Daughter of Mars #90 | (Neurona Prime Part 2)
Four minutes later, the shuttle opened for boarding. By then, a group of about thirty or so people had gathered. Most appeared to be business travelers, each absorbed in vid calls over implanted phones or small earbuds tethered to their NetMinis, and shuffled along as a mass without awareness of their surroundings. One man in a suit so black it appeared to devour all light kept flinging his arms about as if throwing documents to people he spoke with over virtual reality. He’s going to hit someone. Risa guided Chaia to a spot at the end of the line entering the docking ramp. The girl clung to her left arm, eyes darting from person to person.
“Which one is it?” whispered Risa.
“What?” Chaia looked up at her.
“Who’s thinking of doing something bad to you?”
“No one. I don’t like crowds.” She stared into Risa’s eyes. Everyone’s talking about deals and credits and stuff. The girl nodded at one man. That guy is arguing with his wife, and the one next to him hates Mars and wants to go back to Earth. The angry man is grabbing video screens that aren’t really there.
Risa shook her head. When did I start assuming the worst of people?
Chaia shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“That’s unnerving.”
“I know.” Chaia smiled for a second before her expression became neutral. “Sorry.”
The crowd filtered through the door, and eventually, Risa entered a medium-sized shuttle filled with the scent of disinfectant. Row upon row of bland grey seats soaked up the grumbling travelers. Risa thought about her ticket, triggering a link to open between her headware and her NetMini, and a golden highlight appeared around the seats she’d reserved. Once they shuffled out of the aisle at their assigned position, Chaia scooted to the window seat and her usual detached calm returned. I killed two men right in front of her and she barely batted an eyelash…
“Too many people makes for too much chance something will happen at random,” Chaia whispered. “I might not see it coming.”
Risa reclined her seat the two inches it could move, and closed her eyes. Her mind drifted to the memory of the angry mob that cornered her against the wall of NewsNet screens. “I’m not big on crowds either.”
“Why were those people angry with you?” Chaia’s too-blue eyes brimmed with innocence.
“It’s complicated.” Risa got angry thinking about how a population of sheep could blindly gobble up blatant lies. Anyone who saw the truth was singled out and shouted down. The NewsNet didn’t even put any real effort into their bullshit, and these people eat it up.
“Oh.” Chaia glanced out the window at the shuttleport tarmac. “To them it must be comfortable not having to worry about anything and do what they are told. Thought creates discomfort. It is like when my parents were alive. I did not have to worry about anything. All I had to do was play.”
What planet is this kid from?
“Earth,” said Chaia, as she turned back from the window. “And yes, sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Risa opened one eye.
“Sometimes I do creepy things because it is fun.” Chaia grinned.
A small hand on the shoulder nudged Risa awake. She glanced left at Chaia, who pointed at an overhead screen, which displayed a message indicating they would be landing soon. The clock in her vision confirmed twenty-one minutes had passed. Risa stretched in her seat, which forced its way forward a few seconds later as the shuttle began its descent. The unexpected motion startled Risa the rest of the way awake. Chaia returned her attention to a simple side-scrolling video game on the complimentary datapad tethered to the seat in front of her. The whining drone of deploying landing gear rumbled through the cabin a few minutes later. Risa leapt to her feet the instant the automated RedLink landing announcement began, and pulled the girl along to the door before other passengers got more than one leg out of their seats.
She jogged down the exit ramp. Not going to be able to cut through the vents with a tween in tow. Maybe a PubTran will be faster, but The Spiral is a pain in the ass.
“What’s the spiral?” asked Chaia. “I went in the vents once. It’s scary there, but we can go if you want.”
“Once? A two-tier climb in a hurry is too much for a kid that didn’t grow up doing it. Do you always read people’s minds?” Risa grumbled.
Chaia gave her a flat look. “Only when I’m afraid of someone or I like them.”
“The Spiral is a corkscrew tunnel that lets cars drive between tiers. Always slow because of idiots. We’re better off skipping it and walking until we get to Tier 4.”
“Don’t the”―the girl grunted from her effort to keep up with Risa’s stride―“cars drive themselves?”
“No. This is Primus City. There’s more manual cars than PubTran ones. Most of the city is too narrow for vehicles at all. A few major roads. Whatever genius designed this place never predicted the way everything spilled into the streets. It’s like handing a two year old a datapad coloring app and telling them not to go outside the lines.”
Chaia smiled.
