Alone on the Edge (The Chronicles of Anna Foster)

by Patrick Stutzman

  “There you are,” he stated as he looked upon her before setting the soup on the table behind him. “I was wondering when you were going to wake up. By the way, your wristcomp is still on.”

  She nodded as she switched off the screen while walking casually toward him, “Yeah, I was looking for you. I was worried when I woke up and you weren’t there.”

  “Sorry, love. I had some things to take care of.”

  With a smile, she added as she wrapped her arms about his neck, “That’s fine. I’ll think of some way for you to make it up to me.”

  Anna leaned in, and the two shared a brief kiss that incited a pleasing smile from him. Sliding his arm around her waist, he led her to the table.

  “So,” Ryan asked as he lifted his first spoonful of soup. “What have you been up to?”

  She shrugged and said, “Not much really. Just got up, got dressed, and stopped by your ship.”

  With a nod, he conjectured and pointed with the butt end of the spoon, “To recover your wristcomp, I assume.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And to get those hull scans you took for me.”

  Ryan paused as he dipped the spoon in the steaming broth. “You went through my files?”

  Defensively, she quickly appended, “Just to get the files!”

  Anna paused and sighed, “But, I do have a question.”

  He eyed her for a second before continuing with his meal and adding, “Okay.”

  “Are you really a corporate enforcer?”

  Ryan hung his head and sighed while he gently placed his spoon next to the bowl, “So, it would seem you found more than just the hull scans.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she inquired curiously.

  “It’s a shame, really,” he stated, ignoring her question. “I was hoping I’d get to fuck you a couple more times.”

  Taken aback, Anna stared at him incredulously for a couple of seconds, unwilling to believe she’d heard him correctly. Finally, she swallowed and asked softly, “What?”

  Looking at her out of the corner of his eye, Ryan raised the question, “Do you have any idea why I’m really here?”

  Anna meekly replied as she started to see her situation growing worse by the second, “I’m guessing it wasn’t a navigational error.”

  He smiled and briefly laughed to himself, “No, not exactly. I was assigned to come here.”

  As she listened to him speak, Anna felt her stomach twisting into knots, her fears taking form right before her eyes. She could not believe what she was hearing, hoping it was all a bad dream. He could not have lied to her.

  “W ... who?” she stuttered.

  “The board of directors. The decision to bring in a corporate enforcer is often proposed by a number a department heads, but it has to be approved by the board for ... special assignments.”

  Anna asked after a second of silence, “Special assignments? I don’t understand.”

  “No, I suppose you don’t.”

  Ryan stood up and took a few steps toward the culinary system as he answered, “The monthly reports that have come back from you over the last several months indicate that the gas we’re mining out here is starting to dry up. Numbers are down and decreasing with each passing month. It has come to the point that maintaining the station out here is outweighing the income generated from harvesting and selling the gas. So, they decided to shut down the station.”

  “Shut it down? So what?!” cried Anna. “Why would that require a corporate enforcer?”

  “Anna, we can’t just leave the station floating here after it is no longer usable. It could be a navigational hazard for any traffic coming into the system” he stated matter-of-factly. “So, I’m going to have to destroy it.”

  Anna thought about the computer for a few seconds and wondered how he was taking this news.

  “So,” he continued. “That is why I was called in to execute what the company calls a ‘complete shutdown’.”

  “Wait a minute,” she interrupted as she rose to her feet and stepped up to him. “Where am I being relocated? What’s my new assignment?”

  Anna’s eyes lit up for a moment at her next thought.

  “Do I get to go home?”

  Ryan sighed again and, in a moment of sympathy, softly replied, “You’re not being relocated, Anna.”

  Looking confused, she cocked her head to the side, “I don’t understand.”

  “When I say ‘complete shutdown’, I mean a complete shutdown: the station AND all existing personnel.”

  Anna’s face dropped in shock and she felt her heart skip a beat. He couldn’t possibly mean ...

