by R L Dean
The afternoon came and went.
He was in the process of reading Bingbing's daily advisories when Dispatch called and wanted someone from the department to assist with inspecting a rock-hopper that was suspected of transporting untaxed merchandise. Bingbing volunteered to go with Patel, but he sent O'Hara instead.
Around 1630 he was considering leaving, when his handcomm buzzed. He picked it up off his desk and checked it. It was Everett Long, the Assistant to the Chief Superintendent. He answered and the intense bureaucrat stared back at him from the screen.
"Come to the office," he said without preamble.
Tetsuya opened his mouth to reply but Long closed the connection.
* * *
Division B was small. The actual number of officers, department heads, and support staff fluctuated with transfers and promotions, but was never more than twenty. Administration consisted of three senior officers. Chief Superintendent Thomas Bratton, Long his assistant, and Joan Cho, the Personnel Administrator. All three of them were waiting for him in Bratton's office.
Bratton reminded him of a perfectly groomed and manicured weasel. When Tetsuya entered through the office hatch Bratton was talking to Cho, he turned and a thin smile that showed the edges of his teeth split his sharp face.
"Tetsuya," he said, like Tetsuya was a friend he hadn't seen in a long time. "Come in, come in."
Bratton waved a hand to the chair across from his desk.
On Earth, or even the Moon, someone in Bratton's position would have a separate office, but on a rock like Butte he was forced to share the space. Long's desk was near the hatch, opposite Bratton. He was studying his handcomm, flipping through screens, and didn't look up.
Cho sat on the couch against one bulkhead holding her handcomm and a thin binder in her lap. Her long limbs made her appear bunched up, uncomfortable. Of the three she had been on Butte the longest, about eight years. Bratton and Long might both be slippery enough to move on, get a posting back on Earth, but for Cho this was the end of the road. Much like Tetsuya himself.
Tetsuya sat.
"Coffee?" Bratton asked him ... still that smile on his face.
"No, thank you," Tetsuya said. "What's this about?"
Bratton's smile grew wider and he leaned forward, folding his hands on his desk. "That's what I like about you, Tetsuya. Always to the point."
That was a lie. No one in Division B liked Tetsuya, especially Administration.
"What do you say to being a detective again?"
Tetsuya stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"The piracy issue is causing a back log of cases," Bratton explained. "Regional is sending some of those cases here, to us. And we need someone to head up the investigations. I want that to be you."
"You want me to investigate the pirate attacks because somebody at the Secretariat pushed off his work?"
Behind him, Tetsuya heard Long leave his seat.
"You disrespectful ape, this is the Chief Superintendent you're talking to!"
Tetsuya felt his face turn hot, and gripped the arms of the chair to stand. But Bratton raised a hand and said in a low voice, "That's enough, Everett. Sit back down."
Long huffed, then there was the sound of him easing back into his chair. After a moment Bratton shifted his eyes back to Tetsuya.
"That somebody would be Operations Commander Bhargava. I believe you met him, before your transfer here. Even I haven't met him in person."
Yes, he had met Bhargava. He was present at the inquest. Tetsuya had stood at attention while Bhargava spoke around him to an Internal Affairs captain.
Bratton continued. "Look, Tetsuya, you were with Criminal Investigations for fourteen years. I don't have anyone else with that kind of experience, and Bhargava is getting pressure from the Commissioner, so this has to be done right. Like it or not, you're what I've got."
Was Bratton making a sells pitch or an issuing an order? Or, am I being baited, he asked himself. Bratton was using the Operations Commander's name like a stick behind his back, a partially concealed threat.
"I have my own case load," he told Bratton. "I'm the Transit Authority Superintendent, if you remember."
Bratton actually laughed and shook his head. "You misunderstand." He nodded to Cho who gave him a wan smile and leaned forward on the couch, handing him the binder that was in her lap.
"You will be detached back to Criminal Investigations," Cho told him. "Of course, you will retain your position. The particulars are there."
"Detached back to Criminal Investigations," Tetsuya repeated.
