Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  The governor is missing, he thought. Wow.

  And the first person Dayton comes to? Jerk added. You! Just like old times, huh?

  Cal winced as his inner specter cackled. He tried to think of when he last took the medication that suppressed that particular mental malady.

  Four and a half days ago, Jerk noted. Pretty bad that I know that and you don’t. Also pretty rude that you want to get rid of me already.

  I want to get rid of you permanently, Cal shot back.

  Again, rude.

  So is barging into my brain.

  Our brain, his double corrected. But that’s not why I’m here.

  And why are you here? To gloat? Pester me?

  Of course. My life would be boring otherwise.

  Not interested, Cal said as he collected Andrea and went inside the shop. He wasted no time in going to the stockroom and choking down one of his anti-psychotic pills.

  You’re no fun, Jerk protested.

  Good. I like it that way.

  Fine. Just say no this time, alright?

  To you? I always do, Cal replied.

  Not me. Your conscience. I get the feeling you’re about to try doing something gallant or stupid again.

  Why would you say that?

  Because you can never say no to Dayton.

  Cal sighed and began preparing a bottle for Andrea. He didn’t ask me to do anything.

  Didn’t he? Hmm. I must be slipping, Jerk chortled.

  Cal particularly hated Jerk’s insanity jokes. Having a secondary personality that shouldn’t exist complain about losing its mental clarity was simply disturbing and cruel in his book. What made it even worse is that it all had to do with the inner workings of his own mind.

  He settled into his usual chair with Andrea and stroked her cheek. “Don’t go nuts like Daddy, okay?”

  You’re going to give her plenty of reasons to go insane herself, Jerk prodded.

  Shut up.

  Gov Darius Owens

  14 July, 6 yal, 05:13

  The wilderness, somewhere near Concordia

  Darius woke with a start as he was shoved roughly to the ground. Something in his wrist popped, and he winced in pain. The sharp stabbing of his wrist only slightly overpowered the dull throbbing from all over his body. Darius coughed and spat, trying to clear his mouth of the dirt that he sucked in upon landing. Each expulsion of air only aggravated the pain in his body. He felt like he had been run through the grain mill, and figured he probably looked about the same.

  He had bits and flashes of memory from the past few hours. After taking the beating, he had the sensation of movement. Not gentle, either. There was a fuzzy recollection of being dropped as his captors carried him down the grand stairwell on Michael, and evanescent memories of being hauled through the outskirts of town and into the wild. But the sum of his lucid memory after being taken from the ship was a grand total of twenty or so seconds. Darius was lost; he did not need to take his bearings to know that.

  Still, he rose to his feet. His movements were slow and labored, and his chest and legs burned. He looked around to survey his situation. Sparse Demeter pine was intermixed with Blue elm. The landscape rolled gently, and there were only occasional shrubs dotting the ground. Based on the vegetation, he reckoned that he was somewhere west of the town, and far enough away from the Fairweather that it couldn’t be heard. Darius turned around slowly when he heard someone clear their throat.

  Two of his three captors stood about ten feet away, with the last man being just out of arm’s reach. All three were tired, though the man Darius presumed to be their leader still wore a smug grin that distorted the pock marks on his cheeks. He didn’t appear to be armed, though his friends were. Darius found himself staring down the barrels of a pair of pistols. Any doubt left that these men were from Mercy vanished, as neither weapon was a standard-issue M9. One was unmistakably a Colt .45, and the other he couldn’t immediately recognize.

  They had left him untied. It probably didn’t matter, however, since Darius was favoring his right leg. At best he could probably hobble, so he was not a flight risk. Nor was he a danger to fight, being outnumbered, outgunned, and injured. Straining his eyes, he noticed that the tree line behind the men was abrupt, and oddly linear. A few overgrown stumps in the distance clued him in to their location.

  One of the early logging areas, he surmised.

