Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Outwards, mostly,” said Dan.

  “Ye know what I meant!” Artur replied. “Why did he explode?”

  Dan shrugged and wrestled with the wheel of the Exodus until the car begrudgingly agreed to change lanes. As a general rule, the streets of Down Here were busy around the clock, but the sector Dan’s office was located in was considered too dangerous for most people to go roaming around after dark, so traffic was lighter here.

  “I don’t know,” Dan admitted. “One minute he was sitting on the toilet, the next, his insides were on the ceiling.”

  “Holy Father, that’s an unfortunate way to go,” Artur muttered. “I mean, I have had some brutal shoites in my time, but never to that extent.”

  “Something stabbed up at him out of the toilet,” Dan said. “It… I don’t know. It gutted him, or burst him, or something. Then it pulled him down.”

  “Down the bog?” said Artur. He whistled quietly. “No, that’s a new one on me.”

  “Will he be OK?” Ollie asked.

  Dan shot her a sideways glance. The Exodus took advantage of the momentary distraction and drifted into oncoming traffic. The blaring of horns forced Dan to face front again.

  “No. No, he won’t be OK,” Dan said.

  Ollie seemed saddened by this. “Are you sure?”

  “He exploded, then his empty skin was dragged down the toilet,” Dan said. “So yes, I’m pretty sure.”

  A cargo ship rose noisily from behind a building on the right, then roared up towards the blue glow of the floating cities far overhead. Everything inside the car rattled and squeaked until the din of the ship’s engines faded into the general soundtrack of the city.

  “It’s a damn shame,” Dan said, crunching down a gear and turning onto a side street that ran between two rows of crumbling old office blocks.

  “Such a sad waste of life,” Ollie agreed.

  “No. I meant he was my only lead. Krato’s got to have a bunch of guys working for him, but I’m fonked if I can find out who they are. I really thought Bonbo was going to talk.”

  He caught the look from Ollie.

  “But sure, the waste of life thing, too.”

  The Exodus’s brakes screeched in protest as Dan kangarooed the car to a stop behind a row of parked mag-levs. He cut the engine, but it chugged and rattled for several more seconds before spluttering into silence.

  “Man, I hate this fonking car,” he muttered, throwing open the door.

  “Hold up, wait for me,” Artur said, sliding down the dash and landing on Dan’s lap. He clambered into the detective’s coat pocket, then gave a thumbs-up. “All aboard.”

  Dan and Ollie both maneuvered their way out of the car and onto the sidewalk along the street from the office. It was only thirty feet or so to the door, but Dan unbuttoned Mindy’s holster, just in case. It had been a while since anyone had tried anything around here, although after what he’d done to the first guy, that wasn’t really a surprise. Still, there was no harm in being careful.

  “Ye think yer man, Krato, did it?”

  Dan shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “You think he came out of the toilet?” Ollie asked.

  “Not him personally, no,” Dan said. “But, I don’t know. Maybe he arranged something. Or maybe Bonbo was just unfortunate.”

  “That’s a fecking understatement,” said Artur. “Impaled up the arsehole while doing yer dirty business? I’d call that more than a spot of misfortune.”

  Despite everything, Dan snorted. It wasn’t a laugh, not really, but it was about as close as he was likely to get. He had no idea what it was about Artur’s accent that made the translator chip’s censorship function fail to sanitize his bad language, but on nights like this he was grateful for it.

  “You have a point,” he agreed, as they reached the door to the office block and Dan shoved it open.

  Or tried to. The door was locked. This was unusual, to say the least. The door was never locked. Sure, it gave the impression of being locked to the casual onlooker, but one solid shove had always been enough to throw the thing wide open. Now, though, it held fast.

  “It’s locked,” Dan said. It wasn’t a particularly insightful observation, but it was the best he could currently come up with.

  “Oh,” said Ollie. She looked the door up and down. “What happens now?”

  “We unlock it,” said Artur, popping his head out of the pocket. “Ye do have a key, right, Deadman?”

  Dan shook his head. “Never needed a key. Not for this one.”

