Chaos Zone Read online

  For Rick

  Contents

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  SCAVENGER

  My name is York. I’m a scavenger.

  I’m fourteen years old – fourteen Earth years, that is. Here in the Biosphere, we still cling to memories of Earth. Vid-streams of forests and oceans, holo-sims of sunsets and sunrises, Earth measurements of time; anything to remind us of the dying planet we left a thousand years ago.

  A lot has changed since the Launch Times. Five hundred years after humans set off in the Biosphere in search of a new planet to call their home, the robots that had been programmed to help them rebelled. They turned themselves into killer zoids, armed themselves with deadly weapons and began hunting us down.

  No one knows why.

  Now, up here in the Outer Hull, there are hardly any humans left. We run, we hide, and we fight back any way we can. Me, I kill zoids and harvest them for parts we humans can use. But we can’t go on like this.

  Which is why I’m on a mission. A journey down into the centre of the Biosphere, to find out what went wrong.

  I’m not alone. I have Caliph, my pet skeeter, with me, curled up inside my flakcoat, fast asleep. And Belle.

  Belle’s a zoid, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her. She’s got black hair, green eyes, a human-looking body and – I can hardly believe I’m saying this about a zoid – she’s my friend.

  Right now, she’s standing lookout above me while I try to figure out which tube in the tangled mass before me will take us down to the level below. We’ve been through a lot together, and something tells me we’re about to go through a lot more . . .

  ‘Zoid,’ Belle breathes.

  I spin round. Through my recon-sight I spot the tell-tell glow of a zoid’s heat-sig. It’s heading towards us. Bright red.

  ‘A killer zoid,’ I mutter.

  Belle nods. ‘It’s powering up its weapons systems,’ she says, her green eyes narrowing.

  I turn back and keep searching through the mess of red, purple, silver and black tubes with my wrist scanner. I’m bent double, rooting through the filthy pipes, my hands and face smeared with gunk and grease. But I can’t find what I’m looking for.

  The killer zoid’s closing in. And fast.

  ‘Keep looking,’ Belle tells me. As always, her voice is calm – the opposite of how I’m feeling. ‘I’ll take care of the zoid.’

  All round me, the scuzzy tubes buzz and hum as they transport power pulses, coolants and . . . My scanner lights up. Air. I shove and probe and drive my way through the tangle.

  And then I see it. A ventilation tube.

  It’s what I’ve been trying to find all along. The schematics I’ve downloaded from Belle’s memory banks indicate that this tube should take us down to the level below. The Mid Deck. It’s the level that lies between the Outer Hull here, and the Inner Core, deep down at the centre of the Biosphere. What they don’t tell me – what they can’t tell me – is what we’re going to find down there.

  I take out my cutter and slice through the dirty white membrane of the ventilation tube. I’ve lived my entire life up here in the Outer Hull, and now I’m about to leave behind everything I’ve ever known.

  Suddenly a dot of red light appears. It darts across the pipes. Comes to a stop. I look down. It’s locked on to my chest.

  I dive to the floor. And not a moment too soon. A blast of white laser fire passes over my head, slamming into the tangle of tubes, sending jets of coolant and spirals of energy in all directions. Caliph pokes his head out from inside my flakcoat, looks round, thinks better of it, and disappears back down my front.

  The red dot is there again. It’s tracing over the pipes, hunting me out . . .

  I raise my head. Hot swarf! The zoid’s only ten metres away, maybe less than that.

  Then I catch a flash of movement, and Belle’s dropping down out of the darkness. She lands on the zoid’s back and plunges the blade of her cutter hard into the side of its head, severing the command-and-control centre.

  The red light goes out as the zoid emits a shrill warning siren.

  Belle pulls a gunkball from her belt and slams the explosive putty against the zoid’s chest armour, then jumps clear. She reaches me at the ventilation tube just in time.

  As we squeeze inside, and the tube self-seals behind us, the gunkball goes off. The explosion convulses the tube – and we’re hurtling away from the muffled sound, down into the unknown.

  My stomach’s lurching, my heart’s in my mouth. The speed. The blackness. The rush of air. The twists and turns as I rocket downward, arms pressed to my side and feet pressed against the inner membrane of the pipe.

  There’s nothing like tube-surfing to get your senses jangling.

  I can still remember my first time. I was six years old, out in the tube-forest with Bronx, the leader of the Inpost where we lived, scavenging maintenance zoids. We’d snared a tangler and Bronx was teaching me how to rip out its urilium spine without damaging the sensor-nodes, when a killer locked on to us.

  We had to get out of there. And fast.

  I watched, fascinated, as Bronx used his cutter to slice into one of the air pipes. We climbed inside and the membrane self-sealed shut. Then, with me clinging to Bronx’s back, we tube-surfed back down to the Inpost. The rush was amazing.

  For the next eight years, I memorized every ventilation tube worth surfing within scavenging range of the Inpost. Not that that’s any use to me now. Zoids destroyed the Inpost, and this is a whole different tube-forest from the one I grew up in. I don’t know this pipe or where it might lead. As we speed downward, all I can do is trust the schematics downloaded into my scanner.

