Heir of G.O'D. Revelations Page 14

  “Shortly after MOSSAD troops take up their position, an employee from the Sol-Corp corporation, identified by sources as Baran Celal, is witnessed waiting outside the station,” continues Dub@i0r@cal3.

  They aren’t MOSSAD. They’re just Musa’s mercenaries.

  The footage zooms in on a Turkish national, dressed in a brown leather jacket and jeans. He’s wearing thick-rimmed spectacles and carries a wide black case with the corporate FibreHaptics logo emblazoned on the side. Celal is older than I imagined him to be when we met, his salt and pepper hair more white than brown. “This is Baran Celal, a FibreHaptics technician. My sources within the Corps claim that Celal was selling IP to MOSSAD. IP related to post-Baktun plans.”

  “What a load of frack!” I understand that he shouldn’t have been there, but to suggest he was selling intellectual property to MOSSAD is pure fabrication. “Fracking feeds.” I pause the stream again and take a long drink of water. This woman is so fracking annoying, she almost makes the Mouse seem human (almost).

  “As you can see,” Dub@i0r@cal3 continues, oblivious to my irritated chatter, “Celal continues to act suspiciously while waiting for the MOSSAD agents to approach.” The screen freezes for a moment (I’m guessing for dramatic effect). In a much deeper, and annoyingly comedic attempt at gravitas, Dub@i0r@cal3 states, “Scenes of a graphic nature, gore, death and mutilation follow. If you are easily affected or offended, please stop watching my fracking shows, you moron.”

  “Ha-de-ha, ha.” And Mika wonders why I don’t bother with this frack. Realworld, I bite down on my Pro-Bar and wait for the footage to continue.

  The feed pans back and widens, distorting the central image, but allowing me to see both ends of the street. An armoured Kenwood electric truck, covered in sheets of carbon fibre and steel, stops at the opposite end to the Jeep. A dozen or so rifle-wielding troops in yellow and black Sol-Corp uniform spew out onto the street, whilst another soldier clambers up to the artillery turret mounted on the roof. To me, they resemble Star Wars stormtroopers disguised as wasps.

  “Facing overwhelming odds,” Dub@i0r@al3 continues, “MOSSAD backup arrives.”

  “Overwhelming?” I spit, “Ten versus four? This is not some war or…”

  I stop talking as a second Jeep, my Jeep, pulls up behind the first at the opposite end of the street to the wasp army. The passenger door opens, and a tall, dark woman with a wild mass of greying hair steps out. Musa! She’s wearing dark green combat trousers, black army boots and a black military-style jacket. The barrel of a gun pokes up over her shoulder, and a twin holster with silver sidearms hangs from her waist. She moves to the rear doors, and after a short conversation, helps someone from the back.

  I recognise myself from my own cameras, but I’m not used to seeing myself wearing the visor-aviators. “Pause stream,” I command the system. Musa is far taller than me, maybe ten centimetres or more, and broader too. Compared to her, the parts of my skin I can see are deathly pale, almost ghostlike. Even at this distance I can see the tumble of auburn hair falling down my back, clasped in a messy ponytail. “Resume stream.”

  Our images move away from the Jeep and along the deserted street towards the camera. As we get closer to the terminal, Musa becomes more animated, as though looking around for signs of a trap. We reach the side of the terminal, where Celal shakes my hand. He bends down and opens his case.

  Then the shooting starts, and hell is unleashed around us.

  The first casualty is the soldier on the gun turret of the truck. A bullet, which could only have been fired from a high calibre sniper rifle, takes him cleanly in the throat. It penetrates the tiny gap between the bottom of his helmet and the top of the artillery guard panel. Even as he falls, two Sol-Corp security guards—both almost as bulky and imposing as Mika—rush out of the terminal. They exchange brief words with Musa, then steer her back into the building and out of sight. The exact moment they disappear, another man drops to the ground courtesy of the sniper.