  He put a shoulder to the door, in case it was stuck. It thudded in the frame but didn’t budge.

  “No, it’s definitely locked.”

  “I can see now why ye went into the detective business,” said Artur. “Sure, a steel trap mind like that’d be wasted in any other line of work.”

  Dan bent and examined the row of buttons next to the door. His name was up there near the top, but there was no point ringing that buzzer. “The building manager’s on here somewhere,” he said, struggling to make out the scratchy hand-written notices in the dark.

  “Uh, there are some people watching us,” Ollie said.

  “Where?”

  “Across the street,” Ollie told him. She waved.

  “Don’t do that,” Dan told her, still not looking.

  She stopped waving.

  “How many?” Artur asked.

  “Three,” she said, and Artur looked a little disappointed at that.

  Dan shrugged. “Nothing to stop them looking. Last I checked, that’s one of the few things still legal in this city.”

  “They’re just three muggers, or what have ye,” said Artur, leaning out of Dan’s pocket so he could follow Ollie’s gaze. “They’re harmless enough. Nothing to worry about, Peaches.”

  “They look pretty serious,” Ollie said.

  “Sure, it’s like me old mammy used to say, ‘They’re more frightened of you than you are of them.’” His brow furrowed. “Or was that spiders? Whatever, I’m sure the same thing applies.”

  “Found it,” said Dan. He pressed a button with his thumb and held it. From somewhere in the building came a faint but insistent bzzzzzt.

  “I think they have knives,” Ollie whispered.

  “Good for them. Sensible,” said Artur. “Ye certainly don’t want to be wandering these streets at this time o’ night without a weapon.”

  Ollie looked down at herself. “I don’t have a weapon.”

  “Ye don’t need one, Peaches,” said Artur, winking at her. “Ye’ve got us. Also, ye’re a feckin’ demon-monster who nearly destroyed the entire city, so I reckon ye’ll be fine. No offense, like.”

  “Keep an eye on them,” Dan instructed, briefly meeting Ollie’s gaze. She nodded.

  “Will do.”

  A voice hissed from the door intercom. “What? For fonk’s sake! What is it? Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s Deadman,” said Dan. “Top floor. We’re locked out.”

  “Oh. Deadman,” said the voice, spitting out Dan’s name like it had left a bad taste.

  “Can you buzz us in?”

  “No.”

  Dan looked from the intercom to the door and back again. “What?”

  “You’re evicted,” the voice explained.

  “Evicted?”

  “That’s right. E. Vic. Ted.”

  “He can’t do that,” Artur said. “Ye can’t do that!”

  “Wasn’t me,” the voice replied. “Government orders.”

  Dan frowned. “The Tribunal?”

  “No. Big government. Higher up.” His voice dropped to a whisper, as if just saying the word aloud might get him into trouble. “Krone. He’s building an outpost.”

  Dan’s eyebrows, which had been bunched around his nose, climbed all the way to where his hat met his head. “Krone? Why would Krone want to build an outpost here?”

  “Again, you think I asked?” the voice hissed. “Point is, we’re all out. They’re taking over this w
hole street.”

  “Why?” Dan demanded.

  The voice snorted. “You think I asked? You think they’d tell me if I did? We’re out. Shut down. Everyone’s stuff has already been shipped out.”

  “Deadman!” Artur said. “It’s getting late. I need locking up for the night before I start getting too lairy for me own good.”

  “Shipped out? Shipped out where?”

  “The Stagnates.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Dan groaned.

  “Anyone using the office space for habitation purposes – that’s losers like you and me, Deadman – has been relocated to the Stagnates by order of the Tribunal.”

  “Oh yeah?” snapped Artur. “Then how come ye’re still in there?”

  “I’m not,” said the voice. “The Tribunal hooked up a comm and told me it was my responsibility to answer it. I’m already in the Stagnates, and unless you want the city’s finest hunting you down, I suggest you do the same.”

  “Now hold on—” Dan began.

  “Goodbye, Mr Deadman,” the voice said. “And good luck.”

