Red Noise

by John P. Murphy

  The goons had left their weapons behind, and looked distinctly ill at ease without them. Still, alcohol and stronger stuff seemed to be propelling them toward something resembling social grace. That nobody seemed to be enjoying themselves didn’t appease the Miner in the slightest.

  “See, look at them,” Takata said. “They don’t really want to fight.”

  “Not each other, maybe,” Herrera said. “They’re all jelly-livered chickenshits. They’ll be happy to beat up miners and shake down your customers though, don’t worry.”

  “That’s what McMasters is for.”

  “Hah! Fuckstache is going to get shitcanned now Anaconda doesn’t need him. The minute those two kissed and made up, he became a liability. Hell, I bet Feeney’s already over there saying, ‘Now about those loans, Tom.’ Mark my words: he is out the airlock the minute someone has a half-decent excuse. It might even be him with the excuse once he figures out Feeney and Angelica won’t pay him off no more.”

  Takata brushed him off with an indulgent smile, then dashed back into the kitchen to retrieve another plate of skewered vat-meat. He’d been cooking non-stop, and had done some damn fine work, the Miner thought, with scant ingredients. At the crack of mid-morning a bunch of surly goons had descended on the restaurant and been made to each wash their hands under Takata’s close supervision, some of them twice. Mr Shine had brought up loads of sad-looking pale vegetables that had flopped pathetically in their crates, but Takata had been ecstatic to see them anyway. They’d shaken hands like old friends, and the former casino boss had given the Miner a long, thoughtful look before leaving without exchanging words with her. The vegetables had been chopped and sautéed, bandages applied liberally. Dozens of little mealworm flour pastry cups full of cooked fake egg with tiny bits of irregularly-chopped vegetables had gone out, along with lots of the charred skewers of vat meat with sauce, a lot of little pancake things with little bundles of shredded vegetation with a vinegary smell, and some little wrap things. Food had emerged from the casino and hotel kitchens too, looking to the Miner like reheated frozen stuff.

  The Miner caught a glimpse of McMasters in his black uniform, neatly pressed with everything shinable shined, escorting a frail-looking woman with expensive jewelry and the haunted look of a gazelle who’d wandered into a nature documentary.

  “The Company Rep,” Takata said in her ear. “I’m surprised she’s here. Usually she hangs out in her yacht hooked up to her VR rig all day trying to be anywhere else but here. I’m amazed she can still walk.”

  The Miner heard him, but wasn’t listening. Something about McMasters’ posture bugged her, and as she watched him she became convinced that he was seriously on edge. He wasn’t escorting the Rep so much as steering her like a gaudy wheelbarrow, in a spiral away from the center of the crowd.

  “Something’s up,” she said, and was interrupted by the crowd’s first real enthusiasm: Mary and Raj had emerged onto the balcony from Feeney’s hotel. They looked good, cleaned up and groomed and both wearing neat black clothes. The light glinted off of Mary’s spike implants and the iridescent scales at Raj’s temples, and they beamed down at the crowd. For their part, the goons filling the galleria seemed genuinely glad to see them, to the tune of whooping whistles, catcalls, and hollering of all sorts.

  Feeney tried to say something, but even amplified by a public address system was drowned out. He shrugged at Angelica, who gave him a chilly but tolerant shrug in return, then he laughed and turned and clapped. The Miner lost track of McMasters and the Rep in the crowd, and couldn’t see Mr Shine.

  The lights went completely out. The Miner’s artificial eye recovered so fast that she was more clued-in by the startled and dismayed crowd’s reaction than by the darkness. A single shot rang out in the dark, and Raj’s head exploded in a burst of red mist.

  The occupants of the galleria took a deep collective breath, and then, collectively and completely, lost their shit.

  APRÈS, LE DÉLUGE

  Screwball had been looking directly at the old man when the lights went down, otherwise he’d never have been able to find him when the shot fired. He clapped his arm around a slight form and for a second thought he’d gotten the wrong person until he caught a gasp of sour breath and heard Feeney exclaim. He felt frail in the dark, and his bones were palpable under the nice suit.