  The third casualty is Celal. He lifts his case to protect his head, but a line of bullets from a sub-machine gun sprays his body, showering his chest and smashing through his case before pummelling into his head. He drops to the floor, the contents of the case falling to the ground around him. Among the cables, tools and small circuits are the remnants of shattered glasses, the lenses punctured by two bullet holes.

  “My visor…” I whisper. The camera pans back to show the continuing battle, but I can’t turn away from the horror as I watch Celal, and my dream, both die in a growing pool of blood. The last thing I see is the soldier hoisting me over his shoulder and carrying me away.

  “Neither MOSSAD nor Sol-Corp confirmed the identity of the target. So far, no groups are willing to claim responsibility for the victim’s abduction. The whereabouts of the terrorist group, and their target, remain unknown.”

  The feed ends with an indicator bleep, then returns on loop to the beginning. The image shrinks and jumps to the top row of mini-screens, joining the latest propaganda stories available on today’s feeds. I’m oblivious though, because any hope I had of contacting Celal, or getting my new visor, died with him. I slump in my chair, bleak.

  My door buzzer makes me jump, dragging me from my stupor. “Door command: Intercom,” I state grumpily. “Who is it?”

  “Denver.”

  Why would he be buzzing, he knows the access code? I’m not in the right state to chat with him. “Frack off.”

  “Ana, I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, right. Go back to your girlfriend.”

  “Nele’s not… oh forget it, it doesn’t matter. Did you view the entire stream?”

  The whole thing played, but the end is a blur. It’s irrelevant because I’m not getting a new visor. Unsure what to say to Denver, I decide to ignore him.

  “Ana. Ana?” Denver starts to press the access code.

  “Door command: Lock,” I blurt out.

  “Argh!” His thumps on the door are amplified in the confined space. Denver shouts but the door muffles his voice, and I can’t make out any words through his stammering anger. After a minute or so he gives in, and I’m once again left to fret in silence.

  Mika tells me I’m like a cat, and in a typical feline response, I can’t resist wondering what Denver meant. The broadcast is still replaying on the movie screen, so I swipe it back to the main screen and slide the bar to the last thirty seconds, to the moment before Celal falls. Like re-watching a film, I know the ending and the memory clutches at my insides like a fist squeezing a lemon.

  As Celal drops, a cannister of combat gas rolls in from the side. Sol-Corp troops move in, shooting back up the street towards the Jeeps. Someone returns fire. I can’t see who, but it’s most probably one of Musa’s mercs. One of the Sol-Corp soldiers reaches me just as I start to cough from the gas. He drags me up and flips me over his shoulder, other soldiers forming up around him to protect his retreat. I scan the screen to locate Musa, but she’s nowhere in view. “Rewind stream ten seconds.”

  Celal starts to fall again, but this time I focus on Musa. She says something to me, but on screen I’m curled up on the ground and not listening. Musa shouts towards the approaching Sol-Corp troops. They reach her, grab an arm each, and drag her to the safety of the terminal. The other wasps continue forwards, shooting at Celal’s cowering assistant as they close in. He somehow manages to evade the automatic gunfire and escapes into the terminal building. The largest wasp reaches down and hoists me into the air. He charges towards their truck, not hampered in the slightest by my wriggling and squirming weight, but we make it less than twenty metres before his left leg gives out and he drops to the ground, pinning me beneath him.

  From the far end of the street, a team of four emerges from between the two Jeeps. They’re all wearing black and grey urban military fatigues, three men and a woman. The woman is short, squat even, with an oversized sniper rifle strapped to her back. They move with practised and familiar precision. The leader orders the largest
man to pick me up, while the rest defend. He pushes something over my mouth, and they retreat down the street, leaving a scattergram of dead and injured behind them.

  Something doesn’t feel right, but I can’t figure out what it is.

  Why would Musa abandon me there? Who would want Celal dead? Why would anyone want to stop me getting my visor?

