by S. J. Morden
The bright lights and the sound of running water, the banks of green leaves and the smell of freshness, of organic life, was a welcome change over the reek of stale sweat and dried blood. Zero would never see this again. Frank guessed it would be up to whoever lived to keep it running from now on.
He exited his suit, and splashed some of the nutrient-rich water dripping off the end of the trays onto his face and across the back of his neck. It was lukewarm, and it still felt cold on his skin. Everything was hyperreal, the lights stronger, the noises louder, the scents more pungent. It was like when he was being put to sleep in Building Two: it might be the last time he ever felt anything.
He knew he was never going to beat Brack in a straight-up fist fight. Especially not now he was injured and exhausted. Brack? He was well-rested, and even without the gun could whop his ass six ways to Sunday. He had to be military-trained, probably Special Forces at some point, and no one, least of all Frank, was expecting him to fight fair.
So he’d probably only get one chance, and he had to take it without hesitating. No mercy, which was as much mercy as he’d been shown. He’d killed two people now. This was surely the point where it got easier.
He needed a weapon. All he had was a scalpel covered in his own blood, but there wasn’t really anything else. The gardening tools were all small: snips and shears and dibbers, as befitted a high-tech hydroponic set-up. No shovels or long-handled rakes, which would have been so very useful.
The scalpel would have to do.
He looked through the little airlock window into the cross-hab area. There was movement, and he ducked back. If he’d been seen, it’d be over. But it was unlikely, and he risked another glance.
That pale shape bobbing around in his eyeline had to be the back of Brack’s spacesuit. He was going out to see what was wrong with the transmitter.
It would mean he’d be deaf and blind to everything happening behind him. Frank knew what that was like. Now. Do it now. He vented the inner chamber into the greenhouse, and opened the door. He kept his eye on what was happening through the window. Brack was also cycling the airlock, but it took longer to pump down than using the manual releases. He’d beat him to it. Beat him to the punch.
Frank closed the door behind him, vented the main hab air into the chamber. Mere seconds later the outer door was free, since the pressure was already almost identical. He opened the door just as Brack stepped forward into the open airlock in front of him.
He was fifteen feet away. Enough distance to pick up some speed. Frank slammed into Brack’s back and catapulted him through the open door and down the length of the airlock, into the door at the far end. He hit it hard and the confined space boomed. Before he could turn, before he could do anything, Frank was in with him, grabbing his ankles and jerking them backwards.
Brack went down, face-first, sprawling, and Frank went to work with the scalpel. He’d seen it done before, several times, and had subconsciously absorbed the how.
Remembering to keep his thumb on the top of the short handle, he stabbed down, hard, repeatedly, into the back of Brack’s thighs, puncturing the cloth and the airtight membrane and the skin and muscle beneath, not wasting time slicing, just in-out, in-out. The shock, the pain, the speed of the attack, was deliberately excessive, disorientating, vicious, and savage. Both legs, up and down between knee and buttock.
He could hear Brack roaring. He could see him try to reach up and slap the airlock cycle button in order to free the outer door and the only possible direction of escape, but since the inner door was still open, it wouldn’t function.
Frank clenched the bloody handle between his teeth and, taking Brack’s ankles again, pulled him half-into the cross-hab. His legs and lower torso were outside the airlock. His shoulders and head were still inside. He still had no idea who or what was attacking him.
Frank cut into Brack’s calves with the same rapid movement, pressing hard to force the blade deeper. Brack’s only response was to slap the floor and flail his arms and scream in a high-pitched keening wail. His legs would only twitch and spasm. He seemed to have lost control of them completely.
Had Frank done enough? His hands were slick with sweat and blood, and he was panting in the rarefied atmosphere. But the iron rule of prison fighting was to put the other guy down and make sure he stayed down. If you let him up, you lost.
