by Kelly Brewer
-He would not have shot her parents and brothers in their beds as they slept. (They had all been real nice to him, her mom even made him a sandwich once):
-He would not have conned, then killed, the heavyset female prison guard who helped him escape a life sentence.
-He would not have been slinking across the terrestrial northeast United States from hole to hole these past twelve years.
-He would not have needed to kill and mutilate all those whores in all those towns to keep them quiet.
-He would not have been afraid of the Light.
Hiding. Like a rat.
Like a plague-carrying rat!
Literally.
He was not this person!
He picked up speed. Almost there.
Hold the case in front, with both hands.
Drop it gently as you pass under the ship.
A final, redeeming thought emerged from his numbing animal pain and engulfing self-loathing…
He was not supposed to be here!
Hope startling him, he smiled.
It was the last voluntary thing he ever did.
CHAPTER 21
The Mars Shot
“Daaaamn!” they all yelled simultaneously.
“Oooooh, daaamn!”
The head of the big, running man… just disappeared.
Unison broken, the impromptu swat team fell into an unbelieving disarray of catcalls and video replays.
Kyle had destroyed a terrorist that was attempting to destroy his family.
From the external gyro boarding platform, Mynas, a crew member filming and documenting the band’s adventure, had been videoing with the mobile recording unit. Capturing scenes for the live album to be released a few months after the tour, he had stepped out for some air during the latest dust-up between Moore and Kyle.
He filmed Mercy as she stepped onto the shuttle then swept down the monorail and through the impressive complex. Spotting Chic as Mercy’s shuttle passed him, he zoomed in.
Thinking it odd that a lone human was kneeling down, digging something out of the arena floor, he activated facial recognition. That brought up the “Deepening’s Most Wanted” alert. And that brought up a cry of warning from the rock videographer. He tabbed the live stream onto the gyro screens inside and all hands on deck froze.
Mynas zoomed into the contents when Chic opened the silver case. Everyone onboard saw it.
Tamer spoke first, “Is that… a bomb??”
Derringer, the drum roadie, recognized Chic on the close-up.
“Hey! That’s that guy from backstage earlier! I knew he was trouble! He followed us for several shows four years ago. The guy is an anarchist! He’s bad news.”
A quick dark-net search revealed the gruesome story. Tamer transmitted it directly to ship holograms. Boom was an escaped convict wanted for murdering an entire family in Kentucky and was a person of interest in a string of murders across the Northeast.
Kyle had no idea how long they had before detonation. All his gear was packed away, a floor below in the new gyro. There was suddenly no time. He needed his rifle now!
The soldier bolted for the elevator door. It slid open and jack-ie was inside, transferring his gear to his new quarters upstairs. His great-granddad’s 30.06 lay right on top, in its case.
A tremendous stroke of luck!
He grabbed it and punched opened the backdoor of the elevator onto the catwalk outside the ship, then set the gun case down on the metal sidewalk.
Wide-eyed, Mercy ran up, frantically trying to warn him. Before she could speak, Kyle looked at her, quickly uncased the rifle, calmly chambered two rounds, and ran to the end of the gangway. Kyle crouched with his rifle behind the outer railing. There was a clear view of the floor, five stories below.
Kyle couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The man was completely exposed. He looked around for security drones and bots. Not one was in sight. Another anomaly. The man was obviously about to run directly towards their vessel.
Moore remained inside. He had managed to activate external comms on the gyro’s unfamiliar control desk.
His voice broke when he shouted into the mic, “Stop!”
The sound boomed around the stadium. The man looked around but did not heed the warning. Kyle probably had one shot to preempt this crazy son of a bitch’s plan.
He drew down on the runner just as he took off. This dangerous, wanted man was bearing down on him, his family, his property, and his future. He would protect what was his. Mercy gasped behind him.
Mynas ran up to Kyle with his camera. There, he had a close-up of the case the man carried like a football.
Calmly, “The maniac removed two packs from the case then activated something before he closed it. Whatever it is, it’s live. Don’t hit the case!”
Kyle glanced at the picture. He recognized the IED from his experience as military police. Damn it.
Kyle had no choice. It was kill or be killed. The running man had signed his own death warrant. Kyle would face the consequences in order to protect his family.
The man bolted into the glare of stadium and gyro landing lights. Kyle felt his own jolt, but settled down quickly. As the man ran, Moore screamed again at him to stop.
He was oblivious and seemed to pick up speed. This was a sudden death match.
“I have no choice… I have no choice,” Kyle muttered.
The man was closing fast on his ship… on his life… A few more moments and it would be Game Over!
Kyle smoothly sighted in and pulled the trigger.
BOOOOM!! The shot echoed across the large, empty stadium. Chic’s head disappeared in a red mist. The legs kept driving as the body dove into the floor. Time slowed when the case flew through the air, everyone wincing simultaneously, waiting for it to fall in a ball of flames. The man had been holding the case level and it landed ten yards away, facedown and flat, sliding and spinning to a stop.