  None of these questions make any sense to me, but in my current bewilderment, I’m unable to process anything useful. After watching the stream twice more, I give up, and head to the roof of my apartment. I arrive on the Governor’s Island teleport before I think about where I’m going, and take up my usual spot gazing at Liberty. She stands serene, as always, her torch glowing with the green flame that is supposed to give us all hope.

  The island is often deserted, which is the primary reason I come here to gaze upon the reassuring green light. Tonight though, I hear a noise to my left and realise that I’m not alone.

  I stand and walk towards the din coming from the edge of the island that overlooks the statue. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people line the path and the grassy bank behind it. Most are dressed alike in purple or blue robes edged with yellow, although there are a fair number of normal people too (normal in the sense that they’re not part of the Church of G.O’D.). A preacher, identified by her shimmering gold and blue tunic and purple pointed hat (resembling a technicolour chess piece), stands on a platform at the front. The dais is adorned with Church of G.O’D. purple and gold cloth banners, with an altar standing at its centre. She’s droning on relentlessly about The End, about saving souls and whatever else COGOD people claim the Church can and shall do.

  I glance to the side and recognise my nemesis DiscipleShuzo talking to other Disciples. One, a short female called Zhong, is without a doubt the most brutal and deranged individual I’ve ever had the displeasure of battling against in the Arenas (she’s worse even than Shuzo, who’s cruelty is more clinical than his unstable friend Zhong). Shuzo’s avatar stands at just over one-sixty-five, with a solid, lean muscular frame. Unlike most of the COGOD avatars, he wears his native full parade dress uniform of a Japanese General. A pair of mirrored Ray-bans hide his eyes, and an M82 is strapped to his back (which is about as much use as a chocolate teapot outside of the Arenas in Sol). Standing beside them is a man dressed in what I can only describe as a grey bed-sheet that drapes all the way down to his feet, with comical looking oval holes cut for eyes (he resembles a woeful attempt at a Halloween ghost). I turn and run back to my apartment, the spark of an idea forming in my mind. The ‘ghost’ is a leader in the Umbra corporation, the same corporation that supplies free Sol access. Free access, and free visors.

  The spectre has given me the ghost of a plan. This time I do smile at my own pun.

  Monday, Halley 22nd, 2044

  7 days before Baktun

  With the return of Sol, version two, Umbra hereby agrees to continue to provide all potential users with one visor, one pair of haptic gloves and continued Sol access, completely gratis and without contractual obligation.

  This will continue until such a time as Sol itself ends, or the Heir declares otherwise.

  Umbra Covenant

  -22-

  From the despair of yesterday, I grasp at a glimmer of hope riding in on the storm of another chilly day. The Ordinance Histories show this city, and those circled around the equator, were once oppressively hot and arid. Now, the weather is more temperate (if you ignore the destructive thundering winds that incessantly drive battering acid rain against the solar roof, that is). Today is a storm-day, and the wind howls above the city like a Haven-sized pack of in-Sim wolves on the hunt. The relentless gusts rattle the panels in their frame, and the whole area resonates like the percussion section of an orchestra. The super-insulated walls of my container cut out most of the din from outside, but I can still hear it.

  I groan after another sleepless night and drag my weary carcass out of bed to start my daily routine. Before my visor flashes for eight, I’ve showered, dressed, and booted up Sol. With my earphones in, the noise from outside fades away and I savour the sanctity of my in-Sim cocoon. According to my messages, Escrow will return my funds from Celal within twenty-four hours of the next daily Sol database update. There are no messages from Musa, and she’s not refunded her part of the transaction either – but if she is working for Sol-Corp, then it comes as no great surprise. Leaving the remaining pile of junk messages to amuse themselves, I call up the Arena schedule and purchase entries in two qualifying Arenas for the Remembrance Bounty Hunter on Thursday. I’m frustrated that I couldn’t afford more because, according to the sponsor pages, the prizes will be something special, something fitting for each of the last ever Festival Arenas. As an additional incentive, the hosts have expanded the number of final entrants to five thousand for each Arena event, including the Invitational on Remembrance Day. The feature event today is the first of two free Mass Rumbles, where anyone can enter (and hundreds of thousands will).