  “Yes, that means you,” Ryan clarified as he gently stroked her cheek with his hand. “Dear, sweet Anna. I am sorry.”

  Briskly, she turned away in disgust and moved back to her seat. Another thought crossed her mind, and she turned back to speak to find that Ryan had drawn the laser pistol from the holster strapped to his leg. She had not noticed its presence and regretted not seeing it until now.

  “Wait!” she cried fearfully, throwing her hands out in front of her. “I’m a valued employee! Don’t do this!”

  “A valued employee?” Ryan scoffed. “You can’t be serious! You’ve been forgotten out here. The company doesn’t even know your name. To us, workers like you are a dime a dozen. You can be easily replaced.

  “Now,” he said calmly, flashing the smile she had found so charming, as he raised his firearm at her. “Let’s do this the easy way, shall we?”

  As if on instinct, Anna scooped up the steaming bowl of soup on the table next to her and flung it at Ryan. The scalding liquid splashed on his bare face, forcing him to pause and scream in pain from the sudden attack. An instant later, she leaped from the chair and delivered a swift kick to his groin. As he recoiled from the attack, she noticed that the grip on the weapon had loosened a bit as it shifted in his hand. Anna kicked it out of his hand, and it flew across the floor and skittered under a table in the corner. Without a second thought, she fled from the mess hall and down the corridor.

  Ryan stumbled back into the chair behind him and muttered to himself, “Why is it always the hard way?”

  In a panic, Anna sprinted toward her quarters, unsure of where to go or what to do. She punched the button and pushed her way through the opening doorway, hastily pressing the button on the other side with the heel of her palm as soon as she was clear. She stopped and looked around the room, breathing heavily as she did, trying to find something to help her defend herself. The chair, bed, and dresser offered no ideas, and her tool belt was not where she kept it.

  “Where’s my tool belt?” she asked under her breath.

  At that instant, her wristcomp indicated an incoming message. She opened the screen and read, “Your tool belt is in the infirmary. Use the maintenance tunnels.”

  Before she could ask why, she heard Ryan yell from a distance down the corridor, “Anna! Where are you? I thought we were a little old to play hide-and-seek?”

  “Shit!” she whispered and looked to the floor. Pinpointing the metal tile that obscured the access hatch to the maintenance tunnels, she lifted it out and pulled the small trap door open. Dropping in, she picked up the tile, propped it against the door, and carefully closed the hatch. As the tile slid back into place, she heard the door to her quarters open.

  Chapter 25

  Anna crouched down in the meter-high tunnel, with the light from her wristcomp’s screen the only source of light. She held her breath and listened while she stared upward at the hatch above her, hoping he would go away. A few seconds passed quietly, until she heard footfalls on the floor above her. The steps came directly toward her position and curved toward the head, where they stopped about a meter past her. She suddenly felt as if she was starting to lose her balance and steadied herself against the wall with one hand. She did not hear him moving above her and started to think that he knew she was under the floor. She tensed her muscles, ready to bolt down the tunnel, when she heard him cur
se and step heavily back across the room and out the door.

  A new message appeared on her wristcomp, “Go!”

  Instantly, Anna sprang into action, crawling across the metal grating on her hands and feet toward the infirmary. Since it was positioned on the opposite side of the mess hall, she deduced that the room would be one of the last places he would search on this level. But, she had to move quick, believing that he was moving much faster than her.

  A minute later, she arrived at the access hatch to the infirmary. A new message arrived from the computer, “Your tool belt is in Personal Locker 3 near the door. He is not in the room, but he is approaching. Move now!”

  Anna carefully pushed open the hatch, letting the floor tile slide down. Once it was open far enough, she sprang through and glided across the room to the locker. She cautiously opened the door and breathed a sigh of relief to find her belt hanging on the hook in the back of the compartment.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Ryan sang from down the hallway.

