The Rebel

by Gerald Brandt

  SOCAL SAT CITY 2—FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2141 1:35 P.M.

  BRYSON AND AILSA heard the door lock activate. Ailsa scampered back to the bed, farther away from the door, and huddled by Bryson. Her face had drained of all color. He grabbed her hand and held it.

  “You said you wouldn’t leave me behind,” she said.

  He awkwardly rubbed her forearm. “I won’t. It’s okay. They’re probably just coming to take us back to the lab.”

  Ailsa nodded, her eyes glued to Bryson. The door didn’t open.

  “Maybe it’s another glitch. I know what’s causing them. The glitches,” Bryson said, hoping to get her mind off the guards. As soon as he said the words, he realized he’d hit the core of her terror.

  She looked at him like he was crazy.

  “I do.” Bryson pressed on. “I was trying to get data off the memory key I wrote when Kadokawa had me. The key must have been swapped, and—”

  “Bryson.” A female voice cut through his confession. He twitched and looked at the partially open door. Ailsa gripped him tighter, her fingernails cutting into the back of his hand. The person at the door stepped into the room, closing it gently behind her. He knew her . . . It was the girl that had rescued him from Kadokawa! He jumped up, yanking his hand from Ailsa’s grip, and ran to the door, pulling the girl into a hug.

  “It’s so good to see you. Did my dad send you? When do we get out?” It was only when she looked out the door that her name popped into his head. Kris!

  She ignored his question, following up with one of her own. “How long have you been here?”

  “About two weeks. Since I left—” He felt Ailsa grab his arm, partially hiding behind him. It made him feel stronger than he was. He introduced them, stuttering over their relationship.

  Kris ignored him again, opening the door a crack and peering into the hall. “Come on. I’m not sure how much time we have.” She stepped out of the room.

  “You have a plan to get us off the city?”

  Kris explained it to them as they headed to the exit.

  The door to the first room Kris went into opened, and the old man with the cane walked out. He made a beeline for the double doors, completely ignoring the bodies. As he passed Kris, he gave her a tip of his head and carried on.

  “What about the others?” Ailsa asked.

  Kris handed her the card and she ran back down the hall, swiping every door and pushing them open. When she came back, Bryson turned, yelling as loud as he could.

  “The doors are open. We can get out.”

  Kris pulled him through the doorway before he could see if anyone responded.

  Bryson stepped over the guards’ bodies without a word. Ailsa balked, her hand over her mouth, before following.

  The constant thrum of ventilation stopped, followed by the steady vibration of the city. Ailsa froze in the middle of the hallway. A low moan escaped her lips. Bryson felt the panic start to well in his chest as his feet slowly lifted from the floor. The loss of power had hit the gravity generators. The thought had barely entered his head when his weight came back.

  “We have to get to a shuttle, now,” Kris said. She jerked him forward just as his fingers wrapped around Ailsa’s wrist. They stumbled down the hallway and waited by the elevator.

  It was the only way out, and it was taking too long! The old man must have taken the damn thing up.

  Bryson yanked his arm free of Kris’s grasp and took a step back. “Wait! Was it you that swapped out my memory chip for one with the virus?”

  “Virus?” Ailsa asked.

  “I was about to tell you when she came in,” Bryson said. “The chip Ms. Peters took from me contained a virus. When I tried to find my data, I let it loose. I think it’s what has been causing all the problems.”

  The elevator dinged and Kris shoved them inside, hitting the close button as fast as she could.

  “Kai swapped the chip when he made you sleep. The information on it is part of the reason we’ve been looking for you.”

  “I knew it!” The revelation cut through his fear. As the elevator doors closed, he heard the ventilation systems kick back in. “That thing is destroying the city. We need to evacuate!”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do,” said Kris.

  He grabbed Kris’s arm, realization dawning on his face. “I need to get back to the lab. I have to destroy the data. All of it, the computers, the pads, everything. Before they have time to get it.”

  “There’s no time. This whole place could shut down at any second.”

  Bryson’s head cleared. He stood straighter and let go of Kris. “I have to. We’re—humans—aren’t ready for this yet. Look what’s been done over just the hint of it already. Maybe man isn’t supposed know how to travel through space.”

  The look on Kris’s face said she thought he was crazy.

  “Look, I know we can do that now. But if we can get almost anywhere instantaneously, what kind of damage do you think we would do?” He stopped. “Shit. They already have a ship built, with engines and our latest shielding. If that thing launches . . .”

  Ailsa stepped forward as the doors opened on the promenade. Her entire body was vibrating but the color had come back to her cheeks. “I can get to the lab,” she said. “Can you get to that ship?”

  Bryson let the question hang in the air. He looked into her eyes and saw the same determination in them he had seen in the lab. She still looked scared, but she looked ready as well. She was probably stronger than he was. “Maybe. It’s a couple of floors down in the military section.”

  “We’ll never get in there,” Kris said.

  “I have to try.”

  “Let the virus finish what it’s doing then. You said it would destroy the city.”

  “I can’t. What if the safety systems contain it, or it can’t get past a critical firewall? I can’t take that chance.”

