Dark Space: Avilon (52 page)
Read Dark Space: Avilon Online
Authors: Jasper T. Scott
Tags: #Children's Books, #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alien Invasion, #Cyberpunk, #First Contact, #Galactic Empire, #Military, #Space Fleet, #Space Opera, #Children's eBooks, #Metaphysical & Visionary, #Science Fiction
“All right,” she said. “I was looking for pilots for my business. Good ones.”
“Good ones? What—to drive limos?” Ethan asked.
“Not exactly. Your record is one of the best I’ve seen. You fly better half asleep than most people fly when they’re wide awake.”
“What do you need with good pilots?” Ethan insisted.
“That’s my business.”
“So . . . you passed on me.”
“I didn’t pass. I was going to make an offer before you threatened to break my hand.”
Ethan regarded her carefully. “You had no way of knowing I’d be at that bar tonight.”
“No, but if you hadn’t been, I’d have been in your cab tomorrow.”
“All right, what’s the offer?”
“Five fifty per day. No tax.”
“No tax? How do you manage that?”
“Again, that’s my business.”
“What
is
your business?”
The woman laughed. “With 550 a day, what do you care?”
“I care.”
“Let’s talk more about that later. Right now you have a pregnant wife to get to the hospital.”
It wasn’t more than another five minutes before they arrived. The limo stopped right outside the front entrance. Ethan ran past the outer security door, and then waited impatiently for it to close and the inner door to open. From there he rode the lift up to the ninth floor and ran down the hall to 9G. Their apartment door opened to reveal Alara sitting on the kitchen floor, flushed and sweating, and clutching her belly with both hands.
“What took you so long?” she asked, regarding him with tear-stained cheeks and bright violet eyes.
He shook his head and swept her up off the floor. Even pregnant, she didn’t weigh much more than a hundred and fifty pounds. His body still buzzing with Bliss, she felt like only twenty to him.
“I’m here now,” he breathed beside her ear while racing back down the corridor to the lift tubes. The apartment door slid shut automatically behind them and the lights inside turned off. They rode the lift down in silence, except for Alara’s gasping and panting.
Once outside, Ethan helped Alara into the limo and climbed in beside her.
“Boy or girl?” the woman with turquoise eyes asked, looking Alara up and down.
“Girl,” Alara breathed.
Ethan grabbed Alara’s hand in both of his. The door slid shut beside them and the limo raced away. Another contraction came and Alara squeezed Ethan’s hand until her knuckles turned white and his hand began to throb.
“Fre-ek!” she said.
Turquoise Eyes laughed her musical laugh once more and the limo leapt up, rising vertically through the slithering gray mist, past more than a dozen stories of barred windows.
“Where did you get a limo?” Alara asked.
He shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
“From me.” Alara turned, and Turquoise Eyes offered a hand for shaking. “Valari.”
“She offered me a job,” Ethan explained quickly as Valari and his wife shook hands. He could feel the adrenaline seeping away, leaving him cold, but he was still riding high with Bliss. So high, that he could hear two heartbeats besides his own—that of his wife, and his unborn daughter.
“Limousine driver,” Valari clarified.
“I see . . . that’s—
ni—icccce!
” Another contraction left Ethan’s hand aching, and Alara’s back arching with pain. She panted and gasped for air.
“Where are you taking us?” Ethan asked, looking out the window as the gray mist began to dissipate. The limo was still climbing, leaving grasping gray tendrils in its wake.
“Public health care, please,” Alara said.
Valari shook her head. “Absolutely not. Do you know how many mothers die during childbirth in public hospitals? I’ll pay. Consider it a signing bonus for your new job, Ethan.”
Ethan said nothing to that. He still hadn’t figured out what this new job would be, and he was afraid to ask again with Alara present. Valari had been short on details, and the lie she’d told Alara wasn’t likely. There was no way a limo driver made five fifty per day,
tax free
. Ethan’s Bliss-pumped mind raced, trying to come up with ways that he might make that kind of money, but all the answers pointed to drugs and crime. He’d been down that road once before, and he’d sworn he’d never do it again, but now . . .
He wasn’t sure he could afford to say no.
They arrived at the hospital after just another few minutes. Medics were already waiting for them with a hover gurney. Ethan kissed his wife goodbye, told her he’d see her soon, and looked on with wide eyes, wondering how much all of this was going to cost. The medics rushed Alara off to a private room, taking her through sliding glass doors inlaid with sparkling patterns that looked like they were made from diamonds.