  There was a soft click from the intercom.

  It was followed, a moment later, by a second.

  “And don’t contact me again. I won’t answer.”

  The intercom clicked for a final time.

  “Hello? Hello? Damn it!”

  Dan jammed his thumb against the button again and held it until it was clear no-one was going to respond.

  “Son of a…” he grunted, releasing the button. He shook his head. “Could tonight get any worse?”

  From behind him, Dan heard the unmistakable shick of a flick-knife opening.

  “OK, give us your wallet and nobody gets hurt.”

  “Those men are here,” Ollie whispered.

  Dan sighed. “I told you to keep an eye on them.”

  “I did. They walked across the road.”

  “She’s observant, all right,” said Artur.

  “The wallet. Hurry up, pops, or we start slicing!”

  Dan looked down at Artur in his pocket. “Did he just call me ‘pops’?”

  Artur cracked his knuckles and sniggered. “He did that, Deadman. Ah well, at least the night’s not a total write-off, eh?”

  ONCE SOME PAINFUL lessons had been learned by the three knife-wielding men, Dan filled Ollie in on what he knew of the Stagnates.

  The concept itself was sound enough. Down Here mostly existed to provide for the floating cities of Up There, and to do so it depended on a thriving workforce where everyone pulled their weight. As a result, being unemployed Down Here was punishable by imprisonment or death, and anyone without a job needed to have a damn good scam in place to ensure they didn’t get found out.

  The majority of the jobs available in the city were of the low-paying variety, and despite Down Here being a cancerous shizzhole, property prices were beyond the reach of many people.

  That was where the Stagnates came in.

  Squeezed between the sewer system and the city above, the Stagnates was a vast underground warren of undersized habitation pods, designed to house Down Here’s working homeless. It had been a political points scorer back in the day – a shining example of how the Tribunal really cared for the city’s less fortunate.

  Forty years later, it was a cesspit – overpopulated to bursting point, and overflowing with the city’s detritus. Riots broke out every few days. Fire ripped through whole sectors on a monthly basis. The official reports on the blazes were that they were all accidental, of course, but rumors persisted that the Tribunal set them deliberately to thin out the populace. Either way, it didn’t make for a great living environment. And this was coming from someone who had, until half an hour ago, lived in a sparsely-furnished office.

  “Can’t we go somewhere else?” Ollie asked, as they approached a heavily-guarded gate in a tall fence. The fence ran for just five feet or so on either side of the gate, then turned at right angles, forming the sides of a small square. Inside the fenced-off area, a circular metal hatch stood open, revealing a dark hole in the ground.

  The fence itself hummed with electrical energy, and while it appeared to be designed to keep people out, it was worth noting that the armed guards both stood on the inside of the fence.

  “I want my stuff,” Dan said. “Besides, short of sleeping in the car, we don’t have a lot of choices. It’ll just be for tonight. We’ll find a new office tomorrow.”

  “Me arse,” Artur said, but Dan folded the flap of his pocket closed, muffling him.

  “Stay quiet,” Dan instructed. “And don’t move.”

  “Oho. Boss me around, would ye? Ye big bollock-headed gobshoite,” Artur retorted, but to Dan’s relief he didn’t say any more.

  Ollie took a deep breath and stumbled on behind Dan. She’d made the mistake of staring straight at the powerful spotlights shining down on the Stagnates entrance, and was now half-blinded.

  There were entrances all over the city, some of them protected, like this one, others far less so, depending on where they were situated.

  The guards moved behind the fence as Dan and Ollie approached. A blue trim illuminated along their armor and an opaque visor snapped down from each of their helmets, covering their faces. Officially, they were a division of the Tribunal, but the similarities between the armor designs were minimal. Power outages were common down in the Stagnates, and the glowing outfits came in handy sometimes. Riots were common, too, so the armor was heavy enough to take some serious licks, but flexible enough to allow for some strategic running away.

