Atlas Fallen

by Jessica Pierce

  “Fine,” his uncle conceded to the advisor. He fixed his eyes on Daxton. “But you’ll be escorted directly there and directly back to your suite. Chef Jambin will see to it your meals are delivered from the kitchens. You are forbidden to go anywhere else without my permission, do you understand? I need to know where you are at all times, Dax. After the stunt you pulled tonight, I need to keep you safe.”

  Not a fracking chance in hell. Though his uncle claimed to be on his side regarding the threat, placing him under house arrest was not an option if they wanted to prevent Chen Yao from wreaking havoc. If the High Chancellor was planning an assassination, Kyrartine could hardly expect him to simply sit behind a pair of double doors and wait for the outcome.

  And when would he see Tesla? There was no way she could visit him on Level Two without raising questions. She’d be left on her own to help the others. And whether or not they were successful in stopping the threat, they didn’t have much time left together. In a few short days he’d be gone, and she’d begin a new life without him. He might never see her again.

  Don’t think about that right now.

  Doyle fidgeted. “What am I to tell the Grand Imperator should he inquire as to why Prince Tomasz is suddenly so compliant? Am I to relate tonight’s... events?”

  His uncle thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. His Eminence has enough to worry about without a petulant prince. Go about your normal schedule and leave the Grand Imperator to me.”

  “I’m standing right here,” said Daxton.

  “Then you’ll be certain to hear what I have to say next,” said Kyrartine, leaning his face within inches of the prince’s. “If I should hear even the slightest rumor that you’ve ditched Cademore or Gifford again, I will be sure to give your father a detailed account of your actions. You're too important to the future of the First World Union.” He whirled to face the lieutenants. “And if you two can’t keep your bloody eyes locked on the prince, I’ll have you reassigned to muck duty in the coldest, most desolate outpost in the Slovenka Province. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” the woman named Cademore answered. The other lieutenant, Gifford, shot Daxton the briefest of daggered looks while nodding.

  Daxton threw his hands in the air, leaning back until his body fell into the bed’s thick covers. “Fine. But if you’re going to babysit me, you can wait outside the door. Take Doyle with you.” He reached for his HDP. The others would need to know about the lockdown, and he could only imagine the colorful things Jasmeen would have to say about his confinement.

  “I’m keeping you safe for the good of the First World Union,” Kyrartine said gently. “I hope one day you’ll understand.”

  Daxton sat upright and waited for the tablet screen to load, all the while locking eyes with Kyrartine. “And you, Uncle, must understand this—if you lock me in here like a criminal and someone on this station is assassinated, the blood will be on your hands.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE RECREATION CENTER WAS QUIETER than Tesla remembered from the time she lived upstation, perhaps because most of the patrons frequenting the arcade and virtual reality machines had lost a sizeable amount of corpCredits betting against her the night before. Digital readouts above each video game displayed the current leader boards, complete with dancing animations, while the sounds of electronic gunfire and tinkling music of the machines filled the room.

  Tesla pulled the cap lower, hiding her white curls, ignoring the seething looks from residents and merchants alike, until a sharp noise from the entrance to the arcade caused her to start. Kiyo is gone, she reminded herself. You’re safe. She pulled her thin jacket tighter around her body, pushing away the memory of his wild eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Sav asked, reaching toward her. Before she could stop herself, Tesla recoiled from his touch.

  “I—I’m fine. It was just a long night.”

  Not for the first time, Jasmeen cocked her head, and the opalescent tattoo across her temple shimmered in the neon lights. Her eyes drifted toward the fresh bruises on Tesla’s throat.

  Despite sitting at the bottom of her shower for several hours, Tesla still couldn’t scrub the feeling of Kiyo’s probing fingers and his heavy, drunken breath from her skin. Her eyelids felt puffy and swollen from last night’s tears. She may not have snapped any bones during the fight, but her body felt fractured beyond repair. Exhaustion weighed down her spine, causing her shoulders to slump toward the floor.