Ethan watched until Alara disappeared, and then turned to look around the entrance of the hospital, noticing the crystal pillars, and the shimmering fountains. Bright fans of light lit up an elaborate facade. He turned to Valari. She stood beside him, just beyond the open door of her limousine. “How much is all this going to cost?”
“I told you, you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I don’t like to agree to something before I know what it is,” he replied.
“I see.”
“Well?”
“I don’t think you’ll object to the work.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
Ethan eyed her a moment longer, his eyes blazing into hers, trying to see what malice lay lurking behind the warm, tropical seas he saw sparkling there. His sight enhanced by the dose of Bliss he’d taken, Ethan noticed that her facial muscles were relaxed, not tense as they should have been if she felt any kind of aggression toward him. Valari was genuinely trying to help, but there was something else. She was hiding something. Her left eye was twitching ever-so-slightly with the strain. But by her own admission she was hiding the true nature of the job she was offering him.
“You should be with your wife,” Valari said, interrupting his analysis of her body language. “We can finish our discussion later. I’ll wait.”
He nodded and took off at a run, racing after the medics who’d taken his wife away. He caught up to them in a long, white corridor and took his wife’s hand in his. Hers was cold and clammy. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. “Alara? How are you feeling?”
She smiled up at him. “You sure you want to see this?”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
* * *
In the delivery room, Ethan found more medics and their assistants waiting. The room was full of glowing holo displays and gleaming equipment.
Alara was fitted with a breathing mask and given a shot. The rest of her labor was handled by involuntary stimulation of her muscles and a powerful anesthesia that brought a lazy smile to Alara’s previously contorted face.
Just a few minutes later, Trinity slid out almost effortlessly, smeared with blood and screaming her lungs out. Ethan looked on in awe as the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and the attendants cleaned her up, swaddling her in white robes. They brought her to her mother a moment later, and removed Alara’s oxygen mask. She smiled a sleepy smile as she looked down on their daughter. Ethan alternated stroking Alara’s forehead and his daughter’s tiny, pink cheek. She’d stopped crying already.
“She’s beautiful!” Alara whispered.
Ethan shook his head, feeling a rush of euphoria that had nothing to do with the Bliss that was slowly ebbing from his system. A sudden hope burned fierce and bright inside of him. Despite all the hardship and all the struggles, now he knew why he had to live and what he had to do.
She
was his purpose. He had to protect this little angel and keep her from harm, no matter what.
One of Trinity’s tiny hands appeared from within the blanket, grasping at the air, searching for something solid to grab onto. Ethan stuck out his hand, and she grabbed his thumb, squeezing it until it turned white.
“She’s a strong little thing, isn’t she?”
“Just like her father,” Alara said, smiling brightly up at him.
He smiled back and kissed her forehead. “No,” he whispered. “Like her mother. I love you—both of you.”
“And we love you, Ethan.”
Ethan stood staring at the two of them for long minutes, the time melting away. Then the medics came to push Alara out into another room, and they took Trinity away to get her shots.
That broke the spell, and suddenly Ethan remembered that he’d left Valari waiting at the entrance of the ER. He glanced toward the exit.
“I need to go,” he said. “Valari wanted to talk to me some more about that job offer.”
“How much is she offering?”
“A lot. Maybe half a kilobyte per day.”
Alara’s eyes flew wide. “What are you waiting for? Go! We’ll still be here when you get back. Hurry. Don’t give her time to change her mind.”
“Right.” Ethan nodded and kissed his wife on the lips, and then he turned and raced out of the delivery room ahead of the medics and Alara’s gurney.
He heard them calling after him—something about scrubs—but he didn’t have time to change. He found Valari in the waiting room, reading a holo magazine and sipping a cup of caf. She turned to him with a smile when he appeared standing in front of her, out of breath from running the entire way.
“Well? Good news I hope?”
“They’re both fine,” he said. “Sorry I kept you waiting.”
Valari rose to her feet. “Don’t worry, I understand.”
“You said you wanted to speak to me about that job. . . .”
“Yes, but you’re going to have to trust me. Do you trust me, Ethan?”
“We just met.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“Fine. Yes. Let’s see where that takes us.”
“Good. Wait here,” Valari said.
