Code Breakers: Beta Read online

  The house reminded him his last two decades of life was a sham.

  He walked up the path, weeds now overgrown and covering the stone slabs. He opened the door and slipped inside. Darkness shrouded the place. Much of its contents had been taken away, just like his old life. The place was an empty shell. Memories of times echoed around its bare walls.

  Using his night-vision, a function of his upgraded optical prosthesis, he plotted his way through the house. Room by room the voices of his kids came to him. The memories clear as day. But those memories were cyphers, placeholders. Had his wife known all along? Had she planned on betraying him from the start? He’d never know. She’d been wiped from the records. She might not have existed in the first place.

  An old slate lay in the detritus of the kitchen. He ran his finger across the display and it flickered to life. Cracks crawled across its surface, obscuring the picture beneath, but he could see it as clear as the day he took that photo. He and his family sat around the kitchen table, sharing smiles and happiness. It was real, wasn’t it? The look in their eyes and his wife’s weren’t faked then.

  Maybe for a short while reality and something substantial had overwhelmed the veneer of the unreal. Maybe.

  Gerry left the slate on, left that image to shine out in the room, grounding the place to a time before the veil had lifted and the mechanism of his life was left exposed like a flesh wound. He wiped a tear from his real eye and descended into the basement, where his office used to be. He intended to base his operations there and find Petal.

  Thump. Scuffle. Someone was in there. Immediately Gerry’s new combat protocols kicked in and he glided to the door, muscles ready, fists tight. With a hand ready on the door’s control panel he put his ear to the door and heard breathing.

  Chapter 5

  Petal wrapped the rags around her face to block out the wind and dust that blustered through the open cage of the dune buggy. Why they didn’t put a window on it, she had no idea. Two hours into her journey, the sun had fallen between dark, crimson-shaded clouds.

  As far as she could see the sandy desert stretched out into the distance. Small rock formations dotted the landscape like corpses. In the very far distance on the north side she could make out the tips of the Khentii mountain range that separated Mongolia and Russia: the border on which she saw Red Widow’s forces lined up.

  The mountains were rumoured to be the origins of the great Genghis Khan. She remembered finding an old book among the debris of an ancient and destroyed library on one of her first excursions with Gabe. That area had seen a lot of a blood, and she wondered with the Red Widows over there if it wasn’t going to be drenched once more.

  The autopilot program ensured a steady speed to maximise fuel and avoid settlements wherever possible. She’d taken a route that took her past GeoCity-1 and City Earth, but she’d be hundreds of miles to the north of them as she crossed the Mongolian border and into North East China.

  The coordinates given to her by Gabe of Criborg’s location indicated a small island in the North Pacific to the south east of Japan. Japan itself was a no-go area, still toxic with radiation from the Cataclysm, which meant she’d have to travel through Primorsky Krai of the Russian Far East—the eastern coast of the Russia/China landmass—to the harbour at the mouth of Rudnaya River, where she hoped to find a sea-going vessel. It was a prominent place for Russian-Chinese troops during the war and provided access through the Sea of Japan.

  Highlighted details on the 3D map showed a number of stable and well-established roads, meaning she should make it across without too much trouble. Although, given the Red Widows were Russian, she wondered whether they would have travelled that far down from the mainland.

  Her pistol and single shotgun now seemed entirely inadequate, and the stun-sickle was unwieldy and alien to her. She doubted she’d be able to fight with it efficiently, but she brought it along with her anyway, mostly out of curiosity.

  To stay awake, she took the slate from her pocket and analysed the data. Apart from the coordinates, it contained an encrypted file with a familiar set of numbers: a sequence she and Gabe had used before when they wanted to share classified information. An ingenious piece of coding, and so far no one had managed to break the encryption.

  She entered a twenty-four-digit code and the file opened. It looked like a dossier of sorts. She dropped it into the slate’s auditory talkback function, sat back, and listened to the notes contained within. She instantly recognised Enna’s voice.