  “Well, Governor,” the pock-marked man said. “You’ve caused a little bit of trouble here, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve caused trouble? How do you figure? You’re the ones that jumped me.”

  His captor nodded. “True, but it didn’t have to come to that. You just put your nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “Again, I think you’re confused. You went into a restricted area on the ship. Assaulted the governor of the colony you’re trying to join. I’m not sure how that qualifies me as being in trouble.”

  “Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

  “The longer you keep it that way the more of an issue that is for you. Let me go and I’ll see to it that you receive leniency.”

  The man chortled and shook his head, his grin disappearing. “I don’t think you get how this works.” He reached behind his back and pulled a gun, gesturing toward the base of the tree next to Darius. Darius obeyed the request to sit with a narrow glare. “Now, we’ve been up all night dragging you out in the middle of nowhere so we can talk to you in peace. I’m a little tired and cranky after all that, so you can save both of us a bunch of trouble by just answering my questions without giving me any more lip.”

  “And then what?” Darius scoffed. “You kill me?”

  The man knelt down in front of Darius, keeping his cold, blue eyes locked on him. He reached out and caressed Darius’s cheek in an oddly maternal, yet deeply unnerving way. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you, dear Governor. My boss wouldn’t like that. Besides, there are so many other things I can do to you if you don’t comply. You probably wouldn’t want me to go into detail on that.” He stood up and stepped back. “So are you going to play nice?”

  Darius’s skin crawled with the man’s words. Though he despised the thought of giving in to his captor’s demands, he didn’t believe that he held any secret worth suffering for. The affairs of Concordia were a mostly open book, and the threat, though sincere, was pointless.

  “What do you want to know?” Darius hissed.

  “What did Doctor Benedict tell you about those servers?”

  The servers? He thought, cursing himself for being so blind. He had been beaten just after working on the servers, a part of the ship no one knew about. I should have known.

  “Nothing,” he spat back. “I didn’t know about the servers until after Mercy landed.”

  The man nodded. “I suppose he didn’t. No, they would have been pulled out and set up long ago if you had known about them. Not still scattered in pieces on the floor.”

  Darius swallowed hard. They had gone into the computer core after knocking him out. Likely they had taken the equipment with them as well, or at least hidden it. A hundred years of technological development, sent along by Doctor Benedict, had been lost. Darius had little time to cope with the idea.

  “Did you make any copies of the data?”

  Darius gritted his teeth. “No. I didn’t have time.”

  But I should have.

  The man nodded approvingly and put away his weapon. “What about the servers on the other ship?”

  “What about them?”

  “Did you take them apart?”

  “What do you think?” Darius sneered defiantly.

  His captor’s eyes narrowed and his face hardened into a scowl. “I think that you should answer me, instead of trying my patience.”

  Darius’s skin crawled. He still didn’t trust that the pock-faced man wouldn’t just turn around and end his life once he got the information he desired. Darius proceeded only on the hopes that this man had at least a shred of integrity within him.
>
  “I haven’t been to Gabriel since I found out about the servers.”

  “What about the Information Officer on that ship? Have you been in contact with him?”

  “I was Gabriel’s IO. And Michael’s as well, after he was killed.”

  The man’s eyebrows perked up. “So no one else has worked on the ships’ computers?”

  “Not since we landed.”

  The man tucked the pistol into his waistband behind his back. “Thank you for your cooperation, Governor.” He walked to his muscular companion and whispered something in his ear, garnering a nod in response. He paused as he was walking away, then turned back to Darius. “One more thing, Governor. What exactly were you planning on doing with that data?”

  Darius blinked and cocked his head, momentarily confused by the idea that there might be more than one possible use for the archive’s contents. “Distribute the data as necessary to advance the technological development of the colony. Try to speed us back up to where we were on Earth before everything we brought here fails.”

  A wicked grin crossed the man’s face, twisting his pock marks into a jagged canyon on his face. “Noble. But also wasteful.”