"Oh come on, Tetsuya," Bratton said. "You'll be back in the game. That's what you really want, isn't it? And it'll be your department, you can run things like you want."
Bratton's voice had taken on a silky quality. Tetsuya could image it was what the biblical serpent in the garden sounded like when tempting Eve. Ye shall not surely die ...
But ... Bratton was right, he wanted back in. Being a detective was a ... calling ... something down in his bones. Perhaps something even more, his identity as a human being. His transfer to Butte wasn't exile— being forced out of Criminal Investigations and 'promoted' to manning a desk in the Transit Authority department was the exile.
The Chief Superintendent expected him to jump at this chance.
"Uh-huh. What's Baldwin going to say about this?" He asked. She was the acting department head and might have something to say about Tetsuya coming in as the Superintendent, even if it was temporary.
Bratton sat back in his chair and smiled, he knew Tetsuya had made up his mind and was just dickering. "Baldwin's in over her head," he said. "Under normal circumstances she would be fine, but with the haulers and miners not moving the station's population is no longer in flux, it's growing. Which means more crime."
That was true. Petty theft alone was up by fifty percent, assault over a hundred percent, and the number of murders were unprecedented in the history of the station.
Putting his hands behind his head Bratton finished with, "It's simply too much for her. She'll go back to being a section leader, and you'll straighten things out, get the department on track."
"Right," Tetsuya replied. "What about TA?"
Behind him Long exploded. "What does it matter! We'll handle TA!"
Tetsuya turned in his chair. "It matters."
Bratton sighed, leaned forward again and put his hands on the desk. "Alright, it matters. Tell me about it."
"Officer Wei should stay in her current position. She's good at it."
"Sure, I think I understand. Anything else?"
Tetsuya shook his head. "No."
"Good, then," Bratton said, and turned to Cho. "Joan can start the ..."
Tetsuya folded his arms and said, "What's this really about?"
Bratton looked back to him, one eyebrow raised. After a moment he huffed and sat back heavily, his smile fading.
"Being stiff is what landed you here, Tetsuya. Take what I'm offering you."
When Tetsuya remained unmoved Bratton shrugged and added, "Annual rotations are not far away, I could put in a good word." Then his face and voice turned hard as flint. "Or, you can stay in TA."
And rot. That's what Bratton was implying.
Three minutes later Tetsuya walked out of Bratton's office. Shutting the hatch behind him he leaned against the tunnel's bulkhead and took a deep breath. After a moment he pulled his handcomm out of his pocket and called Itsumi.
"Tetsuya?" She asked in her small, feminine voice.
"I'm going to be late," he told her.
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah. Just got some stuff to do at the office." This wasn't the place to tell her he was going back to Criminal Investigations.
"Okay. What should I do about supper?"
"You eat," he said. "I'll pick something up."
"No," she replied. "I'll wait."
She didn't like him eating out of vending machines or the fast food kiosks scattered throughout the station.
<
br /> "Alright. I'll be home as soon as I can."
Itsumi nodded her head once in the little screen and closed the connection.
Tetsuya stared at the deck for a long moment, then shoving the handcomm back in his pocket he pushed off the bulkhead, heading back to TA to collect his things. From the moment he walked in Bratton's office that hadn't been a real choice for him. Everyone in the room knew that he would take Bratton's offer. The question was, was Bratton using him to 'snub' Bhargava?
3 - Mat
The Sadie's velocity had climbed to almost 35,000 kpm. Thirty hours from the Moon Yuri completed his maneuvers and they were lined up for Ganymede, and now on a straight path she was gaining her wings. Without its canisters the ship looked like a missile with a large thruster assembly fanning out behind it, a trail of light pushing it through the big black.
Mat sat at the command station. On his screen he was watching Haydon and Misaki out on the hull. One of the thick steel plates had been removed and the vac-suited mechanic and engineer were on their knees beside the exposed cavity. Misaki was bent down, her arms inside the hull up to her elbows. Off Haydon's shoulder the camera picked up a small dot of light hanging in the blackness. His terminal said it was Mars. As fast as the Sadie was moving that dot hadn't seemed to change in size since he last noticed it.
