“Why do you say that?” Lash asked, an eye-ridge cocked with a small smile on her face. “How would I know?”
Marcus activated the mind-worm and saw the look of strain on Lash’s face. Marcus thought for a moment. She doesn’t get it. She might think she does, but she doesn’t. She’s going to have to find out at some point. Might as well let her have the whole story. He pushed himself to a sitting position, clearing his throat. “You might want to take a seat.” The whole time he had
“I’ll stand, thank you,” she said, leaning against the bulkhead by the chemistry set Marcus had cobbled together over the years since his escape. She pointedly ignored the injector rod, crossing her thin arms over her chest. Her hands stuck out wider than a human’s, and she wrapped her fingers around her shoulders, looking like she was giving herself a hug. A year ago, Marcus found her morphology disturbing. Seeing it before him now, he’d grown accustomed to the display with a slow realization.
“I was a slave of theirs,” Marcus muttered. He then looked up and realized what he had said. He shut his mouth with a click. Slag. His mind raced through the ingredients of the chemical serum, wondering if he had found some kind of truth serum.
“And?” She asked, her forced smile still plastered on her face. “I’m a created slave of a slave race for both humans and Eridani. Look how well that turned out.” She gave him a hard smile, showing the wide set of her teeth and the dark pink of her gums. “You aren’t the only one with pain and damage because of the Eridani.”
“I was a slave that didn’t know I was a slave. My wife, ex-wife, still behaves as though the Eridani are the Saviors of Humanity.”
“How do you know they aren’t?” Lash asked. Seeing his face, she held up a splayed-out hand, “Playing Devil’s Advocate here.”
Marcus felt the snarl on his lips but tried to relax. “For some time, I thought the peppermints had saved us from the Crawl. That The Line was the best defense against them. And, the Genoa happened.”
Lash looked confused. “The Genoa Incident? They said it was an inside—”
Marcus waved her to stop, closing his eyes for a moment. “It was a lie. A lie concocted by one of their best political thinkers. They call them Dreamers. You know what that is?”
Lash looked even more confused. “I thought that was a navigator on their ship?”
“Yes and no. It’s more than that, but it would take days to explain all of it to you. Hy-zong47 was one of their best. He also happened to be the task master for my section of the MDF. My master, as he called himself when it was just the two of us.” Marcus let out a little chuckle when he saw Lash’s mouth gape. “Yes, he was one of the older clones and had the audacity to call himself master in front of me.” Marcus closed his eyes. “He’s the one who ‘dreamed’ up the slagging bollocks of the Genoa Incident.”
“How do you know?” Lash asked, leaning forward with elbows on her knees.
“I was one of the MDF pilots that crippled the ship and made sure it went spinning past The Line to get infected and eradicated.”
“You were part of the Martian Defense Force?”
Marcus nodded. “Thought you knew?”
“I had an inkling, but nothing solid. Until now,” she said, eyes still wide from the revelation.
Marcus sighed, “Not something I bring up all the time.”
The two lapsed into silence for a handful of heartbeats before Lash asked, “So, why the injector?”
Marcus looked down at the small bump on his wrist where he’d used the injector. “It helps keep the nano-bastards in my bloodstream deactivated. Mostly. Otherwise, they would become active, creating a short-term beacon to alert the Eridani within range that I was an escaped slave.”
“Must be nice to be able to take an injection and people not try to kill or hunt you for sport,” Lash said with a sniff. “Nice indeed.”
Her tone grated on him. He’d just let slip a big secret, and that was her response. “Get the Slagging Hells out of here, Lash. I try to--”
“No, I want to know what happened,” Lash said, pulling a chair up and moving a little closer to Marcus on the bed. “Please,” she said. She reached out and touched his right hand, which had stopped with the burning pain when she did so. “What is that stuff?”
