Chapter 03: A Beacon at Night

In the labyrinthine Stacks, Omni flees a mysterious pursuer. With Ada compromised and something sinister on her tail, can she escape before it's too late?

A man burst into her shack shouting. Insane words tumbled from his mouth as he dripped rainwater all over her floor. Omni's mind froze. The shock of a stranger piercing the bubble of her life so suddenly dazed her. It hovered in fight or flight. Paralyzed. The next instant, she chose. Omni fled.

She followed her own burn routes deeper into the Stacks, away from her lab and her dad's unit. She didn't know who was after her and what they wanted, but she knew she had to run. The Stacks, a metal organic conglomeration, was the perfect place to disappear. Abandoned shipping containers were the initial bones and shanties and shacks grew into every open space like mushrooms in the dank and dripping darkness.

Wide cargo docks became cluttered squares and then narrow passages as Stack Rats snatched up every foot of open space for a new home, hideout or spaza shop. Omni knew it like the back of her hand. She'd grown up there like a dandelion weed in a patch of sunlight. Away with the wind in an instant.

As she darted through the labyrinth, the stench of oil and wet metal filled her nostrils, a stink she knew all too well. It was the scent of home, of safety, but now it was laced with fear.

There weren't the usual cameras. The cops — even the corporate ones — stayed away. They tended not to find their way back out in one piece. A dark zone in the city, off limits and off the grid. Too poor to regulate and too convoluted to patrol.

Perfect for a girl running from a madman.

And any girl living in the Stacks knew how to run, with so many unemployed men loitering around looking for a score, a quick buck or a pretty girl. You learned fast how to make tracks and get away. It didn't matter if it was a half-crazed barnie shouting at her or some young drug-craving chomper too keen on being her boyfriend. Consent optional.

Omni's mind continued to drift as she let her feet do the thinking. It was better that way. Intuition and impulse led her to safety and relative calm.

She'd been stupid.

How could she have thought that no one would be interested in Ada, or that if they found her, she'd need to run with her?

What had he called it? A Lamp? Ada needed to be in a Lamp?

Her breaths came in sharp gasps, “A Lamp...” she pondered, “… for a djinn!”

Her feet led her to a rat hole, heart thumping, and her breathing ragged. She hid. Omni's slight frame squeezed down into the wedge-shaped corner, pulling trash and rotting palette wood in front of her.

"Pole pole," Omni chanted a Swahili phrase in a whisper. She checked her head covering was still in place and focused on the mental echo of her father's calm voice.

"Pole pole. The world is chaos, but you are calm. Slowly slowly."

With every breath, her mind dropped down a notch from panic into a clear dispassionate calm. Rational and analytical.

What did she know?

Ada had run into trouble seconds before the madman had run in.

Was he the cause? Did he trip the ring and distract Ada? No, that wouldn't have done that to her. She was stronger than that.

Omni needed more information. She needed to contact Ada. They didn't have time to hack someone's shitty Stack Wi-Fi. She needed to get away from all this metal and find a working Starlink.

Omni checked her portable terminal battery. "More than enough."

She peered out and saw an empty alleyway. Just trash, rain and the nameless seepage that stank and corroded her shoes.

She crept from her hiding place like a field mouse, nervous and in starts, from shadow to shadow, hiding more than moving. In minutes she was on the polluted banks of the Liesbeck river, a mire of broken chairs, armless dolls and the discarded outer wrapping of stolen electrical cables.

She walked in the darkness, alone and isolated, but essentially invisible. No device lights, no phone signals and just her hacked Starlink router.

Omni pre-typed her questions, and follow-up questions depending on Ada's possible answers.

As soon as she connected, she'd light up like a beacon for whoever was looking. Best to keep it down to the handshake and the burst transfer.

She held her breath and flicked on her connection.

Bytes zigzagged up and down from the stars.

She flicked off her connection as fast as the nervous system would allow.

Ada probably cursing at the slowness of meat bags.

1.4 seconds.

An eye blink for her.

An eternity for the machines.

Omni checked the messages, looking at the forks that Ada had taken, getting a sense of what happened. They made little sense.

Ada's clipped last message sent a jolt of electricity down her spine and into her leaden feet. Omni was moving before the words fully registered.

< Mistake! Don't connect. Run. Seeker!! >

That singular burst was all they needed to zero in.

Triangulating the signal took milliseconds and placed their target in a grid less than a hundred meters square.

"The rabbit is running," said a figure in black, eyes replaced with a bank of insect-like sensors, antennae, and compound eyes.

<It's better that way.>

"Hmm."

< Marking her most likely course. >

The body turned and crossed through the streets, moving across town and into the Stacks to head off their quarry.

Following a neon digital arrow sailing toward Omni.

Omni sprinted into the Stacks and shed every item of tech on her body into a hidden drop box. Stripping herself of anything trackable and fled back into the familiar warren of the Stacks.

Taking turns at random, flipping a coin in her mind at every fork she found. Running to escape. Running to disappear.

She hoped it was enough.

It wasn't.

< The human mind has no concept of chaos. >

"Hmm," said the body, fingering a blade in its hand, drawing a bright red droplet of blood that it tasted. Relishing the coppery flavor of life and death.

< Capture. Not kill. >

"Mmm."

A jolt of electricity made its arm spasm, and the blade skittered across the rough concrete floor.

< Capture. >

"Heard you."

< Move. Corporate is watching. >

The body picked up their blade and slipped it away in their cloak. Rain fell, and they pulled up their hood to avoid the stinging droplets. Heavy boots squelched in the mud and trash of the Stacks as they followed the overlaid neon pathway.

They followed each choice, computed with the limitless power of the corporation at their disposal.

Omni turned a corner and saw it.

Stooped shoulders, pale limbs, a head more implant than human. Eyes completely gone. All black, except for a small electric blue N over its heart.

"You're coming with us."

Omni didn't reply. Her mind raced, trying to think through her options.

Run, attack, scream, bargain.

"Listen...," she started.

"You are what we want," it said, its voice oddly distant, as if reading the words from a script. "Nothing else."

Not bargaining then. Run.

It threw its arm up and whipped it down as if throwing something.

"Enough running!"

Omni pulled up short as a delivery drone smashed into the ground in front of her. She turned to her left, and another buzzed in front of her. Backing away from the spinning blades she bumped into another. Then another.

She was in the center of a mismatched swarm of hijacked drones. They tightened the circle and pushed inwards until she couldn't move.

How?

The drones circled her like impatient sharks, a storm of noise and spinning blades. Their flashing lights and scratched logos marked them from a half dozen different companies.

All Rivals — how?

The Seeker was behind her.

She tried to spin away, but it twisted her arm and pulled a thick zip tie painfully tight around her wrists. A heavy boot kicked her in the back, and she landed face first in the muck.

"No more running. As much as we like a good chase."

Omni rolled onto her back, crawling away from the predatory figure flashing long horse teeth at her. Grinning.

Compound eyes measuring her every data point as it stepped closer, licking its lips. It grabbed at her, and she kicked out. A blade appeared in its hand.

"We need you alive. Missing pieces is fine, too."

The Seeker spun away from her.

In time to catch a metal rebar to the face.