Red Shift: The Odds (Censored version), Page 4

  Chapter 3

  Stars swirled around the sky like fireflies fighting for a place in the world. No matter how you try to rationalise it, there was chaos. Both moons were swinging in tandem, like a pair of Newton’s Balls moving in a symphony of unison. That smoke is doing the trick perfectly, pity it only lasts a few seconds. Soon the fireflies began to settle, and in a vision of pure motion the moons merged into one. I’ve got to lay off this stuff, one drop and I’m flying higher than a star-class pilot.

  As confusing as those moments were after the event, at the time they took him away from the world he was bonded to. That horrid mistress most call life was determined to drag him back to reality. Soon enough the stars were back to their usual haze, interrupted only by the occasional cloud or random flash of light that no longer caused any reaction from him.

  Look at yourself, elite soldier, husband, father, and all you have to show for all of it is this bag of second-rate drugs and a bike. The thought wasn’t alien as he spent most days going through the motions of dealing with it. The loss of his daughter never really got easier to deal with, and his wife leaving him for his officer after he was dishonourably discharged for knocking his lights out was almost as hard to let go of. But hey, still living, right?

  His circular thoughts and internal flailing were broken by the broadcast, reading “400 credits bottle of Jack Daniels, Collect from Trippy Liquor in Ryde, deliver to 240 Irwin Drive, 25 minutes.” Looking at the faint glow of the green LCDs on the bio-pager, Jack considered whether it was worth the effort. Looking over the city, with a red pulsing glow through the smog, he could just make out the hills behind the New City. Across a miserable plain of high buildings, roadways weaving through city blocks like spaghetti, and a dull droning noise he could never quite place to any machine or activity, stood the last bastion of society’s upper-class. The inhabitants having less in common with those below them than the smog filled sky had with the ocean to the East. It wasn’t the whole hill, no, just a select group of smug pricks that played with the regular people as though they were puppets.

  “Screw it,” he mumbled to the city below, “if I stay here and look at this for any longer I’m likely to ride right of the cliff at you.”

  Flicking the ignition, he took a last drag of his hand-rolled cigarette, and whipped around to the road. Gravel and dust spun in a whirlwind creating a halo in the light of the full moon.

  He still loved the rush of riding his bike. It was an old model fuel bike, albeit with some heavy engine mods. Nonetheless there was nothing like the feeling of nitro methanol burning under your rear end. Especially when it was just about given away since most people were using those damned gutless electric vehicles now.

  As he accelerated, the world began to close around him in that familiar feeling some get as they are falling asleep. But Jack wasn’t falling asleep, far from it. The spike in adrenaline began a process he didn’t fully understand, but knew what it felt like. The world around him became iridescent shades of blues and reds. The thought of it gave him a flashback to high school. He only cared to remember a few things that happened during that time, mostly in fights or trying to be in love, and his lesson on the Doppler effect.

  The Doppler effect, he remembered his teacher telling him, was most easily explained by the sound of an ambulance coming past. As it nears, the pitch of the siren increases, and as it passes and travels away, the pitch expands. It was caused by objects approaching relative to the subject having the frequency of, in this case, sound compressed; therefore more waves per metre, hence the higher pitch. Light is no different; as objects approach, the relative distance is shorter when light is emitted or reflected, and so the same light has a shorter wavelength, appearing blue. So as objects were approaching they appeared more 'blue', and receding objects appeared more 'red'.

  It gave Jack a unique ability to sense his surroundings in a level of detail unsurpassed by anyone else he had met or heard of. It was handy, especially as he lived his life as fast as his bike, Betty, could move it. God only knows how many close calls he had had, but if each one cost the life of an angel, the world was surely in hell now. Some days it felt like it.

  Had he been paying closer attention, he would also have noticed the glow from the comm device on the edge of the scrub twenty metres away. “He’s away,” said a calm, steady voice. “Modified old Ducati Panigale, 22G version, black, plates Two Delta India Echo.” As the phone clicked shut, the caller looked up with a smirk, turning to walk down the road. The only noise being the click of his heels and a rustle in the trees above.

  Jack all but flew down the winding hill, corners blurring into one, dust swirling behind the bike, the light from his headlamp began to dim as the light of the city took over. The hills eased into long expanses of flat land, spattered with twisting motorways and large concrete industrial buildings. The familiar feel of his upbringing surrounding him almost made him lose concentration, just as a rust-stained old Toyota pulled out in front of him. He swerved over the centre line, the Pirelli tires squealing in protest as he swung the tail around, narrowly missing the bumper of an oncoming truck. What the hell, the first two vehicles I see in five minutes and they both try and kill me. He straightened the bike up, checked his mirrors and knocked her down a gear. Another dead angel.

