Year of the Child

by R L Dean

  Harmony: Book 2

  Year of the Child

  R.L. Dean

  Edited by

  J. N. McLaughlin

  Cover Illustration by

  Dusty Crosley

  Year of the Child, written and published by R.L. Dean

  © 2019 R.L. Dean

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Cover Illustration by Dusty Crosley (https://www.deviantart.com/dustycrosley).

  Prologue political cartoon In the Hands of Modi by W. R. Prince

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-7923-1658-6

  "Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward."

  —Psalm 127:3, KJV

  And, to all old cops ...

  FOREWORD

  The discerning reader will see the shadow of Yokoyama Hideo's protagonist, Mikami Yoshinobu, of his bestseller Six Four, in my character Takahashi Tetsuya. Never before has a character had such an impact on me.

  Yokoyama is a master of understatement. His characters have that lived in feel, as though they could be your neighbor. In Six Four it is easy to believe that each one of the police officers, news journalists, and their families are real people that were pulled into the story. Their lives interrupted by the circumstances that Yokoyama creates, or embellishes upon— it's impossible for me to make a distinction— to produce the narrative.

  For me, Mikami is an everyman, with nothing remarkable to his name, that suddenly finds himself at an intersection of past and present. Mikami and Takahashi are just cops trying to do their duty while coping with problems at home and the office, they are not so different from you or me.

  The similarities in circumstance that you see in Takahashi are a direct result of my meeting Mikami. Both have disparities in physical appearance, both have daughters that have run away, and both are facing unwanted politics at work. But that is where the similarities end, Takahashi is not a clone or 'copy' of Mikami. The two do not walk the same path and their destinations are very different.

  You can find Yokoyama's novel Six Four at Amazon. The most excellent audio version is narrated by Richard Burnip.

  Thank you for supporting my dream of writing.

  —R.L.

  PART 1

  Prologue

  1 - Misaki

  Mat was back.

  From the corner of her eye Misaki saw the Sadie glide in silently against the Moon's black sky, and Yuri— no doubt— at the controls, fire the little mining ship's maneuvering thrusters and begin a slow, vertical descent to the landing pad.

  In Peterson's coveralls and a duffel sitting on the deck beside her, she was standing in the tram station's terminal that connected to Osaka dome's Landing Zone, just outside the security checkpoint. From a screen mounted on the bulkhead beside the thick plexi windows that lined the terminal a newscaster was announcing the latest findings of the investigation into the Apex plant and Harmony dome's destruction.

  "... originally speculated that the plant's destruction was the work of Free Mars Now terrorists. Are you saying that is no longer the case, Susan?"

  "Correct, Roger. The UN Special Security Team has uncovered information that could implicate Ludwick Chaserman, a self-proclaimed union leader, in the initial sabotage that ignited the plant's tank farm, destroying the plant and subsequently hurling hundreds of tons of debris into Harmony dome, resulting in its destruction as well."

  Misaki felt numb.

  Two months ago Mat had dropped her at Osaka dome, and after being grounded for over a week, along with a hundred other mining ships, haulers, and civilian transports, while UNSEC began the initial phase of its investigation, he had taken a job in the Belt hauling water-ice.

  "Mister Chaserman, a former employee of Apex Mining and an outspoken critic of plant leadership, received a very large deposit into his account from a numbered source originating at the Shanghai Independent Bank and Trust shortly after the dome exploded."

  "Now, Susan, Mister Chaserman was known for leading violent protests, calling for a strike. And they haven't found his body. Is that right?"

  How could she feel anything but numb? Everywhere she turned were the newsfeeds ... UNSEC soldiers with rifles on every corner ... on every screen images of Harmony dome cracked open like an egg ... progress reports on debris clean up ... the endless stream of names to add to the death toll as more bodies were found.

  In fact, she hadn't really been listening to the feed ... just sort of staring at her reflection in the screen. Can they see it in my eyes, she asked herself.

  "In an interview earlier today Secretary-General Modi, once again, stated that the UN Council is considering chipping as a more secure alternative to retinal scanning ..."

  She turned from the expressionless image of herself, glassy and faded over the newscaster, to watch the Sadie's descent. All of her canisters were missing, Mat having dropped them at Autolycus, leaving the ship emaciated with her decks exposed— a thin, rust stained cylinder with a nosecone at one end and bulging thruster assembly at the other. He wouldn't be taking on new ones either, at least not here. Misaki's request to formally contract as crew had come on the heels of an offer from Apex Mining, they were in need of experienced miners at Ganymede. In the face of escalating piracy Apex hired a large security firm to guard the new mining base, making it the most secure location out-system. Which meant that every miner or hauler within five hundred million kilometers was headed there, hoping for a job. And given that Apex agreed to forgive him the loss of the canister— the canister that he used to disable the pirate tug Misaki was a captive on— it was an offer Mat couldn't refuse.

  Misaki liked that about Mat. If you peeled away the layers of complexity at his core you found family. Haydon and Yuri— his family— needed to eat. The Ganymede job was the best method to ensure that. Once you realized this about him, Mat became simple to understand. And today, mere minutes from now, Misaki herself would be welcomed back into that protective fold of his family.

