The Nightshade Problem: Sol Space Volume Two

by James Wilks

  Jang looked back at him. “You are looking for love advice?” He smiled his broad white smile again. “Yes, she loves this. She says that I am strong and a poet. Do not underestimate the power of words, my friend. Perhaps some poetry would help you as well.”

  Overton sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think I can pull off the warrior-poet thing. It’s not really me. Besides,” he said, eyeing Jang’s considerable tattooed biceps, “she’s a better warrior than both of us put together.”

  “I cannot deny that,” Jang nodded, though the expression on his face said that he would like to. “She is formidable. Are things no better?”

  Overton shrugged. “Sometimes we talk and I feel like she genuinely cares about me. Other times I’m pretty sure I’m just a penis with a pulse. I think she likes me, but doesn’t like that she likes me, you know?”

  This time Jang’s smile was only a closed-mouth grin. “Not really.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not all possessed of manhoods and egos the size of that mountain,” he joked, pointing to a snow-capped peak standing by itself. “How far to Vegas?”

  “Less than a thousand miles. We should be there in seventy minutes.”

  “Then we’d better get back to work,” Overton said, picking up a rifle and popping out the clip. “And maybe you can teach me some of that poetry. It’ll either get me laid or killed.”

  “With that woman,” Jang said gravely, “I’m surprised you can tell the difference.”

  Despite the fact that the sun was shining on Sin City, Las Vegas glowed with a light of its own as if in competition with the sun. The opulence and excess of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries had somewhat fled the town. As economic stability grew, hunger faded, and Earth’s population equalized, true desperation was replaced with a newer sense of environmental responsibility and curiosity about the stars. The concept of the casino as a chance to transform a businessman into a billionaire had faded; now gambling was seen as a form of entertainment, the kind of thing one set aside a few hundred dollars for perhaps once a year. A river of money still flowed through the city, but it was not what it once was.

  The sights that made the city known around the world had remained. Replicas of the Eiffel Tower and the Brooklyn Bridge still stood, but they were seen as quaint rather than substitutes for the originals. A quick, cheap, and environmentally friendly flight could easily put a resident of the United States in Paris to see the real Eiffel Tower or in Africa to see a real lion. Instead, Vegas had become a sort of museum, a reminder of the reckless and heady abandon of a hundred years prior. It stood as a testament to a bygone era. People came, but they appreciated rather than marveled. What was a thirty-meter imitation statue of a woman with a torch when people lived on Mars? Even so, the city still thrived. Solar panels in the desert supplied their power needs, and people came to vacation and spend a few hours of fun at the tables and one-armed bandits.

  Personal shuttles required no registration beyond the equivalent of paying a parking meter, so Bethany had several dozen landing places to choose from. Staples told the others that Jordan’s message had indicated that she would stop by the same shop for coffee every afternoon at about fifteen. Having looked over maps of the area, Dinah had selected a strategically located lot in which they could put down. It was only two blocks from the shop, and it was big enough that the shuttle would be relatively anonymous. The neighborhood was casino free, instead featuring a string of storefronts selling mostly clothing, souvenirs, and combinations of the two.

  Once they had parked and paid, they still had over an hour before they could hope to see Jordan. None of the five crewmembers onboard the Delta V 416 had the urge to visit a casino. Even if it had been safe, there had been enough risk-taking of late; there was no need to test Lady Luck’s beneficence. Instead, they used the time to plan.

  Nearly an hour later Clea Staples walked into the Blaina Press coffee shop dressed as her best approximation of a tourist. It had been rare for her to wear anything other than workout clothes, pajamas, or her slacks and flight jacket, and so she felt oddly uncomfortable. She sported a pair of fraying blue jeans that had fit less snugly the last time she had tried them on and a white, oversized “viva Las Vegas” tee shirt that John had loaned her. He had given strict instructions that she not get any blood on it, a joke she chose to interpret as an expression of concern.