Derringer alerted security, while Mynas uploaded an alarming video clip to Mars Security Central. A red-topped, flashing silver streak finally swept in and gently scooped up the case lying just below the ship, inserting it into a compartment in its dense midsection. Then, turning to the deceased, with a small grapple arm it turned the corpse over and removed a red bag and a green bag from the quivering body’s clothing. The grapple hand morphed into a metal box that completely enclosed the bags, then detached from the arm, dropping to the ground.
Enclosing the bomb case in its wide abdomen, the suicide droid went directly to an emergency air lock. Within moments it was outside, jetting away at a ninety-degree angle from orbital lanes at a high rate of speed, getting far fast from the space station before possible detonation.
Internally, the suicide droid x-rayed the contents of the case, uploading the images to main ship computers. Then the bomb blew, a flash of white light flickering in the void of space.
Gradually everyone remembered to breathe.
Ox marveled, “Convicted mass-murdering, escaped convict perpetrating suitcase bomber mother sucker, never responded, never looked up…”
“…to numerous verbal commands to stop,” Moore added, setting the microphone down.
“He tried to kill us!” Mercy exclaimed.
“He never stopped,” Mac finished, looking away from the bloody pile on the gray arena floor.
He was never going to stop, Kyle realized.
He stood calmly, rifle at his side. Mercy hugged him, afraid for him. When she saw the headless body slump, unaware, to the ground, a million words had burst into a scream. Kyle held her tightly, absorbing her cries into his chest. She had made eye contact with Chic moments before and had known she’d seen death.
She gripped her fiancé fiercely, rattled. This had shaken her quickly expanding world. The police would come and take him away from her. She would call her fa
ther. He could influence large matters.
Kyle replayed it again in his mind. Chic had revealed an unknown hiding place in the floor. That’s probably how the other drugs had been accessed on Moonbase. Exposed and dead before he began, the large man seemed fearless. Almost joyful. He was so well-lit as he ran, there was a glow around him. He never broke stride.
Kyle would strive to be as brave as the dead man.
CHAPTER 22
Best Laid Plan
From Jupiter orbit, the hanging-upside-down nude man watched the wavy Martian image floating across screen number two. The action was over. He listened to Ro-mans murmuring conspiratorially at their tasks. The whisper words “Kyle” and “shooter” and “Happy Headless Suitcase Bomber” were understood easily enough. The mugshot sent by Tamer sensationalized the half-human creatures even more.
“The big kid from Kentucky had it all until he blew it out the backside of someone else’s head some years ago. Well, looks like he got what he gave.” Dock pouted.
Irritated now, he lowered himself clumsily to the cold floor, chains and cuffs tinkling. Sitting up, he looked around at all of them. As the cold floor numbed his butt, he was suddenly struck. With all of them looking at him, doubting him, he could almost feel a soul. The Skin-gineerist’s work was nearly seamless.
He looked closer.
This was a fresh paradigm. He peered even closer.
The androids blinked half-lidded stares over their pulled-down chins at him… then cut away questioning eyes, turning to others nearby. Doubts fluttered under robotic, lifted eyebrows. Then more skeptical bovine blinking. Doubt? The murmuring stopped when he stood up, chains clinking.
“Say it,” he husked.
A hush fell and they looked around at each other, then back to him.
“Say it! Say it! Say it!” he resounded in tantrum.
A tremulous wave quivered among them. Drift began in the opposite corner of the elbow room. An amorphous half-model.bot was gently swept forth of its brethren.
Had they made a choice? Was this one their official spokes.bot, he wondered? How had the machine-ish beings made their decision?
Fantastic.
Sheepishly it offered, “I’m sorry to inform you, sir, but your Best Laid Plan has failed in the first act. I’m sorry, sir.”
It stepped back.
Silence.
Stillness.
For once, even the powerful gyro seemed to hold its breath. They all sat quietly, barely moving. Barely clinking.
A thought had been breathing, invisible, yet seen. It seemed to suddenly coalesce in front of the naked one.
He sucked it in.
“Has my plan failed? Has it failed, you worthless cyborg scrotum?” He glared with slitted lids.
“I knew the suicide drone would scoop up the case very quickly. Now blow the device since its outside,” he commanded flatly.
Triny pressed a button and the exited suicide.bot, with its cargo inside, was obliterated.
“Chic’s part was to plant an idea, not a bomb,” Dock spat. “Say something now.” He glared, daring the spokes.bot.
Nothing but fake blinks.
Dock’s tone meant one thing.
Someone here was wrong about him.
Someone would pay.
He would let them choose who.
Trumped, the androids mildly dissolved back to mechanical tasks, eyebrows flat.
“You are my mechanical ears, eyes, and hands, not my brain! Best Laid Plan is unaffected. Call my insurance underwriter. Send the video of the shooting and explosion. Triple the death and dismemberment coverage on the band and support personnel. Up liability on transports and venues also. When the ‘fanatics’ succeed next time, I’m getting paid. Big.”
Naked and unafraid, he sat down with a childish clunk, reattached to the winch, and began pulleying himself haltingly back upside down in the middle of the media room, erection pointing downward.
