Fire Ant

by Jonathan P. Brazee

  Mzee Teneriffe gestured for the door, and with an air of nonchalance that she didn’t feel, she preceded her out into the hallway.

  “OK, Pilot Dalisay,” she said once the door closed behind them, “you’re in a heap of trouble. You’d better have a good reason for destroying those gates, or there won’t be anything I can do to help you.”

  Chapter 3

  “You got the next one?” Bill asked.

  “Don’t you have reports to do or something?”

  “Fuck them,” Bill said.

  Beth rolled her eyes, then said, “Play Episode Six.”

  Her stage flickered, and the same ad they’d seen before watching the last two episodes urging them to pre-order Season Four appeared.

  “Good of them to tease us with that,” Bill said as Horti and Caleb ran together through a spectacular desert scene, firing their blasters over their shoulders at an unseen enemy.

  Season Three was turning out to be pretty good. With the Dayson Empire and the League of Restraint going at each other, no one knew to which side the fledgling Justice Navy would pledge allegiance. The trailer for next season wasn’t leaving any clues.

  The Justice Navy was a favorite among pilots and crew throughout human space. It was pure opera—capital ships were not anywhere near as maneuverable as on the holovid, nor did they fight battles within close visual rang, passing each other like medieval knights jousting on horseback. The Q-fighters, which both Horti and Caleb flew, had only a passing resemblance to real life. Still, the series was popular.

  Bill was Lead Pilot Bill Barker, a Canuck OPW, and as such, a rarity. Not many Canucks were small enough for Hummingbirds, but he’d been with HB for almost fifteen years, rising to be the senior pilot, or “kapo,” at Nexus Prime. A kapo was the practical leader of an OPW team, be they pilots, cooks, or guards, handing out assignments and acting as the liaison between the OPWs and the company staff. Bill hated the term kapo, which went back centuries and referred to a prisoner who guarded other prisoners, so the rest of the pilots delighted in calling him that at every opportunity.

  As kapo, he had reports to submit at 0700 and 1800 each day. It was now 1647, and each episode of The Justice Navy ran an hour. As far as Beth knew, Bill hadn’t started his reports, and he’d be cutting it close.

  Not her call, however. She was glad he was there with her, though. Since returning to Nexus Prime, she wasn’t exactly confined to her quarters, but Personnel Administrator Six Martinez, who was in charge of all OPWs in Nexus Prime, had recommended that she stay in her quarters, out of sight if not out of mind. So, for five days and counting, she’d only left her small quarters to go to the chow hall and the head. Despite having an almost unlimited library of holovids and books, she was going stir-crazy, so when Bill had shown up, she’d scooted over to give him space on her rack, and they’d watched two episodes of The Justice Navy together.

  Bill wasn’t bad company—for a kapo.

  The ad for Season Four mercifully ended, and Episode Six started. Horti was at a crossroads. Dalia and Caleb were battling for her affections, but she liked both of them as just friends. Beth settled in to watch, but her mind, numbed by hours of holovids, started drifting.

  She’d been debriefed three times now—luckily never by Sec6 Onswalt. The first time, both Mzee Teneriffe and PA6 Martinez had been present. The next two times, only Martinez was there, which had made her nervous. None of the three debriefs were nearly as confrontational as her meeting with Huhn, but they hadn’t gone well either, as far as she was concerned. No one acted like they believed her account, and now she was beginning to doubt herself.

  Was it possible that it had all been a hallucination? Everything had been so vivid in her mind, and she’d been so sure of herself. Now, she wasn’t feeling so sure.

  Beth had been screened a million ways from Sunday before becoming a pilot. Being isolated in a tiny Hummingbird for days on end required a stable mind and a strong sense of self. She had that stamp of approval, and she didn’t feel crazy. But then again, as Bobo had said yesterday when she broached her fears to him, crazy people always thought they were the sane ones. Bobo was her cousin, and she loved him, but he could be a pain in the ass.

  “Ha, I knew it!” Bill said, elbowing Beth in the ribs.