  They both tensed when they heard someone wail.

  “Mary!” Feeney whispered, and then shouted it, “Mary!”

  The crowd around them started to jostle and shout, and someone elbowed Screwball hard in the back.

  “Shh!” Screwball pulled Feeney in close. “I need to get you out of here.”

  “Mary!”

  “Whoever’s shooting might be coming for you. Keep your voice down!”

  He started to make out shapes in the dark, and started to shepherd the old gangster towards the edge of the galleria. They’d been right in the thick of things, waiting for Mary and Raj to come out – was that Mary making that noise? – and the closest way out was towards the restaurant.

  There was a scream of pain from close by, and the distinct sound of a fist hitting flesh. Scuffles in the dark turned into an all-out brawl, and Screwball struggled to keep moving as people and chairs bashed into him. He stumbled when something hard cracked against his shin, and he swore loudly but didn’t pull Feeney down. The old man’s arm went up behind his back and they stabilized each other as they got knocked and tossed around, but still managed to make progress as they could both see better.

  “The galleria is on lockdown,” boomed a voice above their heads. Screwball cringed, more from the surprise, but his ears rang with it. “Leave the vicinity immediately.” The message repeated, and suddenly there were thunderous clanging noises all around them, deafening for all they seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. There was a sharp scream from the other side of the galleria, silenced just as quickly.

  “The shutters,” Feeney yelled in his ear. Emergency lights circling the area glowed red, casting everything in crimson and deep shadow, and he could see for himself that their exit path was cut off. They pushed their way past the last few people between them and the outside wall, and stood for a moment next to someone curled on the deck, clutching her head and rocking.

  Behind them, Screwball heard more screams, and a sinister electrical crackle. Blue flashes reflected off glass and chrome, seeming to come from everywhere. Feeney shook loose and took off toward the hotel. Screwball dashed after him and tried to run interference as the crowd shoved and heaved, trying to get away from the security officers and their stun batons, but not knowing where they were.

  They reached the stairs, and Screwball wasn’t shy about pulling stunned fighters out of their way, even hurling them down the steps, and then they were at the top, and there was Mary, cradling Raj’s body and sobbing. Off to their right, the hotel’s doors stood wide open without their shutters. He turned to the left and saw across the scattering crowd of partiers that the casino doors were open, too.

  Feeney was shaking his granddaughter by the shoulders, but she shook her head violently and only clutched Raj tighter. “Have to get out” was the only bit Screwball heard, then there was a tug on his arm. “Help me!”

  It took some gesturing for Screwball to realize that he was being asked to move the body. He retched when he saw Raj’s wrecked face, and again when he slipped in the blood, invisible in the red lights, and landed painfully on his knee. Gagging on the strong smell of blood and shit, he still managed to get his arms under Raj’s armpits, and then drag the corpse backward.

  The noise from the galleria fell away quickly as he got traction and made it into the lobby. Stumbling and staggering people made it in behind them, coming first in a trickle and then all at once. “Get the poor boy up off the floor,” he heard Feeney say, and a couple pairs of hands were suddenly assisting him. There were some moments of confusion until someone said, “There’s a coffee table” and then that became Raj del Rio’s resting plac
e. Mary sunk to her knees in front of it, put her arms and head on his still chest, and Screwball saw in the bluish hotel light that she was sticky with blood from head to toe. So was he.

  There was a rattling metallic noise; he turned and saw the hotel shutters finally coming down. It had a calming effect on the crowd; maybe three dozen people stood dazed in the Ad Astra lobby, and it slowly dawned on them that they weren’t all on the same side. Screwball didn’t recognize a lot of the faces, but he did see one unexpected one: Mr Shine, standing a head taller than a lot of the others, sporting a blossoming black eye and cradling his left arm, had taken a position next to Feeney.

