Exo: A Novel (Jumper)

by Steven Gould

  Also, perfect weather. And by weather I mean solar weather; the Van Allen belts were still behaving, which still put our orbit in the sweet spot, radiation wise.

  Also on the list were retrieving rejuvenated activated charcoal and desiccant cartridges, and checking the measurements between our outside mooring rings, destined to anchor a framework for solar panels.

  When we could get to it.

  It was on the list.

  But we still weren’t done flushing nitrogen, so I turned to the last nonspacewalk task on the list, swapping out oxygen cylinders.

  There are lots of tricities in the U.S., but the three that TriCity Medical Oxygen served were Fremont, Newark, and Union City on the east side of San Francisco Bay, down near San Jose.

  I always made this trip empty-handed first, to make sure I could arrive without falling over. The H-sized tanks weigh about as much as I did and the last thing I wanted was to fall over with one on top of me.

  The loading-dock doors were down, which was not normal, and I wondered if I’d mistook the day, but it wasn’t the weekend and it was normal hours. I walked around to the office door and saw a hastily scribbled sign taped to the inside of the window.

  Closed because of IDIOT PLUMBER. We have gone to hire a DIFFERENT PLUMBER and the water should be drained by tomorrow. Deliveries will still be made.

  (SG, your tanks in usual place.)

  It made me smile. They should try dealing with leaking water in microgravity. But it also made me worry.

  We’d been awfully fortunate so far.

  The worst leak we’d dealt with was when the computer-controlled solenoid valve on our cooling water failed open, resulting in a twenty-degree drop in air temperature before Mom manually closed the feed from the water bladders. She also could’ve closed the shutoff valve where the exhaust port went through the inner hull (which we had to do when we swapped out the bad valve).

  I wasn’t worried about the air integrity of our inner hull as long as the water and outer hull stayed in place, but that outer skin, despite the Kevlar and the outer Mylar, hadn’t been intended for space. The water inside helped protect it from massive temperature swings but it was still getting hit with fierce ultraviolet and vacuum.

  It was why we tried to keep at least one jumper up there at all times.

  Yes, we’d chosen a low-debris orbit, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t take a hit from some chunk from outside the Earth-Moon system, zipping in at real speeds. My worst scenario involved a hit from something big enough or fast enough to penetrate both hulls—resulting in rapid decompression. The jumper would have fifteen seconds, tops, to get everyone out before she passed out.

  And there wasn’t a jumper up there right now.

  I jumped into the building, back to “my” rack near the “filled” side of the cryogenic charging tanks.

  My feet splashed through an inch of water. It was everywhere, and smaller pieces of equipment were stacked on cinder blocks or each other, to keep out of the wet. Even my rack, a floor stand that held four H-sized tanks with a laminated sign that said, APEX ORB SVCS: Full Tanks Only. 2 person sign-off! had been raised up on a set of four-by-four lumber blocks.

  I jumped back to the station and looked around. Everything was fine. Cory was at one of the control/monitor computers and Grandmother floated nearby, saying something. Jeline was the mission medical specialist on duty, which wasn’t very onerous—she was playing solitaire using a magnetic board and a deck of metal-core cards that we’d brought up so Grandmother could continue playing and teaching them contract bridge.

  Grandmother looked up at me and said, “Everything all right?”

  I exhaled. “Yes. Everything’s fine.”

  The two depleted tanks had already been uncoupled from the pressure manifold, but were still held against the stack by individual straps. I unclipped the first strap and let the tank float out to where I could get my arms around it, then jumped it back to TriCity, putting it with the dozens on the “empty” side of the filling stations, then repeated the process for the other one.

  I splashed through the water to my rack. When I took hold of the valve of the first filled tank, I got the biggest shock of my life.

  Electrical.

  It seemed as if every muscle in my body seized (including my grip on the valve) and I blinked, blinked, bli—

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Millie: Do you know where Cent is?

