Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  “Okay,” Arden soothed. He hugged Oggie. “You need to sleep, I think, because you’re getting morose, and usually that just means you’re tired.”

  Oggie squeezed him back. “You’re probably right.”

  Arden tucked him into bed and gave him space to recuperate.

  He pulled up a copy of Mr. Murray Saves the Day on his tablet and read that instead of getting anything done.

  He arranged for the Solar Deck to be empty for an hour tomorrow, then did his best to recreate the end of the book for Oggie.

  No restaurant on Eden exactly matched the one from the book, but he did what he could. The whole thing was silly, a lighthearted Terran romance. Arden did his best impression of Terran manners from the time period and Oggie acted, well, exactly the way he always did, except with more exuberance.

  He seemed, for a few days, genuinely happy, if one’s happiness could be judged by how few drinks they had. One of those days coincided with Oggie’s birthday, so Arden spoiled him particularly that day.

  Getting Oggie to the courtroom had proven a trial. He had wanted a drink beforehand and Arden had desperately wanted a shot of Twelve, and it had taken every bit of will Arden possessed to keep them away from their respective vices.

  “Tomorrow,” he’d promised Oggie dozens of times. “We’ll do whatever you want tomorrow.”

  He said it again now, before the trial started, before they’d have to separate and play their various parts. “Tomorrow.”

  Oggie had a death grip on Arden’s hands. “Sugar.”

  “Fuck tomorrow. Tonight,” Arden said. “We will get blackout drunk tonight.”

  Oggie nodded weakly.

  “Okay?”

  Oggie pressed his lips together.

  Arden told him, “You’re okay.”

  “Mr. Nielsen?” a safety officer asked. “This way, please.”

  Oggie shoved his hands in his pockets and went with her.

  Arden went to sit beside his lawyer on the prosecution’s side. He avoided looking at the defense.

  He hadn’t seen his uncle since Oggie had come clean.

  He knew if he looked at him now, he’d come entirely undone.

  Morris looked like his sister, the same full handsome mouth and stern jaw. The same cheekbones.

  Arden had inherited those cheekbones from the Torres.

  It would be like seeing his mother on trial for attempted assassination.

  For his own assassination.

  It seemed like half of Eden had turned out for the trial. He knew that live updates would go out to everyone.

  For the most part, all Arden could do was sit and listen. His lawyer did most of the speaking.

  This case should be open and shut.

  Oggie, poor thing, took the stand first and revealed how Morris had come to him with his proposition. He kept it together through the prosecution’s questioning, for which Arden and his lawyer had done their best to prepare him. What he explained made him seem like an awful person. He was a thief and a drug dealer, as well as a reckless, messy partier and he’d played pet to various peers, but nothing he said made him seem like a murderer.

  At least there was that.

  Morris’s lawyer took his opportunity to question Oggie.

  “Mr. Nielsen, tell us again how you know Mr. Torre?”

  “Uh. Arden or…?”

  “Morris,” the lawyer confirmed.

  “He helped clear up a few charges for me a little while back.”

  “Hmm. And what were those charges?” the lawyer asked.

  Oggie looked at the judge. “Do I have to answer that again?”

  “Mr. Nielsen has already given those details,” the judge told the lawyer.

  “I just wanted to confirm. You were stealing medical supplies and selling them for recreational use. Correct?”

  Oggie shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Nothing else.”

  “No.”

  Morris’s lawyer waited.

  “No,” Oggie insisted.

  “And you don’t have any other reason to collaborate with Morris Torre? No personal relation to him?”

  “No.”

  “And he helped you ‘clear up’ those charges…for what reason?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The lawyer said, “We’d like to play a few videos.”

  Oggie blanched.

  Arden’s stomach clenched. “What videos?” he hissed to his lawyer.

  The courtroom rustled.

  “I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Arden’s lawyer admitted softly.

  Arden twisted his shirt between his fingers. He tried not to stare at Oggie.

  Oggie’s eyes had gone wide and vacant.

  The screen beside the judge had turned on.

  “We do want to point out that these videos are freely available for anyone who searches on the right platforms,” Morris’s lawyer reminded smoothly.

  Oggie hadn’t moved.

  The screen showed a series of pornographic scenes, not entire videos, but a compilation of shots from different videos. Thankfully, they turned the sound off and blurred the most sensitive parts of the films. Oggie featured in all of them and so did a different man. A pale-skinned man in a mask, the same one every time as far as Arden could tell.

  “Mr. Nielsen, that is you, correct?” the lawyer asked.

  “Just about all of me,” Oggie whispered.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “It’s me.”

  “Anything you wanted to tell us about these videos?”

  “Made them between the med center and Crystal,” he mumbled.

  “And these videos, were they produced by the Media Department?” she asked and clearly already knew the answer based on the look on her face.

  “No.”

  “Ah. So, uh, Mr. Nielsen, are these personal videos? Or were you taking money for illegally filmed pornography?”

  Oggie didn’t say anything.

  “Mr. Nielsen?”

  “I guess they were personal then.”

  “Is this relevant somehow?” the judge asked.

