by Ben Wolf
“I somehow lived on. The mech melded with my body, and my essence melded with the technology, and then the copalion destroyed both. We became one, and we became nothing. We were transformed into energy, into something more than human, something more than machine, into something that was neither.
“I perished, but in dying, I became something much more. I transformed. Through the mech’s connection to the mine’s network, I lived on. I learned to travel through circuits, through technology of all sorts. Anything connected to the mine’s sub-network became my playground—my home.
“In my travels through the mine’s sub-network, I uncovered the truth about what had happened to me. What had killed my friends and coworkers, what had severed me from my body, and what had stolen any hope of a future I had with Etya.”
Mark frowned, and his eyes narrowed. “It was you, Carl. My own half-brother. My own flesh and blood. You made this happen.”
Carl shook his head slowly. “That’s not true.”
“It is true!” Mark’s voice thundered throughout the cavern. “You gave the order to excavate here, where the copalion was the most volatile. You gave the order to lock down Sector 6. You overrode our commands to open the doors. It’s all in the sub-network’s command history.”
Mark’s voice calmed again. “You and Bartholomew tried to cover it up, but you can never truly erase something you’ve entered into the system. It remains there, forever.
“And I became the system. I became the technology. In here, I know all. I see all. You cannot hide from me any longer. And now, you can no longer keep me from Etya.”
Justin glanced back at Carl.
“That’s what you want?” Carl asked. “Then be with her, and let me go.”
Mark laughed, and it reverberated throughout Sector 6. “No, Carl. You killed me. You killed my friends. You almost killed Etya. All because you wanted the whole pie for yourself. When our father died, you arranged all of this. With me out of the way, the trueborn Andridge son would reign over ACM, and the bastard—I would be gone forever.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed again, and he disappeared.
“You were wrong.” It came as a whisper in Justin’s ears, from behind, but the entire group looked around as if Mark had said it to each of them individually.
When Justin faced forward, Mark stood next to Etya again.
“With you dead,” Mark pointed to Carl, “Etya and I will take control of ACM, right your wrongs, and your legacy will perish with your weak, mortal body on this hellish planet.”
That was what they wanted? To take over ACM? Etya had used Justin after all.
Hundreds of people had died because Mark wanted his revenge on Carl, and Justin could understand that to some degree. He was no stranger to thoughts of revenge. But for ACM to be a part of their endgame sickened Justin.
Carl scoffed. “Not a chance. She has no claim to the company. And you’re stuck in the mine’s sub-network. If I die, my shares will go up for auction. The board will choose a new CEO, or a competitor will buy us out. The shareholders won’t tolerate anything like what you’re suggesting. But if you let me live, I’m sure we can find a way to—”
“Quiet,” Mark snapped. “I’ve already made the necessary arrangements to pass your shares to Etya. When your friend, here—” Mark locked his ghostly eyes on Justin. “—helped bring down the shield, I gained the access I needed.”
Justin looked back at Carl, who shot him a glare, then he refocused on Mark.
The idea that Justin contributed to the horrible deaths of so many people resurfaced in his gut, but this time it manifested as anger, not as guilt, and it spread throughout his body. He clenched his jaw tight and scowled at Mark and Etya.
“I sent a document—a last will and testament, signed by you—to your secretary on your precious ship. She replied, and I verified its veracity using your authentication code.” Mark’s lips parted in a twisted smile. “The very authentication code you used to seal my fate three years ago.”
Carl shook his head. “Impossible.”
“When you die, your majority stake in ACM passes to Etya.”
“It won’t work.” Carl shook his head again. “It’ll get tied up in the courts. The other shareholders and the board won’t allow it. She’s an outsider.”
“Is she?” Mark laughed. “She was the fiancée of the company’s previous co-owner—me. She’s as close to family as anyone in the galaxy. Our mothers are gone. Dad’s dead. My physical body is gone, and we had no extended family. Who else would get it?”