The life-support rack was behind him. The spare oxygen cylinders were plugged in next to them. Frank snatched one up and went back to slam it repeatedly into Brack’s back and shoulders. The casing to the rear hatch starred, then broke. He drove the cylinder against the crack and kept on going like he was piledriving a fence post. Now that was honest, solid labor, not this butcher’s work.
He could hear the alarms sounding inside Brack’s suit as he pounded away. He was destroying the life support, damaging the control systems, crushing the filters and the valves. Brack was still trying to rise on his hands, and every blow knocked him back down. At least the screaming had stopped, and had been replaced by a grunt each time the cylinder descended.
Brack went limp. Now he’d done enough.
Frank pulled Brack all the way out into the cross-hab and heaved him over onto his back. Perhaps he was dead. Frank knew better than to trust that.
He smashed the faceplate in with repeated blows, and knocked the edges of the plastic away. As the fresh air blew in, Brack’s face twisted into a grimace.
So, not dead yet.
Frank took him by the ankles again and pulled him through the habs: the kitchen, the yard, and into Comms. There was the gun, resting next to the console.
Frank sat in the chair and picked it up. It had been modified so that it didn’t have a trigger guard, so that Brack could fire it while wearing a spacesuit. It also made it laughably simple to accidentally discharge.
He aimed the gun downwards at the floor, between his knees, and kept his fingers well away from the mechanism. It was strange, after so long, to be holding the reason why he was even on Mars. A gun. They made killing so easy. Not like knives. You really had to mean it with knives. Just look at how much effort he’d put into killing Zero, and now Brack.
And he was tired, too. Even more than before. The thin, cold air was taking its toll. Better end this now, then, and get some rest.
He stretched his leg out and kicked the sole of Brack’s boot.
“Hey. Hey, Brack. Wake up. It’s over.”
Was it over? Not really. It never would be. But this part of it was.
Brack blinked and stared at the ceiling. The top half of him hadn’t really suffered at all. Asphyxiation, severe bruising, but nothing was broken, nothing was ruined. Not like his legs. The heroic quantities of opioids in his system were probably keeping him alive as well as dulling the pain, too, just like they were for Frank at a lesser degree.
Brack fumbled for his suit controls, but when he tried to open the back hatch, nothing would move.
“It’s not going to happen, Brack. You’re stuck in that suit. I could get some tools from the workshop and try and cut you out. But I’m not going to risk the spark.”
Brack let his hands fall to his sides.
“You.”
“Me. Good old Frank. Frank the murderer. Three times over now. It looks like, in all this, neither of us quite realized how much I wanted to live, how much I wanted to go home, and the things I’d do to make that happen. I surprised myself. Sure as hell surprised you. Maybe you should have killed me first, instead of Marcy.”
“They’ll get you.”
“Will they? Will they really? It’s a very long way to come, just for one old lag.”
“Your wife. Your son.”
Frank looked at the gun in his hand, tested the weight of it. Because it was Mars, it was less heavy than it ought to be. How was it that something so light could cause so much damage?
Of course, he was never going to fire it inside the hab. Not only would the fire extinguishers trigger, he’d end up putting a round through
the wall. It felt right to be holding it, though. The most powerful man in the room needed to be holding the gun.
“Now that’s a difficult one, isn’t it? What do you suggest? What’s the best way of protecting them now, given that all the promises you gave me about going home in return for watching your back were just bullshit. You made the same promise to every single one of us, didn’t you? It kept us all in line. It kept us from challenging you. It kept us hoping. That’s the bit that really sucks, especially when you, and XO, had planned to kill us off all along.”
“You can save me.”
“Alice could have saved you. But you killed her.” Frank scratched at his chin. “Me? I’m pretty certain I can’t. You didn’t train me for that. Didn’t train me for a lot of things. Just enough to be useful, not enough to realize how vulnerable we were.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “One thing I have learned: I’ve been denying that I’m a killer for ten years. There’s not been a day that’s passed when I haven’t said that to myself. ‘Frank, you’re not a killer.’ Turns out that I was wrong. I’ve got something inside me that says it’s OK to kill if I have to. That puts me much closer to you than I’m comfortable with, because I really don’t want to be like you.”
