“So the records haven’t been altered,” Jake said, “that means the salvager is somehow able to cross the border.”
AJ looked at him with a bewildered expression, which was something Jake had never seen on her before. “It can’t be true,” she said, almost pleading. “The border is impenetrable. Nothing gets in or out. Nothing.”
Jake surveyed the room. Only Raines’s face looked as though it weren’t in complete shock. “I don’t know why that’s so impossible to believe,” he said. “So the Counsel lied to us. What’s new?”
“You don’t understand,” Raines said. “To Shellbacks, to people like us who have lived aboard ships most of our lives, telling us the border can be crossed is like someone telling you the Capitol City dome isn’t really there.”
“But the dome is real,” Jake replied. “It keeps the water out and the air inside.”
“It’s not really that different,” AJ said, “at least for us. At least for me.” She looked at Raines. “Is it really possible? And if so, how is it possible?”
Raines shook his head. “I can’t answer that question, at least not right now.” He looked at his granddaughter. “Vee and I plan to continue our research after this meeting. I just wanted to fill you all in with our progress—”
“Tell them about the device we found,” Vee interrupted.
Raines lowered his eyebrows. “There is no benefit in discussing something we don’t yet understand,” he said.
“What device,” Jake asked.
“It’s nothing,” he replied then turned to face Jake. “I’m sorry; let me clarify that, Captain. We found a small box inside the salvager that appears to serve no purpose. It isn’t wired into anything and seems completely inert, electromagnetically speaking.” He looked back at Vee. “For all we know, it is just a piece of junk that was accidentally dropped inside by the people who reprogrammed it.”
“Very well then,” AJ said. “I guess we should let you get back to—”
“I think it’s a key,” a small voice said. Everyone stopped and looked down at Jane who was sitting on the floor in the corner. She had been so quiet that Jake had forgotten she was there.
“It’s really nothing, sweetheart,” Raines said.
She stood up. “I said it could be a key,” she said more clearly.
“A key to what, Jane?” Jessie asked as she walked over to stand by her friend.
Jane pointed to the wall. “To your border, of course.”
There was a moment of silence around the table, and then Ash looked at Raines. “Could she be right?”
Raines folded his arms across his chest and stroked his chin. Then he looked at Jane. “What makes you think it’s a key, sweetheart? We found nothing electromagnetic emanating from it.”
Jane looked at Jessie. “You forgot to test it for acoustic signals,” she said.
Jessie shook her head. “I didn’t think to...” The whole group stood up, jogged down the stairs, and nearly ran to the cargo bay. Vee pulled a portable microphone from a crate and aimed it at the box inside the salvager. When she put her earphone on, she frowned. “Drowned it, she’s right. Very high frequency but very low power. Definitely a coded signal in there.” She looked up at Jane. “How did you know?”
All eyes turned towards Jane, who seemed to shrink under their gaze. “I don’t know anything,” she said, “I’m just good at figuring things out.” She turned to Raines. “Like I don’t know the device you found is a key that allows the salvager to cross the border, but it is a logical hypothesis.” She spoke the word “hypothesis” slowly, as if she was using it for the first time.
Raines chuckled. “Indeed it is, my dear. However, to verify your hypothesis, we would need to run some tests.” Raines looked at Jake. “Do I have your permission, Captain?”
Jake was still staring at Jane when he realized someone was speaking to him. “Captain” was still a title he associated with other, better people, like Marcus Coal. “Um, permission?” he mumbled to Raines.
Raines nodded. “You do realize what it means if this device allows the salvager to cross the border at leisure, don’t you?”
He nodded, but he was still thinking about Jane, and that she was right about something else: that he still thought she might be the pureblooded Beta they were looking for. Was he actually afraid of her, or was it that he wanted to be afraid of her? Her resemblance to Stacy made her overly attractive to him, and maybe believing that she was something less than human helped him resist her.
“Captain?” Raines said.
Jake shook his head. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Raines knitted his brows. “I said that if Jane’s hypothesis is correct, if the Counsel created a device that allows vessels to travel back and forth across the border, then we have all been lied to.”
“More than that,” AJ said. “It means that the Counsel has knowingly allowed dozens of vessels to be destroyed over the years, hundreds of people killed for no reason.” She stared at Jake, rage filling her eyes. “It means they are guilty of murder.”
Raines held up his hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now,” he said. “We don’t even know if the box works, or if it does, how it works. Let’s hold off talking about murder until we find out more.”
“How can we test it?” Ash asked.
“Simple,” Vee said as she stepped closer to her grandfather. “We leave the device out of the salvager and let it go. See what happens the next time it tries to cross the border.”
“That could take a while,” Jake said, turning away from Jane so that he could concentrate on what was being discussed. “I agreed to call this robot-thing here, and I agreed to bring it aboard so that you could study it. However, following it around for the next few weeks, just to see what happens when it tries to leave the colony, is something I’m not willing to do. We’ve got limited—”
“I can speed things up,” Jessie nearly yelled. When she realized that she had interrupted him, she lowered her eyes. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean to—”
“Go ahead,” he said, eager for an alternative solution.
