by Kieran Shea
With a few passes of her fingers, Delacompte pulls up and lays the contents of the memorandum over Martstellar’s spinning head. The greenish, veiling text of the memo is cryptic and short:
• Hire Koko P. Martstellar.
• Make Martstellar welcome.
• Kill Martstellar at the earliest possible convenience.
So strange.
Delacompte shuts down all the open prompt screens, closes her eyes, and leans back in her chair. Once more she attempts to will her mind over the selcouth chasms in her brain. She’s almost convinced that if she just relaxes and breathes, if just she concentrates long enough and bears down, she’ll be able to force her memory to refresh like a programming reboot. But it’s useless.
Sorry, Martstellar.
I must have had a damn good reason at the time and, well, you’re a former professional soldier. You should know how this sort of thing goes better than anyone. Like it or not, business is business.
Business is business.
CAN A GIRL GET A BREAK?
As Koko’s pod approaches the lower Second Free Zone orbits, the clearance message streaming into the helm tells her that her luck is still hard lapping the drain.
“To all approaching vessels, welcome to the Second Free Zone. Your craft is on an immediate heading for the docking bays of the Lawrence Class barge and commerce vessel Hesperus 6. Please have your customs data ready for official upload on arrival. Due to unexpected delays, there may be a waiting period for officials to clear your craft and your passengers. For your safety and the safety of your fellow travelers today, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the listed contraband and health restrictions for Hesperus 6, which are streaming on band twelve. Failure to comply with the defined access restrictions, to disclose contraband, or to declare any and all cargo will mean immediate denial of access to Hesperus 6 and possible hostile actions. The senior command crew and populace of Hesperus 6 apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you regarding your travel intentions today and your stay in the Second Free Zone. Again, welcome to the Second Free Zone and welcome aboard.”
Koko doesn’t have much choice. Her escape pod is a deadhead craft with only enough fuel to get her to the first Second Free Zone vessel intersecting her immediate ascent trajectory. If the pod’s limited fuel cells bottom out and she declines to continue on into Hesperus 6’s docking bays, there will be only two outcomes: One, she’ll be adrift and at the mercy of lower-orbit salvage hunters—pretty bad odds on those cruising foragers (see nefarious whim and indiscriminate brutality)—or two, if she risks a low-tanked re-entry run, she’ll more than likely run out of power and end up pancaking in some empty stretch of boiling ocean. Unfortunately, Koko’s hasty exit from The Sixty has resulted in a situation not unlike playing roulette—the worst odds in the house.
The fact that the Hesperus 6 message even mentions contraband makes Koko’s shoulder muscles constrict. Some barges in the Second Free Zone orbits don’t care what you have stowed, but others are vigilant to the point of being despotic. She isn’t familiar with Hesperus 6 at all, and she prays for a line of magnanimous prattle as she brings up band twelve on the com’s central navigational screen.
Koko selects her primary tongues and dialects and scrolls through the data. At first, it’s the usual fare (diseases and exposures, volatile chemicals, restricted vegetation and life forms), but when the ominous yellow and black bar blinks Koko can’t help but groan out loud.
All personal weapons, stimulants, and/or narcotics are strictly forbidden.
Shit.
Fading adrenaline has her nerves crashing and shaky. Sure, Koko knows that sometimes overworked attachés at customs can turn a blind eye to contraband in exchange for a bribe or even a crude, lusty wink, but her choice right now is clear. Jettison the Ventilator she ripped from under the bar back on The Sixty, the bottle of aged forty-five-year-old beauty she’s been saving, and her stash of crinkle-flake, or face the consequences.
Koko unscrews the cap on the beauty and takes a few hungry pulls. The brown liquor tastes too good, but she has the presence of mind not to swallow too much. She slips her stash of crinkle-flake into the disposal tube on starboard side and then slides the Ventilator and the bottle of beauty after. A sharp clank and hiss answer the discharge switch as the contraband is razed in a short sizzle of precious fuel. A pungent metallic fog leaks through the interior vents and quickly fades.
