The Dark Side

by Anthony O'Neill

“Have you met QT Brass?”

  “I’m not even sure what she looks like.”

  “What about Fletcher Brass, her father?”

  “As I understand it, he’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

  “Well, that’s a fact. But you know all about him, though? Everything he’s done here?”

  “To me, he’s just another citizen.”

  Reilly seems pleased with the answer. “You don’t belong to anyone, do you, Lieutenant? Not even to the Patriarch of Purgatory?”

  “I answer to the law, like everyone else.”

  “And you’d throw Fletcher Brass in the slammer just as quick as any two-bit shoplifter?”

  “If he’d committed a crime, and if I had sufficient evidence, then I’d certainly arrest him. But it’s not up to me to issue sentences.”

  Reilly, scribbling something down, is practically grinning now. “Then what about all the others in Purgatory—mobsters, war criminals? You’re not scared of them either?”

  “Whatever they did on Earth is no longer my concern. It’s what they do here that’s my business.”

  “And you’re not doing this for kicks, right?”

  “I’m not interested in doing anything for kicks. A lecturer of mine at the police academy used to have a favorite saying: ‘A man with a hammer will find plenty worth hammering.’ Well, I’m not interested in hammering anything, unless it would fall apart otherwise.”

  “But there must be some particular attraction for you here in Purgatory, yeah? The idea of cleaning up a cesspit like this?”

  “You call it a cesspit. To me, it’s just another precinct.”

  “You can’t really mean that?”

  “Whether it’s Earth or the Moon, an assault is an assault, a robbery is a robbery, and a murder’s a murder. Gravity doesn’t change that.”

  “What about the fact that there’s no CCTV here? No radar?”

  Reilly is referring to the fact that Purgatory is a “surveillance-free zone.” It began as a necessity and became a means of attracting tourists, because on Earth there’s barely a square inch that’s not being watched, probed, or listened to.

  “It makes things more challenging, certainly,” says Justus. “I guess it makes the law as old-fashioned as the furniture.”

  Reilly snickers. “How about your gravity adjustment, then—how’s that coming along?”

  “I took a two-week course at Doppelmayer before I got here.”

  “So you’re already well acclimatized?”

  “I still overshoot the mark occasionally. I bounce off walls. Nothing serious.”

  “And the Purgatory Police Department? How have you slotted in there?”

  “Everyone in the PPD has been very cooperative.”

  “You didn’t put any noses out of joint, though, getting your lieutenant stripes without having served here first?”

  “Well, I wasn’t responsible for that. And the circumstances are unique. I think the others accept that.”

  “What about the locals—in Sin, I mean? How do you find them?”

  “Suspicious, but that’s to be expected. And again, I’m not here to judge anyone. I’ve always believed in redemption. I believe in sin too, but even more in redemption.”

  For some reason this answer seems to unsettle Reilly, so he flips a page and goes on hurriedly.

  “And friends? Have you made any friends yet?”

  “I’m not here to make friends. Or enemies.”

  “And women? What do you make of the Purgatorial women?”

  “They’re female.”

  Reilly has reached the last page of his notepad and suddenly seems a little hesitant. “Okay, just one last question. And I hope you don’t take this personally. But it’s about your appearance.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, you were obviously in a fire or something, right?”

  Justus is sure the reporter already knows the truth, but he answers anyway. “I had a vial of nitric acid flung at my face.”

  “By that drug baron back in Phoenix?”

  “By someone acting on his orders.”

  “And that’s partly the reason you came here?”

  “Partly.”

  “Then you know we have some excellent surgeons here—doctors who can give you a whole new face in two hours?”

  “And I’m sure it would be a very handsome face too.”

  “But you wanna stay the way you are? To remind yourself of the past?”

  “Let me put it this way, Mr. Reilly. You asked about the name Justus before—whether it was Swedish. Well, the truth is it’s Scottish—that’s where my ancestors came from, anyway. And the Justus clan in Scotland has a motto. Care to hear it?”