A brief walk brought them to a bank of elevators, which they rode from the surface to a huge public mall on Tier 2. Chaia held on to Risa’s arm with both hands as they hurried through the open space and down a street headed east. A quarter mile later, Risa headed for a large switchback staircase littered with semiconscious dosers and vagrants. Chaia’s grip tightened as she stepped among sprawled legs and snoring bodies.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Risa. “The Defense Force comes through here often enough to make the risk outweigh the reward.”
Chaia pulled her to a halt on a section of stairs between Tier 3 and 4 and stared at her eyes. The child’s initial expression of confusion faded to a dawning look of understanding. “Oh, cops.”
Risa blinked. “You can just ask.”
“Faaaster,” said Chaia in a singsong tone. She wore a neutral expression for ten seconds before she frowned at her sneakers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to sound stupid.”
“That’s not a stupid question. You’re new to Mars.” Risa jogged down the last two sections of stairs to Tier 4, and crossed a small concourse surrounded by numerous tourist-trap shops. So many vendors had crammed around the stairwell that their merchandise spread into the open square. “If you like someone, treat them like a person, not a holo-disk to be read whenever you need something.”
Risa headed to a dim street where two six-wheeled taxis forced their way through the pedestrians in an inexorable creep. The more distant driver yelled and whined at people to give him room.
“Okay.” Chaia trailed behind her for a few minutes. “What if we’re trying to be quiet?”
“I guess it’s not much different than an implanted comm.” Risa activated a wireless connection to her NetMini long enough to check the navigation app, and took the next right. “You know for a twelve year old, you’re awful trusting of someone you don’t really know. I’d never have followed me anywhere near the tech district of Primus City at your age.”
“You are trying to help a friend, which proves you are compassionate. You think I’m reckless for trusting you. That proves you are caring.” Chaia smiled for two seconds. “I also dreamed you would take me to a boy who I will fall in love with, so I know we will not get hurt today.”
“A boy huh?” A part of Risa wanted to grin at her and say cute things, but the weight of Pavo’s loss dragged the urge down to a disinterested mumble. “What’s he look like?”
Chaia crossed behind Risa to walk closer to the street. “Black hair and he’s pale like you.”
“You just described seventy-something percent of Mars.”
A young man sprinted out of a gap between stores with a small, black box in his hand. He brushed Risa’s arm as he passed, shoving people to the ground in an effort to force his way against the crowd. She glanced at the child, now on her right. If she didn’t move, he’d have run her down.
At the next corner, six MDF officers in full armor stood behind a portable barricade. Risa stopped. Chaia placed a hand on the small of her back.
“It’s okay. They won’t bother you.”
Risa clenched her jaw, took Chaia by the hand, and walked up to the line of people waiting by a narrow gap between the metal roadblock and the stone tunnel wall. One MDF woman, visor up to expose a paper-white face, ran a handheld scanner past everyone who went by. The voice in Risa’s mind screamed at her to run. With each person waved through with a dull bee-oop noise, her fear mounted. Chaia put on a pleasant smile, a look she must have honed in endless boardroom meetings, and waved at the other officers. The sight of a huge armored man holding a rifle as big as Risa’s leg finger waving to a young girl triggered an unexpected laugh. Risa covered her mouth, trying not to shake. That wasn’t funny… I’m nervous.
The heavyset man in front of Risa became flustered when the handheld scanner failed to pick up a NetMini or an ImDent chip. He shouted, “Is this necessary?” repeatedly, in various ways. Two of the other officers moved to approach. Risa identified three possible routes to run through. She grabbed Chaia by the shoulders, but the girl shook her head to the negative.
Before the situation escalated further, a bee-oop noise confirmed a read.
He’s not hiding anything. He’s just an asshole late for a meeting.
Risa jumped at the sound of a childlike voice in the back of her mind.
The MDF woman locked eyes with her at the checkpoint. The stare lingered for a few seconds before the cop offered a knowing nod. She swiped the scanner too far away to pick anything up, but it still made the noise.
“Keep yourself safe,” whispered the cop.
PVM? Risa strode past. “Thanks, I will.”
Her heart eased down to a normal rate. About fifty meters from the checkpoint, she leaned on the wall between a Cybertattoo parlor and a Nicohaler shop at the point where the passage expanded from a two-lane street to a rectangular commerce quad. Chaia stood close, arms at her sides and a placid look of innocence on her face. If not for the smudges of dirt on her peach-colored shirt, she’d have looked out of place.
