“Would you like to hear how we got our tattoos?” Jaime asked hoping to divert attention from their predicament.
Carina shrugged she had given up on any hope of escape and they might be trapped here for a long while.
“About a year ago,” Jaime began, “we star-hopped to a dim red star whose name I can’t remember, but I know one of its planets was called ‘Hub-World’. It was entirely covered by one huge city with skyscrapers even built over the oceans. It had millions of towers reaching up so high that some almost reached the space platform. The glass from the zillions of windows sparkling as they caught the starlight was beautiful. Newton showed us pictures of people walking along streets watching large shoals of fish swimming beneath their feet. The air was warm and food plentiful we thought we had arrived at a paradise world.
“We took the skycart and sneaked down to the planet. It was only then that we learned that only the extremely rich lived there. That wasn’t a problem at first. We figured that if we did a few favours to the right people then maybe we could make our fortunes, especially with my talent for making people think they need help when really they didn’t. Trouble was, we found we couldn’t even afford a slice of bread or a sip of water, everything was too expensive. With all the water paved over there weren’t even any seas or rivers where we could fish. We tried to earn a little by doing odd jobs but those tasks were all done by robots. We were starving, but the locals welcomed us both like they would welcome bad smells.
“We found we were in even more trouble because though it was easy to sneak onto the planet we found it impossible to leave. Their spaceport entrance was like a fortress that was guarded day and night. We couldn’t sneak on the skycart without getting caught and the cost of two skycart tickets would have taken us about fifty lifetimes to earn even if we could find jobs.”
Carina was by now captivated by the story.
“So what happened? How did you escape?”
“We didn’t. When we tried to get back to the skycart depot, we slipped by the outer gate but then a robot spotted us and raised the alarm. We were beaten up by the guards and taken to the police station where the man in charge, a General Bluetash, thought he could make use of us.
“He seemed friendly at first a lot nicer than the thugs who’d arrested us. He even promised to let us go if we did some spying for him. He was desperate to gather evidence on a gang who he suspected were making counterfeit money, but the criminals always knew when the police were watching. The general needed people who wouldn’t be recognised, but he did warn us that his last few spies had ended up dead.”
“Couldn’t you have refused to do it?” Carina gasped.
“We were desperate and we wanted our freedom. The alternative was spending the rest of our lives in jail so it gave us no choice. They printed tattoos on our left wrists which they said would help track and record the gang’s activities. They also promised the tattoos would help us out if we got into trouble. Tycho, being the youngest, was given Newton the intelligent tattoo. Who would suspect someone so young would be a spy? I was given the practical tattoo that they insisted would get us out of all awkward situations.”
“Like now?” Carina interrupted sarcastically.
Jaime ignored Carina’s jibe. “Newton told us to take the elevator up to the 5051st floor which was about a third the way up the skyscraper. Only one person noticed us and that was with complete disgust. You could imagine them giving the same look to the rats that live in their sewers.
“Anyway, we sat on the carpet right outside the gang’s apartment and pretended to play with some marbles the general had ‘generously’ given us. Tycho got bored and wanted to play with his wrist computer but Newton wouldn’t let him. It would have made people question what a small boy was doing with such an intelligent tattoo.
“After a week of seeing the gang popping in and out I was beginning to wonder when it would end. I hate marbles, and had begun to dream about them! Then at last we spotted a man dragging a large cloth sack from the elevator. It was several hundred metres from the gang’s apartment and the sack was so heavy that the man kept stopping to wipe his heavily perspiring brow. Tycho imagined it contained a dead body, maybe the headless torso of the latest spy. Somehow we managed to keep cool and carried on with our pretend game.
“The man dragged the sack right past out feet and let out a huge sigh as he dropped it outside the gang’s door. He was annoyed and muttered to himself about having to deliver such a heavy load on his own. Then he cursed how his boss only used him for donkey work. Only then did he notice us.
He stood and stared at us and I came close to panicking. He must have mistaken us for the gang member’s children because he reached inside the sack and gave Tycho a huge wad of money. He smiled at us and put a finger to his lips while my heart was pounding, almost jumping through my shirt. He winked at me and told us to forget anything we’d heard him say.
“Then we watched him knock out a secret code on the door. Two hard raps followed by three soft taps. The door opened enough to let the man squeeze into the room. They had to open the door a little more to drag the sack inside and it was then I caught a glimpse of the huge number of guns pointed into the corridor. I was so relieved when that door swung shut.
“Newton advised us that he had recorded all the evidence the general needed so we went straight for the elevator happy that our trip to Hub-World world was almost at an end. We wanted to run, but had to force ourselves to walk so we didn’t draw attention to ourselves. Tycho asked me if I thought we would make it and I told him not to panic. We had done our job so I expected the general to let us go. How wrong I was!
“As we neared the elevator the doors opened and General Bluetash walked out, evidently Newton had already called him with the good news. He was followed by more police, all armed with pistols and machine guns. When the general saw the money in Tycho’s hands he snatched it from him claiming it was evidence. He stood there counting it for ages. He was so pleased with its quality that I thought his eyes would pop out from their sockets. Then right in front of us he started sharing out the notes to his troops.