  “ ’Course.”

  “Sine non causa. That’s it. ‘Not without a cause.’ ”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I. But I figure that when it comes to that acid, it was flung in my face ‘not without a cause.’ Because maybe I’m just meant to look this way.”

  Reilly, folding his notepad and getting to his feet, shakes his head in admiration. “My readers are gonna love you.”

  “I don’t care if they love or hate me, Mr. Reilly, as long as they obey the law. I look forward to seeing you around.”

  When Reilly closes the door Justus catches sight of his own reflection in the glass. He’d been pinned to his bed, struggling to rise, when the acid was splashed over him. He lost his eyebrows, some of his nose, part of his ear, and a whole lot of facial definition. But generally speaking the scarring is remarkably even—as if he’d been attacked by a particularly caustic starfish—and people who don’t know the truth sometimes assume he’s had himself purposely burned, just to look distinctive.

  He’s just about to get back to his work—he’s still familiarizing himself with Purgatory’s judicial system—when the door squeaks open. It’s Dash Chin, a sprightly young Chinese officer who’s been assigned to him as an aide.

  “How’d the interview go?”

  “Just fine.”

  “Reilly didn’t piss you off?”

  “No more than any other reporter I’ve met.”

  Chin chuckles. “Wanna know what he did back on Earth?”

  “Not really.”

  “He was the first at a crime scene. The lead singer of some boy band had left two teenage hookers overdosed on heroin. They were dying. But Reilly didn’t lift a finger to save them. Just let them die, so he’d have an even better story.”

  Justus shrugs. “Well, that was a long time ago.”

  “Fifteen years. And now he’s the number one reporter here in Sin. You must be big, to get his attention.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  Chin laughs again. “Speaking of which, you ready for a crime scene right here?”

  “There’s a crime scene?”

  “A five-one.”

  It takes Justus a second to remember the PPD codes. “A homicide?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, when was it called in?”

  “Twenty minutes ago.”

  “From where?”

  “The Goat House. Out at the Agri-Plex.”

  “And no one’s taken charge?”

  “You’re the man, Lieutenant.”

  Despite himself, Justus is startled by the casualness of the message—not even in Vegas had homicides been announced as an afterthought.

  “Well,” he says, reaching for his zapper and brass badge, “let’s get on over there.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  They leave the room together.

  05

  ENNIS FIELDS IS A lunatic. And a cannibal. Twenty-four years ago, in Vancouver, he got thoroughly sick of his second wife. So he slit her throat like a kosher butcher, peeled away her skin, trimmed off her substantial fat, and cooked her on the hob. He pan-fried her muscles; he sautéed her brains; he boiled her bones; he minced the leftovers; he enjoyed a leisurely dinner; then he deposited on the doorstep of his mother-
in-law a cardboard box containing “one of Maggie’s delicious pork pies.”

  By the time the police finally caught up with Ennis Fields, in Alberta eighteen months later, he had killed and partially eaten a further three women. During interrogation he confessed to four earlier murders as well.

  He was sentenced to eight consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole. But at Kingston Penitentiary, though ostensibly in high-security confinement, he was brutally beaten and left for dead on the orders of a prison kingpin (a distant cousin to one of his victims). He was lucky to survive. So his lawyers pleaded for relocation to a safer place of confinement—a much safer place of confinement. The appeal ended up on a desk at OWIP, and within months a deal was arranged with Canada’s Correctional Service.

  Fields has now lived alone in Gagarin Crater, thirty kilometers northeast of the habitat once occupied by Kleef Dijkstra, for seventeen years.

  He reads a lot of books (true crime, mainly, though he enjoys a good romance novel). He prepares a lot of Spanish dishes (his freezer is crowded with chorizo and Serrano ham). And he constructs a lot of ingenious mechanical inventions (when he wasn’t eating widows, Fields was a leading Canadian toymaker).