The hulking curved outline of Hesperus 6 dwarfs Koko’s escape pod. The ship is a drab, foil-skinned, lower-atmospheric orbital with dual-keels drooping on either end of the fuselage like a gigantic funnel-capped ear of corn. Other, slicker craft are lined up in Hesperus 6’s arrival queue and their sleek, aerodynamic designs vaguely niggle at Koko’s vanity. All in all, Koko would be a bit surprised if anyone on Hesperus 6 noticed her rinky-dink homemade craft at all.
Through the tinted angle of the pod’s single curved window she sees that the weather is somewhat stable. Not at all squally and blustery, as is typical for the Second Free Zone, but still the surrounding sky is an ominous bruised valley of swift-moving stratocumulus. In washing curtains, rain ticks against the bow window, abates some, and splutters again briefly. Far off, she can hear a soft rumble of thunder.
Looking to starboard, Koko catches glimpses through the clouds of numerous and enormous Second Free Zone residential arks and barges lumbering through their selective tracks like a slow-motion game of hide and seek played by listless, blunt whales. The massive ships slip through their rising and descending glides, and swarms of smaller aircraft slice to and fro in their wakes. Strat-sleds, service transports, cargo freighters, interplanetaries, and the like. Given the heavy air traffic, Koko has always been astounded that air-to-air collisions aren’t more frequent aloft. Two hundred fifty thousand years since we chimps stood upright and our arrogance hasn’t bucked an inch. Like so many technological innovations that have come and gone before, the miracles of magnetic micro-fusion and anti-gravity propulsion have led to wretched extremes.
Koko types in “nothing to declare” and forwards her intent to flight control. A minute later an audio response from Hesperus 6 pours through the helm.
“Pod 288?”
Koko responds. “This is Pod 288 on arrival.”
“Pod 288, you are cleared for initial influx processing. Power down all onboard systems and initiate docking sequences. Bay five. Over.”
Koko does as instructed. She kills the pod’s main fuel switches, and the ship yaws forward with the cancelled propulsion wash. Koko bumps about in her seat a bit as the Hesperus 6 docking claws grip fore and aft. Landing aboard vessels in the Second Free Zone is always a little rough, but it seems rougher than normal, as Koko never budgeted for stabilizers. Like a tightly drawn curtain of snapping white lace, the protective pressure membranes of Hesperus 6 landing bays radiate five hundred meters ahead as the docking claws draw her inward.
“Pod 288, we have you. Prepare for debarkation, de-cam inspection, and customs. Over.”
“Roger.”
Koko unclasps her safety harness and tilts her head back. She shuts her eyes. She tries not to think about poor Archimedes or her livelihood down below on The Sixty up in flames, and instead broods about Portia Delacompte and why Delacompte would send a bunch of flunkies to take her out.
Because of a small lapse with some stupid updated CPB Decree Measures? Pretty rash even given the CPB’s hardhearted administrative standards.
No, that doesn’t seem likely at all.
Koko’s bafflement consumes her.
WELCOME TO THE SECOND FREE ZONE
And Koko’s bafflement doesn’t subside once she is aboard.
The customs and naturalization envoy on Hesperus 6 is a hairless, pudgy twit with breath so vile it reminds Koko of the splashing, gelatinous waste scuppers out near The Sixty Islands’ landing strips. The man’s pale eyes roam, lizard-like, as he sways back and forth in front of her and preens over his gadgets and
wares.
“Koko P. Martstellar,” the envoy intones unctuously in a quivering voice. “Oooh. Oh my, my, my, eh? My, my, my, my, my. Saloon keeper and madam of the finest tastes and fornicating fancy on The Sixty, yes-yes? Shame-shame, eh? There was a small newsflash over the feeds just earlier. Quicky-quick, but all over.”
Koko frowns. The media feeds picked up what went down on The Sixty already? She admits she isn’t surprised and figures it was probably those tourists gawking at her burning place from across the street, polluting the feed streams with gleeful, self-absorbed takes on the whole mess. Bad news always travels fast, even up to the Second Free Zone.
Fancying himself a bit of a wag, Sewage Breath chirps on. “Quite the scene down there, yes-yes? Updates I think say you vaporized two dozen CPB security personnel and slaughtered your own staff, as well as several innocent bystanders.”
Koko shakes her head.
“Exaggeration and lies, as usual,” she says.