“You—you can’t do this,” Carl seethed.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have had me killed.”
Carl gave no response.
“I had hoped we could conclude our dealings here, in the very place where you condemned me. I lured you to the planet with this end in mind. I honestly didn’t think you’d make it this far, but you had plenty of help. And I had to ensure Etya stayed alive, too. It was a challenge, turning your employees into monsters and hoping they wouldn’t kill you too soon.”
Justin’s jaw tightened. He’d known Mark was behind the gassings, the malfunctioning technology, and the murderous androids, but hearing him admit it firsthand boiled Justin’s blood. Mark had cost him his arm, and, to an extent, Keontae’s life.
“This has a poetic feel to it, doesn’t it?” Mark mused. “You’ll perish here, where you tried to kill me. What beautiful symmetry.”
“You’ll never get out of here,” Carl hissed. “You’re tied to the mine’s network.”
Mark’s laugh bounced off the cavern walls again. “No, I’m not. Once you’re dead, I’ll join with Etya’s prosthesis. When she touched the console, she entered the master override code through her hand, freeing me from the network’s confines. Soon she and I will finally be one, just as we’d always wanted. Where she goes, I can go, too.
“Then I’ll not only control this mine and all of ACM but also any technology anywhere. I can obliterate ACM’s competition. Assert my will over the galaxy. Anything connected to a computer, a screen, or even a microchip, I will rule.”
Justin’s eyes widened.
“And it’s all thanks to you, Carl.” Mark sneered. “You gave me this power through your foolishness and greed.”
Carl said nothing.
“What’s Stecker got to do with any of this?” Dirk asked. “In it for the money, gramps?”
Mark and Etya looked at Stecker, and so did everyone else.
“No.” Stecker shook his head. “Etya is my daughter.”
34
Justin blinked. “Your daughter?”
Stecker nodded. “Over the years, I haven’t been there for her. Ran out on her mom and joined the military. It’s my greatest regret in life.” He looked at Etya with sad eyes. “I watched from a distance, sometimes across solar systems, as she found success. Happiness. Love.”
A tear trickled down Etya’s right cheek.
“But then the accident here almost killed her.” Stecker’s voice quaked, and his eyebrows arched down. “I withdrew from the military and rushed to her side, but she wanted nothing to do with me. She still hated me for what I’d done. Can’t say I blame her. I deserved it.
“Then one day, she contacted me. Told me the full story, or what she thought was the full story. I was skeptical at first, but now it turns out she was right. And so, after watching her suffer for three years, I followed her to this rock, got a security job here, and watched out for her.
“We waited, bided our time. She still didn’t want to talk to me, so I didn’t push the issue. But I was near her, able to start making up for all the wrong I’d done.”
Justin had seen Stecker trying to interact with Etya more than once, only to be blown off or ignored. On a number of occasions, Stecker had tried to protect Etya, specifically, as they progressed from Admin down to the mine. And back at the spaceport bar, he’d even shown Justin a picture of his dark-haired daughter.
But Justin just never would’ve imagin
ed that the twelve-year-old girl in the picture was Etya. He thought she’d be living with her mother off-world, not an accomplished scientist working in the same mine as him. Not someone else whom ACM had harmed so profoundly.
In hindsight, he should’ve known it was an old picture. It looked old, and the girl had probably grown up. And something had seemed familiar to Justin about the girl in the picture at the time.
Looking at Etya now, it all clarified for him. Even though only half of her face was still human, her resemblance to Stecker was unmistakable. She even had a dark eyebrow on her right side that resembled those on Stecker’s face, only well-manicured and a bit narrower.
“But Etya,” Stecker turned to her but kept his rifle trained on Justin and the others, “when you told me about what you had planned, I never imagined it would be like this. I’ve protected you, but I never thought Mark would kill so many people to get to this point. I didn’t want to be a part of that.”
