by Elin Wyn
Despite myself, thoughts of Mack wormed through my focus. Why had he been sent up here?
A disturbing worry gnawed at the back of my mind. How would I know if he’d really been memory wiped? The marks - that could be a tattoo, easily recreated once you knew what the burn pattern looked like. I could search for his file, nothing was really sealed. But that wouldn’t tell me anything other than his cover story.
What if it was just an act, a way for the governor to get close to me, discover where I'd hidden the disk? His scanner readings only confused things. He was obviously the product of genetic engineering, to a level illegal in the Empire. Did that make him more likely to be a tool of one of the Syndicates?
I didn’t try to think of the details of my mission often. Safer to keep my mind as blank as possible, to not risk giving myself away.
But now I needed to examine the entire project. I knew I'd already been betrayed by at least one person. Did Mack fit into the pattern as another possible traitor?
When I arrived on Orem, it had taken a while to get past the rumors, find actual proof of the criminal activities by the station’s governor. As governor, he had the ultimate authority on Minor - it had been the logical place for his goons to toss me for holding. It would be easy enough for him to plant another inmate, make it look like he needed help, in an effort to get close to me.
The criminal activity was clear, but I had stayed longer than I should have, trying to identify who the governor’s partners were. There were plenty of little villains, but a majority of his business went through one far outpost - and I couldn’t find any details on who ran it. If we rolled the governor up, I didn't want bigger fish getting away.
When his goons had grabbed me, they’d made a mistake. No one knew where I'd hidden that chip. And that meant they didn’t know how much I’d uncovered.
I’d bet he’d do a lot to find that out. Even try to plant someone on the inside to get close to me.
And yet… I thought about Mack’s troubled night.
I'd heard his breathing - he was sleeping, I was sure. The nightmare wasn't faked, but, in the cold artificial light of morning, I couldn't say that it was proof that he had been wiped.
Finally, I found the list of cuff controls and scanned it quickly. Just as I’d guessed, Minor hadn't bothered to switch from the factory presets. And there was what I needed to reset my cuff to green. Good enough.
As I started closing screens, a subdirectory caught my eye. I brought it to the foreground, and for a moment stopped breathing.
Transmission logs. Outgoing. And from this terminal.
I glanced at the door, Denon still hadn't come in. From his regular pattern I could expect several more minutes of privacy, but the urge for caution was stronger than ever.
Quickly, I flicked open the most recent of the messages. I could work my way back, but I needed to know what was going on now.
Whatever you did failed. Don’t know why you thought the bitch would come back here. Told you plenty of times she wasn’t warming up to me. Just come and get her. But I still earned my deal, right?
I froze. The ‘bitch’ seemed very likely to be me.
I checked the timestamp on the messaging. It was after curfew. Denon must've had a way to get out of the dorms and back here, to the single terminal with access to the outside world.
The message was clear between the lines. Something had been deliberately done to my cuff in the expectations I would come back to the clinic. But why?
It had to be about the chip. There was nothing else anyone would want.
But who had he told to come pick me up? Where would be worse than here?
My throat dry, my eyes flicked back and forth between the screen and the door. There had to be more in the logs.
I picked a previous message at random, no time to go through them methodically. From the time stamps, they looked like daily reports, stretching back to a few days before I had been kidnapped.
Bitch isn’t warming up. I don't know. Maybe she just doesn't like guys. I still get my deal, right?
I stuck my tongue out. That sounded exactly like Denon. Obviously, if I wasn't into him, I wasn't into guys at all. Douche.
Time for one more. I picked one of the earliest messages.
I'm telling you, I want immunity from the ghosts, or no deal.
Ghosts?
My heart thudded in my chest as I checked the chrono. I didn't know what was going on, but it was too close to when Denon usually came strolling through the door to risk checking further. I swore under my breath. I could have sent a message to Stanton, let my handler know where I was being kept all along. But now I was out of time. Next time I wouldn’t hesitate.
I closed all of the windows, went back into the system history and wiped my tracks, until the comm looked just as it had when I arrived. But I couldn’t leave the thoughts of those messages alone.
Ghosts?
The word echoed in my head while I disassembled the hand-held scanner, used the calibration tool to reset the frequency.
That Denon had been co-opted to spy on me wasn’t a surprise. If anything, it explained why he was always just a little too friendly, a little too accommodating about logging my tasks as useful, even though they were obviously busy work.
But ghosts? How do you get immunity from ghosts?
By the time Denon sauntered into the clinic, I’d returned the scanner to its regular condition, replaced it in the cabinet, and was busily making sure we had enough bandages and gauzes. It looked like we were well stocked into the next century.
Denon hesitated just an instant when he saw me. The flicker in his eyes was enough to confirm what I had read in the messages. Something was going on, and he was a part of it.
“Leave that for now,” he said after a moment. “Just heard over the comms that the gasket blew on a poor sucker working the sterilizer in the mess hall. We'll need to get the hyperbaric gear prepped.”
We didn't have a full hyperbaric chamber, of course. The best we could do was seal and wrap it one section at a time in something like a large pressurized envelope, and dope the victim up. Out of habit, I checked the slender oxy tanks. Something else we were well enough stocked with.
