Project Charon 1

by Patty Jansen

  Tina couldn’t water them too much, because they gorged themselves to the point where the branches lost structure. The greedy things would take all they could get.

  As she sprayed the fine mist over the garden, some of the smaller, hairy cactuses followed her around. Like most of the cactuses, they had long tentacles that looked like roots, which they used to hold themselves up, and to seek water and nutrients. They looked like slow-moving octopuses. Very slow-moving octopuses.

  Why on earth would the lender want to buy the cactuses?

  They were a curiosity, known only from this area of desert around Gandama. People in Peris City spent good money for them, and Tina only sold them to true collectors who looked after them properly. Every week or so, she would bundle some of the young ones into a box, wrap them up in moist paper, and send them to her contact in the city. Every week, he would pay her. And as the value of trade in Gandama had gone down, these payments had gone up.

  She couldn’t afford to lose this collection and all the work she had put into breeding the pretty ones with the white hair, and the ones with the yellow hair, and the grey ones with the red stripes on the trunks.

  At first, it had been an interest, to keep her skills in biology up and prevent her from sliding into depression. She’d found out how they bred, that their chromosomes existed in triple helix DNA strands, and that two strands were fairly similar but the third strand contained a lot of mutations. Factors in the environment determined whether they bred with the mutated or the regular strand. It was quite extraordinary.

  They were also chemical powerhouses, exuding all kinds of defensive chemicals when threatened, not that this did them any good against armadillos, because those had a very poor sense of smell.

  She had even written a paper about the creatures and got it accepted into an academic journal. It would be published soon.

  She was proud of the work, because no one had paid her to do it. Incredible that no one had written anything before about these remarkable organisms that could control their future breeding. Within one generation, they could become something entirely different.

  Tina had released most of the experimental cactuses back into the wild, even if some kept coming back to her house, but had kept the most unusual ones, including the ones she had bred, in her back yard.

  But while they were certainly curious creatures and collectors paid a lot for them, Tina struggled to see their value for someone like Simon Fosnet. Oh yes, if she still worked for the Federacy, they would be able to do something with the research. So would big pharmaceutical companies on worlds like Olympus, the home of PharmaCom and Schweitzer. They had the money to have giant gene labs. But Gandama? Peris City? No.

  And these companies knew nothing of her work. The research hadn’t even been published yet.

  She was sure: it was not about the cactuses. This was just a way for the owner to pry into her business.

  If she let him take the cactuses, that meant that he would have to come into her back yard, and he would be able to spy on her. If he took enough lackeys to move the collection, they might even create enough chaos to steal something. Not money, but her customer database, and the names of her suppliers.

  People in this place did those sorts of things. Only a few days ago, Janusz had come in and offered to work for the shop “because he didn’t think Rex should be seeing customers”.

  Tina had asked whatever issue he had with her customers seeing Rex, and he said that “It wasn’t right.”

  Too right, it wasn’t, but that had nothing to do with Rex. They wanted to know what illegal things she did, because her business was still making a profit, and therefore there had to be something illegal.

  In all of the fifteen years that Tina had lived here, Janusz had never been friendly. He was a suspicious man, always keen to get some advantage out of someone else's misfortune. He’d dress it up as “helping out”, but it sounded more like helping himself.

  Maybe he’d known about the lender’s visit in advance because he’d met the man in town. Maybe he wanted to be close when she received the demand for the return of the loan.

  Tina wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to buy the shop himself.

  And as much as Tina wasn’t selling the cactuses, she also did not want Janusz to have the shop. Because he had never done anything deserving of a favour. And he hated cactuses.

  Still it didn’t make sense to her that giving the cactuses, or, through them, access to the shop, would be worth forfeiting the money she owed.

  Come to think of it, that whole setup smelled like a trap. And she wasn’t going to blunder in. There had to be a catch, a road they wanted her to take, even if she couldn’t yet see where it would lead her.

  Nowhere good.

  The shop was hers and would stay hers. The stock was hers. The cactuses were hers.

  So she made the appointments with financial offices in town. She tidied the shop’s books, cringing at those hideous red figures: ninety-seven thousand credits worth of dust.

  When she came here, life in this area had been full of optimism. The hamlet of Dickson’s Creek had been intended as an outpost of Gandama, with the space in between slated to be filled in with housing.

  Needless to say, that had never happened. The optimism had long gone. People were leaving this area. Bands of rogues and criminals roamed the desert and increasingly infiltrated the towns. Her business might be profitable because of those very criminals, but the value of her remaining loan was greater than the value of the property if it had to be sold today. No one was going to finance this.

  She leaned her head in her hands. She’d go into town tomorrow, but it was highly likely all a futile exercise.

  What was she going to do? What could she do in three days?

  A whirring noise drifted from the workshop. What was Rex doing? She’d better have a look.

