by Watson Davis
"Come on, kids." Edmund stomped down the hall Frankl had indicated, not looking back to confirm whether his team followed him or not, the door slamming shut behind him.
"I don't like this, boss." Malordo jogged to keep up with Edmund, turning to glare back toward the closed door as she spoke. "They can't keep us from talking to her."
"Yeah"—Edmund nodded—"they can."
"Have we checked this bozo's credentials?" Moritz said from the other side, not looking back, her hands clasped behind her back.
"He's legit," Edmund said.
At the junction between the chamber and the corridor leading to the elevators, Edmund stopped to wait for Kevin and his two. He tapped his temple, sending out a query, his brow furrowing. He mumbled so only those nearest him could hear, "There's no record of her arrest, and she wasn't in any of the cells I saw."
"What the hell do you mean?" Kevin asked, rubbing his forehead. "What are you trying to say? They nabbed her, but they're going to keep her off the books?"
"Mmm?" Sly nodded, grinding his right hand into his left palm, his knuckles cracking.
"We're all going to end up in prison." Kevin rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Come on, guys, let's go collect our new compartments, catch some shut-eye, and let this all die down. We can deal with this when we're not in emergency-mode."
"Pfft." Malordo shook her head. "Something's wrong, and if we don't do something about it, no one will."
"She's probably escaped," Vanessa said with a giggle, raising her hands to cover her mouth. "What do you want to bet?"
"Well, there's nothing we can do, except not get ourselves taken into custody," Edmund said. "Let's do what the man said: pick up our new room assignments and keep our asses down."
"That's no fun," Vanessa said.
# # #
Christal sat in her cube, boots on the desk, pinching the bridge of her nose and fighting back a yawn.
"You should head on home." Wendell slumped on the wall of Christal's cube, eyes red and half-closed. "Get some sleep so you can come relieve me in a few hours."
"A few hours?" Christal stretched her arms out, arching her back. "If my head hits a pillow, I'm shutting down for a day, at least. You go, and come relieve me in a few hours."
He yawned, putting the back of his hand against his mouth.
"Don't do that," Christal said, immediately yawning herself.
"I think I will." He rubbed his eyes. "I'm not going to be any use to anyone for a while."
"Go on." She shooed him away with her hands. "We're through the worst of the debris. We should be fine."
He nodded and trudged toward the door, stopping with his hand hovering over the handle. He let his hand fall, stood a little straighter, with a silly smile on his face, and stepped aside to let someone enter. A woman, of course. Christal shook her head at his obviousness, his cheesiness. She rose to her feet.
The woman wore her thick brown hair cut short, showing off her muscular but curvy body, her square jaw. Christal recognized her: the new girl in Edmund's command. Vanessa. The woman he was banging now, the woman he’d left Christal for. The smile evaporated from Christal's face, her cheeks growing hot from her blood rising. If this has anything to do with Edmund, I’m going to shoot this bitch between the eyes.
Wendell bowed, saying something Christal couldn't hear, then gesturing toward Christal. Vanessa nodded, turning to Christal, seeing her, her expression lighting up with recognition.
Not the reaction Christal had expected.
Vanessa waved and strode up to Christal, offering her hand for shaking. "Christal, right?"
Wendell strolled along beside her, a dizzy smirk on his face, thumbs hitched in his belt. He leaned his elbow on the wall to Christal's cube.
"Yeah." Christal nodded grudgingly, taking Vanessa's hand, shaking it, saying, "You're Vanessa, right?"
"Yeah!" she said, bright and cheerful, shaking hands until Christal yanked hers free.
"I'm Wendell." Wendell offered his hand.
"Oh." Vanessa stared down at his hand, shook it once, and turned back to Christal.
"I heard about you and Edmund splitting up." Vanessa ducked her head, pursing her lips. "Sorry about that."
"Yeah." Christal rested her hand on the butt of her weapon. "Sure you are."
