Raiders (27 page)

H
ere you die
.

Three weeks passed and the people of the Polar City slowly adapted to their new accommodations down on Level Seven. The large cavern was divided into functional subsections roughly bordered by boxes, crates and piles of just about anything you could think of. Level Seven was not cramped. There was more than enough room and subsequently adequate airflow to sustain everyone indefinitely. There was a creviced opening at the far end, a catchment that couched an underground rivulet. It naturally drew air away from the large cave-room. The cave room's ceiling revealed five massive tubular air vents provided an inflow of fresh air from hidden intakes from the surface. Their rims were outlined by Neverfail lights

Aurelia stared at one, the ringed constellation that traced its lips while she listened to the low-slung pitch of cool air that floated down. It smelled faintly of mineral and pine. Then she looked into her ceramiform food cup and gave it a stir.
How do they store clam chowder for a hundred years
? She wondered.

“Don’t worry, they won’t find the intakes from out there. They’re hidden good enough. Can’t be reached on foot, only by air.” It was General Berg.

“That’s comforting.” Aurelia ate a spoonful of her chowder and said, “What are we gonna do now sir? Just sit here in this cave?” She looked at the glass barrier that was two hundred meters away.

“Well my dear,” Berg responded as he put his hand on her left shoulder, “Right now, nothing. But we’re not dead yet.”

“Yea, sure,” Aurelia returned and then shook her head. She clunked her spoon into her cup.

“Be strong. It’s not over till it’s over, Aurelia.” The General walked away.

Not over my ass
, Aurelia mumbled to herself under breath. She got up and walked around. She saw Danny the tailor who taught a small circle of four women and two men how to sew two pieces of cloth together using a simple old-world needle and thread. He smiled at her as she passed by although she had no idea who he was.

Everywhere the people learned simple life skills as they traded and taught one to another. The cook from the Military Centre lobby showed a group of new found students how to cook with a wok and what foods would hold up to it from the storage pods and which ones would fall to an inedible slur. Four woks arranged in an arc burned and crackled and steamed away as he flick-tossed the contents of one wok into the air while he stirred another.

The young girl Anlith who resurrected Aurelia and Julian’s garden wall discussed how they could grow micro-gardens for supplements and even plants of medicinal appraise. As long as the power intakes held and they had enough full spectrum bulbs, it could be done, she explained. In evidence a number of doubters within her little group shook their heads as if Anlith’s young mind was perhaps infected with delusions of botanical grandiosity. Anlith continued with her campaign unfettered. Her pulsed youth and spirited breaths rallied against their raucous disbelief.

Everyone left alive in the Polar City resigned themselves to preserve as best they could. Four weeks passed, then five, then six. The Raiders eventually minimized their guards to monitor the Polar City people behind the glass barrier until only a handful were posted there. At any given moment at least half of the Raider guards would fall asleep out of sheer boredom. They watched the people through the glass while they walked around and performed menial daylong tasks. The job was not exactly the most stimulating of duties for the battle hardened warriors.

The Polar City soldiers would watch them right back, however. They would try and look up as far as they possibly could, up to Level Six or even Five but there wasn’t much to see beyond the distant banisters of Bigstairs as it spiraled up and away. Their job was never really done until they were relieved or ordered to stand down so the Polar City soldiers would do the only thing that they could do from within the barrier clear and that was to keep a watch on the enemy. Beyond that there really wasn’t much more that they could do.

The only indication that it was early morning came from the intake vents above as faint traces of sunlight reflected down, the air that pushed in carried a hint of dissipated earlyday mist.

A young soldier scrambled from the glass and ran the cave’s perimeter. He found General Berg at the far end, barely awakened and not yet fully dressed. The General seemed crestfallen and at a loss. His job was to defend the City and now he simply didn’t feel of much utility to anyone. But he tried to hide it as best he could although his lowered self worth leaked out now and again.

“General! Sir!” the Sergeant huffed as he pawed the General’s sleeping tent. Berg poked his head out. “Come here! You gotta see this!”

Berg said nothing yet retracted his head back into his tent. he emerged thirty seconds later with nothing more than fatigue pants and a tank top. “What is it?” He asked.

