The Disk Mirror Solution (Galaxia Mortem Book 1)

by Danielle Ste. Just

  Skirting the small line that had formed for the nutrition panel, she sidled through the narrow strip between Sylvey’s table and the one next to it. She set her chostim mug on the inside corner of the table, right next to a woman wrapped in a bodysheet three decades out of date. Leaning her shoulder blades against the wall, Redcholate studied Sylvey as she peeled a strip of wrapper from her sandwich. He barely resembled his bifile vid. Firm, healthy skin had grown sallow and pouchy. Black hair had thinned and drooped and turned dust-colored. Eyes glassy and kinda hopeless.

  Is this him? she asked her OS.

  If I run an aging and hopelessness algorithm on his previous visage, it approximates the individual in question. Her OS helpfully displayed a pic showing an aged Sylvey.

  She looked back and forth from the pic to the reality. You didn’t get the pouches under his eyecubes.

  I apologize. I will attempt perfection next time.

  She absently chewed on a bite of sandwich, considering how to approach him. It felt strange enough to be doing business meatsack style, so she shouldn’t make it any more bizzo. She should just introduce herself.

  Being as casual as she could manage, she leaned forward to pick up her drink from the table. She looked at him, pretended to do a double-take. “Sylvey?”

  He immediately jumped to his feet. His sallow face bloomed with unhealthy red blotches. “I paid everyone back,” he said, his voice strangled.

  She put down chostim and sandwich and lifted her hands, palms outward. Peacey-no-fighty. “I’m not here for creds.”

  “Leave him alone,” said the woman in the bodysheet. Her skin was shiny pink. She looked angry.

  Sylvey sidled away from the table. Redcholate started to follow, but the bodysheet woman shoved her chair into Redcholate’s path. Redcholate tried unsuccessfully to squeeze past the woman’s chair. “I’m not here for creds!” Redcholate shouted. “I’m here to give you a job!”

  But Sylvey disappeared out the door, into the clanging and crunching of the alleyway.

  A burble of panic roiled her lumen. If she didn’t get those 25,000 creds, her life wouldn’t be worth living. She had to get that intel. Had to.

  Redcholate bent her knees, placed her hands strategically on the bodysheet woman’s chair, and shoved it forward fifteen centimeters. Before the woman could react she slipped through the gap and ran after Sylvey. The recycling center’s fence blocked access to the right, so she turned to the left and sprinted. For someone with droopy skin and hunchy shoulders, he could heave shanks. But she was faster. She centimetered up behind, reached out and grabbed his shirt.

  He struggled, trying to tear free without looking back. “No! I don’t have nothing left!”

  “Wait,” she gasped. “I… want to… hire you.”

  It took a milli, apparently, for her words to register in his cranium. Then he fell to his hands and knees, dragging in ragged breaths. “Why’d you chase me?” he gasped.

  “Why’d you scamp out in the first place?” She eyecubed him. “Are you going to mort, or something? Want me to call a mecha-doctor?”

  He shook his head, and after another puffing breath, struggled to his feet. Up close, he looked even worse. His sallowness had a grey undertone that couldn’t be good. He shambled over to the fence around the recycling center and leaned against it. The fence, made of beautifully pearlized plazstik with eyecube-shaped holes, towered three meters around the recycling center. High above, monstrous mechas strode around the wreckage of Bituminous Tarsi society, refurbishing plazstik and metal.

  “What’d you want?” Sylvey asked.

  She walked over to join him with exaggeratedly slow steps. She didn’t want to spook him. Kinda like he was a bunny. “I want to hire you. I said it a billio times.”

  “What for?”

  Now that he was receptive to her offer, she narrowed her eyecubes and looked him over. “Why’d you lose all your clients? What’d you do?”

  He gave a sort of snorty half-chuck. “It’s too late for that. You only running after Sylvey if Sylvey’s the last one you ever gonna ask.”

  “Still.”

  He took a deep breath, glanced at her, then nodded. “Still.”

  She looked away, to make it easier for him to speak. The eyecube-shaped holes in the pearlized fence were more than just decorative: they let her look directly into the recycling operation. A cargo-carry flew by overhead, momentarily covering them with its shadow, and banked over a relatively empty stretch of ground. Its belly doors opened and it deposited a pile of metal with a deafening crash.