“It was obvious they intended to keep the money. We stood there in shock, we didn’t even move when they started to argue what they were going to do with us. Newton would be needed as evidence, but not Tycho, so they discussed how best to remove his arm. No one was bothered that we were listening; they knew we couldn’t escape, they all had guns and we had nowhere to run.
“Then an officer, whose greed went far further than the share now in his grubby pockets, suggested that they went for the rest of the money first and dealt with us later. I gave them my dumbest look and told them I could help them with the secret knock. Amazingly they believed me when I told them to give two soft taps followed by three hard raps.
The general tapped out what he thought was the secret knock, and then waited. After a few seconds the door creaked open. A hail of bullets flew from inside towards us, then the general’s men returned fire. Several police were wounded, including the general who scattered his share of forged notes as he fell.
“We should have run at once but instead we stopped to collect as many notes as we could. Twice bullets missed me by a couple of centimetres and one almost hit Tycho on the wrist. Newton wasn’t impressed and ordered us to scarper, probably for his own safety. Stupidly we ran as fast as we could, making for the nearest elevator. No one takes any notice of two boys playing marbles or walking casually along a corridor, but two boys running for their lives gets noticed by everybody especially when they are carrying large bundles of banknotes.
“We had to weave past grabbing hands and drop some of the notes to cause confusion. Behind us there were shouts of “stop those thieving boys” from people who didn’t even know us but who wanted everyone to believe we had stolen money from them. The elevator was too far away, we’d never have made it, so we made for the stairs.
I hated the idea of having to run down f
ive thousand flights of stairs. We’d probably have died of starvation half way, or be met by the gang or the police at the bottom. The only good thing about using the stairs was that hardly anyone else used them. We found ourselves alone and reluctantly we started the long descent.
“When we were halfway down the third flight (and Tycho was already complaining) we came across a large black lever next to a sign that read “IN EMERGENCY - PULL” and Newton told us to do just that. I pulled it and a hidden door slid open revealing a chute disappearing into darkness. Above the chute there lots of rope ends. Newton taught us how to secure the rope around our waists. Then told us to sit on the edge of the chute and jump! At first we couldn’t decide what to do, but we could hear steps behind. The money-hungry crowd were following us.
“Closing our eyes we jumped. Quite a frightening experience falling into the unknown and it’s one I never want to do again. It took forever to reach the ground and to be quite honest I didn’t expect to live. Tycho was luckier he had Newton to reassure him how jumping the rope was the quickest way down. Designed to lower you without injury it must be the safest way to evacuate the building. As we neared the bottom the ropes gradually slowed our descent. When our feet finally touched the ground it was like stepping off a stair.
“No one saw us land, we thought we were safe, but then we heard the sound of more ropes descending from the darkness above. We did our best to calmly walk unnoticed onto the street and mingle in with the crowd, it was so hard. Tycho was panicking by the time we made it to the skytugger. At least we had the counterfeit money to buy our tickets up to the space platform. We ...” but Jaime didn’t finish his sentence.
A loud crack was followed by a maintenance grill flying past his nose. A pair of arms filled the space where the grill had been. Jaime grabbed them and pulled as hard as he could. After a short pause another pair of arms appeared, Carina grasped them tightly and tugged.
Chapter 15
The Party
The four regarded each other with shocked silence. Then Carina grabbed her sister and gave her the biggest hug of her life. For a moment all seemed fine, but seconds later the skycart lurched sideways knocking them against the table and scattering the chairs across the floor. The skycart’s cables screeched drowning out their shouts, curses and complaints. The floor rose a few centimetres then dropped back with a thump.
Overhead the cables were being tested. The skycart operators usually made checks to ensure the wires were still strong enough to pull their heavy loads all the way into space. The engineers had built the ultra-thin cables with the strongest material ever known to mankind and though the last time a cable broke had been many centuries ago they didn’t take chances.
If the cables snapped, weighing no more than spider’s web, the destruction would be devastating. They would become gigantic whips cutting into everything they touched, brick, steel and flesh. The devastation would be enormous creating a large disaster zone on the planet below. Lastly the skycart falling from a great height and travelling at tremendous speed would crash to the ground.
The boys were experts at knowing the skycart’s procedures but this time they were caught off-guard. Jaime nursed a cut lip after being thrown across the floor, and had to use his sleeve to wipe the blood away. Tycho had ended up face down and was now examining his ankle grateful his new boots had prevented further injury. Once he was satisfied no further damage was done he took became aware of his surroundings and stood gazing in horror at the almost empty skycart.
“Where are the crates? There’s nowhere to hide. This isn’t right!” he complained.
“Unfortunately I think the skycart may have all the cargo it wants,” Jaime replied as he rubbed his lip. The others gave him a puzzled look. As he pointed up to a camera mounted high up on a wall and directed at the table.
“Think about it. We’ve never seen a camera in a skycart before, and it wasn’t here when we first arrived. Why is it there now? They are preparing the skycart for take-off but with no cargo. Maybe we are all the cargo they want. I bet they thought we were all inside when they shut the door, and at the moment with all four of us here they’ve got their wish.