  Ailsa pushed them out of the elevator. He watched as the doors closed.

  SOCAL SAT CITY 2—FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2141 1:41 P.M.

  The promenade behind us was in chaos. Through the narrow view the hallway offered I could see people running toward the shuttle port, forcing their way past anyone who was slow. Now might be the only time we could hide amongst them and sneak onto a shuttle.

  I turned back to make sure Bryson was following me. He was already getting on another elevator. I ran and slipped through as the door was closing.

  “You’re fucking insane!” I had no idea why I followed him.

  Bryson kept his eyes on the numbers flashing over the door. The elevator slowed and I moved behind the control panel, out of sight of anyone waiting for the door to open. I held my breath.

  In stark contrast to the promenade, the hallway was empty. Bryson stepped out and started jogging down the corridor. I followed him. Red lights flashed every ten meters and the overhead ones were dim, making the hallway seem to swim and shimmer.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “There was a door we went . . . we went through to get to the ship.”

  He was obviously not used to exercise of any sort. We’d barely gone twenty-five meters and he was already out of breath.

  “There’s a guard . . . it’s a checkpoint . . . of some sort . . .”

  I grabbed his arm, pulling him to a stop. “How the hell are we supposed to get past a checkpoint?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.” He had his hands on his knees, trying to suck in a breath. “I didn’t think that far.”

  “No fucking kidding.”

  Bryson took off again, stopping only a few meters away. He stepped backward and looked into an open door before racing to the next one and doing the same. I caught up to him and looked into the rooms.

  They were exactly the same.

  “It’s one of these two,” he said.

  “You have
a fifty percent chance of getting it right. This hall can’t stay empty forever, so make up your mind.” The thought of being caught in a military area chilled me to my core. If we were lucky, they’d question us. If we weren’t . . . With all the systems failures, they might shoot first and ask questions later. Bryson picked a door and walked in. I followed, pushing it almost closed. There was no handle on the inside.

  The room was small, with only a desk and another door with no handle in the opposite wall. Above it, a light glowed red.

  “How did you plan to get through?” I asked.

  “I told you, I didn’t think that far ahead. I thought I could bluff my way in.”

  “How did it work last time?”

  “There was a guard with a gun. Ms. Peters said a number and the door opened.”

  “Well there’s no guard here now.”

  “I can see that!”

  I searched behind the desk. Maybe there was a release button for the inner door. I even crawled under the damn thing. I didn’t think the guard opened the door for them.

  “What did she say when you walked in?”

  “Five four zero six three.”

  I repeated the numbers, lowering the tone of my voice to more closely match hers. Nothing happened. “You’re sure those are the numbers?”

  “Numbers are what I do.”

  “Well, they’re not doing anything. Did she say anything else? A phrase before or after the numbers?”

  “I can’t . . . no wait! She did. Let me think.”

  “Make it fast. We can’t have much time.”

  “Just let me think.”

  I stood quietly and watched his lips move. His forehead scrunched in concentration.

  “I think she said her last name, the numbers and that she was with me. And the light over the door was white.”

  I tried to modulate my voice again. “Peters, five four zero six three. I’m with Bryson Searls.” Nothing happened. I tried again with the same results. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

  “No, the last part was different. I think she said she was accompanied by Dr. Bryson Searls.”

  I tried one more time. Nothing. “This isn’t working. We need to leave.”

  “That light was white,” he said again, ignoring me. He moved to the door we came through and pushed it shut.

  “What the fuck?” I pried my fingers in the door’s seam, trying to get a grip on something that would open it. It was like trying to climb wet limestone, slippery and painful. We were stuck. “There’s no way out now.”

  Bryson pointed at the light above the door.

  It had turned white. I tried one more time. “Peters, five four zero six three. Accompanied by Dr. Bryson Searls.” The light above the door turned yellow and pulsed. “Did—”

  He held up his hand and pressed a finger to his lips. His mouth counted up silently. When he reached ten, the door popped open.

  I ran to it before it changed its mind, sliding my fingers through to open it a crack.

  SOCAL SAT CITY 2—FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2141 1:53 P.M.

  The hangar was a flurry of organized activity. From the small slice I could see, uniformed men and women rushed everywhere. There were one or two people in regular clothes, but none of them were dressed like me. A group by the ship in the middle of the hangar were wearing white lab coats. Though the ship towered over the people below it, it didn’t even make a dent in the space available. I pulled my head back into the room.

  “We’ll never make it. There are enough people out there to stop an army.”

  Bryson stood over me and looked through the crack in the door as well. I moved out of his way, the sudden feeling of being confined bringing on the sharp edge of panic. He swore under his breath.

  “What do we do?” he asked.

  “We get the hell out of here and try to get on a transport with the rest of the fucking station. That’s what we do.”

  He glanced at the door we came through. “We can’t go back.”

  He was right. I’d already tried to open the door we’d used to get in. “How did you get out last time?”

  “This way. The guard had the outside door open for us.”

  “How the hell did he do that?”