  The old man had stumbled back and was fending off Shine’s attempts to engage him earnestly. “Well, who could be calling me?” he said too loudly, like he was proud of himself. “What do you want, witch?” He grinned up at a frowning Shine, and slurred, “Oh, it’s only Angelica, whose brother is beastly dead.”

  The grumbling grew louder at that, and thankfully Mary seemed not to have heard it.

  “Enough!” someone shouted as the mutual glares and muttering started to progress to shoving, and Screwball was astonished to find that the someone was himself. But when they turned to look at him in surprise and irritation, he balled his hands. His heart pounded in sudden panic at being the center of attention, but he kept shouting anyway. “Knock it off! We’re stuck here and nobody gives a shit who you work for. You’re all assholes, you’re all even. So quit… Whatever… Just chill out, all right?”

  “Nice speech, dipshit,” someone muttered, but the fighting didn’t resume. People stared at their boots, stared at Mary, stared at him. But they didn’t fight. Screwball’s heart was still racing, and he took a moment to let the shock of adrenaline wear off. He looked around for Feeney, but the old man, and Mr Shine, were gone.

  AFTERMATH

  Takata’s angry rant trailed off after about ten minutes, after the noise outside the steel shutters finally died down. He’d variously accused the Miner, Herrera, McMasters, Feeney, Angelica, and several supernatural entities of engineering this catastrophe, singly and in unlikely partnerships. All of their rationales, however, were aimed at personally ruining him and his chances of making it off the station with two pennies to rub together. Herrera had the good graces to try to not look too triumphant, and the Miner was too puzzled to be either offended or amused.

  “McMasters knew something was up,” she offered when the rant subsided.

  Herrera nodded. “He had his whole crew suited up and ready to go.”

  Takata waved the comment away. “He probably figured it would turn into a riot the minute anyone spilled a drink. I don’t like the sonofabitch, but I have to admit, he was prepared.”

  “Mmm.” The Miner stared at the steel shutters. They weren’t the security shutters Takata used every night, but looked heavier and better-reinforced. “Are those airtight? Do we have an oxygen supply in here?”

  “Yes. Both. I don’t know if there’s any oxygen in it, so maybe we’ll all die like the two of you seem to want. So, good luck with that. Anyway, they’re intended for a hull breach, but I have to admit they’re pretty good for crowd control.”

  Takata poured himself half a tumbler full of something clear, and sat heavily at a table away from the Miner and Herrera. Judging by his wince at the first sip, the Miner didn’t think it was water.

  For her own part, the Miner was busy thinking. She looked down at her sword, and mistrusted it for the task. The gloves were well and truly off now, and she wanted at least a sidearm if not her rifle. She tried to communicate with her ship, but the station comms were down, and she was too far for a direct link. She couldn’t even get a ping response off it.

  “Why would someone have risked shooting Raj in public like that?” she wondered aloud.

  “You’d have done it,” Takata said morosely, not looking up from his drink.

  “’S a good idea,” Herrera contributed. “Dog-blowing little turd-fondler had it coming.”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t do it. Someone had decent low-light, good aim, and a good spot to shoot from. And an accomplice, probably, to turn off the lights and defeat the anti-projectile systems. And a damn good reason.”

  Takata snorted. “Trying to figure out which side did it so you can go work for them?”

  “It’s not either one of those two,” Herrera said. “Think about it. Who wants to keep Feeney and del Rio fighting, and isn’t worried about McMasters picking sides?”

  “Other than you two psychos? Mr Shine doesn’t care. Psycho number one here seems to think he’s the heir apparent. Maybe he didn’t like being dethroned.”

  Herrera scowled. “Why does she get to be psycho number one?”

  The Miner interrupted whatever Takata was about to say. “Do you think the back entrance is unlocked?”

  Takata stared up at her with undisguised suspicion. He’d put a dent in the drink already, and his face was becoming flushed. “Just can’t wait to join the fun, huh? Not enough blood already? You want to get back to juggling death and destruction?” To Herrera he said, “That’s why she gets to be psycho number one.”

