Mars Rising (Domeworld Saga Book 1)

by John Corwin

  Killing Barnes was the point of no return, she reminded herself. It was this, or feed the father at the leisure of Alderman and Simmons. If she died, so be it. Simmons lost his chance to kill her when he didn't throw her off the Overlook bridge.

  Scarlett confirmed the way was clear again, and bundled the toughsuit and other items on the back seat. The cart seemed to turn more slowly than usual, as if giving the guard a chance to spot her with suspicious cargo. She saw him emerge around the corner at the far end of the garage, too far away to see anything.

  Moments later, she emerged aboveground and accelerated for the campus gates. It would have been much faster taking perimeter road, but she wasn't cleared to take the gate at the back of campus. Her only available path was going back through Central and then north. Barnes's thumb might open the back gates, but it wouldn't get her past the guard.

  The gates loomed just past Britain's street. A marshal stepped from a booth and opened his mouth to speak when he saw the toughsuit and other items on the back seat.

  He frowned. "Awfully late to be leaving campus. What's your destination?"

  "I'm working with Investigator Simmons on a case," she explained. "I'm Deputy Scarlett Flynn. He told me I'm cleared to come and go as needed."

  "Deputy? As in the civvie deputy?"

  She nodded. "That's the one."

  Eyes narrowed, he held out an epad. "Thumbprint."

  Scarlett did as instructed. The pad flashed a green word: Cleared.

  "Well, it seems you can go." He turned, hesitated. "Are you authorized to have that toughsuit?"

  "How else do you think I'd get one?"

  The guard mulled it over, but he wasn't done just yet. "I'll need to search the bag."

  "I have evidence in that bag, and I really can't be late." She sighed. "I have to interrogate a prisoner in town."

  "I'm sure your civvie business can wait."

  Scarlett's cheeks warmed. "I'll bet Simmons would like to hear that." She jabbed a finger at the gate. "Open it, now."

  The marshal shook his head and touched the hilt of a blaster holstered on his waist. "Not until I search that bag."

  Scarlett threw up her hands. "Fine!"

  He moved his hand from the blaster toward the zipper on the duffel bag. Scarlett pulled the stunner from the lab coat pocket and fired. The blue blast took him in the face. The guard yelped, body going rigid, and fell sideways to the ground.

  Scarlett hopped off the cart, ran into the booth and hit a red button. The gates slid open. She hopped back on the seat and gunned it for town. She didn't know how long the stun would last, but figured she had about five minutes before the guard alerted anyone.

  Her estimate was off by four minutes.

  Headlights bloomed over a rise about a quarter of a mile back. "Shit!" Scarlett found the cover over the button Simmons had used to speed up their cart in the brassworks and wondered if she should use it now or if it might drain the battery too quickly. She studied the digital readout above the control stick—93% charge.

  A quick glance back showed two pursuing carts gaining too quickly for comfort. Scarlett was still half mile or so to the intersection of Main and Alderman Streets where she needed to turn north. She wondered if she could lose the pursuers by taking a side street since they'd probably never guess her final destination. The guard might have assumed Scarlett was headed for the brassworks since she had a toughsuit.

  Scarlett flicked open the cover and hit the button. The cart lurched forward, motor whining with a high-pitched squeal. The battery charge indicator began to slowly count down, nearly a percentage point every couple of seconds. Scarlett was no mathematical genius, but she knew, at this rate, the battery would die before she got halfway from Central to the airlock.

  Keeping the stick forward, she reached into the back seat and dragged the toughsuit to the front. Working the zipper down required use of her teeth and free hand. She accidentally nudged the control stick to the side and tires squealed as it careened toward the edge of the road. She overcorrected. The cart lifted off two wheels before wobbling back down to all four, bouncing side-to-side.

  Sweat dribbled down her face. She wiped it away and worked a foot down into the leg of the suit. That done, she lifted her butt off the seat and positioned the suit beneath her. It took some flexibility to worm her other leg into the suit, but she managed it without driving off the road.

