REHO: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Hegemon Wars) (5 page)

“You’re going to burn that,” Gibson said, not looking up from his OldWorld laptop. Thursday fli
pped the contents of the skillet high enough to attract Sola’s attention.

“You’re gonna admire the cook or sit?” Gibson asked playfully as Reho entered the room.

Gibson and Sola were already at the table. Sola scribbled, filling boxes with words. The notebook was a puzzle, but one he hadn’t seen before. Gibson sat with his feet propped on a nearby chair, his laptop across his legs. Reho glanced around the room; nothing personal occupied the space. Reho wondered whether the boat was a loaner for the job or if they had stolen it.

Reho sat next to Gibson. The room shifted as a sudden wave caused the boat to roll to the left. Gibson’s glass shattered on the floor, and he brushed the fragments into a pile with one foot. “At twenty-nine knots, it’s going to roll a few things.”

Sola looked up from her puzzle and eyed Gibson, casting a look of disapproval at his feeble attempt to clean up the broken glass.

“Jesus,” Gibson said, “give a guy a break.” Gibson placed his laptop on the table and pointed to an auxiliary piece plugged into it. “We have seventy-five of these, plus some other gadgets from before the Blast. These are still able to connect.”

“Connect to what?” Reho asked.

Gibson looked up. Reho followed his motion, feeling foolish. “To the Phoenix, if it’s still up there.”

“That AIM in your arm maps terrain, air pressure, temperature, air quality, and other cool junk like that, right?”

Reho nodded.

“The map it creates can track you, but only locations you have been. But the Phoenix has the entire planet mapped. And if we could access the satellite, we could tap into secure military hard drives deep under ground that can give us the locations of arsenals unused during the Blasts and alien wars.”

“It’s a stinking myth that the satellite even launched before the Blasts,” Thursday said as the pan sizzled and sent another cloud of smoke into the air.

“Well, it’s up there. Kawasaki detected its signal once,” Gibson replied.

“Kawasaki is not exactly the most reliable defense,” Sola said.

“Well, if it’s up there, it will change the world one day,” Gibson said and returned to his laptop.

“Where did you get your AIM?” Gibson asked as he typed. “I’ve only seen a few different models in Neopan.”

“Chicago,” Reho replied.

Two steaming skillets crashed onto the table.

“This is the best cuisine on the Atlantic, you pricks.”

They ate in silence, for the most part, though Gibson occasionally complained of hairs in his food. There was no sign of Ends. Reho assumed he was in the navigation room.

Thursday complained about having to cook and then, without argument, picked up the plates and cleaned them. Reho overheard mutterings about a lost bet between Thursday and the rest of the crew. He also gathered enough information to know that the next few meals would be leftovers.

Gibson closed his laptop. “So, how much do you actually know about what we do?” Sola picked up her notebook again and penciled in more letters on her puzzle. Thursday returned from the kitchen and took a seat.

“We are delivering a shipment to a community in New Afrika.”

“You got to be icing my grill,” Thursday said. “The only thing Ends told you is that we needed some extra muscle to carry our shipment across New Afrika?”

“Ends knows what he’s doing,” Sola said.

Reho realized that Thursday was right. He knew little of what he had actually agreed to. He would ask but knew they weren’t supposed to tell him anything Ends wasn’t ready for him to know.

Thursday placed his elbows on the table and folded his hands together. “Our shipment is going across New Afrika. These are dangerous times there—not just with possible Hegemon but with some of the communities. Darksteam’s government is unpredictable. I feel sure our employer will use that to our advantage but expect the worse.” Thursday stood and crushed a half-burnt cigarette.

“What kind of human being puts his cigarette out in a bowl of peanuts?” Gibson asked, digging out the cigarette butt and flicking it toward the door through which Thursday had just beat a hasty retreat. Sola gave him that familiar, disapproving stare.

“I’ll get it when I clean up,” Gibson said. “Or wait.” He laughed like a child. “Doesn’t Thursday have to do that?”

Sola dismissed herself, annoyed by Gibson’s behavior.

“Just us now,” Gibson said. “Want to know something about Thursday?”

Reho didn’t reply.

“Well, I’ll tell you something anyway. Thursday grew up in Neopan like me, except he was born in a wealthier sector. He ran away when he was a teen. You know why?”

Reho waited.

“To fight,” Gibson said. “He left an easy life to fight. I think you two have a lot in common.”

“And Sola?” Reho asked.

“She and Ends grew up in the Eastern Blocs. They met in the Middle Eastern Territory, though. She had a nasty drug habit that he helped her kick, a few times actually. Like most of us, we met Ends while he was on a mission. He approached all of us the same way he approached you tonight.”

“And her and Ends?”

“They’re together. They’ll never put it in those words, but they are.”

Reho checked his Casio: 8:17. It would be ten days before they reached Darksteam.