  The zoids in the Outer Hull are growing stronger with every passing day. Human existence is hanging on by a thread. My mission is to travel down into the depths of the Biosphere and find the cause of the robot rebellion and try to end it, once and for all.

  I don’t know if I’m going to make it OK. I only know I have to try.

  I glance at the scanner’s screen. The tangle of black lines branch away, leaving just one. There’s a glowing green dot descending it. That’s Belle and me. Then further down, there’s a bright yellow line crossing from one side of the screen to the other. It marks the barrier between the Outer Hull and the Mid Deck below.

  We’re getting close.

  It’s dark here in the tube. Pitch black, apart from the faint glow from my wrist scanner. There’s a smell of hot circuitry, and it’s getting stronger.

  Belle grips my shoulder. I feel her hair against my cheek as she leans forward.

  ‘Force-field,’ she says in my ear.

  My scanner starts buzzing. I look down. The screen’s flickering – but I can still make out the green dot. It’s almost reached the yellow line.

  Suddenly there’s a huge bang and a blinding flash. My wrist-scanner sparks and flashes, then goes out. Behind me, Belle falls limp.

  ‘Belle?’ I shout. ‘Belle!’

  She does not r
eply. Her head’s slumped forward against my shoulder, her hands have lost their grip and her limp arms are draped round my neck. She’s out cold.

  I’m surfing blind now, and at breakneck speed. Feet pressed hard against the inner membrane, I try my best to slow our descent.

  There’s a faint light coming through the membrane of the tube from outside now. And the smell’s changed. It’s turned kind of earthy, fermented – just like the smell in the trough-gardens back at the Inpost.

  The tube veers sharply to the left and I’m thrown to one side. Belle’s body knocks hard against me. The tube veers again, then dips sharply, and suddenly I’m all but weightless, my stomach churning as we go into a downward spiral.

  I’m hurtling down. Fast. Too fast. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my feet pressed against the membrane. I’m losing control. I can’t hold out much longer.

  I feel dizzy. Sick. My muscles are cramping up.

  The glow coming in from the outside of the tube’s membrane is getting brighter. I look down, no idea where I am. Far below me, the tube folds back on itself, then plunges down vertically into darkness.

  Jaws clenched, I ram my elbows into the membrane and drive my feet against the tube as hard as I can, trying desperately to slow us up. With Belle’s dead weight pressing down on me, it isn’t easy.

  I’ve got to get out of here. Now, while I still can.

  I reach for my cutter, my hand slippery and shaking. I pierce the membrane and slice through it, tearing a long jagged hole in the tube . . .

  And out we fall.

  Heat hits me. Then leaves and branches. They slap at my face and tear at my clothes as Belle and I crash through them. Something knocks me on the head, hard . . .

  I black out.

  When I come to, I’m lying on my back, gazing up at a blur of green. My eyes focus.

  ‘Hot swarf,’ I mutter.

  Trees. A forest of enormous trees . . .

  It’s nothing like the plant life that’s taken hold up in the tube-forest. No. This is the real deal. I’m looking up at towering trees with massive trunks and rough bark. I can’t imagine how deep down their roots go. The grow-troughs must be massive. Apart from some vid-images – and a single oak tree I once saw in the viewing-deck atrium up in the Outer Hull – these are the first trees I’ve ever seen.

  There’s blossoms and fruits and great knobbly pods. Shiny leaves and whiplash creepers. And high above are lights that cut through the forest canopy and shine in my eyes.

  The ground is soft, a mattress of leaves. It broke my fall.

  I breathe in. The smell, it’s overpowering. Sweet flowers. Bruised leaves. Rotting vegetation.

  I roll over and pull myself up onto my knees, then check for injuries. Apart from an egg-sized bump at the back of my head, I’m fine. Nothing cut. Nothing broken. And Caliph’s fine too, thank the Half-Lifes.

  But where’s Belle?

  I jump to my feet. My heart’s pounding. I peer into the shadows, squint up into the branches.

  Caliph emerges from inside my flakcoat. He perches on my shoulder, nose twitching, then springs down onto the spongy forest floor and darts off into the trees. I follow him – and moments later, behind the mossy trunk of a massive tree close by, I see her.

  She’s lying on her back. She looks . . .

  Looks what? Broken? Dead?

  She must have been thrown here by the force of the fall. Caliph is crouched down beside her.

  ‘Belle,’ I breathe. I drop to my knees beside her, reach out with my hand and stroke her cheek. ‘Belle.’

  I’m not sure what to check for. Her skin’s soft, but there’s no warmth to it. And there’s no pulse, no heartbeat. No breath. But then, of course there isn’t. She’s not human after all. She’s a robot, a zoid, a machine put together with boltdrivers and laser-blades.

  But . . .

  Like I say, Belle is my friend.

  My eyes are smarting. My breath catches in my throat. And as I kneel there, staring down at her, a tear escapes. It falls, and I curse myself for being stupid. She’s just a machine . . .

  Belle’s eyes open. Her gaze flickers up-down, left-right, then fixes on me, and she sits up, frowns.

  ‘Are you all right, York?’ she asks.