  “Mr. Neilson, one more time, you have no personal relationship with Morris Torre? Despite him clearing those charges for you?”

  “No!”

  “This is ridiculous!” Arden called. He got to his feet.

  People looked at him.

  “This is totally irrelevant. Are you going to let this keep going?” Arden demanded directly of the judge.

  “Your Eminence, you did wish to have a trial,” the judge reminded gently.

  “A trial, not a circus. Get that off the screen.”

  Someone had paused the video on a particularly graphic moment.

  The screen went black.

  “May I continue?” the lawyer asked the judge.

  “For now.”

  The lawyer gave a nod. “Mr. Nielsen, who was your partner in these videos?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? I thought they were personal.”

  “I’ve done personal things with strangers before. Haven’t you?” Oggie asked.

  “You were not aware that Morris Torre was your partner in these videos?”

  Arden stood up. He knew he’d gone red by how hot his face felt. “That’s it.”

  “Your Eminence?” the judge asked.

  “This is a joke. My uncle hired someone to assassinate me and we’re watching porn,” Arden told her.

  “Those claims haven’t been substantiated yet,” Morris’s lawyer pointed out. “In fact, no claims against my client have ever been substantiated.”

  Arden turned to look at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Bailey Spino.”

  “I’m two minutes away from having you disbarred.” He finally looked at his uncle that much harder knowing his face had been behind the mask in the videos. Poor Oggie. “And you.”

  Morris smiled at him. “Yes, Arden?”

  His mouth went dry.
“You know I own this fucking station, right?”

  Morris kept smiling. “I know.”

  Something, though, kept Arden from ending things.

  He wanted proof. Proof that Morris had done this.

  Public recognition that Oggie was innocent.

  He needed that. In a hundred years, he wanted people to look up Morris Torre and see him listed as a criminal.

  “This close,” Arden warned the judge.

  The court slowly and awkwardly resumed.

  “We have audio, this time, Your Honor, Your Eminence, if it’s allowed,” Spino said.

  “As long as it’s not porn,” Arden grumbled as he settled back into his seat.

  They played the audio.

  It wasn’t porn.

  It was a very friendly and flirty conversation between Oggie and Morris. Oggie relayed heaps of information about Arden to Morris, all of it framed in a perfectly bitchy way that made this seem more like a gossip session than an assassination plot.

  “Just a little while longer, you know. Bye-bye, sugar daddy. You’re going to have to set me up with someone again,” Oggie’s voice said.

  Arden could imagine the face he would have made as he’d said it.

  The audio ended.

  They hadn’t let Oggie down from the witness stand yet.

  He stared at Arden.

  Arden made what he hoped was a reassuring expression.

  “Sounds like you two were friendly,” Spino pointed out.

  “I’m good at pretending.”

  “It seems that way, Mr. Nielsen. It seems like you and Morris Torre had more of an arrangement than—”

  “He was making me do it and you know, being difficult with someone like him never made my life any better,” Oggie snapped, “I don’t know about yours.”

  “You want to know what I think?”

  “No.”

  “I think this was as much your idea as anyone’s. I think you planned this.”

  Arden cleared his throat.

  The judge took the hint.

  When dismissed, Oggie climbed down from the stand on shaky legs.

  Morris came up and gave his side of things. It had been Oggie’s scheme, he’d come to Morris with the idea, talked him into it.

  Arden stared at a stain on the table while Morris spoke, his face burning hot. He had to clench his hands to hide their shaking.

  No one in this court could believe that Oggie would independently come up with a plot to kill the Autarch. He had nothing to gain from that and no aspirations beyond fun and survival.

  Arden pointed that out when it was his turn to talk and he immediately shot down the idea that Rhys and Oggie had somehow conspired to end Arden’s reign.

  “Any thrall with half a brain would rather have me in charge than Morris, and if you can find one thrall that says otherwise, I’ll be on the first shuttle out of here.”

  And, if there had been shuttles that left Eden, Arden might have gotten on it anyway, just to be away from this debacle.

  The ones they had still worked, they made sure of it in case of an emergency, but no one used them.

  After a recess and a bit of debate, the judge gave her verdict: Morris Torre and Ogden Nielsen, guilty of conspiring to kill the Autarch.

  Oggie squirmed out of the arms of the first officer that grabbed him and backed himself into a corner as people blocked his flight from the courtroom.

  Arden hurried over to them and put himself in between the officers and Oggie. “Let him go, let him go,” he insisted as he physically shoved himself between Oggie and the safety officer trying to wrangle him.

  “Uh, Your Eminence?” the officer asked. He had a grip on Oggie’s wrist.

  Oggie twisted so hard Arden thought he’d break something.

  “No, fuck off. He’s pardoned,” Arden said.

  The officer stared at him.

  “He’s fucking pardoned. Go get Morris if you want to do something fucking useful,” Arden snapped.

  The officer left looking deeply perplexed.

  He turned around and pulled Oggie into his arms before he could run away.

  Oggie went stiff. “I’m so sorry, sugar.”

  “You did great.” Arden held him tighter.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shhh, now, you were perfect.”

