Halcyon

by Demelza Carlton

  Starting tomorrow, he'd hunt down the homicidal siren and end her. Then he'd be free to pursue happiness with Allie, knowing they'd be safe.

  The siren's days were numbered.

  Allie had just dismissed her glyder when she heard a woman calling her name. She turned to find Violet climbing out of a zipper, holding a bottle aloft in each hand.

  "We finally got everyone into the Complex, so it's time to celebrate!" Violet announced.

  Allie eyed the bottles. "What are those?"

  "Finest fey moonshine. One of the Humans confiscated it from a kitsune who was trying to smuggle them in. I said I'd dispose of them properly, and so here I am!" Violet beamed. "Do you think we can drink them both tonight?"

  "Not if I have to work in the morning," Allie replied, palming open her door and ushering Violet inside. "I've spent all day fixing plumbing in the Snow Dome. The universe only knows what I'll have to deal with tomorrow."

  Violet tossed her dark hair. "Well, a Human engineer, for starters. One who's afraid of Metas. He kept touching his implant, like it was some sort of magical amulet that could protect him from me."

  "Galen?" It couldn't be. He hadn't seemed afraid of her at all, and they'd spent most of the evening together. In fact, she'd thought he was working up the courage to kiss her right there at the end, which is why she'd made her excuses and left. She'd loved and lost once. Allie didn't think she could survive having her heart ripped out like that again.

  "I think that was his name. Hard to remember. There were so many of them today. Young guy with a thing for music." Violet set the bottles on the bench. "Do you have any glasses?"

  "Beems, where are the glasses?" Allie asked.

  A wall panel popped open.

  "Thanks, Beems."

  Violet stared at Allie. "We have an AI controlling this facility? I don't remember that in the briefing documents."

  "Of course. It's probably not supposed to open cupboards and things, but who do you think responds when you ask for the temperature to be turned down in your apartment?" Allie asked, setting two glasses beside the bottle.

  Violet peered around. "I use the controls. I don't talk to the walls. Is it...watching us?"

  Allie laughed softly. "Beems, are there cameras in the apartments?"

  "There is no surveillance in private quarters," the AI said.

  Allie shrugged. "Guess not, then. Why, were you thinking of doing something naughty you don't want anyone to see?"

  Violet smiled. "Maybe. But Intra are supposed to be so good all the time, keeping the peace and all. Did they make you sit through an hour-long briefing on the importance of peace?"

  She'd had to sit through months of peace talks as Humans and Metas gradually decided not to kill each other. Surely that was enough for anyone. Allie shook her head. "No, I must have missed that briefing. Fixing pipes today, or something."

  Violet rolled her eyes. "Lucky you. Just thinking about it makes me need a drink." She uncorked a bottle and poured an inch of viscous purple liquid into each glass. "Is it supposed to look like that?" She lifted the glasses, eyeing the milky, mauve contents with suspicion.

  Allie seized a glass. "I don't know. I've never been able to afford fey moonshine. To peace." She took a careful sip.

  Violet gulped hers, then choked. "Stars, it's fey rocket fuel. That's potent!"

  "Mm, it's strong, but I like it," Allie said, savouring her second sip. "I taste flowers, kisses and seafoam." And memories, she thought but didn't say.

  "I think I just coughed up a lung," Violet said. "Is there any chance of some chocolate?"

  Allie set her glass down. "Of course! How could I forget?" She retrieved a block from the refrigerator and passed it to Violet. "Have as much as you like. I think I'll finish my drink first."

  "You can have all of it. Both bottles," Violet said darkly.

  "Really? Then you should keep the block of chocolate. Fair trade." Allie reached for another block and unwrapped it. "We'll share this one."

  They both ate in silence for a moment, savouring the sweetness of what Allie knew was the best chocolate in the system.

  Then Violet started to laugh. "You know," she said, "I had you pegged as trying to seduce me down by the blast doors. I expected you to ask me for a favour, something I'm not supposed to give you. I figured if I brought you some liquor, maybe it would mellow you a little and you'd go easy on me. You're nothing like I expected."