  She wanted to find a place amongst the stars, but where would that be? After last night, she wouldn’t be welcome below the deimark. After her father, Kiyo had become her home, but now... now she was lost, drifting through space like a broken satellite part. She didn’t belong downstation, and Commander Grey had made sure she’d never be allowed to live in the upper levels. Earth was her only option—an option that rested entirely on Daxton, whether she liked it or not.

  The pull of the planet’s surface was an itch she’d done her best to overcome this past year. She’d tried to make a life in the Gulch, ignoring her burnt fingers and empty belly just like every other poor soul in the bowels of the Atlas. But the truth was clear. This will never make me happy.

  Sav had knocked on her door early that morning just as she’d been waking Ming. After a few tests, he confirmed what she’d suspected: the boy wasn’t sick. It would be a few weeks before his family could mend and return to work, if the illness didn’t claim them, and Lind’s parents had agreed to keep the boy as long as necessary. But even if those taken ill fully recovered, not working for three weeks would devastate the family’s finances. Tesla knew they would be evicted, left to beg in the narrow alleys between the stacked shipping containers until they could save enough to get back on their feet. Coming back from that level of despair rarely happened, and she couldn’t bear the thought of the family suffering from months of hunger and fear.

  An anonymous payment had been sent to their landlord hours ago—enough to cover six months’ rent—and Tesla’s savings account was now barren.

  Blitz sat before a virtual reality game wearing a pair of alt-vision glasses. His hands quickly waved through the air above his face as he scrolled through a data list only he could see. After a moment he frowned, saying, “Freiter’s avatar hasn’t been activated a single time since he sent the message.”

  “That’s not like him at all,” said Jasmeen with a shake of her head. “He checks his gaming stats daily—almost hourly, in fact. He’s obsessed. Nothing could keep him away from logging on.”

  Tesla took in the dozens of people wearing similar glasses, their hands drifting dreamily into thin air as they moved through an invisible world. “What is this game? I don’t remember it being in the rec zone before.”

  “What is this game?” Blitz repeated with a small gasp of horror. “What is this game? Why, it’s only the most popular avatar-based alternate reality since the dawn of three-dimensional rendered worlds. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of CataLyst.”

  Sav laughed. “Ignore him, Tesla. Blitz and Freiter are huge fans, if you couldn’t tell.”

  “So, what’s the point of the game? You just put those glasses on and pretend you’re in some make-believe universe?”

  Her question made Blitz snort. “It’s way more complicated than that. Honestly, I’m going to have to teach you the basics before you move to Earth. If you’re going to fit in, you’ll need to learn the rules. Everyone who is anyone plays CataLyst.”

  “But the important thing,” said Jasmeen, bringing them all back to the task at hand, “is that Freiter would never go more than a few hours without logging on. I was hoping maybe he’d left another message, but I won’t lie and pretend that this doesn’t have me even more worried about him. The longer he's missing, the more convinced I am that he's in danger.”

  “DO YOU THINK IT COULD be possible?”

  Tesla looked up from her food to find the others staring. The question had been directed at her, but she hadn’t heard a word of the conv
ersation. She cleared the thoughts from her head with a small shake and said, “Sorry, could what be possible?”

  They’d grabbed food from the rec zone’s cafeteria and found a quiet corner of the leisure hall in which to discuss the investigation. Though they’d commed Daxton the location, Tesla had received an automated message that he was not to be disturbed. Clearly, he must still be upset from what happened on her doorstep. If she could just speak with him, she could try to explain and make things right.

  And then what? asked a voice at the back of her mind. They were on completely different orbits—always destined to get close but never quite cross, like a meteor bouncing off a planet's atmosphere.

  Jasmeen examined her again from across the table, clearly convinced Tesla’s silence meant that she was hiding something. “Faraday and that other smuggler—” she scanned her HDP for the woman’s information, “—Ultana Uro both claim not to have sold any weapons. Of course, they could be lying to avoid confinement to the brig, but I actually think they were telling the truth.”

