appearing more composed stood up and spun around, dragging the huge blade with him for one final theatrical blow. He sliced at the robot’s neck severing its head, hands and blades, and then continued the swing to drive the sword through its chest. “Bailey!” Barton yelled, running around to him. “Get away from the rocket. It’s about to go.”

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“Shouldn’t we try?” Bailey said as he helped Rhia to steady herself on the cold ground. “And what about the people inside?” “It’s too late. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Cix said, joining them, and they all ran back up the steps, and through the hangers to the children. “No.” Barton said to his wife. “We have to try.” She nodded and they turned and ran back and down to the rocket. They were about to run to the ladder when the rocket ignited and blasted out, pushing them onto their backs. “They’ll be ok. Come on!” Rhia yelled to Bailey, as they watched the rocket slowly raise up above the place. Barton and Cix could not be seen and so they shepherded the children back up the hillside to the tunnel. “Okay. It was a good try.” the voice of Barton came over the band. “Now everyone back inside the colony.” Randall replied on the band “No way Barron lives. No way.” Within the cockpit window Randall’s three pointed missile lock narrowed on Barron’s plane as it darted below, close to the ground. It was heading toward the other dome, Randall could now tell. 255

He gained a lock and immediately fired, and engaged the thruster to follow as close behind the missile as he could. The cockpit shuddered as it overclocked its natural speeds, and Randall struggled against the joystick to keep it level at its target. Randall saw the missile miss as Barron pulled an evasive manoeuvre, but the explosion so close to the plane on the ground sent it spiralling out of control. Randall, drawing ever closer, saw Barron’s plane level out and skid onto the flat snow. It came to a stop and Randall, took aim, firing the chain gun and raining the plane with bullets. Then, the gun was out of ammo, and out of missiles too. He flew the plane over the crashed plane as Barron opened the cockpit, and emerged into the now quietened blizzard, apparently unharmed. He dropped down onto the crater basin in a heavy coat and began running away. Randall saw this and took the plane around and down, skidding it onto the ice as the other had done. It came to a neat halt and Randall opened the cockpit and got out, feeling the bite of the freezing air against his skin through the thin t shirt. He dropped down onto the rock and compacted snow and squinted to see a blurry, distant spot heading toward the towering dome, that was now much closer than their own.

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He took his pistol, and fired a few shots after Barron, who was running like a mad man toward the other city. The shots burst the snow around him, but didn’t stop him. “You bastard! You sold us out!” Randall shouted, and then heard metallic footsteps behind him. Realizing that he had been caught he put his hands on his head and sank to his knees in his now wet jeans. The snow congealed on his face as he saw the lain snow around him begin dancing with colour. “Stay down.” one of the robots said in its tinny way. Meanwhile, Port Farnon still hadn’t reached the bottom of the cliff. He had carefully guided the parachute as best he could so not to hit the cliff face, but now that the crater floor was more clearly in sight, he saw running at high speeds over it, the robot sentries. He realized now that it had all been for nothing, and so quickly reached the decision to avoid being caught for as long as possible. Tugging on the left rope he leaned the parachute closer to the cliff face. He slammed into it hard enough to break bones, but grabbed a hold of an outcropping of rock and held himself close to it. Quickly, he slapped off the parachute straps, just as a strong gust of wind tugged at it. The silvery chute whipped away, tugging hard from his right arm.

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Hanging from the side of the cliff he felt fine apart from the cold that was now seeping through his wet t shirt and pants. Down, he could see more and more of the sentries fleeting back and forth at massive speeds, kicking up a wake of snow behind them as they did. He looked up seeing the same murky distance that he had seen when looking down from above. After a sigh he began to climb. The rocket flew out toward the sky above, as the people who had survived made their way back to the hatch. Bailey and Rhia got there first, climbing up the snow covered hill and then piling the children into the hatch. Rhia got in next while Bailey waved for Barton and Cix to hurry. Far away, in the main citadel a milky hand rapped its long fingernails on a metal console. A camera view was following the ascending weather rocket beside the sickly character. The person sank their hand into a holographic control sponge and began a massaging motion. The rocket began turning on the screen until it had rotated 180 degrees. Bailey noticed what had happened, as did Rhia who was looking from the hatch door. The rocket was turning around and heading back to crash upon the hangars. “Hurry up nooooooow!” Bailey shouted, but saw how far away the Beldins were.

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Get inside. You can wait for your friends. Bailey saw the sense in it, and climbed back into the hatch, and watched as the Beldins reached the bottom of the hill. They climbed the slippery slope as best they could, but the roar of the rocket was loud, and they seemed to know that they had failed. They pushed on to the last moment, then stood looking at Bailey beyond the ridge as the rocket struck the roof of the hangar behind them. Bailey saw the gush of flames toward him, and could feel the heat from them before he made the move to close the hatch. The round glass door snapped shut and the flames splashed against them. They licked against the other side of the thick window, and through them a blackened corpse struck its head against the glass, and then fell down to the ground. The flesh had already been flayed from it and Bailey couldn’t tell which of them it was. The fire parted like a curtain, quickly lifting to show the hangar platform now completely bare of snow and ice, it having all been melted down to water. It was a blackened, scorched area now, full of debris and corpses. The children were crying in the tunnel, and Rhia had stopped talking. Bailey rocked slightly where he sat. “Why?” he said. “Why did it have to happen this way?”

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“Come on.” Rhia said, and Bailey followed her with the children. She took them along the bright, spiralling corridor to a place where a manhole to the internal vent system had been painted over. She tugged at it with strength he wouldn’t have attributed to her, and they all climbed into the pipe within. There were voices from the upper side of the corridor, and so Bailey quickly closed the manhole, and they climbed through the pipes away from the scene of the escape.

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Modular Glamour. Rhia and Bailey emerged from a wide pipe and dropped the two meters to the path beside a highway tunnel within the wall of a district. They beckoned and one by one the children dropped down into their arms. “What should we do with them?” Rhia said, looking around the dirty corner they now found themselves in. “Their parents are… well we need to take them to someone. Can’t leave them alone in a place like this.” East Syndicate. “East Syndicate.” Bailey said. "South Syndicate will be in upheaval right now.” “I don’t know anyone East.” she said. “I’ll take them. I have contacts inside.” he said, not really sure if he was being honest. “They’ll be taken care of. I promise.” They walked down the road to a bog standard apartment district where Rhia left Bailey at the tunnel. She walked off into the closest neighbourhood while Bailey took the kids up to a tram station and waited. Once one had pulled up they took it across the districts to the South Syndicate village.

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Bailey walked along the road past the empty houses while the group of children followed close behind. They walked a little way past his own home and then Bailey pressed the keys to call his car. The semicircle of tables and parasols still blew in the wind a few fields away he noticed. The children stepped back onto the path as the car rolled smoothly up to them. “Inside fast.” Bailey said to them, and they piled into the back seat and a few on the front passenger side. Bailey took the car up onto the crystal highways and over to the metropolis central. Police were flying by with sirens howling, seemingly without any kind of real coordination. He hoped there wouldn’t be any checkpoints set up yet, not that it would make sense to do so, since all the action had taken place beyond the dome wall. A lot of the children seemed to have taken their time to digest the situation by now and were starting to cry like they meant it. “Hush now.” Bailey said, trying to sound like a good guy. He parked in the hollow for East Syndicate and everyone got out. There were police vehicles everywhere along the stable lanes. Some read Border Sec across the side while others were just plain robotic busy bodies. They asked no 262

questions of them as Bailey took the children at speed into the building, and up the elevator to the warehouses. Inside the offices of Colec Warehouse B, Bailey sat the children in the workshop at the back. He had to stop one of them opening the cupboard door, and then locked it so they wouldn’t get hurt by what was kept inside. There were growls from the cupboard. “That’s just my doggy.” he said, then clapped his hands together at the sad children. “Does anyone want any milky?” Most shook their heads but a few nodded or looked puzzled. “I’ll get you some lemon-squash.” he said and opened the small refrigerator beneath the left workbench. He got out the family sized bottle that Colec had stocked up on before his demise, and handed the bottle to the kids. “Pass that around.” he said then sat back on a stool, rubbing his forehead. “Just let me think for a second.” He sighed and thought. Call Francine. She must take you to the Sagars. “Sagar Family.” he said and looked at the kids, who now looked a little more at ease, having had a few swigs of nice cool fizzy pop. 263

There were two huge posters of Barton and Cix on the right wall, and notes connected by strings between the pins. Bailey glanced at them and then looked at the children who seemed uninterested. Francine Adyms came after being texted and Bailey met her outside the warehouses with the children. “Oh my God!” she said. “You were escaping with them?” “I’m sorry, Francine. That’s why I wanted to settle things up here quickly. So you could take it over with a clean sheet.” She knelt down to the children and began cleaning a few of them up with her thumb. “I need to bring them to the Sagars. Can you help me with that?” he said. “I need to tell them what happened. It all went horribly wrong.” After a couple of phone calls, Francine took them up to a level that was signposted on the wall as being the CEO offices. He followed Francine with the children around a few bends in a wide carpeted office space, that seemed to be mainly reception desks and meeting rooms. Eventually they came to the end of the executive promenade, to a pair of large double doors made of heavy wood. Francine knocked sheepishly on them and then opened one of them. They all entered a huge office with an 264

appropriately enormous desk. There were two chairs behind the desk, filled by a man and a woman. One was Lon Sagar while the other he didn’t recognize. The rest of the room was filled with other people, some of whom were relations of Cix and Barton. He recognized immediately Lon’s fiancé, Dora Beldin and her brother Rupe. “Come in please.” Lon said as he shifted uncomfortably behind the desk. “Shut the door.” The younger woman at his side stood up and walked around to the children. “Come here.” she said kneeling down to them and hugged a few of them. “Aaron Bailey? So this is all that’s left?” Lon said frowning. “There may be a few more. I don’t know.” Bailey said, looking over the faces of the syndicate leaders. “It seems there’s been a strange incident. As you can see, South Syndicate have come to us for aid. Border Security in league with Old Gang are already plundering the Beldin building. They seem to have wasted no time. It’s all a little suspicious, isn’t it Mr Bailey.” Lon said, tapping a finger on his lips. “I agree. I’m sorry. I tried to save them all.” 265

“No need for apologies here. From our intel this cataclysm was the work of Dr Chester Barron. I don’t know why we didn’t see it coming.” Play with the kids. Play with Sagar. Bailey knelt down to the children, opposite the woman, and began petting the children. She smiled, but Bailey was too stunned to reciprocate. “You can leave the children with us, Mr Bailey. I am Lon Sagar as you know. My daughter Bede has business ties to boarding houses and the like. We can always use new young things in our organization.” Bailey suddenly shouted out “Yeah? For what?” Lon Sagar, a little shocked calmed himself with a smile and said “This isn’t Old Gang my friend. We won’t whore them out if that’s what you were afraid of.” Bede put a hand on his sleeve and said “I won’t let anything happen to them, friend.” Bailey looked at her hand and smiled at her. Keep track of these children. Stay in touch with the lovely Bede Sagar, and this corporate whorehouse. We have our second stepping stone.

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Part II Old Gang

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What’s Best For You? The train hissed hard and then began to roll away from the platform. A lady bent down to pick up her thin cases, then proceeded to exit the platform and station. Her name was Wendall Jayne, known as Jayne in her private life. Jayne was a small woman, weak in body and often wore a little too much clothing, especially since she'd been sent here to live in the prison city. It was a cloak against the horridness that filled the place, and one she realized didn't work in actuality, but still gave her that warmth of feeling. Most people here were horrid people, mercenary folk that you couldn’t really trust, and maybe they deserved to be sent far away from good people. Jayne was different to them. Jayne had a secret. She wasn't a mugger or thief; how she had looked down on them all from her quiet cottage in the west. She’d arrived on the east side of the city, where she had never visited having spent her three years of city-life in the west districts. There was very little reason to move about once you had been accepted as part of a district. The local Drug Lord, as scary as he was to the rival gangs would tend to regard themselves as protectors of those within their own patch. But recently everything in the colony had changed.

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Jayne had travelled to the East Syndicate village that, as most people in the colony knew was owned and occupied by the Sagar crime syndicate. It was noticeably more crowded than the village once owned by South Syndicate, with far more homes and terraces spidering out over what would have been fields. It was difficult for her to find her way through them all, as she walked along, head bowed with a file of paintings at her side. She went directly to visit her old friend, Bede Sagar, who although being related to one of the most powerful crime enterprises in the whole colony, tended not to associate too much with that side of the family business. Jayne had come here to attend a craft fair being held within a Sagar controlled district, and being run by Bede herself. “So good to see you!” Bede cried out on opening the door to her home in the cramped village. The houses here weren’t of the same calibre as those of South Syndicate, but then, there were more people to accommodate now since South Syndicate had all but disbanded. Jayne entered the house and was taken upstairs to a room that looked familiar. “It’s just like your old room on Seiknojelles.” Jayne exclaimed, and dropped her bags beside the bed. “I feel like I’ve slept here before.”

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“I started to miss home.” Bede said smiling at her creation. “Some of it I brought with me. Most of it was recreated from memory.” “Looks just the same.” Jayne smiled. “I’ll let you unpack.” Bede said and shut the door. Jayne looked around at the blues and purples of the room. There were dolls she remembered playing with, some with imperfections that someone had pained to recreate. There was a sound system on the floor that looked just as badly treat as it ever did. Jayne found many details that fitted her memory of her life back on the colonies. She knelt down on the carpet in front of the dressing cabinet and began fishing through the makeup boxes. She found an old tub of blood-pink lipstick that looked familiar enough to be real. It was the kind of thing Bede would have brought to a place such as this. Jayne opened the lid and rubbed her finger inside, and then applied it around her lips. She watched herself in the cabinet’s main mirror, as she smudged her lips together, and looked at herself a moment longer recognizing another person she hadn’t seen in a while. The next day came around lazily, as it always did when with true friends. A flock of racing birds flew by the tall windows of the hall hosting the craft fair. Jayne followed them as she sat at the

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table she had been given. Her paintings were laid out around the table with small stickers denoting price. A few people came and went as she waited for someone, checking her watch a little too often to seem normal. Then she saw him, a medium sized man dressed in Border Sec Officer’s uniform strode into the hall, smiling as he found her. The man strode up to her table and sat on the corner, sliding the table slightly askew and said “Wendall… Pleased to meet you at long last.” Jayne smiled shyly and said “Kane?” “Officer Kane Minik.” he said tapping his pips, and held his hand out to her, which she pensively shook. “I feel like I know you, but here you are. You look so different to your photographs.” “I guess we do know each other on a level. I’ve met a few great people through the pen friend network. I’ve never left it this long to meet anyone though. I was a little shy of you actually.” “It was pure chance I found you on that chat network. I was searching some pretty wild things.” “Yeah we aren’t exactly compatible. But maybe opposites attract?” she said, and then cringed against her own cliché.

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“Well, you did invite me…” Kane sniffed and looked around the quiet fair. “That’s right. The time seemed right.” “Oh yeah. I was sorry to hear about your little village. Bloody funny thing that. Our boys got a tip off there were some pretty big hauls going through there, then when they started shooting back, what were they supposed to think?” “The gangsters got a tip off too.” Jayne said. “The drug lord was told you were about to raid them out, so they had their guns loaded up.” “Too many coincidences in my opinion. But what’s done is done. Can’t bring them back to life, can I?” Kane said coldly. “Well… my life is done that’s for sure. I don’t even have a home anymore. Nice you’re so sympathetic though.” she said, almost sarcastically. Not hearing it, Kane said “It’s my pleasure. We’ve chatted so many times I couldn’t wait to finally meet up. Tonight maybe you could come out with me and another girl?” “A what?” she blinked. “Some bitch from the station.” he said leaning back as if nothing had been said. “Come on, all those times we chatted… You want it like I do.” 272

“I may have got drunk a few times…” she said blushing. “Come on.” he waved at her. “Come cruisin’ tonight.” Looking down now in pains of shyness she said “Leave your number; I’ll get back to you.” Kane wrote his number on a blank pricing sticker and stuck it on the desk beside her elbow. “I knew you’d be sport.” he said and stood up. ”Call me if you’re free.” Jayne nodded, glancing at him momentarily, and Kane turned and strode out, waving and greeting someone he knew as he did. Jayne saw Bede coming over with an exited look. “So? How did it go?” she beamed, but Jane simply looked depressed. “Oh dear… You had such high hopes. I mean, an officer in Border Sec!” Jayne looked at her and shook her head quietly. “Ah ok. Well at least now you know.” Bede shrugged, and Jayne nodded. “Yep. That’s right.” she said. 273

Bede left to continue administration of the fair. Jayne unstuck the price sticker and number from the desk, nipped it in half and threw it into the waste paper bin. Jayne decided to walk home from the hall, since the district was safely under Sagar control, and was only one tunnel away from the syndicate village district. Bede had asked her boyfriend, a man called Aaron Bailey, who had said “It’s that way.” Jayne followed his direction across the neighbourhood from the old church hall, that sat on the edge of a field amongst the towering apartments. She walked primly along each path to the district tunnel, which seemed a little badly maintained to belong to such an affluent family as the Sagars. She walked through it since she had been sent this way and emerged into a cavern she did not recognize. She stood at the arched opening of the tunnel and surveyed the acre of factory units, spewing toxic pollutants to the fans in the ceiling and walls. It was a district on the outskirts of the city, and she had gone the wrong way. Suddenly she heard a screech, from someone moving toward her from behind and shadows began to move along the sides of the tunnel around her. She curled up slightly as punk kids flew by her on either side, screeching and howling like a pack of angry wildcats having found some lone prey. They came together and stopped to stare at her from their thick white-painted faces. They had wide, lost 274

eyes but confident enough to make her see that this was a terrible situation to be in. “Bede, you air head…” she hissed to herself. “What’s in the case?” one of them nodded to her thin craft holder, stepping toward her. “Just my paintings. You can have them.” Jayne said and offered them up. “I can have anything I want.” he grinned madly. “Get undressed.” He held up a thin rod that extended so far as to just skim hitting her. A tear slaked across her cheek, as she knew that the situation was hopeless, and she was actually about to be raped. Just then there was a timely whistle, like someone calling a dog. Jayne looked shakily in its direction seeing another gang sitting and standing on the industrial service scaffold that spiralled the cavern walls. A huge extractor fan churned behind the young men, and a short woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform. They weren’t wearing paint or gang clothes, but wore industrial work pants with white shirt and bracers. The couple sitting on the scaffold were wearing skates, so she 275

knew not to relax just yet. A gang was a gang, and they were all macho assholes as far as she was concerned. “And what do we find down the posh end of the prison?” one of them yelled over the industrial noises. “Outskirts! Old Gang territory! This is none of your business, Thom!” the would-be rapist spat. “Well, well.” he smirked at the others as they each jumped down to the adjoining road, and began rolling with a mock grace toward them. “I think we’re making it our business, dickhead.” “And we’re supposed to just leave her and run away pissing in our pants?” he snarled, and the gang got ready for a serious fight. They each extended a long metal rod, and crouched like feral animals. The skaters fearlessly glided down the lane toward them and then the two gangs crashed into each other, and all grace was abandoned. One of the skaters was pushed back, toppling into the gutter and hitting her head against the curb, while members of the opposing gang were wrestled and beaten onto the floor. The fallen skater was unconscious, while the others were spurred to fight harder, and soon the other gang was moving to get away. A few of the smallest of them ran away around the side of the units, while the two largest fought on a while.

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After a while of being punched and kicked they realized it would be wise to cut their losses and after eyeing each other they turned and ran after their friends. A member of the gang elder to the mouthy one called Thom picked up one of their rods and threw it after them. It clattered around the road between them, but did no further harm. Jayne backed away from the group as they turned in her direction, but stopped as she bumped into someone. Frightened, she turned to see the shorter woman, dressed in a lived-in nurse’s uniform. “Please don’t hurt me. I just want to go home ok?” she said shaking. The girl smiled in a tired way and said, “You don’t have to worry.” She walked past her to the gang and the man called Thom said “Yeah, relax. We’re a nice gang.” “Really?” Jayne said looking him over. “Nah, not really." Thom said, and began skating around the width of the tunnel entrance, ignoring her.

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The others followed him as one laughed raucously and shouted “Nice gang! Hah!” The white haired girl glared futily, at them then back to Jayne and calmly said “I’m Faye Scotia. I’m a nurse for South... Err… East Syndicate. Maybe you should come with us.” Jayne shook her head slightly then Faye went on “We have an errand to run. An appointment to keep. Then we can take you home. You can’t go home alone from here, and we can’t turn around.” “What’s your name?” one of the gang said as he rolled by them slowly. He was the tallest and most well built of the bunch, and wore a headband in his long hair reflecting a narcissism despite his young years. “I’m Fenn Dore, the hardest... errr... the best fighter. Fenn came closer to them and for some reason Jayne didn't feel afraid. He pointed to the others as they bombed around the small space. "That guy's the oldest, Sorbe Malcolm. He's actually over five hundred years old, and older than all of us in real years. But he's been here longer than all of us put together, over a century. Doesn't look it does he? That's Mach Hadron, he's a psycho, you won't like him stay away from him. The cheeky bastard is Thom Gubichayan, he's smarter than Sorbe... and this little fella …”

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He pointed at the short girl that had been knocked unconscious, now being helped to her feet by Sorbe Malcolm. “Juille. But we call her Allstar. We work in a robo-factory near here.” Fenn said, pointing at his oily shirt. “And you are?” Faye Scotia waved her hands between them and said "You don't have to answer that if you..." “I'm Wendall Jayne.” she said and smiled at them slightly, and then together they began walking through the factories. The two ladies followed the more energetic men as they rolled dreamily in figure eights along the low roads leading northward, in the opposite direction to the one taken by the more violent gang. Jayne and Faye found a comfortable distance to walk behind the others, talking on and off about the Sagars and the craft fair. She left out the story of her unsuccessful date, although she had an urge inside to unload it onto someone. They walked for miles around the city perimeter, though district after tunnel after district, until they entered a cavern signposted as Border Sec 3 District. The place was different to the others on the city outskirts, and was instead filled with a collection of steepled buildings, that got larger incrementally away from the entrance tunnels. They were throwbacks from the original base, with the same old fashioned, sentimental style. 279

At the far back of the place, set into the outer dome wall was a huge pyramidal ziggurat raising up from behind the other buildings in broad steps to a flat top. “There.” Faye pointed to the large place, and Jayne followed them up a winding cobblestone street, around each of the buildings, to a wide cobbled square that led to the first steps to the pyramid. “Where are we going again?” Jayne said as she walked with them “It’s called The Shell.” Faye said focusing on their destination. “I’ve heard of it. Solitary confinement right?” Jayne said, and then looked around considering if she should leave now. Faye looked at her wearily and said “It would be safer if you stuck with us.” “Who do you know in there?” Jayne said with front. “Randall, my boyfriend… was caught up in the last escape.” “That was months ago…” Jayne said while looking up at the gargantuan old complex.

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Faye walked on in silence a way, while staring ahead at the place. “I hope my kid’s alright.” she said, with more than a note of apprehension. They made their way to the top of the steps then into the temple-like building. They took one of a fan of corridors that branched out from the drafty front entrance. They walked patiently to its end, that seemed to be situated deeper within the wall at a point that felt beyond the borders of the city itself. Here they faced a large hall, hosting a massive hovering bubble of viscous blue liquid that pulsated as if it were organic in nature. Within the bubble were men and women, each wearing a sensory deprivation helmet in the style of a ridiculous clowns mask. A tube was fed to each from a box at the top part of the bubble, feeding each of them oxygen and food, and excreting wastes. A lightning strike hit each of them at intervals as they stood and watched. Around them on the walls were blood red murals of faces looking on, like some kind of vindictive audience set in stone. “Hello?” a voice startled the group from behind. They turned to see a tall, thin Border Sec officer walk up to them. Jayne took a few steps back instinctively, then stopped herself.

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“Farnon.” Faye said and hugged him, and was then greeted by each of the men. “This is Wendall Jayne.” Fenn gestured to her, and then introduced the officer in kind. “This is Port Farnon, he's alright.” “Yes, hello.” she said dismissively. “Just one or two minutes to go.” said Farnon and they all watched the bubble. After a minute one of the bodies floated to the bottom area of the bubble and a valve opened up sucking the body into and then spitting it out of the bubble. The helmet had been released and the muscular man fell in a shower of purple liquid onto the cobble stone floor. Faye and a couple of the boys ran to him. They turned him over as he coughed and spat out a mouthful of the coloured liquid. “Randall?” Farnon said, and for a second the man flinched as if to claw the words away. “Flynn.” Faye said crying. “Are you still with me?” The man, Flynn Randall opened his eyes and looked at them, and to his partner, Faye.

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He nodded to her and then shakily stood up. He was naked but Jayne was too upset to care. “Let’s get out of this hole.” Randall said as they walked past her to the corridor. They walked around him, holding a long towel over his shoulders as they exited the place, down the steps and then through the police town to one of the tunnels. Jayne walked at a distance behind them, still a little shocked by it all. They moved to the next apartment district and up a nearby sliproad to the highway, where a hole in the fence led to a waste ground beneath a junction of railroads. Through the maze of supports they could see through the jumble of apartment units. The floor was jagged and uneven under Randall’s bare feet, but they all made it inside the dark place without anyone else interfering. Jayne stood back watching the freezing, drafty place and the strange people within it. “Come on.” Farnon beckoned to them all. “We need to stay out of sight. There’s druggy lookouts in all these districts and they all radio back to Old Gang.” “And OG knows your getting out The Shell this week.” Faye said. “We tried to keep it a secret. They might want to 283

talk to you… about the people that died. They already talked to Farnon.” Farnon threw him a big suitcase full of clothes and Randall began to get dressed. Farnon also took clothes from the case and changed from his prim police uniform beside him. A train rolled by above and from the industrial districts nearby, the end of shift horns blew. “Rush hour should give us some cover.” Thom said craning his neck to see the first of the departing workforce. “Good, let’s go.” Randall said, pulling a light shirt over his shoulders. He walked past them all as if to lead, and for a moment they stood and watched him, a little sceptical. Randall stopped beside Jayne and turned to look at them. “I’ve had worse.” he said, and continued on, fitting a tie as he went. “Where are we headed?” Randall said, helping Jayne back down to the path from the fence. The others followed, and Farnon answered “East Syndicate. You won’t have heard… obviously, but South Syndicate has

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been dissolved. All the districts have been taken over by separate gangs. It’s like Westside now but more lawless.” “God frickin dammit!” Randall burst out. “I know friend. I’ll miss those days too.” “East Syndicate is pure business. If I don’t have a job I might as well make good with a narco pimp.” “We’ve sorted something out.” Farnon said, stopping him. “We have a contact inside. Importer-exporter type. Says he needs someone like yourself. And best of all, it’s someone else from the escape.” Faye put her arm around Randall’s shoulder as they walked and said “We’ve got the lot worked out. Our guy Bailey’s deep in with all the major East gangs. He’s the one that mapped our route today, so we could avoid all the arseholes... apart from this one gang. They must have strayed off their own patch. It's all sorted though.” Randall nodded, and they moved on, with Jayne walking a short way behind. They made their way to one of the inner neighbourhoods by rail and foot, and by that time Jayne was getting pretty tired. Her feet were throbbing, and she was trying to find the words to say her goodbyes, and make her way back to the Sagar house. Now, with the city center so close she thought it could be her chance. 285

Unfortunately, as they moved from the neighbourhood’s only rail station and down a long flight of steel steps to the ground she heard behind her on the platform a group of screeching girls, and quickly hurried after the group. Jayne followed mournfully down to the streets below the forest of towers and windows. Still unable to muster the courage to break away she immediately found herself wishing she had. It was just the sort of neighbourhood she had painstakingly avoided for years, and so now things were taking another turn for the worse. All housing districts from the original colony had been constructed with the same layout by and large. They had been quaint, cobbled streets of tall terraces and shopping strands that had then been built upon over and over after the conversion to a prison. Now the apartments dominated the rest, standing over the old, mostly abandoned buildings of old, that served as a kind of basement to the rest and not a lot more. The streets they walked through here were gaunt and lifeless as a result. Thom, who seemed to be taking over slightly, led them from street to street, to a strand that still served its old purpose. They walked past a few bars and stores to a grocery store near the end, that served as a front for something else.

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Since the legal bars had outlawed all narcotics, other pillbars had been built in hidden places, away from robotic eyes. They headed into one such establishment now, hidden behind the grocery store, that was itself a working food outlet in this neighbourhood. They entered beneath a low canvas awning and walked through the claustrophobic aisles of fresh veg to the counter. There Thom flashed some kind of hand sign and was let around the counter to a reinforced door leading to the back of the store. Jayne followed them, trusting so far that they weren’t going anywhere too dangerous. She followed them at the back of the line as they walked through the grocery storage room to another, more regular door, that Fenn and Thom moved up to with some apprehension. They listened slightly to the music within before bulling up and opening it, showing now where they were headed. Her noble heart sank as she found herself led down into a bar steaming with narcotics. She had heard of these things but never visited one, since she had always strived to live a normal life as she would have done back on the colonies had she not made her mistake. Once in the place she found herself huddled with the others on a carpet near the bar, overlooked by drunk people on low balconies. A little way across the bar was a gathering of hardcore looking gang members, who themselves became very angry to see them emerge so close beside them.

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One of them marched toward them with his arms in the air, and was followed by a few others backing him up. “What you doin’ here, fool?” he said, and Thom stepped forward, flashing the same hand-sign as he had before. “No man, I don’t know you.” the gang member said and punched Thom hard on the side of the face. As Thom staggered against one of the small tables there was a static whistle from a speaker beside another reinforced door, on the opposite side of the bar. “They’re with me.” it said, and the door buzzed and unlocked. They all walked quickly to the door with Jayne close behind, while Thom stayed a moment to look at the gang member straight before backing down and following them. Through a thick foundation wall of bricks she found herself in another building, and the knot in Jayne’s gut began to untighten. The door was closed and locked behind, and they now stood on the ground floor of a house that somebody had abandoned maybe centuries ago. The thump of the music from the pill-bar could be felt all through the dusty halls. There was a collection of old furniture that hadn’t been removed from the place, and a cradle that on inspection, Jayne found was empty. 288

They walked through each of the museum-like rooms to what would have been the front room, and found there a man with his back to them, beside two cubicles that had been sectioned off with a soundproof rubber wall and windows. He had his head bowed low and was rubbing the back of his neck back and forth as if he were under immense pressure. The hot glare from the bare bulb above him wouldn’t have helped. “Isn’t it quite odd…” the man said, and Jayne found she vaguely recognized the voice. “How nobody has even considered the possibility that these narrow boxes we live in are another part of the prison?” “Bailey?” Fenn said, and Aaron Bailey turned to greet them with a smile. “Part of a design...” Bailey said smiling. “You haven’t considered it have you? I know.” Jayne recognized him immediately as Bede’s boyfriend that she had met passingly on her exit from the craft fair. He held an apple that he was cutting slices from with a small but sharp knife. “Who cares anyway?” Sorbe said. “Well you should. We all should. Nobody should live like this.” Bailey said walking toward them, and gesturing around with the knife. “Scratching around for scraps…”

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He played with the apple a little, and looked over their faces. Jayne hid behind them all but he knew she was there. He ate a piece from the knife then pointed with it over their shoulders toward the bar they had come from. “Sorry about them, they’re a bit on edge. Another one of their lot got cattled.” he said while chewing. “I probably should have told them you were coming.” Fenn eyed him harshly and said “Err. Yeah.” “So this is Flynn Randall.” Bailey said stepping past Thom to Randall. “I don’t remember you from the South Syndicate escape. I’m actually half thinking about starting another escape myself.” “Well that’s not for me, but thanks.” Randall spoke up. “I’m just after a job.” “Nobody’s escaping. Not yet anyway. Right now I need a minder. Someone to watch my back while I’m dealing with certain types of associates. Selling to these gangs isn’t my usual type of work.” “You don’t seem to be doing too badly.” Randall said looking around at the men in the cubicle, who were concentrating hard on their craft. “What is it you do exactly?”

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“I’ve inherited an import export company from a relation. Turns out my cousin had ties deep into East Syndicate, and used the company as a front to traffic narcotics to the local drug lords. Gangs like these…” Bailey thumbed the two men in the chambers. “These guys work for the gang you met outside, that work this neighbourhood on behalf of East Syndicate. These guys are writing messages for East Syndicate spies in Old Gang. One of my little sidelines is to deliver those messages. I've got my fingers in many pies.” “Sounds pretty dangerous.” Randall said, sounding a little fed up, but totally unafraid. Bailey smiled and said “These guys make it undetectable. They write direct to microfilm with a needle. Even if we get searched they won’t see these notes.” “What are you packing anyway?” Randall asked. “If I’m going into OG turf I’ll need some little pistols.” “This is all we need.” Bailey gestured with his apple knife. “That and a smile. I hope that doesn’t disturb you, Randall. I hate guns.” “I couldn’t give toss, mate.” Randall said bluntly. “Just point n click. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.” “Randall…” Thom said.

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“No, it’s good.” Bailey said. “I need someone with a pair of balls, and preferably not so many brains. If you need a few days to rest up, do it. Then call in to my office.” “I don’t need a few days.” Randall said dumbly. “I need you at full strength. Faye, you sort this out for me.” Faye energized and said “Ok, Mr Bailey.” “Good business, as always. Goodbye for now.” Bailey said and turned away, smiling. He returned to the place they’d found him beneath the bulb. Jayne watched the conversation from the shade behind them, and when they all turned to leave she backed away ahead of them. The knot in her gut returned, but she walked to the door and pushed the button to open it. She walked out first into the narcotic sweetened bar, and looked at the gang that she found were looking in her direction. She smiled awkwardly and walked forward with the bag of paintings covering her knees. As the others came to the bar behind her, she noticed the thug that had attacked them earlier notice her and smile a wide smile. His smile died as Thom put a hand on her and draped his arm gently around her neck. Thom stared him down and then ushered her toward the door to the back of the store while smirking away at the floor. 292

Once she was inside the soil smelling store room he turned away from her and ushered the others inside. Jayne was still a little frozen and stood with her head bowed, hugging her paintings a little. Thom put his hand on her shoulder again and said “Come on, lady. Let’s get you home.” She nodded without looking and walked with him to the shop and then out onto the brighter street. Back inside the dusty halls, Bailey walked to the opposite side of the house, and leaned out over a fire escape hanging just over the back street there. The same faces, the cattle that had attacked Jayne in the subway stood in a quiet congregation. There was only one thing that could make them so quiet, so obedient, so controllable. Bailey smiled a dark smile, and gave it to them. He palmed from his inner jacket pocket a strip of narcotic pills, and teased one as he reached for it. He gave it to him and then threw three more shoulder bags of similar strips down into the grimy alley. Bailey leaned back into the broken window frame and watched them as the squabbled over what they’d been given. 293

“Stepping stones.” he said so they could hear. On the other side, on the main street, the group were now heading in a direction more favourable to Wendall Jayne; back toward the train station. She walked with Thom now ahead of the others, and was now happy to see that they were back on more abandoned streets. “Believe it or not, we don’t do this sort of thing a lot.” he said. “Ok. I don’t believe you.” she said without smiling. He chuckled and said "I'm serious. This is all a bit much for me too. We had to get Randall work. He deserves it.” “He was part of the last escape?” she said, as if in a dream. “Fighter pilot. Used to be a meteor miner back on the colonies.” Thom said kicking a stone along the path. “Aaron too?” “Aaron’s an asshole. But a useful asshole. It’s good to keep people like him on the multi-com list so far as work goes.” Jayne stretched her eyes and said “If you say so.” 294

Thom tried to smile and said “Says the girl staying with Bede Sagar. They own the whole operation. They run it from the top down.” Jayne shook her head and said “Not Bede. Not my friend.” “Her and Aaron Bailey.” he said. “What about them?” “They’re an item right? You must have known that. And I hear Bailey’s building up to propose.” he said and she stopped on the path and looked at him, stunned. Thom cringed at this and said “I’m sorry, Wendall. Maybe I’ve gone too far.” They carried on walking back along the gaunt streets to the long metal stair leading up to the tram station. The evening traffic flowed beside them as they passed by the highways on the way up to the lofty heights of the tracks. Jayne turned to Thom as they reached the top of the stair, beside a bridge that led to the opposite side of the tracks. Thom looked down the long stair as the others caught up the distance they had made. It had been strange but they seemed to have gelled as friends in that short time spent together. Jayne knew from experience that sometimes you can meet a person and just click, like clockwork. 295

Jayne leaned back against the cold steel balcony with the expanse of the district and the morbid labyrinth of concrete and windows behind her. The winds so high up pressed against them harshly and tugged her hair madly behind her. She closed her eyes as if enjoying it and said “Mm.” Thom looked at her a few times, trying not to show what he was thinking. He rubbed his mouth a few times as he squinted against the pressing gales. “You should be alright from here.” Thom said, thumbing the platform on the other side. “Are you staying with the Sagars?” “For now, yes.” she said looking at the others approaching up the last few steps. “After that who knows?” “You don’t have anywhere else to stay?” he asked. She kept staring down the stairwell with a cold look in her eyes and said “Border Sec raided my district. Killed everyone there. It’s a ghost town now. Raids by the other gangs make it impossible to go back there just yet.” “You could come live with us.” he smiled, and then shied back as if realizing what he had said. Jayne smiled at him, as if a little disgusted by the idea and said “Thanks but no.”

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“As long as you are sure.” Thom shrugged and looked away. He watched as she paused, and thought about this for a few moments. “Actually….” Jayne said. “There is nothing else.” Thom smiled, and Jayne, who clearly didn’t want to say ‘yes’ took a step toward him and let go a smile. He held he elbow gently as they stared warmly at one another. The others reached them and they split up, and moved aside as they entered the platform. Having heard what they were talking about, Fenn added “Coincidentally we have a vacancy. A spare bedroom that is.” The others had all heard too. Farnon looked at Randall and Faye, a little worried as they walked onto the drafty platform. He leaned around the back of the skaters and said “Are you absolutely sure you have nowhere else to go?” “I can’t stay with Bede Sagar forever. I’ll take a look. Might not be as bad as I expect.” “Good choice!” Fenn Dore punched into his huge palm.

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“Right now?” she asked, as a train suddenly emerged from the misty tunnel further along, and began bulleting toward them along the suspended line. Sorbe Malcolm held his arms wide and yelled “Hey, arrest us... we like to stay active.” Farnon shrugged since it wasn’t really his problem, and left over the bridge with Randall and Faye without much of a goodbye. Jayne watched them go and then turned away, feeling the slight sting of being alone. The gang skated to where the carriage doors typically stopped as the shark-nosed train pulled up to their platform, and let out a massive hiss of steam from fusion engines. They entered the tram cabin making just enough noise to irritate some of the other passengers, while Jayne sheepishly followed.

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The Masterplan. The gang reached their district a half hour later with Wendall Jayne in tow, and she looked at the place she'd been brought through the half steamed carriage windows. They exitted the train to an old enclosed station that looked out from it's height over an outer industrial cavern. There were several factory units spewing filthy smoke toward the extractors at the ceiling and walls, with its smoky afterwash making the air on the platform almost unbreatheable. It was far from what she had expected and a lightyear from what she was used to back on the colonies, but in the absence of a real home now she had little other course of action but to follow. They avoided a broken glass antigrav lift, that sat at an angle in the floor at the side of the stairwell, and looked to be almost sucking them down its bare gaps to the drop leading to the grimy motorways below, and further the street level. They walked down the square spiralling stairwell past the drafty traffic of the motorways to the ground. Taking a shortcut down a steep gravel bank to a sliproad system leading up on either side to the motorways above, they came then to the first of the streets. They walked by the end of the street cordoned off by bollards and a line of tall street lamps. On the first tall wall that lined either side of the street she saw a large graffiti mural in pink and green reading “Wikid Business”. 299

“Is that the name of your gang?” Jayne said pointing at it sheepishly. Fenn came back to her as the others walked ahead, and said “Turf tag, yeah. You need to stay within the limits of this street. We keep things pretty calm around here but... well you know.” “Yes fine.” she said squinting slightly, not really interested in the petty territorial goings on that she had to date managed to avoid. The sound of a large pack of dogs barking had gotten louder as they moved away from the motorway roads, until at the first gate to a factory, she heard them scratching beyond the red brick wall. The factory was one of a few along the outer dome walls, with the others sitting here and there along other lanes, leading up the gentle incline to the first of the actual city. If anything were to keep them safe here it was their distance away from that world of infighting. The gang opened the front gates with a hacked biometric key and began babying what she saw to be tall desert jackals from the equator regions of Lantis. “It’s ok if you’re with us.” Fenn put a hand on Jayne’s slightly shaking shoulder, and realizing this said. “I’m sorry. We’ll be inside in a second.”

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Jayne nodded and followed them around the left side to a code-locked entrance normally used for factory workers. The dogs ran away as the group waited for the doors to be opened. “How did you…” she began, pointing a finger around the place. Fenn stepped in front of her and walking backward toward the doors said gently “It’s a long and dull story. It’s all safe, trust us.” The door was opened and they each walked into the corridor inside. The tall corridor ran around the outside of the larger space that would typically be used for factory production, but craning her neck to look through an open doorway, she saw that the place had been completely refitted. No doubt utilizing colony terraforming technologies such as nano-dust and a dust-cleric book for control, they would have redesigned the interior on paper, and let microscopic robots do the measurements and heavy work. Such ancient technologies were hard to come by in remote places like exile colonies, but there would be no way for a group of scrawny young men like these to do it all on their own. She followed them into the main space that they had recreated to be a huge living room, come sports center come dining room. There were professional grade kitchens at the far back, along the wall and a breakfast bar to enclose it away from the rest, but all in all it was one room. 301

There was a huge fridge, and equally huge cooker that she thought she could make good use of. They seemed to have mastered subsistence level and branched out here and there into the finer lifestyles as they seemed to have judged, with the central living area custom designed for video games and holo-entertainment. The Frizball court and hoops at the front most part of the hall were an extravagance. Curiously, there was a sign just before the court reading “No skating in the house!” "How the hell did you f... uh?" she stammered as she began to truly weigh up what she was looking at. “Like it?” Sorbe yelled to her from the kitchen. “Of course you like it!” Jayne shrugged and looked away. “I’ll take you to your room.” Mach said holding out a hand, and she walked over to him. There was a spiral staircase just before the kitchens on the left that led up to what would have been a series of managerial offices in a normal state of affairs. Each office had now been converted to a bedroom with the same terraforming dust. They went upstairs and Jayne found it to be a very warm area.

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“Just here.” Mach gestured for her to come to a door at the far end of the corridor. Jayne slowly walked past each of the rooms, surveying the insides of the ones that were open. They were all pretty lived in and she counted up to the number of members they had in their gang. The remainder of the rooms were filled with random items and furniture. The rooms were huge, and so was the excess amount of things they seemed to have accumulated, she hoped by legal means. At the farthest end were two more bedrooms, and she turned to look in the one she was being given. Both bedrooms were at the back wall of the factory, and would have been considered the best of the bunch if the view had been of somewhere better. “All yours.” Mach said and patted her back gently. He left, making his way to the stair and down to the lighter living hall below. Jayne sighed and looked around the place in the low light. The endless hissing of traffic along the motorway close by seemed already to be fading into her peripheral hearing. “I feel cold.” she said quietly, rubbing the palm of her hand against an eye made sore by the factory smoke outside.

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She stood a moment looking her room over, then heard spunker music, which was a fusion of space influence and funk, begin beating against the walls and floor. It was immediately turned down to a more tolerable level, but she wondered how long this would be the case. She walked inside and found it to be an average sized room with a close ceiling and with an unused bed in the corner. It had been quite well maintained, not that some nano-clean wouldn’t polish it up. The ceiling was low and slanted slightly to the side, it being the end of the roof of the old factory. On the outermost wall there was a window looking out over the district, and a rocking chair that had been placed before it to soak up the grotty view. She wondered who’s room it had been, and if it had been a gang member who had died, but for now she had to think of herself. She sat on the bed and lay her square bag against the side, then dropped back to lie against the pillow. Sighing slowly she studied the plastic ceiling above. Her multi-communicator began to hum and she slowly took it to her mouth. “Bede.” she said. “Wendall? Are you ok darling?”

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“I am. I think I found a place to stay. It’s District South… err… five.” “South is bad, Wendall. Are you sure you don’t want a place here in ES village? It’s no trouble…” Jayne craned and listened to the low throb of the music below, and said “We’ll see. I’m fine for tonight anyway. I’ll come visit first thing tomorrow ok?” “Call me if anything goes wrong. I’ll come straight to get you.” Bede said, now with a note of worry. “Ok friend. Bye.” She put the phone back in her coat pocket and closed her eyes. It was still early evening and it was only a matter of time before lying there would become dull. Jayne was tired but was in a funny mood, and got up. With her bag of paintings in hand, she walked out of her room and back along to the top of the stair. She was about to go down to join the others when she noticed a shorter corridor leading away to the side, and what felt like a cool draft coming from it. Stepping lightly she walked along and up another short stair that led up to an old fire door, that itself was standing open onto the roof.

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She walked outside in small steps and across the tarred floor of an enclosure at the corner of the roof, surrounded on both sides by high chain link fencing. At the fence she stopped and looked out over the jumble of rooftops of the other factory units and their towers. Here at the edge of the city they were beyond the outskirts of civilized places, and just out of reach for her to feel a sting of loneliness. She sighed at her predicament and realizing she had nowhere else even she wanted to go stared on at the industrial landscape, and the slow pouring of smog up from it. “Pretty rough deal.” she heard words from behind, in the laconic tones she recognized as the young man called Thom. “They won’t let you hold your head up high in this place, right? Even a pretty little head like yours.” Lazily, she turned around to see him lying on his front just behind the lip of a ventilation fan. Since he had been out of sight she hadn’t noticed him there, although it occurred to her she maybe should have considered that someone had opened the door first. “I’m past caring.” she said giving him a dazed look. Thom looked past her at the other factories and said “Yah.” Jayne kept staring at him as he lay half naked but for his work pants, apparently taking a moment alone in the place before returning to his little life. Thom got up and hitched around to sit on the ledge beside the slowly spinning fan. 306

“I miss my city.” he said quietly. “I used to love this place. I’ve started to hate it. It’s a prison after all.” “That’s right.” she said, forcing a smile. "Who the hell are you, Wendall Jayne?" Thom said suddenly catching her off guard. "Er... haha." she spluttered slightly then shook her head calmly and said "I was supposed be on a date about now, believe it or not." "That's not hard to believe, I mean look at you." he said, and she smiled slightly before carrying on. "It's been a while for me I guess. Maybe I was too hard on the guy. I blew him out pretty cold." "It's your choice. You must have had your reasons." Thom said swinging a leg slightly. She paused for a moment looking down at her satchel of paintings. "I'm not so experienced with romance and men. I'm not that old really. Most people here are hundreds of years old, left here to die out with their age stabilizer unplugged. I'm not like them I've only lived 35 years."

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"You're just a kid." Thom smiled. "Yeah I'm the same. I'm only 29. Sent here when I was 25." "Wow. That's a coincidence, isn't it. Nice to meet someone with the same problem as me." she said looking down, as Thom got up and came to the fence beside her. "Yeah, naivety. That's always been my problem. I wouldn't be here otherwise." "Well, I don’t want to talk about that. I've kept my rap a secret for a long time now. Only me and Bede really know about that." "Well sister, I try to keep my own as well. But us boys have become like brothers. We've gotten to know each other quite well now, and now we have a sister too... I was sent here for mass murder believe it or not." Thom said then looked at her and said "I was innocent of course." "Interesting...." Jayne said, while playing with the links in the fencing with her tiny fingers. "Another coincidence." "Surely not..." Thom said turning to her and leaning his wiry body into the fence. "I cannot believe that you killed one person let alone en mass." "There were a few charges linked together for me. Mainly hacking. Big time hacking."

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"Hacking was on my rep too, I had to hack an intergalactic traffic relay. I doubt you did anything larger than that." "A solar defence grid. Cequodus colony. So yeah, it was bigger..." "That'll piss them off alright." Thom said looking at the side of her face. "I'm amazed they didn't execute you or something. In secret of course." Jayne sighed and looked down at her shoes and said "Maybe they did, ai?" "Too many coincidences." Thom said and looked away at the factories. "I shouldn't be here, it was all a mistake. I was a science student, for fate sakes. So close to graduation, space meteorologist I would have been..." "A weatherman! Haha!" Jayne laughed out suddenly. "Hey don't joke. I could have been..." "Oh, I'm sorry." she said putting a hand over her mouth comically to stop herself laughing, before laughing again a little more. "You're a bad girl, aren't you? Weather can be an interesting subject. It shows the real beauty of science and the universe." he smiled at her and reached to take her hand. "Let me show you." 309

Instinctively she let him hold her hand, then looked at it wondering what she was doing. Thom pushed from the fence loudly and walked with her to the door and then down past the others in the living quarters. As they watched them with a few twangs of jealously, Thom guided her around to the corridor then around to a back door leading to a large clear roofed hall that hadn’t been converted as with the rest of the factory. There were still textile mills here and there collecting rust, with just enough of them cleared to make room on the smooth stone floor for them to skate. Thom let go of her hand and released the skates from his training shoes. He skated away from her in the dusty old place as if her were on ice, and turned around to look at her as he glided in an S-shape the rest of the way to the far wall. "I think fate brought us together." Thom’s words echoed back to her from a distance. "Oh really?" she said, and walked casually the rest of the diagonal of the hall to where he was waiting for her. He had his leg half inside a hole leading through the bricks of the wall. "We ran out of landscaping dust before we could open this hole properly." he said while hitching himself inside.