  “What?” she asked, turning her thoughts back to the show.

  “Dalia! I told you she was no good.”

  Over Beth’s stage, Dalia was slipping a tiny message capsule under a park bench, the standard spy trope. Beth raised her eyebrows in surprise. She hadn’t expected her to turn out to be a bad guy. Bill had said she was bad, but he’d also said she was a good guy, too, vacillating between the two statements, so there was no way she was going to give him credit for that.

  Dalia LeMorde was madly in love with Horti, and the general chatter in the undernet was that she was going to win over Horti’s heart. Beth thought that was more hope than anything else. Dalia, with her pale white complexion and black hair, and Horti, with her ebony skin and white hair, were both smoking hot, and The Justice Navy was pretty liberal with sexing up the scenes. Pirate digi-artists had already created sex scenes between the two that could be downloaded from the dark net, but people wanted the real thing.

  Hah, “real thing.” Even the official show isn’t “real.”

  After a retro-revival of using real actors, most of the studios had reverted back to the tried-and-true digital 3D constructs for their shows. Horti, the heartthrob of men and women throughout the galaxy, was merely a construct of electrons. Not that it mattered to her millions of fans. They loved her.

  “Give me a Coke, OK?” she asked Bill.

  With both of them squeezed into her rack to watch the show, she was up against the bulkhead, and he was between her and the therma.

  “Pause the show,” at least, he grumbled, reaching below the bed to pull out a Coke packet.

  Her stage was set to her voice, so she said, “Pause,” while he popped the packet into the therma, checked the setting, and pushed start. Ten seconds later, the therma dinged, and he reached in, pulled out the now-cold packet, and passed it over to her.

  “OK, Your Highness. If you can start it up again?”

  Beth took a long sip, making a show of it before saying, “Resume.”

  Almost all pilots had a food or drink weakness, which they called kanoom. Long days of eating slime and drinking recycled urine created cravings. For Beth, it was the old standby, Coke. It might have been developed in the days before space flight, but it was the perfect foil for rejuvenating dulled taste buds.

  Bill’s kanoom was a Lemon Sun, the child’s candy, and he constantly sucked on one when he wasn’t plying the black. At least that was the only time he was supposed to suck on them. Everyone was sure that he snuck a few with him on each mission. Beth was jealous of that. If she could smuggle a Coke, she would.

  She took another long sip, then shifted her focus back on the show when her hatch light lit, accompanied by a soft chime.

  “No room for anyone else in here,” Bill yelled, which was not exactly true—someone could sit on the deck and watch—and didn’t make much sense, as the quarters were soundproofed. No one outside could hear him shouting.

  “I think it might be Iris,” Beth said to Bill’s groan before she said, “Open.”

  But it wasn’t their fellow pilot who entered. Mzee Teneriffe stooped to stick her head into the small stateroom. Both pilots scrambled out of the rack to stand facing her. It wasn’t just her. Behind the Directorate rep, another GT stood, looking inside. Tall, like all GTs, his skin was a bright purple, which immediately labeled him a stranger. There weren’t any purple-skinned GTs in the entire HB facilities in Nexus Prime, at least not until now.

  “May I have a moment of your time, Pilot Dalisay?” the Mzee asked.

  “Yes, Mzee. Of course,” Beth said.

  The GT made a show of looking around the small stateroom, then shrugged.

  “Oh, yes, sorry. We can go wherever you
want,” Beth said, blushing in embarrassment.

  All of the pilot staterooms were small, as befitted their stature. They were much, much better accommodations than most OPWs would ever see—as a housekeeper, Beth had shared a dormitory with 31 other women—but it was way too small for a GT to come inside.

  “Excuse me, Mzee,” she said, turning to Bill and asking, “Do you want to stay here?”

  He took a long look up at the GT, then at the GT hovering outside in the passage. Bill could be protective of the rest of the pilots, and he was undoubtedly wondering what was going on and what he could do about it. Teneriffe was a “good” GT, but she was still a GT.

  “I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind, until you get back.”

