the Noise Within (2010) (23 page)

"Nah, everything's good."

There were a few mumbled curses and black looks as people drifted away, the glares mainly in Emilio's direction rather than at the stranger, which was crazy. Not as if anything here was his fault.

The stranger walked away as calmly as he'd arrived.

Carla was still there. She came towards Emilio while everyone else steadily disappeared.

"You all right, Emilio, really?" Her hand rested on his shoulder. Her touch felt warm against his naked skin.

"Sure, you know me. Invulnerable."

Carla was quite a looker for an oldie, no doubt about that. The two of them had always flirted with each other in a half meaning it half joking sort of way. She might have been a decade or more older than him but this woman still had a good figure and a nice ass for all that she'd had a couple of kids, and there was no grey yet in that long dark hair of hers. The main reason Emilio had never put a move on her was because Carla had one mean bastard for a husband, and he valued his own good looks too much to risk having his face beaten to a pulp. This morning, though, Emilio was on a high, both from the residue of
Giazyu
still floating around his system and in reaction to having survived what had been a shit-scary incident, so he chanced pushing things a little further than he usually would and placed a neighbourly arm around Carla's slender body, his hand resting casually on her butt.

"So where's Miguel?" The muscle-bound brute worked security at one of the rougher clubs off Strip.

"Oh, he's already gone for the day. Won't be back until the early hours."

Emilio closed his hand slowly as the woman spoke, grabbing a good handful of one of Carla's buttocks and squeezing. It proved to be pleasingly firm. He then began to massage her cheeks with his finger tips. She didn't pull away but instead smiled in a deliciously sexy way and pressed her hip against his.

"Really?" They were of similar height. Her hand drifted down from his shoulder to his waist and Emilio felt his cock semi-harden. He began to walk, steering her towards her home. "And the kids...?"

"Huh! As if I ever know where they are."

He didn't doubt his ability to perform, to do Carla justice, despite the previous night's heavy session; though he would probably have to sleep the afternoon away or he'd never be ready for work that night. "Shame..."

And then they were stepping inside, away from prying eyes. He stopped walking and pulled her to him, savouring the pressure of her breasts against his chest and the feel of her warm, soft lips pressed to his.

Frysworld was basking in the sort of warmth guaranteed to generate both heat hazes and scanty clothing - the type of climate preferred by holidaymakers throughout human history. Sleeveless neckless legless backless and sideless dresses skirts shirts shorts sarongs and thongs were in evidence throughout the central thoroughfares, in a bewildering array of styles and colours which defied the rainbow.

The frequency of balmy days such as this was just one of the reasons why Frysworld had become so popular as a resort destination. Certainly the Strip and its attendant districts offered everything a vacationer might want - at a price; and that price wasn't even all that unreasonable if you knew the right places to go. The vacation experience was made all the more enjoyable by a dark-skinned, slightly exotic featured and invariably eager to please local population.

After two days on Frysworld, Leyton was bored stiff.

It might have been different if this were a real vacation but it wasn't; he had a job to do, which meant he could not even relax and immerse himself in the pleasures that surrounded him but instead felt compelled to stay alert. Nor was the mission proving as simple as he'd hoped. On the face of it, finding out whether specific individuals were here or had ever been here should have been pretty straightforward. After all, both the ports kept records, there was a well-resourced local police force to call upon and all the reputable bars, clubs, casinos, hotels, brothels, racetracks, combat arenas, games centres, flying zones, safari cruisers and restaurants were equipped with surveillance systems. Not only that but their owners were, for the most part, falling over themselves to cooperate; if only to demonstrate they had nothing to hide.

But the keyword there was 'reputable'. For every place that could claim to be, there were half a dozen or more which held no such ambitions. The further away from the Strip you went the less reliable the various establishments tended to be, until you reached those where a 'surveillance system' equated to a peephole into the boudoirs and the dungeons.

Spacers being spacers, Leyton had a fair idea which type of place the four who had defected to
The Noise Within
were likely to go for, should they ever come here. So he had to establish a network of informants to cover the sleazier areas - locals who had their fingers on the pulse and were desperate enough and greedy enough to do what he asked. To find such people, Leyton was prepared to leave the safe and cosy environs of the Strip and its attendant tourist districts and risk stepping into the far edgier world of
Paraíso
, where
Giazyu
reigned supreme.

Giazyu
was the primary reason - climatic considerations aside - that Frysworld had gained such notoriety as a resort destination. Native to this world, the plant grew in abundance, and its root and leaf, even the bark of some of the more mature specimens, contained a substance with highly hallucinogenic properties. The local people had grown incredibly resourceful when it came to processing and utilising the extracts from different parts of the plant.
Giazyu
was commonly available to tourists around the Strip as sanitised pills, the colour of which were uniformly coded to depict the strength and origin of the dose, but here in the slums of
Paraíso
it was to be found in far rawer forms. The natives tended to inhale, smoke, inject, chew or swallow their
Giazyu
, depending on what part of the plant had been subjected to which preparation process.

The pungent, slightly acrid stench of the drug lay heavy in the air as the eyegee made his way between the squalid hovels of the native quarter. That was how the area appeared on official maps: 'the native quarter'. In fact it was a vast sprawl of land carved out of the surrounding jungle, far greater in size than all the tourist districts put together. If the part he was currently crossing was typical, he could well appreciate why the maps tended to decorate the native quarter with ominous warnings and discouragements. There were guided tours into the districts, he understood, conducted aboard air-conditioned vehicles; though he couldn't imagine what anyone would want to come here to see.