  The guns they carried were the size of sawed-off shotguns, but with battery packs sticking sideways from each barrel. The elongated packs acted as second handles, giving the shooter a fighting chance at controlling the weapon’s powerful kick, while providing enough charge to shut down one of those riots without having to switch batteries.

  Both weapons whined as they were switched to Ready Mode.

  “Halt!” barked one of the guards. The voice was female, Dan thought, although the way the helmet amplified it made it difficult to say for sure. “State your business.”

  Dan kept walking for a few paces, then stopped when both guns took aim at him through slots in the gate. Up close, he could see a faint shimmering across the fence. Energy shielded. Made sense. Physical objects could pass through. Blaster bolts couldn’t.

  “We’ve been relocated,” Dan said.

  “At this time of night?” the female guard demanded.

  Dan resisted the urge to point out that most relocations took place in the middle of the night, when the relocatee was too shocked and exhausted to put up much of a fight.

  “We just found out,” Dan said. “Came here as soon as we were informed.”

  The guard grunted in a way that suggested she was dissatisfied with this answer, but she didn’t press it. She motioned to a scanner built into the gate and tapped a screen on her side a few times.

  “How many?”

  “Three,” said Ollie.

  “Two,” Dan corrected. He held the guard’s gaze through the mask. “Numbers aren’t her strong point.”

  Neither guard moved for several painful seconds, then the tapping resumed.

  “OK. Retina scan.” The female guard pointed to Deadman. “You first.”

  Dan pushed back his hat, earning a little gasp from the other guard that he found both pleasing and just a tiny bit devastating. He had to bend forward a little to bring his left eye in close to the scanner.

  “Hold still.”

  Dan did as he was told. His ID had been expensive, and he’d been told at the time that it’d stand up to full Tribunal scrutiny. Guess he was about to find out.

  The scanner emitted an angry-sounding buzz that made Ollie jump. A screen the size of a credit card snapped out of the scanner, a red X illuminating as it unfolded.

  Shizz.

  Still not moving his head, Dan unfastened one of his coat buttons.

  The female guard tapped her s
creen a few more times, then looked Dan up and down. Beside her, the other guard adjusted the grip on his gun.

  Dan unfastened a second button, and subtly slid his hand into the coat.

  “Other eye,” the guard barked.

  Dan blinked. “Huh?”

  “You used the wrong eye, dummy,” the second guard said. It was the first words he had spoken, but Dan disliked him already.

  Dan slipped his hand out of his coat, then shuffled sideways until his right eye was lined up with the scanner. It bleeped almost immediately, and the red X was replaced by a green smiley face.

  “Now you,” the first guard said, indicating Ollie with a tilt of her head.

  Dan stepped aside and motioned to the scanner. Ollie, who was still suffering the effects of the spotlights, blinked rapidly and tried to study the device.

  “Hold still.”

  Ollie looked at the guard. “Huh?”

  “Don’t look at me, look at the scanner.”

  “The what?”

  Dan indicated a circle on the front of the device. “Stare into that part.”

  Ollie stared into it, then glanced at Dan. “Why, what’s it going to do?”

  “Just look at it.”

  Ollie looked at it.

  “Closer,” the first guard barked.

  Ollie stepped back, suddenly alarmed. “Why is it going to get closer?”

  Dan shook his head. “No. You get closer to it.”

  Ollie visibly relaxed. “Oh. OK. Got it.”

  She took a half-step closer. “Like this?”

  “Bring your eye nearer to that part,” Dan instructed, pointing again.

  Ollie leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the cold metal of the scanner’s front.

  “Not that near,” Dan sighed. He caught Ollie by the neck of her t-shirt and pulled her back a little. “There. Hold it there.”

  Ollie turned to Dan. “Here?”

  “Face front!” the second guard snapped.

  Ollie turned to him, startled.

  “Don’t look at him! Look at the scanner!” the first guard ordered.

  “I was looking at the scanner,” Ollie protested.

  She looked at Dan.

  “I was, right?”

  “Ma’am, we’re going to shoot you,” the first guard warned. “We are going to shoot you if you don’t look at the scanner right now!”