Old Ironsides Page 11

  ‘Charmed I’m sure,’ Nathan murmured.

  ‘For now we will require you to remain with your escort at all times, and to refrain from wandering outside the city,’ Ceyron said to Nathan. ‘We cannot afford to lose you to the Aleeyans or their sympathizers at this juncture, and frankly given all that you’ve endured I feel compelled to make any effort I can to assure your safety.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ Nathan replied, his mood tempered by Ceyron’s obvious concern for his welfare, ‘but I’ve learned the hard way in the past that avoiding a threat is usually the best way to end up running forever. We always caught convicts eventually in the past when I worked on the police force, and I don’t intend to become a victim of this.’

  Nathan looked up at Foxx, who glanced at Ceyron.

  ‘I was under the impression that I would be returned to my duties on New Washington once the escort assignment was complete,’ she said. ‘I can’t protect Mister Ironside on my own against unknown assailants.’

  ‘On the contrary, you already have,’ Ceyron pointed out, ‘and admirably so. I’ve requested from your station chief that you remain as Mister Ironside’s escort for the time being, and I think that given his history as an officer of the law, he may be of some use to the investigation I want you to conduct into the attack, agreed?’

  Nathan saw Foxx swallow her frustration and nod.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ***

  XVI

  New Washington

  Nathan stared in awe out of the shuttle window at the vast horizon of the earth below, the edge tinged with a beautiful blue that contrasted deeply with the inky blackness of space. Although the shuttle had no true “windows”, each of the shuttle’s viewing panels presented a perfect stereoscopic image of the view outside some six feet long by two feet high, making the craft’s interior seem almost open to the vacuum of space. As he watched he could see ahead a bright star in the darkness of the heavens loom closer, shining with a steady light and slowly taking shape before them.

  ‘Is that it?’ he asked as he held a ruck sack on his lap with his hands.

  ‘That’s it,’ Foxx replied, barely noticing. ‘Don’t get too excited.’

  Nathan pressed his face close to the viewing panel as he watched the station loom closer, and slowly it began to take shape as the brilliant flare of reflected sunlight transformed into recognizable shapes.

  The station was just like he remembered from his school days of reading magazines about what the future would look like. New Washington was an immense spinning wheel or disc flecked with countless thousands of lights, harsh black shadows passing slowly across its outer edge as the central arms of the wheel spun in a slow, graceful motion. As they closed in Nathan counted six arms like the spoke of a gigantic wheel branching out from a central core to connect with the outer ring, which itself was thicker then he would have imagined. The interior of that ring was transparent and he could see the city blocks within, while the city’s arms appeared to be clad in metal but with soaring transparent panels that allowed a view in to the Monorail transport and elevators moving up and down inside, and a vertiginous view out for those travelling within.

  ‘So, does everybody live on the outside of the ring?’

  ‘Mostly,’ Foxx replied, one eye focusing on her optical data feed as she spoke. ‘The gravity on the city Belt is one “G”, normal in other words. The Belt’s about six kilometres in length, but in truth it never ends: you can just keep walking forward forever.’

  Nathan marvelled at the sight of the station as the shuttle slowed down, aiming for the central “hub” where he guessed ships entered and exited the station.

  ‘Arriving traffic enters on the earth-facing side,’ Foxx explained as the shuttle slowed further and began a gentle roll to the right that matched the rotation of the city before them. ‘Leaving traffic exits facing out into the Solar System. It’s all computer controlled.’

  The shuttle drew closer to the gigantic space station, the earth alongside them now appearing to move swiftly as the shuttle rolled. The light from outside faded as the earth’s sunlit surface gradually vanished to be replaced with the blackness of space, filled with millions of tiny stars, far more than Nathan could ever recall seeing even when he had camped in the wilds of Colorado with his father when he was a child.

