Crash Flux 1: Welcome To The Machine (7 page)

Before they could reach the next cross-section, another drone came in from the other direction.  Raydin and Adon exchanged a glance, caught by surprise, with no where to turn and no where to run.

Suddenly, the drone sparked, sizzled, and scuttled to a stop, its flame dying and retreating into the things pincer-like mouth.  A high, lilting voice called through the vent.  “We are the queen’s heralds!  Surrender and you will not be harmed!”

Adon whispered, “The serpent queen?  I thought she was a myth.”

Raydin yelled down the corridor, “Considering your reputation, you’ll forgive me if I decide to decline!”

The voice replied, “We have orders to take you alive!  But if you want to do this the hard way, be our guest!”

Raydin turned the other direction, towards the drone caught on the tracks.  It continued to billow flame.  Raydin crawled towards it, and Adon said, “What are you doing?  We can’t go that way!”  Raydin continued on without him until he could feel the stinging heat on his face.  Raydin took careful aim, and fired his snake.  The dart rocketed forward, the solid wire trailing behind it.  It penetrated the drone’s fuel tank, and the synthetic petrol leaked onto the vents floor like it was the thing’s lifeblood.  Too viscous to catch on fire, the drones flame sputtered out to almost nothing, then died.  Raydin stood on his haunches and awkwardly hobbled over the cooling metal.  It burnt his feet, melting his shoes enough to smear a little black smudge behind him.  Adon followed, touching his hand against the top of the vent and searing his flesh.  

“Ouch!” he hissed.  He made his way to cooler climes and said, “What now?”

Raydin said, “This way!”  Turning to the right of the next cross-section.  In the distance, he saw a small man, less than four feet tall, dressed in archaic clothing with a symbol of two serpents coiled around spider, all of them seemingly trapped in a web.  He stood riding on a flat disc that hovered above the vent floor.  The man hurled towards them, leveling a disrupter at Raydin.  Raydin drew up his left arm and fired his holdout laser, cutting the disc in two and sending the pilot sprawling.  Another small man on a flat disc creeped up behind him, trying to maneuver past, and Raydin turned to see another was coming up behind.  Raydin shoved Adon's head down, and felt his arm go numb as he took a glancing blow from the disrupter.  The second shot struck true, sending Adon to the floor, giving Raydin just enough time to see the face of the man bearing down on him before he fell to the disrupter fire as well.

*

Coquette lay in her bed, holding a holoreader cylinder in her left hand.  Displayed was an image of a crude man, sneering at the picture taker with contempt, next to his criminal record.  She arched her head back, letting the image seep into her mind, feeling a tingling all over her athletic body, feeling her long black hair brush against her back, a small current of electricity ran through her shoulders as her hair draped over her neck.  In her other hand, she held a revolver, pressed between her legs.  She set the picture aside and rubbed the cold, hard, metallic object against herself, closing her eyes and sighing.  She smiled as she thought of what she would do to her prize, the man in the picture, when he was delivered to her.

The antique wooden door burst open and David quickly turned his head, ducking outside the doorway.  She yelled, “Damn it David, how many times have I told you to knock?”  David let the door creep open, tugging at the diamond earring in his right ear and staring at the floor.  “I’m sorry, Coquette, but the report you asked for is here.”  Coquette uncocked the trigger on the heavy revolver and set it aside, letting the sheet that draped her breasts fall to the side as she reached for the report.

She set it onto the end table and read it as she turned her back to David and pulled on her bra and panties.  “Excellent.  It seems my father’s control over the second estate is slipping more everyday.  This terrorist attack is an excellent opportunity for us.”

David looked into the mirrored closet doors, shying away from his all too feminine face, his slip of a body, trying to keep the soprano out of his voice.  “So it would seem.”

She turned around toward him and smiled.  “So modest.  You were the one who placed the bug inside my father’s office.”

“The primus has his weaknesses.  I serve him his Gin, it was simple.”

Coquette smiled wickedly, the curl of her lip arching up towards the left.  The wolfish grin never left her face.  “If the primus only knew that it was you, sweet, innocent David, who was betraying him.  My father would curse himself for a fool a million times over.  So clever.  So handsome. Such a waste.”  She turned back of her hand up and dragged the tip of her finger down the center of his chest, sending a slight shiver through his spine.  “Tell me, when was it you gave up on women?  And don’t tell me you were born this way, I can see it in your eyes.”

