Red Noise

by John P. Murphy

  “Hey,” she said casually.

  “Hello, Mick. Which damned girl had a talent for screwing up your plans, pray tell?”

  She heard footsteps behind her in the restaurant main entrance. She turned enough to see a small crowd. In among the baseball bats and stun batons she counted two shotguns and three small-caliber pistols. The tall kid, Corbell, stood behind them, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him, dead-eyed.

  Khalid’s ship was almost beyond the nav beacons. If Mary hadn’t sent the message, she would soon.

  “Where’s my granddaughter, Mick?”

  “Am I her keeper?”

  “Quoting the first murderer at me won’t endear you. I’m asking nicely. I don’t have to ask nicely. Where is she?”

  “She’s around,” the Miner said. The crowd behind her got closer, but hadn’t lunged yet. She couldn’t really sword-fight, not with her hand like that and her knee still hurting, but she could shoot a pistol left-handed even with the bum fingers. That still left a lot of crossfire. Off to the side, Takata was shaking Herrera awake, but there was nowhere for them to get away to.

  Feeney slowly walked around the bar, tapping his walking stick against the deck. “Let’s say you come back to my office, and we’ll talk.”

  “All right, let’s do that.” She finished off her beer and stood.

  SAY AGAIN?

  “Hello, Granddad,” Mary’s voice was saying in Feeney’s office. The message had come in while they were walking back to the hotel. Feeney had calmed down some, but insisted that she accompany him. And so the Miner sat in a chair, surrounded by a bunch of armed toughs, and listened. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way that I’ve left, but I’ve decided it’s time to move on. I’m on an ore hauler headed for Station 23.”

  The Miner sat bolt upright in her chair.

  “I’ve decided to become a nun. Don’t come looking for me, unless you also want to become a nun. You might be a cute nun, but they probably won’t allow it.”

  Feeney sat staring into nothing. Another message had popped up. He stopped the one that was describing the joys of convent life and played the new one.

  “Hello, Granddad. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I’ve decided to throw myself out an airlock.”

  He whirled and stopped it, but there was already another. With a haunted look on his face, he played it.

  “Hello, Granddad. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I secretly married Tom McMasters, and as his widow I’ve come into an enormous fortune in rancid mustache wax.”

  The voice sounded like her, but the Miner refused to believe it. Next.

  “I’m on a search for the biggest dildo ever made.”

  “I’m joining the Navy.”

  “I’m going to have my head surgically removed in the hopes that I might finally be pretty.”

  “I’m on an ore hauler headed for Station 36.”

  The Miner jumped in her seat. “That one.” The moment the words left her lips, she knew she’d made a mistake.

  Feeney slapped his hand down onto the controls. The endless parade of fake Mary Feeneys went quiet. He said nothing.

  “She asked me for help. She knew this fight with Angelica would end badly, and she thought if she went off on her own, that you’d follow. McMasters had booked passage to Station 36 for his sniper to escape; she took the berth. They left the station two hours ago.”

  “Are you sure?” he said quietly. His calm had menace in it. “That’s your answer? I rather liked the mustache wax one myself.”

  “I don’t know where those other recordings came from,” she said. “But she’s on that ship. I’m sorry, this wasn’t how she intended you to find out. Just contact it–”

  “No!” Feeney hurled a book against the window, then started picking random things off his desk and the floor and throwing them in every direction. The thugs behind the Miner ducked and cowered; she barely dodged a paperweight.

  “It’s a fake! They’re all fakes. She’s been drugged or hypnotized. It’s a fake so I don’t go looking for her. You know where she is, Mick.” His rant turned to pleading, his hands coming together as though in prayer. “I know you know. You have to know. Please, Mick, you have to tell me.”

  “I’m sorry, Feeney, she’s gone. But you can follow.”

