Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (107 page)

Home.
 

Hong Kong.

The scent of roasting meat, tinged with rot and effluent, pervaded the cramped space between the two derelict tenements. It reminded him of his life in the shelters. For years, while people waited for the worst of the radiation to dissipate, the cloying stench filled the cramped rooms where people cooked, slept, fucked and crapped.
 

Being away from home for so long, he had forgotten the smell.
 

A single day here had brought it all back.
 

He should never have left, he knew that from the day he ran from his old gang, but he always had the compulsion within him to go out into the world and find resources for his family. He got lost, both physically and mentally, along the way.
 

But now he was back, and he was going to find his mother.
 

A tip-off from a traveller had sent them here, into the heart of the gang’s territory. Just out there, on the street, a few blocks down, was a room. Within that room they would find the gang leader. Charles Figueroa.
 

To locate his mother, Gabe would need to deal with Charles—one way or another.
 

But he didn’t just receive visitors on a whim.
 

Gabe would need leverage first. Something to bargain with. Nothing happened in this part of town without ‘Figgy’ knowing about it. He ruled the shelters, the few tenements that weren’t crumbled-down heaps of bricks, and every entry and exit point for a square mile. Almost two-thirds of the entire Jamaican quarter.
 

Back before the war came to this part of the world, these particular tenement buildings were the two cornerstones of the Quarter. A small independent nation of five thousand Jamaicans and other Caribbean citizens had made this part of the sovereign state of Hong Kong their own back in the day.

The ruler at the time had carved the island into several districts. Sold the land off to whole nations in order to pay for its defence during the war with the People’s Republic of China. Having wrested control of the city away from the central China government, King Raphael Concedo soon realised he had depleted the city of its most valuable asset.
 

Its financial district.
 

What was once the most vertical city in the world with its skyscrapers was now nothing more than a shell. Its five districts were burned and gutted. All that wealth taken away by conflict and ultimately the Cataclysm.
 

Even under Figueroa’s tight reign, the place was still a shithole.
 

In the time Gabe had been away, it appeared nothing had been done to improve the conditions for its citizens.
 

Gabe inched forward. He pressed his back against the rough bricks. He stepped carefully over knee-high piles of trash to avoid giving away their position. The ground of the alley squelched beneath his booted feet. Somewhere above them a leaky pipe dripped rainwater to the ground, making the concrete slick and muddy.
 

Hushed voices of his old gang came from the left of the alley. The third watch. He had counted them the day before. Figueroa had three groups of four men and women. They patrolled these streets, armed with renovated weapons from the Cataclysm.

Gabe, Petal, and Ezra had lain in wait for three hours for this particular patrol.
 

—
Ready?
Gabe sent to Petal across their VPN.
 

—
Like a shark, man, like a damned shark.
 

Petal’s arm spikes made a barely audible sheathing sound as she prepared. Gabe looked back at his father and mouthed, “Ready to go?”

Ezra curled his lip as he nodded. His face hardened, readying to fight. He held a rifle close to his chest. A rifle that had once belonged to Liza-Marie, the Upsider sharpshooter. She, along with her ally Ghanus, her leader Len, and the rest of her group had all perished.
 

A small community ripped apart and destroyed.
 

They were just some of many casualties of the post-Cataclysm world, though some days he imagined he saw those familiar green laser sights lighting on the ground, indicating their ghosts had his back.
 

He missed those crazy bastards.
 

The voices grew louder. Broke him away from his thoughts and returned his attention to the job at hand. He detected three distinct voices. All male, all arrogant, bragging about their latest kill or other gang-related activity.
 

The fourth member, silent, was the one they wanted.
 

—
On my mark, girl.
 

— Let’s do it.
 

When the shadows stretched past the alley, Gabe spun out into a crouch and fired the shotgun over the four men’s heads. The patrol fell back in shock and panic. Petal dashed across the street to their left. Ezra flanked them from the right, training his rifle sights on the one they wanted.
 

Kobi Barrett.
 

Stocky but short, Kobi looked up at Ezra first. A glimmer of recognition flashed from his lazy right eye. He then turned to Petal.
 

Her forearm spikes thrust forward. The light gleamed off the polished chrome.

One of Kobi’s allies brought up his Alliance-issue rifle to aim it at Petal.
 

Ezra adjusted his aim and fired a round at the gang member’s foot. The slug burrowed into the concrete, sending up a plume of grey dust.
 

Before the others could react, Petal swiped her spikes at the one Ezra had just shot at and disarmed him. Gabe stood up, pumped a new cartridge into the chamber of his shotgun, and levelled it at Kobi. “Hey, man, been a long time, no?”
 

“Fuck… Gabe? That you, man? Whaa gwaan?” Kobi’s patois made Gabe’s accent sound neutral in comparison.
 

“Just a bit a business,” Gabe replied. “Ya need to get ya boys to put down their weapons, unless ya no longer wanna be livin’.”

Kobi sucked his teeth before spitting on the ground.
 

He shrugged and swept his tatty, greying dreadlocks behind his neck before turning to his group. “Do as de man says.”

Petal kept her spikes high. Her body tensed like a cat, ready to react as the group put down their weapons and stood with their hands open. Confusion etched their faces.
 

Gabe didn’t recognise these other three.
 

Too young.
Must be new recruits.
 

Ezra approached closer. His trench coat flapped in the swirling wind that funnelled down the street. His rifle never left Kobi’s face. “Kick the weapons over here.”

Kobi nodded, and his recruits followed the order.
 

Gabe bent down and picked up two well-restored automatic pistols. He placed them in the deep pockets of his long coat.
 

“Waapen, man?” Kobi said. “This how ya greet an old friend, eh? Where ya been all these years? We heard many tales about ya—and her. Any o’ dem true?” Kobi nodded to Petal.
 

