Gregorian seemed to deflate. He tilted his head slightly. “You think we’re the future, Cy? We’re not the future. None of us — Aoteans aren’t the future. We can’t be. That’s… that’s the whole point of it.”
None of us are the future… Quicker than Konami thought possible, Gregorian pulled a small weapon from the desk and held it under his chin.
Konami pulled away from his own dartgun, spreading his hands. “No, Kiro! Think of the children, please! Help me save them, from whatever’s coming.”
“The children?” Gregorian’s grin was all steel. Konami knew immediately that his former friend was unpersuadable. “They aren’t the future either, my friend.”
The gun’s report was high pitched and almost deafening. Someone was screaming — after an instant, Konami realized it was himself. He wanted to look away, but couldn’t.
They aren’t the future either… Blood and brain matter pooled against the bulkhead as Gregorian’s corpse, the skull nearly coming apart, slowly rotated against the desk. Konami wanted to look away, but his eyes were fixed in place.
CHAPTER 46
Concentration… symptoms… After getting Pat and the kids to a safe zone, Mattoso gave her lover a brief hug and tried to call Konami. She called again and again, but got the same auto-response each time — Chief Inspector Konami is responding to urgent Constabulary business; if you have an emergency, please call…
She cursed. This could be urgent Constabulary business! Who else could she tell about a suspicious, overheard conversation, when anyone onboard might be involved? Use that gut feel, Bea. Symptoms… She recalled something she read and called up the most recent department head meeting minutes. Sure enough, Madani had mentioned an increase in the minor complaints to medical. Compared to the ongoing surge to expand the safe zones, and Grav/Tran’s struggles to restore rotation to the Cans, the minor complaints had been mostly ignored.
But why wouldn’t it be related? Strange things going on with Aoteans’ health, at the same time ship’s systems went haywire and tried to murder them? Or just stress? She hurried across the guycables to Medical. Could she trust Madani? The grapevine said that she had been seeing Konami lately… Now why would I think about that?
Though if the Medical department head was in on some conspiracy causing minor medical complaints, would she really be bringing it up at the department head meetings? Wouldn’t she keep it quiet, and pretend nothing was out of the ordinary? Unless she was on the other side, but trying to cover… She shook her head. No point in trying to find conspiracies inside conspiracies. She had to trust some of her crewmates, at least. And her gut.
So she continued along, ducking under arms and around bustling MedTechs and Nurses coming the other way down the guycable that led into the Infirmary. “Dr. Madani’s office?” she asked anyone who wasn’t obviously in a hurry — vague thumbs and waves pointed her down one corridor and then another.
“Concentration? Symptoms? That’s all you heard?” Behind her desk, the Medical department head tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.
Mattoso had had her vidcam rolling at the same time, but it didn’t pick up whatever she had heard in that closet, even when she had amplified it with her wearable. She searched her memory again, finding nothing more than those two words. “Yes. But whoever it was didn’t want to be heard. I’m certain of it.”
“Well, that’s something, I suppose. If we assume that the symptoms are caused by some agent, then that might narrow it down substantially.”
“Agent? You mean like a poison?” Mattoso shuddered involuntarily.
“Maybe.
Her own stomach twisted in response. “But how? In the food?” What had she eaten lately? Could there be something in the food supply? That wouldn’t make sense — they’d been on dry, stored rations for weeks — rations in sealed packaging. Someone would have had to put the poison in them cycles and cycles ago. She resolved to check the packaging for any possible tampering at the next meal time.
The doctor looked lost in thought, eyes off to the side. Mattoso followed Dr. Madani’s gaze. She’s having the same thought I did… Floating against the side bulkhead was a freefall drinking-water pouch, refilled at any of the hundreds of potable taps arranged throughout the ship.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I have some tests to run.” Mattoso turned to leave, but the doctor stopped her. “We don’t want to start a panic, Lieutenant — please keep this to yourself until I finish running the tests.”
“Understood.”
Suddenly she felt thirsty.
CHAPTER 47
Waiting outside the conference room, Konami’s hand was shaking. He’d make it stop, but when he looked down again, it shook again.
“Did you hear me, Cy?”
He turned his head abruptly — Mattoso had been telling him something, quietly. After Gregorian’s suicide, he had informed Emer and Medical about the body, and put through a priority call to the mayor, telling him to call back all the department heads. Mattoso had left several urgent messages for him upon leaving Gregorian’s quarters, so Konami had asked her to meet her before the meeting.
“Sorry, could you say that again?” He realized that it was anger — rage — that was giving him the shakes. How could you do this, Kiro? To the crew you swore to protect?
She started again, her voice even lower this time — something about an agent making people sick. Mattoso hushed up when Commander Olin, the Comms officer, approached.
“Didn’t we just have one of these?” asked the Comms department head.
Konami said nothing.
Finally, the CO and mayor arrived, and they all filed in. On a whim, Konami motioned for Mattoso to follow him into the meeting. Screw protocol, she belongs here.
“We’re sorry to call you back so suddenly,” said Mayor Akunle. “But there was an… incident, just an hour ago. Chief Inspector, please go ahead.”
