8 Trials Deep

CHAPTER 7: IN WINTER, I PLOT AND PLAN. IN SPRING, I MOVE.

“I think I’ve missed you,” RF-13 said as he accepted the communication request registered on his MA.

He was wondering whether it was still too soon to start teasing Leta when an ear-splitting shrill voice assaulted his ears, “You brat! You never missed me a day in your life. Otherwise you would have returned to us after the divorce.”

Oh, was what RF-13 thought. It was A-343, his older sister. He was glad he didn’t enable the projector feature.

Since young RF-13 ceased arguing with her as soon as he realized he would never win an argument. She always had a comeback for everything and she could make you believe the Earth was flat if she wanted to.

However, sometimes she seemed to forget that he was not her mother’s son. He could not just intrude into their home, even if she was his half-sister. Unlike his father, he could not ‘return’ because he never belonged with them. Still, her calling him ‘brat’ was already being considerate of her.

He once heard her call someone, “a slobbering pea-brained nincompoop”. She could swear like a sailor, a French sailor. This reminded him of when a married man tried to make a pass on her, she smiled like a Cheshire cat and said, “I would love to someday have tea with your wife, I’m sure we’ll have a lovely chatter on how dexterous your hands are.” She left the man crumpled on the ground with a dislocated arm.

She would have fared better as a cadet than he did.

He heaved a sigh and asked her, “How is he?” Knowing her, she was not the type to contact him unless one of two conditions is met: something really bad happened or the opposite.

Her sister was silent for a while before saying, “Your step-father already sent your brother to a slave trader by the time I got to him. I thought it was only your sister but it turns out he traded them both at once.”

When RF-13 heard her, his mind was already working a mile a minute. If M-6 got the two, why did he only attempt to trade his sister, had he already sold his brother?

“The trader goes by the alias M-6 in the virtual dimension,” she continued. “But he’s registered as M-742 on the Citizen Database. Be careful with him, he’s a sly old fox.”

There was long pause. He knew his sister was waiting for him to ask for help, wanted him to ask for help. But he remained silent.

It was odd, the kinder she and her mother were to him, the guiltier he felt. He knew he should not be feeling this way, that it was not a logical emotion. It was his father, not him, who cheated on them with his mother. He had no hand on the decision. And yet, he knew clearly he was the result of that affair, the indelible reminder.

He heard her sigh before finally giving up, “Recently, M-742 has been rounding up some men, even recruiting mercenaries. You better not let me hear anything about you being beaten up.”

“I wouldn’t want to hear that either,” RF-13 replied lightly.

“Be serious,” her sister’s tone was inching higher in octaves. “You have a plan?”

“Yes”

“And?”

“I plan on not being beaten up,” RF-13 stated in all seriousness.

He could almost hear her gritting her teeth. But the lesser people involved the better.

If one had ever seen a mother hen attack an alligator if the gator as much as showed her chicks some teeth, she was the embodiment of that. He had no doubt she would try to help, but the last thing he needed now was having to worry for her too.

“I’ll talk with you when everything is settled,” RF-13 cut the line before she could reply.

RF-13 strolled down the avenue leading to the Data River. However, the so called ‘river’ was actually not a body of water. It was a canal entirely covered with a specially refined metal bricks the color of the sun with a touch of scarlet. Instead of water, trillions of optical fibers each no thicker than a hair intertwined through it, forming the illusion of a river of light. Since the glass fibers that transmitted light were fragile, the whole canal was covered by an almost indestructible layer of arced glass.

The entire stretch of the channel was lined by transmitter trees, artificially designed ‘pine trees’ with metal for a body and glowing glass fibers for leaves. Each tree was rooted deep into the river.

When it was first constructed, the surreal flow of light throughout the canal caused the masses to call it what it appeared to be, the River of Light. However, the engineer whose brainchild it was asserted on calling it the Data River. He insisted that as the light transmitted throughout every fiber was interpreted as data, hence it should be called as such.

Most of the time it was a crowded tourist attraction, but come midnight it was as silent as a graveyard. Hence, RF-13 easily spotted a group of people standing illuminated under the transmitters. There were more than a dozen of them, but he could not find the silhouette he was looking for.

