It was about three in the morning when I left the bar. The streets were relatively peaceful considering a war was going on; the sky was fading to a hazy blue grey and the first remnants of sunrise were creeping across the horizon.
Most of the actual war consisted of espionage and sabotage in the cities. The real fighting limited to the extents of Providence and the border of what was once known as Alandris.
Alandris was the home of the untouched tribe of Kalaran; they were all that was left of what was known of the Pure Religion. Providence once ruled over Alandris making the USP a united world Power. Apparently Lannon’s One World Nation originated from Alandris, its religious affiliate were rumoured to be expelled acolytes of the Kalaran tribe excommunicated for there misuse of the pure religion. It was the Living Order that was the mastermind behind Lannon’s campaign or so it seemed. When Lannon struck the USP he knew exactly where, how and when to strike and thus began the Heretic Wars. The real question was who the real heretics were. After nearly half a century, people became confused about the actual details of why and how this war all started.
Light was now seeping effortlessly into the world. On the horizon tinges of green and yellow stretched out in fingers touching the outreaches of Pendaar. It was always an peculiar sight, but awe-inspiring nonetheless. I took a deep breath and headed towards the subterranean terminal to head North to Upper Lingaard. Lingaard was another city-state on the coast towards Alandris, about a day by standard travel from Pendaar taking you on a time warp back to the 24th Century, Alandris and Lingaard were somewhat historical places full or myth and mystery. Ancient ruins still existed throughout the city of Lingaard and many more were scattered throughout the lands of Alandris, further proof to the Historical Kalaran tribe and the Pure Religion.
I headed down to the terminal where the subterranean pods departed every ten minutes. I’ve never really liked this form of travel, the very thought of my body moving at two seven hundred miles per hour was nauseating and unnatural to me. But these days subterranean pod transport was an everyday convenience. Something most people had become accustomed to, everyone but me it seemed.
When my pod arrived, it was 3.30am and by the time I had reached Upper Lingaard it was just on 4.15am it always amazed me that I could nearly travel halfway across the country in a matter of forty-five minutes. I came out of the terminal with my head still spinning and was greeted by a stiff salty breeze blasting in my face, I pulled up my coats collar tight around my neck to shield me from the wind and headed from the terminal down to the beach. Lingaard was closer to the battle fields of Alandris than I had realised. The once beautiful Garden Tropics of Lingaard was nothing, but waste and desolation. The majority of Upper Lingaard had been destroyed and abandoned, black burnt out shells of what was once buildings stood in many places as if a great fire had swept through this part of the city. It almost resembled one of those ghost towns from the 21st Century Westerns, except it lacked the trigger happy cowboys ready to rumble in the dust.
I wandered along the beach and watched the sun rise for a bit, rubble and bullet shells laced the sand like ornate decorations. The flecks of sunlight reflected off shards of shrapnel strewn across the beach to where remnants of an aircraft laid half buried in the sand. To my surprise a large rat scurried about in search for food, it was unusual to see rats so close to this part of the beach. The Storm Water Drains came out into the ocean miles down from here, and with all the abandoned and desolate buildings at this part of the city it was practically sterile with not a single living cell aside from the odd human being around. The rat darted towards the water and to my horror and surprise swiftly dove into the water and resurfaced with a small jellyfish in its mouth. I stood there flabbergasted momentarily. Then I spotted something not to far off in the distance, I couldn’t make out exactly what it was for the sheer speed that the object moved at, but by the way the light refracted off it I knew for certain it was a rather large metallic object, perhaps some kind of vehicle. Once again the morning light refracted of the metallic objects surface blinding me momentarily and then in a flash it disappeared like a mirage. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief and assumed I had just imagined it.
Suddenly realising the time I made my way hurriedly to where I was supposed to meet Jai at the Cyber Vaults deeper in the city. Even at this hour in the morning the populated part of the city was in a buzz, not the vibrant kind that you often hear buzzing about a bee’s nest, but a morbid repression as if enslaved to wake and walk at such an ungodly hour. Business in this part of town random closed; and pimps, drug dealers and hookers where making there way across the streets in search of there latest victim.