  “Granting Senior Pilot Barker quarters control, Level 1, ninety minutes,” she said.

  With Level 1, he could leave her quarters or control her stage, if he wanted, for the next hour-and-a-half. He nodded, but she could see this was gnawing at him.

  Beth stepped out, and Mzee Teneriffe straightened back up with what looked like relief on her face. Behind her, the purple GT stood waiting. No, not exactly purple. As she moved, Beth could see the GT’s purple shift to a yellow and back to purple under the even illumination of the station’s lighting. That had to be a very expensive genmod, even for a GT. This was a very important person, she realized.

  She was so caught up with the new GT that she didn’t notice the norm with them until the woman said, “If you’ll come with us, Mzee Patel-Anand would like to ask you some questions.”

  Beth quickly looked up at Mzee Teneriffe, but the GT didn’t look concerned. The way the woman had said that it was the purple GT who wanted to talk to her let her know that he was running this, and that meant Teneriffe was only there as a courtesy. It was taken as gospel that norms, especially those in the lower social strata like OPWs, did not talk to strange GTs. Nothing good usually came from it.

  With the norm herding her like a lost duckling, Beth made her way down the passage, trying to look unconcerned. She passed Waldemeier and Absinthe, who were going in the opposite directions, but they hugged the bulkheads, mouths hung open as the four of them passed. Beth smiled and gave her two fellow pilots a wink, projecting a confidence that she didn’t feel.

  The norm, who had not introduced herself yet, scanned her eye into a carriage door, which whispered open. Beth was almost disappointed that it looked exactly like the carriages that transported low-level workers around the station. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but something a little grander, at least. The norm took a physical key, held it to the reader, and Q-12 appeared on the readout.

  Beth shrugged. To her, all the executive levels were one and the same, and since she didn’t know the layout of the—

  Wait. The Q Deck? That’s the Directorate deck!

  This station was owned by the Hamdani Brothers, but as with all large stations, a space was reserved for the Directorate, where they and only they held sway. Beth only knew what she’d gleaned from various holovids, so she didn’t know if that was completely accurate, but the idea was that the Directorate levels were sovereign territory, much like the embassies on the Earth of old.

  The carriage whisked the four along the gerbil tubes and came to a stop, the door opening. The norm stepped out, followed by Beth and the two GTs. Beth had never been in Directorate territory, and she wasn’t disappointed. While the carriage had been nothing out of the ordinary, it was immediately obvious that this deck was far from standard, starting with the deck itself, which instead of the hard tiles she was used to, had a slightly giving surface. Beth’s light weight didn’t do much to compress the flooring, but she could feel the difference.

  The lighting was different as well. The station’s lights were a low glow into the white wavelengths. In this deck, they light had more of a yellow tint, more like sunlight. The two GTs started off down the passage, and Beth stopped dead.

  Under this deck’s lighting, the purple GT’s skin shifted back and forth with greater saturation, the yellow almost flowing in waves across his skin as his body moved.

  “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” the norm whispered to her. “Just arrived yesterday. But come on, we don’t want to keep him waiting.”

  He was beautiful, his skin vibrant, and the deference most low-end normals had for the Golden Tribe kicked in. She felt an urge to serve the man, to do what he wanted. The days were long gone when the GT were actually golden. For a century, the rich and powerful underwent the inordinately expensive genmod, becoming taller, stronger, and with their signature golden skin. At the same time, they consolidated their hold on the economy, becoming the de facto rulers of mankind. Ninety years ago, Mzee T’Symba broke with tradition, using a different program that gave her a sky-blue skin with whiter-than-white hair. Initially shunned by the other GTs, she became a cultural phenomenon among the norms, and soon, while all GTs kept the tall, slender bodies, skin choices became individual signatures. Beth had never seen the purple-and-yellow shifting skin that Mzee Patel-Anand sported, however. If it was a new program, it had to be extremely expensive, which meant that this GT was someone very, very important.

