Terradox Reborn

by Craig A. Falconer

  It looked like Leon was talking to Vijay and was amused by something. Peter paused, just out of Leon’s sight but close enough to hear everything and to see Vijay.

  “Say it again,” Leon said. “The whole thing.”

  “Koh… Koh…”

  Leon upturned his palms. “Koh-Koh-Koh,” he parroted mockingly. “Vijay Cauliflower. See? How hard is that? Say it.”

  Vijay gulped. “Vijay Koh… Koh—”

  Peter had seen and heard more than enough. It was bad enough to see someone picking on any child like this, but his anger was heightened even further than would otherwise have been the case given that Viola had told him all about the persistent stuttering and confidence issues that Vijay had recently begun to overcome.

  “Hey, big guy,” Peter said, winking at Vijay as he stepped out of the shadows. He then walked over to Leon and lowered his voice. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “What’s it to you, asshole?” Leon shot back.

  “Lower your voice and clean up your words,” Peter snapped under his breath.

  “Fuck off.”

  Peter calmly took hold of Leon’s arm to lead him out of Vijay’s sight and earshot.

  “Get your hands off me!” Leon protested, flailing himself free and rubbing his upper arm as though it had been shot rather than grabbed. “You’re going to pay for this! You think just because you’re Grav’s golden boy and you decided to sleep your way into power around here, that means you can push me around for having some fun with this little retar—”

  Before he had any chance to talk himself out of it, Peter delivered a sudden and forceful punch to Leon’s jaw. Leon hit the deck, more of a crumple than a fall, and lay utterly motionless.

  Peter glanced towards the distant climbing frame and was relieved to see that Leon’s younger brother wasn’t looking. He leaned over the fallen bully and tapped his cheek. “Get up.”

  Nothing.

  Peter then instinctively pulled the unconscious belligerent several metres towards the low wall, so that his brother wouldn’t see anything whenever he might ultimately turn around in their direction.

  “You okay, big guy?” he then asked, turning to Vijay.

  Vijay smiled one of the broadest smiles Peter had ever seen and nodded decisively.

  “Good. Stay there for one second,” Peter said as he opened the main door and popped his head inside. “Uh, V…”

  Having been engaged in conversation with Christian and Jillian, Viola turned to the door. “Yeah?”

  “Slight problem,” Peter said, mouthing it almost silently.

  Viola excused herself from the others and walked to the door. When she stepped outside, the first thing she saw was Vijay Kohli grinning as he sat on the wall. The second thing was Leon Fish, motionless on the ground. Her reaction was simple: “What did you do?”

  “I know this looks bad, but V… he was asking for it.”

  “Asking for it?” she echoed in a disbelieving tone. “He was asking for you to cause everyone more problems by acting like a—”

  Vijay interrupted, not with words but by gently pulling on Viola’s hand having quietly stood up and moved to her side.

  She looked down at him, forcing a warm expression and gentle words: “Could you wait inside for a few minutes? Mrs Jackson is in there.”

  He nodded slowly. “But don’t give Peter a row. He was sticking up for me. That man was being mean again.”

  “What do you mean again?” Peter asked.

  “Vijay, please… could you go inside for a just a few minutes?” Viola said, still speaking gently but now slightly more insistently. She saw Leon beginning to stir — he wasn’t too badly hurt, at least — and she didn’t want Vijay to be there when he came around.

  Vijay followed the request this time.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Viola turned to Peter. Her expression was one of disappointment more than anger. “What part of your brain told you it was a good idea to knock someone out in front of a child?” she asked, almost incredulous that she had to ask such a thing.

  Peter said nothing.

  “You’re going to have to think of a better answer than that before Holly asks you the same question,” Viola said, setting off towards the climbing frame. “I’m going to try and keep his brother occupied, so why don’t you make yourself useful by at least calling their dad to come and pick them up. And call Grav to tell him about this while you’re at it. If Holly hears it from him first, maybe she won’t fire you.”

  “She’s hardly going to fire me…” Peter said, but Viola was already too far away to hear it.

  twenty

  To everyone’s relief, preliminary toxicology reports supported the notion that no foul play was involved in Sakura’s death. Further off-the-record comments from the medical team strengthened Holly’s existing belief that the cause truly had been nothing more mysterious than a heart attack.

  The timing was abysmal; unfounded rumours had already spread throughout the colony that the new access restrictions had somehow played a part in whatever the emergency situation was, and this speculation only served to heighten concerns that more such incidents might follow.

  The great tragedy of Sakura’s passing weighed heavily on her close friends Holly, Grav and Bo — the three individuals who had remained within the Buffer — but all three of their minds were necessarily focused on ensuring that things didn’t get any worse and that the colony would resume all normal functions as soon as possible.

  Having pored over security footage, the trio were confident that Sakura hadn’t interacted unusually with anyone in recent days. Given their understanding that the incident really did have nothing to do with the new access restrictions, the trio’s greatest concern was that fear and uncertainty would take hold and cause problems of their own. The best way to deal with this was to ensure that as many people as possible were in the safety and refuge of their own homes, and so it went that all research zones and operational buildings were now empty of all but a tiny number of essential staff.

