Chapter 6
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My head was still spinning while we followed Ferro back to his apartment. Not locker, apartment. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think he was suspicious of us. At least one of us had enough sense to follow at a discrete distance. It wasn’t me. The journey on the orbital from Boe, round to Sheim, was a blur. I know Cora had been talking because I remember noticing that she had a tear in her eye. Maybe she was so proud of me for almost taking her to the cleaners in our sparring match. Or maybe she had been talking about Del. It had been 2 days since the explosion in Cho. Still, no sign of Del. A memory came back to me of my arrival at The Pink Room. Cora’s temple was lit by her SubCom, but she cut the call as I sat down. I was too wrapped up in what had happened at Chez Elle to notice that my best friend— only friend, really—was worried sick.
Dick.
“Hey, any luck getting hold of Del?” I said as we waited in a small park in the Sheim district. “Sorry I never asked earlier, I guess I was caught up in other stuff.”
“Forget it.” She said. “No luck yet. Her SubCom’s either been removed or her head has. Hoping it’s the former.”
“I’m sure there’s other possibilities.” Cora just looked at me. My head still swam. “Like, maybe she’s just somewhere the comm relays can’t pick up her signal. Or, you know you can turn those things off, right?”
“Sure.” She examined the ground, then shrugged. “I haven’t given up yet. It’s only been a couple days and we’ll see what Adio turns up.”
The park had a few benches and some greenery within a thirty-meter square, bordered by low ceramic walls and neatly boxed in between three luxury apartment buildings and a utility block. Even that was almost pristine. It was strange how some of the humans that designed spaces on the station had tried so hard to emulate Earth that they ended up with places like this that fell into the uncanny valley. Reminiscent of Earth but too many reminders that it wasn’t home.
Sheim was the home district of Khal-Sec. Their headquarters, training facilities and the station brigs were all within spitting distance of us. I tried not to think about it, but if they ID’d us, we’d be frogs in hot water, and since we were pretty close to downtown, it’d be hard to just hop out.
Ferro was in one of the luxury apartments above us. I craned my neck to see the towers on three sides leaning in, literally looming over us. Their peaks almost touched, but still let some of the demure Heartlight shine through and bounce down their mirrored facades to where we now sat. It had long since dimmed into its twilight cycle. Soon it would finally be night. A lighting vein circled the park above our heads and split off at each corner, bathing us in a sombre orange light.
“I don’t much like it here. We’re way too close to Khal-Sec.” I sulked. Even as I said it, two Khal-Sec guards walked past the park and into the utility block.
“Me neither. But I want some answers, and right now, finding dirt on this guy the only path I can see to get them. So, fuck Khal-Sec. Let ‘em try and get in my way.” She raised a middle finger to the nearest surveillance drone that buzzed overhead.
“Keep it down, will you?!” I hunched my shoulders and slapped her hand down. “Why don’t you just invite them over to check our docs?”
She waved off the comment and went back to looking up. She was clearly in the kind of mood that wasn’t going to pair well with playful prodding.
But you never know unless you try.
“Are you upset because I beat your ass at the gym?”
She scowled at me. Then something softened in her eyes that spread through the rest of the muscles in her face. It started with a giggle and escalated into a belly laugh. I felt the tension ironing out and I let myself laugh with her. It didn’t matter that she was laughing at me, I’d made her laugh and that seemed to be what she’d needed.
She nudged me with an elbow and went back to looking up. At least slightly assuaged. It was then that we saw Ferro on a balcony overlooking the park. Of course, he was too far away to identify him. The balcony was so high up that all we could make out was the black silhouette of a tiny person, foreshortened by the angle.
“How much ya gotta earn to live in a place like this?” She wondered aloud.
His back was turned towards us. He was looking back into his apartment.
“I’m not one for saying ‘never’, but probably more than we’ll ever see.” I wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic about my financial situation at that moment.