  Allie regarded her. "What did you expect?"

  Violet's laughter died. "Colder. Harder. Not...chocolate." Fear darkened her eyes.

  Allie hummed, hoping to set the succubus more at her ease. "I am here to pursue peace, Violet. I've had my fill of war. Now, why don't you tell me about your day downstairs? I'd love to hear your impressions of our new colonists."

  Violet nodded and opened her mouth to recount the first of what would be many reports.

  "It has to be here," Galen said to himself as he palmed open the hatch to Maintenance Storeroom 6. If anyone asked, he was taking inventory of their spare parts and tools, but no one had. After all, he was the boss. Who would question him, as long as his Maintenance crews were out in the Complex, dealing with all the teething troubles that plagued such a high-tech new facility? No one, that's who.

  He had plenty to show for his time in the previous five storerooms. All sorts of equipment that was supposed to be present simply wasn't, or the numbers were lower than expected. He'd called Allie, the most promising of his staff, to ask whether the missing equipment had already been used in repairs but not documented, and she'd laughed merrily.

  "Boss, you're underestimating how lazy Maintenance staff are. Going to the storerooms and picking up our own equipment? Hardly. We message the AI, and have it sent. If there's an inventory issue, then it's Beems forgetting things, or that equipment never arrived. Who's more likely to make a mistake – the AI, or the people who stocked this place?"

  Galen had to admit he trusted the machine more than people, though he had to shake his head at Allie's name for the AI. Machines didn't need names. He'd thanked her and ended the call.

  Sighing, he counted the pumps again. Four hundred and seventy-three, when there were only supposed to be four hundred and seventy-two. Skimping on supplies was one thing, but adding to them? Not likely. One of the pumps had to be his package.

  But which one?

  Galen scanned the shelves. They wouldn't have made it too obvious, but surely they'd left him some clue as to which one held more than just a standard-issue water pump.

  There.

  One of the boxes at the back bulged slightly at the top, as though someone hadn't closed it properly. Galen shifted the other boxes out the way until he could reach the suspicious one. The moment he lifted it up, he knew he had the right one. It weighed much more than the others.

  He wanted to open it right away, but this was hardly the place for it. His office, or the workshop adjacent to it, would be the perfect place. After all, even if the surveillance cameras recorded everything, it wouldn't look suspicious for an engineer to be modifying or building equipment in the dedicated workshop designed for that purpose.

  Reluctantly, Galen finished his stocktake before lugging the box back to his office. He was relieved to be able to drop his burden on his desk as soon as the door slid shut behind him. Whatever was in the box sure was heavy.

  He flipped the lid open and found a sheaf of papers. Pages of schematics about the water supply pipework to the domes, as well as the design for a destructive device that matched those Halcyon was known to use.

  It wasn't common knowledge, but the siren terrorist had detonated nuclear fission bombs at several of the sites where she'd left no survivors. It's how she'd destroyed the Poseidon, too, though the ship was too deep below the surface by the time the bomb went off for it to have done much damage.

  It was both an insult and a promise to the Humans she loved to slaughter. Humans had destroyed their own world through nuclear weapons, she seemed to say, so
she'd finish the job and drive their species to extinction with their own technology.

  Galen swallowed. He didn't need to open the wooden box inside the cardboard one to know what it held. Fissile material. Some sort of radioisotope. Uranium, he imagined. Enough to build a nuclear weapon and destroy the entire Complex.

  He'd known when he joined forces with the shadowy Humans First movement that they hated Metas with a passion Galen would never understand. Not just those who fought and killed like Halcyon, but all Metas. Some of their zealots believed the peace effort was merely a smokescreen while the Metas bided their time, waiting to strike and wipe out Humans for good.

  So they'd given him the material to make a pre-emptive strike that would send peace up in a mushroom cloud of smoke, leaving Lorn to its native denizens.