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"I can fit through there." she said as Thom nodded and moved backwards through it. She followed more easily than he seemed to have and came out at the opposite side in time to watch Thom dropping a good five feet to the start of a curving channel, designed for the storm drainage waters. He skated to the opposite side like a half pipe and began lessening his speed as he snaked along the channel way. Jayne was wearing a long dress and her best blouse with a long woollen jacket that she also was quite fond of. Not wanting to look unfriendly though she decided to try to hang down from the ledge and then drop to the smooth incline of cement. Her dress was thick enough to slide against the stone and her bum was big enough to cushion the fall. She sat for a moment on the dry stone watching this boy she had become strangely entranced by skate a little along the outer dome wall and then skate aside into what looked like a dark opening into it. Thom had disappeared into a hole beneath some of that meshwork of rigging that seemed to encircle the factory districts. As she walked closer she saw that the hole was an overflow system designed to channel water from the outside into sluices within the thick dome shell. Jayne looked around for a moment, and then over her shoulder at the top of the factory beyond the towering 311

outer wall. There was a hollow horn from somewhere in there, from some part of a factory's routine, and then Jayne turned away from the mushroom clouds of pollution and stepped through the heavy duty vertical grating covering the hole. Sighing to herself she carefully stepped down the slopes that would siphon off the excess from the river, and moved through to a huge pool room just beyond it. There was a broad pipe dangling from above and another larger opening running from the pool at the back, sloping away into darkness. The pool was overflowing out that way, being fed by a constant waterfall from the pipe in the ceiling. Still in his workpants, Thom dived head first into it, then emerged and shouted “It’s the storm drain. Fed by the melted snow.” Jayne swaggered along the poolside then nodded slowly, and sarcastically said “Pure as the driven snow. Just like you ai?” Thom got out at the other side, and reached to take her by the elbow. They looked at each other in the low light, with Thom now showing his senseless wildness, maybe even madness and in a strange way Jayne mirroring it in her own dazed situation. They smiled gently, and then Thom took a few steps down the dry side of the pipe at the back. Stepping across to the other side of the trickling water Jayne walked beside him on the opposite ledge. She could see now that the huge pipe 312

led down for a long stretch into the dome shell, fading into an envelope of pitch darkness. She walked down into it, holding Thom’s hand over the trickling water between them. In the darkness Thom’s hand and his footsteps stopped, and she waited as her eyes adjusted to the light. She heard Thom’s feet wading through the water then began to see the layout form in her night eyesight. They were at a point where the pipe twisted on itself and downward in a drop that was too steep to pass. After a moment searching she saw there was a tear in the side of the pipe large enough to fit through, and now Thom was entering it without waiting to see if she would follow. She entered too, trying not to cut her head on it's jagged edges. There was a warm draft within, which she assumed was the atmosphere regulator tunnel, as there wasn’t much else this deep into the dome wall so far a she knew. It was a hollow network of chambers on each level, controlling the temperature of the quadrants of the biosphere, in this case the tropical zone. She found herself standing on the damp, black floor of a tall chamber that reached far off to the left and right, curving around the dome as far as she could see. Huge oval windows were set into the wall on the opposite side, looking outward from the outer wall of the dome. “Come up here.” Thom said, climbing up a short ladder in a wall opposite, that led to the inner sill of one of the huge windows. 313

“There’s no maniacs in here, right?” she shouted up at him. “Only us.” he smiled over his shoulder. She considered turning and going back to her bed for a moment, then followed for no particular reason. She carefully climbed up to the curved platform, cut into this outermost part of the dome wall. Once she'd straightened up she walked to Thom who was looking out through the huge shape of glass at an endless snowscape of mountains and jagged valleys. Three moons of Narcosia could be seen above in the night sky, although the magnificent gas planet was out of sight. She noticed above the silvery glistening of a shooting star as it passed into the atmosphere. Just then there was a gust of warm air through the vent channel behind them, pulling at her woollen jacket and tugging at the flat bag hanging from her fingers. “A beautiful alien world.” Thom said as it passed. "For a beautiful alien girl..." "Do you always say the right thing?" she smirked up at another shooting star on it's path. "To the right people, yes." he said, and reached up to touch the side of her face.

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There was a shyness in Thom that pulled it away again, and made him close up slightly as he watched the cold reality through the glass. Jayne dropped her case on the floor at her feet and sighed, and sat down on the left curve of the oval platform. “Oh God, I’m spaced.” she said, and watched Thom walk across to the far side of the window and lie back on the upward curve there. He lay staring at her and she stared back, with a glazed and exhausted look in her eyes. More shooting stars were passing down through the sky and she vaguely registered that this may have been what he brought her here to see. Her homeless situation and the shock of the ongoing reality of her life dumbed it down however. "Well weatherman, you were right about the weather." she said slowly. "Maybe this place isn't so bad after all." "Yeah?" he chuckled. "Was I right about Fate? Maybe that crazy old church is right and people are thrust together by forces unseen. But I don't believe in coincidences." After a moment of silence, Jayne simply said "Agreed." "You don't think that cop played some trick on us? I've been running it through my mind how we met. It seems 315

totally coincidental to me, but what if it wasn't. What if someone paid that gang to harass you? Any why were you wondering around alone in the outskirts?" Thom said, and then looked down as he fiddled with his fingernails. "I think my friend told me to go that way. She got it wrong. It might have been that ugly boyfriend of hers." Thom looked up at her and locked eyes with her momentarily. "If he needed a hacker or a brain why didn't he just ask me? I was the smartest of my generation back on the colonies. He knows who I am. Why spend all this time and trouble roping you in?" There was a tension in the air now, and Jayne wished maybe that there wasn't, but the fact remained that Thom had nailed something here, and it wasn't going to go away. "Maybe he fancies me." Jayne shrugged lazily in her woollen shawl. "I seem to have become quite popular recently." "It could be that, who knows. Or maybe something else... I don't like this game he's playing, if that is indeed what is happening." They lay staring at each other as if in a trance or dream. They were so well suited, Jayne knew maybe they could

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even be close friends, and maybe that was something that Bailey hadn't accounted for. “You think you've got it all worked out, don’t you? You're almost as naive as me. You should be more careful of someone like this.” she said sarcastically and lay on her side to look out over the landscape. “Well I’ve done alright so far, and against the odds in this place.” Thom mused, as if to himself. “I like it when the odds are against me. I'm thinking... maybe he can be played at his own game.” Jayne lay watching the snow drifts, and the ice glaciers grow and shrink on the jagged mountains, that stretched away to the distance, along the top rim of the crater. Their shape changing was small but visible to the eye, and gave away the intense cold of the Narcosia winter, that lay just beyond the dome. She didn’t hear Thom walk up to her, but heard him sit down, and looking she saw him sitting cross-legged while fishing through her bag of paintings. He brought a couple out and lay them on his lap. “So this is what you do?” he muttered. “I love all art. I’ve got quite a nice collection myself, gathered from empty houses around the prison. They just leave those houses empty after the folks die. Bit of a racket maybe but better we get it than the city waste disposal."

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Jayne rolled her eyes and looked back out over the mountains. “You’d enjoy perusing it. You can keep anything you fancy.” he said, and let her think about it for a while. Thom placed the paintings around on the floor at their feet and shifted to lie beside Jayne. She realized he had come beside her and froze up slightly, then rolled over and looked at him. They lay on their sides staring at each other, their pale skin glowing in the star and moonlight. “Thom Gubichayan.” she said. “This isn’t why I came here.” Thom reached in the space between them and pushed his fingers between her fingers. “I just want to hold your hand.” he said. She looked at him, and his large but tired eyes. “Is that all you wanted? Really?” “What is it that you want?” he asked. “You can go anytime you want.”

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Jayne leaned over Thom, and pushed his shoulder down firmly as another gust of warm air charged through the channel. Still not really sure what she wanted to do, she leaned down to him and kissed him through her whipping hair. She smiled as they kissed, and held him down until the wind passed. When she leaned back and stared at him, Thom smirked and put his arms around her gently and moved her onto her back. As they gazed into each other’s eyes in the quiet he slowly leaned over her and lay on her slightly. She rested her head back and said “Oh God. Please be careful with that thing.” After making love, they lay naked at strange angles with him on his front and her in almost a foetal position resting her head on the small of his back. They fell asleep there under the motions of warm air flowing in tides through the place. As she opened her eyes she saw another shooting star streak the night sky and smiled "Oh." She hitched up slightly and looked through the window over Thom's feet, seeing it was still night outside, that didn't actually reflect the time of day within the dome. It would be morning now, and she felt like she had had a good rest, and the first in a long while. She sighed with a childish satisfaction as she looked down at her glowing body, and then that of her new lover. Still unsure of the time, she lay forward beside Thom on her 319

elbows and held a hand in front of her face, and looked at it as she flexed it like a claw, then buried her face in it. Snow was falling near and far to the distance at their side. It was silent within the place but beyond the dome it would be furious with the frozen storm. “Good morning, sweet maiden.” she heard Thom’s voice and looked at him from her palm. He sat up over her and bushed her disgruntled hair back from her face. They couldn’t stop grinning as the saw one another, and almost laughing Thom kissed her back and bit on her behind. She cried out in the place, and soon later they had gone. They ate eggs for breakfast, which Fenn had cooked by the time they got back, sitting on high stools along the breakfast bar to eat. They ate in silence as the others played around while getting ready for their job at the factory, Fenn was visibly making himself useful washing dishes from what they had already eaten. After they had finished Jayne left the two men, not liking the atmosphere they had come back to. She walked out to near the door and began rearranging items in her woollen jacket pockets. After a while of sitting and playing with his leftover egg, Fenn broke the silence. 320

"So you..." Fenn said but was interrupted by Thom. "Yah." "You took her down to your little hideaway then?" "Oh, give it a rest Fenn." Mach's voice pierced from the far side of the hall, making Jayne look up from the coat stand. "I can't come to work this morning." Thom raised his voice to them all. "I need to head into town. Try and get Jayne some work the same way we did with Randall. Bailey's still recruiting right?" "That's right." Fenn said, looking a little red. "Well if there's no problem..." Thom said standing up and spreading his hands slightly. "Thanks for the breakfast, and good morning to you." Thom backed away keeping eye contact with Fenn for a moment before turning and joining Jayne to leave. The lads stopped what they were doing and listened as the new couple left through the large doors. They listened to Jayne petting the bloodthirsty dogs outside having been pheromone tagged in her food as was necessary to live within their grounds safely.

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The larger gates slammed shut and Mach shouted at Fenn "What the hell is wrong with you anyway? You fall in wuv or something?" Fenn stood up from the bench and grunted "No. Not at all I just think it was a bit..." "I never was sure about this one you know." Mach said to Sorbe and Allstar. "Oh fuck off, psycho." Fenn shouted at him, and Mach ran across to him for a fight. They grappled in the kitchen, the smaller but faster figure of Mach and the slower but more muscular stature of Fenn. Mach landed a few choice punches and they both slipped and fell against the dishwasher. "I'm glad Jayne didn't see this shit." Allstar said up to Sorbe, who had an old, worn down look about him now, as if five centuries of his life had led to this depressing moment. "Play ball. Just ignore them." he said and they played on in the court while the two boys fought beyond anything resembling a friendly spar. Above them at the tram station, Thom and Jayne entered a carriage and travelled away from the outer districts. They moved through the city and all of its twisting towers and chambers before ending their trip in the metropolis at a

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tram station just above the parking hollow of Sagar Warehousing. The lights were out there and in need of repair, but for the lamp near the stairs and elevator. Some light came from the bright hollow below, but barely seemed to penetrate the platform. Thom walked toward the light, and said "So we have a plan right? You get into... uh!" Thom's words cut short as Jayne tugged on his grey stoneskin jacket and dragged him back to her. Before he could get his senses she was kissing him, and so he half melted into it. When they had stopped she said "That's my plan!" Still clasped in her apparently strong hands he let out a nervous breath of a laugh and said "Ah! Ok I see... now." Jayne walked past him toward the light and said "I get this personal assistant job and then see what's going on from the inside out." "Correct!" Thom said walking beside her. "I've sent him the memo. He usually starts his day down in Club Bethlehem, a watering hole for Sagar management." "Isn't that club a franchise. What's it doing here?" she said and pinched her nose against the fumes as they began 323

descending a square spiralling staircase into the glow of the parking hollow. "It's not a real Bethlehem." Thom said. "It's a bit too 'Sugalectric' for me." "Awwr. You'd look good in a miniskirt!" she laughed and kicked his hip. "You're crazy babe." he said backed down some stairs before taking the next flight. They played around and teased each other as they descended each rightangle in the stair, passing down by the tracks then the windy lanes of the motorway and the hollow with it's thick commuter activity of the morning. The stair took them further to the ground street known throughout the city as 'Sagar Strand Proper' or 'The Sagar Strand'. They descended into it's bustling activity of heads and shoulders going here and there toward some precious seat they had secured for wage top ups. They were giggling like careless school children as they ploughed into them and began heading away from the elevators and entrances into the Sagar block, and toward the lights of the strand near the center of the street. Jayne sprinted ahead and Thom unlocked the skates to race after her along the broad path. Built like an athlete, he bombed between the docile pedestrians while towering over them just enough in his height to see the top of Jayne's hair running a few meters ahead. 324

Without waiting for Thom she ran through the gaping front of Club Bethlehem with its huge tropical coloured sign flickering over the center of the street, just below the first of the sea of windows in the block face. Bailey's company was in that block, but before each day he'd visit this place, a place to meet the real movers and shakers of the city, the middle-management minions of the remaining crime families. The interior was similarly tropical but for the overall tone of dark red over dark blue waterproof canvas. Hard faced old timers were strewn through the place, with the immediate impression given of the sort of folk an officially licensed Club Bethlehem would remove with prejudice. Here they were VIP and free to mist the place with their narcotic swill. Thom caught up to Jayne at the first of the place and skipped through each pillar and table toward the long bar at the back. Randall came to view first around a broad pillar, and then Bailey standing at the focus of a group of various types of men and women. He was yelling loud enough to shout over the jukebox track and apparently poking fun at one of the girls and some kind of gaff she had made on a previous occasion. "And there's no way you were right about that!" he yelled. "Those shots were water! I told that bartender myself... what are those guys doing here?" 325

Bailey caught sight of Thom and Jayne as they approached along the bar, and drew his friend's attention in their direction. They passed by Randall who had been standing a little outside of the group, probably to keep a better vantage point on Bailey's security. "Gubichayan! To what do we owe the pleasure?" "Hello Bailey. I've brought someone to meet you about the job you had left over." Thom said looking around them all to catch their eye. "You know someone that can PA professionally? Ah hahaha! Don't make me laugh, son!" Bailey cried out and the others chuckled quietly. "Bede Sagar will vouch for her." Thom said, trying to remain stiff and calm. "You know my Bede?" Bailey looked to Jayne. "We've known each other since childhood." she said wispily, trying to make herself heard over the noise of the track. "I'm on my way there now actually I could ask her..." "No that won't be necessary. I'll talk with her later. I need to run an errand first, but then we can arrange something, I'm sure. Can you be there later this afternoon?" "Err yeah. Have we met somewhere before?" Jayne said, trying not to lose sight of the reason why they were there. 326

Thom tensed up as he realized what she was doing. "I don't know you, no. Apart from the other day when I hired Randall. You were hiding at the back." "You don't know me from anywhere else?" Jayne pushed him, despite the crowd beside her becoming visibly irritated. "Come on, let's go now." Thom put a hand on her thin shoulder. "Thank you for your time, Bailey." They turned as Bailey beamed an unnatural smile in their direction. "Later then!" he yelled at them almost inappropriately, and then turned back to the group. "Anyway, an Earth joke for an Earth bar... Doctor Doctor! I've got a cat in my ear..." Jayne squinted back at them and their banter and then followed Thom as he rushed out of the place. "Safe now." Jayne said as their feet met the pavement outside. Thom turned slowly to her and kissed her before moving on and back up to the tram station.

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They stood in the dark there as a train slowly snaked its way through the wall tunnel and around onto the tracks toward them. "He'll give you the job now." Thom said grimly, as if he were having doubts. Jayne cupped a hand around his face and said "We know what we're doing. And who knows, maybe it's nothing. We'll just keep an eye on him, right? And maybe I'll make some money in the process. My old job burned up with my home. All my arts and crafts." "Here comes your train." Thom said as it rolled alongside them. "Please just be careful with him. He's good to have on your side but pretty brutal on the flipside." "I'll see you later." she said backing into the carriage, and then leaned out to kiss him one more time before the doors slid shut. They closed and Thom watched the train carry her away in the direction of the Sagar village. Then suddenly Thom's phone began to ring, and looking down at a holo-readout over it he saw it was Fenn calling. Thom felt a chill cut through him like a knife as he stood watching the name and the ringing.

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Then he decided to take the call, and opened the channel, allowing a hologram of Fenn Dore to be projected in blue negative beside him on the platform. "What is it?" Thom said hollowly, noticing vaguely that he seemed to have been beaten slightly. "Is Jayne with you?" he said blatantly without any garnish. Thom sighed in a repressed way and said "No bro. She's away with her friend." "I'm not happy with her staying here, I've decided. Maybe Mach has too, he's not sure but..." Thom cut him off sharply by saying "She's to be working for Bailey as of today. He’s plotting another escape, I know it. That's got to be what all this scheming is about. They aren’t going to cut us out this time. Fate gave me Bailey, and the fortune we got from South Syndicate. And now fate brings us this lovely girl, who coincidentally gives us an arm into Bailey’s inner doo wap? I think Bailey is playing us to get closer to Jayne, and probably thinks we're too dumb to notice. I'm going to fuck him at his own game.” After a moment's thought, Fenn nodded gruffly. "So be it. Let the lovely Jayne fill his senses, and together we'll open a door."

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Pills. A huge juggernaut rolled by, and Bailey had to pull Randall back to avoid him being caught by its jagged sides. “I’ll be alright.” Randall said defensively. “I’m just a little…” “Just stay behind me. Watch and listen. There won’t be any fights, and even if there are I won’t need your help.” “Yeah, I remember.” Randall said, recalling the fight they’d had in the old syndicate. “Just stand there looking tough, is all I need.” Randall didn’t know what to make of Bailey. He was half his size and weight, and didn’t look like the kind of person that would hold up in a fight, and was going to look completely out of place in the place they were headed to. They had parked their car in an underground lot of a city block hat had been converted into a drop-in ghetto in the adjacent district to their destination. Now they made their way through a torn down mid-section of the towering block, with it's shattered hanging toward them precariously on either side. At every level and across the rubble in between the place was littered with pumped gang bangers. They all seemed to recognize and shy from Aaron Bailey, suggesting that he had had dealings with them too, or perhaps just with their Old Gang masters, the Fincle twins. 330

And then, once through the gap in the block Randall caught sight of those twins, two huge effigies of them standing from ground to roof in the confines of the cavern. They were huge bronze statues standing central to the entrance to their destination, with older statues of previous leaders of the syndicate surrounding them at either side along the wall. Randall's gut clenched up as he solemnly walked toward the two towering figures, and all that they represented just beyond them. There wasn't so much activity at this particular entrance, so they made it unhindered to the tunnel leading to Old Gang Central, between the enormous heels of the two statues. Old Gang weren’t just the oldest, but filtered from the worst of all those brought to the colony over the years, they were the most notorious. They had concentrated their industry to the turnover of drugs on a massive scale. OG Central was located in the old city center, that had been abandoned and relocated to the center of the city some time during the original life of the colony. It was situated at the north dome wall, within the northern slum districts filled with narcotic-starving junkies. It were these junkies that spread out over the length and breadth of the dark city by day and night mugging and plundering the standard inhabitants for anything they could to sell, or trade for more narcotics. The entire syndicate life cycle revolved around the culture and perpetuation of drug taking on a massive scale.

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As they left the wastegrounds and approached the gaping tunnel to Old Gang Central, they felt the music before they heard it. The rhythmic vibration of the ground and walls was inhuman in its energy. “I brought these.” Bailey said and threw a bag in the air to Randall, who only just realized in time and caught them. “They'll shield against most types of frequency buildup.” He picked from the small bag a pair of earplugs, and having already gathered that he was going to need them, pushed them deep into his ear holes. Bailey made a gesture as if to say, push them right in, probably so they couldn’t be seen by the minions of Old Gang. Randall followed Bailey through the tunnel and onto the outer main street of the notorious district. It was basically the same as the outer roads of the metropolis but for a few glaring irregularities. The place was in darkness for one thing with the artificial sun lamps in the bunker ceiling having been torn down or smashed. There were dim lights from the archaic lampposts along the street level, but most of the light came from the insane party nearby. The black face of the metropolis block towered over them, one of the four that surrounded the derelict grounds where the party was raging. The ground floor of this block was

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stripped to the forest of supports, and through it the flickering laser light pierced through to the street. Randall followed Bailey along the path just before the gaping pit into the foundations of the building, and stopped just before the turn in the road where the next block began. It’s bottom floor was still intact, and here he noticed there was a gentler bank down into that dark place. “You’re not seriously considering going in there?” Randall pointed down in into the pit. “Come on. Get your hands dirty.” Bailey said as he started to step carefully down the dusty bank. Randall could just see in the dark recesses of the floor moving arms and legs reaching up into the flickering red and green light. He followed reluctantly, and still a little shaky from his ordeal. Maybe this wasn’t the sort of work he should be doing after all. Darkness surrounded them and then they were creeping through the dangerous maze of jagged metal and clay potholes. Crouching, they edged their way under the huge building toward the blood red light that danced madly from beyond the supports. Suddenly someone lunged at Randall from behind an old empty fusebox. They didn’t say anything but they were 333

starving for their drug, whichever it may be that had ensnared their existence. He slapped away the person’s hand in the darkness and lurched back. “Fuh-king Nara!” Randall shouted out, and Bailey waved for him to follow in his direction. They made it through to the other side and then up another bank, this one more heavily worn in by footprints. The scene of Old Gang proper descended to view as they made it up the bank. Randall hadn’t seen it for a long time, and even then things had changed. Himself mainly, he was a few years older now, and now he seemed to be feeling the place as it was intended. The threat permeated the whole; these weren’t decent men and women, and they knew it, and wanted the rest of the prison to know it too. Thousands of drug pumped junkies leaped up and down to the hideous racket. To all sides was this mass of jumping flesh, most of them topless, packed between the encircling buildings and the towering dome wall. At the far side was the church wrapped in the dim blue haze of a forcefield, and behind it along the base of the dome wall the mutilated rail track reading ‘Old Gang Central’. The words were lit up from below like the stage of some demonic music concert.

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There were two points over the back of the words where giant planks of laser light were being swept and flickered to the music. They bathed and stroked the top of the crowd while over the whole thing giant transparent holograms came and went; one of a giant cartoon bunny walking in slow motion and then a young girl body popping. The trippy light show alternated as the music mix played on resulting in quite a potent combination of experiences, especially to the smashed crowd. Bailey immediately made for a small gap in the bodies. “No.” Randall pulled on his sleeve, and Bailey turned to look at him with surprise. “Come on, don’t freeze up on me now.” Bailey said shaking his head. “If I sack you out of this job, who else is going to have you now? Don’t put me in this position.” Randall grunted and followed as Bailey began wading through the crowd, and underneath the first of the giant holograms. He pushed his hands into his coat pockets as he did and straight away found the back of his wrists deflecting pick pocketing fingers. They walked for a while until the ground became slightly uneven where the old centermost buildings used to be, before they had been flattened. They walked by one of the giant central steel girders that still remained to hold up the cavern ceiling.

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At either side they had drawn closer to the two huge speakers that throbbed at either side. They leaned forward over the crowd so to fully immerse them in the dreadful experience. It wasn’t spunker, it wasn’t sugalectric. Just raw sound. A beat, then a base, then an amateur melody somewhere in the background. They had passed by a few small, crooked tents, each concealing from surveillance a homegrown black market, but only for the sale of drugs, and with the surrounding party as its constantly running commercial. So many had fallen so easily, and now the whole place was packed out regularly, with most risking their lives here for a turn within the tents. “Through these!” Bailey yelled at Randall, who only just made out what had been said. He followed Bailey through the last of the wasters toward the abused church. He mused on the notion that it’s not like there wasn’t some merit to living like this, as you would always be part of something happy and alive, but to Randall, it all sounded more like death. He waded through the sporadic pockets of the remaining crowd behind Bailey, feeling the blistering of the sounds on either side. Nobody paid them much attention being wrapped up in the injurious moment as they were.

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Bailey made for the glowing barrier that encompassed the church, that seemed to be packing enough punch to keep the crowd back at a wide birth. Suddenly, through his vibrating vision Randall noticed that a group of three large men were now approaching Bailey on the empty gravel. He watched as one pushed Bailey back a few steps and his heart began to race as he instinctively lurched forward to back up his new boss. One of the men snarled at him and swung at Randall, and as he moved to block it Randall found that he was too slow. They were clearly good fighters, and Randall took the strong blow to his face and staggered a few steps behind Bailey, now feeling that they may be in some serious trouble. Randall, who was doubled over slightly shook his head hard to shake off the dizziness. Once it was near tolerable he looked around at the shorter figure of Bailey standing under the loom of the largest, a massively muscled man. The other two were already lying on the ground at their feet. Randall’s eyes blurred for a moment as he saw Bailey’s hand flash up just before the face of the big guy, not touching him but making him instinctively pull away slightly. Randall shook his head again to clear his sick vision, and in the moment of doing so must have missed the start of their fight. Looking again, somehow Bailey had bust the big man’s nose and now had grabbed him by his low cut top while 337

kneeing up at the undercarriage of his ribs. As the man yelped out Bailey pulled on the man’s shirt again and brought his head around from the side and butted him with a dangerous force on the underside of his nose. He clasped it and staggered back while Bailey effortlessly jump spin kicked him hard toward the oily forcefield. He lay back against it and straight away became gripped in a nasty set of electrical fingers, that whipped like lightening down and up his huge torso. He cried out and fell forward into the dirt beside his groaning friends, and very slowly they tried to crawl away. Bailey pointed at him as he passed and shouted “I want my money, creep! You don’t get rid of it that easily!” Looking alive, Randall made to catch up as Bailey walked casually through the forcefield passing it's barrier harmlessly. Bailey reached a hand back through to grab him and pulled him through into the church grounds. On the other side Bailey muttered “I’ll need to get you DNA cleared for these barriers.” It was deathly silent on the other side. As Randall took out the earplugs and strained his ears he only just heard the commanding voice of a sermon giver coming from somewhere within the church. “You know something Randall…” Bailey said taking the earplugs out himself. “I really like churches. Come on.”

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He skipped across the loose gravel outside and up the old stone steps, and under a carved sign reading “Church of the Naturalistic Mind”. He stopped just below it and looked to the places within and muttered “Church lied.” Randall had always thought of it as just another cooky religion, and one of many that had sprouted up in the wake of certain scientific disclosures about the quantum nature of the universe, and how it physically relied on some supreme being dreaming the dream of our realities. Since reality was more like a nightmare it all sounded like bullshit to Randall, but then again it was the science basis of all robotics, that somehow tapped into this dream mind, and formed the foundation of the Ancient Mainframe that their society depended on. Not that Randall was about to know or care. On entering the dark hall at the front of the church the sermon giver’s voice became clear. They stopped in the shade just before a gaping doorway into the broader hall. “Not a single scratch on you?” Randall put to him while looking him over. “Fucking weird.” Bailey shrugged flippantly and stepped toward the back of the surly congregation.

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The church was full of people listening to three men standing on a raised stage at the front. “So it is written, and so it must be believed… “ the young man speaking was a Friar of the Church of Naturalistic Mind, who stood leering down at them all and shouting with a strangled, feminine voice. “Beyond all prejudice and hate… is the love of the ‘all’. Without this love is to be without the seed of all love…” There were murmurings of amen and other affirmations from the assembly. Randall shook his head and smirked at the inane words of the religion, which was just one of many similar organizations that he normally avoided like the plague. “It’s a puzzlebox is it not, placed there by the universe!” the man squawked down at the believers. “We live in a furnished parkland of equilibrium. We stand on the dust and look up at the stars and ask ‘why’? When we should be looking at the pattern within ourselves.” One of the other men on the stage seemed to notice Bailey and waved slightly, before walking from the rock platform as subtly as possible and then around the side of the crowd toward them. The effeminate man continued on the stone pulpit as their contact approached “Addiction to emotion and its egregious lifestyle! We covet it yet it enslaves us; imprisons us. We must stand closer to God? We must switch off the 340

lights of our life and become ‘bored’. Can we make boredom our priority above all else? In switching off the animal mind we find new rivers beneath our universe, and they lead us to the structures of God.” Randall coughed and laughed at what he perceived as bullshit coming from the stage, and tried to hide it as the contact came to them. He was a man of black skin from the south Lantian continents, and a Reverend of the Naturalistic Mind. His handshake was religious, with hand to wrist at both sides. He shook Bailey’s hand then shook the hand of Randall. “I have been asked to act as emissary in this matter.” the reverend said. “This is my new minder, Flynn Randall.” Bailey said. “This is Reverend Dane Angell. He’s new here on the colony.” “Reverend.” Randall acknowledged professionally. “Now you understand this has come from the top.” Dane said. “I wouldn’t normally deal in these matters, but when I heard about the escape I was intrigued.” “Escape?” Randall said looking grimly at Bailey.

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Bailey waved a hand at Randall, and continued to speak with Dane “Yes. I have agreed to act as an advisor in this matter. If Old Gang want to escape then I can’t exactly stop them… I hope you aren’t thinking of going along with them, Reverend?” “Not at all. My mission is here. But like you I don’t want to see them die out there in the snow, so I will help them where I can.” Randall didn’t believe either of them. He sensed they both wanted to get off the planet as much as any sane person would, except Randall, who didn’t ever want to risk going back in The Shell. “Come with me. You might want to replace your ear guards.” Dane said, walking around them to the exit. They followed him out onto the wasteland, then to the side along the base of the dome wall. They were making their way beneath the damaged rail track toward where one of the outer city blocks met the dome. After stepping carefully over broken paving and shattered foundations, they made it to open ground leading up to the building. Graffiti was tagged all across the base of the building and the ground here. Behind them the party continued to throb below the speakers, and they made their way up a ramp to what would have been the sliding door entrance to a mall. Inside, the

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place looked dead with it being abandoned of all robotic activity and services. They walked through the mosaicked promenade, past dried up fountains and empty store windows. The elevators were all out of order so they made their way to a long, old fashioned escalator and began making speed up it. There was no power to it, or anything else on the lower floor, but on reaching the first of the upper floors, Randall found it to be fully lit, with a somewhat bustling promenade of store fronts and bars. The reverend took them past the weird looking people there and through the front of a neon lit bar to a flight of stairs at the far back. The stairs led to a single heavily reinforced door that the reverend opened into a huge pillbar sporting both male and female strippers. The bar was full of prostitutes and the intense, sweet chemical smell of narcotics. There were tables all around the walls, surrounded by fat, angry looking dregs of society. Randall felt ill but a job was a job, and hopefully a stepping stone to better things than this. He followed the two other characters past the strippers and bar to the curtained VIP doors at the back. Through they went, and stood facing a single cards table full of faces that he recognized. They were famous faces in the colony, not that many people ever actually met them in person.

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“That was fast, Bailey.” the man, Josep Fincle said smiling through his scarred face. “And it seems you were right. That map is of the other dome.” Randall had to wilfully stop himself saying "What fucking map?" “I knew it. I just needed someone smarter than me to confirm it, that’s all.” Bailey said, approaching them with an enthusiasm that to Randall seemed as transparent as glass. “There’s more.” his brother Nash said standing up. “But we’ll have to show you…” The Fincle twins walked around the table and gestured for them to follow toward the backside of the VIP room. Randall didn’t like any of this, and didn’t trust the Fincles. It was just a matter of time before they felt a cold comforting snake-bite. He followed Bailey and Dane, who followed the two brothers as they exited what would have once been an innocent bar, through a fire exit and into a series of disused mall corridors out back. They used these abandoned passages to move quickly to the outer side of the building, and down a flight of stairs to street level. “There is an eye in the winter storm passing over the prison dome.” Josep raised his voice as they left the building, and

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had to contend with the now slightly distant but still incredibly loud party. Nash continued his brothers words “I don’t know how long it will last, but for now we can show you something that we have discovered about the other dome.” The Fincles took them through a tunnel from Old Gang Central to one of the disused outer factory districts eastward along the dome shell. They walked in file through the moss covered abandonment to where a tall entrance had been built into the dome wall by the old scientists, and so Randall now found some rumours to be true. “Here we have an airlock.” Josep said. “We may or may not use this for our escape, but if you wish to travel to the other dome then this is the closest exit you will find.” Bailey nodded, which was something that filled Randall with dread. Nash entered a code and the huge door opened, sliding upward in its groove. They walked into the space beyond, which was a long tunnel leading though the dome shell. There were relatively small lockers where you could take fur lined coats and goggles, or for more harsh atmospheres, a foil space suit. They put on coats for today, and once they were checked and ready, Josep closed the inner, that then automatically opened the outer door at the far side.

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They walked to it and then through the opening. The white sun was intense since the atmosphere was so calm and clear. The passing eye of the winter storm had created a serene place on this small area of the planet. They walked outside onto a rock ledge that ended at the cliff face dropping to the crater basin. From this ledge, they saw head on the adjacent dome. It was the closest point to it, it seemed, and it seemed Old Gang had a uniquely clear view of it. “Over here.” Josep said, and led the group to a broad, old fashioned monitor atop a trolley full of frozen equipment. “Here we have a three dimensional representation of the other dome. We’ve shot sensors into different points around the outer shell of the dome. From this data we can monitor the shape of movements within the city structure. What we’ve found has been a little… disturbing.” “Disturbing?” Dane asked. “It’s hard to explain in regular terms.” Nash said. “Our father told us a story. Generations back for our family, Old Gang came across a man who claimed he had made it here from the other dome. He insisted, even under torture that he was the only person left alive from the colony. He said Cequodus had done it. Released what he called dragons into the colony to wipe them all out. For years we had thought this guy crazy… But observe...”

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Nash turned to the trolley and switched the equipment on. The screen flickered and a white on dark blue skeletal image of the other dome could be seen. Josep reached behind the trolley and picked up a bazooka, that had been well hidden from view until now. He walked up to the edge of the cliff and aimed at the distant dome structure. On firing, Josep stumbled against the kick and a long line of smoke blasted out, pushing some kind of small rocket out over the basin. The rocket arced down landing roughly on the middle of the dome roof. They could hear, from a speaker within the trolley, a dull rhythmic thud. “The sound attracts them. What sounds quite normal to us seems to enrage them...” Josep said joining them where they stood. They all stood a few moments, watching the screen, and the live image of the dome. For a while it seemed that there would be nothing, then an alternating tone began like an alarm, as three white wormlike shapes began moving from the topmost part of the dome. The wind whistled between them as they watched the huge unknown creatures spread out in separate directions as if to cover the space within faster.

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“They’re in the walls.” Josep said. “They’ll keep hunting until they find the source of the disturbance and eliminate it in their way.” “So if I go over there…” Bailey said. “And find whatever this map is about… What’s in it for me? I’m not coming with you off planet.” “Well, Aaron…” Nash said putting an arm around his shoulder, and walking back toward the gaping door. “Old Gang take care of their friends. Always! And it’s all pretty simple stuff. See the cable car yonder?” Bailey and the others looked to the other side of the ridge, and the cable car sitting in its old hut. It was small and easy to miss amongst the rock and snow formations. “It takes you straight down to the basin floor. And then we have ideas to get you from A to B as it were.” The others followed Nash and Bailey back into the dome, and the door began to close behind them. Dane stopped and pointed at the clear skies just as the door began its motion, and said “That Shadow Security ship is still up there. It’s been what? Three, four months?” Randall joined him and looked up at the ship, in blue negative beyond the Narcosia sky.

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There was a ship there, and it looked to be the same ship that had been parked in orbit since before the first escape. These ships were meant to come and go, bringing new exiles that they had hunted down during the season. They would be losing millions of starcredits, each day that they remained here. Perhaps they expected a successful escape imminent. This seemed likely to Randall, but it still wasn’t worth the billions it would have costed to date. They turned away, and followed Bailey back into the colony.

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East Syndicate. Randall had been sitting opposite his new boss for more than a quarter hour. He had brought him to his apartment, that had once belonged to the founder of the company that Aaron Bailey now ran. Randall knew but stayed silent about the fact that Gen Colec had fought in the South Syndicate arena, and had died as a result, a few days before Bailey had been brought into the ward. He stayed quiet about how he had seen Aaron Bailey entering and leaving Colec’s room, and how within the next few weeks he had taken over full control of Colec’s company, and quite conveniently ingratiated himself with the Sagars to whom Colec’s company worked in subsidiary. Aaron Bailey had no relation to Gen Colec, he was sure, but Randall remained silent. He watched Bailey now sitting on the rocking chair opposite, with his head bowed and hands cupped around the back of his neck. He had said he needed a minute, just to cool the mind, but it was now a long time and Randall was growing uneasy. Just then there was a ringing at the door, and slowly Bailey raised his head to look. “Do you want me to…” Randall began but Bailey stood up and walked down to the door. He leaned down to the view screen and asked “Who is it?”

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“The one you love. Truly. Dearly!” the face of Bede Sagar slowly appeared on the screen in fizzy black and white. “Hello my dearest.” Bailey slavered into the screen. “Your place?” “Be quick!” she waved and the screen switched back to standby. Randall let this fall into his eyes, and silently, he followed Bailey down to the street, where they met with Bede Sagar by her the robot escort she journeyed with when out in the big city. It was simulated night time, and they walked in the moonlight down to the road side where Bailey took her in his arms and kissed her. Randall tried not to wince and looked away along the street. Bede’s car had been disposable and they took Bailey’s car across the city back toward the village. Randall drove with the robot attaché in the next seat, while Bailey and Bede rode in the back, with hands locked. They entered the East Syndicate village and drove through the disorganized erection of terraces to a long row of homes at the furthest side from the tunnels. The stilted street was at a higher point in the overall favela and looked down over the moonlit homes, warm with the glow of blue and orange light.

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They parked up at one of the center most homes and entered the Sagar house. They entered the front door without knocking and walked up stairs near an antigrav elevator, and then through the theatre lounge to the stilted front room. There was a bar at the far left side of the living room, where two old men sat drinking and chatting about something unheard. Across the rest of the floor near the front windows were a series of low glass tables with a weaving line of leathered sofas closing them in from the rest of the room. To the far right, close to where they had entered, was a mini holographic theatre along the corner wall playing some kind of music video television for two youngsters of the Sagar family playing on the floor. They stepped up to back of the sofas, where a line of units were affixed to the marble floor, topped by a neat rockery and gentle water cascade. There were a few notable faces sitting along the sofa line, looking out of the windows that leant out over the gardens below, and then beyond them the night lights of the village. Bede pointed at the bar without speaking. “The usual for me.” Bailey said, kissing Bede on the lips in front of her family, who had turned with wide smiles on their faces. “And for my new partner in crime, Randall will have…”

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He waited and Randall said “Earth Scotch, straight.” “Always good to sample our nearest neighbours culture, ai?” Bede smiled and Randall did too, despite his reservations. Randall took his drink and Bailey waved for him to follow to the small kitchens behind an opaque glass bricked wall at the rear of the bar. Bailey took a bottle of old wine from a large rack of similar wines, and said “What do you think of Bede?” Randall looked at him considering the response of an obedient dog “I think Bede Sagar is a great lady.” He was lying. He thought all of the Sagars were Machiavellian jobsworths, with half of the moral integrity of the Beldins, and the others involved with South Syndicate. He felt a tinge of sadness cut with anger inside, masking it easily with the phony meat headed façade. He noticed a smirk on Bailey’s face, who then threw him a beer bottle that he began opening with his thumb and forefinger. Bailey winced at this and continued his own technique with a screw. Randall wasn’t paying attention, but vaguely noticed that Bailey had stopped unscrewing his wine and was now looking into the living room through the opaque glass wall.

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Randall followed his eyes, and saw that in the living room, another lady had joined the Sagars. She was smiling shyly while trying to fit in. He had met her yesterday just after his release from The Shell, and strained his memory to recall her name. Wendall Jayne, was it? Would someone call their kid that, he wondered? Bailey seemed fixated on Jayne, and judging by his cold and ruthless approach to his business with Old Gang, and now his close ties to the criminal empire of East Syndicate, he doubted his interest in her was romantic. But Bailey did seem fixated. They returned to the living room and Bailey was introduced to Jayne, which he did smoothly as if uninterested in her. Randall nodded to Jayne as they noticed one another, and then Randall stepped away as they all moved to places by the window. Randall sat at the bar behind them as Bailey sat on the sofa chairs with the Sagar family. He hadn’t been offered a seat so didn’t presume. Randall listened as they talked between themselves for a while. They were talking about Bailey and Bede Sagar, and how happy they were together, and some of the soppy things they had done together this week. It sounded like they had spent a lot of time with the children that had been saved from the now stigmatized escape attempt by South Syndicate, in which so many people had died. Randall 354

hoped Bailey wouldn’t mention that Randall had been a key figure in it, since he didn’t need a stigma dragging his professional life down even further. There was no mention of it and eventually everyone was so drunk the conversation dried up and everyone started singing, taking to the microphone jacked to the holo-theatre at the side. The holotheatre had a tracing mirror of each singer as they took the mic, with the hologram made up to look like a famous figure or fun character. The singing went on late into the night, until Randall was so irritated he truly considered thumping the lot of them. Jayne wasn’t drunk, Randall had noticed. She had sipped her only drink of the night, and now was making excuses to leave. Bailey himself had drank like a fish, but stood up and skipped quite soberly around to Randall, who stiffened as Bailey said “Ok. Trial period over. I’ll take you on. Just don’t forget the interview is never over as far as I’m concerned, so stay sharp.” “Err. Thank you very much.” Randall said, startled by this perfectly coherent conversation. Bailey then turned and waved to Jayne. “Let me see you to the tram.” Bailey said to her, and she walked primly around to them. The three left the Sagars lying around on their seats with a couple on the floor, on the verge of passing out. Bede was

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slumped awkwardly in her chair with a vague smile on her face, too drunk to notice who was coming and going. The three left the Sagar home and stopped for a moment as Bailey fiddled with a set of keys, and she and Randall watched as Bailey’s extremely expensive sports car rolled up beside them. He had apparently procured it at great risk to himself, from his home in South Syndicate before it had been plundered by the scavenging gangs, or so he had said. Bailey then drove them from the village and the house on the hill, to an adjacent district. They got out at the bottom of a long flight of metal steps leading up to a tram platform, and left the car by the road. Jayne and Bailey walked a few steps ahead of Randall as they climbed the drafty stairs. “You like Bede?” Jayne asked Bailey, “You will see soon, how much I love Miss Sagar.” he said. “Ooh. Sounds exiting. Wedding bells?” “Don’t presume.” he said. “I take it you need a wage? Thom Gubichayan called my phone a few times today.” “Yes.” she said. “My home and my livelihood were all destroyed last week. Big fight between the local gang and Border Sec. It came out of nowhere. Very strange, actually.” 356

They made it to the top and stood on the dark platform. It was labelled as ‘Tram Station Y-4’ on a sign above them. “I’ll take a chance on you, Jayne. You’re a good person and I respect that.” “Thank you.” she said shyly, as a train rolled to a halt at the platform. “Be at my main office first thing tomorrow. I will need someone to answer calls in my absence. I’m going away for a while and I’m not sure when I’m gong to be back.” Randall twitched at hearing this. Did this mean he was planning to escape? It didn’t sound like it, so it had to be the other dome. There was nowhere else to go in a place of 20 miles diameter. Bailey touched her shoulder and kissed her check, and then Jayne departed. Both Bailey and Randall watched her as they train carried her away into the tunnel, and then she was gone. Bailey turned and walked past Randall, not looking at him and said “Warehouse A. Be there early tomorrow.” Randall watched him make speed down to the car and race away loudly through the towering buildings. He stood for a moment in the petrol stinking place and then left also, on the next train to Thom’s district.

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Machiavellian Doo-Wap. Jayne made it back to the factory and closed the tall door behind her, shutting out the sound of the vulgar dogs. She walked to the coat railing and neatly hung up her coat, then put her purse square to the side of the shoe cabinet. She took a step back and put her hands at her sides and stood a moment to compose, then turned and walked along the tall corridor to the living hall. Finding nobody home, she undid and shook her hair, and walked to the seating beside the holotheatre wall. She turned on one lamp and sat at the corner most seat, beside one of the bubbling fish tanks, and sat with her hands on her knees staring forward, not thinking, but waiting for her thoughts to begin again. After sitting a while she decided that the gang hadn’t come home when they said they would, and decided to go check in the weird storm drain. Jayne walked around to the back of the factory, and down to the storm drain entrance, then held the bars of the grating while looking within. She heard voices before her eyes adjusted fully to the darkness, and as the pool within came to sight she saw the gang talking to Bailey’s bodyguard, Flynn Randall who had apparently come this way too. She stood, not caring if they saw her, listening to their conversation.

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Randall was sitting on one of the tall, metal siphon tanks with his legs dangling over the side, while Thom and Sorbe swam in the deep pool. The others skated between the curved walls of the tunnel, skimming precariously close to the edge of the water. “You were right.” Randall said. “He’s definitely planning to escape. You should have seen it.” “But Old Gang?” Thom said treading water. “He can’t possibly think he can trust them.” “I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s out of his mind, or just plain incompetent." "Nah. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. Too many coincidences.” Thom said, and smiled as he noticed Jayne watching. “Welcome back, Lady.” “Yeah.” she smiled and squeezed through the bars. “You talking about Aaron Bailey again?” "Who else." Thom said while backstroking across the pool. Randall looked a little nervous, realizing the conflict of interest. “Oh relax, Flynn.” she waved a hand at him as she carefully stepped down to the wet floor. “Me and Thom know all about his little games. What were you talking about this time? An escape?” 359

Jayne sat down on a damp patch beside the pool and Thom stood up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, making her dress even wetter as she leaned her head back to rub against him. Jayne didn’t care, so Randall noticed and said “Hmm. Didn’t see that one coming. Anyway, yeah he’s definitely helping Old Gang escape. Thom thinks he’ll go with them, cutting the rest of us out of the equation.” “Did you expect him to cut you in?” Jayne shrugged, and Thom unlocked his arms and went back to swimming. “It would be polite. We all work with him.” Randall said. “I mean what are friends for?” “I wouldn't trust him with something so dangerous." Jayne said, then looked up at Randall where he sat over them. "So I take it you’re interested in that sort of thing again? You’re not scared of going back in The Shell?” “I am scared of going back in The Shell, but I’m always interested in getting out of this ditch of a place. I don’t see anything I can sign up to with this plan though.” “Oh,” Jayne turned her head to look at Thom, behind her in the pool, “I got that job. I’ll be filling in public relations while Bailey’s away.”

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“And that’s another thing!” Randall yelled. “Where the hell is he going all of a sudden? You won’t believe what he was talking about with the Fincle fuckers.” Thom waved his hand at him dismissively. “The more I hear, the less I believe he’s actually going out with OG. But if that’s all true, then you have to ask why is he so interested in them? They won’t have come up with a decent plan, so anything of any merit will have been provided by Bailey. So what is he up to? Where's the profit in any of this?" "And what’s he doing in that warehouse all night every night?” Sorbe said from behind them where he waded. "And now I think he's tried to set me up with Thom." Jayne said looking over her shoulder at him. "And succeeded." Randal added with finality. "This is a mess." “We're on top of this.” Jayne said quietly. “We suspected maybe he set up that attack the other day... but we haven't found any evidence yet right? I'll keep an eye on him but so far he's managing to pass himself off as an all round nice guy.” She noticed Thom and Randall looking at each other.