  A quick scan of the room told her that her friend had not yet arrived, but that was hardly surprising, as Staples was early. She walked to the counter and forced herself to order a cup of black coffee that she did not want. Her nerves were wound tight enough without adding caffeine to the mix, but she could hardly sit with a cup of water for the next half hour while she waited. The barista was a comely young woman of perhaps eighteen. Her face was accentuated by eyebrow, nose, and lip piercings, and her hair was somewhere between purple and green.

  A minute later Staples took a seat facing the front door and the windows. People passed by regularly. Staples tried not to imagine a sniper’s bullet piercing the glass and slamming into her chest. She tore her eyes away from the glass and instead looked at the customers around her.

  It was nearly fifteen on a Wednesday afternoon, and so the business was not crowded. Two young women, both aged about twenty, worked on surfaces. Students, Staples guessed, as they seemed intent on their work. Each wore headphones, and though they were sitting on opposite sides of the room, they might have been mirrors of one another in posture and attitude. A middle-aged man in a tweed jacket read a paperback book while intermittently sipping what appeared to be a cup of steaming chai. He had a professorial air about him; he wore glasses and a close-cropped beard, and his short blonde hair stood straight up.

  All three of her fellow patrons had been here when she entered, and none of them looked to her like hired gunmen, though she reminded herself that her experience with such things was hardly extensive. It would have made much more sense to send Dinah, Jang, or even Overton in here instead of her, but they did not know what Jordan looked like. It was also unlikely that Jordan would respond positively to an overture from any of them, as she had not met any of the three. It was entirely possible that Jordan would not enter at all if she did not see Staples inside, and so it had to be her. Knowing this did not make her feel any safer.

  After a few minutes of sizing up the other people in the shop, making unintentional and awkward eye contact with the barista, and staring at the windows, Staples realized that she was by far the most suspicious person in the room. She pushed herself to her feet and selected a newspaper from a small stack of reading materials on a table in the corner. The paper, which she had only intended to be a cover, actually caught her attention. An article tucked in the bottom corner of the front page addressed an upcoming World Senate discussion on the legalization of Artificial Intelligence.

  She began reading. The upcoming talks had originally been scheduled for October, but the disaster of Cronos Station had allowed proponents of legalization to lobby for a rescheduling. A number of experts in the field, including, she noted, Owen Burr, were scheduled to testify. Brutus had told the crew that Burr and his team had been the people behind the construction of Victor some three years prior. She wondered for the first time whether Burr had actually set foot on AR-559. Perhaps, she conjectured, he had led a cadre of scientists in their work there, or else gone to check on their progress. She found herself wondering whether he had known, sanctioned, or even put in motion the bribes that had resulted in Dinah’s squad being sent to wipe the base clean.

  “I hear space crime is on the rise,” a voice interrupted her reverie.

  Staples immediately dropped the paper to her lap and saw the woman she knew as Jordan Fecks sitting at the table next to her. Her appearance was unchanged, and she wore the same cavalier grin on her face that she had when Staples had seen her last on Mars three months ago. She did not look like a woman who was frightened for her life.

  “Jordan,” she said, putting the
paper on the table.

  “Actually, it’s Jessica now. Jessica Deteshi.” She spoke as though she were passing gossip to a fellow housewife in the suburbs. “How have you been, Clea?”

  Staples was somewhat dumbfounded by the question and her friend’s casual demeanor. She had anticipated a breathless and desperate woman, one who cast furtive glances about the room. Jessica, as she now called herself, seemed anything but, though she did note that by sitting next to and not across from her she had kept the front door and windows in view.

  “I’m fine,” she answered reflexively, then changed her mind. “Actually, I’m terrible.” She spoke quickly and quietly. “I’m exhausted, strung-out, and my ship looks like Swiss cheese. I’ve lost five crew members since the last time we sat down and talked, and if you don’t have something for me, I’m really not sure what we’re going to do.”

  Jessica made a sympathetic face. “Oh, Clea, cheer up. I’ve got good news for you if you’ve got a place for me on your ship.”