  “I useta be a good forger,” Sylvey said into the relative silence.

  She nodded, still looking out at the recycling operation. A 10 meter tall mecha with red arms and legs and a sort of zebra-stripe body approached the new pile. “Tanto gave me your bifile. He said you kinda… you know. Other forgers looked up to you.”

  He gave another half-chuck. “He’s right. They did.”

  The zebra-stripe mecha swept its arms over the new pile. Masses of magnetic metal jumped up to adhere to its hand-like appendages. “So? What happened?” She was half-morting from curiosity, and half wanting him to continue stalling so she could concentrate on watching the recycling mechas.

  After a long pause, he said, “I did the one thing I never’ve should done. Biggest error.”

  Redcholate’s jaw dropped—she knew she was codfishing, but she couldn’t help it—and she turned to look at him. “You don’t mean… the Big Bad No?”

  He nodded slowly, mournfully. “I sold out a client.”

  A thrill of horror went through her. That was the cardinal sin of the intel business. No one—ever—sold out a client. No wonder everyone dizda’d him now. She took one giant step to the right, away from him. “I don’t think—”

  Sylvey pushed off the fence, shuffled closer. “Please. I learned my lesson. I’d never, ever do it again. Honest Abe.”

  Redcholate didn’t know what to say. She turned and looked through the eyecube-shaped holes. The zebra-striped mecha was walking toward a low plazstik building, its hands and arms covered with magnetic parts. A smaller, pea-green mecha on treads rolled up to the pile. Several dainty-looking appendages emerged from its body and it began swiftly sorting the remaining metal into piles.

  “How could I ever trust you?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer for several millis. She resisted looking at him, and instead took the time to admire the pea-green mecha’s utter focus. Of course, what else did a mecha have to concentrate on other than its progged task?

  Perhaps it has more than one directive, her OS said.

  She started to ask what it meant, but Sylvey interrupted. “I used to own a penthouse. Top floor of Silver Sunsurf.”

  “Heol,” Redcholate breathed in admiration. Silver Sunsurf was the second tallest building in Alessandro City. Ulto-lux. “What’s its proprietary view like?”

  “I had fifteen proprietary views. Primo scene-o.”

  “Heol,” she said again.

  “I don’t even care about it no more,” he said. “Now I’d be happy with a tiny place of my own. A pod, even. But I lost everything. Bituminous Tarsi don’t lollygag when a forger faults. They took every last one of my creds. I barely kept the clothes on my meatsack. I get my food from COM:SAN’s. I spend my base income creds at ‘caves, looking for jobs in the Underworld. But no one hires me. So if you gimme a job, I’ll never sell you out.”

  Redcholate winced. Base income was 37 creds a month. Just about enough for five hours of Underworld. The rest of the month, Sylvey was just killing time. She couldn’t even imaggio.

  The pea-green mecha finished its sorting and trundled away. A long, low, fire-orange mecha took its place, its wide axle track easily spanning the different piles of metal. Separate hatches opened in its belly, and arms descended to scoop up the various piles. Then it too trundled back toward the building.

  “They’re goina test me,” Sylvey said.

  She pressed her for
ehead against the pearlized fence. “Test?”

  “The forger guild’ll test me. If you give me a job. So you know. I’m straight chatting you right now.”

  She turned to him. “And what’ll that test mean? For me? And my client?”

  He shook his head, wide exaggerated sweeps of his cranium. “Absolutely zero. Well, maybe a delay. A small one. They’ll try to force me to give you up. And I won’t.” His voice changed, fervent and low. “I solemnly curse that I would never give you up. Honest Abe.”

  She huffed a breath through her nostrils. He sounded so earnest. And, well, what did she have to lose? Only 25,000 creds. And she’d fail Watson. At the thought—losing those creds she didn’t even possess yet, and not getting Watson’s intel—a cold wrongness shuddered up from her toes, twisting her innards. She spun away from Sylvey just in time to yack her lumen all over the pearlized fence, the ground, and her own shoes.

