Shuqba leaned her brow ridge against the entrance of Graycie’s building. ‘Please, BIS. Can you at least tell me if the girl’s alive?’
The Building Intelligence System had steadfastly denied her access. The fact that she was a Neo negated any authority she had as an SFO. ‘I am not authorised to share that information.’
Shuqba sighed and retreated from the building. ‘All right.’ If she tried to force entry BIS would barbecue her.
Windows stretched up to the grim grey clouds. She wasn’t sure which belonged to Graycie. She called the number of the Omni-Screen she’d found in the girl’s bedroom. There was no answer.
Shuqba was worried about everyone: Graycie, Alida, Ferrassie. Even Commander Rayne, who hadn’t responded to any of her messages or calls. They were in the middle of a crisis and there was nothing Shuqba could do. Security Force Headquarters had been full of confused Neo SFOs and med droids working fruitlessly on fallen Sapiens. If she didn’t help someone she’d fall into despair.
A message came in on her OmniScreen.
What the heck is going on? Everyone’s saying all the Sapiens are dead. I’m heading over to the medical centre to get Rassie. Come and meet us there if you can. Mud.
Shuqba sent one more message to Graycie’s OmniScreen and headed for the Neo med centre. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. She kept her head down and pretended not to hear a Neo male calling out to her from a side street. She couldn’t help any of them. The Neos roaming the streets had been stopping her and asking the same questions all morning. She had no more intel than they did.
She turned a corner to avoid a group of labourer Neos eyeing a surveillance camera and collided with a Sapien boy. He was barely a teenager, dressed only in boxer shorts, his eyes tinged pink with blood. He grabbed onto her.
‘You’re alive!’ Shuqba said. He was the only living Sapien she’d seen all morning.
His short fingernails scratched at her. He didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. Subhuman, animalistic sounds came from his mouth. He was alive but he wasn’t right.
‘Back off.’ She held him in a sanctioned self-defence pose. To take any further action would breach Security Force protocol for Neo officer interactions with Sapien Citizens.
He grunted and struggled. His long Sapien limbs reached for her. He leaned forward to bite her arm.
The time for inaction was over. She pushed him away roughly. He hit the ground bottom first, arms and legs flailing. She thrust the electropacifier she’d taken from Officer Nguyen into his ribs and his body convulsed.
Shuqba left the Sapien on the ground and jogged the rest of the way to the medical centre. The glass sliding doors opened automatically as she approached. The foyer was empty, the reception desk unattended. Moulded plastic seats awaited the backsides of walk-in Neos with health issues. Shuqba wasn’t about to search for the bodies of the Sapien night shift crew. There was nothing she could do for them anyway.
The swinging doors to the ward pushed open with a quiet whoosh. Raised voices came from the far end of the hall. Ferrassie’s room. She stepped quietly. One of the voices belonged to a Sapien male. Another sounded like a Neo, possibly Amud. She moved as stealthily as she could, gripping the electropacifier. The beds in each room were empty, some of them smooth with perfect corners, others with their covers and pillows rumpled. Halfway down the hall, at the nurses’ station, a corpse sat with its forehead on the desk.
A uniformed Neo Control Officer blotted out the light coming from Ferrassie’s room. He was holding a civilian-issue automatic rifle. Ferrassie and Amud were somewhere on the other end of that rifle. The officer told them to get on their knees. He was going to shoot them. He was going to kill two Neos for no reason. He was going to kill her friends, her people.
Shuqba stretched the electropacifier towards his back. He wasn’t subhuman like the teen who’d attacked her. He was a completely conscious agent of LeaderCorp. To assault him would’ve meant medical research for her, before. The Sapiens no longer had the power of numbers and she no longer cared about Security Force protocol or upholding LeaderCorp’s laws. She was no longer their tool. Everything that had happened since she’d arrived in the city had proven Karain right. LeaderCorp was a corrupt slave-driving junta.
She stuck the electropacifier into the middle of his spine and discharged. His legs collapsed underneath him and he fell to the floor. The light from the window opposite blinded Shuqba for a moment.
Ferrassie was sitting up in bed, her face pale and blotchy and her cheeks hollow. The wasting that had begun with her relegation to medical research had taken a firmer grip through her illness.
Amud’s eyes were red and tears dripped down his cheeks. ‘Shuqba! Thank fuck! This psycho was gonna kill us.’
