Chaos Cipher (87 page)

-70-

V
adim had been stalking around the
yard where the Chinook soldiers were meandering around, chattering
amongst themselves while the camp’s various factotums were still
stood to attention in assembly positions. The watch-tower security
carefully oversaw the situation and Vadim was on ground support
duty with one or two other loyal inmates. He slipped his hand
casually over his Mohawk as he stretched his legs, jaw working at
some gum like the piston of a steam-engine. Vadim had his rifle
slung over the back of his neck and he rested his hands over the
length, as though he’d just jumped down from a crucifixion with
both wrists still nailed. He looked about, rowing the rifle with
his arms in bored motions, his head swaying around
loosely.

Just then the
doors from the corrugated sheet steel facility fired open and
Krupin stormed out holding the stasis diviner and Kyo was dragged
along chasing his magneto-cuffs.

Krupin
ascended the watch-tower stairs to stand on the gantry looking down
on the whole camp’s yard. Kyo was placed in the centre before the
assembly of shaven, toughened men and women and the armoured
soldiers straggling around the large open space. They’d dressed him
in his dishevelled boiler suit. Kyo looked nervously around him.
Not long after the pale, tall monster in the suit emerged onto the
yard.

‘
Everyone pay
attention, look at this gene-freak!’ Krupin shouted into the yard.
‘Anarchist. They believe in voluntary participation. And he has
volunteered to be your entertainment.’

The soldiers
in uniform laughed as Kyo stood shivering in the yard like some
unsheltered and feral mongrel.

‘
His first
task will be betting game.’ Krupin shouted down to the boy. ‘The
plank!’

Kyo looked
around in confusion, and the soldiers began to chuckle again and
one of them stepped forward. ‘It’s like this, kid,’ he said,
demonstrating ‘down on your elbows, face down. Balance on your tip
toes, stomach tight, got it?’

Kyo stared at
the man, raised his eyebrows coy. The soldier got up, expecting the
kid to follow his example. Kyo disobeyed. He flashed his fangs and
pointed to Krupin.

‘
This man has
you all brainwashed!’ Kyo squalled.

And suddenly
an intense pain surged through Kyo’s body. It stirred through his
abdomen with such intensity that he thought he might shit. Falling
to his knees he screamed out, holding his guts as something fired
within, like a water bomb filled with hot needles had exploded and
was expanding through the hollows of his intestines. Over the pain,
he heard Krupin’s howling laughter and in the next moment the pain
subsided and Kyo was left gasping only with the memory of it,
feeling quite sick down as he kneeled in mud holding his quivering
arms over his stomach.

‘
How do you
liking it?’ Krupin shouted down to him. Kyo realised that one of
Krupin’s guards was pointing a weapon down at him, a long cannon
shaped lens, not a maser-breaker, but something a little less
destructive. ‘Powerful pain it gives, concentrated ultra-sonic
waves. Any more from you gene-freak and I will make a hole in your
stomach.’

‘
I’m not
playing games.’ Kyo shouted through shivers of pain, and he gagged
a little, gasping as strings of saliva spilled over his lips. He
held himself back from vomiting before speaking again. ‘Not
anymore, you bastard. You hear me Krupin? I’m not playing your
games. This is how we win. We let suckers play the
games.’

The ominous
B’Two’O stood in the darkness. He’d been watching quietly for some
time now, contemplating, fascinated by Kyo’s insanity. Krupin was
growing flustered, ever more so that this little bastard chose now
to humiliate his authority in the presence of B’Two’O and his
prisoners.

‘
Then, we
shall change rules of betting game.’ Krupin offered. ‘I bet to
anyone here a year of freedom from labouring that this gene-freak
will be begging to do anything, if only to stop pain.’

The guard
fired the ultra-sonic cannon again and Kyo screamed as his skin
felt like it was on fire. The waves of vibrations focused, getting
to deeper tissue, shaking his bones and vibrating through his
stomach and lungs. He could hear the micro quakes on his voice,
like he was stood on a power drill, the quaking waves dithering on
his screams. He dropped to the floor, curling up and holding his
guts still.

