Stolen Fire
Chapter 2
ORIS
“Oris.”
The sound of his name cut through Oris’ concentration, and he looked up at his partner, Yasho. By the look on her face and the tone of her voice, she’d been trying to get his attention for a while.
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
Her smile was slight, though he saw her gaze moved around the bullpen, seeing the reactions he no doubt was eliciting from their fellow officers. Not for the first time he felt the need to apologize again. Yasho was better than this — being saddled with him.
Fingers snapped in front of his face, and he realized he’d gotten lost in his thoughts again. Yasho crossed her second set of arms and leaned back against her desk. “What’s got you so focused?” She gestured with her chin at his compscreen.
“It’s…I don’t know. There’s a group. I’ve been tracking their chatter for a while & it looks like they’re active right now. Tonight. I think it’s related to this smuggling cold case from 36 — the seven cases of Karanah?”
Yasho made an amused humming noise. “Heads rolled over that one. Sure you want to poke that himsaru?”
Oris rolled one shoulder in a shrug. “If there’s something there, I have to uncover it, right? It’s what we do.”
Yasho leaned over him to take a closer look at his compscreen. “No, it’s what you do, Oris. The rest of us keep our noses clean and stay out of trouble from the brass.”
“I can’t live like that. These people were never caught. What if they’re smuggling Karanah again?”
A sigh. “Then more heads are going to roll, and the people of Apasaksetra will suffer.” She looked at him sidelong. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
His smile was self-effacing. “You know me pretty well.”
“If the brass find out you’re digging into this again….”
“I know.” He checked the time on his compscreen. “I have to go. They’ll be moving soon. If I want to catch them, I have to leave now.”
Yasho sighed again, then waved one of her arms at him. “Go. I’ll cover for you.”
Oris felt a rush of gratitude for his partner. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“You owe me plenty. Now get out of here before the Chief sees you.”
Oris grabbed his Disrupter and put into his holster, then threw a jacket on over top. He hurried out of the precinct and down to the streets of Indriya-mandal, determined not to miss out on cracking this case.
The smuggling ring had successfully made off with Karanah thirty years ago, in 36. The loss had been devastating for the Apas, who needed Karanah for their Pudgala in order for them to ever be able to leave the waters of Apasksetra. An entire generation of Apas was forever trapped in the waters, unable to live on land.
At first no one could figure out why Karanah had been stolen, or smuggled off-world. It didn’t have any use anywhere else on Maya. None of the other Prani could use it. It was only after that word had leaked back — apparently it was a designer recreational drug for some offworlders, and fetched a hefty price. Non-Prani on other worlds had a different reaction to it than Prani did. Offworlder physiology turned what was a necessity for life here into something to get high.
Karanah became an even more controlled substance, and the punishments for those who had let it slip out of Apas hands had been severe. Those that had failed to catch the smugglers were also punished. In the intervening years, no more Karanah had been lost, likely because of the new rules and restrictions on it. But the thieves and smugglers had never been caught.
Until now. Oris was sure he was on the trail of the same group, and if he could catch them….
It might just save a little bit of his reputation, and perhaps solidify his position in the force.
He pulled out his communicator and brought up the tracking software. He’d first seen the chatter amid net-sites in the wilder areas of the network. Speaking in code that was reminiscent of the communique interrupted from the original smuggling group. He’d begun paying more attention to their posts, and eventually felt he had enough to go on to warrant planting a tracking virus in the net-site.
He hadn’t written the virus himself. For that he’d gone to a neighbour in Ajivatown, where he lived. If the chief found that out, his head would roll and his neighbour’s too.
But it had paid off. The tracker had worked, and now he was following the coordinates of one of the posters in the group. They were moving around the city and heading to their rendezvous.
The downside to the tracking virus was its short lifespan. He’d waited until the last moment to plant it, and he knew he only had a few hours before it would be discovered by the native anti-virus on the target’s communicator. Unless the target was a higher caste than Pudgala, in which case it would be noticed and the communicator abandoned much sooner.
He felt sure the group he was dealing with were not Suddha-dharma or Adharma. Perhaps some were, but mostly they would be Pudgala. Otherwise they wouldn’t have had to resort to the network to communicate so often. Besides, most Prani were Pudgala these days. The Plague had seen to that.
The blinking light on the map made another turn down Indriya-mandal’s twisting streets, and he quickly turned to keep up. He didn’t see the Adhagni until it was too late and he’d bumped into the man, falling back onto the streets below.
His clothes got singed and he patted them out quickly, avoiding making eye contact with the hulking figure glaring down at him. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, putting as much contrition into his voice as he could.
The Adhagni snarled. “Ajiva,” he said, and then he spit on Oris.
Oris waited until the man had walked away before wiping away the spit, which was burning his skin.
He dared a glance around; people were staring at him with ugly looks on their faces. Oris hurried down the street, trying to find a spot where he could regroup.
He ducked into a doorway and stopped for a minute, breathing deep and connecting to the small amount of jiva he had. He felt the earth beneath him, deep and dark and cool, the strength of it bolstering him. His skin cooled where the spit had burned it, and his heart calmed its rapid pace.
“Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.”
He’d done it again. He’d been so deep into his work that he’d totally missed the presence of a higher caste Prani and had offered grave insult. He was lucky the other man had only spit on him. He could have suffered much worse.
Beeping from his communicator cut through his thoughts, and he checked the tracking app. It was losing signal. Was the virus degrading already? No…the dot was near a sewer access point in the city. They were heading to the sewers.
Oris smiled, feeling a tiny bit of confidence creep in. Sewers were deep underground — his home turf. He may have been Ajiva, but he was Visesajiva first. Not even being casteless would disconnect him from the earth completely.
He pocketed his communicator and looked about for the nearest entrance to the sewers. Finding it, he quickly made his way over there, being careful not to insult any other Prani. He couldn’t afford any more delays.
The sewers of Indriya-mandal were actually remarkably clean. Oris didn’t find this strange, being a resident of the planet Maya, but he’d heard rumours that offworlders — the few they got — associated sewers with stink and filth and bodily waste.
Which made sense, if they didn’t have the same sort of system that Maya did. Oris didn’t even understand it himself; all he knew was that when Indriya-mandal was built, at the end of the Last War, it had been built with the cooperation of all the races. Each had lent their special abilities to form a city that would stand the test of time, and apparently an Apas and an Visesa had teamed up to make self-cleaning sewers.
Or was it a Visesa and an Agni?
He couldn’t remember. It was definitely a Visesa, however — he could feel the mark of another earth Prani in the carved stonework, the underground caverns that made up the network of sewers beneath the city.
Despite Indriya-mandal’s incredibly clean sewers, they were deserted. Not many people spent time down here unless they needed to, and the ability of the sewers to clean themselves meant there was no job to clean them. Once in a while it would flood and city engineers would need to come down and jiggle some levers or work with the water to make sure the city itself didn’t fill with water, but otherwise the maintenance was very low.
Oris only knew so much about the sewers because he had the tendency to have a question and then research the answer until he was satisfied. It made him a veritable fountain of nearly-useless information and it wasn’t very good for winning him friends. Then again, his Ajivism made that nearly impossible anyway.
One thing about the sewers, however, is they were dark. Without enhanced night vision Oris was required to use the light on his communicator to navigate and whatever he could sense of the stonework around him. The earth spoke to him, as it did to all Visesajiva — but his Ajivism made him impaired in listening to it.
The blip on his map was still moving away from him, turning in ways that would have been impossible above ground. The map was flawed: it only showed the upper level of the city, not the layout of the sewers. He’d have to guess as to which way to turn.
Luck was on his side, and soon he was closer to the blip. Voices echoed through the caverns so he turned the light off on his communicator and shut down the sound as he crept through the halls of the sewers, hoping he didn’t happen upon the group accidentally. The communicator was in his pocket now, blocking any light from alerting them to his presence, but it also meant he couldn’t see exactly how close he was.
He turned a corner and off to the left side was an expansive overflow cavern, and through the entrance to this cavern he could see a crowd of men. Oris froze, flattening himself against the wall, and willed himself one with the earth.
He didn’t know if his camouflage would work. Sometimes it did, sometimes it didn’t, and the only warning he’d get that it had failed would be a shout of alarm from the men when they spotted him. He slowed his breathing, willing himself to be a rock, and watched and waited patiently.
There were twenty or so men in the group, though he couldn’t see all angles of the cavern. They were surrounded by several large crates, no doubt carrying Karanah in them. Oris counted fourteen crates, but there easily could have been more in the areas of the cavern he couldn’t see. The crates were long and rectangular — not the usual transport size for Karanah. Maybe they were using a different size to throw off anyone on their trail.
One thing was sure: that amount of Karanah would be enough for three generations of Apasagala.
The men were all Dyausajiva, as far as he could tell. They were illuminated in the room by a few globes of starlight, no doubt generated by one of the higher caste ones. He couldn’t tell all their castes for certain, but most of them looked Pudgala. Maybe an Adharma in the mix. The leader — there had to be a leader — would be higher in rank, of course.
The men spoke softly, and Oris strained to make out what they were saying. Something about the shipment, and how they were late, and…they were waiting on one more man.
Oris tried not to fidget, wondering what he should do.
You should call for backup, probably. Probably. He certainly couldn’t arrest all these men himself. For one, he had no probable cause. For another, they’d kill him.
But he couldn’t call for backup without making noise and alerting them to his presence. He couldn’t really move, except…maybe he could grab his communicator and turn on its vid function, get a recording of these men and what they were doing.
Glacially slowly, Oris moved his hand to his pocket to grab his communicator. He withdrew it from the fabric and pointed the camera to the cavern, then turned on the video. The light from the screen was too bright, and he grimaced and turned it down.
The men didn’t notice. While he was doing it, a portal opened in the cavern and admitted another Dyausajiva—this one tall enough to be an Adharma or Suddha-dharma—and three large crates, floating behind him.
“Why the stars are we meeting here, in the sewers?” This man did not seem to care about keeping his voice down, and his words boomed across the cavern and into Oris’ camera.
