Chapter 4
The Inner Fringe was not a place to be caught dead in. Damian's hand encircled Vira's much smaller one, but he was surprised to see her so perfectly calm. Like a willow tree smugly spitting into the teeth of an oncoming storm, she surveyed the dilapidation of the Inner Fringe with 'bring it on!' punctuating her every step. But she's fragile too, just like the willow trees of Earth. From birth Damian had been taught of the super-storms that had ravaged the world after human ingenuity 'fixing' climate change had only created a cure worse than the disease. He remembered watching film from old Earth when he was a boy, seeing a solitary willow tree which seemed to take all that the storm could hurl its way…until a final gust ripped it out by its roots.
That's not going to happen to you or your girl, dude. Don't be so dramatic. Wondering if Jenson had somehow invaded his mind with telepathic disapproval, Damian glanced back and saw his friend moving discreetly in the distance. Wearing the Dumbledoor suit, he stuck out like a very sore thumb in a shantytown where rags and half-nakedness were the norm. The Haven AI called this the Inner Fringe, but citizens of Beta Sector had another name for it. The "Intestines."
The ones who dwelled here were outcasts, thieves, criminals, political dissidents, and anyone else who hadn't known when to stop or shut up until it was too late. The authorities liquidated some of them, but the very reputation of the place served another purpose to Damian's frame of mind. Why kill those who were opposed to the good things the AI was doing, giving criminals an easy way out? Justice could be more poetic than that. No, instead the AI let them wallow in their own filth in a crazy-glued society where murder, rape, and killing for a thimble of water were as common as 'Please' and 'Thank you' up above. What better way to prove to the people of Beta Sector what would happen if the Crew of Alpha Sector and the Haven AI were no longer allowed to guide the generations' future?
Yes, but you aren't playing the good citizen now, are you? You're not supposed to be here, dumbass. Damian shoved that thought as far back into his head as it would go.
"So...not to complain. You are, I guess, putting your butt on the line for me…but how are we getting back into the city if something goes wrong?" Vira asked.
"We should have three hours until the authorities find the new passage that the black marketers just tunneled. If we don't get back in time, my contact told me that this," he stopped, holding up a tiny holo-view attached to the underside of his forearm, "will give us directions to an alternate route."
"And what makes you so sure that this genetic freak buddy of yours who lives in the shadows won't just let us all rot out here?"
"At least two reasons," Damian replied with an easy grin. "He doesn't get the second half of his payment until we get back safely, #1. And #2, Jenson and I have a mutual friend who dabbles in the black market and knows where said genetic freak operates. Our mutual friend is not the sort of person you want to anger, unless having four limbs seems a burden to you."
Vira wrinkled her nose. "Such a typical guy. Do all of your analogies have to be based on physical violence?"
"Nope. Only the most fun ones."
They were walking along a tall, narrow tunnel with shanty houses built partly on stilts and huddling against the rock walls anywhere from one to three stories up. Lichen grew on the roofs, the staple crop for anyone eking out an existence where little else of nutritional value could sustain itself. It felt more like walking through a rat-infested den than a settlement, and the stench at times was just about as bad.
"I've grown up fearing the SA bots. It feels weird not seeing them patrol," Vira admitted. "But this seems almost worse. It's creepy."
Damian glanced at Vira. She wore a padded vest and fatigue pants to protect her well enough from knife attacks, but a sharp projectile would still skewer her, and her face was unprotected. He felt only marginally better when he took the time to admire the two long knives and six-set throwing knives buckled to her hips and waist.
"Are you even listening to me or are you checking out my figure?" Vira growled.
"Don't flatter yourself," Damian grunted. It had been five days since the SA bot scare in his apartment. Five days they'd had to prepare for this reckless scheme to get Vira the fake papers she needed. But it already seemed like a lifetime had passed between them, and Damian found himself relaxed around her, even under pressure. Especially under pressure.
"I was just thinking that I'd much rather you were wearing the exosuit and I was wearing the black get-up."
"Yeah, well, last time I checked bulky exosuits custom-fitted for broad-shouldered males don't exactly do it for me. I prefer having other abilities…like being able to walk."
Damian sighed. They had had this argument a hundred times. Refitting the exosuit for her wouldn't have been impossible. Expensive? Yes. Time-consuming? Yes. As annoying as a bad bowel movement? Almost certainly. Jenson had taken her side in the argument, and that had been that.
