by J. N. Chaney
“That’s amazing. We did that, X. Why’d you let me do that?”
“When have you ever taken my advice, Reaper Cain?”
My pursuer slammed into the catch tube. I raised my HDK and approached warily. The short barrel felt heavy even though I wasn’t sure how much ammunition remained in the bull-pup style magazine.
The spine of Dreadmax was connected to the primary ring in several places by massive gears and energy fields. I saw them in both directions from my location and wondered if this had been a serious mistake. The top deck had felt like a curiously exposed city full of decommissioned point defense systems and maintenance structures that had been converted to apartments and work stations.
This place only had breathable air and gravity by coincidence. Everything was automated or remote controlled. There wasn’t a need for life support here.
Whoever was in the pod kicked at the hatch but couldn’t open it.
“What do you think, X?” I asked. “Should I let this guy out so he can kill me? It has to be one of Callus’ fanatic assholes.”
“Perhaps it is Elise. Her personality profile suggests she would try to assist you in this impossible mission. And one of the soldiers would likely be able to kick open the hatch.”
“Shit! That makes sense.” I clicked my rifle to my gear and pried open the speed lift pod.
She sat up, gasping for air, wide-eyed and ready to fight demons.
“Settle down, kid.”
“I’m not a kid, you stupid fuck stick!” she growled through here teeth.
“Wow! Language. Don’t hit me. I’m trying to help you out.” Give me gun toting enemies over teenagers any day of the week. What was with this kid?
Elise tumbled free of what she must have believed was her space coffin, landing on one knee, then falling on her face. She flailed her arms at me and cursed each time I tried to help.
“You know the trip back will be worse,” I said.
“Thanks for reminding me! You can’t do this by yourself, dumbass. Let’s get this thingy and get to the shipyard.”
“What do you know about slip drive regulators?”
“I’ve been on Dreadmax longer than you, remember?” she asked. “I’ve escaped the Union and the gangs and everyone else about ten times. The shipyard engineers like me.”
“I bet they do.”
“You’re such a dick,” she spat.
A tremor shook the primary ring on the other side of the void gap. One of the huge connection points flexed near the point of breaking. Vibrations knocked me off my feet.
“X, read me the map. Elise, try to keep up.”
We ran along a railway made for the automated maintenance bots, trying to twist an ankle or fall.
X-37 directed us to a hatch. I opened it and dropped down, offering to catching Elise when she followed.
The verbal abuse I received was really uncalled for. The kid had a mouth to make sailors blush. Her expensive education and natural intellect only made the insults sharper. If there were a profanity galactic Olympics, I thought this little runaway vixen would have a shot at a gold medal.
I let her jump and hit the ground hard.
She stood, glaring at me as she pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Perfect,” she said, walking off a limp.
Turning away, I followed X-37’s directions into darker and darker places.
“Why did they put the SD regulator down here?” Visual distortions to my enhanced optics almost made me turn them off despite the gloom.
“There is a vault. You’ll see the traditional access bay soon. Anything valuable or dangerous is stored here,” X-37 said.
“Anything else I can use?” I asked.
“Focus on your goal, Reaper Cain.” X-37 sounded a bit perturbed.
There wasn’t a lot of time for idle thoughts, but random shit ran through my mind at odd times. Things like what the hell would I even do if I survived this clusterfuck?
Go renegade?
That seemed like a lot of work and I wasn’t dragging a foul-mouthed brat around with me, especially with half the Union hunting her. And I doubted her father would sign the permission slip.
28
“THIS IS why you can’t do this alone,” Elise said, far too proud of being right.
“Well, thanks for coming, then,” I said, more than a little pissed off X-37 hadn’t foreseen this simple and potentially fatal failsafe. “But don’t get a big head. All you have to do is hold the door.”
She snorted.
The vault was actually a series of rooms, each with a different security requirement—not from theft or sabotage, but from exploding, venting dangerous gasses, or whatever other unsafe various bits of technology this place could offer.
The slip drive regulator was benign by comparison to experimental fusion technology, bioweapons, and graviton acceleration prototypes. If I opened the wrong interior door, I’d be wishing I was wearing protective gear. Assuming I wasn’t killed instantly.
All Elise had to do was let me out after I had the regulator. The two-meter-thick containment doors didn’t open from the inside and closed automatically when anyone or anything passed through the archway.
The only good thing about this area was that it had walkways, stairs, and climate control for actual, live humans. Not that anyone had been here for years. Dust covered the floor. Close inspection revealed fine metal shavings from one of the massive gears farther along the exterior of the spine.
“That’s not reassuring, X,” I said.
“The battle station was a faulty design. Union engineers realized this long before it was decommissioned and turned into a maximum-security prison.”
I found the long, narrow room lined with lockers that X-37 had been guiding me toward. “How many fucking slip drive regulators do they have?”
“There were five hundred and eighty. Three remain. And before you get greedy, it’s not a good idea to take more than one,” X-37 warned.
“Why not?”
