We Have Always Been Here

by Lena Nguyen

  “I feel the same,” Park answered lamely. Then, because she was embarrassed, she threw in, “Do you happen to know where Jimex is? Is he all right?”

  Both Boone and Natalya scoffed; Park ignored them. Fulbreech smiled in a strange way to himself and said, “I haven’t seen him. But I’m sure he’s fine.”

  But she wasn’t convinced. A nagging worry had risen up in her chest when she was mulling over the sequence of events on the ship. Where had Jimex disappeared to? Why had he left Hunter, along with the other androids? Could the killer have done something to him—harmed him? But there was no reason for someone to destroy a custodian bot.

  “He must be safe,” she said out loud, thinking about how he hadn’t even flinched when a gun was pointed at his face.

  “Lucky him,” Boone drawled. He looked thoroughly unimpressed by their exchange. “Are we done making chitchat yet? Let’s go.”

  And so she followed him, giving Fulbreech only a parting glance before she and Boone descended together back into the heart of the ship.

  * * *

  —

  Going down to Deck B felt a little like slipping back into the fog of a dream. Everything felt chilly and gray, a little out of focus—but Park told herself that it was merely a residual effect of the sedatives still in her system. And fear. She couldn’t forget that a killer was lurking somewhere on the ship, and that she had no weapon. She made sure to stay close to Boone, who seemed sturdily impervious to dread or terror. He was fueled by anger, Park thought, staring at his tight, hulking shoulders. And perhaps not much more than sheer gut instinct. The heat of that could dispel any fear. Maybe that was why he’d never been subject to any nightmares.

  “Have we checked the cameras?” Park asked him as they walked. “Surely they’ve caught some glimpse of this man.”

  “They’re not working anymore,” Boone answered moodily, as if that were Park’s fault. “They went down with the lights and everything else. But Sagara was checking them this morning, after what happened with Hunter. We never saw a trace of the fucker.”

  He was silent for a while, bumping his fist against his thigh as he walked. Park noticed that he gave off a warm animal scent, something tangy and slightly metallic—like a steak warmed up in a microwave. All blood and muscle and myoglobin. Eventually he said: “Wish Hunter was here. I’d feel better with some backup.”

  Meaning he did not consider Park to be adequate backup, she thought dryly. She didn’t blame him. “So she was frozen, then?”

  “Yeah. They made the call while you were out.”

  “It seems to be the go-to solution nowadays.” She said it carefully, aware of how he might take any perceived criticism. But it was true—she’d never heard of such overzealous cryogenic processing on a ship before. It seemed to her that Boone would agree.

  But he only cast her a wary glance over his shoulder. “Chanur and Sagara said it was for the best,” he said. “So that we didn’t catch whatever Hunter got. And so we wouldn’t have to worry about her with everything else going on.” Then he shook his head, looking briefly regretful. “Well. It didn’t stop her from going kicking and screaming.”

  He was troubled by the memory, Park could tell. She wondered if he was in love with Hunter. Then wondered where she’d gotten that idea. Since when had she started factoring love into the equation, any equation—or applying it so liberally to someone like Boone?

  They reached Deck B without encountering any obstacles, though Park could feel the force of an imaginary bullet in her back every sweaty moment they didn’t see Sagara. He could be anywhere, she thought, imagining his unholy wrath if he were to stumble upon them defying his orders. And the chances of running into him again were high. Were they willing to disarm him—injure him, even—in their hunt for this killer? Boone was, she was sure, but Park didn’t know if she could go that far. She had never been put in this kind of life-or-death situation before. If that was what this was.

  They moved down one of the half-lit passageways that wound lazily towards more cargo holds, and beyond those, the waste-compacting and prefab-processing stations, which Park had not had the clearance to access before. Such rarely used areas had little lighting; employees were expected to use the infrared vision in their neural inlays to find their way in the dark. They were checking the various little closets and storage pods, with Park opening the doors and Boone pointing his gun, when he suddenly interrupted her thoughts again. “I’m sorry about before,” he said, letting the hand holding the gun fall back to his side. “For what it’s worth. With Holt—I’m not afraid to admit it. I malfed. I don’t regret it, but I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  She eyed him. Boone seemed sincere, but there had to be a reason behind his sudden offering, when he’d spent the last year holding her in utter contempt. Out loud she said, “I know now that you were just doing your job. It was the task you were given by ISF. But at the time I didn’t understand the—necessity.”

  “I always knew that about you,” Boone said, with a trace of his familiar sneer. But he also seemed to be making an effort to talk with her frankly. “You don’t know what it’s like, being under their heel. You feel that pressure to do what they want all the time. You’d kill someone else for them, just to keep on their good side.”

  I wouldn’t, Park thought, but instead she said: “Of course. Because they’re responsible for your family. Your home.” Did Boone even have a family? she wondered then. Did he wear any marriage tags, or sport the more popular pair-bonded tattoos? No, none of the expedition members were married, if she remembered correctly, that was a requirement by ISF—but that didn’t mean they didn’t have people they loved.

  Suddenly it made her a little sad, that she had to remind herself of that. She shouldn’t have to consciously remember such an intuitive thing.