“Well,” she said, “If someone can give me a coordinate outside the border that the salvager understands, I think I can transmit a generic ‘pick up’ command that will send it there.” She looked at AJ and then back to Jake. “We certainly wouldn’t have to wait long.”
Jake thought about this for several seconds, weighing the consequences of delaying their dumping of the reactor versus the potential of making a discovery of such a magnitude. Like his fear of Jane, a part of him hoped that they were wrong about the box inside the salvager. If it did prove to be a way to cross the border without setting off the perimeter defenses, then the ramifications were almost too much to comprehend. A Counsel responsible for murdering hundreds of its own citizens? He looked at Raines and remembered the conversation they had when they first met, where the engineer had called Civica a “prison for humanity.” Wasn’t this proof of that?
“Okay,” he suddenly blurted out. “I’m in.”
“Captain?” AJ said.
“I mean, I’m authorizing you all to do whatever it takes to test Jane’s theory out.” He looked at Ash. “Plot us a course to the southern border. Make it as direct as possible, but still avoid any cities or outposts. We have a potentially dangerous reactor in our hold, and if we end up having to dump it prematurely, I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
They all stood there staring at him. Apparently, they weren’t used to him acting like a “real” captain. He smiled at the thought and then said with a more serious face, “Let’s go, people.”
Exile 06
Since their original westward course to the Rift was an arc that took them far south of the shipping lanes surrounding Capitol City, it only took a couple of days to reach the colony’s southern border. During this period, Jake and his crew tried to pretend everything was normal, especially when Dr. Wood was up and about. Since he wasn’t allowed on the bridg
e, he had no way of knowing that they had changed course.
To keep Wood occupied, Jake agreed to let him use the ship’s recreation room to build a working copy of his laboratory in Capitol City. Normally on long hauls, the ship’s rec room would be in heavy use by the crew during off-hours, but no one complained about the decision. Their minds were elsewhere, Jake assumed, much like his own. On the afternoon of the second day, when they were less than an hour away from the border, he decided it was time to fill the doctor in on their plan.
“Anyone home?” Jake called out when he stepped out of the rec room lockout and entered what appeared to be a huge version of the science classroom from his old school. Even though he knew the Wave’s rec room had a floor space of less than thirty square meters, the utility fog had an uncanny way of simulating much larger areas.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” the doctor called out. Jake turned and saw him step out from behind a large cylinder on the far side of the lab and begin to walk toward him. There was an ever-so-slight wobble to his body as he approached, obviously caused by the utility fog simulating his image. In reality, Dr. Wood was somewhere within a few meters of him, moving towards a recreation of Jake. Only when Wood came within arm’s reach would the simulation be replaced by the real person.
“Thanks for coming,” Wood said as he reached out his hand.
Jake furrowed his brow as he shook the man’s hand. “I didn’t know you had asked for me,” he admitted.
“Oh!” Wood exclaimed as he jumped back oddly. “Then why are you bothering me? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Jake looked around at the tables nearby. Each was covered by old-fashioned beakers and test tubes. A small flame on one table was heating up something blue and making it boil. “What exactly are you doing in here, Doctor?”
Wood looked around him and turned back to Jake. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Jake shook his head. “No, it isn’t obvious at all.”
Wood replied slowly and carefully, as though he were speaking to a child. “I’m building a bomb.”
Jake swallowed hard. “Did you say a bomb?”
“Yes,” Wood replied, his eyes suddenly looking deranged.
Jake reminded himself that while a person could easily create some sort of weapon such as a pneumatic gun inside a recreation facility, they could never build an explosive device. The microscopic little robots that, when linked together, built everything a person could imagine, were all made out of simple metallic parts. There were no other elements or chemicals inside, and even if there were, the system had too many safeguards to allow that. Still, he had to ask. “Why are you building a bomb, doctor?”
“Because I’m a mad scientist, and that’s what we do,” Wood replied. Then he suddenly burst out laughing. When he regained his composure, he said, “I’m sorry, Captain. Just a little lab joke.”
“I don’t get it,” Jake admitted.
“And I don’t get why you have altered course without telling me,” Wood said, all humor gone from his voice.
“I actually came down here to tell you that,” he said.
“Very well,” Wood said. He spoke a few words in a language Jake didn’t understand, and the entire lab disintegrated before his eyes. It was quickly replaced by a small room, nearly the same size and shape as the real rec room, which contained two old chairs facing an open fireplace in the back.
“I’ve seen this before,” Jake said. He walked up and placed his hands near the fire. He knew that at that moment, invisible little robots were swarming all over his hands, rubbing them and creating heat from the friction. It gave the illusion that the fire was real.