  Staples was stunned. “You want to join my crew?”

  Jessica raised her eyebrows dramatically. “Well, since you’ve asked, I suppose I could say yes. I assume you pay well, and I hear you’ve got a devil of a doctor.” She held her index fingers to her temples to mimic horns. “I can start right away.”

  Staples laughed humorlessly at her friend’s flippant attitude. “Well good. Let’s get going.” The two women stood. Staples took one more look around the room, but no one seemed to be marking their exit, and a moment later they stepped outside.

  Breathing unfiltered air and feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin still felt so new to Staples that she could not help but turn her face to it, eyes closed, just as she had when they had arrived in Portland. A few people traversed the sidewalks, and the whine of an electric car on the street passed them by.

  Jessica tapped her back lightly. “This is no time to fall asleep on the job. I told you I was being followed. Let’s get a move on, shall we? Which way?”

  Staples pointed up the street towards the lot where they had parked the Delta V, then cast her eyes about in what she hoped was a subtle manner. “Can you see them?” She began walking.

  Her friend kept pace with her. “Yes. They’ve been on me for the past four days.”

  “Can you tell me-” Staples began, but then a movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked, and Jessica suddenly crumpled to the ground with two bloody bullet holes in her back. There had been no sound of gunfire, just a sickening wet sound. She was simply standing one second and down the next.

  Staples immediately dropped to her knees beside her and rolled her over. Her chest was clean of blood; Staples thought that the bullets must have hit obstructions in her body. The image of them shattering ribs, lodging in organs came to her, and she shook her head. The other woman was still breathing, but raggedly. Blood blossomed at her lips and trickled down her cheek.

  “Clea…” she said, and Staples took her hand.

  “Oh my God. Hang on,” she told the woman. She looked up and started to call for help, but then she noticed the large man with a bald head and a goatee across the street from her. He wore a leather jacket despite the warmth of the day, and he was producing a pistol from it. Staples couldn’t tell if he had been the one who shot her friend. She didn’t think so, but she was fairly sure that he intended to shoot her. “Jang!” she yelled.

  People around them were confused. A few had stopped to look. One had produced his phone to call an ambulance. Others stumbled on, their eyes on the dying woman in Staples’ arms. Three had read the situation sufficiently well enough to start running away. From this crowd emerged Kojo Jang, pistol in hand. He trained it on the bald man across the street.

  “Drop it!” Jang yelled forcefully.

  The man did not stop, nor did he drop his weapon. He brought it to bear on Jang, and Jang opened fire, hitting the man in the leg but not disabling him. He fired back, but missed, and then he dodged into an alley for cover, limping all the way.

  “Captain, we’ve got to go!” Overton had appeared as well, his pistol drawn. People were running and screaming now.

  Staples was torn. “We can’t leave her.” Jang reached down and pressed two fingers of his left hand to Jessica’s neck. He held them there for a moment, still training his weapon on the alleyway.

  A second later, more shots rang from the alley, and Staples heard them impact the wall behind her. Suddenly Overton was struck and hit the pavement on his back.

  “She’s dead, or near enough, Captain. We have to go.” Jang dragged her roughly to her feet, fired two shots blindly into the shadowed alley, then pulled Overton up as well. The man was wearing armor under his shirt, but he would be badly bruised tomorrow, assuming they survived the next few minutes.

  “Run!” Jang yelled, and she ran. She didn’t look back. She caught a glimpse of another man, this one with blonde hair and a scarred face in a blue windbreaker. He had a pistol as well, and he was aiming it at her. Panic overcame her, and she ceased to be able to think strategically. She just ran for her life. Behind her, she could hear Jang and Overton exchanging fire with their assailants, and any second she expected a bullet to hit her. She was wearing body armor as well under her touristy tee shirt, but it wouldn’t save her head. She felt instantly winded despite the adrenaline pumping through her system, and somehow the shuttle lot was still a block away. Dinah, a pistol in hand, stood outside the Delta V and waved her over.