He looked at her. The touch was gentler than he had experienced with her. There was something in her eyes. Was it kinship? Something she shared with him? He took a long breath. She has helped you without needing to, trust her. “It’s to stop the nanites in my hand from flaring up and using any tech nearby to call for my owner. If I don’t inject myself with this stuff once and again, my own body would fight against me to call up Hy-zong48 and have him get me.”
“Is that all that would happen?”
“No, my hand would have the slave mark bloom on my hand and turn it black slowly over ten excruciating hours.”
“It sounds like—”
“Painful? You have no idea. It was something I figured out over a long time. Pain became a teacher for a time, you could say.”
“I know how you feel,” she said in a soft voice, not looking at him.
“How?”
She looked at him. “It’s better if I show you.”
He shook his head. No.
“Please, Marcus, I need—"
“I said stay out of my head, Spider.”
Without a word, she stood up, pushing the chair back violently as she stood. Then she turned and left his quarters. “I am sorry, Captain. I will inform you when chow is ready.”
Marcus closed his eyes, dropped his left hand over his eyes to block out the light and muttered, “Gideon, lock my door. No disturbances for the next few hours, please.” He needed sleep. Slaggin’ Spider. Who does she think she is?
“Affirmative,” Gideon chirped.
Marcus didn’t even register when his head hit the pillow; he was unconscious in moments.
Chapter Six
Marcus drifted in a restless sleep. At least, he thought it was sleep. He didn’t feel like he’d slept more than an hour when Gideon let out a loud beep that jolted him awake. He sat up, almost striking his head on the low-slung ceiling of his cabin. Again. He brought his arm up with him, slapping the underside of his arm on the ceiling first in an unconscious gesture. “What is—”
“Message for you, Captain,” Gideon said in his cheery voice.
There were times Marcus wanted to kill the AI, or at least drown out the cheery tone of the damn thing. It was Marcus’ own fault. He had had to cheap out on the voice modulator and ended up with a male voice and chipper attitude.
“Who is it?” Marcus asked, started to sit up. He tasted his mouth and wondered if he’d been smoking with his mouth tasting this awful. Then banished the thought. He hadn’t smoked since his last month as an MDF stick jockey.
“Hazon Genzu. You told me to stall him,” Gideon said.
Slag. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to brush sleep out of his eyes. “And, how long have you been doing that?”
“Ten minutes, sir.”
Slaggin’ Hells. “So, he’s really pissed, already?” Marcus asked, a sudden craving for a cigarette trickling through his brain.
“Voice analyzer says he is being calm. However, he did mention something about being a part owner and wanted to speak to—”
Marcus groaned and squeezed at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger until it hurt, and he saw ugly patterns in the black of his eyelids. Dammit, found a loophole. He claims he’s a part owner, Gideon knows it, and he can demand something. Double slag. “I’ll take the call here.”
“Affirmative.”
The massive bulk of Hazon Genzu appeared on the wall screen of Marcus’ quarters. A former sumo wrestler, Hazon was massive. His face was framed by a thin, salt-and-pepper beard that skirted his jawline. The hair on his head was more salt than pepper with his beard and moustache creeping towards the same color. He gave a smile that chilled Marcus to the core. Hazon rarely smiles. This isn’t a good call
.
“It is good to see you, Marcus,” Hazon said in near flawless English. “Where have you been?” His eyes narrowed a little more, making Marcus feel a panic of fear shoot through him.
Marcus pushed himself to a standing position. “I’ve been doing my job, Hazon. The thing you bought a stake in Junker for me to do, remember?” He felt his stomach roil from the remark, but he couldn’t show weakness to this man.
Hazon reached out of the frame to pull a bottle of souchou and a small cup, one that looked even smaller in the massive paw of the gangster, filled it, and nodded. He tossed back the entire contents in one pull and let out a satisfying hiss. When done, he looked back at Marcus. “Yes, but you have not checked in in some time. What am I to think? I was worried, Marcus. For you and my ship,” a grin spreading wide over his fleshy face with those last words.
“Your ship?”