  Bryson gave me a blank look.

  I leaned my head against the wall. Think dammit. Think! It looked like there was only one way out of this mess. “Okay. We don’t have much choice, do we? We head out there and try to look like we fit in. We’ll stay as close to the wall as we can and look for another way out. All those people didn’t get in through this room.”

  “If we’re in there we can get to the ship.”

  The bastard had only one thought on his mind. “And do what?”

  “They followed my design, I can get in and destroy it.” He took another look through the crack. “We won’t want to be in there when it happens though. In fact, if they powered on the engines, we don’t want to be anywhere near the city.”

  “You’d kill all these people?”

  Bryson stared into my eyes. “If I have to,” he said. “We can try to set off an alarm. A lot of them should get out.”

  He opened the door and stepped through before I could say another word. I followed him. I’d had one goal in my head for so long, maybe I’d become too focused. What if Bryson was right? Either way, I wasn’t getting him off this piece-of-junk city until he either realized the job was hopeless or we succeeded.

  Once he was in the hangar, Bryson froze. He obviously had no idea what to do next. Against the wall right by the door were some bright yellow and orange safety vests and a pad. I grabbed two of the vests, shoving one into his hands before slipping mine over my head. I held the pad, willing my hands to stop shaking. The disguise wasn’t much, but it was the best we could do.

  There seemed to be a regular flow of people by the right-hand wall. Maybe it was a way out. With the door behind us locked, it might be the only way. We moved toward the ship.

  “You’re sure this is what you want?” I asked.

  Bryson nodded. “What are they going to do? Kill me? They still need me.”

  “Sure they need you. They’ll probably shoot me on sight. And think about it, they have a working design and a ship to go with it. How important are you at this point?”

  His step faltered. “I let Ailsa go to the lab to destroy everything there. If I don’t do this, what kind of person would I be? If she succeeds and I fail, her work was wasted.”

  “And if you die?”

  He looked at me and down at the pad in my hands. Tears had formed in his eyes.

  “This is right. I know it’s right, and for the first time, I know I need to follow through. Don’t stop me.”

  “Then let’s get it done.”

  I lowered the pad and he moved toward the ship. I fell in line beside him. Sometimes there were things more important—bigger—than yourself.

  Or your family.

  The closer we got, the more I realized the size of the ship was deceiving. The hangar was so large, it made the ship look smaller than it really was. By the time we were directly under it, I was in shock.

  Some of the people gave us strange looks, but let us pass. A group of armed men approached us, and I looked at the pad again, bending down by an access port in the floor as if to verify it was the one we were looking for. I fought to look natural, like I belonged. Every movement took so much effort, I was sweating. The men passed us by without a second look.

  Now, though, we stood out like grass on Level 1. Everyone here was either in a white lab coat or uniform. I wasn’t sure how long our ruse would work. We maneuvered under the belly of the ship. It was so high, I wouldn’t have been able to touch it even if I stood on Bryson’s shoulders. We almost made it to the stairs leading into the ship before we were stopped.

  “What are you tw
o doing here?” The soldier in front of us carried his weapon at the ready.

  “We—”

  Bryson interrupted me. “We’re looking for access port eighty-seven in grid two-H.”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “It’s a good thing we do then. You’re standing on port eighty-six. Eighty-five is that one.” He pointed behind us. “That makes eighty-seven over there.” Bryson pointed to behind the soldier, right by the stairs.

  “I’ll have to verify that. You wait right here.”

  “You go ahead,” Kris said. “The power fluctuation readings we’re getting from there are big enough to destroy half this ship. But we’ll wait.”

  The soldier looked at both of us. He seemed unsure about what to do, before finally falling back to his initial decision. “You’ll have to wait.”

  Bryson nodded and gave me a nudge. What the hell did he expect me to do? He held the pad up as if to show me something and traced his finger on the screen. It looked like he said hit him. He was crazy.

  The soldier reached for a comm unit attached to his belt. Bryson gave me a push and I lurched forward, grabbing onto the guard for support. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t buying any of this anymore.

  Well, fuck.

  I swung out and hit full speed with my fist in his throat. He fell without a sound. A whistle echoed across the deck.

  Bryson grabbed my arm and dragged me to the stairs. We were halfway up when a familiar voice called down.

  “If it isn’t my two favorite people. Kris Merrill and Bryson Searls.”

  fifteen

  KADOKAWA SAT CITY 2—FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2141 2:28 P.M.

  THE SQUADRON ANDREW had ordered to be ready hadn’t had a chance to stand down before SoCal 2 started exhibiting problems again. He hadn’t heard from Okinawa, which was surprising considering he’d disobeyed a direct order by calling Admiral Hamil. He left his quarters and went back to Operations. The hush that fell when he walked in was different this time. Maybe it was him, but it felt like it was filled with more respect than his title gave.

  Mori came rushing up. “Kaishō-ho, SoCal 1 and 2 are both having problems. From what we can detect, things are escalating quickly. SoCal 2 has already shut down its primary docking bay twice in the last ten minutes. It looks like they can’t launch any shuttles.”