“Someone’s going to come for me. And you’re both going to be convicted of abduction. That carries a big sentence.”
At least she assumed it did. The Media never reported much on abductions, either because there weren’t many or she just never heard about them on the channels she watched. The glitz of fashion and celebrities didn’t mix well with the suffering of real people. A small part of her always felt a kinship to the wealthy, carefree celebrities. She thought by leaving Deleine she could have a similar life. That dream soon evaporated, and her circumstances right now left no doubt that she was, and maybe always had been by consequence of birth, one of the people meant to suffer.
Mari picked up the chair and lobbed it at the protruding surveillance box. Her feeble attempt fell short of its mark. She picked it up again and stood closer. This time it caught the bottom of the grey plastic box and dislodged the camera inside. The less delicate camera, encased in metal and no bigger than her fist, hit the rubber floor, but bounced and rolled without much real damage. She lifted the chair and smashed the camera’s housing over and over, pretending it was Carlos’ head. Or Dale’s. She hated them both.
“The only thing of value you have to offer is your genetic pollution.” Dale’s words from earlier still taunted her.
Though Mari had always been self-conscious about her eyes, she had never thought of their uniqueness as an indicator for faulty genes. Only certain families had these particular genetic markers which left them susceptible to the reaction she had had from her childhood vaccines. It was rare. She was the only one out of all of her brothers, sisters, and cousins—one hundred seventy total in that particular generation—whose irises faded and distorted from their deep, rich brown to a pale coral.
Finding out why Mari had the reaction when no one else in her family did was what prompted her to study medicine in the first place. She had a secret desire that she barely admitted to herself—she always thought she could find a way to reverse the pigment change.
Though the doctors from her town, including her uncle, assured her there was nothing wrong with her, that the effect was a random mutation, Mari believed there was something wrong with her, a sentiment that others casually, at times knowingly, reinforced with their stares, their cruel comments, their avoidance.
David had never avoided her. In fact, he went out of his way to engage her. She put the chair down lightly as she thought about how he looked into her distinctive eyes as though enchanted, especially while they coupled. He was gentle and giving even though his body was hard and strong. She had never met a man like him, couldn’t imagine any others even existed. Now she might not see him again. She might not see anyone again.
A sob almost burst from her throat. The next man to touch her so intimately would not be David, would not be so kind, would—according to Dale—want to see tears drowning her coral-colored irises from pain. All because she was different. She never hated what the reaction had done to her more than at this moment.
She heaved the chair above her head again with tired arms when she noticed the camera’s battery chamber lay exposed through a crack in the metal. As she tossed the chair aside, an idea was already forming. The first spark of hope since her abduction.
Settling cross-legged on the dirty rubber flooring, she snatched up the damaged camera to inspect it further. She tried prying the casing open, but managed only to bloody the pads of her fingers. The battery remained snug in its chamber, teasing her. She wiped her hands on her white shirt, the stains blending with the filth already ground into the fabric. There had to be something in this sparse cell she could use for a tool. The chair seemed impervious to all manner of abuse, considering she’d barely dented the frame after her attack on the camera housing. A drip from behind her drew her attention to the disgusting spigot area.
The handle.
She abandoned the camera and scampered onto the wet tile in her bare feet. The puddled water squished between her toes, its chill sending a splinter of cold through her whole body. She reached for the handle and twisted it. Water gurgled out and slapped onto the tile. She kept twisting and felt a slight give. Using both hands on the oblong piece of solid metal, she forced one turn of the handle, breaking it off at a weak spot. Mari sprinted back to the camera, not caring about the water free-flowing into the backed up drain.
The handle was about the same size as her middle finger, but the torque it exerted against the casing did what her flesh couldn’t. The crack expanded. Holding the camera steady with one hand, she fished her little finger into the space. Her nail caught on the edge of the battery, which was only as big as the pad of her thumb. Mari held her breath to keep steady as she maneuvered the battery toward the opening. Just as she got the battery halfway out, it slipped off her finger and tumbled back inside.
“Shit.”
She tamped down her frustration and tried again. This time she twisted her finger just enough to avoid the same circumstance as her first attempt. When she extracted the battery and held its feathery weight in her hand, she laughed out loud. This little thing was going to save her life. She hoped.
“No, it will work.” She spoke the words out loud as an affirmation. “It’ll work.”
Carlos waited in Dale’s lounge for him to react to the camera going offline after the blonde had beaten it right off the wall. He was actually surprised she had it in her. Her unexpected fight stirred his arousal again.
Dale only glanced at the dark screen labeled CELL 4 among the silver-framed monitors on the cobalt-colored wall to their left. He said nothing as he sipped one of those stupid fruity neons. The florescent colors were off-putting enough, but the mango smell of the ultra-sweet drink completely eclipsed any trace of alcohol. It made Carlos want to hold Dale’s mouth open as he poured a fifth of bourbon down his gullet just so he could feel a man’s drink burn down his throat and into his gut.