  Coming in from the south to the twin cities was always an interesting affair. Aside from the fact that half the roads now ended in impromptu beach, there were all manner of undesirables in this part of the region. Perhaps that’s why Jack liked it, it was the unsanitised, filthy, honest world that most tried to turn their back on.

  As he drew closer to the populated areas, he could see people hanging around the streets. They were derelicts, bums and beggars mainly. He passed a man sitting slouched with his back to the wall, hat pulled over his face, and another on the ground in front of him. A cardboard sign read ‘munney’ sitting beside the hat. As he rode past, he remembered seeing the man yesterday, in the exact same position. Five credits says he’s taking a permanent nap and no one cared to check him.

  Pulling past an intersection, two girls opened their coats to show him their wares. One was about forty and had more wrinkles than a Serengeti elephant. The other, no more than eighteen, had enough scars and spots to show she had been around this block long enough to steer clear of.

  Jack pulled into a bottle store affectionately called ‘Trippy Liquor’, stopping near the far end of the car park. Not the most time-efficient place to park, but he knew there would be cameras in the shop, and he didn’t need any more pictures of his ride in police stations than they already had, their tech had near instant plate recognition software these days. Times are getting tougher.

  Walking across the car park he saw only one car, a Dodge Challenger, matt black faded paint, parked half on the kerb near the entry. The car looked much like the shop it was in front of, in that they were both run down pieces of trash.

  The only clientele these places usually saw were crack-whores and derros looking for a cheap cask of wine or bottle of ethanol masquerading as Russia’s finest. He hated going into them without casing the area first, he’d rather go somewhere else. But this location was noted on the order and they always knew exactly where things came from.

  As the doors swung open, a blast of cold air pushed past his face. The bright fluorescent lamps were a stark contrast to the dim glow of the few flickering street lamps behind. The first few rows were the usual cheap wines and beers, looking toward the back he could see the counter, and the whiskey.

  The torn linoleum floor was a memorial to the last millennium, and with it, the faded painted walls. Who uses paint on their walls anyway? Still, it matched the rest of the dated décor, including the flickering light Jack was walking under.

  As he strolled towards the rear, he caught a glimpse of movement at the far end of the counter. Two large Hispanic men were both showing sawed-off shot guns to the owner, who was
behind the counter mumbling something in a language Jack didn’t care to know about. Dammit, there goes my two minutes.

  The thought gelled into a sentence in his mind at about the same time as the bangers turned and saw him. They mustn’t have heard the door open over the owner gobbing off at a million miles per hour, but now with their attention, the man on the customer side of the counter swung his gun towards Jack. As he looked down, he could see Jack’s modified Glock pistol sitting just by his hip, trained right at his partner’s head, mil-spec laser pointer splashing his temple in a deep red glow. This was one of those ‘think faster, sunshine’ situations, Jack’s mind was already racing at a hundred miles an hour, even before the adrenaline kicked in.

  Ahhh, there it is, that familiar rush of heat surging through his body. The adrenaline told him he could take both of these tweakers before they realised he’d moved, but his head reminded him of what being behind prison gates feels like. Sure the Feds wanted the runners off the street, but it wasn’t their main priority, apparently. A double murder on the other hand … A muffled voice was in the background, getting louder, and in a flash became the screaming voice of the closest tweaker.

  “Put your gun down maaaaaaaaan, or im’ma fill you with holes, baby, aaaargh!”

  His face, covered in sweat and saliva, almost looked like a rabid dog. This guy is a looney, and he’s just getting warmed up by the sound of it!

  “Screw you, I’ll kill this punk, aaaaargh, aaargh!”

  Wow, this guy really is nuts, but in a poetic kind of way. Better stop this now.

  The vocal tweaker looked at his mate, with a gun pointed at his face he wasn’t doing crap. He must be the brains of the operation.

  “Hey, listen buddy, I’m not here for you, or your mate.” Jack spoke in a calm voice, although he had to raise the volume a little to get over the grunts from his new buddy.

  “You’re a lying piece of trash…. You’re a cop aren’t you?!”

  Even more saliva, it was starting to foam. If this kept up they’d all be on the floor pushing daisies, this guy from giving himself a heart attack.

  “Look, calm down. I’m just here for a bottle of Jack Special, the one behind the counter.”