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“This rabbit hole goes deeper than you think, little girl.” Randall spoke first. He pushed from the tank and sailed through the air, landing on the floor in his heavy boots. “Both me and this lot have noticed some irregularities concerning Aaron Bailey going way back to the first escape. We may be dealing with something none of us have ever encountered before.” "What do you mean?" Jayne said squinting up at him. Thom stepped out of the pool still wearing his wet workpants, and shook his hair while walking around to her. The other skaters continued to fly around the walls of the pool room, a little too close for Jayne’s comfort. “Remember I told you I saved his life?” Thom said and squatted down beside Jayne. “Sure thing.” she said shrugging. “Well I found him outside the psycho wing, all beat up. I brought him into South Syndicate to recover, and within days he was in on the top secret escape plan. And within the week the escape had gone bizarrely wrong, everyone was dead, and South Syndicate was broken up by Border Sec and Old Gang. And strangely, he himself survives, with all the children involved, which he used to win the affections of the Sagar family, and the romantic affection of your friend Bede Sagar. All within a week of my bringing him back from the dead. All this and not to mention his identity theft of the Importer-Exporter Gen Colec, and 362

now it seems a similar ID spoof within Old Gang territory. You see? This is bigger than just us.” Jayne stared silently at Thom as he stood up and walked over beside Randall. Mach Hadron skated around to where they were and skidded to a halt. He panted while speaking in his sharp tones “We’re not saying all of this is true. But if only half of it is true then we are right to be concerned?” Jayne nodded definitely and said “Well I start work there tomorrow. You got me that job.” Thom said “I know. But it’s the only thing I could get. And you agreed we should try and figure out his game with us, which you can see now is more than likely to be true.” “You think he killed all those kids’ parents? To use them as bargaining chips?” she looked down, shaking her head slightly. “We don’t know.” Randall said honestly. “I've tried hacking him before. I paid someone in East Syndicate to steal the Colec company hard drive a while back. He couldn’t get close, and a little later he turned up dead. It's a dangerous game if we take it that far.” Thom said. "But if we steal his plans then we can take over the escape ourselves, and kick that bastard out of the equation."

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“Interesting. And you think this data is stored on his hard drive? How can you be certain?” Jayne looked up. “It will have records of his personal activities for one thing. And probably any other activity he’s been involved in, under the guise of company business, legal or otherwise. Gen Colec’s company is the perfect cover. We can take the rest by... more old fashioned means.” “I see.” she said quietly. “Where is the hard drive?” “In his phone. His multi-communicator.” Randall said. “Why do you ask?” Thom said and walked to her. He held her hands while squatting beside her. “If I try to steal it I’ll get caught.” she admitted. “All you need to do is copy it. You hold a backup needle into it for a few seconds. Then bring it back home to us. Or email it to me over the phone. A master hacker like you is perfect for the job.” Thom winked. She raised an eyebrow and looked at Thom. “Then maybe I can help out.” she said. The next morning Jayne had met Bailey on the dark, steam washed tram platform by the Sagar Warehousing building in the metropolis. They made for the nearby elevator cubicle 364

and let it take them through to where she would be working. The lights scrolled over their faces as the glass platform took them through the tunnels within the building, until eventually they rose slowly into a clear cubicle, and stepped out into the loading area on the opposite side of the warehouses to the offices. It was a huge hall strewn with rail tracks. There were tall and broad rigs being first loaded with heavy goods crates and then slowly wheeling along two parallel tracks to the many massive openings into the warehouses. Jayne was taken aback but pushed herself to follow as Bailey made his way quickly out into the place. She followed his steps across track after track and the concrete flats in between, until they came to the nearest warehouse opening. As they entered the main thoroughfare of the warehouse one of the huge rigs mounted the tracks behind them and rolled overhead. Jayne flinched slightly, and shook her head to stave off a swamped sensory dizziness. “This is the main production route.” Bailey shouted to her over the howling machinery within the place. We load boxes of food, energy cells etc here and then redistribute to the villages as and when they’re needed. We supply directly to stores that require something a little less… robotic in their diet. And it’s quite a big market.” “Is that all you do here?” Jayne said flatly.

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Bailey smiled at her and said “You’ve been talking to Thom I take it. Well yes it’s true we do hold a limited amount of narcotics in the warehouse. Part of my cousins business was to distribute it to the smaller gangs to be sold on.” “For East Syndicate?” she probed further. “Well that is correct. But if it weren’t them it would be Old Gang and they cut their pills will all kinds of hell. It also helps keep the books freed of debt.” Bailey said honestly. The rig had finished unloading it's steel containers onto the shelves and flew back over them as Bailey pointed to the far wall that was now in sight. “It’s just up there.” he said and tapped her woollen sleeve, signalling her to make speed. They walked to a rickety metal stairway leading up the wall to a door, that opened into the tall gulley containing the office units. Coming from Warehouse A they entered the nearest side doors of its office unit and paused before a tasteful line of plants amongst the glow of a security forcefield. A square arch of metal stood in the middle, nano-scanning them as they walked through to the main offices. There were rows of desks here, some occupied by stern looking employees, and a couple of gaping windows looking out from the back wall over the main warehouse they had walked through.

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There was a slow ticking clock in the office unit of Colec Import and Export. It was the first thing Jayne noticed on walking through the main door in the long wall of plants. The clock stood by door to the head office, closed off with a boarded wall from the rest of the open tops. It had been built against the back wall with the center window all to itself. Bailey stepped forward and knocked on the door. There was no answer so he opened the door and walked inside. There were two chairs facing each other at a desk below the window looking out over a gully between warehouse shelves. Jayne stood and waited in the doorway, but found that Bailey was now somewhat ignoring her. He began sifting through the papers before him and looked as if he may soon become deeply engrossed in the work there. Jayne coughed as she watched him and then took the initiative and walked in, closing the door carefully behind her. Within the confined space, the ticking of the old clock ticked off each second of business, whether it be wasted or won. She had worked in a similar environment, a long time ago. “Bailey?” she said impatiently, and Bailey smiled and gestured to the chair opposite him.

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She sat and looked across at her new boss. “Just get comfortable.” he said. “Then I’ll give you a list of names to run down. I need you to memorize who and what they are, for future reference.” Jayne arranged the desk to clear enough space to work, and Bailey handed her a holo-pad, that extended to a holographic dish comprised of a screen and keyboard. It was a small arrangement, but after tweaking a few settings the screen was expanded by two times to be easier on the eye. She spent the rest of the morning scrolling through the names of Gen Colec’s business contacts that Aaron Bailey seemed to have befriended in the months since he had stolen the business from him. Jayne now knew the alleged history of the company in which she now worked, so had no illusions about what she was looking at. It catalogued the taking in and shipping out of ‘candles’ that was undoubtedly the legal cover for narcotic pills. Every so often Bailey’s multi-com rang, which he answered and relayed certain information to his contacts. As lunch time neared, Jayne decided to usher things along a little. “After lunch, maybe… I could do that?” she said, and pointed at the multi-com on the desk.

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“You think you can take my calls?” he said with a note of sarcasm. “You don’t know anything about the business. What would you say?” “I just mean I could answer, and hand it over to you. Like a secretary. Just to get me used to them.” “When the time comes, I’ll get as much business out the way as possible, so you won’t have to deal with anything critical. And I won’t be away that long.” “Ok. It was just a suggestion.” she said, giving up. Bailey stared at her a moment then said “No. Yes, maybe it is a good idea. It might be good for the old image, having a secretary take the incoming. Let’s start right now. Next call you pick up, press the red button and say, ‘Colec Import and Export, Secretary speaking’. And then straight away hand over to me.” Bailey slid his multi-com across the meridian between his desk and Jayne’s desk and then carried on with his work. Jayne did too, waiting for the next call. It rang, and Jayne answered: “Colec Import and Export. Secretary speaking… Just one moment please.” Bailey smiled as if pleased, and took the phone from her hand. 369

“Ah Peta.” he said still beaming at her. “Just the person I wanted to talk with…” There were a few more calls then Jayne thought to try her luck one more time. “You know,” Jayne began, “I might skip lunch and work through.” “You’ve got to have lunch, Wendall.” Bailey shook his head. “I had a big breakfast. I’m really not hungry.” she said. “I could practice taking messages. I think I’ve got the hang of answering now.” “Yeah. You’re good at it.” Bailey nodded. “I suppose it would be good practice for you. I’ll be taking lunch in an hour so if you change your mind before then just tell me.” “Alright.” she said and they continued their work. Bailey took a sip from a plastic cup of water he had at his side, and continued making entries in a book with an old pen. There was a dim rumble in the room that Jayne ignored at first. There was another and then a third with more force that shuddered the walls and window.

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Bailey put down his pen, watching as a fourth rumbling caused ripples in his cup of water. “Wait here.” Bailey said and stood up, leaving the room at a quickened pace. Jayne was alone in the room at last, and wasted no time. She took the memory needle from her purse and slid it into the phone. A small spinning clock icon indicated that a backup copy of the phones memory was in progress. She waited until the clock was replaced by a green tick and then unplugged the needle, and inserted it into her own multicom. She brought up Thom’s number and began downloading the data to his phone. Bailey himself had gone down ten floors to a staff cafeteria level that had windows spanning a corner side of the East Syndicate building. There he met Bede, who was standing with a group of other people looking down at the rear of the building. There was another intense slam and rumble, and Bailey looked down through the window at a massive gathering of people in the main street just before a tunnel through the metropolis wall. Between them was a long line of tanks, with a large steel pole affixed to the top of them. They pulled back into the tunnel and then drove forward again, making the flat end of the pole hit the side of the building.

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“They’re aiming for one of the main supports.” someone said. Bede, who Bailey now noticed was crying slightly, turned and buried her head in his chest. She was shivering slightly when she said “God I hate them! I wish… I wish we could leave.” “Old Gang.” he mumbled, staring down at the crowd. Someone at the armoury floor above had brought a particle beam cannon from a collection of confiscated weapons. A line of white light reached down in front of the window with a faint crackling hiss, and tore through the middle of the crowd, popping and bursting their bodies. Phazer fuck em. “Was it really worth a hit?” someone said. Most of them died instantly, torn to shreds by the searing energy, while the rest ran or crawled away from the bloody mess of flesh and bones, toward the district tunnel. None of their leaders had been among them. If there was one thing you could say about Old Gang, they had an abundance of willing cannon fodder, and were experts in utilizing it.

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Mega City B. Jayne saw Bailey returning through the offices while she was on the phone to Thom Gubichayan. “He’s got a good password system it seems, but no password is that good.” Thom said, as he used a brute-force code cracker on the info he had been sent. “If I can just get near that weird warehouse unit without him around, I’ll bust this wide open.” He had transferred the whole bulk of information to a more powerful computer on the breakfast bar, and now typed commands into the holographic dish that floated gaseously over the small cube of hardware. The rest of his gang hovered behind him, watching and waiting for the unlocking of the password. Then it happened the bruteforce program found the password and fed it into the data. The scrambled data on the screen scrolled away to be replaced by a clear indexing system. It branched off into Business and Personal, Calendar and Diary sections. “Jayne, I’m in. Thank you so much.” Thom said and hung up. “I love you.” Jayne said, then realized that the line had gone dead. Bailey walked back and sat in his chair.

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They sat in silence for a moment as Bailey stared at the desk. “There haven’t been many calls.” Jayne said and Bailey nodded slightly. Bailey sighed and leaned forward onto the desk. He rubbed his forehead left and right with his fingertips. “Oh gosh. This is hopeless.” he muttered, as if to himself, and picked his multi-com up from Jayne’s desk and began dialling a number. “Hi, Josep!” Bailey said, changing his demeanour in an instant to one of cheer and hope, seamlessly masking his hatred of the Old Gang leader. “I have good news. I can make the trip to the other city this afternoon. No don’t thank me. Ok, friend. Chow!” Bailey hung up and went back to a grim demeanour. He sat with an elbow on the table and the multi-com clutched in his hand. “Is everything alright?” Jayne asked, knowing the answer. “What were the noises?” Bailey’s eyes slid slowly to look at her. He pressed a few more holographic buttons casually, before switching it off and sitting back in his chair. “What’s going on, Wendall?” he smiled knowingly. 374

“What do you m…” “You’ve copied my phone history.” he said flatly. “To a memory needle model number P dash 4482. Would you like to tell me why?” Jayne, now a little scared reached into her purse and took the memory needle out onto the desk. “I’m sorry.” she said. “It was Thom and the others. They asked me to get it. Take it. I’ll just get my things and go.” Bailey watched her stand up, with a genuine look of hurt and concern. “I just want to know why you did it. Thom’s an asshole and a scam. That’s why he did it. But you? You don’t seem the type.” She stopped and looked at Bailey, then said “He thinks your escaping with Old Gang, and leaving all your friends behind.” “I wouldn’t exactly call them my friends.” Bailey chuckled. “Nevertheless.” Jayne said, and continued packing things back into her purse. Bailey leaned forward and clapped his palms together.

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“What if…” he started. “What if I was planning to escape? What if it had nothing to do with Old Gang, and it was all my own little venture?” “I’m not sure why you’re telling me.” she said. “What if I could use you? Take you with me?” he said looking at her straight. “Very easily.” “Why me?” she said. “Why not? I need someone young to watch my back. I was going to use Randall but he’s so apprehensive…” Jayne stood thinking about all this, as Bailey went on. “Gen Colec. The person who founded this company. He was in on an escape two decades ago. They made a weapon that could take out all electrical equipment, robots and all in a five mile radius. It’s a super weapon for anyone wanting to escape a technocratic nightmare like this prison planet. They buried it at a point marked on a map that he drew just before he died.” “Randall told us about the map. You told the Fincles?” she said. “That’s right, they can use it to escape, which would be a good thing for life here on the colony, don’t you think? The only problem is, I’ve had it confirmed that the map isn’t of our own dome but of the dome nearest to the North. It’s a 376

city just like ours, but I have it on good authority that the entire dome is abandoned, with explosion tears in the side. These holes are big enough to drive a truck into, especially one in particular, blasted into a goods door at ground level.” “And you plan to go over there and dig this weapon up?” Jayne asked. “Today if possible.” he said, and Jayne tensed up. “But realistically. I can’t do it alone.” Jayne laughed slightly, and said “You’re asking me to go with you? After I stole from you? Why would I?” “I’m getting out of here.” Bailey said leaning toward her slightly. “And if you’ve learned anything about me, then you’ll know that I’m a man who gets things done. Don’t you want to return to a life on the colonies? Can you really see yourself living the rest of your life here? Do you want to die here?” Jayne stared wide eyed at him. She realized that he was deliberately pushing sensitive emotional buttons to get her to go along with him, but beyond all that Bailey was right. She didn’t want to go on living in a sealed, sunless colony full of what anyone would deem to be lowlifes. “I’ll come along.” she said, placing her purse on the desk. “But as for this escape, you’ll need to convince me that you aren’t going to get me killed like those others.”

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“That plan was their own.” Bailey said. “This is all me. So, are you in, or out?” After finalizing Jayne’s inclusion, Bailey’s next port of call was a meeting with his employees in the unit, including Randall who had been positioned on standby at the front office doors. He gathered them together in the main office space and stood with Jayne a few feet behind him as he ran down what needed be said. “Ok. I’ve told you all for the past few weeks or so that I am going away for a short while. It’s just to recharge my batteries before the Spring rush. Francine will be acting manager in my absence, and Flynn Randall, who most of you will have met by now, will be acting head of security for a trial period. So, keep the home fires burning, and can I have a word with you both?” he pointed to Francine and Randall, and then turned and walked through the office. They followed him out onto the gangway in the tall gully housing the office units. He turned to talk to them, out of earshot of the rest of the employees. Randall had noticed Jayne had followed and now stood further along the gangway near the steps to the elevator, waiting for Bailey to finish up his business. “Are you sure you two can carry the bag while I’m gone. It will be a good test of you both, and good experience for when I finally hand the company over to you.”

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Francine looked at Randall, whom she didn’t know so well, and said “We can do it!” “Randall you know the rules right?” Bailey pointed back at Warehouse B. “Nobody goes in or out of that place. And if anyone from Old Gang comes sniffing around asking for money, you have full permission to show them the door, in whatever creative way you feel best appropriate. Understood everyone?” “Yeah, I understand.” Randall said. “Can I have a word in private?” “Not really. I’m in a hurry.” Bailey said dismissively, and stepped in the direction of the nearest elevator, while signalling for Jayne to join him. Randall put a hand on his shoulder, surprising Bailey slightly, and said “I must insist.” Bailey stepped back and squinted at him. “Leave us Francine. Randall, what’s on your mind, friend?” After Francine had returned to the Warehouse A unit, Randall said “I take it you’re taking a round trip to the other city?” “Well if you’re going to ask questions you know the answers to we’ll be here all day.”

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“I thought you’d ask me to come along with you. You said you needed backup.” Randall said without emotion. “And why would I ask you? You made it clear you were playing it squeaky clean from now on. I need someone willing to break a few rules. Someone a bit less honest.” Randall looked at Bailey grimly and then sarcastically said “Really?” “I’m afraid so, friend. I have someone more flexible lined up for the gig. You know her. Wendall Jayne.” Randall stammered a moment then said “There must be some mistake. She’s a painter not a fighter.” “But I don’t need a fighter, do I Randall?” he said stepping toward Randall. “I need a pair of eyes to watch my back.” Randall looked down at Bailey, thinking about the warning he’d been given the first day he started in the Beldin combat leagues. ‘Be careful with the small ones.’ he’d been told. “So be it.” Randall said, then turned and walked back to the office. He watched through the blinds as Bailey turned and strode away with Wendall Jayne toward the block elevator. Once out of sight he walked through the office past the others that worked there to the main office at the back and walked 380

up to one of the windows at it's side. He looked down over the workings of the warehouse and sighed as he slowly tried to figure out what he ought to do. After a while he took his phone in hand, and called Thom Gubichayan’s number. “Thom?” he said looking around at the other workers, who were chatting happily amongst each other on the other side of the floorspace. “I’ve got some bad news on the Aaron Bailey front.” Thom listened, then slammed his phone onto the table and screamed “No!” He stood straight, thinking beside the bar. The rest of the gang were playing frizball at the far side of the hall. He considered asking them for help, but stealth would be the best approach to this, he decided. He picked up the multi-com and dialled Jayne’s number. “Jayne?” he said quietly. “Where are you?” “I’m doing something, Thom.” she said. “Something that will give you all the time you need to search Bailey’s business, and that warehouse you mentioned.” “I don’t need your help, Jayne. Now where are you?”

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“I’m in the ladies toilet. Old Gang Central. I’m guessing you already know why.” “Don’t do this Jayne. Please, I don’t want to lose you.” Thom said, shaking a little. There was a pause and then Jayne said “Don’t worry about me. Bye gorgeous.” Jayne hung up, and Thom shouted out in frustration and threw the phone across the hall. It hit the ball court and smashed apart between his friends. They stood panting and looked at Thom, then carried on playing their game. Thom stood for a moment, staring ahead to consider the next move, given this unexpected eventuality. He decided something and jumped down from the higher step in the kitchen and then ran to the door and out. The rest of the gang paid no attention. He ran through the dogs and out of the gate, then along the street to the stairs leading up to the tram. One was leaving as he made it to the platform so jumped off onto a thin metal footing at the back. He grabbed a tight hold of the bars there and then curled up in the narrow space before the rear door. He stayed as small as possible as the slipstream gushed by on either side. After eleven stations he was three districts away from Old Gang Central, that itself had no rail 382

connection. He leaped onto the platform as the train moved off and landed clumsily amongst a group of couples and their children. Stepping back from them he said “Blade on. Pass Aquinas.” “Aquinas?” one of the fathers said. “You should be more careful shouting your password.” “Hey screw you, pal.” Thom said and as they all gasped at his rudeness he turned and leaped over the fencing at the side of the platform. Thom dropped down from the rail station, landing hard on the highway below that ran in the direction of the old city center to the north. He looked over his shoulder at the traffic as they all honked and swerved slightly to miss him, then immediately began skating toward the nearest highway tunnel. He used a few of the slower cars to accelerate then let go before they could complain, and flew at great speeds along each highway and junction. He passed through each slummy district faster than was safe, but Thom was still a way out, and already felt he had no chance of catching up with them. Bailey and Jayne walked outside he dome behind Josep and Nash Fincle. They pointed at Dane who was coordinating a group of mechanics around two large motorbikes. Jayne watched them as they wheeled them into the narrow cable car. 383

“I can’t ride a motorcycle.” Jayne said pointing at them. “Ah it’s easy.” Josep said, and threw her a metal headband, used to implant skills directly into the brain. She caught it and said “No way. Ah-ah. I’m not getting lobotomized.” “I swear it’s perfectly safe.” Nash said over his shoulder. “I thought you were with me.” Bailey said, looking a little hurt. Jayne looked at him for a moment as they stood atop the huge cliff with the curve of the other dome towering in the distance, then put the headset on and pressed the button to begin it. She had a strange sensation like her body was burning from the shoulders down, and then a splitting headache for a few moments. A cool euphoria followed as she staggered a little to the side. Bailey and Nash caught her and waited for her to regain balance. Bailey waited until she looked up with slightly bloodshot eyes, then said “Good to go?” “Er… yeah.” she said and they walked along the cliff top to the cable car. “Take this, Bailey.” Nash said handing him a wrist band. “It’s just like the radar equipment. It’s hooked to the 384

sensors we fired onto the dome. If those things start moving it will go off, and should give you time to get safe.” Jayne only caught the tail end of what was said and asked “Safe?” “Don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing.” Bailey said supportively. “We’re in this together now, right?” She nodded slightly as Bailey took the clip from around her head and flicked it over the side of the chasm. Thom was now close along the highway. He could feel his skates starting to heat up at the heel and knew that soon it would become dangerous to maintain these speeds. Eventually he reached a highway tunnel that led into the Old Gang Central district, and let himself slow. He rolled out into the place and began skating hard along the carriageways over the main street. He relayed between cars that were moving extremely fast through the dark outer roads of the lawless place. As he realized that the lane ahead had been blocked by an accident he used his speed to bunny hop onto the rear window of a car, catapulting him over a busy fast lane and onto another more relaxed lane on the other side. After a few minutes Thom had made it around to the end of the highways at a point that was closest to the factory district containing the exit to the dome. He used a tunnel 385

beneath the end of the twisted up tram track, exitting Old Gang Central and entering the next district over. As he skated out over the moss encrusted factories he looked down at the streets along the dome wall, using the height and view to find where the action was. He was unable to see anything in the murky cavern apart from at the slip road leading down there was a small barricade of Old Gang thugs. At the exit lane he hopped up on the rail at the side and grinded down while balancing carefully. At the bottom he leaped at the thugs, landing just behind the barricade. Ignoring the pain in his ankles Thom pressed on along the lower street keeping his speed high, taking advantage of the dull disorientation of the Old Gang heavies behind him. He made it to a point in the road where it turned slightly to accommodate for the curve in the dome wall. “Oi!” he heard a chorus from behind, then some gun fire. Thom turned sharply and skated low along the black tarmac as the bullets flew by. He disappeared behind a red brick wall before any more bullets could find him. He skated along the foggy lane until he saw a light, and then a group of people near the base of the large door Randall had told him about. He hadn’t seen anything like it in any cavern he had visited in the city, a tall doorway, with what looked like natural light spilling in thought it.

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Thom swallowed his fear and began skating down the lane toward it, using the gentle slope to build speed. He left the lane and mounted the wide runway leading to the opening. There were three very big men standing before it, but didn’t look like they had expected company so skated between them into the tunnel, and on through the dome wall. There were more protests behind him but no gun fire, which was good since there was nowhere to hide in the tunnel. He skated on trying to keep up his speed, then near the outer door shouted the command to retract the wheels. Thom ran outside onto the rock precipice, seeing only two men there looking down over the misty crater below with binoculars. He ran up to them and grabbed the nearest man by the shoulders, flinging him back onto the snow, while snatching the binoculars from him. He saw now that it was Josep Fincle, with Nash now looking at them both wide eyed, but he was too infuriated to care. Thom looked through the binoculars in the direction Josep had been looking, and saw two motorbikes racing through the snow from a cable car that led up to a shed a few meters to their left.

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“Steal your girlfriend, did he?” Josep said, then laughed through his pain while standing up. Thom lowered the binoculars and looked at the two dots far below, and whispered “Jayne.” There were more laughs from Josep and Thom turned to look at he and his brother, and the three huge body guards that had now joined them. Thom smiled, knowing what was coming and said “Who’s first?” The expressions on their faces changed to one of extreme fear, and the five men turned and ran away toward the dome. Realizing that it wasn’t him they were running from he looked over his shoulder at the sky. A large black cloud was unravelling itself fast, and the edge of the crater suddenly turned from grey with white patches to pure white, and expanded in size. Realizing that the eye of the storm was passing, and the real winter storm was approaching, Thom wasted no time in sprinting after the others. He ran through the door as it began to slide down. Thom gave the command to turn on the blades and then skated fast past the five Old Gang leaders. They shouted after him things like “We’ll get you.”

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Thom was fast and escaped from them, and then with a little cunning and persistence, from Old Gang territory as well. Below in the crater, Bailey and Jayne took the bikes toward their destination, which was now getting closer and closer. The dome had grown in size so that now it was larger to the eye that the dome from which they had come. Neither of them really looked, but above them just behind the blue screen of the clear sky sat the orbs of the planet and its other moons. It was presently beginning to haze again as the storms neared the farthest mountain sides. “Bailey, look.” Jayne said over the helmet radio, which was a part with the silver suit they had to wear while outside the dome. She let Bailey find what it was she had seen. In the far distance across the crater a black spot was moving, and getting larger. There was a hideous electronic howl and then a line of gunfire hitting the snow close by. A faint rainbow beam swept over them a few times and then another, louder howl chilled Jayne to the bone. Then suddenly, she saw far off the heletank suddenly drop from the air and crash into the snow. “What?” she began. Bailey saw this and shouted “Oh my God! Put your foot down! Quick!” 389

She did so, although her bike was already at top speed. Close to where the heletank had crashed she now saw there were sheets of snow falling from the black cloud above. The eye of the storm was passing, and now the coldest storms of the moon were about to engulf them. But the base of the dome was close, and she saw beneath the ice under the wheels the lines of a road close and then emerge from the ice. The road led directly into a traffic tunnel in the dome wall, which they entered at speed through it's shattered gates. Once inside they carefully slowed and dismounted. Standing in the outer cargo bay of the dome she felt a little lost to herself. She saw that Bailey was taking off the thin suit and helmet so she did the same, and then left them on the dirty stone parking lot and ran on. “Come on, quick!” Bailey yelled, and the two of them ran from the parking bays to a grotty door leading into a corridor filled with water to the ankle. They ran as fast as they could along the long corridor, seeing in the rooms to the left and right dining, and social rooms. It seemed that this dome was not exactly like the one they had come from. Jayne looked over her shoulder and saw the thick razors of snow and ice slicing the road outside. The freezing winds blew like a hurricane up the corridor, and quickly Jayne realized that she wasn’t going to be able to move her arms and legs very effectively.

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“Aaron!” she spluttered as she fell to one knee. “I can’t go on, friend.” She fell forward onto her side, and Bailey, who somehow had a higher tolerance for these extreme conditions started to panic. “Oh God! Wendall, I’m sorry! No, I won’t leave her!” he gathered her up and began dragging her along the corridor. Then suddenly the winds stopped, and he turned to look back along the corridor. There was a guttural sound like paper ripping, and Bailey saw the corridor fill with ice like a wall rushing toward them. The water in the corridor was freezing solid, as would all water in which he was standing, and the water in their bodies too. Panting against the cold air while dragging Jayne, he entered one of the doorways and up a sodden, carpeted staircase to what looked to be a games room. The corridor behind filled with white ice and then through the doorway to the bottom of the stairs, and then stopped, congealing and creaking. The room was wet and freezing still, and Bailey knew that he would have to be fast to save the girl. He picked her up high and dropped her onto a wet pool table, and began pounding her chest with his fist, blowing breath to her mouth intermittently. For a while there was nothing, and Bailey paced as if in an anguish of guilt. Then after striking her a few more times she opened her eyes, and gasped at the icy air.

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He cried slightly, happy to see her alive, and helped her down from the games table. She hugged her arms around her middle, shivering in her soaked dress. “Oh… my gosh that was cold.” she stammered, shivering hard. Bailey laughed and cried, and hugged his arm around her, not that it would give her much warmth. They made their way from room to room, finding them all equally waterlogged and rotten, and eventually found a place where the ice hadn’t filled the main corridor. Returning to the corridor they found themselves within a place they both recognized as being The Shell, or rather its equivalent in this city. They walked from the place within the dome’s wall, which turned out to be a Border Security mess for the top brass. This officer’s mess reaching back into the dome wall could very well be mirrored in their own city since they would never be permitted into those back quarters. It all led to a familiar cavern, very similar in layout to the Border Sec district she had seen earlier. They walked down the steps to the cobble stone square, with no one to be seen, and all the buildings apparently empty. They looked to have been this way for a long time, 392

given the dirt and moss that had accumulated over everything, and there was a damp papery smell blowing through the place on the luke warm winds. There was a loud klaxon horn sounding every couple of minutes from another part of the city. It was meant to indicate that there was a serious emergency involving the safety of the people on a whole, and that everyone should stay in their homes. Jayne was freezing, and found it hard to concentrate on her walking, but hugged her water logged dress tighter and continued to follow Bailey. They walked from there to a factory district, finding it too, devoid of life. It was strange to see all the industrial units without power and pollution as they were. The highway and tramway seemed to have been destroyed as if an earthquake had hit, and toppled each of the segments from their supports. The dark tunnels in the wall leading to the biosphere seemed to howl, as if a huge cyclone were feeding the warm wind. They decided to head north to what would have been the old city center in their own dome, but in a place without Old Gang and the Fincles. Jayne felt strangely glad to be here, and away from all the spitefulness of the place they had left behind.

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From there they walked through an abandoned apartment district, that too looked to have suffered some kind of disaster, levelling most of the towers and ruining the highway. They found a route through it all, by a tower that had toppled to the right, and now stood, leaning steeply to the side held fast by its foundation girders “What could have done that?” Jayne said, pointing at the strange sight, and its gaping hole where its foundations had been torn away. “Earthquake?” Bailey smiled, and Jayne slowly shook her head. They walked past it along the rubble strewn roads, and then through a small field of unkempt grass, constantly looking around for any sign of life. For a moment Jayne thought she had seen the glint of eyes in one of the apartment windows as they walked by, but decided it was probably an illusion. They walked through a few more similarly derelict and crumbled districts until finally they came to the northern city center. On entering the outer road system they found that it may well have been in full use at the time of the crisis, in whatever form it had taken. Above them the block had split from the roof and toppled slightly to the side and now rested against the cavern wall. It stood over them as they walked onto the drafty main street. 394

They had at last reached somewhere with an intact highway system, but the tram lines had toppled and stood at angles digging into the main street. Here there were signs of struggle, with most of the shop windows in the arches along the main street being broken in and outwards, and their contents strewn across the pavements and road. A lot had been taken, but for the less needed items in a crisis. There were designer clothes littering the road before them, blowing around very slightly in the gale. “Strong wind here.” Jayne said shrugging and hugging herself tighter against it. Bailey looked up and said “It’s coming from the biosphere. That’s where we need to go.” “Peachy.” Jayne said and followed Bailey slowly up the spaghetti junction lanes to the one leading into the cavern wall. They shouldered against the press of the wind into the tunnel and then walked up the steep inclining carriageway to the biosphere. With the lower city further behind them they felt the draft begin to die down. They walked from the dark tunnel out through the sea bed, over what would have been the surrounding sea. The trench that surrounded the central island was empty, just a dry trough of sand and dirt. The holographic illusion of sky and sea was also inactive, and they could see the heavy duty industrial rigging that supported the outer dome shell. 395

“The rivers and seas are dead.” Jayne said limping after Bailey along the clear tube. They walked on to the first crossroads and found that the wind became more calm. The glass like road continued on over the thick temperate forests that seemed to have taken over most of the island. Their canopies were being tugged, pressed down hard by a powerful, relentless wind of hurricane force. After a long time of walking over the darkened island, they took a road that led down to the central lands, to the moors, which had grown wild also, and were within sight of what had been the arctic center. The snow and ice there had all melted into a large lake, with the central control tower standing up from its middle. The revolving light was still powered though, and Bailey pointed to it as they walked the last distance of the crystal highway. The two walked from the serenity within the highway network to the fierce winds that were circulating in the biospheric dome. “Good gosh!” Jayne yelled over it. “Just follow me!” Bailey yelled back, and began staggering across the tangled grass of the moor.

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Jayne followed him a long way until the highway behind them was almost impossible to see. The central lake and the dark grey tower were now much closer. Then suddenly the motion scanner on Baileys wrist began it’s alternating tone. They both flushed with fear and Bailey began searching the ceiling of the dome high above. It was very dark and too far away, but then they saw something. Something very big dropped from the ceiling, beyond the distant tower and slammed down into the waters there. It kicked up a high wake of water that crashed over the tower, and began rolling toward the shores of the moor. The wave rolled inland a way, quite far from where they were, then dissipated and began to retract back to the lake. The waters of the lake were completely disturbed now, but after they had stood watching and waiting for a few minutes, they looked to each other. Bailey yelled over the wind flow “It’s close!” “Is it really worth it, Bailey?” Jayne yelled. “We’re gonna die if we don’t go now!” “Just a bit further!” Bailey shouted and walked on. Jayne hobbled after him, hunched and freezing still. Eventually he stopped and brought a small, expandable 397

shovel from his shoulder sling. He dropped to his knees and began digging with all his strength. Jayne stood hunched and leaning against the gale. There was still the loud klaxon intermittently sounding off in the distance, but slightly quieter here in this place. She had wiped her eyes and was looking around when she heard a bubbling of the water, and looking in its direction she saw something emerge from it. Whatever it was, it had been just below the surface of the lake, and now lifted what could only have been its head up and out to look at them. She assumed it was looking at them, from the water between the tower and the shore. “I see it!” she shouted, and Bailey looked. It was huge, and in the dark it was hard to really make out what it could be. It looked like a round ball of a head, draped in a greasy cloth. “Keep an eye on it for me. Tell me what’s going on.” Bailey shouted over his shoulder as he continued to dig. A long rope like arm lifted out of the water and began waving high in the air. Then another and three more. “There’s an arm!” Jayne yelled. “More arms! Alright, what the hell is it?” 398

“It’s what killed the people here. I’m sorry I lied to you.” Jayne stood shivering and afraid. She had almost expected to be double crossed somewhere on this trip, but not like this. “Looks like a fucking squid!” she shouted, stepping back but not hoping to get away. “Don’t run!” Bailey shouted at her, and she froze on the spot. “Wait a second. I said I’d take care of you, didn’t I?” Jayne simply looked at him, as he dug a little more then at last, found a box. He pulled the box from the soil and dragged it out across the grass. Jayne stepped forward to see why it was they had risked their lives so. Bailey opened the wooden lid and looked inside. Another of those klaxons sounded in the distance, and Jayne could have sworn that the giant head had moved closer. She looked down into the box, and saw within a small metal ball. She laughed uncontrollably for a second and then held

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a hand over her mouth. Bailey looked at her, slightly worried, then took the ball from the box and stood up. He threw it in the air and caught it a few times, watching the beast that was now clearly closer than before. Bailey looked over his shoulder at Jayne, who was now on the verge of tears. “Get ready to run.” he shouted, and looked back at the squid. The giant squid creature seemed to anticipate some sort of attack, and lurched up out of the water suddenly. For a moment you could see its fangs, and a whole grouping of fat arms beneath and above it. It had made a crater of water around it that now crashed down, but didn’t wake. Bailey pressed a button on the sphere and from it dropped a smaller blue ball into his other hand. He lurched and slung the blue ball up at the squid. It arced through the air over the lake and burst in a ring of electric plasma. The creature cringed against it slightly, while behind it the lights on the control tower exploded. The creature stood over the surface of the lake for a few moments, and howled faintly before tipping and crashing onto its side. It lay spread out on the water’s surface before slipping down into the depths. Bailey turned and walked past Jayne. 400

“No need to run.” he hollered, and then Jayne followed him back to the road. They walked without speaking for a long while, until they were standing on the glass highway over the outer edge of the forests. Jayne stopped and looked down at the trees being pressed down so hard by the wind. “Bailey.” she said quietly, and he stopped and turned around. “Why did we come here? I need to know.” Bailey brought the sphere from his pocket and threw it to her. She caught it and examined its smooth metal sides, and one solitary button. “Electro-magnetic pulse. Highly concentrated. Put simply, it fries all electrical appliances the pulse touches. That includes robots and heletanks. Some of the parts required to build it can’t be found in our city so this was the only way.” Jayne threw it back and carried on hugging her freezing torso. “Well what about that thing…” she said looking back at the lake in the distance, then noticed a trickle from her nostril. She wiped it, and saw that it was blood. “Sorry, Jayne.” Bailey said. “Our bodies are machines too. You’re going to feel sick for a while.” 401

Jayne walked on toward the tunnel through the dry sea bed with Bailey at her side. “Where do you think that thing came from then?” she said. Bailey shrugged and said “A planet where they’ve got giant squid, I guess. Shipped it here especially.” “How did it die?” she asked “We aren’t dead.” “When it shorted out the tower it must have discharged all of its electrical current into the lake. Usually it would discharge all of its electricity and heat into the ice. Stroke of luck in a way. I just intended to disorientate it for a while.” “Fair enough I guess. Well, where to now?” “Under the city. To the lava in the catacombs. We need to stay warm for the next month or so. There’s fresh water and fish down there too, so…” “Fish diet for a whole month?” Jayne kicked her heel in protest. “The time will fly by.” Bailey smiled at her. They returned to the old city center in the north after a day of walking, and made their way down the junction lanes to a place where the street entered the underground catacombs.

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It was strangely silent in the place, especially without the perpetual raving of the Old Gang party that would have been so prominent in the other dome. They left the main streets and descended down the subway like tunnel. They went down into it to the caves and down ramps carved into the rock meant for vehicles from the old colony. They followed the deep ploughed geothermic electric generators to caves where the rock was warm to the touch. It was all fully functioning and feeding electricity to the colony, should anyone wish to tap into it. After a while of searching they found a spot with a cavern dry enough and warm enough to sleep in. It was a smallish cavern next door to a much larger cavern filled deep with water. At the rear of the cave, in a small crater that had formed over hundreds of thousands of years, the rock glowed with the heat from the lava close under it. It was the perfect spot, and well lit by three lanterns on the cave walls. Bailey set up a series of twig tripods along the water’s edge in the large cave to catch the fish, then later slow cooked the fish on the hot plate of rock. After four weeks the room had begun to smell, but it was only a temporary measure, until the winter storms passed. Then one day, as they were sitting by a tripod at the water, Bailey said “I think I’m going to go and check on our way out.” “Are you sure?” Jayne said, wiping the grimy sweat from her face. 403

“It’s worth a look.” Bailey said then looked away. “I’ve enjoyed being with you these past few weeks, Wendall. Have you enjoyed my company too?” “You’re an interesting person, Aaron.” Jayne smiled. “That wasn’t what I meant.” Bailey said, balling a fist slightly. “I mean I’ve actually liked you. I haven’t really liked anyone since I got here. Well, maybe the Beldins, but they’re gone now.” Bailey went quiet, and Jayne thought for a good way to answer him. “I’m flattered.” she said. “But don’t spoil things.” Bailey heard her and rapped his fist against the stone gently. He then stood up and straightened his woollen top. “I will be back soon. Ok, friend?” “Sure.” she smiled. Bailey left the place, and made his way back to the surface, to the town. He stood at the mouth of the tunnel, and looked up at the building that had toppled on its side over him, and then began making his way up to the biosphere highways.

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At the biosphere he walked out of the tunnel, and over the first of the forests he stopped, and squatted down to look at something. He had thought he had seen a man in the trough where the seas should have been. Bailey leaned forward and cupped a hand against the clear plastic and leaned forward to get a clear view. He could indeed see a man running in the distance, away from his position. There were what looked to be dogs chasing him, and then more dogs joined them from the trees of the forest, running down the slopes of the beach and then over the steeper slope of the trough. They all converged on the man, who then stopped and turned to face them all. “Oh shit.” he hissed, and then watched as he swung his arms left and right, and saw each of the dogs fall dead to the ground as he did so, some flying off through the air. When it looked like they were all dead, Bailey waved his arms above his head frantically to catch the man’s attention. Bailey stopped then, sensing something slightly wrong, and watched as the figure grabbed one of the dogs limp corpses in his mouth, and then sprung away like a toad, or maybe a lizard. He leaped away with its unusually long arms clasping the ground ahead of him. It leaped up onto the exposed dome wall and began running along it in Bailey’s direction through the huge scaffolds.

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Bailey, now feeling an appropriate fear dropped to the floor and lay flat so to be less easily seen. He watched as the thing came closer into view on the wall closest to the road. It looked like a Lantian, but with longer arms like a mantis, and broad webbed feet. It was wearing human clothes though, which fitted what still resembled a man quite well. It held the bleeding hound in its jaws with a blazing black hunger in its eyes. He watched it run by, and then down to a gap in the wall that had been torn open, probably by those things. Once it was out of sight, Bailey took a breath, and then stood back up and turned away. He froze again as he saw, over the trees walking across the moors, the huge squid like creature. It walked unlike any squid he had ever known of, with its legs below holding its huge body and head up above it. He heard that same faint howl as it walked on, and then Bailey made his way to the first highway junction, and then down toward the Border Security district. As he dropped down from the demolished tunnel entrance onto the piled rubble of the highways, he kept looking around and over his shoulder, aware now that there were other things here in the dome. Here there were distant howls of wild dogs that sounded as if they were in packs of hundreds. Bailey reached the main building of The Shell and walked up the steps, then on into the bowels of the place, to the officer’s mess. The mess was deep within the dome wall, 406

close to the edge, and on finding the corridor that he and Jayne had entered by a month or so ago, he found that the ice had receded quite a bit. He walked to the end, and out into the parking bays, finding it half full of that bank of ice. The exit was still blocked by a huge wall of white, and through the windows high in the wall he could see that the embankment reached up to there too. He found the bikes half in and out of the ice, and so set about digging them out. Eventually he pulled both bikes out onto the concrete and began checking them over. Both seemed to be in full working order but would need to dry out, so he wheeled them both into a parking bay each and set them on their stands so that only the tyres were touching the wet floor. Bailey began to walk back along the corridor the way he had come, but stopped as he noticed something in the corner of his eye. He had to back step a couple of times to look into a doorway to a room that looked a little different to the rest. It wasn’t a social room but looked to be a heavy lockup of some kind. He walked inside and found the room to be a claustrophobic place with two massive doors sealed shut at the back side. There were deep scratches and cuts on all of the walls, and it didn’t take much deduction for Bailey to realize that those mantis creatures had been here, and had been furiously trying to get through those double doors. The whole room had been mutilated.

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He saw the control pad to the side of the door still had power, and he recognized the make and model of the security mechanism. He knew the default passwords that the manufacturers programmed the mechanism with on sale of the system, and used them now in the hope that the officers had been too lazy to change them. The passwords worked and the red light turned green. The doors moved apart slightly, and there was a fowl hiss from inside. Bailey smelled the stench from within, and held a hand over his mouth as the doors were pulled the rest of the way open, and a mass of dust fell out from the inside. Bailey walked around to get a better look inside, as the greyblue dust cleared. There were two desks facing each other and a bank of monitors along the back wall. At both desks were the dried corpses of men dressed in high ranking Border Security uniforms. The man at the left desk lay slumped back in his chair, and on closer inspection he saw marks around his neck as if he had been strangled to death. At the right was a man slumped back also, with an empty vial of poison on the desk that he had obviously used just after strangling his colleague. His left arm lay on the desk below something he had written on the congealed dust on the wall, apparently just before his death. He had simply written “Run”. Bailey left the place and walked out of the Border Security building. He stood at the top of the steps for a few 408

moments to compose his thoughts, and then walked down them and through the ground streets from cavern to cavern until he reached the northern center and the entrance to the catacombs. As he stood at the subway entrance, he looked along the rest of the main street that looked to be particularly devastated. A burning gas pipe still burning at the side of the street, with a number of burnt out cars abandoned along it. He thought he had seen movement in one of the cars and so walked through them, careful of all of the many places that something devilish could be hiding. There was no movement, until the second before last car, when he saw something moving under a pile of clothes within it. Holding a small knife in his trouser pocket, Bailey walked to it and leaned down to see inside. A man looked at him over the covers he had made from designer ladies tops, and then sat up and leaned toward him to get a closer look. “Bailey.” he smiled wearily, and Bailey saw that it was Chester Barron. “You came to save me?” “Err…” Bailey thought for a moment, then said “Yes! Come with me, I’ll get you cleaned up.” Barron left his home in the burnt out car and limped on bare feet in his shredded clothes alongside Bailey to the subway and then down under the town. “It’s so beautiful down here, don’t you think?” Barron said looking around the catacombs in amazement. 409

“We’re nearly there.” Bailey said, helping the big man along a little. As they entered the last cave, Jayne stood up and walked to them. “Doctor Barron?” she said shaking his hand. “Do I know you?” he said squinting at her. “I know of you.” she said. “What are you doing here in this place?” He looked at Bailey in confusion, and Bailey said “He got stranded here during the last escape. Maybe Chester would like to explain the rest of the story.” “Oh, you poor thing.” Jayne said, and walked Barron to a seat close to the lava heated plate. “Please, don’t pity me.” he said miserably. “I suppose if I don’t tell you now, Bailey will somewhere down the way. I take it this isn’t common knowledge?” “No. Most people in the colony don’t even know there was an escape.” Bailey shrugged. “Well, I can be glad for that. It was my fault you see. They bought me off, the men from the citadels. They said they’d make me an officer here in this city. When it all went wrong 410

this was the only place I could think of to go. But look, it was all a dream. Lies conjured by those serpents in the tower.” “And you fell for it?” Jayne said shaking her head. “So many dead.” he said solemnly. “And why? Why did it have to be this way?” “Let’s get some food going.” Bailey pointed to the hot plate, and Jayne brought some fish. They sat and ate the fish bits while talking a little further. Barron seemed to have calmed by now, and Bailey began to talk to him more in depth. “There’s a few things I’d like to ask you, Chester.” he said taking a bite from his meal. “Like how you survived for this long out here. It’s been what? Four or five months” “With difficulty.” he said and continued eating. “Well, it seems like quite a dangerous place. I saw a few things when I went back up there today.” “Like what?” Jayne said, a little surprised. “Firstly, that creature, the squid, isn’t dead. I think we only stunned it. Or maybe I saw another one. The point being, is

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I saw a giant squid up there, that we should be on the look out for. Secondly, I saw something… else.” “You mean the dogs?” Barron said. “A lot of dogs, yes. But something besides the dogs.” “Insects.” Barron said. “Yeah. Mantises I think. About the size of a man. Maybe a bit bigger.” “And you left it until now to tell me?” Jayne said. “I didn’t want to scare you, but yes there are other creatures alive here. What do you know of them, Barron?” “I was attacked by one of those things.” he said, throwing a large fish bone onto the floor. “I managed to kill it, but I was starving so I… I ate it.” Jayne looked away to hide her disgust. “You know, they might be Lantians.” Bailey said looking up at him demonically. ”They’ve either mutated, or what I think is more likely, they evolved cross generation to match the Narcosian nature, once the dome was opened to the outer atmosphere.”

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Jayne looked at them both and said “Doesn’t evolution take billions of years? This only happened a hundred years or so ago.” “No.” Barron said, sounding a little ill. “Evolution makes changes at the same rate the environment changes. If there’s a cataclysm like what has happened here, evolution revolutionizes in leaps and bounds. Aaron’s theory is sound. They may well be the same species as us, or used to be.” “And you ate one.” Bailey smirked. Barron glared at him and said “Yeah don’t rub it in.” They lived there for another week, not venturing out of the cave incase they ran into any of the now indigenous life forms. After a week, Bailey left the cave and walked around to within earshot of the surface entrance, and heard from it a dull howl, that he suspected came from the squid creature. He returned to the cave to find Jayne and Barron talking beside the lake. “You have great bone structure. Do your people come from the south islands?” Barron said reaching to touch her face. Jayne pulled back, smiled and said “That’s real sweet.” 413

“Today.” Bailey said, interrupting them. “Get your things.” They all packed what little they had into the tiny shoulder bags, and then followed Bailey out of the cave to the surface. They walked at ground level through the main streets and outer factory districts to the cavern containing the Border Security pyramid. They followed Bailey up the steps and through the building to the long corridor of the officer’s mess. “We get out this way, Chester.” he said over his shoulder to him, as they huddled against the freezing drafts. “Stay close.” They walked along the length of the partially flooded corridor, with the only sounds from the dripping wet ceiling. Near the end of the corridor, Bailey stopped and stood still. The other two stopped behind him and waited to see what the problem was, if any. Bailey turned to the door to the room with the heavy lockup he had seen the other day. The metal door to it was closed now, and he was sure he hadn’t closed it when he left, so someone else had been through here and done it. He turned and stepped up to it, and then reached for the button to open it.

