by Eliza Green
Her hand trembled as she brought her mug to her lips. ‘What are they?’ She took a sip and put the mug down, feeling more alert than she’d done all week.
Sixteen finished her meal. ‘Try not to get caught with them.’
‘But I still don’t understand. Why me?’
Sixteen picked up her tray. ‘Because Gilchrist likes you.’ She stood up and headed for the exit, depositing her tray along the way.
Laura’s heart fluttered, in its vain attempt to return to a normal rhythm. If her experiences over the last week were anything to go by, then getting caught talking to anyone—including her Level Five colleagues—would be bad. She hoped the authorities would view Sixteen’s proximity as an oversight rather than a deliberate attempt to make contact.
The envelopes in her waistband stuck to her skin. She resisted the urge to take them out and look at them. All eyes were on her. That’s what she’d been told. Despite wanting to run, she stayed put for a further five agonising minutes before leaving the cafeteria.
On her way back to Level Five, she slipped into the bathroom and into one cubicle, locking the door behind her. She removed the envelopes from her waistband and peeled away the micro file. It measured the size of an old Australian two-dollar coin, with a tiny wire-feed extruding from one end. This was meant to be viewed through a monitor. No way could she risk hooking it up to her workstation. Any deviation from her regular tasks would surely raise the alarm.
The same tickle in her chest that drove her to open the folder with Taggart’s files was back. She had to know what was on the file and in the envelopes. Why would Sixteen risk giving them to her if they weren’t important?
An idea hit her. The hardware control unit for the Light Box in her apartment could accept micro files like this. She had no way of knowing if they were monitoring her activity at home. It would be risky.
Laura shrugged off her jacket and unbuttoned her blouse. She ripped a small hole in the fabric of her bra and slipped the micro file between the padding, then folded and tucked the envelopes into the back of her underwear where they wouldn’t slip down her leg. She washed her hands and tidied her appearance last. Sucking in a new breath, she hoped it would settle her nerves. It didn’t.
Returning to work feeling the way she did took guts. Sixteen was in her cubicle and focusing on her monitor. Laura slid into her own cubicle and resumed her shift, wondering how the hell to act normal anymore.
36
Bill stood at the window looking out as the ship tore through space. The stars in the black night’s sky melded into one blur of white light. He liked the simplicity of the sky, of space, of the untroubled planets far removed from Earth’s mess; anything that suggested life could exist without complications.
His life was far from simple.
The ship rode the magnetic slipstream between the planets, passing by what looked like two moons. The light changed from white to grey, then back to white again. A moon, that’s what Earth looked like now; the dense weather formation over the entire planet had altered its appearance. Long gone was the luminous blue-and-white sphere depicted in old photos. How had two generations managed to ruin something so magnificent?
It was close to midnight, the time when Bill knew the last of the passengers had retired to their sleeping pods. Nearly two weeks had passed since he’d left Exilon 5, and while he’d managed some sleep it had done little to stave off his exhaustion. The one time he’d succumbed, Bill had almost suffocated in his sleeping pod. The Actigen in his system would make sure he’d never get caught out like that again. Every day he thanked the timely arrival of those two men.
But their faceless silhouettes with bright burning eyes continued to haunt him. Who were they? Others continued to praise their efforts, but nobody stepped forward to claim the hero status. It was like the pair had vanished off the ship.
The videos of the child Indigene showing physical similarities between their two species still bothered Bill days after he’d watched them. But they hadn’t shed new light on what had happened to his wife. The only way to get answers would be to return to Exilon 5 and catch one of the Indigenes.
Like he’d been trying to do.
But the Indigenes’ fight against oppression reminded him of human struggles, past and present. Those thoughts had forced him to see Stephen in a new light.
He shook his thoughts away and leaned against the wall.
Almost two weeks on the ship had given him too much time to think. Something about the investigation he’d been asked to head up bothered him. What had Gilchrist and Deighton wanted Bill to do exactly? He’d managed to corner Stephen in New Victoria’s underground tunnels. Okay, not cornered exactly, but if he’d sent a team down there he was certain they would have found Stephen’s entry and exit points. Now Gilchrist was demanding his return? The videos proved she and Deighton knew plenty about the Indigenes. Why were his orders to watch the creature only? Then there was Deighton’s call to him before the start of the first meeting.
Deighton never called anyone.
After a year on Exilon 5, Bill was returning to Earth a failure. Except he wasn’t. This mission wasn’t over. There had been plenty more to do.
His abuse of Actigen left his head feeling heavy. He hated feeling so out of control on it. He hated the paranoia, his inability to trust anyone. Were his suspicions about the investigation real or to do with his Actigen abuse?
Bill trekked down one of the tubular passageways that connected the wheel rim to the hub of the ship. With each heavy step, he fought against his chemically-maintained consciousness. It was no way to live, permanently awake, but he refused to let go of control until he reached Earth.
His paranoia moved him fast. Each step illuminated a new section and plunged the previous part into darkness, just like in his dream. He zigzagged along the horizontal tubes that connected to the vertical spokes. If someone was following, he wouldn’t make it easy for them.