  Running that last block, shots echoing behind her and fear driving her legs, seemed a Sisyphean feat. Her lungs burned, her legs ached, but somehow, she made it. She didn’t stop to talk to Dinah; she just ran up the ramp and into the shuttle. Bethany was already spinning up the engines. A few seconds later she heard the clatter of combat boots on the ramp, and Jang, Overton, and Dinah all entered the small room in the center of the shuttle. The men were breathing nearly as hard as Staples was. Dinah pressed a button, and the ramp retracted, Bethany already nudging them skyward before it closed completely. Staples expected to hear the clatter of gunfire on the hull, a sound she had become disturbingly used to lately, but there was only the high wine of the thrusters.

  Staples sat heavily on the floor of the room, sweat pouring down her face. She felt it trickle from her armpits and down her sides, tickling her under the weight of the body armor. “Goddamn it,” she muttered.

  “I’m sorry, Captain. About your friend,” Jang said.

  “Is everyone all right?” Staples asked. She looked at each of them. Dinah was standing calmly by the entry ramp. Overton winced and groaned as he removed his armor. A bullet showed dark and flat in its center. Jang was unhurt, though he was sweating and breathing hard as well. He glanced at Overton and raised his eyebrows.

  “I think so,” Overton said. “Hurts like a son of a bitch, but-” he inspected his now naked chest, “I’m okay.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Jang said again, “But I must ask. Did she tell you anything?”

  Staples shook her head. “No.”

  Jang struck the wall in frustration, and Overton took a seat in one of the chairs against the wall. They all swayed as the shuttle picked up speed, heading northwest towards Gringolet.

  Staples sat, her back against the cabin wall and her knees up. Her hands were two fists lying flat on the deck. She forced herself to uncurl them one at a time. In her right hand, the one with a few specs of blood on it, the one she had used to grip her friend’s hand, was a slip of paper.

  Two hours later they were back onboard Gringolet, and Staples was sitting in the mess hall with Templeton, Dinah, Evelyn, Jang, and Overton. She held up the piece of paper. It was a small slip, a scrap really, that had been folded over several times. They all read it plainly enough. It was a number: 276 05 02 86.

  “Is that meant to mean something to us?” Evelyn asked, not unkindly. “Is it a social security number?”

  “Indeed, how does this help us?” Jang asked.


  “I haven’t really shared the details with all of you, but Janae – or Jordan or Jessica or whatever her real name was, she and I have known each other for years. She is… she was a friend, but not in the traditional sense.” She paused when she realized that she was rambling. She knew that Evelyn had heard her story before, but she thought that it required some explanation for the others. She struggled to express her thoughts. Her grief and shock over the death of her friend was affecting her deeply. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. She hadn’t even known the woman’s real name, but she had seemed the type who could never die, the kind of person who had all the angles covered.

  “Jordan was part eco-terrorist, part scales balancer. She helped the captain once and they’ve been friends ever since,” Evelyn said briskly, then looked at Staples. “Does that help?”

  Staples collected her thoughts, drew in a huge breath, then let it out slowly. “Yes, thank you.”

  She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again. “Anyway, she used code words, dead drops, everything but secret handshakes. There’s a locker room in 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. It’s a dead drop location she’s used with me before, a way to get info to me without actually meeting. The first three digits are the locker number. The last six are the combination. If anyone got the slip of paper besides me, it would be useless without knowing where to go.”

  “Unless they followed her there,” Dinah said.

  “You did say that she said she’d been followed for the past four days,” Overton added.

  Staples nodded. “It is certainly possible, and I guess there is only one way to find out.”

  “They must have had a sniper,” Jang said as he ruminated on the shootout.

  “What?” Staples looked at him in confusion.

  “The shots that hit her, your friend,” Jang continued. “I didn’t hear them, and the two gunmen I saw were on the opposite side of the street. I don’t think they started to fire on us until after she was shot. The angle was all wrong; it couldn’t have been them. I suspect a sniper was some distance away. When they realized that she was talking to you, they killed her.”