NAAN (The Rabanians Book 1) (28 page)

Policemen stood at the barrier and were scanning the ID’s of the people who were leaving. I rushed to stand in the line. A few minutes later I made it up to the barrier. My student ID was scanned and I left the university.

I rushed to my car and pulled onto the belt road to the airport feeling relieved. Half of the mission was completed, although thinking about the interaction with Shor I wasn't sure this half had provided anything value. I pushed that thought aside. I didn't have time to think too much about that though. My goal now was to sneak onto the shuttle and get back to Naan. As I calmed down though, I started to think again about the memory card in my pocket. Shor had offered two possible solutions. I guessed there were so few because I hadn't had answers to his questions. We would need to decide which was the right course and we needed to get it right. With the way things were on Naan there wouldn’t be a second chance.

Only a few cars were on the belt road. Even though I was anxious to get to the airport fast, I did my best to drive the speed limit. The last thing I needed now was to be stopped by a policeman. The communication interface lit up. A woman with a smile on her face appeared on the left side of the windshield.  Her image blinked several times and, although her words were broken, I understood she was asking me to get off the belt road at the next exit and drive to one of the renting agency offices. The map on the front panel changed and a route to the nearest office appeared.

I wasn't surprised to see her. She had appeared several times in the past, asking if I was happy with the car and if I would like an upgrade. I ignored her, but she came back after few minutes and repeated the message. Lines of static broke her image up as if there was a communication problem. I ignored her again. She reappeared a third time immediately after I passed the exit. Suddenly the car stopped responding. My speed dropped off and I steered the car to the side of the road.

My heart started to pump and my thoughts ran. Had they spotted me, or was this just a malfunction? I thought that if they’d spotted me surely they would have sent a small fleet of hovercrafts to detain me. I couldn’t risk trusting reasonable thought right now though. I quickly got out of the car and walked away from it. I headed toward the exit behind me. Some distance away from the exit road, close to the outskirts of the city, were several low buildings.   

I started to run, worrying about how completely exposed I was. I quickly ran out of breath and slowed to a fast walk. I started to wonder what could have given me away. I decided that they probably could map all traffic leaving the university but couldn’t send hovercrafts after each and every car. But they could send Flyeyes, I thought, and started to look around me. Maybe they contacted every vehicle and observed the people's behavior. If so, my behavior could only mean one thing. I went back to running. The road was elevated above its surroundings. The exit road descended gradually towards the surface roads that passed beneath it. Despite the moderate slope my legs and throat started to burn. A taxi came up behind me. I waved it down. When it stopped, I ran towards it, pulled open the door, and collapsed onto the back seat.

“To the airport,” I said breathing heavily.

The driver turned to me.  “The airport is closed,” he said.

“Closed?”

“They canceled all flights,” he continued staring at my sweaty face. “The network is down too,” he continued and sounded worried.

“My car froze up,” I said with a deep breath.

“Rental?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe it's related,” he said. “I don't remember the last time the network crashed, but it’s not a good thing. It could lead to all sorts of accidents.”

“Take me to the city,” I said and he started to drive.

We went under the belt road and turned left onto the entrance ramp that circled back in the opposite direction. The rental car appeared on my left. Two police cars were parked in front of it and the taxi driver gave me a quick look.  He didn't say anything but I had no doubt he suspected I was not as innocent as I was trying to look.

I forced myself to think as the city approached. Had I been spotted?  Had my innocent drive from the university directly to the airport been enough to incriminate me? I thought of the hundreds of people that had left the university and tried to convince myself that them tracing me was impossible. But how many of them driven directly to the airport?

I thought of my hotel. Butu hotel. Clearly I could not go back there. I’d parked the car next to the hotel countless times and if this damn drive from the university turned me in, they’d know who I was and where I was staying. I decided it was time to switch identities, and pulled the credit card in the name of the last false identity from my pocket.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the driver when we reached the tall buildings of the city.

“The shopping center along Third Avenue,” I said.

He nodded, turned left and entered an alley. He crossed it, passed several junctions, then turned left again and stopped outside the shopping center. I paid him with the new card. After he left, I folded the old one several times until it broke in half, and then threw it into the nearest trash can.

I crossed the road and walked for two blocks before I saw a sign with a man in a black cape above a messenger agency. 
Everywhere at any cost
, said the slogan underneath sign. I went inside and the old and mysterious atmosphere captivated me at once. The hall was a bit dark. In the front were two lines of terminals. Beyond them was a small open space. There was a low fence on the other side of the space with a two-way gate. At four small desks, beyond the gate sat agents facing the hall.

One agent had long black hair running down her shoulder. It caught my eye. I sat down at a terminal that hid my face from anyone entering through the door and started to surf. The network was barely moving. All of the information was flowing in slow motion. The events at the university and at the airport were being described as joint security drills. They were reported to be a success.  There were complaints about the fact they are having this drill during the first days of the new academic year, but these answered by a statement saying that the systems needed to be checked and verified during such critical times if the test results were to be accurate. There were no reports about scrambling.  I thought maybe it was too early for that. Maybe they still don’t know what exactly happened. Seragon would need to be creative to manage their investigation without explaining what exactly had happened.

I went over the other reports that were on the network. One described the plans to build a big dam in Amner, another one discussed the changes in the status quo with the Desertians, and another talked about the new elections and about a successful business man named Thesh Manash, who was about to become the hottest man in Mampas politics.