Bill arrived at an empty recreation room. The door at the back of the room caught his attention, and not for the first time. He’d seen officers accessing parts of the ship that were off limits using their security chip. He trudged over to it. An access control panel sat to the right of the door. He pressed his thumb against it. The panel flashed red.
Bill turned away—a little too fast. A bout of dizziness hit him. He stumbled forward, caught in the grip of one of Actigen’s side effects.
His legs buckled inches away from a table and chair, and sent him crashing to the floor. With a grunt, Bill groped for the edge of the seat but he lost his grip.
A breath rushed out of him when he hit the floor a second time. He stared up at the ceiling as a new panic flared in his chest. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be alone.
His arms refused to work; his legs felt like they had atrophy. With a grunt, he rolled to one side and crawled forward. The cold floor chilled him as he felt around for the seat.
Another bout of dizziness hit him. He hauled himself up fast before he fell to the floor a third time. Secure in the seat, Bill slumped forward. It took all his concentration to stay put.
His eyes drooped, as did his head. It slammed against the table. The hard knock kicked him back to consciousness. Bill blinked away his exhaustion, but his eyes closed against his wishes.
☼
Bill jerked awake and looked around the black space. Where was he? Feeling for clues, he found the sleek rounded shape of his coffin. The rest of his sleeping pod slowly came into focus. How did he get here? He shook his head, remembering passing out at the table, but not much more. His head throbbed from where it had hit a hard surface.
Then what? In his unconscious state, he’d crawled back to his sleeping pod and climbed up the ladder?
Bullshit. He knew how Actigen worked. And also how it didn’t.
Panic and fear gripped hold of him.
In the dark he whispered, ‘Who brought me back here?’
37
The unopened envelopes ha
unted her. The micro file, hidden between the fabrics of her bra, reminded her of her betrayal. Laura hadn’t looked at anything yet. No crime had been committed.
She tossed and turned in her apartment in Haymarket, Sydney. The time projection on the wall read midday; she’d arrived home from her shift three hours ago. Now she lay in bed, unsure if she should look at the contents of the micro file. She should be dead on her feet, but her body pinged with nervous energy.
What harm could it do to look? It might turn out to be nothing. For the last three hours she’d imagined the worst, whether ESC were remotely monitoring her Light Box, or if Gilchrist had ordered someone to follow her home. She scrapped the last idea on the basis that nobody had shown up. As for the idea of someone monitoring the Light Box, she couldn’t know for sure.
Laura ran her fingers across the unopened envelopes on her bedside table, the ones addressed to Bill Taggart. She brought the paper up to her nose, smelling faint perfume. The handwriting was feminine. She desperately wanted to rip them open and read the letters inside, but instead she looked and wondered. They weren’t meant for her and she sensed they were personal.
Viewing the contents of the micro file didn’t feel as personal, but Sixteen’s warning repeated in her head.
‘These will tell you what’s really going on. Maybe you’ll do the right thing, maybe you won’t.’
She’d never promised to do anything.
For too long she’d listened to Chris and Janine stir up gossip about the terrible things the ESC had done. Laura had chalked that gossip up to boredom, but what if they had been telling the truth? What if she had actual proof of foul play? To look at the micro file would mean no going back, no pretending things were okay. Her chance of a transfer was on the line. But her curiosity ran deeper than whatever punishment Gilchrist might throw at her.
Laura pulled the covers over her head. Maybe if she stayed in bed long enough, her mind would quiet down.
Yeah, right. With a sigh, she got up.
Her apartment on the tenth floor had a clear view of the street below. She checked both the street and the block opposite her, where the rooms were dark and she could see nothing. Laura decreased the tint on her window to the lowest level.
Slipping her robe on, she tied the straps securely around her waist, as though the action might protect her more. She retrieved the micro file from its hiding place and studied it in her palm.
How could something so small be so dangerous?
The Light Box’s virtual display hummed into life when Laura stepped into the living room. It waited for a first command. She prised open the cover to the hardware control unit, below the virtual display, and inserted the file’s tendril into one of six openings. The opening swallowed it and the two temporarily merged into one. The display changed and a new screen filled the wall, illuminating her apartment. On the left-hand side, a yellow icon flashed.
‘Open icon,’ said Laura, and the screen listed the contents of the micro file. There were ten documents, each one identifiable by a security code, followed by the date; the files were arranged in chronological order. The information spanned across several years. Nothing hinted as to what was in each document.
‘Open first document’.
Her heart thumped in her ears as she spoke. She would start at the beginning and work her way through to the last.
The display changed and a report filled the screen. Laura checked over her shoulder—a new habit. She perched on the edge of her dining chair. Its lacquered edge bit into her skin, reminding her not to get too comfortable.