Gibson propped his feet up on a chair. “How much do you know about Neopan?”

Reho slept little
as they crossed the Atlantic. His long conversations with Gibson, although mostly one-way, provided a detailed history lesson of what was common knowledge in Neopan. Most of what Gibson knew, Reho had never heard before.

Reho looked out onto the endless ocean. He activated the mapping system on his AIM. Thousands of miles of ocean surrounded him, the device mapping its topography and recording stats from the atmosphere. As it mapped, it also gave a precise readout of their speed. They had maintained an average of twenty-six knots.

The wind cut through Reho’s clothes and hair as he sat on the boat’s bow. The goggles he’d found in a cabinet in the navigation room protected only his eyes from the salty ocean spray. After an hour, his goose bump-covered skin had gone numb in the bitter ocean wind. Despite the discomfort, Reho felt as though he could stay here forever, lost on its infinite surface.

Maybe this is where he’d been meant to spend his days, lost out here on the ocean and not in the Blastlands. Out here he was unattainable and far way from anyone he would need to hurt—or love. The ocean energized him; its salt rushed through him as he breathed in the briny air.

What Gibson had explained to Reho days ago still occupied his thoughts as he sat, waiting for them to arrive at the port town of Darksteam. He’d avoided the barracks below, the cramped room with its rotted mattress was worse than most places he’d slept out in the Blastlands.

Gibson had described his home community of Neopan. But it was more than a community. He had explained that Neopan was built during the decade after the alien invasion. Humans who had survived the war with the Hegemon had been shown plans for a utopia on Earth and received direction from the Hegemon in building the city. What had once been Tokyo became Neopan—the first and only alien city for humans.

And in a different part of the world, on the southern cape of New Afrika, Omega had been built by the Hegemon without humans and remained that way. Its interior was a mystery, and few had seen its exterior except through satellite pictures. The Hegemon dwelled there. It was assumed that the inside consisted of an environment like their home world. It was in our atmosphere that they had to wear the suits to survive.

Gibson had continued with the history of Neopan. While building Neopan, humans from all over the world had worked together and under the direction of the Hegemon. The advanced machinery and materials that had been used to build the city were unloaded from the alien spaceships. Nothing in its infrastructure had come from the earth. A decade later, Neopan was the free home to humans, with an unspoken agreement to cease all conflicts with the Hegemon. The aliens then retreated to Omega and hadn’t entered Neopan since.

Reho listened in awe as Gibson continued. In Neopan, their history recorded how the surviving humans were willing to build what they believed to be Earth’s first utopia. But the Hegemon hadn’t trusted them to rule themselves. Neopan was governed by Log, an artificial intelligence program that acted as a body of government, controlling all city services as it ceaselessly surveyed the city for anything that deviated from its laws. When crimes were committed, Log would search available surveillance and make rulings based solely on the evidence found.

Log had given the people of Neopan something they had lost after a year of war with the Hegemon: peace and a future. And Arcade.

Gibson had a difficult time describing Arcade to Reho.

“You just have to experience it!” he repeatedly said.

After an hour, Reho had constructed a version of Arcade that seemed too strange to be true. Despite his inability to reference it with anything he had ever experienced in Usona, he took away three main concepts of Arcade:

First, it was a virtual program that the community members of Neopan could enter into through a surgically implanted device that converted their subconscious into a second identity in Arcade while they slept. Those connected to Arcade were referred to as
immersants
. Second, Arcade looked, smelled, felt, sounded, and tasted like Neopan to the immersant. Neopan’s city borders were also the virtual borders in Arcade. Third, its function was both recreational and business. Some immersants ran businesses in both Neopan and Arcade, making points while awake and asleep.

Arcade did come with certain dangers as well. The program was alien and functioned at times in ways contrary to how things would normally happen on Earth. The system’s physics and rendering became problematic for some immersants. Items that once sat in Arcade would be gone when someone reentered. Some people claimed to think clearer in Arcade and do things they couldn’t while awake.

Gibson confessed that he never felt any different except when writing code. Writing difficult code that he couldn't figure out in school came much easier to sort out once immersed.

“I just couldn’t take the code out and do anything with it!” He confessed, laughing at the irony of it. He could create new code while immersed in a program that existed because of code written by aliens, but he couldn’t bring the human-created code out.

***

A sudden reduction in the ship’s forward speed sent Reho sliding forward as he latched onto a front railing, catching his pack just before it went over the side. For a second, he caught a glimpse of an enormous fish moving alongside the boat, its fin breaking the surface just before it disappeared beneath the boat. His AIM displayed their decrease to eight knots. Noise traveled from below, and he heard Thursday’s loud voice above the others. Then Reho saw what caused the commotion and why they were now at a complete stop. A boat moved in their direction, about ten miles out and to the East. Smoke towered above it from what looked like an iron chimney.

Reho descended to the cargo room. Thursday held a pulse rifle and was wearing armor.

