Orbital Burn

by K. A. Bedford

  The shooting ceased.

  She wondered if one of the hovs would break off to hunt Dog through the city.

  The hovs landed, shut off their thrusters, turned off the sirens. The suffocating reek of fuel was thick in the air. She felt her hair standing up, her skin tingling and her belly protesting from proximity to the floatfields. She heard their fusion powerplants spinning down. Toxic smoke from charred pavement blew away in the salty breeze.

  The huge searchlights were focused on her. It wasn’t possible to see the hovs behind the lights. She tried to shield her eyes with her hands — and saw their bones, dark within red-pink skin. There was a dim glow even through her palms.

  Bladder threatening to burst, she shivered. Even if she could run, she probably couldn’t move from this spot.

  Not a great moment for the memoirs, she thought.

  The cops took her back to the local Orbital Police base and put her in a holding cell behind a vault door. The air was dry and stale with no hint of vents anywhere. The holding cell stank of previous occupants. There was scarring on the concrete floor and on the unadorned walls, as if items of furniture had been thrown around, their corners gouging surfaces. They left her there for several hours. Lou couldn’t tell how long. A lightbar in the ceiling hummed loudly the whole time. She’d swear it was getting louder.

  Where was Dog now? What was he doing out there? What was his state of mind? She tried not to think about the pooch running around town, hiding from cops, maybe trying to find Kid on his own. Hating her, a human he thought he could trust. She wanted him to trust her. Her hand was almost all fixed; the tink saw to that. No scar at all, just a bit of stiffness in the repaired tendons.

  There was a scar inside, though.

  Lou was consumed with hating herself. Curled up, wincing, she felt like she had let Dog down. And yet, even if she had run off, what made her think she could have avoided the cop’s guns? She wasn’t that fast, and wasn’t that agile. Not like Dog. The cops might have been prepared to let the pooch go, but they would hunt her down with every resource they had, no matter how long it took. She knew that. She remembered only too clearly filling in all those form earlier in the day. Dog, Lou thought, would be better off without her.

  She thought, too, if they had hit her, dissolved her head, probably her tink would try to rebuild it, if it could. She’d heard of cases where all the bits each tried to regrow the rest of the body, nanofacturing tissue and organs — only to run out of local cellular tink. Heard, too, of folks shot in the head, and when the tink fixed the wound from local DNA blueprints, the brain worked fine, but some traits, abilities, and glimpses of memory were gone.

  A female disposable officer came in. “Good Evening, Ms. Meagher,” she said, in an unidentifiable accent. The woman was dark-skinned, no fractal decorations for her; her scalp bore a white tattoo: the Orbital Police Authority logo. She was tall and thin, like Lou, but carried an air of capability and power. She did not smile, even for the sake of politeness. She took Lou’s clothes. Her valise, guns, Active Paper pages and the key to Ocean House, that she’d never used, had already been confiscated. And now she was losing her last bit of dignity. It was like saying goodbye to a former life. There was a full cavity search, too. The officer was brisk, businesslike, and described her actions aloud for the sake of surveillance devices Lou couldn’t see. She didn’t abuse her authority, either, which amazed Lou. She’d heard stories about the cops in Stalktown going nuts with prisoners during “routine questioning”. The cops here on the Orbital, so far at least, were different. They respected due process, even considering Lou’s medical situation. The officer scanned Lou’s tissues for classes of nanobots that Lou didn’t even know existed, and took a sample of her tink from her backside.

  The officer squatted on the floor to ask Lou some questions. Lou sat, bunched up tight, arms around her knees, ankles crossed. Questions like, what was she doing around 1800 Akane City Time tonight? Did she usually carry such an unusual gun? Did she know that three individuals, including one prominent Orbital citizen, had been found murdered with ammunition from a gun precisely like the Bausch and Franke Lou was carrying? Did she know her particular Bausch and Franke showed marked evidence of having been fired within the last few hours? And that, assuming a full ammo-pack, did she know her weapon was missing a number of rounds commensurate with the number of rounds found at the scene? Did she know that at present, according to a comprehensive Orbital-wide search of Customs records, only Louise Meagher, of all the millions of people aboard the habitat, had a Bausch and Franke ten-millimeter handgun?