By the end of shift, I was exhausted. Friends of the burn victim had come and gone throughout the day, and one of them had enough sense to offer to bring us meal packs.
I’d turned her down. After seeing the steam-scalded flesh blister across the man's chest, I didn't have much of an appetite.
“Go ahead and call it a night,” Denon said. “I'll keep an eye on them for a while.” He’d been professional and courteous, but a bit remote, all day.
Maybe knowing I was due for someone to come and ‘get’ me made him want to put a little distance between us.
“Sure. I'll see you in the morning.” He didn't look up from the comm screen.
Outside the clinic doors, I leaned against the wall. I didn't have all the information I wanted. Hell, I didn’t have nearly enough to even make a reasonable guess at the right decision.
But I'd run out of time.
A large shape loomed out from the side corridor and I stiffened, ready for another fight.
“Just me,” Mack’s low voice rumbled. “You look like you had a hell of a day,” his glance dropped to my cuff, “despite getting some maintenance taken care of.”
“Void, yes,” I sighed.
Time to choose, Zayda.
“Why don’t you buy a girl a drink, and I'll tell you all about it.”
He ran his hand through his brush of hair and gave a grin. “Think I could use one of those myself, darlin’. And I've got a few things to tell you, as well.”
As we approached, you could hear the heavy bass music reverberating through the deck.
“What the hell is this?” His eyes bounced from couple to couple in the makeshift bar. Ramshackle booths had been jury-rigged out of spare parts, machinery, anything that people could get their hands on.
Curtai
ns made of drop chutes partitioned off part of the large room, and it didn't take particularly good hearing to figure out what was going on behind the fabric, with the faint illusion of privacy.
“Anytime you put people somewhere, you know somebody's gonna figure out how to make a still. Welcome to the Down Low.” I gestured expansively, and headed to the bar. “I'm warning you, it's terrible.”
Mack
My nostrils flared as I took in the room. Apparently once a series of store rooms, it stunk of sweat and sex and stimulants. I didn't like this. Too many people, too much noise. But if I wanted to tell Zayda what I'd found out, little though it was, it looked like I'd be doing it here.
I joined her at the length of battered permasteel that laid over a couple of crates, pretending to be a counter.
A woman with dark skin, her hair falling around her face in a cascade of short braids, was deep in conversation with Zayda.
“I'm telling you, girl,” the bartender said. “You worked on saving my guy today. You're not paying for your drinks.” She looked my way and I could feel her eyes trail up and down my chest. “And if this big boy’s with you, I can stand him his first couple, too. Not sure if it will do much to him.”
Zayda laughed. “No idea yet, but I guess we'll find out.”
The woman brought back two scavenged glasses, half filled with a clear liquid. The acrid scent overwhelmed everything else in the room. That wasn't a bad thing.
“Come on, big boy,” Zayda teased. “Let's see if we can find a space.”
I sipped the drink as I followed her, noting the curve of her hip as she almost danced through the crowd to find a clear spot by a wall.
It burned all the way down. I took another sip as I joined her, our backs against the wall.
“Want to tell me what we’re doing here, darlin’?”
She put her drink down, untasted. “Sorry. But I don't know anywhere else on Minor that we can talk without anyone noticing. No idea what phrases are set to trigger a deeper search, but I’ll bet we might use one or two tonight.”
“How much of it is wired?” I asked.
“No idea.” She looked tired, but, beyond the exhaustion, I could see a fire in her eyes. “But if you were running the show, wouldn't you have ears everywhere you could?”
Likely, but that left even more questions unanswered. “Then why would they allow this sort of place to keep going? Certainly the cuffs could be set to not allow access, or give a shock every time a certain number of people gathered in a space outside of the mess or dorms.”
“I don't know.” She shook her head, frustrated. “There’re too many things I don't know. I’d suspect as long as the station gets the power and their crops delivered on time, maybe the governor just doesn’t care. Maybe someone on his staff realizes the people stuck in here need a pressure valve, some sort of release during their sentence.”
I took another sip. It didn’t get any better. “Makes sense. Especially since a sentence up here seems to be for life.”
Her eyes flew open. “What do you mean?”
I told her what I’d found out – the black ghosts that terrified tough men, the one-way sentences, everything. “You've never asked anyone how long they were up here for?”
“No, it didn't seem like relevant information.” She reached for her drink, set it down again. “That was stupid of me.”
I turned to face her directly, blocking her view of the room. “No, I just think you’ve had your mind on too many other things.” I laid my hand over hers where it rested by her glass. “People keep telling me you can’t go it alone here.”
Her gaze fixed on my hand for a long moment, then she met my eyes with a faint smile. “Maybe I can’t.”
The commotion of the room behind us faded away as I leaned towards her. “Maybe you don’t need-”
“Hey, sweet cheeks. Want to dance again?”
Zayda's jaw clenched, and I turned to see the idiot and his friends who had attacked her last night.
I slammed down the rest of my drink.
“Fuck. This. Nonsense.”