Ends pulled on a bulletproof vest. “We might have trouble.” A large belt strapped across Ends’ waist held an OldWorld pistol, ammunition clips, knife, and grenades. Ends and Thursday appeared ready to fight a second alien war. Sola had no weapons or equipment. Her eyes darted between the two men, as she helped them secure their equipment onto their bodies.

“Where’s Gibson?” Ends asked.

“He’s still in the navigation room. You want him down here with you and Thursday?” Sola asked.

“No,” Ends said. “Take Reho with you.” He threw a black bag to Sola. “You know the routine.”

“Come on,” Sola said, already ascending the stairs.

Reho had only been in the boat’s navigation room once. Gibson had shown him the equipment and explained how its basic program,
Captain
, worked. Reho had been impressed by the mechanics of the tattered-looking boat. The engine was different from the ones in gasolines. Large racks filled with hardware, monitors, and wires drew energy from a single energy cell, as did the boat’s engine. Reho didn’t need to ask if the technology was human or alien. Nothing like this had existed before the Blasts.

“Just the one steamer,” Gibson said. “I’m going to speculate and say four guys. Which means probably eight, knowing my luck.” They watched as the steamer grew larger on the monitor. Gibson zoomed into its deck. Three men stood with OldWorld rifles but no armor. They wore full-length brown coats, and their faces were hidden by massive goggles.

“What’s the plan?” Gibson asked.

“I’ll try to convince them that we aren’t Monet sympathizers and that we are just docking for a few days. Just like Tzman,” Sola replied. She smiled. Gibson’s eyes widened, and his body jerked out of the navigation chair.

“We lost our entire inventory that time!” Gibson said.

Sola did not reply. She turned away and focused on the incoming steamer. Reho watched as she took something from her shirt pocket and popped it into her mouth.

She stuck her head back in the navigation room. “Normally we don’t come through a port city like this. But we need to get on the steamer tonight. And it won’t mean jack if I can’t convince these guys we’re here for pleasure.” Sola removed an OldWorld pistol from under the navigation dashboard, checked its ammo, then replaced it. She looked at Gibson, but did not have to tell him what to do. Gibson sat frozen to his chair.

“We’re going to bribe them.” Reho hadn’t realized it at first, but that was the only logical plan.
And Thursday and Ends were in the bottom, ready to come out guns blazing if things went bad.

“Well, I am going to do the bribing,” she said. “And you are going to stand next to me and look tough.” She winked at him, then headed for the boat’s bow.

Reho followed and stood next to her without a word.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I am fairly sure these guys will take the bribe. If not, look for the sign, and we’ll fall back into the cargo room.”

Reho’s weapons were back in his room, including his knife. He stayed close to Sola so he could easily respond if the situation demanded. Reho noticed that the boxy black bag Ends had given her was now by her feet.

She straightened up and cracked her neck. Reho could see sweat forming on her brow. “Don’t do anything stupid. Just follow my lead and watch for my signal.”

“And that is?”

“You will know. Be ready.”

With the roar of what sounded like a dozen gasolines, the boat pulled alongside. It was smaller—half the size of their boat and rusted enough to make Reho wonder how it was staying afloat. Gibson had been right. Four guys lined the outside of the boat. Others might be hiding elsewhere in the steamer, but Reho doubted it. Each packed OldWorld rifles similar to the one propped against the wall in Reho’s room. Sola spoke, leaning over the boat’s edge and addressing one of the men in a language Reho had heard before as a kid down at the docks in Virginia Bloc.

Sola never looked back. Reho dismissed the memory as her tone change. Before Reho could respond, she had already picked up the black bag, twisted over the rails,
and jumped into the other boat.

She held up her hand, signaling Reho to wait.

The men stepped closer to her but made no threatening moves. The one in control spoke in short bursts. The left lens of his goggles was missing.

Sola never looked his way.
This is going to work.
She opened the black bag and took out a safecard reader. She swiped a smartcard through the machine several times, finally showing them a number on which they could agree. The smartcard remained with the goggled men as she packed up the device and returned to the boat. Reho could read the smirk on her face as she passed by him. She had that excited, wide-eyed look and jaunty stride of someone who single-handedly took care of business for the crew.

Never had Reho seen a woman take charge like that. Women in Usona were dependent and caregivers, not leaders and business-partners, like Sola was with Ends.

The steamer built up power as it crept north, back to patrolling the coast. Reho heard noises from below, a double thud rapped against the steel beneath Reho, probably wondering if they were still alive. Sola stomped twice. Her face was flush and her eyes darted with excitement. Reho wondered what gave her the advantage he had seen a few moments ago. She’d recklessly boarded the patrol steamer, careless of the danger of what could’ve happened. She hadn’t wanted his help.
Even if things had soured, there wouldn’t have been a signal for him to step in and save the day.