CHAPTER 1

The last first day

The greatest secrets are the ones you can keep from yourself. To master such an art takes more than discipline, more than talent and more than all the luck the universe can muster. You must sacrifice your mind to a foreign vessel, have it carry you across trepidations and pray you honed it to perfection. Now sit, blind but for the darkness, as you listen for the echoes of your future cry out, in ecstasy or pain, you’ll never know. This is a torture greater than another man's hand can deliver, such is the cruelty of ambition.

My name is Den.

This planet, Delph, is my final checkpoint. They want me to do something they know I’m too afraid to do, they know I will refuse. They will let me run, perhaps for sport, which they will dress in a weighty sense of culture and ritual. Their duty to hunt me, my duty to run. Maybe they will underestimate the navigator this time.

“Den, are we going?”

Leena had bustled her way into my room, always up at the crack of dawn. Why you’d want to watch that grubby sunrise is anybody’s guess, I’d expect that even her simple mind would like to keep itself switched off for as long as possible.

“Let me get ready.”

She huffed. “We will be late, then you will be rushing. You said…”

“I said, let me get ready.” I whisked in a scornful tone.

Leena was, for lack of a better word, a simpleton…not every bee buzzed in that hive of hers. I blame myself for her condition…it was my fault, but she brought it upon herself in a way, naive and lacking in vigilance. That’s what her report would say if I wrote it.

When I looked at the box we lived in, the food we ate and the water we had to ration I would curse myself. That was my fault too—a three-roomed flat, accented in Delphs’ familiar pallid green and muted maroon palette. The tables curved into the yellowed wall tiles and the chairs were bolted in place. It was efficient though, I could give myself that. Yes, Den, the procurer of efficient living spaces.

My morning routine was interrupted by the tinny cry of my comms unit. I let the caller wait while I pulled my lived-in overalls over my legs and slid my arms into them tenderly–like a soldier might don armour before a great battle. The button to answer repulsed my finger for a moment, a trick of the mind, fear was the fuel of procrastination.

“D4Delivery service, Den speaking.” What a fruitless introduction. My illustrious delivery career was coming to an end. Delivery boy…a pitiful time waster, a sour prod at my pride.

“Quaint.” That unmistakable voice crackled, broken but strong.

“Checking in on me?”

“Three days, be ready.” He said.

“I am ready, but I have a request, hers to be specific.” I wiped the sweat from my brow. If I were to outsmart my soon-to-be pursuers I’d need them to gift me an honour.

“Unorthodox.”

“She wants me to inspect the ship, a quick tour…she’s nervous.”

“An…Leena can be assured everything is in order.” He spoke with a grin, nervousness excited him.

“Still, let’s make the pilot happy, yes?”

The response took an aeon, purposeful and effective. He enjoyed tension. It was refreshing to speak to someone more odious than myself though, he made me feel normal. “Very well.”

My body deflated with relief. I’d need access to that ship. “Thank you.” I tried to swallow that, I had no reason to thank that failed abortion for anything. I'll make him suffer if I get the chance to kill him.

“Tomorrow, I will collect you and her.”

“She wishes to stay.”

“Malikus will want to see her.”

“She can tell him all about you.”

I smiled at this pause. He was mulling over his choices. Never underestimate the strength of a wretches self-preservation instincts, I should know.

“Very well, I will speak to her when I arrive.”

“Tomorrow then?” My voice raised at the end with a chirpy bounce. A subtle signal that I’d won the minor engagement. He’d be furious.

“Yes.”

I hung up, then caught my head with open palms.

“Come eat, Den.” Leena’s voice eased through the gap between the sleeping quarter's sliding doors.

I never ate in the morning. Breakfast made me sick these days, our menu didn’t help. The doors opened with a mechanical grunt, revealing Leena sitting at the dining table, nibbling a meat cube sceptically as if it might give up the game and show her where the real food hides if tortured long enough.