  Chapter Three

  Tina leaned against the doorpost, her arms crossed over her chest. “That doesn’t look like fixing Jando Kelway’s system hub.”

  Rex looked around. The workbench in front of him contained several metal tracks. A little wagon zoomed across it from one end to the other and back again, making the noise she had heard.

  “That’s boring work,” he said.

  “It still needs to be done.” Here she was worrying about both their futures and he was playing with model trains?

  “Aren’t I allowed to have some fun?”

  “When the work is done and the bills are paid.”

  “Whoa, what’s gotten into you?”

  “I need that system fixed. He’s one of our best customers. He’s coming to pick it up this week.”

  Rex snorted. “Yes, slave driver.”

  Tina breathed in heavily. The temptation to call him an insolent brat was always there, not that it led anywhere good. In better times, she probably would have appreciated his handiwork projects. He was a bright kid. But she needed all the money she could get.

  “Fix it, then you can play with your toys.”

  “They’re not toys. I’m making a system so that you don’t need to go into the shed and look for parts anymore. I’m just trying it out with the toy trains because we don’t have proper tracks and carriages. We don’t have a robotic arm either. I’m going to make that out of some of my old toys, too. I’m just warning you.”

  “That’s nice, but let’s save it for later.” Like, when the business had survived the current challenge and she was sure that there would be a shed for parts.

  “Like when you spend hours trying to find anything in that mess?”

  “There is nothing wrong with my storage.”

  “Isn’t there? When I can’t even go in there because the aisles are all cluttered with mess?” He gestured to the legs of his armour, clunky metal feet that were too far apart to comfortably fit in the aisles of the storage room. Shuffling sideways was not something within the armour’s capability, so she had to do all the storeroom work herself. Moving the shelves so t
hat Rex would be able to help her was one of the long-term projects that Tina dreaded, mainly because of all the superseded equipment they’d find, and the pain of having to write it off.

  “Nothing that’s pressing. Fixing Jando Kelway’s system, however, is pressing, because it will pay our bills this month.”

  “You don’t ever let me do anything.”

  Tina sighed. She didn’t have the energy for this discussion right now. “You’re fifteen.”

  “Yes, and? Does that mean I’m not allowed to have ideas?” He stuck his chin up.

  He had recently acquired the build of a young man, which, combined with his arms and hands being made of metal and operated by whirring mechanisms in his shoulders, made for an imposing combination. He had recently extended the harness to its maximum height, and was now taller than she.

  “Yes, much of what we do in the shop is boring. But how do you think I pay for all our bills?”

  He slammed his pincer hands on the benchtop. "Oh no not that again." He rolled his eyes. "Can you ever stop trying to make me feel guilty just because of how much money you’re paying for me? If you didn't want me, then why didn't you kill me off at birth? It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble."

  Tina bit her tongue. For some reason, their arguments always descended to this. He thought that everything she said was a criticism of his disabilities, and that she was trying to guilt him into doing things like chores, because she looked after him and there should be something in return, right? But they were things that every normal teenager did to help around the house and he would see that if only he got over his hang-ups.

  She was through with him and his stupid, childish behaviour. She pulled the hub box across the counter, with the leads still attached. "Fine, I’ll fix the system myself. Don't be surprised that you don't get dinner tonight though."

  “I can make my own fucking dinner.”

  “Without burning down the house? Don’t make me laugh. And don’t go using that language on me.”

  He snorted, slammed his hands on the counter once more.

  Tina turned to the electrical diagram, nostrils flaring. But she was so angry she didn't notice any of the tiny connections on the circuit board. And if she was perfectly honest, Rex did this work all the time, and she would have to consult the manual.

  He probably knew that, too, and would say something about it.

  The thought made her even angrier. Why should she have to go through this all the time? She should just kick him out of the house and tell him to look after himself, since he obviously thought he was old enough. That would teach him about all the things she had done to make his life easier.

  Then again, she knew he was trying to look tough, but inside he was just a little boy. And who would help him with his harness every day? Who would carry him from his bed, and attach his artificial limbs and who would change his soiled pads and wash him?

  Rex was still standing in the doorway. If his arms were flexible and thin enough, he probably would have crossed them over his chest.

  “Go,” Tina said. “Go and do whatever you want. Just leave me to finish this.”

  “I want to do something useful.”

  “Then help me fix this.”

  “Really useful.”

  “And you think this is not useful? I’m sorry if you think your life is boring. You can't just come and do one or two little things that you think are interesting. Life doesn't work that way."

  “But it doesn’t have to be so boring. Even at Kelso Station people have much more interesting things to do than I have.”

  “What do you know about Kelso Station? Just because of some people you know there? People, who I add, you have never seen? What do you know about their lives?”

  “Don’t you think I never talk to any of the people who send me stuff? They’re my friends, you know.”

  “I’d be cautious about who you call friends. You don’t know these people. You don’t even know if what they tell you is even halfway true.”

