Wiped (14 page)

T
he air hit
me in a rush.
Buffeting the flight-suit, jerking my arms taut, sucking the breath out of my lungs. My knuckles froze around the butt of the laser gun, as streaks of bright red light criss-crossed the dark sky. The sound of wind hurtling past my ears made it difficult to decipher sounds, but I swore I heard more than one Cardinal cry out.

I didn’t change the trajectory of my flight. I didn’t look over my shoulder. I kept my eyes glued to a point in the distance, between two tall buildings, and devoid of u-Pol flashing lights. It didn’t mean it would be completely free of danger, but it was the best I’d been able to do in the short amount of time provided.

The ground zoomed towards me; I knew I was coming in too hot. I arched my back, spread my arms to an excruciating angle, then lifted my feet as the ground rushed up and the wind whistled and streaks of dark buildings flashed by.

My boots hit concrete, then I was rolling, displacing as much of the impact as I could, before I came to rest several metres away, face first in a filthy gutter. It took more than a second for me to suck in a breath of air.

I rolled over onto my back immediately, feeling every bruise, every ache, and thankfully not finding anything broken. Then patted around for my laser gun. Trent landing a few metres away had me on my feet, and running towards him, forgetting the misplaced gun in favour of making sure he was all right.

I think he’d managed a better landing than me. And he still held his laser gun.

“OK?” he said, but he did seem a little disoriented. He staggered to his feet, lost his balance, took a step, and landed on his butt. Still holding that bloody laser gun.

Where was mine?

“Fine,” I said. “You sure
you
are?”

“Good. I’m good.”

I nodded my head, not believing him. He might have aced that landing, but flying off a tall building in nothing but a shiny lyrca/nylon flight-suit had rattled his brain and screwed with his mind. I’d always had a sneaky suspicion that Trent feared heights.

I snorted. Then heard voices.

“We’ve got to move.”

“Keep moving,” Trent replied. Not his usual conversational skills, but it would have to do for now. He didn’t look injured, just scrambled. Plus he had held onto his laser gun and was at least armed.

I glanced around the alley we were on, trying futilely to find my gun, but coming up blank.

“Damn it!” I muttered, grabbing Trent’s arm and hauling him off down the street, away from the voices and into the shadows.

A group of four Uripeans walked past, talking in rapid Teiamanisch, gesticulating wildly, their voices low and urgent; scared. I watched them, as Trent shook his head slowly from side to side, as if to dislodge water from his ears. Thankfully not making a sound.

They were marked. Like I was marked. Their sleeves short, exposing barcodes on their forearms. But it was more than that. The barcode stood out, only because it was isolated. Bare skin, at least five centimetre’s worth around the rectangle that identified them as belonging to Urip.

But that was the only part that was bare. The rest of them, almost all of them that I could see, was covered in black art. Skin art, Simon had called it. Permanent artwork inked into their skin. Some of it was words in Teiamanisch. Words that meant nothing to me. But some of it was made up of symbols. Signs. Equally as baffling apart from one thing. Crosses. Exes, one after the other, as if a tally. As if recording a score, and when it reached a certain number, a strange symbol was drawn.

In red.

I didn’t like that red. Every other tattoo had been black. The red stood out, as though it was meant to. As though it shouted. Look here! See this!

I watched as one of the Uripeans reached up and scratched at a red mark. His lips pressed in a thin line, his eyes narrowed, his face turned down. After a few swipes with his nails, he rested his hand over the red mark. Hiding it from sight.

Then his hand fisted and he drew it away.

The red marks were warnings. Punishments for committing a crime. Each time they transgressed, they received a black cross. When they reached a certain number, the exes were punctuated by the red mark.

Visible. Noticeable. Impossible to hide. They covered their faces. All down their necks and into the top of their freak-suits. Their sleeves were short. Very short. Exposing as much of their arms as possible. The u-Pol officers hadn’t had these extra tattoos or red marks. They’d also had long sleeves like us. Like Mikhail.

We’d based our clothes on his, in order to fit in. We’d unwittingly dressed ourselves as Elite. As the Füri.

