Love and Other Metals

by K. P. Redmond

  “Are you saying…” I start, but my voice catches.

  “You will find your father there,” she says.

  I am shaking. “But the travel records, the videos of him boarding the flight to Earth, the records, the investigation…”

  “All fake, Straker. All fake. It was an impersonator in those videos. Whoever he was, he used makeup and prosthetics to look like your father. But he was slightly shorter, and his walking gait was very different. Go get the videos and see for yourself. I don’t think your law men tried very hard to find the truth.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. I can’t believe her…I mean I don’t want to believe her, but in my gut I know instantly that it’s true. I want to scream No! I want to rip off my suit and slam my head against the rocks. But the violent feeling passes quickly. I feel a darkness pass out of me as a new realization hits me. He never left me. In my heart had I harbored a fantasy of finding him and confronting him and killing him myself. Now everything is different. He was killed. I was so, so wrong. So horribly wrong. I am ashamed.

  Sophia is watching me intently. She kisses me sadly on the cheek. “I am sorry Straker,” she whispers, “I hope it was right to tell you.”

  I am weeping. Sophia touches my cheek. A tear falls to the tip of her finger. She holds the finger close to her eyes and studies the tear, fascinated. The fluid soaks into her skin. She closes her eyes in concentration. “I hope…I believe your life will be better now.”

  I wipe my face with the back of my hand. I nod. The truth has set me free. Pops never left me. He was taken. He loved me right up to the end of his life. He was my dad and I am his son. Everything is different now. Everything is clear.

  My wristy makes a little bell tone. My tanks are full. “It’s time,” I whisper.

  Sophia stands solemnly and smooths her dress. She looks at me with concern. “Will you be all right?” she asks.

  “I think so,” I say. “Yes, I know I’ll be OK. I’m a lot better now. Thank you. But I gotta go and there’s fighting to be done. I’m just a lunie. I ain’t as strong as that freak from Earth.”

  “As long as you are near the materia, Structure will help you.”

  That’s a surprise. “Really? He will help me?”

  “Of course!”

  “Isn’t that against the prime directive or something?”

  She chuckles. “I caught that, a cultural reference! No, silly, there is no prime directive. We make judgements, we make choices. That’s what makes it all so hard. But we like you.”

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but there is no materia on the other side of the asteroid where the ships are. I need a weapon.”

  “Yes, yes you do. I have no gun to give you, but Structure will come with you, if you will let him.” I look down at the putty thumb. It’s looking back at me, with an expression as earnest as I figure a little thumb can manage. I don’t know what good it will do to bring it along, but I need all the help I can get.

  I reach my left hand down to touch it. It does not resist me. “OK,” I say. And with that, the thumb responds by forming into something like a long bendy pencil. It wraps itself around my wrist and slithers up my arm. It’s a strange feeling but I hold my arm steady. The putty coils around my wristy, covering it in a fine red film. The two little eyes disappear, and the mass changes color, refining its shape, until it takes on the metallic appearance of the wristy, complete with buttons and display. It’s a little bigger than a normal wristy but they’re not all the same size anyways. “That’s very clever,” I say, with a chuckle.

  “Oh, you have no idea,” replies Sophia. “You will find Structure to be indispensable. And your friends will never know he’s there.”

  The conversation lags for a moment. Neither one of us wants to say the inevitable. I’m sure I’ll never see her again. But it’s time. “I guess I better go,” I say, reluctantly. The oxygen hose falls away from my backpack with a hiss and a bust of vapor, then it is quiet. The electrical cable detaches itself and falls away. I stand and embrace Sophia. The animal part of me enjoys the embrace a little too much. She sure as hell feels human, but this ain’t the time. “Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. “That’s the best thing anybody has ever done for me. Thank you. I’ll never forget you.”

  “Nor I you,” she replies, hugging me back. We stand there, frozen, for a brief moment. I hug her tighter, then step back. She closes her eyes and clasps her hands together as if to pray. “I wish the best for you.” She smiles sheepishly and steps back. Her body slowly absorbs into the wall. She watches me the whole time, holding up her hand in reluctant farewell, until she is gone. In her voice, the walls whisper one last time: “Ciao, mio amore.”