She sneered at him. Her deep purple lips curled with disgust. Her black leather biker’s jacket creaked as she tensed her arms, aiming one of her spikes towards Kobi’s neck.
 

The point lay just inches from his throat.
 

“I ain’t ’ere for a reunion,” Gabe said, stepping forward.
 

He towered over Kobi by nearly half a metre.
 

The other man was stronger with old, packed muscle like a squat bulldog. Still, Kobi was smart enough to know he was at a disadvantage.
 

His three fellow-dreadlocked gang runners looked on at Gabe as though they were witnessing a phantom. His reputation had clearly filtered back here. Though he knew many aspects of that would be exaggerated, he’d found it useful to not alter their perceptions—their imagination of what he was capable of was greater than the truth.
 

“I guess ya ain’t,” Kobi said with the beginnings of a smile on his weathered face. His breath smelled of stale marijuana. It mixed with weeks-old body odour, creating a pungent stench.

Gabe stepped back into the breeze.
 

“And I guess ya would be wantin’ to use me as collateral,” Kobi said. “Figgy won’t be cool wid ya jus’ turning up like a ghost.”

“We’ll see. Turn around and start walking. Anything happens on the way to Figgy’s—and I drop ya like a stone, ya get me, Kobes?”
 

“Everyting is cool, Gabe, everyting is cool.”

Kobi lifted his arms up and clasped his hands behind his head before turning around. Ezra stepped up beside Gabe and pressed the rifle against Kobi’s back.
 

Kobi instructed his young friends to follow Gabe’s orders.

Gabe sent a message to Petal as Kobi led them to Figueroa’s, —
Watch our back, and keep an eye on the windows.

— Sure thing. Hand me one of their pistols.

While they walked, Gabe took one of the automatic pistols from his trench coat pocket and handed it to Petal. She retracted one of her spikes and took the weapon and hung back a few paces to cover their rear and watch for any crazy fools in the tenements.
 

The tall buildings seemed to lurch over into the street like curious giants to see what was going on. The group’s footsteps echoed off their charred bricks, the black stains telling a story of death and destruction.
 

For years, the city was almost entirely black.
 

The glass and steel structures fell first when the bombs dropped.
 

The older brick buildings absorbed most of the blast. This quarter got off lightly compared to some, being based on the southeast coast.
 

Yet the tidal marks of EMPs and nukes remained indelibly tattooed on the buildings as a reminder of the Family’s power. And the devastation they had wrought.
 

None of the buildings had glass. The windows were replaced with sheet metal, wood or dirty, mould-covered plastic. Wooden sills and stairs had rotted away, replaced by lumps of concrete or rusted scaffolding. Gang colours were painted on steel doors in garish colours of pinks and yellows. Dark bloodstains haunted the broken pavements.
 

Yeah, this was home.
 

The desolation and desperation clung to every brick and slab, permeated all those who lived here. No wonder the gangs were still going, fighting among themselves.
 

This place had madness in its very essence.
 

Everyone remained silent as they trudged through the ramshackle street toward Charles Figueroa’s place. Gabe’s finger trembled on the trigger. His muscles tensed and knotted with every step closer to their destination, convinced that they’d face another patrol or backup any minute.
 

He had detected a localised meshwork, but hadn’t yet been able to get online. He had no doubt that Kobi and his friends were interconnected with other members of the gang, much like how Gabe and Petal communicated on their ad-hoc VPN connection.
 

Still, he knew his trigger finger was fast enough if it came to it.
 

Kobi was a valued member of the gang. They wouldn’t risk losing him by doing anything stupid. At least this is what Gabe had counted on.
 

Things change.
 

It had been a long time since he was running with these guys. For all he knew, Kobi could have fallen down the line of importance. But he doubted it. Kobi was no fool, and here, age mattered.
 

Wisdom and experience mattered.
 

***

Smoke hung in the air, catching in the back of Gabe’s throat.
 

Kobi had led them to Charles’s building. Two guards armed with shotguns and sneers blocked the doorway. They stood at the top of a scaffold staircase, barring entry through a hinged lump of corrugated steel.
 

The guards raised their sawn-off shotguns as the group approached.
 

Ezra pressed the rifle into Kobi’s back. “Tell them to back off,” he growled. “I’m not in the mood for any bullshit.”

“Ya heard the man,” Gabe added.
 

—
We’ve got company on the third level. Sniper
, Petal said.
 

—
Keep ya eye on ’em, girl. Also, keep ya security up—ya feel that?

— I sure do. There’s some serious processing power in there.

Petal was right. This was the centre of the localised network he had detected with his internal systems. The security was of a high calibre, meaning if he wanted to hack his way in, it’d have taken at least a few hours. Even with Petal’s help.
 

Since they started their hunt for his mother, Gerry’s presence within Petal had diminished to almost nothing. Her internal systems were maxed out, so he was there, in her mind, doing whatever he was doing.
 

But had remained silent. Inaccessible.
 

“Let us through,” Kobi said. “They’re wid me, man. We’re all cool here, ya know?”

The two dreadlocked goons stepped aside and opened the creaking steel door.
 

“Lead us in,” Ezra said, pointing to the guards. “You screw around and you’ll be cleaning Kobi’s brains off your jackets.”

The guards spat on the floor and huffed before doing as he asked. Holding Kobi back, Ezra, Gabe, and Petal waited until everyone else had gone forward into the darkness before entering. They passed more guards, a group made up of teenage boys and girls carrying edged weapons. They had a feral look in their eyes, but didn’t do anything, just watched on.
 

They came through a corridor to a wooden door.
 

Kobi stepped up and tapped out a complicated rhythm. A lock shunted from the other side and the door opened. Weak yellow light slunk out into the corridor.