Trent had stopped shaking his head, and was standing mutely beside me in the shadows, watching the Uripeans hustle by. His face was neutral, from what I could see in the low light. But his eyes blazed with outrage.

And then we heard it. Three words muttered defiantly. Immediately frowned upon by his companions. Something harsh and in Teiamanisch was growled. The one who’d uttered the three words shrugged. Hands fisted. Back bowed.

Defiant but scared. Angry but cowed.

“Fuck this shit!” he’d said.

Anglisc.

Trent looked at me. I looked at him. And then we were following behind the group, trying to hear, hoping, praying to hear, just one more word in our tongue. They had to be Wiped. They just had to be. Dressed dissimilar to the u-Pol and Mikhail. Marked in a way that suggested subjugation. Behaving in a manner that screamed… kowtowed. Subservient. Tyrannised.

If these were our people, they did have a modicum of freedom to roam the streets. But everywhere they’d go, Uripeans would know them for what and who they were. There was no escaping that fact. They wore it on their skin. A mask so much worse than Irdina’s had been. A mask of oppression greater than any worn in Wánměi.

I felt sick to my stomach. One barcode I could cover. A face full of exes was too much.

Swallowing bile, we followed silently behind our prey. Every step leading us deeper into the heart of Hammurg. The farther we got from the u-Pol building, the worse the condition of the streets. The buildings black with soot, leaning, cracked brickwork, uneven rooflines, chipped paint on windowsills. Tattered curtains pulled closed over broken glass. The smell of rubbish burning, chemicals and rotten vegetation, and something vile wafted on the air. I dreaded to think what.

Graffiti appeared when we turned a corner. A larger version of the red mark on the Wiped’s skin. A sign and a warning. We’d crossed a threshold. As soon as the Wiped in front of us saw that mark, their shoulders relaxed, their voices rose, and their words, still in Teiamanisch, sounded lighter, freer; if that was at all possible in this dark and dingy part of Hammurg.

I couldn’t believe that this was a forgotten part of the city, but I could believe it was one rarely visited by normal Uripean citizens. This was where they stashed their Wiped. The Wiped who worked for them as servants. The Wiped who wore their shame as skin art.

Wánměi had forgotten them, simply thrown them away when no longer needed.

Urip had chosen to use them, but at the same time make sure everyone remembered exactly who they were.

The lowest of the low. Beneath Elite and Honourable. Well down from Overseer and Cardinal. Lower, even, than Citizen.

I wondered what the Füri called them.

And then the group passed a building, no different from all the rest of the rubble here. Save for one thing. An emblem was painted on the wall beside the doorway, this one I recognised from signs we had in Wánměi to indicate a baby changing station in a public bathroom. An innocuous icon to welcome a feeding mother and her infant child.

This one didn’t seem welcoming. Standing outside the door was a drone, laser gun attached to its arm, helmet on its mechanical head, visor hiding camera lens eyes. Protecting its weakest spot; the unstable Shiloh chip embedded in its temple. As Trent and I halted in our tracks, hiding behind the corner of a building farther down the street, we watched the drone lift its gun arm and aim it at the group of Wiped passing by.

It didn’t fire. It didn’t need to. The message was clear. Move along. Don’t stop. Keep going. Nothing to see here.

The one who had spoken in Anglisc, surreptitiously searched the windows of the building from under his hooded eyes. Those with him gripped his suit, and pulled him faster along the street, silently out of sight.

We stood there, watching the drone return its laser gun to its former place, its camera lens eyes looking off in the direction of the Wiped, even though they’d long gone by now. It didn’t move. It didn’t shuffle. It showed no corruption, like that which we’d seen in Mikhail’s drone back on our island. It stood at attention, focused, alert, visor-shrouded mechanical eyes unreadable under the helmet on its head.

This whole area was for Wiped. Save this one building.

Simon had once recovered an old Overseer memo that shed light on certain things. It described our Wiped as having been sold to our trade partners for two reasons.

One. As workers.

Two. As breeders.

It was several long and disheartening minutes later that Trent and I circumnavigated the nursery and made our way in the general direction the Wiped group had gone. But we’d long lost them to the narrow lanes and crooked pathways. To the dark shadows and filthy overhangs. To the corner of Hammurg given over to the Wiped of Wánměi.

