The Girl Who Wasn't There

by G Scott Huggins

  “Everything looks normal in the garage,” she began. Then she jerked her head back from the VR headset. “I’m offline.”

  A rumble passed through the floor.

  “What was that?” their father shouted.

  “Did you switch me out?” said their mother.

  “No!” said Paul. On his screen, the Secutors—all of them—had disappeared. He tapped in a command. “The router’s gone,” he said. “Backup and main both.”

  A window flashed into existence on the screen. It was the Mayor. “Get your mother on the screen immediately!” he snapped. “We’ve just had an explosion in the garage!”

  Paul shot to his feet so hard that he was still coming down when his mother slid into the chair.

  “Aizehar,” she said. “An explosion? Who reported it?” Her fingers flew over the keys. Over her shoulder, Paul could see the garage security cams. Two were dark, but in most of them, Paul could see wreckage and debris. The really big vehicles were too sturdy to have been hurt, but the door was open to space, and the garage was littered with wrecked rovers and Secutors.

  “Jael?” their mother called.

  “We’re getting people reporting in,” Jael called. As she spoke, an alert flashed on their mother’s screen: FAMILY WARDHEY IS REQUIRED TO REPORT. ALL MEMBERS SECURE? Her mother cleared the alert.

  From the other room, Jael’s voice rose. “Mom, we’ve got everyone but the Mayor reporting in! You don’t suppose they…?”

  “He’s fine, dear,” said Mother. “Aizehar, would you please report in before Emergency has an aneurysm?”

  The mayor swore and touched his own screen. “What happened, Erevis?” he yelled.

  “Mr. Mayor, have you received any communications or demands from parties claiming to be the perpetrators of this disaster?”

  “No, not a word.”

  “Do you, at this time, know anything I do not?”

  “I knew there was an explosion in the garage.” he huffed.

  “Apart from that?”

  “No!”

  “Then clear the line, sir, we’re working on it.” And their mother switched the Mayor’s screen off.

  “Mom, what are you doing with the Secutors?” Jael asked.

  “Nothing, the routers got blasted,” Paul called back.

  “Then what are they doing? They’re flooding the corridors. They’re headed for the garage!”

  As he stared at the screen, Paul watched the black shapes of Secutors, looking like nothing so much as ants, stream past the garage and out onto the Lunar plain. Paul’s heart leapt into his mouth. They’ve hacked all the Secutors?

  “Oh, God,” said Jael. “Mom, I can’t watch for you anymore. Emergency has declared an all-hands alert!”

  “What?” she snapped. “What for?”

  “We have six ships crashed on Luna!” Jael cried, almost hysterically. “Six ships all broadcasting Mayday!” Now Paul’s veins turned to ice. Six ships? That would be dozens, if not hundreds, dead, the worst disaster in the history of man on the Moon.

  “Stop!” commanded their father. “Think about this one moment.” He rounded the corner into the office. “Raise Traffic Control.”

  Their mother punched an icon. After a couple of seconds, a middle-aged black man with a neat Vandyke beard and a harried expression appeared.

  “Traffic Control, Cheshire, and if this isn’t an emergency, get off. We’re a little busy.”

  “Rawle,” said their father. “You having a distress call problem up there?”

  “Gavin, if you’ve heard about it, you know better than to be bothering me. The only help I need is fewer distractions.”

  “Rawle, just one thing. Were you tracking any of those ships before they maydayed?”

  “No,” said Cheshire. “Everything was fine, and then all hell broke loose.”

  “Rawle, it’s a spoof. Probably by the same people who just bombed the garage.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “What are the odds?” their father asked. “Paul, Jael? Fake signals sound in character for these perps?”

  “Absolutely!” they said in unison.

  “Why would anyone do that?” asked Cheshire.

  “I think we just saw why,” said Paul, understanding dawning. “I mean, we saw it here, sir,” he said, as Cheshire glared at him. “The Secutors. They haven’t been hacked. In the event of receiving a Mayday, they go out to help rescue the people. It’s hard-coded in their onboard programming.”

