SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1 (7 page)

“Pull up to the fourth level,” Zak said. He
hoped it would be easier to avoid trouble if he approached the club
from above rather than along the street.

“Works for me, man.” Kam maneuvered the cab
over to the drop-off and stopped at the platform.

“Thanks,” Zak told him and handed him the
fare, then climbed out onto the fourth level drop-off platform.

“Hey, man...” Kam called after him from the
front window and held out a business card for him. “I must be
crazy, but here’s my mobile number if you need a ride out of here.
I’ll pick ya up at this same spot.”

“Thanks,” Zak said again and took the
card.

The passenger drop-off platforms on each
level were all connected by a series of walkways running parallel
to the sidewalks below. These upper level pedestrian walks, like
the upper level hover-car routes, had been designed to help
alleviate ground traffic in an over populated city. Of course, in
the Zone these walkways were not as well kept as in other parts of
the city. You had to watch your step or you could end up suddenly
at street level.

Zak used the stairs leading down to the
street, skipping those steps that looked too corroded to hold his
weight. The entrance to Underworld was just around the corner from
where he came to street level. The entrance was a long stairway
that led down to the basement level of the building. There were at
least three-dozen steps, the only light from a dimly lit bulb at
the bottom of the stairs that barely illuminated the door. The
darkness on the steps would have been intimidating, but for Zak’s
Elvish night vision. He could not see quite as well as a
full-blooded Elf and he rarely used this ability since it tended to
give him migraines. But he had no desire to run into any surprises
within the darkness so he made an exception in this case.

He entered Underworld.

T
he bouncer at the door was Goblinesh...a
big mother-of-a-Goblin. His broad, ruddy face radiated contempt;
his eyes were two wide-set black holes with an oversized nose
splitting the difference. He dressed in old blue jeans and a ragged
t-shirt. Printed on the front of the shirt was
Damned Child
in flaming red letters framing a sublimated photo of one very sexy,
but very evil looking Human female. Her excessively dark make-up
was designed to shock and titillate at the same time, and was a
stark contrast to her pale complexion. She was the headliner at the
club tonight according to the billboard at the door.

Underworld ambiance consisted of darkness
slashed to shreds by a series of multi-colored laser lights. Pools
of dull orange phosphorus lighting spaced along the walls offered a
somewhat stabilizing effect over the dizzying pulses of the lasers
that flashed in tempo with the hard driving music. Underworld
attracted all kinds of deviants and perverts, but the predominant
theme of the club was based upon the underground culture known as
the pestilent
. The media considered them to be a perverse
spin-off from a much more benign subculture known as circuit heads,
but the pestilent proclaimed themselves as the natural evolution of
man. Everything about them – fashion, music and attitude – was just
plain mean and angry. They declared themselves anarchists and
revolutionaries, but the majority of their followers seemed more
interested in decadence and vulgarity than being truly
militant.

The room, long and narrow with a low ceiling,
looked like it went on forever in the distorted lighting. A bar ran
the length of the right wall, a stage paralleling it along the
opposite wall. The place reeked; a mixture of smoke, drugs, vomit
and several other smells that Zak had no desire to identify,
assaulted his sense of smell the moment he entered. Bodies of all
descriptions were pressed one against another, some intentional,
others unavoidable as they attempted to manoeuver through a sea of
flesh. It was nearly impossible to tell where the dance floor began
or ended. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Goblins and Orks...all
hyper-animated as they moved in a spastic frenzy to the loud
cryptic music of Damned Child. Very few of these patrons looked
anything like normal. Most looked demonic in nature with heavily
painted faces. Leather was the fashion of choice, scantily applied
in most instances. And every conceivable body piercing was proudly
on display.