David struggled to meet her eyes, and said, “Ten years ago.”

Coquette turned around, and leaned over to pick up the gun off the bed.  “This gun was used to kill the president of the American Empire, back when it was still a republic, in twenty-one thirty-four.  Andrew Black was a reformist, wanted to replace all the nukes with F.A.E. munitions, had the whole nation behind him.  But some old fuck, sipping bourbon and smoking cigars at his country club, hired some dirt poor immigrant with a family to feed to kill him with it, then disappeared into the scenery, hiding behind the clockwork of the political process.”

She leveled it at his chest.  He jumped as she poked him playfully in the chest with the barrel.  “Relax, David.”  She upturned her hand and ran the barrel of the gun across the side of his face.  A tear streamed down his cheek, and he whispered, “Please… don’t.”

She put the gun under his chin, and pulled back the trigger.  “Or you’ll what?”  She seemed to shiver a bit as she ran tip of the barrel down his neck, over his chest, down his abdomen.  She shoved the gun into his pants, brushed her hand against his cheek, and kissed him gently on the lips.  He stiffened against the barrel, now warm. She uncocked the pistol as she pulled it out of his pants, then patted him below with the gun, causing him to jump again.

She took the holoreader cylinder from his hand.  “Relax.  You’re too useful to kill.  Go run to one of your precious companions.  If I’m feeling generous you’ll have your money by the end of the day.”  David rushed out the door, and Coquette opened the door of her end table, pulling out a bottle of bourbon and a glass.  She poured herself a drink, then set the bottle aside and pulled up Raydin’s photo on the reader.  “I think you will do quite nicely.”  She whispered to herself.

She sat down, watched his face as the picture scrolled to the side and zoomed.  She perused his record, and said, “Very nice, indeed.”

*

Raydin woke up in an elevator.  He was on the floor, surrounded by people.  He looked the chains around his wrists and his ankles, then immediately looked up at his captor.  What he saw was a man who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.  He spoke, “Relax.  You’re not going to iso and you’re not in trouble.  The queen has taken an interest in you, but if you’re going to cause trouble, I’ll be happy to put you right back under.”  Raydin held his breath, then sighed and leaned back onto the floor.

“You can stand up if you like.”  Raydin stood up, and asked the guard, “You got a cig?”  The guard pulled out a pack and handed him one.  Raydin slid it up his sleeve took a look around the massive glass elevator.  Crowds of people, looking eager, excited, sometimes desperate, were lined up in rows.  The elevator was attached to a large shaft, and as he went up, he saw another, much larger elevator, centered in the middle of the shaft to which he was attached, going down.

“The freight elevators?”  Raydin said quizzically.  He’d always wondered why there was so much secrecy regarding the freight elevators.  He looked down, through the glass, at the city below.  Not every building reached the roof of the tier, and the view was something you didn’t see everyday.  From above, even the lackluster Hub seemed to be in motion, to have a life.  The transport tubes streaked across the city, pedestrian traffic flowed back and forth, and the dizzying display that Raydin’s fireworks had started continued.  A flywing buzzed passed them, rotors roaring as its stub wings carried it through the air.  Up here, it seemed so small, there were only two people aboard, the co-pilot signaling to the pilot, pointing at something below.  

He heard Adon groan, and noticed Irule and Burk behind him.  The elevator stopped as another guard shouted gruffly at Adon, “Up!  Get up!  We’re not going to carry you.”  As Adon struggled to his feet, the whole procession continued outside.  Raydin’s jaw dropped as he saw what lie ahead.  He said, “Haven View!”

Layered fences rolled out horizontally spread out into the distance.  They in turn connected to metal plating, which served as the foundation for the ramshackle buildings climbing their way up to support pillars.  The pillars were bolted into the ceiling, suspending an entire city from the roof of the tier.  The guard said, “Up here, we just call it the Rafters.  Geddy up.”