  The man walked away, fading into the distance after a few minutes. Darius stayed put, rubbing some wounds while avoiding contact with others. He was still being watched by two of his assailants, and they didn’t seem keen on letting him go anytime soon. They paced back and forth, keeping both their eyes and their weapons trained on him.

  “So what happens now?” Darius finally asked after ten minutes.

  “We all sit here and relax,” the muscular one replied.

  Darius scrutinized the two men. Their fatigue was readily evident, despite their threatening manners. He couldn’t fight them, but he could try to outlast them. Darius decided to settle in and conserve his energy. His best chance of escape, as he was not bound, was to wait until they could not stay awake any longer.

  The two men eventually sat down and leaned up against their own respective trees, though their weapons’ sights never strayed. As the two men seemed to lose energy, Darius was gaining his own. The time to escape was close at hand.

  But that was as close as he got. His captors were relieved after about an hour, and their replacements were fully stocked with food, shelter, and ropes. Darius was bound at the wrists, then to the tree itself. Once his new guards had finished their work of restraining him and moved on to setting up a camp, Darius discreetly tested their handiwork. He sank into despair.

  I’m not strong enough to break out.

  “Hey, you can’t leave me like this,” he protested, panic starting to rise. Silence answered him. “Are you seriously going to tie me up to a tree like this? Do you have any idea what kind of animals are out here?”

  His captors finished their work establishing the campsite without a word. Darius protested over and over, shouting about the danger that reaper bears posed. The warnings fell on deaf ears.

  Gabrielle Serrano

  14 July, 6 yal, mid-morning

  About 35 miles inland, southeast of wreck site

  Silence was not unusual. During their voyage from the remnants of Camp Eight, the survivors had often gone days with no more conversation than the commands necessary to sail their ship. Gabi understood that kind of silence. It was familiar, and it was offset by days of lively banter. But the near deathly silence that had accompanied her since leaving the others behind was very different. Broken only by the monotonous march of their footsteps, the soft scraping of the underbrush on their clothes, this silence felt alien. Uncomfortable. And there was little she could do about it.

  She watched as Diego scampered ahead a few dozen yards, nearly disappearing into the lush growth on the forest floor. It was routine for him to bound excitedly ahead of the group early in the morning, then come back and check on everyone else. By the time the sun peaked in the sky, he would tire of the game. That would be in about two or three hours. She wouldn’t have to worry about keeping him going for at least that long. And at least Marya and Aidan shared the burden of herding Diego.

  Gabi glanced back at the Brennan siblings. As usual, Aidan walked with his head down. He rarely interacted with anyone besides his sister. Despite his seeming lack of interest in the world around him, however, Aidan could be insightful at times. Marya brought up the rear, a few paces behind her brother. She seemed to like it back there, and Gabi didn’t mind having a little distance from her rival.

  Gabi halted for a moment. Her shoulders ached from her pack, which had slipped slightly. She readjusted it, made sure Diego hadn’t run off, then took a moment to gather her bearings.

  Looks like we’re pretty close to the big mountains, she thought, noting that she could only barely make out the dark crags through the tree line. The more distant trees towered over the near ones. Slope’s about to get steeper, too.

  She continued along, picking a path high enough above the stream to be safe, yet not so far as to lose sight for more than a few minutes. The shaggy, sandy hair that crowned Diego’s head was barely visible over a short bush. He seemed intent on staying there. Gabi grumbled, knowing she’d have to put him back on the path as she passed.

  When she arrived at the bush, he turned around and smiled at her. His lips were stained purple, and he clutched four large, purple berries in his right hand, ones that Gabi had never seen before. She gasped, and her chest thumped as her heart began to race.

  “Diego!” she snapped, wrenching the berries forcefully from his hand.

  His eyes widened in shock, and he froze for a second. His face then twisted into a sad pout, and he began to cry.

  “What?” Gabi snarled. Diego only wailed in response. “Stop crying.”