  “Piss off, I know if I look you’ll shoot. There ain’t no whiskey there.”

  “Listen to me, there is. I just want one. Your partner can get it, put it on the counter. I’ll take it, walk out, and leave you two to sort whatever you gotta sort.”

  Jack could see the shop owners’ eyes open wider. He must have thought Jack was a cop, there to save him. Screw that, too many other problems right now. Get back on track.

  “I’ve got enough heat on me without shooting guns off, I just want the booze. Get you partner to help us out, and I’m gone.”

  “I’m watching you bitch, one wrong move and you’re screwed.” By now his hand was starting to shake. Jack knew he had to get out of there or things were going to turn into one giant mess.

  “Deal, now flick me my booze, partner.”

  Jack glanced at the other partner for a second. The pair of them were a sorry sight. Aside from their threadbare black jeans and shirts, ancient studded Doc Martins and more jewellery in their faces than he’d ever seen, their faces were covered in scabs and pockmarks, the legacy of years of drugs, bad food and general lack of hygiene. Not the typical kids you’d want to see your daughter hugging on the doorstep. Still, not his problem.

  As Jack walked across the car park to his bike, he heard four muffled gun shots. It didn’t register at first, but then he remembered the gun the tweaker was holding, it was a hell of a gun to make a quiet sound like that.

  As he started pulling out of the car park he saw a flash in his rear-view mirror, and saw the shop owner running out with a .22 pistol in his hand shooting, almost in Jack’s direction. Shots were all over the place, but he was already becoming a speck in the rear-view mirror. Lucky bugger.

  Twisting through the streets, the traffic increased. The lights of the vehicles narrowed in his vision as he began to focus on what was ahead. It wasn’t that he was riding at seventy past traffic doing thirty that was pretty much another day at the office, there was something at the turnpike to the freeway that didn’t look right.

  The traffic seemed to almost disappear as quickly as it came. There was definitely something wrong, but by the time he realised what was going on his bike was already rotating around the front axle. The lights of the cars began spinning in his vision, the road above, then below him. Just as Jack felt the familiar surge of heat from the adrenaline, there was an infinite sense of darkness, nothing.

  You cannot embrace darkness, its very presence excludes any feeling of ownership. Darkness is cold, selfish, draining. Fighting it is like swinging at shadows, fighting harder, pushing further. No matter how much you strain to see the light, it is ever elusive, out of reach. Give in, accept you fate.

  A faint sound of a bird chirping in the background, like a beating heart. No, it is a beating heart. The sound of rushing water. Drowning, need air.

  Jack bolted upright, gasping for air, and at the same time felt as though he was being electrocuted, as if a bolt of electricity ran from his brain to his toes as he jerked. He looked around, nothing but darkness, and a machine, beating like a chirping bird, then darkness.

  A water decanter came into his blurred vision, then a window, and a chair. As Jack tried to get up, the room started to spin.

  “Whoa there cowboy, take it easy.” A voice from behind firmly held his shoulder and eased him back on to the bed.

  “Where am I?” Jack said in a husky voice. “My throat, I need water.”

  “Here, take a sip, you’ve been out for a while.” The man passed a glass of water, and helped to bring it to Jack’s lips.

  As Jack drank, the man continued. “You are at a care facility. We tracked the Feds to the location of your ambush and waited to see what they were up to. To be honest, we don’t know why they wanted you, you didn’t look like much, but for some reason they did.”

  “So why did you take me? You took on a hell of a risk going at the Feds for nobody.”

  “Well, let’s just say, for all the trouble they went through to set you up, you must be worth something … to someone.”

  The door to the room opened, a tall olive-skinned man walked into the room. Jack’s vision was almost back to normal, he could now make out the definitions of their faces and the three parallel lines tattooed under their eyes. Wing’Tan, just what I need.

  “Hello Jack,” said the new man in an even, warm voice. “I am Seek. As you have probably noticed by now, we are of the Clan Wing’Tan.”

  “I noticed, so are you going to take my organs now, or have you already done that?”

  Seek boomed a thunderous laugh. “No, we have done no such thing. Don’t get me wrong, we considered it, but when we got you in we found something far more … interesting.”

  He turned to the other man in the room. “Leave us.”

  The other man gave a near imperceptible bow, and left, closing the door behind him.

  Seek pulled a chair next to the bed, and raised the back so Jack was at the same eye-level. “So Jack, as I was saying, you seem to have a most fascinating gift. Your eyes, have they always been the way they are?”

