Gravlander

by Erik Wecks

  In order to preserve her cash, Jo had spent the last two nights in the coldest, most flea-bitten motel she had ever laid eyes on. It had taken all her will to sleep behind the flimsy plastic door inserted into the frigid rock—will and some help from the sketchiest auto-doc Jo had ever seen. Even as a trained doctor, she couldn’t name half the drugs listed in the menu.

  Thankfully, she would only have to be here a few minutes more… or so she hoped. She was supposed to have left already, the deed done quickly and cleanly. Her small bag was packed, waiting by the door.

  While she’d prepared, she’d played this moment over and over in her head. It was supposed to be her moment of triumph—the moment when the man finally felt what he had done to so many women. But now, instead of anger, joy, and following quickly thereafter, resolve, Jo found herself plagued with doubt, and she hated herself for it. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she reminded herself that Chapman had ruined the lives of countless women; she couldn’t find the anger that had consumed her only a few minutes before. Jo closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

  You weak pussy, Jo thought, using Tabbi’s disdain for her. Figure this out and get it done!

  “How does it feel to have your body not be your own?” she finally said. Her voice sounded sharp and harsh in the rock room. “Are you afraid? Do you feel violated? Unclean? What’s it feel like to feel afraid for your life? Do you like it? I know you don’t. I know it horrifies you. I imagine that’s what it’s like for your escorts—afraid, desperate, and alone—pinned to the bed with someone who has almost unlimited power over them, lying on top of them. How does it feel, Chapman?”

  Jo had hoped that if she spoke her thoughts, they would make her feel angry and therefore strong again. But if anything, they had the opposite effect. All she had to do was give the command, and the nanites that had invaded Chapman would stop his heart.

  But in her imagination, Chapman wasn’t supposed to be afraid. He was supposed to be angry, spitting venom and pissing fire, not terrified and weak.

  It doesn’t matter, Jo. He’s only afraid because he’s been caught. There’s no remorse. If you let him go, he’ll do it again. Besides, it’s too late to go back.

  Jo knew that if she freed him, she’d never be safe. Besides, how many other women would she be condemning to a life of slavery? You’re a doctor, and he’s a cancer. Now put on your fucking game face and get this procedure over with. Cure the cancer, Jo, before he hurts you or someone else.

  Sick to her stomach, Jo was just putting her heads-up back on her head, steeling her courage, when a loud pounding on the door startled her so much that she jumped up and knocked over the chair in which she sat.

  “Jo, I know you’re in there. Open the door!” Jo recognized Gloria Soren’s unmistakable low growl.

  Still watching the door, Jo reached down and picked up the chair. For a moment, she thought about staying quiet. She held out the briefest hope that if she didn’t respond, perhaps Soren would go away.

  “Open the door, Jo, or I’ll come in anyway.”

  Confused and somewhat curious, Jo stepped to the end of the bed and turned the old-fashioned lever. The door released its hold on its frame with a loud click and slammed open.

  Jo was startled to see herself facing the business end of Soren’s pistol. “Step back and keep your hands where I can see them. Where’s Jo?”

  Jo’s breathing became a shallow panting. She raised her hands and stepped back. She looked down. Feeling suddenly like a child who had been caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar, she said, “It’s me.”

  Still pointing her weapon at Jo, Soren watched her for a second, trying to decide if what she’d been told was true. She gestured to the chair and said, “Sit.”

  Jo did as she was told.

  Soren stepped over to the far side of the bed and roughly pulled up one of Chapman’s eyelids. Seeing his eyes moving rapidly back and forth, Soren let out a loud sigh. She stepped away from the bed and kicked the door shut.

  Using her gun to gesture, she pointed to the closet-sized bathroom nearby. “Inside.”

  Part of Jo was both shocked and terrified that Soren had pulled her weapon, and more terrified still that she was pointing it at her, but rather than making her compliant, Jo’s fear only made her more resistant. “Why?”

  Soren’s face turned a little red. “Because I want to talk to you where he”—she again gestured with the gun—“can’t hear it.”