  Sav feigned astonishment. “My stars, the cynical Jasmeen is going to take the word of a pair of criminals? The universe is full of strange and unbelievable wonders.”

  “None so unbelievable,” said Jasmeen, “as the fact that some women find you remotely charming or—”

  “What do the smugglers have to do with whether or not something is possible?” Tesla interrupted.

  Blitz hesitated, wiping a bit of dust from his goggles. “Even though Faraday confirmed, albeit it rather vaguely, that Freiter’s information has merit, Jasmeen and Daxton’s interrogations at the fight didn’t give us much to go on. If Chen Yao is planning something, we need to track his steps from the moment he set foot on the Atlas. If we can get our hands on the master security footage, we may be able to locate Freiter as well.”

  Tesla gulped down the rest of her juice. Sav had given her a medicine that made her mouth feel as dry as the old canvas tarps in the junkyard—a side effect he'd assured her was only temporary. She tried moistening her tongue before asking, “And how exactly will we manage to do that? Master security files are maintained on Level One, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the Atlas, is the most restricted area of the entire station.”

  “Which is why,” said Jasmeen, lowering her voice, “we need your help breaking into Commander Grey’s office.”

  Tesla laughed, the sound coming out hoarse between the sore muscles of her throat. This must be a joke. She looked around the table at the trio of unsmiling faces. Sav lifted his eyebrows, awaiting her answer, and Tesla’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re not serious...”

  “The commander’s office is hardwired to keep multiple backup copies of security videos as well as the feeds from the Sec-Bot patrols,” Blitz explained. “Faraday said to follow the rat. If Daxton is right, and Chen Yao is planning something against the African Prime Minister, all we have to do is trace his movements backward. Once we find evidence of him purchasing a weapon, or anything else that may be incriminating, we can build a case and have him arrested.”

  Tesla turned back to Jasmeen. “Okay, so to recap. You want to break into the most heavily guarded location on the ship—”

  “Correct.”

  “—at a time when negotiations are taking place and they’ve actually doubled security?”

  “A minor detail, but yes.”

  A minor detail? The drugs Sav had given her must have been stronger than she thought. She was hallucinating this conversation. It was the only rational explanation as to why three people would ever think this was a good plan, let alone remotely possible.

  “The commander’s office is the only place we can download untampered security videos,” Sav added. “Blitz already tried hacking a public dataport, but he wasn’t able to access the Level One mainframe. Our only other option is going directly to the brain of the entire network.”

  “How do we know that someone hasn’t already destroyed any evidence?” asked Tesla.

  “That’s the beauty of this system,” said Blitz with a gush of excitement. “It operates on a Titan Network. Programmed for efficiency. It takes a certain amount of skill to alter information in the public database, but no one can tamper with the original master files—they’re encrypted. Copies of every security feed around the Atlas are automatically sent directly to a digital vault only accessible from the commander’s office, just in case there’s ever a massive systems failure.”

  “And you think you can somehow hack this Titan Network once we’ve made it past the guards?”

  “I’ve run a full diagnostic of the system, and I’ve found one tiny, yet serious, flaw. When the backup occurs, we’ll have exactly twenty minutes to log in without our keystrokes being recorded. If we’re going to download the master files, that’s our window.”

  “And when is the next backup?”

  Sav frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Midnight tonight, by Blitz’s best guess.”

  Midnight? She looked at her wristcomm. It was less than ten hours away. “I’m sorry,” Tesla said, closing her eyes as she tried to make sense of the conversation. “You want me to help you break into Commander Grey’s office, under heavy guard, without a full plan, and by midnight tonight?”

  Jasmeen clapped. “Sounds like she’s all caught up. Now can we talk about opera?”

  Tesla stood, scraping her chair with a loud, screeching sound.