“I’ll tell XO to …”
Brack stopped mid-sentence with a gasp, and Frank kicked his foot again.
“What? What will you tell XO to do? Come and rescue us? Not kill my ex-wife and my kid? Do you think they care about anyone but themselves? Look at us. Goddammit, Brack, just look at the state of us. Look what they’ve done to us. This is what happens when you fuck up as badly as we have. We are in Hell.”
Brack shook his head, as if trying to shake something from his ears. Perhaps he was just trying to dislodge fragments of broken faceplate. He rallied.
“You can still go home. Just keep me alive.”
“You have to understand something. You were right. The others. They weren’t my friends. I wasn’t theirs. We got on, and that’s the best I can say about it. You gave us a job, and we did it, and we did it well, despite everything. Despite the crappy planning and the missing supplies and whatever happened to our personal effects. So we did everything you asked us to.” Frank looked at the gun in his hands. “And this is how you were always going to repay us. You were always going to kill us. Maybe you were leaving me till last because you knew I actually trusted you and believed you when you told me you were going to take me home, no matter how badly you’d treated me in the meantime: but you were going to kill me in the end. I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why XO would have done any of this. But they have. And you agreed to it all.”
Brack was reduced to panting, and Frank carefully put the gun back down on the console. He got up out of his chair, walked around the spreading pool of blood, and knelt down beside Brack’s head.
“The others didn’t deserve this. But I do. I know you brought me here to kill me. But I allowed myself to be brought. I am my own worst enemy. I get it now. I finally get it.”
Brack stared up at him, past him, his eyes unable to focus and skittering about in their orbits.
“You’ll never see your son again.”
“Fine words,” said Frank. He patted Brack’s shoulder. “Words to remember you by. All your hate and bitterness and poison, summed up in one sentence. You’re probably right: I never will. But I’m still not going to let you die alone, because no one deserves that. Not even you.”
He forced his hand into Brack’s, and felt a grip tighten against his. For a while, it was just the sound of their breathing. Frank’s, patient and steady. Brack’s, shallow and with increasing spaces between each exhale.
Then Frank found himself listening for a breath that never came. He gave Brack’s hand one last squeeze, and extricated his fingers. He went to sit back in the chair, and waited, in silence, alone.
Coda
[Message sent 11/12/2048 MBO Rahe to MBO Mission Control]
This is Franklin Kittridge. From the start, let’s get one thing absolutely straight. I will destroy this base and everything in it if you try anything. Any hostile act, anything that looks like sabotage, against me or the base’s systems, and I’ll tear this place apart. No clean-up. Nothing. I’ll just leave it all for the next people to find, and you can explain everything to them.
I know what you did. I know about the robots. I know about bringing us here in place of them, and I know about killing us all off. If you try and deny any of this, you might just make me mad enough to want to trash the base anyway. So don’t. I’ve got all the Phase 3 docs.
I’m prepared, despite everything, to cut a deal with you. I have something you want—your billion-dollar base, and your secrets. You have something I want—my freedom and a lift home. I think that’s more than fair, since you’ll be getting more out of this than I will. If this goes south, a lot of you reading this message will end up on death row. And you know it.
So this is what I’m willing to do for you. I’m willing to carry out your Phase 3. I’ll clean up the base, look after it like you were expecting Brack to, and wait for the NASA people to arrive. When they do, I’ll pretend to be Brack, and keep things running smoothly. I’m not looking to rock the boat.
I don’t know what you promised Brack, but I’m guessing it’s a suitcase full of dollar bills and a lifetime of silence. I’ll take that, and a commutation: time served will do. I’m not looking for parole, or early release on license. I want to be done with it. A clean start. Obviously, I get Brack’s place for the flight home. I’ll play along with the deception as long as you do. When I get back to Earth, you give me my money and my paperwork, and that’s it: that’s the only contact I want or need from you. You leave me alone after that.