  “And your money,” Boone said.

  Park started. “What?”

  He scowled at her. “They don’t just have your family,” Boone said. “They have your money, your access to everything, your tech and travel rights. You do something to piss them off, they’ll strip you of everything and send you and your whole family back to Earth. And everyone knows that’s basically a death sentence.”

  “I’m from Earth,” Park said. “It’s not that bad.”

  Boone snorted. “In a dome, I bet. Try doing it in the wild, when they won’t give you the clearance to use a goddamn stun gun.” He shook his head. “Honestly, throwing you out into the cold with nothing to your name—shit like that should be illegal. What gives them the right?”

  That was some of the talk that had started the Outer System Wars. And the Privacy conflicts. But Park, wanting to seem somewhat agreeable, said, “They gave themselves the right when they claimed most of unsettled space. No one stopped them then.”

  “They took advantage. We were too busy dealing with the Comeback and trying to survive.”

  “And now they’re too powerful—why would they ever pass laws limiting their own power over people, with no one to challenge them?”

  “People challenge them,” Boone said. He eyed her. “You could.”

  Why should I? Park thought, feeling defensive—accused, as if Boone thought she had contributed to this problem and was enabling the ISF’s hold over him. Why didn’t you know what you were signing up for when you were conscripted?

  He must have been born into it, she thought, staring at the lump of his figure in the dark. His parents could have been the ones bargaining for passage to the colonies—offering pledges of their fealty in exchange, along with the lifelong servitude of their children. Maybe he hadn’t had a choice. She’d simply been recommended for the job by her superiors in New Boston; she could have backed out at any time. She still could now.

  “You talk of Earth like it’s a hellscape,” she said. “But I realize now that I was lucky to be born there.”

  Boone was sullen no
w. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Like I said. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  They walked on for a while in silence, working their way steadily down the hall. They had no utility flashlight, and Park’s head ached from the strain of peering through the gloom and listening hard for any out-of-place shuffles or footsteps. There was a tension in her stomach; she’d seen old footage of haunted houses, theme parks where you paid to have things jump out at you. This felt like that. Insane to her that people could be addicted to fear.

  “You said you’d kill someone for ISF,” she said after a moment, feeling a little strange—as if not totally in control of herself. A little giddy, and paranoid. “Is that really why you shot Holt?” Something sparked in her brain. “Or let them freeze Hunter?” Would you kill me, too?

  Then she realized her misstep. Boone had whirled and was glaring at her from a turn in the corridor. He said, looking like he wanted to spit at her: “What’d you say?”

  Idiot, Park thought to herself. She needed sleep. And this was why Keller had been the primary psychologist, the one who interfaced with patients—because Park had a tendency to upset people. She said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Mean what?”

  She tried not to let herself falter under the heat of his sudden anger. “That—well, nothing. I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  “You think you’re better than me? You think you got free will and I don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Boone said, his voice as loud as a gunshot; it left Park’s ears ringing. “Here’s some news for you. You’re not better than me. You don’t have free will. You’re brainwashed. You choose to serve them. You and Sagara both. You’re not forced to, but you do it anyway. That’s worse.”

  “Sagara,” Park said, thinking quickly. “Sagara was conscripted. He used to be. But he served them well, and in return they let him go.”

  You have a way out, she meant to say. It’s not hopeless, and you’re not trapped. Look to Sagara. But Boone was staring at her from the half-shadows like a minotaur in a maze, hulking, his breath steaming.

  “That’s a lie,” he said.

  “Sagara wouldn’t lie about that,” Park said. “Not to me. But you see, they’re not inhuman—they must treat him well if he continues working for them. It can’t be all bad.”

  “Sagara works for them,” Boone growled, “because the idea of answering only to himself scares the shit out of him. He needs someone to tell him what to do.” He curled his lip at her; he seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, a decision she had not been aware he’d been deliberating. “Just like you.”

  Then he stormed off around the corner, leaving Park standing there with a peculiar feeling reverberating in her chest. At first she felt that same repulsion—she didn’t want to be likened to Sagara, who had seemed to have made himself the common enemy of everyone aboard the ship. Cold, ruthless Sagara, who’d frightened her all this time. Who seemed to have no connection to anybody, and owed his allegiance to no one. She couldn’t come off as that callous, could she?

  And yet—and yet she’d recognized something in him, back when he’d come to retrieve her during the blackout. Something she was a little too frightened to look at properly. There was that feeling of cold recklessness—of distance. Of having nothing much else to lose. It made him dangerous.

  Her, too.

  The sounds of Boone’s angry footsteps faded away, and Park snapped out of her reverie long enough to hiss, “Boone! Wait!”

  She darted after him around the corner, but the combat specialist had already vanished down the corridor and past another corner. Cursing to herself, Park hurried to catch up, but it seemed no matter how much she quickened her pace, Boone eluded her by just another few yards, his footfalls echoing around the corner ahead of her. Park almost wanted to stop and stubbornly wait for him to come back—she did not want to sprint after him like a frightened little girl—but she knew that that was foolish. One of them had to keep a level head in this situation, and it was obvious that she couldn’t trust Boone to. So she began to jog, calling out softly, “Stop!”