She walked over to a medic who stood on one side of the waiting room studying a holo chart. They spoke privately for a moment, and then both of them came striding toward him.
“Come with us, Ethan,” Valari said.
“Why?” he asked, his eyes narrowing sharply at that.
“Trust, remember?”
Ethan scowled and followed her and the medic. Serious misgivings were now worming through his gut.
They walked down long white corridors, passing door after door. Finally, they came to one that slid automatically aside for the medic. He waited in the doorway while they walked in. The room was dominated by a chair that looked prepped for dental surgery, except that there was a strange-looking halo above the headrest.
“Please sit down,” the medic indicated.
Ethan hesitated.
“Five fifty a day, Ethan,” Valari said.
“At least give me a hint about the job.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how this works. Sit or don’t sit. There’s plenty of other pilots I can ask to take a leap of faith.”
Ethan grimaced and sat down in the chair. He watched as the medic prepped a syringe for him, tapping the air out of it.
“What’s that for?”
“Shhh.” Valari shook her head. “No questions.”
The medic injected him with the syringe and Ethan felt his eyelids droop. Soon he was watching the world around him through blurry eyes, and then . . .
The next thing he knew he was sitting up in the chair, looking around the room. The medic was gone, and Valari sat beside him on a stool, smiling.
“What did you do to me?”
“I de-linked you. Omnius will never be able to watch you again, Ethan.”
“I thought I was already de-linked.”
“We’ve been over this, Ethan. Omnius wouldn’t willingly give up control. Not when doing so could endanger his precious little paradise. We disabled your Lifelink permanently.”
“You didn’t have to knock me out for that,” Ethan said. “You could have just told me. I wouldn’t have objected.”
“I know. After our talk at the bar, I knew you wouldn’t mind, but if I’d told you, Omnius might have heard, too. The Resistance has to be careful, Ethan.”
“The Resistance . . . ?” he turned to her with wide, blinking green eyes.
Valari smiled and nodded slowly. “That’s right.”
“You’re recruiting pilots to fight Omnius.”
“Two for two.”
“Where do I sign up?”
Valari laughed her musical laugh once more. “You just did! Welcome to the Resistance, Ethan. I’m Admiral Vee.”
Epilogue
T
he woman the Resistance knew as Admiral Vee descended from the main floor of the hospital to the parking level. Her driver and limousine were waiting right outside the door. The rearmost door slid
open. Beige synthahide seats sighed as she climbed in, and her driver lowered the tinted privacy window between the front and back of the car so they could talk.
“Where to now, Ma’am?”
“My penthouse. We have some unfinished business to discuss.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The ride was a short one. Valari watched as her driver raced down an invisible street, straight into a vertically rising stream of hover cars. They rose all the way up to level 45, and from there cruised down an empty street that lay just five levels below the shimmering blue shield separating the Null Zone from Etheria. Valari could see Thardris Tower in the distance—black, glossy bactcrete walls gleamed with rows of dark, red-tinted windows. The top three levels of that tower were all hers—a mansion in the sky, looking down on the chaotic mess that was the Null Zone.
She had chosen to be down here, to live among the dregs of Avilon, but that didn’t mean she had to live in squalor with them.
The limo cruised toward the shimmering blue opening of her private garage on level 47. The shields deactivated and they slid inside a spacious room, built for up to ten cars. The majority of them were hover racers, with sleek, streamlined profiles and room for only one or two people. They were the fastest and most maneuverable hover cars allowed in the Null Zone—death traps for all but the best of pilots.
Valari stepped out of the limo and into her hangar. She walked down the row of parked racers, skimming her hand over the gleaming hulls as she passed by. She stopped beside one in particular, a glossy black racer with a blue-tinted canopy and room for just one passenger—the pilot. This one was built for courier work.
The limo driver walked up beside her and stood admiring the car. Valari took a moment to admire
him
. He was unusually handsome—thick brown hair, bright golden eyes, a gaunt, sharply-angled face that looked both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.
“This is what you’ll be flying from now on.” she said. “The
Black Dagger
is the fastest hover I own. You’ll be using it to make your deliveries.”
The driver nodded agreeably, and replied with a voice that sounded like the wind sighing through creaking stands of emeraldine trees on a brisk summer’s eve. “What am I delivering?”
He looked up at her with those piercing golden eyes, and once again Valari found herself staring. This man was almost too handsome, but Valari knew that had been part of his request, and that was why he was here now, working for her.