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He pressed it and the door slid away, and the three looked inside at the heavily scratched room. They found it was full of the mantis like creatures, who had somehow found the two corpses, and now had them laid out on the floor and were slicing down at them with the razor sharp ends of their arms. They all turned as the door opened, surveying them with their wider than normal eyes, and baring an enormously wide set of black jaws. One of them sliced down at the open stomach of the General, cracking through it to the plastic floor. Bailey pressed the button and the door closed shut, and then turned to them and calmly said “Ok, run.” Behind him the tip of one of the mantis claws sliced through the thin metal of the door, followed by a barrage of others as they clambered to chase their new prey. The three ran along the corridor toward the parking bay where the bikes still stood, while the creatures piled through the door behind them and began to give chase. “I hope the ice has melted.” Bailey shouted. “Barron you’re on the back. Forget the suits.” They ran out and both Bailey and Jayne jumped onto the bikes and began kick starting the motors. Both fired up almost immediately, and Barron, who had been apprehensive at first, moved to get on the back of Jayne’s bike.

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Jayne craned her leg around and kicked Barron back, and shouted “Live bait!” Barron slipped back over a patch of ice, and looked at Bailey who patted the wheel guard behind the seat and shouted “Let’s go!” Barron jumped on and held tight, and the bikes raced up and over the last hillock of ice that remained in the doorway. They jumped down onto the ice outside, and felt the harsh flow of cold winds over them. “Faster!” Bailey yelled, and Barron looked back to see the creatures leave the dome and run out onto the snow after them. They almost immediately stopped and began cringing against the sun, before retreating back into the darkness inside. “Keep your speed up!” Bailey yelled and pointed over at the heletank, that was still half frozen in the ice a few miles away.

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It had already seen them, and began its strange synthesized howl. It was frozen face down into the snow so that all of the weaponry under its wings were unable to aim at them. It fired its chain guns down into the snow and then launched missile after missile, causing huge mushroom clouds to bloom around it. Only one of its rotors had thawed out, which it spun constantly in a bid to give chase. But the other was frozen solid in the ice, and so they were free to ride back to the cable car, and then back up to their own city.

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Activity. It was late in the day, and the hour was late on the espionage of Aaron Bailey’s business. The computer Thom had set to crack Aaron Bailey’s more trusted office password had taken its time, as the password was so intelligently designed, but it had eventually found each of the characters that made it comprised. It was just a string of random numbers and letters, far from any recognizable word, which made it doubly difficult for password testing software to deduce. Now here he was armed with the passcode to the office unit of Colec Warehouse B. "We'll play it your way, Jayne." Thom hissed as he stepped from an elevator plate, in a heavily trodden lobby. Thom stalked into floor five Sagar building, and cautiously walked down the steel steps to the narrow gangway containing the office units. He was wearing a dark grey silken mask that covered his entire head, and similar matching gloves that would hide him from the surveillance grid and its AI personality recognition systems. He knew he’d have to be careful now as he approached the offices junctioning to Warehouse B. He walked up to it, and with it now being evening the place had emptied of haulage workers, but he was careful still in case there were any working late.

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Thom inputted the code and cracked open the door and then slowly closed it behind him once inside. He was standing in a front reception office that was now thick with dust, and with most of the office furniture shoved back and piled away from the two doors. He moved over to the inner door and listened close to it. There was a patting of paws and a growl, and Thom whispered “I knew it.” He took from his pocket a piece of raw meat he had marinated with a strong dose of tranquilizer. On opening the door very slightly the dog within began barking fiercely while scratching at the gap. “Son of a shit.” he said and managed to flip the meat around and into the warehouse. Thom tugged the door shut again and then sat with his back to it waiting and listening. Eventually after listening to the hound chew the meat down, the paws and growling stopped, and Thom stood up. He opened the door fully and looked within, and saw beyond a parking and mechanics bay, the dog limping into a strange workshop. Thom chuckled and walked through to it and kicked the dog on its side, where it lay and panted. Thom scanned around the workbenches, and the designs and robotic equipment that Bailey had half constructed and tested meticulously each night here in the unit.

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He looked them all over panting fog through his mask into the cold air of the place, until finally he found the wall that led from the reception door to through the workstation. As he'd passed by it in the low light he hadn’t noticed what now was glaringly obvious. Thom looked the wall over from left to right, reading what was spread all across it. He then held his head, and staggered as his legs weakened and his mind became dizzy. Thom fainted and fell backward onto the floor, beside the panting dog. Across town, at the ridge outside of the Old Gang districts, Bailey, Jayne and Barron returned. They were greeted from the cable car by a group of thugs led by Josep and Nash Fincle. While the Fincles shook Bailey’s hand and ushered himself and Jayne back into the colony, the thugs set about beating Chester Barron within an inch of his life. Above them an after storm of the winter began with an unravelling of thunder. They took time to get freshened up before leaving Old Gang territory. Bailey headed back to the East Syndicate building and the Colec warehouses, while dropping Jayne off at the nearest safe district in the North.

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Jayne watched Bailey drive off to the south and then began walking along the grimy streets below a series of apartment towers. As she turned a corner onto a particularly abandoned alley she saw a Border Security car pull up and stop. Quite a few officers got out and approached her, led by someone she recognized as Kane Minik. “Hello Jayne.” he said with a half broken smile. “Good day, Officer Minik.” she nodded as she backed away from the crowd. She backed far enough to bump against a poster abused wall. Above them, high above the dome the storm continued to ripple its thunder. “Sources in Old Gang tell me you’ve been to the other dome. Now I can’t prove this of course as your close friend Aaron Bailey has a bad habit of covering his tracks quite well.” Jayne looked at him in silence, sinking back into the fur collar of her coat. Minik went on, “I’d hate to think you’d fallen in with a crowd like that, Jayne. I mean, I feel a little responsible for you, ya know?”

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Jayne remained silent, realizing how unorthodox this encounter had become. The other officers seemed as wounded and fixated as Kane himself. “We’ll be in touch again. So be good.” Minik said turning away with the others while pointing at her briefly. Jayne watched them depart while more thunder rolled over the dome roof above. Back at the unit in the Sagar building, Thom awoke, and was pleased to see that the dog hadn’t. In a daze he stood back up and steadied himself on his feet. “Oh hells!” he whispered, holding his head through the mask. Realizing the time, he took one last glace at the weird wall and quickly walked to the door and left the warehouse. Once outside he heard voices from above, from the nearest elevator to Warehouse B, and ran to hide behind an office unit across the way. He looked up at the platform, and saw there Bailey making his way down and then walking across to the unit. Thom hid and listened as Bailey inputted the code and entered the place. It would be less than a minute before he realized that his dog wasn’t sleeping, and had been doped.

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Thom didn’t waste time, and so gave the command to unlock the skates, and silently rolled around and past the office door. He walked carefully and quietly up the steps up to the elevator, and then within seconds was heading down to the lobby. Thom made it back to his home at the factory, and skated around it to the storm drain, and then down through the tunnels to the oval window. Jayne was waiting there, standing looking out over the mountains. He walked up beside her and watched them with her. After a while she said “I was wrong. You were right I shouldn’t have gone.” Thom looked at her, knowing what he knew, and said “Stay here with me. Stay close from now on. Something bad is about to happen.”

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A Bit of Me Time. So far so spit. Our love is bleeding… Bailey sat in the workspace in the warehouse, slumped on a high stood against the bench. He typed a couple of instructions into the desk holo-terminal behind him without looking. It pulled the infrared security recordings that he had hardwired to the warehouse himself. The various holo screens were projected over the floor and the sleeping dog, and he watched as the intruder sneaked into his private space, appearing as a bright shining silver figure of a man. “Bastard.” Bailey said, since whoever it was had infused his mask and clothing with a silver particulate gloss, that reflected all penetrating light back at the cameras. Bailey switched the screens off, and the holographic ionized gas began to dissolve in the air. He stared forward until the dog came to, stood back up and shook itself off. It cocked its head at Bailey and whimpered slightly. “I could pull the images and sounds out of your furry little head.” he stared wide eyed at it. “But it may not be necessary. I’m sure whoever it was will reveal themselves soon enough.” The dog whimpered a little more stepping forward a little.

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“We don’t have much time. Time to pull in the web.“ Bailey said, and stood up. He walked across to his jacket on a stand, and took out his multi-com. He dialled Bede Sagar’s number and waited for her to pick up. “Bede? I’m back, darling. I’m sorry, but I really think I may have done something wonderful for our futures. Wendall’s fine too. She was fantastic.” he said in a low voice, and then bit his lip and said “I need to speak with you about something. Dinner, tonight… Eight is good for me. I appreciate it. I love you, Bede.” Bailey hung up and stood in silence for a few moments while his mind cooled again. He walked across to the workbench where he had lain the small shoulder bag he had brought back with him. From it he brought the old sphere and pushed out another of the EMP devices. He gripped it in a large vice, brought a set of three unmagnetised screwdrivers and began a combination of prizing apart the two halves of the blue ball, and unscrewing the tiny screws that were revealed within. Once they were each laid on the workbench he separated the two hemispheres and laid them side by side with a gathering of nanowire bundles strewn between them. Bailey began fishing around the drawers and boxes in the workroom, finding spare parts that exactly matched those that had been used to make the device. He had already established from Colec’s diary that the EMP emitter had 425

been designed and constructed in this place. All he needed was the functional device to work from, and a with few rare mineral nano-circuit boards dissected from the device he could employ his own knowledge to titrate the device's settings, for a much bigger bang. Bailey worked through the early morning and lunch time and on into the afternoon. In the end he had a perfectly resealed blue orb, only with far more dangerous internals. It would emit the same pulse of electromagnetic energy that had worked so well in the other dome, but enough to fry the central nervous systems of even the thickest pill head. Happily he clapped his hands and petted the Romano, much to it’s content. Not wasting time, Bailey then dialled the number for Nash Fincle, and said “Nash, it’s me. I have what you need. I’ve checked it over, and it’s all still working fine. I need to meet with you and the preacher. Then I think you’re good to go.” After this call he made his way from the Sagar building across the lower highways to Old Gang Central. He drove directly between two leering effigies of the monstrous brothers and into the district. Without earplugs this time he drove through to the stable-lanes of the Old Gang block and got out in the pumping sound and pulses of light from the other side. Bailey let his valuable sportscar roll to the stables without a second thought. His car would be safer here than anywhere

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else in the prison since nobody in this district would mess with the cars of Old Gang. He strode across the hollow to the lobby and ran up the stairs a couple of levels to the VIP club. The sound insulation on the windows and walls blocked out all noise of the partying from the army of degenerates on the other side of the district. The atmosphere within was one of dulled respect. Bailey now knew, if there was one thing to remember about the Fincles and the arseholes they frequented with, it was that they liked their space, and their respect. Bailey walked slowly up to a table full of these characters. “Nash.” Bailey smiled and stood waiting for him to stand up. “My good man.” Nash said and then joined him, this time without his brother. Nash Fincle and his two minders left the people he had been with and walked with Bailey out of the club and through to a staff passage that led to the inner parking lots of the stables. They walked out onto the cold concrete within the lot, keeping to the side as cars swung by up and down the ramps on automatic drive. At an empty parking bay Bailey pressed his key and the car came from above and parked beside them. He then opened 427

the boot of the car and let Nash look at the folded tripod shaped droids within. “Enough here to keep an army busy.” Bailey said and closed the boot. “And over here we have our secret weapon.” Bailey reached over the front seats into the glove compartment and produced one of the EMP emitters he had made himself. “So this is it? And it works?” Nash looked at him harshly. “Tested it already. Knocked out a giant squid, if you can believe that…” “I’ll take your word for it.” Nash said looking it over carefully, holding it to the light. “But will it work on robotics?” “It blew the shit out of the dome control tower, and I was standing over a mile away. This thing is powerful, man.” Bailey said with earnest. “Those old boys ramped the frequency higher than anything I’ve ever seen outside of a dynasty grade lab. Hat’s off to them, I say…” “And now its mine.” Nash looked up with a cold grin, and Bailey smiled back. “You’re going to kick this colonies ass, friend.” Bailey said. “This planet will remember the name Old Gang.” 428

“Like they don’t already.” Nash grinned. “My boys will collect this stuff. Then we’ll meet with my brother and Francine.” “Francine Adyms?” Bailey smiled. “How’s it going with my old colleague in crime?” “She’s a star, Bailey. I can’t thank you enough for introducing me to her. I wouldn’t have looked twice at her under normal circumstances.” “That’s why I got you involved. I could see potential fireworks there.” Bailey smiled in his way. Bailey handed over the droids and the EMP device to Nash’s aids, and then watched them return to the corridors in file with the huge bags. Nash leaned on the roof of the sports car and said “Well, I hope this works. This needs to work.” “Be confident it will.” Bailey said looking at him over the roof. He ordered the car to park, and Nash looked at him within the dancing light from outside, and said “You do believe me don’t you? Me and Morton both want to change things… My grandfather has suffered my temperamental family for too long… as has the city. Once the worse elements are back with the rest of Old Gang in the empire,

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we can really begin to make a difference. And I know… this regrettably includes my brother.” “It does, I won’t lie to you.” Bailey said sharply as they walked toward the closest stairwell leading down to the throbbing party grounds. Nash took Bailey out of the block and around the dancing crowd. They walked through the outer wastegrounds where there were less intoxicated junkies and drug lords, all the way around to the graffiti-thick Naturalistic Mind church. They avoided the sermon hall and instead walked up the tall flight of stone steps to the top floor. The steps were steep and were uncomfortable to climb, and led to a kind of broad, shared dressing room for the evangelists. Bailey observed the various pains these reverends went to before they presented themselves to the hungry flock. A stone archway at the rear led to the annex of the church. Through it they walked deeper into the bowls of the place, through a claustrophobic stone corridor. At the back of the annex they entered a gaudy red and green furnished social lounge where they found Reverend Dane Angell sitting in the corner, talking to Francine Adyms and Josep Fincle, at a table below a long stained glass window. “Dane.” Nash said and the reverend broke his conversation.

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“Greetings children.” Dane said as he, Josep and Francine stood up and walked across to meet them. “This must be good news.” Francine said, and kissed Nash on the lips. “You could say that.” Nash then nodded. “Bailey has delivered the droids we need, and also an added bonus.” “Colec’s device?” Josep asked with a broad smile. “This is right. It’s a powerful EMP grenade. Perfectly safe to humans but deadly to the old screw heads.” Bailey said. “Josep, you and the team won’t need to waste any more time now. I need to ask you a few things about the robot center. The whole plan hinges around the technicality that the heletank is based there. You must be sure.” “It definitely is.” Dane said, ushering them to come and sit by the huge stained glass mural looking out over the back of the church. “All of our records show it. The church made an expedition there about three hundred years ago. They found the heletank launch bay within, and also an interesting story.” “It’s a Mainframe cell. A remote part of The Lord.” Bailey said, having heard the story prior to this. “Something went haywire with it so they shipped it to work here on Narcosia. A little slice of harmony technology to keep us in line.”

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“Correct, and it’s the missing link behind a lot of the little puzzles we face here in the city.” Dane went on. “Our expedition to the smallest dome found within it a female AI, that was to be linked into The Lord network before her own exile. The computer told us of her story, that she had found something distasteful about the imperial mainframe, and rebelled against it. She had originally been designed as the global AI of a new agriculture planet under the Cequodus dynasty. All was going well until she was networked into The Lord, where she suffered a massive psychotic break. Once merged with the crowd of AIs within The Lord system, and privy to all that they knew, she became unfit to handle the massive levels of responsibility that went with taking care of the peoples of a world.” Josep booted up a small holo terminal and expanded the display. It showed surveillance recordings of streets, paths and mall ways, with each of the recordings showing what looked to be a sandstorm blowing in, and the occasional ghostly figure of a woman walking or gliding by within before the sandstorm blew back out again rapidly. Dane went on “The woman’s mind deteriorated, ending in multiple psychotic episodes on the planet; some homicidal, slaughtering thousands with the typically passive terrafoming-dust. The colony suffered many further disasters before Cequodus pulled the plug. Then they were left with an out of control world management system, with a unique software architecture that they wanted to study further. They also now had the Narcosia exile colony, which had grown very large in the century or so since its creation. So they hardcoded control braces onto her mind, and installed it as the robotic control center of the colony. She called herself Netic, since she can’t remember much of her 432

existence before being exiled, or the reasons why it had happened at all.” “Quite a story…” Josep said, as he stood by the stream of recordings. “If she was telling the truth.” “She had no reason to lie.” Dane said. “And this new surveillance we’ve decrypted shows her abducting the exiles, taking them away toward the catacombs below the city. They must lead to the citadels somehow, although we’ve never found the path.” “If we only knew why they were taking us, we could give them people we wanted rid of anyway.” Josep snarled in his way. “I might have an idea about that, but trust me, you don’t want to know.” Bailey said grimly. “It is she creating these murals we see everywhere in the city. The Citadels aren’t there. It’s almost like she’s trying to tell us something. Something she feels we should all know.“ “So all these terraforming books we have in the colony, they all came from this AI?” Bailey asked. “Yeah, there are always the books. Man’s only way to control the God like power of The Lord.” Dane said. “All world craft is done by her dust. She and the dust are homed in the smallest dome, along with your heletank, a lesser AI she considers something of a pet. You’d better hope she’s 433

in a good mood when you meet her, otherwise you’ll need to use the EMP grenade. It should knock her for six, maybe even kill her completely, but will also destroy the heletank. You can negotiate with her, to take the heletank. Bailey and I are sure of it. She is not fully under their control.” “Well we know the heletank can enter orbit.” Josep said. “We have long range photographs of it playing its weird games in zero gravity. And there is a cockpit within, that may or may not be manned sometimes. We’ve tried to calculate the size of the cockpit from the dimensions we know, and we think we can fit most of our family inside, for the journey into space.” “It’s a good plan. Credit to whoever thought of it.” Bailey smiled. “You’re a genius, Bailey. We’d be lost without you.” Josep said patting his leg. Dane looked at them both and said “I would try to talk you out of it, but I know it’s pointless.” “You should come with us.” Josep said. “And you Nash.” “I need to finish my work here on Narcosia.” Dane said grimly. Nash simply shook his head and said “My new life is here with Francine. A new dawn for all of us.”

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"Then we leave tonight." Josep snarled with a dark elation, catching everyone's attention. "As you wish." Dane nodded. Bailey shrugged and patted Nash and Francine on the shoulders. After their meeting at the Church of the Naturalistic Mind, it was beginning to get late. Bailey returned to the Old Gang block and called his car, then took it up onto the crystal highways. He rushed back to the East Syndicate village and was just in time to pick up Bede Sagar outside of her home. She was very well dressed, and as she entered the car Bailey found her smell just as wonderful. She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. “Welcome back.” she said and sat back. Bailey drove across the regular highways to the central metropolis, and down to the main street. They got out and let the car park itself, and then walked along the Sagar Strand, to a line of restaurants that this side of the main street was famed for. They went to a nice, small restaurant with a central continental feel, and sat on a two seater table. 435

They ate a meal, while Bailey tried to make the fictitious expedition to the western narco-harvesting gangs sound more interesting and plausible. Jayne’s fictitious role in it all seemed to win her favor and so Bailey quit when he felt he was ahead. After the meal Bede sat back and said “What is this really about?” “I have something to ask.” Bailey said, and brought a box from his pocket, and placed in on the table between them. She took it and opened it, finding an engagement ring within. “Marry me?” Bailey said, and Bede looked up at him in awe.

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Come Strictly. Darkness had already fallen over the East Syndicate village when they returned. “I’m so shocked!” Dora Beldin cried out and hugged Bede and then Bailey. “I’ll send the word out immediately. Another wedding on the colony, I don’t believe it! Double wedding, me and you!” Dora ran out of the Sagar home as fast as her age would allow, and they turned to face Bede’s family. They all seemed quite happy apart from some of the older Sagars, who found it hard to be happy about anything. Lon Sagar came to them next, and said “Well you certainly got Dora all exited. It was bad enough with ours but now she’s going to be impossible to handle.” Bailey winked at him and took a drink that Lon had brought for him. “Did she say she was going to go around all the gangs?” Bailey looked at him comically. Lon nodded then sipped his drink and walked past him. He skipped toward the front door and said over his shoulder “I’d better go with her. Just to be on the safe side!” A few of the others present stood up and they gestured for them to sit. They talked with Bailey and Bede for a long 437

time about when and where they wanted to do the ceremony, since there was an abundance of churches in the neighbourhoods, with most of them being orthodox Naturalistic Mind. There was the question of if it should be a double marriage with Dora and Lon, but Bailey brushed it aside. He said they wanted to do it as soon as possible, since everyone knew that Lon and Dora were taking forever to get around to actually tying the knot; such was their age. In the late hours, young Gwyn Sagar went to the holotheatre and said “Party time I think! Finally something worth celebrating.” The music began and a few of them sang along, while the others laughed and drank themselves into a quiet. They all drank heavily into the night, while colony postal robots began relaying into the living room, ferrying in gifts from the various families and gangs across the prison. It was a time to drop all hostilities, not that there were many anymore, and once Old Gang had left the little planet, there would be next to none. Bailey again was unaffected by his alcohol. He waited until they had sung themselves into a stupor and then got up from his chair. Bede tried to pull him back but fell back on the sofa. “I need to pick up some friends. More party people!” he said, and Bede waved him away.

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When he saw they were all either asleep or dozing, he took a small box wrapped in colourful paper from his coat pocket and threw it behind the other presents. Bailey left the house and ran along the road to intercept and collect his car. From the East Syndicate village he drove to the biosphere and the desert pier and ran across the sea to the door, which was standing wide open. “God, you guys are dumb.” he hissed to himself as he side stepped through it and continued to sprint on down to the elevator. He took the elevator down to the oil lake, and there met with two members of Old Gang. They stood on the opposite side of the fizzing lake to the testing hut that Bailey had used in the first breakout. “You’re late, Bailey. I take it you still haven’t found the key card.” an old man said as he suited up in an air tight plastic diving suit, being careful to tuck in his long beard . It was one of the elders of Old Gang Bailey knew from way back, Morton Fincle. He was too old to make a break from the moon with the rest of his family, and was luckily one of the few of them with any tech-savvy. He was accompanied by his bloated wife, Gemm who fussed over the head piece, and its two clear plastic covered eye holes.

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“I’m sorry, Morton. This is the only way in for now. Just remember to enter those commands I taught you. It will connect to my programs, that I installed from the first escape. The rest will do itself. And be careful when crossing the lake. Just remember, its boiling sh…” “Yeah yeah. I know. I was born and bred in the stuff.” he said and turned to kiss his wife on the cheek. “Back in a sec.” Morton fitted the mouth piece between his teeth, and the two small oxygen tanks under his arms, and then the hoodpiece was sealed air tight. Bailey helped Gemm sit Morton on the side of the boiling lake. His feet dangled down into the oil, as the dark lime green suit insulated against the audibly searing heat. “Hold on tight!” Bailey shouted over the hissing, and handed Morton the wire that looped across the lake from the edge, under the control room and up through the testing pool within. Typically sampling beakers would be dragged through as part of census sweeps but now they'd need to use it to access the room containing Bailey's old hacks. Bailey handed the other end of the blue rope to Gemm, and shouted “Hook it over the wheel behind you! It belongs there!”

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As she turned, Bailey slipped a shiv from his sleeve and tore a short hole in the back of Morton’s suit. The noise in the room was so loud, neither of them heard the tear. Gemm returned and Bailey took hold of one of the ropes with her. “We won’t have much time! Ready? Go!” Bailey yelled and kicked Morton into the lake. They both began pulling as fast as they could on the rope, dragging Morton through the tar-like waters, until closer to the control room he was pulled beneath the surface. After a little more pulling the rope stopped, as if Morton had become caught on something. Bailey tugged a few more times gently, then shouted “Maybe he’s made it!” “I think he might be stuck!” Gemm said worriedly. “Stay here! I might be able to see something through the door!” Bailey shouted and jogged off around the lake to the door, which was just out of sight of where Gemm was standing. Bailey, who actually did still have the key card from the first escape, swiped it in the lock and entered the oval control room.

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The upper air was still filled with flies even now, as the extractor still had not been fixed. He glanced at the bubbling pool at the back corner, and seeing no sign of Morton Fincle ran across to the control panels, and tapped in the codes required to lock down the robot defence grid. “Don’t want you getting killed to soon, do we?” Bailey smirked. He was about to leave when he heard a groan from behind him, and turning saw Morton slowly dragging his oil filled body suit from the burning lake. He crawled up the sloping metal shore and Bailey walked over to him. Squatting down beside him, Morton reached up an angry claw as if to strangle him. Bailey unstuck the rope from his other hand and wrapped it around a part of the fence so he couldn’t be pulled back, then smirked down at him and said “What a fucking hero.” Bailey turned his back and left the control hut, sealing the door behind him. He ran back around to Gemm who was still anxiously looking out over the lake. “I can’t see a thing. I’d better tell the others.” Bailey said then dialed up Josep Fincle’s number. “Josep, I don’t think this has worked.”

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“Bailey!” Josep yelled with excitement. “The robots are dead! You did it! Just get my grandfather out of that hole and we’ll do the rest. I am genuinely indebted to you, I promise!” The phone was cut off, and Bailey said “Morton must have done it. The grid is down.” Gemm said nothing, and began crying. She tugged a few times on the rope, which was tied to the fence within the control room. Bailey knew he didn’t have much time now, and knew there was no decent excuse for leaving her, so simply patted her on the shoulder and ran back into the elevator. Luckily she was too upset to notice, and Bailey left her in the room, and returned as fast as he could to Colec Warehouse B. He ran up to a computer console in the corner of the unit workshop, and tapped in the commands to switch it on, and then onto the right program set. A set of other high definition holographic screens flickered into existence over and around the main holo-dish. Something flickered into life on the far right screen, and then the rest. They were images fed from the cameras on each of the tripod droids he had given to Josep Fincle. The Fincle family had descended to the crater basin in the cable car and now stood in a gathering listening to Josep. There was a slight snowfall, but a mostly clear evening, and you could just see the robotic dome in the distance. One of 443

the views looked back over toward the colony, and a huge outflow spewing water that had not been recycled, out in a thick flood to a horrid brown lake at that side of the basin. Josep Fincle stood gesturing to the large party he had assembled, consisting of young and middle aged men and women. The fully extended droids stood behind him, gripping the rock with their spindly legs through the snow. The cameras at the tips of worm like metallic stalks moved here and there, surveying each of them. Bailey tapped a few more commands and a synchronized audio fed through from each. He finally tuned in and heard Josep addressing the other members of his extended family. “I treasure each and every one of you, I do.” he said, with more earnest than he had ever heard in his voice, and a note of sadness. “Today finally we will realize our sweetest revenge. For too long now they’ve locked us away from the colonies, holding us back from the glory of our past. Now they will fear us once again. Tonight we will return to the colonies and start anew. For Vengeance!” Josep raised a balled fist at the night sky, and the party cheered. They then turned and began walking briskly toward the smaller dome. The main planet was on the far side of the moon, so there was very little light to guide their long journey. “Oh man, that was touching.” Bailey muttered. “Let’s inject some fun into the evening.”

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Bailey began patching into the connection he had created in the oil processing plant. He patched the signal from a bouncer program on the terminal there, to bouncers in deeper areas of the communications trunk of the colony. The signal bounced right through to the central computing department of the citadels, and although he could only imagine what the place looked like, the systems were very familiar. He patched through to the cloaking force field generator, and began overclocking the power matrix. The cloaking generator used massive amounts of power each second to keep the whole of the citadel zone constantly invisible. There were safeguards in the computer programs that controlled and regulated it, but could be bypassed by corrupting them with malware injected at the software update system. Once this had been done, Bailey was free to increase the power input to the generator, and bypassing safe levels the generator began to overheat. As the Fincles pressed on through the gentle cold air, in the distance to their right the dark grey citadels suddenly came to sight. They stood towering up from their wide base, reaching up from a tall, manmade crater near the center of the overall basin. They faded into the wispy cloud high above, with their narrow tips only just visible. There were red and white lights up and down it, and other, brighter lights shining up from inside the crater. “Oh God, look!” one of them shouted and pointed at them.

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They all turned and gasped at it. “What’s going on? That’s never happened before.” “Keep going.” Josep yelled from the back, and then looked as a giant ball of fire rolled up into the air from between the citadel bases. The cloaking generator within the zone had caught on fire, pouring smoke up into the evening air, not that the Fincles had a real comprehension of what had happened. They continued onward toward the small dome. The smooth snow cover of the basin became more rocky after a few hours and then progressively the rocks became larger and more jagged. They followed a fissure through them, that had resulted in a wide separation between the larger rocks. It had been spotted with telescopes and figured into the plan from the outset. The light around faded as they got closer to their destination. Josep, who was already on edge started as someone shouted out “Where’s the droid backup?” They all stopped and looked behind them, where Bailey’s droids had been following them across the rocks. Now they had all gone without any of them hearing a thing. They

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looked around but could see nothing, and in the growing darkness it was yet more difficult. Josep lit a few green stick-lamps and threw them to a few of the others. They continued on a short way until one of them cried out in pain. Josep pushed past two of the women with a torch and saw his younger cousin Lukan wrapped up in wire, that was slowly tightening and cutting through his clothes and skin. A light shone from up on the rock hill behind him, illuminating the droid, and the wire it had fed down to his cousin. “Help him!” Josep yelled, unable to think of anything else to say. A few of them began clawing at the wires but became cut themselves. Then suddenly the droid retracted it’s wire and pulled Lukan from the other’s arms. He flew up the rock face to the droid, where it wrapped a set of jagged claws around him. Lukan cried out as it squeezed tighter, and then the droid exploded, showering the Fincles with his blood and flesh. They all cried and groaned, and began running forward toward the small dome, that loomed out of the murky darkness ahead.

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Josep watched as more of them were plucked from the group, and dragged away in the direction of the explosion that followed. “It’s that friend of yours, Josep!” his uncle yelled back at him. His uncle immediately stopped running, and Josep caught up with him as his head fell away from his shoulders. Josep cried out in horror, and ran through the crowd, as more of them fell dead or were dragged away through the rocks. There was laser fire from ahead, hitting and incinerating two screaming women. He jumped aside as one of the shots flew by into the crowd, getting clear of the path where most of the violence seemed to be focused. He landed on a slate of rock that led down to a deep ravine that ran along side the path and then the robot dome. “Ok, Bailey” Josep yelled, as he skidded to the bottom of the flat of rock. “You want an enemy? Try this!” Josep took the EMP device from his pocket and threw it up at the scuttling droids. The EMP wave burst out of it slicing through the droids and the rest of his family beside them. Immediately he felt the dizziness of the blast, and the pouring of blood from his nose. His hearing had been

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damaged momentarily, and as it returned he heard the screams of his family up on the path. In a daze he scrambled up to them, and then looking ahead saw that a group had broken away from the main party, and were running along the compacted sand between the rocks and the dome. Josep made a decision, and left the wounded to die, and began chasing after the others who had now reached the wide arch leading into the dome. He had almost reached it when he heard the voice of a woman. “Such dangerous ignorance!” it said softly but with a powerful volume. Josep just reached the opening as a tidal wave of fire coursed out of it, knocking him back onto his bum. The fire died and Josep crawled forward on his hands and knees, and looked around through the open shaft, into the dome. The shaft led a distance into it, to a wider cavern, and within it hung the apparition of a blackened woman, fused into the dust of the nano-circuitry. More dust swirled around her, obeying her every command, and threatening to erupt into another blaze should anyone she dislike enter her abode.

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The blackened corpses of his family lay on the ground at her feet. Suddenly she looked at him, glaring and judgmental, and Josep scrambled back and to his feet. He ran back toward the others, who he now saw were dead, and being incinerated by fire breathed out from Bailey’s droids. He stood a moment on the edge of tears beneath the emotionless moons at their different distances, wishing he had some threat to issue Bailey, but there was no point. One of the droids turned its lens toward Josep and he panicked and ran away. He jumped down the slope of rock again, stopping just before the edge of the deep crevice. The droid walked after him casually, and Bailey watched through its lens as Josep found a deeper ledge to drop to, then running further along it around the side of the dome. Bailey instructed the droid to follow but at a safe distance and height. Josep dropped down to the lowest of the reachable outcrops along the inside of the ravine wall. It was a broad but high sided ledge, where the mists that filled the bottom of the gorge spilled over the ground slightly. Josep panted in the thick frosted air, and looked up to see if the droid had followed. The droid was standing on the ledge over him, with its stalk craning the camera to watch.

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He sighed slightly and looked around, then finding a series of shrouded figures standing at intervals along the far side of the crevice wall. He looked around himself and saw a number of them on the near side too. “Ah.” Bailey smiled. “I knew they’d come.” Bailey watched through the lens as one of the strange bounty hunters jumped down into the field of vision, and then walked right up to Josep along the ledge. At the last few steps it lunged at him, while Josep reached down into the knee high mists and brought a large slab of rock around to strike it. The slap cracked hard against the head area of the shrouded figure, and as it staggered back, Josep swung again and again pounding whatever it was within the cloak to a pulp. The Sheriff wasn’t moving now, and lay with its thin, plastic-bandaged legs and arms protruding from its cloak. Josep kicked it with his foot and then lifted the shroud to look at its face. Bailey watched closely, unable to see as Josep blocked his view. He frantically tapped out more commands, to call more of the drones to the site, to gain views from other angles. But it was too late, as Josep dropped the shroud and reeled back in shock. He had a burst of aggression and shoved the sheriff over the ledge with his foot.

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It fell out of sight, and then as more views were gained of the scene, two more sheriffs dropped onto the ledge at either side of Josep. Josep staggered to look around at them both, and reached down to pick up the slab he had used on the other. But the cold mist had begun to freeze his face and body, and he was unable to hold the slab. He dropped it beside his feet, and then stood with his fists up as the other two figures crouched in their shrouds, and bared their claws ahead of them. They dashed forward together and bit around his middle with enormous jaws pressed through the hugging fabric. Bailey watched from each of the lenses as Josep wailed weakly and flopped forward in their grip. Each of the droids focused their lenses from their various ledges on both sides of the lonely gorge. Some where close by the figures, who seemed to have little interest in them. After Josep had died, one of them took his corpse like a doll and threw it hard against the wall on the opposite side, where it burst slightly and then dropped down below the mist. The two that had killed him crouched and leaped up across the crevice, landing on the top at the other side.

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One of the closest cameras followed them as they stood up straight and calm, just like the others, and then walked by the lens as they followed the others across the high rocks. Bailey instructed the droid to follow them, keeping enough distance behind so not to threaten them. The droid reached a high point of rock that looked down on the first area of the flat basin on that side and its perfectly untouched expanse of snow. The sheriffs were returning to a broad shuttle craft that had landed on four low stilts. Once inside the ramp at the rear, the stilts retracted and the ship lifted slowly into the air, and then blasted off toward the shadow security ship in the sky. After a few more commands the droid that had been observing it all, melted down to liquid and spread over the rocks before cooling again. The others did the same, destroying all evidence of his droid network, and their connection to his bouncer system in the colony trunk. “Burn, my babies.” he whispered. Bailey smiled and shut down the computers. He then left the Sagar building and returned as fast as he could to the village of East Syndicate. He made it back to the Sagar house just as they were waking up. They were limping around with sore hangovers, and so Bailey faked one to match. Bailey walked past them and lay back on the sofa beside Bede as if crashing out. He reached and held her hand, and 453

looked at her as she woke. She smiled and kissed his hand, then held it to her face as she dozed. She then sat up and smiled warmly “Look at all the presents.” “I know.” Bailey said. “Robots mailed them in during the night.” “Just heard on the wire, Old Gang tried to escape last night.” Lazar Sagar said, leaning across the sofa at them. “No word on the damage yet.” Bailey shrugged at Bede and said “How about that?” Bede shrugged and said “How about those presents?” Bailey smiled and knelt beside the big pile of boxes. He took a few of the larger presents out onto the small glass tables and unwrapped them before her. There were some expensive gifts like a bracelet for Bede and a genuine antique global-trials trophy for javelining, from the homeworld. Such were the things of value on a world away from worlds. He unwrapped a few more, keeping the name tag beside each so they would know exactly who had cared, and by how much. “Oh look at all the gifts!” their grandmother, Kez Sagar said and waved the others to join them on the sofas.

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They all gathered around the gifts and began picking them out and examining them. “You two are so popular!” Kez beamed at them. Lazar said “It’s good to be with you, Bailey. You’re like a little bit of the world outside.” “I’ll take that as a compliment… I think.” Bailey smiled at him, and pointed at the small box he had added to the pile earlier. “What’s in the small one?” Lazar looked at it curiously and then began wrestling to open the wrapping that had been sealed with a lot of sticking tape. Bailey took from his pocket the ear and nose plugs he had used to buffer the intense sound frequencies in Old Gang central. I wonder if the rotten party has finally died. God those low lifes make me sick. Bailey shoved the nose plugs deep into his nose, and then the earplugs, and then stood up and walked across to the windows overlooking the village. Bede noticed and said “What are you doing? Don’t be silly.”

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Lazar pulled the wrapping apart and opened the card box within. He took out the blue device, that had been modded with a square holographic projector. It began ticking the moment it was removed, and then stopped, and emitted its pulse. The Sagar family were dead. Lazar vomited blood onto a glass table and fell onto it cracking it. Most of the others simply folded over where they sat. Bede’s head snapped back and she lay slumped back on the sofa. Where Bailey stood at the windows, the pulse struck him, and damaged him enough to make him stagger a few steps aside. He then straightened up slowly, and turned to look over the faces of the people he had killed. Whores. Corporate whores. They never cared for you. Bailey stopped as he saw someone he had cared for, and walked across to the sofa, and reached up to close Bede’s eyes. He looked away at the floor a moment, trying to find appropriate thoughts. The EMP device had done its job, and the holographic projector he had hardwired into it was displaying a worded message over it, that read “We are leaving. Enjoy your lives. Old Gang.” He removed the nose and ear plugs and swallowed them, then sat slowly down beside his ex fiancé. Bailey began to cry slightly, then stopped as he heard the front door slam open. 456

There were footsteps approaching and from the streets outside he heard shouting as people who had been hit by the afterwake ran to the house. They found the Sagar family dead, and Bailey lying beside Bede. They found him to be alive, and made pains to bring him back to consciousness.

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God in Perfection. “Just relax.” the nurse said, and dabbed her hand across Bailey’s brow. “You need to rest now. Is there anything I can get you?” Bailey had been moved to the civil infirmary that was located in one of the blocks of The Octagon, the centermost zone of the metropolis. It was mostly administered by robots, but there was also a workforce of nurses, he found, that were used to provide that bedside manner that the robots sorely lacked. They had given him a particularly attractive room, with holographic wallpaper that gave the faint illusion that he was lying in a bed, in the middle of a mustard coloured meadow. He could see the wall of the room through the illusion, but it still gave a pleasant effect. “I’d like a pack of cigarettes.” Bailey said, then caught the nurses attention again as she made to leave. “Oh and the Narcosia Chronicle. Oh and maybe… a milkshake. And errr… maybe a box of biscuits.” “No problem, Mr Bailey.” she said and leaned on the bed toward him. “I’m sorry for your loss. We all loved Bede Sagar. It would have been so good to see her raise a family here.”

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Bailey poked a tear in his left eye and said “We were one of the classic love stories of the cosmos. But like all the classics it has had a tragic end.” “I’m so sorry, Mr Bailey.” she said and left before he could see her cry. Bailey waited until she had gone then put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. He smiled, full of self satisfaction having completed all things he had envisioned, and lay that way for a moment more before opening his eyes. The first thing he saw was Thom Gubichayan standing in the doorway, with the second being Flynn Randall at his bedside. The last thing he saw in the hospital was Randall’s fist, as he landed a punch square in his face. Bailey woke up with a hood over his head, and his hands tied behind his back. He was lying on his side in a cramped space, which he guessed to be the boot of a car. He could hear the faint hum of an engine, and the sway as they turned each corner. The car stopped and the boot was opened, and two very strong hands grabbed him and pulled him out. There were no pleasantries as Bailey was pushed back away from the car. He staggered back, panting in the hood, and then heard footsteps approach, and the sound of skates on a wet surface.

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The hood was whipped off suddenly and a hand pushed him back hard. Bailey staggered back, and fell as his heels caught on something. He hit the ground and sat looking up as the two men came back into view in the car lights. Behind them he could see the fake night sky of the biosphere hologram, and then looking around he saw that they were on a single laned crystal highway at the very edge of the forest. The thin road had been smashed, with the rest of it half in and out of the water below. The covering tube here had been removed so they were out at the end of an open length of glass-like crystal. “What do you want?” Bailey stammered, genuinely afraid now. Randall laughed a slightly mad, lost laugh. “He wants to know what we want.” he said, and Thom shook his head. “What do you think this is about, creep?” Thom said. “Do you want money? I can get you…” Bailey stopped as Thom skated fast by him, hitting him across the side of the head with a knuckle duster. Thom skated around to stop where he had started, and watched as Bailey, who had been knocked back slightly, 460

righted himself and then opened his eyes to look. There was a red slyness in his eyes now, and it was clear that the mask had slipped. Thom and Randall were ready. “You know I could let myself out of these binds quite easily.” Bailey hissed. “I could kill you both so quickly and you’d never even know what struck you.” “Oh, we know.” Randall said. “That’s why we’re here.” “And why is that?” Bailey smirked blatantly. “What have I done? What can you prove?” “We’re not proving anything.” Thom smiled coldly. “You show us what we want or we spill your intestines all over those expensive shoes.” “Show you what, exactly?” he hissed. “Only what I’ve already seen.” Thom said. “Warehouse number B.” Bailey grinned with gritted teeth for a moment then burst out in a raucous laughter, that echoed out over the place. They drove Bailey to the Sagar building and hung a coat over his shoulders as they walked him into the block. They

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took an inner elevator upstairs to warehouse floor five, and made their way to the Colec properties. “I’ll need my hands.” Bailey said quietly, and Randall tore apart the plastic cuffs with his fingers. “Thank you.” he said and then walked up to the smaller office unit outside of Colec Warehouse B. He huddled around the keypad, as if they didn’t already know the access code. Thom and Randall stood inches behind him at either side. The locks within clipped open, and Bailey turned the handle, and smiled at them both before shouldering against it slightly. He hadn’t cleaned the place very much it seemed and now everything with was beginning to clam up. Bailey opened the first then the second doors and flicked the switch on the wall as he strode ahead of them into the darkness. The strip lighting all up and down the lockup came on in its way, shedding light on Bailey and his Romano fighting dog that he seemed to have fully domesticated somehow. Randall walked in apprehensively, as Thom rolled ahead of him. As they moved to the rear workstation Randall gained a shaky view of Bailey and his dog. Thom rolled around the dog and stopped with his back to the man. He reached down and stabbed a small needle into 462

the Romano, causing it to stagger slightly and then fall on its side. Bailey remained quiet, watching. As Randall stepped into the workroom, he surveyed all of the various half-built robotics that Bailey had been working on here in secret, and then following Thom’s childish pointing, he turned to look at the right hand wall. Randall began to see a mural of names, faces and dates, connected by pins and tied thread of different colours. It was intricate, and spanned the height and breadth of the wall right up to the gangway to the door. He stepped back to get a broader look at it all. There was Barton and Cix Beldin, and the various people associated with the first escape. The people who had died had green thread leading to crosses, while the ones who had survived had yellow threads leading ahead to later dates. There were brief descriptions below each, describing how they should die, not in the past tense as would be a documentation of something that had occurred, but in the future tense, as in something you were contriving to happen. He looked ahead to the plan featuring Old Gang, and how a network of droids would be used to monitor what would happen when they got close to actually exiting the planet. Then to the Sagar family, and his betrayal of their trust, and how his connection to the widowed heir, with the absence of most of the other heirs to the Sagar fortune, would be manipulated in the final plan. The final plan was what came next on the calendar, where very particular people had been earmarked as crucial to a successfully escape. Randall and Thom were a part of this, as was Wendall Jayne.

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Randall blinked away his tears. “He knew we’d find this.” Thom said. “The Beldins.” Randall said weakly, beginning to cry. “The Sagars. Those poor bastards from Old Gang. You killed them all you son of a bitch!” Randall lurched at Bailey to attack him with both hands, but Bailey moved also, grabbing Randall by his chest and lifting him high up into the air, with more strength than would naturally be attributed to someone of his size. Bailey turned Randall around in the air and pinned him up against the wall. “I had to do it!” Bailey almost pleaded at him, as Randall wept and hung limp from his hands. “Now Old Gang deserved everything they got. But the Sagars? How could we have brought them with us? They would have gotten us killed before we took three steps. And would you really have wanted to leave them here in this horrible place?” Bailey dropped Randall who barely caught his weight on his feet. “So who gave you the right to decide who lives and dies?” Thom said. “Me! I loved Bede! Realizing she couldn’t come with me, a decision had to be made. The same for her family?”

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“The Beldins?” Randall asked, standing up straight. “Barton and Cix were a mistake.” Bailey said, shaking his head. “I didn’t want them to die.” Thom pointed at the wall and said “There’s two lines leading to a big old X, just like all the others that died that day. And what about all the rest of the wall that you’ve painted over? After the bit of paper with ‘Escape’ written on it? You’ve pulled it all out and painted over it green.” “No!” Bailey looked down and shook his head. “I didn’t want the Beldins dead. It wasn’t my fault!” “What do you mean it wasn’t your fault?” Randall said, annoyed. “I want to know what you mean by that.” “I don’t believe you, Bailey.” Thom said arrogantly. “And I’m afraid there are going to be a few changes to your little plan. We’re taking over, and you’re taking a back seat.” “No! You don’t understand!” Bailey yelled. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand, trust me.” Thom said rolling slowly toward him. “We aren’t scared of you. And if you try your shite with me I’ll spill your guts and leave you behind.” Bailey backed away to the corner and looked away.

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“So be it then.” Bailey said quietly. “The plan is complete and foolproof. If we follow it to the dot, nothing can go wrong.” Randall walked alongside Thom and said “Credit where it’s due, Aaron. This plan will work, I think.” From the darkness at the back of the place, Bailey looked up at the two men. They walked away toward the gangway to the door, keeping an eye on Bailey as they went. “We’ll be coming back here soon.” Randall said. “Yeah we know where you live, dickhead.” Thom jibed, but nobody was in the mood to laugh. They left and Bailey stood for a few moments, before walking over to the mural on the wall. He peeled back a sticker over a piece of card that read “Randall and Thom lead”. Bailey tapped their names and smiled affectionately, before turning away and putting his hands on his hips. Bailey took out his multi-com and threw it onto the floor. He used it to voice dial up a number, and a moment later a hologram view of Nash Fincle was projected over the floor of the workstation. The view was of the inside of their mansion in an estate deep within Old Gang territory. He sat slumped over a 466

workstation between banks of monitors showing only static snow. He looked as if he was tired but persisting with his side of the escape plan. There were gunshots and explosions, and the sound of angry screaming from beyond the walls and windows behind him. “It’s late, friend.” Nash murmured, looking up. “All too late.” “Nash!” Bailey began. “Have you had any communication from the others?” “None.” he said with an anxiety rotted look around his eyes. “Can’t you log into those robots and see what’s happening?” “I’m sorry buddy. I’m not getting a signal from any of them. It might be fine, just keep trying on the coms.” “I will.” he said, and looked over his shoulder. “East Syndicate are here. They are breaking into the estate. They want me. I have something to tell you, Bailey. I think my family have murdered the Sagars. Just before they left, without asking me, they sent some sort of grenade inside an engagement gift. I think Bede might have been among them. I think my family might have killed her.” “Your family killed my Bede?” Bailey gave the conversation a mild lip service.

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Nash looked up with tears in his eyes “God I had no part in this, Bailey. You’ll tell them that, won’t you, Bailey? If I die tonight? You’ll tell Francine?” Bailey stared at him over the warped, flickering synchronization, and said “I really think you should tell her yourself, ya know.” “She won’t see me now. The Sagar’s were some of her oldest friends. And this hasn’t worked. I’m ruined.” he said, and then with a sad glance severed the communication. Bailey looked at the empty space for a second, leaning forward with his hands on his hips. After a long sigh he sat back against a bench and voice dialled another number on the multi-com. Someone picked up without speaking, or projecting an image. “Hi, it’s me.” he said. “I’ll be right over.” He left the warehouse and then the building, and drove to an apartment neighbourhood on the outskirts of the East Syndicate territories. He got out of the car on a stable-lane leading along the back streets of one of the huge apartment complexes, and let the car roll along and down a slope into it. 468

There were smoky smells from the factories in the neighbouring cavern blowing through here, and it reminded Bailey how lucky he was to have an apartment in his block. Bailey began skipping through the narrow back streets between the tall buildings. It was very late and the night light on the cavern ceiling bathed the place in a cool blue glow. He passed by the village center square, that was locked up at this hour with only a sleepy tavern winding into the late night. The narrow side streets became darker as he crossed through them, toward a raised hill of concrete on the outskirts of the town. He made his way up a long flight of steps in the side of the hill finally reaching a mini village at the top. He walked along the middle of the road there and into one of the linked cul de sacs. The street was broad, with open lawns on either side. It overlooked the apartments on one side and at the other the stone egg enclosure of the cavern could be seen, sloping down to a grass verge beyond. Bailey skipped to one of the homes on the side overlooking the apartments, and walked through a gap in a tall hedgerow, and through a lawn garden filled with trees and bushes cut into basic shapes. Bailey opened the door, and walked through the glass décor of the living spaces, past a baby in a cradle that began to cry on seeing his strange face. 469

He walked through to the sliding doors leading out onto the balconies, where the light wind flow drowned out the sounds from inside the house. He stepped out to the fence beside Francine Adyms, who wore her white, fur lined night gown loose in the warm air. “Are they dead?” she said, gazing out over the dark towers. “I don’t think so.” Bailey said. “They’ll spare Nash, if only to question him.” She slapped a hand on the stone wall of the balcony, and said “You promised to get me and my little one out of here… if I did what you said…” “You can trust me, Franky.” Bailey said looking at her. “You’re coming too. I just need you to play your part a little while longer.” She looked at him then nodded and said “I’ll try.” “I think they took out the Sagars before they went. It’s probably better you hear it from me.” Bailey said quickly. She slapped the balcony again and slowly sighed “Dammit! Dammit!” “You shouldn’t be alone tonight. Do you want me to sleep over?” Bailey asked, smiling.