  A pair of sleek, silver and light-blue painted spacecraft cruised past nearby in close formation, their forward-curved wings bearing the emblem of the New Washington station, an obelisk wrapped in a winding coil of blue, a single eye atop the obelisk. Nathan figured that they were some form of fighter craft, maybe military judging by the unmistakable shape of cannons pointing out from the tips of their wings.

  ‘Police interceptors,’ Foxx identified the craft as Nathan watched them. ‘As a Republic, the military has no presence in the civilian cities unless it’s directly requested by the governor. They restrict their operations to the military bases in orbit around Saturn.’

  The view outside was suddenly obscured by a bright tunnel of illumination as the shuttle entered the landing bay, and for a moment the craft paused. Vivid red warning lights glowed as the landing bay doors closed behind the shuttle and the atmosphere was equalized with that of the interior of the station, vast clouds of oxygen billowing into the chamber until the lights suddenly switched to bright green. The shuttle began to move forward again and before he knew it Nathan saw the interior of New Washington’s landing bay unfold before him. The central hub of the station was filled with spacecraft, most of them parked on a vast landing pad marked with giant holographic indicators directing traffic within.

  The shuttle touched down on its assigned pad, and within a minute Nathan followed Foxx out of the shuttle and onto the landing pad. They stepped down off the boarding ramp amid a throng of civilians, Nathan slinging his ruck sack onto his shoulder as a voice called out.

  ‘Hey, Foxx, your holiday got cut short then?! Such a shame…’

  Nathan saw two men approaching them, one a muscular dude with the dark skin of a Latino, the other Caucasian and slightly more lithe. As clearly cops as the day was long, both were smiling at Foxx while casting cautious glances at Nathan.

  ‘Up yours, Emilio,’ Foxx shot back.

  The pair locked wrists and chest-bumped in a surprisingly macho manner, before the other cop shook her hand more formally. The darker skinned of the two glanced at Nathan.

  ‘Who’s the dude?’

  ‘Emilio Vasquez and Jay Allen,’ Foxx introduced them as she turned, ‘meet Nathan Ironside. We’ll be babysitting him for a while.’

  Vasquez and Allen looked Nathan over as though they were examining a perp’ they’d pulled of the street.

  ‘Looks kinda pale,’ Vasquez observed. ‘How come we’re all on the job now? Too much for you to handle?’

  Foxx shot Vasquez a sneer as they began walking together toward the security gates.

  ‘Nathan came under attack within a few hours of me arriving,’ she explained. ‘Something’s going on and I want to get to the bottom of it. Or rather, Nathan does.’

  Vasquez and Allen looked again at Nathan.

  ‘You got any experience?’ Allen asked.

  ‘Five years on the force,’ Nathan replied, sensing a need to prove his credentials. ‘Six years in the army too.’

  ‘Which unit?’ Vasquez asked, a challenge in his tone.

  Nathan was about to answer but Foxx cut across him. ‘Nathan served in an elite paramilitary unit so his record’s classified. Same for the police.’

  Vasquez peered at Nathan with interest. ‘Black ops, huh? Never bothered with any of that sneaking around myself. I always preferred a straight fight.’

  ‘Which is why I get to visit the surface and they keep you locked up here,’ Foxx observed as they waved their badges at the security guards manning the landing pad gates.

  Nathan got the impression that they somehow knew the guards as they were hurried through. As they moved through the gate an alarm sound
ed and one of the burly guards pressed a hand against Nathan’s chest.

  ‘Not this one.’

  Foxx turned back. ‘He’s with us.’

  ‘Not now he isn’t, he’s got no ID.’

  Nathan glanced at Foxx, who strolled back to the guard’s side. ‘Officers who have spent years undercover often have their ID replaced with a false one,’ she explained. ‘Nathan here hasn’t had his chip re-implanted yet. You got a problem, call Captain Forrester, Fourth Precinct.’

  The guard’s eyes narrowed as he peered at Nathan while replying to Foxx.

  ‘We’ve already been talking to Forrester after you and your cowboy detectives shot up the landing bay three days ago,’ he growled.