  “Rawle, stand down,” said Dad. “There’s no crashed ships out there. Instead, watch the skies. Someone wants us distracted.”

  Cheshire glared through the screen. “If it weren’t for the fact that I had no ships descending for the past three hours, I’d tell you to go jump in a crater. If you’re wrong, we’re both going to prison for a long time.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Gavin, you rigged the Secutors with backup transmitters. Can you recall them?” asked Mother.

  “Not with both routers down,” said Mr. Wardhey. “We need a transmitter.”

  There was a tense silence.

  “The Traffic Control tower has transmitters!” said Jael. “Can we patch into one of those?”

  “Good thinking, daughter,” said Mr. Wardhey. “We can do it. But we’ll have to send the signals out to each individual Secutor.”

  “Why?” asked Mother.

  “Because that’s how I designed the transmitters,” said Mr. Wardhey. “They’re built to be individually triggered. That’s the problem we were trying to solve. I never thought we’d have to shut down all of them at once. I have to go.” He began gathering tools.

  “Wait,” said Mother. They all stared at her. “All our Secutors, by now, are racing out on the Lunar plain. Even the ones from the shipyard. That means the colony is defenseless. And we don’t know where the perps are. The Secutors won’t act on anything but those mayday calls, not even if shots are fired in the colony.”

  “You’re worried about some kind of takeover?” said Mr. Hybels, who had been watching silently.

  “I think I have to be,” said their mother. She turned back to Cheshire. “Send a Mayday of your own,” she said. “Report everything to Earth. Any ships in Lunar orbit you trust and who can land, get them down here, now. I’m coming toward you with my husband. We’ll both be armed. Barricade yourselves and send anyone you can spare to meet us. No ships leave.”

  Cheshire nodded. “Will do. Stay in touch with us on your way. Cheshire out.”

  “There is another possibility,” said Mr. Hybels.

  “Make it fast, Mr. Hybels.”

  “If the Secutors are not here, then they are not defending us, true. But they are also out of the way and allowing the perpetrators to escape. That may be the only reason they are out there at all: to allow two criminals and their victim to lose themselves in the confusion. In fact, quite a bit more likely than a coup, which would require our quarry to have many more confederates in place than we have yet seen.”

  “Did they get away in that vehicle you told me about?” Mother looked sharply at Paul, who pulled up the cameras in the private vehicle bay.

  “No, Ma’am. The vehicle is still there.”

  “Then they won’t get far on foot,” said their mother.

  “I see approximately three dozen potential vehicles headed out to the lunar plain right now,” said Mr. Hybels.

  “What, you mean you think they’re riding on the Secutors?” asked Mother.

  “Erevis, he could be right,” said their father. “The Secutors’ prime mission right now is to rescue the people they think are in trouble out there. They’d hardly notice someone on their backs.”

  Their mother thought for two seconds, then shook her head. “You may be right, but my duty is to keep this colony safe. If I’m wrong, and we prepare for a coup while ignoring the criminals, we’ll be able to recover them when we shut down the Secutors. If you’re wrong, and we follow our Secutors while ignoring a cou
p—which might be their plan—we’ll have a hostage situation like no other.” She looked at Jael. “Have Emergency Services plot me a clear route to Traffic Control.”

  “Okay.” Jael scooted back to her console. She flipped through the various cameras. “You should be clear,” she said, after a bit. The corridors are deserted. Emergency has ordered all citizens to shelter in place.”

  “I’ll stay in touch with Emergency,” their Father said. “You stay linked in with Traffic Control.”

  “Right.” She kissed him briefly. “Let’s go.”

  “Mom,” said Paul. “If you shut down the Secutors and leave them stranded out there without enough air to get them back, they could all die.”

  His mother’s face hardened. “That’s just too damned bad; it’s the chance they took.”

  “It’s not the chance Cynthia took!” he shouted. “She’s just the victim in this, and you could be leaving her out there to die!”

  His mother paled but said. “You’re right. It’s not her fault. But I can’t risk the whole colony to save her, not when we don’t even know where she is. I’m sorry, Paul. You stay here. And if you have any word from the criminals or her, call me at once, and we’ll do everything we can. I promise.” With that, their parents were gone, headed for Traffic Control.