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She looked back out over the moonlit rooftops and said “No, Bailey. It doesn’t feel appropriate.” Bailey looked away, disappointed, and turned his back on the view. He noticed something in the fake stars above, then looked at Francine and said “Then I guess it’s done.” Bailey walked back between the glass doors to the front room, and stopped as Francine said “Wait.” Bailey looked at her through the glass, while far off a horn sounded out over the night air from the factories.

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Part III No Man’s Land

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Feeding off the Bruise. This won’t matter. It can’t matter much to me. I’ve annihilated worlds, toppled kings, collapsed stars, damaged creation, threatened God. Just a planet. Just a night sky. Like all the others. “Where is he then?” Randall shouted over the noise, as he leaned against the railings of the bridge across the promenade. Many had gathered at the end of the bridge closest to the old Sagar building, led by Randall who had brought them here to meet with Bailey, concerning the escape. The whole thing was meant to be top secret, and so this location had been decided for the meeting months in advance. Traffic passed them a little too often for comfort, as the thoroughfare here had now been adopted by the exiles as a shortcut for anyone seeking to cross the bridge to The Octagon. They could drive through this hollow now at will in the absence of East Syndicates presence. The Sagar building was now mostly burnt out, with a fire still blazing at one side. Some of the building had survived the fire however, including Colec’s company and the warehouses. The glass elevators had been kept active beside the slimy concrete parking lanes that had overgrown somewhat in the months since the fall of East Syndicate. There were still a few other businesses running within the place, but without the overall coordination of the Sagars, 473

the lesser vulture-like gangs of the colony had swarmed in to loot the place. All of this had calmed by this time, and now it was a mostly quiet place, although it was wise to watch your back when in the vicinity. “Have you tried his flat? I mean… Gen Colec’s old apartment.” Thom yelled over the slow flowing wind. “He has a job to do!” Jayne said. “We’re going nowhere without his pocket book.” “We need Bailey!” Bethany Luk yelled, and the others present grumbled and nodded. “Ok, this is serious.” Randall said. “We need to find him quickly. Spread out, and put the word around. Me and Thom will check the flat again. Franky Adyms might have a key.” They dispersed, some back through to the Sagar block hollow to collect their cars, and some across the bridge to The Octagon opposite. Randall, Thom and Jayne went to collect a car, that they had parked behind a large sign advertising toothpaste, just before the bridges. They took it up onto the crystal highways, and down to the cavern containing Bailey’s apartment.

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They parked the car outside and walked into the tower and through the lobby. They called an elevator plate that rose up below their feet, as two other surly looking men joined them. They looked as if they wanted to be left completely alone, and so as they were lifted up through the shaft in the tower they kept to the opposite side of the glass platform. When they got off the antigravity elevator the other two continued on upward to a higher floor. The three walked along the quiet corridor to the door to the apartment of the late Gen Colec. Randall looked at the other two then knocked and raised his voice “Bailey? It’s us answer the door, please!” There was no reply, and Thom waved for them to leave. “No.” Randall waved back, and leaned to listen at the door. He then stepped back, and lunged at the door, kicking it hard and snapping it from its hinges. Part of the hinge landed loudly on the cold marble floors, while the rest of the door hung at an angle in the corridor within. Thom held his face in his hands, while Jayne shrugged and followed Randall into the apartment. “Bailey?’ Jayne said leaning around Randall. “It’s just us.”

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They crept through the place and finding the front room empty, but lived in, continued through to the bedrooms. Randall leaned to listen to the main bedroom door and then pushed it open with force. It slammed against the wall and they looked in at the bed. A non functioning colony robot could be seen lying under the cover shocking them just long enough to take them off guard. Randall felt the press of cold steel on his temple as Bailey held a gun to his head. “It’s just us.” Randall gritted his teeth. “You should be more careful, Randall.” Bailey said stepping out in front of them dressed in a robe and slippers. “I was about to say the same thing.” Randall said pointing at Francine’s clothes lying all over the floor. Bailey looked at the clothes and then walked toward them, pushing them back toward the living room. “Where the hell have you been, Bailey?” Jayne snapped. ‘Hiding out here with Franky?” “Alright.” he said. “There’s some things you should know.” They sat down in the living room and Bailey sat back in the rocking chair at the window. 476

“A week ago someone entered a bar in Old Gang Central, and placed a bounty on my head. I have no idea who it was but the sum was ginormous. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but I didn’t want to risk contacting any of you, and having the heat come your way.” “Hell.” Thom said. “I guess this complicates things. We need you to get out there. You’re the only one that can bring the rest of this plan together.” “I just need to hide out here for another week or two. Other bounties and easier pickings will come along.” “We don’t have a week or two.” Jayne said. “The window is opening now. We have to go within days.” “If I go out there this will find me. Bullets will find me. There will be a whole army of hitmen moving south as we speak. I just hope none of them figure out about this place.” Bailey rubbed his forehead. “Well who made the contract? Maybe we can sort it out with them?” Jayne said looking at the others. “It could be anyone, really. It could even be one of you.” he looked up at them, not smiling. “That would be a bit silly wouldn’t it?” Thom said. “We’d blow our own chances of getting off this stupid little moon.”

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“I’m pretty sure it was Nash Fincle.” Bailey said looking away, at the corridor to the bedroom. “It was just a matter of time before he found out I was tapping Franky.” “It seems a little strange that you would.” Randall said “You introduced them and now you’re shafting her? If you’ve got a reason for doing this then I’d like to know.” “No reason this time, friend. It just happens this way sometimes.” Randall shook his head and said “Look, the bottom line is we’re leaving. This plan is already in motion. We need you to do your part and contact these people. We don’t know them. They won’t listen to us.” “I know.” Bailey sighed. “I guess if it’s started… then I have no choice.” Bailey looked up at the window, and the daylight from between the towers opposite. “Damn I’ve been in here so long now. I feel a bit dizzy at the thought of going out there.” “No excuses.” Jayne said. “None of us can stay here any longer. We’ve all been involved in the events of the past year. We’re starting to stand out like sore thumbs. Eventually people are going to start blaming us, and in this place it’s a death sentence. Nash Fincle is trying to make something good out of Old Gang now, but even he won’t 478

ignore these rumors forever. And now you say he knows about you and his girl. It’s a mess, Bailey.” Bailey looked at them and said “Well… there’s always someone with a gun to your head in this place. I guess you can’t let it stop you.” Randall stepped toward them a little, and said “We’ll be fine. Just stay away from the North as much as possible. Bailey, we’ll stay in touch on the multi-com. You just get those people into the labs with us. We’ll do the rest.” “Pull together and prosper. The South Syndicate way.” Bailey said, looking up with a little smile. “Let’s rock this gig.” They walked out of the block and down to the street. Bailey said his goodbyes and watched as the three drove off, and then went his own way. He pressed the button on Colec’s stable key and his car rolled along the lane. “Officer Port Farnon.” he said as he sat in the driving chair, and the hologram route finder mapped out a course from his current location on the windscreen. Bailey took his multi-com and scrolled through the small hologram readout to the number for Farnon, and selected it.

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‘Hi buddy.” he said as Farnon picked up. “I need to talk with you urgently. Right now if possible. Is that fine? It’s good news and bad news mate. As per usual, I know. Alright buddy. I have your co-ords, I’ll be there in a sec.” Bailey took the car out onto the crystal highways over the biosphere to the Metropolis. Using the Sagar shortcut he crossed the promenade bridge to The Octagon district at the center of the city. The bridge led to the hospital building, where he left the car at hollow before making his way down to the central spread. He raised his pace, not wanting to be late, as he walked across the octagonal space, to the premium café and restaurant block on the opposite side, that had once been the Beldin block, and South Syndicate. The old sign was still up there, with the lettering removed leaving a clean scar that could still be read. He skirted past the central statue of the symbol representing the controlling royal house, that hovered over a gigantic fountain at the dead center of the city. It was the Cequodus Dynastic symbol, an inverted triangle within two close circles, that themselves represented the territorial dominion of the Eclipse Empire. Bailey clucked his tongue slightly as he glanced up at it and at the disturbance of water just below where it floated. He lightly ran the rest of the way, covering his face from the windows of the Border Security Central block nearby.

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He had avoided its interior the whole time he’d been in exile and didn’t want to slip up now. After a while of skipping and walking he made it to the base of the old South Central block. He passed by each of the small restaurants that spilled haphazardly out of the strand, to a large café where he saw Farnon sitting under a parasol. There were couples and families all around now, and since the whole area was so exposed, Bailey felt a sudden vulnerability to any would be assassin. He sat down opposite Farnon, while looking away at people walking by and at the windows in the blocks on all eight sides. “Hello, friend.” Farnon said, limply shaking his hand. “Been a while now, hasn’t it?” “I know, it’s my fault. So much has happened.” Bailey brought up the holographic plate for the menu and selected a small coffee. Farnon had already received a tray of tea and biscuits. “Now you should know something.” Bailey said, trying to focus. “We’ve got another escape in motion. This is the big one. This is the way it should have been from the start.” “I see. You know I’m in if that’s what you’re asking.”

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“It is, my friend. It most certainly is.” Bailey said. “But we need a few things from you.” “As I would expect.” Farnon smiled, relaxing into his chair. “You know I’m just a glorified pen pusher really but I’ll see what I can do.” “We need your help opening the door to Red Sector. We need a biometric signature that can override the security protocols for the psycho wing.” “You know, there’s a rumour going around that’s where you came from.” “Nevermind all that now.” Bailey waved a hand. “Is this something you think you can do?” Farnon thought for a moment then shrugged “It’s possible maybe. When do you need it for?” “This week. Maybe next. I’m not sure. You had better talk to the rest of the team. Contact Flynn Randall, and he’ll take you to one of the labs we’ve set up. It will be good to work with you again, Port.” “Wait a minute.” Farnon said. “Have you heard of a cop called Kane Minik? He’s one of the chief decs in Border Sec, and a bastard. He’s got a hardon for you right now, and that’s usually something to be worried about. Seems to think you’ve been mixed up in a lot of the bad things that have been happening.” 482

“Well, I have been.” Bailey chuckled. “Well, I’m just saying, I think he knows it too. Just watch your back.” “You’ve got no idea, Port.” Bailey said. “Seems like Old Gang’s put a price on my head.” “Really? Who’s in control exactly?” Farnon said “They’re from outa town, whoever they are. Nash Fincle or someone else I’ve pissed off.” Bailey said as a robot brought him a small cup filled with coffee. “I’m pretty sure it’s Nash Fincle. Me and Francine Adyms have had a thing for a while. It was only a matter of time before he found out.” “How can you be sure though? Maybe it’s someone else?” “It was him. I’m practically sure of it.” Bailey said and sipped at the cup. Farnon clenched his fist weakly and said “Well I can’t believe that’s a coincidence. Someone put all this in the way just before we want to leave?” “This will not be easy.” Bailey said and downed the last of his coffee. “You don’t just escape from a place such as this. It’s a bloody minefield in more ways than one.”

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Farnon sighed and said “Well I have to get out of this place. Either on that weather station or in a box. I don’t belong here, Bailey. I was a good cop. But that’s the whole point isn’t it?” “Well, I guess you can’t all be cunts.” Bailey winked and Farnon laughed. “You’ve got my number.” Bailey said leaning across the table. “I want you to put the word out to the supergrass network. Try and find out who made this contract. If I can take them out then there’s nobody to pay the bounty. It will take some of the heat off us while we get this together.” “Yeah, makes sense I guess.” He stood up and shook Farnon’s hand. “Give me a call when you have it confirmed.” he said, and turned and walked away. “Will do, buddy.” Farnon said to his back, and finished the last of his own drink. The scope and crosshairs that had been watching them from a perch above, followed Bailey back across The Octagon and up a glass elevator to the parking hollow of the hospital. It followed him as long as it could, losing him as he jumped down a stone embankment onto the first of the parking lanes.

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A Lack of Incompetence. Bailey let the car roll off to a stables tunnel close by, and stepped up to a long hedge by a cavern wall. He had stopped at the outer gates of a wide estate. The script on the gate read “Sagar Estate”. He rang the bell at the side and a blocky, artificial holographic face leaned out of a screen. “It’s me. Aaron Bailey. I need to speak to Lon.” The gate buzzed and then slowly opened as the face merged back into the flat surface. Bailey walked inside and up the road between two wide fields. The road led to one house, the only house in the cavern. It was more like a ranch, with a genuine horse stables out front, and a number of fields around about for various related purposes. He skipped up to the door and looked inside, and seeing nobody walked around to the back. Lon Sagar and Dora Beldin were sitting there, soaking up the artificial sunlight in light summer clothes. “Good afternoon.” Lon said. “Take a seat.”

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The wide porch was enclosed on either side by walls of hollow patterned bricks, with the floor tiles blending almost seamlessly into the grassland that stretched out to the darker cavern wall, far away. On the grass there were tall white tents being erected by robots. “So the big day has finally arrived? Good luck with the wedding. I really mean it.” Bailey said earnestly. “I just wish Bede could have been here to see this. We’ll understand if you can’t come tomorrow.” “I’ll be there.” Bailey said looking at the tents. “But in truth, that isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.” “Oh?” Dora said raising her attention. “I might as well come right out and say it. Me and a few others are escaping. We have a plan in place and it looks like it could work this time.” Lon blew, and said “Well I can’t say that I blame you. Not after what happened. How do you know it will work this time? It never has before. It always ends badly.” “It’s a risk we are all prepared to take.” Bailey said looking at them square. “We realize that you won’t want to come with us now, but we could really use your help.” “We won’t do anything to threaten the peace.” Dora said sternly. “The greatest times are ahead of us now. With us 486

rebuilding South Syndicate, and Nash building up Old Gang we can keep Border Sec out of our business, working together.” “And you trust Nash?” Bailey asked, being careful not to sound sarcastic. “Nash isn’t like the others. He never has been. It takes courage to change an organization like Old Gang, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing these past few months.” “I know that. Maybe I misjudged him, I dunno. I’m not asking you to do anything hostile. We just need you to keep people off our backs while we work.” “Where are you working exactly?” Lon said. “Well, here goes. It’s Red Sector and the central control tower. We need to crack into both, and both have heavy doors blocking the way.” “I take it the weather rocket idea has been scrapped, then. We thought it would work. I guess we were naive.” Dora said sadly. “Even if we wanted to they’ve changed the codes to those doors. Can’t go that way.” “I guess we can help you.” Dora said warmly. “But we’ll expect you to be at the wedding.” 487

“Of course! I really think it’s wonderful how you two have stayed together through all that has happened. And all the rest. This is a sleepy little colony now and should stay that way. Maybe all the nightmares are gone now?” Dora smiled at him and said “I’m sure you’ll have all sorts of adventures up in space. But space is big, and a lot of it is bad. Like complexity within complexity, you need a strong constitution to navigate it. You can still do it, but us… We can’t be gallivanting off at our time in life. I’m sure this is what Bede would have wanted too.” “Well thanks.” Bailey said standing up, and nodded at them both. He phased out slightly and stood for a moment as if thinking about something. “Was there something else?” Dora asked. Bailey shook his head and said “Nah, maybe its nothing.” He shook Lon’s hand and kissed Dora on the cheek before turning and returning to his car. He took one last look along the narrow lane running around the outskirts of the estate, then got into the car and sped out of the place. Bailey drove from highway to highway at speed, revving past other slower cars as they headed about their more 488

ordinary business. He headed toward the city center again, and to a neighbourhood just outside of the metropolis. It was a mostly derelict apartment district run by a drug lord that went by the handle “Double G”. Bailey didn’t know what it meant but didn’t need to, so long as they kept buying the Colec company pills. The company had thrived with full staff in the months since the dissolution of East Syndicate, but recently he’d sacked most of them off. Even on a skeleton crew staff, business was booming, as the gangs that sold on the poison were in neighbourhoods very close to the Sagar block. Double G’s village was right next door, and so they were still entrenched in the old narcotic flow systems. The various characters that hung around the streets at this side of the neighbourhood recognized Bailey as he slowly drove down onto their lanes. They didn’t get in his way as he took the shiny sports car across each cobblestone street through the outer terraces, until he was close to a tunnel leading into the central metropolis. Bailey took the car to the opening of a parking subway between two tall sided houses. He got out and let the car go down into it and then headed out of the terraces, passing by the last of the street dealers and their semi naked children, all of whom would unleash hell on him if they didn’t still see him as an associate.

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Across a sporadically bush lined road junction he jogged into the cavern wall, and then through the long tunnel to the foot of the old Sagar building. Bailey raised his pace as he entered the metropolis and the high street. The block above the street had once been a thriving center of commerce, in the heyday of East Syndicate, but now even months later it still was a smouldering mess. The windows above were gaunt and empty, with each of their floors having been looted and torched by the gangs around about. Only the odd daring business still remained, fortified within the warehouse floors. It was tempting to go up to the robot-reinforced Colec Warehouses and hide from this lingering danger, but he didn’t want to go back there, as that would be retracing his steps, and his steps would be being traced. Then again, as he walked quickly down the main street, heading toward the tunnels to the more northern districts, he didn’t feel as if he had encountered any of the kind of danger he had feared. He had been running about the colony for hours now and had seen no sign of the army of hitmen that he would have expected to descend on him, given the price they had been offered. Bailey slowed his pace down, and realizing how thirsty he was, he stopped at an arch serving fast coffee. He bought a strong cream coffee and walked carefully with it along the ember showered street.

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He paused beside an omnibus stop with dirty glass sides that extended out as seats. On the opposite side of the road was an enclosed elevator shaft running up to the tram station high above, which would take him clear to the next people on his list. Bailey was about to take a sip of his coffee when he saw a large hole in the glass, and a shard of it slipping down onto the seat. He looked around to see if others on the pathway had noticed it, but saw only an old woman hobbling by him on crutches. Just a moment later he was horrified to see her lurch forward as a high powered bullet sliced through her middle. The old woman fell to the ground, dead as the others around began to scream. Bailey turned and looked in the direction the bullet must have come from, and saw a brief reflected glint from what could only have been a sniper scope. The sniper had positioned himself on the highway above, and was leaning around to aim down at the street. The sniper fired, and somehow Bailey visualized it all in slow motion enough to dive aside, letting the bullet whistle past him and hit the road behind. The bullet screamed as it rubbed against the concrete road, and Bailey, who was now resolved to the attack got back to his feet and sprinted along the street toward the tunnel to the north. He had no way of fighting back, since he only carried the one small apple knife. 491

You are a fool, aren’t you? The sniper dropped the long distance to the ground and began running after Bailey. He aimed the sniper rifle at him like a regular gun and began pumping shots after him along the street. Some hit other pedestrians, while others came much closer to hitting, but then Bailey was at the tunnel, and the hitman was out of bullets. He dropped the rifle and took out a handgun, and began running fast after his bounty. Bailey ran across the road junctions to the arch of the tunnel, as the hitman discharged his weapon twice from his position in the tall street. Both missed but barely, with their erupting bangs spurring Bailey to run harder. Bailey ran as fast as he could through to the far end of the tunnel, as the hitman made it to the first of the tunnel behind him. There was another shot, that exploded within the confined space. The bullet sliced the red bricks of the wall beside Bailey’s shoulder, and then he had reached the far side. Bailey grabbed the corner of the arch and spun himself around it as fast as possible to get out of the aim of the killer. He was about to run on and into the roads between the derelict terraces when he noticed something in his favour. The red bricks of the arch around the cavern wall had

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crumbled somewhat without repair, and had fallen and now lay around on the path. He crept forward, listening to the hitman’s footsteps as he ran closer through the cavern wall, and picked up one of the bricks. Bailey crouched with the brick ready, and as the hitman came to view he pushed the brick hard into his face. The man stumbled backward onto the road, and Bailey dived onto him and pounded his head with the brick three more times. Something within Bailey wanted to, but there was no need to carry on, as the man was clearly dead. He looked around at the lonely place, then wiped his nose and picked up the hitman’s gun. Better. The end will justify the means. He got to his feet and ran north through the roads. He made it to a tram station and waited in the shadows for the next one to arrive. The gun was hidden in his belt at the back under his shirt, and he stood at a slant trying not to look too flustered to the other people waiting around about.

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The tram ride northward went without a hitch until the tram tracks discontinued a few districts away from the abandoned city center, and Old Gang Central. After jogging the length of two stagnant neighbourhoods he entered one of the districts outside the northern city center, where now he could hear the throb of the endless Old Gang party. Bailey swallowed his fear as he approached the wall to the district, dodging winos and groups of spaced looking men and women. The atmosphere had thickened dramatically in the space of a few steps, and he now felt the full pressure grow of what it would entail to complete this part of the plan. There were four more individuals vital to the success of the plan, and all lived or worked within Old Gang territory. The statues of both brothers still stood here, now a stinging reminder of just who he had murdered, and that one of them was still alive. Bailey ran to the final arched tunnel and through the cold rock wall to Old Gang Central, entering the dark place without protection to the ears. The angry sound was horrific, and it took him a few moments to readjust to the new environment. At the end of the tunnel he stepped out into the main street and caught sight of the towering block above. Immediately he felt the wash of the danger he was entering into, and casually hid behind a lamp post with his back to the place and its hundreds of windows. 494

If their spies were to see him coming they would react to stop him, or at least detain him for questions. They may even kill him, although in secret so not to damage Nash’s new masquerade of righteousness. It was true though, the festival had abandoned the drug peddlers and whores that had made the place such a hotbed of crime and degeneracy. It was now just a festival, with the drug sales done unofficially, and out of sight. It was as Arc had predicted, that Nash was cut from a different cloth to the rest of the Fincle tree. He truly did wish to go against the grain, and turn it all around for the better. But Nash was one man in an organization of hyper violent scum, with he himself at the mercy of his own conscience. Angels. Bailey sniffed and gathered himself together, then pensively looked around at the others on the main street. None looked as if they were interested or about to start shooting in his direction, and so he mustered to leave his meagre hiding place. He began walking along in full view of the Old Gang headquarters. Each of its many dotted windows could contain someone with a pair of binoculars, which was common practice with the old incarnation of the syndicate. There was nothing he could do about it but to hold his hand up in front of his face as if scratching or something similar, but if he were to do it for too long he would stand out and be clearly spotted. 495

Someone then did spot him, as he passed an area of the ground level block bannered as a Naturalistic Mind conversion center. He had momentarily lowered his hands, believing the place to be safe. Dane Angell was sitting at the base of one of the tall windows smoking and drinking a small bell glass of wine as he did everyday during his midday break. He saw Bailey passing by at speed, and then heading across to one of the remaining arches on the opposite side of the street. The arch was old and heavily used, containing an automobile repair shop, and once Bailey was out of sight within, Dane dropped his cigarette into the glass and placed it on the windowsill. Dane Angell ran down the plastic steps in the old staff corridors of the building, then out into the street and along it toward the motor shop. Bailey walked around a car that had been raised slightly to make room for a mechanic. He rapped his hand on the side a couple of times and Rhia NoVakahn slid out from under it on a trolley, next to his feet. “Aaron.” she said. “I take it this isn’t a social call.” “Where’s the rest of them?” Bailey said squinting at the empty garage. “Lunch break. Nice timing.” Rhia said, standing up. “Should I have a bad feeling about this?”

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“We’re escaping.” Bailey said straight. “Again? What’s the death count now on these things?” “Over the years? Over the centuries? Thousands? More?” Bailey shrugged. “But you signed up for it once, and we need you on this one.” “I want to escape but I don’t want to get chewed up. Why should I believe in you?” “This is all me. My own plan.” “Rumour is you fed Old Gang a plan that got them killed. Why would you do that?” ”Needed to test the defences didn’t I? As well as a few other things. You got a problem with that?” “I couldn’t give a shit, bud. But how do I know you aren’t going to use me the same way?” “You’re far too pretty.” Bailey smiled, making Rhia’s black skin blush slightly. Rhia shrugged in her overalls and said “What do you need me for?”

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“I have a set of large robotic drones. They need a full service and check. And some other robotics. All need to be in full working order when we make the push.” “Sounds almost too easy.” she said emptily. “I guess you can count me in. I’m getting so sick of all this. And someone from the smoker’s café down the street went missing a week ago. Nobody tied to the syndicates or gangs. It was…” “An abduction.” Bailey nodded. “The old carvery lottery.” Rhia looked away saying nothing. “You need to be sure.” Bailey said. “I am. So who do I call boss?” “Randall. He’ll coordinate the rest.” Dane listened from just outside the arch, hiding against the outer wall. Bailey kissed Rhia goodbye and then left the garage, walking past Dane who crouched behind one of the broken down cars that were waiting to be serviced outside. Then Bailey had gone away, and Dane got up and watched as Bailey walked at speed along to a set of lobby doors

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leading into the Fincle block. Dane ran to follow, keeping a short distance behind. Bailey headed through the gangster filled lobby to the rear where he used a holo plate to call a particular kind of elevator. It rose below him, this a darker shaded glass, and then lifted him up into the elevator shaft. Dane took a risk entering the lobby before he was out of sight, but Bailey did not look down as he travelled up into the ceiling. Dane followed on in another piss smelling elevator, using the same dark glass platform as he had seen Bailey call. Bailey travelled up and out of the top of the building, through a glass shaft that traversed the small space between the roof and the cavern ceiling. It was a trip generally ill advised to take unless you had been specifically invited. Bailey had not been invited, but there was no other way. Time was a factor, and risks would have to be taken. Through the cavern ceiling, it travelled up through a wide tunnel in the rock. It emerged from the bed of the northern sea, through a tube sunk into the sand, and raised up through the depths to a rectangular silhouette against the light from above.

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It was a building just off shore, and sunk beneath the surface of the sea. A pier led out to it, to its weed covered top floor which sat just above the water’s surface. On its underside, the tube led up and into it. Bailey watched the empty blue ocean disappear and then the organic plush décor of the circular hall within come to view. It was a waiting area at the entrance to the place, a VIP grade restaurant and club created and run generations back by Old Gang, and reinvented for it’s rebirth. As he stepped off the glass platform on to the thick white carpet, he saw beside the reception someone arguing with the robot there, and a male guard walking over to join in. Bailey tried to ignore this and walked by them to the counter and swiped his access card across the plate. A small green light beside the plate indicated he had been granted access, and so he marched around the desk and through one of many sets of tall double doors that encircled this front of house. He marched on down a tall flight of opulent steps that led to the narrow base of a tall corridor. It led across the rest of the length of the building, to another much taller pair of double doors, all of which sat in a pit of vulgar scarlet. On each side of the carpet running the length of the corridor were a line of statues, with each depicting a different figure of Lantis military history. It ran chronologically from the factional wars of early history 500

through to wider space based technocratic conflicts. Each leaned on their weapons or equipment, staring lecherously at the point you’d cross on the walk. Bailey strode up to the double doors, causing them to tug inward on their rotors. He strode directly onward into the long banquet hall, and singled out Nash Fincle amongst the syndicate leaders, at the far end of an extremely long dining table. “Nash Fincle.” Bailey said as he stopped at the other end of the table. “Aaron Bailey. Welcome to my humble abode.” he said, glancing sardonically at the others sharing his meal time. “I need to borrow Francine.” he said, and smiled at her as she squirmed slightly at Nash’s side. “But we’re having a meal.” Nash said flipping a palm at his bulging plate. “Looks interesting. What is it?” Bailey said craning to see from the distance. “High life init? Opulence you might call it. ” Nash said with a full mouth, then pointed a fork at the door behind Bailey. “We intend to try everything in this biosphere, in one sauce or another. This is a new crime order, unrestrained as with the old.”

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“I like how you’re building it up. Just let me know if you need anything.” Bailey said, and nodded at Francine, signalling her to get up We need to be quick, they want to kill us. We aren’t fitting in to this dream. “We’re going to build from here, personally, professionally and physically.” Nash said. “I don’t think that involves you to be honest.” Grotesque dream. Speed! “Ah well.” Bailey shrugged looking away. “I still like the place. Looks just like the Sagar household… Before they were all killed that is.” “It’s funny you should mention that.” Nash said looking up from his plate. “Turns out you were there the day that weird device went off, and you were the only one that survived? You didn’t mention that then or since for that matter. And the more I hear on the technical side, the more it sounds like one of your little grenades.” Suddenly Bailey could feel the full length of the corridor behind him, and how far it would be if he had to make a run for it. “You’re losing it, Fincle. How could I have been walking around if I were in a blast like that? Maybe your gout’s shifting to your brain?” 502

“You can stretch my good will too far! You’re acting like you’re lost.” Nash raised his voice slightly now. “Maybe you’re forgetting that you got my family killed? You owe Fincle. You owe me!” “My allegiance is to the city. You’re threats and innuendos are a cut below that, I’m afraid.” “Don’t give me all that you pretentious fucking shit…” Nash raised his voice further, and standing up. “Franky, go talk to your friend. Then get rid of him.” Francine stood up and ran lightly along the length of the table, then walked out through the doors with Bailey. They closed automatically behind them, and then Bailey began to quickly speak. “This is all my fault. I’m sorry.” Bailey said guiding her along by her elbow. Francine tugged at it with a feminine amount of strength and whispered forcefully at him “You have to get me out of here!” Nash Fincle and the others he had been dining with were watching a holographic model of their conversation, mounted on the table before him. The view from a solar war mechanoid was trained directly at them, with its fully functioning spy equipment housed in its face, which itself was breathing very faintly. Each of the wax sculptures, 503

unbeknown to either Bailey or Francine, contained an actual living person that had crossed Old Gang over the years. Nash has quite a pallet. “What? Err… We’re going this week sometime.” Bailey stammered, as he stood in miniature on the table between the members of the syndicate. “It’s all set apart from one more thing. And you. We need you to help break open the control tower entrance. It’s a plain mechanic’s job.” “At last. Oh thank you, Aaron.” she said, and kissed him a few times on the face. The men and women at the table looked at Nash, who blinked and kept looking at the flickering display. “This time its all planned in advance. Do you believe it?” he said leaning back. “This is our destiny, Aaron. I can feel it. This kind of time, like a magical train you can’t stop. It’s gonna happen. We’re going home!” “Ok. But calm down for now.” he said, pushing her away slightly, and looked along the length of the corridor at the short black man approaching. He saw then that it was Dane Angell, and stared at him for a moment considering something.

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“I feel a little bad leaving the colony this way. Old Gang are going to be back stronger than ever.” Francine said turning away. “Nash has learned how to talk the talk. But it’s a sure bet that none of this will last. It will be back to rape and narcotics… back to the money.” Bailey said to her back. “You’re so wrong about me. But it’s alright, you’ll see.” Nash said quietly. Francine entered the tall doors followed presently by Dane Angell, while Bailey walked away in the dark behind them. Nash swallowed his pride and said “Mr Angell. What does God want with me now?” “It’s important.” he said with wide eyes, and glanced at Francine. “In private.” In the corridor outside, on the spot where the previous conversation had happened, Nash reached over and flicked a switch on the spy visor of the waxed model so that it could not record their conversation. “They’re escaping.” Dane said, panting slightly having walked further than his metabolism would normally allow. “Is that all?’ Nash shook his head. “You’re a little late. I just heard it from the mouth of my snake of a fiancé. Is there anything else?” 505

Dane leaned at him closer through the low light and said “Why don’t we go with them? They want to cut us out again. Why don’t we hitch a ride? By force if necessary.” Nash paced slightly then said “I was thinking the same way. You think you can help with this?” “They trust me. Unlike you, they don’t know why I was sent here.” Dane said vacuously. Nash looked at him for a moment, as he stared back at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. “You think you can crack this? What did you have in mind?” Nash asked. “The wedding.” Dane said, and Nash realized something about Dane Angell. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

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The Wanted World. Bailey began retracing his steps now. He took the same elevator back down into Old Gang Central, and walked at a quickened pace back the way he had come. He made it back to the apartment district where he had left the train and took a short cut through the back alleys. The alleys were filthy and in some places thick to the heel with cardboard and sediment that he had to dance around to avoid. But he felt safe in the near dark, shaded by the close sides of the apartment blocks to either side that twisted toward the greasy, embedded lighting overhead. Within sight of the mainstreet leading to the tram he heard a voice from behind in the shadows. “Not so fast.” the words came and ahead another man stepped from the shadows there, holding a large shotgun. Three men. Don’t let me die! Bailey looked at the man ahead and then over his shoulder at the one behind. The man behind hadn’t drawn his weapon yet, which was a mistake to be exploited. Quickly, Bailey shot the man ahead in the face while diving and slipping his finger over the dead man’s trigger finger. As the man behind made to draw his pistol Bailey shot a heavy round through his chest, thrusting him back from his

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feet while losing grip of the pistol, that clattered down to the damp alleyway. Behind him now, the third man Arc had seen dived through the air before the light of the bustling main street brandishing a knife. Bailey swung the shotgun up and blasted him, throwing him into a spin in the air before dropping to the lane. In the main street the passers by were still oblivious to what had transpired. He looked at the three dead men and then threw the shotgun into the gutter. He turned and made his way calmly out of it to the street, and then on through the crowds up to the nearest tram station. After a short time waiting, and gazing out over the addict filled neighbourhood he caught a tram heading back south. Once he was sure he was safe in transit, and not about to be shot at where he stood, he contacted Randall on the multicom. “That’s it, friend. They’re all on board.” Bailey said wearily, and looked at a middle aged man standing near him, considering if he could interpret the meaning of his words. “I’ll head to the main lab now. Bye.” There were white tents being erected all through the city now Bailey noticed, showing their support for the marriage 508

of Dora Beldin and Lon Sagar, and for the new Syndicate that was to be born under their rule. District after district seemed to be readying for the party. Bailey blinked and looked away from the window as it all rushed by. He returned to Double G’s neighbourhood, and made haste to the gently glowing stable entrance in the terraces. He watched as his car turned a corner within, rolled up the steep incline, and out onto street level. After checking it over slightly he got in and drove slowly down to the end of the street, being careful not to hit the dopey children that were playing there. He drove up the tunnel to the crystal highways and stopped at a ring road traffic light. Sighing a little he leaned against the steering wheel, then mumbled “Robot control tower…” The hologram route finder on the far side of the window plotted a short course across the highways. He’d need to travel north a ways before heading down to the moors, where he could walk to the tower from there. He looked up at it over the steering wheel as its murky white light spun in the distance beyond the sky hazes. The traffic light turned green and Bailey drove along to the next roundabout to the north and stopped again at the traffic lights. “This is gonna take forever.” he groaned as he surveyed the afternoon traffic ahead.

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He was rubbing his eyes, trying to stay awake when his multi-com rang. Seeing that it was Port Farnon he answered promptly. “Hello, kid.” he said while Arc interjected, as he often did, distracting his weary attention. The path now ahead is winding and darker. “Bailey!” Port half shouted over the line. “Can you talk now? This is huge! I found out who took out the contract! Listen to this...” Bailey froze up slightly, pondering this, as two cars of lesser make and model rolled up alongside his own, and another similar car to the rear. “What’s so…” he began, but saw in the car on the nearest side, both driver and passenger wearing balaclavas and winding the window down. Then in the rear view mirror, he watched as another masked man leaned far out of the sunroof of the car behind, and aimed a broad, double barrel shot gun at the back of his head. At all three sides sawn off shotguns and the like were being aimed in his direction. Bailey flicked the sports car into reverse and wheelspun it back over, ramming the car behind while the shot from one 510

of the side cars flew over the bonnet and pasted the bounty hunters on the opposite side. The gunman behind had been folded over and had dropped his gun onto their rusty bonnet, but it would be only seconds before he righted himself and then Bailey would have another problem. The gunman in the car to the left had almost reloaded, and so he needed to make a move. He leaned over at the multi-com that had fallen onto the floor and shouted "Farnon! Help!" It looked like the line had disconnected and there was very little time left to pick it up and redial. The lights were still red and the oblivious traffic ahead was flowing by. Bailey pushed it into first and pulled out in front of a motorcycle, causing it to buckle and fall as the cyclist tried to swerve. Bailey ignored the roads, accelerating up onto the central hump of the roundabout, and used it to jump toward one of the lanes opposite, kicking up the enclosed flower beds as he ploughed through. A holographic sign flushed red with an exclamation mark as the side of the bumper crashed through its screen. The car slammed down against the glass road and skidded forward slightly as the rear wheels caught a grip. He had landed in the wrong lane and began swerving madly as the oncoming traffic tried to do the same.

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With one set of hitmen dead, the two remaining cars had ran the light also and caught up on the correct lane beside him. Looking at the cars as they drew close he realized how out of his depth he had now become, and muttered with a dry mouth “I don’t know what I’m doing. Please help.” You should be keeping yourself sharp. It’s winding and darker. Let me drive. “No!” Bailey yelled out loud enough to be heard in the glass tunnel outside. With only a thin line of hovering bollards between them the bounty hunters took the opportunity to aim another couple of shots his way. But their cars were older and weaker than the sports car he owned, and so when he noticed a clear gap in the traffic ahead he floored the gas and shouldered onto a sliproad curving downward. The other two crashed through the bollards and ratcheted up their engines as they gave chase. Bailey leaned hard into the last corner, as the road curved into a tunnel in the land of the biosphere. His pursuers weren’t far behind, and there was the occasional whistle as bullets flew forward to hit him.

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The sports car tore away down the wrong way through the tunnel as robot maintenance droids looked up curiously. They briefly heard the woof of the cylinder sound as it bombed by, and then the louder noise of the following vehicles. He raced through the last of the tunnel, and tried to slow down as a congregation of vehicles approached the right way on the lane. He slammed the car aside, scraping against the side railings and making it past them to the end of the curved lane and the exit. The sparks showered the road behind him, and then through them, the two cars began to catch him up. You should be keeping yourself sharp. “What the fraps are you talking about now?” Bailey hissed at himself in the rear view mirror. There was a cold gasp as the vapour briefly spurted out of the brake cylinder, and then Bailey floored it again as he skidded around a high walled slip and out onto the highways over an apartment district. Still on the wrong side of the road he found himself driving toward a head on collision with a tall lorry. It sounded its horn as Bailey swerved across the two lanes, avoiding a faster flowing lane of oncoming traffic and then hit a slip road leading down to the streets. The wheels left the road slightly as he mounted the descending lane and then managed to take more control as he arrowed toward the sleepy junction below. 513

I’m talking about a greater danger. It became clear that his best chances of escaping all of this were to head back to the central metropolis, which was only a few districts away. There hopefully they’d be intercepted by colony droids or Border Sec patrols; that might actually come in handy for once since his arrival on this world. As he accelerated south the other two cars followed from the highway, half ramming each other out of the way, now realizing the value of the competition. They crashed down meters behind him, almost on top of one another, sending wheeltrims spinning away into the nearby storefronts. My plan envelops a broader field of players. We must deal with the danger. “Fuck off.” Bailey said as he began flicking up the gears once again. The wheels had now become slightly deflated and were dragging back on the speedometer. With a sinking feeling he saw the other two cars catch up behind, and then the back window of the car burst inward as one of the wide shots licked it. One of the starving killers took their car to the right, to half mount on the pavement where the corner of the bumper began clipping against the odd man and woman. It pulled

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up along the side with no regard for any innocent pedestrians that had to dive out of the way. Ahead Bailey saw what he knew had to be a group of drug dealers congregating around at the bottom wall of one of the apartment blocks. The gunman in the car, who had almost gained another clear shot at the side of Bailey’s face saw what his driver had done, and gaped at who they were about to mow down. The car was moving too fast and burst through the crowd like they were paper, while scraping a couple against the wall like brittle dolls. As the car fell behind, Bailey saw his chance and accelerated forward to illegal speeds through the towering blocks. Their flier littered walls gushed by on either side as the dip of a river valley drew near. My plan is sharp. There’s something I haven’t told you. A snowman. “Oh dear.” he said, as he saw a small wisp of smoke from the side of the bonnet. “Not now.” The car began to lag from its high speed, and the nearest car slowly caught up and rolled alongside him where the other had tried to trap him a moment earlier. The river and its bridge were approaching ahead, which doubled up as a tunnel supporting the tram track above it. At the mouth of the bridge there was a lethal looking forest 515

of support beams at either side, holding up the tram junction above. The two cars bombed noisily down the last of the road out of the main streets and ignoring the signs to slow, approached the river valley. Oh fucking shitmobile! Just before the bridge, the gunman had gained a clear shot with the sawn off, and so Bailey made a move. He pulled down hard on the steering wheel and swerved into the side of the car, crumpling the doors inward toward the gunman, and pushing the car clean off the road. It jumped slightly on striking the kerbing and flew through the air between the old support beams. The gunman stared at Bailey as the car flew further away into the forest of old beams, and then the car met one of them head on. It burst into flames, filling every space and gap with fire. The blast kicked the gunman out of the car and flailing through the support beams toward the road. He landed on his knees in a puddle while his clothes burned on his body. Bailey watched in the rear view mirror as an omnibus rolled up behind him and snuffed out the fire. The other car flew around the bus, crashing madly against the railings while honking its horn over and over.

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Bailey decided… Time to end this cat and mouse malarkey. He darted out of the other side of the bridge tunnel, and around the wrong way on a roundabout to a junction leading up onto the lower highways. His car sped away along the motorway through the tunnel to the next cavern, while the one remaining car persisted and took to the road behind him. Now he was heading south in the direction of the metropolis, with the other car quietly gaining from a distance behind. After a few districts the gunman braved to lean out of the side window and throw two more showers of cartridge pellets over the gaping hole where the rear window had been. Some of the pellets cut into the roof with one of them slaking against Bailey’s cheek, cutting it deep. Bailey stared ahead at the ever shortening distance of road. A broad field. Now is the time to steel our minds to what’s required. "What in the stars is with you, Arc?" he mumbled while checking over each of the mirrors. The outer wall of the city center came to view and Bailey drove into the nearest tunnel at speed below the gyrating holographic posters. The car shouldered 517

fiercely around onto the highways inside and around the outskirt of the blocks, weaving in and out of the slower traffic. He made it around to a leisure center block and swung the car up a sliproad to the parking hollow. Once there he turned onto the first parking lane, and sped along it. He drove up the ramp into the building with the bounty hunter’s car close behind. A line of innocent drivers yelled at them as they disappeared into glass wall. They drove up the spiralling parking lot, up and up toward the top. Bailey looked in his rear view mirror and saw that the chasing car had stalled, and fallen behind somewhat. It wouldn’t take long for them to drive on and so Bailey kept on driving higher. Close to the top he saw an empty bay and swung the car into it. He could hear the car close behind and pulled the key from the dash. The car lost power and cut its lights, as the other car rolled up onto the level, passed his car, and continued up onto the next. It looked from Bailey’s position that the car had reached top level and was then very slowly driving back down. It came down the ramp to his side and Bailey ducked slightly as it crept by.

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Realizing that he wasn’t going to be able to hide he pushed the key back into its slot and reversed the car forcefully into the side of the gunman’s car. It lifted slightly as it was pushed sidewards and slammed hard into the concrete fence. Bailey calmly drove back into the bay. He then got out and walked toward the car that was hanging out over the long drop down to the central walkway. The concrete had been reinforced with metal bars, and so was holding the car like a cradle. The car was heavy though, and the supports were slowly giving way. Bailey looked from the shadows within the carpark at the man within, who raised his head slowly to look at him. “You got me.” he smiled showing his hideously rotten teeth. Bailey lunged forward and kicked the side of the car, splitting it from the fence and sending it spinning over the side. It fell down to the ground with an audible crash and then rolled out onto the promenade, as the body lay slumped over the horn. Bailey stood stunned in the draft of the gaping hole in the concrete fencing, looking down over the promenade and the people all running from accident he had caused. The horn continued to wail out over the place, and would soon attract the robots’ attention. Now who’s king? 519

"Who are you?" he whispered into the cold air. All at once Bailey had a memory flash of the car that he had first seen, and how there had been two men, and then suddenly heard a gunshot from behind. It burst the back of his shoulder and pushed him forward into a thin vertical beam, just stopping him from falling over the side himself. In a daze he dropped his keys, and began stumbling toward a service elevator. He dived inside and pulled the grated door shut, hearing two more pistol shots from behind, echoing through the confined space. The shots landed against the metal grating inches from him, and then the elevator descended, as the gunman began to run forward. The elevator reached the bottom and Bailey slowly walked out, clutching his wounded shoulder. He stepped out onto the bottom level of the carpark and saw on the floor above, his own car drive by. Groaning he ran toward a side ramp leading down to the stable lane, and made it around onto the slope. The sides were too high to climb and so as the car came to sight within he found himself a little trapped. He sprinted with the last of his energy toward to the open space below as the gunman drove his car insanely out of the carpark, crashing it onto the curve and around onto the slope. It immediately growled out as the gunman accelerated toward the back of him.

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Bailey sprinted to the bottom and grabbed the edge of its high fence, spinning himself around and out of the way as the car flew by. The car slammed down onto the outermost parking lane and Bailey heard a gunshot. He looked around at his car, as it slowly rolled along, and then stopped as the wheels buckled against the curb. Everyone was running away now toward the gaping gaps at either side to escape the mayhem. There was a tiny bit of movement in the car, and with nobody close by to interfere, Bailey slowly stalked up to it. Looking inside he saw the gunman slumped forward and panting, with a bullet hole in his neck. It must have hit the central nervous system as the man wasn’t moving, and was only able to roll his eyes around to look at Bailey. Bailey saw the gun that had discharged accidentally, beside the passenger seat, and so reached in and took it. He looked around and with nobody in sight now he leaned into the car and aimed at the gunman’s temple. He looked away and fired, then got in, and kicked the body out of the driver side door. It rolled onto the grass at the side of the lane, and then Bailey took his car away from the scene, and up onto the crystal highways heading north again.

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"Colour swatch." he said and the car body flushed from a dark red to a dirty blue. Border Security cars flew by in the opposite direction and along nearby roadways as he took the car further northward, back into Old Gang territory. Bailey drove into a tunnel signposted with a large warning that it led into one of the old city center districts. It was part of a line of districts that ran south from the dome wall near the metropolis, tracing the main river that eventually spewed out of the side of the dome. Here there were two blocks on either side of the river with a main street and highway system at the back of each. The highways and streets were all blocked off, and the buildings totally abandoned and derelict. He crashed by a wooden barricade that led out onto the rubble strewn highway, and then to a junction leading down to the main street, being careful of all the burnt out vehicles here and there. Taking a narrow lane around the side of the gaunt and abandoned block, he drove down onto the riverside and parked in one of the old bays. Facing the riverbank he sat for a few moments to gather his mind before getting out and walking down to the fence at the river’s edge. In a strange calm in the strangely beautiful place he brought up Port Farnon on the multi-com and vacantly said “You have something for me?”

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“Yes, friend.” he said with excitement. “I’ve dug up who made the contract. You’re never going to believe it.” “Go on.” “It’s my boss, Bailey. Kane Minik. I thought you said you didn’t know him.” “I don’t. That’s… very strange.” “I never would have guessed…” Farnon began, but Bailey cut him down as if in a trance. “Do you have his number?” “I’ll wire it to your com.” Farnon said. “Take care of this Bailey. For all our sakes.” Bailey cut him off and then dialled the number for General Kane Minik. “Hello?” Bailey said as he picked up. “I have some information regarding Aaron Bailey. Something that could take his ass out permanently. Meet me at the old East Syndicate building, floor eighteen near the front elevator. I’ll be there in an hour.” Bailey hung up, and pocketed the phone.