  But Boone didn’t stop. On he ran, and Park began to sweat trying to catch up to him. She found herself disoriented; the passages down here seemed unfamiliar and alien. Her sense of direction had always been bad. She hadn’t needed it, in the grid-paved structure of the biodome. If you kept barreling forward there, eventually you’d hit the dome wall and could follow the curve of it back home. But everything here was so tangled and confused.

  The tunnel went on and on. Park wondered if the passageway had always been this crooked; she was sweating unnaturally in the chilled, sterile air. Her thighs chafed against her decksuit as she jogged. Just how far did this corridor go? It seemed eternal. She was almost sure they’d walked the length of the ship by now—which was impossible.

  Boone’s footsteps, rapid with anger, faded a little. Park wanted to call after him again, but she had the sudden eerie feeling that raising her voice would bring too much unwanted attention; that it would alert the killer to her presence and draw him in like a moth to a flame. So Park crept as stealthily as she could down the hall after Boone, cursing him in silence all the while.

  She could still make out the sounds of his footsteps, though they were getting quieter as time went on. His unceasing tread seemed to indicate that he found nothing unusual about where they were going, that he was sure of his way. But Park still couldn’t catch a glimpse of his figure; and suddenly she was seized by a suspicion that it was no longer him walking somewhere in front of her at all. That it was not Boone that she was following.

  Fear pooled acidic in the back of her mouth. “Boone,” Park whispered finally, her voice hoarse.

  To her surprise, he finally answered from somewhere far off. “What?” He sounded miles away.

  “Can you come back?”

  “Fuck you.” His voice receded further into the arteries of the ship.

  Park began to run, suddenly gripped by something close to all-out panic. “Boone!” she shouted. “Boone, wait!”

  Footsteps echoed far ahead of her, as if he was running, too. Now Park knew they had entered a wrong part of the ship, a part she no longer recognized; and she thought with sick horror that this was just like what had happened with Sagara. This tunnel did not feel right—it could not crook endlessly like this, like some sort of impossible Mobius strip—and there was that sense of things watching her from the walls. Some sort of alien intelligence assessing her; an invisible presence dogging her steps. She broke into a sprint and shouted one last time, “Boone!”

  No answer.

  “Don’t leave me here like this!”

  Were the footsteps now behind her?

  Park turned her head, even as she ran, but there was nothing but darkness looming at her back. A kind of primal terror grabbed hold of her then, roaring up in a wall of static, and she fled like an animal from its predator, her heart caught in a lethal rabbit’s rhythm. The force of her running footfalls vibrated up through her legs and started a fierce ache in her hips. It seemed to her that someone was running behind her—giving chase. She was looking over her shoulder again when she careened around a corner and crashed into something hard.

  Park stumbled back, biting down a cry, and fumbled at her pocket for an illusory weapon. An inhuman shape loomed up in front of her, a black bulk in the dark. It did not move. After a heart-stopping moment, she was able to process what she was looking at.

  Bodies. In the dimness of the corridor she could make out a huddle of bodies: a dark and many-headed mass that looked for a moment like some kind of mythical beast. There were a dozen people standing in a circle, she saw, placed shoulder to shoulder, heads all bent down towards something at their feet. Their bodies seemed to be trembling in unison. None of them had noticed Park’s abrupt arrival—or if they did, they remained utterl
y silent.

  Then Park realized it. The androids. They were all gathered here—and they were all talking to each other, silently, in that way that androids did when humans weren’t around. Something in her chest loosened: she felt a flooding of almost weepy relief, threatening to burst out of her. Out loud she called again, “Boone!”

  Again, there was no answer. The footsteps she thought she’d heard behind her were now silent.

  Android eyes lit up like fireflies as she shouldered her way into the circle. Of course, Park thought—why hadn’t they used the ship’s androids to help search for the killer? To restore order on the ship, and protect the remaining crewmembers? Had they all disappeared at some point? Why? And what had they been up to?

  They were looking at someone’s body on the ground, she saw finally. A robot’s body, tall and feminine and dressed in a crisp white uniform. Its head was missing.

  Park felt her face stiffen. “Ellenex,” she breathed. The medical android’s left wrist twitched, as if Ellenex could still hear her.

  One of the other androids in the circle turned to her. At first Park didn’t recognize it, and when the voice spoke, it had an unfamiliar scrape to it, something raw and hoarse. “Your blood pressure is elevated,” it said. Its eyes glinted like coins in the dark.

  Park caught the familiar scent of ozone and fast-whirring carbon. “Jimex! Are you all right?”

  For a moment the custodian android didn’t answer her—and his face, usually so blandly sober, seemed watchful, almost wary. He showed no relief or pleasure at seeing Park again; but after a moment, he nodded. When he said nothing else, Park blurted, “What happened to Ellenex?”

  “She tried to make the crossing,” he answered solemnly. And they all bent their heads again, as if to mourn.

  “What crossing?”

  “The devil killed her,” Dylanex, the copper-haired security android, said. “For trying to wake the sleeping god.”