by Rob Boffard
I tap my wristband, annoyed. “Dispatch, this is Hale, come back.”
Silence.
I look down at the wristband display – I’m on an open channel. I should be hearing sporadic stomper chatter, bad jokes, bursts of static.
Something’s not right.
“Dispatch?” I say again. “Dispatch, I need a check on the location of that 415.”
Movement. Behind me. I feel it before I see it, feel the air shift. I spin round, dropping into a fighting stance, and see a dark shape looming over me, a man, his features in shadow.
Every muscle in my body explodes with pain.
I go rigid, trying to scream. There’s static everywhere now, crackling in fury, and then I’m gone.
14
Knox
Knox doesn’t like the taser. It’s a crude, ugly weapon, but it gets the job done.
Unlike the old models, which used electrode darts and conductor wires, this one is completely wireless – it uses field induction, with a ten-foot range. Put 2000 volts through someone, and the loss of neuromuscular control is instantaneous. He flexes the hand-held taser in his fingers, ready to give Hale another blast if she shows signs of coming round. She twitches, conscious, but only just.
Knox looks round to see if he’s attracted any attention, but the corridor is silent. He drops down onto one knee, an awkward movement that nearly unbalances him. The syringe goes into Hale’s neck – a sedative, not suitable for long procedures but more than enough to keep her down after the taser effects wear off.
He grabs her under the arms. Hale is heavier than he expected – he nearly drops her, and, with his bad leg, it’s all he can do to lift her up. He has to pause, taking a few deep breaths before rolling her into his cart.
She hits the bottom with a thud, her body contorting. She groans, and he can see the muscles in her neck standing out. How could he ever think she was beautiful? She’s as ugly as the rest of them, flawed, imperfect.
Working quickly, he buries her under the stinking rags. She becomes nothing more than a shape at the bottom of his cart, a piece of trash that no one but him would ever want. In the distance, he can hear the merchant’s refrain: “Hot silkworms, get ’em hot, hot silkworms.”
He looks up and down the corridor again, then swings the cart around, its wheels squeaking on the metal floor as he pushes past the wall of graffiti.
“Hey, you.”
He closes his eyes, astonished and furious, then looks around. Three people have appeared in the corridor behind him. Two women and a man – gang members, judging from the identical black tears tattooed on their cheeks. The man is munching silkworms, stuffing them into his face from a dirty cloth bag.
One of the women tilts her head. “What you got in there?”
She and her companions start sauntering down the passage towards him, spreading out. He tries to keep any expression of his face. His hand is already in his pocket, where he keeps his knife. There’s no way you can fight them off, not a chance.
But he can’t let them discover Hale. He’s worked too long and too hard to get her here.
The woman stops, wrinkling her nose. “Gods. You shit yourself or something?”
The other two pick up the scent. “Oh, that’s rough,” the man says, swallowing a mashed mouthful of silkworm.
Morgan Knox puts all the confused anger he can into his face. “Leave me alone!” he shouts at them. “They’re listening to me! I’m talking to them right now!”
He’s babbling, saying the first things that come into his head, but it’s working. They’re laughing, making exaggerated expressions of disgust. One of them digs in the bag, rooting up a handful of worms, then throws it at him. They smack into his cheek, dribbling down the front of his coat.
But they’re leaving, still laughing among themselves. Knox waits until they’re around the corner, then lets himself relax. His mask worked. It always works. Show the world your real face, and they’ll tear you to pieces, but if you can disguise yourself, if you pretend you’re not a threat, they’ll let you pass on by. Pathetic.
He pushes the cart, shoving it with his thigh, getting it moving again. His surgery is close, and it’s prepped and ready to go. Under the rags, his patient is silent.
15
Prakesh
It’s only when he shuts the door to his office that Prakesh finds he can breathe again.
He sits down on the edge of his desk, letting his chin touch his chest. That could have gone very, very wrong.
After a moment, he drops heavily into his chair. The room itself is tiny, with no windows. The desk is battered and ancient, covered with tab screens and old drinks containers, taking up half the room. The only luxurious item is the chair behind it, a curved combination of mesh and black straps that fits his frame perfectly. It’s much too comfortable – he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
The Food Lab used to be run by Oren Darnell, but he was killed in his insane attempt to torture the station. After it was all over, after Darnell was dead and Okwembu arrested, Outer Earth was hit by the worst food shortages in its history.
Prakesh and the other techs had already been working on creating genetically modified plants, and they stepped up their programme, working impossibly long hours to make plants that would grow faster, stronger, with more fruiting bodies.
And Prakesh was the one who cracked it. He’d worked all night on a hunch, focusing on the telomere caps at the ends of the plant nucleotides. He planted a single runner bean seed, then passed out, exhausted, leaning against one of the algae ponds. When he woke up, the bean plant was exploding out of the soil. A few hours later, still not entirely sure it wasn’t a dream, he bit down on a fresh green bean.
After that, even Prakesh was amazed at the progress they made. The Food Lab was still being rebuilt, but the floor of the Air Lab became a tangled mess of grow-ops, and every day it seemed like there was a new plant variety. For the first time in months, Outer Earth had more food than it could ever need.
