Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  “I’ll be at the nine mile ventilation flume for the Tahina slope mine. We don’t want you to run into an RTF employee who wants to take your other ear.”

  Weaving, Bosco agreed and stumbled back into his apartment.

  As soon as the door closed, Flynn turned away, pausing only to collect Seamus from their hiding spot.

  “Well, that was a rip off. I wanted to see him try to lie to you.”

  “Bosco might have some issues, but he’s never struck me as an idiot.”

  “Well, no, but that tooth is pretty damning.”

  Flynn managed to keep from reacting only because of long practice. “I don’t even want to know how you know about that.”

  When they reached the ground floor, Seamus kept their mouth shut. There were too many people around, and the kid knew that things were better kept under wraps.

  They passed over the oddly barren ring around the facility’s base and got to the buggy, without interference.

  “Hey,” Flynn tossed the kid their goggles. “Why’d you come to me when you two found the bodies?”

  “I couldn’t go to my mom… if she was in Anderson Lodge, Stevens would blow up. And she said if I was in trouble… you’re probably the best at getting out of it.”

  “Fair enough.” Seamus started up the deafening engine, and they sped through the cold dusk. The harsh sting of the wind clearing his head.

  They rolled to a stop in the street in front of Seamus’ mother’s house. The buggy fell into a convenient shadow between the street lamps. And Seamus… eyes on the house the whole time, hurried out of the buggy and around to the passenger side as though their life depended on it.

  “I’m guessing mom would be on team Putty about that little excursion.”

  “I’m two years away from getting my provisional license, you bet she’d be pissed off.”

  “What’s the legal driving age on this planet?”

  “Legally? I don’t have to answer that. See ya tomorrow!”

  They ran across their gravel yard and disappeared into the house, leaving Flynn to guess Seamus wasn’t going to hit that magic number for a while…. Provisionals could take six months to three years to turn into the real thing.

  Shaking his head, knowing he would have done the same thing, he got into the buggy, adjusted the seat, and made his way back to Putty’s parking space.

  On his third attempt at parking the thing, he gave up, left it crooked, and decided that he probably shouldn’t have been given any permissions on this planet, let alone a vehicle operations license based solely on Putty’s “word.”

  He grimaced at the ugly park job as he stepped up onto the curb and turned back to the side, pulling his shoulder back a moment before he would have collided with a man who stood blocking the way.

  “Fuck.” The word slipped out, but he caught himself before he punched the man in the face. “Sorry, I should watch where I’m going.”

  “Yes… you should.” His words were clipped with a hard accent Flynn had only heard from intercepted communiques.

  People who spoke like that were the ones who could pay to stay out of the war… or pay for a rank high enough they never saw the war outside of a comp screen.

  Despite anything else, that raised his hackles.

  But not as much as the man’s scrutiny.

  The man stared at his neck, one eye narrowed, a smile—an ugly, crooked thing—painted on his face.

  “And you are?”

  Flynn didn’t know why, but that voice at the back of his mind—the one that had kept him from being killed three times or more—told him this man was not a friend.

  “Someone who doesn’t have time for men in suits, or the roadblocks they invariably try to throw up.”

  That smile didn’t falter, nor did his gaze move from the scarring tissue.

  And he didn’t get out of the way.

  “Am I going to have to forcibly move you? Or are you going to act like a civilized person and step to one side or the other?” He watched the man, not seeing anything in his face that hinted at higher thinking. “In, or out.”

  “You are an interesting man, Mr. Monroe.”

  And then, he left.

  Flynn didn’t flinch, didn’t pause. But he did take note.

  Whoever the man was, he knew too much. And Flynn knew too little.

  Walking away, keeping alert, just in case the man followed him—even if men like that didn’t get their hands dirty—he headed home.

  His brother was on top of his ship.

  No rest for the wicked.

  Putty handed Flynn a beer—a to-go pack from Susan, if he had to guess—and turned his gaze back toward the heavens… the stars, and the moons that threatened to block them out.

  “It’s kind of peaceful here.” Putty sighed loudly enough Flynn knew he’d been drinking the entirety of the time Flynn had been gone.

  “That’s why I picked this particular piece of junk.”

  “What if I stayed here?”

  Flynn forced himself to keep his mouth shut. Putty had been looking for adventure and travel the entirety of their teenage years. But people changed… he supposed.

  “Aside from the fact you’d be fighting the miners the rest of your life?”

  “I could sign on with one of the farms… Phee’s here and—”

  “Phee’s not here. Are you sure she wasn’t a migrant worker?”

  “You don’t understand.” Putty rolled, pushed to his feet, and then settled into the chair beside him. “She’s beautiful. The sort of face… Well, I doubt anyone would write poetry about her, but there’s something in the way she looks at things. She’s figuring them out, and she’s just so freaking happy to be there.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere.” Putty shook his head and laughed. “She looks at this world like it’s some vast paradise, full of potential. She looked at me like I was full of potential too.”

  “But not a vast paradise?”

  Putty actually threw the bottle at him this time.