  Hurt at Soren’s behavior and angry at herself for not finishing the job, Jo pushed herself out of the chair and stepped into the bathroom. She took a seat on the closed toilet. Soren stepped in behind her and closed and locked the door. Holstering her weapon, Soren seemed to relax somewhat, but as she turned to Jo, she folded her arms across her chest.

  Jo spoke first. She sounded defensive. “What are you doing here?”

  Soren just shook her head. Her cheeks flushed further. “No! The Clarion was supposed to have departed over six hours ago, and for the last day, I’ve been looking for you instead of securing contracts, so you don’t get to ask questions.” Soren paused, giving Jo one beat to think over what she had just said. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  Jo didn’t feel like giving any ground. She hadn’t asked Soren to look for her, and besides, she was angry at Soren for interfering. She was already angry with herself for her inability to finish the job. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, mind hacking Chapman might be the single stupidest thing I’ve ever been privileged to witness in my life. You’re damned lucky he didn’t have any defense bots.”

  Jo’s eyes narrowed, and she raised one eyebrow. “He did.”

  Soren cocked her head to the side. “Really?”

  Jo nodded, glad to have surprised Soren. She felt a little more in control, like maybe she wasn’t so stupid. Soren quickly dashed that thought, shaking her head. “You’re going to have to teach me that trick one day, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was a really dumb move.”

  Jo stood and put her hands on her hips, meeting Soren’s motherly scolding with a rebellious tone of her own. “He knows, Soren. He knows who I am, and he knows that the Unity has a bounty on my head, and he promised to kill me the next time we met. So I finally got mad enough to grow up and take a stand to protect myself.”

  Leaning on the sink, Soren smirked. “Now you’re quoting Tabbi Ohlson.”

  Jo was only slightly taken aback that Soren knew about her conversation with Tabbi, but she sensed that Soren had said it to destabilize her and so refused to be deterred. “So what? What does that matter? She’s right. I need to grow up!”

  Soren leaned toward Jo. “Is that what it means to you to become a grown-up, Jo? To become strong enough that you can kill bad guys?”

  Jo rolled her eyes. “Please don’t lecture me. I didn’t ask for you to interfere. All my life, I’ve been afraid. All my life, I’ve let hateful people damage me.”

  Jo pointed at the bathroom door, desperate for Soren to understand. She could feel her throat straining as her voice rose. “People like him, Soren—men like him took my parents. They stood in my way in the Ghost Fleet, and they destroyed what I had on Korg Haran. For God’s sake, Soren. Men like him rule the galaxy! I might not be able to stop CEO Randal or the Unity, but I can stop Chapman. I’m going to become strong enough to, because it keeps happening and somebody had to say ‘enough!’”

  Soren sighed, and much of the anger seemed to drain from her face. Instead, she looked tired. She frowned and dropped her hands from her hips and reached out for Jo, as if she were trying to gently pat the ground. “I’m not sure that I agree with you, but that’s beside the point. Listen to me, Jo. There’s something that Tabbi Ohlson probably forgot to tell you about Chapman.”

  Jo’s stomach lurched, and she sat back down. She’d settled the question of Ohlson’s trustworthiness back in the bar when she told her about the bounty. Looking back, she knew that she’d been pushed to stand up to Cha
pman, but she still felt that Ohlson was right. She needed to be stronger. If enough women finally acted to protect themselves, then maybe men would think twice about abusing them.

  “Did she tell you that Chapman is the head of the Maximus Syndicate?”

  Jo felt as if someone had just laid a heavy weight on her lungs. It felt hard to get a full breath. “No,” she said softly.

  Soren nodded. “I didn’t think so. The thing is, Jo, if you kill Chapman, you will attract more attention, not less. You will be hunted across the galaxy by his lieutenants at least, and probably the other syndicates as well, and I would bet the Unity would learn that one of its most wanted fugitives is now out assassinating syndicate bosses, so they will probably join the hunt.