The main thoroughfare of the Inner Fringe was called "The Gut," and they followed it for what seemed like eight or nine kilometers. A few souls peeked out at them from between the slats of boarded-up windows. Garbage littered the tunnel-cum-street. Every now and then the all-seeing eyes of a camera perched at the top of the corridor looked down on them, shielded with projectile-proof glass. Random video-feed of the Inner Fringe was broadcast to citizens of Beta Sector. It was currently the most popular running show you could view on the casts, a lot like the mindless "reality" programs of old Earth.
Damian and Vira came to a stop at the first major intersection. The thoroughfare opened out into three major corridors, and a fourth smaller corridor tunneled through the rock. Damian pointed at a graffiti symbol sprayed in red depicting a skull and a prosthesis-augmented human body.
"There. That's our subtle hint. We go down that minor tunnel." From the corner of his eye, he saw Vira flinch.
"You look like you just saw a ghost," he said.
"No, it's just…I've seen that symbol before," she replied.
His eyebrows went up, but he left it alone. They didn't have time to hash it out. Focusing on the poorly lit corridor ahead, Damian drew out his phosphorescent beacon. Made from chemicals extracted from genetically modified insects, it bathed the room in an eerie blue-green glow. It also prevented Damian from stepping headlong into a 20-foot drop as the corridor widened into a huge chamber. He threw his free arm out, preventing Vira from tipping over the edge. Looking more cautiously, he saw a ladder attached to the side of the precipice. The lower ground ran for perhaps 40 to 50 yards before another ladder, this one twice as long as the first, ran up to a towering ledge that overlooked the whole area.
"I'd like to say a few choice words right about now," Damian muttered.
"I'm sure they'd be colorful," Vira replied, giving his hand a short squeeze. "But if I were you, I wouldn't try the ladder. It doesn't look the sturdiest, and the added weight of your exosuit might get us both killed. Better if I go by myself from here."
Damian's eyes bulged. "Not in a million eons." Then he grinned as he estimated the drop one more time. "You don't know much about exosuits, do you?"
Vira gave him a glare that said 'Why should I?'.
"Hold on TIGHT," Damian growled.
Vira found him pulling her behind him by the wrist. He gave her time to notice the two easy hand-holds where the exosuit harness circled around his back so that she could mount up. Atop his bulky exosuit she looked a little like a girl getting a piggy-back ride.
"If you get us killed I'm coming back to haunt your friend Jenson," Vira muttered. Then Damian imagined her stomach doing a flip as he launched them over the edge. The rush of air made Damian glad she'd tied up her hair into a tail. With a crash they landed on a pile of plastic and cardboard debris. Vira shuddered and hopped off, obviously only too glad to have solid rock under her feet again.
"You're a menace," she panted. "You could give a girl a little more time to prepare herself before hurling us down a black hole."<
br />
Damian was too busy checking their surroundings to smile. This little dip in geography was prime real estate for ambushes. The ledge overlooking it was also a perfect place for projectile-launched surprises.
A tall, lone figure approached from the shadows.
"Welcome. I am Mr. Jin, and I will be your guide." The dark-skinned stranger had a handsome, rugged face and easy-to-trust eyes. The hair on the back of Damian's neck snapped to alertness.
"We've come to pick up the papers from Madame D," Damian replied. "Where is she?"
"I will take you to her," Mr. Slick-and-tall replied. Wearing a skin-tight black body-suit, this so-called guide was the best dressed person they'd yet seen. Pretty much the only person they'd seen, Damian reminded himself.
The two cautiously followed. Damian's steps echoed in the corridor as he crushed random rubble and empty ampoules underfoot. He latched the beacon glow-globe to his shoulder, giving himself two free hands in case things got suspicious.
Mr. Jin led them down a side hallway that broke away where the tiny canyon petered out. Damian carefully memorized the maze of turns which Mr. Jin took them down, and realized with a sickening lurch that the chances of Jenson keeping up were slimming by the second.
Finally they entered an open conference room with a raised platform at the end. The room had an official feel to it. Damian sensed that this was where deals were made and back stabs fulfilled.
"Are you two…?" Mr. Jin let the question hang. Vira and Damian shook heads at the same time.
"Not that it's any of your business, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Creepy. I want to see Madame D now and I want to see the papers I've already paid for," Damian snarled. He swung around, his fist reaching for Mr. Jin's neck. The air around Mr. Jin shimmered suddenly, the camo-cloaking field vanishing as Mr. Jin's entire torso seemed to bulge outward. He was wearing an exosuit! Urth it to the Bowels. Son of a…
The dark-skinned face smiled as his metal-sheathed fist slammed into the side of Damian's head. Damian tried to stay upright, but the sheer force threw him into the wall. He heard many footsteps as six more figures leapt down from the stage. He heard Mr. Jin bellow in pain as Vira's throwing knife found his neck, slipping through the exosuit's defenses.