  If you’re reading this, it means you’re alive. And I’m glad for that, though I’m writing this report not knowing if you survived or not. I’m trusting Gabe to find you and report back, but in the meantime, if he does find you, I’ve prepared this dossier to inform you of a critical period in our time.

  Red Widow & Gabe’s role: when Jasper’s group took you from Cemprom I had arranged for your rescue. They took the Jaguar, which meant I could track it. I was altering the navigation systems to bring you back to GeoCity-1 when it was shot down, and you were taken. I managed to get a trace on the vehicle and knew that it was the Red Widows. I had Gabe infiltrate them. He’d been working on that for a number of weeks before all this went down with Gerry. At the time I thought they were a small group of fanatics, but their scale is far greater than that.

  The Widows are a group of allied survivors from North of the border. I don’t know how long they’ve been massing their numbers, collecting resources, but they’ve managed to do it under the nose of The Family’s surveillance. Gabe tells me they have a number of underground settlements. To think that all this time they’ve been under there building, praying, planning vengeance, and now they’re moving on with their plan. They hold The Family and their allies responsible for murdering their husbands and sons. The war wiped out so much of the male population before The Family dropped the nukes and EMPs, and now they want to avenge their deaths. Years of isolation has bound this group together, skewed their perspectives, and made them rabid for justice.

  During my last assessment and communications with Gabe, I fear Darkhan might have already fallen under their control now Seca is dead and his systems are offline.

  You might be at this stage wondering a number of things: Why am I telling you all this, who are Criborg, and what is your role in all this? Is Gerry alive?

  Firstly, Gerry is with The Family, alive. I heard from a contact that he was due to come back, but I don’t know when, or what condition he’s in. As for you and Criborg, after you last visited me with Gerry and Gabe, I performed a number of procedures on you and after you had left I ran a few tests. I’m not sure what it means, but I found a number of mutations. Your DNA was changing. You—

  An explosion cut off Enna’s words and rocked Petal’s buggy violently.

  “No!” Petal grabbed uselessly at the slate as it tumbled from her grip and fell out of the vehicle, crashing hard against the ground. Another blast erupted to the side of her, spraying up dust and dirt. The buggy lurched to the side with the force, the wheels spinning, trying to find grip.

  She recognised the burning stench of ionised particle beams.

  Dust obscured her vision as she tried to control the buggy.

  The high-pitched whine of engines coming closer made her look behind: a Jaguar aircraft bore down on her. It looked similar to the one Enna had lent them, although this one was more angular with four engines on short wings and a white/grey camouflage pattern. Russian letters, written in red, adorned the side of the fuselage. The front windshield curved around a pair of operators who looked down at her with dark glasses and the now familiar red scarf around their neck.

  The machine guns wound up again, spitting ammo at her. Some of the rounds pounded into the side of the buggy.

  She yanked the controls, veered off to the side, all four wheels digging into the loose sand and dirt, fighting for traction.

  She steered out of the gun’s trajectory when another blast caught the driver-side rear wheel sending the vehicle spin
ning and tipping over, barrel rolling against the ground.

  Petal flung out her hands, grabbed for the roll cage, but she was shunted out from her seat, her body rag-dolled inside the buggy as it eventually came to a violent stop, smashing against a large boulder, sending her body to collide heavily against the dashboard.

  “Mother fu—”

  Pain exploded across her head, arms, back, legs, everywhere. The universe tipped and spun, gravity pulled her every which way against her efforts to crawl from the wreckage. She felt drunk, her balance seemingly at odds to her every move.

  Warm, dusty downdraft beat against her. She turned on to her front to shield her face with one arm. With the other she crawled to the boulder, tried to get away. Something cold and metallic lay beneath her hand: the stun-sickle. It had come away from the strap around her back. She grabbed it, used it for leverage, and dragged herself forward, her legs numb and useless with pain.

  The Widow’s Jaguar landed. Its engines whined down. Three robed figures stepped from the craft’s cabin, all carrying the now-familiar style shotgun.