  Davy was not thrilled with Millie’s proposed house-hunting areas but he had to admit his choice of wilderness isolation hadn’t worked out so well.

  “It worked for a long time, dear. I loved that house and we’re going to rebuild there! But meanwhile, we need a ground base with a little more scope. Trying to make do with the warehouse and the Eyrie just isn’t working.”

  “But … but urban blight?”

  “Yes. Fewer questions. Cheaper properties. We don’t need to drive through those neighborhoods. People won’t question security shutters and really heavy doors.”

  “Anybody could drive right up to it!”

  “The best place to hide a needle is in a bunch of other needles.”

  He got an odd expression on his face. “Huh. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “You hid in New York. You hid in Stillwater.”

  “I didn’t mean me. That airport that Hunt found? The base for that drone-control aircraft the CIA found?”

  “Yes. I thought that didn’t lead anywhere useful?”

  “Well, not yet. They were operating out of Hayward Executive Airport in the East Bay area. I’ve been looking for a ranch or remote estate in central California. Maybe I should be looking in the cities.”

  “Those are not small cities.”

  “Needles. A lot of needles.”

  “Good luck with that. Meanwhile, I’m going to try and find a house.”

  She wasn’t bothering with a Realtor, or even doors for that matter. She didn’t care about the state of the neighborhood or the yard. She wanted a large kitchen, multiple bedrooms, a large utility space and garage, and good electrical mains.

  And bathrooms. Large bathrooms with showers, bathtubs, toilets. While she didn’t have to use the microgravity toilet in Kristen Station, she had tried it. After that she’d jumped to the small bathroom in the Michigan warehouse whenever necessary.

  She was looking at a boarded-up hotel in Detroit, twenty rooms, a room-service kitchen, and an indoor (drained) pool and hot tub, when the satellite pager went off.

  Expected Cent back 50 min ago. Cory here for their spacewalk. Not responding to page.

  —Sam

  Millie jumped to Kristen Station by way of the Michigan warehouse and the Eyrie.

  She said, first, “Did you text Davy?”

  Her mother said, “Not yet. Next, if you hadn’t responded.”

  Cory was frowning. He was wearing the suit, but he’d relaxed it partially. “It’s not like her, but I thought maybe something came up that you would know about.”

  Millie shook her head and regretted it. “No. She wouldn’t leave the station without transport this long without arranging for Davy or me to cover. When did you last see her?”

  He pointed at Cent’s spacesuit, backpack, and helmet Velcroed near the equator, where Cent kept it when on station. “We were both prebreathing for my first spacewalk, but she’d just taken two empty O2 tanks down to swap them out.” He gestured toward the oxygen-tank bank where the gap was obvious. “Do you suppose the replacements weren’t ready?”

  Sam shook her head. “They keep four filled tanks prepped for us at all times. Cent says they’ve been very reliable.”

  Millie went to video uplink with the built in satphone. “I’m texting Joe, Tara, and Jade.” She sent them all:

  Do you know where Cent is?—Millie @ station

  Then she took a deep breath and said, “And now I’m texting Davy.”

  Tara responded before Davy arrived. Jade’s response came almost immediately after, while Millie wa
s filling Davy in.

  “I’ll check the regular places again,” Davy said. “While you wait to hear from Joe.” He was back in under a minute with snowflakes in his hair. “I hit the warehouse, the Eyrie, and even took a quick look at the cabin site, up on the ridge and the springhouse. Nothing.”

  When five minutes passed and Joe still hadn’t responded, Millie rang his cell phone, but the call went directly to voice mail.

  Millie jumped Cory back to his lab so Cory could use his faculty clearance to get Joe’s class schedule.

  “Huh. Two of these lecturers post attendance and Joe wasn’t in either class today.”

  “Well, he wasn’t with Cent then,” Millie said, pointing at one of the class times. “She was still doing station maintenance.”

  They tried Joe’s phone again using the landline. No response.

  “I’m taking you back to the station,” said Millie.