Mr. Jin staggered back, holding a hand to the wound. His eyes became unfocused and he lurched to his knees. Damian had righted himself now, looking in awe at the homeless girl he thought could handle herself reasonably well. Correction. Kick butt and take names, apparently.
A woman darted in to intervene, stretching her hands palm outward with an imperious air, her eyes flicking between Damian and Vira. "Not bad. Jin's one of my best. He's never failed to block a thrown weapon…until now." Her face suddenly shined with a radiant smile, but Damian wasn't fooled. He looked at Vira, saw determination mixed with…something he couldn't quite put his finger on. She looked like she wanted answers.
"I didn't think it took seven people to make a simple hand-off of papers," Vira replied drily. She looked pointedly at the two men nearest her, each with prosthetic limbs and hard faces. They carried themselves like bruisers.
Three more men in disheveled coats and masks carried electroshock blasters, and had already fanned out behind them to block any exit.
The woman who appeared to be their leader gave a reassuring grin. "You have nothing to fear from me, Vira. You are Vira, am I correct?"
The girl slowly nodded. "And who's wanting to know?"
"I am Madame D," the woman replied. "I know you've come for papers, and I have papers," she continued, waving a syringe in her free hand. 'Papers' weren't literally papers. That was the code word used by criminals for what was needed to get a new identity.
It was in your DNA. The system looked for certain markers when you went to work, no matter the occupation, or if you were detained by the SA bots in search of a high-risk fugitive, to identify you as an upstanding citizen. It was like a safety blanket that every citizen had…and those without it lived in constant fear.
"Forgive my man, Vira. I fear he was offended by your lack of trust, bringing this exosuited bruiser bodyguard with you when we could just as easily have handled this like civilized people." Damian didn't detect a single note of sincerity in the woman's voice.
"Shall we get this over with?" Madame D asked.
Vira nodded and sat in the nearest chair. She unbuttoned her padded sleeve and rolled it up, exposing the veins. "I'm game if you are. If you or your men try something, I think you'll be impressed by how dangerous my companion can be." Vira gave Damian a nod, and Damian quickly positioned himself in the center of the room near Vira's side.
He was surrounded, yes, but he was now ready for the next attack. He'd had to turn off his force field crystal before making the leap into the canyon…now he unobtrusively activated it. Go ahead, try that again. Punch me again, dumbass, and see what happens.
Mr. Jin had already drawn out the knife in his neck and slapped a heal-patch over it. The patch thrummed as it did its work, reknitting flesh and sealing the wound. With a hiss of satisfaction Mr. Jin stretched out the muscles in his back and strode up beside Madame D. The two pairs stood face to face now, tension coiling through the air.
"This may sting a bit," Madame D. replied, smiling. She injected the needle perfectly, pushing the syringe until the DNA-replication solution was fully infused into Vira's body. Damian didn't want to know which poor soul they'd kidnapped from Beta Sector, extracted DNA from, and killed to create this fake and untraceable identity.
That was when all hell broke loose and decided to dance a jig.
The process of incorporating the new DNA markers should have been painless. Instead, Vira's body began to writhe, her eyes going wild as she slumped suddenly in her chair. At the same time Mr. Jin lunged at Damian. Damian's exosuit flared with bright, blue light as the force field activated. Jin's eyes grew wide with shock as Damian's well-aimed fist punched through the man's exosuit faceplate, crushing his skull with a sickening crack as Damian's hand flared with the same blue flash. Damian turned as Mr. Jin sagged backward like a discarded puppet.
But the two prosthesis-armed men had already pulled Vira from the chair and spread her out over the table. One of them grasped Vira by the neck and looked over at Damian's anguished face.
Madame D calmly stroked her lips as if deep in thought.
"I wonder if you can get to her before his arm breaks her neck. Oh wait…I think that question has an easy answer."
She looked at him, no longer smiling. "The ball is in your court, Damian."
"How do you know my name?"
"Your genetic freak friend didn't tell you? I always do research on my potential customers. And your Vira…now she's a special customer indeed."
"What are you talking about?"
"I can do this one of two ways. It would be better if Vira were alive, but she can be just as useful to me dead. You're going to power down that exosuit and let my men take you out of it."
"The hell I am."
"Or…you're going to get the girl you love killed."