Eventually we took shelter in an abandoned building, watching the silent streets from behind ripped sheets, acting as curtains. The room smelled of rat faeces. Something scurried on tiny feet in the back proving just that thought. The soft scent of star anise and cinnamon wafted on the air, coming from behind the building we’d taken refuge in. Trying valiantly but futilely to cover the stench of urine.

“It’s been an hour already,” Trent said quietly at my side. “Beck will be approaching the gates.”

We were running out of time and hadn’t even found the Füri. If our plan had been scuttled, I dreaded to think what might have happened to Cardinal Beck’s. The laser-fire at the rooftop had been aimed at his men and not us.

He’d provided a distraction, as he’d said he would. One which had ensured Trent and I had landed safely. But I really wasn’t sure if he and his men had gotten off that rooftop alive.

Were they even approaching the main gate at all?

Were Irdina and Alan and the Merrikan soldiers waiting for nothing, just outside Hammurg’s walls?

“We might be on our own,” I offered, just as quietly as Trent had spoken.

“It’s possible,” he agreed, staring out the window into the slowly brightening night. “But we are
not
alone.”

I twisted to look over my shoulder at him, then searched the back of the dark room we were in, just to be sure.

Trent cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Don’t tell me, ‘we’ve got each other,’” I groused. He just smiled.

“That guy spoke Anglisc.” I felt my brow arch. My heart lurch. “These people might be Urip’s serving class now, but they once were Wánměi’s Wiped.”

“You want to approach them?” It
had
been the initial plan. But after seeing how different they were, not just in looks but character, we’d silently and mutually agreed to hang back.

The unspoken plan had then become “attack the Füri, provide a distraction when Cardinal Beck and his men broke open the main gate.” But we’d failed at that, as well. We’d not found any tall buildings, and certainly no Füri. And here we were in a broken corner of a very dark city. Hiding amongst the Wiped.

“We’ve got no choice,” Trent said softly. “They either help us or they don’t. But as soon as day arrives, hiding out in this city will become deadly. Not to mention the fact that Alan and the guys are waiting just outside. How long can Calvin fool the u-Pol with fake security updates from that outpost? Sooner or later they’ll send a replacement team. Shift change at dawn is my guess.”

We had an hour.

My nose twitched. That damn scent of star anise tickling my nostrils. Reminding me of Wáikěiton. I nodded my head. Sixty minutes and counting.

I pushed up from my crouch and started toward the back of the room.

“Where are you going?” Trent hissed behind me.

I almost said, “Home.” But I didn’t. This was so far from home, I wasn’t sure if they’d remember. If the people cooking their early morning meal in the house at the back of this one would remember where they had come from.

Wáikěiton. Or Little D’awa. Muhgah Keekee. Or Muhgah Foh. It didn’t matter. The subtle scent of their breakfast told me there was a chance. A small chance that they hadn’t forgotten us as quickly as we’d forgotten them.

I pushed through the back door of the apartment we’d been in and came out into a little courtyard. Washing hung up along a makeshift clothesline. Some of it that unusual holographic material of Urip. Some of it old rags, lovingly laundered. Herbs grew in pots along one wall. A small flower attempted to bloom in one of them. It was foreign. My heart skipped a beat.

The sounds of water running and pots banging came from inside the building across the courtyard. The window open to the early morning air. Steam wafted out around it, and on the clouds of superheated air I smelled it.

Star anise.

Trent moved up beside me, as we watched a young woman stirring something over a small gas hob. We could only see the back of her head. Already dressed in a freak-suit, ready for her day, she used chopsticks to toss noodles in a wok. Her black hair hung straight and limp down between her shoulders, once it would have gleamed. But no more.

She turned sideways to reach for something.

I sucked in a shocked breath of air.

“She’s pregnant,” Trent murmured, the words holding a wealth of agony and angst.

But that wasn’t why I’d gasped. Not the fear that she’d been impregnated by Urip in order to swell their numbers. That alone deserved our shock and rage.

But no. I’d gasped because I recognised her. Despite the change of clothes, the dull hair, the sad eyes, and burgeoning belly. I knew this girl.

I’d known her well.