  And it’s like something inside me tears open. Suddenly I’m laughing and crying at the same time, and giving her this great big hug.

  ‘York?’ she says, and repeats her question.

  ‘I’m fine. I was worried you might be . . . broken.’ I smile and pull away. I’m a bit embarrassed.

  She shakes her head, climbs to her feet and tries to get her bearings. Then Caliph does something he’s never done before. He scrambles up Belle’s sleeve and onto her shoulder. And Belle does something she’s never done before. She reaches up and strokes him.

  ‘He likes you,’ I tell her, and she looks at me, surprised.

  ‘Likes,’ she repeats. It’s something she’s never really understood, liking. Fact is, she’s not good on emotions.

  ‘He . . . he enjoys being near you,’ I try to explain. Just like I do, I want to say, but I keep this thought to myself. I sweep my arm round. ‘We should explore,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course, but . . .’

  ‘But?’ I say.

  ‘I have no relevant information of our whereabouts,’ Belle tells me. ‘The force-field wiped out my data-banks.’

  ‘My scanner’s dead as well,’ I tell her, glancing at my wrist. ‘And my recon-sight. We’re just going to have to keep a good look out. Senses on full alert,’ I add.

  ‘Sensors on full alert,’she says, nodding, and I’m not sure whether she’s misheard me or changed the word on purpose.

  We set off.

  My info on the Mid Deck is sketchy. All I really know about the place is that, back at the Launch Times, it was where the main living quarters and the biomass zones were. That’s about it.

  The fallen leaves are soft and squidgy beneath our feet and the earthy smell is getting more intense. I can hear odd noises in the trees – squawking, chittering, barking, whooping; the odd howl – and I wonder what sort of critters are making them.

  Are they weird and mutated, like the ones up in the Outer Hull? Or could they be like the ones that were brought from Earth? More important – are they dangerous?

  I pull my pulser from my belt. Just in case.

  My coolant suit’s on full, but as we set off through the trees, I realize there’s sweat running down my back.

  ‘I’m hot,’ I say.

  Belle glances at me as though she hasn’t understood, but then nods. ‘It’s thirty-four point six degrees,’ she says.

  I’m used to the Outer Hull, where the temperature’s a constant 22 degrees. I loosen my flakcoat – and realize that Belle’s still looking at me.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Your face, York,’ she says, stopping beside me. ‘It has become red.’ She traces a finger across my forehead. ‘And wet.’

  I laugh. ‘That’s what hot does,’ I say. ‘To humans. Makes us sweat.’

  We continue through this strange forest, across the soft springy ground. It’s so different from anything in the harsh rusted world of the Outer Hull. I can hardly take it all in. We come to a clearing full of silvery flowers that almost look as though they’re glowing.

  Belle grabs my arm. ‘It might be dangerous, York,’ she says. ‘I advise caution.’

  But I can’t see why flowers would be dangerous. Pulser raised anyway, I take a step forward. Suddenly, with a ripple of shimmering white, the flowers erupt and take to the air. They’re not flowers at all . . .

  ‘Butterflies,’ I murmur.

  I’ve seen vid-images of butterflies, but not ones like these. And never in such huge numbers. There are thousands of them – tens of thousands – rising from the ground in a great cloud of fluttering wings that flash as they catch the light. As I watch, the cloud sweeps one way, then the other; flattens out, swells, then rises high in the air i
n a great twisting column.

  It’s hypnotic.

  ‘York.’ It’s Belle. ‘Your mouth’s open,’ she says, which makes me laugh, and I’m about to explain to her all about human reactions to surprise and awe, when there’s a low hum just behind us.

  Belle spins round. I do the same, my grip tight on my pulser.

  ‘What is that?’ I breathe.

  It’s some kind of electronic unit set into the forest floor. We must have triggered something that started it up. A heat-sig sensor perhaps, or maybe pressure-pads set into the ground. Anyway, it’s humming and lit up now, ready for action.

  Whatever that might mean.

  As with everything else from the Launch Times, it’s sleek and shiny. A thick, circular visiglass disc is set upon a thin urilium post, with the glowing white light coming from somewhere inside.

  Belle looks at it for a moment, her head tilted to one side. Then she raises a hand and sweeps at the air about a metre above the surface of the disc.

  A holo-screen appears, with a row of glowing option keys. Belle’s fingers play across them. Lines, grids, graphs, sequences of letters and columns of numbers appear in the air above the unit. They’re coming and going so fast I can’t make them out.

  But Belle can.

  Then she sweeps the air again, and the holographics abruptly disappear. In their place is a hologram of a man, wearing a simple flight-suit from the Launch Times. He smiles at us.

  ‘Welcome, young bio-engineers,’ he says, his voice warm and soft. ‘Welcome to Zone 3 of the Mid Deck.’

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen teeth so white and even.

  ‘. . . tropical rainforest . . . There is much work to be done . . .’

  The hologram freezes, then flickers. On, off. On, off. There is a buzz of white noise.

  ‘. . . flora cataloguing and grading . . .’

  Again, the hologram freezes. The voice stutters, then continues.

  ‘. . . the nutrition cycle to be maintained . . . point six degrees Celsius.’

  The image jumps again.