Finality

by Amy Cross

  "I'm giving you a very big hint here," Sutter continues. "Walk away from the computer and think about the one button that might actually save you. If you need another clue, I'll give it to you. We can't both survive this. Only you. You need to focus on the things you can save and ignore the rest. Don't worry, I won't be offended. Hell, I'll probably be impressed."

  I turn to him.

  "That's it," he adds with a smile. "That's the look of fear and desperation I was hoping to see. Come on, Crizz, let Amanda back through. She's the one who can save you. No offense, but Crizz Arnold was never really too impressive. I've been watching you over the past few weeks, and you're a slave to rules and regulations. You need to think big."

  Turning back to the monitor, I realize that there's a chance if I try to reboot the system into emergency mode. Pulling the main screen out from the terminal, I disconnect the main cable and wait for a few seconds, counting slowly to twenty before reconnecting everything. In theory, the network should require re-authorization before the countdown resumes, but finally the screen blinks back into life and I see that the destruct sequence is still running. It's down to forty-seven minutes now, and I'm almost out of ideas.

  "You can't save yourself while you're standing there," Sutter says, sounding almost as if he's amused by the whole situation. "You've got to re-prioritize what time you've got left so you can -"

  "Shut up!" I shout, not even bothering to turn and face him. "Just shut the fuck up!"

  He falls silent as I start bringing up more interface screens. My hands are starting to get clammy with sweat, and I'm working faster than ever, but I know I can find a way to stop the countdown. All I have to do is focus, work carefully, and trust that a moment of inspiration is going to strike. I might not be the best programer in the galaxy, but I'm convinced I'm better than Nick Sutter, which means there's a way to break through his work and disable the whole goddamn system. I just need to find it before the clock runs down.

  Chapter Two

  Sutter

  Peeling the bandage from the upper part of my right leg, I immediately see that there's a problem. Some kind of yellow-green mucus has begun to fill the wound, as if I've contracted an infection that's spreading too rapidly for the restorative gel to have any effect. I can already feel a kind of soreness radiating all the way down through the muscle to the bone, and it's pretty clear that even if I was at the best medical facility on Mars, I wouldn't have much of a chance.

  I'm dying.

  Even if the infection doesn't kill me, the exploding space station will do the job.

  And even if that didn't finish things off, there's a squadron of Supreme Command vessels on the way to arrest me and take me back for a show trial, to be followed by a swift execution.

  So, all things considered, things aren't looking so good.

  Sitting on my bunk, I open the medical kit and look through for something that might at least ease the pain and allow me to stay on my feet for the last hour of my life. There are some scalpels and tubes of gel, and various types of dressing, but somehow I don't think any of those are going to do the job. Finally, I open one of the scalpels and use it to try scooping as much of the pus out of my wound as possible, even though I know deep down that this is kind of pointless. I guess, in times of crisis, the human mind still wants to go through the rituals of self-preservation, despite knowing that the game's most definitely up.

  "Come on!" Crizz shouts in frustration, still working on the terminal in the control room.

  I can't help but smile.

  "You can do this," she continues, clearly trying to give herself a bump in confidence. "Wait, what if..."

  I pause for a moment, listening as she continues to mutter various ideas under her breath. It'd be almost comic, if the situation wasn't so desperate.

  There are still forty-three minutes before the countdown finishes and the station goes into self-destruct mode, which is more than enough time for Crizz to figure out how she's supposed to get out of this mess. Deborah and I specifically designed this test as a recreation of the situation that Amanda Cole faced a few years ago on a small mining facility on the other side of the Nebulan Cluster. Back then, Amanda managed to come up with a solution that saved her life, and I'm hoping that by more or less recreating that scenario, we might be able to bump Crizz into remembering her old life. If this approach doesn't work, I guess the brainwashing must have been too strong. Either way, there's no more time to wait. Either Amanda Cole reasserts herself in Crizz's mind, or the whole damn operation has been in vain.