"So, listen. I was hoping I could ask you for a favor," she said sheepishly, not looking Christal in the eye, playing with the plastic cap on the wall of Christal's cube. Wendell stared up at her face, transfixed.
"A favor?" Christal coughed, gawking up at Vanessa, incredulous yet impressed by the balls on the bitch.
"Shhh." Wendell reached a hand out toward Christal, his eyes never moving from Vanessa's face. "You should hear her out."
"Thanks." Vanessa took a deep breath, raising her eyes to meet Christal's. Innocent, naive eyes, or the eyes of a bimbo, Christal couldn’t tell. Vanessa said, "You might have heard, but there's been kind of a thing in the FountainCorp section of the station?"
"A thing?" Christal snorted. "You call four bombs and rubble raining down on our station—injuring people, killing people, holing entire quadrants—a thing?"
"A really bad thing, then," she said in a serious tone. "But when all the crap happened, a friend of mine went to the docks to save a girl who called her, a good friend of ours. I'm not sure where she went except for the docks. Some stuff happened, and I'd like to figure out where my friend went and what happened to the girl. Maybe someone still needs to rescue the girl and stuff."
"I'm sorry," Christal said, not sure she knew where this was heading, but she did not like it as a matter of principle. "Losing people, it's hard."
"Oh, yeah, that's true." Vanessa raised her hand, her brow furrowing. "But, see, what's weird is that FountainCorp brass said the girl died before my friend even got the call. I was there; I heard her talking to the girl they said died."
"I'm confused," Wendell said.
"What do you want me to do?" Christal plopped back into her seat, settling her boots up on her desk, her elbows on the arms of her chair.
"Command says this girl died in her room." Vanessa shrugged. "I don't believe Santina was in her room at all. I believe someone took her to the docks."
"So, that's a marvelous conspiracy theory you've got going, but why are you here talking to me?" Christal placed her hand on her chest. "What are you thinking I can do? I'm just a sheriff's deputy in a small, rinky-dinky little station."
"Hey!" Wendell said, wincing.
"I'm praying you've got some sort of super-duper police emergency override so you can read the security cam feeds from just after the bombs went off to confirm if she was alive, if she remains on the station, or what vessel she got on if she left." A smile spread across Vanessa's face. "Darla said you could access the FountainCorp cams."
"Let me get this straight." Christal shook her head, having had her fill and now unable to ignore the most significant feature of their almost nonexistent relationship. "You stole my man, and now you're trying to cost me my job?"
"Oh? Bye, then." Wendell stood and marched out of the office.
"What?" Vanessa asked, her face screwing up. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Edmund and me and you," Christal said.
"Edmund and you and me?" Vanessa blinked, touching her chest with her hand. "An affair with Edmund? Gross. I mean, no offense, but gross. He is not my type. Darla's more my type. Exactly my type, actually."
"What?" Christal dropped her feet from her desk, sitting up, giving Vanessa her full attention, studying her for the stink of lies. "If he isn't having an affair with you, who is he sleeping with?"
"I wouldn't want to say." Vanessa craned her neck back, her face scrunching up like she'd bitten into something sour. "What Edmund does with his thingie and who he does that with has nothing to do with me, but finding this girl, helping her, that is important."
"So, he is cheating." Christal crossed her arms over her chest, her heart thudding.
Vanessa averted her eyes, shrugging her shoulders. "That's none of my beeswax."
"Fine." Christal tapped her fingertips on the desk, different ways to pull the FountainCorp security camera network flitting through her mind. "What's so special about this girl?"
"She's got nobody else to care for her," Vanessa said, her eyes big, eyebrows slanting over her nose like a temple. "Nobody but Dorothea and me. Now, Command says Santina's dead and Dorothea killed her, but that's not right. There's no way that's right."
Christal sighed, slumping back into her seat and bringing up the holo-feed, motioning for Vanessa to come around the desk for a better view. "I'm not going to do anything illegal."
"Oh, yeah, no." She shook her head. "I wouldn't want you to get in trouble or anything."