The male on the floor groaned. Shuqba kicked him over onto his back. Yaphet Noon. Of all the Sapiens who could’ve not only survived but also been completely in control of their faculties, it had to be a violent, Neo-hating extremist. LeaderCorp had put this individual in a position of power and hadn’t cared about his actions until it affected their profits. She clipped the electropacifier to her waist, squatted and took his rifle, sliding the strap over her own shoulder.
‘I should shoot you right now. I saw the reports on how many Neos have been hospitalised and even killed by you.’ Shuqba kicked him again.
Amud stood over Noon, his fists clenched. ‘Is this the Neo Control arse who hurt you, Rassie?’ Amud wiped his wet cheeks with an open palm, his bravado returning.
‘Yeah.’ Ferrassie was almost as frozen as the man on the floor.
Amud spat in Noon’s face. ‘How does it feel to be the one without the power for once, huh?’
‘Could you collect some sheets to tie him up with, Amud?’ Shuqba steered Amud towards the door.
‘Sure. Aren’t you going to …?’ Amud drew a finger across his throat and poked out his tongue.
‘I should.’ Shuqba poked Noon in the ribs with the toe of her boot. ‘However, solving problems with a body count is the Sapien way.’
Amud’s shoulders sagged. ‘You’re right.’ He left the room.
‘Do you think you’re well enough to move, Rassie?’
Ferrassie gulped and pulled her focus away from Officer Noon. ‘I gotta find out what’s happened to Lars.’
Shuqba pulled out her OmniScreen. ‘I’ll give him a call.’ She didn’t have much hope he’d be alive.
Ferrassie shook her head. ‘Amud already tried that. I need his address. I’m gonna go see him.’
‘I … my apologies, Ferrassie. I don’t know his address.’
‘You’re a copper. You must have a way.’ Ferrassie’s face twisted with grief.
Shuqba shook her head. ‘Not without my supervisor’s authorisation. I’ll leave a message for Lars. He’ll get in touch if he can. All right?’
Ferrassie’s face reddened. ‘It’s pointless.’
Amud returned with the sheets Shuqba had asked for and some coveralls for Ferrassie.
‘You’ll all be strung up and flayed for this.’ Noon’s muscles had loosened enough for his tongue and throat to work again.
Shuqba gave him another belt of electricity, shoved the long edge of a sheet into his mouth and knotted it at the back of his head. They encircled him with two other sheets and tied him to the leg of the bed.
‘We should get out of the city. Away from troublemakers like this.’ Shuqba kicked Noon in the thigh.
Amud helped Ferrassie pull on the coveralls. ‘What the heck’s going on with all the Sapiens?’
‘Something to do with the implant calibration – I think. There’s no official word, I’m afraid. I have the codes for the armoured vans. I can drive us out of here. Except I’m not sure where we could go.’
‘I know where we can go.’
Ferrassie scowled at Amud. He held her hand between his and nodded. ‘We can trust her.’ He stood over Noon. ‘But we shouldn’t talk in front of this arse.’
They shut the door on the Neo Control Officer.
Amud held a hobbling Ferrassie as they walked down the corridor to the foyer. He spoke with his voice lowered. ‘Lars and I got in contact with the free-Neos.’
Shuqba stopped by the door to the foyer.
‘The free-Neos?’
LeaderCorp had spread the rumour that the free-Neos were a myth and then instigated a special task force to locate them. Only a month or so earlier she would’ve run straight to Commander Rayne with this sort of information. Only a month or so earlier she would’ve reported Amud for having an OmniScreen. She hadn’t done that either.
‘There’s a meeting point, away from the actual secret location. If we can make it there they’ll collect us.’
Ferrassie winced with each step. ‘I hope you’re right about this, Mud, and she doesn’t turn us in.’ She panted, trying to catch her breath.
‘Settle down, Rassie. Who’s she gonna turn us in to? Most of them are dead.’
Ferrassie’s words hurt. Shuqba understood though. Ferrassie had been through a lot and Shuqba had spent a lot of her life playing for both sides. Choose a side and stick to it, Karain would say.
‘I did work for them – not anymore though. I was wrong … about everything. Just because they created us doesn’t mean they own us. I can get us out of the city and to this community. If you’ll trust me.’
Amud held Ferrassie and kicked open the swinging door. ‘It’ll all work out. We couldn’t do it without you, Shuqba.’
Shuqba’s OmniScreen rang.
‘Is that Lars?’ Ferrassie pulled away from Amud, her face brightening. The odour of stale sweat radiated from her body.
Shuqba tilted the screen in Ferrassie’s direction. ‘No. It’s not him. It’s Graycie. My Demi friend’s little sister.’
Her relief was Ferrassie’s disappointment. Shuqba swiped to answer the call.