  Nothing will have changed between the moment she stepped off the ship two months ago, to when she stepped back on it today. Mat's pent-up affection for her will not have abated, Haydon will still be a clumsy mechanic, and Yuri a drunk. On the surface it seemed like a setup for a soap opera, but if she had to leave her mother then she could think of no better place to go than the Sadie.

  That day, the day she blew the Apex plant, Mat rescued her from the ancillary destruction of Harmony, and in the chaos that followed he directed Yuri to take the Sadie to Osaka dome. It was where she had told him she intended to go when he left her at Harmony's tram station, to see her mother, and heal from the ... damage ... that the beasts of the tug had done to her.

  Her experience aboard the pirate tug was not something she ever expected to recover from, her only real reason for returning to her mother's side was to see that the person who hired her to blow the plant would fulfill their end of the bargain. It had been that thought— that hope— that kept her alive on the tug. She complied with whatever the brutes wanted, used her engineering skills to become useful, and willingly took the drugs that made her even more compliant. All so that she might survive yet one more day with the possibility of making her way to the Moon and blowing up the Apex plant and receive her promised payment.

  In retrospect there had been no way for her to force payment from the person that extended the offer to her. While aboard the Pendleton as an engineer she had received a text message with a hint that something could be done. The person knew of her mother's medical condition, her lungs dying with each breath she took from her years of working in the refineries, and said simply, I can fix that. Misaki immediately made th
e moral choice and replied, yes. Without ever knowing whom she was dealing with.

  At the time the Pendleton was mining gas in Saturn's atmosphere, and Misaki had intended to debark at Butte, where the ship would drop its canisters and pick up new ones. From Butte she would hire on a hauler bound for the Moon and complete her end of the arrangement. Then the tug attacked, the Pendletons were killed, and she was taken captive. She had only managed to stay alive because she agreed to unlock the ship's command terminal so the pirates could release the canisters of harvested gas.

  Beyond the terminal window the Sadie turned slightly, Yuri's final maneuvers to settle on the pad, and Misaki saw two turrets come into view where the number three canister would normally rest against the hull. Mat wasn't stupid. The Belt was safer than out-system, by the strict definition of the word.

  Osaka dome had been in the throes of confusion when Yuri found a pad to land on, Control yelling at him across the commlink to wait. The local authorities hadn't had time to process what had happened ... Harmony dome was hit by a meteor ... or the plant blew ... the sky was filled with debris and ships with no flight plans. They didn't know what to expect from the terminal's security or UNSEC, so when the Sadie's vestibule attached to the dock's airlock Mat shoved her in it and watched until she cycled through on the other side.

  Misaki wasn't sure what happened to them at that point. Swallowing down the horror of what she had done she fixated on why she had done it— her mother.

  The security checkpoint was not yet overwhelmed, the number of the ships making unauthorized landings was growing but the terminal didn't seem to have more than the normal flow of people— all of them glued to screens or their handcomms.

  A man was at the security desk, arguing with the officer seated behind it, insisting that he give him access to a priority security channel ... he had family in Harmony dome. When Misaki arrived the man glanced at her and then did a double-take, his eyes wide. It was a strange look. A tiny voice inside her head whispered, he knows. Then she realized he was staring at the maintenance vac-suit she was wearing ... she hadn't changed out of it, there hadn't been a need to nor the time. Across the front, in black paint, were the words Property of Harmony Maint. Dept.

  "You!" The man shouted at her, turning from the counter and rushing toward her. "Where are they taking the evacuees?"

  Misaki stared at him. Evacuees?

  She must have said it out loud, because the man's face went from desperate anger to incredulous. "Yes!" He yelled. "The evacuees!"

  Frozen, all she could do was stare.

  A UNSEC soldier came from the access tube on the far side of the terminal and pulled the man away, but a growing crowd had started to advance on the security desk. People had questions, and the security officer seemed like a likely candidate with the answers.

  It had turned hanpa nai then, as her mother would say when describing a tram station at shift change. Misaki managed to press her eyes to the retinal scanner, but the officer hadn't paid any attention to his screens or her as the crowd began flooding around the counter.

  She made it to the access tube just as it opened and was almost run over by UNSEC soldiers in vac-suits and a dozen first-responders following them. Beyond the tube she waited on the platform with a dozen others for the tram to return, when it did it disgorged more soldiers, medical personnel, and technicians. In passing, a man in a vac-suit with straps and catches for a welding rig glared at her for no discernible reason.

  Why did it seem like everyone knew?

  Finding a seat she sat down and pulled her handcomm from a pouch on the vac-suit's leg. It took a full three minutes for it to log in the dome's network; civilian channels were jammed as bandwidth was prioritized to security and emergency services. There was no rational reason to contact her mother, she would be in the small apartment they called home either tending to her potted plants or watching the newsfeeds like everyone else, and Osaka dome was far enough away from the Apex plant and Harmony to be safe from the ensuing destruction and debris fallout. Reaching out to her mother then had been an act of emotion ... an instinct.