Out of sheer desperation young girls often turned to prostitution and the pimps would keep them under there control via drug addictions provided by the local narc dealers. The pimps and dealers often worked in cahoots with one another, it kept the profit rolling on both sides of the playing field. I couldn’t help but turn a blind eye to these young girls and often found myself ignoring the depraved stated they were in. It wasn’t my responsibility to save them and minding my own business always worked for me in the past. I skipped across the street in a hurry over to the entrance of the Cyber Vaults where a young prostitute a few doors down from where I stood was throwing a tantrum at her pimp. The pimp swiftly cracked her across the face with an open hand forcing her to the ground, he muttered something to the girl who was now sprawling to her knees as she held her flushed cheek. She lunged at him in a vicious manner and began beating and scratching at him. Two of the pimp’s thugs came to his aid and ripped the prostitute off him and restrained her as the pimp jabbed a syringe into her left arm. I just assumed it was her usual dose of drugs and headed up the flight of stairs to where I was supposed to meet Jai at the Cyber Vaults.
As I entered the lobby of the Cyber Vault security frisked me and made me pass through the usual metal detection procedure. The Cyber Vaults were a place meant initially for entertainment and information access, it was the library of the 26th Century, but in the past they had been known places for notorious shoot outs between rebel bands, and often drew unscrupulous characters to there door, thus the basis of the high level security.
These days the Cyber Vaults were almost like entering a high level security prison. All personal items were taken off you as you entered and stored at the front desk until you departed, you were then escorted by CV Guards to your designated holo-deck where you had a limited amount of time to access whatever you needed. Of course this way the government who ran the Cyber Vaults could also monitor the programs people used there. No unauthorized disks were allowed to be used on the holo-decks, and being a skilled mercenary often times called for such unauthorised programs to be used to access information needed for our assignments, the disks we brought with us were encrypted and so were all encoded with a dummy program that had encryption codes to access the mission walkthroughs. The government often turned a blind eye to this type of encryption because of there own frequent use of the Cyber Vaults for recruiting freelance mercenaries.
The government was the ones who invented the bypass program on the mission disks in the first place. Strange to think that a Government would find ways around their own securities and legislation instead of exempting the penalties for their own use, but Lannon’s government wasn’t your typical political and social structure. The Living Order often pushed Lannon’s people to do things that may have directly conflicted with there initial ideals of which they professed to live by. Somehow I always had the feeling that The Living Order where planning something much bigger than Lannon’s One World Nation had originally demised and overtime there push for change amongst the ranks raised the question of authority. It was almost as if Lannon’s role was slowly becoming obsolete. But how could The Living Order take possession of state power since the law strictly denied religious affiliates seats of parliament or control over the people for any purpose. Plainly speaking Lannon had ensured that in no circumstance whilst he was alive could an Acolyte or Priest of The Living Order take on a political role. Plus it was also widely known that according to The Living Order lore that all members of the Order were to remain neutral in so called “Worldly Affairsâ€Â. Still it always puzzled me that they even had anything to do with Lannon in the first place considering that he was a man of such worldly power. Of course pondering over such things weren’t of my concern right now, so I pushed my questions to the back of my mind and tried to focus on the information I was about to take in.
The guard escorted me down several hallways and bolted doors of stainless steel which were dully lit by fluorescent light. We took a final turn and a door was unbolted for me where I was to wait. I walked into the holo-deck, it was like any holo-deck a white room containing small white scaly upholstered seats unfixed around the room’s edge. The walls and floor where covered with the same material as the seats slightly padded and with the same shimmery white scales. The holo-decks I imagined would have been a lot like the padded cells of an asylum, something my adoptive father often described to me in bed time stories about the old world. I took a seat and waited for Jai, I had half expected him to be here before me seeing he had insisted on my being here no later than zero five hundred hours. After a few minutes of waiting Jai turned up huffing and puffing from exhaustion, I hesitated to ask where he’d been because I knew Jai hated being questioned about his personal business. I decided to ask him if he was alright instead.