  “I’m sorry too.” He glanced up at someone behind her and nodded very slightly. She didn’t have time to dodge away from the shadow coming down over her shoulder. Bursts of light blocked her view as searing pain went through her neck and her ears filled with the crackle of a stun baton. She gritted back a cry, but she heaved heavy breaths when it stopped, panting like she’d run up a mountain. They’d been fast with the duct tape, or else they’d applied the prod longer than she realized. Her left arm was immobilized and strong hands had her right arm, so that her bandaged hand blazed in bright new pain.

  “She wouldn’t leave me,” Feeney was saying. “I know she wouldn’t. She’s a good, loyal girl. I have to go rescue her, and you’re going to help me.”

  “She left, Feeney. She rescued herself. She got on a ship and she left, just listen to the rest of–” She didn’t scream when the baton touched the top of her head, or when she smelled burnt hair, but shit, that smarted. She wasn’t ready when Feeney strode forward and struck her across the mouth. Stars again, and damn it hurt, but the metal jaw probably hurt his hand more. He didn’t show it, but he drew back again and didn’t punch a second time. She ran her tongue over her teeth, not finding a loose one. “Calm down and listen. She’s going to Station 36. She’ll wait for you.”

  “Angelica has her,” he said. “What does she want? Money? Surrender?”

  The Miner laughed sadly and shook her head. “Angelica doesn’t have her.”

  “So you do know where she is!”

  “I told you where she is. She told you where she is.”

  “She doesn’t have the money, and she didn’t take any from me.”

  “I gave her the money.”

  Feeney hooted. “Now I know you’re lying! You, the most money-grubbing mercenary I ever met, paying someone else’s way? That’s a sad little lie, girl.”

  There was murmuring behind her, surprised. Feeney straightened up. “Oh. Ah,” he said, and looked uncertain. His voice was tentative when he said, “Welcome. I... It’s good to see you, my boy. I didn’t know…” He barked an uncertain laugh. “Well, I didn’t know you were coming!”

  “Funny what happens when you fly through a cloud of radioactive debris,” came a voice from behind her. Whoever he was, he had an amused tone to his voice, and a faint smoker’s rasp. “Messes with your sensors. Not good for your alarms. You should’ve seen old Sparks’ face.” He chuckled, and put a hand on the back of the Miner’s chair. She craned her neck but couldn’t see. “You’ve got guests?”

  “Traitors,” Feeney said, and sounded both exhausted and glad for the change of subject. He gestured at the guards standing around the Miner’s chair, who were looking dazed and uncertain themselves. “Take her somewhere. Guard her. When she’s ready to talk, tell me.” He sneered. “Make her ready to talk.”

  They dragged the whole chair instead of cutting her loose, dropping the back so her head hit the floor hard. Disoriented, she got a glimpse of the newcomer facing away from her as he helped himself to a drink at the sidebar, a tall thin man wearing a tailcoat and a top hat.

  A TURN OF THE SCREW

  Corbell paced, trying not to listen to the enthusiastic interrogation going on in the exercise room. Even he could tell they sucked at it, but they could dish out pain. There were two of them: that guy Carter with his arm still in a stupid-looking sling covered in black leather and studs, and the other was the girl called Whip who’d helped Raj run him off from the welcoming committee. That seemed like a million years ago. Was it only last week?

  He was supposed to be in charge, and had suggested a good cop/bad cop routine, mostly to avoid having to be directly involved. He felt sick to his s
tomach. Feeney was out of his mind. There was a new guy in there with him, people said. Walked in like he owned the place, and now nobody could get in to see the old man.

  Another smacking noise inside made him wince. He had to end this, just for his own sanity.

  He heaved open the door, and the three occupants looked at him. Whip looked disappointed, and Carter just gave him that resentful glare again. Their prisoner was bloodied and beaten, but kept her head up, barely. One of her eyes was swelled shut and her lip was split.

  “Take a break,” he tried to say lightly. “Don’t wind yourselves.”

  Carter took a look at his fist, where two of his knuckles were split. Whip still had the brass knuckles Corbell had thrown at her, and he decided not to remind her of that fact. They looked dubious and exchanged glances.