  “Y-you scared me!” he finally blubbered.

  “You know better than to eat strange berries.”

  “B-but I was hungry!”

  Gabi crushed one of the berries and sniffed it. The juice was sweet smelling and slightly sticky. The flesh was rather firm, and the fruit contained a single seed, a little smaller than a cherry pit. She threw aside the fruit, which prompted another round of snot-and-tear filled protest from Diego. Marya and Aidan had heard the commotion, and had come to investigate.

  “What happened?” Marya asked, snorting indignantly.

  “Diego ate some strange fruit,” she replied. For a split second she considered blaming Marya for not watching Diego more closely, but then remembered that it was her responsibility to watch her brother in the morning hours.

  Aidan knelt next to Diego. He put his hand to Diego’s forehead, then checked his pulse at the wrist, mimicking moves that they had both watched Dr. Petrovsky perform on his patients.

  “Do you feel sick, Diego?” he asked. Diego shook his head and sniffed, though he stopped crying. “Does anything hurt?” Diego shook his head again. Aidan smiled warmly. “So why cry?”

  “Gabi scared me and she threw away my berries.”

  Marya glared daggers at Gabi. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing,” she protested. “Just took the berries and tried to get him to shut up.”

  “And I’m sure you were as warm and fuzzy as ever.”

  Gabi nodded and shrugged. Marya rolled her eyes and started to walk away. “What?” Gabi asked. Her temper began to flare; dealing with Marya was never something she relished.

  “He’s just a kid. You need to take it easy on him.”

  “We’re all kids,” Gabi retorted. “I didn’t see Will taking it easy on any of us. Diego needs to learn not to eat things we don’t know about.”

  “That’s right, he does,” Marya replied. She kept walking, though at a relatively slow pace. “Just like you need to learn that he’s five years old, and doesn’t learn the same way we do. You’ve got to keep it simple and kind.”

  “Who died and made you Mom?”

  “Your mom.” The cold words rolled off Marya’s tongue without hesitation.

  Gabi’s fury boiled over in an instan
t. She picked up a rock and hurled it at Marya’s head, only missing by an inch. The older girl whirled around, poised for a fight. Gabi charged her, but Marya easily sidestepped, tripping Gabi on her way past. Only two seconds after she tumbled to a stop, Gabi had Marya sitting astride her chest. Gabi threw up her arms to protect herself, but the older girl didn’t throw a punch.

  “You don’t know everything, Gabi. We’re not following you because you have all the answers in the world. Only the one we need. How to get to the other landing site. We also believe that, with you, we can get there without starving. Will lost his shit, and we lost faith in him.” Marya paused. She stared at Gabi with unwavering determination. “There’s nothing I care about more in this world than my brother. I swear if anything happens to him because you can’t handle yourself, I’ll tear you apart myself.”

  “Why not do it now, huh?” Gabi taunted. “You’ve always wanted to. Here’s your chance. Will’s not here to stop you.”

  “Because I’m not done with you yet. You still have to get us to the other ships.”

  “Fine. Then let me do it, and stay out of my way when it’s my turn to watch Diego.”

  Marya’s eyes narrowed, and she shook her head. “I wish I could. I love my brother. It sickens me that you care so little about yours.”

  “He’s only my half-brother,” Gabi hissed in response.

  “So what? Are you really going to shove him away because your mom was raped? How’s that fair to him? What has he ever done to you?”

  “Mama killed herself because of him!” Tears began to well in her eyes as pain mixed with frustration.

  “He didn’t do that to her. She did that to herself. All he’s ever done to you is love you and try to be like you.”

  Gabi growled and rolled her eyes. “It bugs me when he tries to be like me.”

  Marya stood up and offered her hand to Gabi. She eyed it suspiciously, but took it, and Marya hauled her to her feet.

  “Why?” Marya asked.

  “Because what I do is dangerous. He could get hurt. Plus, he couldn’t do it.”