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Immediately he heard a distant gunshot, and looked around calmly as if he could find its source in the darkness. There was a whistle in the air before a high powered bullet slammed into his side. The force kicked him from his feet and he stumbled and fell to the cold, damp ground. As he lay dazed and panting furiously, a pair of headlights casually lit up further along the riverbank on the opposite side, and then rolled slowly by toward the lane up to the highway. It crossed the highway that bridged the river as Bailey struggled to get back to his feet. An old man who had been stubbornly walking his dog in that terrible quarter of the city came to Bailey and tried to help. But Bailey, who was now slipping into that darkness he so gallantly had fought, turned on the old man, who covered his face in terror as he fell to the ground. A few moments later the hitman’s car rolled down beside Bailey’s, and cut the headlights. A tall thin man got out and looked down at the figure slumped on the path beside the river with the dog barking angrily at its side. He chuckled and hummed slightly as he swaggered over to it to confirm his kill. On pulling back Bailey's jacket he saw the unconscious old man under it, and then looked in the direction of his car as Bailey drove it toward him while sounding its horn.

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The car rolled over the old man and slammed into the hitman, pushing him back and through the fence. Bailey jumped out of the way as the car crashed out and into the river. The unconscious hitman, slumped over the bonnet sank down below the surface with the car. Fuck! Bailey stood up as best he could and limped back to his car, leaving a thick trail of blood behind him. The sounds of the barking dog were muffled as he closed the door of his battered sports car. This is starting to get tricky. Get Minik, then get healthy. We’re running out of time. Old Gang had been watching. They had pulled their myriad of strings within Border Sec and tapped into the robotic surveillance grid. Nash held his chin and shook his head. “I don’t get it. What the hell is going on these days?” he said to the others in the darkened room as they watched the hovering screens. Cameras followed the car along highways in relay to the old East Syndicate Central block. 525

By this time most of the police activity had been and gone, and only the gentle flickering of police lights in a hollow around the way could be seen, silent at this distance. At this late hour the place was deserted, and Bailey sauntered across the drafty expanse of concrete and park to the elevators. He disappeared from view as he entered the ceiling of the hollow, and then Nash and the others in the room watched a while longer before scrambling to find more cameras and views. Within the ruined Sagar building very little of the original surveillance grid was still functioning. He was able to ghost through the now mostly abandoned warehouse wing to the Colec units, now heavily guarded by his own, customized tripod droids. Bailey went in and out of unit B, bringing the Romano with him. He walked the dog to the elevators and took them up a number of floors, stopping at a visibly burnt out floor of the building. There was one single camera trained on that floor, at the elevator, but at an angle unable to view beyond it's glass floor. Bailey vaguely noticed it as he walked the dog inside and out of sight of the surveillance network. Nash and the others watched the glass floor, waiting to see what would happen, or if Bailey would come back out. Then someone behind Nash hissed “Look. Who’s that?” 526

A camera at another screen trained down on a view of the hollow and they watched as a police officer walked from a parking lane to the lobby and called the same elevator back down. They zoomed closer on the person as he travelled up to the same level and disappeared into the charred walls. “Who was it?” someone asked. “Looked like Minik. Maybe we aren’t bribing him enough….” Nash sneered bitterly. Kane walked into the darkness of the abandoned floor, which had been stripped and torched, and soaked through by the emergency services. Bailey had watched him arise on the glass lift and step out onto the filthy floor. His eyes found the figure of Bailey, standing in a shadowy corner beyond the burnt frame of an office door. “Ah.” he said and walked over to him. “You have some information.” Bailey paused studying him, then said “I guess you could say that.” “Well you either do or you don’t.” Kane said growing impatient already. “You want money?”

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“Why are you doing this?” Bailey said flatly. Kane looked at him and squinted to see past the shadow. “I’m not sure what you mean.” he said, trying to come off as sarcastic. “It’s a lot of money. You took a contract out on Bailey’s life, and got the whole police department down on his back. I want to know why.” “You want me to deny it? He’s a criminal. He deserves everything he gets.” he said smirking slightly. “But a contract? Don’t bullshit me.” Bailey said, and jerked the lead he had on the Romano. “Tell me now. What is this about?” Minik flinched on noticing the huge dog, and began to pant and panic. “You want to know what this is about? Fine!” he said pacing left and right slightly like a cornered animal. “Wendell was mine! It took months for me just to meet her. Then in swoops this criminal, a scumbag, and sweeps her right off her feet? It’s always the way! The people in this colony treat the cops like shit!” “Is that what this is about?” Bailey said, surprised beyond his delirium. “So this is nothing to do with the escape?” 528

Bailey stepped forward into the light, and Kane took a step back. “I knew it was you. You son of a bitch! You stay away from Wendall. She was mine from the start.” Kane slavered like a mad dog. “Oh Jayne.” Bailey chuckled to himself and said “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, friend.” “There’s no mistake. She won’t even return my calls now.” “I’m sorry but she ain’t mine.” Bailey said. “I wouldn’t know how to win her heart either. I’m just like you.” Bailey looked up with a vacant face. He could still feel the blood dripping out of his jacket onto his boots. Kane looked insane, or maybe driven insane by whatever torment he had been living in, in the backwash of all of the events that had taken place. Bailey released the Romano, and turned his back as the snarling dog ran up to Kane, and leaped up biting at his throat. Kane’s screams pierced through the place as the dog tore into him on the floor. Bailey walked up to a broken window at the rear of the building, and looked out over the thin flowing traffic far below. He waited for the screams to stop. 529

And then Kane Minik had been murdered. Bailey walked from the floor onto the elevator as the lens watched from above. The Romano trotted out after him, trailing bloody paw prints after it, and sat on the far corner from Bailey. At the parking lanes Bailey let the dog run off and then waited almost innocently on the path as his car returned from the robotic lockup. The cameras followed him in a relay again as he drove out and up onto the crystal highways. “That son of a bitch. What the hell is going on?” Nash said jealously. “None of this makes any sense!” They watched on the monitors as the car made its way from one highway to the next across the biosphere. It drove at speed down between the massive canopies of tropical trees. The road emerged from the forest over a short swamp that merged into marshland and then bridged slowly down to the central moors. It ended at an old, weather crippled nature observatory, where Bailey parked in one of its few bays. Bailey got out and walked from the concrete foundations, along a compressed stone path that crossed the moors. It was clear now he was heading in the direction of the central robotic tower of the city, with its milky light slowly spinning over the scene.

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The last camera before the moors looked out from the crooked roof of the observation hut. The Old Gang leaders watched quietly and followed Bailey along the twisting cement path, zooming further as he walked further away. The icebergs towered over the short limping figure as he got closer to the centermost zone. The cement path led through a tunnel in the mound of ice. The raised path led through the towering bergs, raising up on supports to a broad platform surrounding the central tower. The camera zoomed further to watch closely as Bailey limped up into the tunnel through the ice. “Oh my God!” Nash said, and zoomed the camera over Bailey shoulder toward the central area. “What the hell is that thing?” The camera zoomed then focused on the platform at the door to the tower, which itself had been obscured by two plastic sheets dropped from a high pole. There were figures moving around within, and between them a huge object with thick arms reaching up out of it. “Looks like a….” an older member of Old Gang stammered, from behind him. “Squid?” Bailey limped up to the thick plastic sheets and walked into the laboratory within. The huge, modified fruit picking robot sat on the concrete path ahead, walking here and there on short centipede-like legs. A set of huge arms reached up out of it, with most of them stabbed into the 531

roof and walls of the ice to steady it, and two reaching across to the broad door of the tower. The arms held closely two lasers that were slowly moving around the outside of the door, slicing a new, smaller door into it. Thom caught sight of Bailey first as he staggered into the lab, and thumbed over his shoulder at the huge droid. “Where did you get the idea for this thing?” he said, and Bailey shrugged. He walked to one of the chairs and flopped into it, while some of the others caught sight of him and rushed over. “Oh dear. This looks bad.” Faye said, and opened his jacket to see the wounds. “How long has it been like this?” Bailey held his hand over his face and leaned back as Faye ran the humming medical instrument over his wounds, closing them. “Did you take care of the bounty yet?” Randall asked. “Kane Minik is dead.” Bailey said. “Oh that reminds me.” Bailey dialled the number for the emergency services on his multi-com, and said “Kane Minik has been attacked in the old Sagar building. Floor fourteen. He’s dead but you should be able to revive. You’re welcome…”

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Bailey then pointed at Farnon, and said “Biometric... urgh!” Farnon stepped up to them and said “You want to use Kane? Sure, we can do that, I guess. They’ll revive him in steps if he’s dead. I’ll try snatch him up while he’s paralyzed.” “Good.” Bailey groaned, as Faye closed another of his bullet wounds. “It will help if he can’t move around too much.” “Well it won’t be long before this door is down, then we’ll have to move.” Randall said, pointing back at the robotic lasers. “Then you’ll have more than bounties to worry about.” “How long?” Bailey asked looking up. “Tomorrow afternoon I reckon if we take every precaution..” Faye said. “You should get some sleep.” “We can’t leave the equipment.” Bailey said. “Bed down here tonight.” Nash and the others stared at the sheets hiding what was taking place. The lens was at the limits of its zoom, and blurry, and after a time of nothing changing they gave up on it. Nash turned the monitors off and stood back in the shadowy room. 533

“That’s it. That way.” Nash said pointing at the monitors. “I think it’s time to play the trump.” Nash snapped his fingers at Dane Angell, who stood behind him with the congregation. He walked toward the exit and fingered for him to follow. Leaving the others he took him across the Fincle block through the upper auditorium looking out over the highways. There were many of the Old Gang hierarchy of trustees, most of whom cringed at the sight of Nash, realizing how expendable they were still despite their age and especially in the new regime. They walked the full length of the block, wearing Dane out physically, and then took a narrow, claustrophobic elevator with a deep lime green décor down to the cells in the basement. They walked along a rank corridor leading off into semi circles of cells, all of which had the feel and in some cases the look of a real dungeon. Nash entered one and they walked to a cell containing Chester Barron. He was sitting on a grimy bunk, with his arms and legs bound to the floor by small but firm chains. He slowly looked up as they approached.

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“You’ve expressed an interest in a way to repay your debt to my family.” Nash said quietly. “Oh yes, Mr Fincle.” Barron said, suddenly animated. “There is a way to do this.” Nash said with a sly smile.

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The Winter Cattle. The escape party awoke on the metal chairs that they had arranged at the base of the tower door. They had slumped against one another during the night, and so as one awoke so did the rest. Jayne opened her eyes as Thom began to move, himself stirred by Randall who pushed him off as he realized how they had been lying against each other. She looked around taking a while to notice the black person sitting in a chair that had been moved so to look at the line of sleeping people. “Who the hell?” Farnon exclaimed on seeing him too. “Oh please don’t be alarmed.” Dane Angell waved a hand at them. “As you can see I am a member of the Nat Mind. Aaron Bailey and I know each other, don’t we?” Bailey nipped the night muck from his eyes and said “How did you find us?” “Nobody else knows I assure you.” he said. “I saw you last night. You looked quite badly injured so I followed you. I’ve been here most of the night. I didn’t want to wake you.” “No. It’s fine.” Bailey said standing up. “Everyone, this is Dane Angell. Reverend Angell, this is everyone.”

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“Hello.” he said. “What do you want?” Thom said bluntly, and Bailey eyed him coldly. “Well, it looks like you’re escaping. Maybe I can help you all to stay safe?” “We don’t need your help. Beat it.” Randall said, and waved a hand at Bailey before he could protest. “No need to be rude.” Dane said. “I actually have somewhere else to be today. I’m assuming you won’t be missing the union of Sagar and Beldin before your departure?” “Well I…I did say I would be there…” Bailey began, as he walked limply toward Dane Angell. “What are you doing?” Randall hissed as he grabbed Bailey with force by the scruff of his shirt. “We can’t afford to jeopardize this. The clock is ticking.” Seeing Randall was not going to let go he gently struck a pressure point on the side of his wrist, causing him to flinch away. Without emotion Bailey bowed his head, then said “The wedding is in the morning. We leave this afternoon. What harm will it do to say goodbye? We aren't savages.” 537

Bailey put on his slightly bloodstained jacket and walked to Dane, then said “Keep the home fire burning.” The others watched as Bailey and Dane walked away along the cold path, and then carried on with their tasks. Between them the droid powered up again and leaned its lasers toward the huge slab of the door. Reverend Angell and Bailey each drove to a quiet, terraced village in the far south and let their cars park themselves. From the main streets between steaming, gothic apartment towers they walked through a maze of traditional housing terraces that looked reminiscent of the kind of places they had all known back on the true colonies. They made their way through to a back lane that ran alongside a broad field. A large church sat near the closest edge of it, and they made their way down to it. “Are you doing the ceremony?” Bailey asked as they drew closer to the long building, and the activity that surrounded it. Dane chuckled and said “Not I.” The day seemed unusually quiet given the circumstances and Bailey found himself checking each and every innocent shadow in sight incase it could conceal some other kind of danger he hadn’t foreseen. But there was nothing now it seemed, and although their escape plan was fully in motion, it seemed the whole sleepy city was oblivious to the fact.

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They took a short cut across the grass to the gathering of wedding cars at the front, and then entered by the tall bricked archway. They passed two doors on either side, one each for the bride and groom, and then entered the main hall together. The old Naturalistic Mind church was full of people, and beautifully lit by enormous stained glass windows standing up in the walls along its huge length. “I’ll see ya, Reverend.” Bailey said ghostly and walked around to the side and across the length of the church to the front, where he stood by a thick pillar being unable to find a spare seat. Dane stood at the back, watching Bailey until the music began and the couple walked in through the arch beside him. Once they had passed, he slipped back slowly out of the door, and ran away through the houses. Bailey noticed this vaguely but kept his attention on his friends, Lon Sagar and Dora Beldin, the only surviving members of the south and east syndicate families. He smiled at Lon as they reached the front, and then the music died down, and the fully robed reverend readied to bind them in marriage. “Here’s to the future!” a calm, kindly voice yelled inappropriately from the back, and on turning Bailey saw it was Nash with a few of his cronies, all crowded in the doorway. 539

He threw a grenade forward along the aisle, and then turned and ran outside with the others, giggling. Bailey saw the next moment in slow motion, as the grenade bounced and detonated, tearing through the people sitting at the rear of the church. Everyone else was pushed forward in the blast including Lon and Dora, who fell forward over the stands on the stage. Bailey fell on his side at the left of the stage, and looked back across the length of the place at the hideously mangled bloodbath at the far side. In the aftershock, the stained glass windows slowly cracked and fissured, and then shattered one by one, showering the rest of the people with razors of glass. Lon had covered Dora with his body but the glass had fallen mainly at the back. Most people within the church were now dead, either from the initial blast or diced by the still falling stained glass. There was a sound like an old projector starting and from a tiny armoured device that had been attached to the grenade a large holo projection shone above the mangled death. It was the recording of the conversation between Bailey and Francine in the restaurant, and then another recording Nash had apparently trawled up showing Bailey having sex with Francine in one of the robotic parking lots. Bailey looked at it in horror as it played in a loop, and then turned his head slowly to Lon who was now panting with

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rage. On an animal level it was clear that there was now murder between them. Lon stood up from the stage quicker than was really wise for his age, and leaped down to one of his injured body guards on the front row. He pulled open their long trench coat and reached to one of the inside pockets, and pulled out a double barrel cartridge gun. A little disorientated, Bailey scrambled to his feet at the others side of the stage. He leaped up like a cat to the nearest empty window frame and dropped down to the grass outside just as a shower of cartridge pellets hit the inside. The front of the church was a fair distance away, so Bailey immediately sprinted toward it. He made it around the corner just as Lon leaned out of the window and sprayed another shower of bullets in his direction. They tore up the grass just behind his feet, with just one of the pellets grazing his foot through the back of the shoe. Bailey yelped and ran with a limp toward the lane behind the old fashioned homes. He made it half way up the back street when Lon came running out of the front of the silent church. “Cursed Bastard!” he yelled after Bailey up the lane, then fired the shotgun at him. The shots sailed up the road as Bailey half jumped and half tripped toward the back yard of one of the homes. He 541

landed on a pile of coal that had spilled out of a cupboard. Lon fired another shot that snarled as it flew up the road, hitting the side of the coal house and bursting it in a shower of bricks over Bailey. He lay in a daze as he heard Lon’s steps run closer. They stopped on the lane beside him and Bailey sat up and tried to focus his eyes. Lon aimed the shotgun and pulled the trigger, hearing only an empty click. He pulled the trigger twice more hearing again only the empty clicks in the chambers. He sighed, realizing he was out of shots, and let the gun drop out of his hands. “I’m sorry, Lon. I am so sorry. It was a stupid mistake, all of it.” Bailey sighed wearily. Lon bent over leaning against his old knees. “I can’t do this anymore.” Lon groaned and coughed. “It never ends. We need to get out of this horrible world. I can’t bare to think of Dora dying here.” “I’ll take you with me. You and Dora both.” Bailey said, still slumped over the coal and bricks. Lon sniffed and rubbed his nose, then reached to Bailey and pulled him out onto the lane. They bent over beside each other panting. Behind them fat arms of smoke and red 542

dust were still pouring out of the shattered church windows, and catching sight of it Lon wheezed pathetically. When they had both recovered somewhat, Bailey grabbed his arm sleeve and pressed at him “We're leaving tonight. Come with us and live...” Lon straightened up and unsurely said “Yes… Yes. We will be there.” Bailey stood a moment looking into his eyes, then turned and walked down the lane. He made it half of the way to the church then paused and suddenly turned around. The old man stood looking back at him from the other end, then twisted and fell to the ground. He heard the scratch of a footfall on wet gravel behind him, and then the words “Don’t move.” Bailey recognized the voice as being that of Dr Chester Barron. He had the time for only one tear before an enormous arm locked around his neck and bent him over. It squeezed until Bailey lost consciousness, and was dropped onto the grey lane. He felt the first sensation of consciousness as he was toppled forward into a freezing tank, and slammed into it hard on his side. He lay curled at an awkward angle on the cool steel for a moment as he swam back into full awareness.

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Quickly he looked at his watch, checking that it was indeed still morning. It was late in the morning but still with enough time to pull it back. “What? Barron!” Bailey yelled out as he sat up in a growing pool of slimy water. He had been sealed inside a broad, steel cylinder, with a glass window at the front looking out on an abandoned, burnt out office. It didn’t take much guesswork to see that he had been taken north into the abandoned city center, and so now he was at the mercy of Old Gang. He sat in the freezing water and watched as Barron came to the other side of the glass, while in the holes in the building behind him noisy seagulls filled the air, watching what was going on. He smiled, as if quite pleased with what he’d done and said “You don’t deserve this. They’re going to freeze you in this stuff, and keep you as a live ornament… or something” “Who are you whoring yourself out to this time then?” Bailey said standing up. “It doesn’t matter.” Barron said sadly. “Fucking bastard Old Gang.” Bailey said and spat down into the liquid.

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“It doesn’t matter.” Barron said and turned and walked away. “Barron!” Bailey yelled out while slamming his palm against the glass. He slapped at the glass a few more times then leaned close to it and looked around at the floor outside. He couldn’t see anyone at first, just the ancient tattered ruins of an office floor blowing in the winds from the open wall. They were high up as he could see the block on the opposite side, which looked equally as desolated and remote as this. Then someone walked around in front of the window. He was an ill bred looking man with protruding teeth and one inparticularly beady eye. He was holding a console in his hand that looked to be a wireless control for the mummifying device he was standing in. He giggled in a goofy way and waved slightly with a needle abused arm. Other weirdoes were joining him to watch whatever process was about to happen within the tank. The water had already risen up to Bailey’s neck, when then he had a thought. He reached into his pocket and brought the multi-com up to the gap of air. Bailey struggled in the lapping water, but managed to dial the number for Faye Scotia, and on picking up he said “Faye! I need you to bring an ambulance fast. I don’t know where I am. You need to trace this call. Can you do this?”

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“I’ll try.” she said, sounding a little flustered. “Ok. It’s on its way.” Bailey hung up and ducked under the water. He struck the multi-com on the steel sill of the window until he had broken open the battery at the back. In the swirling liquid it was difficult, but he managed to feel around enough to loosen the right combination of nanowire bundles that he needed. He frayed and twisted a few together and then lay the com on the narrow window sill. He then kicked against the wall to get to the opposite corner as fast as possible. With his arms around his head and his knees crouched up for further shielding he waited, struggling against the last of his breath. The com glowed red and then exploded, blasting the window out and knocking the man and his strange friends back across the office. The water poured out and washed them further along and then out of the gaping hole in the wall. Their cries lessened as they fell down, and then were gone. Bailey, his body broken, and his limbs torn away, flowed out onto the filthy floor with the water. His torso slid to a stop and he lay breathing in a daze, and wondering how much of himself was still in one piece. The pain was excruciating, but he managed a brief laugh. “I’m alive.” he hissed, and then chuckled slightly before falling unconscious. 546

As he did he vaguely noticed the swirling blue lights of the robotic ambulance as it flew up to the hole in the wall. Other troll-like minions of Old Gang cringed as they saw it and ran away, deeper into the building. He awoke to the gentle peeps of a heart monitor. Bailey felt around his body, glad to see that he had been pieced back together. There was mild soreness around both of his upper arms, and his right foot, and so he guessed that those were the parts they’d had to reaffix. Bailey then looked around himself and found that he was lying in a bed in a familiar place. He looked over his shoulder through the high arched window, looking down from the South Syndicate building. At first he hadn’t noticed, but Faye was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She smiled as he noticed her. “What the chuck are ya?” she said, and threw a new multicom onto the bed.

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Nice Problems To Have. Wendall Jayne wasn’t really sure what to do. She didn't really fit in, and so had been sitting on a chair a little further back along the path from the rest. She watched as Faye came the whole distance back along the path from the nature observatory, and walked past her with a slight nod of acknowledgement, before continuing on into the mix with the others. She was surprised that even now she wasn’t really being used at all, and her extensive and brilliant experience of software hacking on all and every level was going to waste. There was a butterfly she noticed now, dancing around with her in the tunnel. It was blue, her favourite colour, but she seemed far too stressed to appreciate it. She glanced up through the opaque roof of ice at the tower and its spinning light, and wondered if maybe she’d be needed once they reached the top. As she looked back she saw again that persistent butterfly, and began to smile. It began to dance its dance back through the tunnel toward the moors and Jayne watched it, enjoying its purity and simplicity.

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Looking back at the others through the open plastic screens she saw that none of them were about to pay her any attention yet, and so she stood up and walked along the path after the thing. It stopped at the mouth of the tunnel where it began to slope down alongside a cliff of ice to the damp edge of the moors. Jayne followed the butterfly to the top of the damp ramp and stood watching it close up where it flew. It flew aside slightly and stopped on the ice within touching distance, batting its wings poetically. She didn’t touch it, but leaned closer to watch as it fluttered slightly, then eerily, changed its shape. It turned to sand, or so it seemed, and she watched as the sand ate a small shape in the ice it had been resting on. She blinked slightly and then noticed more sand blowing along the path by her feet, and more sand blowing with impossible balance along the metal arm rail of the ramp. “So beautiful.” she heard a woman whisper, as she watched the sand begin to lift from the railings and encircle her slowly in the cold air. “This won’t hurt a bit.” The dust grabbed her, and then the computer that had juvenilely called itself Netic had abducted another exile.

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The surveillance grid saw only a streak of dark blonde hair before their recordings were encrypted or deleted from the drives. Jayne felt no inertia as she was pulled at hundreds of miles per hour across the biosphere, down into city and then further down into the catacombs. It carried her deeper, through huge tunnels and caverns, by rivers of churning molten rock. Jayne closed her eyes. At the bridge by the tower there was only the empty path, while Randall and the others continued to work on their own tasks. Bailey had gone another way, to a place he was grimly familiar with. He was with Rhia NoVakahn who was in charge of the final stages of the opening of the door to the Red Sector psycho wing. “It was Barron, no question. Working for Old Gang.” he said. They had made the journey to the soot cavern that Bailey had crossed the first day he had escaped from the place. They made it across each of the piles, and the sound of the off tone bell got louder as they drew closer to the place. It 550

had apparently not been turned off in all the time he had spent in the city. At last they made it atop the last of the piles of dirt and Bailey stopped and looked around at the features of the place. “Damn, this is where I started out.” he said and followed Rhia down to the darkness below as the bell chimed another of its strange notes. They walked across the concrete flat to the outer wall with the words “Red Sector: Psycho Wing” in huge lettering. The door was as he had remembered it, still closed firmly shut, with a tiny box at its side for biometric scanning. “Ok, where are we? Only someone with the right DNA signature can open this baby.” Rhia said. “It would be best if we had someone that fitted the bill.” “Alive?” Bailey asked, knowing the answer. “Needs to be.” she said. “Thought so. Farnon and I have an idea but it’s a risky biscuit.” Bailey smiled, then dialled up the number for Port Farnon. “Hey friend, are we good to go with our little idea? Bring him here, and don’t get followed.” A half hour later of waiting and they saw Farnon and Thom walking precariously around the last of the piles of dirt. 551

Thom was carrying a wheelchair, while Farnon carried Kane Minik. They walked across the flat to them and placed Kane carefully into the chair. “I won’t help you.” Kane said with difficulty in his crippled condition. His whole body seemed limp and stiff, and his neck rested back in a padded clip. “You look terrible.” Bailey smirked as he sucked on a cigarette. “I’ll introduce you to Thom. Thom is Wendell’s boyfriend. Don’t be shy, Thom.” “How do you know, Jayne?” Thom said to him, sounding slightly angry. “It’s a long story, and to be honest it doesn’t matter.” Bailey said, ignoring the spluttering noises Kane was making. “We need to connect him to the keypad, then depress the button to open.” Rhia said. “But leave it as long as possible. If we leave it open for too long it will get noticed.” “Ok. I’ll leave this with you, Rhia.” Bailey said. “Thom you stay here in case anything strange happens. Dora Beldin is making her way here now. I made a promise to Lon I’d get her to safety. I think it’s the least we can do.”

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They made tired, dismissive sounds of agreement, then Bailey said “Farnon, you come with me. We’ll need that plane in the air very soon.” Bailey and Farnon then made the long journey to the central tower, and on arriving were greeted by Randall, Faye and the members of Thom’s gang. There were others here now also, that Bailey recognized to be friends of Randall and Faye. Farnon walked past them all to his wispy wife Minuet who didn’t look at all comfortable in the company. He comforted her close, away from the others, and rubbed her impossibly thin arms as she began to smile a little through her low hanging black hair. “Is it ok if we bring a couple more?” Faye asked. Bailey sighed and said “I guess it won’t matter much now. Who are they?” “My friend Willow Derwent.” Faye said. “And Flynn’s friend from the fight leagues.” “Name’s Nicolae.” the huge man said with a doped grin. “Just Nicolae.” “Ok. Fine.” Bailey said rubbing his head to quell the migraine. “How much longer now?”

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“It’s ready.” Randall nodded. “But we’ve found something unusual on the spectrograph.” “Oh?” Bailey said cocking his head, and walked with him to a holo-display near the door. The others watched them from a distance as Randall pointed at the 3-dimensional negative of the lower floor of the tower. “Here beyond the door we see what we expected to see. There’s a glass base in the center and a teleportation pad at the rear wall, fed by a power relay running up the wall to whatever is at the top. We can definitely hack this in the timeframe so that’s no trouble. The problem is just what you outlined in the little master plan on your wall… once this door is down it will trip every alarm on the planet. We will have to get up to the control room within minutes, or we’ll be screwed.” “I already know all this, Randall.” Bailey said. “We found something else. Look at the rear wall, behind the pad and the power lines.” Randall pointed into the holographic model, and Bailey leaned closer to see. “A shaft?” he asked. “It leads right up to the dome roof. It’s a part of the refrigeration system for the ice. In winter the tube freezes solid, pumping up the ice all around the tower. But it’s open 554

at the roof. Someone could climb up there and may be able get into the control room faster that way.” Bailey held his chin and said “Well, the original escape plan showed the antenna hut is surrounded by windows on all sides. Might be able to blast my way in?” “The only way to the shaft is through the water, under the ice, then swim across to it. We drilled a hole to see how far down the water is.” Randall walked with Bailey over to a narrow well, leading meters down to a small circle of water. “It would be dangerous.” Randall said. “And there may not be any need.” “But if you can’t hack the teleportation pad, then what? It’s all lost? I’ll go.” Bailey said, and took off his jacket and shirt. The others looked on with worried faces. “Are we starting now?” Faye said dumbly. “It’s already started. We’re wasting time.” Bailey said. “Blast the door. Get in there.” Randall nodded, looking worried himself, as Bailey walked to the edge of the well. The arm of the droid that had 555

drilled it still dangled over it. He looked up at it and then down at the water, then cupped his hands together and toppled forward into the well. The others rushed to look as Bailey plummeted down and then was enveloped by the cold blue water. Bailey stretched out, trying to swim in the direction of the underside of the tower. The cold of the water had grasped every cell of his body, and now his chest had contracted threatening to squeeze the air back out of his lungs. His eyes adjusted to the water and the cold, and he began kicking and swiping into it. Slowly at first, he began to swim below the rippling ice, that he now saw was a kind of enclosed cave. He glided under the cement edge of the tower then the ice ended and the steel underside of the tower began. Bailey swam under it then felt the tug of gravity pulling him upward. It cancelled out the downward pull and so he tipped upside down and dropped out of the water. Gently he landed on his feet, upside down beneath the tower. Bailey looked around in the small air pocket, and jumped slightly to test the strange gravitational effect he had encountered. The far side of the tower was still a distance away, and there was no time to loose. At no time did Bailey hear anything from the rest of the team.

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Randall and the others blew the massive steel slab of the door, which spun slightly then toppled forward onto the floor within with an enormous crash. They stepped through the smoke, over the now immovable slab, and Randall looked at the teleportation pad on the far side, and the red strips of warning lights that suddenly began without noise. “No time to lose.” Randall said, and they all ran into the tower. Above them the power relays and diodes whipped massive bolts of electricity between them. They trickled up the full length of the tower to the top, which was out of sight in the darkness. The only light in the place now was from the flickering strings of electricity, and the technical warning lights, that ran down the length of the tower in a series of red bars, ending beside the teleporter. The escape party ran over the first of the floor to the center of the tower, where the floor turned to glass and the air pocket and water could be seen below. Randall stopped as he saw Bailey running just below him like a mirror image. Bailey stopped also and looked at him momentarily before running on. Randall continued past the glass to the floor housing the teleporter, and pointed for Rhia to get to work. He joined her on his back, and they slid underneath the pad, and began prizing open the microcircuitary. They each took the 557

scraps of paper that had been taken from Bailey’s wall, and began rewiring the pad. “Come on. Come on.” Faye said, and then hugged her friend while stamping her feet slightly. As the red warning lights reached the ground level they dazzled each of them, making it hard to concentrate. Faye looked up, seeing a small porthole in the rear wall beside the lights. Through it she saw Bailey slowly pulling himself up the shaft. It took a while and Bailey’s fingers kept sticking to the frost on the service ladder, but Bailey climbed extremely fast and eventually he made it high up to where the shaft ran through the dome shell. A few more moments and he reached the drafty top, and began wrestling with a grated hatch that looked as if it hadn't been touched in maybe centuries. He could hear nothing but the moan of the wind from inside the shaft, but once the hatch was open and he had pulled himself up and onto the roof he heard the chopping of helicopter blades. As he stood up and span around he saw above him two heletanks searching the topside of the dome and the nearby hut with pairs of searchlights. Suddenly one lamp found him then the rest locked onto him the same, turning a deep lime green.

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There was a churning sound as the machine guns revved up, and Bailey having realized this began sprinting through the bracing dusk air toward the side of the tarred hut. He shot at the closest window and dived up at the cracking glass, while behind him the machine guns opened fire. The ground behind him was sprayed with bullets, as Bailey bust inside and shouldered down into the small space within. He fell like a ragdoll in a shower of glass finally landing on his back on the metal floor inside the control room. Quickly he checked himself with his aching hands for bullet wounds. Bailey looked up through a skylight in the ceiling at the heletanks as they flew over to see what had happened. Seeing that Bailey was back within the borders of the colony they emitted a few sad notes and flew off. Bailey stood up in the room and brushed himself off, and watched as the heletanks flew away over the roof of the dome, and finally disappeared into the evening mists. The sun was setting in the distance, and would soon be behind the mountains. Now Bailey turned his attention to the one person he had noticed here in the room, a man sat in the corner facing his instruments. He had his hands in the air and looked to be shaking with fear. “Look at me.” Bailey said. “Please don’t kill me. I’m just the Spring shift worker.” he stammered.

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“Look at me.” Bailey repeated, and the man slowly turned around in his chair. He was a slightly fat man, with deep set puggy eyes, and a damp complexion. He actually looked to be a little remedial. “What do you do here?” Bailey asked. "You're in charge of the robot control tower?" “I’m the Caretaker.” the man smiled, and Bailey looked at him with doubt. While all of this was going on things had remained calm at the door to Red Sector. With the DNA scanner prized open slightly Rhia and Thom stood checking over the wiring, while ignoring the occasional strange laughter from Kane Minik. Dora Beldin suddenly appeared on her own at the edge of the concrete platform, and made struggling noises as she tried to step up onto it from the base of the cavern. “Oh!” Thom shouted, seeing she needed help, and ran over to her. He pulled her up, and then saw behind her a series of hovering cases that were set to follow a wifi lead she was holding.

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“Oh no, no.” he said. “This is out of the question.” They walked over to the door and Rhia surveyed the long line of hovering cases following them over their shadow on the concrete. “It’s just women’s essentials and the like.” she said gesturing to Rhia. “You know how it is?” “I’m afraid not.” Rhia said blandly. “Just the bare essentials. You should have been told all of this.” “Well yes, but I thought I should give it a try at least.” Dora said, still trying to get her own way somehow. “Oh yes, Bailey asked me to bring these.” Dora reached into the first case and brought out two small devices. One was an EMP grenade while the other was a similar sized pyramid with a tiny button at its apex. “What are they?” Thom said, as Rhia walked past him and took them out of Dora’s hands. “A bomb and a shield against the blast.” Rhia mumbled, not really answering Thom. “That’s right.” Dora said taking them back. “Let me handle them.”

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“Maybe we should…” Thom began, but stopped as Rhia patted him down. Dora put them into the pocket of her long coat, and then turned to her luggage, and began running her hands affectionately over them. Realizing she wasn’t going to be able to take any of it, she threw the wifi lead away and the luggage moved after it toward the edge of the concrete flat. “Good times.” she said. She joined Thom and Rhia at the door, glancing briefly at the strange man in the wheelchair that chuckled and laughed as if to himself. Back at the control room, Bailey had finished a brief conversation with the Caretaker. “That’s remarkable…” Bailey shook his head, laughing slightly. “One of you has been up here all the time, for centuries? Micromanaging those metal bastards. And none of you have any education whatsoever? Hah! The king of the fucking curb!” His attention was then turned to the teleport pad at the opposite side of the small room. There was a whirring and a smell in the air like static build up, and then after a blurring of the space there Randall appeared, holding two large guns ahead of him. They coincidentally were aimed at both Bailey and the Caretaker.

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“It seems safe.” Bailey said, as the cold wind blew over them from the broken window. Randall thought a moment then lowered the guns. He looked them both, then stepped down from the teleporter, and immediately behind him a computerized voice said “Platform clear.” There was another whirring and the blurring over the pad, and three more people appeared. Faye, Farnon and Nicolae stepped down, bumping against Randall. The Caretaker sighed and said “I’ve never seen that working before. I’ve been doing shifts here for twenty years.” “Who is he?” Randall asked, apparently bottling his prejudices. “I’m the Caretaker. I take care of the colony robots.” he said with a broad, innocent smile. “It doesn’t matter.” Bailey said quietly. “Look.” Bailey pointed at the window, and then at the binoculars on one of the Caretaker’s control panels. Farnon took them first and looked out across the roof of the dome, and beyond to the mountains at the craters rim. There he saw a 563

heletank flashing its lights wildly, and another join it, ramming it, and then fleeing as the other gave chase. “Two sharks.” he said, handing the binoculars to Faye. They each looked, and then Bailey said “And there’s more. The alarm has been tripped. So much is clear. Now look up.” They each looked up at the dark sky leaning forward over the panels to see with the binoculars. Faye looked first, finding it difficult to focus on the expanse of the sky, since she had not seen it in a while. Then she found ship after ship in orbit. There were many of them littering space around the weather station. “Oh heck.” she said handing the binoculars to Randall. They all froze as they heard rumbling, and looked at Bailey who smiled a knowing smile. “We knew this was going to happen. Right, Randall?” he said. Randall looked at him, rough but afraid. “Right.” he said.

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Bailey sat down on the floor beside the Caretakers feet and leaned back against the panels. He started to chuckle like a mad man, worrying the others including the Caretaker. A large ship flew by overhead, ploughing through the grey cloud and then twisting and lowering toward the crater basin. There were others moving through the cloud in opposite directions, and landing at different points around the dome. Farnon looked through the binoculars down over the dome roof at the crater basin beyond, and saw the side of the dropship open, slamming down to form a huge ramp. Tens then hundreds of troops leaped out like wild animals and began running left and right to form brigades. “Mercenaries.” Farnon said disdainfully. “They must have known there was an escape in the pipe. It’s the only…” “The Mercs…” Bailey began. “Where from?” Farnon looked again, zooming closer to the spaced, snarling faces of the men. They were in full snow-camouflage garb and clutching an array of bulky weaponry, while receiving drug cocktail shots from their CO. “Earth colonies.” he said with a note of fear, Shit. “Shit!” Bailey said banging his head back against the panel. 565

“Maybe it wont matter.” Randall said. “They look like European brigades. They are the worst. African or Asian would be bad enough.” “We have a plan, right?” Randall said glaring at Bailey. “This is true.” Bailey said standing up. “This was always going to happen. It’s the main reason we had to get in here.” Bailey walked over to one of the control panels and began entering strings of commands. “Err excuse me.” The Caretaker said, as Bailey ignored him. “Excuse me?” “What is it?” Farnon said. “These robots work from a delicate balance of systems engineering. You shouldn’t just reprogram them without a clear plan.” “We have a plan. Right?” Farnon said, and was ignored also. “Not that kind of plan, I mean a…” the Caretaker stammered.

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“Ok. That should do it.” Bailey said. “What? Oh yes, just relax. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” He patted the Caretaker on the shoulder and walked to the teleport pad. “Everyone, please?” he said gesturing to the pad. “It’s time.” “Err excuse me?” the Caretaker said waving to catch their attention. “I’ve shut down the antenna, and reprogrammed the outer droids to attack the mercs.” he said to them as they huddled around. “All you need to do is get to the rendezvous. Farnon, your job is slightly harder. You need to get my drones in the air fast to distract those heletanks. Is this all clear? Farnon?” “Easy as donuts.” he said. “Excuse me!” the Caretaker yelled, and catching their attention they all turned to him. “I’m taking over here.” Bailey said stepping forward. “I am responsible for the health and wellbeing of everyone in this colony. Your actions are destabilizing the safety of all of this, and jeopardizing the solidarity of the colony borders. You must not do this. It’s… Against the law.” The Caretaker ranted. 567

Bailey smiled, and cocked his pistol. “You are right again, Caretaker.“ Bailey said, glaring at him suddenly. “But I ain’t the good guy.” He shot the Caretaker through the face. All sides of the control room were sprayed with thick blood, and the others on the teleport pad cringed up in fear. Bailey looked over his shoulder at them sadly, and said “Get outa here. Go.” “Yeah, come on.” Randall said, putting a hand on Faye’s shoulder. The four of them stepped onto the pad and Nicolae pressed the control at the back. They stood looking at Bailey as the pad powered up, and then pulled them through a backspace rip back down to ground level. Bailey stared at the empty teleporter for a second then turned to the flickering control panels, and the bleeding, headless corpse slumped in the chair between them. He kicked the chair aside, and it rolled across the room to the corner, then leaned over the panels and squinted at each touch screen. They mapped out the various robot divisions, with each screen zooming in and out to gain a maximum coverage of all of them. Each of the divisions were standing motionless in the positions they had been when Bailey had shut down the grid. Now Bailey worked through each of 568

the screens, programming each division to march in the direction of the nearest dropship, and to treat the brigades of troops as they would escaping convicts. This would create a ground war, distracting the troops while also reducing their count. The air drones that Port Farnon was about to launch, would also help them in these tasks. From above on the crystal highways it would have seemed strange for a few moments as a long line of men and women ran from the ice surrounding the central robot tower and packed into the cars that surrounded the abandoned nature post. They drove to the opening onto the crystal highways from the grass of the moors. Port Farnon stood on the dirty concrete and watched them leave as they drove up onto the highways and turned off toward the southern factories, and the district leading to the Red Sector. With the clock ticking, Farnon got into an offroad jeep that he had brought with him and drove quickly along a dirt track across the moors in the direction of the temperate zone. Once at the border to the belt of overgrown fields he drove between high hedgerows down another long dirt lane that had been originally intended for use by robotic combine harvesters and the like. It took him right down to the shore, and then along the short beaches to the pier.

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He left the jeep in the sand and ran the rest of the way along the pier to the dome wall door, that opened as he approached with the radio key. Alone, he ran up a spiralling corridor to the area leading into the biosphere ventilation shafts. Here he found the remnants of the first escape that had been torn down by Border Sec, leaving only the broad feet of the cranes. For this escape they had reconstructed one of them, and hoisted a plane up onto it. It hung there as the others had done, only this time with two chains hung from the back. At intervals along each chain a large V-winged drone was attached, ready to be deployed once enough speed had been gathered. The other two disused cranes’ feet stood just above head height before him. Farnon walked past them to the third and climbed up the long, thin ladder to the top, and then climbed into the cockpit. He opened up the new consoles that had been melted seamlessly into the cockpit, and pressed a few commands, causing the oval shape in the dome wall ahead of him to begin sliding upward. The crane moved the plane forward so the nose was hanging out through the gaping hole. “Three. Two. One.” Farnon said, and then felt the jerk as the crane kicked the plane out of the hole.

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He steadied himself against the growing inertia, and then began heaving back on the archaic pilot stick. It was harder than the first time, since he now had a collection of heavy metal objects in tow, but he managed to level it out and then angle the plane toward the sprawling line of brigades in the basin below. “Releasing drones.” he muttered, not that anyone could hear him. He reached for the button on a box that had been soldered to the cockpit dash in a makeshift fashion, and was about to press it when it flickered in rainbow colour. Farnon heard the screech of strange notes, and instinctively pulled down on the stick. The heletank flew over the cockpit, missing it by inches. The other was closing in fast also, so he knew to be quick. He pressed the button, and one by one the drones unclipped from the chains, and began blasting off in different directions. Scouting the angles and trajectories of the two huge killing machines, Farnon pulled on the stick and flipped the plane over a few times, levelling it out in the direction for the outer doors of the Red Sector unit. Immediately he heard the chain gun fire of both heletanks, and instinctively flipped the plane over a few times more to avoid it.

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“Shit fuck.” he said as he levelled out, and then looked around, realizing he wasn’t going to make it to the rendezvous like this. “Alright.” He flipped the plane again, banking it around and then jetted it down toward the center of the basin, in the direction of the citadels. One of the heletanks wailed and gave chase, while the other blasted off the other way, firing its cannons at a group of drones that were heading for the nearest dropship. While this played out in the distant skies, the others involved in the escape had reached the outer wall of the city. They made their way to the river bed before the soot cavern, that wasn’t as dry as it had been in other seasons. The winter snow piled up against the side of the dome had melted and was now being channelled through the dome for processing by the biosphere, and power plants. The river here was knee high and freezing, and very uncomfortable to cross. They each made it to the steps and then up to the platform atop the scaffold. As they stood congregating, they each took one last look at the factories, and the endlessly cycling fairground at the far side, and then turned and entered the outermost cavern. They made their way through it to the outer door of Red Sector, and were greeted by Rhia, Thom and Dora.

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“Who’s this?” Faye said, gesturing at the crippled man in the wheelchair. “Our ticket inside.” Rhia smiled, and walked over to the keypad carrying a wire that had been connected to the chair. “Observe.” The man in the chair suddenly started to laugh, then choked and coughed. Thom glanced at him, then back to Rhia who connected the wire to the biometric pad within the keypad. “The biometric scanner detects the DNA signature of whoever enters the code. So you need both the code and the DNA. Mr Minik refuses to enter it for us but luckily we can bypass it. We string a conductive wire from the keypad to a needle in his leg. The electromagnetic signature of his body is conducted along the wire and as I have already hacked the keycode… hey presto!” Rhia animated. The keypad bleeped dumbly and a small light that had been previously red turned to green. The old door slowly started to slide upward in its groove. There were a few cheers from the others, and again choked laughter from Kane Minik. “Come along, Mr Minik. We haven’t finished with you just yet.” Rhia said. She and Thom got behind the wheel chair, after gathering up the long wire. They tipped it back and rolled it up into 573

the tunnel, then along to the next door which opened at the flick of a switch. Each of them entered the basement floor of Red Sector, with Rhia and Thom pushing the wheelchair ahead of the rest. The others followed nervously behind, stepping carefully over the gaps in the floorboards over the dark chasm. They carried Minik in the chair up the steps and then ignoring the rageful looking clientele, pushed him up into the burnt garden. The trees were still a twisted scorched mess, barely holding up the plush foliage that crammed together at the arched ceiling. It took them aback slightly to see the strange and secret place, but not so much as to stop them making their escape. The drug doped inhabitants of the psycho wing sat below the swaying scarlet canopies as they joined them on the grass, looking at each of them in confusion until they had passed by. When they had passed under a fallen tree canopy the entrance to the place became clear, hiding behind a fountain that extended from the wall, in the shape of cupped hands reaching out at different heights. They each made their way up the stone steps at either side of the central waterfall, and through the smaller falls into the broad cavern behind them. Randall paused momentarily to look at the white line embedded in the plateau of rock behind the falling water, before moving on.

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Again, Kane was laughing, as if to himself somehow. They all tried to ignore him as they stood together in the last enclosure before the outer Narcosia environment. They stood staring at the flat wall at the back of the dank cave, with the huge white door standing in it. “Just one more to go.” Rhia said as she unhooked the wire loop from the back of the chair, and then walked backward to the broad door. She began connecting it to the keypad there, and said “Last door. This one will be a little tricky.” Far away over the basin, Port Farnon had flown far enough to almost reach the center. He was struggling to stay focused while the heletank so close behind him howled and screeched, while shining blinding rainbow targeting beams through the back of the cockpit. “Oh Fate be with me.” he said as he saw he was close to the smaller artificial crater that was reputed to surround the citadel zone. The view all around the cockpit suddenly twisted and morphed, so that momentarily the ground was above the plane and vice versa. Then he passed through the cloaking field, and he found himself flying at great speed over a blinding light, and arrowing between two of the mighty citadels.

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He steadied it, still hearing the heletank close behind. It opened fire again, and Farnon flicked the plane aside as the fiery bullets arced past him. Then he spotted ahead a group of three huge windmills nearby the last in the line of citadels, that were no doubt a backup power supply for the zone. He took the plane along the base of the citadels toward the windfarm. The plane flew down low beside the ground between a row of blinding floodlamps and then pulled up as he reached the first of the windmills. He flew up along the tower supporting the blades, as the heletank followed close behind. A missile lock was acquired on the center of the blades and Farnon opened fire. A single missile whistled ahead and blew the windmill from its tower. Above the explosion bloomed out and through it the huge head of the windmill fell, still spinning a little. Farnon, panicking slightly guided the plane through two of the blades and then blasted off up the tall wall of the closest citadel. Behind, the heletank flew directly into the windmill head, which gathered it up and crushed it down into the concrete. Farnon cut the engine when he had reached a certain height, allowing the plane to slow in its own momentum. As it stopped he noticed a camera leaning out of the side of the citadel, and waved at it cheesily before the plane was pulled back and accelerated by gravity. He flew down and 576

over the burning heletank, then took the plane out of the glaring place, and back over the basin toward the dome. At the white door behind the waterfall Rhia clapped her hands, making a sound that echoed in the stone place. “Ok kittens!” she said. “Everyone ready?” Some nodded, and Rhia reached into the open space behind the keypad. There was a harsh hiss and flicker within, like the kind of discharge that should have burned her fingertips. Rhia was fine, and stepped back as the door began to slowly slide up. The freezing air blew in over them and they cringed against it as the door rose to the top, spilling bright white light into the cave. They each slowly walked forward and through the doorway, with Francine covering the mouth of her baby to shield against the frosty air. Thom and Randall stayed behind them, and walked out onto the snow between a semi circle of floodlights. Ahead of them was a shallow valley covered in smooth snow, leading down then up to the first of the mountains at the craters rim. At the edge of the valley, just before the first two jagged peaks was a concrete installation surrounded by a high chain link fence, and barbed wire. Within was a complex mesh of super transistors and wires at the base of four gigantic windfarm towers.