  “We don’t need a break,” Whip said.

  “Fine. The old man has some sensitive questions he wants asked, and he hasn’t forgotten that you two tools used to work for Angelica. Thanks for softening her up, now piss off.”

  Their expressions darkened, but they complied.

  “Thinks because the granddaughter’s dead he’s second in charge now, huh?” Carter grumbled as they left, probably perfectly aware he could be overheard. “We’ll see about that.”

  “What do I call you,” Corbell asked, ignoring them. “Mick?”

  She shrugged.

  He closed the door behind him. The exercise room was trashed – not during the interrogation, just in general. People had been sleeping on the various mats and the machines, leaving blankets and garbage strewn all over. The back door to the sauna hung open, and he could smell the mold. The locker room behind that... He’d been in there once, and not again.

  “I think this is the part,” she slurred, “where you ask me questions.”

  He blinked at her, surprised despite himself.

  “Not to tell you your job.” She laughed at her own joke, a ragged, rasping sound that put his teeth on edge.

  “Question, huh. Why?”

  She made an effort to look him in the eye, and her expression was sardonic. “If this is a new form of torture, it’s working. She’s headed for Station 36. Damn, I talked.”

  He shook his head. “Why all this? Why are all these people dead?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Who the hell knows.”

  “You do.”

  She laughed, softly this time. “I don’t. I hate being cheated. I can’t stand crooked cops. I can’t stand seeing people ground down by the pissant likes of Feeney and del Rio. All right, I lost my cool. Fine. But why did it work? Why do those two hate each other so much they’ll turn this station into a two-for-one funeral? I have no idea.” She coughed with the exertion, hacked and spat a pink-tinged gob onto the floor, courteously away from his shoes.

  “You could have killed Mary and Raj.”

  She shook her head. “Once I could have. Once I would have. Now... Guess I got soft.”

  He surprised himself, saying, “Nothing wrong with getting soft.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “There isn’t.”

  He looked away. “That gun they took off you, that said ‘Happy Birthday’ on it. That was Ditz’s. He was a friend of mine.”

  She said nothing.

  Whip had left her switchblade behind on a little tray of tools. He thought about Ditz. Somehow he didn’t think Whip and Carter would owe anyone a beer tomorrow. Her eyes followed him as he absentmindedly picked up the knife. He pushed the button and was puzzled for a second before realizing he held it backward. Turning it around, it popped open: a stubby little thing, sharpened down smaller than it used to be, but carrying a razor’s edge.

  He didn’t like torture. She’d told the truth, he figured. Or if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t. No sense dragging it out, letting creeps like those two get their kicks. He walked to the side of her chair, and saw her obliquely in the mirror: her upper half looked languid, almost asleep, but she was slunk down in the chair and her feet were braced against the floor. The cold calculations there... If he went for an arm or her face, he figured she’d just let him do it. Her chin was down, though. To go for the throat, he’d have to come close around back, and that chair would spring off the ground into his face.

  Her two arms were bound with tape to the chair. Her right hand was swollen. Her left hand had burn marks; the last two fingers looked like they didn’t move, but he squinted and wasn’t sure that was new. He took a breath and slashed the tape.

  For a moment, she didn’t move. “Killed escaping, is that your game? That’s been tried on me before, kid. Didn’t work out so well.”

  “No more killing,” he said. He flipped the knife around, held it by the blade. He held it up out of her reach for a second. “I just want you to know, you’re no better than us. I don’t know why they’re dead and I’m alive, and a lot of them were assholes, but they weren’t... They weren’t fucking expendable. You got that?”

  She looked like she wanted to say something, but he handed her the knife, and she just nodded once and got to work on the tape. It parted smoothly, though her movements were halting.

  He had no plan. He hadn’t intended to let her go – still, in point of fact, had not yet let her go, and still in fact had no plan.