  So much for the escape attempt. She hadn’t even reached the coast yet.

  The three Widows spoke in their ugly dialect and laughed, as they stalked closer.

  One of them, a particular ugly one with a huge hooked nose and a high forehead kicked at Petal’s ribs, spinning her on to her back. Petal coughed, spat blood on the dust and sand. It coated her attacker’s shoe, sending her into a rage.

  Like a pack of dogs, all three set upon Petal. They kept kicking until she was on the verge of passing out when a fourth Widow, previously unseen to Petal ordered them to halt.

  In badly broken English she said. “We need her alive. For now.”

  “Goddamned bitches,” Petal said, spitting more blood from her mouth. She hitched herself up on to her elbows. Sharp stabbing pains pinched at her inner organs when she moved. They must have broken a few ribs. Her right hand still gripped the handle of the stun-sickle, hidden beneath her.

  The one who spoke moved through her three comrades. Her robes were white, and her dark hair wasn’t in wraps like the others. It floated wildly with the wind. She stood astride Petal so that Petal looked straight up at her. Oddly, Petal couldn’t stop staring at her massively flaring nostrils.

  “She has fight,” the leader of the group said, smiling, exposing perfect teeth. She turned her head round to regard her giggling companions. When the Widow turned back to regard Petal, she lost most of the lower half of her left leg.

  The leader standing over Petal screamed and fell to the side as blood drenched the sand beneath her. She hit the ground hard, her hands grabbing at her left knee trying to stop the flow of blood. Her two comrades stared wide-eyed, dumb with shock as her lower leg flopped to the ground in the sodden pool.

  Petal pulled the sickle back, impressed with its ability to cut through bone. She took the advantage, swung the sickle low, sweeping the leg of the Widow to the left of the now screaming leader on the ground, and finally burying the blade into the shin of a third onlooker. The fourth Widow sidestepped the bundle of comrades and flashed a kick towards Petal’s head.

  Petal ducked, swung the sickle up in a tight arc, catching the Widow in the rear of her thigh. The blade sunk into the flesh, clanged against the bone, sending vibrations through the weapon. Petal activated the stun function via a button on the handle. The Widow stiffened, juddered with the bolts of electricity, before falling to the ground unconscious.

  One of the Widows reached out for the shotgun lying in the dirt. Petal sucked in a breath as she stood. The pain jabbed her in the ribs. She stepped forward over the prone body of her last victim, stamped down on the out-reaching arm of the Widow, crushing it with a loud crack.

  Petal picked up the shotgun, stood away from the pile of bodies, and said. “You bitches better tell me right now what you want with me, or you’ll be seeing your husbands far sooner than expected.”

  The leader, her robes now coated in sand and blood hauled herself to her knees, held out a hand, and gabbled in her foreign language.

  “Talk English! I know you can understand me.”

  She shook her head, held her hands together in front of her chest in a crimson prayer.

  “Last chance,” Petal said.

  The one who she had swept to the ground jumped to her feet, tried to flank her with a dashing manoeuvre. Petal was too fast. She blasted the Widow in the chest with the shotgun, sending her flying back into her leader.

  They bundled into a screaming pile of body parts, and Petal wanted nothing more than to end them. An overpowering vengeance welled up inside her. Two pulls of the trigger and the group were no more. Sent to their God prematurely.

  She dropped the shotgun, smoke rising from its short barrel, and slumped to the ground. She breathed hard to get her heartbeat under control. She yelled out a defiant curse at the pain in her ribs, ignored the black spots that appeared in her vision, and dragged herself to their Jaguar before stopping short, collapsing with pain. Tears rushed from her eyes as mental and physical anguish tore her apart.

  Chapter 6

  The shuffling behind the basement door stopped, only to be replaced by a sobbing. It sounded like a young male. Gerry’s thermal imaging showed a figure hunched into a small bundle in the far corner of the basement. No other heat signatures registered, other than the power cables going into the building. He scanned the ID database registration and Mags delivered the search result: Steven Chiang, Nineteen years old.