The living incarnate of the photo on the
bouncer’s t-shirt was on stage screaming the lyrics to a song that
could by no means be mistaken as a love ballad. Sex and violence
seemed to be the theme of the song; the singer proudly claiming
experience in a never-ending list of decadent acts, emphasizing
each one with lewd and obscene gestures as she slinked from one end
of the stage to the other. Zak didn’t know whether Damned Child was
the name of the entire band or a self-proclamation of the wild
looking female singer. It didn’t take him long to decide that he
didn’t really care either way. The music - and he used the term
loosely - was definitely not to his taste.

As he attempted to make his way through the
swirl of bodies, their constantly changing currents pulling him in
every direction, he nearly tripped over an Orkensha female. She was
on her knees at the feet of a burly Goblinesh male, who hissed at
Zak over the interruption.

Underworld was no place for the innocent or
the faint of heart. Half naked bodies groped and rubbed against one
another in primitive need; hungry mouths searching out others who
shared the same hunger, while tongues flicked across sweat covered
flesh. Islands of small round tables were dotted throughout this
sea of torsos in irregular rows. But rather than safe-havens to
escape the waves of flesh, they harbored a more concentrated type
of decadence. Groups of voyeurs encircled these tables, making it
impossible to see more than an occasional glimpse of what was
taking place. The crowd, most of them probably high on dragon weed
or demon dust, sipped on their favorite alcoholic beverages as they
watched the action taking place at the particular table they
gathered around.

Zak caught only occasional glimpses, a
stiletto-heeled foot extending above the crowd at one table, a
naked female torso as the tide of voyeurs ebbed at another table.
Impassioned cries rose above the din of the room like the cries of
seabirds scavenging upon the sea. This was not Zak’s first visit to
Underworld. His investigations had led him here on several
occasions when he was with ASID. And so, he knew that these
perverse activities were only erotic appetizers, sexual hors
d'oeuvres for those who weren’t hungry for the more extreme
courses, or for those who enjoyed nibbling on the more mundane
before sitting down to the main course of darker perversions.
Through a door in the back were other rooms where far more extreme
thrills could be had. Those rooms were reserved for the true
connoisseur, those who had a taste for bizarre fetishes and extreme
kinks.

Zak wasn’t interested in any of these acts of
perversion. He came to Underworld with one purpose, to obtain
information. As he approached a table at the far end of the bar, he
hoped that he had found the source of that information.

This table had no crowd surrounding it, no
obscene act taking place upon its smooth round surface. There were
four chairs at the table; three were occupied, the fourth waiting
for Zak to claim it. Two oversexed females sat on opposite sides of
a balding Goblin.

One of the women was also Goblinesh, with a
complexion resembling jacinth. Her raven dark hair framed widely
sculpted cheekbones, shaping her face into an exaggerated oval. Her
eyes were the typically citreous color attributed to the Goblinesh.
For a Goblin, she was not unattractive, the deep plunging neckline
of her glittering blood-red dress revealing ample cleavage. The
other female was Human, blonde and pale skinned, with ruby red lips
that were full and sensual. Her dress was a deep blue version of
the dress worn by her counterpart, her cleavage no less ample. The
balding Goblin sat with his back to the wall. His complexion was a
deeper red than the female of his race, the area around his nose
and ears a couple of shades lighter, which was typical of
Goblinesh. His oval face had cheekbones so pointed that it made his
head look nearly like a football. His weasel eyes met Zak’s with a
challenging gaze as he watched him approach the table.

“Well, isn’t it Zachariah Harris,” he said in
a thick accent that hissed the words like air leaking from a rubber
tube. “I thought you retire. You working for Feds again?”

The noise in the bar suddenly dropped to a
low buzz, as though someone had turned down the volume on a comm
set. Zak wasn’t surprised by this. He could feel the
privacy
spell settle in around them. It was a common practice for
conducting discreet business; those who needed to could hear, while
those who shouldn’t - couldn’t. These spells usually included a
blocker as well, to prevent anyone from listening in with the aid
of an audio enhancement device or a counter spell. He also knew the
source of the spell; the Goblinesh female was a sorceress.