  ‘It’s called catching criminals,’ Foxx snapped back at him. ‘You want a piece of that instead of standing around with your thumb up your ass guarding a checkpoint, then enlist, otherwise you’re obstructing police business so get the hell out of our way.’

  The burly guard pushed Nathan aside as he turned to directly confront Foxx, and immediately found himself flanked by Vasquez and Allen.

  ‘Give me a reason,’ Vasquez suggested, one hand flexing at his side.

  The guard looked Vasquez’s stocky physique over and then backed down, his face flushing red.

  ‘Damned cops, think you own the place. Get out of here.’

  Foxx pulled Nathan through the checkpoint and out of the bay.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Yeah dude, and how come you got no ID?’ Vasquez asked. ‘You’ll show up everywhere for not having one, not exactly what I’d call low profile.’

  Nathan saw Foxx thinking hard, but he replied himself without thinking about it.

  ‘Double bluff,’ he said simply. ‘The bad guys will expect me to vanish into thin air, to be un-locatable. They’ll be searching high and low for the ID signature they’re familiar with. I do this, hide in plain sight, they’ll never expect that.’

  Allen peered sideways at Nathan. ‘Or they’ll spot you much more easily, and un-locatable is not a word. You mean invisible, which you’re the opposite of right now.’

  Nathan searched for a response that evaded him as Foxx replied.

  ‘The criminal gang he infiltrated was deconstructed as a result of the arrests made and most of those who escaped are still on the run and have their hands full,’ she said. ‘Let’s just focus on getting Nathan back to the precinct and figuring this all out. Allen, where are we with Viggo?’

  Jay Allen’s gaze altered subtly as he consulted his optical implant’s data stream.

  ‘Viggo’s not talking and he’s staring down a twenty to life stretch for being such a quiet boy,’ he replied. ‘Never thought a runner would hold firm like this, so whoever he’s answering too has some serious muscle. No leads on who that might be yet.’

  Vasquez chimed in as they walked down a steel corridor out of the landing bays. Nathan could hear the buzz of conversation ahead, as though they were walking toward a large shopping mall or similar.

  ‘Viggo’s payment was made in cash and property, some lousy apartment down in the tenement projects on North Four but Viggo’s not saying exactly where,’ Vasquez explained.

  ‘Hunt the apartment down,’ Foxx insisted. ‘Properties don’t sit around unoccupied for decades on New Washington, even on North Four.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  ‘What about the drug Viggo hit me with?’ she asked Allen.

  ‘Nothing from forensics and they’re saying it’s out of their league,’ Allen said. ‘We got word from Forrester that some egg head’s coming in to take a look at it for us?’

  ‘Doctor Schmidt,’ Foxx confirmed as they walked out of the steel corridor. ‘He’ll meet us at the precinct.’

  Nathan heard her last words and then the hum of amassed conversation filled his ears as they stepped out of the hub and his mind went into meltdown.

  ***

  XVII

  Above him he could see broad windows, probably the display panels or hard-light that he had witnessed on earth, and through them he could see the immense form of the earth slowly turning far below. The panoramic view was so utterly spectacular that he felt himself lose balance and he reached out desperately with one hand and clamped onto the first thing he found.

  He looked down at his fingers and saw that they were firmly attached to Vasquez’s hand.

  ‘Dude,’ the former soldier raised an eyebrow, ‘you gonna buy me dinner first?’

  Nathan whipped his hand away and looked up again, this time leaning against a wall beside him for support as his jaw and eyes hung wide open. The transparent panels showed the gigantic form of one of the spokes of the space station soaring away from them, and far away the immense outer Belt, which was filled with the towering spires of massive buildings all reached back up toward them in a dizzying panorama back-dropped by Earth’s vast surface. To his amazement he could see countless craft soaring through the skies of the Belt far below, weaving in orderly lines between the towering buildings, could see parks where trees were growing, lakes, roads, an entire city following the gently curved path of the city’s immense Belt and filled with thousands, perhaps millions of citizens.