  Again, I am alone.

  I push my fingers through the mat of hair on my head. For a moment I am suspended between the magic of my moments with Sophia and the certainty that if I don’t move—right now—that the crew of the Allgood will die. Including me. I gotta find my way out of these tunnels and back to the ship but I don’t know how I’m gonna do that. I got here by making a bunch of random choices—this branch or that, go up or go down—in a panic, always one step ahead of that murderous drone. Now I’m lost somewhere within a red labyrinth in a strange pressurized room that built itself for me.

  I’m not sure how this works; is there some kind of airlock? Sophia wouldn’t have left me locked in. First thing’s first. I pull on my gloves, lift my helmet over my head and hear the reassuring clicks as it latches down. I turn on the suit’s electronics and watch the indicators below my chin as the tiny computer performs its familiar system checks. It says everything still works, just as it always does. Thank God. I start the flow of O2. Pressure is holding A-OK. The suit detects the soft light levels in the room and brings up my visor display in normal visible-light mode. But I still don’t see a door out. “How do I get out of here?” I mutter to no one in particular. A round section of the wall before me dilates like pupil of a giant eye, revealing a softly lit, meandering red tunnel ahead. A strong breeze comes from behind me as the air in the room evacuates out the hole into the vacuum beyond. Then my suit turns itself off.

  Oh crap. The electronics have quit. I feel the fabric of my suit relaxing, yielding to the vacuum around me. If it doesn’t come back up, I have seconds to live. I contemplate the number of ways I could die, not sure which will kill me first. In a panic, I look over my displays and the lights on my chest piece in the futile hope that I can find something to fix. I knock on the chest piece, hoping to jolt the system back to life. But within a couple seconds, the indicator lights below my chin flash back to life, and then the display pops back up. I breathe a sigh of relief, then gulp in amazement.

  Everything is different. The visor is alight with much more information than before. I see a three dimensional image not only of the room around me, but of all the tunnels beyond the room, in full color. I see the room outlined in light red, the tunnels beyond in blue, the path I need to take in yellow. And more…I can see through the rock and iron, to the ships still in place on the surface almost a kilometer away. The image doesn’t seem to be based on reflected light or temperature differences. This is more data than my cameras could possibly provide.

  Then I understand: Structure has ‘liberated’ my suit. The stroid itself is now my sensor. “Thanks,” I say. Sophia was right; Structure don’t talk much. But at least I’m not alone. I step cautiously through the orifice to the tunnel beyond, wary of what lies ahead. The scene in my visor updates as I go. I follow the path glowing in my display and pick my way through the maze. The yellow path anticipates where I need to go. I gain confidence, weaving my way out, picking up speed. Higher and higher I climb, ducking through the low parts, turning right and left and right again.

  Finally, I turn a corner and see the light of the distant sun glimmering on the rim of the tunnel’s exit. I stop and press the wristy buttons to turn on my suit radio. I have to remind myself that the real wristy is embedded down inside this shell of goo. T
he materia camouflage is convincing but the wristy seems to function as before. Only better. I hear voices, but none of them are from my Allgood crewmates. It dawns on me that these are the voices of the Kestrel crew: the transmissions of suit-to-suit radios that are normally encrypted, that I can somehow hear. Structure again. Glad he’s on my side. If he can break their radio encryption that easily, ain’t nothing safe. I just hope they can’t hear me too. “I don’t want the Kestrel people to hear me,” I whisper. A little text flashes briefly before my eyes: “muted.”

  There are outlines of distant human figures on my visor, walking around, carrying what look like weapons. I interpret these icons as Kestrel people searching for me on the surface, or maybe they’re searching for their lost drone. I need to avoid them either way. I walk the last bit to the cave exit. I pause at the lip and look around. All clear, for now.

  It ain’t the opening that I entered; the rocks around this one are mostly made of the red materia. There’s a path I can walk but there ain’t much cover. I’ll have to be careful not to be seen. My visor says the Kestrel men are not far away. I crouch low, engage my boots, and take a step onto the red rock. The boot’s claws immediately find purchase, which sets me aback. With every step my grip tone sounds right away, even when I’m walking on natural rock. Not like before, when I had to wait between each step. Now I can walk almost naturally, although crouched over to stay out of sight.

