The Golden Circuit (The Smith Chronicles) (11 page)

Nearly every time Sempre went to deliver his report it turned into an advice session from his old man. Sashan never listened to his ideas and he felt taken for granted. It stirred up childish emotions within Sempre that he didn't want to feel. He was dutifully carrying out his father’s wishes and
thought that the Air Marshal should be pleased with the work he was doing. But, sometimes, Sashan made him feel like he was 12 years old again.
Why is it always me that has to do as he’s told?
he groused.

“And the dog, father?” he asked, sulkily obedient once more.

“That-goes-back-with-the-Code
-nnmmmnn-
What-use-is-it-to-us?”

“Yes, father, very good,” Sempre acknowledged, reluctantly.

“Now
-nnmmmnn-
are-there-anymore
-nnmmmnn-
problems-that-you-need-me-to-solve-for-you
-nnmmmnn-
boy?”

“No sir, no. That’s them all, father. Thank you.”

Sempre
was on autopilot now.

“Then-David
-nnmmmnn-
Tell-me
-nnmmmnn-
how-is-business-proceeding-with-the-Specialists?”

“Perfectly, father, perfectly.”

“And-they-are-following-the
-nnmmmnn-
Manual-For-Solar-System-Domination?”

“Yes, father. To the letter.”

“Good
-nnmmmnn-
Now-go-and-say-hello-to-your
-nnmmmnn-
Mother.”

“Yes, sir. Goodbye, father.”

Sashan closed his eyes - and opened them - making the nod that his head couldn’t make. He shut them again, as the lights dimmed inside his dome.

Sempre walked moodily over to a small Perspex capsule in the far corner of the room. It was about 5ft from end to end and covered with Actionglass for its entire length. The inside was full of nitrogen gas, swirl
ing around in a thick mist. Every few seconds Sempre got a glimpse of what was inside.

It was the body of a woman.

Her skin was as white as bone, her auburn hair streaked with grey. She was completely still and motionless. But this was normal for a woman in her condition - namely, long-term cryogenic suspension.

“Hello, mother,” said Sempre, trying to sound cheerful, but, instead, sounding depressed.

He touched the nameplate at the foot of the capsule. It read: ‘Mayette Froome: Deceased 2180’.

Sempre’s face slowly twisted with hate.

21:28 - Saturday, July 28, 2187 (Balmaha Shopping Centre, Muhaze, Tapi-36)

The happy mutants were getting out of their work clothes and into their normal day wear, carefully folding up their overalls and worksuits and placing them in their lockers. Each locker had a number and a name on it. Fun names like Barri, Kenni, Jacky, Suzy, and so forth.

Every mutant’s name ended in either ‘i’ or ‘y’. If it was an ‘i’, you were male. If it was a ‘y’, you were female. Any vagaries about gender were eliminated this way. They wore their nametags at all times and took special care in removing them and then pinning them onto the clothing they were about to change into.

Mikita was deciding whether to take off Tammy’s overall, or stay in it and make a run for the exit, when all the mutants stopped what they were doing, and stood stock still.

Mikita looked around in confusion.

The mutant’s eyes started to blink and flicker, then spin around in their sockets, as their mouths opened in an ‘O’ shape, making their faces cadaverous and spectral.

What the fire are they doing?
she wondered, uneasily.

Mikita could see some form of processing going on behind their eyeballs; a whirring and flashing of 0s and 1s. It was almost as if the mutants were relaying information
– or, rather, information was being relayed to them. Then it hit her like a ton of stardust.

Oh
, fire! It’s me! The mutants are getting information about me!

After a few more seconds of eye rolling, they all stopped
and stared at Mikita.

“Ah,” said one of the rock-chick-mutants, “you Mikita Smith. You woman we want for murder. We get upgrade that tell us. Good. I find you first.”

The other popstrel chimed in. “Hey, you change hair. I like. It suit you. But we scan Mikita Smith bone structure, not hair. You stupid, Mikita Smith.”