“Bliss,” Valari replied.
The driver hesitated at that. “My job is to deliver the drug that is the
cause
of most of the problems in the Null Zone. Don’t you think that’s evil?”
Valari smiled. “The Null Zone exists to prove a point,
Atton
.”
“What point?”
“That freedom is dangerous and the result is chaos. Illegal drugs and the criminal organizations behind them are a part of any free society. The difference with Bliss is that it’s the drug to end all drugs, and only Omnius can make it. That means that the supply is completely controllable, and so is the drug itself.”
“So dry it up. Stop supplying Bliss, and the crime will go away. No more crime lords and no more Psychos.”
“You and I both know that the problem isn’t supply, it’s demand. The demand is what drives the development of drugs in the first place, and that demand has its roots deep inside the human psyche. People want to do things that are self-destructive and harmful. Getting rid of Bliss won’t solve anything. A dozen other stims would spring up overnight to replace it, and none of those would be as easy to control. Bliss is a good thing because it’s a disease that affects only the rich—poor people can’t afford to buy it. The ones who are riding high and living the good life in the Null Zone are brought down and humbled. It’s the perfect equalizer.”
Atton slowly shook his head, still looking horrified. “I’m not delivering it.”
“You want your girlfriend to know who you are?”
Atton gave her a sharp look, his piercing golden eyes narrowed and blazing with hateful intensity.
“You chose this. Don’t forget that. You said you’d do
anything.
Remember?”
“This is evil. You’re evil, and so is Omnius. You don’t leave the Null Zone to be free for those who value freedom, you
make
it a Netherworld in order to punish anyone who doesn’t want Omnius controlling their lives.”
“The real evil is in the human heart, Atton, and that evil can only be fought by controlling it. You know what Etheria is like. If Omnius were evil, wouldn’t his rules in the Uppers be more libertarian, and more permissive of selfish and destructive behaviors? Instead, his rules keep people working together for the common good rather than individual gain.”
“You didn’t have to tell me. You could have told me I was delivering something else and kept all of this
krak
to yourself.”
“Yes, because delivering packages with unknown contents to crime lords wouldn’t make you suspicious. No, it’s easier this way. If I level with you up front, you won’t be shocked by the discovery later and try to turn on me.”
“And my father? Did you level with him, too?”
Valari laughed. “If I’d told him that the Resistance he joined is also the one and only supplier of Bliss, he would never work for us! Your father went to jail for stim-running. Even if he didn’t have to be one of the runners, he’d never join us.”
“I can’t believe Omnius is behind all of it. Bliss, the Resistance . . .”
Valari cocked her head to one side. “What’s so hard to believe about that?”
“He’s lying to a lot of people, and giving them the tools to fight each other and destroy themselves.”
“Lying is a necessary evil. You lie to yourself all the time, to protect yourself from certain truths. Omnius does the same thing to protect us from ourselves. As for giving us the tools to fight ourselves, no, he’s watching and controlling the fight to prevent any real harm from being done.”
“That doesn’t worry you? Don’t you think he could be hiding even more serious things than the ones he’s already told you about?”
“When you become a Celestial, Atton, nothing is hidden from you anymore. You’ve allowed Omnius to become such an integral part of your life that you begin to think as he does. All the pieces snap into place and his actions make perfect sense. The freedom to make mistakes is the cause of human suffering, therefore, any action which limits that freedom and the number of free-acting agents in the world is an action that ultimately limits human suffering.”
“The ends justify the means.”
“If you had to kill one person to save a thousand, wouldn’t you do it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know why Omnius told me to tell you the truth. You are already beginning to think as he does.”
Atton frowned.
Admiral Vee went on, “The greater good, Atton! That is what Avilon is all about, even in the Null Zone. People are given enough freedom to make them happy, but not enough to make them dangerous.” Valari smiled and walked up to Atton. He was gazing at his feet now, his brow furrowed with worry lines. She lifted his chin and stared into those beautiful golden eyes. “One day, Omnius will tell you everything, Atton. You won’t even have to ask. You already have the same pragmatic understanding of right and wrong that any Celestial does—the merit of an action is determined by its consequences. Even if the action seems wrong, it can do a lot of good. This is something that most people cannot wrap their heads around, but you can.”