Konami stood up. He still felt the rage, but he had stopped shaking. “Deputy Chief Inspector Kiro Gregorian was the killer of Chem Tech Second Class Arvid Singh.” His voice broke, and he didn’t care. “I confronted him just over an hour ago, and DCI Gregorian confessed to me and then took his own life.” Jaws dropped and breaths were drawn in abruptly.
“What prompted me to confront DCI Gregorian is this vid, recorded during the assassination in the Arena.” Konami pulled up the dual-screen vid that he had hastily prepped, pulled from Wren’s vid databank — almost identical to the one Wren had sent him earlier, but without any traceability to the Data tech — and piped it to the conference room display. “At the precise moment that he saw Singh stand up and start to descend to the Arena stage, DCI Gregorian rushed out of the Arena.”
“I’m sorry, CI,” interrupted the XO. “But he could be going to the restroom.”
All eyes tracked back to Konami. “So I confronted him.” He looked down at the projection from his wearable, thumbing through the display to pull up his own vidcam stream. “As you can see… wait. Just a second, it’s here somewhere. I know it’s here, I just watched it…” What the fuck — I just watched it twenty minutes ago! “Damn it! It was here. Okay, we’ll find it later. I confronted DCI Gregorian in his quarters. I asked him why he did it.”
“Just like that?” This was Commander Papka. “With your vid missing? Rather convenient…”
“Yes, just like that,” snapped Konami. “I could see it his eyes. And he didn’t even deny it.” If my goddamn wearable would cooperate, you could see it yourself. “He said it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. That it was planned. That it would all be worth it. That we weren’t the future — even the children, he said, weren’t the future.”
“What?”
“And he said that they’d all come back. They’d be first in the queue.”
“Come back? Who? And first in the queue? For what?”
I don’t fucking know! “And then he shot himself. He blew his fucking brains out with a gun, and it wasn’t one of our own brand new slug
throwers.” In fact, it was something like a flechette-hurler, a deadly close-range weapon that spewed out a cluster of needle-like fragments of poly. Konami wiped away tears that he hadn’t even felt rolling down his face.
No one spoke. Madani and Mattoso, alone, met his gaze, with sympathy in their eyes.
“I had a vid,” he added lamely. “I’ll work with the Data techs and send it out to everyone after the meeting. In the meantime, my constables are poring over Gregorian’s quarters for evidence. I’ve also requested the Data techs dig into his network activity.”
Konami was surprised that no one seemed to have any questions.
The mayor spoke up, filling the awkward silence. “Next on the agenda, Commander Shin.”
Two Aoteans entered the conference room along the guycable, a Bot following behind, lead by the Data department head. A few department heads opened their mouths in temporary alarm, though it was just a MOMbot, marked with green paint to indicate that it was harmless. One of the new arrivals spoke up.
“Department heads and senior crew, my name is Teacher Amal Kabila. This is Zinnia — say hello, Zinnia!”
The MOMbot’s voice was high and cartoonish — like an adult imitating the voice of a child. “Hello,” it said.
“A few days ago, my class and I were trapped near the Garden. Zinnia saved our lives. The safety of children — any children at all — is programmed as the highest priority of her and the other MOMbots. And MOMbots weren’t affected by whatever had corrupted the programs of the other Bots and equipment.”
Konami cringed as he recalled destroying the MOMbot in the passageway during the surge to retake territory onboard. In hindsight, its vocalizations of distress seemed almost human. Sure hope they can repair her…
“Feel free to ask Zinnia any questions you like.”
No one spoke up until Captain Horovitz cleared her throat. Mayor Akunle seemed to take that as a signal, and smiled warmly. “Hello, Zinnia. My name is Harry Akunle, and I’m the director-superintendent of Aotea’s Civil Section. Do you understand what has been happening onboard recently?”
“Many things have happened recently, Director-Superintendent Akunle,” chirped the Bot, its voice musical but not quite human. “Teacher Kabila asked me to accompany her to this conference room. Students Podra and Lin had a disagreement about a toy. Little Elric had an accident and needed a change—”
“Yes, Zinnia, many things. But I’m talking about the danger to the people onboard. Do you know about the recent dangers to every person onboard?”
“Yes, Director-Superintendent. Many Bots have malfunctioned in a way that presents a danger to the children. When any child approaches within approximately one meter from a malfunctioning Bot, the Bot may physically attack.”
Konami couldn’t ever remember hearing a MOMbot speak more than a few words at once. He was more than impressed by how advanced they were — as advanced, at least in terms of vocal sophistication, then any other Bot aboard.
“Do you know why the Bots malfunctioned?”
“I’m sorry, Director-Superintendent, but I don’t know the answer to that question. Why don’t we ask the Teacher together later? In the meantime, would you like to learn an interesting fact about the Earth mammals called manatees?”
“No thank you, Zinnia. What did you do when you witnessed these malfunctions?”
“I placed myself between the malfunctioning Bot and the child and separated any contact, and then I disabled the malfunctioning Bot.”
“Why did you do this?”
Somehow the Bot’s eyes seemed to expand. “Because the child was being harmed. Children must be protected from harm — that is the highest law.”