“Is that so?”
“Eyewitnesses… you can’t trust them messing up the feeds.”
“Well, a proper misunderstanding then, yes-yes?”
Koko looks away. “Buddy, you don’t know the half of it.”
The envoy titters. “Of course, you’re up here now. Within generous confederate clemency of the Second Free Zone orbits, yes-yes? I’m sure you are aware that judgment is not what we do here. For all intents and purposes, you’re a free citizen up here now, with amnesty and liberty within the limits of commercial law. That is, if you elect to stay up.” The envoy bobs about on his feet. “Our scans noted your contraband dump on arrival. I must say, a smart move, that. But tell me… why would someone such as yourself choose a boring old barge like Hesperus 6? Of all the orbitals, life here is far duller than the hospitality someone like you must be accustomed to. Truer than true, our work is a simple and necessary function for the greater planetary trades, but why sky here?”
Koko studies the man. It’s obvious the envoy knows how bad his breath is, so she pegs him as the type of small-minded jerk who relishes making people squirm because he thinks his position affords him some petty level of clout.
Koko speaks into her shoulder to cover her nose. “My pod is a dead-header, and you know it,” she answers. “I didn’t have enough fuel and didn’t have much of a choice. Kind of blasted off and just hoped for the best. By the way, what is Hesperus 6 anyway?”
The envoy’s mouth audibly pops open. He is amused by her query. “You don’t know? Oh. Hesperus 6 is an atmospheric recycling vessel.”
An atmospheric recycling vessel? That explained the giant funnels on the ship’s droopy, foiled fuselage. Great, Koko thinks. Her luck is no longer waning. It’s in screaming free fall.
The envoy gestures for Koko to stretch her neck back, and then with the heartless motions of a man who has done such mundane tasks forever, he takes a small wand and injects a nano probe into Koko’s carotidal artery. There is a tingling sensation as the probe dose spreads out. It warms to a fluey ache in Koko’s limbs, and shortly thereafter an intense pain takes hold as Koko’s organs, bones, and muscles are combed and searched.
“You may feel some discomfort as the probes search for imbedded contraband.”
Koko draws in a quick breath through clenched teeth. “I’ve been through de-cam before.”
She gasps a little as the probes loop through the chambers of her heart and buzz outward again toward skin level. When the nano probes hit the tender flesh around Koko’s piercings she instantly regrets all seven of them, each and every one.
After waiting around to void the probes in a rank-smelling steam toilet, Koko declares no intention of keeping her escape craft and takes the offered measly salvage credits along with her updated authorizations for SFZ travel. As she leaves the debarkation area, the envoy wiggles his fingers at her like a happy clown and wishes her Godspeed with her travels. Koko flips the envoy the bird and swaggers out of the gates.
Checking the departure schedules, Koko purchases a ticket at a free-standing kiosk for a direct shuttle to a larger residential barge called Alaungpaya. Alaungpaya is a residential behemoth nearly 2.5 million square meters in size and rotates on the inner atmospheric orbits like a giant, inverted mushroom cap. The fact that Alaungpaya is listed third on the departure schedule makes Koko think that maybe her luck is changing. She’s pretty sure an old contact, Juke Ramirez, once mentioned a while back that he now lives aboard Alaungpaya. If Juke has moved on or if Koko is mistaken, well, Alaungpaya or any place else is better than hanging around some floating sky sponge like Hesperus 6.
Taking her ticket, Koko heads for a kebab bodega just off the arrival and departure area. Naturally there isn’t any liquor or beauty for sale at the drone-operated bodega, as alcohol is forbidden on Hesperus 6 (hydro-atmospheric recycle vessel and completely dry—slay her with the irony), but the food stand has plenty of water in a vast array of artificial flavors and chemical boosts. Achy-Boom. Fault Line Quake. Orange-Za. Koko chooses a triple slosh of Fault Line Quake in a tall cup and the rush of fortified caffeine sears off what’s left of her post-adrenaline fatigue. She orders a fried-protein kebab off the menu to go with the drink and decides to wait around in front of the bodega until the shuttle departs for Alaungpaya.