  “Why? They might call here or something.”

  “It’s the ‘something’ I’m worried about. You don’t have to go to the station but I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t in your usual haunts right now.”

  “You think they’ve been grabbed?”

  Millie didn’t say anything. Instead her cheek twitched and the corners of her mouth pulled down.

  Cory said, “I’ll go back to the station.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  Cent: Oubliette

  I could hear someone talking. No, two someones, but I was really confused. I hurt all over and it was like my brain wasn’t working properly.

  “—yes, they have that trick with water we discussed, but they really can’t get away when you secure them like this.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I knew that voice, but I’d only heard it the one day, less than a dozen sentences almost two years before.

  Isn’t she supposed to be in prison?

  The second voice had a different quality about it, slightly electronic.

  I tried to jump and it was like being grabbed by vice grips at my wrists, ankles, elbows, and neck.

  “Ah—she’s awake.”

  I was in a steel chair in the middle of a concrete room. There were steel cuffs over my wrists and forearms, anchored to the chair arms. A steel band around my neck was anchored to something behind me. Something equally firm held my ankles back against the chair legs.

  I jerked once, to see if the chair itself would move, but it felt like it was fastened down.

  No, actually it felt like it was set into the floor.

  The floor, the walls, and a ceiling about twelve feet above me were smooth, cast concrete. Not bricks, not precast panels. It looked like it was all one piece relieved only by a large drain grate in the floor, a steel-framed, mirrored window in front of me, and a door that looked like it belonged on a submarine off to my right.

  Oh—and the lights. Bright lights above the mirror pointed into my face. Less-bright lights mounted high on the walls and shining up to the ceiling for indirect lighting reminded me weirdly of the northern hemisphere of Kristen Station.

  I tried to voice my earlier thought but it came out as a series of croaks.

  Hyacinth Pope shook her head. “Didn’t get that, sorry.” She didn’t look a bit sorry. There was something creepy about the way she leaned toward me, an almost hungry posture.

  I swallowed and moistened my lips, then tried again. “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”

  “Ah! Someone is. The system thinks it’s me and is satisfied. I certainly find it satisfactory.”

  The voice I’d heard earlier spoke. “I’m glad to see you survived your little shock.” It came from the direction of the window and I finally located the speakers. They were close to the high-intensity spots above the mirror and had been hidden in the glare.

  “I don’t feel like I survived it. I feel like I was put in a sack and beaten with sticks, then died.”

  Hyacinth laughed.

  The voice on the speakers said, “They did have to restart your heart. But it just took a little bit of epinephrine.”

  Now that was an unsettling thought.

  “And of course you were also sedated until we had you … secure.”

  I looked around again. “What is this place for? It looks like something out of a Bond film.”

  The voice said, “It was made for your parents. That was before you entered the picture. Oh, by the way, in case you’re thinking of trying your father’s trick, the one with the water, it won’t do any good. Simons’s security detail told us all about that.”

  I blinked. It wasn’t hard to look confused, I was confused. Maybe they were telling the truth about my heart stopping or maybe their sedative was still in my system. “If that’s the case, why is Hyacinth in here with me?”

  Ms. Pope looked slightly unsettled at that response.

  “Hyacinth volunteered. She has an unhealthy fascination with your family. You’ve all had such a profound effect on the course of her life,” the voice said. “But we shouldn’t tempt you. Bring in the boy.”

  It felt like my heart did stop.

  Joe’s hands were cuffed behind him and he had a bruise on his right cheekbone and a split lip. The two guards holding him had hard faces and were wearing black, unmarked fatigues with sidearms in holsters.

  Joe saw me, and threw himself sideways at one of his guards, but the guard just sidestepped and tripped him. Without his hands to check his fall, Joe went down hard.

  I felt that pain again at the neck and wrists. Apparently I’d just tried to jump again and hadn’t even been aware of the intention.

  “Mr. Trujeque will be your guarantor.”