  She let it go. A couple suspicions of her own were gnawing at her. She got up and went. The small kitchen had been emptied of “helpers” when the party started, but the bots were still out and cleaning up. The back hatch stood closed, and stayed closed when she tapped the panel.

  “Looks like it’s locked down too,” Takata said behind her. “Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

  She frowned at the panel. The “unlock” option was still there at the bottom, despite the lockdown. She tapped it, and heard a clunk. The door opened freely. She and Takata exchanged looks, and then before her better sense could catch up, she slipped out into the corridor.

  HOUSEKEEPING

  The Miner made straight for the docks, and wasn’t surprised to find the back corridors empty. She had seen the dockmaster at the party, so wasn’t worried about running into him, but didn’t know when he might find his way back, so she ran. The main entrance was wide open, and the docks were empty of people.

  She didn’t want to dally, but she still took the time to duck into the control booth. Finding his terminal open and on, she unlocked it, thinking to release the docking clamps on her ship. The Company Rep’s yacht was gone already; hers was the only ship docked. She paused when she found that they’d already been released, and dug a little deeper into the interface, one she’d had to learn in a hurry once on a mission. Glancing up through the window from time to time, she ran through the menus and found something: a notification attached to her ship’s entry. She didn’t have time to dig too deep, but it looked like it would send a message to some location she couldn’t decipher, the moment her ship’s airlock opened.

  She backed out of the entry for her ship’s docking bay, and after a moment of study, she found that the neighboring bay was out of commission for repairs. After a moment’s thought, she swapped their IDs in the system. Bay 5 with her ship attached showed up as defunct Bay 4, which meant that attempting to clamp Bay 5 would harmlessly set them next door. Just in case someone changed their mind. More importantly, opening the Bay 5 airlock wouldn’t notify anyone.

  Satisfied, she used the terminal to shut the main entrance doors and give herself a little cover, then she went to the hatch leading to the airlock for her ship. She tapped the direct link, and found that her ship wasn’t responding to voice commands, but she could override it from the panel and open the airlock. She slipped in and shut the dockside hatch behind her.

  The Miner stopped short when the shipside hatch opened. The cargo bay had been ransacked. All the ties and covers had been pulled off her equipment, and the equipment itself shoved out of place. Stacked pieces had been toppled, leaving broken bits of plastic and metal strewn on the decking. Her heart pounded, and she could feel her implants tighten, signaled by her rising anger. This wasn’t a search. A good search didn’t look like this, it was too easy to block things the
searcher hadn’t looked through. This was just vandalism. In the middle of the deck, beneath the upper walkway, little piles of peat moss had fallen.

  She ran for the upper deck, taking the steps three at a time, and froze when she got there and found the remains of a trampled Phalaenopsis. Its purple-and-white petals were crushed into the mesh walkway; its stem smashed on the wires. The pot wasn’t there, and the pale roots dangled.

  Shaking, the Miner knelt and scooped the flower up in two hands. She had to close her eyes to make herself turn toward the plant room, and it was some time before she could force herself to open them.

  The bonsai trees had been swept to one side and lay in a pile of shattered pottery. The orchids had been smashed and thrown around. The watering system had been pulled apart, leaking puddles onto the bench that hadn’t dried. One of the grow lights hung by a wire and flickered as it swung in the air mover’s breeze.

  She moved mechanically, forcing herself to work so that she wouldn’t think. She took stock, first of the damage, then her assets. They hadn’t found the cabinet with the spare pots, at least. The utilitarian steel tools were thrown around, but not stolen or broken. She rescued the trees first. The ficus was in the worst shape, with a branch broken badly so that it peeled a strip of bark halfway down the trunk, its milky sap already mostly dried. She cleanly cut the limb away, then trimmed and swabbed the damaged part clean. She cut away bruised and damaged leaves and roots, then repotted it. It was scarred, but would survive. She knew the feeling.

  The red maple had damage to a few smaller limbs, the new ones. She pruned them back and tried not to pay attention to the ugly lop-sided shape that resulted. Amazingly, the juniper just needed to be repotted.