by Lj Cohen
"I'm sorry, son."
He only called him son when trying to soften the impact of "no".
"Our transport has already been booked. Do what you can to finish up. Once we're on Tresthame, I'll be able to request whatever supplies you need for your work. I've been told they're quite sophisticated for an outlying colony." He paused. "Excuse me, former colony."
Micah imagined putting in a list that included bittergreen seeds, though given how self-absorbed his father was, sober or drunk, he'd probably never even notice. "When?"
"Two weeks."
"Two weeks," Micah echoed, his stomach churning.
His father topped off his coffee with the rest of the contents of the scotch bottle and raised the cup in a salute to him. "I knew I could count on you." He sauntered across the common room toward his sleeping quarters.
How could his father do this to him again? Whirling around, he swept the empty bottle from the counter. Jaw tightly clenched, he stared at his father as it crashed to the floor. Glass shards ricocheted across the room.
"If you need me," Micah said, his voice a growl in the back of his throat, "I'll be in my lab."
His father's hand trembled and the diluted coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup.
Chapter 7
Jem sat on his brother's bed and hung his head in his hands. There was nothing he could do for Barre in the infirmary. If he had used again, the blood screen would show it. And then what? How could Barre be so stupid?
He pulled out Barre's tiny bag of bittergreen and turned it over and over in his hand. "Daedalus, report on the medical condition of Durbin, Barre."
His mother's recorded voice answered. "Stable, unresponsive."
The answer hadn't changed from the last five times he asked. Fine — he'd stop asking. "Locate Maldonado, Rosalen."
"Working, leave a message."
Jem pushed up from the bed, slipped the bittergreen in his pocket, and went to find Ro. If he couldn't do anything for Barre, at least he could work on the AI interface. Maybe he could help her set up or something. Anything would be better than thinking of the slack expression on his brother's face and the glassy dark eyes that stared up at nothing when he'd peeled back his lids.
He slipped through the airlock from the station into the old-style corridor — the kind of structure they put up when a place first got terraformed. It was sort of a pop-up tent construction with interlocking umbilicals and habitation bubbles. This last umbilical remained.
The door to the ship sealed behind him. "Ro?" Her utility cart sat empty between the bridge and the forward cargo hold. Maybe she was still working on the bridge. "Ro?" he called again as the bridge door slid open. It looked as much of a wreck as it had a few hours ago but without Ro here, he had a hard time believing any of the main computer would ever work again.
Maybe she had realized that, too.
He picked his way around twisted, fused metal and melted polymers. Whatever destroyed this place had really done a job of it. The consoles and the monitoring stations were all ruined. Jem frowned at the untouched chairs. That made no sense. He couldn't imagine a pitched battle with weapons fire sparing the chairs.
Clearly Ro hadn't been spending her time here. He retreated, opened the cargo bay doors, and stepped inside. It looked like a battle had been waged between the forces of organization and chaos. Odds and ends of old computers lay scattered in random arrangement along a beat-up table. A monitoring station set on a bench wedged against a thickly fogged curved barrier made reassuring beeping sounds.
Jem walked close to the barrier. He placed a hand on its material and pushed gently. It had a little give, but was thicker and stronger than he expected. How had Ro set up an old terraforming bubble so quickly? And where in the cosmos had she even found it? He studied the length of the wall, looking for a way in. Metal uprights embedded in the glass formed the frame for a field-airlock. It wasn't pretty, but the design was effective in either keeping something in or something out, especially if that something was nasty and airborne.
What could Ro possibly need to wall out?
Jem slid the rudimentary lock open and stepped through. The inner door flashed red until he re-sealed the outer compartment. These things were rigged to do full air exchange or pressurization if need be. This one didn't seem set up for anything but a simple in and out. He slid the inner door open and stepped into instant dusk and the thick humidity of a rain forest.
Blinking, he tried to see past the thick clouds of fog and moisture condensing on every surface.
"Damn it, Ro, I thought we had an agreement."
Jem stiffened at the angry male voice shouting from the back of the bubble.
"Bad enough I have to share my space with you."
The voice came closer. Jem's pulse sped up double time and he glanced back at the airlock, ready for a quick retreat, when a light flickered in the corner of his eye and he caught a flash of green. The light strengthened and the mist cleared. A tall figure emerged out of the fog along with row after row of plants, all with the long, thin five-part leaves of bittergreen.
"What the hell?" Jem said, glaring up at Micah who stared back at him with narrowed eyes and his mouth a thin slash across his face. "What did you do to my brother?" he demanded. "I swear, if anything happens to him, I'll ruin you."
"Great. Just great. Not that it fucking matters anymore." He turned his back on Jem and walked down a row between planters, stopping to examine his crop.
Jem stood there, his mouth falling open, before digging out his brother's remaining dried bittergreen and stomping after Micah. "Don't you walk away from me!"
Micah turned and scowled, looking down at Jem. "You're the doctors' kid. Why are you here?"
"Really? You have no idea?" Jem squeezed the baggie in his fist and stared Micah down. It didn't matter that the senator's son had nearly a half meter and twenty-five kilos on him. "Or do you not give a shit that you're selling tainted bittergreen?"