“Except that it’s impossible for us to see far-reaching consequences and decide whether an action is in fact the
best
choice in terms of the greater good.”
“Which is why we have Omnius, to see all of the alternatives and their consequences before any choices have even been made. Every night when we
Sync
with Omnius, he determines two outcomes for the day to come—how each of us
should
behave, and how each of us
will
behave. The latter is used to make predictions, while the former is used to benchmark our progress as a species. The ultimate goal is for the
should
and
will
to coincide. When that happens, you are in complete agreement with Omnius and you no longer try to exercise your freedom against the common good and
his
will. At that point you will have ascended to the theoretical pinnacle of perfection.”
“How far have you ascended?” Atton asked.
Valari just smiled and shook her head. “Let’s focus on you for now.”
“You must have done something to deserve being sent down here,” Atton pressed.
“Yes, I did. I asked to go. My father rules the Uppers, while I rule the Null Zone.”
“Vladin Thardris is your father? The Grand Overseer of Avilon?” Atton gaped at her.
Valari laughed and turned to gesture to the vast, echoing hangar where they stood. “You should have guessed that much by now, Atton. Where are we? My penthouse is in the top three levels of Thardris Tower in the Null Zone.”
Atton looked unhappy. “So there is no freedom in Avilon,” he said at last. “Celestials rule both the Uppers and the Lowers, and Omnius is in complete control of both.”
“Controlled chaos is the only kind of chaos worth having. You didn’t really think Omnius would allow the Nulls to rage around beneath Etheria and Celesta, plotting his destruction and the unraveling of his entire life’s work? Now, enough talk, you can argue the rightness and wrongness of it all later.”
“Hold on, Miss . . .
Thardris
. There’s something I still don’t understand. When I came to Avilon, the Sythians had found a way past the gravity fields. The fleet was disabled when they arrived, supposedly because of a rebel plot to corrupt the Lifelink databases and kill all of the immortals. Omnius had to shut down to thwart the rebels, and in doing so, he shut down Avilon’s defenses. The Sythians laid waste to the fleet and then to a large part of Celesta. Millions must have died in that attack. If you’re telling me that Omnius is behind the Resistance, then . . .” Atton shook his head.
Valari smiled. “Go on, take that line of reasoning to its conclusion, Atton.”
“There was no rebel plot. Omnius allowed the Sythians in; he allowed his fleet to be destroyed, and he allowed Celesta to be attacked.”
“He also allowed the fleet to be destroyed in Dark Space.” Valari watched as the blood drained from Atton’s face. His eyes grew big and round.
“Why?”
“Because the Peacekeepers are almost exclusively Etherians, Atton, resurrected from a war that they lost. No one would have been satisfied with leaving that war to drones. Not immediately, anyway. They had to be shown how futile and bloody their conventional war effort was before they could accept a solution like self-replicating nanites delivered by drones. Now go. We can talk more about this later.” Valari nodded to the cockpit of the racer they were standing beside. “Your destination is already set in the nav, and the cargo is loaded in the back.” She held out the ignition stick to him, and he accepted it with a cold, clammy hand.
Valari watched him go. He opened the cockpit with a
hiss
of escaping air and jumped inside. Moments later the cockpit slid shut and the racer
hummed
to life. There came a sudden
whoosh
of air as it hovered up a meter into the air and slowly rotated toward the shimmering blue shield that covered the opening of the garage. Atton sped away, the low
hum
of the racer’s grav lifts quickly rising to a high-pitched squeal as he gunned the throttle. The shield automatically deactivated just an instant before his hover car would have collided with it in a messy explosion.
Valari shook her head and sighed. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Omnius.”
The air shimmered brightly beside her, catching her eye. Valari turned to see the man she called her father de-cloaking beside her. He’d watched and heard the entire exchange. His sharp, angular features were vaguely reminiscent of Atton’s, but his brightly
flickering
silver eyes were a far cry from Atton’s warm, golden ones. These eyes hinted at a frightening and inscrutable power, one that seemed barely contained by the physical body of Vladin Thardris.
“My child, surely by now you know to trust me.”
“Yes, Father, I do.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I don’t see why we should tell him so much. We may as well have told him everything. He must already suspect it.”
“He does,” her father confirmed, nodding sagely.
“Then he’ll turn against us.”
“No, he’ll
join
us.”
Valari regarded her father with a quizzical expression. “Even after he realizes that
you
created the Sythians.”