  At 4’ 6”, Beth was half of Mzee Patel-Anand’s height, and she felt more than a little self-conscious as she followed him past paneled walls and art that looked expensive to her untrained eye. There’d been times as a small child that she’d dreamed of undergoing genmod, to become one of the “beautiful people,” but folks in her social status almost never rose that far. Even wealthier norms rarely underwent the process. It had to be done before a GT entered puberty, and most norms who amassed the wealth necessary did so well into their adulthood. They might pay for sculpting, but that was not the same thing.

  Even if she’d been born with the money, Beth doubted she’d have gone through the process. It was reportedly an extremely painful procedure with a 4% mortality rate. Neither of those facts appealed to her. More pertinently, as Beth had matured, she’d become very comfortable with her body and looks, perhaps even a slightly bit vain. She was happy with who she was.

  Still, Mzee Patel-Anand looked like a god.

  The GT turned into an office, followed by Mzee Teneriffe, Beth, and the other normal. Beth’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She was not being escorted into an interrogation room, but rather a lush office, complete with a huge desk and comfortable-looking furniture. The main focus of the office was an entire glass wall, exposed to space. She’d seen wall displays that beamed an image of space to an inner wall, but she had the suspicion that this was the real thing. As a pilot, she was used to the sight, but for an office and a station . . . well, this was one more piece of data, as if she needed it, to prove that she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. She was swimming in deep ocean waters now.

  The norm pointed to one of the couches, and Beth took a seat. They were made for GT sizes, not Hummingbird pilots. She sat back, her feet poking out in front of her, not reaching the deck, as if she was a small child playing grownup.

  “Annabelle, could you get us some drinks, please?” Mzee Patel-Anand asked. “I believe Pilot Dalisay would like a Coke?”

  Beth just nodded as the other norm, Annabelle, walked over to a shiny copper tender on the credenza. The tender probably cost more than Beth could make in a couple of years, but her attention was focused on the GT. He’d known what she liked to drink. It was no secret, and anyone with access to company records could find that out. He wasn’t company, not that it would be an issue, but the fact that he, a GT, had bothered to find out what a lowly OPW pilot drank had ramifications she couldn’t quite grasp. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was making her relax all the better to lead her into a trap.

  The tender hummed loudly, causing Beth to jump, but it was only preparing an espresso. None of the three said a word, and Beth kept her eyes on the window-wall, which seemed to be a safer option than staring at either of the two GTs. She could see a bright star which had to be one of the other stations in Nexus Prime—probably New Horiz
ons, if she had to guess. To her relief, Annabelle returned with a tray, handing Mzee Patel-Anand a white cup of something, Mzee Teneriffe the espresso, and Beth her Coke. Beth shifted her focus from space to the Coke, as if it was uber-interesting and not like every other Coke she’d ever drunk. Annabelle sat down as well, sipping a mug that steamed slightly.

  Mzee Patel-Anand took a long, slurping sip of his drink and sighed, which piqued Beth’s curiosity. Despite herself, she looked up and caught his eye.

  “Good Styx Nectar,” he said, raising his cup in a half-toast when he saw her looking at him.

  Beth dropped her eyes back to her Coke. She’d never even heard of Styx Nectar, and by looking up at him, she’d broken one of the unwritten rules. People in her position never initiated contact with a GT.

  Water under the bridge, I guess. I’m already right in his crosshairs.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Pilot Dalisay,” the GT said, putting his cup on the low table between them.

  Not that I had a choice.

  “I’m here for a short time, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to skip the pleasantries and get to the point. If you don’t mind, would you please give me your account of what happened at SG-4021. Please don’t leave out anything, no matter how insignificant you think it to be.”

  Beth almost shook her head, stopping herself just in time. She’d known this had to be related to the mission. Nothing else she’d ever done in her entire life could possibly interest a GT. So now, even a Directorate GT was going to convince her she experienced nothing? She was already doubting her memories, and this would be just one more nail in the coffin.

  “I’ve already been debriefed several times, Mzee. Those are all in the company record now,” she said, squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

  “I’ve seen those, but I’d like you to go through it again. Tell me what you saw, what you thought.”