Atlas Alone

by Emma Newman

  This is still just speculation though. I am all too aware that I am examining this through an atheist’s lens. But that bastard wanted me to find this information, wanted me to have access to the same files as a member of the CSA. Is this to help me find the evidence that I need to prove Myerson and potentially others were involved with that attack, or is it just manipulation?

  “Ada, do you have access to a list of other CSA members?”

  “Yes, it is contained in the mersive called ‘Brethren on Board.’”

  “Can you extract that list and show it to me?”

  A list of names appears on the screen. “Remove the names of the people who were in my earlier sample.” A large percentage disappears, but there are still too many for me to scan easily. “Are there any members of both the CSA and the Circle?”

  “No.”

  “Is Carolina Johnson a member of the CSA?”

  “Yes.”

  I scratch my head. “Is my name on that list?”

  “No.”

  Maybe it hasn’t been updated yet. I dismiss the thought instantly; an APA would keep a membership list up to date, no problem. Maybe whatever was done in that game to give me access hasn’t actually made me an official member in the eyes of the organization. That’s something, I guess.

  “Ada, are all of the CSA members in the highest . . .”—I think back to what she said about Carolina—“top five pay grades?”

  “Yes.”

  “Exclusively so?”

  “Yes.”

  “What percentage of passengers are not CSA members?”

  “Ninety-five percent.”

  Well, I guess that’s something. But the fact that those at the top of the food chain are all CSA is not a comforting thought.

  Just as I’m considering whether to plow through the rest of the mersives in that folder, Ada says, “Travis Gabor is requesting entry to your cabin.”

  “Shit. Tell him I’m under and I’ll be ready in five.”

  It takes me a few moments to orient myself after coming back up into my body and longer to realize that I have several new messages, none of which Ada deemed important enough to bring to my attention while I was immersed. Sitting up, stretching and then having a glass of water helps me to feel more centered, so I look at them while waiting for Travis to come back.

  They’re all from Carolina’s APA, each one offering the opportunity to try a different game that she’s been enjoying lately. They’re a sneeze and a “bless you” from spam, really, but when it comes to game invites and money-off codes, I’m happy to receive them from friends. I’ve been in contact with Carolina’s APA enough times in the past twenty-four hours for Ada to class these as messages from a friend within acceptable criteria. I scan the descriptions, noting that Carolina, like me, seems to enjoy ultraviolent first-person shooters, until the rest of my brain kicks in fully.

  Money-off codes? That would imply some sort of marketplace. On Earth, that would be the most natural thing in the world, but I’ve been living without money for six months now. I select the “more info” option on a particular ultraviolent and select the option to view similar titles.

  It’s like being back in my old apartment again, scanning hundreds of mersive blurbs, trying to decide what was worth accruing more debt for. This time I’m looking at the prices without that baggage but with a different kind of discomfort instead. I can’t pin down why this is bothering me though. It’s not like the prices are massively inflated. Maybe it’s just because I’ve got used to thinking I didn’t have to worry about money anymore . . . No, that’s not it.

  A knock on the door makes me jump and swipe away the v-screen. I run my hand through the hair on top of my head, which is only just long enough to stick up in stupid ways, and call, “Come in!”

  Travis enters, looking like he’s just had his hair done by someone, as he always does. He smiles at me with the confidence of a man who has always got what he wanted. “Hello, Dee. Mind if we have a quick chat?”

  I shrug. “Sure.” I gesture to the end of the bed, shuffling to the other end of it, as he closes the door. Unlike Gabriel Moreno, he chooses to stand, tucking his hands in his pockets as he leans against the closed door. He looks tense. Why do I have the feeling this is about Carl?

  “Dee . . . have you seen Carl today?”

  Here we go. “This morning.”

  “And . . . how did he seem to you?”

  I haven’t got time for this bollocks. “Look . . . I don’t know why you think I’m going to help the two of you sort your shit out, but I’m not. You’re both grown-ups.”

  “But it isn’t—” he starts, looking down, one perfect auburn lock falling down over his forehead like he’s in the middle of a bloody fashion shoot.

  “It hasn’t been the right time for the past six months, granted, but things are different now,” I say. “He’s feeling much better and I reckon that if you just sit down with him and talk this shit through and maybe, I dunno, kiss him or something, you’ll be fine.”

  He looks up at me, looking confused. “What?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Travis! I don’t know how people do relationships! I’m basing this off cutscenes in mersives, and not romantic ones at that. Isn’t that what you do when you fancy someone?”

  He raises one of his eyebrows. “I . . . I don’t quite know what to say.”

  It suddenly feels horribly awkward. “Oh shit. That isn’t why you’re here, is it?”

  He shakes his head. “No. But seeing as you evidently think I’m incapable of addressing the situation between Carl and me, I feel the need to defend myself. I have tried, several times, to talk to him about . . . us. The possibility, I mean. But he’s so hard to read. He’s conflicted, I think. I know he’s been struggling with . . . what we all saw. And I understand that. But he just won’t talk about anything else with me, and I’m starting to suspect he’s hiding behind that grief to avoid having a proper conversation. Did he have any partners on Earth?”