The Sergeant emphatically waved his hands and said, “Come! Sir Come on!” And ran back to the glass barrier. When they arrived the Sergeant crouched down and handed Berg a standard issue ten power field monocular. “Look sir! Up to Five! One O’clock!”

The General went prone so he could afford the best possible angle of view since the cave’s entrance rim blocked most of the view above from inside. He scanned left, right, left again, and then he saw it.

At the far landing of Level Five were the unmistakable holoforms of Veliosa and Venusia. He could just see them past the banister rails while they talked to the Raiders far above. He supposed that they used one of the common render plates found throughout the City. The plates were typically used for public use, never for anything military let alone the Greater Assistant twin AIs.

“Son of a bitch,” the General muttered while he adjusted the luminance wheel on top of the monocular and scrunched into a more prone position for some quickly purchased comfort. He pulled the spyglass from his face. “I thought we put the girls in cold storage. Triple encrypted them! They must have self-awakened. They betrayed us!”

“No sir, that’s impossible,” a woman’s voice said from behind the General who still lay close to the glass barrier. He shifted to a sitting position and as he did so he noticed that a large circle of people had quietly gathered behind him. “They can’t do that. The only way the Raiders could have initiated the Greater Assistants is by direct access, she said, Major Lorianna from Intelligence Control.

“Meaning?” Berg said.

“Meaning sir that they probably have figured out how to override all control points throughout the City. Including the Military Centre.”

“What? That’s,” he said and shook his head in disbelief. “How could they have done that?” Berg asked.

“No idea sir,” Lorianna said. “Can’t even imagine how they could have gotten past our security measures.”

“Well can they open this?” He asked while he turned back around and clicked the massive glass barrier with the monocular. He continued to observe the distant blueglow hints of Veliosa and Venusia above. “Because if they can, that’ll be the end of us.”

“No. It can only be opened from our side. Sir.” Lorianna responded.

“That’s one small relief,” Berg said.

Aurelia and Julian lay on a twin foldaway cot on the other side of the cave. Aurelia's Personal Assistant band was presently wrapped around her left upper arm. The band flashed and vibrated twice. She had almost forgot she was wearing it since the Polar City’s smartnet was completely down. Without the power of the network Personal Assistant bands were reduced to whatever localized artificial intelligence was loaded onto them. To be sure, they were of little value in Level Seven’s failsafe cave.

Julian laughed. “What’s that baby. Did you set the alarm on your band or what?” He musingly said while they both looked at the band. She took it off her arm. A faint bluegreen outline showed that it wanted attention.

She waved her hand over the display. “Aurelia, incoming message from V3LU514,” a female voice emitted from the band.

“Haha! Victoria! Good ol’ Vic. You got her back!” Julian said. “I knew you were gonna do that.”

“Yep,” Aurelia responded and smiled. “Have no idea who or what this weird code is though.” She lowered her voice and said, “Victoria I don’t feel like playing any games right now. Go back to sleep.”

“A Message not a game,” Victoria responded.

“Okey dokie,” Aurelia said as she rolled her eyes. She whispered to Julian, “I think she’s bored and screwing with us,” she said with a wink. “Fine. What’s the message.”

“Message eyes only. Review text on display,” Victoria said.

Aurelia turned the band in around so she could see the flexible display screen. On its face it simply said,
Assistance needed. Neutrino radio.
V3LU514
.”

Aurelia looked at Julian who also read it but only shrugged. “I got nothin’ babe. Maybe Victoria needs a tuneup.” Julian smirked and took a spoonful of pot roast stew from his ceramiform cup.

She placed her Personal Assistant onto the canvas cot and ignored it. She covered her eyes and said “Not now, Victoria. Don’t feel like playing one of your stupid mystery games.”

Julian set his cup down then grabbed the band from her cot. “Okay Victoria I’ll play along. Hell I’m bored anyways,” he said. Aurelia kicked him then smiled. “Alright,” He laughed a little. “Where’s this radio?”

The message self-erased and was replaced with another.
Storage container marked CCX COMM SUPPLY 4577.