“It has been a while, hasn’t it Skrole,” Zak
said, pulling out the empty chair and sitting down. “No, I’m not
with ASID. I’ve got my own gig now.”

“And you took time out to come here. Partake
in pleasures of Underworld?” The yellow toothed smile Theleon
Skrole gave Zak showed contempt. “How nice you to visit us.”

“The place truly is a wonderland,” Zak
replied sarcastically. “But no, I’m afraid this is not a social
visit. I’m looking into a corporate break-in. Happened two nights
ago. The place is maxed out with security and someone still managed
to get in and out without leaving a trace. They took something very
valuable. Have you heard about anything like that going down?”

Skrole sat for a moment, puckering his thin
lips in the pretense that he was thinking before saying, “No, I
know nothing about something like this.”

“This was too big of job to run silent,” Zak
said. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a hundred
credits voucher, placed it on the table. “There has to be rumors
going around on this one. And you hear everything.”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head
emphatically while eyeing the voucher.

“My client really wants to recover his
property.” Zak pulled out another hundred voucher and placed it on
top of the first.

Skrole’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits, a
snarl on his lips. He broke into a sudden smile and scooped up the
money. “The fraggin’ Elves.”

“Say what?”

“Elves,” Skrole repeated with a jerking
gesture of his arms. “EAST Group. There is big rumor that EAST
Group make mega score only days ago. Of course, there is also
denial of this rumor as well. That’s all I know.”

“If you hear anything else, will you let me
know?”

“But of course...as long as you pay.”

The noise of the room closed in around him
again and Zak knew the meeting was over. It was time to leave.

He was out the door and half way up the long
flight of stairs when he heard the door from Underworld open behind
him. His instincts signalled an alert. You simply did not ignore
people who decided to leave a building right behind you in this
part of the city. Not if you didn’t want to end up dead, you
didn’t.

He kept his cool, didn’t turn around, kept
his progress up the stairs slow and steady. The rain was coming
down again when he gained street level. A quick peripheral glance
when he reached the top of the steps confirmed three shadows coming
up the dimly lit stairway. They were moving much too quickly to
simply be patrons leaving the club.

He turned and stepped onto the sidewalk...
And walked straight into a fist.

Zak took the punch square on the jaw and the
force of it knocked him backward.

His head snapped sideways as a red curtain of
pain cloaked his vision. Momentarily stunned, he fought to maintain
his balance, but was caught from behind by a pair of powerful arms.
They wrapped around his chest, pinning his own arms at his side. He
was already soaked from the rain, his hair plastered to his
forehead. An equally wet face moved next to his own, a sickly
breath exhaling a fetid stench, a demented giggle tickling his
ear.

Although caught by surprise, Zak was no easy
mark. He shook off the blow to the jaw and his vision cleared
enough to identify his attackers as Ork street punks. He had not
only been trained to fight, he also had a good deal of real time
experience, and with
badder asses
than these. The one who
had hit him now held a knife and was coming at him again.

There was no time for thought. His movements
were pure reaction, instinct and training. He used the punk who was
holding him as leverage, kicking up with both feet and catapulting
them toward the Ork with the knife. Zak caught him in the stomach
and chest.

The hand with the knife swept toward Zak in a
crossing motion at the same instant; he felt the blade penetrate
his jacket, but it failed to hit home as the Ork went flying
backward.

As his feet reconnected with the ground Zak
whipped his head back and caught the other attacker square in the
face. He heard a sharp crack like a twig breaking and guessed that
it was the punk’s nose.

That loosened the grip from behind.

He spun and grabbed the Ork by an arm and
with all the leverage he could muster, he used the arm to hurl the
punk towards the steps. The Ork went flying off the landing and
slammed into the three shadows that were just reaching the top of
the stairs, tumbling them all down the steps.

The knife-wielding thug had gone sprawling
across the sidewalk. Zak got to him before he could get up, while
he was still on hands and knees trying to catch his breath. A solid
kick to the ribs and he collapsed to the pavement again.