The techs told Prakesh that they were putting him in charge of the Air Lab, and they told the current head, a sleepy man named Archer, that he’d better step down. They even offered him Oren Darnell’s old office: a huge space above the control room, with massive glass windows that looked out onto the trees.
He turned it down. Darnell had nearly destroyed Outer Earth and Prakesh didn’t feel like occupying the man’s old space. The office is now the most well-appointed storeroom on the station, which suits Prakesh just fine.
He doesn’t need much space to work, anyway. He glances across the three tab screens on his desk: monorail shipping manifests that need signing off, fertiliser test results, a message from a tech asking him to resolve a work dispute. He picks up the test results first. If he can power through all this, he can go home, forget this day ever—
“Anybody home?” Suki says, sticking her head around the door. A frizz of red hair tickles her cheek. “We’re going for drinks. All of us. That includes you, ’Kesh.”
“I don’t feel much like Pilot’s,” Prakesh says, thinking of the grimy bar in the station dock.
“Who said anything about Pilot’s?” Suki says. “My brother’s got these watermelons, right? He’s been soaking them in homebrew for like a week.”
Prakesh smiles. “You go on ahead. I might see you down there later.”
He looks down, intending to get back to the test results, half of his mind already thinking about the dispute message. He looks up when he hears Suki crossing to his desk.
She perches on the end. She’s one of the only techs – scratch that, one of the only people on the whole station – that he’s ever seen wearing a skirt. It peeks out from the bottom of her lab coat, over black leggings. He can smell the soil on her as she leans in.
“You did good, boss,” she says.
“Benson – is he—”
“Already took care of it. He’s on suicide watch, and the psych docs are on it. He won’t be back until they give
him a clean bill.”
He smiles thanks. “Good job with the Mark Six, too.”
“How did you know that was going to work?”
He shrugs. “Didn’t, really.”
She smacks his shoulder, then hops off the desk. “Be downstairs in ten, or I’ll come and drag you out of here.”
“I’m really OK.”
“No way. You need a drink.”
“I said no, Suki.”
He doesn’t mean for it to be harsh. But he can’t control it – his tone just changes, dropping his voice low. He’s instantly sorry, furious with himself.
But the last thing he wants to do is go and socialise, and Suki’s closeness, the smell of her, has just made him think of Riley.
Suki looks like she’s been slapped, but only for a second. She composes herself, a neutral expression sliding back into place. “Well,” she says. “I guess I’ll see you later, then. You should bring Riley by sometime.”
Her last sentence is said without enthusiasm, more of a reflex than anything else. The door clicks shut behind her.
Prakesh turns back to his tab screens, but finds he can’t concentrate. He sits back, rubbing his eyes.
He’ll never get used to Riley as a cop. Every time she suits up, it’s like she becomes a different person. She moves with purpose, like the last six months haven’t happened, and there’s a look in her eyes every time she heads off to work. Like she can’t wait to get out there, can’t wait to move.
But when the jumpsuit comes off, she changes. Everything that’s happened to her – her dad, Janice Okwembu, Amira – all comes rushing back. She’s quiet at home, her mind off somewhere else. Prakesh has done his best, tried to fill her world with colour and love and as much good conversation as he can, but it’s never enough.
And going home at the end of the day has lost its spark.
For the hundredth time, he bites back on his frustration. He tells himself to ease up. She just needs time. He shuts off his tab screens, one after the other. They can wait. He’s going home, and he’s going to see Riley.
He leaves the office, snapping the door closed behind him. As he walks down the passage, he wonders idly what she’s doing at this moment.
16
Riley
I’m stuck in the nightmare again.
I’m running down the middle of a long, dark corridor, moving faster than I ever have before. There’s a man standing at the end, his body cloaked in shadow. I can’t see him clearly, but I know it’s my father. It always is.
Any moment, I tell myself, I’m going to wake up. I’ll be in our bed, with the blankets knotted at my feet and the mattress drenched in my sweat, Prakesh’s arm around me and his hushed voice in my ear.
But it’s different this time – the darkness isn’t the darkness of a dream. And the pain rippling up from my legs isn’t the dull, distant pain of exertion. It’s horrible, needle-sharp, bigger than life.
My father raises his head towards me. His eyes – angry, confused, terrified – lock onto my own. I see my name appear over his face, blinking bright orange. Riley. Riley. Riley.
I jerk awake, a strangled cry bursting out of my throat. The dream vanishes. The pain doesn’t.
This is all wrong. There’s too much light. The surface underneath me is hard, nothing like the soft warmth of our bed. I don’t have to reach my hand out to know that Prakesh isn’t with me. I’m lying face down, one arm tucked underneath me. My tongue is a dry, dead thing, and my throat screams for water. I can feel my heart pounding, pulsing in my chest and neck.
Slowly, my surroundings come into focus. I’m lying on a metal table, gleaming under a single harsh light. The light is focused, a tight circle on the table, and the rest of the room is in darkness.
The pain in my legs chooses that moment to really wake up. It’s in my knees, biting and tearing. Before I can stop myself, my hand is moving down towards my right knee.