The balconies that laddered up all three of the apartment buildings were made from the same transparent polymer that almost every glass substitute on Khalo was. Liosen, a material made from plant mulch on Luksha. They have factories that can produce the stuff in any shape, size or configuration you like. As clear as water, as hard as steel – or so the marketing campaign goes. The pint glasses at The Pink Room, and every other bar, restaurant and cafe that used ‘glassware’. The windows on every building that had windows. The balconies on every building that had balconies. It was supposed to fulfil all the same functionality as glass but be, for all intents and purposes, unbreakable. Which is why I couldn’t quite work out what was happening when the first piece hit the ground just a few meters from us.
We heard a noise. Deep and brief. It was like a frequency sweep that started low and parabolised up to frequencies well beyond the audible range. There were no dogs on Khalo, but I bet there were a few lukshae with headaches afterwards.
By the time the second shard crashed to the ground, Cora had grabbed me by the jacket and was dragging me towards the utility block, fast. In the few seconds it took for us to get there, the remainder of the shattered balcony had hit the park floor. I noted with some interest that none of the strangely uniform pieces had smashed any further with the impact, just as Ferro’s body splashed over them.
I flinched away from the splatter. When I turned back to look, the sight of Ferro’s ruined head turned my stomach a little. I looked at Cora.
What the fuck?
She echoed the sentiment without words, then steeled her expression. She walked out towards Ferro’s building. I followed. We skirted round the side and Cora stopped. I almost walked into the back of her.
“Del?” Cora said.
The skulking shape had been climbing down the outside of the building’s rear facade. It was dismounting onto the low roof of the maintenance block behind the building, still above us, when it turned, startled at the sound of Cora’s voice.
Definitely lukshae. Could it be Del?
I hoped it wouldn’t be.
“YOU! STOP!” a Khal-Sec guard shouted from the far front corner of the building.
There was no time to make a discrete exit, I turned to Cora and glanced up to where the lukshae had been. Cora slowly raised her arms, and the lukshae was gone. I followed suit and put my palms to the Khal-Sec guards that were slowly approaching us, stun bolters raised. I began stepping backwards matching their speed. Cora matched me.
“We’re running, right?” She said.
“Unless we wanna get taken to interrogation, it might be the play.” I was still pretty sure we’d be facing some time in detention if they took us in. They’re probably already running face-rec.
Cora sighed. “Okay,” she said “if we’re doing this it needs to be right now.”
“Say the word.”
“...Go!”
We sprang into a sprint around the maintenance block, vaulting over the vent pipes and dodging through the tight passageway. I could hear the guards shouting behind us and calling back up. It was hard to hear exactly what they said but I did hear one give a brief description of us and another shout the direction we were headed. I had no idea where we were going. I had no idea where we were. I followed Cora through, up, over and under the maze of steel bulkheads that made up the cluster of buildings in downtown Sheim until we got to a small, tunnelled intersection. Cora stopped and turned to me, her hand on my shoulder, panting.
“We should split up.” She said.
I looked down each of the three corridors in turn, searching for any way out of Sheim.
“Okay,” I wheezed, “Which is the quickest road out of Sheim?”
She looked each way, hesitating. “This way I think.” pointing down one of the tunnels. “I think this leads to Redstone.”
“Okay, you go that way. I’ll see if I can draw them away.”
“Be careful.” She said, nodding her approval. “Pink Room?”
I nodded, adrenaline turning my body into a jitter. She turned and began her sprint to Redstone.
I chose one of the other tunnels at random and bolted up the slow incline, back out into the open streets of Sheim. If I made enough noise that Khal-Sec would follow the ruckus instead of picking up Cora’s trail, she might be able to slip into Redstone unnoticed.
Okay, where to, Hagen? I thought, keeping up the sprint through the busy walkway. Anything I could use to create a distraction for Cora, I did. I ran past a stall where someone was selling pastries, knocked over a tray of them, prompting an outburst from the owner and a scrum over the fallen treats.