  Paul sat back, his blood pounding in his ears, but he didn’t know where to begin looking for Cynthia, either.

  “She could be anywhere out there,” he muttered. All the frustration and anger burst out of him like a breached airlock. He let out a stream of words that would have had him grounded for a month under normal circumstances, ending in, “Dammit, we have to do something!”

  From the stares on his teacher’s and his sister’s faces, they had not been expecting this. “More, ah…eloquent than I would have expected of you, Paul, but the urge to ‘do something’ isn’t very effective if it isn’t preceded by careful thought.” The old man sighed and rested his chin in his hand. “There’s one thing that’s bothering me about your Mother’s analysis: why six false distress signals? If they were just trying to get the Secutors away from the colony, one would have done as well.”

  “Redundancy?” asked Jael. “One beacon might have malfunctioned, or even been discovered, and they sure couldn’t test them.”

  Mr. H nodded. “But then why space them so equidistantly that the Secutors had to fan out?”

  Paul shot to his feet. “They’re not just running away!” he shouted as he drifted down. “They’re running toward something, and they want Traffic Control distracted. A ship!”

  “You’ve got it, son. That has to be what it is. In fact…I’m betting that ship is descending right now. And probably broadcasting to Traffic Control right now that it’s going to “help” one of the ‘distressed ships…’”

  “So that Traffic Control can concentrate its own resources on the other ‘ships.’ They’ll get away clean!” finished Paul. “I have to call Traffic Control. They’ll be able to track the descending ship, and we can intercept Cynthia there.”

  “Hold on, little brother,” said Jael, putting a restraining hand on his wrist. “Let’s not charge off too fast. Remember how these guys made us chase all over looking for a malfunctioning Secutor that had never left the garage in the first place? What if they left her there?” Her finger stabbed at the monitor showing the wrecked garage.

  “But wouldn’t they just ride out on her? They wouldn’t want to leave evidence.”

  “They would if they could, but I don’t think they can,” said Mr. Hybels. “Cynthia only looks like a Secutor. She doesn’t have the huge molecular battery that a real one has. Nor does she need their strength and endurance. A real Secutor would be slowed by two humans riding it. Cynthia…”

  Paul saw where Mr. H was going. “Her molecular batteries would have to be in her limbs, they’d be tiny!” he shouted. “I bet you they stepped down her power a lot just so she could make it through a shift. Hey!” He’d just figured something out. “I bet that’s why she was still hanging around Thunderhead that first time we saw her. You know, when we were refitting the Secutors? She must have been recharging.”

  “In other words,” said Jael, triumphantly, “they can’t take her with them except as dead weight. Or at least very slow weight.”

  “Exactly what they don’t want,” finished Paul. “Let’s go!”

  “And speaking of slowing people down,” said Mr. Hybels, “That’s what will happen if I come with you. Go on. Save the cyborg princess. Save the world,” he said, with a smile.

  “Okay, little brother. Come on, I’m the fastest wheels around here,” said Jael. “Grab onto my back and hold on tight.” Paul leapt out the door and was just able to lock his grip before Jael slammed the wheelchair forward.

  The garage was eerily deserted. Twisted metal and plastic sat in precarious piles. Later on, it would teem with activity as the colonists rebuilt their infrastructure, but the emergency directive to shelter in place had not been lifted, nor would it while their Mother feared a coup. Paul vaulted the railing after passing through the airlock. There were no bodies, only Secutors.

  But which one is her?

  Two of them had arms wrenched off at the shoulder. Those were out. But the rest looked alike.

  I can’t take her helmet off in vacuum. And I can’t pressurize the garage. If they hadn’t disabled her radio, she’d have called for help.

  The solution was so obvious that Paul felt a fool for not thinking of it at once. Retrieving his flashlight from his work belt, he knelt by the nearest Secutor and placed it in contact with the machine’s head at the beam’s highest setting. The dull angles and lenses of its interior machinery lay dimly revealed beneath the armored plastic. Paul moved onto the next. And the next.

