Spaceside

by Michael Mammay

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Out of curiosity, what’s something like this cost?”

  “You don’t want to know. I also have a message for you, directly from Mr. Sanchez.”

  “Sure, as long as he’s footing the bill for this, I’m all ears.”

  “He said that you’re to cease all activity with regard to Omicron Corporation. He said you’d know what that meant.”

  “I do,” I said. I’d think through that order later. First I had to focus on the more pressing matter of the police. I briefed Gaspard on the events of the past week, including Gylika’s death and the shooting in the street. I specifically didn’t mention the hybrids or our incursion into Omicron’s system. He was my lawyer, but he was also Javier’s.

  Mallory and Burke were waiting for us when we returned, conversing with each other in low voices.

  “My client consents to questioning with me present,” said Gaspard.

  “That’s big of him,” Burke said.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Gaspard smiled.

  “Have a seat,” said Mallory. I took the chair I’d had before, and Gaspard sat to my left. Mallory took a chair across the polymer table, while Burke paced around the room, per his norm.

  “I think you were telling us about where you were this morning,” said Mallory.

  “I’m going to be completely honest with you,” I said. “I have no idea why I’m here. I’m completely open to helping you in any way that I can, but you’ve got to clue me in on what we’re talking about. All I know is this: I didn’t do anything except sleep, then flip around on my computer until I got bored and went to work.”

  Mallory sighed. “The sirens you heard this morning . . . they were responding to an explosion.”

  That caught me slightly off guard. “What connected that to me?”

  “We connected it to you because the people who died in the blast were the same people we suspect had a firefight in your vicinity a few days ago. Somebody shoots you, then that somebody dies. Seems like a hell of a coincidence, doesn’t it?”

  “That sounds a lot like an accusation,” said Gaspard.

  A chill went through me, despite the warm room. “It’s okay,” I said. It definitely wasn’t a coincidence. But I didn’t know which group died, either. Had it been the hybrids or the other group? I didn’t want to ask directly, because that would let them know how much I cared. “Are you sure it was a murder and not a terrorist attack or something?”

  She shook her head. “Terrorists go out of their way to cause as much damage as possible. This explosion affected exactly one room, killing the two people inside but doing no damage to the rest of the building.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Whoever did this knew their way around. Does that tell you anything?”

  I shook my head. “That’s not really my expertise. I know my explosions, but something like that inside a room, that’s not me. That would be more of a . . .” I let my voice trail off. It was more of a Special Ops skill. I had a good guess at who died, and it wasn’t the hybrids.

  “Finish that thought.” Mallory looked at Gaspard, to see if he was going to object to her pushing me.

  “My client would be offering this information as an expert in the field, not as a suspect,” said Gaspard.

  “Sure,” said Mallory.

  “It’s a Special Ops sort of skill,” I said. “Taking out a target without collateral damage in a confined space . . . yeah. If it was military, I’d bet good money that some Special Ops folks did it.”

  “And what would Special Operations soldiers have to do with a firefight in an alley? Assuming the same people were responsible for both actions.”

  “You don’t have to answer that,” said Gaspard.

  Mallory started to speak, but I cut her off. “It’s fine. I’ll answer. But the fact is, I don’t know.” I’d given them one piece of the truth, but drew the line at discussing what I knew about the hybrid woman. It would pull me further in with the police, and they didn’t have anything to share with me in return. At least not that I could see. “Maybe if I knew who the dead guys were, I’d be able to shed more light on it.”

  Mallory considered it. “We don’t know. They both had some pretty intricate fake credentials. They’re ex-military, almost for sure, but that’s about all we have.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  “What?” asked Mallory.

  “I really want to know who these people are.”

  “You legitimately don’t know?”

  “I legitimately don’t know.”

  “Butler . . . what are you caught up in?” she asked.

  Gaspard cleared his throat.

  “Never mind,” said Mallory.

  I smiled. It didn’t matter if I answered or not. I had no idea.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The moment I entered my apartment I sensed something off. I don’t know what tipped me, but I dove to the floor, scrambling for cover.

  “Good evening, Colonel Butler.” A woman’s voice. Familiar. “You can get up. We’re not going to hurt you. We just want to talk.”

  My heart pounded. The woman from the street. The Cappan hybrid. The same words she’d said before I got shot. “How did you get in here?” I wanted to keep her talking. Stall for time. I had a taser stashed by my bed. It seemed unlikely I’d be able to get to it, but any chance beat no chance.

  “You’ve got a good security system. State of the art.”

  “Apparently not,” I said.

  “No, it is. But we’re good at bypassing things like that.” The woman sat on my sofa, her partner stood behind her, the same guy who’d been with her previously. Neither appeared to have a weapon. Neither appeared to be particularly worried about that either. They radiated calm. “I’m going to ask you to set your device aside,” said the woman. “I don’t want you calling the police.”