The on-screen report had been issued from Daphne Gilchrist to Charles Deighton. At the time of correspondence, Gilchrist was Head of Operations at the ESC—a position that Suzanne Brett now filled—and was in charge of Level Five. The document centred around the indigenous species on Exilon 5, the same species Laura had read about in one of Bill Taggart’s reports. The report had been written twenty-five years earlier, five years after the controlled explosions that had transformed Exilon 5 into its current state.
Bill Taggart’s reports, containing information about the same events of thirty years ago, had given her a base understanding of what was being discussed. She ventured further into the new report that mentioned experiments on the indigenous race. It wasn’t clear when humans had carried them out exactly, but she assumed it was after they’d discovered the race.
The contents forced her to stop. Nausea made her stomach dance. ‘What the hell is this?’
She looked away from the photos of Indigenes as young as seven receiving shock therapy, and adults, red-eyed and teary, being subjected to bright lights. Her curiosity won out and she turned her attention back to the screen. As she read more, the details of how humans had interfered in the lives of the Indigenes were laid bare for her to see. The recent World Government experiments on them, the planned terraforming, the knowledge of their underground tunnels, but not the precise location.
But something confused her. The photos showing torture were from fifty years ago, before knowledge of Exilon 5 had even been reported.
With a shaky hand, Laura waved the first document closed.
Was this even real? Had the government known about the existence of the Indigenes before the discovery of Exilon 5? If so, the torture would have taken place on Earth. In Earth labs. By Earth doctors.
Laura forced her weak voice to issue the next command.
The second and third documents opened and she read the content. The experiments on the Indigenes weren’t mentioned again until the fourth document—a recent one, just three months old. It tied in with the ongoing investigations on Exilon 5, mentioning the investigator Bill Taggart, who had headed up the mission. The story she knew so far made sense.
But she couldn’t have prepared herself for what she saw next. Around three-quarters of the way into the fourth report, it outlined the reason for the World Government’s obsession with the Indigenes. Enough information explained their motives and exposed their lies and secrets. Then there was the ESC’s involvement. Neither organisation had carried out the experimentations to discover more about the aliens; they already knew everything about them.
Humans had not discovered this race. Humans had placed them on Exilon 5.
When Laura read the fifth document, she gasped.
Her eyes shot over to her bedroom, where she had left the unopened letters addressed to the investigator.
38
‘Eleanor, love, it’s great to see you.’ Jenny Waterson hugged her daughter as they sat down to lunch in a local Brisbane restaurant. ‘How long has it been since we last caught up in person? I can’t remember.’
‘About two months now, I’d say.’
That couldn’t be right. Jenny shook her head. ‘I can’t believe how quickly time is passing these days.’
‘That job of yours has you working all sorts of hours. You look tired, Mum. When was the last time you took a proper break?’
Jenny browsed the digital menu set into the table. ‘I don’t know. When was Christmas?’
‘Be serious.’
‘Okay, about two months I guess. The last time we caught up, probably.’
‘How long are they giving you this time?’
Jenny hesitated before replying. ‘A couple of days.’ She braced herself for what came next whenever she talked about her job.
‘See? That’s what I’m talking about. Last time you were given a whole week off.’
‘Look, love, I’m here to spend time with you. Can we change the subject?’ Jenny selected chicken teriyaki with Singapore noodles and a glass of red wine. She’d been feeling good this last week. Her flights had set off and landed without a hitch. The last thing she wanted was to talk about work on her day off.
‘I can’t help it, Mum. The way they treat you, it’s appalling. Maybe you should think about changing careers, working for people who actually show you more respect.’
Jenny stared at her. ‘And do what? The only thing I k
now how to do is work as a pilot. If I leave, I lose all privileges and have to start at the bottom.’
Eleanor glanced at the menu. ‘The bottom’s not so bad.’
‘But you’re only a third of the way through your life cycle. Just a baby. Plenty of years ahead of you yet. I’m no spring chicken.’
‘And you’re not down and out.’ Eleanor huffed. ‘Give yourself some credit. I can’t pretend I like the way the company treats you. You’re nothing more than a commodity to them. It annoys me to even think about it, especially since you’re the best pilot on their books.’
‘You know how it works, love. It’s my choice to stay.’
Eleanor rolled her eyes. ‘This is exactly why I changed from law to politics. I hate the way the World Government runs things... But I’m still a qualified lawyer, so if you need someone to argue your case, you only have to ask.’
Jenny touched the back of her neck. She hated arguing, especially with her daughter. ‘Sure will, love. I couldn’t ask for a better lawyer. Just leave everything to me. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be fine.’
‘I wish there was something I could do for you.’
‘There is. Keep me company while I enjoy my first day off in months.’
Eleanor conceded with a smile. ‘I guess I can do that.’
Jenny’s communication device shrilled, loud and persistent. It was her employers, Calypso Couriers.
Her daughter’s eyes widened when Jenny touched the device. ‘Don’t you dare answer that.’
Maybe when she reached seventy-five, Eleanor would feel the same terror at being fired for no good reason.
‘I have to, it might be important.’ Jenny connected her earpiece and ignored her daughter when she mumbled something rude. ‘Yes,’ she said flatly.