"What in the Hub are you talking about?"
Jem gestured across the miniature drug farm. "So, you're going to tell me this isn't bittergreen? I may look like a little kid, but I'm not stupid." He nearly spit the words at Micah. "Barre is in the infirmary. He was using. I found his stash. And then look what I stumble into — your little secret garden."
"Look, kid, I have no idea what your brother is using, but it's not my bittergreen. So far, I haven't been able to bring a crop anywhere near to market. Trust me, I really want to. Besides, it's just bittergreen."
"Just bittergreen." The ghost of Barre's face and his limp arm swinging over the edge of the bed filled Jem's mind. "Something in this stuff took my brother down. If you really believe it's that harmless, then try some." Jem shoved the bag at him.
Micah backed away and the drugs fell to the floor. "Look, I had nothing to do with your brother. I'm sorry if he's sick or whatever."
"Pick it up," Jem said, his voice a hoarse, unfamiliar growl. "You pick it up and you figure out what did this to him."
"I don't have time for this." Micah started to walk away again.
"The hell you don't," Jem said. His face blazed and pressure beat against his temples. He pulled out his micro. "Do it, or I'll video your little set-up directly to the commander. I think she'd be very interested in what you have going on here."
"Jem?"
He whirled around to find Ro standing behind him.
"This is your fault," Micah shouted, pointing at Ro.
"I guess I need to get working on some security for this place," she said, shrugging one shoulder.
Jem swiveled his head from Ro to Micah and back again. He didn't understand. Did Ro already know about the bittergreen? Was she part of it? His stomach clenched. Not Ro. It couldn't be Ro. She wouldn't want to hurt Barre, would she?
***
Micah shook his head. Jem's threats would almost be funny, except for the fact his father had just screwed up Micah's last, best chance to get this strain right. The hell with him. The hel
l with Ro and this kid, Jem. He'd already lost everything he cared about, starting with his mother.
"Those are not my drugs." He pointed down to the small packet of dried leaves at his feet. "And you," he glared at Ro. "You promised to leave me alone."
"I heard voices."
"Don't tell my parents that." Jem laughed and clamped his hand over his mouth.
"Jem, what happened?" Ro asked, softly.
"Ask him." He jabbed a finger at Micah.
"Damn it, I have no idea!" Micah shouted. "He starts raving at me like some lunatic about bittergreen and his brother. Like I'm the one who poisoned him or something. If he's sick, it's not because of me or the drug." Jem was so not convinced. Micah saw it in the set of his thin shoulders, vibrating with his anger and the dark, hooded eyes. "Why the hell do you think I chose the stuff to work with in the first place?" It was pretty benign and if his mother had had a sure supply of it, her last weeks wouldn't have been a nightmare of pain and despair.
The drug wasn't hard to grow, but the best strains were patented and completely controlled by the cartels. His attempts to get some for his mom were the beginning of the end for his father's political career and the start of Micah's botany experiments. He couldn't bring his mother back, but he could break the back of the cartels that ruined their lives.
"All I know is Barre is unconscious in the infirmary and I found that packet of bittergreen next to him." Jem shot a poisonous look at Micah before turning back to Ro. "You do the calculations."
Ro stepped forward to pick up the drugs. "Do you have what you need to analyze this?"
Jem looked as if he had tasted something sour.
Micah should have thought of that. If he hadn't been so angry, he probably would have. "Will you believe me if I show you the spectroscopic assays for the different strains?" He'd have to dry some of his new-growth leaves, but he should be able to prove his bittergreen had nothing to do with Jem's brother.
At least that was something he could accomplish. Forcing his crop to accelerate its growth would probably result in stressed-out plants that wouldn't be able to set buds. He didn't know why he bothered.
The small, dark-haired boy nodded and turned away.
"Now get the hell out of my lab."
Chapter 8
Ro placed her hand on Jem's shoulder and turned him away from Micah. "Come on." The tension in his body practically vibrated through her arm. "We'll only be in the way."
He stared up at her, his eyes wide and unblinking, and let her lead him out of the bubble. "Can you find out anything about Barre?"
"Maybe." That would mean getting dangerously close to Daedalus's primary processors. Skulking around the edges of its domain didn't raise any alarms, but trying to break into the infirmary systems might. "But first I need to ghost you."
At least something went according to plan. She and Micah were already ghosting. If anyone asked Daedalus for them, her program made it appear as if they were somewhere else, at the opposite side of the station from the querent, and occupied. If there was a second request within a specific amount of time, or by the same person, it would ping their micros, depending on the importance of the one asking. She hand-coded the authority algorithm specifically for each of them. "Anyone get priority except your parents?"
Jem winced. "Barre," he said. "Just Barre."
"I have to weight your folks in there, too, Jem. If they're looking for you and can't find you, they could get command involved. Too many people get curious and they'll find my little tweaks."
"Do what you need to do," he said, staring past her.
Guiding him over to her corner of Micah's lab, Ro pushed Jem into the only open chair. Every other possible surface was covered with her equipment. He sat heavily, staring past her, the muscles along his jaw bunched.