The trip up the freight elevator was a long one, it was an awkward trek over layered fences, difficult for someone not born on the rafters.  Connected to the skeletal framework that held the upper levels above the Red sector above them, thousands of destitute and impoverished people built makeshift structures with scrap metal, fences, and metal walkways.  Worn and outdated electrical equipment strung together in massive monitor blocks surrounding support beams, while hydro parks held mutated edible plants aloft, grown with light and water siphoned from the utility system from the sector above them.  Hundreds of people sifted through the platform near the freight elevator for good fencing, metal piping, and outdated computer equipment to construct their homes from the debris.

Adon wondered out loud, “What is this place?”  

The guard, who was feeling talkative, said, “These are the Rafters kid.  You can find anything here, data, prostitution, gambling.”  He chuckled to himself, “Course, before you can get to any of that you have to know it exists, and that’s kinda' hard when yer’ living in the Hub.”  

Adon said, “But, how…?”

The guard continued, “To get up here, you have to use the waste freight elevator.  Ever wonder why every time you walk past the recycling warrens everyone looks like a zombie?  It’s all the conditioning those people go through, trying to convince everyone this place doesn’t exist.  Course, the flyboys know it, 'cause they spend most of their time up in the air.  The pit-bull rotor drones buzz the Rafters constantly, spotlighting the worst of the scum we got living here.  Mostly to make an example of what happens when you refuse to pay the Guard on time.”   

“Round here, it’s best you call the dogs by their proper name.  The guardsmen don’t like being called pit-bull to their face.  Ever wonder about those corpses they find splattered all over the ground in the flat landed spots?  That’s always some poor bastard who was late on his payment, got tossed.  That or he mouthed off when he shouldn’t have.”  He chuckled again.  “Course, none of us have that problem.  Queen has a soft spot for little folk such as myself.”

The trip up the freight elevator was a long one, it was an awkward trek over layered fences, difficult for someone not born on the rafters.  Surrounding the tip of the elevator shaft was a large cylindrical building.  The waste freight elevator opened at its base, and the passenger elevators ran up and down its sides.  There were platforms leading around the other side of the building where the entrance lay, but the Guards took shortcuts across the fencing to get there quicker.  A few people stumbled, turning white as they saw the long drop beneath them, through the fencing.  Raydin had to admit, it took some getting used to.

The entrance was huge, and they joined the ranks of other passengers that had come up the elevators to the sides.  They all filed in to the main hall.  Before them, a huge mechanical statue stood before them, a woman with a serpentine lower body reaching the ground and wrapping around the pillar in a coil at its base.  Her face was attractive but hawkish, her hair wild.  She had six arms, each of them holding a blade, except her uppermost limbs, which held a long staff and a black orb, which displayed holographic images of an imaginary paradise.   The silver scales of her lower body met the metallic flesh of her muscular upper body, her chest thrust forward in pride, the curve of her breasts displayed, almost shamelessly, like a warrior-queen, standing over a fallen opponent.

All around them, to the sides, curving up and around in a stacked spiral, were cylinders, half depressed inside the walls, creating a coil that seemed to climb through the ceiling and into the dark recesses of the darkened alcove above.  Platforms wound alongside the cylinders, giving technicians access as they opened the cylinders, drawing them out like compartments in a file cabinet, tinkering with their inner workings.  It was like being inside the center of a wound cable and looking up, the lack of lighting giving the illusion that the walls continued upwards, endlessly.

The statue spoke.  “Welcome, my children.  You have been chosen.  Those who wish to continue onward to paradise, step forward, follow my servants’ instructions as they lay you in your final resting place, where you will leave your earthly vessel and ascend to heaven.  Those of you who feel you are not yet ready, step outside these walls and into purgatory, and when you feel the call strongly enough, passionately enough, to leave behind all sin and earthly desire, these doors will remain open for you.”  The upper arms gestured all around her in an arc, and the statue once again was silent.

Raydin moved forward towards the head guard, looking to find some answers.  The guard behind him held him back.  “Not you.  The queen has requested an audience.”  He gestured to Raydin’s friends.  “The rest of you, make your choice.”

Adon scratched his head, moving his hands in a crossed arc in front of him as if to signal, “no way,” and turned around.  Irule hesitated for a second, then followed him out the door.  Burk looked around, scratched his chin for a moment, considering.  He threw his arms up in the air, shrugged, and followed the few remaining stragglers out the door.  Those remaining inside where led into the cylindrical cells to the side of the wall, where the technicians began attaching cables, helmets, and other apparatus in preparation for their journey.