  “Now, I will admit you were hard to track down once you went to ground, but not that hard. It took me about twenty-four hours to catch up, once I started looking in earnest. How long do you think it will take someone from the Maximus Syndicate to find you? As soon as they realize that their capo is dead, they’ll shut everything down. No ships will leave or come in, and then they’ll squeeze everyone until someone coughs you up. That’s bad for all of us.”

  Jo tried to defend Ohlson, but already doubt owned her mind. “Maybe Ohlson didn’t know. I mean the name of the—”

  “She knew, Jo. She played you.”

  The certainty in Soren’s voice made Jo shift uncomfortably. She didn’t want to think about how gullible she had been, so instead she kept the conversation moving. “Why?”

  “Why did she set you up to kill Chapman? You’d have to ask her, but I’ve known Tabbi for a lot of years, and I have my hunches. I don’t think she cares, Jo—not about Tortuga, and not about people. She’s got a paid-off ship. She doesn’t need as much from Maximus as others do around here. Besides, I think she’d do it just for the sport, but I’m thinking there was more to it than that. We’ve all had our little run-ins with Basilio Chapman and the management of this here fine asteroid. Maybe he has something on her that would be best if it weren’t shared.”

  Feeling more embarrassment than she could handle, Jo clenched her fists and tried to deflect some of it with anger. “And how about you? What’s your angle in all of this? Will it be bad for you? Is that why you’re trying to stop me? Do you work for him?” Jo regretted the words almost as soon as they left her mouth. They were foolish, and she knew it.

  Soren closed her eyes, and for a moment the flush returned to her cheeks. She folded her arms across her chest, taking a deep breath before speaking. When she did, she looked Jo in the eye. Jo couldn’t see any anger there, but Soren didn’t uncross her arms. “Think, Jo. Think carefully about what you’re saying.”

  An image of Soren holding a gun to Chapman’s head ran through Jo’s mind. Jo sighed. “I’m sorry. That was stupid.” Then her mind processed the implications of what Soren had done. She looked up, a little wide-eyed. “You stood up to him! You stood up to him when he wanted to snatch me from Tanith. How?”

  “I have a lot of little levers over Basilio Chapman. It’s the best policy when dealing with his ilk. For one thing, I don’t let any one syndicate control too much of my market, especially not Maximus.”

  Jo shifted again and changed topics. “I’m not sure that you’re right about Ohlson. I still think maybe she didn’t know. She really seemed mad at Chapman and the way he treats women.”

  Soren shrugged. “I know she did, and to be honest, I’ve got my beefs with him as well. Why do you think I made sure you didn’t have to go with him last time? But I’ve known Tabbi Ohlson for more than twenty years, and it’s been my experience that almost everything feels unfair to Tabbi. More than that—everything must be fixed. Tabbi tends to see life as an unending series of battles, each of which must be won. Besides, even if she is righteously angry at Chapman, you need to ask yourself why she’s not doing this herself if she’s so mad.”

  Jo crossed her arms and averted her gaze.

  Soren sat down on the counter across from her, her tone motherly and kind. “I notice that Chapman’s not dead.” Jo would have resented it but for the fact that she was too stunned that she had been used so badly.

  Jo nodded. Raw with frustration, her voice cracked. “It’s harder than it looks to kill someone in cold blood.”

  “I know.”

  Jo tried to remain strong, to uphold her determined independence, but the scent of truth acted like an incoming tide on the sandcastle of her strength. Her resolve lasted a few seconds more, and then she melted. Her shoulders sagged, and she leaned forward, looking at the ground near Soren’s feet. Once again she wanted to bolt, to run from the trouble that seemed to follow no matter where she went. She looked up. “So what do I do?”