  Misaki was never able to reach her, instead every handcomm in the tram car suddenly blared as one with the buzzing sound of an emergency broadcast. Her handcomm's screen flashed and a noticed appeared ... Harmony was the victim of a meteor strike— the dome was going on lockdown. It was still too early. In spite of the little voice inside her head insisting that every look, every glance in her direction was someone reading her guilt, no one yet understood that it was an act of sabotage.

  She supposed she should have expected it. The irony was that a week later the truth was discovered and Osaka dome's governor was still criticized for his response time in authorizing the dome's emergency lockdown. Her handcomm began to give her detailed instructions on reaching the nearest emergency decompression bunker from the dome's tram station. And twenty minutes later when the tram pulled inside the dome security personnel were standing on the platform directing the flow of passengers, and every screen in sight was flashing a meteor strike warning. There was suddenly a real need to contact her mother, but the dome's network had locked to the emergency channel and it would remain that way until it was decided the dome wasn't at risk.

  Ignoring the forming lines and security personnel, Misaki headed to the station's exit. Harmony dome served— had served— as a model for all future domes on the Moon. With some exceptions for architecture and basic design improvements, Osaka dome's streets and districts were lain out the same way. She took a moving walkway that would carry her across the commercial district. From there she would walk the familiar sidewalks past the dome's high school and again take a walkway that would end on a street corner across from the permafab apartments where she and her mother had lived for as long as she could remember. That had been her intention, but the walkway leading to the commercial district stopped short of her destination. UNSEC soldiers were forcing everyone off and through the hatchway of an emergency bunker that had risen from the sidewalk.

  She remembered thinking then that security would be going through the residential districts then, meteor strikes were mandatory evacuation events. Her mother and her neighbors would be taken to the bunker in front of the apartments, and there sit on cots until the all clear was given. There would be medtechs there with them, so she would be fine.

  The Sadie settled onto the concrete landing pad, lunar dust kicking up as the thrusters flared one last time. From the outside it looked no different than the landing of any other ship in the Landing Zone, the difference, she knew, was on the inside of the ship. There would have been a thunk, and a slight vibration, as the ship met the landing pad. A consummate drunk or not, Yuri knew how to fly a ship. He would have been working the control column with the tips of his fingers.

  For some reason Misaki's heart quickened. Watching the Sadie's vestibule extend toward the dock's airlock, she parted her lips slightly and took a breath.

  Misaki had been forced into the bunker along with a dozen others, and by the time the hatch was closed it was at capacity. They waited three hours before a UNSEC sergeant advised them of the all clear and raised the hatchway. In all it had been a nerve wracking experience. Not because of the confining space of the bunker, but because of her concern for her mother. She recalled literally mouthing the words she'll be okay several times while lying on the cot. Looking back, Misaki could say that she wasn't thinking clearly. There had been a pressure inside her head. After all, she had just killed thousands of people for the sake of her mother and couldn't reach her.

  The first place Misaki stopped was the bunker in front of the apartments. She didn't recognize any of the stragglers coming out of the hatch, so she approached one of the UNSEC soldiers standing on the sidewalk. When she asked, he consulted his handcomm and told her that her mother hadn't checked in the bunker ... she was at the hospital.

  Her mother would not have approved of her flagrant display of emotion and complete loss of decorum— to think
that she would actually run in front of men.

  When she reached the hospital the first casualties were coming in from Harmony. Using her handcomm she tried to locate her mother by the hospital records on the network, but the system was overloaded, the screen sat at waiting for connection for ten minutes before she gave up in frustration and joined the crowd at the information desk.

  Misaki couldn't put a name to everything she had been feeling all those weeks ago ... from leaving the Sadie, to being trapped in an emergency bunker, and finally finding her mother in the hospital. Yes, she had condemned thousands to die and quite literally disrupted the economy of the entire solar system, but her mother was alive. Her anonymous employer had met his end of the bargain.

  Her mother had been in the apartment watching the newsfeeds of the sudden destruction of the Apex plant and Harmony dome. Then— less than an hour after the plant blew— two men showed up at her door, one an Apex attorney in an expensive suit, and the other a representative from the hospital. They told her that there was an oversight regarding her insurance claim for the needed surgery to replace her lungs, and they were there to correct that oversight ... and given recent events she should come to the hospital now.

  The legal-speak would not have made sense to her mother, but she understood that she would receive new lungs. She signed the paperwork while they were taking her to the hospital. When Misaki found her they were taking her to prep for immediate surgery.

  That day, the day she blew the Apex plant, Misaki sat in the waiting room of the surgical ward while casualties were lined up on beds ... and both laughed and cried.

  Two weeks later her mother was transferred to the dome's convalesce center. And now that she was healing she wanted Misaki gone. The refineries were the only thing on the Moon, she had to leave. Her mother didn't want Misaki to suffer the same fate as she, the years of treatments, hospital visits ... heartache of fighting against the insurance company. It was the reason she had sent her to Mars right out of high school, and when Misaki returned pleaded with Roger Pendleton to take her on.