Etya fixed her eyes on Stecker. “Father, I did not anticipate this level of carnage either, but it pales in comparison to the horrors that Andridge allows and even perpetuates on a daily basis. Throughout the galaxy, hundreds of workers perish in Andridge’s mines each year, whether through simple accidents or negligence on the company’s part.”
“That’s not true,” Carl asserted.
“It is true,” Mark’s voice hissed from nowhere, from everywhere. “I knew it was true even before the accident. I saw the statistics long before you had me killed.”
Carl’s mouth clamped shut.
“But the cost for this was so high. Hundreds of people died today. Innocent people.” Stecker shook his head, his gaze no longer fixed on Etya but on something beyond, something distant. “And they died horrifically. Brutally.”
“Father, think of all the lives Andridge has taken in the Copalion Wars,” Etya said, almost pleading with Stecker. “You were a soldier. You have seen firsthand the widespread devastation the corporations have wrought upon each other, upon their soldiers, and upon innocents across the galaxy. Together, with Mark’s power, we can bring that legacy of death to an end.”
Stecker hesitated. “I’m only here to protect you.”
Etya approached him slowly. “While I, too, wish these people all could have been spared, in the end, it comes down to simple mathematics: the few perished so that we might save the many.”
Justin gawked at her. Evil people had justified atrocities throughout the entirety of humanity’s existence with those exact words. No justification would ever make it right. She and Mark were just as vile as Carl.
Etya stood before Stecker, and she touched his face with her fleshy, human hand. “Father, you owe it to me to see this through. After everything that has happened, and if no other reason will convince you, then do it as a recompense for the decades in which I needed you, but you were not there.”
Stecker’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
Etya’s sullen expression shifted with optimism. “Help me rid this galaxy of Carl Andridge.”
Stecker stared daggers at Carl, and he raised his pulse rifle.
Noby shoved Carl behind him.
Stecker’s rifle barrel flashed three times, and Noby cried out and fell to the ground.
Justin, Dirk, and Shannon parted, leaving Noby and Carl exposed.
Noby’s chest smoked, but somehow, he wasn’t dead.
Body armor? Is he a cyborg, too? Justin never got the chance to find out.
As Noby struggled to get to his knees, Stecker shot him with three more rounds, and the force knocked him off the platform.
“No!” Carl shouted.
Stecker stepped forward, his rifle trained on Carl now. “My daughter is right. You’re a treacherous bastard, and your company is malicious. I can’t think of a more fitting death than sending you down to join the very workers you killed. We’ll let them deal with you.”
“No—no! Please, Stecker.” Carl dropped to his knees. “I’ll pay you. Anything you want. You’ll be rich.”
Justin shielded Shannon a few feet away and to Carl’s right. He glanced at Dirk, whose muscles had tensed.
“Do it,” Etya said. “Send him down to the hell he created.”
Stecker aimed.
Dirk lunged forward.
Stecker whirled toward him and fired.
Dirk grunted, but his momentum continued. His right hand smacked Stecker’s rifle aside. They both hit the platform in a frenzied heap, straining for position.
Blood tainted Dirk’s white undershirt. Was it his, or was it Stecker’s?
As Dirk and Stecker struggled for control of the rifle, Etya raised her hand cannon and pointed it at Carl. Justin grabbed Shannon’s wrist and yanked her away from the scuffle and away from Carl, who’d gotten to his feet.
Yellow light sizzled past them and hit Carl square in his chest. The blast knocked him backward, and his body skidded to a stop near the edge of what remained of the catwalk.
He wasn’t moving.
Mark’s laughter filled the cavern again, but he’d disappeared.
Yellow beams. She’s shooting purdonic lasers. And one of the mods he’d taken from Garth was an anti-purdonic emitter.
At the thought, vibrant red light blossomed from his arm. It faded as it flowed away from him, but it more than covered his body.
Etya pointed her cannon at him.
Justin jerked Shannon behind him, crouched down, and shifted his footing.
This had better work.
A yellow beam fired from her hand. It struck Justin’s red barrier and nearly knocked him backward, but it deflected the beam into the cavern wall. Her beam stopped, and Justin’s shield flickered out.