The mutants then began to slowly close in on her and she was soon corralled by the female automatons. She backed away not knowing what to do next. Their eyes were glaring at her; burning a hole in her thoughts. Normally, mutants were smiley, friendly types,
but now it seemed they’d all become ruthless bounty hunters. It was like they were the eyes of TAPCON! Like David Sempre was peering at her, through them, from on top of his monstrous tower, glowering at her with sadistic intent!

Mikita suddenly realised that she had nowhere to go. She was backed-up against the changing-room walls and now found herself cornered
, near the laundry disposal. She looked over at it.
The chute! Yes! Oh, fire. My weird fear of laundry!
(unfortunately she had one of
those
). But it was either that or be torn to shreds by the pop-loving tinheads.

Mikita lurched to her right, opened the hatch, and threw herself in.

“Drain meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” she screamed, as she went whizzing down the smooth metal slide.

Five seconds later and she was spat out into a large basket full of dirty mutant laundry.
Yuk! Get it off me!
she panicked.

Mikita needed to control herself.
But her phobia of dirty linen was something she’d had for as long as she could remember:
Towelling’s the worst – the feel of it – yuk!

She tried to breathe normally.

Sticking her head up over the edge, she saw a young services-mutant walking over towards the basket. Mikita took a deep breath and ducked down under a couple of stained overalls.

The mutant
was your typical ‘happy-in-his-job’ mutant. He was singing to himself as he walked. He did a twirling dance move, catching the handle of the trolley perfectly on the down-beat of his melody, then began to wheel the dirties towards the collection point. Mikita noticed he was singing the song that the mutant girls had been talking about earlier in the queue:

“Hit me slowly, Hit me faster, Hit me with your mutant -”

But he never did reach the end of the chorus.

Mikita stood up
, facing him, giving the mutant the fright of his virtual life, and placed her right foot on the top of the basket. Then she pushed down hard and tipped the whole kit-and-caboodle over. She crashed into him sending them both sprawling to the floor. Mikita got up first, removed Tammy’s garment and threw it into his face for good measure. Dazed and bewildered, the laundry-boy watched her disappearing around a corner - when two other mutants shot out of the chute and landed on top of him, creating a big, meta-humanoid heap.

Luck was with Mikita, for once. The collection point was located at the side exit of the Balmaha Centre. It was only one more block north to the Shuttle Station and the corrugated roll-up door was open. Mikita stuck her head out, looked both ways, then went left up Centris towards the MCSS.

As she walked
past a Megatron, she caught a glimpse of herself on the news. Some of the bigger screens had PA systems attached, so she could hear what the voices were saying:

“She is armed and dangerous. Anyone sighting Miss Smith should report
this to us, immediately. Do not try to stop this woman, go straight to TAPCON, or dial 100. We repeat, she is armed and dangerous.”

Hang on
! I’m not armed! And dangerous? - Yeah, to myself!

Keeping to the shadows, as usual, Mikita safely made her way up to Unita Stratis and turned the corner to directly face the Shuttle Station. Looking over at the other side of the street
, she could see three men in the dark blue uniforms of the TTF keeping watch over the station entrance. They must have traced her meta-file message - they seemed to know exactly where she was heading.

But she still needed to find Polo. Something might have happened to her
, and she was now very late.

Maybe Po’s
already gone to Fizz’s? That would probably be for the best
, she thought. Mikita didn't really want Polo tied up in any of this mess. Contacting her had been a mistake, she knew that now, and she rebuked herself for having texted her from Hanoi’s flat. She’d been in such a state of panic at that point she hadn’t known what she was doing. She would need to be more careful the next time…
What am I saying? The next time? The next time I kill someone? Oh, fire, no!

She decided, then and there, that she would never, ever, use her powers again.
But her thoughts were disturbed as felt her meta-file vibrate in her pocket.