  The rocks around me are all of different shapes, now a mix of natural rock and materia; some rocks are small and round, some very tall. The tallest is maybe 10 meters max. Together they form a shallow canyon. Ahead of me is the long, meandering path back to my ship. Through gaps in the rocks I see a couple of Kestrel thugs up ahead, holding tools, with side arms dangling from their belts. They are having a private conversation, their helmets butted together so they don’t need to use their radios. Trying to keep something from their bosses?

  If I keep low enough, I’m pretty confident they won’t see me. I keep going until I’m up on a rise, the men and their guns to my right and below me on the other side of a series of tall boulders. Taking it real slow so I don’t send no rocks tumbling down their way, I creep along the path. When I’m past them, I relax a little, stand up straight and pick up my pace. That’s when I hit the trip wire.

  My left boot catches it; I lose my balance and fall—slowly and with plenty of time to catch myself—onto the path. I look back at the fine wire, suspended low to the ground. It’s wrapped around a jagged boulder on one end, and leads to a grey box on the other end. Damn. The box is a transmitter and the alarm has already gone out. They’re on their way. I stand up a little too quickly and in my panic launch myself away from the ground for a few terrifying, flailing, helpless seconds. I fire my emergency jets and luckily my feet come back to the rocks—if my jets hadn’t worked I would have been launched into space. I check the jet status; there is only solid fuel cartridge left.

  I’ve lost time; the orange Kestrel avatars in my visor display are moving fast, coming my way. I try a fast walk. So far so good, the boots are keeping me down. Even though the Kestrel guys will have boots too, they won’t be able to catch me. Then a rock to the left of me explodes. I’m reminded that they don’t need to catch me…they have guns. “I saw him and took a shot, over,” says an excited voice into my headset.

  “Kill him if you can,” comes another voice, “We can get the key from him just as easy if he’s dead.”

  “Roger that. I’m gaining on him, over.”

  I crouch down behind a rock. The sky here is not quite as hazy with dust as it was back in the mining area, but it ain’t completely clear neither. I squint through the thin yellow fog, trying to see what’s shooting at me, holding my breath to keep my visor as clear as possible. I hear only the thumping of my desperate heart. There’s a man-shaped shadow moving out ahead. I grab a chunk of hematite in my fist and prepare to chuck it at him but just then another rock explodes, this time on my right.

  “I see him. He’s close…I took a shot but don’t think it hit. He’s headed for his ship.” I turn and see the source of the voice. A Kestrel spacesuit with green armbands is rushing my way, face hidden by his dark visor, methodically taking step after step, closing the gap to get a good kill shot. His gun is pointed at my face. My visor tells me that the other guy is coming from the other direction. For a moment I consider the possibility of climbing up and over the tall rocks that line the path, but I don’t see no good handholds and I’d be a sitting duck up there anyways. I pull my arm back and heave the rock at the spacesuit closest to me, the one with the blue armbands.

  He ducks but the rock misses. Blue Armbands stops, plants his boots, and brings his gun to his shoulder, tilting his head along the sites on the barrel. I don’t know which way to run; I’m stuck here in the open, I don’t know to do. His finger comes off the trigger guard onto the trigger, ready to shoot. A red tongue of materia launches from behind him. It wraps itself around the man’s gun arm, jerking it to the side. The man’s other arm flails in surprise. “Whoa…holy crap…something has got me!” comes the voice.

  “What? What something, what? Just shoot!” says the other voice.

  The tongue grows thicker while holding its grip on the gun hand; Blue Armbands pushes back on it, but the goo responds by branching out another tentacle and grabbing that hand too. “Ahhh! It’s got me. It’s a boa constrictor…I don’t know what it is…just get here dammnit!”

  “I’m coming,” says the other voice.