The street swarmed with MDF in dull red armor. Risa counted seven teams of three going door to door among shops and restaurants in this pace. Sixteen young people in gang attire sat on the ground along the wall a short distance from a pile of pistols, knives, and two swords. From the look of it, they were being ‘interviewed’ rather than detained. Further down the street, an MDF minicar parked in the shadow of a dead overhead light. The driver side door hung open. A slim woman in a white jumpsuit lay across the seats with her butt in the air, trying to connect something under the dashboard while a man in a similar white outfit walked around the vehicle with a violet scanning light.
Risa gestured. “I guess that’s her car.”
Chaia glanced at it for a few seconds and looked back up at her. “What are they doing?”
“Looking for evidence.” Risa took a deep breath. Not her too. Was Pavo involved in something else? Is this shitstorm coming my way next? She narrowed her eyes. Yeah… It is.
Risa watched the police go in and out of alleys and businesses, feeling more like a spectator than a help. Whoever had abducted or killed Pavo’s duty partner had done so in the middle of a busy quad, in the closest an underground city had to ‘broad daylight.’ She studied every detail of the scene, using her cybereyes to zoom in on the gang punks, the cops, and the stores. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The faces of the MDF investigators mirrored her frustration.
“This is where Aurelia’s beacon sent me.” Risa’s stomach tightened. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do that the MDF can’t.”
She grabbed for her NetMini. Wonder if Tamashī found anything? Before she could open the holo-panel, Chaia set off at a brisk walk, heading along the near wall towards Aurelia’s patrol car. With all the police around, Risa couldn’t bring herself to yell, and pursued in silence. The girl stopped next to it. If the lights and MDF logo didn’t give it away as a police vehicle, the quad front wheels and armor plating would. Chaia approached alongside the nose end, by fat, knobby tires not quite up to her knee. The people in white gave her a cursory glance, but seemed to disregard her as a curious child.
Chaia leaned forward, placing her hands on the fender over the front wheels. The span of her splayed fingers neatly filled the angled strip between side and hood surface. Risa’s jog faded to a slow creep; she lowered the arm she’d been about to grab the girl with and offered an apologetic smile to the forensic team.
“Hey, kid,” said the man with the light bar. “Don’t touch the car. This is a crime scene.”
The woman popped up inside. “Crap. We’re going to need her prints now.”
Chaia closed her eyes. Within a second, her head leaned back and she swayed as if to faint.
His accusing glare softened. “Is she hurt?” The forensic man hung the light on his belt and took a step closer. “Kid? You okay? You need a medic?”
“I’m… We’ve been walking, I think she’s just light headed.” Risa crept up behind the girl, and grasped her shoulders. “Chaia, honey, are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Come on; don’t get in the Defense Force’s way.” Risa tugged her back.
Chaia rolled her head around until it sagged forward in an exhausted-looking slouch. She opened her eyes and let her arms drop to her sides, leaving two handprints in the dust. The girl kept a plain-faced gaze focused at the investigators as the woman rushed around the car and made her put her hands on a scanning datapad. A band of bright green light swept up and down the screen. Risa managed to contain her fear, standing stiff as a steel cutout until the device chirped.
The forensic tech pointed. “Don’t contaminate a crime scene again, kiddo. Next time, you might get in trouble.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Chaia backed up.
Risa shot an apologetic look at the police and dragged the girl off down the street. At a distance she assumed to be out of earshot, she spun Chaia around to face her.
“What was that?” Risa gathered the girl’s hands together and frowned at the layer of dirt on her palms. “Now your prints are on the car, and in their system.”
“Your friend went in there.” Chaia wriggled her right arm out of Risa’s grip and pointed at a storefront awash in cyan and azure.
Holographic letters formed from illusory plates of black silicon hovered over a long capsule-shaped window in a plastisteel wall. Violet and pink circuitry lines spelled “Neurona Prime” over the glass. Risa zoomed in on shelves of electronic components, primarily cyberspace decks and accessories, as well as gadgets, furniture, and Cyberspace-themed clothing.
“The Defense Force has been in and out of there. What makes you think that?”
Chaia made a face as if Risa asked ‘why do people breathe.’ “I’m psychic.”
Related posts:
Daughter of Mars #89 | (Neurona Prime Part 1)Daughter of Mars #87 | (Chaia)Daughter of Mars #88 | (Fragments)