Krupin had
been yelling orders and taking bets from up high, laughing and
stomping the gantries with excitement, when suddenly he became
quelled by an abrupt pain in his back.

In the first
second, he coughed a great dollop of blood into his palm, and in
the next a velociter wake tore his entrails out like a confetti
cannon and split the paunch man in half. Krupin’s offal trailed
horizontally through the air, chasing the long passed bullet like
an Indian rope trick far across the yard.

The sudden
and violent death left the rambled union of betters silent, and
their blood freckled faces craned to stare up at the gantry, where
their leader’s porcine carcass now heaped in meat piles and draping
entrails. And the shock left a long silence in the camp. Above,
Cedalion soared on high from the guard-tower where taciturn inmates
gazed on, he wingspen displaying Cerise Timber’s Three Circles.
Their complete attention snared by the bird, as though some soul
snatching vulture had stolen off with Krupin’s life. And there was
an affinity of death in the air.

‘
What the
fuck?’ Gasped an incredulous Vadim, aiming his rifle up at the bird
but before he could fire, explosions of dust and concrete tore in
from West side of the perimeter wall, punching through the two
meter thick iron enforced concrete. In the gathering of people six
were thrown dead across the yard like ragdolls. And, as another
velociter round punched in through the concrete the scattering and
strident droves were tossed apart. Another three were spread like
jam across nearby huts, which too burst into splinters of wood and
dust where the bullets entered. B’Two’O’s soldiers were dropping
like flies.

‘
POSITIONS!’
The monster hollered at his shocked infantry. At which point,
whilst the men bumbled and organised into battle positions, three
more rounds burst through the Western wall and collided with their
suits, breaking armour up into a myriad shards and spinning their
limbs off into the distance. Those with lungs still left in their
bodies would scream in agony and collapse in shock.

Muddy and
gasping for breath, Kyo sat up to realise the chaos now upon the
camp. Boots slogged quickly around him through the silt and loam
and people tripped over wires snaking hidden in the mire as they
shambled for safety. More velociter wakes tore over their heads
from freshly punctured fist sized holes bursting in through the
rigid perimeter walls all around. What the
hell
was going on here? Kyo watched
the great rents open and saw the bullets trailing long dust tails,
unzipping chalk-lines far, scored diagonally through the
air.

‘
GET TO THE
TOWERS!’ The skeletal and blanched Titan five shrieked. ‘MAN THE
TOWERS AND TRACK THE TARGETS. FIND THEM.’

Kyo scrambled
to his feet and ran across the yard, toes sliding through the ooze.
Above, he saw Cedalion wheeling in the sky, giving Artex the
perfect advantage of knowing where his enemies were standing or
running to from an aerial view.

‘
HERE.’ Kyo
screamed waving up to the bird. ‘HERE, THIS ONE.’ And he pointed at
the iniquitous pale B’Two’O.

The monster
turned to see the boy pointing right at him while screaming into
the grey abode, and the Titan five’s eyes peeled back wide,
revealing those odious marbles. Growling with an affronted fury,
B’Two’O finally realised the purpose of the bird on high was not
random, but part of a transqualia. But it was all too late. By the
time B’Two’O had pieced it together, a green spot of laser found
the monster’s chest and a velociter bullet tore through the
South-Western wall and put a perfect hole in its abdomen. B’Two’O’s
black organs flaccidly drooped and drew with it the dark rivers of
blood spilling over his suit. First, the creature dropped to his
knees, then collapsed to the floor face down in the mud.

Kyo laughed
with elated relief.

‘
YOU GOT
HIM.’ He cried victoriously, fist to the air where Cedalion sailed.
‘YOU GOT HIM, YOU GOT HIM.’ He repeated, punching the sky with
joy.

The bullets
soon stopped coming in through the walls as the Chinook infantry
opened fire from the watch-towers and guard-houses, their rifles
chattering over and beyond the perimeter tops and into the horizon
of the Novus. Beams of light flashed as mounted laser cannons
pulsed and sonic weapons whip-cracked violently, eruptive blasts
resonating from mounted resonance dishes. The infantry manned the
gantries and surrounded the perimeter walls, and magneto alarms
started to siren as the EMP defence perimeter suddenly went
down.