“At least fifty percent of Junker is mine, and I still wish to have check ins at regular intervals for—"
“What do you want?” Marcus asked, feeling twitchy like he hadn’t gotten any sleep.
Hazon looked at Marcus with a glint in his eye and a wide white smile. This is not going to end well.
“Have you found anything?”
“Why are you asking, Hazon?” Marcus asked, pulling on his jacket and a pair of gloves, more than anything for something to do to not twitch under the gaze of Hazon.
“What? I am only checking up on my good friend. We are still friends, aren’t we, Marcus?” The greasy smile spread wider. He took another shot of souchou. “I’m simply curious if you have something for the upcoming payment.”
Marcus wanted to spit. There was no way this guy was a friend to anyone, let alone Marcus. “Yeah, we’re friends.” Marcus did his best not to roll his eyes. “What do you—”
“That is so good to hear,” Hazon then settled both of his massive hands together and rested his chin on them. “You haven’t contacted me in some time. I was worried you were trying to get out of our agreement.” The slippery smile returned. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”
Marcus cursed to himself. Slag, why is he bringing it up now? “Never, Hazon. I’m working away on that very agreement as we speak. In fact, I have something you will be very interested in. Probably enough to erase most of my debt as well.” As soon as he said it, he wanted to bite his tongue.
The bulk of Hazon leaned forward, his massive paws coming together to make a shelf for his fleshy jaw. “Oh? What does it do?”
Marcus gave him a shrug while he struggled internally for an excuse. “I’m not an engineer. It was in the cargo bay and looked like it had been guarded or hadn’t been installed yet.” He didn’t want to let on that the people he found in the armor weren’t First Xers. Or what the canister had done to the Crawl drone. Plus, he wasn’t lying to Hazon; he had no idea what it was. For a second, he thought about telling Hazon about how the Crawl drone did attack, but that wasn’t going to make things easier. Hazon would worry about infection of the Crawl. Even with such a large stake in Junker, an infected crewman landing on Mars wouldn’t be worth the effort. Hazon might let it slip to the right ears in the MDF, and Junker wouldn’t even touch down.
“Any chance the records were intact?” He asked, looking at Marcus with a focused look. His body leaning forward with a hopeful glint in his eyes.
Marcus shook his head. “Since when have you, or anyone, come across any pre-Crawl ship that didn’t have its records wiped? If I had, it would have been the first thing I told you.” Anyone who found any records intact from the pre-Crawl days would find themselves in a bidding war that would outmatch anything ever seen. A junkologist like himself would be able to buy a private asteroid in the Belt, or buy their way into the Mars’ Ministry or even a cushy place in the Jovian colonies for pre-Crawl records. There was the story of a scrapper named Collins that found a few megabytes of data of pre-Crawl engineering. Went into hiding in the Belt after selling the info for millions of credits, since he didn’t have any more data. Other rumors said he was killed when he refused to say where he got it. Marcus was sure of one thing. It was just a rumor.
Hazon shrugged. “Always a first time. A paranoid captain or engineer might have backed up their records and logs on a secure computer. Somewhere.” Hazon said. “Always a chance of another Golden Helix.”
Marcus hook his head. The megabyte of data that Collins had found mentions something about a yottabyte of info that scavengers all coined the Golden Helix since the pre-Crawl data came in a double helix design. “Feels like more and more of a myth. No way that exists.” Though he wasn’t sure himself, Marcus had heard it was a computer data core in a pre-Crawl ship dubbed the Golden Helix by those trying to find it. “The systems are always fried. Beyond anything we can do to put them back together. Hence the first days of the Long Night is called—”
Hazon waved a thick meaty hand in a dismissive gesture. “The Purge. Yes, I know. I was awake for third grade history class as well,” Hazon said, the smile back in place. “But you could find it.”