  Into Arden’s shoulder, Oggie sobbed, “I don’t want to go to lockup.”

  What the fuck had happened to him there? “Never. Not ever, ever again, Og, okay? I’ve got you. You’re not in trouble.”

  Oggie lost it at that. He sagged against Arden and awful, ugly sobs wracked him.

  Someone had the good sense to clear out the courtroom.

  When Oggie had stopped crying, he dabbed his face clean and quietly asked, “Shouldn’t we be blackout drunk about now?” He couldn’t look at Arden.

  “Yeah.”

  They’d earned it.

  “I’m sorry, Og, I didn’t know that they were going to do that.”

  “Oh, I can’t! Arden, I can’t talk about that right now!” Oggie cried.

  “Okay.”

  As he’d promised, they got blackout drunk.

  Arden didn’t remember a lot.

  He woke up with something congealed in his hair and Oggie sprawled across the foot of his bed.

  Things more or less settled on Eden in the following days. The security officers stopped guarding his door, Council meetings resumed their normal tedium, and people stopped giving Arden such pitying looks.

  Oggie stayed tense. He seemed nervous around Arden.

  Finally, Arden sat him down and said, “We need to talk.”

  “What about, sugar?”

  “Why are you being so weird?”

  “Waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess, shug. You’ve got to be about done with me by now,” Oggie admitted. “This whole thing was about Morris and now he’s in lockup.”

  “Oh.” Given that confession, the next thing Arden had to say wouldn’t likely go over well.

  “That all you wanted to talk about?”

  “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

  “But?”

  “But I do want you to stay alive, Og. And I think you need to see someone. Get better settled. Talk about, well, talk about all the shit that’s happened to you,” Arden proposed.

  “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “Oggie, this is…this is important.”

  Oggie nodded. “There’s the other shoe, then.”

  “No,” Arden insisted, “No. I just. Do whatever you want but I want you to be safe doing it. And Oggie, I’m worried about you.”

  “I’ll bumble through. I always do.”

  Arden took him by his hands and looked into his eyes. “Oggie, I will never make you do anything, but please, think about it.”

  Oggie extracted his hands. “Oh, sugar, don’t. This is all so much. Can’t we have a little bit of fun? Go get one of the games. We can play a game.”

  “Alright.”

  Oggie played three abysmal rounds of jumble before he went to his room, claiming a headache.

  Arden heard him go out late that night and come home early in the morning.

  He needed space and time to process in his own way, Arden tried to tell himself. He would be okay.

  He had to be okay.

  About a week passed this way.

  Finally, Arden got out of bed when he heard Oggie leaving.

  The younger man froze when Arden emerged and turned the light on. “Oh, hi, sugar. Did I wake you up?”

  “No, I.”

  Oggie looked him over. “Why are you dressed?” A hint of a smile turned up the corner of his mouth.

  “You’re going out, right?”

  “I’d usually do.”

  “I, just. Og, we talked about…”

  “No, you talked,” Oggie pointed out quickly.

  Arden twisted his hands. He never had trouble demanding anything from anyone, except, for some reason, from Oggie
. “Can’t we…I mean, if I. I know I asked before and you said your friends wouldn’t like me…”

  “Well, it’s illegal and you’re the Autarch, it’s not about them liking you, sugar.”

  Arden blinked and rubbed his nose. “I just, sometimes it feels like we’re only friends in this room. If there’s other people, or if we go out, it’s…it’s not the way it is in here.”

  He couldn’t exactly explain what he wanted to say. He didn’t know how, and more than that, he didn’t understand too well himself. Only that here, together, things felt tangible, and anywhere outside this room, life still felt like an act.

  Oggie glanced around the space. “Sugar,” he sighed. “I like you, and I like living here, I do.”

  “But.”

  “But,” Oggie continued guiltily, “This room is the only place where we can be friends. Things between workers and peers, you know, they don’t work out and I know, I know you think it will, that we’ll be friends, but I’ve seen this before. You’ll find a peer, Arden. I’m just a place holder.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “When you decide you’re done with me, I need something to go back to. Put your pajamas on. Go to sleep. You have places to be in the morning,” Oggie suggested gently. He came over and gave Arden a kiss on the cheek. “Sleep tight, sugar.”

  Arden didn’t know what else to do.

  He went to bed. He lay in bed what felt like hours.

  Then he got up.

  He headed to Quarter Two and knocked on Rhys’s door.

  Someone else answered, which happened every time he did this. “Uh?” she asked disdainfully.

  “Is Rhys home?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you get him?” Arden asked, trying not to lose his temper.

  “Guesso.”

  From inside, another woman called, “Who is it, Lali?”

  “The Autarch,” she answered.

  Gertie, who Arden recognized but had never formally met, came to the door. “We just got Darcy back to sleep.”

  Arden failed to see the point of that information. He waited for an explanation, which he didn’t get. Finally, he asked, “Do you think you could go fucking get him or what?”

  He’d have thought a middle of the night call from the Autarch would provoke a little more urgency.

  Gertie nodded and left, closing the door on Arden.