I took a step towards him, Lardo, Largo, whatever the hell. It didn't matter, and was about to matter a hell of a lot less.
“Listen here, dirtscum,” I growled, and the crowd around us stilled, as if sensing the dark attraction of impending violence. “If you don't stop harassing her, I will break you into so many pieces they won't be able to scrape you up off the deck.”
The weasel threw his chin up, narrowed eyes still focused on Zayda. “Zayda and I go way back. Besides, you can't do anything to me.” He tapped his cuff. “I'm full green. All stocked up. You try anything, and you'll-”
“Don't know, don't care,” I rumbled, and decked the bastard, knocking him back into the crowd. The shock on my arm was annoying, but not exactly a deterrent.
“Sorry about that, folks.” I turned to the idiots who’d been with the stack of human garbage. “Are you next?”
“No, no.” He and his companion went and pulled their leader up off the floor. His head lolled to the side. I half-hoped I hadn't killed him, but, at the moment, I wasn't terribly concerned.
A light touch at the small of my back. I didn't even turn, I knew it was Zayda.
“How's your arm?” she muttered, too low for anyone else to hear.
“Not really a big deal, actually. I knew it was coming.” I rubbed my arm above the cuff, the tingle already fading. “Totally worth it. Except now, I'm not sure how much of a conversation we’re going to be able to have in private.” I nodded to the watching, whispering crowd.
“Well,” her hand slid up my back and I stiffened at the heat in her caress, “we can always pretend we're here for the same reason everyone else is. Once they’re sure there's nothing more exciting coming, I expect they’ll go back to their own business.”
I turned back towards her, and Zayda stepped into my embrace as if she were a part of me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and I lifted her up, braced her back against the wall while her legs wrapped around my waist.
She rained tiny kisses up the side of my neck and I fought the urge to fist her hair, pull her head back, and plunder her mouth with my own.
“You're good at this,” her breath tickled my ear and I shifted her weight to free one hand, sliding it up the rough fabric of her jacket, my fingers barely grazing the curve of her breast.
She panted and I took advantage of her distraction to nip at her earlobe. “So, what are we planning that can't be overheard?”
I nuzzled her neck, breathing deeply of her scent beneath the harsh industrial soap.
“What?” her eyelids fluttered and she pulled herself back together. “Right.” She ran her nails lightly down the back of my neck and I pulled her tighter into my chest. “If the black ghosts, which we can assume are soldiers in some sort of uniform, come and take people away, never to be seen again, I don't think I want to go with them.”
My workmate’s description ran through my mind, and suddenly a clear picture formed, a looming figure dressed in black from head to toe, with no discernable head, just an opaque black dome.
“Ow!” Zayda jumped. “Careful!”
“Sorry,” I muttered and forced my hands to unclench. “Just thought I remembered something, nothing good.”
She broke away, laid her hand on my cheek. “But remembering at all has got to be a start, right?”
“Doesn't do us any good right now.” Dread certainty uncoiled from my gut, set sharp knives against my spine. “Right now, we need to get off the satellite.”
“Agreed.” She tilted her head forward until it rested on my chest. “I've never heard of anyone escaping, but I’d bet if anyone knew about attempts, even failed ones, it would be the Skulls.”
“Jado, great,” I groaned. “I keep hearing I need to go talk to him.”
“No time like the present,” she said and, with a wiggle, shimmied out of my arms. Zayda reached back, interlacing her fingers with mine and tugged me towards the ba
ck of the room.
Passing through the fluttering walls, the brief flashes of skin, the sound of a woman's moans, and the aroma of arousal did nothing to help quench the burning need that Zayda's touch had ignited in me.
“Here we are,” she said brightly and squeezed my hand before calling out. “Hey, Ardelle! Everybody decent?”
A happy laugh answered her, and then the curtain was pulled back to reveal what must have been the entire back section of one of the storerooms. It had been converted into an office or a sitting room of some kind. A few chairs purloined from the mess hall were scattered about, and a low bed was half-shielded by a paneled screen.
The dim lights covered most of the dinginess, and a few colorful scraps of fabric made a valiant effort to brighten the room.
Bouncing up and down in excitement was the same blonde woman who’d scowled at me last night.
She looked at the two of us and grinned, eyes filled with mischief.
“I was so worried when I didn't see you in the mess this morning!” She hugged Zayda, pulling us both into the room. “You could have come by the dorm or sent someone with a message to let me know that you made it through the night.”
“I’m sorry.” Zayda hugged her back. “Without my cuff working, I couldn’t get into most places. And then, there were complications.”
The blonde’s eyebrows came together. “What kind of complications?” She stepped towards me, ready for a fight.
Zayda pushed her back. “Ardelle, stop. This is Mack. He helped with the complications and then made sure there weren’t any more. He’s one of the good guys.”
“He better be.” Hands still on hips, Ardelle didn’t look particularly convinced.
I liked her. It was pretty obvious that I could've broken her in two, but Ardelle didn't seem to care as long as her friend was safe. That worked for me.
A form rose from the dark corner of the room and I stepped in front of Zayda without thinking.
“Took you long enough,” Jado said, stepping from the shadows. “Ready to join up?”