  I took my device out of my pocket and set it on the shelf. I had no reason to disobey. If they meant me harm, I’d already be dead. If they still intended it, it would happen well before anybody I called could get to me. I suppose I could have called somebody to come clean up my body. I shook that thought off and tried to focus on something less morbid. “Sure. You’re here, we might as well talk.”

  “You know who we are,” said the man. A statement, not a question.

  “I know . . . what you are. Who? No, I don’t know that.”

  “My name is Sasha. This is Riku,” said the woman.

  “Carl Butler. You mind if I sit?” I hadn’t given up on getting to my weapon, but I wanted answers more.

  “Please do,” said Sasha. “You’re remarkably calm, given the circumstances.”

  I didn’t agree with that. My heart had been slamming in my chest since I’d walked in, and I had only begun to get it under control. Slowly walking to my chair helped with that. “I try not to overreact to things. How did you get here?” I didn’t expect them to answer, but if I could change the tenor of the conversation, get them responding to me, it could only help.

  “We answered that,” said Riku.

  “No, not how did you get into my apartment. How did you get to this planet?”

  “As we told you when we met before, we need your help,” he said, ignoring my question, which further showed me I was dealing with professionals.

  “Yeah. I remember you saying that. Right before people started shooting at me.”

  “That was unfortunate,” said Sasha.

  I snorted. “Tell me about it.”

  “The people who shot you . . . they were trying to hit us,” she said.

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “It’s not the first time they’ve tried.”

  “They had a free shot. If they wanted to hit you, they would have.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “A lot of factors go into something like that.”

  I paused before changing course. “So you have enemies here. You’ve struck back. They were found dead today. I assume that was your work.”


  She glanced over her shoulder at her partner. “We have enemies everywhere.”

  “And I’m the man who is single-handedly responsible for killing a huge number of Cappans,” I said. “So I figure I’ve got to be pretty high on the list.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Sasha.

  “Okay. You lost me. I’m going to fix a drink. You want something?”

  “No, thank you,” she said. Riku shook his head.

  I stood and walked over to the counter and poured myself a double. “How am I not enemy number one?”

  “Among some Cappans, you almost assuredly are. But as far as the group we’re working with is concerned, you haven’t done anything yet to show that.”

  I almost dropped my drink. “Haven’t done anything?”

  Sasha considered her words before speaking. “More precisely, what you did was in the past. A one-time thing. They—we—are willing to put it behind us if it helps us today.”

  “That’s remarkably . . . mature of you. And the Cappans. I suppose they’re behind your visit?” I took a sip of my drink, not worrying that it was somewhere around eleven in the morning.

  “They asked us to make contact with you, yes,” said Sasha. “They want to speak to you. But it’s not like a Cappan can show up on Talca Four without drawing attention.”

  “Forgive me if this is a bit hard to believe,” I said. I couldn’t figure out their plan, and the confusion made me uncomfortable.

  “Let me ask you, Colonel Butler,” said Sasha. “The last time you dealt with someone like us, would you have described them as mature?”

  I flashed back to Mallot, who I’d shot in the face because he was unhinged and likely to kill me, and to Karakov, a decorated officer, losing his mind. “No, that’s not the word I’d use.”

  “What word would you have used?” she asked.

  I thought about it, not wanting to offend them or put them on the defensive. “I’d say . . . unstable.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “So you’re suggesting . . .” I took my seat again. “You’re saying that you’re different from them?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Interesting. Care to elaborate?”

  “The procedure that spliced Cappan and human DNA didn’t work then. Now it does.” She met my eyes, unblinking, but somehow not challenging. She believed it, but she didn’t necessarily expect me to.

  “That simple?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not simple at all. The science behind it, I’m told, is off-the-charts complicated. Before, the two genetic sets were in conflict with each other. Now they’re in harmony.”

  “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

  “I don’t necessarily understand it all, either.” She gestured to herself and her partner. “But here we are.”

  “Here you are,” I repeated, more trying to give myself time to think than anything else. “What changed?”

  “When you attacked the planet, you destroyed the human medical facilities.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Those of us with Cappan DNA splicing who were stranded on the planet couldn’t survive without treatment,” she continued. “So we went to the only source we had.”

  “What source?”

  “The Cappans.”

  I took a drink to cover my surprise. “The Cappans?”

  “Their understanding of genetics is quite advanced,” she said.

  “Genetics. The Cappans.” I failed to keep the skepticism out of my voice.

  “That was the genesis of the project in the first place. A mutual effort between Cappans and humans. Until the humans took it over for their own purposes.”

  “Forgive me . . . the Cappans are a backwards people.”

  She scrunched up her face. “Says who? Humans?”

  “Everybody. They didn’t have space travel when we arrived.”

  “Space travel is an arbitrary marker. They had no desire to leave their planet,” she replied.

  “But they . . .” I stopped, considered it. What did I really know about them? “So you’re saying they could have left the planet if they wanted to?”