“Who?” he demanded.
The chosen one approached robotically, payment in hand.
CHAPTER 23
Antidote
Old Man Hadjii grimly watched the unbelievable Mars footage an hour later.
“Thank you for taking my call. I know you’re busy. I’m sorry to bother you with this,” Kyle said apologetically.
They were both on split-screen. Mynas hit replay for the doctor and Kyle averted his eyes; he could not watch it again. After the replay, the doctor consulted with someone Kyle could not see, a group of advisers nearby. There was a brief exchange then the doctor turned to the camera.
“You have time-stamped video showing the time line from positive identification of the perp to the takedown of a confessed killer. You have at least ten eyewitnesses. Your mobile video revealed explosives in the briefcase. The one photo transmitted from the suicide.bot revealed you interpreted the contents 100% correctly. Your team did a great job putting that together so quickly, by the way.
The bomb was exploded remotely about four minutes after it was ejected from the Terror Dome. The bot disarmed the explosive but an incoming signal set it off. Obviously there is another agent involved. Any idea who?”
Kyle shook his head no, scolding his brain for thinking impossible possibilities.
Hadjii continued, “One of the sealed packages left behind contained one kilo of… Happy-stil? Is this right?”
Somebody at his side confirmed.
“A silly name for something so deadly.”
“You, your entire crew, and probably the entire station would have been lost if that bomb had detonated.” Someone handed him a sheet of paper.
“Looks like your gun licensing is all in order. I’m no lawyer but… you and your team are heroes my friend. End of story.”
Kyle drew a long, slow breath and exhaled. Behind him everyone relaxed. He heard an “Amen.”
“Good news.”
Doctor Hadjii looked away, nodding to voices off-camera. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Kyle shifted gears. “Happy-stil…” He licked his lips, tasting the poison word. “This stuff is just getting started. No telling how far it’s gone or can go. I… we need an antidote quickly. I’ll pay for the development of it myself. I dark-mailed you some cash and a sample found on a one of the fans who died. Did you receive it? Do you have time?”
The doctor paused, rubbing his bearded chin.
Leaning into the camera forehead first, old man Hadjii looked at him seriously.
He said from thirty-five million miles away, “Already working on it.”
CHAPTER 24
Mars mining
Martian mining crews worked seven twelve-hour shifts in a row.
They were highly paid watchdogs, like oil refinery operators. Skimmer operations were fully automated. Multiple integrated systems analyzed all skimmer processes, ground conditions, and external weather patterns. A dizzying array of sensors sent data back from the massive surface suckers and the Martian lithosphere.
Dirt was dirt. Magnesium, aluminum, titanium, iron, chromium, lithium, copper, zinc, niobium, molybdenum, lanthanum, europium, and tungsten were all present. There was also a trace amount of gold. Mars had many of the same vitamins as Earth.
Skimmers never touched down. Their basic design replicated an organic digestive system.
The “teeth,” a powerful laser pulse cannon mounted top, front, blasted the rock in front of the intake, pulverizing the soil. The debris was vacuumed up into a giant space manta ray “mouth.” Near the center of the craft, digesters crushed the material further in the “stomach.” At the rear, rows of transport containers received, digested, and separated smaller and smaller particles in the “bowels.” Once full, the shipping containers exited the “anus” of the skimmer. The freight cars were themselves small robotic refineries, continuously processing as they jumped to final des
tinations.
A select few flew to private processing centers on the red planet surface. Several low-profile facilities dotted the crimson landscape. Someone skimmed the skimmers.
Materials that reached Earth were 90% crushed, sorted, sampled, and UV sterilized. Final destination of each container was determined based on the chemical makeup of its contents. Buyers were fed sample results then bid and paid for loads before containers ever entered the atmosphere. The containers flew straight to destinations around the globe. Once emptied, containers were inspected, cleaned, repaired if necessary, then released to fly back to their mother ship, all on autopilot.
Orbital mining companies supplied terrestrial accounts with raw materials. Terrestrial companies processed those goods and sold back to orbitals as finished products. A colony of ants would be jealous, if jealousy was part of their little psyches.
Imagine a human being squatting, cramped, on the circle of the Earth for millennia, and running out of toilet paper. In the Deepening, Mankind was unfurling, growing past his past, stretching out into space, reaching upward like a man about to pluck an apple from a tree.
That act would cost mankind its life.
CHAPTER 25
2492 A.D.
Dock was a master publicist.
The “Mars Shot” was a unique event that featured one of his top artists.
Anything that happened concerning any of his media clients would be fit with a Silver Lining. Good was good, bad was better, a rule of thumb. The Mars incident did not need much tweaking. Plain facts and the spectacular footage played well to owners, operators, miners, and support staff.
To his surprise, Kyle and the band were instant interplanetary heroes. Marsbase, a key stepping stone into the Deep, was safe. A great outpouring of support for the Cosmics flooded in.
The band was officially, overnight, part of the galactic family. Indeed, many a Martian miner was at that moment raising a glass to the band that saved their ass!