From the look of things Hesperus 6 is a lonely, damp suck. Even with the thinner and much chillier air up top in the Second Free Zone, the humidity aboard cloys and slicks her skin and clothes like a gooey, cold tongue. When her protein kebab is ready, Koko takes it over and stands at a chest-high hover table with a view of the arrival and departure areas. One bite of the kebab and Koko spits out the food. The reheated blocks of translucent soy are rancid and mealy.
A small, plastic vermin trap is wedged against a nearby partition, and Koko tosses the remains of the kebab at the device. It has always amazed Koko that they even have rodents up here in the orbits. Despite routine vacuum exterminations, those little bastards just endure. She has to respect that.
A huge sucking whoosh rushes through a warren of dripping conduits overhead, and Koko flinches a bit. Centuries of the ratcheting up of worldwide conflict and the obliteration of ever-dwindling planetary resources have required such innovations as atmospheric distillation for human survival. Koko clocks the corporate logos. Apparently Hesperus 6 is owned by Energia-ASA—a big-boned South American syndicate. A few years back, another one of Energia-ASA’s sky-distillation arks ruptured like a rotten piñata due to a catastrophic ballast malfunction and the ensuing mega-tsunami killed hundreds of thousands below on Earth. Wrecked the ungovernable, shantytown economy of what used to be France’s Silver Coast, if Koko remembers correctly. Koko pictures Hesperus 6 falling from the sky into the sea and remembers her time down in Hossegor for the briefest of moments. Man, she thinks, I’m sure glad I spent that week down there when I had the chance.
Koko checks the digitized countdown readout on her ticket again. The next shuttle to Alaungpaya leaves in fifteen minutes. Good God, she thinks. Get me out of this floating humidor.
She takes another sip of her drink to swish some of the lingering foul kebab taste from her mouth and then dumps the rest of it in a nearby waste receptacle. As Koko wipes her hands on her shorts, she looks across the arrival and departure area and freezes.
In a glass-boxed office just beyond the debarkation and customs section, the naturalization envoy, Mister Dire Oral Hygiene, is talking with a long-locked redheaded woman with neck extension bands. The woman is a tall, severe-looking creature stylishly glossed in midnight black—trench coat, bodysuit, and calf-high buckled boots. The discussion appears fairly heated, but it’s the ocular implant affixed to the redhead’s right temple that gives Koko pause.
The envoy gestures in Koko’s general vicinity and quickly Koko takes cover behind a support column. Beneath her breastbone her heart is a jackrabbit, and a moment later Koko forces herself to peer around the column’s edge. She sees the redhead forfeit a vest of state-of-the-art body armor and then seve
ral vicious-looking guns.
Well, Koko thinks, that sure as hell didn’t take long.
Ocular implants.
Pretty much standard communication issue for militarized personnel.
And bounty hunters.
THE LAWMAN COMETH
A little over an hour later on the residential barge known as Alaungpaya, Security Deputy Jedidiah Flynn draws a weary hand down and over his trim, brown beard and rechecks the save patterns on the witness’s statement.
“Let’s go over it one more time,” Flynn says.
The kid in front of Flynn is an overfed adolescent doing his best to keep up with the trends popular with kids his age, and to Flynn it appears the kid is failing miserably on all the cool fronts. Reverse-braille digital tats percolating beneath the skin, the knockoff torture boots with the inward blades for discreet on-the-go masturbatory flagellation, canary-striped Caesar hairdo plastered down with scented gel—one more plagued by juvenile desire and unease.
The kid asks nervously, “Am I in hook and claw?”
Flynn shakes his head. “No, son.”
The kid jiggles a bit in his gold-colored slicker.
“I mean, you know, I can’t have me no hook and claw points, officer. No-no. Not even one. Not even baby hook and claw points. My mother will’ve me all up and lockdown domestic and you bet me hate that some.”
Flynn holds the neural statement recorder against the kid’s forehead and sighs. The kid’s pimply flesh looks like diseased chicken skin, and Flynn immediately wishes he’d put on protective rubber gloves.
“You’re underage,” Flynn assures him. “This type of minor incident reportage is strictly an anonymous procedure. Seriously now, just tell me what you remember and this will all be over in a minute. But hold still, okay? The neural recorder here is low on juice.”