  Blue Armbands loses his footing—the materia pulls him into the sky like a wrestler in a cage match. I crouch back behind my rock, just in time to see the other spacesuit shuffle past me, the one with green armbands, his gun up and ready. Blue Armbands is upside down now, the red goo gripping both arms and one leg, shaking him like it’s trying to loosen some coins from his pockets. “Shoot it, dammnit, shoot!”

  Green Armbands fires. The zero-G gun is the type that fires plasma out the back as the bullet is expelled from the barrel. The bright flash of plasma is blinding; I close my eyes and all I see is that flash floating in front of me. When I open my eyes, it’s obvious that the projectile did no good. The materia just swallowed it. And now Green Armbands has his gun arm and foot caught too.

  “Mayday, mayday,” I hear, “Kestrel this is team 2, we are being attacked. Send help ASAP, repeat help ASAP.” I watch as Green Armbands struggles to free himself, yelling angrily at the person answering his call, cursing to his radio. I stand up. I got nothing to worry about now. My friend Structure has taken charge and the rest, as they say, is history.

  “Team 1, team 3, this is Kestrel. Converge on team 2 location and render assistance.”

  I’ll be long gone by the time they get here. I saunter on my way, turning as I pass Green Armbands. I smile and wave and do a little booty dance. That gun ain’t gonna help you now, is it. I walk up as close as I can to Blue Armbands and bounce a couple of pebbles off his helmet just for fun. More obscenities…oh my goodness. Once I’m past them both, I turn to wave one last time.

  I shouldn’t have been so cocky. Green Armbands had dropped his gun but with his free hand has pulled something else off his belt, something hooked to his backpack by a thick power cable. He shoots at the materia. A brilliant blue beam fires from the lens of the laser. The red matter flares up from the concentrated heat and melts, jetting a cloud of dark red dust into the space around it. The laser cuts the materia like a hot knife through butter—in fact the materia seems to catch fire from the laser, but somehow manages to put out its own flame. But now it’s a real fight: Green Armbands starts methodically slicing through the thick red arms holding him. The materia turns itself to a shiny mirror color when it anticipates a shot, deflecting the laser beam, but the thugs still manage to make random cuts.

  I feel my wristy trembling. Does Structure feel pain? “Kestrel, tell all teams to use laser,” I hear. “This thing…this stuff burns.” The materia ain’t giving up: more of it flows in the
replace what was burned and Green Armbands keeps firing. I turn and move as fast as I can. They’re distracted for now but if they can free themselves it won’t be long before they turn their attention back to me. The path bends around and once again I am obscured by boulders. But there ain’t no safety for me: if I can follow the path, they can too. I come to a rise in the path. I bend backwards and look up. The way ahead snakes up and over a steep hill, rising maybe 100 meters. Beyond the hill is a straight shot to the CM, still moored to Hrothgar’s surface. This is real rock; I’ve left the red matter behind. The yellow path in the display tells me I must climb.

  I retract the boots’ grippers and plant the toe of my right foot into a jagged scar in the rock; slip at first, but then push hard and establish a foothold. Hand over hand I ascend, choosing each handhold and foothold carefully, thoughtfully, like playing a vertical chess game against death. Even in this low gravity, falling would likely kill me, with the impact against sharp rocks tearing my suit if nothing else.

  Halfway up, the rock under my left foot gives way just as I’m pulling my right foot out of a crevice. Pebbles tumble downward and dust plumes out in a ragged sphere. I am dangling from the cliff. My legs swing back and forth as my gloved fingers strain to hold. I wonder, at that moment, how much tearing stress these gloves can take. They ain’t made for rock climbing. I also wonder if a laser is going to burn a hole in me from the back. Or maybe a bullet will blow up my head. Which would be a better way to die? I wonder.

  But my grip holds and after a few tries I find a slot for my right boot. No lasers burn through my flesh. Not yet. I pause a moment to listen to my own laboring breathing and try to calm down. I carefully turn my helmet to see if the bad guys are back on my tail. Blue Armbands and Green Armbands have both freed themselves and are stomping around in the distance below. The dark red haze around them is thick with burned materia. Red tentacles swing at them like the arms of a giant squid from a Jules Verne novel but the Kestrel thugs have clearly gotten the upper hand. Huge volumes of the materia have been disintegrated.