  “The population hadn’t begun to deplete the resources of their own world. They’re a very efficient people. And admittedly, they didn’t have fusion technology before humans arrived.”

  “Until they stole it,” I said, my voice soft.

  “How fast did they assimilate it?” she asked.

  I stared into the amber liquid in my glass without answering at first. “They understood everything.”

  “Not at first,” she said. “But science is a lot easier when you have something to work from.”

  I wasn’t a scientist, but I had no trouble believing that part. “So you’re . . . you two . . . you’re stable?”

  “As stable as you are,” said Riku.

  “That’s not necessarily a great measuring stick,” I said, but they didn’t react to the joke. “You’re saying that the Cappans did that. Fixed you.”

  “Fixed is kind of an ugly word,” he said. “But yes.”

  I took another sip of my drink. I couldn’t process it. “How does this relate to Omicron?” Both of their faces clouded over when I said that name. “There’s something wrong with Omicron,” I added for effect.

  Her extended pause told me I’d hit the mark. It also told me she knew about Omicron. “Omicron is a problem, yes. It’s part of why the Cappans want to talk to you.”

  “We’re talking right now.” I gave up all thought of trying to get to a weapon. Sasha knew something about Omicron, and since she was sitting in my apartment, I could be pretty sure it had to do with me.

  “It’s not for us to say. The Cappans will decide how much they want to share,” she said.

  “I need more than that,” I said.

  She considered it. “I will tell you this: The people who shot at you—shot at us—they were employed by Omicron.”

  “You have proof?” I asked. If they did, I could use that with Mallory.

  “No.”

  “But you’re sure,” I said.

  “Yes.” She spit the word, almost like an epithet.

  “Why would they want to shoot you?”

  They looked at each other, and while neither spoke, I got the feeling that something passed between them. “We’ve delivered our message,” she said. “Will you meet with the Cappans or not?”

  “We’re meeting now,” I said, frustration clawing at my mind. She had answers and she wasn’t going to share them.

  “We’re not the Cappans,” said Riku. “We’re doing them a favor. They help us, we help them.”

  “The last time I met with Cappans, they beat me up and tried to do medical experiments on me.”

  “You seem to think of Cappans as a homogenous group,” said Sasha. “I would suggest to you that they’re as diverse in their thinking as humans. The Cappans you encountered were likely tied to the resistance to the invasion. It follows that they were on the radical side, much like any freedom fighters. But I understand your position,” said Sasha.

  I started to respond, but stopped. Thinking about it, I had thought of them mostly as one body, but now that Sasha said it, that seemed stupidly simplistic. “And the group you represent?” I asked, finally.

  “Scientists, mostly,” said Sasha. “Much more progressive. They certainly don’t trust humans, but they see the utility—or necessity—of peaceful coexistence.”

  “I don’t blame them for the lack of trust,” I said, “so I hope you won’t blame me for my lack of trust either. Can you guarantee my safety if I agree to meet with the Cappans?”

  “Would you believe us if we said yes?” asked Sasha.

  A fair point. “I need time to think about it.”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t have much of that,” said Sasha. “The Cappans are on a rather tight timeline. They can’t stay on Talca Four for long.”

  “They’re here?”

  “How el
se would you meet?” asked Riku.

  “I don’t know, I was thinking via video or something.” I mumbled a little, struggling to process the new information. “They flew off the back side of Cappa, avoiding the satellite surveillance, and they came here?”

  Sasha gave a meaningful look to her partner. I’d surprised them with what I knew again. Good to know they didn’t have all the answers.

  After a few seconds I repeated, “I need time to think.” I was almost sure I’d meet with the Cappans. How could I not? Sasha wasn’t giving me answers, and they could. But by asking for time, I could gauge whether or not I really had a choice, or if the two hybrids would force me. Knowing where I stood was a valuable piece of information.

  “We can give you two days,” she said. “But you have to promise not to take action to expose the Cappans on Talca. We will be watching.”

  “I agree to that,” I said without pause.

  “That includes Ms. Ganos trying to dig up information about us,” Sasha said.

  It was my turn to be surprised by what they knew. I considered bluffing, denying knowledge, but something about how Sasha said it told me I’d be wasting my time. “You know about her?”

  “We do, but we won’t share that.”

  The implication being that they could, if I didn’t help them. They were asking nicely, but not really. “Was it you who thwarted her efforts searching the net?”

  “Associates of ours,” said Sasha. “She’s very talented.”

  It did ease my mind a bit that they had found Ganos, not Omicron. That was probably my subconscious telling me which side I should choose. But I still wasn’t sure, so I decided to try a different angle to test them. I was still searching for a reason to say no. “What made you side with the Cappans?”

  “We spent a lot of time with them while they treated us, and we saw how humans abused them. It’s wrong. We feel like the group we’re working with now is taking appropriate action.”

  “And all of . . . all of the people who have been treated medically by the Cappans feel like you do?”