  Jack looked at him quizzically, the way he always did when he didn’t want to let people in.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “OK Jack, enough of the crap. We saved your life from those Fed bastards, and didn’t take it ourselves, so the least you owe me right now is no rubbish. You know our reputation and I’m not one to muck around with people who mess with me.” He stopped and stared right through Jack’s mind.

  “I’ve been like this for a long time. My father modified my vision to give me an edge in … certain situations.”

  “So you have extraordinary vision, that is a given, but tell me more Jack. I
don’t believe the Feds would have been after you only for what you can see.”

  “It’s not just what I can see, it’s how I can see, and how I can react. The average person has a reflex time of around two hundred milliseconds, I’m less than half that. Humans can see only in what we know as the visible light range, I can see into infrared and ultraviolet. My brain can process all of this in real time. Is that what you are looking for?”

  “To say I am impressed would be an understatement Jack. So the Feds want you for your superior physical attributes, perhaps they were planning to use you to infiltrate the Autohacking scheme?”

  “Perhaps. Maybe they didn’t want me, maybe they wanted what I was carrying.”

  “Yes, possibly. We have the item, but it doesn’t seem like anything special. We’ll check it out more thoroughly and let you know if we find anything, of course.”

  Jack took Seek’s smile as an understanding that he was offering far more than he needed, and right now Jack was in no position to argue.

  “Of course,” Jack replied in a still-raspy voice.

  “You know we are the leading clan that are running for the Alphas, we have a fair idea of their operations, but you are just a privateer, you know all but nothing. So the only conclusion I can come to is they were going to use you undercover to infiltrate the Alphas to find out their deeper secrets.”

  “Sounds plausible. So what do you have planned for me?”

  A wry grin appeared on Seeks’ face. “Well, I’m going to use you undercover to infiltrate the Alphas to find out their deeper secrets, of course.”

  “And what’s in it for me?”

  “You mean aside from getting to keep your organs?”

  “Sure.”

  “We have taken the liberty to implant you with a bio-tracer.”

  Jack looked on his forearm and saw the faint green glow of the display. It looked, moved, and was contoured as though it was his skin, only gave a clear display about three centimetres long and one centimetre wide.

  “What is it?”

  “It is your key to many things you did not know existed. Our top runners all have them. You will have unlimited access to our clubs, workshop and safe houses. You will need it to access any of these. It is also a direct satellite link to your latest missions. When, where and what you must provide.”

  “You’ve taken a risk on me with this.”

  “Not really. If you travel too far from your zone it will send an uplink to the satellite, we will know where you are, and kill you shortly after.”

  “So I’m basically your damned pet.” Jack was starting to get tired of the game Seek was playing with him.

  “No, pets have little tangible use. You, however, will prove to be most useful.”

  “Look, I’ve about had enough of this rubbish.” Jack tried to get up from his bed but felt light-headed and had to sit back.

  “Don’t let your temper get the best of you Jack, you’ll burn yourself out. You look tired, time for some rest.”

  Before Jack could speak, Seek turned the drip up, and the room became hazy once again.

  When he came to, he was no longer in the same room. He was now in a large Georgian style room with an oversized bed and plush drapes. He looked around the room to take it all in, absorbed the atmosphere.

  Seek walked into the room with two young women flanking him. They carried small trays with what looked like food. They set the tray beside his bed, and turned to stand beside Seek.

  “Good morning, Jack. I trust your head feels a little better today?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Excellent, we have much to talk about, but first eat, and gather yourself. Trina here will help you with your clothes and anything else you may want.”

  Jack looked her body up and down; Trina was not short at around five foot nine, had a perfect body, and pert tits that pushed against the blouse she was wearing to the point of almost bursting the buttons.

  “Anything?” Jack asked, without taking an eye off her.

  “Easy tiger,” replied Trina. “It’s only 8 am.” She winked at him and turned to rub Seek across his shoulders.

  Seek turned to leave the room with the other girl in tow. “Nice to see you have good taste in women, Jack.”

  Trina closed the doors and turned to face Jack. Her figure was stunning and her long dark hair framed her gorgeous face.

  “Right Jack, your wardrobe is here, anything in it is yours, and if you follow me this way, I’ll show you the bathroom and study.”

  “Yeah, better wait a minute, I’ve got blood flowing in all the wrong places.”

  Trina grinned. “Jack, if I had to wait every time a man in front of me got a bit excited, I’d never get anything done. Now, get up and follow me so I can get on with my day.”