  Through her misery, she felt a soft pat on her shoulder. “You all right?” Sylvey asked. “You want me to call a mecha-doctor?”

  “No,” she mumbled. They both sidled to the left, away from the pile of vomit. “I… I got to get those glims,” she whispered.

  “I understand,” Sylvey said. “Just tell me. What intel does your client want?”

  She looked him full in the eyecubes. “The Butcher. His identity.”

  And Sylvey blanched. The bags under his eyes stood out dark in the sudden pallor. “Of course,” he said in a slow, maudlin voice. “It’d be the Butcher.”

  Redcholate nodded.

  “Only a few forgers can personality-track in the Underworld,” Sylvey said. “The Forger can do it. I think Tanto can. I can.” He swallowed. “The Butcher can. So the Butcher’ll know if any of us start looking for their identity.”

  Swallowing down her lumen, she said, “I want to learn to personality-track.”

  He nodded. “It’s a top lick. So that tells you just how dangerous the Butcher is.” His face was already starting to close off. He was going to say no.

  “But maybe they stopped tracking you,” Redcholate said. Anything to get him to agree.

  His eyes kinda brightened. “Maybe. I been out of the forger game for years.”

  “If you do it, I’ll pay for free unlimited podding for a month,” she said.

  Sylvey’s mouth opened into a perfect circle.

  “Please.” Tears gathered in the corners of Redcholate’s eyecubes, runneled down her cheeks. “Will you do it?”

  “I will,” he said in a voice like gravel, like the sound of recycled metal crunching into concise bricks. “I will.”

  And ecstasy replaced the sick nausea. Redcholate’s lumen ceased feeling as if it were trying to escape out her esophagus. The strange tension in her temples melted away. She grasped Sylvey’s thin wrist. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  Chapter 7

  Variegor

  Date: 2412

  Josie and Dil, Armintor’s stack-mates, stood at the foot of the three-stack. It was a few minutes before lights-out.

  “I bet I’m going to be chosen,” Josie said. “Everyone says so.”

  Armintor had managed to pilfer a few crackers from the restaurant. During her working day, she tried to become as mecha-like as possible. Each fork and spoon strategically placed to maximize cleaning potential, every plate stack balanced with ultimate precision. Stealing a little food was her small daily act of defiance. The crackers were delicious; savory, herbaceous, crispy. She raised her book in front of her face and ate one surreptitiously.

  Her stack mates glared at her. “We can hear you eating, sub-damaged.” Dil said, kicking the leg of the three-stack. After a moment, they turned away.

  “Once I’m chosen, no more working in the laundry!” Josie said.

  Armintor lowered her book enough to peek at her stack-mates. Chosen for what? She was so curious she almost dared to ask.

  “And you won’t have to deal with sub-damaged,” said Dil, glaring at Armintor again, who raised her book to hide everything but her eyes. “Maybe she’ll be culled.”

  Josie jabbed her elbow into Dil’s side and glanced around. “Don’t say that word too loud.”

  “What’s culling and choosing?” Armintor asked.

  They both stared at her, as if astounded that she could talk. Then Dil lunged forward, snatched the book from Armintor’s hands, and threw it on the floor. “Shut up. Don’t talk to us. You’re gonna get culled, anyway.”

  Armintor slid to the floor, rescued her book and tossed it on her bunk. Her two stack-mates slouched off toward the bathroom. Culling and choosing sounded ominous, somehow. She’d had enough surprises. She needed to understand what was happening. She followed her stack-mates, hoping to hear more.

  “I’m not going to be culled. Or you. Sub-damaged will,” Dil was muttering as they walked past rows of bunks.

  “But I heard it’s the more aggressive Betas that get culled,” Josie said, barely loud enough for Armintor to hear.

  “Where’d you hear that?” Dil asked, aggressive as always.

  “Mela.”

  “Mela? She works trash. What does she know?”

  Dil and Josie rounded the corner into the bathroom. Armintor pressed against the wall right by the open entrance and strained her ears to hear.

  “But Mela even got chosen for breeding and had two children,” Josie said, her voice resonating in the enclosed space. “She knows things. She said there aren’t going to be many choosings this year.”