  But he also enjoys anything that breaks up his routine—a visit, especially. In all his time on the Moon, Fields has received fewer than fifty “guests,” and he always makes them welcome. He gets out his best crockery, his best liquor, his best homemade cookies—even for his jailers. Even for the androids. Fields has always been a charming host. It’s what made him so successful as a killer in the first place.

  “Are you going to be coming here regularly?” he asks, handing over a glass of sangria.

  “I shall not, sir,” says the handsome droid. “I am going to finish this energizing drink and be on my way, thank you very much.”

  “And where did you say you were going?”

  “I am going to El Dorado, sir.”

  “Can’t say I know it.”

  “I believe it might also be known as Oz.”

  “Oz?”

  “Oh-zee. Oz.”

  “I’ve not heard of a place called Oz either—not on the Moon.”

  “I want to go to Oz.”

  “Both El Dorado and Oz?”

  “I understand they are the same place, sir.”

  Fields, lowering himself into a rug-lined armchair, thinks about it. “Are you perhaps talking about the mythical Oz?”

  “I do not understand that question, sir.”

  “Well, I thought you might be—you know—the Tin Man. On his way to Oz.”

  The droid looks at him strangely. “I am not the Tin Man, sir. I am the Wizard.”

  Fields, like Dijkstra before him, shrugs off a brief presentiment of danger. “Well, if it’s a major human settlement you’re after,” he says, “the only one we’ve got on Farside is a place called Purgatory.”

  “Purgatory?” The droid’s face registers something. “I thought Purgatory was a metaphor?”

  “Not on the Moon it isn’t. Purgatory is an actual place—with banks and hotels and everything. Are you really sure you’ve never heard of it?”

  “Are you calling me a liar, sir?”

  There’s a steely undertone to the question which Fields again chooses to ignore. “Purgatory is in the northern hemisphere,” he goes on. “Inside a crater called Störmer. It’s the territory—the kingdom—of Fletcher Brass.”

  “Fletcher Brass.” Again the droid hesitates.

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “I have not, sir.”

  Fields crosses his legs, happy for the chance to explain. “Brass is an aerospace billionaire. Or trillionaire. He got in hot water on Earth and escaped to his territory in Störmer Crater. Called the place Purgatory because he thought he was only going to be there until he got things sorted out. But he spent so much time in microgravity that it became unsafe to return to Earth. So he decided to stay. And he invited all his white-collar-criminal buddies to join him, along with any other lowlife who had enough money to make the trip. So the capital city there—it’s called Sin, by the way, named after the Babylonian moon god or something—is like some huge haven for crooks and deviates. I would’ve escaped there myself if I had the chance.”

  The droid, no longer sipping the sangria, considers for a moment. “Do you think this Purgatory might have been mistaken for Oz, sir? Or El Dorado?”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “And how far away is it, sir, in metric measurement?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—about two thousand kilometers.”

  “And you said you would like to go there yourself?”

  “Well, I would have, but not anymore.”

  “Why not, sir?”

  “Because I’m not sure I’d be welcome. I have nothing to offer them. And besides”—Fields smirks—“I like it too much here now anyway, eh?”

  The droid takes a moment to look around at the overcrowded bookshelves, the moldy shag carpet, the artificial wood fire. “Nevertheless,” he says, “you will be willing to guide me there?”

  It’s said almost as a statement, and Fields chuckles—it’s like dealing with a difficult customer. “Look,” he says, “the truth is I’m not allowed to leave this place. I’m here as part of a program.”

  “OWIP?” asks the droid.

  “You’ve heard of that?”

  “I have, sir.”

  Fields wonders if the droid has been sent for a hidden reason. In the early years of his incarceration he’d been the subject of a few psychological studies. Once, a female psychologist was sent around to liaise with him, become friendly with him, even flirt with him. And at first he was extremely gentlemanly. When his heater was busted once he even took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. But then one day his urges overcame him—it had been so painfully long since he’d eaten human flesh—and right in the middle of a friendly chat he leaped up and tried to cut her throat. Only to find that she was not a woman at all, but an android—just as lifelike as the one he’s hosting now.