  The battery indicator hit 50%. By the time it reached 40, she'd worked her arms into the suit. Thankfully, the blue toughsuit didn't feel nearly as bulky as the orange ones from mechworks. She hoped it didn't drastically affect her dexterity, because her next moves would be critical.

  The cart flashed past intersections and into Central. She crossed Alderman Street instead of turning left, drove past the constable station and turned left at the corner of the saloon. Barlow McGee yelped and jumped back from the wall, urine streaming from his open fly. He took one look at the blue toughsuit and ran down the street, probably thinking Science Division was there to arrest him for illegal pissing.

  Scarlett would have laughed any other time, but she had only seconds to spare. The cart battery was down to 20%, but she didn't need it anymore. She skidded to a stop. Leapt to the ground, opened the duffel bag, and jammed the bubble helmet inside. The bag didn't want to zip back up, but she tugged on it until it closed all the way.

  Scarlett hoisted the strap of the duffel bag across her shoulders and squared it on her back then grabbed the bladewheel. She flicked it on. A quick peek around the corner showed the pursuing carts less than a block away. Her first attempt to mount the bladewheel proved disastrous. Scarlett wobbled and fell on her chest. The weight of the duffel drove the air from her lungs.

  Gasping, she pushed up, the duffel sliding sideways and threatening to fall off. With a grunt of anger, Scarlett gripped the strap and straightened it, climbed to her feet. She righted the bladewheel and mounted it, using the piss-stained wall for balance. Leaning forward, she urged the bladewheel forward just as the whine of electric carts closed on her position.

  The next street to the left headed back to Alderman Street. She turned the corner just as headlights flared around the wall of the saloon. She didn't know if the people on the carts saw her, and even if they did, their batteries had to be running as low as hers while the bladewheel had a full charge.

  Scarlett reached Alderman Street without any signs of pursuit and headed north as fast as she dared. Wind dragged at her, and she held tight to the duffel bag strap to keep it from sliding and pulling her off balance.

  Moments later, she left gray Central and reached the ranchlands. Up a rise, down the next, the first mile seemed to drag on forever. She reached Ranch Four, the halfway point, and nearly ran into a cow standing in the middle of the dark road. Leaning hard left, she narrowly missed the startled bovine and continued toward her fate.

  At long last, Scarlett crossed Perimeter Street and zipped between the bleachers. The road ended at the tall silver airlock doors. She slowed and managed to dismount the unicycle without falling, then flicked off the power. The next part required a little help from a ghost. She unzipped the toughsuit and dug out the rag with Barnes's thumb inside. Pressing it to the red eye next to the token slot opened the first doors.

  Scarlett had mentally debated the next step, but decided it best she let Simmons know what Barnes had been up to. She opened the black box with the data pearl and hoped he could now see her.

  "Simmons, if you get this, I need you to know why there's a dead body in Joseph Britain's house." She looked back down the road to make sure no one was coming, and continued with a short account of the incident. "Maybe you don't care anymore, Investigator, but in case there's a tiny shred of humanity left in your cold little soul, I reckon you should make sure Barnes didn't have any back up plans guaranteeing a revolt happens. He didn't think humans could ever become what was needed, and maybe they won't with the way you people run this place."

  Scarlett sighed, and figur
ed she was probably wasting her breath. In a few hours, she'd have little enough breath anyway, so she left one final thought with the investigator. "If we're the last hope of humanity, then you've crushed that hope under your cruel boots and ground it to dust. Maybe one day when this all crashes down around your ears and humans are snuffed out for good, you'll regret being such an evil, pompous asshole." With that, she set the black box on the road outside the airlock, picked up the bladewheel, and went inside.

  Barnes's thumb closed the first airlock door and opened the inner one. Scarlet had to scoot fast to avoid the barbs of electricity that prodded feeders closer to their doom. As the second airlock doors closed, she screwed a micro-breather into the bubble helmet and sealed it into place, made sure the duffel was secure across her back, and gripped the bladewheel in the other hand.

  Cool air whispered against her cheek, and the suit expanded ever so slightly around her as it filled with air. Thanks to the superior design, no air whistled through the zipper and it maintained pressure.