I rounded a corner into a crowd of protesters, chanting and shouting at a phalanx of Khal-Sec guards. There must’ve been over two hundred people in the thoroughfare, arms raised and flags hoisted. On a few flags, I saw a design for a free and independent Khalo. A simple circle with a skyline on the inner circumference, sandwiched between the words Free and Khalo. I weaved through the crowd, flicking up my collar in a vague attempt to hide my features from the prying lenses I knew were surveying every square centimeter of Sheim’s Piazza Cicero. Jeers rose from the crowd when an amplified voice demanded they disperse, and a short-lived mosh pit formed at the line Khal-Sec had drawn in the sand. The crowd sloshed up against the wall of shields but didn’t penetrate it, like the boundary between oil and water. As I watched the drama almost reach boiling point, only to recede, I thought I’d lost track of my pursuers until I heard someone shout THERE!
It could’ve been anyone but I didn’t stick around to make sure, I just bolted down the nearest offshoot from the Piazza that I could see.
I came to a stop outside a small utility block at the foot of another apartment building. To my left, a commotion maybe 50 meters away.
Guards. Maybe 10 seconds before they’re on me.
I looked behind me, more coming from the direction I came from.
Good. Maybe they missed Cora.
I took a second to take in my options and, from what I could see, there was only one.
Up. Or, at least, as up as upwards was a thing.
I ducked into a galley-like hall with laundry machines on either side, heading straight for the back of the unit, hoping there would be a utility exit or something that lead into the rest of the building. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the heavy steel door with the stencilled black letters on it.
“Maintenance.” The door said.
Thank you, whichever god is in charge of luck.
I heaved it open and started to climb the zig-zagging stairwell of the maintenance shaft. Most of the arcologies on Khalo had them. They made it much easier for the maintenance crews to move around without having to deal with the inhabitants of said arco. That being said, most of the maintenance shafts I’d been in before had some sort of basic hydraulic lift to make it easier to move equipment.
Not this one.
I cursed to myself as I clambered up the 5th rise.
Can’t stop. Can’t trust that no-one pointed out my path to Khal-sec. We’re not in Cho anymore.
Halfway up the 27th rise, I heard the door swing open at the bottom of the shaft. I peeked over the flimsy handrail and caught sight of a guard looking up. Which means he caught sight of me. Several shadows danced on the inner walls, implying yet more pursuers.
I jumped into the nearest lift and rode it to the 300th floor, hoping to get ahead of them with enough time to think of something resembling an escape plan.
Last stop.
I kept climbing, feeling myself get slightly slower with every step. When I got to the 315th floor I could barely breathe. Khal-Sec were just a few floors below me and I was running out of places to lose them. I burst through the door marked “315 - TERRACE” onto a wide platform that looked over the piazza below. Through the clear liosen, between my feet, I saw the ordered streets of Sheim, a barricade had been erected around the laundrette already. Lifting my eyes to the clear balustrade, Boe shone with the floodlights of playing fields on the other side of the station. It looked like there was a football game taking place on one of them. I could almost hear the distant cheers of a small crowd. Above, Battenthwaite hung, quiet and dark, save for the few street lights peppered throughout. The artisanal spaces had all been vacated for the night. The remaining height of the building behind me hid most of Redstone, but I knew it was there. I hoped Cora was too. The heart’s night cycle had begun. It’s long, now extinguished length spoke of the size of Khalo as it stretched in both directions, letting the city twinkle in the darkness like the stars that surrounded it.
I could hear the footsteps of the guards approaching from the stairwell. I looked over the edge of the terrace to the roof of the neighbouring arco. It was a long drop. Maybe five floors. Maybe six. My vision swirled and I felt the coriolis intensify a little. I was pretty close to Sheim Central, If not in the midst of it. The fluctuations usually only lasted a few seconds, sometimes half a minute. It might be enough time to ride the lower gravity down to the next roof.
Might be.
I considered the alternative of being taken to interrogation and potentially thrown in the brig on some bullshit charge. Or maybe a legit one. My full-time job was still technically ‘illegal’ on Khalo.
Nope. not a good option.
I could’ve made it to the other door back into the main building, but it’d be crawling with Khal-Sec in minutes.
Maybe I could find a hiding place?
The pressure on the soles of my feet wavered.
Outta time.
The door behind me swung open just as I leapt from the terrace balustrade.
“Stop!” someone behind me shouted. But I was already falling.