  “I’ve got some ideas about what you could do long term, but I want to discuss them later. What you do right now depends somewhat on what you’ve already done. You might need to follow through on what you’ve started. That might be best—if it’s handled correctly. There might be ways to dispose of Chapman that will make this easier and safer for you.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “The problem with using nanites is that they’re easily traceable. All it takes is recovering one in an autopsy, and the next thing you know the dealer will have a couple of goons from Maximus standing at his booth breathing down his neck. I know that you didn’t use a disguise when you went there, either, because that’s how I tracked you down. Brown gave a pretty fair description of you when I asked, so the nanites are a problem. If I were going to do this, I would have used that handy auto-doc over there. Or better yet, I might have just given him a good dose of pleasure bots and left them under his control. Around here, people die like that all the time.”

  Jo rubbed her forehead. It was like waking from a bad dream only to find that her life was a related nightmare. The pleasure bots seemed so much simpler in hindsight. It only took a few days to burn a brain out with those, and even then many people who started on them without a pleasure burrow around them died of thirst before that happened. Jo felt stupid. She’d made this far more complicated than necessary.

  “I hadn’t thought about being traced,” said Jo. “I didn’t think that anyone here would really care.”

  “Well, you were only half informed and so only half right. A lot of the ignorant people on this rock won’t give a shit if Chapman dies—good riddance, they’ll say—but anyone in the know will definitely raise an eyebrow, and they’re the people with influence and power.”

  Jo no longer felt angry at Soren. In fact, she felt grateful that she was here at all, keeping her from a terrible blunder. Here I am again, messing it all up. Fuck, Jo! When are you ever going to get it right? “So what do I do?”

  “Can you edit his memories?”

  “Maybe. I’ve never tried it, and I found controlling his body hard enough. It might be a little sloppy, but I know the principles.”

  “I don’t think this ought to be too hard. With a man like Chapman, we ought to have a lot of imagination to work with.” Soren folded her arms across her wide chest. “If you take my advice, we’re going to give him exactly what he wanted: an evening with a girl he won’t forget but who he can’t find. And we’re going to do it with the help of some of these.” Soren tapped on the wall next to the flat screen of the auto-doc. “Maybe we’ll be able to edit what he knows about you as well.”

  Jo nodded her understanding. Soren’s plan might just work. She breathed more freely than she had since dragging the nearly incapacitated Chapman onto the bed in the other room. Only one thing still bothered her. “What about the other girls on Tortuga? I wasn’t just doing this because of me. I wanted to help protect other people.”

  It was Soren’s turn to shift uncomfortably. “I guess it’s your call. You could give him the pleasure bots and flush your nanites, but it’s risky, and I’m sure it won’t really do any good. Maximus will still control Tortuga, and prostitution is good business. Chapman’s bad, but he’s far from the worst thing that co
uld happen to all those women. You kill him and someone far worse could take his place.”

  Jo sighed and frowned. She shivered again. “Maybe that’s what my body was trying to tell me. I thought that I’d feel better if I killed him, but in the bar where I gave him the nanites, I realized that it wouldn’t—make me feel better, that is.”

  “It never does, Jo.” Soren sighed and smiled a little, but her eyes looked sad. “When someone like Chapman threatens you or hurts you—or even the Unity Corporation, for that matter—it’s like having a thief break into your home. They tear shit off the walls, break all the dishes, and empty all the cabinets. Then they go away, leaving the house a mess, and there is no way to make them come back and clean it up. You can get mad and get revenge but you still have to clean up the mess yourself. No one can do it for you. So, no, killing Chapman won’t make you feel better. In fact, I would guess it will only make things worse.”

  Jo nodded. She knew what she needed to do, but she wasn’t ready to face it yet, so instead she changed the subject. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you come after me? I’d already turned you down. You’ve already saved my ass once. Why do it again?”

  Soren shrugged. “This is the third time, actually, if you count the time I got you off Aetna. I’ve never had a family of my own. I guess that’s a job hazard when you’re a deep-cover spy. So after we lost the war, I decided to do the only thing I could—I started building my own makeshift family. I guess I remember the four-year-old I helped bring to freedom all those years ago and see you as part of my family.”

  Jo looked down at her hands, vision blurred. “You know, when I thought through my options after Chapman confronted me in the market, I truly considered coming back to the ship, but I was worried that someone on the crew might rat me out.”