  The CDD was no exception and now stood completely empty; Jillian and Christian Jackson, keen to help in any way they could, had immediately headed for the Buffer with Holly’s permission, while Viola and Peter Ospanov had recently joined them — Peter at Holly’s insistence and Viola at her invitation.

  The Ospanovs arrived around three hours after Peter’s regrettable incident with Leon Fish, once Leon’s father had eventually been reached following his completion of an immersive experiment in Habitat Management. He took Peter’s word over his own son’s without a second thought; Leon had been so disruptive and uncooperative in recent times, Mr Fish was less surprised to hear that he had talked himself into a punch than to hear that he had actually turned up to collect his brother when the emergency call for collections went out.

  Humbled, Leon hadn’t tried anything funny when Peter told him to sit tight in the interim. His younger brother, meanwhile, had been too busy playing and studying with Viola to realise what had happened.

  Despite the apparent lack of any serious fallout — the Fishes were keen to draw a line under what had happened rather than push for Peter to be punished — Holly was decidedly unimpressed with his conduct.

  The first thing she did when Peter arrived was tell him to go back outside and stay there until she called him in. She then spoke with Viola for the better part of half an hour as their recent arguments fell quickly by the wayside, with both accepting that they could have handled things better and agreeing that their core disagreement had been blown out of all proportion.

  Sakura, a close friend with whom they had both shared good times and bad, was gone; petty squabbles didn’t just pale in comparison, they now seemed almost indulgent in their meaninglessness.

  When Holly and Viola emerged from their private talking place, both were surprised to see Peter standing inside.

  “I brought him in,” Robert Harrington said from out of their view, announcing his presenc
e. “This isn’t the time for division.”

  “This isn’t the time for disobeying orders,” Holly said, speaking only to Peter. She pointed to the Buffer’s entrance. “Outside.”

  Peter glanced at Grav, hoping he would intervene as a voice of reason. Grav stood like a statue, giving nothing away. Peter then turned to Viola, hoping that her evident reconciliation with Holly would mean that a supporting word from her would mean something.

  Viola mouthed the words “just go,” accompanied by an expression that was far less harsh than the words themselves. Holly was going to give Peter a dressing down for his actions at the CDD, quite justifiably, and Viola knew it was better for that to happen outside rather than in front of the others.

  Aside from the Jacksons, those others amounted only to Robert, Bo and Grav. Along with Holly and Viola, this meant that five of the original crew of seven who discovered Terradox were now present, with only Ekaterina Rusev and the late Yury ‘Spaceman’ Gardev absent. Counting Peter, the present group also amounted to six of the eight crew who bravely ventured to the surface of Netherdox. Dimitar Rusev had been number seven, with the recently deceased Sakura having proven her loyalty and commitment to the cause during that mission by risking her life to save Bo’s and by providing crucial expertise when the group found themselves up against a hostile gang of pack-defence romodroids.

  Like an extended family accustomed to gathering only for funerals, the whole group only ever seemed to be together like this in moments of crisis. This sad thought was in Viola’s mind, but she didn’t bring it up.

  As soon as Peter went back outside, which his deeply entrenched respect for the chain of command ensured that he did promptly if not gladly, Holly followed right behind him.

  Her anger at Peter stemmed from the fact that he had acted irresponsibly at a time when cool heads were needed and when she had counted on him to perform his duties with dispassionate professionalism, and she wasted no time in letting him know.

  “You could have killed him,” she began, visibly exasperated.

  “Holly, if I had wanted to kill him, he would be—”

  “Just… don’t,” Holly sighed. “If you think I care about Leon fucking Fish, you’re wrong. I care about how this reflects on you, and — yeah — I care about how this reflects on me. When you screw up, you have to deal with me. But do you think that’s the end of it? Do you think I don’t have to deal with the board when they start asking why my security staff are assaulting colonists? Because it doesn’t matter what the asshole said to provoke you, that’s how this will look on paper. You assaulted a man who was collecting a child from the CDD, and you did it in front of another child. That’s how things like this look to the lawyers and the sharks in the boardroom. And do you think for one second that they go as easy on me as I go on you?”

  “Look, Holly, if this brings you that kind of trouble, I will step down immediately,” Peter said, his tone suddenly solemn. “And if there is a case to answer, I will take full responsibility in answering it. But I’ll tell them what I’m telling you: in the eyes of a child, things look different. When a creature like Leon is picking on a little kid like Vijay, think about how that looks from Vijay’s height. What should I have shown Vijay today… that when a bad person hurts him, a good person will quietly ask the bad person to leave and then lodge a behavioural review through the so-called ‘proper channels’? Would that help the kid sleep tonight? Would that show the kid that someone has his back, and that people who hurt him will pay for it? I think we both know the answers.”

  “The Fishes aren’t lodging any complaints, so there aren’t going to be any external consequences this time,” Holly replied. “But if you’re going to continue in your position, what I need you to understand is that nothing is gained by losing your cool, no matter the provocation. And this wasn’t your only possible course of action that didn’t amount to making Vijay think Leon’s actions didn’t deserve punishment, so don’t frame it like that. You could have rebuked him, made him apologise, or even humbled him with the quiet suggestion of violence if you had to. But physical assault? Peter, on any other day, right now I would be revoking your access rights and suspending you indefinitely. Count yourself lucky that I’ve got more important things to worry about.”