  “Where are you going?” Sav asked. “We need to talk about the plan.”

  “There is no plan!” scoffed Tesla. “I need to go back to work before my crew replaces me. I’ve gone along with your scheme to find this mysterious assassin, and I appreciate your help with my fightBot, but this... this is completely mental. It was a mistake to trust Daxton, who is under house arrest, I might add. I’m never getting off this station, which means I’m stuck here, which also means I have rent to pay on my apartment by working overtime to make up for the shifts I’ve lost while chasing this white rabbit.”

  Jasmeen shot Blitz a look and the boy nodded, furiously typing into his dataport. After a few seconds, he smiled. “It’s been taken care of.”

  Tesla’s fingers tightened against the food tray. “What have you done?”

  “We’ve paid for your apartment,” Jasmeen said simply. “The note is in your name.”

  “You can’t just do that!”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I didn’t ask for your help!”

  Jasmeen leaned forward, tattoo flashing, as she placed both hands on the table. “That’s what friends do, Tesla! They help each other! Besides, you transferred a large amount this morning to help that boy. Now I’ve done the same thing for you. How is one acceptable and not the other?”

  Tesla grit her teeth. “You’re monitoring me?”

  “The prince made an ally with a girl we didn’t know anything about, and I’m responsible for keeping him alive. Of course I flagged your wristcomm the moment I got on board,” she shrugged. “I don’t see the problem.”

  Sav held up his hands. “We agreed not to tell her, Meen. You promised.”

  “You two were in on this as well?” Tesla said, hating the hurt wavering between her words as the boys avoided her gaze. “Well, at least you’re not having me followed,” she muttered.

  Jasmeen’s brow raised. “How do you know we aren’t?”

  Because if you were, last night would have gone differently, Tesla wanted to retort. Instead, she whirled to face the other girl. “Apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For invading my privacy, as a start!”

  “Well I’m not sorry!” Jasmeen shot back, eyes flashing with anger. “I’ve had about enough of your stubbornness. It’s time to get over your mucking pride. Daxton made you a deal, and he’ll keep his word. He always does, because that’s who he is. Now, you can go back to your life here on the Atlas, scraping by and wanting more, or you can help your friends prevent a war while you get to start a new life on Earth. The
fact that you even have to think about it, frankly, baffles me.” She sat back, arms crossed tightly against her chest.

  Fuming, Tesla thought of her weld crew and Lind, and all the others destined to live out their days in the Gulch trapped by circumstance. They were fierce people, good people, with spines and resolves stronger than any titanium she’d ever welded. But as much as she’d tried to make a life here, they weren’t her people. And this wasn’t the life she wanted. She’d worked hard for her spot at the flight academy because she’d wanted to make a difference. Here was a chance to do just that, and she was thinking about walking away. She felt her anger at Jasmeen wane as her father’s voice echoed in her ears. Put the pieces back together.

  Tesla clenched her fists. “No more monitoring me. Friends don’t hack another friend’s wristcomm.”

  “Fine,” Jasmeen grumbled.

  The look on her face was one of annoyance, and though she seemed reluctant to the idea, her wristcomm beeped as she typed in a series of commands. Worry wormed its way through Tesla’s brain. Just how far had the other girl investigated? Did she know about the charges of treason? If Jasmeen did, her face betrayed no sign.

  “Well?” said Sav with a clap of his hands. “Can we count you in for the mission?”

  Tesla let a few curious onlookers pass by before lowering her voice and saying, “In case you weren’t aware, the Grand Imperator isn’t exactly my biggest fan. We’re going to rot in prison if we get caught.”

  Blitz beamed. “Probably. But how can you pass up the chance to have cellmates like us?”

  Tesla sat down in a heap, shaking away the lingering coils of doubt. If the station really was in danger, she couldn’t just sit back and let people get hurt.

  “So,” she began, making a point to ignore the satisfied smile on Jasmeen’s face, “what were you saying about an opera?”