  Gerry cut off the feed of information. The name rang a bell instantly.

  That was the kid who worked on reception at Cemprom, Gerry thought. What the hell was he doing here?

  Inside the basement, a single windup lantern illuminated one. Shadows doused the rest of the room. A boy, like a rat in his nest, sat slumped in the corner, shrouded by rags and boxes.

  Gerry stepped inside, and didn’t make a sound. The darkness of the corridor ensured that the boy wouldn’t notice the open door. The place was almost as Gerry had left it. It was mostly used for storing various technology prototypes from his job at Cemprom, and boxes of rations just in case of an emergency.

  Although City Earth was self-sufficient with its own farms and food production, The Family insisted all citizens carried a certain amount of dried sustenance in the event of any mechanical problems with the Dome.

  It was also a way of controlling the populace. Keep everyone afraid that one day the food supply might run out. The hand that fed had power of not just the air they breathed, or the lives they lived, but also the food they ate.

  The more he thought about this, the more he realised they were lab rats running around a big shiny maze for their ‘superiors’ to study. Despite The Family, and especially Amma, his mother, explaining their vision and their commitment to the human race, he felt the familiar loathing for them return. He’d seen and experienced too much to ever think they were doing this for the good of humankind. It was for the good of The Family only.

  They only did what suited them. And right now, having Gerry hunt down and deliver Petal was good for them, but he’d be damned if he’d hand her over so easily.

  Gerry slithered through the room as if he were made of shadow. He got within a few feet of the boy. Gerry shielded himself behind a storage locker. The boy’s limbs were thin, his cheeks gaunt, and the obvious collarbones, plus the rags, indicated he hadn’t camped in the basement for long. He wouldn’t be in that condition with the supplies available to him.

  As if finally sensing something was wrong, the boy turned to face Gerry’s direction.

  Gerry activated the basement emergency lights via his network, and said. “Steven? That you?”

  “Mr Cardle? I thought you were—”

  “Dead? I was, sort of. What the hell are you doing in here? What’s happened to you?”

  Steven crawled out of the blankets around his thin and scarred body. The skin around his dermal implant on his right wrist was red raw and cove
red in deep scratches. Dried blood caked around the network of cuts. He’d clearly tried to remove it.

  The boy opened his mouth, but no words came. He looked up, his eyes full of tears. Gerry moved to the kid, sat him back down, and covered him up, no longer wanting to look upon the scars and welts that hadn’t healed properly upon his chest, arms, and legs.

  “Who did this to you?”

  “Jasper. He came into Cemprom with his heavies. The security, they, they didn’t do anything. He needed information. I tried, Mr Cardle. I really tried not to give it to him, but—”

  “It’s okay, I understand.”

  The kid stunk of ammonia and faeces now that he had opened the blankets from around his body. “What happened after?”

  “I managed to get out, but I knew The Family would come after me, so I kept on the move, mostly in the sewers. But it was too late!”

  “The lottery?”

  The kid let his tears trace slivery lines down his dirty face. His back heaved with sobs as he blurted out, “I’ve only got two days left before it snuffs me out. I don’t want to die Mr Cardle!”

  “None of us do, Steven. Have you tried uninstalling your AIA?”

  “It won’t let me, I’m stuck. I tried to stop them, tried to do my job. Why am I being punished?”

  Before Gerry could find some comforting words, Steven carried on as if he were in confession. “I didn’t know where else to go. I knew your daughter, Caitlyn, and thought, and well, she’s gone now. Everyone’s gone.” He slumped his shoulders, wiped the tears from his face. It was then that he seemed to finally take Gerry in, and he slumped back with his mouth agape. “What happened to your eye?”

  “Upgrades, Steven. Listen, I don’t have time to explain everything, but know that Caitlyn and her sister, and their mother are safe. I can’t have you staying here.”