  “Are those spots of oil on your shirt there?” he asks, adjusting his glasses.

  “They could be.”

  “Are you—you know—in need of attention or something?”

  “What sort of attention, sir?”

  “Well, you might have a fault, eh? I’m good with machinery.”

  “I am delighted to hear that, sir.”

  “So do you want to take off your shirt, maybe? So I can have a look?”

  The droid is still smiling. And staring—intensely, with a strange new aura about him. “Are you trying to fuck me, sir?” he asks.

  Fields chuckles. Oddly enough, a sexual thought had never crossed his mind. But now he has to wonder if the droid has been sent to test him—to see if his preferences have changed or something. “That’s a strange question,” he says.

  “Do you intend to answer it, sir?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Fields smirks, thinking about it. “Do I want to fuck you? That depends. Do you want to be fucked?”

  “I do not, sir,” the droid replies coolly. “In this world you either fuck or get fucked. And I am always a fucker, sir.”

  Now things are really getting weird, Fields thinks. He’s never heard a robot talk like that before. He didn’t even know it was possible. And the thing is still smiling. “What if I show you where Purgatory is on a map?” he says. “Would that make you happy?”

  “That would make me extremely happy, sir.”

  When Fields comes back with his lunar atlas the droid is already on his feet. Fields opens the book on the dining table and flips to the page showing Farside. “I can go into more detail if you like, but we’re here.” He points to Gagarin Crater. “And if you want to reach Purgatory, you’re going to have to go all the way up here.” His finger runs up the page, past Marconi, Kohlschütter, and Tsu Chung-Chi, through the Sea of Moscow, past Nikolaev and van Rhijn, and finally to Störmer Crater. “That’s it—Purgatory. Right t
here, pretty much due north. I think there are official paths now, roads for astronomers and the like. If you have any luck you might find one of them.”

  “It’s not called Purgatory on this page, sir.”

  “Well, this is an old map.”

  “May I take it, sir?”

  “The map? Of course. But I doubt it’ll do you any good.”

  “And why is that, sir?”

  “Well, it’s not like there are signposts. And the features on this page are very sketchy. If you get lost, you’ll stay lost.”

  “But I can always ask someone else, closer to my destination?”

  “If you can find someone.”

  “And you still refuse to take me?”

  “I can’t,” says Fields. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  “I would be banging my head against the wall to keep asking you, would I?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Then I am sorry to hear that, sir.”

  “I’m sorry too. But everyone has restrictions, eh?”

  The droid looks at him for a few seconds, unblinking, then nods and straightens. “I will take this map.” He detaches it neatly from the atlas. “And I thank you for the delicious alcoholic beverage. It was most appreciated. I am disappointed that you chose not to be of further assistance, but in that regard I will not keep banging my head against the wall.”

  Fields, like Dijkstra, is suddenly feeling like he’s had enough of this peculiar droid. “It was a pleasure doing business with you,” he says. “If you’re ever in the area again and you see the light on, well, you’re welcome to drop in.”

  “I am grateful for the offer, sir, but I doubt you will be seeing me again. Will you open the airlock for me?”

  “Sure.”

  Fields goes over to the control console and flicks some switches. There’s a buzzing sound as the inner door opens. He glances over his shoulder and sees the droid smiling at him.

  “Is that button you just pressed for the inner door, sir?” the droid asks.

  “That’s right.”

  “And which is the button for the outer door?”

  “That’s the orange one here. Why?”

  “I have a voracious curiosity, sir. Please do what you have to do.”

  Fields turns back to the console and is checking the safety gauges when he feels something close around the back of his neck. At first he doesn’t believe it—this isn’t supposed to happen—but then the grip tightens. The droid’s fingers are like talons. So Fields, very fit for his age, throws back his shoulders and thrashes his arms. But the droid’s hold is superhuman.