"Love? Look, I don't care what you do with her," Damian lied. "But with this exosuit I can break your neck like a twig. And I will. So make your choice. Release us both or die."
Madame D considered those heated words for several long seconds. Damian could be a good liar when he wanted to. But Damian also feared that his facial expressions had already given him away. I don't love her, dang it. He liked Vira, though. He had only met her a few weeks ago, and he already liked her. A lot.
Damian's heart sank as he realized that Madame D had just come to the same conclusion.
"Bruce, if he moves I want you to break her neck."
Damian tensed up, ready to spring. He looked at Vira's relaxed face, her helpless body and the delicate neck that would be all too easy to snap.
"OK! OK! Urth it all. Take it easy! Don't hurt her."
Damian felt the hope spill out of him until his mind was running on despair. He deactiva
ted the Vuldemort exosuit and let his limbs go lifeless. A few minutes later and the three masked guards on Madame D's team had extricated him from his only weapon. He wore only his gray-and-black body-suit underneath. Madame D produced another liquid-filled syringe and approached as two of the guards extended his arm, rolled up the sleeve, and held it still.
"This may prick, just a little." Damian thought about struggling, even now. That was instinct talking.
"Don't struggle, Damian…if I'd wanted to kill you, you'd be dead," Madame D said, her voice almost cheerful.
Damian looked straight into those midnight-black eyes framed by the tumble of stormy blonde, brown, and black highlights of hair. Madame D looked like a cyber-witch from hell.
"You'll forgive me for saying I don't exactly trust you," he mumbled, as the needle lanced his flesh and the drug did its work. The world clouded, dimmed, and then was no more…
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Don't miss the complete novel of Crysalis: Vira's Tale, coming August 2014!
About the Author of Vira's Tale:
J. Kirsch writes about strong heroines who face tough obstacles and work with what they have, often using humor as a deadly weapon. He enjoys telling good stories where friendship, love, personal resilience and a little ruthless pragmatism are all parts of survival. In his fantasy novels sometimes that involves destroying six-eyed monsters, cruel sorcerers, or the occasional vengeful imp, but this is by no means an exhaustive list. Sometimes, as J.'s favorite author once noted, fantasy stories are the best way to get at and explore the very problems people encounter in real life, and this is something his stories also do.
J. lives with a beautiful, fearless spouse and a noticeably cute canine. He has always enjoyed storytelling, perhaps thanks to the two librarians who raised him on a steady diet of imagination.
When not helping others do research, he can usually be found at the local café or coffee shop typing up a storm. J.'s adventures into writing and publishing began after completing the NanoWriMo challenge for novel writing. J. enjoys writing in all genres of fiction, but fantasy, science fiction, and adventure stories will always be his passions (often with a healthy dose of romance). J. regularly posts on his blog, Starfarers and Knights.
Reader Reactions to the Novels and Stories of J. Kirsch:
"Excellent, powerful, vivid writing! Scifi just doesn't get any better than this!"
-Honorable Mention Author for Writers of the Future
"Good writing. Good characters."
-Barnes&Noble User Reviews
"Well-written."
-Barnes&Noble User Reviews
"Loved the characters."
-Barnes&Noble User Reviews
OTHER TITLES BY J. KIRSCH
The Human Insurgency
Tales from Omega Station: Abduction
Tales from Omega Station: Betrayal
And for more exciting science fiction by these three authors, don't miss Tales from Omega Station
Omega Station, aka the Rock. A barren, airless asteroid on the outermost edge of the galaxy, home of the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Dotted with commercial, military and residential domes, the outer surface is the place to live for those who can afford it or are lucky enough to work there.
But the vast majority of the Rock's residents don't live in the surface domes; instead, they have tunneled downwards, moving ever further towards its fiery heart. The upper levels are safe, comfortable, secure—or as secure as anyone can be on Omega Station. The lower levels, now; they are home to the detritus of a double dozen races and species, all living in uneasy juxtaposition, fighting, loving, eating—and being eaten.
The Rock's location in space, the last real port before exiting the galaxy, has made it a valuable commodity to many governments and private corporations, as has the addictive drug straz, which grows only in its recycling vats. Control has been taken and given in a hundred bloody battles over the years, but those who live in the lower levels—and further down, in the Depths—are often barely aware of whoever claims to be in charge.
No one, really, rules the Rock, whatever they may claim, however many weapons and warriors they throw against it.
For the Rock is eternal…and it has many stories...
Tales from Omega Station: the Omnibus Edition
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