Code Breakers: Beta (29 page)

Chapter 43

Petal woke with a start, her arms thrusting out before her to steady herself. Her heart raced until she looked out of the shuttle’s window and saw she had arrived at her location. The shuttle had landed a few metres from the very spot she had programmed.

A buggy parked next to a group of stones told her that they were still here: the ronin who had made the bunker beneath the ground their temporary base. She wondered if they knew the war was over. With Elliot’s mind trapped inside Omega, they must have realised something was up, no longer fettered to Elliot’s influence via their chips.

There was no indication of any network traffic out here; the only nodes detectable were the shuttle’s computer and the server within the bunker. Still, Petal wasn’t taking any chances. She exited the shuttle and grabbed her pack with the plasma torch and also a fully loaded rifle, which she had kept after the fight at Cemprom.

She walked through the large rocks until she came to the circular metal hatch leading down to the bunker. When she had left before, Gabe had done something to the underside, preventing her from getting in. Although a number of ronin had left and followed her to Xian’s place, it was still inaccessible. She tugged at it, but it wouldn’t budge.

She placed the rifle to one side and took the plasma torch from her pack. Putting her goggles in place, she fired up the torch and got to work burning through the hinges.

Twenty minutes later, she breached the thick steel hinges. Steam and smoke rose up from the scar in the metal. She turned off the torch, putting it to one side and, wrapping the sleeves of her leather jacket over her hands, pulled on the hatch’s handle.

With considerable effort, it opened. The stench of blood washed over her as she removed her goggles and stared down into the dark hole.

No noise came to her ears. She expected at least some resistance from the ronin inside—unless they’d left the place behind, but then the fact their transport was still here didn’t make sense. Taking the rifle and an OLED flashlight from her pack, she descended the ladder, aiming the rifle down to her side in case anyone came at her from the corridor.

Each time she stepped down a rung and the dull noise rang out, she expected a flurry of noise or movement. Her nerves were stretched taut, and she had to concentrate not to let off a premature shot from the rifle. The silence wrapped around her, making even her breathing seem too loud.

She reached the bottom of the ladder, her boots making a sloshing sound as she stepped into a pool of blood. Footsteps, glistening beneath her flashlight, stretched off in a mad melee down the narrow tunnel. Before she reached the end, she stopped as she kicked a dark shape on the floor. Her foot struck something meaty.

A man in desert robes lay face down, a chunk missing from the back of his skull. Shining the flashlight further down, she saw more bodies lying like rocks in a pool. To either side of her two doors hung open. A small nondescript storage room lay beyond the left door, another two bodies slumped against a cupboard unit. To her right she saw another hallway curve away into darkness.

Stepping over the body, she followed the corridor, its stone walls spotted with blood at various points. Four more bodies cluttered the floor, all showing various states of dismemberment. Each one making her heart stop as she checked the identity, convinced that at any moment she would see Gabe’s face staring back at her with dead, accusing eyes. It’s not my fault, she thought. I had no choice.

After the curve she came to a room with an operating table fixed to the floor by old, rusted bolts. Or at least she thought it was rust. The same orange-brown rot climbed the legs of the steel table and spotted its edges.

The place stank: stale and coppery, with a hint of fetid sweetness.

As she swung the flashlight around the room, she saw a rack attached to a wall upon which hung a number of cutting devices.

The sight made her gag.

She didn’t want to see anymore; she’d seen too much.

Something caught her eye as she was about to turn and leave.

Under the sweeping light, she spotted the book Gabe had given to her before she left the bunker. It was now on the floor in the corner of the room. A hand gripped it.

Tracing the light up the wrist, the arm, and the body, she saw Gabe slumped in the corner, his head resting against the wall. His other arm was outstretched, gripping the shoulder of another man. Together they huddled, still.

Her heart leaped, and her feet became rooted to the floor. The sight of Gabe, unmoving, became the rusted bolts pinning her in place. The rot of fear crawled up her legs and chest to grip her throat, squeezing tight so her voice became nothing more than a pained whisper.

“Gabe? Can you hear me?”

Of course he couldn’t. She could barely hear her own voice.