Mikita
took it out. It was Polo:

[You’re late! Still here. Px]

Oh, fire, she’s in there… with the agents!

Mikita decided not to reply to the text. They could easily get her
current location from any response she made.

Then she saw a large van pull up at the front of the entrance. The three agents went to the rear of the vehicle and stood waiting as the back doors opened. They got in. The van then drove off down Unita Stratis in the direction of the TAPCON Transportation Unit connected to the east wing of the MCSS. This was her chance.

I must be mad! This is too dangerous!

She began to walk towards the Strathbungo Stratis crossing
and continued over towards the semi-circular drop-off area at the front of the station.

She’d not been seen.

Muhaze Central Shuttle Station was an exemplary piece of space-age architecture. The station was an enormous double-vaulted building built out of steel girders, Texture-X plate sheeting
, and a great many large sections of multi-coloured glass. It contained five arch-like parabolas that marked out the entrances for each of the shuttle platforms, with stairways at the east end of the main concourse leading up to galleries housing shops and restaurants. On the west side, the station a walkway led to a 400m overhead tunnel that extended out from the station over Unita Stratis and down into Muhaze Park. Mikita often went to the gardens for solitude and quiet after her Mu-U classes. And she felt like running there right now and hiding in the tall ferns until all this was over. She just wanted to fall asleep amongst the flowers and wake up to find this had all been a bad dream.

Chance would have been a fine thing.

Back in the concourse, she could see Polo standing over by the Meeting Point. She looked tense and worried.

Mikita knew that look. She’d seen it often enough over the past 16 years. She figured that Polo must know why she was in trouble; what with The Zip working as it did and the information travelling so quickly.

As fate would have it, a more recent picture of Mikita flashed up on the screen immediately behind Polo – it was the new short, chromium-haired version.

Oh
, fire,
she thought, as she walked slowly towards her cousin.

It was then that Polo saw her for the first time, recognising her despite her new hair colour. She waved to Mikita. A little, girly wave. Mikita could tell she was terrified.

Mikita waved back and was about to speak when -

“Run, Mikita!” screamed Polo, bursting into tears. “It’s a trap! Run, drain you, run!”

Suddenly, TTF agents were swarming all over the concourse.

Mikita turned and ran for the sign marked ‘To The Shuttles’.

“I’ll come for you, Polo! Don’t worry! I’ll come for you!” she shouted. She hoped that Polo had heard her - the station was now so full of noise.

Mikita was
a quick runner, but whether or not she could out-sprint a bunch of angry TAPCON agents, was another matter.

She saw a guard-mutant over on Platfrom 2 about to blow his whistle signalling that an overland-shuttle was about to depart. Mikita ran like she’d never run before, tearing through the station towards the platform. She looked over her shoulder and saw a fistful of agents running after her - to her dismay, they were gaining on her.

The whistle went for the train to depart. She was going to miss it!

Mikita could see the guard waving his green flag for the doors to close.
But she was nearly at the last carriage and could almost reach out and grab hold of it. Everything that happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.

Mikita leapt frantically
for the fast-closing door, careering dangerously through the air. She held her breath as the moment seemed to last forever, as if some greater entity had pressed stop and time stood still. Then she felt herself landing with a bone-shattering jolt inside the compartment. The mechanised door slammed closed behind her.

She’d made it!

Mikita got up quickly and looked out of the window down the track-line towards the station. She saw the agents slowing up, out of breath, then they began to argue with each other, gesticulating wildly and pushing each other about. Some of them started talking into their phones and walkie-talkies. She knew that they weren’t giving up. The agents never gave up.

Looking around inside the vestibule
, Mikita noticed that a vacant toilet cubicle was directly opposite her. She opened the door, went inside and sat down. She pressed a flashing red button and an automatic-latch flew across. She moved the door handle upwards, locking it in a secure position. She took a long, deep breath and exhaled.

She was safe.

For now.