  ‘It’s so big,’ he gasped finally.

  Allen’s voice cut into his awed reverie. ‘Seriously, who is this guy?’

  ‘He’s been gone a long time. Come on, let’s go,’ Foxx said.

  Nathan felt Foxx tug on his arm and they joined the throng moving across an automated walkway towards elevator banks that soared through the spokes of the station. Nathan guessed that they must somehow rotate around half way down to match the direction of gravity at the rim, and then he realized that his hair felt strange. He caught his reflection in the window of some fast food joint and saw his thick hair waving about as though he was underwater. Then he noted the smoke from the fast food area spiralling outward from the fryers, curling in a horizontal vortex past waiting customers as it followed a Coriolis Effect just like weather systems on earth did, spiralling into a coil.

  They hustled into the elevator, which filled with some forty people before the doors closed and it hummed into life. Nathan stood amid the throng and stared dumbstruck as the elevator rocketed upward and away from the central hub. As he had predicted, as it climbed so the elevator rotated slowly, and the former surface of the hub became the sky along with the vertiginous view of the earth as the elevator turned them around and gravity began to take effect.

  Nathan swallowed as a bolt of nausea lodged in his belly at the bizarre motion, and he saw the elevator’s occupants all reach down and do something to their belts. Foxx reached around to Nathan’s belly, and he felt her hand brush something there. He looked down at her and smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Didn’t know you cared.’

  ‘You don’t need your gravity boots switched on at the Belt,’ she whispered as she rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t turn them off, your feet will weigh twice as much.’

  Nathan nodded, managed to keep his nausea in check. ‘I knew the elevator would turn around,’ he announced proudly. ‘Had to really, right?’

  The occupants of the elevator all looked at him with bemused frowns on their faces. Vasquez glanced at the ceiling.

  ‘This is gonna be a long day.’

  The elevators stopped and opened and they stepped out onto the Belt, Nathan gawking at anything and everything as Foxx led him through the city’s dense streets. The miasma of life reminded him briefly of New York City on a busy day, the hustle and bustle of people on the move, but everything here was subtly different.

  The women wore what seemed like electrified clothes, rippling with incandescent light and reacting with the clothes of other women around them in a kaleidoscopic light show. Some women’s hair glowed as though each strand was an optical fiber, points of light changing in color with each stride they took. Others wore tiny LED lights around the edges of their eyelids that flashed when they looked directly at him or dimmed as they pas
sed by. A teenage girl in chromium pants and with vivid purple, spiky hair flashed him a neon smile as both of her eyes flickered like lightbulbs as she looked him up and down, and then she was gone into the crowds that moved past them like rivers of humanity on a never-ending journey.

  The men wore shoulder pads as standard it seemed, and boots that reached almost to the knee. Hair was conventionally worn to hang lower on one side of the head than the other, giving many the appearance of being off balance. Skin was either near white or deeply tanned, presumably based on how much space travel people were doing, Nathan guessed, those travelling more getting extra exposure to sunlight either on the planet below or maybe on other planetary systems.

  The soaring buildings themselves were a mixture of glossy black or chrome, mirrored glass that reflected even more light throughout the city as though it were both night and day at the same time, the blue earth far “above” cast against the flickering night lights of the city.

  ‘Man, I could breathe this city in all day,’ he gasped.

  ‘This way,’ Foxx urged him.

  Nathan weaved between the crowds behind her, suddenly aware that Vasquez and Allen were flanking him protectively.

  Even as they walked Nathan felt drops of water touch his skin and he looked up in time to see rain begin falling from a cloudless sky. He was so shocked that he actually laughed as he watched the rain plummet down toward them in veils.

  ‘Damn it,’ Allen cursed.

  ‘It’s raining!’ Nathan chuckled as he held his hands out.

  Vasquez shot him an odd look. ‘If you like people’s breath pouring down on you I guess it’s cool. Whatever’s your thing, bro’.’

  Nathan frowned as Foxx explained.