“I am not sure whether you are simply foolish or brave, maybe both. But to think you actually came by yourself,” M-6 sneered.

“Where is she?” RF-13 ignored the man’s opening and continued scanning the crowd. He recognized B-652 and his men who he encountered a few hours earlier. He was not the least bit surprised they were already free and roaming around, M-6 had connections.

M-6 nodded his head towards the men at the back and they parted to reveal a girl sitting unconscious on a hovering chair transporter. When RF-13 saw her reclining figure and the metal straps that bound her hands and ankles, he gave M-6 a cutting glare. She was already out cold and the cur still found the need to chain her to the mobile transport.

M-6 shrugged, “She tried to escape for the 5th time already. We just gave her a sleeping drug, it will wear off in a few hours.” He signaled the man beside him who quickly stepped out, ran his MA on the mobile’s scanner and in a second the metal bounds retracted. He gave the transporter a push and it hovered slowly towards RF-13.

Once it was within reach, RF-13 drew it towards him and directed it to land. He reached his hands on the back compartment and forcefully cut off the wires with a decisive pull. The hover mobile powered off, all signs of operation gone.

M-6 who was closely watching all these drew a knowing smile, the man had cautious personality. He had indeed tampered the mobile transport’s logic chip to receive commands from his MA, shame it was of no use now.

RF-13 gave his sister a brief glance. She looked fine, but he could not be sure.

“Give her your MA,” Leta’s voice sounded on his left earpiece. Since the projection mode was on private, only RF-13 could see Leta’s figure leaning on the unconscious girl.

While keeping M-6 and his brood within sight, RF-13 wordlessly unstrapped his MA and wound it around his sister’s wrist.

Leta was silent for a while as she examined a screen projection in front of her. She looked towards him, “Her body’s well, nothing unusual.”

“Send me the release deed,” RF-13 zeroed his eyes on M-6.

M-6 casually fidgeted with the device on his wrist, found an open line and sent it. A beep issued on the device strapped on the girl’s wrist.

“It’s bona fide, digital signature, seal and deed registration number,” Leta confirmed after running it through a thorough inspection. The girl’s guardianship had been transferred to her brother until she reached the legal age of 20.

“The Coder?” seeing he checked and was satisfied, M-6 motioned towards the silver case seating on the ground beside RF-13’s feet.

“My brother?” RF-13 returned, ignoring his query.

M-6 smirked, he had been waiting for this. “You didn’t think I would give you both for only the Coder, did you?” Seeing the young man silent, M-6 continued, “I propose a fair trade. I will hand you your brother and his deed, of course. I had it prepared already. In exchange, you tell me what you bartered for the Coder.”

In truth, when he discovered that the one who enticed the Bonds system to refuse even the Visus Alliance during the auction was an academy drop-out, he had wondered what could a mere reserved force have equal or maybe even more valuable than the Coder. He had turned it over in his mind without coming upon as much as a breadcrumb that it had become an obsession. This was also one factor why he brought more men than usual. Still, if he could coax it out of him, the lesser the trouble it took, the better. He looked at the man opposite him with anticipation.

Contrary to his expectations, after listening to him, the young man did not answer and instead kicked the silver case on his feet. The case slid on the pavement and stopped in the middle of the two parties.

Without preamble, RF-13 whipped out something and directed it towards them. It was a laser gun.

Before M-6 could react, his men had already thrown themselves in front of him and scrambled to activate their shields.

However, RF-13 coolly shifted his hand holding the weapon downward and shot without hesitation. The sound of brief impact could be heard.

M-6 paled in disbelief when he realized where the muzzle was directed at. It was pointing at the case.

The sheer energy of the shot had sent the case skidding a hundred meters away. A good portion of the silver case had melted. Still, to M-6 intense relief, the golden Coder bounced off the case and aside from a few specks of melted silver, it appeared to be intact.

“I have an excellent aim, if you care to know.” RF-13 once more adjusted the weapon on his hand so that it was aimed at the Coder, but his eyes were on M-6’s.

“Fine, fine!” M-6 shouted in panic. He turned to B-652 and screamed at him to get the spherocopter to land. He would be foolish to lose the Coder at the expense of a mere merchandise.

Besides, M-6 thought, the merchandise was defective. He sent the boy’s deed to the young man the same way he did with the girl’s.