  She rose unsteadily, and put the switchblade back on the table. She grinned, showing pink-stained teeth. “It was her grandmother’s, right?”

  THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF

  The Miner gritted through the pain that had made it through the neural dampers. She supposed she could count it a blessing that those two ghouls hadn’t thought it was much fun to burn, cut, or smash limbs below the waist. And she was extremely glad to have finally gotten annoyed enough with the hand pain to have had Doc Mills – over his objections – turn the pain regulators back on. Of all the stupid things she’d let them put in her body, those were the ones that scared her. They were addictive, and emotionally numbing to boot.

  They went out through the locker room. It had quickly become obvious that she would need help escaping, and she had pointed out bluntly that Corbell wasn’t a good enough liar to get away with his stupid “she hit me and got away” plan. Nothing was guarded on the way; the hotel had too many entrances, and with his reduced force, Feeney was relying on locks. Locks that Corbell could open.

  They made it into the service tunnels and down to the deck below.

  “They’ll figure out I’m missing soon enough and fan out. If they’re smart, they’ll check with the doctors.” She considered that sentence. “They’ll probably do that anyway.”

  Corbell nodded. “They won’t be able to go door-to-door too close to Angelica.”

  She shook her head. “Angelica’s holed up in the casino. If Feeney’s desperate enough, he’s got the run of the station. My ship’s no good. Takata’s restaurant’s the first place they’ll look.”

  She’d sent a message to him to lay low, and hoped desperately that he’d heeded it.

  Corbell considered. “Well, the control shack on the old mechanic’s bay is still livable, and Sparks cleared out. There are a bunch of places in deep, near hydroponics. We split up most of Mr Shine’s stuff, though, so better be careful.” He continued on for a minute, rattling off potential hiding places in the lower decks, including the barber shop where she’d found the fake Geronimo Rommel.

  “Perfect,” she said at last.

  “What, the barber shop?”

  “No, none of those.” She laughed at his perplexed expression, then winced. Her ribs made laughing hard. “I’m hoping they think like you do, it’ll make this easier.”

  He protested as they made their way counterclockwise and then back up the stairs. They moved slowly, and the Miner could feel her implants pulling far too hard on damaged muscles and tendons. With every step she dreaded that horrible sick feeling of something biological giving way.

  They could hear noise from the galleria level as they approa
ched it. Shouting and smashing noises came from down the passageways in all directions. The day lights had dimmed, but when Corbell ducked his head into the main spur, he reported a growing mob. Shots rang out, and the peculiar ping of the anti-projectile lasers, but the occasional scream reminded them that the lasers weren’t meant for heavy duty.

  The Miner pressed on through the pain.

  “That’s the security station,” Corbell hissed. “We’ve gone the wrong way.”

  “No,” she said. “That’s where we’re going.”

  They made it to the rear door of the security station and banged on it.

  “What do you want?” came a voice from inside.

  “We’re here to help,” said the Miner. She leaned against the wall next to the door, breathing hard. “Let us in.”

  “Go away!”

  Corbell swore, but she shook her head. “Not beaten yet.”

  Herrera answered her call right away. “Hey. Need another favor.”

  “Where are you? Are you all right? We thought Feeney would kill you.”

  “He tried. Listen, you can hire a new security chief, can’t you? If the Rep hasn’t?”

  She could hear his grin through the comm. “Yes I can. What title do you want? Commandant? Admiral?”

  “Not me. A guy named Steven Corbell.” Corbell stared at her, horrified. “He’s like you, he wants this shit to stop.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Corbell demanded.

  “All right,” Herrera said, cautious. “Where are you? It sounds like you’re close to the galleria.”

  “I’m outside the security station. And that’s the other thing. Can you identify yourself to them and tell them to let us in right fucking now?”

  They listened in silence to the cries and shots from the galleria, tensed and huddled against the wall as they saw people run by in the main corridor. Corbell had his pistol out, the chromed one they’d taken from her. Happy birthday.