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They looked at them in the lessening light, illuminated by their own floodlamps that had come on for the night. They slowly creaked and groaned as they turned, driven by a wind channel between the two peaks behind it. “Where do we go?” Francine said, as she rocked the baby against her shoulder. Above them then was a howl of jets, and the plane piloted by Port Farnon flew down and landed in the valley. It skidded to a stop on skis that had been fitted underneath, and then the cockpit opened, and Farnon waved. Behind him, beyond the power station in the narrow gorge between the peaks, there was the sound of gun fire, and bullets whistled past the plane. “Get back.” Rhia shouted and ushered them to return to the cave. Farnon scrambled out of the cockpit and ran up across the snow to the doors. He made it to cover, just as more bullets whistled from the darkness beyond the power plant. They hid behind the sides of the door, while Randall and Rhia leaned around the edge, and looked to see what would happen next. There were no more bullets, but the sound of voices could be heard. Then all around the front of the mountains began to dance with coloured light. 578

The perimeter robots that had been reprogrammed had lain in wait, and now activated as the soldiers closed in. There was suddenly the sound of gunshots, and raucous cries from the soldiers as the two sides clashed. Beside them Kane was laughing loudly. “What the hell are you so happy about?” Thom said at last. “Oh my petty goodness.” he said. “None of you have realized even yet.” “What then?” Rhia said, uninterested. “That one of your number is missing?” he spluttered, and continued laughing. They all began looking to one another, searching to see who might have gone. Thom looked at each of them and suddenly realized. “Jayne.” he whispered, then dived at the chair strangling Kane against the clip holding him. “What the hell did you do to her!” Kane sputtered another laugh and tried to say something. Randall gently pulled Thom back, and Kane looked up at them “If I can’t have her, you sure as God can’t. Stupid 579

punk. I added her to the Spring lists. She’s been taken to the citadels. I’m sure she’ll be the life of the party. In fact… I’m sure she’ll go down really well. Ha ha.” Kane laughed raucously, and stopped as Thom struck him hard across the face. Thom stepped back holding his sore hand, and slowly broke down. Randall watched him, realizing that his friend wasn’t going to be able to help any longer. High above the dome the air had cleared as night had fallen. Bailey had climbed up onto the roof of the control hut and was standing beside the base of the antenna looking out over all sides of the dome with the binoculars. Through the night vision he could see the cadres of troops either lined and waiting for orders, or fighting with the now psychotic colony robots. His cloned multi-com buzzed in his trouser pocket, and he received the call from Randall. He opened the com and said “Bailey.” Immediately he could hear the cries and moans of the people around Randall. “What’s happened?” Bailey said with a flush of anxiety.

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“It’s Kane.” Randall panted. “He says he got Jayne abducted. She’s missing. I think he’s telling the truth.” “She’ll be at the citadels now.” Bailey said, as he started to shake slightly. Don’t panic. I said don’t panic! “What do we do, Bailey?” Randall said, sounding like he was about to cry himself. “Should we carry on, or…” “Yes.” Bailey said quietly. “You must get to the rendezvous. I’ll go get Jayne. Ok? Tell Thom I’ll bring her back. I’m coming to you now. Do you hear me?” There was no reply from Randall. Only the cries from the people behind could be heard. They rang in Bailey’s ears, churning his mind and then finally managed to drive him to the breaking point. He dropped the multi-com into the snow at his feet, and stood staring wide eyed into nothingness. The small but icy flakes of snow landed on his nose and eyes, and still he stared.

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Lose, Lose… The Narcosia sky was the same as any other night. The stars were a brilliant collection of piercing dots, like burning rocks sank slightly into the fabric of the night. On this night, there were differences though. An emergency was taking place throughout the system that surrounded and penetrated the planet. The effects of this hadn’t yet managed to reach the dome, but now, out of the night sky a huge rod flew at great speed toward the control hut. The rod hit the roof of the hut and slid down into it until it ran out of momentum and stood alongside the antenna, like a smaller cousin to it. There was a sound like an old film projector starting up, and then holograms of four men appeared on the roof beside the door to the antenna. They stood as if they were on the snow, crouching slightly and looking about themselves. “I can’t see anything.” one of them said to High General Kinnyck, who stood at the front. “Ah there we are. Oh good shot commander. All the way from orbit. How remarkable.” The man who had been Bailey watched them from a perch high up on the antenna. He hugged it close and tight as the cold wind washed the snow over him.

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The four men noticed this and began to walk toward him. “Mr Bailey? Aaron Bailey?” Kinnyck said. “We would like to talk to you about this infraction if we may? We four work in the command citadel, and must take alarms such as these very seriously. Can we help perhaps? What do you think you are doing?” The man said nothing, simply hugging the antenna, which rocked slightly in the winds higher up. “Are you alone Mr Bailey? If you tell us who else is involved maybe we can….” Kinnyck stopped and watched the man he believed to be Aaron Bailey. “Mr Bailey?” The man looked down at him, with a piercing stare, and smiled slowly baring his white teeth. Kinnyck and the others cringed and began backing away. “Oh my God.” a man of lesser rank said behind him. “Call the brigades in orbit. Tell them this is serious.” “I’m coming to get you.” Arc said coldly and with malice. The men disappeared as they turned away, to get to work in opposition to Arc’s plans. Arc Micormic waited a moment, grinning, and then let go of the antenna. 583

Thom, Randall and the others were still standing around on the flats just outside of the portcullis listening to the gunfire, that had now been driven back into the mountains. They had all but been demoralized when Randall’s multicom rang. He put it on loud speaker and they listened as the voice they knew as Bailey came over to them. “Hello friends. I am on my way there now. The heletank will be out in force but I believe there is a service tunnel I can use to get through to the citadel zone. It leads from the other dome, which shouldn’t be a problem if the plane is still up and running.” “Are you sure? How do you know this?” Thom said sadly. “It was part of the old plan. Gen Colec and the others in the past. They had a crazy idea. Maybe we can use it, or something similar.” “Then I should go.” Thom said. “No it won’t work. It has to be me.” Arc said. “Continue with the plan. I promise you, I’ll get her back, Thom. Just get to the rendezvous.” The line went dead and they stood around on the snow as the gunshots rang out from within the gorge. The whole crevice between the peaks was now dancing with light as the robots slowly pushed the soldiers back toward their dropships.

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Thom looked at the others, and Randall shrugged. “I’m at a loss. Even If we get into orbit the motherships could still tear us apart. What do you think, Thom?” Randall said. The people looked at Thom as he closed his eyes and held his head back. “I think...” he said gently, letting the drizzle land on his face. “I think I’d rather die up there, than spend another minute in this place. So I guess you’re either with me… or not.” Randall nodded at the others, and together they turned and ran off into the darkness. The white door slowly closed behind them. Arc ran from the tower to where his battered sports car was parked at the nature observatory, and then drove up and across the biosphere toward Old Gang Central. He stopped at a station realizing his car was out of gas, and patiently glided around the old fashioned pumps. It was a platform of opaque glass with an open top just off the main tubes of the highway, and situated more or less over the edge of the sea. He held the nozzle into his car as the fuel slowly poured in and smiled as he listened to the gentle lashing of the waves

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below. The wind blew through what remained of his hair and he enjoyed the feeling of it, remembering such feelings. Just then he heard a screech, and turning he looked at a familiar face running toward him. "You dirty bastard!" the young boy that had yelled at him through the window in South Syndicate village a year ago was now standing before him pointing at him accusingly. "Excuse me?" Arc said. "You came after me! You killed them all!" he yelled, catching the attention of his family, who indeed looked to be large enough for the boy to not fear many people he would fool around with. As his enormously built family began marching at him across the station grounds, Arc sighed. The boy squealed out at he flew out over the side of the station, and then plummeted to his death on the beach. Stunned, his family watched as Arc produced a gun and fired one shot down into the pump beside them. It didn't explode, but began to glow and then caught fire slightly.

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Shaken by it all they turned and ran away onto the highways, while Arc got back into his car and tore away after them. He passed them where they ran and then behind him the station burst into a high plume of flames, that backed up into the tubes slightly, but not far enough to harm anyone. He drove down into the sea and then into the seabed tunnel leading down toward Old Gang Central. The car drove at speed out of the tunnel and seeing that the direction he wanted to go was already blocked off by colony droids and Border Security vehicles he turned the opposite way. "Infraction unacceptable!" a deep robotic voice boomed out over the dark street. Arc skidded down the highway junctions to the ground level. He flew down onto the dark main street, then turned the car into one of the old mall windows and crashed into the deserted shopping precinct. He drove fast over the chipped and potholed tiles to the far side then crashed through the already half broken screen doors. With the Old Gang party dead ahead he let the car leap out in its own momentum over the packed waste grounds. The car crashed down into the first of the crowd, cutting through the drugged up junkies. The powerful engines 587

ploughed them brutally out of the way with a few rolling onto the bonnet and bouncing off the roof of the car. There wasn’t far to go around the side of the grounds to the lane leading into the abandoned factory district, and the door to the outside. As he tore the last of them out of the way the whole congregation of thousands became enraged, shouting in righteous chorus, and began running after the now hated sports car. The car reached the main street again just behind the Border Sec blockade, and seemingly unaware of what he had done he entered the tunnel to the factories. Arc crashed through a stack of tires blocking the way, and raced on into the next district. The army of angry junkies reached the narrow lane behind and began falling over each other in an attempt to clamber through. They gave chase as the car sped along and through to the factory zone beyond. As he neared the tall door in the dome wall he cut the engines, and in the absence of the growl only the distant screams of the pursuing crowd could be heard, and the confused wailing of the Border Sec sirens. Unphased, he took the car alongside the outer wall in the direction of the ramp leading to the tall doorway, that he now saw was open with an enormous guard standing sentry within. 588

He didn’t seem to be expecting company, and was actually looking away while attempting to reroll a turban. Arc let the car hit the ramp and jump slightly up into the doorway, clipping the fat man with force and causing him to yelp out momentarily before hitting the ground unconscious. With the car at a safe stop in the doorway Arc got out. The sounds of the hundreds of junkies could be heard entering the factory district on the far side, so Arc knew to be quick. Arc, who had very little time left, ran over to the dusty bikes that were leaning against the wall. It was the same bike he had used to journey to the other dome, and on kicking the pedal he found it was still fully working. The engine growled out and Arc released the clutch. He sped out of the door and down the street along the outer wall away from the crazy army, wheelying so to accelerate faster. The security cameras followed the bike as it sped Southward through districts, mounting the eastern highways as soon as he was able. “Don’t lose him.” Nash said as he, Dane Angell and Chester Barron watched the monitors. They watched as the cameras tracked the bike through district after district along the outskirts of the city. 589

Arc piloted the bike like a professional, weaving at high speed though the glowing night traffic. Holographic signs that pointed to other roads and exits hissed by overhead and to the side of the highway. Arc took the bike to the highest possible speeds through the east of the city, and as the highway ended he took it back down onto the regular road system that led the rest of the way through the factories. “Look.” Dane pointed as they saw the bike enter a district and slow down beside a river. “I know where they’re going.” They watched as Arc rode the bike down and through the river and then began scrambling up each of the short flights of rickety steps. “That’s Red Sector.” Barron said. “But of course. They say the simplest plans are the best, I guess.” Nash grinned, then turned and pointed at the door with both hands. “Let’s go!” They walked out of the dark room and turned down a bright red corridor. In the soot cavern, Arc scrambled the bike around the valleys between the dirt piles, eventually reaching the end and riding up a pile and jumping out and down onto the concrete flat. He sped up and through the hacked doorway and then through to the dark basement within. He skidded left, kicking up a couple of the wooden boards, then sped 590

up the stairs to the ground floor before he could fall through the gaps. He bunny hopped up into the murky scarlet gardens then stopped, panting as he leaned over the bike. Through his teary eyes he caught sight of the tree he had seen in the first moments he had spent in the prison, leaning fiercely to the side as if some hurricane force had tried to uproot it. He started the bike and rolled beneath it as carefully as he could, occasionally skidding and spraying black water from the charred grass toward the groups of men and women here. He snarled the engines of the bike as he took it through to the base of the falls, and then looked up at the steps leading behind the fountain he remembered so vividly. Arc sighed slightly, while in the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of positronic lights. He looked across the hazy gardens and saw the robot, Zep Teppi ducking under the fallen tree canopy and then running across in his direction. Arc sighed as he approached. “Err Bailey? Mr Bailey?” Zep said as he reached him. “You must return to your cell immediately! You are very far behind with your medication.”

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Arc watched the sincere look in his black eyes within the rest of the light. Then Arc said “You’re silly.” He pushed Zep Teppi with a limp hand, who then doubled back over into the pond with a heavy splash. Arc angled his bike at the left line of stairs and wheelspun the back tire down into the mud, spraying the muck into the pond over the robot. He then took it swiftly up the steps and through the small curtain of water leading into the wet cave. There he saw Kane connected to the door, and smirked cruelly. He lay the bike on its side on the damp rock plateau, and began checking the wire between Kane’s leg and the door. Kane began to choke on seeing him. “I dunno. Maybe I did the wrong thing. This is your fault you know.” Kane said slowly. Arc ignored him as he fiddled with the levers behind the open keypad. He connected the two that were required and the resulting charge sparked and shocked him enough to double back. He looked at it a moment wondering something, then stepped back beside Kane as the door groaned a few times and then began to slide up.

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In Arc’s eye the light slowly grew until the door rose to the top and slammed into place. “Arc.” Kane said, and Arc’s eyes flicked to him. “It is Arc, isn’t it? It’s all on file. I done wrong, Arc. Make it right again… please.” Arc didn’t reply, and Kane watched as he ran out through the glare of the light. The biometric connection to Kane overloaded causing a magnesium flare in the open pad on the wall and the burning wire fell to the floor. Arc stopped outside amongst the footprints of the others, and spotted the plane in the dip of the dark valley. He trotted down the valley to it and strode around the fuselage, checking it over. Now this is ideal. “Like you’re an expert.” Arc muttered. “Psst.” Arc heard a voice, and followed it up the other side of the valley to a low ridge of rocks, that he now saw was a hiding place for the others in the escape. A few of them were waving for him to come, so Arc trotted further up the valley to them, and crouched down behind the rocks at their side. “What ya gonna do now then?” Faye whispered loudly. 593

“They can’t hear us.” Arc said gesturing toward the power plant, and the flashes of gunfire just beyond it. “Uh oh.” Farnon said, as he watched the battle through the binoculars. “Your boys are getting pushed back a little.” There were two huge gunshots from within the gorge, and the robots ran out, some scrambling along the walls like locusts. They all leapt to the concrete foundations of the power plant and ran through the main walkway leading between the valley and the mountains. Some fell as more gunshots caught them, and they crawled along the wet concrete trying to keep up with the others. The rest skidded left and right along junctioning pathways, finding cover behind transistor towers and the like. The flickering from their craniums died out and the power plant filled with shadows. The first squad crept around the corner of the edge of the gap between mountains. The Sergeant stayed ahead with two others, scanning the fences and machinery with night vision goggles, while whipping laser sights of the rifles though each nook and gap. “Check your six.” a voice came over their hip radios from the Generals in orbit. “Keep it together squad.” “Good advice.” one of them muttered sarcastically.

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“Can it, Wells!” the Sergeant snapped at him over his shoulder. “Look alive! Lantians are faggots, but even faggots can aim a gun, and get off a lucky shot or two.” Arc and the others watched from their hiding place just outside of the plant. They could hear their voices traveling on the wind. “What is that horrible language?” Faye said. “It sounds like a load of clicks and snarls.” “English. European.” Arc said. “It’s usually English, Spanish or Chinese. The higher ups speak Latin but they won’t be anywhere near here. They rarely leave the Prime worlds.” “What are they saying then?” Bethany said. “They’re saying we’re wimps.” Arc sniffed. “They’re just poverty mad soldiers. What do they know?” “Here we go.” Farnon said, staring ahead through the binoculars. As the squad stepped up onto the concrete pathway between fences, and the other squads crept up behind, the robots lit up and skipped out ahead of them on the path, their metal feet clattering against he stone. “Crank it uuuuuuuup!” the Sergeant yelled and began firing. 595

Behind him, from huge speakers that had been dragged along the full length of the gorge, loud music blared out over the scene. Twenty to twenty first century death metal happened to be the choice of these particular brigades. Two of the robots were shattered by gun fire but there were many more joining them by the second. The robots’ rifle fire carved through them, butchering the squad at the front and then the squads behind once the view had been cleared. Soon all of the troops had been turned to a hideous soup of corpses on the snow. There was a silence as the blizzard poured wet snow over them and then the next wave of soldiers streamed out of the gap. The robots hid back at the sides and waited for a decent clear shot. Another round of troops charged between the fences, and the gold robots spun out from their cover and began picking them off one by one. Two jumped aside this time and took cover behind the fuse boxes on that side. “What the hell is this, Sarge?” one of them yelled to the other over the raucous death metal. “I don’t think our alien friends have been entirely honest with us.” the older man yelled back. “Maybe we should fall back?”

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“No Sarge!” the first shouted defiantly. “We came here to do a job, man.” Just then a horde of reinforcements came charging and screaming through the valley behind him. The sergeant gave the other a thumbs up, then looked up into the sky as one of Arc’s airborne drones flew through the valley overhead. A moment later there were napalm explosions from behind the reinforcements, then more engulfing them, and the last splashing down onto the two men. They ran out from their cover screaming and on fire, and the soldier watched as his Sergeant was cut down by the robot’s gun fire. He cried out and ran aside, along a smaller track toward a dead end. A robot ran to get an aim, skidding on the black ice, then lowered his gun as he saw what the soldier was about to do. The flaming soldier reached the end of the way and leapt from the platform there onto a mesh of wires and mega-diodes. His body burst into blue flames as his screams were strangled out of him. A red warning light came on, on the main fence beside where he had fallen, and above, the nearest wind turbine slowly ground to a halt. The robot took a last moment’s look before returning to its position. Randall, who had been watching all of this through the binoculars took them down and hissed air. 597

“This is fucking madness.” he said. Thom looked to him and barked “Well, do you want to get out or not?” “Not like this!” Randall yelled in his face. “It won’t take much longer.” Arc said softly. “I promise. Just wait. I’ll go now, Thom. Can you go get my bike for me?” “Sure I can. Just do what you gotta do.” Thom said and ran off down the hill, past the plane and up to the dome door. “Let the robots do the hard work. Wait.” Arc said with authority, and followed Thom’s footprints down the valley. Thom ran into the door, and around the wheelchair. He picked up the bike and was wheeling it past the chair when he stopped and leaned the bike against the doorway. With Kane still in it he grabbed the wheelchair by the wheel and the seat and picked it up. He carried it over to the back of the falls and kicked it through as Kane cried out in self pity. Then Thom rolled the bike through the door and free wheeled it down to the plane. “Thank you, Thom.” Arc said, and took the bike from him, and began wrapping the chains at the back of the plane around the bike. 598

“Why take the bike? Just fly there and back.” Thom said. “There’s one more heletank out in force. I can only take the plane so far.” “Good job I’m not in charge of saving her I suppose.” Thom said sadly. “I guess I’m not smart enough after all.” “How smart do you want to be?” Arc said. “You can’t out think all of this. They’d shit all over you. Best if I go.” Thom looked over his shoulder along the valley to its end, and the expanse of the first of the basin beyond it. It glistened in the moon and starlight. Arc finished affixing the bike, then walked to Thom and slapped his shoulder hard. “Just keep your chin up.” Arc said and pointed to the plant and the endlessly droning death metal. “Take care of that lot. You’ll need to survive in that jungle now.” Arc pointed at the sky, and smiled one last time. Thom ran off up the valley and Arc turned and marched up to the plane. He jumped up onto the rung and then into the archaic cockpit. He shut the lid and then powered it up, while looking over at the group that he had narrowed down from everyone else in the colony. They all still had their part to play, but as for Arc, now was the time. 599

He released the inertia clamps and let the jets push the plane along on its skates. The others watched as the ion jets suddenly roared out and blasted the plane along the valley in the opposite direction to the citadels. It lifted and flew up and over the top of the dome. “Now we wait?” Francine asked rocking her baby. Dora cupped her hand over the small pyramidal EMP shield she had brought, then smiled and said “Wait.” Arc’s plane blasted up along the smooth curve of the dome to the top side and switched up the gears of the jets. In the cockpit Arc reached back and pulled the straps of the lightweight parachute over his shoulders, and fastened the clip around his stomach. Then ahead he saw the control hut and antenna, and pressed the commands to gain a missile lock. Once the three arrows within the cockpit window had grabbed a hold of the hut he released a missile that blasted ahead at the end of a wonky line of smoke. The missile flew straight through the glass of one of the side windows and erupted outwards in a huge disk of flames. It incinerated everything within, washing over the corpse of the Caretaker. Within the biosphere lines of fire spurted out momentarily at intervals down the central control tower. Then at the doors below, a huge breath of fire could be

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seen. The cars on the highway stopped, and some of the drivers got out and looked at one another. The plane whistled over the fire and smoke, and then behind it the antenna groaned and toppled on its side. Arc had done it simply for fun, but now the real fun would begin. Anyone else would consider it to be far from fun, and would run in the opposite direction if they saw it coming over the horizon. But Arc had seen this kind of thing a hundred times, but as part of a team, and not on his own. The plane arrowed over the last of the top of the dome and out over the curve. A few minutes later and the dome had passed and he was flying over the basin floor, in the direction of the other dome. He knew where the subterranean tunnel to the citadels was located. The location within the other dome had been clearly marked on Colec’s map. But between the dome and the plane was a long stretch of an open space where to the left was an even larger empty space led to the citadel zone. To the right however, all the way to the craters rim, the ground was filled with a thick line of troops and artillery. A lot of this artillery, he knew, would be pointing in his direction right now despite the onslaught from the droids fleeting back and forth ahead of them. It didn’t take long for them to begin firing at the plane. Mortars exploded in the air a distance away, and then as 601

they began to improve their aim they exploded closer. Seeing their pattern, Arc slid the plane under and around them then jetted down toward the base of the dome, to the tunnel he and Jayne had entered by a season ago. He was on course, and the last of the long line of deployed troops had passed by. They were swarming after him but it wouldn’t matter, since he was gaining enough distance to land and do what he had to do. As he flew down over it the ground came closer and the motorway between domes, frozen beneath the ice became visible. Left landing gear? Ih…uh? Arc felt dizzy, and then fell against the side of the cockpit slightly. The ground continued to rush by, drawing closer with each second. “Bailey? What?” Arc droned, and then heard the gently plucking notes of a music box. As his head fell against the side window he saw far in the distance, close to the craters rim, a house with crooked windows, and a snowman out front. All were being battered to hell by the Narcosia sleet storm. "Yeah." Arc head butted the window and brought himself around, then glared in the direction of the house. There was nothing there, and Arc hissed, and snapped his head forward again.

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The sound of the plane cutting the air over the ground got louder, and Arc carefully and precisely took the plane down onto a smooth stretch of driven snow. The plane slid over it, coming to a stop within walking distance of the broad tunnel leading into the officer’s wing in the dome wall. He immediately got out, and after slipping in the snow slightly he scrambled to the back of the plane, and began unchaining the huge scrambling bike. He glanced repeatedly toward the place where he had seen the house, and then over his shoulder into the distance at the hordes of troops running toward his position through the fluffy snowfall. Oh deary bollocks. Arc unhooked the bike and mounted it, then kicked the pedal and let the wheels spray the snow around in a bloom as he turned toward the tunnel. He raced inside and then up the stone steps and into the damp corridor. He raced along it, not knowing if he was drawing the attention of the demonic creatures he had seen or that remained to be discovered. He took the bike through the place unmolested, then through The Shell pyramid and down the long steps to the square. The bike raced through it and down the cobblestone streets, and out of the district. After riding by the neighbourhoods torn apart by the squid he entered the northern metropolis and took a junction leading up to the biosphere. The bike raced out over the crystal highways over the dark, turbulent land below.

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After a few junctions he took the bike down toward what would have been the savannah section, but was now damp and overgrown with massive conifers and bush land. He raced out from the safe tunnels of the highways and over what would have been a cement path, but was now washed over with mud and clogged with moss. The tangled overgrowth surrounding him squawked and moved, with huge eyes flickering momentarily in the lights of the bike. After racing through it all at speed he came out at what would have been the beach, and braced the bike against the huge winds. He went rightwards along the rocky leftovers of the beach to the pier, which was now exposed as a tall and long tower of concrete reaching out over the empty basin of the sea. He bunny hopped up onto it and raced along its length toward the doorway into the facilities within the dome’s wall. As he drew near to the end he saw at both sides of the pier huge tentacles whipping up through the winds. Arc slammed the gas and raced between them, decelerating as he entered the door that had already been blasted apart by Colec and the others, so long ago. He stopped the bike and turned to look, as the squid like creature gripped the pier and split a piece of it from the rest. It dropped it almost immediately, realizing that it has no nutritional interest, then began feeling around the open doorway with one of its huge arms.

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It reacted to sound, and so if it sensed that Arc was standing directly within reach it would undoubtedly try to snatch him. Arc felt a mild fear at this, but was resolved to having to take a chance. He pushed away from the ground slightly, letting the bike roll down and around the broad curve of the corridor. Behind he saw the fat red tentacle slide toward him, and a thousand fangs protrude from it. It made a horrible thumping sound, as if its heart had suddenly begun to race. Arc kicked the pedal and hammered the gas, then sped fast along the corridor, leaning hard into the curve. He made it to the hexagonal room at the bottom and skidded in the ice there, and fell away from the bike. He struggled where he lay, and strained against his own dizziness. Arc looked at the corridors end, seeing it filled with a pulsating wall of blood-fed flesh and fangs. It had reached to its limit, and so Arc was safe, for now. Trying to ignore it, he walked back to the bike while holding a deep cut he had opened on his forehead. Arc mounted the bike and walked it onto the hanging elevator, then pressed the button to go down. This was a completely different section of the colony to the desert side facilities such as the oil processing plants. This led deep down below the surface of the planet, to a massive room hollowed out of the bare rock. The elevator took him 605

down into it, and Arc walked the powerless bike out from its metal grating, then rolling the down a slope to the stone floor. It was encircled by tiny control panels, each at the side of a pair of pipes that ran out of the wall of the room, then turning upward and entering the high ceiling. There were many pairs of pipes entering then leaving the room this way, some large and some small, each with their own control box flickering at the side. They were numbered by large signs bolted to the wall above them, and Arc free wheeled the bike toward number seven. He examined the comparatively smaller pipes closely, seeing that one was marked with paint as being the water pipe, and the other as being sewage. Along the outer side of each pipe was a hollow space with a rail track leading off into the darkness parallel to it. Arc entered commands to a control panel, and waited for a moment as a small, steel trolley bombed out of the darkness beside the water pipe. It slowed at the last second and stopped dead at the track’s end. There were panels on the side that would be used to examine data that had been gathered by a series of wire-like arms that reached out from the trolley to the pipe. The trolley would examine and repair any imperfections along its entire length that in this case, led between the dome and the citadels. Arc lifted the huge bike and fed it through the gap above the trolley. It was a tight fit but manageable, as it needed to be balanced over the much narrower trolley. He

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then unravelled the chain that was looped around the mudguard, and affixed it to the trolley at both sides. He then stepped back and entered more commands to the panel, and watched as the bike was carried off into the darkness, in the direction of the citadel zone. Next he entered the commands to bring the trolley at the other side of the two pipes, by the sewage pipe. It arrived and Arc climbed inside and onto it, feet first. Again it was a tight fit, especially with the compact parachute strap, but he managed to find a place while lying on his back. He reached over his shoulder to the consoles on the front of the trolley and without looking, entered the commands to move. The trolley started slowly then launched at great speeds through the tunnel. He grabbed tight, hooking his feet into crevices in the metal so not to get tipped by the inertia. It was uncomfortable and Arc had to use his strength so to remain down in position, but he had made good distance he knew and was at least half way to the citadels already. Then there was a prolonged electric flash just behind his head, and slowly the trolley lost speed. It rolled to a halt in the cold and claustrophobic tunnel, that had narrowed considerably in height deeper in. Arc could smell that something had overloaded and burnt in the circuitry behind him. He struggled to turn in the confined space and pushed his left arm out above his head, squeezing against the shape of his elbow. Darn, now we need a certificate in electrics. 607

“Come on.” Arc muttered in the damp air. Back at the power plant the battle had gone silent. The party had waited and watched from the rocks for a while and were growing impatient. Behind them, at the cave three men watched them from the cover of the door. Nash, Dane and Barron had followed their trail and were now ready and armed enough to take their path from the planet by force if necessary. “What do you think we should do?” Barron asked. “They’re just lying there.” “That’s right.” Nash said knowingly. “They’re waiting.” “Look.” Dane said and pointed. The three men looked at the robed figures that had suddenly appeared as if from nowhere. They stood at various places and heights in the power plant, watching the crouching people behind the rocks. The party also noticed and immediately Rhia engaged the blue bubble of the EMP shield. It encased them and the surrounding rocks in a swirling film. Nicolae stood up and leaned back to throw the EMP grenade he had been given. Immediately the sheriff standing perched on the fence closest reached forward and a long rope flew out of it's wrist. It wrapped over Nicolae’s 608

shoulder and then as if finding a way around each limb, wrapped him up tight. The sheriff then retracted it yanking Nicolae from the ground and through the air to it on the fence. The EMP grenade fell to the snow at the foot of the fence, and Dora Beldin, who had seen this stood up and stepped out of the bubble. Up on the fence the robed figure raised its arm up in the air and then stabbed it down into Nicolae’s chest. It ripped his heart from his body and then threw him aside onto a mesh of bare wires. Dora Beldin ran across the snow and picked up the EMP grenade. Rhia stood up and shouted “No!” Dora looked at her in fear and pressed the button. It clicked a few times in her hand and then a shockwave of electro magnetic pulse bust out over her, then spreading out over the whole of the power plant. Dora stood for a moment then fell back into the snow. The party watched as each of the sheriffs did also, falling from their perches down to the concrete. “No!” Rhia shouted again and ran out of the bubble. 609

She ran across the snow to the body of Dora Beldin and began to nurse her like a child. The others left more calmly and walked around to each of the dead sheriffs. Randall glanced at the smouldering corpse of his friend and groaned "Oh sailor boy. Sorry I brought you now." Fenn Dore was the first to pull one of the robes back from the fallen corpses, and held a hand over his mouth in disgust. “Oh Hells! What the fucking shit?” he said. “Maybe we should wear these inside out?” Randall said, dropping his part of a robe and then flicking the slime from his hand. Above them, thunder rolled through the thickening cloud. The snow suddenly turned to sleet, and began soaking them to the skin. “Rhia?” Faye said quietly to her as they all came to take a last look at Dora, and what was left of South Syndicate. Rhia stood up and turned away from the body, and took one of the robes as it was handed to her. As they turned away they heard a whirring sound behind them, like an old theatre projector winding up. They turned to see a white hologram of Dora Beldin hovering over her corpse. 610

“I record this to be played in the event of my death, which is likely since I’m an old frail woman now.” the scratchy computer recording said. ”We need to go.” Thom said worriedly, and some of them nodded in agreement. Randall and Faye stood watching, since she had been the last of their friends here on the colony. “I hope I died for something I believed in, like getting you guys away from this forsaken place. You all deserve so much better than Narcosia, but this is all you know, so you will never know. Well, I will bid you iowaska.” There was a long pause and they were turning away toward the mountains when she said “Oh and guys… thanks.” They stood a moment watching as the ionized gas of her hologram fizzed and dissolved into the flurries of sleet. Then they turned and donned the robes, and left the outer boundaries of the colony. As they walked through the hideous carnage and dead bodies toward the first of the mountain gorge, Minuet Farnon whispered to Port “Does this mean we could have brought more luggage?”

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“What?” Port hissed at her slightly, trying to concentrate on the less bloody ground around them. He shook his head dismissively and said “No.” Allstar suddenly leaned in at them both having overheard their conversation and grinned “I bring with me only what I stole.” Minuet cringed from her and the others that were walking behind them. As they reached the mouth of the mountain gorge they each began donning the shawls they’d taken from the sheriffs. Farnon led on ahead, as they slowly and carefully walked along the icy path in their new disguises. Within the Red Sector door the three men lay on the rock floor of the cave behind the falls. They held their heads and bleeding faces having been caught in the backwash of the EMP blast. Their blood trickled down the rock and through the door to the snow outside, forming a growing scarlet stain. They groaned and rolled over, but were unable to steady themselves enough to get up. “Don’t leave me.” Barron groaned as he watched the others disappear from view beyond the barbed wire. Arc, far across and beneath the icy surface of the crater, had freed an arm enough to lean it across the front of the 612

trolley. He felt underneath the control panel and found an area of wires that were hotter than the rest. With another twist and after a little working he managed to get the other arm there too and leaned his arms inward and began to feel a way through the system of electrics. There were two that were required for simple motor function of the wheels, and so he pulled those wires free and peeled back the plastic coating with his thumbnails. He was pretty sure he had picked the correct wires, and since he had no real choice but to try he held the bare wires together. There was a flickering and the trolley powered up again. It shot off along the tunnel, and Arc, who would have to keep the wires connected tensed him arms against the fluctuating inertia. It took a while too long and Arc had become quite enraged when the trolley reached the cabin at the end of the track. The groan of the track brakes echoed loudly in the place. He shot a hole out of the side of the metal cabin and dived through, flopping out onto the soaking snow. He rolled on and to his feet and began pushing through the thigh high sleet around a giant radar dish that had fallen, then crumpled and sunk into the earth. He was panting and snarling like a mad man with each movement pulling the ice cold t shirt over his limbs. Massive hands of lightning rolled out over the thick black clouds above him and the thunder that followed cut through the land. 613

Suddenly, when he felt the cold had crippled him and he couldn’t go on any further, his hip rammed into the fallen arm of the dish, folding him over it. There was a ringing nearby, not unlike the off tone bell he’d heard outside Red Sector. One of his eyes had frozen shut and he glared around with the other searching for the source. Then he saw something, atop an embankment that indeed did reach away in both directions like a mini crater. He stood up and limped toward it, still staring at the space over it as it hissed and fizzed back and forth as the sleet pounded it. He used his hands to help himself up the slope and slipped onto his side as he reached the top. When he gained his bearings he noticed that his hand was hanging inside the cloaking field, disappearing into the false image that was being projected. The static pulled and stung at his flesh, but he realized that within it was warm and dry. He shuffled closer to the field and leaned forward, pushing his head and shoulders through. Inside he saw first the bright glare of the many lights, then as his eyes adjusted he saw the three mammoth white citadels at intervals along the center of the zone. At this side of them were two sports fields full of young things throwing a frizball to one another in blatantly suggestive sporting clothes. They were laughing and playing with one another in the warmth of the place. 614

Arc pulled his head back out and looked over his shoulder at the dome in the distance. After another scowl of thunder an arm of lightning struck its roof. Arc grimaced bitterly and then leaned into the force field and fell through it to the other side. He fell onto his back in a steel trough that ran around the full circumference of the inside of the crater, and lay in its cover while regaining his strength. He stared up at the sky that was a holographic projection a little like the inside of the biosphere, only this projected an illusion on the outside too. From the outside it looked like a large empty wasteland of snow and ice, while from the inside it looked like they were back on Lantis, with flowered meadows stretching away into an eerie infinity on all sides. And at the center of the illusion, the citadels and their sports facilities. He heard that ringing again as he lay staring up, and slowly pushed himself up by his elbows. Keeping his head as low as possible so not to be seen he looked around again at the place, and saw just ahead a rectangular tower reaching up from the base of the slope just below the trough. Its top was around his head height and he could see now within it a spinning dish emitting a ring every other cycle. There was a faint, milky beam reaching up from the tower, reaching right up to the sky above, and looking around the rest of the rim he found many more. It was an extremely high powered holo projection system, and practically ancient judging by the peeled painted all along its sides. 615

Beyond it were the strange players, and the more he watched them the less he believed they were the controllers of the citadels. They squeaked and squawked like exited infants, but in far more suggestive attire. Arc tipped himself over the side and skidded down the slope to an outer fencing. He climbed up and flipped over it in full view of the players, and then walked toward them across the first of the track and field. The place felt bizarre to be in. He suddenly felt no connection to his surroundings, and felt no fear as the men and women approached. He wondered if this phenomenon would pass. The players came up to him on the grass and Arc smiled a wide, goofy grin. They stood and stared at each other for a moment then Arc pointed at their shirts and said “You’ve got too many defenders… Um… I’m looking for the citadel controllers.” “Who are you?” one of the more confident males said. “Who are you?” Arc said, being blatantly awkward. “We’re from there.” the same young man pointed back over at the furthest of the eerie citadels. “We’re an escort community.” “Prostitutes?” Arc said, genuinely taken aback. 616

“We service the family in the command tower, here.” a girl beside him pointed at the nearest citadel, then thumbed the one in the middle and said. “The old timers aren’t so interested.” “Just one family?” Arc asked carefully. “I thought there were a group of families in this colony.” “Not any more.” the girl said, as if it were nothing at all. “They’re all one big happy family now.” Arc thought for a moment then said “Well, I guess it had to happen.” “Are you from one of the prisons? You must be a crim. You’re not meant to be here.” another woman said at an infantile gait. “Quit winging at me, you fucking whore. You’ll help me or I’ll kill ya all.” Arc said wearily pulling out his pistol. “We don’t want your sort here. How did you get all the way here?” the first girl probed him. “Well it wasn’t easy in this weather.” Arc said sarcastically, then pointed the pistol at her face. “How do you guys get on and off this planet?” She pointed over her shoulder at a long, low roofed transport shuttle. 617

“Just the one shuttle?” Arc said, pointing the gun at someone else. They all nodded and then Arc put the gun away. “Who the hell are you to judge us?” a young upstart of a man said from the back. “Yeah, you’re right.” Arc said rubbing the palm of his hand over his half frozen eye. “You should go back. There’s no way to escape from here.” One of the men said. “Cequodus built this place to last. Nobody has ever escaped. Never.” “Damn my mind is in flux… say why send me here at all? Treason against the royal house of Cequodus equals the death penalty. Why am I even in this stupid place? The Cequodus wouldn’t do it all without a profit margin.” Arc muttered, as if to himself. “I dunno. I’m just a male prostitute.” he said. “If you’re going to depress us then you can just go and get out of here. Lucille is right. We don’t need that kind of shit.” “Ah yes.” Arc nodded at him. “How do I get into that tower?” Arc pointed at the nearest citadel, the control tower.

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“You can see the bridge leading up from the central pathway. But the bridge has a gap that closes only when one of us is called up. You can’t jump past it.” “Lucky I brought the bike then, isn’t it?” Arc smiled, but they just looked more confused. Arc turned and started walking away. “What do you eat around here by the way?” he said to them over his shoulder. “We eat lots of burgers!” a girl said with an overexcitement. “And soda!” “I wouldn’t eat those burgers.” Arc said. “You’d be amazed at what they put in em.” Arc made his way back up to the top of the embankment and pushed through to the cold side. He then walked in a wide stride down to the bottom and then waded snow to the opposite side of the metal cabin, stepping over the two pipes that were running out from it to the zone. With the gun aimed carefully he shot the upper corner from the cabin and began pulling back the thin wall, bending it down to widen a hole. He reached in and grabbed the motorbike from the trolley, unclipped it and then pulled it half out of the gap.

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Immediately he was blinded by a rainbow coloured beam and then deafened by the cries of the heletank. Arc looked into the beam, stunned slightly, and heard the chain guns begin to rev up. The crowd of escorts stood and waited to see what would happen next. They had waited a while when they saw Arc leap through the cloaking field on the motorbike. The bike leaped out and landed on the corner of one of the holo projectors, inches away from the searing beam. He dropped from it skimming against the outer fence surrounding the track and field, and landed hard on the sandy track. The huge wheels ground a deep groove into it as it gained a footing and then the bike jerked out over the grass. “Yeeeeeeeeah!” he heard one of the girls cry, apparently missing the point that he was heading to murder her ‘trix’ as they say. Behind them, the heletank bombed through the field and began screaming at Arc, who had nearly ridden to the opposite end of the field. He took it through an underpass leading beneath the seating on that side, and skidded around onto the central walkway. It was a smooth path leading right across the citadel zone, and branching in a lot of directions here and there, leading to other features, some of which Arc had no idea about.

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He accelerated along toward a ramp curving around to the gaping hole in the side of the closest citadel, that appeared to be the only way in or out. Using the back of the stands as cover against the heletank that was now searching very low overhead, he made it to the ramp, and leaned the bike onto the upward curve. He kept accelerating as the ramp rose up from the ground, trying to build enough speed to cross the bridgeless gap. Ahead the heletank swung around behind the wall of the ramp and charged up its chain guns. As Arc rode close by it it screeched out and opened fire while Arc leaned further down to use the smooth stone walls of the ramp as a meagre cover. The chain gun fire tore through it, but not in time to catch Arc. He sped faster to the end of the path and darted out over the gap. The speed was enough to catch the path at the other side, and then in seconds he had arrowed through the brown, leather lined archway. The citadel was huge in width, about the same distance across as any of the city caverns. Being as tall as it was, it could hold hundreds of thousands of people, which could give for a greater diversity in the genetic pool. Maybe it will all be alright? Arc chuckled.

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The bike flew along the dark, arched corridor passing by each of the open doorways that led to broad spaces and auditoriums on both sides. The air smelled of damp chalk, and the walls looked to be made of a similar substance. The end of the corridor, at the center of the citadel drew near, and Arc saw within, a pyramid of steps leading up to a red glowing platform. As he passed by the last of the auditoriums and entered the pyramid room he heard a stifled voice shout at him from behind. “Hey wait!” it yelled and Arc heard the patter of bare footsteps give chase. Arc didn’t wait, and instead rode up the steps to the top of the pyramid and wheelspun around on the teleport pad there so that he was within arm’s reach of the holographic touch panel. A short hairy figure ran out of the corridor and up the steps to him as he tapped in commands to teleport to the floor marked as “Living”. There was only one floor marked as living space he found, with the others being technical or administrative, or disused such as the bottom floor. He engaged the teleporter and the pad glowed red beneath the bike. 622

Arc looked at the strange person behind the clear touch panel, and found it to be a short man, covered in hair with beady bright blue eyeballs and rodent like teeth. He had clear deformities from the hundreds of generations of close inbreeding, such as a third hand that seemed to be reaching through the skin of its left shoulder. Arc smiled at it, and pointed with a gun he made from his hand. He then blurred and teleported up to the living floor, close to the top of the citadel. He emerged in a burst of static atop a similar pyramid of a different colour, and immediately rode down its steps. He accelerated along a much taller corridor in the same direction he had come, searching its adjoining smaller corridors for some indication of where to go next. The living places were a huge but claustrophobic construction of opulent marble and stone, mint in colour and draped with blood purple curtains along the walls. There was the same dank chalk smell cut here with milk and something else he couldn’t quite place. Arc sped along the tall hall passing other people with other mutations of their own. Some were slightly too tall, or too tall on one side, while others had primitive features such as hands that were too long or a large horn protruding from the top of their head. They were all tragic figures but didn’t seem to realize the fact. They watched Arc pass by with a calm curiosity, some nonchalantly walking to communications panel on the wall to report him.

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Arc saw the end of the corridor and its huge window set into the wall, and realized that he was effectively chasing his tail. The place was a maze of corridors such as this, and if he wanted to make any kind of ground he’d need to ask for directions. He saw a girl ahead before the window with her back to him and a virtual reality band around her head. She was dancing in front of three holograms of famous people from colony media, trying to match their dance moves to the music. He stopped the bike behind her on the carpets and coughed. She turned to look at him through the goggles in the band, while behind her the holograms turned red and the words ‘game over’ began to scroll. “Oh! You messed up my game!” she said. “I am sorry.” Arc said, trying not to draw attention to the fact that the girl had no nose, but a gap in the middle of her face so deep you could see the nose holes in her skull. “I’m looking for Horald Kinnyck?” She pointed in the direction of the window and said “Banquet hall. Left at the wall and around the perimeter until you see the little sign saying… guess… banquet hall.” “Thank you very much.” he smiled and accelerated past her. 624

He heard her shout “Rape!” as he left, but then he was too far away to care. He turned in the direction she had said and raced along the outer path past many of the same large windows looking out over the fake sunny landscape of their homeworld. What is this? The mighty Arc Micormic, scared? “I’ll scare you in a minute.” Back at the colony, the men and women escaping had walked across the whole breadth of the rim mountains. It was a long and winding walk, and they’d had to pass by a number of the huge speakers that had been either dragged or air dropped in. Squads of Earth troops charged by them at regular intervals toward the bloodbath the robots would undoubtedly send them into. The mountains were more tall than wide however, and so they’d reached the far side in a comfortable time. They walked around the last of the jagged outcrops and saw the final opening of the narrow gorge. Beyond was a broad flat space that looked to have been artificially carved out, widening the natural gorge just before the end of the mountains. Beyond the two mountains it dropped steeply, with the peaks of other mountains descending away into the blizzards. Nobody said anything, but watched as Farnon walked onward into the space, between two decayed office

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buildings without roofs, that on entering further they saw reached around the outside of the wider snowfield. There were troops running left and right firing high powered rifles at the robots that were using the broken walls of the ruins for cover. Ahead, at the precipice at the far side a mini dropship bouldered down out of the clouds. It was a metal box dragged down from orbit by two antigravity aerials that stuck out from the roof. It lowered the box over the huge precipice, level to the ground before opening the nearest side of the box. It swung down and slammed onto the ground doubling up as a ramp, and another load of troops leaped out and ran into action, with most of them being cut down by a fan of plasma fire in the first few seconds. The remainder found decent cover and bided their time for an assault. The glow of the antennas died and the dropship fell away over the precipice, with two of the slower troops still inside. They cried out but were too late, and fell with the box to join the others in a stack of them far below. Farnon walked on through the space, and they found that Bailey’s theory had been true. They were being completely ignored by the troops. Shadow Security had authority over them, issued their orders, made the rules. As long as they remained under cover they would be safe from the troops.