  Once the inner door closed, Scarlett quickly pressed Barnes's thumb to the outer door, praying a lab coat in a surveillance room somewhere hadn't locked her out. After a tense moment, the doors hissed apart. Air slammed into her back and sent her flailing outside into the red sands.

  When Scarlett managed to push herself up, she watched the door seal off her final few hours of life. She considered riding the bladewheel, but the loose chalky sand looked too deep to allow for easy maneuvering. Since the unit wasn't terribly heavy, she decided to take it with her just in case she found hard-packed earth somewhere ahead.

  Scarlett looked up into the night sky and saw only a blank, black canvas instead of stars. Even in the dome, the white twinkling blurs were sometimes visible. Aside from the glaring lights on the side of the dome wall, the entire outside looked pitch black. Then again, it might be dust or clouds up in the air blocking out the light.

  Just my luck. Last few hours of life and she couldn't even get a clear view of the real sky.

  She continued onward, following the Plancks to see what lay beyond the dunes. Rick and Claire formed a small red hump in the landscape. Scarlett knelt and dusted off the mask of the closest body. Rick's perfectly preserved face grimaced back at her, the eyelids frosted. A cold sensation crawled across her skin, sending her into a retreat.

  "I didn't have any business doing that," she said, voice echoing in the helmet. She didn't know why she'd looked. In a few hours that would probably be her.

  Scarlett turned back to the dunes and followed the footsteps left by Max only a day ago. She finally reached the red hills and trudged up them. The drift dragged at her feet, loosening and taking away half a step for every one she took. She saw the furrow where Max had dropped Sarah before picking her back up and pushing forward.

  Her heart beat faster in anticipation of what she'd find over the rise. She imagined the sprawled forms of sister and brother lying at the bottom of the dune on the other side. When Scarlett crested the rise, what she saw wiped thoughts of Max and Sarah completely from her mind.

  A silver door gleamed dully in the blackness.

  "A door?" Scarlett nearly stumbled down the dune. "What in the dome is a door doing out here?" She looked down the hill and saw divots and gashes in the sand where Max and Sarah had rolled down. Instead of a pair of bodies, she saw drag marks leading over to the doors.

  All thoughts of dying fled her mind and Scarlett rushed down the hill, tripping and rolling in her haste to touch those silver beacons of hope and prove they weren't a dream. The bladewheel fell from her hand and she unslung the duffel from her back. Scarlett reached the door and held out a trembling gloved finger. The metal proved solid—real. To the right, she saw a warped piece of metal that had once covered a large, red button.

  Scarlett felt the darkness around the door and realized it was a wall. She looked back toward the dome and should have seen it, even over the tall dunes. It wasn't there. This place is an experiment. But what kind? Did life or death wait on the other side of this door? There was only one way to find out.

  Scarlett Flynn reached out and pressed the button.

  Chapter 19

  His wife lay in a lake of blood, arms sprawled to the sides, legs folded awkwardly.

  "No!" he dropped to his knees heedless of the blood and cradled her still form. Sobs wracked his body. All he wanted was for this life to end.

  "Sir, you're polluting the crime scene." A rookie cop gripped him by the shoulder. "Sir, you can't touch the evidence."

  He roared and sprang up, bloodstained hands gripping the cop's uniform. "My wife is not evidence, you fucking moron!" He shoved the man and raked his gaze across the onlooking uniforms. "Everyone knows who did this, but does it matter?" He slammed a fist into his palm. "Fuck no! The system's broken."

  So much crime. So much death. He wished the entire world would cease to exist.

  A strong hand gripped his shoulder. "Detective Simmons, there is a way."

  Oswald Simmons jerked awake to the sound of a beeping alarm on his bracer. He reached over to the nightstand and turned on the screen.

  Airlock breach. Please check security feed.

  "What the fuck?" Simmons rolled out of bed and turned on the wall screen with his thumbprint. He flicked through the icons and touched the outer camera feeds.

  A lone figure in a blue toughsuit trudged across the red wasteland. He already knew who it was before looking at the other security alerts on his monitor—Scarlett Flynn.