"Okay." The image of the FountainCorp dock area sprang to life, a wireframe image, color-coded. Christal peeled away layers, focusing the display on only the nodes she wanted. Dozens of cameras flashed on the screen, covering the wide range of the docks. "Any idea which camera?"
"Nope," Vanessa said, breathing on Christal's neck, looking over her shoulder, the air of a hospital clinging to her.
Christal flipped back to a time five minutes before the bombs exploded, and selected a random camera, pulling its images to a side monitor.
Blank.
"Well," Christal said. "That's not good."
"I don't see anything." Vanessa inched up and squatted beside Christal.
Christal glanced back at Vanessa, then pointed across the hall, saying, "Snag the chair from Wendell's cube."
"Thanks!" Vanessa guided the chair over. "I still don't see anything."
"Yeah, that's kinda the point. Maybe the explosion damaged the camera and corrupted its history." Christal inspected the camera's diagnostics. There was no problem. She studied the access logs. "That's odd. Somebody turned it off."
"Who?" Vanessa asked, sitting sideways in the chair, arms draped over the back of it, her chin on her forearms.
Christal read the name from the access list. "Nobody."
"Somebody had to have done it, right?" Vanessa asked.
"Yeah." Christal scrubbed through a feed until she saw a flicker of movement. "But they logged into the system as 'nobody' at the time."
"When did the cameras come back on?"
"That's what I'm checking."
The cameras rolled, presenting a bustling dock, people running, crates moving, ships launching, new ships taking their place.
"Over there." Vanessa pointed at a place on the far end of the dock. "That's my friend who went to check on her. CounterEspionage said they'd arrested her."
Christal stopped the feeds, freezing them at that time, isolating a woman in bandages before the airlock of a private vessel at the end of the docks. Christal scanned through feeds, discovering one closer, showing the woman getting into a ship all alone.
Christal fast-forwarded, identifying the spot when the berth's status changed. "The ship took off without her exiting."
"Where was she going?" Vanessa placed her forearms on her knees, craning her neck toward the HV, her breathing loud, her voice thick.
"Ummm…" Christal browsed through the flight plans. "Orchid Flower station in the Nemesis debris field."
The Fortunate Son
I joined the people approaching the Orchid Flower customs desk, walking fast with my head down, zipping my oversized jacket up and closing it over the slight bulge of the TG-37 slugthrower I'd nabbed from the ship's armory to go along with the ID the ship's AI had constructed for me.
Closer to the terminal, the throng narrowed into a queue, going one by one to a counter where a man in a shabby uniform sat behind plexiglass, the window discolored in splotches, a bit of it melted, chunks having slid down in globules and lumps, the pocks of bullets hiding among spiderwebs of cracks.
The man motioned for me to come forward, his face resting on the palm of his hand, his elbow on the countertop, a console before him and the plexiglass behind him reflecting the game of solitaire he was playing.
I placed my hand on the identification panel.
He asked, "Jodee Stewart?"
"That's me," I said, hoping they didn't have stress detectors monitoring my words, hoping my acting talent met the challenge.
"Any other baggage?"
I swallowed, trying not to gulp. "No."
"Any drugs or contraband to declare?"
"No."
"Have work or looking?"
I shrugged. "I guess I'm looking."
"Are you wanted for any crimes?"
I licked my lips. “Um.”
He rolled his eyes, tapping virtual cards in his solitaire, moving one stack to another. “To the best of your knowledge.”
"Not that I'm aware of."
A piece of paper popped out of the dispenser before me. I stared down at it.
"Take the slip of paper to the jobs commission. They'll find an unassigned skimmer for you, assuming you're here to try your luck at prospecting."
I took the paper.
"Move along," he said, motioning for the next person in line.
"Any work for people with other sorts of skills?" I asked.
"Hang around in the right establishment long enough, and all manner of opportunities will present themselves." He waved his hand, indicating I should move along.
"Let's say I wanted to find an old friend of mine," I said. "Where would I go?"
