Episode One: Chapter Six

This is the sixth chapter of the serial novel Pirayus. For the previous chapter, see Chapter Five or start at the beginning with Chapter One.

Everything around Aaron was darkness once the transport ship loaded him aboard. His journey was short. There was no need to travel through ridge space, as Cold Storage operated a facility in orbit around Kepler Lyra Prime. There was only silence, followed by a deafening howl. The box opened and the howl grew louder. It sounded like an emergency klaxon and it was joined by red flashing lights. A voice instructed him to step out. It was the voice of the Cold Storage representative that had spoken to him back home.

Aaron did as he was told and found himself standing on the floor of a large warehouse chamber. A group of security personnel approached from the sides, weapons drawn, and formed a ring around him. As Aaron’s eyes adjusted, he realized that the guards were not human, but three legged mechs. The howling alarm stopped, but the flashing lights continued. They were intense enough to prevent Aaron from seeing very much beyond the perimeter of walking armor. Two of the guards made a hole between them and a woman walked through. It was she. This was the first time Aaron had seen the woman in person.

“Welcome to Cold Storage Echo.” she said. “We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Myers. And this is Lieutenant Flint.” She gestured to a place behind her, where a man appeared in police uniform. “From Kep PD.”

“Will you come with us, please?” said the officer.

Myers, Flint, and the mechs led Aaron across the vast expanse of the warehouse floor. Everything from the woman’s introductions to the way she strode through her domain indicated that it was she, not the police, that held sway here. Aaron had always thought that she was a low level representative, but it appeared that she was much more.

Aaron glanced behind him and saw more transport ships entering the space from a dark cavern above. Each landed and expelled its cargo, a box with a shudder child. A rolling cargo bed eased up beside each one and loaded it on board. Once it was full, it sped past Aaron and disappeared in a mess of shadows beyond him.

A few minutes later, the group boarded a lift that took them up a wall. Myers opened a door to a room with one window looking onto the warehouse floor and another looking to space and the curved horizon of Aaron’s homeworld. The guards stayed outside while the three humans entered and the door closed behind them. The room was spare, with little more than a desk and a few chairs. Myers instructed Aaron to sit on one side of the desk, facing the turning planet below. Flint sat in a chair across from him. Myers paced behind the cop. Flint spoke first.

“What did you hope to accomplish by coming here?”

Myers waved a dismissive hand, saying, “He wants to keep his daughter home for more than one day a year. I don’t know exactly how this will stunt will achieve that, but Aaron is known for not always thinking through the consequences of his actions.”

Flint nodded. “This isn’t the first time your instinct have landed you in trouble, is it?”

“Unless there’s more to it.” said the woman.

“You can’t leave her in here.” said Aaron. “It’s torture.”

“What did you plan to do once you got here?”

“Can I show you something I brought with me?” Aaron searched his pockets, but didn’t find what he was looking for. Then he placed his hands flat on the metal table and shrugged. “You took it.”

Myers produced a wooden red chess queen from one of her own pockets and placed in front of Aaron. It was a piece from the game that Asandra and her father had been playing earlier that day.

“We had to scan it.” said the Lieutenant. “The transport removed it from you in flight.”

“You see it isn’t a weapon.”

“No.” said Myers. “It doesn’t appear to be a weapon. All we could tell is that it looks like a transmitter / receiver device. Was it your intent to communicate with Asandra while she was in storage... using her Bodhi Chip?”

Aaron reached around to the back of his neck and slid his fingers up through his hairline. He removed a small device that was attached to the top of his spinal cord like an electronic tick. He dropped it on the table next to the red queen.

“About once a month my wife, Tabby, goes to see her interpreter. He downloads all the experiences of the past few weeks into the Sorter and it spits out some kind of cryptic direction about how she should live for the next month. As for me, my dirty little secret is that I haven’t been through this confession in about two years.” He turned to Flint. “You’re right. My instincts do get me in trouble. One day I just quit my job. It wasn’t feeling right, no matter what the Sorter was telling me. I wanted to spend more time with Asandra. During the time between that and when you first took her away from me, we built this. Not even her mother knows about it.”