At least you went to school, Marcus grumbled to himself. And he doubted if he found it, he’d live long enough to sell it. He had lived on the Rim with his folks, the “habitable” band from Mars to the Belt that the Eridani “allowed” the humans to reside in, but they didn’t have the money or the skills to make it on Mars. It was little more than a dumping ground for humanity. It was where the Eridani shoved so many of the refugees from Earth, those clamoring to be “Saved.” It was also where Marcus had come into contact with his first pre-Crawl ship, and he wanted to see more of them. The drift colony he and his family were put on in the resettling was a derelict pre-Crawl luxury ship, stripped of useful items, but it allowed him to survive until he was old enough to join the “Saved” and the MDF at fifteen.
“What is this call really about?” Marcus asked. “I have work to do, Hazon.”
“Simply making sure you know what is expected of you is all,” Hazon said, his tone becoming serious. “Do have a good day. And, please be careful with my ship.”
“Your ship!” Marcus shouted at the blank screen. Hazon had already cut communication. The smiling face faded to static, then nothing. Marcus heard blood hammer in his ears for a second before he calmed down. Taking a few breaths, he finally relaxed. Then the pain in his hand started to throb again for a few heartbeats. Clenching his fist a few times, he mumbled, “I hate days like this.”
“He always pushes your buttons like that,” Lash said, appearing at the doorway of his cabin again.
For a moment, he wanted to scream at her to get out. On the other hand, she brought with her the aroma of food, and she was a damn sight better than Hazon. “I know. Still, I wish the bastard would just leave me alone for half a day.”
“It would be nice,” Lash said with a small smile. “Come on, lunch is ready.”
There was a moment of hesitation. “What’s on the menu?”
“Protein bars,” her voice echoing as she was already stalking away from his quarters.
“Yum,” Marcus said with a sour look.
“Just move it,” Lash shouted. “You need food.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” Marcus said. He gripped his hand a few more times; the pain was working itself out. Not the pain of the invisible tattoo; the last of the concoction was working properly. Finally. He shook off the call and reached for his hard copy of Treasure Island and went to go eat, his prized paperback book tucked under his arm.
Chapter Seven
Stepping out onto the deck plating, Marcus felt his stomach shift, even with years of living on the Junker. His stomach always flipflopped moving from one field to another if he stood too long in one spot. While he moved, there was a moment when his foot didn’t feel the pull down as hard from one step to the next. Damn deck seams, a place where the grav field wasn’t as strong. A moment later, a klaxon went off. His body felt weightless, and he drifted off the deck plating. “Sodding Hells, Lash. What’s—”
<
br /> “Deck plating is offline,” Lash said through his comm in his ear. “Need to keep it that way for a handful of moments.”
“Why?”
“Power fluctuation in main reactors,” her voice sounded strained and dampened by the high-pitched whines of the engines. “If we don’t, we could overload one of the—”
“For how long?” Marcus shouted, interrupting the technobabble. “I swear this bucket…”
He suddenly felt jerked towards the deck for a second before he bounced back up. “Lash!”
“Everything green, Marcus. She’ll keep flying,” Lash said, her vox box sounding less strained. “Relax.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes and looked at the bulkhead, setting a hand on it as he felt the hum of electricity and a slight surge of the engines. “You better hold together, old bucket,” he said, patting the bulkhead with affection. “We love you too much to let you fall out of the sky.”
Pushing himself with the help of the bulkhead, he made his way towards the common area. It was the central room for the ship, where the kitchen nook was off to Marcus’ right. It consisted of a food storage locker and a reheater unit. A small, half-open drawer for fresh fruits and veggies, which could never fully close no matter how many times they tried to fix the damn thing, hung open with a few stalks of green waving in the zero gravity. To his left, two old, patched couches that had seen better days. And there was a long table that served as their dining table, breakfast table, and currently held half of a machine that Lash was trying to reassemble.
When he entered the common room, the vid screen was on. There was some educational program, he could tell because of the bright colors. He knew Lash liked to listen to them, but he didn’t really pay attention to what was being said.
Lash’s voice crackled in his ear. “Deck plating coming—”
Gravity established itself and Marcus fell onto the couch.
Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series Page 5