Gaia's Brood

Chapter Part 24

Newtonians run shouting and screaming in all directions, their over-reaction bordering on the paranoid. I'm not the only one who notices their odd behavior.

"For goodness sake, what's wrong with these people?" Fernando asks incredulously. "It's only a foundry explosion; it's not even close to us."

The sudden chaos in such a clean and ordered environment is like a gash through beautiful silk showing crude and primitive emotions just below the surface.

Among the pandemonium, three young women, dressed all in black, with black backpacks, catch my attention. They run purposefully together from the balloon ferry, newly arrived from the foundry island. It is full of panicked and smoke blackened citizens.

The fast moving, close-knit unit of three stands out amid the chaos. They run to the wall of glass near our queue. One tapes something to the glass pane in a rectangular shape. She steps back and smiles briefly in our direction. I automatically return the smile, as does Trent. Then the girl presses a remote. The glass blows out leaving a neat rectangular doorway. All three punched the air in triumph.

"Death to pollution,"' they chorused in unison, "power to the Daughters of Gaia."

"Stop!" I hear someone shout. Then there is the rattle of gunfire and we all dive for the floor. Security has arrived. The Daughters of Gaia, though, have already dived through the glass. This explains the Newtonian's panic: terrorism.

I crawl to the window to watch as security gathers by the gaping hole, but there is no airship waiting to catch the terrorists. Instead, three black blobs fade from view as they plummet earthwards. A couple of circling shark-tails dive after them, but without any real hope of apprehending then.

Just as the dots fade to nothing, they blossom into brightly colored flowers, red, yellow, blue: parachutes. Very clever.

Will the engineers pursue them to the earth below? Probably, but I bet the Daughters of Gaia will be long gone by then.

So the Great Gates doesn't have everything his own way. Somehow, I find that thought comforting. I hope the three girls make it away safely, though I have no idea why I should think that. Maybe, as fellow outsiders here, I feel a sort of kinship with them.

"The Daughters of Gaia are terrorists," Trent is explaining to Izzy. "They've been a real nuisance for years. They attack anything the engineers produce that pollutes, and much more as well. Hence the tight security."

Between them, the Chief Engineer and the Daughters of Gaia have this population pretty much locked down, though they look happy enough as they are given the all clear by security.

Trent turns to me. "That's blow it."

"Why?"

"Because the Eye is in a museum on that island they just closed."

After processing through arrivals, we wander round for a bit ogling at the starched anemic surroundings. Uniformly sized houses rise geometrically in stacks towards the glass ceiling that encases the whole of Newtonsteign. Driverless electric karts hum along the streets, magically weaving round the pedestrians without hitting a single one. Whenever a kart reaches its destination, the occupants climb out and just leave the kart abandoned on the street, until another white-suited pedestrian takes it into their mind to climb aboard and set off.

Seeing an abandoned kart, I decided it's time we return to the Shonti Bloom to keep a low profile. I climb into the kart. The others follow apprehensively.

I scan the smooth, white, featureless interior of the kart. "Anyone know how to start this thing?"

Ferdinand, Scud, and Izzy crowd over my shoulder offering advice.

"Tap the screen."

"Look for a starter under the seat."

There's nothing more embarrassing than jumping into a piece of tech and finding you can't make it move.

I try to ignore my advisers. "This is daft—the starter has to be here somewhere."

"Try pushing it," Ferdinand suggests.

"Ha,ha." Very funny.

Trent jumps into the front passenger seat beside me. "Shush, do you want to draw everyone's attention to your ignorance? There's a patrol coming." He nods towards two white-suited guards wandering down the street towards us. I can tell they are beginning to take an interest in our kart.

"Dock, 64, deck 32," Trent says clearly and the kart lurches forward, hums past the guards, and zips round a corner out of sight.

"Brilliant, Trent, how did you know how to do that?"

"Just seemed logical."

I laugh with relief. That will teach me to take on new tech I don't understand. Our humor only highlights the oppressive nature of Newtonsteign.

The next morning, the balloon ferry to the bombed island is running again. Our student cover story appears to be holding up well so we decide to conclude our business as quickly as we can. We risk the ferry crossing even though the island is crawling with white-suited guards. As we crowd into the balloon basket, the attendants body search us, presumably for weapons or bombs.

If they had searched everyone that well before the attack they could have prevented it, but human nature being what it is they only step up their efficiency after the event—useless really, since the chance of an attack now is virtually nil.

The museum is open, though other areas are still roped off. While we wait to disembark from the balloon, I pause to listen to a couple of guards discussing the previous day's attack.

"Don't know why anyone would want to attack this factory? Not like it's important or anything and it's been here for decades, why choose now to bomb it?"

"Captain reckons it's a distraction. Had us searching for booby traps and delayed devices all night. Most of the island is clear now. Just a few more sites to check before we sound the all clear, but if it was only a distraction the real attackers could have planted a device on any of the islands or even within Newtonsteign itself."

Trent drags me away as we finally cleared to land.

Once in the museum it's easy to find the eyes of Gaia in the Mysteries and Folklore section, tucked away in a little room to the side of a large tech hall. Clearly, the Newtonians have a much lower opinion of the Gaia cult than their cousins in the provinces. Even here, though, a security guard sits on a chair, alert and watchful. Do these engineers never drop their vigilance?