My jumpsuit is gone. I’ve still got my tank top and my underwear, but the flesh on my bare legs has risen in heavy goose bumps. I push my fingers down my right leg, my movements jerky and shuddering. I have to find the source of that pain. If I do that, I tell myself, I can get through this. My fingers track across my skin. The pain isn’t in my kneecap, it’s deeper, somehow …
Then I touch the tough, spiky thread of a stitch, and I scream.
I twist myself around, my fingers exploring in horrified bursts. The stitches are on the back of my knees: tiny, thick lines buried just under the surface of the skin, as if a parasite has wormed its way into my flesh. The stitches run horizontally, tucked between the bones. They zigzag back and forth, and the thick ends jut out at awkward angles. The flesh is horribly tender, and even touching it lightly makes the pain spike.
Get them out. Get them out now.
My fingers snag the end of the stitch on my right knee. I grit my teeth, getting ready to pull.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
The voice is cold and businesslike, coming from the darkness at the edge of the room. I freeze, trying to squint past the light.
“Who’s there?” I say
No answer.
How did I get here? My memory is in fragments. I was on a run – what was I doing? Was I delivering cargo? No – that’s wrong. Then I remember the call, the empty corridor, the movement behind me.
Something flies out of the darkness, bouncing off my chest. I grab it just before it skitters away. It’s a small bottle, off-white plastic, the blue label faded and peeling. Whatever’s inside gives a dry rattle as I turn the bottle in my hands.
“You should take one,” the voice says. It’s a man’s voice, soft and precise – the same voice as the dispatcher who called me over SPOCS.
The hell with this. I swing my legs off the table, calculating how far away the voice is, already lining up the angle of attack. I’m going to get whoever’s out there and drag them into the light, make them take back whatever they—
The second I touch the floor, there’s a horrid, searing explosion in my legs. I collapse, howling in pain, the pill bottle locked in my hand.
I raise myself up on one elbow, sweat pouring down my face, staring in horror at the stitches. They’re already beginning to bruise, the skin fading from red to a sick, mottled purple.
My eyes are growing accustomed to the darkness beyond the pool of light. The room we’re in is small, the surfaces dull metal and clean, white ceramic. There are banks of equipment lined up along the wall to my right: water basins, blank tab screens, shelves stacked with bottles and medical instruments. There’s a small storage area leading off the main room, its shelves groaning with even more equipment.
The table I was lying on isn’t a table, but a hospital bed, minus the mattress. There are restraints hanging off it, wrist and ankle cuffs, soft fabric hanging open. Dark brown stains run over the edge of the table. Blood
My blood.
Movement, at the far side of the room. I finally spot the owner of the voice. He’s older than me, in his forties at least. He has thick black hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His right hand grips a battered cane, the metal worn down in places and the rubber foot cracked and peeling. His scrubs are white, and, except for the dots of dried blood on the front, they’re impossibly clean. He wears dark pants underneath them; they hang loose on his left leg, as if it doesn’t fill them properly.
He limps over, the cane hitting the floor with a soft thud at every step. He crouches down in front of me, his bad leg folding under him. Before I can move, his hand darts out, grabbing my right knee in a pincer grip, his thumb digging into the stitches.
I snap my head back and scream. It rips around the room, turning it into a horrific echo chamber.
“Take your medicine,” he says.
He lets go of my leg. I scrabble at the bottle cap, hating myself for it. The tablets are blue, chalky and bitter in my mouth, accenting my raging thirst.
The man glances at my bare leg with a grimace. Before I can do anything, he
produces a pair of surgical scissors, and calmly snips the stiff ends of the stitches off. The cool metal of the blade just touches my skin.
“There,” he says. “Perfect.”
He lifts his other hand. He’s holding a thin, black, rectangular box, with a single raised button in the centre. No – not holding. It’s taped to his hand. What …
“At the back of the knee,” he says, tracing the stitches with the tip of his finger, “is a gap in the muscles called the popliteal fossa.”
“I don’t—”
“An object of up to half an inch in diameter can be inserted in the popliteal fossa, without interfering with the normal movement of the leg.”
His eyes find mine. “There is a device in each of your popliteal fossae. Each device carries a small but extremely powerful explosive charge. If the devices detonate, there will be significant damage to surrounding tissue: bone, muscle, blood vessels, nerves. Assuming you survived the resultant blood loss, you would almost certainly lose both your legs below the knee.”
I can’t move. I can’t look away from the box taped to his hand.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “The trigger mechanism takes quite an effort to push. I won’t hit it by accident. But if you try and attack me, or do anything other than exactly what I tell you, I will push it. And when I do, it’ll make that little squeeze of mine feel like a flu shot.”
He stands, then limps over to one of the machines in the corner. “And the operation went perfectly. As I said, the devices will not inhibit your normal running motion in the slightest. There’ll be some pain, but it might even be manageable – if you keep taking your medicine.”
The sob comes out before I can stop it. He’s lying. He has to be. I’m staring at my knees, as if I can make the stitches melt away.
“And just in case you’re thinking about running to the hospital to have another doctor remove the devices, don’t bother,” he says. “I’m the only one who could do it without setting them off.”