“Yes,” Wood said as he walked over and sat down in one of the large chairs. A layer of what appeared to be dust jumped up from the material when he sat down. “It’s from your ship’s rec room primer. A simple little simulation, but I find the simplicity of it quite relaxing.” He motioned to the other chair. “Tell me, Captain, have you determined from where my sphere originated? Are we in fact, heading towards that location as we speak?”
Jake noticed how the doctor referred to the sphere as “his” as he sat down. The chair was far more comfortable than any real chair inside the ship. “If people can invent digital chairs this comfortable,” he said as he leaned back, “then why can’t they do it in real life?”
“They can, Captain Stone,” Wood said. “Only they don’t tend to place them in rundown cargo haulers like this.”
Jake tried to ignore that slam against his ship as he told the doctor about the salvager in their hold and their plans to test its ability to cross the border undamaged. He didn’t mention the device they found inside, or that they removed it. Wood didn’t take the news very well.
“You seem to be an intelligent man, Captain Stone,” he started politely. “So can you please explain to me why you have wasted the past two days chasing a false belief that ships can cross our borders?”
“Raines seems to think it might be true,” Jake countered.
“Norman Raines is a fool,” he spat. “And you are all fools for believing him.” He stood up and walked to the other side of the room. “And I am a fool for believing you could help me.”
Jake stood as well. “I think finding out if the border is passable and learning whether or not we’ve been lied to our entire lives is a little more important than locating some sphere.”
“It’s not your decision,” Wood yelled at the wall.
Jake took a step toward him and yelled back, “It is my decision, actually. I’m in charge on this boat, whether you like it or not.”
Wood spun around so fast Jake thought he was going to punch him. Instead, he pointed a bony finger at his nose and said, “Mark my words, Captain. You will regret this decision.”
Jake swatted his hand down and felt anger building in him. “Don’t threaten me, Doctor.”
Wood retracted his hand and rubbed it, looking subdued. “Believe me, Captain. I have no need to threaten you. Your own actions will be your downfall.” With that, he turned and exited through the doorway, leaving Jake alone in the room. Even with the fire nearby, he felt a chill run up his back.
When he finally exited the rec room lockout, he paused near the door to his old quarters, the one he used to sleep in when the Rogue Wave was docked in Capitol City. It was only a few months ago, but in some ways it seemed like years. Wood’s quarters were the next door down the short hall. He stopped there, considered knocking, but then heard the background hum of the thrusters decrease in pitch, signaling that they were slowing down. He turned and headed to the bridge.
When he reached the top of the final set of stairs, AJ was standing in the command position at the bow, talking to Ash and Vee behind her. “Don’t get us too close, guys,” she said. “If and when the border defenses take out the salvager, I don’t want us anywhere nearby.”
“I have piloted a ship before, you know,” Vee said, with more humor in her reply than irritation.
“Yeah,” Ash said in a little kid’s voice. “You’re not my mom.” As usual, he took everything a step too far.
AJ glanced behind her. “This is serious, Ash. No one has ever tried something like this before. We are just outside the red zone, and we might even be attacked for venturing this close.”
Ash put on a serious face as he nodded his head, but when AJ turned back to the big window, he looked at Vee and wiggled his eyebrows.
“Saw that, Ash,” AJ said without turning around. “Guess who gets the twelve-to-four shift for the remainder of the trip?”
“Sir, yes, Sir,” Ash said mockingly, but Jake knew he hated working nights. Not that night was any different from daytime aboard a ship. For that matter, neither was living in the lower level of a city. Only the topside dwellers, which tended to be people in government and their families, had the chance to watch the sunlight move across the sky during the day and got to see the stars turn on every evening.
“Is Raines ready?” AJ asked him as he walked up
to stand between Ash and Vee.
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I just came from the rec room.”
“How’d he take the news?” Ash asked.
Jake shrugged. “As I think we all expected.”
“Threatened to kill us all for disobeying him?” Vee asked.
“Close,” he replied. He reached down and pressed the communication panel on Vee’s console. “Raines, are you ready?”
The engineer’s face appeared in a small window on the center of Vee’s dashboard. She touched it and dragged it to the side next to Jake. “I’m ready,” he said. “The salvager is put back together and the drop bay is sealed and pressurized. Just waiting for Jessie. She should be up there by now.”
“I’m here,” Jessie said from behind Jake as she slid into her acoustics chair. She put her earphones on and pulled her knees up against her chest—a habit she picked up from Jane. She was also barefoot, a habit she had given Jane in return. In his mind, Jake gave her one of Coal’s lectures about the dangers of non-standard footwear aboard a working vessel, but in reality, he didn’t mind. Stacy liked to work barefoot as well, and she never lost a toe. When he realized the stupidity of that last thought, he cursed himself.
“Ready to transmit, Captain,” Jessie called out.
Jake looked back down at Raines’s face. “Let it go,” he said. “Let’s see what happens.”
A light on AJ’s forward command console lit up, signaling that the lower door was now open. Everyone stood up and began searching the darkness outside the bridge’s many viewports. In less than a minute Vee shouted, “There it is!”
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