  Mars is a bustle of activity, with the area around the @G-01 central teleport busier than all the others. Private traders stand in front of their stores adorned with celebratory Remembrance Festival decorations, setting their sale prices and coding window displays on graphic HUDs. Unsurprisingly, everything appears to be precisely the same as last year – why would anyone pay for new stuff, especially this year? With a swipe, I pull up the district overlay map. The workshop I need is well away from the busier thoroughfares.

  The @G-07 district of Mars is densely populated with followers moving between COGOD churches and stores. Keeping my anon flag on, I move through the streets, ignoring everyone else. Unlike most areas of Mars, there are no Disciples droning on about O’Drae here. Preaching is reserved for elsewhere; almost everyone in this district is already a member of the cult anyway.

  Last night I spent hours and hours scanning boards and tracing historical messages, and eventually succeeded. From my previous research, I dug out the details of an engineer that I’d previously discounted–a known affiliate of COGOD–and explored deeper. She’s not just any engineer, but one of the original Umbra visor engineers. Apart from my apartment and a few essentials, it cost me almost everything I had left in-Sim to bribe my contacts for information on her. Nyffenegger, a Swiss national, was once a visor tech at Umbra, before she switched to COGOD a decade or more ago. Her bio claims that she’s freelance, but I believe that about as much as I believe that Nele could be my new BFF. In a normal situation, I wouldn’t even consider entering this district of Mars, or dealing with a COGOD follower of any level, even one who claims neutrality. But I’m desperate.

  Nyffenegger’s store is akin to any other small business on Mars, a simple façade with large windows full of gaudy displays promoting her products – in this case unique visors constructed like masks. I pause and peer at the range, which includes humanoid and robot style masks alongside an array of real animals like camels and llamas, extinct creatures such as elephants, and fantastical beasts like dragons and even a phoenix. One entire stand is full of COGOD-coloured purple and gold masks for any fracker who wants to promote their allegiance. All available to purchase and ship, at a price.

  As I move inside, I enter a new level of COGOD orthodoxy. Perhaps Nyffenegger’s allegiance is more fervent than I originally thought?

  “You are early,” declares a clipped central European accent, wavering enough to betray her age.

  Something inside me niggles, and my realworld arm hairs bristle. Denver calls it spidey-sense. Whatever it is, I’m not staying, and turn to leave.

  “No, wait,” she says, stepping out from behind another rack of COGOD masks, each containing their logo of an Earth globe held in a man’s open hands. Seeing so many COGOD divine symbols in one place makes my stomach lurch.

  “This was a mistake…”

  “You sounded desperate from your messages.”

  “I can’t do this,” I state, pulling on the door.

  “It is true. You were correct.”
Her statement halts me mid-stride. “If you are UMET, I made your visor.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Distinct configuration. I did most of the bespoke visor construction after rebirth.” Nyffenegger moves across the room and pulls up her counter-top menus. She’s tall, and slender, with a willowy frame and striking features. Her voice is slightly raspy, like she’s recovering from a bad cough. Nyffenegger swipes twice, and a 3D hologram of a visor spins above the module displaying a complex assortment of cables and optics in vivid colours that remind me of the exterior of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. “This is not yours, but I will have records of it.” Using her long fingers to spin and zoom the image, she focuses on the section of the visor where the arms join the screen. “See these cables here? The green, yellow and orange?”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to sound disinterested. I realise I’m holding my locket, realworld and in-Sim, and release both.

  The holographic wires pulse brighter when she touches them. Each one twists among the viper-nest of cables, boards and connectors. “We need to change them. The ones used in standard visors don’t contain enough wire pairs. We will need to source the soldering compound too.” The visor image rotates again, this time the area on the nose bridge pulses. “This needs to be reconfigured too. Then…” she says, pausing as she taps something on her monitor, “we do something like this. And more adjustments to the internal cabling, and an updated signal to your inner receiver. I’m not showing you those, though.”