An aerial vehicle landed in an area clear of transmitter trees. When its door opened, another mobile transported glided out of it towards RF-13.

Unlike his sister, C-37 was not strapped to his transport. RF-13 expression stiffened when he noticed the unhealthy pallor of his skin and his shallow breathing. He dropped the gun and immediately proceeded to strapping his MA onto the boy.

Seeing this, M-6 immediately signaled his men to grab the Coder.

The brother did not move to stop them. In fact he hardly seemed to notice as he appeared to be listening to somebody on his earpiece.

M-6 did not bother to mask the greed on his expression as he turned the golden cube in his hands. There was no doubt, this was the genuine artifact. Earlier, he had become skeptical that RF-13 would really trade the Coder for his siblings. M-6 wouldn’t, he could sell just anybody down the river to get his hands on the cube. So he had him tailed and ordered his men to apprehend him once they confirmed that he had the Coder. However, who could have thought that one man evaded the hands of more than a dozen.

It doesn’t matter now, I have what I wanted, M-6 thought. He looked at the young man who was absorbed examining his brother and asked in a baiting tone, “Have you ever wondered why I didn’t auction your brother too, they’re a lovely set.”

He continued, seeing he got the young man’s attention, “After all, it’s not often I get to trade twins.”

M-6 played with the Coder on his hands, throwing it on the air before catching it again, like a juggler would do with an apple. Then he proceeded with a voice laced with poison, “Your brother, as merchandise, is defective. His body’s condition is rapidly deteriorating.”

The merchant’s lips stretched out in a malignant smile, “Now don’t look at me like that, I wouldn’t damage my own wares, would I? It’s just my luck that when your father transferred their guardianship to me, the boy has already started showing symptoms.” M-6 relished RF-13’s horrified expression. “When I had it checked out, it was too late to discover that your mother also died of the same disease.”

M-6 languidly emphasized the word, ‘also’. The boy was already on the late stages of Degulos, a mutated form of cancer. The medical advancement could have easily isolated and targeted the abnormal cell growth and lead the body into remission in the case of cancer. Whatever cancer it was or in whichever stage the patient had progressed before it was detected. However, with Degulos, the affected cells metastasized and consumed the organs at a speed that the current medications could not address. It was a hopeless case. Frankly, M-6 thought it was convenient to have it taken off his hands, one less body to bury and no legalities to bother with.

“Take the brother, I want the information out of him,” the merchant ordered his men.

RF-13, who had been engrossed listening to Leta discuss C-37’s condition, seemed to have snapped out of it. He procurred a bot controller, pressed a key then immediately smashed it on the ground.

M-6 had caught this action on the corner of his eyes as he was turning his back. Not understanding what happened, he instinctively ran towards the copter. He had not noticed when a thin transparent membrane began peeling off the cube he was holding. A sharp pain sliced through his palm making him unclench his fingers and release the object on his hand.

The cube dropped on the ground with a metallic clunk. The scarlet substance flowed through the transparent scale-like pattern that emerged on the cube. M-6 had not noticed it before but a transparent skin had been covering the Coder all this time. It gave of a fragmented gleam, as if it was signaling something.

The men watched as a robotic falcon swooped in out of the nearest transmitter tree. Its talons grabbed the golden cube and it set off towards the sky.

One of M-6’s men pointed a gun towards the flying robot but M-6 whacked it out of his hands immediately. The merchant glared at the stunned man and screeched, “You might hit the Coder, you imbecile!”

B-652 swept his gaze on the shattered controller on the ground, then at the disappearing automaton bird. The broken controller was probably the only way the falcon could be controlled to land. However, since it was no longer receiving commands from its regulator it had shifted to autonomous mode.

B-652 scrambled to grab his jamming equipment from the gear he had brought as a precaution. He had not actually thought that he would be using it for this purpose but their first encounter with the young man had made him take caution more than usual.

The autonomous robot used environment sensing and navigation technology to map its surroundings and navigate obstacles. It was probably going to keep on flying until its power ran out. B-652 knew they could not afford it being spotted by others.

He directed the jammer to interrupt and confuse all radar and route-finding signals. The falcon swayed left and right for a moment but still kept on its flight.