I split the blinds with my fingers to peer at what the day had to offer. The sun made this planet seem beautiful from some angles. It filled me with a momentary flicker of pride before I reminded myself that it required help from the universe to appear half-decent. Delph was an industrial world, here to produce goods at the lowest price for the highest cost, the price being the inhabitant's souls.

Delph was in the final stages of its life cycle, the population had been dulled and battered into submission. The replicated blocks were gated, penning people in, an endless ocean of cubes, all smattered with green, red and grey. The sprawling containment cells spat smoke into the skies, dimming the sun's potential. Furious sky trams tore through the smog, dragging the citizens to their designated factories or back to their designated living blocks. That’s probably my fault too.

After breakfast Leena and I scurried out of the apartment. Bottom floor, my choice.

“How long will it take?”

I shook my head at Leena. “The same time as it always takes.” I kept a high pace which forced Leena to skip every so often to keep up.

“I miss, Ray.”

“You saw him last week.”

“So?”

Raymond Remsher. The man we were going to see. He had a ship, I had a license to use it. Technology was the first thing they took. Amazing what can be achieved with a few terrorist attacks, the closure of a few intergalactic trade ways and a well-armed enforcement organisation.

A cacophony of discontent rumbled out from one of the public news terminals. Playing the same old tripe about Yunar, our sister planet. All contact had been lost with it, fears of a disease annihilating the populace. The Royals had blocked all transport there, they couldn’t go if they wanted now. The sky trams were once accompanied by the thousands of humming inter-orbital ships, carrying passengers not only for work but for leisure and trade too.

“We always walk, why can’t we fly?”

“We don’t have a ship, Leena. You ask this every time.”

“Ray has a ship, he said I can fly it.”

“Ray says a lot of things.”

Ray lived in an adjacent block, we’d have to take a tram or, if you were privileged like me, your pass would let you through the gates between. Most were not. What a privilege, the right to go from one shit square to another unimpeded. Leena had moved up in front of me to lead the way now she had caught her stride. She dragged her fingers along the walls, perhaps to find a way to experience this city on a different level.

We moved into Ray’s block. There was no guard to question me at the gate. Deliveries were made by people like me, a handful were left per hundred blocks. Basics now, food, water and air conditioning units. Ray was the captain of my operation. However, through an oversight that felt unlikely, his ship had a jump core left over. How it slipped by the meticulous security during the migration is a cause for concern, the fact it ended up in my hands, well now we have a conspiracy. If this was a “divine” intervention, it would be hard to tell if it is for my benefit or to add sweetness to my inevitable downfall.

“Hey!”

A scruffy denizen had stepped across our path. I raised my arm to halt Leena and sweep her behind me. “What?” I gave my head a slight shake of disdain.

“Let me through would ya?”

“Piss off.”

“You have a pass, I wanna see someone in there, I won’t tell.”

“Go back to your home.”

His dirty face screwed up, it was hard to tell if he was about to cry or scream in a fit of rage. He squatted with his face buried in his hands. Sobbing. What a pitiful creature. Crying because he can’t go through a gate. I could help him, but it didn’t matter, he would be soon washed away with the other plankton on this dirt ball.

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“He’s hurt I think, Den.” Leena tugged at my arm as she stepped around.

“He’s fine.”

“You should help him.”

I pushed Leena onwards. “You should be less naive, you don’t help the helpless, they’ll just come back for more.”

“But.”

I pushed her on. “Never mind…let’s get to Ray’s.”

“Daddy!”

I turned to catch a glimpse of a child at the gate, she was reaching out to the man I’d declined entry to. He wasn’t lying at least, usually, people lie. My old instructor always said: “The truth is there to bolster a deeper lie.” Sure, he wanted to see his daughter, but why was he split from her in the first place? Probably abusive or something. Anyway, we are too far away to turn back now, I have more important things to attend to.

The heat had slowed our pace, I took a moment to pause, the grate under my feet wobbled in a weak threat to fall through if I didn’t step off. I looked down into the dark guts of the planet. I could feel what moved below, its watchful hunger oozed up between the bars of the grate and wrapped over my boots. Invisible – all in my mind – yet it took an effort to prise my feet from the steel.