  Once I've cleaned some more pus out of my wound, I pull the dressing off completely and see that the entire upper part of my right leg is being eaten away. I quickly pop a few more pills, hoping that I can continue to stave off the worst of the pain, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is the end. Sure, I could grab a saw and try to get Crizz to amputate, although at most I'd only buy myself a few more minutes. Taking a deep breath, with sweat starting to collect on my forehead, I lean back on the bunk for a moment. I guess I should have known it was going to end like this, but at least the bastards at Supreme Command didn't get me. There's a part of me that wishes I could live to see what happens next, although at least this way I get to have hope. I just wish I could have died on solid ground, instead of in a metal ball orbiting a dusty old rock.

  Then again...

  Leaning over toward the porthole, I stare out at Io-5 and realize that even though I'm definitely going to die, I at least have a choice when it comes to where I draw my last breath. Crizz is still working on the terminal, and there's not really anything else I can do to help her. In fact, it'd just frustrate me to spend the next forty minutes listening to her struggle with increasing desperation to bypass the locks I placed on the system. Sure, Io-5 isn't exactly home, but at least I could die on an actual planet. I've always hated the idea of dying in space, of being blown out into the vacuum; maybe I'm old-fashioned after all, but I figure humans are designed to spend most of our time on terra firma instead of hurtling through the void in little tin cans.

  Getting to my feet, I try to ignore the agony in my leg as I limp to the hatch. I look through and see that Crizz is focused on the computer, still trying desperately to stop the countdown. She doesn't even look over as I make my way through to the control room and limp toward the hatch that leads down to the main bay. There's a part of me that wants to stop and try to help her, but we've reached the point where she has to help herself. Climbing into the docking bay, I miss my footing and drop down hard against the floor; the pain in my leg flares through my body and I let out a gasp, but finally I manage to crawl toward the far side of the bay and haul myself into the lander. Even this short trip is exhausting, but I force myself to push on as I re-engage the flight computer and bring up the coordinates for Io-5's Macopa Trench. If I'm gonna die, it might as well be somewhere interesting.

  I feel bad for leaving Crizz alone, but something tells me that Amanda Cole would understand.

  Chapter Three

  Crizz

  "Lander disengaged," the computer's pre-programed voice says suddenly, out of nowhere.

  "Fine," I mutter, furiously typing in another bypass key that I'm hoping should disable the locks Sutter was able to install on the main conduit. I've been trying to sneak through the firewalls he installed on the system, but now I'm trying a different approach: I'm attempting to force myself into the core operating server and then maybe find some way to remove the self-destruct system from the rest of the network. If I can do that, there's a chance I can isolate the timer altogether, which means it would still run down but there'd be no way for it to trigger the explosives.

  "Wait," I say suddenly, looking up at the top screen and seeing that the lander has been launched. "What?"

  Running over to the window, I look out just in time to see the lander's docking arm being retracted. Panicking, I race across the control room and lean through into the main bay, and finally I see that it's true: the lander h
as gone.

  "Sutter!" I shout, turning and running to the hatch that leads to his room. I lean inside, but it's already clear that I won't find him. I pause for a moment as a kind of cold sweat passes through my body, and even though I don't want to accept the truth, finally I have no choice: he's abandoned the station. I stare out the window and watch as the lander hurtles away, eventually becoming nothing more than a speck in the distance before that, too, vanishes from sight.

  He's gone.

  "Lander to Io-5 station," a crackly voice says suddenly, barely audible over the comm-link. "Crizz, it's me. Are you there?"

  I run over to the terminal and bring up the relay screen.

  "Where are you going?" I ask, trying not to let the panic sound so obvious in my voice.

  "Where do you think I'm going?" he replies. "I'm heading down to the planet. I know you tried to disable the damn thing, but I'm sure you've learned by now that I'm way ahead of you on most of these things. Believe me, Deborah and I spent a long time trying to Crizz-proof that station."

