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 presence. “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.
At the hour mark, Chase again reiterated that it had been slightly late on the last occasion.
Steve shushed him and kept staring with an intensity etched on his face like nothing the others had seen in the past. Just a few seconds later, his entire body relaxed as the light belatedly flashed.
“Just like last time,” Chase said, breathing a sigh of relief even deeper than Steve’s.
But then, for the first time ever, the light flashed again.
And again.
No one moved or spoke for several seconds, until Steve’s head suddenly shot round and he locked his eyes on Chase. “It’s a warning,” he said breathlessly. “Chase… it’s a warning!”
Chase stood momentarily stunned as Steve ran off in the direction of the Kompound’s control centre. Marcel set off after him first, at which point Chase shook himself out of the shock and followed in their footsteps. He quickly overtook Marcel and caught up with Steve as he entered the control centre.
“We’ll talk to them,” Chase said. “There has to be a simple explanation for this. We just need to—”
Steve interrupted by tossing an emergency EVA suit in Chase’s direction. “Talk to them? We don’t know what the hell has happened out there!
” he cried. “We need to get out of here while we still can.”
Chase looked down at the EVA suit draped on his arms. “Steve, we have one emergency rover and it’s been sitting at the airlock for a year. Look at the status warnings: it hasn’t communicated with the system for months! If you go outside in that thing, EVA suit or not, and we’re talking about if it even starts up, we don’t know if the shielding will hold up. None of the new rovers were ever tested after a year of inactivity. You could die out there, man, and for what? If something was actually wrong, they would talk to us. Look around you: there are speakers they could use if there was something we had to know. All we know is—”
“What I know is that we’re not safe here,” Steve interrupted, his tone and expression both as unsettling as any Chase could remember. He was now beyond paranoia and uncertainty, with laser-like focus on a ‘solution’ that might well amount to nothing more than an unwitting and painful suicide. “Or maybe something bad has happened out there and that’s why they’re not talking. Or maybe the triple-flash was an automatically triggered SOS call because the flash was late? Those are the things I don’t know, and I’m not sticking around in some faint hope of finding the answers before it’s too late. So you can come with me or you can stay in here, but I’m leaving.”
Chase dropped his EVA suit to the floor and inched closer to Steve. His reply was simple and authoritative: “No you’re not.”
Steve pushed him firmly in the chest and headed back out of the control centre towards the others. “Watch me,” he said, answering without so much as a backwards glance.
twenty-two
“I thought maybe I hadn’t pressed it hard enough the first time!” Bo said, nervously panting out the words as he tried to explain his serious error to the whole group who had now joined Christian in rushing to find out what he’d done.
Terradox Quadrilogy Page 77