Across from Mat, sitting slack jawed in the cockpit's seat Yuri suddenly snorted and woke up. He squeezed his eyes tight then blinked, looking at his own screen. He flipped through the displays a couple of times, then unstrapped and left the Flight deck, the main access tube's hatch clamping shut over his head.
The Russian pilot had been in a mood since the Moon.
It was Misaki. Yuri still harbored some suspicion toward her. He had never completely bought her story about wanting to hide from her Free Mars Now terrorist ex-boyfriend, and resented her for what he perceived as outright manipulation of Mat into letting her alter the Sadie's crew manifest with false information— a highly illegal act that could have landed them all in prison. Yuri had raised his concerns at the time, and Mat had vetoed him.
Mat had thought that after the manifest passed UN scrutiny at Butte— and again at Harmony dome— Yuri would feel better about his decision. But that hadn't been the case. After the Apex plant and Harmony dome were destroyed, in what the media was now calling an act of sabotage, the Sadie was security-quarantined for over a week on the Moon. It was only after they were released and Yuri was flying the ship to the Belt— with Misaki left on the Moon— that he seemed to put the past in the past. And conversely, when he found out that upon dropping their canisters at Autolycus they would also being making a stop at Osaka dome, the past came to the present again. In all, Yuri treated Misaki with indifference, tolerating her presence because she was now officially crew. He may not like her, but he understood her value as an engineer. Mat could only hope that in time Yuri would warm up to her. Well, as much as Yuri warmed up to anybody.
The comm channel was open to their vac-suits and Mat was listening, but Haydon and Misaki exchanged few words during their work. They suited one another, and Haydon had immediately fallen back into the role of an apprentice the day that Misaki came on board. The ex-soldier was under no illusions about his abilities as a mechanic. Misaki had refused Mat's offer to make her Chief Engineer, instead contracting as an engineering crewman, but Haydon still referred to her as chief and followed her lead. For her part, Misaki ignored his deference to her in favor of getting the work done. And the Sadie needed a lot of work.
The Belt hadn't been kind to the old ship. Haydon had a list of things that needed to be repaired, and once Misaki was aboard, and as soon as they were out of heavy thrust, she had started on it. But, as far as Mat knew she added more to the list than she checked off. The work was therapy for her, he understood that.
Misaki had never spoken of the horrors she faced on the pirate tug, but there were scars on her body that told the tale. There were scars deeper in her, Mat knew, left over from the kind of wounds that break people forever. But, somehow through the forced drug addiction and brutality Misaki had held on.
A testament to her will, Mat believed.
Those months ago when Misaki intended to leave the ship at Butte, Mat thought she was trying to get away from him. Then, he had known he was being selfish, but looking back he realized he was also being immature. She wanted to return home and be with her mother. Not get away from him. It wasn't until they arrived at Harmony dome that she explained this. Understanding hadn't made it any easier when he left her there at the tram station.
Mat didn't know the whole story of the time Misaki spent with her mother, and it was unlikely that she would share it unless he asked. What he did know was that her mother was taken to the hospital minutes ahead of the first wave of survivors from Harmony dome's destruction. She received lung surgery, and now she was doing better. He also knew that her mother was afraid that Misaki would end up working in the refineries, and wanted her off the Moon. What he didn't know was why she chose to return to the Sadie ... to Mat. She was aware of how he felt, he wore his feelings for her on his sleeve. And she undoubtedly felt some pressure being around him. With her engineering skills she could have contracted with a dozen other ships, or even an engineering firm on Earth. Yet, here she was, on his screen fixing the ship, as though nothing had changed.
As he watched the two work, Mat came to a realization— and epiphany. Misaki was here, back aboard the Sadie, to heal. She couldn't do that with the unfamiliar crew of another mining vessel or buried in the bureaucratic toil of a large engineering company. So, she had come back to the familiar. She navigated Mat's feelings and endured Yuri's disdain because she felt something here that made her comfortable, feel safe.