Its aeronautical pattern was not as steady as before but it remained undeterred, narrowly missing obstacles. B-652 checked, but the signal blocker was working.

M-6 seemed to have realized it too.

“You’re standing at the bay of the Data River and below hundreds of transmitter trees and you think your signal blocker would work?” RF-13 remarked casually.

At that moment, B-652 and M-6 felt like they were hit by a solid block of weight. Of course, as long as they stayed along the Data River and as long as the automaton falcon flew above the wide expanse of transmitter trees, the jammer was but a buzz to the blaring signals from the transmitters.

“Let me ask you one thing more about this venue,” RF-13 dispassionately continued, “Did you really think something as valuable as the life blood of the Regiis Kingdom would go unsupervised?”

B-652’s unconsciously surveyed the Data plaza. RF-13 was right. B-652 belatedly realized the reason why the Data River and the transmitter trees were built at the heart of the region-it was to put it under everyone’s eyes. At daylight it was manned by the thousands of tourists that roamed it. At night it could not only be the occasional patrolling guards on sight or drones. But there were no surveillance devices installed, at least he did not detect one. There were only trees.

B-652 stared at the transmitter trees. Realization dawned late.

The trees were not only transmitters, they were also receptors - information collectors.

These trees were the eyes and ears of the Regiis Kingdom. The expanse of the Data Avenue was literally an opportune intelligence collection pool from thousands of people who visited it.

As if they received a cue, patrol guards, drones and robotic hounds emerged and gained distance. They had deliberately ignored the group of people on the plaza and went after the aerial mechanical animal.

M-6 pointed at RF-13 and barked, “No matter what, get him!” Then he threw himself inside the spherocopter and jolted it out of autonomous pilot mode. He flew the aerial motor like a mad man and went after the disappearing robotic falcon. The Coder was now free for all. Finders, keepers. If the Regiis patrolmen or anybody out there caught it before him, then he had lost the most lucrative deal of his life when it was almost within reach.

BF-652 warily eyeballed RF-13’s figure. The man was too unperturbed for someone who was facing almost two dozen men. He had not even attempted to reach for the gun he had discarded. Instead he was calmly fixing his MA onto his wrist.

Only when it was done did he look at them. “I have met all of you, yes?”

It was received with silence. RF-13 had played a prank on them at the Orchidarium, ‘firing’ each a gum then reporting them for suspicion of bomb possession.

“And those were the two at the entrance,” RF-13 remarked.

“Then, goodbye,” said RF-13 as he turned his back on them. Surprised, B-652 drew his gun to threaten the man when he felt a prickling sensation on his neck. It increasingly intensified until it became painful. The sensation spread to his head, as if thousands of needles pricked at his brain. The pain was excruciating.

Every one of them seemed to be in the same quandary. B-652 could see through his blurring vision the silhouettes of figures crumpled on the ground, the same as he was.

The prickling pain had him clawing at his head wishing he could dig into his skull and tear out his brains. Then it stopped, it was gone. The sensation subsided so suddenly, if B-652 was not lying on the ground sweating, he would have thought it was an illusion.

He moved his elbows to support himself to discover that something was wrong. His arms, fingers and his limbs were not responding. He was paralyzed. All of them lay on the ground with confused horrified expression.

“Don’t worry, the limb paralysis will only last at most an hour. The neurobots will have dissolved in your blood by that time. The gum was merely a distraction,” RF-13 explained without looking at the bodies on the ground. Though it was, in the long term, harmless, panic could induce faster heart rate. This in turn could diffuse the microbots so thoroughly causing temporary blindness or loss of hearing.

B-652 helplessly watched as RF-13 carried the two and boarded a solar-powered drive. The tireless vehicle sped off noiselessly, seemingly floating a few inches of the ground before it disappeared in a blink.

They had outnumbered him, but long before the game started, the young man had already outsmarted them.

B-652 realized that RF-13 had injected them with a neural detrimental bots when he shot them with what they thought was a simple prank. It was probably in a form of a soluble needle that invaded their skin and dispersed through their blood. It explained the tingling sensation. A simple gum would not cause the phantom impression of being fleetingly pricked by a needle on the back of their necks. However, by the time they grasped it, they were already at its mercy.