  It smashed against something in the junkyard below, and Flynn could only laugh. It was that or admit he may have a knack for pushing his brother a touch too far.

  “She’s everything I want to be.”

  “Except the female part, right?” Flynn asked. “No judgement, curious minds just want to know.”

  “It has nothing to do with her gender or mine. You can shut up, or I’ll shut you up with a boot in your mouth.”

  If Putty stayed on the planet, and Chadrick took the post he knew Henri would offer him… it’d be a strange place to visit after whatever was about to happen came about.

  Assuming Henri would let him back on the planet when the dust settled.

  Fifteen - Sophia

  Horza was an ugly ball of gray and grit.

  “Still think this duckling is going to turn into a swan once you’ve worked your magic?” Banks asked as their shuttle’s landing struts touched down on the pad.

  “It’s already beautiful. Not my fault if you can’t see it.”

  Maggie waited for them at the bottom of the hatch. The tails of her jacket tangled and flapped at her legs. She’d buttoned it all the way from navel to neck, against the chill wind.

  “I’m glad to see you again.” Sophia took Maggie’s offered hand and then allowed the woman to lead her into the facility.

  Banks followed at a safe distance.

  Whether he knew Maggie was no threat—and he rarely trusted even those on his staff—or he thought he’d have a better opening for a shot if something went wrong, Sophia couldn’t guess. But that was his job, so she let him do it without comment.

  “Is there anything I need to know immediately before I meet with the site overseers?”

  Maggie’s scowl deepened, but she shook her head. “No, as far as I can tell, whatever happened here didn’t originate on the planet.”

  “Someone called in an order for workers and miners piled in a transport to do this person’s bidding?”r />
  “Possibly.”

  Maggie was a rare woman. A folder who didn’t work for the Colarium.

  Sophia could pay better than the military… she deserved to have some of the better personnel.

  The dome they were constructing wouldn’t be seen on any military base in the near future. The Colarium might have money to burn, but they rarely spent it on creating ecosystems on inhospitable planets. They let people like her do it.

  She was certain someone in the ranks thought she was wasting her time.

  But in three years, they’d be having this conversation in the greenery of that ecosystem, a place that would keep her worker’s sane, and hopefully happy all the way out here in the middle of nowhere…. Assuming she had any workers left.

  Maggie stared at it with her—the shape of a broken eggshell—until their elevator dropped below the planet’s surface, and into the complex below.

  This time, it was Tina waiting for them. The facility manager stood on a spot, unmoving until Maggie made the unnecessary introductions… almost as though she’d been ordered not to move.

  “Ms. Refuti, I’m so sorry you had to come all this way for such unfortunately inconclusive circumstances.”

  “Unfortunate is better than tragic, Tina. If I was here because fifty men fell down a shaft, I might accept an apology, but for this… I’m certain you don’t owe me one.”

  Whatever Maggie had done before they’d gotten there, it was clear the woman thought she might lose her job. And despite having earlier threatened to resign….

  “I’ve pulled all of the relevant data and loaded the security recordings, logs, and travel information for you. But, as you know, everything and everyone on base is at your disposal.”

  “You do good work. Please don’t let us keep you from it. If we need anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  With a nod—and the first hope Sophia had seen in her eyes—Tina left them, the door sliding shut on silence behind her.

  “She didn’t have anything to do with it.” Maggie hadn’t needed to voice her concern, though it was clear no one in the room suspected her anymore. “But you might consider firing her… if she can’t keep track of your employees, what is she managing?”

  “She manages the facility. People will do what they do. She’s not a warden, and this isn’t a Colarium base. No one can go AWOL. Our investigations might prove they simply decided to quit.”

  “That many? All at once?” Banks scrolled through the data on a terminal in the corner.

  “They know we don’t work with unions… maybe they went to find someone who would.”

  “No one on your staff would think a union could get them better pay elsewhere.”

  “And there are some people who won’t know until they try… and others still who are very good at talking the uninformed into things against their best interest. A few politicians come to mind.” Sophia sat behind the desk Tina had prepared for her, and looked at Maggie before any of the data. “What do you think?”

  Maggie glanced at Banks, but Sophia knew his expression would give her nothing.

  Hers gave away volumes, and Sophia read them all. But the caution she saw there, warring with concern, didn’t stop her security specialist from giving an honest opinion.

  “I think…” she said, and Sophia could see her mind working behind her eyes as she chose her words. “I think that you should inventory who has access to your highest level codes… and investigate every one of them. No one should be exempt.”

  “Who do you think I might exempt?”

  Another glance at Banks. “Your brother.”

  “Geo’s not capable of pulling employees. His clearances only look important.”

  “Be that as it may, it’s something you should consider.”

  “And it’s something we’ll look into.” Banks pushed away from the wall and moved to sit on the edge of the desk, between them. “We’ve had problems with him before.”

  Those words were low, meant only for her.

  “If only to prove his innocence,” Maggie added, quickly, as though she didn’t think the worst.

  But that was what Sophia paid her for. And if she didn’t acknowledge that the worst did happen—and often—she might as well surround herself with toe-kissing lackeys.