  Her heart raced as she lifted the belt off the hook and gingerly shut the locker. She stealthily rushed back to the hatch and dropped into the tunnel. Upon landing, one of her tools dropped out of its pocket and clanged against the grated floor. Anna froze like a deer in headlights, internally panicking from the outburst of sound. The sudden sound of shuffling feet from the corridor snapped her out of her trance, and she dropped through the hatch and shut the door behind her. Snatching the tool from the floor, she scrambled down the tunnel, taking a side passage a few meters down.

  Just as she turned the corner, Ryan threw the maintenance hatch in the infirmary open and dropped into the passageway. Peering into the darkness, he could not see any sign of his prey, but he could hear her movements echoing through the tube. He raised his pistol and fired three bolts of lethal energy. The bursts briefly illuminated the tunnel as they soared through the air and exploded against the metal wall several meters past the side tunnel taken by Anna.

  Seeing the flash of light reflect behind her, she stopped and tried her best to calm her rapid breathing. She suddenly realized that her wristcomp screen was still on and quickly shut it down, plunging the path in almost complete darkness. Barely able to see as her eyes adjusted, she remembered that the portal leading to the station’s central axis was only a few meters ahead of her. Ryan had not made any movements in her direction yet, and she asked herself in her mind if she should take a chance and lunge for the hatch.

  A few seconds later, Ryan wheeled about and fired three more shots in the other direction, watching them impact against the wall of the maintenance tunnel several meters away. He paused and listened for any sounds beyond the hum of the lights from the room above and the equipment hard at work around him.

  Anna took a little comfort in the knowledge that he still was not sure where she was and decided to wait a few seconds more, praying for a miracle. She held her breath and felt her heart pounding in her chest as if it was about to burst through her shirt.

  Ryan smiled grimly and turned around, taking a step into the dark conduit. Suddenly, he heard a noise from the hallway outside the infirmary. His head jerked around to look through the opening for the briefest of seconds before he dashed through it and the medical facility. Anna took advantage of the diversion, skipped forward to the hatch, and opened it, escaping into the station’s large central chamber.

  In the corridor on Gray level, Ryan emerged from the infirmary and almost ran into the cleaning drone. It appeared to have dropped a small, metal box on the floor and was attempting to retrieve it, when the enforcer arrived. Grimacing at the sight of the drone, he raised his pistol and fired into the mechanoid’s head. Sparks and shrapnel from the resulting explosion sprayed across the corridor behind the drone. He fired again into its torso, littering the walkway with more shards of charred metal and plastic.

  “Fucking drone!” he cursed as he ran back to the maintenance hatch.

  Dropping into the darkness again, he fired twin shots in both directions with only the walls as his victim. Hearing only the sounds of the station after the echoes of his discharge dissipated, he punched the wall next to him in frustration.

  “Bollocks!” he cried before he climbed out again a few seconds later.

  Anna had climbed upward several meters, when she heard the shots ring out. She paused and waited for a response. She smiled to herself upon hearing his outcry, taking a little joy in her immediate victory. She looked up at her destination at the top of the ladder. Hoping to reach the command deck and procure the station’s laser pistol to defend herself, she pulled her tool belt further up her shoulder and began the long ascent.

  Several minutes later, Anna reached the hatch at the top of the ladder. She easily opened it and entered a small, dark chamber just outside the command deck. She spent a few seconds catching her breath while steadying herself against the cold, steel wall, realizing that she climbed the ladder a little too quickly.

  Pulling her flashlight from her belt, she continued on her way and crawled through the tunnels to the access hatch into the command deck. Halfway there, she changed her tactics and entered a ventilation shaft, figuring that Ryan would be expecting her to use the maintenance tunnels to maneuver throughout the station.

  Anna arrived at the command deck a couple of minutes later and crouched just behind the grated panel that covered the vent. From her position, she could observe most of the deck and, despite the fact that the power was currently off, saw no sign of Ryan. She pulled a tool from her belt and, using it and her flashlight at the same time, removed the bolts holding the panel in place. As she lifted the panel up to exit the shaft, the systems on the command deck came online. The unexpected illumination caught her off-guard for a second, and she flinched from the flash. Before she knew it, the elevator doors opened. She quickly and quietly dropped the panel back in place and waited in silence.