  “Why are you always so mistrusting? They’re just other kids interested in gadgets. You say they’re just keeping me away from my real-life friends. See how all my real-life friends are beating down the door?” He spread his hands. “No one’s life can be as boring as mine. I get up, I have breakfast, I clean up stuff in the shop, I fix the neighbours’ anti-cactus fence, for the hundredth time. I listen to them complain, mostly about you encouraging the cactuses. I sweep the floors. I do the accounts. It’s boring. Bo-ring.”

  “That’s life. It can’t always be super exciting.”

  "I don't like my life."

  “Then it’s up to you to change it.”

  “I am trying to change it, but you always tell me I can’t do things. I’m not allowed to do anything. I have to stay here and work in the shop, fixing stupid problems for stupid people. I can’t drive, I can’t go out, I can’t dance with girls, I can’t even go to school. I’m sick of it. I hate my fucking life!”

  “Language.”

  “I don’t care. I will fucking say whatever I fucking please and if you don’t like it you can fuck off.”

  “Rex!”

  “Don’t ‘Rex’ me. You think you understand. You understand nothing. Here.” With both his metal pincer hands, he grabbed the model rails from the bench. He flung the metal strips across the workshop. The little wagon that was still on the rails flew off and crashed on the tiles.

  “Happy now? I can’t do any more playing around. While I’m at it, let me fix this.”

  He walked—with a zoom-zoom-zoom of the armour—to the storeroom, leaned against one side of the doorframe and pushed with his legs against the other. The division between the office and the storeroom was not a major construction, and the wall easily gave way under his strength. The doorframe cracked loose at the bottom, and the thin boards that formed the wall broke with a snap.

  "What are you doing?" Tina yelled.

  "I am solving the problem that has taken you fifteen years to solve, namely that I can't get into the storeroom. All you needed to do was just make the opening a bit bigger. See?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Stop that immediately.”

  He picked up a length of wood.

  He towered right over Tina’s head, all metal armour threat and turning joints. His shoulders were twice as wide as hers, because there needed to be room inside the armour shell to attach his arms and for the mechanism that moved his arms. His hands were much bigger too, because small hands would look ridiculous on such broad arms.

  The lights on his chest plate blinked to show that those arms were very much operational. He could crush planks of wood with those huge hands. She had seen him do it.

  Tina rushed across the workshop. "Stop, Rex. Stop it now.”

  But he hefted the wood above his head, and brought it down on the shelves. Boxes of equipment parts cascaded down when the shelf broke.

  "You're breaking all my stock."

  "I bet you would like to threaten me that I won’t get paid. Well, I am not getting paid anyway."

  “What is wrong with you? Stop it now."

  Rex set his back against one of the shelves, and his legs against the other shelves and pushed both sets apart. Tina wanted to stop him, but what good was her human strength against that of Rex’s mechanical arms? One lot of shelves tipped over onto the next one, making more boxes fall on the floor.

  The others fell on his head in a cascade of screws and other things.

  He paused, panting, and looked down. He let out a harsh breath, seemingly deflated.

  “Now see what you‘ve done. I have no time to clean up all this mess. I have no money to replace the stock. You know that man who was here earlier? He wants me to pay him back his loan. I may have to sell the shop. I have all this to worry about, and you’re upset that I won’t let you play before you finish the shop work?”

  Rex said nothing. He looked down at the knees of his armour.

  He let out a sob, and then started crying
loudly. His shoulders shook while his wails echoed through the workshop.

  Tina reached out her hand and pulled him up. She closed her arms around his harness as he cried on her shoulder.

  But in her mind, she could still see the frightening rage in his eyes.

  Chapter Four

  Tina went into the kitchen and started making dinner. She was angry with herself for doing this, since she had said she wouldn't cook his meals, but when she worried or was angry she couldn’t do anything useful so she might as well cook.

  Rex had followed her, meekly and silently. He still let out the occasional sniff.

  Tina felt sorry for him, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  Frankly, he had behaved like an idiot. This outburst had been the latest in a string of many that worried her. They reminded her of his father, not in a good way, and thinking about Dexter and the whole sordid mess at Charon Station never put her in a good mood.

  Rex looked a lot like Dexter, too.

  He sat in his special chair at the table where Tina couldn’t see his face without turning around.

  The kitchen drawers had handles that Rex could grip with his pinchers, and the drawers contained knives with special adapted handles so they wouldn’t slip from the metal pincher’s grip. The stove had a special touchpad that reacted to physical touch, rather than the warmth of human skin. With the previous version, Rex had to hold his pincher on the hot plate before the pad would turn off the element.

  Yeah, that ended well.

  The cupboard next to the stove held a set of metal cups and plates—Rex had too many accidents with the breakable variety—and dish towels that consisted of a wadded-up towel with a string attached, like a bath sponge, so that Rex’s pinchers could easily hold them—not that he ever did.