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As they made it to the center of the wide space between buildings a robot ran out and skidded in the snow beside them. “Trespassers will be killed.” it said in English, and then shot Rhia in the side with a powerful bolt of plasma. Farnon and Thom grabbed her before she could fall, and the others panicked and ran forward ahead of them to the one single ship that had landed. The shadow security shuttle stood on four metal prongs just before the first slope of the precipice. They ran up the ramp at the back between the short wings, no longer caring if the troops recognized them or not. Thom and Farnon dragged Rhia with her bare high heels leaving a trail through the snow behind them. They made it to the ramp and dragged her up into the narrow compartment within. The others were huddled at the back with a few in the cockpit. “Wait!” Farnon said, and pushed past them all. “Get out of there!” He dragged two people out of the cockpit, not knowing who either of them were under their shrouds, and then sat in the pilot seat. On taking the controls he found that they were all covered in a film of light slime. 627

“Argh heck.” he said, then flicked his fingers over the controls and powered the shuttle up. The ramp at the back began to raise and Thom pulled Rhia further in so to get clear of the it. He pulled away her shroud and they all saw the wound she had suffered. She lay on the floor of the shuttle smiling up at them, with a huge hole in her abdomen showing clearly the wires and circuitry within. “What were you sent here for again? Prostitution?” Faye said, sounding amused. “Robot hooker?” Allstar chuckled. The shuttle lifted off into the air and shouldered out over the long drop as the sleet steadily abused the upper side of the fuselage. As it turned to face away from the colourful exchange of plasma fire, another set of dropships bouldered down through the clouds, escorted by a slightly larger logistics ship. “Darn it.” Farnon said flicking his hands over the control panels. “What is it? What’s the problem now?” Faye said looking up at the approaching shapes. “That escort is covered in scanning equipment. If they inventory this craft they’ll see we aren’t the proper crew.” 628

Farnon said then looked over his shoulder through to the rear window. “Hold on.” He took the shuttle back over, skimming the tops of the derelict buildings and then between the jagged peaks of the mountains. With a balancing act of anti gravity and thrust he took it right back through the narrow space above the ravine path, and then over the power station and hovered over the valley next to the dome. Seeing that the ships had descended below the mountains and out of sight, Farnon slowly turned the ship around so that he was looking down on the door leading into Red Sector. “Oh my word. Look.” Faye said pointing down. Others from behind leaned to look through the cockpit window, and at first the most noticeable thing was the dark, open room above the door, and what looked to be a crucified person within. Below it within the flood lamps a crowd of people were slowly walking out of the doorway, filling the valley below. Farnon swept spotlights at the front of the shuttle over their faces slowly. None of them needed to say a word, as they knew too well now the look and feel of Old Gang’s narcotic junkies. They stood around on the ice and patches of bright blue rock below, staring transfixed at the shuttle as it banked away through the snow flurries, and then cut its lights. 629

Antigravity nodes on the front began throwing the ship away from the moon’s gravity well, kicking a small hole through the thick flow of storm clouds and then up above them toward the clear night sky. Back at the citadel, Arc had reached the banquet hall. Arc raised the front wheel and rammed the double doors open, seeing at first a large dining table surrounded by men. The closest was a fat man with his back to him, and a larger than average blinking eye staring from the back of his head through the hair. Arc bunny hopped the bike up past him onto the table and then began shooting each of them in succession, doing his best to ignore their deformities. He ended at the fat man, and found there that the gun had emptied, and clicked repeatedly as Arc desperately tried to kill him. The man was Horald Kinnyck, who now threw his yellow napkin onto the table with a dull anger. “Ah Arc Micormic, I knew you would come.” he said as Arc frantically tried to reload the pistol. “So I was prepared.” Kinnyck gestured as if something were supposed to happen, and Arc having now reloaded and cocked the pistol looked around to see what it could be. Nothing happened and so Arc cocked his head at Kinnyck and then shot him square in the chest, the force of which toppled him back in his chair. 630

That’s quite a misconception. Sadly it wasn't, and a moment later more freaks began piling into the room behind them, this time armed with jagged whips and restraints. Half of them chickened out on actually setting eyes on Arc and scrambled to run back out of the door. The others didn't look so easily scared. Arc wheel spun the bike and accelerated from the table, and the roasted body parts of colonists that were displayed in wood bowls all around it. He used a raised front wheel to knock open another set of double doors to a preparation room, and then through another to the kitchens. The room was huge and filled with stoves and marble benches. Behind him a smaller EMP device Arc had dropped onto the table, ticked down to zero as it lay on the cheek of half of a roasted child's face. The psychopaths were starting their chase when the bomb burst and they fell forward, unconscious. Arc took the bike between the kitchen equipment and tables as the gold colony robots stood at each preparing vegetables, fruit and meat in a production line for various types of dish. As he rode past each he passed the stages of preparation back toward the refrigerators along the back wall. The meat tables led to one door, and Arc rode inside. The mists of the refrigeration swept around the wheels and on 631

either side of the bike, dismembered human carcasses hung from meat hooks, hung from chains in the ceiling. He rode into the murky room and through it all the way to the back, where the bodies were fresher and less mutilated. There was a rack of them all hung from cuffs along a metal bar between the corner walls. Jayne was second from the right. She hung naked and soaking wet, with her head bowed and eyes closed. Jayne don’t be dead. “Jayne.” Arc said in a low voice, then shouted “Jayne!” Her eyes snapped open, and she slowly raised her head to look at him. He stepped from the bike and walked to her, and looked at her straight for a moment. She looked delirious either from the cold, or from something they had done to her. He turned a steel wheel on the wall lowering the bar, and then unscrewed the bolts in the cuffs. Jayne fell forward and Arc caught her, and lowered her to the freezing floor. He manhandled her feet so they were standing on his shoes, and crouched beside her, hugging her for warmth. She coughed and said “Why have you done this? Any of it?” Arc took her face in his hands and looked at her. 632

“What are friends for?” he whispered, and hugged her again. “Let’s get outa here.” Arc picked her up and placed her on the back of the bike, then mounted it and spun it around in the lonely, bloodstained alcove. With the tires screeching they raced out through the dirty mists toward the doors. Way up high above them, far above the glowing white curve of the moon, a relatively tiny shuttle arrowed out of the grip of the world and began banking around away from it. The huge gas giant that was the moon's parent stood in the sky at their side, looking over at it all from a distance, and what was happening. It’s other more distant moons were cemented in their positions in orbit; looking now like other bits of dirty rock caught in a trap. The closer world below them now came to a holistic view, with its violently abused surface pummelled and twisted over centuries by space, and by its own internal cauldrons. Faye entered the pilot’s cabin and put a hand on Farnon’s chair while looking out over the spread of stars and spacevehicles that had anchored at positions in a higher orbit of the moon. Farnon was turning the ship away from the huge weather station in its low orbit toward the Shadow Security ship, that hung at a greater height over the planet like it were welded in place. Closer now they could make out it's structure, a very square box like vehicle tilted forward and very slightly to the right. These types of ships weren't meant to ever enter an atmosphere, and so it's super structure was designed to be immense with it's longest side being tens of 633

miles across, and it's shortest not much less. The endless thick grated patterning that armoured it's shell had been ground down by constant pummelling of rock and space dust that had managed to breach it's various layering of forcefield, and now come before them a dirty brown hulk. But it was magnificent and powerful despite it's wear and tear, an awesome sight of pylons and steeples and a huge double arm at the end of a colossal rod on it's underside, that would spin to generate backspace and cloaking abilities. Farnon smiled at seeing something like this again after so long. “We’re not going to the weather station?” Faye asked. “We’re not getting out of this solar system in that station. They’ll cut us down in seconds. This is the only way possible for us.” “And you can fly it?” she asked. Farnon paused, which was something she didn’t like, then said “I guess we’ll see.” Farnon took the shuttle around the side of the gigantic block that made up the main fuselage, and searched along the miles of it's length for a docking bay. They flew under an old, slightly weathered sign telling its name.

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“Indus Lynx.” Farnon said, and smiled at Faye. “My house now.” “My house!” she said jokingly and put a mock claw on his shoulder. In a lighter mood, Farnon took the ship under the Indus Lynx and found a number of bright holes with inward flowing landing lights around them. Farnon flew to the nearest then slowed and raised the ship up into the landing chamber. The inside of the ship was as worn as the outside, but it's white-plastic embalmed channels and terminals had been well maintained. It had been designed for large scale troop transport, but not like the mercenaries that had been brought in the rickety buckets they’d seen outside. These troops would have been highly skilled and focused Shadow Agents, the kind of pawns that could only be supplanted by creatures such as the Sheriffs they had encountered earlier. And now it was theirs, and Farnon took the ship down into one of its bays, and then lowered the ramp at the rear. Faye patted Farnon’s shoulder and said “All abroad.” Faye left and then Farnon watched through the reflection in the front windscreen as they all skipped down the ramp excitedly. Three people remained seated, and had remained fully cloaked the whole time. 635

He turned slowly and walked past them, seeing that some of the others had barely removed their cloaks either. “All aboard now.” he said apprehensively, and not knowing why. He walked down the ramp and out across the stone floor of the docking hall, close to the gap in the floor to space, covered over by a blue haze of an air-pocket-field. Noticing some of them skipping around close to it he yelled “Keep away from there! I’m not sure if it’s permeable!” “Whatcha mean?” one of the women, Willow he thought her name was, said ignorantly. “I mean you might fall through and freeze to death.” Farnon gritted. “Okay everyone, we need to get to the ships bridge. Everyone make your way to the teleporter!” They all walked to the closest pad at the edge of the hall, and Farnon noticed the three others come from the shuttle to join them. They were still wearing the cloaks but were fiddling with them now as if they were about to take them off. “Come along!” Farnon said and began to concentrate of getting the group through the teleporter’s space rips. They went through in small groups, with Randall and Thom’s gang going first to check that it was safe. 636

“It’s beautiful up here.” Randall said over the ship’s com link on the wall. After a pause they began ferrying more of them through, with the three shrouded men last with Port and his wife. “This is so freaky awesome!” Minuet said and Port Farnon hugged her and smiled as the view around them blurred and morphed into the view across a broad bridge. The bridge was mainly dark with a low, grated ceiling that expanded up into a tall viewing auditorium at the outside walls. The windows to space were tall and rectangular leaning outward at the top, with nine of them standing along the outer wall of the bridge. The main control panels were located at the base of the windows, and along the back of the auditorium space. Other specialist control consoles were dotted around the low space at the back, including a holographic navicom table. Farnon noted all of this as he walked through to the auditorium across the dark scarlet carpeting. “Just look at this!” Faye clapped her hands at Bethany who stood by her lesbian partner, with her hands over her mouth looking out into space. “We are free!” Minuet said as she limply reached to hug Farnon.

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“We need to keep our voices low for a while!” Farnon said to them all over her shoulder. “Soon they will be scanning every molecule of this solar system for us, and they will hear us if we don’t calm ourselves.” Minuet stepped back and flicked her hair, grinning at him in a slightly crazy way. Farnon smiled back for a moment before composing himself. “Okay we need to get this ship activated.” Farnon said, then looked up at an orb affixed to the ceiling of the auditorium. “Ship? We are your crew! Acknowledge!” “You are not my crew. You are unauthorized personnel.” it said, as coloured lights danced within the orb. Willow Derwent pointed at the lights and said “Is that like…” “Yes.” Farnon said dismissively, then carried on. “Override! We are your new crew. Acknowledge!” “Override codes required.” it said in it's soothing elderly masculine voice. “Override codes… Alpha One Gamma Gamma Epsilon Alpha Eleven.” Farnon said, then apprehensively added “Acknowledge?” There was a pause and then the computer said “I am Synclair. Command.” 638

Farnon smiled slowly, and the others followed. “So that’s it?” Thom said. “How does Bailey know all this anyway?” “I have no idea.” Farnon said, and walked beside them at the windows. “Those codes are about as high security as they come. If they’d been the wrong codes it would have tripped the alarms.” “And we’d be caught.” Randall said grimly. “No. We’d be dead. The ship would have killed us.” Faye gestured at the orb in the ceiling and said “Nice computer!” “Synclair!” Farnon said, sitting back against the wood rim of the panels. “Listen to all wavebands for a transmission coming from that weather station.” “Compliance.” it said. “Encrypt and block all signals from the source. Make sure nobody else can listen in.” “Understood.” it said. ”Wait again?” Randall asked. 639

”We have no choice.” Farnon said leaning forward over the panels, and looking out at the vessels moving around in the space over the planet. Behind them Nash, Barron and Dane took off their shrouds, and stood watching the others from the shadows at the back. Francine walked past them holding her baby and Nash stepped toward her and said “Franky.” She looked and squinted at him through the dark. “Is that you, Nash?” she whispered, and glanced at the others at the front area, in the light. “What do you think you’re doing here?” “I should ask you the same thing.” he said coldly. “You were betraying me.” “Oh look around. I betrayed you. I played you from the start. Bailey had me keep an eye on you while they got the plan set up.” “No.” he waved a finger at her. “We were talking about marriage. About love.” Francine sighed, and bobbed her baby a little to settle it. She glanced at the others who still hadn’t realized what was going on. 640

“I never loved you, Nash. Get that on board.” she shook her head, looking away from him. “We aren’t friends. We ain’t nothing.” “Oh so Aaron Bailey’s your friend?” he hissed at her, and behind him Bethany saw them all and walked down to the others. “What kind of friends I wonder.” “Look up there.” Bethany said, stepping behind the others as they looked out from the bridge. “What do you want me to say?” Francine said to Nash, quieting her voice so that the others couldn’t hear. “You want to hear that I fucked him? Yes, I fucked him.” Nash recoiled and squinted at her while grabbing his face. The others filled the back space behind him and the other two stowaways. Dane and Barron turned to look at them apologetically, while Nash kept staring at Francine. Randall rubbed his hand through his hair and said “Well this complicates things doesn’t it?” Far below at the citadels, Arc had ridden across the living floor back to the teleport pad. Jayne hugged him, still naked on the back of the bike. They rode up to the top of the teleport pyramid and then Arc laid the bike on its side there, and he and Jayne stood on the glowing pad.

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They teleported down to a mostly empty floor of the citadel very clearly marked by a huge sign reading “Boiler Room” which was a slang catchall name by technicians for a place acting as the hub of all robotics, networking, AI, mechanics and anything else that worked behind the scenes to keep life-colonies functioning. Arc left the bike lying on the purple tele-pad, and walked from it and over to one of a number of tall arched doorways. Wendall Jayne followed him, still naked and covered in grease from the refrigerator gas. Arc stopped at the door and glanced at the plaque on the wall declaring the foundation for the citadel colony, and a small photograph of the original guard colonists below cheering at the camera. They walked forward into a long chamber with various computer banks ticking over on either side. They were separated into strips with each acting as a console into a specific colony operation. Arc didn’t have time to study each and every one of them although his mind yearned to learn every nuance of their systems. “Look for the cloaking field.” Arc said quietly as they slowly stepped forward over the wood weave floor. “Here.” Wendall said, as her eyes found a monitor graphic illustrating the lid-shaped field that covered the citadel zone. 642

Arc walked to it and analysed the data on the half-hologram screen, and the various keyboards and consoles beneath. He began re-coding the cloaking devices program, so to bypass all previous programs that had been running for centuries, and shut them down on both sides of the mirage. Wendall walked away toward the window. She stood at the window naked and looked out over the fake landscape. She smiled slightly and said “So that’s Lantis.” “Hey wait!” they heard a strangled voice from behind them at the tele-pad. The short fur covered man that Arc had seen on the ground floor came running in and joined him at the console. A woman slowly followed, looking them over curiously. She had a crazy stretched expression, but it seemed the only deformity of hers was an extremely large, claw like hand. She clicked her large nails gently against one another like a nervous habit. “What are you doing here?” the short man said amiably, referring to the cloaking device console. Arc watched the girl walking by them, apparently more interested in Jayne than the men. He turned back to the console and continued to reprogram it, and said “Well I’m changing your core software. We are escaping from Narcosia and need to de-cloak the citadels so 643

that the emergency services will know where to go. Otherwise they might pass right by here and leave you here to die.” “You’re doing this for us?” he squeaked and patted his side affectionately. “You are a very nice person.” The woman stalked up to Jayne beside the window and looked at her up and down. “Here, take this.” she said and took off the long see through black shawl she was wearing. “Oh, no. Err. Well, alright.” Jayne said and took it. The strange woman held her good hand up to her and said “Wait here. I’ll get you some more clothes.” “Jayne!” Arc said sharply, and threw her the pistol. “Keep an eye on her.” Jayne caught it as it flew at her in the room, and then looked at it momentarily. The strange woman walked past Jayne to a side door leading through to another room filled with thousands of shelves holding what would be millions of boxes.

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Jayne followed sheepishly while aiming the gun at the floor. She watched the woman run amongst them and blow the dust away from one of the damp card boxes. “What is all this?” Jayne asked, with a bad feeling growing in her gut. The woman brought the box over and placed it at her feet, then tipped it over and pulled the contents out over the floor. “The people from the prisons. We keep their belongings here. It’s ours now. But you’re so pretty, you can have these if you like.” Jayne watched as the girl held up a pair of ladies jeans that looked like they would roughly fit her, and so she took them and put them on. The strange girl kicked the head of a plastic child’s doll away, and Jayne watched it roll away through the shelves. She turned and grinned demonically at her, as if she knew exactly what she was doing. “Thanks.” she said into her peculiar grin. “Now we can fight.” she said, maintaining that same strange gritted grin. The girl swung the back of the claw up and struck the side of Jayne’s face hard. At first Jayne thought she might lose 645

consciousness but seemed to swim back to the world. She stepped slowly away from the girl toward the door, and could hear Arc’s key strokes tapping away. The strange girl stalked toward her grinning like a wild thing, and Jayne realized the situation was without hope. Jayne lifted the gun and shot the girl in the forehead, kicking her slightly off her feet and down onto her back. Arc looked at Jayne standing in the doorway on hearing the gunshot, then seeing she was fine continued entering the commands. The short guy ran over beside Jayne and began groaning. He walked over to the girl and began stroking her tummy, that Jayne saw was still moving as if she were still breathing. She decided there must have been some mistake. “That’s it.” Arc said and Jayne could hear a low whirring all around the room. Arc skipped over to the window and Jayne joined him, happily handing him the gun. They looked out as the meadow scene slowly twisted and dissolved, revealing the cold snow-scape of Narcosia beyond, and the mountains of the rim far to the distance. The sleet had turned to rain, which now fell in a huge curtain into the citadel zone. 646

Below them there were screams from the escorts and they both looked down. Sadly they watched them pile into the long shuttle and take it up and out over the dark land outside. There were flashes from out in the darkness and small rockets flew up and impacted on the side of the shuttle. The fire from the explosions lit up the ground below and they could see far to the left and right brigades of Earth soldiers marching across the basin, and about to reach the citadel zone. Suddenly the heletank dropped into view, filling the wide windows. It shone its beams over them furiously since it was all it was permitted to do while they were within the building. Beyond it, the burning shuttle leaned on its side then crashed down into the snow as the troops did their best to run aside. “They’ll tear us apart.” Jayne said. “I take it you’ve got a plan for all this? You’ve always got a plan, right?” Arc walked past her, gesturing for her to follow, and said “Well, that’s right. But we need to get up on the roof.” Jayne took one last look at the heletank then followed Arc to the tele-pad. Arc lifted the huge bike up and mounted it. “Hop on.” Arc said and Jayne got on the back. 647

The pad glowed purple all around them and a moment later they were at a pad just below the roof of the citadel. There were old chains hanging down and cluttering the fringes of the pad and through the rest of the broad top room of the tower. Arc rode forward carefully in the low ceilinged room, and finding a door in a stairwell enclosure marked as the exit to the roof, shot carefully at the locks. With the thin door hanging open he rode through and up a short flight of steps and emerged onto the tarmacked roof. The wind and rainfall washed over them as they looked around at the high and low features on the topside of the citadel. The dark clouds were flowing close by above them now, almost completely blocking out the sky, and the air was uncomfortably thin. It was early but still dark and so the Narcosia sun was only just about to rise. The majority of the ambience came from milky, coloured lanterns that were dotted here and there across the rooftop. Beyond the worming mechanics housed all around, marking the edge of the roof were tiny spinning red lights, encircling the perimeter of the citadel, atop the fencing there. The rains were coming thick and fast from the clouds, pelting them and the roof around. Already they were soaked to the skin, but now, so far along it didn’t seem to matter. Then the heletank rose up behind them and nodded forward to give chase. Seeing this, Arc kicked at the bike and sped in the opposite direction. 648

The heletank ploughed in and out of the cloud banks above as it made to catch up, and began firing its array of chain guns. Bullets rained around the bike, but Arc maneuvered so to dodge the aim, weaving around bare cabling and electrical boxes that had been thickly tarmacked in. As the heletank flew close and level to them, Arc handed Jayne the pistol over his shoulder. “Get it.” Arc shouted, coughing slightly in the thin air. Jayne aimed as best she could as Arc jumped and dropped over the various wiry features on the citadel roof. She began firing at the lights of the heletank, which seemed to take heed and turned away as if searching for cover, not that there was any need, which was something the heletank would realize shortly. Arc took the bike more slowly down a ramp to a broad ditch in the roof that itself lead out to the fences at the edge. The fencing was reinforced by diagonal supports, and it was clear now that the spinning red laser light dotted along it was intended to blind and deter those going near the edge. The bike stopped at the bottom of the ramp, and Arc turned the bike on its side and leaned low to use the surrounding features as a temporary cover. In the distance there was the red glow all across the mountains of the morning light shining through a long crack in the clouds. The cloud above was thick and still

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flickered with lightning, and there was the deep smell of the rain in the air signifying the end of the storm. They heard the chopping of the blades grow close on the far side of the fence, and then blocking the view the heletank swung around, searching with its beams. Jayne watched it beyond the spinning red lights, and then Arc who was also staring at their age-old jailor. “I hope they didn’t change the codes.” Arc smiled over his shoulder. “Eh?” Jayne said, then grabbed Arc’s arms tighter as he stood the bike up and then pulled away. Arc accelerated the bike through the gulley toward the edge of the roof. The bike hit one of the diagonal supports and jumped up and out away from the citadel, over the bright light below. The bike’s front wheel landed on the first of the heletank’s rotor blades, and growled out as the power was choked from it. Arc and Jayne bounced from the seats and toppled forward through the narrow space between the two sets of blades. As they dropped against the top shoulder of the aircraft Arc grabbed the front of the heletank’s chain gun protruding from the rear wings, and then grabbed back at Jayne’s wrist with the other hand as she fell down below him. The spinning bike struck wheel first against the wet fuselage and bounced over them, and then fell away to the bright distance below. 650

The heletank span fast suddenly, realizing what they had done. Arc held tight to Jayne as she was dragged behind, and then Arc felt an electric charge building in the metal chain gun beneath the palm of his hand. It was powering up to fire, and would tear his arm off if it did, and so Arc looked around for a way to go. A small oval indentation in the side of the fuselage was the door into the beast. It was within jumping distance of the wing and so Arc twisted a leg around and pressed from the revving guns. He leapt across the gap tugging Jayne’s wrist hard behind, and snatched at a thin indentation, hooking his fingertips onto the tiny ledge. There was enough gap under it to hook his fingers inside, and so Arc used the leverage to drag himself up to the door. “Grab hold of me!” Arc yelled, and Jayne grabbed around Arc’s thighs, freeing his other hand. He began thumping around the door with his free hand, searching for the panel to the keypad. The heletank twisted left and right a few more times and then seemed to stop, as if trying to think of another way to solve its problem. After a few heavy thumps a small metal door opened, and Arc dragged himself up to it and looked in at the Lantian number pad as the rain pelted against his face. His fingers flicked over the numbers recorded as the entry code in the deep hack he’d done during the first escape, where he’d procured so many trusted codes. He entered it and the door slid aside, blowing a disgusting lived-in odour over his head and shoulders.

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He dragged Jayne up and pushed her through the hole as she tried to say something. Just then at the moment Arc watched her disappear into the grotty space, the heletank tipped on its back so it was pointing at the sky. Jayne stumbled against the walls then fell down to the back of the compartment within. The rotors suddenly stopped turning and folded together, and retracted to a slot in the top of the wings. The wings dipped down slightly and then a set of huge jets at the back roared and began thrusting the heletank up through the clouds. It was attempting to shake them off, or perhaps kill them by taking them up into the high atmosphere. It worked at first, and the sudden tug of inertia caused Arc to slip from his grip on the door. He fell back along the fuselage, grabbing a hold of a protruding light casing at the last moment. He held on in a tight grip as the heletank accelerated upwards, and began to feel his fingers slip against the wet plastic. Jayne had regained her bearings now, and leaned out of the open doorway, and reached down with her thin arm toward him. Arc looked at her curiously for a moment then grabbed her tiny wrist and began pulling himself up to where he could

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grab the door himself. Once he had he pushed her back inside with force and then dragged himself in after her. Arc could feel the thinning air in his breath and dived to the controls, shutting the door tight. There was a slight hiss from different points around the black interior as the atmosphere was automatically restabilized to be breathable by its pilots. Now there would be no more hostility toward them, as they were designated as pilots whether the heletank liked it or not. They looked at each other where they sat at opposite sides of the narrow compartment. Then Arc stood up and helped Jayne to her feet. Although standing perpendicular to the horizon the artificial gravity held them to the compartment floor. They walked through to a confectionary-caked cockpit, and sat in the two seats that were there. The ground could be seen upside down, slowly shrinking as the heletank pushed higher through the sky. The heletank arrowed gradually up through the clouds, and through a network of thousands of drones that scanned the craft with green beams of laser, and recognizing it, gave a series of clunks and allowed it through. They passed through two more similar grids and then after a few 653

minutes more they had soared up and out of the atmosphere. The curve of the planet below had now taken on its more circular shape, covered by a film of glowing mists in blue gradients below the new night sky. It gradually receded away behind them, becoming like a marble in the eternity of space, with the majestic landscapes of the white planet and the darker patchwork of storm clouds over it losing their features to the naked eye. “There.” Arc said and turned a few dials, making the heletank alter its course toward the grey space station, that sat in its place at the foot of the eternity before them. “If the rest of those warbirds see us flying to the Shadow Sec ship they’ll tear us to bits.” “Oh Hells.” Jayne said while rubbing her sore wrist. “Look at them all. How can we ever get away from here?” The surrounding orbit was filled with troop carrying mother ships from Earth-space. They glistened harshly as they caught the raw sunlight, with colossal fuselages spiked with weaponry and enormous missiles. “Try not to worry.” Arc smiled at her. “We’re just an innocent killing machine flying about in orbit.” She laughed uncontrollably for a moment, then fell silent and stared out over the distant expanse of stars.

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The heletank slid steadily through the silence of space toward the glistening white cylinder of the weather station, with its long arms slowly spinning balls of weather surveillance equipment. They watched it grow and then move over them as they flew to the main docking port beneath. The heletank stopped under the hole and then rose up through it to a dusty old bay. It rocked to the side over one of the landing pads and then lowered carefully into it. They heard the hiss of the tiny door open behind them, as if it were saying “Now get out”. They went to it and jumped down to the stone floor of the bay, and looked around at the two main exits. One was a large hall reaching off for a long way, with countless lockers on either side. The place seemed to have been designed for a large community of station workers, although now the place was totally automated. Dust had settled on everything and could be seen clearly blowing across the cold stone floor in the light breezes. “That way.” Jayne said pointing to the other exit, a series of teleport pads in a low ceilinged room behind a wall of glass. Within the glass were embedded light displays reading information from a diagnostic of the parked vehicle. They walked through a doorway in the glass and to a teleport pad, finding it without light or power, and Jayne said “Is it still working?”

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Arc shrugged and glanced back at the heletank through the glass, and the diagnostic information on the window that said, among other things that heletank was almost out of fuel. The end of the diagnostic spiel read “Departure in progress”. They heard the heletanks blades unfurl and begin turning and walked to the window to see. The heletank powered up again and lifted into the air, and slowly spun to face them. It shone its rainbow targeting beams over them briefly then shut down all of its lights. Suddenly the chain guns span into life, and the opposite side of the window was pounded by a barrage of hot bullets. Jayne staggered back in shock while Arc stared at it momentarily and then turned, and ran past her. He jumped up onto the teleport pad, trying to stay calm, while the assault on the window behind him suddenly tore a fissure along it. Jayne ran to him and screeched “Come on, we have to do something!” “Computer?” Arc shouted at the ceiling, and waited hoping for response.

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There was no response, and again the another crack tore along the window under the strain of the gunfire. “Computer? Take us to the bridge!” Arc tried again. “Which bridge do you require?” the empty feminine voice of the ships computer replied. “I dunno!” Arc yelled frantically. “Astro Navigation… or…” “Compliance!” it said happily and the pad below glowed light blue. A moment later they were standing on a pad at the corner of a tall hall. The enormous room was illuminated by the meagre light coming through two huge sets of windows, one at the front of the bridge and a slightly narrower set at the side, behind a gully on the opposite side of the floor space to the teleport pad. More lights flickered on slowly in the ceiling above, as if they hadn’t been called on for decades. They fully lit the grand hall that would at one time bustled with the activity of science and navy personnel, before it had been relegated to weather service for a remote prison colony. Within the grimy pit of the gully a bright blue light glowed and then above the empty hall space an archaic hologram of 657

the galaxy hissed and flickered into being. It span slowly with every possible star available to be zoomed in on and selected for travel. The stars were colour coded by importance to the Eclipse Empire, with Cequodus controlled colonies coloured a mustard yellow, and all other Lantis dynasties coloured lime green. The other millions of races that made up the empire, and all of their power dynasties within were colour coded differently and in different shades. Uncharted territory around the galactic edges, and other, smaller empires within remained white. Jayne sighed and stepped down from the pad, and followed Arc across the floor toward the huge windows at the front, that looked out over the orbit of Narcosia. “Show me Narcosia. Authorization Delta Epsilon Gamma Gamma.” Arc snapped his fingers at the hologram and Jayne watched as the view gushed through the billions of stars toward an uncharted star close to the upper edge. It zoomed right into the solar system until the view stopped at the planet and moon that they could see much more clearly through the bridge windows. “I knew we were somewhere around there.” he grinned. Arc snapped his fingers again in the air at the hologram and turned to the long line of navigation controls below the tall glass wall. He stepped closer to them, and looked at Jayne, who was staring out over the world they had come from. “If we don’t get any further, I’ll die happy enough. I actually feel normal for a change.” she muttered. 658

They watched the heletank fly off and down toward the planet. “Ah.” Arc said, choking up slightly and wagged a finger at the beast. “I didn’t think it would do that. I thought it would just stay where you parked it.” “Did we need it?” Jayne said looking at him. Arc scanned over the control panels and said “Well, let’s see shall we?” He looked around for the communications desk, and found it a little to the left. He stood over a hovering microphone that was easy to miss if you weren’t looking at it. The button below opened a line that would typically be heard by anyone listening anywhere in the solar system. “I hope they made it, and encrypted these comms.” Arc said looking over at the Shadow Security ship in orbit a little further out. “Otherwise this will be like waving a red flag to those bulls.” Jayne stared at him wide eyed with a raw look about her like she’d had enough excitement for one day. Arc depressed the button and leaned at the hovering silver rod. “Hello? Anyone? This is err... Aaron Bailey. Repeat Aaron Bailey. Pick up!” 659

The surround sound speakers crackled and then the voice of Flynn Randall came through. “Bailey? Thank God!” he said. “Everything’s done at this end. How are things going at yours?” “You won’t believe the kind of day I’ve had.” Arc said. “Are the cannons ready? You need to have them primed or the shots won’t be fast enough.” “We were hoping you could help with that. None of us know how do work the ships weapons.” Arc smiled and said “Are you sure there’s nobody there that has experience on a starship bridge?” On the bridge of the Indus Lynx, Randall stared out over space at the weather station, and then looked at the others who were listening behind him. “I dunno.” he said, slightly curious. “I know ship systems.” Dane Angell said pushing past Farnon, and Randall looked at him in slight shock. “We have someone, yes.” Randall said, suspicious of some sort of unseen deceit. “Superlative.” Arc said back, and grinned at Jayne behind him. “Reverend, I need you to do one more thing before it. 660

I have Jayne with me. She’s fine, but needs a drink and a good night’s sleep.” Arc listened to the celebratory sounds from the background. “Can you get a teleport lock on her?” Arc said and paused, looking at her. She shook her head slightly, and then Dane spoke over the line “Yes. I have her locked in.” “Bring her through.” Arc said, and watched as the space around her was sliced away by glowing light, and then disappeared through a rip in space, swapping the sliced areas over. As she disappeared, Arc saw a black creature slaking around the wall quickly, and then stop. He snapped out the gun and aimed up as it looked down through the hissing hologram of Narcosia. The air swapped from the bridge of the Indus Lynx smelled of cigarette smoke, and seemed a world away from the cold empty bridge of the weather station. Arc and the last of the sheriffs froze, face to masked face. Jayne appeared on the bridge of the ship behind them all, on the short ramp leading up to the back area. Thom ran to 661

her and held her by he shoulders, unable to find words to say. She smiled at him briefly and gently nudged his hands away. “Not now, lover.” she said and walked past him to the window. The others patted her and said their hellos, while Thom stood with his head bowed, unsure of what it all meant. Farnon left them and went to the floating mic. “Bailey, there’s something else.” he said. “You said there were twenty of those Sheriffs right? If this is true then there was one missing on the planet. If they thought we were going for the weather station then it could be there now with you.” Arc watched the thing over the barrel of his gun as it hung from the high wall of the bridge. “Yes, thanks for that info. Just get the cannons ready. Remember, we’ve only got one shot at this.” “Ok, we will.” Farnon said. “Watch your back, buddy.” The com went dead and Arc muttered “Yeees.”

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It’s shroud hung from it as it tried to creep toward a shadow, presumably leading to an attack. It was completely alien, and sent a shudder down Arc’s torso. Staying calm Arc slowly nipped on the trigger and shot at it over again through the navigational hologram. He heard his bullets ricochet from the wall as the weird creature crawled fast around like a bug. It had dodged the fire and then taking a chance sprung down to the floor and leaped at Arc underneath the hologram of the planet. It bared those same claws through the body hugging shroud, and Arc fell back and pulled the trigger once more. The bullet kicked into its midriff, punching it back over in the air like a rag doll. It screeched out, making a hideous racket in the confines of the hall. It slammed down onto the floor and Arc noticed that it had slipped out of its shroud, and rolled aside, naked but for its armour wrap suit. Arc turned back to the console, glancing over his shoulder at the figure lying on the far side of the floor. Its bare head was just out of sight he noted. Turning his attention to the fleet in the space above, he began entering a set of commands to the touch screens and wheels. The floor shuddered slightly as the station began to move slowly in orbit. A moment later and the station fired two of its meagre laser defences at one of the closest warships. 663

Immediately all ships in the fleet began to move in the direction of the station. A ship busting uber-ray lit up and flashed in front of the station, missing it either on purpose or as a warning shot. Then other ships began unfurling cannons and huge Merlin class rockets, that would be able to follow its target through into a backspace tunnel, making escape almost impossible. Behind him he heard something strange, but looking around at the sheriff he found it was still as dead as before. Arc leaned closer to get a look at the thing but was startled by the voice of the weather stations navcom. “Missile closing. Structural danger imminent.” it said, and Arc turned back to the controls. He brought up the navigational touch screen and plotted a course, then took one last look down at the planet, and the white shapes of the exile colony just below gaps in the thick flowing cloud cover. He then entered the last command and the station energized the first in a series of relayed gravitational rips needed to tunnel through the solar system. The planet below was tugged away from view, or relatively the station was. The sun that had been hidden just behind one of the other moons now glared and began to grow slowly toward view, beyond the hurricane tunnel of backspace.

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The others in the Indus Lynx watched as each of the fleet began their pursuit, disappearing in a hundred brief streaks of light. Arc watched as the Narcosia sun suddenly jerked forward and then slowed as the vessel began to break out of its warp. “Trajectory error.” the voice of the navcom said. “Entering Narcosia one orbit.” The sun stopped its motion and a planet grew to an enormous size in the view. “Ah shit. I’m rusty.” Arc spat and began to try his best to pull the station's trajectory away from a collision course with the first planet in the solar system. He was unable to do so, and entered thin atmosphere of the boiling world. Arc continued to pull on the controls, desperately trying to bring the station out of its fall. The huge station appeared from the chaotic, marbled sky of the planet, with its arms still spinning around it. “Probability of structural survival twelve thousand to one.” the navcom said.

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“Screw your odds.” Arc said. The ship flew over a mountain range just before a boiling brown sea. One of the bulbous ends of the spinning arms struck the peak of the mountain tearing it from the rest of the land and sending it hurtling down into the sea. Somehow the impact knocked the station on an ascending course and Arc took it back up and out of orbit. The fleet of motherships and automated solar defences had filled the space above the planet already, but there was a small gap through them leading to the sun. The whole horizon rotated in the window as Arc took the station past the ships that were slowing into the high orbit. Once clear it accelerated past them and then kicked out toward the star. He continued to tug the station smoothly forward utilizing a relay of gravity rips until the station had reached a close orbit and began to blast its way around the star. The coppery glare of the sun’s flames soaked through everything, although the windows had automatically hued in a series of blinds morphed into the glass. The rest of the fleet followed close behind as the station swung at dangerous speeds, low around the back of the star. Some in pursuit ignited and exploded being unable to shield against the solar tides and flares that burst all around them. The weather station had some shielding but not enough, and Arc started to feel the heat in the control room. The weather station made it full circle around the sun and began breaking out of its orbit. The whole structure had been melted and was on fire in several places, but it still had functioning power. 666

Arc hoped the backspace drive would still be working, and found to his elation that it was. The backspace tunnel sucked the station into it, and he watched as the other planets slid by in the solar system. “Entering Narcosia six atmosphere in ten seconds.” the navigational computer read out. “Entering Narcosian atmosphere in five, four…” Just then the Sheriff leaped onto his back, wrapping its arms and legs around his chest. He looked at it in shock and alarm, seeing that it was some sort of fly or insect like creature. Its jaws were wide and primal, and its many eyes were bulging with an hexagonal patterning. Arc cried out at seeing it and tipped forward tugging it over his shoulder and slamming it onto the navigational computer. Somehow it pushed the right buttons and the station dropped out of backspace beside the arctic planet. The men and women on the ship looked up at the weather station and the fires that were billowing out from it. Then the rest of the fleet began to warp in all around it, and Farnon gestured to Dane. Dane Angell set the auto acquisition of weapons locks and let the huge warship do it’s business. Highly concentrated bursts of railgun fire spread out from the Indus Lynx cannons at all sides, and one by one the 667

fleet of ships exploded. A wall of fire grew behind the station, and was then sucked down in the pull of gravity toward the atmosphere. The weather station itself had not completely stopped, and flew rapidly toward the bridge windows. The steeples at the front of the station fed between the pylons at the front of the Indus Lynx, and then the two vessels impacted against one another. Everyone on the bridge lurched forward as the station slammed into the outer wall. The two vessels hugged one another momentarily as the station twisted and then fell away in the grip of the gravity well of the moon. “Oh son of a bitch.” Thom said standing back to his feet, then helping Jayne also. They watched as the station flew away, slightly catching sight of the scuffle that was taking place on the bridge. Arc and the Sheriff had been dazed a little by the crash, but not for long, and so Arc took advantage of the Sheriff’s disadvantage. He held it where it lay on the console, and began punching it repeatedly in its hideous face, trying to break its razor sharp jaws.

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“You’re under arrest.” it seemed to say as it lay on the console, and grabbed Arc by the arm and chest and picked him up from the floor. It tipped him upside down and threw him up against the window, slamming him into it as itself rolled from the console. Arc flipped over too and landed rolling from his shoulder on the console then diving down onto the manmachine, that he now clearly saw it was. It was some kind of insect race, that had fused itself into the suit that encased it. Arc punched at it furiously over again, breaking his skin against the bare metal, and cutting deep as he scraped against its razor sharp mouth. Arc lost the will to go on, and the Sheriff stood with what looked to be a smile on its alien face. It hadn’t seen how close to the hologram gullies ledge it had been pushed. With a final muster Arc crouched and lunged up, side kicking the Sheriff’s stomach and just pushing it over edge of the floor. He heard a crumpling as the Sheriff’s body hit the dirty grounds below, and Arc glanced at it just to make sure. It was immobilized but not dead, and lay twitching and groaning at the bottom in a puddle of oil. Shaking his head, Arc turned and ran back to the consoles, and saw through the windows the Indus Lynx moving further away as the station dropped in the direction of the Narcosia atmosphere. 669

“Farnon do you read?” Arc said into the microphone. “Please someone, come in.” “Bailey.” the voice of Randall came over the line. “It is done. The fleet has been destroyed.” “Teleport me out of here. “ Arc said fearfully as the glow from the fires of the atmosphere began to soak everything. There was a pause then Randall said “We can’t. I’m sorry Bailey. The station is pretty beat. There’s too much radiation. You need to get away from the station, maybe in a shuttle… I dunno.” “There aren’t any.” Arc said. “And I’d burn up in the atmosphere anyway.” The station suddenly toppled around against the bubble of the high atmosphere so that the windows were looking directly down at the planet. The whole structure around him croaked and groaned, and Arc watched as fingers of lighting fanned over the top of the thinning cloud far below, over the prison domes. He could see now that there were six domes around the citadels in the giant crater. Arc looked around, a little worried now since there were no ideas forthcoming.

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“Bailey?” Randall pressed. “If you can’t get out of there then there’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.” “Cloak the ship.” Arc nodded solemnly. “The emergency services will be here soon. They’ll think the ship warped out. Keep it cloaked. If you can get a lock on me, pull me in. If not, wait until it’s over, then jump out.” “Ok mate.’ Randall said, and the line went dead. Arc entered commands to the screens, plotting a course to crash the station into the crater. He submitted it then ran from the bridge and teleported down to the docking bay. He ran across the floor as the view from the glowing entrance moved rapidly by. The station was spinning as it plummeted into the orbit of Narcosia, and it would by a matter of minutes before it crashed. Behind the weather station, the Indus Lynx blurred and then disappeared, rendered invisible against the night sky. Arc ran toward an airlock tunnel, skidding on the floor as the growing inertia build up outweighed the artificial gravity of the station. He grabbed the upper corners of the corridor and baby walked along to the space-suit locker. He snatched up one of the upper body suits, pulling the jacket over his arms and then fastening it at the neck. The jets hung from the back and the controls hung over his chest, and since there was no need for a helmet or pants now he stepped into the airlock. The air was roaring by just beyond it and he knew that this could be the part where he’d be knocked unconscious, or worse. 671

He reached over and entered the command to open the outer airlock door, then grabbed a tight hold of the straps on the inside as the five second counter ran down. It did and the airlock door snapped aside. Arc held tight as the change in pressure tugged at his body, then it was equal and the pressure eased. He let go of the straps and stepped back two steps to the edge. Arc jumped back out into the air and hung in front of the opening for a second before the air that wasn’t spinning grabbed his body and tugged him up over. At first he was out of control and toppled away from the cylindrical wall which he had programmed to spin along the curved side. He flew out, then began to push himself with small bursts from the shoulder jets. One of the stations giant arms flew by a hundred meters away to the side. The cloud and ground were becoming clearer now, and he knew that time was shortening. Arc would have to slow his fall by blasting in the opposite direction with the jets, and so began to launch himself toward the back of the station. He flew steadily up along the side of the station as it span dangerously close by. The arms could be seen coming from a good distance so he had time to fly aside, running his feet against one that he had a hard time out manoeuvring.

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He had made it at least half way when he heard the sound of an airlock behind him. Looking down he saw a small black spot in the flowing air, leaping out from the station. The sheriff had followed, and from the back of its armoured suit two wings unfurled with tiny jets housed on its underside. It blasted off in pursuit of Arc, and having seen this Arc pushed on toward the backside of the weather station. A plasma shot whistled by, then another, before a shot struck the outer wall of the station, smoking momentarily in the flow of the wind. Arc took the pistol from his trouser back pocket and began firing back at the creature. All shots by both men missed by a long way, and Arc knew that it was just a matter of time before one of them hit. The station fell into the first of the last of the cloud from the storm, and the sky above was now a pastel blue of the morning. He decided to sacrifice a little of his height to close the gap between himself and the Sheriff and so powered down his jets momentarily. The winds push him back to bring him level with the Sheriff and he engaged the thrusters again, while elbowing down on top of its head and then firing a barrage of shots into the Sheriffs armoured body. The force of the shots knocked him away slightly, then the Sheriff, who had been unharmed it seemed, jetted toward Arc and

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grabbed him with its powerful arms. Arc punched and kicked against it as they toppled through the cloud. Above them, through the murk of the cloud, one of the huge arms of the station swung toward them. Both of them seeing this kicked against the air and then jetted away from one another as it bombed between them. The backdraft of it sucked both men into its wake, spinning them out of control for a moment. Arc righted himself and then, both men reached a realization of how close now they must be to the ground, and gave up on the fight, and began jetting upward. Parallel to each other they travelled past the bulk of the station and up and away from it. The huge station crashed through and out of the clouds and slammed down into the surface of the crater. The arms snapped and crumpled at its side, with one of them draping over the peaks at the rim of the crater. The two men fell to earth still blasting to slow their descent, and fell hard into the huge thrusters at the rear of the station. The Sheriff slammed down into the soot covered metal between two enormous cone shaped jets, while Arc clipped one of them with his leg and topped down, landing beside him. Both men lay on the scorched rear of the station, while all around the wreckage, lava exploded and spurted upward. The station had broken clean through the layers of rock that had encased the molten lava for centuries. Now the 674

case had been cracked and the old volcano began to erupt, vomiting the deep guts of the moon out onto the crater basin. They lay side by side stirring as the lava began to pour out of the hole the station had dug. There was a quake and a huge roar as fissures split along the craters surface, then burning the snow to steam with more leaking lava. Above, the sun burned behind the wisps of cloud, and still Arc felt it sting as he strained to open his eyes. Arc found he had woken first, and so staggered to his feet. He saw the Sheriff behind him lying with its hands cupped around its head, and since it didn’t seem to be about to continue the fight he ran away to the side of the ship and looked down at the lava spilling out all around. A huge spurt leaped up from one of the gaping cracks, eclipsing the distant citadels. The whole station lurched and Arc grabbed the side, then noticed that the ship was half melting and half sinking into the hole it had made. He looked back over the edge and saw along the side of the station just below his feet, beside the engines the word ‘Refuel’ beside a large port. The fuel tanks were descending now and would ignite once they touched the molten lava. The whole place was now a gigantic hazard, and about to get a lot worse.

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Arc stepped back and felt around for the shoulder jet controls, and felt cold, powerful fingers clasp his upper arm. It tugged him from his feet, hard enough to break his arm, and flung him sidewards through the air. “I said you’re under arrest.” the Sheriff yelled, as Arc’s limp body struck the side of one of the huge thrusters with a hollow clang. Arc landed hard on the floor again and lay there fighting to get back up. “We have to get out of here.” Arc said as the Sheriff marched over to him and grabbed him again by the arm. The sheriff dragged him to his feet and swung him around again slamming him into one of the hollow thrusters. As Arc righted himself he began to throw his fists into its face and stomach. The Sheriff moved away as Arc pushed him and then it began to punch back, wrestling against Arc’s barrage. Behind them another huge spurt of lava sprayed up into the sky, some of it landing and cooling on the back of the station. The whole place lurched again and Arc felt the ground drop a few meters. Panicking slightly now, Arc grabbed the Sheriff’s sickly insect face and headbutted him, then pushed 676

him back on to the floor. Using that chance he ran away from him toward the edge while fumbling for the shoulder jet controls. Arc found them and launched away from the back of the weather station, but the Sheriff had chased him down, and leaped after him. It grabbed Arc as he jetted up into the air, clambering up his body and then around to face him. It clasped its impossibly thin arms around his back and hung staring at him with its lifeless, insect eyes. Arc jetted up to the start of the mountain peaks around the crater’s rim, and then the weather station’s fuel tanks met the lava, and it exploded in a massive burst of rippling flame. The shockwave kicked Arc and the Sheriff further up across the mountain tops and then down across the other side. They then fell, clasped to one another, and plummeted down the steep sides of the outside of the rim. The depths below were misted and hazy, and grew colder as they fell faster toward it. Arc took a breath, then pulled the chord and let the parachute release from its compact pack. It spread out above him and tugged him to a stop in the air. The Sheriff slipped from its grip and fell away down into the mists below. It snarled and shouted “No!” and then it disappeared.

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Arc hung from the swing of the parachute, and glided slowly down beside the white mountainsides. He was slightly delirious now, and barely noticed that he had glided down along side one of the mercenary dropships. He looked up at it, and the throng of troops around it, and at the pilot officers in the bridge that had noticed him also. Unable to move he was trapped in mid-air, and watched as the officers pointed at him, issuing orders. One of the huge double barrelled cannons atop the craft energized and turned toward him. Arc sighed, and smiled slightly as the snow beat against his face. The cannon lit up and fired, and it’s two charges flew out at Arc. But Arc was gone, and the shots sailed past and burst the snow on a smaller mountainside opposite. In orbit, on the bridge of the Indus Lynx Arc Micormic teleported to a position over one of the front consoles. He hung in the air with his parachute for a moment then fell, striking his hip against the side of the panel. The snow covered parachute flopped to the floor of the bridge, and Arc furiously unclipped it from himself. He dropped the shoulder jets with the same anger and then pushed past people to one of the front windows. He suddenly stopped dead, and stared at himself in the thick, double glazed windows. Two reflections stared back, as the others watched him from behind. 678

On a monitor below him, the revived High General Horald Kinnyck was barking an angry message out across the solar system. “To all those who have done this I strongly suggest you turn yourselves in now while you have the chance. Respond immediately or there will be grave consequences.” he said as his fat face filled the screen. Arc bent down to the screen and pressed the button to answer communications. “General…” he began, then paused staring at him across the line. “Goodbye.” Arc released the button, turned off the monitor and stood back up. He stood staring at his double reflection a while more, and let the dizzy sensation wash over him. Then it was Bailey looking out into space. Bailey watched as one of the two reflections changed, and looked at him. It then suddenly lunged forward and punched the window. “Bang!” Arc said, and Bailey staggered back a few steps in fright. On looking again he saw the reflection had returned to normal.

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Faye stared at him and looked at the others, tensed up and worried by all of what was going on. Bailey fell back into one of the central seats of the commanding officers and leaned back with his hand over his face. The others either sat or stood, waiting.

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Living in Truth. Emergency services warped in, and began evacuating the cities. The eruption had spread and the colonists were now under serious threat. Long white seed like ships dropped down to the planet from huge carriers, and then returned ferrying colonists out in shifts. Bailey and the others watched all of this from behind the invisibility cloak. He leaned with his head on his arm against the window. Faye and some of the others had joined him. “Where will they go?” Faye asked. “To another exile colony most likely.” Bailey said. “Hopefully one a little nicer than this. I doubt the guards will be kept on though. Not now that they’ve met with all of these paramedics.” Bailey looked at Jayne, but Jayne simply stood looking up at the stars at the other side of the windows. The carriers did their jobs and then turned away from the planet and jumped into backspace. The remaining mercenaries followed suit. Farnon and the others then went to the navigation console at the back of the bridge, and stood around the oval table. Jayne stayed at her place beside the window. 681

“So where do we go?” Farnon said, bringing up a huge holographic star map. We can’t go near the Empire territories. Or Outlands either to be on the safe side.” “No, stay in the uncharted space if possible.” Bailey said, then pointed at a star. “How about here?” “Why there though?” Thom said. “It’s somewhere we’ve never been.” Bailey smiled, and the others happily agreed. Farnon tapped the star, choosing it as the destination, then tapped the touch screen patch that engaged the backspace drive. Jayne watched as the stars smeared into a long cone, and kept on staring as more and more stars smudged into the bright tunnel. Seconds then minutes passed as they crossed the farthest reaches of space.

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© Jack Lance

I hope you have enjoyed Exile Arc, book one in The Star Saga. Please return for Book two, The Logic Bomb & Arc, which may be released alongside Book three, Children of the Empire. Until then be well.

http://legendsandlies.net

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