  “Why?” Dil cried, as if her heart were breaking.

  “Because of off-planet freaks like sub-damaged.”

  A faucet started running, drowning out their voices. Armintor went back to their three-stack and grabbed her toothbrush, but waited until Dil and Josie left the bathroom to go inside herself. It was empty and echoey, just how she liked it the most. But as she bent over the sink to rinse her mouth, someone grabbed her from behind in a chokehold.

  Armintor punched the arm around her neck, scrabbled her feet on the floor searching for purchase. Was she being culled? Was she going somewhere to die?

  Someone laughed in her ear. Dil. “Were you following us, sub-damaged? Were you gonna try and make friends? Too stupid to realize we hate you?”

  Armintor tore at Dil’s arm but didn’t have any leverage. She dug her nails into Dil’s forearm. Dil cursed and punched Armintor on the side of the head. Sickening pain bloomed and her vision blurred.

  “I saved this for you.” Dil pushed Armintor into a stall and pushed her face toward a toilet bowl filled with feces.

  Adrenaline cleared Armintor’s head. Gagging, she grabbed the toilet seat and braced her arms. Dil shoved her but Armintor didn’t budge.

  “Josie!” Dil panted. “Help me.”

  “We’ll get in trouble,” Josie said from outside the stall.

  Armintor’s neck felt as if it would break from the downward pressure. Nose centimeters from the filthy toilet, she didn’t dare open her mouth, didn’t dare shout. She panted through her nose and flailed with all her desperate strength. Dil’s grip loosened.

  “Josie!” Dil shouted.

  “Someone’s coming!” Josie shouted back.

  The pressure on Armintor’s head loosened a fraction. Using the space, Armintor twisted and kicked with her right leg. She felt a gratifying jolt as her foot connected with Dil’s ankle.

  Dil cursed and let her go. She ran, but was back in a moment with Armintor’s toothbrush, which she threw in the toilet.

  “Don’t ever talk to us again, sub-damaged.”

  Gagging, Armintor pushed to her feet and stumbled out of the stall and ran into another Beta, who eyed her with tired disdain. “Don’t fight in the bathroom,” she said in a worn-out voice. She looked into the stall and shook her head. “You ruined your toothbrush. You won’t get a new one until next month. Take care of it better next time.”

  Shaking with nausea and rage, Armintor locked herself in a stall and leaned against the wall. She’d let others
define who she was. Tell her she was a Beta, that she was sub-damaged. But that wasn’t what she was. She’d show them all. And she’d get revenge on Dil and Josie. Somehow.

  The next morning, as Armintor was eating a hurried breakfast in the nearest cramped Beta cafeteria, someone approached. She looked up to see a girl about her own age, with skin so dark her teeth and eyes gleamed in contrast.

  Armintor gave the smallest of smiles. A smile that, if it was rejected, she would be able to convince herself that she hadn’t really meant.

  The girl set her tray on the table across from Armintor, and slid onto the bench. They ate together in silence, and didn’t even say goodbye. But the next day the girl joined her again. Armintor derived strength from the voluntary nearness of another human being.

  In her former life on Terry’s New Earth, she wouldn’t have even recognized it as friendship. She and the other girl didn’t laugh or trade secrets. They hadn’t even spoken. Yet this girl became the most important person in the universe. And Armintor didn’t even know her name.

  “Friend,” she whispered into her fist in the shower, so low she herself couldn’t even hear it. “I have a friend.” Something inside her had melted a little. She could still trust, still feel the effects of kindness. She wasn’t completely dead inside.

  Later that same week she arrived at the cafeteria for breakfast a few minutes early, and saw her friend wheeling a cart filled with dirty plates to the kitchen. So her friend worked there. That evening after work Armintor ran back to the cafeteria and stood at the door until her friend stepped outside. They walked toward the Beta barracks in companionable silence.

  At the barrack closest to Armintor’s own, the girl stopped. “This is mine.”

  They stood for a moment in silence while three Betas passed by. Then Armintor said, “My name’s Armintor.”

  The girl smiled. “Sikayla.”

  As she walked the dozen meters to her own barrack door, Armintor was unable to hide her smile.