A few reluctant heartbeats later, she willed herself to move, rounding the table, stepping across the sticky floor with trepidation, as if her steps would somehow wake the dead around her, like she was some kind of unwanted infiltrator in a crypt.

She reached out a hand, splitting the beam of light, and grabbed Gabe’s elbow. The book fell to the floor with a wet thud; the cover opened along the damaged spine. One by one the pages flickered out like a fan. In the middle, a picture of a woman marked a particular page. Petal leaned in, her face inches from his. She brought her lips a hair’s breadth from his ear, whispering, “I’m here, Gabe. It’s me, Petal.”

A hand grabbed her shoulder from behind, pulling her back with surprising strength. She dropped the flashlight. It clattered and spun, sending a swirl of white light around the room. Petal spun as a second hand reached out, clutching at her throat, squeezing. In the darkness, she could just make out the face of a dark-skinned man with wide, bulging eyes. His lips snarled, revealing broken teeth and bleeding gums. The wounds looked glossy, fresh.

She tried to speak, but the man’s grip was strong, unrelenting. So much fury distorted her attacker’s face that for a moment she thought she recognised him. He looked like... an older...

“Stop,” a voice said, thick and slurred as if the speaker were drunk.

Gabe’s body lurched and knocked her to one side, his arms pushing the other person back.

“She’s with me,” Gabe added. “Stop.”

Petal didn’t want to fight back; there was something familiar about this man. He stood on unsteady legs a couple of metres away. Gabe stood between them, holding his arm out, gripping the man’s shoulder.

“Gabe, are you okay?” Petal asked. Now that Gabe had moved out of the shadows, she could see the state of his body. Naked from the waist up, a network of cuts scored a tale of violence deep into his skin. The wounds had clotted, leaving dark patches.

He just nodded slowly; his eyes were clutched tightly together as he grimaced. He let go of the other man, who similarly wore a matrix of wounds on his body. Gabe waved her closer.

She placed her arm around his shoulder, avoiding the worst of the wounds. Tears welled up and ran down her cheeks to drip onto his body. “What did they do?” It was obvious, but it was all she could say. “Why, Gabe?”

He pulled her in closer, bringing her head into the crook of his neck as he hugged her tight.

She wept with empathetic pain, letting her sobs sink into his body.

“I’m sorry,” she said into him, her words distorted.

Gabe just squeezed her. They stayed like that for what seemed like a lifetime until Petal felt a hand rub her back. A deep voice said, “It’s okay, girl. You came back.”

Easing his grip on her, Gabe let Petal move away and turn round and then spoke, his voice cracked with agony. “Petal, I want ya to meet... my dad. Dad, this is my friend... my saviour.”

The resemblance was obvious now as the man hunched over her smiled again. He looked just like Gabe. Clones of the natural kind. Gabe was definitely his father’s son.

“Thank you,” Gabe’s dad said. He held out a hand for Petal to shake. It felt so terribly formal in such a situation, but she took it anyway. He covered the back of her hand with his other, clasping her with warmth and what? Gratitude? “You can call me Ezra.”

“I told ya she’d be back, ol’ man,” Gabe said, smiling his father’s smile. “She always comes back.”

“Why?” Petal said, turning back to Gabe. “Why did you lock me out?”

“Someone had to get to Xian’s. Ya were the only hope... Did it work?”

“Oh, man,” Petal said, shaking her head. “Have I got a story for you two. Let’s get you out of here first, get you both fixed up.”

***

Gabe and Ezra sat in the back of the shuttle, foil blankets wrapped around their battered bodies. She’d administered a ’Stem shot for each, and the effects were kicking in as they snoozed quietly.

While she attended to their wounds, Gabe had filled her in on the fight against the ronin after she had left, and how his father and two of his tribe had got free and aided in the battle. Sadly, the two others perished. She still couldn’t believe that Ezra was there all the time she and Gabe were there, just a few doors away. When asked about his mother, Miriam, Gabe mentioned that she, along with three other women from the tribe, had escaped when the ronin had first found them hiding out in the bunker. The rest had perished as had been shown on Natalya’s video.