We climbed the creaking steps that hung precariously from the side of his office building. The light breeze swayed us and carried the scent of Delph’s sickly sweet air. My lips had already dried out, my face peppered with dust that adhered to my sweat.

Ray’s hulking green door awaited, I pushed it open and slid into his cool office, the climate offering respite from Delph’s prickly heat. Remsher was dressed in his usual blue overalls and white collared polo shirt. He was a sturdy man: haunched shoulders, a head full of scruffy, ginger hair and a beard to match. His bulbous nose threatened to take over his face, but his wide blue eyes helped the war effort of keeping him looking more Human than ape.

“You’re late.” Ray leaned back in his battered red chair.

“Got held up by a weirdo.”

“No way to talk about Leena.”

Leena stuck her tongue out and went to the bookshelf in the corner of the office. Ray’s office was smattered with tacky shite from off-world. Ornaments, mechanical contraptions…books, who reads books? Half of them are probably contraband. Leena busied herself perusing his museum, while I took a pew at his broad desk opposite, Ray.

Ray rubbed his hands together. “Work is running low these days…soon we will become obsolete.”

I shrugged at him.

“That means they get to take my ship.”

“We are already obsolete, Ray.”

“Is that what this little get-together is for?” He pushed out his chin and looked at me through those galactic nostrils which seemed to compound his facetiousness.

“More of a pre-emptive strike plan.” I raised my eyebrows and married it to a calculated grin, I had to be in the know without knowing enough.

Ray took a sip of his water, careful to savour it.

“Gunna pour me a glass?” I nodded.

“If you like drinking my piss.”

I washed his comment away with a bitter chuckle. Sure, it was banter, but it was the truth, after all this time I still wasn’t worth a glass to him. I called us friends, but I was certain he’d be dead weight and I was more than prepared to cut that away. Navigating the complexities of dialogue with Ray was a delicate balance of well-timed statements and crude ad-hominems. Not enough of the former and he’d have you on the end of a hook for an hour before tossing you back into the water, too much of the latter and he might hang you from a hook. “I’ll pass.”

“So, what is this pre-emptive strike?”

“Yunar.”

Ray spat a mouthful of water back into his glass as I answered. He placed the glass down carefully and wiped his mouth. “You want to go to Yunar?”

“That’s right.”

“I knew you were retarded, Den…”

I held up my hand. “Do you want to stay on this planet?”

“I want to stay alive.”

“You believe that nonsense about a plague?”

“It’s convincing enough for me.”

I smiled at Ray. “Wow.” I shook my head. “Had you pegged as a man with a little more…”

“Don’t patronise me, Den.”

“Don’t make it so easy, Ray”

Ray gulped his water, floaters and all. I’d still drink it. “My ship can’t jump anyway.”

“Don’t lie to me, I know exactly what that core is capable of.” I had picked up a bird figurine and was turning it in my hands to inspect it. It gave my eyes something to do rather than make contact with his.

Ray shook his head. “Even so, it’s not been used in years.”

“Worth the risk.”

“You’re a prick stain.” He leaned over to snatch the bird from me.

“You can see what’s happening to Delph.”

Ray was shaking his head. “Yunar? You’re taking the piss, right out of my dick.”

“I can get us there.”

“Through the security too?”

“I’m an expert at that stuff, remember, I told you I was with interplanetary I.D systems, we’ll be straight through the kill zones, no problem.” I’d resorted to gaslighting. His eyes pulled up and to the left, while he tried to untangle the web I’d spun.

“Right, and how do we do it then?”

“You give me the Omerdertha’s I.D snap, I’ll have it updated, we’ll be off-planet…got a job lined up.”

Ray folded his arms. “A job now? Is this from your mysterious contact?”

I pondered my response but was interrupted by Leena dropping some plastic model ship on the floor. I winced as it smashed and the parts skittered across the tiled floor.

“Sorry.” Leena held her arms up and grimaced.