  Galen took a deep breath and opened the wooden box. Inside the lead-lined compartments he found four solid metal canisters, each containing a metal rod tarnished to a dull grey so they looked like cast iron or weathered steel. Ordinary metals, instead of stuff that could blow them all sky-high with the right detonator.

  Galen was no terrorist. He hated Halcyon, sure, but that was personal. He had no intention of building a nuclear bomb. Instead, he'd build something that looked like one, but only put in half the uranium so there'd only be an ordinary explosion, with some radiation contamination. Not enough to kill anyone outside the immediate area, but enough to make it look like Halcyon had tried to sabotage the Complex.

  The Intra would have to investigate, and Halcyon herself probably would, too, knowing she hadn't set the bomb. Either way, the siren would surface and Galen would get his chance.

  He'd have to make sure the bomb was away from all the living quarters, and detonate it at night when the force screens were down, to make sure as few people were nearby as possible. He didn't want to hurt anyone. It had to look like an accident, going off prematurely with too little fuel. Galen was confident he could do that.

  After all, Allie had called him a genius, hadn't she? Time to see if he could finally outsmart the siren.

  By the end of her first fortnight, Allie found herself humming all the time, she was so happy. Galen had assigned her the task of all the eating house fitouts in the Main City and she couldn't wait until they were all open. While she finalised the plumbing in each premises, she got to see the menus and sometimes even sample the dishes they planned to offer their customers. By the time she'd finished her job in one restaurant or bar, the new owners had caught her contagious good mood, and after signing off on the job, they inevitably offered her a free meal once they opened.

  Soon, she had enough invitations to keep her from cooking for the next month. And all the flavours...Human foods even more diverse than Meta ones, as if they'd compensated for all looking so similar to one another by varying their cooking styles as widely as they dared, while still ensuring the product was edible. Eateries that sold only ice cream or chocolate or coffee or tacos or sushi or crepes or...what in the world was a kebab? Allie wasn't certain, but she definitely intended to find out.

  Maybe it was just her imagination, but there seemed to be more Human establishments than Meta ones. Or perhaps all the happy Humans were recommending her services to their friends, so she was kept too busy to visit more than the occasional Meta bar or two. Allie didn't mind. The more people she met, the more she learned about what had brought them to the Complex in the first place.

  Some had come for the money, or the security it offered them and their children. Some came for the promise of peace, at least for a little while. But they spoke of peace as a dream, a temporary ideal that none of them thought would last.

  Allie understood. If she hadn't lost her husband in the war, maybe her thoughts would be more focussed on mundane concerns.

  "Are you finished already?" Melete, the muse who owned the exotic dance club, asked. "You'll have to come back when we open. I have dancers to appeal to everyone and when they hear you're the one who installed the showers that will be the envy of every dance club in the Main City, and in less than a day, they'll all be clamouring to thank you. Human, Meta, male, female, more than one...where ever your tastes lie, we can satisfy you, I'm sure."

  "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind if I find myself lonely one evening. But you really don't owe me anything. I try to be as quick as I can. I have...many demands on my time," Allie said carefully. As if to illustrate her point, her communications device sounded an alert. "Speak of the devil..."

  Melete nodded respectfully and retreated deeper into the club.

  At times like these, Allie appreciated the effect her reputation had on people. On Metas, anyway. She had yet to meet a Human who'd heard of her in relation to anything except her wizardry with plumbing.

  Allie answered the call with a cheerful, "Hi, this is Allie."

  "I thought you were still working, not spending time in a strip club." Lennox, the Meta man in charge of the Intra on Lorn, didn't sound impressed.

  "You're just jealous your job doesn't let you spend much time here," Allie said lightly, not fooled by his tone. She'd known him for long enough to know he was nowhere near as stern as he seemed. "Plumbing is very important in the washrooms of a dance club. But the showers are all installed now, with lovely water pressure, if I do say so myself. So, what can I do for you? You got a leaky pipe in your office?"

  "More like one that's blocked. You haven't reported for two weeks. Time to come in."