  Oh shit. I have just walked myself into a minefield. “That’s his business.”

  “I know about his . . . status before.” He looks like he’s going to say something else but doesn’t.

  “If he wanted you to know about any of his stuff, he’d tell you. It wouldn’t be cool for me to . . . Look, I really am the wrong person to ask about this. Seriously. I . . . I don’t do the whole . . . fancying-people thing. At all. So . . . if that was what you wanted to talk about, I think I’ve cocked it up enough for now. Don’t you?”

  He smiles again. “You’re a good friend.”

  I laugh. He thinks it’s because I’m feeling flattered. “You’re welcome to ask me about first-person shooters that are worth the time,” I offer. “I know my shit when it comes to them.” I watch him look back at the floor. He’s tense about something and trying to build up to what he actually wants to talk to me about. He asked me about Carl though . . . “Are you worried about Carl? If he was meant to meet up with you, don’t be. He’s busy at the moment.”

  He draws in a deep breath, tips his head back to rest it against the wall as he stares at the ceiling. “Do you know why he’s busy?”

  The way he says that suggests that he does. “Yeah. He’s got a case. He’s actually cheerful. And when you consider that someone else had to die for that to happen, that says something.”

  “And do you know what that case is?”

  “Yes. Look, Travis, I much prefer it when someone just tells me what’s going on, instead of me having to guess. ’Cos otherwise I end up talking about point spends for different character classes in—”

  “I need you to be my alibi.”

  12

  I DON’T REALIZE my jaw has dropped open until I try to say something and find it moving up and down ineffectually. “Why? What have you done?”

  “Nothing!” he says with a des
perate edge to his voice, spreading his hands.

  “Whoa, wait . . . we shouldn’t be having this sort of conversation here!” I say.

  He waves a hand. “No, it’s fine, I took care of that.”

  “Took care of—”

  He crouches down in front of me, close enough for me to see the sweat on his upper lip, cutting me off before I can properly freak out about what he’s done to protect this conversation. “Dee . . . I didn’t kill that man, I swear it, okay?”

  “The one Carl is—”

  “Yes, that one. But he might think I did.”

  “. . . Okay. Why?”

  He rubs his hand over his face, discovers the dampness and, frowning, wipes his hand on his jog pants. “This is going to stay between us, isn’t it?”

  “You come in here asking me for an alibi and only now it occurs to you to ask that?”

  He smirks. He’s actually shaking. “I think I’m panicking, Dee.”

  “Yeah, I think you are.” I pat the bed. “Come and sit down and start at the beginning. Otherwise I’ll only make a fool of myself again.”

  He responds well to me being gentle, just as I hoped he would. Lowered voice, soft tone, it often works as long as the person it’s being directed at isn’t a total arsehole. Sitting heavily beside me, he leans forward, elbows on knees, and takes a couple of deep breaths. I consider whether a hand on his shoulder or a rub of his upper back might help. Then I decide not to do that in case he gets upset. Otherwise the contact could escalate into a hug before I’m ready for it.

  “I . . .” Another deep breath, a glance at me. “I know who gave the orders to set off those nukes and who helped them to do it. The man who died last night was one of those people.”

  Luckily he interprets my shock as my not knowing anything about this, instead of the fact that he already knows the very thing we argued about during that botched intervention of his. “Are you sure?”

  He nods. “I had to know, Dee. I had to know who it was and why they did it. Myerson—he’s the one who died last night—was the tech guy, the one who made sure it would all kick off the way they planned, once they were sure that Rapture was a success and everyone was docked on board. Commander Brace spoke to him two minutes before the—”

  “Don’t fucking tell me who it was!” I’m wearing a mask of horror, but inside I am desperate to know these names. I can’t let him think I am though, for exactly the same reason that he is in this room, sweating.

  He blinks at me. “Why? I thought you wanted to know!”

  “Of course I do. Did! But I don’t want Carl to see anything in my face when he talks about this.”

  “Dee . . . it’s been hell, keeping this to myself. I don’t think I can anymore.”

  “Well, can’t you just—”

  “But it’s Captain Ashby, Dee. The one leading us there. The first- and second-in-command are genocidal fucks. What do you think that means for our future when we get there?”

  I slump back, pretending to be annoyed with him and appalled by the information at the same time.

  The list of founders I was looking at before he came in comes back to mind. Captains, commanders and engineers don’t make the decisions to start wars; politicians and religious extremists do. The founders are all politically powerful, wealthy, religious men. They made this entire trip possible. They crafted this project, so it makes sense that they are just as responsible for what happened on Earth as the three Travis is talking about.