His boss turned his attention back to the five Media screens against the far wall of his suite’s lounge. This was how Dale spent most of his time during flights on his freighters—holed up in a luxury suite, which cost as much to overhaul as it would to refurbish the entire crew level. He cycled through the various feeds until he found a sex vid for the huge main screen and twenty-five hour news and celebrity feeds from all six planet moons to fill up the smaller screens flanking the middle one.
He turned down the grunting and moaning and upped the volume on an animated debate among the Quorum of Archivists, which played out on the bottom corner screen.
“I’m just saying that someone needs to do something about these fraggers before they get organized.” Archivist Andravo made the point to a smattering of applause from some of the other delegates.
“That’s just it. They aren’t organized, simply a hodge-podge of disenfranchised Lower Caste activists who happen to be a little tech savvy. Hardly anything to call in the Armada for….” Phoebe Llewellyn, now that was a woman who could make even an apathetic man give a shit about politics. She had a knockout body and that blue streaked hair did something for him.
But hearing her prattle on had him losing interest fast, especially as the porn vid switched to an up-close shot of a blonde woman performing fellatio on a man tied to a chair. The image fed Carlos’ carnal appetite. He imagined—what’s her name? Maria? Mari? Yeah, Mari, that was it. He imagined forcing Mari to her knees to act out this same scene. Only he sure as shit wasn’t going to let her tie him to a chair.
“I’ll go straighten things out in that cell,” Carlos said, rapping on the blank monitor with his knuckles.
If Dale wasn’t going to give him the order, he’d be happy to volunteer to handle this situation in his own way. No camera, no mic, no way for Dale to see Carlos having a little fun. He could take his time with her. Then he’d dose her so she wouldn’t rat him out. He’d explain that he thought it would be easier to hand her over that way, and they’d be gone before Dale knew he had damaged Stavros’ merchandise…again.
“Don’t bother.” Dale stoppe
d Carlos in his tracks. “So what if she destroyed the camera. She’s not getting out of that cell unless we open the door for her.”
Perturbed, Carlos pushed the issue. “And if she hurts herself? Will Stavros still pay?”
Dale paused the Media screen where news about the Embassy’s new Ambasadora project had been breaking.
“Point taken. Guess that’s why you’re the security guy.” Dale’s tone hinted at derision. “Check on her. Put her in another cell if you have to.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Carlos said. This trip was proving to be one of the better ones.
TWENTY-ONE
About time.
David put Ben’s transmission through on the bridge. “Tell me you found them.”
“Yeah, closer than expected. The freighter looks to be heading toward Tampa Deux’s orbit, not Deleine like their official route says.”
“Which dock on Tampa Deux?”
“Don’t know that yet. We probably won’t know until just before they land. I have my team keeping tabs on the chatter from the larger docks, but there are thousands of smaller municipal docks that we don’t have the resources to cover. And, if you throw in the private ones, well, we might not know until the last minute where they’re going to touch down, even with eyes on them non-stop.”
David’s hope gave way to this newest concern. They would be able to catch the Thrall now, but once Dale made it on-planet with Mari, he could make her disappear and there would be no evidence that she was ever even with him.
“I’m adjusting course toward Tampa Deux. Keep feeding me the Thrall‘s coordinates. As soon as you get an LZ for them, contact the local contractors’ guild. But….” David glanced at Sean. “Best to leave my name out of this. I had another run-in with Killian and his group. It ended pretty badly.”
“Understood.” Ben’s voice betrayed nothing, but the little pause said volumes. “Are you going to need some help with that?”
“Not sure there’s much you’ll be able to do for me there.” Especially if Ward’s need for vengeance trumped whatever dirt Killian had on the young man. But David would worry about that once he made sure Mari was safe.
“I’ll be in touch. Until then, I’ve sent the latest coordinates and a couple of projected routes.”
“Thanks.” David ended the transmission.
“What do you mean by another run-in, David?” Soli’s voice relayed her concern.
He felt badly for having assumed she was interested in this incident only for the gossip it would feed.
“Nothing to worry about,” Sean spoke up. “It will blow over.”
“Since when did you become the optimist?” David asked.
“Since things got this bad.”
That’s what I figured.
TWENTY-TWO
“Get me out of here.” Mari channeled all of her pent up fear and frustration into a battle cry. “Get. Me. Out.”
She pounded on the door as she screamed. That’s how she had spent the last fifteen minutes, and her vocal cords could hold out a lot longer than that.
Boots clomped on the other side of the door. She fell silent in anticipation, listening to the gush of water still streaming out of the broken spigot and inundating the tile floor. She grabbed the chair and held it up so she could swing it like a club. Her body was so tense, her muscles felt like they could snap her bones if this lasted any longer.
The door slid open.
Mari swung the chair, twisting her body with the effort.
The chair crashed along the side of Carlos’ shoulder and head. But the cast metal frame didn’t appear to do more than knock him off balance and draw a blossoming crimson stain in his cropped blonde hair.
He stumbled away from her, grabbing his head. “I’m going to cut you open myself.”
Mari glanced down to be sure she hadn’t strayed from the rubber flooring, then flicked the little battery at Carlos’ feet…right into the pooling water. The battery exploded as soon as it hit the liquid, unleashing electrical arcs into Carlos. His body convulsed from the current. Those compact batteries might be small, but like Mari, they held a lot of energy.