“Is everything ok Jai? You’re not in trouble are you?†We’d been followed before and lost a few missions from the army intervening, often times it ended in us being questioned, but not being able to give them any information seeing that they take us down to the barracks for investigation before we even access the files completely. Jai’s face looked worrisome, that was never a good thing, but I waited for a reply. He paced up and down the room momentarily to gain his train of thought.
“Sorry Zeek, I was a million miles away. What did you say?†He stopped short in front of me and gave his pathetic excuse for a beard a pondering stroke.
“I was worried when you showed up late, no one followed you did they?†I interrogated him. Jai wasn’t one to be careless, but he seemed distant since we met at the bar earlier this morning, anything was possible even the best mercs slip up at times.
“No-no, I wasn’t followed, I’m sure of it! There’s been a change of plans, I need that disk I gave you, do you have it?â€Â
I hesitated for a moment, and removed my shoe pulling out the sole revealing the hiding place of the disk. “So is the mission not going ahead then?†I said as I handed the disk to Jai.
“No- well yes so to speak. It’s more or less changed, my contact was adamant about not revealing his identity so its made it harder to get the credits transferred into a safe account. But that’s not the problem, the mission has changed.†As he spoke those words, he took the disk and crushed it in the palm of his hand and littered it on the floor. I was surprised that he would destroy and dispose of evidence to blatantly, but right now was not the time for protocol. It was clear that something more was going on than I realised, and I knew that it would be something I’d have to figure out for myself. As close as Jai was to me as a friend we still had our secrets from one another and I knew this was no different.
“So what now? Where’s the mission details?â€Â
Jai eyed me and walked over to the door to check where the guard was. He then approached the holo-deck panel and began typing in something on the monitor screen. A few minutes later a holographic program began running on the main wall.
‘Welcome to Cyber Vault,’ said the mechanical female voice from the program. ‘Please enter your access code.’
Jai’s fingers tapped away at the keyboard entering the access code he was given by our mysterious contact.
‘Access code accepted. Ready to upload transference,’ the program chimed.
Jai then walked over to the main screen where the holo-deck began scanning him into the program.
‘Scanning complete.’
Jai gestured for me to come over to where he was standing so that I could be scanned into the program as well. I got up and stood beside him and waited for the program to finish scanning me.
‘Scanning complete, transference of Jai Rayden complete. Transference of Ezekiel Frost complete. Please process your request.’ The Program responded monotonously.
“Computer, download HALON District.†He commanded in an authoritative tone.
‘Loading request… please wait.’
The holo-deck lit up and a low penetrating buzz shuddered through the room, in a matter of seconds the room transformed from the dull white walls to the inside of an elaborate building featuring an enormous lobby with large spiralling pillars supporting a massive domed roof in the centre of the lobby. The lobby was trimmed with gold and polished marble and the domed roof in the centre revealed intricately hand-painted stained glass windows. It was a work of beauty like nothing I had ever seen before. Lush green tropical plants and a glistening white fountain filled a marbled strip in the lobbies centre stretching from one end to the other. Velvet covered sofas furnished the outer edges of the lobby, historical religious art and elaborate tapestries clothed the walls, I walked through in awe.
‘Request complete.’
“What is this place?†I marvelled.
“You are standing in the temple of Chehth, or at least what used to be,†hissed an omniscient voice, echoing around the room without form.
Then suddenly as if someone had corrupted the program we were using, a distorted figure appeared before us. We waited momentarily for the image of this mysterious person to come clear, but the image remained scrambled.
“Who are you?†I enquired. To my surprise this didn’t seem to bother Jai one bit and he just kept waiting in silence for something to happen.
“Identities are not important, but seeing you feel it necessary you shall know me as Cyrillius,†The figure retorted. “I am the one who has requested your presence here today, as you know I strictly have a policy against anyone meeting me in person. I have a proposition for you today, and should you choose to except and complete the task being asked of you, you both shall become very rich men. Far more impressive than any mission you have done before. However, I must warn you that no questions are to be asked with regards the mission or your own lives will be at risk. Do you choose to accept?†Inquired the mysterious figure, on hearing those words Jai’s expression changed suddenly from that of ease to defensive and automatically a mental wall went up, he knew all too well that a successful mercenary needed to ask questions to get the necessary details to execute the task safely, detail was of the utmost importance and so was accuracy and discretion.