Poverty. That was the inescapable, overriding factor that governed life here. Closely followed by
Giazyu
. Slip over and land face down in a puddle and the water was likely to be infused with so much of the drug that you'd stand up and find yourself in a different world.

Not that there was any evidence of puddles at that particular time. Leyton walked calmly through dusty streets as he crossed this depressing shanty town, oblivious to the stares and the glares, allowing all the malice and the need and the jealousy which those looks embodied slide off him. He had long ago learnt that confidence and an air of purpose were the keys to an untroubled passage in such threatening places. It was the timid and the uncertain who invited malicious intent to manifest as physical threat.

In the visor's absence, the gun chattered incessantly, warning of potential dangers on all sides, until he instructed it to stay quiet unless the threat was an immediate one.

Fortunately, the boy he was looking for lived only a little way into
Paraíso
, as those who relied for a living on the Strip and its surrounds often did. In fact, if Leyton's information was correct, he should be more or less there by now.

He saw a naked boy relieving himself outside a hut; noted the lithe, athletic body, the size of the lad's manhood and the sunburst tattoo on his right buttock, all of which tallied with the description he'd been given, so the eyegee felt pretty confident that this was the kid he was after. But he wanted to be certain before flashing any money about. Once they saw the colour of his Standards, any given local would undoubtedly be happy to claim they were Emilio, their own grandmother, or anyone else Leyton might want them to be.

So he used the gun to bully the kid into the hut, the inside of which nearly made him gag; it stank even worse than the air outside. Using the gun for such menial duty might have been akin to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the performance at least secured confirmation from the two young
Giazyu
-heads he found inside - barely into their teens by the look of them - that this really was 'Emilio'. He then scared the pair out of the room. Only then did he flash the cash and recruit the kid to the cause.

Leyton knew that
Paraiso
could be a dangerous place for the unwary, so he came fully alert as he stepped out of the hut to find a reception committee of disgruntled locals waiting.

"Thanks for the warning," he intoned.

"Just obeying instructions," the gun responded. "They weren't an immediate threat until you stepped outside."

In fairness, they were barely that even now. The group looked more nervous than menacing, as if they were embarrassed to be there at all. Emilio appeared from inside the hut before anything beyond posturing was required; their relief at seeing him was almost palpable and he soon defused whatever threat there might have been, leaving Leyton free to head back towards tourist town, where he belonged.

That was it; the final piece. If any of
The Noise Within's
recent recruits turned up on Frysworld, he now felt confident he'd hear about it.

Of course, from a purely statistical viewpoint the odds were against that, but if Leyton were looking for some R and R and money was no object, this would be one of the first places he'd think to head for, which might just tilt those odds a little in his favour. Who could say?

Whether they came here or not, all he could do for the foreseeable future was wait, while doing his best not to die of boredom in the process.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

D
revers was not Mac by any stretch of the imagination, but he was sharp, no question about that, devious even. After a little jockeying, Kyle had settled into a banter-based friendship with the man which seemed to suit them both, even if it didn't yet encompass anything as profound as trust.

Drevers was a lot more vocal in his complaints about the situation on the ship than Kyle had been, making the latter wonder whether perhaps his time in the military made him prone to accept authority a little too readily. If so, clearly Drevers had never been a navy man; a fact Kyle was soon to be eternally grateful for, as the newcomer's frequent gripes and protestations appeared to have an effect. The two of them were even permitted to take part in the next action, the one that saw them recruit Blaine and Hammond. Kyle was convinced their presence was the reason
why
the latter pair defected to
The Noise Within
, a point which fully deserved to be emphasised.

"Let's face it," he said to Drevers later, when they were back on the ship, "our smooth talking and irresistible humour has to be more appealing than the usual blank-faced delivery of the zombies." The words were as much for the benefit of whoever was directing the ship as for Drevers himself.

Kyle had reached the conclusion long ago that everything they said and did was being observed. Without openly discussing the subject, he and Drevers had come to a mutual understanding about it. At first the thought of being spied upon irritated the hell out of him, but then he began to view it as a challenge and had determined to convince whoever the ship's real masters might be that he was a valuable asset, indispensable even, and certainly of far more use than the 'old crew', the zombies, whom he was increasingly convinced were not crew at all but uninhabited remote-operated shells.

Neither he nor Drevers were averse to manipulating the situation to their advantage.

"You see, they've got it all wrong," Drevers insisted, clearly playing to an audience. "Currently, we're treated little better than prisoners."

Kyle nodded vigorously in agreement. "Exactly. All four of us joined this crew because we
wanted
to, so you'd think they would be trying to make sure we were keen to stick around rather than making us regret we ever came here."

"Right. I mean, this place isn't exactly a holiday camp, and a man has needs..."

Kyle was nodding agreement. "What I wouldn't give for a really good meal, some decent beer - properly chilled - and a few hours alone with a willing woman."

"You and me both; anyone who could offer a package like
that
would have my loyalty forever."

"I'll drink to that!" And they clinked together their identical plasti-dure mugs, guaranteed to bounce and not shatter, before each taking a gulp of the near-tasteless recycled and alcohol-free beer which was the closest to a real drink
The Noise Within
provided.

During the years he had spent in the shipping wilderness following his discharge from the navy, Kyle encountered just about every type of decrepit and malfunctioning drinks dispenser and neglected unhygienic autogalley that man had ever devised; servicing and repairing each one with loving care, if only to prevent them from poisoning himself and the rest of the crew. When he first saw those carried by
The Noise Within
, it was like a reunion with old friends. These were exactly the same models he remembered from his navy days.