As the shuttle’s autopilot system flew them toward the coast, Petal relaxed and thought about what they would do next. It would take Gabe and Ezra time to heal from their wounds; a single shot of ’Stem each wouldn’t be enough. They would have to do it the old-fashioned way: rest and time.

Her own pain, the ache in her head, had dissipated, thankfully. She felt as clear-headed as she had for weeks. With Elliot trapped within Omega and the Family making their new home on their Mars colony, it seemed Libertas, and those within its vicinity, had a chance of rebuilding their lives in their own way.

Petal knew she would never go back now. Too much had happened. She no longer wanted to get involved with the place. Besides, she realised something during all the drama: who her real family were, who she could rely on, who was there for her when it mattered. Gabe.

She agreed to help find Miriam and the other lost members of the tribe. Ezra had an idea of the route they may have taken after they escaped the bunker. It wasn’t as if there were many options out here in the abandoned lands. With Xian’s place now burned and wrecked, there were just a handful of bunkers and towns they could have occupied before reaching the coast, and given the gang trouble back in Hong Kong, it was unlikely they’d have returned there.

That was the future, though; for now she still had one more task to complete.

She waited until the shuttle had taken them out over the Sea of Japan. When all around her the blue of the sea stretched as far as she could see, she activated the VTOL engines to hover in place, a kilometre above the sea.

It was a bright, cloudless afternoon, little wind. The sea was calm beneath them. She moved into the back of the shuttle, moving slowly so as not to wake Gabe and Ezra, but Gabe stirred as she passed into the storage behind the passenger compartment.

“What’s goin’ on?” Gabe said, stretching his arms and battling a deep yawn.

“Finishing it all for good.”

Petal attached a safety line to a clip on her belt and reached forward to push a button on the hull of the shuttle. The rear door hissed before lowering until it was horizontal. She hefted Omega from its secure position and walked out across the door until she stood near the edge. She looked below, watching the calm surface of the sea ripple.

“Time to make some waves,” she whispered to herself before adding, “I’m sorry, Gerry; I love you.” She dropped the server over the edge and watched as it spun over itself during the fall, the glossy case reflecting the sunlight. She squinted against the dazzling reflection and realised she was holding her breath as if it were she that were falling, about to hit the surface...

With a silent splash, the server hit the water and sank into the sea. A spray of white water rained around the circular waves that rippled out from the crash point. At the same time, she felt, and saw, a tentacular stream of data lash out at her in her mind. She fell forward with the force, overbalancing, her arms pinwheeling in an effort to grip an imaginary rail.

Her belt came loose, the safety line falling behind her, her world shifted, and she faced the sea below, the momentum tipping her body toward the edge.

She let out a scream, thrust out her arms, and groped for something, anything.

Falling, screaming, the spirit of Elliot somehow trying to get into her mind.

Her descent halted; a hand gripped her wrist, pulling her back from the edge.

She hit the deck, spun on her back, and saw Gabe standing over her, holding her arms. Her vision cut off as her internal systems kicked in. For a moment she thought she had logged into Omega; a crudely imaged interface of the desert stretched out before her. She felt like she was falling again as the desert rushed up toward her. On the horizon, a dark twister gathered, but it was shrinking as she continued to fall.

When she hit the metaphorical ground, she looked up as a shadow covered her.

Gerry was smiling, his hands open and held out to her. He lifted her to her feet.

“What the? What’s happening?”

Gerry didn’t speak, the avatar not able to provide sound, but outside of the system, deep in her consciousness, she knew the words to be, “I’m here, Petal. It’ll be okay.”

With that, the image broke away, disconnecting her systems. She was back in the real world again, hugging Gabe as the rear of the shuttle’s bay closed. She watched through the shrinking gap, thinking of the server as it sank to the sea floor, Gerry and Elliot locked in an eternal battle within its drives. But she knew that it was just a single iteration of Gerry. When he had split apart, fragmented, he’d made copies of himself, and the fragment inside her had stayed behind, protecting her from Elliot’s last-ditch attack.

A wide grin stretched across her face.

“What’s so funny, girl?” Gabe asked.