The slow information flow made me think of the agent with the black hair. While I waited for the main page of one of the news channels to load, I shifted my head a bit to look at her face. She didn't look too threatening, nor as aware as I’d heard these agents were supposed to be. I glanced at the entrance door and wondered how fast I could escape If I had to. I didn't really have a plan. I scrolled through the report list when the main page finally appeared.

I thought about the Desertians and their odd accent. I looked back at the report about the changes to status quo between them and the city dwellers. I wondered if this could deflect attention from me. I read the report again just to make sure I was not missing anything, but the discussion about the status quo and the fact that everyone in Butu hotel looked Desertian seemed to fit perfectly with my plans. Anyway that would need to wait. I rose and walked towards the gate and pushed it forward.

Messengers
, like the ones offered in this agency, transferred information across the galaxy with a reliability factor of 1. They were the basic answer to the scrambling disease.
Messenger
agencies were in every civilized city and provided their expensive services only to those who could afford it.  Needless to say I’d never used such an agency and had never met a
messenger
, but I did know they were carefully picked and that only a handful manage to pass through the long and difficult training.

She looked up at me when I stepped through the gate and stood when I walked over to her desk. She pulled her long black hair back to reveal a beautiful, yet agitated face. Her body was slim but she didn't look emaciated.  She bowed a bit and waved to the chair in front of her desk. We both sat, her look was still serious.

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“I would like to hire a
messenger
,” I said hesitantly.

“Where do you want him to go?”

“Naan,” I said.

She looked at the screen in front of her, surfed, and her neck sensor vibrated. “There is a cargo shuttle right now at the airport that is planning to leave today, but there seems to be a major problem with the network and everything is delayed. I could send someone on this shuttle once it is possible.”  The sensor on her neck vibrated again and when it stopped she said, “It will cost extra though.”

“Why?” I asked.

She stared at me as if wondering why I was asking such a question.

“No really, why will it cost me more?” I was more specific.

“It’s a cargo shuttle?” she replied in a questioning tone still staring at me. 

Her look confused me. I didn't understand why that would make it more expensive. Was it because a cargo shuttle was uncomfortable, or more dangerous? I decided to let it go and pulled out the credit card and handed it over.

“Is this your first time purchasing
messenger
services?” she asked.

“Correct,” I said.

“So you probably don't know the rules.”

“There are rules?”

“
Formatting rules. In order for the message to be reliable it needs to include as much personal information as possible so that the receiver will know it came from you.”

“I see,” I said hesitantly. Even with the
messengers
services it seemed nothing was certain.

“So who is the message from and to whom is it addressed?”

I looked away from her, thinking.

“The information is from the Shepherd to Daio Plaser the Shepherd of Naan."

She nodded, “What is the content of the message?”

“The Shepherd is well. The herd arrived, but there were disruptions in the transportation.” I pondered for a moment before adding, “And as agreed, I will not return.”

She paused for a moment and then said in a reciting voice, “The sender is the Shepherd. The address is city of Naan on the planet Naan. The recipient is Daio Plaser the Shepherd of Naan. The message’s content is:  “The Shepherd is well. Stop. The herd arrived, but there were disruptions in the transportation. Stop. And as agreed, I will not return. End.”

She looked at me, “Is that correct?”

I nodded and she charged my card. “How can we reach you?”

“Reach me?”

“To confirm that the message has arrived at its destination. Sometimes recipients send a reply, so we need to know where to send the
messenger
.”

“Ahh… I am a guest here,” I said, "I haven’t even found a hotel,” I added with smile. “Maybe I can contact you?”

“Come back here in few days to verify delivery.”

“I will,” I said and stood up.

She stood as well, and bowed without taking her eyes off me. 
Messenger
agents must be very suspicious people, I thought to myself and nodded to her. 

I walked back to the terminals, sat down at one, and surfed to the report about the new status quo. The network traffic was still heavy and the surfing was slow, but I scrambled my way in and bypassed it all. I blasted through the news channels defenses and entered the head editor’s terminal. I replaced the report about the status quo with a new title: "The Status Quo with the Desertians is in Danger". I rewrote the body of the report. When I was done the text said that the rebels from the desert were responsible for an information scrambling event on an important Seragonian network site. I added that they had used sophisticated scrambling techniques to undermine the relations between Mampas and Seragon. I also wrote that the government of Mampas had been forced to apologize to Seragon. I implied that the actions of the Desertians had undermined their relations with Mampas and had put at risk the status quo.

I ran a text tester to make sure my knowledge of the language did not compromise the reliability of the report and expose my revisions. I backed out of the site carefully making sure to cover my tracks. I looked back at the agent I’d spoken with. She and the other agents all seemed to be busy looking at something. I didn't look where they were surfing. I didn't want to stay there anymore. I only noticed the reliability factor of my report dropped from 0.5 to 0.4. It would go down to 0 in time, but it wouldn’t matter anymore.

I left the
messenger
office and walked the streets of Mampas City for a few hours. When evening fell, I stopped a taxi and asked the driver to take me to the other side of the city. At the edge of the desert I found a nearly deserted motel. I rented a room, took a shower, and ate dinner. In the morning I went back to the city to check the news on the network.