"Hey, let's go," a squat, broad man said from behind me, fists on his hips, tapping his foot. "I ain't got all day."
I glanced back. "Hold your water."
He reached out to grab my shoulder. I slipped my hand along the inside of his forearm, spinning around so my elbow smashed into his forehead and sent him stumbling backwards, eyes blinking. He sat down, shaking his head; some of the others in the line smiled, while others glared.
The guy at the desk shook his head. “You’re on your own. I can’t help you, but with moves like that, I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
I returned my attention to the man at the desk, saying, "What if I said she came in on The Wayward Daughter?"
He pursed his lips. "Keep asking questions like that and someone you don’t want to talk to will find you quick enough."
I pointed my index fingers at him like guns and I winked. "Thanks."
# # #
Across the open plaza in front of the terminal’s entrance, two sleazy-looking diners beckoned, one flickering sign reading "ASS CASTLE" because the preceding GL had burned out, and the other called The Crossroads Clubhouse. Five people waited outside The Crossroads Clubhouse, and the inside was filled with lights and people and loud, throbbing music.
A greenish ambient light came from everywhere but nowhere, a fine mist of some sort of cleansing, antibacterial agent falling from the tubes running along the underside of this sector's dome. I searched for enemies, for anyone watching or tailing me, but I appeared to be the least of anyone’s concern, the few people on the street all walking and talking.
Rubbing my aching ribs and contusions, I crossed the plaza, head bowed, watching a cart for hire sitting on a cross street; a breeze pushed bits of paper along the pavement, and rivulets of water trickled toward the sewer drains, splashing beneath my boots.
I opened the door to the Ass Castle, and walked to the back of the diner to an open bench, one of the few without a window staring out onto the sad street outside. I slid into the middle of one of the blue plastic benches and touched my fingertips to my temple, intending to bring the menu up on my on-board, but a waiter walked up, a patch over one eye decorated with a skull and crossbones, in a black and white striped shirt, and an apron around his waist. He dropped a plastic menu on the table in front of me.
I picked the menu up, surprised, glancing up at the waiter, who had the bearing of a miner or ex-military, and was shaped like a bullet—short and thick.
He asked, "What you drinking?"
I glanced at the menu. "Any Martian beer?"
I raised my hand, pointing at him. "Monoblack, definitely."
He nodded before walking back behind the counter, grabbing a mug. "Tap or bottle?"
I relaxed, stretching my back, stretching my arms. "Tap, please."
He shoved the mug under a tap, pulled on a handle, and filled the mug. "To eat?"
"How are your chili dogs?"
"They're crap." He snickered and brought the mug over to the table, setting it down and nudging it toward me. "But they're as good as anything you don't make yourself in this shithole."
"Sounds great. I'll take one." I lifted the dark malt beer to my nose, breathing in the chocolaty aroma, my eyes closing.
He tapped his on-board, staring into the distance as he walked back. "Burger will be out in a minute."
I sipped the beer and contemplated the empty joint, my eyes coming back to the bartender. I set the beer down, smacking my lips in appreciation. "I'm new here. Mind if I ask you a few questions while we wait?"
He arched his bushy white eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the bar. "Depends on the questions, I guess."
"Let's say I had a friend somewhere on this station, a young girl trying to keep a low profile, and I knew she'd come in on a ship called The Wayward Daughter." I settled back into the cushions. "Any idea where I could find her?"
"Listen." He looked to the right and left, plodding back to the table, his voice half-growl, half-whisper. "The Orchid has a market for young boys and girls—lots of hard-working men and women need to have some fun. If you've come here to rescue somebody, you should eat your burger and go back to wherever you came from. Alone."
"I hear you," I said, tossing the menu back on the table. The menu drifted over to the man. "But I need to find this girl. Can the local police help me? Would they? Or some person with the right contacts?"
"The government around here is a puppet show, police included." He snatched the menu from the table, shaking his head. "If you don't care about getting yourself whacked, you should sniff around the Gorovitz establishments."