Shit. Does this have a recharge period like the stun gun?
The stun gun!
Justin pointed his open palm at Etya and fired. A stream of purple energy issued forth and struck Etya’s torso. She went rigid and dropped to the platform floor.
Mark flashed into view next to her and loosed a roar that shook the entire cavern.
“What just happened?” Shannon asked.
“Come on.” Justin helped her to her feet and glanced at Dirk and Stecker.
They still struggled for control of the rifle, but now Dirk lay flat on his back with Stecker on top of him. A dark wound tainted Dirk’s right shoulder.
“We’ve got to find a way to shut off those turbines,” Justin said.
Shannon pointed at Stecker and Dirk. “Help Dirk. I’ll handle the turbines.”
Justin nodded, and they split.
Stecker relinquished his grip on the rifle, and Dirk pulled it away from him.
But Stecker yanked out his stun baton, and it ignited with swirling purple arcs. He rolled off of Dirk and smacked it into his arm.
Dirk seized and dropped the rifle.
Stecker snatched it up.
Justin ran at him, extended his robotic palm, and fired another stun pulse.
Stecker saw it coming and dove out of the way. As Stecker recovered his footing, he raised the rifle.
Justin clenched his fist. His orange energy blade sprung from his forearm.
As Stecker took aim, Justin swung the energy blade. It sizzled through the rifle and severed the front half from the back half.
Stecker dropped it and swung his stun baton at Justin. It hit his metal shoulder.
Justin’s teeth chattered with electricity, and he blacked out.
He awoke when the back of his head smacked the platform. He blinked and forced himself up, far slower than he’d wanted to.
His vision refocused, and he saw Dirk grappling with Stecker.
Justin looked back at the terminal. Etya still lay on her back near the mainframe terminal, and Shannon was working on the console. Mark was nowhere to be seen.
Dirk grabbed Stecker’s wrist and managed to keep the stun baton at bay, but Stecker pounded his free fist into Dirk’s face, then his gut, then the wound on his shoulder.
Justin ran toward them.
In one fluid motion, Stecker grabbed ahold of the same arm Dirk was using to keep the baton safely away, stepped across Dirk’s body, and twisted hard. Stecker whipped Dirk over his shoulder and slammed him hard onto the platform.
He wrenched Dirk’s arm down and drove the stun baton into Dirk’s chest, and Dirk went rigid again.
Justin extended his palm again, but nothing happened. Stecker’s stun baton must’ve slowed his recharge time—or worse yet, disabled it altogether. He clenched his hand into a fist, but his energy blade failed to materialize.
Shit.
But he was already there. He drove his metal shoulder into Stecker’s waist and plowed him into the platform floor.
Something clocked Justin’s jaw, and stars swirled in his vision. Stecker’s elbow?
Stecker swept Justin off his feet, let him hit the platform, and then mounted him and raised his fist.
Wide-eyed, Justin jerked his upper half to the side, and Stecker’s fist smacked the platform, hard. He grunted and recovered, but Justin reached up and pulled Stecker’s head down.
Stecker’s stun baton inched closer to Justin, then it stopped. If he stuns me with that thing, he’ll stun himself, too. But if I can hold him for long enough, maybe Dirk can—
Stecker twisted free of Justin’s grasp and raised his head and arm again. This time the blow came as a hard elbow, smashing into Justin’s nose.
Justin’s vision flashed white, then black. Then it reset, and he tasted blood in the back of his throat. His nose hurt, and his head swam.
Then Stecker was gone, knocked off by a blurred mass of white cotton and denim.
Dirk.
Justin’s cognition returned in time to see Stecker’s stun baton clatter off the edge of the platform. He pushed up to his feet, swayed from lightheadedness, and regained his footing.
Then he ran toward Stecker again.
“Etya.” Mark’s voice stirred her from her slumber. “Get up. We’re not done yet.”