"Can you set up my terminal and access? Just the hard wiring. I'll do the config after."
He shrugged and stood, turning to organize the desk.
Ro pulled out her micro and added Jem to her ghost protocol. It wouldn't hold up to a full-on decontamination, but the innocuous little program didn't look like much to the casual observer. That's what people got wrong. They wanted the big hacks, the monster hacks. Ro prided herself on writing subtle code, code that never called attention to itself, modest code. She smirked.
Maybe that's why she'd been able to throw so many tweaks into Daedalus's systems over the years she'd been trapped here. Even it didn't seem to notice.
"You're good to go," Jem said. "Can you pull up Barre's medical file now?"
Directly hacking in to private records was probably next to impossible and it would take her time away from the AI code mods she'd started playing with. The program lived in her head and she couldn't wait to get it locked down and tested. "I don't know, Jem." She raked her fingers through her hair considering the risk. Frowning, she twisted it into a braid and snatched a spare wire tie from the floor to secure it out of her face. "Couldn't you just ask your parents?"
"No."
"Why don't you just go and see him for yourself? It's not like the chart's going to tell you a whole lot anyway." She could start work on the repair drones. They had a lot to do before tackling the AI proper anyway.
Jem stared at her, his face set in hard lines.
"Unless you're already a doc, too," Ro said, trying to lighten the mood.
The muscles in his face rippled as he clenched and relaxed his jaw. "I need access. It's the tox screen. I know Barre was using. They know Barre was using. But if they have the proof, this time they'll send him off-system to mandated rehab."
"Seriously? For bittergreen? Isn't that a little overkill?" They said mandated just rebooted the addiction centers, resetting the brain's neurotransmitters back to pre-drug exposure levels, but Ro knew a few kids who'd undergone treatment and came home more broken than when they left.
"You don't know my parents."
"No, I guess I don't," Ro said, thinking of her father and the times she wished she didn't know him.
"Look, if you won't do it, I will."
Crap, that's just what she needed — an amateur mucking about. Cleaning up after him would take even more time away from what she needed to do. "You're talking more than a hack and a look-see. Do you have any idea the kind of checksums they have around medical records?"
"I won't let them do that to my brother. He may be an idiot, but he doesn't deserve having his brain turned inside out. Do you have any idea what happens in places like that?"
Ro frowned, her hands on her hips. He didn't know what he was asking. If she got caught, it would be more than the end of her dreams. Tampering with personnel and medical records carried big-time penalties.
"They'll burn the music right out of him. Ro, please, it's all he's got." Jem's eyes got shiny.
Ro turned away, uncomfortable with his naked emotion. If someone tried to take away her ability to program, to see code as a living, breathing entity, she wasn't sure what she'd do. Even her father — who'd pretty much taken everything else from her — understood that. "All right. I'll do what I can."
Jem's smile blazed through the small room like an artificial sun.
"No guarantees. I have a few ideas, but if they don't work, it's a no go. Understand?"
He nodded, the fear back in his eyes.
Ro swept a pile of permapaper from a desk chair and sat down at the terminal. Jem pulled a second chair close and scooted in next to her. She tried to glare him away, but he didn't get the hint. Ignoring him, she set up her micro. This was going to take a degree of subtlety that a keyboard or even ordinary gestures wouldn't be able to capture and besides, this way there was little-to-no chance that Jem could figure out the access codes she used.
Going head to head with Daedalus would be monumentally stupid and suicidal as far as her future was concerned. She'd almost have better luck trying to access Mendez's personal logs than breaking directly into the medical records system. Looking over at Jem, Ro pursed her lips, thinking. Like Jem
, Barre was still a student. The ed algorithm spidered through the entire AI and made its own webbing to the medical data.
All Ro had to do was follow the threads.
"Ro?"
"Hmm?"
"It won't help if they access the tox results before you get to them."
She threw him a dirty look and pointed to the door. "Out."
"He's my brother. I want to help."
Ro folded her hands in her lap. "You can't. And I won't lift a finger until you get the hell out from underfoot." The sooner this got done, the sooner she could get back to the AI.
Jem sputtered as Ro glared at him.
"I get it. Really." Well, not really. She'd never had any family to care about. Her mother got fed up with her father years ago and split, leaving Ro trapped like a tiny moon orbiting her father's universe. She didn't have any conscious memories of the woman and her father kept no holos. "I do need your help, just not with this. How good are you at drones?"
"What do you need?" he said, his thin shoulders slumped.
Rummaging through a pile of spare parts, she pulled out a few small components. "Grab whatever tools you need. Then find two drones and replace the phone-home chipsets with these."
Jem pressed his lips together.
"You do know how to put them in sleep mode, right?"
"That's grunt work," he said, snatching the tiny interrupts from her hand.
"Get used to it, grunt."
That surprised a wry grin from him.
"Do you think you can handle a basic code mod?"
He raised a single eyebrow for an answer, and Ro suppressed her own smile. At least this would keep him from brooding too much.
"Then set them to do a wide search pattern of the whole ship and transmit the images back to me in real time."