  Beneath the sixth helmet, a pale face lay revealed. Paul panicked. She’s got no air. They left her without any oxygen!

  Hoisting her onto his shoulders, Paul ran up the stairs. Jael was already cycling the airlock back into the colony. As soon as the pressure stabilized, Paul tore Cynthia’s helmet back. The stink of sweat and foul air poured out. She gasped a lungful of air. Her eyes flaring open and began to cough weakly.

  “Cynthia! Are you okay?”

  She nodded, then looked up at him. “You came for me,” she whispered. “They said you never would. Would never find me before the air in my suit killed me.”

  “Of course we came for you,” said Paul.

  “Can you tell us where they’re going?” asked Jael.

  “Give her a minute,” said Paul.

  “We don’t have a minute,” said Jael. “Unless we want these creeps to get away.”

  Cynthia looked at Jael. “Yes. They are headed toward the safe house you found. It was all arranged beforehand if we should need to meet and escape at a moment’s notice.”

  “Oh, it’s useless,” said Jael, “We’ll never catch up to them. My wheelchair won’t last more than a few minutes in vacuum.”

  “Yeah,” said Paul. “But remember that amazing code key you had that allows you to get into people’s quarters in an emergency?”

  “Yes?” said Jael.

  “It so happens that I have one that can commandeer vehicles. Back through the airlock, sis.”

  “I can’t fit a wheelchair on any lunar vehicle,” protested Jael. “They’re not Earthside buses; they don’t have to be accessible!”

  “As if I can’t carry you,” said Paul, slinging her over his shoulder and ignoring her cries of protest. “Seal up.”

  “When I’m not too stiff to fight you, I’ll…” Jael’s protest was cut off by her helmet sealing shut.

  Paul turned back to Cynthia and was astonished to see her struggling to her feet. Color was coming back into her cheeks.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “Cynthia, you’re still weak,” Paul said.

  Her mouth and eyes hardened. “That is what they think, too. That’s why they thought they could leave me out there to die.
I am coming with you.”

  Paul nodded. “All right, then.” He opened a channel to his mother and spoke into it. “Deputy Wardhey, here. I have Cynthia and a location on the perpetrators. Stand by for a vector, I am going in pursuit.”

  Five kilometers out, they began to run into the first deactivated Secutors.

  Their mother had ordered them to turn back as soon as she had come on the line…until Paul pointed out that she had no one else to send unless she wanted to come herself, in which case she wouldn’t be any faster than they were. There weren’t any vehicles built for more speed on the Moon than an emergency rover, except for spacecraft, and those were designed solely to achieve orbit and land.

  “Just remember that they’re armed and dangerous,” she said. “Do not expose yourself to fire.”

  Their mother knew as well as they did that the heavy plastic armor of the cabin was impervious to handheld coilgun fire. And although Paul was a qualified marksman with a coilgun, he had never wanted to use one. Especially against someone who would have no compunctions about killing him. This was one order of his mother’s that Paul had no desire to disobey in the slightest.

  “There they are,” said Cynthia, pointing from her place in the observation turret.

  Paul spared a glance up but could not see anything but the steady glow of stars.

  “Cynthia,” said Jael. “Do your eyes perhaps have telescopic as well as microscopic abilities?”

  “Of course,” she answered. “There were many places in the shipyard that were completely inaccessible to close approach.”

  Paul corrected his course fractionally and drove on, past more shut-down Secutors.

  “They couldn’t have been on the ones that got shut down first, of course,” he grumbled.

  “They were,” said Cynthia calmly. “At least twice I’ve seen them move from shut-down Secutors to ones that are still moving, in the last five minutes.”

  A thin dagger-blade of blue fire lit up the Moon’s starlit sky.

  “There they come,” Paul said.

  “Faster,” said Cynthia.

  Paul nodded and ratcheted the throttle up a notch. “Track them,” he said. At this speed, he had to watch out for rocks and craters. Just like a game, he told himself. Pebbles spanged off the windscreen.