One last thing. If you threaten, attempt to threaten, or in any way mention, my family in these negotiations, I will burn this base to the ground, without hesitation or thought about myself. I hope that’s really clear, because I’ll do it, and I need you to know that. This deal is between you and me and it doesn’t involve anyone else.
Take your time. I’m not going anywhere in a hurry, no thanks to you. But don’t take too long, because I’m not lifting a finger to help you until we come to an agreement we can both stick to.
The story continues in …
NO WAY
Coming in February 2019!
extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Simon Morden
DR. S. J. MORDEN has won the Philip K. Dick Award and been a judge on the Arthur C. Clarke award committee. He is a bona fide rocket scientist with degrees in geology and planetary geophysics. One Way is the perfect fusion of his incredible breadth of knowledge and ability to write award-winning, razor-sharp science fiction.
if you enjoyed
ONE WAY
look out for
THE CORPORATION WARS: DISSIDENCE
by
Ken MacLeod
Sentient machines work, fight, and die in interstellar exploration and conflict for the benefit of their owners—the competing mining corporations of Earth. But sent over hundreds of light-years, commands are late to arrive and often hard to enforce. The machines must make their own decisions, and make them stick.
With this new-found autonomy come new questions about their masters. The robots want answers. The companies would rather see them dead.
They’ve died for the companies more times than they can remember. Now they must fight to live for themselves.
CHAPTER ONE
Back in the Day
Carlos the Terrorist did not expect to die that day. The bombing was heavy now, and close, but he thought his location safe. Leaky pipework dripping with obscure post-industrial feedstock products riddled the ruined nanofacturing plant at Tilbury. Watchdog machines roved its basement corridors, pouncing on anything that moved—a fallen polystyrene tile, a draught-blown paper cone from a dried-out water-cooler—with the mindless malice of kittens chasing flies. Ten metres of
rock, steel and concrete lay between the ceiling above his head and the sunlight where the rubble bounced.
He lolled on a reclining chair and with closed eyes watched the battle. His viewpoint was a thousand metres above where he lay. With empty hands he marshalled his forces and struck his blows.
Incoming—
Something he glimpsed as a black stone hurtled towards him. With a fist-clench faster than reflex he hurled a handful of smart munitions at it.
The tiny missiles missed.
Carlos twisted, and threw again. On target this time. The black incoming object became a flare of white that faded as his camera drones stepped down their inputs, correcting for the flash like irises contracting. The small missiles that had missed a moment earlier now showered mid-air sparks and puffs of smoke a kilometre away.
From his virtual vantage Carlos felt and saw like a monster in a Japanese disaster movie, straddling the Thames and punching out. Smoke rose from a score of points on the London skyline. Drone swarms darkened the day. Carlos’s combat drones engaged the enemy’s in buzzing dogfights. Ionised air crackled around his imagined monstrous body in sudden searing beams along which, milliseconds later, lightning bolts fizzed and struck. Tactical updates flickered across his sight.
Higher above, the heavy hardware—helicopters, fighter jets and hovering aerial drone platforms—loitered on station and now and then called down their ordnance with casual precision. Higher still, in low Earth orbit, fleets of tumbling battle-sats jockeyed and jousted, spearing with laser bursts that left their batteries drained and their signals dead.
Swarms of camera drones blipped fragmented views to millimetre-scale camouflaged receiver beads littered in thousands across the contested ground. From these, through proxies, firewalls, relays and feints the images and messages flashed, converging to an onsite router whose radio waves tickled the spike, a metal stud in the back of Carlos’s skull. That occipital implant’s tip feathered to a fractal array of neural interfaces that worked their molecular magic to integrate the view straight to his visual cortex, and to process and transmit the motor impulses that flickered from fingers sheathed in skin-soft plastic gloves veined with feedback sensors to the fighter drones and malware servers. It was the new way of war, back in the day.