“Okay...” said Flint.

“Chess, in all  its forms, it my daughter’s favorite game. Now, pretend that your table top is a chess board. There’s a famous opening sequence called the Turing Gambit, one variation of which requires five moves. Three of them belong to the queen.”

Aaron used his index finger to slide the piece a few inches across the table.

“Asandra and I came up with an idea, a very powerful bit of technology. We stumbled upon it out of necessity, but it turned out to be very dangerous and rather illegal. Like all secrets, we had to hide it. What better place than inside the red queen?” He slid the queen in another direction. “This is the second queen’s move in the gambit. Do you see?”

Flint shook his head.

“Continue.” said Myers.

The cop turned his back to speak to her.

“Ma’am, are we really going to let him go on like this?”

“Yeah, I know Lieutenant. He has something in mind. He’s not an idiot and neither am I.” She put her hand on Flint’s shoulder. “If this is what I think it is, then I am very interested. Not every case requires my personal involvement.”

“And what do you think it is?” said Aaron.

“I think we both know. You were on queen’s move two in this elaborate speech of yours.”

“Sure. So the Bodhi Chips store all of our experiences, but only the Sorter can unlock those records. Accessing them in any other way is the illegal part, as you know. Andra and I found a flaw in the chip’s security software that allowed us to download the Bodhi chip’s content.”

Myers leaned over the table. “So you noticed it, didn’t you?”

“Noticed what?” said Aaron.

“The anomaly in your daughter’s signal?”

Aaron shook his head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You created a device that downloaded your daughter’s experiences in storage and it picked up something strange.”

“No. I never had a chance to analyze her signal.”

“What?” said Myers. “Then what are you doing?”

Aaron moved the piece in another direction.

“Well, I was going to show you the third queen’s move. The three moves together are the code that unlocks the device so that it can be activated. That’s what I wanted to show you. Once activated, the device not only downloads Bodhi content, it transmits it to any Bodhi chips in the vicinity.”

Aaron picked up the piece and slammed it on the table. Myers and Flint cringed as though doused by vats of freezing water. They covered their ears.  They tried reaching for the backs of their necks, but their limbs only convulsed helplessly.

“Stop it!” shouted Myers as she crouched closer to the floor.

Flint’s head hit the table. His eyes were open but twitching.

“At first all I wanted was to communicate with Asandra.” said Aaron. “But then I realized I could collect the voices of all the shudder children in this place and pipe them right into your brains.” Aaron stood and slammed his hand on the table. “I wanted you to feel the agony in their minds so you’d know this is real.”

He came around the table and pulled Flint’s weapon from its holster. Returning to his own side, Aaron picked up the red queen and slammed it against the table again. It relinquished its hold on the other two. Aaron retrieved his Bodhi chip from the table and slipped it in a pocket.

Flint said, “The sidearm is locked. It won’t work for you.”

“It won’t work for you either if I have it.” Aaron slammed the chess piece again and watched the other two writhe. “Get rid of the guards.”

He released them with another quick tap. Myers sighed. She tapped her watch.

“Fine. Done.” she said. “What do you want?”

“This is a simple hijack. I need safe passage to a haven world for myself and my family.”

“I had higher hopes.” said Myers. “What does your wife think?”

“Well I haven’t told her. I sort of came up with this plan an hour ago.”

“I’ll give you credit for that.”

“The other thing…” said Aaron. “I need to know about the anomaly.”

“Well, I’ll just have to show you that. Come with me.”

“No. Tell me.”

“Flint, get out of here.”

The Lieutenant paused. Then he did as he was told and left through the door,  by which Aaron could also see that the guards had indeed departed.

“Well.” said Myers. “I can only show you. Now you can come with me or not know something that could kill your daughter sooner than the shuddering.” She looked at her watch. “By the way, your antics have made all the lives news feeds in the League. I’m interested to see how you think you’ll leave here without drawing attention.”

Ready for more? Read on in Chapter Seven