  “I didn’t mean to add to your problems,” Peter said, stopping just short of an apology for an action he didn’t quite regret.

  Holly pointed towards the door; she had said and heard enough.

  Back inside, the incident was quickly forgotten over the course of the next few hours. Further updates from the medical staff came in every so often, with each new communication further reaffirming the staff’s belief that Sakura had indeed died of a tragically sudden but ultimately natural cause.

  Robert Harrington, widely seen as one of the colony’s most important figures, diligently assessed all recent variations in the Buffer’s conditions and found nothing of note. He paid particularly keen attention to recent readings from the sensors in and around Sakura’s office, which directly bordered the core Little Venus zone where conditions were murderously inhospitable. As the long-term Head of Habitat Management, Robert had undying faith in the hard zonal division which separated the two zones; ‘leakage’ was a hypothetical concern to some, including a medic who raised the notion that Sakura’s regular proximity to the border might have somehow weakened her heart, but Robert knew that the sensors didn’t lie. He also knew that his son Bo worked just as close to the border as Sakura, often for almost twice as many hours per day, and he would never have allowed such a thing were his confidence not total.

  Some time later, a two-minute warning alarm roared through the built-in speakers of Bo’s wristband to remind him of the imminent need to press the button which would flash the light inside the Isolation Kompound. In the absence of the regular observers, this would be Bo’s first time doing so.

  When the others encouraged him to get into position, he heeded their call without pointing out that the control console was a mere fifteen-second walk away and that there was no mad rush.

  Indeed, two minutes proved far more than enough and Bo was standing in front of the control console with plenty of time to spare.

  It almost felt like too much time to spare, giving his mind the opportunity to overthink the extremely simple instructions he had been given by the regular observation team. With ten seconds to go, Bo shook himself out of it and focused on the incoming feed from the Kompound.

  He placed his finger over the button in anticipation of the key moment.

  Time seemed to slow down as the final few seconds ticked by until the clock on the screen finally hit the hour mark.

  Right on cue, with no hesitation or last-second nerves, Bo pressed the button.

  Time seemed to slow down even further as he lifted his finger and watched for the flash.

  But watch as he might, no flash came.

  His finger desperately pressed the button again.

  Nothing.

  With his heart pounding, Bo pressed the button for a third time. As he did, and as the clock on the screen ticked to just four seconds past the hour, the light flashed.

  Bo breathed his deepest sigh of relief in a long time.

  But then, barely a second and a half later, the light flashed again.

  Oh, no…

  And again.

  Oh, shit…

  Bo stared dumb-struck at the screen and then glanced at the time on his wristband. The realisation of what he had done hit him like a truck.

  The production feed was on a three-second delay; and while a single flash three seconds late might have raised some eyebrows in the Kompound, the triple-flash caused by Bo’s uncertainty as to whether he had pressed the button hard enough the first two times was absolutely unprecedented.

  Christian Jackson was the first of the others to arrive, bursting through the door in a fit of panic. He stared at the screen — at what was happening, and at what else was surely about to happen — and said the
only thing he could think of:

  “Bo, what the hell have you done?”

  twenty-one

  “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but it was a few seconds late last time,” Chase said, underselling the minute-plus delay he had witnessed during the light’s last flash six hours earlier in a bid to keep Steve calm. “It could have been our clock, or just a technical hiccup, so don’t get all crazy weirdo on us if that happens again this time, okay?”

  Having been successfully distracted by Chase and Marcel on that occasion, this time Steve was wise to their tricks. As indicated by Chase’s tone, though, they were all in reasonably good spirits as Steve eagerly awaited the next flash and counted down the last few seconds before the hour ticked over.

  For the first time, everyone within the Kompound was watching on this occasion. Although the afternoon’s delayed flash had passed without incident as only Chase looked on, everyone’s work for the day was now finished and they were keen to see what happened given that the morning’s flash had been marked by a heated disagreement between Steve and Marcel, witnessed by the others. Nisha Kohli now stood with Chase, while Lee Kim and Sara Helms peeked curiously through a door at the other end of the Kompound’s main corridor.

  Marcel was lightheartedly nudging Steve and predicting that the light wouldn’t flash, gladly following Chase’s advice to make a joke of it in an effort to continue Steve’s slow but sure recovery from full-on obsession over the light.

  “I heard that if it doesn’t flash, our oxygen gets switched off,” Marcel said.

  Steve laughed slightly at this obvious attempt to wind him up, another clear sign that his thoughts regarding the light really had shifted and become less all-consuming.

  “I heard the system will flood this place with lava,” Nisha chimed in, offering a rare joke of her own.

  Everyone was upbeat, sharing a general understanding that seeing the light flash this time would probably be enough to cleanse Steve’s mind of its unhealthy focus once and for all. With five seconds left, everyone stopped laughing and joking and focused intently on the light.