  "Yes, sir. I'll get that pipe unblocked directly," Allie said, snapping off a salute.

  "Not now. After dinner. Just make sure it's tonight." Lennox ended the call abruptly. He was a busy man who didn't have time for goodbyes.

  Maybe he should spend more time in strip clubs, or at least doing whatever he called fun, Allie mused, breathing in the scents of the eateries that were open for business. A particularly rich, salty smell caught her attention more than the others. Making a sound that came out very close to a moan, Allie caught herself, closed her mouth, and followed the smell to its source. A shop that sold something called pizza, apparently. More new Human food she hadn't tried.

  Food worth sharing. On a whim, she called Galen.

  After a few seconds, he answered, "Hello?" He sounded distracted.

  "What are you doing for dinner?" she asked.

  "I don't know. That's hours away," he said.

  He must have been working as hard as she had today. "Nope. It's now. Tonight is pizza night, if you get your bossy butt down to the Main City in the next ten minutes. Sending you my location." She sent her coordinates to Galen, then held her breath as she waited for his response.

  "My bossy butt?"

  "You're the boss, and you have a butt. Bossy butt. Don't you like pizza? It smells incredible." She breathed deeply. If he took more than ten minutes, she was going in without him.

  "Pizza sounds great. I'll get down there as fast as I can. Bye."

  She didn't have to wait long. Galen stepped off a glyder, looking like he'd been hard at work in the workshop all day. Allie probably didn't look much better, but it wasn't like they were on a date or anything.

  "You look beautiful," he breathed, his admiring eyes reinforcing the compliment.

  Allie laughed. "You're just saying that because I had to deal with all the burst pipes today, while you got to stay in the office. One of the perks of being the boss, boss."

  Galen just shook his head and raised his eyes to the sign above the pizza shop. "So this is where you want to eat?"

  "Sure do." Allie led the way inside. The rich aroma intensified, reminding her that the ration bars she'd eaten for lunch were a long time gone.

  "I smell why," Galen said, inhaling deeply. "I haven't had pizza since my mother..."

  "Is she a good cook, your mother?" Allie asked. She didn't dare mention hers. Her own mother had never cooked a thing in her life.

  "She was." Galen closed his eyes. "She died when I was fourteen."

  A decade ago. Roughly the same time as Allie h
ad lost her husband. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely.

  Galen sighed. "Me, too. But not as sorry as the one who killed her will be. They told me she was a casualty of war, but I know better."

  Allie's sympathy overflowed. "Your mother wasn't a soldier?"

  Galen shook his head. "A scientist. I get my skills with machines from her. She encouraged me to tinker when I was a kid, letting me build things in her workshop. My father wanted me to be a doctor, but I wasn't interested in how Human bodies work as much as machines. I think I disappointed him, but he died when I was a kid, too, so I'll never know what either of them think about what I've become."

  "I'm sure they'd be proud of all you've achieved. You're very young to hold the position you do here in the Complex," Allie said. Her parents had made no secret of their disapproval for her choices, but then she'd never really been close to them.

  "If there's some sort of afterlife for them, I hope they will be," Galen replied. He waved at the menu board. "What do you want for dinner?"

  Allie chose one pizza, Galen chose another, and they both sat at a corner table to wait for their order.

  "So what about you? Where did you grow up?" Galen asked.

  Allie choked on her drink. If he didn't know, then she couldn't tell him. "We moved around a lot, so no one place really stands out. These two years on Lorn will probably be the longest I've ever lived in one place."

  Galen nodded. "We moved around a lot, too, when I lived with my parents. Dad was the ship's doctor, and Mum was one of the technicians, so we went from ship to ship until they died."

  Anxious to keep the conversation on his family and not hers, Allie ventured, "How did they die? You never did say."

  "They were on the Poseidon when it was attacked. They didn't make it to the lifeboats in time." Galen plucked the straw out of his cup, threw it on the table and drank from the lip of his cup instead.