Julian pushed Aurelia’s Personal Assistant band onto his left arm. “This should be fun,” he said to Aurelia. “Be right back.”

Aurelia shook her head. “Don’t hurt yourself. Knowing her she’ll probably walk you right into that underground stream back there,” she said as she flicked her right hand over her shoulder.

Julian said, “Where to O great one?”

“Fifty meters straight ahead,” Victoria responded with her voice this time.

Julian followed her directive and walked ahead. “Okay now what?”

“Turn left, ninety degrees then walk twenty meters.”

Julian turned and walked. “So what you got for me Victoria, an Easter basket at the end here?”

Victoria ignored his question. “Turn left again and walk five meters,” she announced.

He walked about three meters and then stopped. He found himself surrounded by storage boxes and could walk no further. “End of the road Victoria. You lose!” As he said this he noticed a medium sized container stacked on the bottom of a pile. Stenciled on its side,
CCX COMM SUPPLY 4577
. “Heh, I’ll be damned.” He removed the other storage bins stacked on top of it then picked it up then carried it back to Aurelia.

He plopped the crate down next to Aurelia’s cot. “There ya go babe, present from Victoria.”

Aurelia sat up on the edge of her cot and inspected the storage box. “I swear to God if you’re screwing with me Victoria I’m gonna unload you from my band forever,” she said as she tried to open it. The lid was closed tight, four wheels with numbers and letters evidenced a lock. “It's locked dummy. Nice work, Victoria,” she said sarcastically.

The band which was still on Julian’s upper arm vibrated and flashed twice. No voice this time but another message, four characters.
G616.
Aurelia spun the wheels until they matched the code then she popped the lid open. The air the came forth smelled stale and dry as if it had not been opened in a century or more. Inside lay a neutrino radio, an old one, one of the originals.

“Jesus look at this fossil,” Aurelia said and pulled the radio out of the box. “Looks like an emitter model. It only transmits, I think,” she said.

Julian looked at the Personal Assistant band but saw no new messages or instruction. “What good is it though? Can we contact anyone with that thing?”

“Not a chance,” Aurelia responded. Even the radio I trained on has a range of eight hundred kilometers. But this thing, I mean if I remember my classes right, hell I don’t even think I can send anything outside of the City with this relic.” Even with her doubts in place she connected it to a filtered low voltage outlet and warmed it up.

The device was relatively simple on the outside. She could select electron or muon mode, receiver distance, matrix size and the absolute or effective vector transmission settings. So, with not much else to do she toyed around with it and reviewed the operator's manual that was also in the box.
Well, nothin' else to do, really,
she thought.

Word got around that Aurelia was tinkering with a century old neutrino radio. The rumor peaked the interest of some so they would stop by and have a look for themselves. Aurelia asked if they had any insight into the cryptic message for help she received from Victoria.

“You know what these messages are,” an operative from Tactical said as he read over her notes. “This here, this is Veliosa’s identifier,” he said. The operative pointed to
V3LU514,
written by Aurelia on scrap paper. “And these here they're directional values for the transmission and gravitometric matrix constants.”

“What? You mean for the radio?” Aurelia asked.

“Yeah. Pretty sure anyhow. Can’t think of any other use for them.” The Tactician swooshed his hand over the paper. “Come on. Muon oscillation peak? I’m tellin’ ya only a neutrino radio uses that. I mean they could be settings for a solar gravitometer, but those are only for bench testing.”

“Yeah that’s what I figured but who cares? This dinosaur can’t send a signal out,” Aurelia protested. “Besides, everyone’s sayin’ that Veliosa and her sister are traitors,” she said and pointed to the glass barrier. “Fucking traitors. We can’t trust those Assistants any more. Right?”

“Sure, yeah. I guess,” the Tactician said. “What’s the point, anyways? I mean if you can’t raise any of the other cities.” He pointed to the small radio.

“No, you’re right,” Aurelia shrugged. “Just messin’ with it.” She tapped the neutrino radio’s oxided case with her fingernail. “This was one of the original second generation you know. The first ones were the size of a warehouse.”