“If they are happy to send us up in an empty cart they must want to get rid of us pretty badly. It has to be a trap and we need to escape from it now. It won’t be long before the engineers have finished their checks, I don’t think we have more than a few minutes before lift-off.”
“But if we don’t take the skycart will we be stuck on this planet forever? We’ll have to hide from the police every single time we want to eat,” complained Heen.
“No we need lay low in the dome for a while. Then we take the skycart when they are not expecting it. But first we must make it appear we are still here. We need to make them think we’ve fallen for their trap.”
Jaime took two armoured suits from Heen’s backpack and tossed one to Carina.
“Here. Put this on. You’ll need it when we go outside.”
Carina and Jaime secured their faceplates while the two youngest arranged the four spare sets of armour around the table. Placing the four helmets on top they pushed the ends of the sleeves into the gloves and pushed the legs into the boots. From the camera’s viewpoint it would look as if they were asleep at the table.
“I’m not sure I like this idea,” murmured Heen to herself as she followed the others.
“Ouch!”
Heen’s suit snagged against a tiny hook. A bean slipped unnoticed from her pocket and fell onto the skycart floor.
Once they were outside Jaime screwed the grill back into place. Heen stared at the hundreds of arrowhead seeds littering the floor. Most lay harmlessly like a dark black carpet, these were the unlucky ones. The rest were lucky enough to kill an animal or insect as they fell and those were already beginning to sprout their toxic roots. She shivered when she thought of how close she and Tycho had come to being hit.
“So what do we do now? It’s not safe to stay out here and it’s not safe to hide in the dome,” Carina asked.
Shading his eyes Jaime gazed towards the south west, the sun was about to drop below the horizon.
“It’ll be night soon and we don’t know what creatures or plants will be out here prowling about under the cover of darkness. I think we have to return to the dome and find Grimaldi. He...”
Jaime was interrupted by a deafening high-pitched squeal that shook the ground under their feet. A large moving shadow cut across the rays of the setting sun. Where the skycart had rested only a patch of bare concrete remained. Rising into the evening sky it was soon shining amongst the first stars of night.
“Phew, that was a close one,” gasped Tycho.
There was a mix of feelings from all four children. Part of them wanted to be rising up into the sky and away from this world, but they knew in their hearts that they had narrowly avoided a deadly trap.
Tycho led the group back towards the dome. A few strange sounds echoed in the darkness. As they neared the dome they froze with fear when a loud roar was followed by a pitiful cry like a baby in distress, it seemed to come from a tree right behind them. They ran as fast as they could, not daring to glance over their shoulders.
Jaime’s eyes opened wide when he saw the large hole where the hatch should be, the result of Tycho’s first attempt to use the stick. Luckily no one had spotted it or the melted walls surrounding it.
“What the stars happened here?” Jaime gasped as Tycho gave him an apologetic look.
“I might have known this was your handiwork little brother.”
Jaime shook his head. Sometimes he wondered why he had agreed to let his brother travel with him.
“Remind me to beat you with the next stinking fish we catch! Now if we’re to remain inconspicuous we must remove our suits.”
They took off their helmets and armour and then everyone except Tycho removed their boots.
“Come on Tycho. There’s no use moping just becaus
e it’s your fault there’s a great big hole in the dome wall,” goaded Jaime.
“It’s not that! It’s my foot. While I’m wearing these boots I can run fast, but if I take them off I’ll limp,” the young boy complained.
“Wear them if you must. Will you hurry up?” Jaime snapped impatiently.
“I think that’s where we need to go,” said Carina pointing towards a large house with lights shining brightly in its windows.
They walked along the same road that had earlier been packed with people. No one appeared but the silence was broken by a loud barking sound coming from above one of the stalls.
“Careful we mustn’t wake the stallholders,” warned Jaime.
Tycho couldn’t resist taking a peek to find out who or what it was making the noise. There was no sign of anyone but resting above the awning hanging over a stall a tattoo snored.
“What do we do when we find Grimaldi?” Carina asked.
“Well, after we saw the way the police attacked him I don’t think he’d report us.” Jaime speculated.
As they neared the house loud pulsating music permeated the cooling night air, but there was still no sign of any movement inside. Desperate to show that he was in charge Jaime climbed the steps to the front door and pushed it hoping to take a quick peek. The door gave way, creaking as it opened, and revealed a well-lit hallway beyond. He motioned the others to follow him as he stepped towards a large oval-topped closed door at the end of the passage. The music was coming from behind it.
Jaime was about to knock when the door swung open revealing a cacophony of sounds and lights. A man rushed by murmuring a quick apology as he disappeared up a flight of stairs.
The room was packed with people drinking brightly-coloured fluorescent cocktails as they danced. At the far side a drummer knocked out a pulsating beat while three others stood as motionless as robots letting their tattoos provided the vocals and lights. Tycho and Heen pushed into the room eager to see what was happening.
An extremely tall man wearing a long pink wig and carrying a tray full of drinks bent down offering them to the children. Heen reached out to take one but Carina grabbed her arm.