“You only need one,” X-37 said. “And you would be melted to slag if you touched two of them together.”
“Yeah, probably not worth the risk.” I retrieved the device that was twice the size of a normal work tablet and ten times as heavy.
“Can you manage the weight?” X-37 asked.
“Yeah. I got it. Let’s get to the shipyard before everyone dies.”
A complicated, three-dimensional schematic of Dreadmax appeared in my HUD, then zoomed into various levels between the spine and the top deck.
“What’s this?”
“I’m working on an alternate route in the event the speed lift isn’t functioning. You’ll have to cross one of the gear bridges in that case, and…” X-37 said before I interrupted.
“How long would it take me to climb to the top deck?” The weight of the regulator was already dragging down my arm. Cybernetics made it easy to hold but didn’t mitigate the raw weight pressing into my shoulder girdle and spine.
“Three days.”
“Get that crap off my HUD.”
“Abandoning plan B.”
I hammered my fist on the containment door. Nothing happened.
“She may not be able to hear you. The door is thick,” X-37 said.
I sat down and waited. Seconds felt like hours. “Give me an update on the fate of Dreadmax. Don’t hold back. Tell me how screwed I am.”
“Union engineers consulting on this mission predicted Dreadmax would be unlivable seven hours and eleven minutes ago,” X-37 said.
“What do you mean, unlivable? Does that mean it’s going to get really cold or explode?” Maybe it was a stupid question, but I wanted to know. The devil was in the details.
“Processing and adding their predictions to my recent observations,” X-37 said mechanically.
I waited, staring at the door. Sooner or later, Elise would get impatient and open it.
Or leave. She was a runaway after all.
“Regardless of the Union predictions, Dreadmax can’t last another two hours,” X-37 warned. “You must access a speed lift and deliver the slip drive regulator to the shipyard engineers, or make your peace with your maker.”
“Do you believe in a higher power?” I asked, surprised by the last statement.
“I am an AI. Perhaps this is not a discussion we should have. Regardless of what my programmers considered in my initial formatting, faith in higher powers often comforts humans in the face of certain death.”
“Do I look like I’ve given up?” I asked.
“You are sitting down.”
What a jerk. “I’m conserving my strength.”
“Of course.”
The door rotated slowly open. I sprang to my feet and jumped through the gap.
“What the hell were you waiting on?” I demanded.
Elise stepped back, anger filling her eyes. “You could have knocked!”
“I did!”
“Well, I didn’t hear you, dumbass!” she shouted in her angry teenager voice.
“Why wouldn’t you just keep it open?”
“I tried that!” she complained. “Can we just fucking go?”
I shouldered past her and ran to the speed lift pods. We didn’t say a word to each other until we were looking at the torture chambers that had delivered us here.
“You first,” she said.
For some reason, this struck my funny bone. We stood there laughing for almost a minute.
“We don’t have time for this,” she nearly cried.
“I know!”
“Once you begin the sequence,” X-37 reminded me, “you will have thirty seconds to get inside, secure the hatch, and brace yourself. The ride up will be, in many ways, worse than the ride down.”
“Great.”
“What’s your Reaper AI telling you?” Elise asked.
“He says going up is much easier. Walk in the park,” I lied.
“I may be a kid, but I’m not stupid.” She activated her pod, climbed in, and slammed the hatch.
“Here goes nothing,” I said.
X-37 raised his volume to get my attention. “Actually, it will be…”
“Shut your digital pie hole, X!”
CLIMBING out of the speed lift was like staggering away from a mixed martial arts fight. Every part of my body hurt and I needed to vomit. With the SD regulator safely in my vest pouch, I went to check on Elise, who hadn’t exited her pod.
“Is she in there?” I asked. “I thought she’d be kicking to get out like last time.”
“That would be a reasonable assumption,” X-37 said.
“Hey, Mr. Cain,” Bug said from a nearby speaker box. “We all thought you were dead. What’d you go in the speed lift for? Those things are a blast.”
I retrieved a crowbar from a storage locker and started working on the remaining pod. It had taken some damage on the return trip.
“That you, Bug?” I asked.
“Sure is. Man, I love riding the speed lift pods. Like going into a slip tunnel, I bet.”
“It’s nothing like a slip tunnel.” I popped open the lid. Elise lay on her side, hugging herself and trembling.
“Oh man, I hope you can help her. She’s the pretty one. Even if she was kind of rude to me that one time,” Bug said.
I lifted her from the pad and set her down. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure.” She rubbed her face. “Just got banged around more than the first time. Blacked out, I think.”
Her lack of attitude worried me.
“Why’d you go down to the spine?” Bug asked again.
“Had to get something for a ship. Can you get to the shipyard, Bug?” I asked.
“We can, but my cousin’s brother’s girlfriend said they can’t use the ship, even though they're all loading up,” Bug warned. “Why would I want to get on that thing just to float around and wait for the Union to put us back on Dreadmax? It can’t take a slip tunnel or go very far.”
“Get on the ship, Bug,” I said. “Take your friends.”