  “I don’t know what it means for our future,” I finally say, though I am fairly certain it can’t be good. It’s not a discussion I want to have with him though; I need to keep this conversation as locked down as I can. “Anyway, you’re panicking over nothing. For one thing, Myerson died of a heart attack while he was playing a game. It was probably just some bizarre medical condition. And for another thing, why are you freaking out about knowing who those fucks are? I assume you found out via . . . shady means? Like when you hacked that satellite in the first place so we could watch it happen?”

  He nods. “I did. And as far as I could, I covered my tracks. There’s no data trail that anyone else could find . . . But this is Carl, Dee. I looked up his record when I first met him, and, shit, he is relentless.”

  “Relentless when there’s an actual murder. It may not even be that.”

  He gives me a look that tells me he knows just as much about that investigation as I do. JeeMuh, what else has he hacked?

  “He trusts you, Dee. That’s why you need to help, just to cover my bases. You do believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t kill him?”

  “Of course I do!” I say, and it’s easy to be convincing when you’re the murderer.

  “Good.” He lets out a long breath and slumps back so he is level with me against the wall. “So you won’t mind if I make it look like we were together last night.”

  “If you think that’s a good alibi, you’ve got another think coming.”

  “It’s perfect. If he sees that I was with you, he’ll get emotional.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “And if he gets emotional, he’ll make mistakes. If he somehow finds out that I know what Myerson did, looks into my shit more closely, and sees that we were together, he’s going to be worrying about different things.”

  I fold my arms, give him my most unimpressed face. “Carl knows we’d never get it together. You’re gay and I’m—”

  “I’m bi, and he knows that.”

  “Well, I’m not, and he knows that too.”

  His hand slides across the bed to brush mine. I pull my hand away and stand up. “I’m not het either, Travis. So just back the fuck off, okay?”

  He looks genuinely surprised. “I thought you were just . . .”

  “Waiting for you to notice me?” I laugh. “Nope.” I go and stand in front of the cupboard. “Trust me—you need to think of a better alibi, or just let it go and trust that Carl is as good at his job as you think he is. Then he’ll know it couldn’t have been you, for real. Right?”

  After another long sigh he nods. “So I didn’t need you in the end.”

  I shrug. “People do dumb shit when they panic. Look . . . are you sure about Myerson? And the others?”

  He nods. “I listened to their comms as it happened, and from the days afterward between Brace and Myerson. They think they burned the sinners and stopped any of them following us. They’re happy about what they did.”

  “Do you have the files still?”

  He nods, looks away for a couple of seconds, then looks back at me. “So do you now. They’re encrypted, but your APA has the key, and if Carl gets it wrong and comes after you, they’ll delete the second you are flagged up for arrest. Your APA has been instructed to file them away somewhere discreet.”

  I’m torn between being glad to have the evidence and furious with him for not asking if I wanted to have potentially dangerous data sent to me. “You really need to learn to ask people what they want first.”

  He shrugs. “I thought you wanted to know. I did. Hasn’t it been driving you mad, wondering who it was that gave the order?”

  It’s my turn to shrug defensively. “You know it’s been on my mind.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m good. There won’t be an obvious data trail.”

  “So good you came in here panicking and asking for an alibi?”

  He smirks. “Point taken. I’m sorry.”

  We share the silence that settles between us.

  “I’m glad he’s dead,” Travis says, shuffling to the edge of the bed to stand in front of me.

  “Well, now I know what he did, so am I.” I look at him, intellectually appreciating how conventionally handsome he is, and search for any flicker of desire for him inside me. But there’s nothing, as there always has been.

  “Sorry to . . . put you on the
spot like that,” he says and then opens his arms for a hug.

  I’ve never embraced him before. We’ve hung out a bit, but not got close. Now I feel like I have so many times in the past when a man has initiated affection, that there is another agenda here. This time, I don’t think it is the hope of moving toward more intimacy, but I think it’s just as dangerous. I don’t trust him, and I don’t like the way he told me who was responsible for the attack after I told him not to. If I’m not careful, he’ll use me, not as an alibi, but as an alternative suspect.

  I embrace him, feeling his arms close around me, feeling him lean in to rest his chin over my shoulder. As he squeezes me gently, I force my shoulders to stay relaxed, to keep my breathing steady, to make him think that I am falling for the bait. Because he wants me to like him. He wants me to want him. And whether that’s to protect himself in the future, or simply to assuage his ego, the way to handle it is the same: make him think that I am vulnerable to his charms.

  “It’ll be okay,” I say in that soft, low voice. “He’s good enough to know that it wasn’t you. All you need to do is stay calm and it’ll all blow over soon enough.”

  “Thanks, Dee,” he says and holds on to me just that moment longer than when I would have pulled away. He steps back, flicks that rogue lock back like he isn’t even thinking about the way that looks, but he must be, really. “See you soon?”

  “Yeah, see you soon.”

  I close the door behind him and drop onto the bed. I’m certain I’ve just been played; I’m just not sure how. Was he planning to set up this alibi bollocks to weasel his way into more intimacy with me? No. There are probably dozens of people he could bed on this floor alone with minimal effort.