Some of the men tried to hush him, but he continued on. “I’ll speak as loud as I want. There’s no one here. It’s the sewers! But I want to know why we even needed to meet here in Indriya-mandal.”
“You know why.” The voice that responded was not very loud, but it spoke with such authority it cut across all other sound and rang crystal clear in the ensuing silence.
Oris frowned. He recognized that voice, he thought. He just couldn’t place it. He waited for the speaker to come in view of the camera, but the man, whoever he was, stayed just out of view.
The newcomer was appropriately cowed by this reply, and he spoke no more. The rest of the conversation was muted, and Oris struggled to hear again — he only hoped his video would capture it.
Then the men decided to leave as one, and a massive swirling portal opened before them. This was surely started by the leader, and it confirmed the leader was Suddha-dharma. Each Prani race had a form of elemental travel, and for Dyausa that meant portals. But only Suddha-dharma could open one that would let others travel through.
The portal swallowed up the entire cavern: men, crates, everything, and then it closed, leaving darkness in its wake.
Oris blinked the stars out of his eyes. The cavern was empty. The smugglers were gone.
Oris got to his feet slowly, feeling cramps in his muscles, and moved as quietly as possible to the entrance of the cavern before him. He was cautious — while it seemed that all the men had portalled away, there was always a chance one had been left behind to guard the area.
He removed his Disrupter from the holster and fingered off the safety.
Oris didn’t stop filming on his communicator. He wanted as much information as he could get.
He inched his head in and looked at either side of the cavern. It was very dark now that the Dyausajiva had left and taken their light sources with them, but Oris didn’t think anyone was there. He dared to turn the external light on his communicator back on and swept it over the room.
Empty. Barren swathes of rock met the searching beam of his light. The communicator continued filming the empty room. Oris stepped inside and began to investigate.
The men had left no evidence behind. No footprints, for it was stone; no belongings. He supposed it was possible there was some pranic residue, but he’d never be able to tell. He’d need to call Yasho for that.
Shit. He probably should call Yasho. She’d be pissed that he hadn’t called for backup at the first sign of there actually being something.
Still, something stopped him from clicking her number on his device. He wasn’t quite ready yet. There was still something…
There. In the corner of the cavern. That wasn’t rock. He focused his communicator’s light on it.
A crate had been left behind.
Oris could hardly believe his luck. He hurried forward, keeping the camera trained on the crate. This was his chance. He’d open it, reveal Karanah on film, and then he’d have proof that the smuggling ring was stealing the precious medicine again. He’d save his reputation, and his career.
He was already spinning fantasies in his head about what his life would be like once he removed the black mark from his record. It wasn’t until he got right next to the crate that he realized it wasn’t a crate.
It was a cryostasis pod.
It hadn’t been clear from far away, but this close it was unmistakeable. The long rectangle wasn’t just an oddly-shaped shipping container; it had a body in it. A small glass window at the top was fogged over with ice, and an array of buttons and lights on the side showed the life signs of the person within. Stable. All signs nominal.
Oris stood, stunned, staring at the stasis pod. He’d never seen one in use, but he knew about them, had seen empty ones. They were used for various things — long-term space travel, holding for particularly dangerous criminals, even zoological uses, like transporting animals safely.
Once, years ago, they’d been used on his kind. Ajivism was a disease that had to be eradicated, and some Ajiva had chosen to go into stasis until a cure could be found.
Or so the story went.
But human trafficking…it made sense. He just had never thought of it before. Not enough of a criminal mind to be a proper detective, maybe.
He moved closer to the pod and tried to get a look in the window, see who or what they were smuggling. No use; the fogging was too bad. He put his Disrupter down on the case and leaned forward, rubbing away at the glass and hoping to get a better look.
If Oris wasn’t mistaken…it was a woman. And she didn’t look Prani.
“Shit.” He stepped back from the case and ran his fingers through his hair. He should have seen this coming, but maybe his better nature didn’t want to believe that any Prani would resort to stealing offworlder women.
But why should he believe they were better than that? Their race was faced with extinction. Sixty-six years of Nivesana hadn’t fixed the problem — Prani birth rates were still low, and men still outnumbered women seven to one. Or was it ten to one?
Maybe he hadn’t wanted to see it. Nivesana had just happened again, two days ago, and as always Oris had flung himself into his work, hoping to disappear into it. Hoping that he and the rest of the world could forget his shame.
Of course he wouldn’t have been thinking of it. But these men had. These men had thought of it, and were trying to solve their species’ problems through abduction and rape.
He felt sick to his stomach. Nivesana was hard on men, but that didn’t excuse this. Nothing excused this.
He pressed stop on the recording and moved close to the crate again, leaning over it once more to get a look at the woman inside.
Definitely not Prani, though he wasn’t sure what kind of offworlder she’d be. Aradian, maybe, though he didn’t realize they could have pink hair. An unusual colour.
Oh, fuck. He just realized…if she were Aradian, this was going to be a much larger issue than any other offworlder.
Heads were going to roll, and he wasn’t sure his wouldn’t be one of them.
The cold pit in his stomach expanded to engulf his spine.
It was time to call Yasho.