  Priority Alert: Gate security marshal attacked with stunner. Perp identified as Deputy Scarlett Flynn. Pursuit into Central.

  Update—found abandoned electric cart. Subject missing.

  Priority Alpha Alert: Administrator Richard Barnes found dead at former home of Joseph Britain. Body found by neighbor Melissa Evans. She heard blaster shots. Witnessed Scarlett Flynn leaving house.

  Update—Administrator Barnes stabbed to death.

  Simmons read the scrolling list while watching Flynn crest the dunes—as far as her former boss had made it. He felt a smile stretch his lips. Fuck the founders. Fuck science. Humans did what they did best when cornered. They survived.

  His bracer beeped. He sighed and fastened the strap to his wrist, then answered. Alderman's face appeared.

  "What in the hell is going on, Oswald?"

  "A minor shit storm that's gonna take some cleaning when it's all said and done." A blinking alert caught his attention on the wall screen. He touched and expanded it. Flynn's data pearl had gone black when she put on the toughsuit, and the last he'd seen, she'd wrapped it up so he couldn't watch her. Apparently, she'd uncovered it just before her escape. "Hang on, Terrence. I gotta look at something." Simmons ended the call and played the video.

  Flynn's pale, worried face filled the screen. "Simmons, if you get this, I need you to know why there's a dead body in Joseph Britain's house." She swallowed hard and spoke fast. "Barnes wanted a civvie revolt and calculated the best way to do it. I think he framed Sarah Planck and hoped to coax Max into feeding with her. Thanks to me, Max fed. But the revolt wasn't happening quickly enough. He had more variables to introduce."

  Flynn turned her head to the side and spat on the ground. "Joseph Britain didn't like where it was headed so he contacted Barnes and recorded a conversation. The administrator promised peer review, but he had Daryl Smith, a mechworks man, kill Britain. I figured this out eventually, but Barnes had Britain's house bugged. He came over with intent to kill me." She flashed her teeth in a sarcastic grin. "I reckon he succeeded, because I'll be dead in a few hours. At least I took that bastard down first."

  A tear trickled down the side of her face, but Flynn quickly wiped it away. She looked behind her down the road to Central, then turned back to the camera. "Maybe you don't care anymore, Investigator, but in case there's a tiny shred of humanity left in your cold little soul, I reckon you should make sure Barnes didn't have any back up plans guaranteeing a revolt happens. He didn't think hum
ans could ever become what was needed, and maybe they won't with the way you people run this place."

  Simmons chuckled. If Scarlett was any example, she was exactly what they needed—not that she'd ever know.

  Flynn sighed. "If we're the last hope of humanity, then you've crushed that hope under your cruel boots and ground it to dust. Maybe one day when this all crashes down around your ears and humans are snuffed out for good, you'll regret being such an evil, pompous asshole."

  The view shifted as Flynn set down the pearl. She walked away, leaving a clear view of the road back into town.

  Simmons closed the file. Barnes is dead. It was hard to wrap his mind around the concept, but he didn't feel particularly bad about it. The man's recent abnormal behavior made more sense in light of this new information. Barnes wanted to push the citizens harder and harder, right to the edge. His calculation seemed reasonable, though risky. Simmons had learned a lot about statistics and controls and shit he still didn't care about. As long as he had law, order, and justice, the world was right by him.

  Deputy Flynn had upset that order in spectacular fashion and was already well on her way to meeting her own justice. For Simmons, that was good enough. She'd die in the red sands and never trouble him again.

  He called back Alderman.

  "Update?"

  Simmons nodded and told him about Flynn's confession. "It seems Richard had divergent plans."

  "You believe her?" Alderman asked.

  "Yeah."

  The governor hissed air between his teeth. "I never thought Richard would be the first."

  "I'm surprised any of us lasted this long."

  "Yeah, but Babbage—" Alderman shook his head. "What do we tell the founders?"

  "Richard went crazy and killed himself." Simmons shrugged. "No sense telling them anything else. Flynn will be dead soon enough anyway."

  "We need to get a handle on this revolt ASAP." He ran a hand down his face. "We'll have to get rid of the people Barnes influenced, by seeming accidents preferably."