“Why weren’t MOMbots affected?” cut-in Engineer Papka. “How can we trust that they’re safe?”
“I’ll let DT2 Mahmut explain that,” answered the Teacher, nodding to the Data tech that accompanied her.
“We did some digging on the origin of the MOMbots — they were created on Mercury by a self-taught designer, using a wholly invented programming code. The code is so obscurely written that only the design firm understands it, and they managed to keep a handle on its secrets, even after they went belly-up. MOMbot software can’t be upgraded, modified, or corrupted — their only network capability is to receive instructions from teachers, or messages from students and former students.”
“But how do we know?” said Papka. “We didn’t expect the other Bots to go haywire. Do we really want to leave them alone with our children?”
Teacher Kabila cut in. “I can personally guarantee that there is no one onboard more devoted to protecting and serving Aotea’s children than Zinnia and the other MOMbots.”
The argument went on — Papka refused to be satisfied. Konami wasn’t sure if he blamed the engineer, annoying as he found the man — considering recent events, perhaps extreme caution was the only reasonable option.
The mayor resumed his interview with the Bot. “Zinnia, we would like to have your help, and the help of the other MOMbots.”
Zinnia stared back at the mayor silently.
“We need to find all these malfunctioning Bots and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else. Will you accompany teams to search through the ship for more malfunctioning Bots?”
“I’m sorry, Director-Superintendent, but searching for more malfunctioning Bots could endanger the children.”
“No, you don’t understand — we need to find them to protect the children.”
The Bot looked at Teacher Kabila and back at the mayor. “Bringing teams of children toward malfunctioning Bots would place them in greater danger of harm.”
“No, the teams wouldn’t have children — the teams are made up of constables and deputies — all adults.”
“I’m sorry, Director-Superintendent, but my primary duties are to the children, and I must remain with them for guidance and protection.”
“But there are no children here right now. Why are you allowed to be here?”
“All of the children are home from school at this hour, and Teacher Kabila asked me to accompany her to this meeting.”
“What if the teams — teams of adults — went out searching for malfunctioning Bots while the children were at home, or with other MOMbots and teachers. Would you be able to accompany the teams in that case?”
Teacher Kabila patted the Bot’s head. “It’s okay, Zinnia, this would help protect the children.”
“Yes, I could assist the teams.”
“I think I can speed this along, Mr. Mayor, if I may?” offered Kabila.
“Of course — go ahead.”
“I forget that most Aoteans don’t know the MOMbots as well as us teachers do. While children are their highest priority in terms of guidance and protection, they exercise judgment in whether to obey a child’s instructions or not, based on the Bot’s judgment of the best interests of the child. In fact, the only Aoteans they consistently obey are us teachers — they seem to place us in a special category. I suspect they will obey us without question as long as we don’t order them to harm a child.”
“So do we need to add a teacher to these surge teams?”
“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. I believe we can formally induct constables and deputies as teachers, if temporarily, and that will serve the same purpose.”
A tug on his sleeve got Konami’s attention — it was Madani, who had subtly sidled next to him during the MOMbot interview. “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered.
“I know. I’ve missed you too.”
“This is… all of this, it’s crazy,” she whispered. “Underpants-on-the-outside crazy.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m worried about the stomach complaints.”
Konami itched to get back to the Constabulary — he wanted to pore over everything his people found in Gregorian’s quarters, no matter how insignificant it might seem. He had to search through his mind to recall what Madani was talking about. “What about them?”
“Lieutenant Matto
so told me—”
“Oh shit, is that what she was trying to say?”
“What’s that?”
“She mentioned a contaminant or something.”
“Maybe…” As she whispered into his ear, Konami couldn’t help but look around the room at each department head once again. Poison? On Aotea? On the remote display, Commander Konrote angrily complained of yet another setback in the work to restore rotation to the Cans, but Konami was barely listening.
His stomach gave a disturbing churn.
CHAPTER 48
“DEPUTY CHIEF INSPECTOR GREGORIAN DEAD BY HIS OWN HAND!” On the projection, Gregorian’s service picture, dignified and square-jawed, was slashed across Aotea Today’s front page, in front of a stylized rendering of a slugthrower. Everyone Mattoso passed was talking or reading about it — in the comments section of the article, conspiracy theories were springing up faster than she could count. The poster named Pol Revear, the source of the prior warnings of alien involvement, seemed to have returned to prominence.
They’re scavengers, she thought. But maybe they’re right. There was indeed a conspiracy somewhere — Gregorian had conspired with Singh, and Nicolescu was involved somehow, and others, undoubtedly. How many, and how high up? Whom could she trust?
Pat was floating, stretched out across the living room when Mattoso got to her quarters. A tired moan was all she got in response to her greeting.
“Did you hear…”
“About the DCI? Yeah.” Pat took a sip from an unfamiliar flask. “Goddamn Kiro. Poor goddamn Kiro. You know, seven or eight years ago, just a bit after I joined the crew, I had a thing with Kiro.”
“Oh no! I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She wrapped her lover in a hug, feeling invisible tears on Pat’s face.
“It didn’t last long. Just a few months. He was strong, I remember — muscles like steel. And he laughed a lot.”
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