  "We have orders -"

  "I really don't think orders apply right now, do you? For God's sake, stop worrying about things like that. If you can't forget about your orders, you're going to be dead soon."

  "But you left me here," I point out. "I could have... I could have come with you. There's enough food and water down there to last until help arrives -"

  "That's really the last thing we need," he replies. "Do you really want to sit around and wait until a bunch of jack-booted fascists turn up and haul us both away? Believe me, neither of us would end up being very grateful. Anyway, the supplies are at the rig, and that's not where I'm going."

  I stare at the screen and watch as the lander's progress is show. He's already entering Io-5's upper atmosphere, and the remote tracker shows his destination as the Macopa Trench, one of the most desolate parts of the entire planet.

  "The trench?" I ask. "Why are you going there?"

  "I figure it's a beautiful place to die," he replies. "I've always been fascinated by the trench. It's one of those places where the natural world just seems to have fashioned something remarkable, like the Desolae Plain on Mars or the Grand Canyon on Earth. I don't know how long I've got left, but the way my leg is going, it's probably not more than a few hours."

  "That's longer than I've got," I shoot back at him.

  "Only if you don't think smart."

  "There's no way out of here!" I shout.

  "That's exactly what Amanda said to me one time," he continues, "right before she managed to escape from a mining station above Debulan-1, on the other side of the Nebulan Cluster. She found a way, though, and I'm confident you'll find a way too."

  "I don't want to die," I reply, feeling as if I might start crying at any moment.

  "Then don't."

  I turn to the main terminal, but my mind seems to have frozen. I've tried so many different ways to break down the firewalls that Sutter installed, but to his credit he managed to seal the system up perfectly. Maybe with a few days to work on it, I might be able to find a weakness, but right now I've run out of ideas. The system is still steadily counting down and I for the first time in my life I feel completely helpless.

  "It would have been fun to have stayed up there with you," he continues, "and I'm sorry we didn't get to have a big, weepy goodbye, but... The truth is, I said goodbye to you once already, a long time ago, and I don't really want to do it again. I've never really liked being in space, and my leg's not looking good, so I figure I'd rather die down here on the surface of a planet. Any planet'll do, really, even a barren old rock like Io-5. I just want to be looking up at the sky as I draw my final breath. Call me sentimental if you like, but it's just how I feel. I hope you understand."

  I open my mouth to reply, but no words come out. It's as if I've lost the will to argue with him. All that's left to do now is to watch the countdown as it relentlessly heads toward zero.

  "Crizz?" Sutter says after a moment. "Are you still there? Talk to me, Crizz!"

  "You left me here," I reply, trying to stay calm. "You set the self-destruct system and then you left me up here to die!"

  "I left you up there to find your own way out," he says. "There really is a solution, Crizz, but you have to step away from the goddamn computer if you're gonna find it. Maybe it'd help you to think about what I'd do if I was in your situation. Believe it or not, you've survived something similar before, back in the days when you were Amanda Cole."

  "I'm not Amanda Cole," I tell him. "I never was! You keep saying that -"

  "And I'm wrong," he replies.

  I stare at the screen, watching as the tracker shows Sutter's lander entering the planet's lower atmosphere.

  "You were Amanda Cole," Sutter continues, "and you were Crizz Arnold, but I think now you're a third person. There's a bit of both those old identities in you, and they're merging to form something new. I don't know if you'll ever remember much about Amanda, but she wasn't a saint. She had principles and she wanted to fight injustice wherever she saw it, but she was also stubborn and pig-headed; there were times when she was more than willing to sacrifice the lives of others if she believed she could gain a tactical advantage. Sometimes, it was as if she'd started to forget why we started fighting in the first place." He pauses. "I think a combination of Amanda Cole and Crizz Arnold might be far more effective than either of them separately."