Mari jumped through the cell door, slamming it closed before running down the commonway.
“Okay, next step.”
She chattered to herself as she criss-crossed the commonways, searching for the hydroponics lab, not caring that the slapping of her bare feet on the rubber floor covering sounded like the cadence of Armadan troopers.
“Where is it?” She chanced a peek at the ceiling, not quite able to see into the darkness above with only the runner lights on the floor for illumination. Was that another surveillance box? She couldn’t be sure, but thought she’d also seen one in the previous commonway. If so, all the cameras out here were up and functioning so Dale could track her movements with ease.
She wandered from one long commonway into another, looking for a conduit and vents. The thick blue hose vented excess carbon dioxide into space, the green banded tube carried liquid fertilizer through the ship’s refuse system to be recycled. The yellow banded tube carried sugars—monosaccharides and polysaccharides—to the kitchen. Mari just needed to figure out in which direction the liquid was flowing. She ran, watching the tube until she felt heat increasing.
“Wrong way.” She’d only run into oven exhaust if she kept in this direction, so she backtracked and followed the little yellow bands the other way. Soon this tube was joined by a small grey and white banded tube—liquid condensate from the ship’s respiratory system. This was the very water the plants in the hydroponics bay needed to survive.
The next left rewarded her with the subtle sound of a humming condenser and lengths of chubby orange filtration pipes running along the wall. Their familiar structures were her guide. She picked up her pace, already winded, but determined.
As soon as she hit the door to the hydroponics bay, she pulled out the spigot handle she’d tucked inside her bra. Hopefully it was stronger than the metal cover hiding the control panel for the lock. And just thin enough to jam under the cover as a lever. It was a tight fit and the smooth, rounded edges of the handle kept slipping off the cover as she tried to use the piece as a mini pry bar.
“Concentrate!”
She took a deep breath and began once more, willing herself not to look over her shoulder. If they caught her this time, it was over. She manipulated the handle under a corner of the cover. Not giving up any ground, but being careful not to let the little metal handle slip again. It had become the greatest multi-tool the system had ever seen. She wiggled the handle back and forth. Centimeter by centimeter she worked it under the cover. This was taking longer than she expected.
Pop.
The seal broke. She let the cover fall away and studied the blue glowing wires in front of her. Relief passed through her to see the wiring was standard, just like on the Bard. She searched her mind, trying to remember how Sean had hot-wired the Bard‘s bridge door when their old pilot had passed out at the controls and accidentally changed the lock codes. That had only been six weeks ago. She should be able to remember Sean’s steps exactly. She certainly remembered him beating the piss out of the pilot once he got inside.
Closing her eyes, she recalled Sean’s nimble fingers flying through the steps. She’d always taken her photographic memory and knack for mnemonic devices for granted—the only thing they seemed to be good for was school—but they might actually save her. Mari touched a rainbow of plastic insulators at the nexus of the wires, finally choosing the red one. Red she had associated with clay, no good for growing plants. And this wire was no good for opening doors.
Next. Orange. Like her eyes. An unexpected outcome. Avoid the orange insulator. She moved onto yellow, but couldn’t remember there being a yellow insulator in the Bard‘s panel. Or was there? In her panic to recreate the memory, the images started coming to her too quickly. Forcing her memory to slow down, Mari worked each step as Sean had, removing insulators and crimping some of the remai
ning wires, regardless of color. She re-clamped each insulator back to its wire at the crimp and watched the blue glow blink out. It was like cutting off the circulation to a limb with a tourniquet.
When she removed the black insulator, the wire beneath it flashed green. That hadn’t happened with any of the other wires.
“And that didn’t happen to Sean.”
Or maybe he had severed the wire’s connection before it could flash a warning. What’s the worst that could happen if she did that now? A shipload of electricity would fry her where she stood. Thinking about being tortured to death and having her eyes cut out made the risk of electrocution worth it. Using the plastic insulator, she crimped the wire and secured it.
The door hissed open. She leaped inside and punched the emergency lock by the door frame to seal her in the hydroponics bay. Someone with enough tech knowledge or brute force would probably be able to break in, but that would take a while.
She took a breath. Organic smells, reminiscent of wet leaves on concrete, floated on the humidity inside the huge bay. Unlike the rest of the ship, bright lights shined from the ceiling, blasting the plants with UV rays. This artificial sunlight gave her hope, an oasis from the dreary commonways and her cell. She had always taken refuge in plants and flowers when her spirits were low back on Deleine, but this was taking it to a whole new level.
The area must have covered a space that was twenty times the size of that pitiful cell they’d locked her in. She moved among the beautiful bounty—tomato trees, their vines trussed to form a canopy where perfect red fruit hung underneath, their smell not quite as robust as those which came from the soil back home. But the dwarf orange and lemon trees forming the other side of this space orchard scented the air with their citrus aroma. This was how she remembered her scentbots smelling, when she could still catch a whiff of their fragrance from her skin.
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