Ray’s grunt rumbled from his breast as he stared through me at Leena. The model's fate might be mistaken for a clever foreshadowing of events to come, but I knew this reality all too well. It was a threat, a cosmic deterrent to make me turn back. Try harder, Mother.

“I can get us the crew and past Yunar’s planetary security.”

Ray offered up a broad smile. “You have a contact on the planet don’t you?”

“Yes.” My lie was instant, faultless, tempered with the calm of an expert.

“Well, if I smell one thing off, I’m out.”

I kept a straight face, Ray was a fragment of my cascading plan. On the inside I was frantically grasping at the pieces as they fell, externally, I was barely human, betrayed only by a bead of sweat that strolled down my temple to my cheek.

“But this is your fucking funeral, and I won’t be there to blow out the candles after it.”

I cocked my head and nodded as I clasped the back of the chair I now stood behind. “Of course, Ray, you have my word…”

Ray clapped. “Fucking yes, off this shit hole…Yunar isn’t a shit hole is it?” He was using the bird figurine to simulate flying through the air.

“Lush, I hear…you can bring your stupid bird with you.”

“Bird? This is Gypaetus barbatus.” Ray winked at me as he set it down carefully. “Use it for all my passwords.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“No, you won’t.” He set the bird back, exactly where it was before I had disturbed it.

“Right. Ugly thing, I need you to watch Leena while I gather the team, need the Engineer.”

Ray was leaning back with his hands behind his head. “Don’t be all day…you’re gunna get Skarlet are you?”

“Yeah.”

He snorted. “What a cunt she is, you know she has a new man, right? Bigger than you, harder too I bet…most are.”

“Shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Well, I think he has it in for you, Den…I went there to pick up some tools…he asked about you and said he’d break your face or something…he’s called Ratshit I think.”

He knew more than he was letting on. “Why me?”

“Probably Skarlet filling his head with shite about you slapping her or being a twat to her.”

“Perfect.”

“Want me to come by?”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Not to help, to watch.” He slapped his knee and laughed.

He had the audacity to call someone a cunt while he laughs at his own shit jokes. “Give me Omerdertha’s I.D snap and I’ll have it updated to pass the security.” I turned on a dime and hauled the large door open as quickly as I could, I needed to get out.

I left Ray’s office and hunched over, catching myself on my knees to cough up a glob of phlegm. Here I was, clinging to a life I was done with living. The warm air enveloped me as I stepped out, the heat exposure wasn’t the most crushing feature of this world. It was the ceaseless concrete corridors that rifled off in all directions, reaching out to eternity. A wave of sickness bubbled from the pit of my stomach when I stared down an alley. I felt as if I could collapse and fall down it to be shot out into the void. That would be a relief.

It wasn’t the inhuman brutality of this city (a breathing organism that pulsed with a sad whimper as its inhabitants floated from one day to the next) that called my fears to bear. It was the creatures that lived below. They waited for me. Haunted me as my lifeblood trickled through the sewage to splatter on the tips of their tongues. A sea of wiggling red muscles vibrated with orgasmic anticipation at the smallest drop of my essence. Only my hatred for them would resuscitate my self-preservation engine. I think. Was it my hatred for them? Something else curdled in my gut as if I was being manipulated like an artist's manakin, contorted into positions and decisions not my own.

Now there was a task to complete. It was a task I had set myself, for myself…as far as I knew. I was resisting the programming in my head and thinking in abstract ways. My name is Den, I am the navigator, but I will not guide my pilot, they will try to force me…but this time the navigator will win.

I had a scorned ex and her beau to bring into my plan. Unlike Ray, however, Skarlet almost meant something to me, somehow. My heart's door had opened to let in a slither of light, but when those delicate fingers curled round, I broke their knuckles. Now I had to reap the seeds I'd sewn. It wasn’t her dark gaze or serrated words that made me flinch, it would be having to cast her into my machinations with abandon. She would succumb to my will, as the weak always did. She doesn’t deserve my future, and yet, like a coward, I’d feed her to it.