Mat took a deep breath and made a vow to make it easy for her, then thought, if fixing this rust-bucket is what makes you feel better, I hope it's worse off than Haydon says.
His ruminations on Misaki's presence in his life again were interrupted as the hatch unlocked and flipped opened, and Yuri came up, hopping across the deck in the microgravity generated by thrust. He wordlessly strapped into the cockpit and checked his screens.
"Hey guys," Mat said into his commlink. "You about ready to eat?"
"I think so, boss," Haydon responded. On his screen the mechanic was pulling a handtorch from his tool belt.
Thirty minutes later a sweaty faced Haydon and Misaki— and a too sober Yuri— were sitting at the table while he pulled mealboxes from the heater.
Misaki finished quickly, but sat politely and waited until Haydon was done, then they both returned to engineering.
Her presence back in my life, Mat considered as he finished his rice and pork bits. It was nice to have her back. In out-system the time would begin to stretch, routines would become habits, and work would become life, and he hoped that somehow she would be put back together again. That she could find healing here on the Sadie, with him.
4 - Alexandria
Five hundred meters below were the masses ... walking, riding bikes, driving cars, and packed in the endless web of trams that crisscrossed lower Manhattan.
Standing with her arms folded over the breasts of her midnight-blue Versoti vest Alexandria stared out of the tall windows of her office. Thick, gray clouds of smog had rolled in that morning from the north, but on occasion a hole opened up and the sun glinted off the mirror windows of the skyscraper across the street. In the background a newsfeed played from her desk.
"With me today is United Nations Police Force Operations Commander Sanjay Bhargava to discuss the ongoing investigation of the terrorist attacks against the Apex Mining plant and Harmony dome. Commander Bhargava, you are in charge of the Special Security Team responsible for finding out what exactly happened ... how such a horrific act of terrorism could be carried out, is that correct?"
"The Special Security Team is a part of a larger joint effort between the Police Force and UN Security ..."
Bhargava's voice annoyed Alexandr
ia. She winced as it did something to her inner ear. So much for contemplating her beginnings and destiny. Closing her eyes for a moment she took a breath, then turned and walked to her desk, sitting down she silenced the newsfeed. Bowing her head and rubbing the back of her neck she tried to push Bhargava's voice from her mind. When her eyes caught sight of the files marked for her attention on the desk interface she ignored them, and pulling her handcomm from her purse she called Adam.
Her husband's handsome, and sweaty, face appeared on the screen.
"Yeah, hon?" He asked, wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag. He was in the backyard, she could see the largest of the maples over his shoulder.
"Just checking in," she said, giving him a smile. "How's your day going?"
"Trying to beat the smog," he said, looking down at something he was working on below the camera. It was coming down from the Quebec region. Canada's fifty year growth project was alive and booming with the construction of permafab slum cities.
"Oh, is Jason helping?"
He squinted and pulled at something. "No, he went with Jody ... up to Suffolk Harbor." Then, to allay her anxiety he added, "Jeanna drove them."
Not the tram.
"What are they doing at the Harbor?" The harbor was placid, you could see for endless kilometers over its smooth surface to the horizon, and excepting for the local Preservation Society's recent attempt to implant a coral colony it was devoid of life.
"The aquarium," he told her, the handcomm's camera tilting then pulling back up quickly, he must have almost dropped it. "I think there were some girls involved."
Well, that would explain it.
"I see. Okay, be sure to cover the azaleas. I'll let you go."
"Alright." The handcomm titled again, then disconnected.
Alexandria shoved the handcomm back in her purse and leaning back in her chair she blew a heavy breath, puffing out her cheeks. The files on the desk were still blinking at her ... some pieces of Greg and Rawlinson's joint investigation of Martha Catskill's embezzlement. Before admitting that she was behind the destruction of the Apex plant and Harmony dome Alexandria could have used the information in those files as a final nail in the CFO's coffin and forced her into retirement or jail. Now, after her confession to the board, Martha was digging into the cookie jar with impunity.