  “We’ll do that.” she nodded to banks, knowing he would get it done. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not on this planet, Ma’am. I have suspicions elsewhere.”

  “Hunt them down. We’ll finish up here, and then, we have to head back to Capo. But you’ll know how to get ahold of us.”

  When the door shut behind her, Banks finally sat. But he didn’t look as though he was pleased with what little headway they’d made.

  “You don’t really think it’s him… do you?”

  “I think….” His mouth twisted to a frown. “I think your brother would never intentionally do anything to harm you. But he’s incredibly enthusiastic. We both saw how he reacted to that bounty and what he could do for you—for the company.”

  “Hunting one man down doesn’t take fifty, and it certainly doesn’t require miners.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that was what he’d chosen to do. But, what if he’d latched on to some other scheme? Something he thinks will make you happy… without considering the consequences. Geo doesn’t rush into things, he nosedives.”

  “He doesn’t have access to the commands that would get that sort of asset reallocation.”

  “Does he need them?” Banks looked her dead in the eye. “If your brother says the right thing to the right person, I’m pretty sure his name could move mountains… clearances be damned.”

  He was right. She just didn’t like hearing it aloud.

  “We need to find him.” She knew Banks had already sent out the search. “Finding our missing mining crew might be the easiest way to do that.”

  She pulled up her private comm line and dialed her personal admin.

  He was pretty, high cheekbones, a delicate nose, and lashes that others had accused him of paying for. But that wasn’t the reason she’d hired him.

  Others could use him for eye candy, she’d use the impeccable organizational skills and high IQ few people cared to learn he had.

  As she filled him in, she noticed the faint lines appearing and disappearing on his brow.

  “You look like you have news.”

  “Not news,” he winced. “But a theory. What if it’s something else? What if they left on their own?”

  “That many?” She heard herself echoing Maggie’s earlier suspicion.

  “I saw something come down the wire, public channels and market servers. Someone on Sukiyaki is hiring. It doesn’t say they’re working with the mining union, but UPD-5 experience was cited as having a higher pay rate.”

  Sophia shifted in her chair. She did not want to go back to that dustbowl of a planet right now.

  “If that’s all it is,” he checked something out of sight. “We might be looking at a labor war.”

  “You know we pay too well for that.”

  “And the numbers on the notice were high.”

  “How high?” Banks asked, moving to lean over her shoulder.

  “Thirty percent over our normal starting wage. I’ll send a copy of the request through.”

  “Thanks,” Sophia closed up the comm and Banks cursed behind her. She mentally echoed it. “Someone’s luring miners away. No one could pay that much and make their money back.”

  “Then what are they doing? Getting them out there to…” He shook his head. “The only things I can think of are absurd, and wouldn’t even make sense in one of those trashy novels you read.”

  “Hey,” she held out a finger. “You still work for me. We might be friends, but I won’t put up with that kind of judgement.”

  She pulled up the notice and scrolled through it.

  “I’m sorry,” Banks blew out a frustrated breath. “What do we think they’re doing? Experimenting on them? Killing t
hem? Turning them into some sort of slave labor force?”

  “Maybe all three?” When Banks looked at her with censure, she shrugged. “The Colarium’s slag supply doesn’t seem to be depleting.”

  “Then why specify miners?”

  “It doesn’t specify Sukiyaki….”

  “Where else would they need UPD-5 experience?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “We’ll send Maggie to look into that next.” She turned toward the starscape horizon projected on the far wall.

  “Let’s hope it’s just an outfit that doesn’t know what they’re doing and will drive themselves out of business by paying their employees too much.” She tapped out a message to Henri, a warning, of sorts. “The rest is too gruesome to consider.”

  Sixteen - Kathrynn

  The problem with playing to holy superstition was that one had to commit.

  Kathrynn couldn’t roll her eyes when the woman speaking told a lie that Mother Mihm could easily prove without her. She was forced to keep a straight face.

  To glare in silence.

  To turn her sickle in her hand and watch as the gathered parishioners let their imaginations run wild with the various tortures she might inflict upon those who told truly heinous lies.

  She never tortured anyone.

  There was nothing, and no one who could make her do that.

  The faint lie scratched at her skin.

  “Never say never.”

  She muttered the words under her breath, but the sister beside her—hands dusted with gold—heard and leaned forward, giving Kathrynn the opportunity to repeat herself.

  “It’s nothing.”

  With a nod, the woman went back to her stone-stiff posture.

  Minor lies, inconveniences and irritations that they were, held no driving need from the Great Mother to act.

  They were like paper cuts. Immediately sharp, then fading to annoyances.

  Those who came for trial—several had stayed away, but Mother Mihm had seen no reason to visit them—stepped forward in their prescribed order, and one by one, sliced at her.

  Only once did she have to signal the other sisters. A man whose lie had stabbed at her, a hot lance through her stomach.

  Those pains had once made her flinch. Now… she was so used to them, her only reaction was a brief moment of closed eyes for recomposure.