Kyo looked
around for some place to hide and ran when he saw the Perigrussia
Skybus. If he could fly it, they could get out of this place. He
started to sprint, when suddenly, out of nowhere, Vadim leapt to
tackle him by the waist and they both glissaded over the sludge.
Kyo tried to roll over but Vadim had him pinned, sitting his weight
over Kyo’s chest. He brought the butt of his rifle down hard on the
gene-freak’s eye and Kyo cried out with incensed pain.

‘
Got you now,
little fucker.’ Vadim heaved, drawing back for another strike.
Then, something coiled around Vadim’s throat, tightening like a
leather belt. He was dragged away by the snag, spinning him
flailing into the slippery mud.

Kyo never
knew he had so much power and dexterity in his tail, but he was
glad for it. Caked in thick dark grime, Kyo got quickly to his feet
but kept them wide and stayed low. He moved crabwise and ready to
pounce at his enemy, eyes carefully locked on Vadim as he too got
back to his feet.

The
chattering of weapons mottled the Novus outside, and people started
screaming and abandoning their posts as more velociter rounds tore
in through the guard-tower.

Rubbing his
aching neck, Vadim scrambled and made a grab for his rifle which
protruded from the thick clay ground.

Kyo gasped,
prompted by Vadim’s effort, and saw the rifle. Instinctively he
seized some of the power cables worming through the mud and silt
and pulled them tight, tripping Vadim on the tension of cables.
Raw-Dog hit the dirt and sprawled toward the weapon, making a grab.
He unlocked the safety, and dropping to one knee took aim for Kyo’s
head. Kyo froze with a stupid and terrified expression, wondering
why he wasn’t dead. Vadim’s rifle clicked several times, the sound
of an empty chamber, something blocked. The mud had caused a
malfunction, bunged it up with clay. Cheap fucking
rifles!

But no sooner
had Vadim tried to unclog the cartridge, did a bright and blinding
light shine into his eyes, stifling his vision from the left. Kyo
froze a second, dumbstruck,
then
dove face first back into the mud. Vadim sat back
and covered his face myopically, barely able to make out the jeep
now careering towards him, headlights on full beam. A new cartridge
slid into the rifle’s load, with maladroit aim, fired a few shots
sparking over the jeep’s bull bars, winch and tow wire. But the
vehicle rode him down, smashing his bones beneath the chassis like
a bag of wet twigs. It passed and veered obliquely into a
tail-spin, riding a great tidal splash of mud.

Kyo couldn’t
believe his eyes. The passenger door flapped open and he saw Pania
screaming at him from the driver’s seat.

‘
COME
ON!’

Without a
second to spare, Kyo dove into the passenger seat and snapped the
door shut.

‘
That way!’
Kyo shouted, pointing to the corrugated sheet-steel facility ahead.
Kyo kept low as the pop and ting of ballistics mottled the jeep’s
armour. Pania forced his head down and pumped the accelerator,
driving the jeep headlong through the main cross-mesh gate. The
structure gave way with a crash and slid inside with the vehicle,
the jeep’s engines roaring through the dark and isolated space now,
shards of metal spilling out scintillating sparks. Headlights
landed upon several caged prison cells in the dark, one of which
Kyo was not ten minutes ago inside, and the vehicle pulled to a
dirt-trail stop.

‘
Look at me.’
Pania shouted, pulling Kyo’s head to her and checking his
face.

‘
I’m fine.’
He promised, throwing himself into her arms. She squeezed him
tight, brought almost to tears with relief. Outside, an explosion
burst through the yard, causing the strip lights of the facility to
short out. They sat in the dark with only the jeep’s headlights to
illuminate their way. They embraced a little longer while the
engine purred.

‘
I thought we
lost you, Biter.’ She said.

‘
Me too.’ And
Kyo suddenly remembered something. ‘Hey…Pania. Wait
here.’