  One of the guards knelt by the large drain I’d noted and worked some sort of latch, then lifted the grating on unseen hinges. Hyacinth held it open while they wrestled Joe over to it and pushed his head and shoulders down through it, then held his legs and lowered him down in.

  I pictured a huge fall, and Joe landing on his head, but when they let go, Joe’s feet were still visible. They pushed the shoes down through the opening and shut the grate. One of them stood on it, while the other operated the latch. When the grate was secure, they parked themselves in the rear corners of the room, just enough on the edge of my vision that I could tell they were there when I turned my head.

  “It’s not a large oubliette,” the voice said. “Only four feet deep and four feet across, but I assure you that your boyfriend cannot possibly reach the latch from inside and, should you decide to flood this chamber, even to the tippy-tippy-top, it will be Mr. Trujeque who drowns first.

  “Even should you decide that that is worth it to get at Ms. Pope and the guards, it will not touch me at all. The chamber was built to contain a phenomenal amount of pressure. More pressure inside just makes it stronger, forces the door and windows more firmly onto their gaskets.”

  He paused. “Frankly, I’m dying to test it, but that would be hard on the staff. And, in the long run, I think we’ll get more cooperation from you if we leave Mr. Trujeque alive. Mostly, alive.”

  “Cent! Don’t do anything for them!” Joe’s voice echoed weirdly, seeming to come from above me as it bounced off the ceiling.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. But even if I weren’t, don’t cooperate with them!”

  This was where Dad was supposed to show up, or, if I really wanted carnage, Mom. I wondered if there were clues for them to follow, for them to find us. “Joe, where did they get you?”

  Hyacinth looked at the window to see if she should stop my questions.

  “Coming out of my dorm room this morning, heading for the library.”

  The speakers remained silent, so Hyacinth settled back.

  “Witnesses?” I asked.

  Hyacinth looked amused. “I work clean. The boy came out at the crack of dawn. His roommate was appalled, but apparently little Joe here has been neglecting his schoolwork for your project and has some catching up to do. I assure you no one saw or heard us bag him.�
��

  “You bugged his room.” I was outraged, which was pretty hypocritical considering I’d almost done it myself.

  Hyacinth yawned.

  “Is that right, Joe? No witnesses?”

  “Well, it was pretty early.”

  There were certainly no witnesses at Tri-State Medical Oxygen. “What did you do with the people at Tri-State?”

  “Their owner was ‘induced’ to send everyone home for the day. We were so pleased how well this worked that we’ve reset the trap. Do you think your parents will come looking for you?”

  FORTY

  Davy: Trap

  They were on the roof of a specialty-welding shop across the street and two businesses down from TriCity Medical Oxygen.

  “Trap?” said Millie.

  “Trap. What kind, though?” Davy was terrified he’d find his daughter in there, dead. “You stay clear, right?”

  Millie said, “You’re not the only one who’s terrified. Don’t be a jerk.”

  “I’m thinking about your Mom.”

  He saw that that got a reaction.

  If all three of them were captured or killed, Sam (and currently Jeline and Cory) would be stuck out there beyond the reach of anything short of an emergency Falcon Heavy launch.

  “Okay. Understood.” She held up her radio. “I’ll wait here, then.”

  Davy looked at her steadily and saw that she meant it. “Right. Give me ten minutes then call the police and say you heard gunshots at this address.”

  Millie shuddered. “At least they’ll send an ambulance with the response. Huh. Maybe that one.”

  Davy turned his head to see what she was pointing at. It was an ambulance, parked between a self-storage business, and a floor-tile wholesaler. “I remember another ambulance, once. Do you?”

  “One with an angel on the doors?”

  Davy nodded. Back when he’d been captured, before Cent was even born, they’d drugged him and carried him off in an ambulance.

  She lifted the binoculars. “It’s pretty generic for an ambulance. All the universal symbols but nothing about an affiliation. Not seeing a town or a city or a county on it.”