“I knew you’d say that. Gonna be really crowded,” Bug said. “People are packing themselves in like beef-cows from the agriculture level.”
I gave Elise a stim tab from my kit and watched her eyes go wide. She cringed and backed away from me. “That’s awful!”
“It will keep you going. We need to get the hell off Dreadmax.”
She hesitated.
“What?” I knew what was coming—probably some desperate teenage plea to not send her back to the bad people.
“Don’t let them put me back in the lab. I’m tired of getting experimented on. Promise me or leave me here,” she said, staying back so I couldn’t grab her.
“How about you go home, do what you’re told, and reap the benefits?” I felt like a jerk asking the question. “Seems like you had a pretty easy life until you started running away.”
“That wasn’t a life. How would you do without even the most basic freedom of choice?” she asked.
“I’d probably kill some people and get put on death row. Don’t worry, kid, I’m not giving you back to the Union without a fight.”
I knew something was wrong the moment we began our final sprint toward the shipyard. Vibrations rolled through the top deck, causing Elise to stagger. “Damn it! I hate this place.”
“Deal with it. We need to find your father and get to the shipyard,” I said, seriously considering the option of abandoning the man.
“He should’ve been at the top of the lift. I thought he was standing guard.”
“With no weapons or training.” My expectations for the man were low and I hadn’t been disappointed.
“There’s another place. We sheltered near a water tank, or I think that’s what it was—they wouldn’t store fuel on the top deck, would they?” Tired and stressed, she pressed on. “He didn’t want to leave. Said the spot was out of view and safer than the rest of this place. If he had to leave the speed lift terminal, he’d probably go to the tank. Or run to his Union rescuers.”
“So much for standing guard,” I said, clearing the area ahead of us and checking our back trail as we moved. “Lead the way. If he’s gone, he’s gone. We’re running out of time.”
“Okay.”
“X, what’s the clock say now?” I asked.
"You have less than one hour. Which is eight hours beyond the best-case scenario the Union engineers predicted.”
“Just answer my questions,” I demanded. “What kind of psychopath programed you?”
“I was merely attempting to be thorough.”
I spotted the doctor before Elise or X-37 did. He sat near a Union soldier, surprisingly un-concerned about the destruction all around us. The only good thing about the situation was that I could check “watch a space station come apart” off my bucket list.
The guard noticed me a second later and brought up his weapon. I shot him between the eyes, the bullet smashing through his visor and pitching him backward as it snapped his neck. The hole in his head wasn’t exactly good for his health either. I’d seen this often because the bullet basically struck twice, once going in and once trying to get through the back of the helmet. Any man without a helmet would have just fallen down. Everything was more violent in Union strike armor, including dying.
“Why did you do that?” yelled Hastings, expressing more anger than I’d seen from him.
“He was about to shoot me. Why were you talking to him? Your daughter needs you. It’s time to choose sides.” I really didn’t think this was something I should have to explain.
A damaged voice came from behind me. “You're absolutely right, Reaper. It is time to choose sides. Except there are really only two options for you: the living and the dead."
I wasn't surprised to see the man I thought I'd killed. Parts of his armor had been stripped off to accommodate Union medics. One of his eyes leaked blood or some othe
r fluid and he had obvious frostbite on his left hand. His pinky was so grey and stiff, I thought it might break off.
"Didn't I already kill you?” I asked. “And for the record, I’ll take living. You can die all you want.”
Elise squealed uncharacteristically as she backed away. Even Doctor Hastings seemed appalled by the sight of the man I had kicked toward the atmosphere shield. Apparently, he managed to get back to the top deck and had come looking for me.
Doctor Hastings gathered his courage and intervened, moving with a pretentious authority that almost worked. “Lieutenant Callus, I require you to escort my daughter and me to safety. Your team can then return Reaper Cain to custody.”
Holy shit, Hastings thinks he has a command override on Callus—which never worked in human trials.
Callus backhanded the man into the looming side of the water tank. Shadows slid across his damaged visage as he advanced on me.
“I should thank you, Reaper,” he said. “Prototypes are always exciting to people like that man. But they’re made to fail. You’re made to fail. Your only purpose was to push the limits of what was possible then die.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’re a pale imitation of the original.” I sidestepped and backed away before he backed me up to the water tank and its heavy foundation. "Elise, get the fuck out of here."
29
CALLUS BARELY GLANCED at the girl and her father when they started to argue. His attention was on me as we both maneuvered for advantage. One on one, I wasn’t sure I could win this fight. The man was damaged, but also pissed off. His crack about being a new and improved version of a Reaper wasn’t a lie. And we’d danced this dance already. He had seen my best tricks.
“Just do what I say!” Hastings yelled, voice cracking because he knew he was losing to his daughter.
“Why should I? Let’s go!” She dragged him the way she wanted to go despite being much smaller.
Callus drew his sidearm and fired. It caught me off guard because I expected him to go with his primary weapon, the short-barrel HDK carbine that was clipped to the front of his gear with frost still clinging to parts of it.