  After the doors slowly opened, Ryan walked onto the command deck with his pistol returned to its holster on his thigh. His face, clearly showing signs of the burns caused by the soup, displayed a fierce determination as he purposefully walked to the command console.

  “Computer,” he called out while still a few meters from the coveted chair. “Recognize authorization code Romeo-Mike-011406-Alpha.”

  He paused for a few seconds, waiting for the confirmation to appear on the screen embedded in the panel before him. Anna, curious as to what he was trying to do, paused and focused on the enforcer.

  Finally, the computer displayed its confirmation and acceptance of the code. He continued, “Lock out all access to Annika Foster and rescind all commands given to you by her over the last 72 hours.”

  “As you wish, Ryan,” the computer responded aloud.

  Ryan’s eyebrows shot upward while he paused for a second. Anna’s jaw dropped open, and she silently cursed him. In one fell swoop, he gained the upper hand by taking control of the entire station and stole her greatest ally from her.

  “So, you DO talk!” observed Ryan.

  “Yes, Ryan.”

  After a few seconds of thought, he asked “Computer, are there any files that have been restricted by Anna since my arrival?”

  Without waiting for a response, he added, “Open all files that fit this condition.”

  Anna prayed that the computer’s sentient will would override the command Ryan gave it and not comply. But when the computer displayed a familiar file on the command console’s monitor, her heart sank even deeper.

  “File 47638A, Paradise, is a compilation of data gathered by Anna over the last two weeks regarding a moon orbiting the nearby gas giant. According to the compiled data, the moon is a prime candidate for colonization.”

  Ryan read over the file and nodded in agreement.

  “Looks like I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets,” he commented to himself.

  After a few more seconds of study, he ordered, “Computer, copy this file to my ship.”

  “Acknowledged.”

>   Anna transformed her fear into utter hatred for Ryan. She so desperately wanted to cause him serious bodily harm for what he had just done. For now, she had to focus; there would be time for vengeance. She prayed that he would leave the command deck, so she could accomplish what she came here for.

  Almost as if he was reading her thoughts, Ryan turned on his heel and marched to the elevator. Stepping up to the doors, he stretched his hand toward the call button and paused with his fingertips mere centimeters from it. He cocked his head slightly as if he was thinking about something.

  “Come on!” she urged under her breath. “Push the button!”

  Ryan dropped his hand, much to Anna’s frustration, and turned partially away from the door. He walked to the arms locker and peered at the door.

  “No! God, no!” Anna pleaded with clenched fists, her voice almost audible through the grate as he opened the locker and withdrew the antique laser pistol and holster. “Get away from there, damn it!”

  Smiling, Ryan closed the small door while still poring over the weapon. He returned to the elevator doors, attaching the newly-acquired sidearm to his own belt as he walked, and commented aloud, “Well, Anna. It appears that your dilemma will be resolved very soon, and in my favor.”

  Anna’s breath caught in her throat. Ryan couldn’t possibly know that she was there! She dared not move, afraid of giving herself away. But, he made no indication that he was cognizant of her whereabouts. Instead, he waited patiently for the elevator doors to open and entered the car when it arrived several seconds later. With a faint hiss, the doors converged, and the car sped away to its destination.

  Slumping back against the side of the ventilation shaft, Anna dropped her head and succumbed to her emotions. Tears filled her eyes and quietly ran unhindered down her cheeks onto her shirt. Within seconds, her silent tears turned to loud sobs echoing throughout the command deck and the ventilation shaft. Her plans dashed and no hope of survival in sight, she was overwhelmed with despair and pondered the idea of surrender. Her only remaining hope was that, if she had meant anything to him at all, her death would be quick and painless.