  "I feel different," I say after a moment, turning to see that the countdown has dipped below thirty minutes. "I feel..." My voice trails off as I realize that the sense of friction and conflict in my mind seems to have passed, replaced by a new sense of calm.

  "I wish I could be there to see who you are next," Sutter says after a moment, his voice becoming increasingly distorted as the signal starts to fade. "Good luck, though. You're going to need it. Just step away from that goddamn computer and try to think laterally. I know I'm old-fashioned, but sometimes my way is the best. Don't think of that place as a space station. Think of it as a burning ship. What do people do when they're trapped on a burning ship? If you can't -"

  I wait for him to continue, but the signal seems to have been cut off abruptly, which I guess means he's entered the trench.

  "Sutter?" I shout, trying to change the frequency in a desperate attempt to get back in touch. "Nick? Are you there? Nick, answer me!"

  Silence.

  I take a step back from the computer terminal. All around me, the station seems perfectly calm, but the self-destruct timer is still counting down and in a little under twenty-nine minutes, the explosive charges in the bulkheads are going to be detonated. For a moment, all I can think about is how it will feel to be blasted out into space, unable to breathe in the void. I figure it'll take a couple of minutes before I pass out, and for a few seconds I realize that there's no point trying to fight.

  It's over. All I can do now is wait to die.

  Chapter Four

  Sutter

  With my leg hurting more than ever, it takes a few minutes to climb out of the lander, and at the last moment I try and tumble down onto the planet's rocky surface.

  Still, pain doesn't matter anymore.

  Hauling myself up, I start limping slowly away from the lander until finally I reach the edge of the cliff. Far below, the Macopa Trench runs through the surface of Io-5 like a huge rip torn in the fabric of the planet. No-one has ever really studied the geology of Io-5, at least not in terms of its plate tectonics, but the most likely explanation for the trench is that a huge earthquake must have once struck the planet, potentially affecting this entire hemisphere. In another life, I'd have liked to have spent my time studying this place in minute detail. Even a dead planet can be fascinating.

  Figuring that I don't have much time, I start clambering down the side of the cliff-face. I intentionally chose one of the narrower and more accessible parts of the trench. In some places, sheer cliffs drop down almost a mile, but here it's just a few hundred meters and even with an injured
leg I'm able to make the descent. I've read the log reports from the mining company's expeditions, and it's clear that once they determined that there were no significant methane-hydrozone reserves in the trench, they more or less abandoned the area. That's the problem with using commercial organizations to carry out this kind of exploration; they only care about the money, and they leave everything else untouched.

  By the time I get to a ledge halfway down the cliff-face, I have to take a pause. I'm out of breath, and I can tell that my core temperature has risen to a dangerous level. Glancing toward the light red sky, I try to imagine what Crizz is doing right now. She only has ten, maybe fifteen minutes left before the station is destroyed, and while I hope she works out what to do, I'm not certain she was ready for this test. If only she hadn't contacted Supreme Command and told them about the smuggling operation, we'd have had more time to build up to this moment, but as soon as she sent that message I knew there was no option other than to push ahead.

  The crazy part is, I'm going to miss her. For all her rule-following adherence to Supreme Command, she was a good person, and I hope that at least part of Crizz Arnold remains when Amanda Cole reasserts herself. The two of them together would be much stronger and more effective than either of them apart.

  Looking down at my leg, I suddenly realize that the pain has stopped. I peel the dressing away, half-convinced that maybe the gel pack has kicked in and begun to fight back against the infection. It'd be ironic if, after all this, it turned out I wasn't going to die from the wound after all, but after a moment I realize that the reverse is true: the wound has begun to necrotize, which I guess means that the nerve endings are dying. Pulling a piece of skin back, I spot a glistening section of bone protruding from the wound. I'm still convinced that I was attacked by a human back at the rig, but it's clear that something about the atmosphere of Io-5 has caused my injury to deteriorate at an accelerated speed. I'm a dead man walking; or, rather, a dead man limping.