“Cyrillius, right? How the hell do you expect us to answer whether or not we will accept this mission if we don’t even know what we’re meant to be doing?†Started Jai cynically. “And how do we know this isn’t just some hoax that you’re trying to frame us for. What you’re asking us to do could be highly illegal?â€Â
I could see that Jai had fully put his guard up by this stage not sure of how to respond to the queerness of the situation, but why would be care whether or not our task was illegal, everything we did was illegal. I walked over to the holographic figure and waved my hand through him curiously, as I passed my hand through the holographic body; the image jumped and flickered more furiously than it already was as my hand passed through. I gave out an unrestrained laugh and realising the seriousness of the situation forced myself to refocus.
“So Cyrillius,†the named rolled off my tongue slippery, “Where do you want us to start?†I asked curiously. “Seeing you cannot tell us the details and all,†I put forth confidence in what I asked realising this mystery man was not one to be meddled with.
“Go over to the fountain, you will find what your looking for, you have three weeks to complete the task,†and with that as if being turned off by a remote control the figured disappeared in a flash.
Jai was unimpressed by the whole situation and just stood for a while speechless and boggled. I gave him a similarly confused look, but out of curiosity made my way over where the fountain was amongst the palms and ferns in the centre of the lobby. Glancing into the fountain I noticed something reflecting off the bottom and rolled up my sleeve instinctively and reached in. As I drew my hand out of the fountain the image of the lobby began to dissolve and by the time I had retrieved what was at the fountains bottom we were back on the holo-deck floor. The white room mocked us with its plainness and Jai sat down flustered from the odd experience.
“What the hell was that all about?†He huffed annoyed. “That was complete and utter bull-crap!†He looked puzzled and confused; I didn’t know how to react, because by all accounts that was the most bizarre thing that had happened to me as well. All I could do was stand there where I was with my fist still clenched as if I was still holding whatever I had found in the fountain.
“We were meant download The Halon District, none of this Chehth Temple crap or whatever the hell it is. We were supposed to meet our contact at Halon in the District Courthouse and exchange details of the mission. There must have been a program malfunction.â€Â
Jai briskly walked over to the holo-decks computer monitor and started tapping away at the keyboard trying to access the program information. Relaxing from the daze that we had just experienced I unclenched my hand and let my fingers fall by my side. As I did, something fell from my fingers and bounced on the holo-deck floor. I looked down to see what it was and to my surprise it was some sort of micro-disc with a strange inscription carved into it. I couldn’t make out what it was because of the dully lit room, but it appeared to be a religious symbol of some sort.
“Um, Jai?†I scoffed out of sheer fascination, my sarcasm came across harsher than I wanted, I froze up a little still trying to comprehend how I could have retrieved a physical object from a holographic program. Jai paid me no attention cursing and muttering to himself.
“This can’t be right, The Halon District Court doesn’t look anything like that! Stupid government technology!†He kicked the wall abusively still ignoring me.
“Hey Jai!†I said affirmatively this time clearing my throat, “You might want to take a look at this.â€Â
Jai took a deep breath and walked over to where I was in the light. “What?†He rubbed furrowed brown anxiously.
I held up the micro-disc for him to get a better look, the inscription reflected in the light. “I found it in the fountain,†I said. Jai’s face expressed utter disbelief and shock, he didn’t say a word.
“What do you think is on it?†I questioned him. He took the disc from my fingers, looking at the disc he then glanced at me a second time and began pawing over the symbols detail or at least what he could make out of it in the darkness of the room.
“You sure you didn’t just find it in the room already?†His tone and expression had changed to curiosity. “Where did you get this?â€Â
“I told you I found it in the fountain in the program, I reached in to get it just before the program ended and when I opened my hand there it was.â€Â
The door of the holo-deck buzzed and one of the CV guards entered. “Excuse me gentlemen, but your use of the holo-deck has expired and we have another paying customer waiting out side, would you please remove your programs and belongings before you leave.â€Â
Jai snapped the disc up in his fingers, and we followed the guard out of the holo-deck before we could figure anything out further.
To be continued in Chapter 2...