  Moreover, the officer went on without pausing to let Lou speak, several witnesses saw a woman and a dog leave the scene. When shown passport images of Lou, three out of four witnesses agreed it was probably her that they saw.

  The cop also wanted Lou to explain about selling the NP-2 to the street pawnbroker on Skulldugger Row. It turned out that trafficking paramilitary weapons to civilian pawnbrokers was illegal, too. Said weapon was now loose somewhere in the Orbital. Police were searching for the current owner.

  Lou had nothing to say. There was nothing she could say. She figured she was busted. The charges were one count of murder and two counts of unlawful killing, for the business with Giselle and the Glittering Tourignon Dancers, and one count of trafficking in paramilitary weapons. The officer told her if she got lucky with the judge, she could be out of prison in about thirty years.

  Lou sat there, feeling numb, trying to take it all in. She was almost a convicted murderer. Hard to see how she could get off, considering the evidence against her, and the presumed hefty influence of the deceased’s family.

  It all seemed remote. Right now, as the officer told her all this, in her matter-of-fact all-business tone, all Lou could think about was one scared witless dog roaming the city. And a certain male disposable kid, probably close to death, confused and frightened by what his captors were doing to him.

  The officer went away. Left her in there, naked and exhausted. After a while, she didn’t know how long, they turned off the humming lightbar. She managed a light, fitful sleep, curled up in a corner, facing away from the door, and tried not to think about bugs crawling into her body.

  She sat up a moment later, gasping in shock, blinking in the dark, tears running down her face.

  A dream. She’d had a dream. Not like other times, when she thought she might have had one, even though dead people didn’t have dreams.

  This was real, like when she was a kid. Vivid, colorful. She remembered smells, and voices.

  Lou sat, rocking, eyes shut, trying to get back to that state, to remember. She had to remember, and couldn’t remember ever being this excited! A real dream!

  A sunny field. Butterflies. Yellow flowers, sunflowers. No, not a field. A garden. Mother kneeling by a flower bed, weeding, wearing a big woven sunhat, with a long red ribbon tied around it, trailing down her back. White dress. I’m just a kid, watching my mother’s shoulder muscles working through her dress fabric. The smell of rich soil. A pile of doomed weeds and nettles next to Mother. Mother pausing a moment to wipe sweat from her face.

  Saying to mother, “Mommy, can I help?”

  And Mother turning around, smiling.

  Only it’s not Mother kneeling there.

  The cops kept her in the cell eight days.

  A prosecutor came by one day. He was dressed like a monk, in black wool robes, with a long thick brown beard. He was a real human, too. The prosecutor told Lou that her trial would be held very soon, as soon as the victim’s family could arrive. The facts of the case were clear and not in dispute. Lou was not required to plead. The trial would be more about sentencing, and showing the victim’s family the sight of the criminal getting severely punished, the spectacle of Orbital justice being done. The prosecutor used the phrase, “God’s flaming sword of justice,” on several occasions while exp
laining this to Lou, his eyes intense, locked on her. He didn’t look like a man who had much use for irony.

  “So it’s a show trial, then. Is that what you’re saying?”

  The prosecutor smiled. “Not at all. The trial is a ceremony. God has already judged you guilty of the crimes you committed. He judged you as soon as you killed that woman and her guards. We, in the Office of the Holy Judiciate, are simply coming along and sweeping up after Him.”

  “What kind of justice system is this?”

  “Evidently,” he said, “not one with which you are familiar. But you’ll find it most effective. We have very little crime on the Orbital.”

  “Giselle Tourignon was in the process of abducting me!”

  “Yes. You gave that statement to the arresting officers. We have it on file and have already taken it into account. Thank you.”

  The prosecutor got up to leave. He stepped towards the cell door. Lou heard the lock opening. “What about the presumption of innocence?” she said, standing.

  He turned. “Good day, Ms. Meagher. My work is done.” As she stood, aghast, he slipped out the door.

  The door closed.

  Lou found that flinging herself around the cell, screaming and yelling, hitting things, did not help.

  She wanted to talk to her mother.

  Where was Dog all this time?

  Bloody hell…

  Lou slept.

  Lights flashed on. Lou winced, hiding her eyes.

  An officer appeared, a male disposable, tall and plump with pale skin and cold eyes. He tossed her a set of cotton overalls, prison blue, and told her to get herself ready for court in two minutes.

  Pulling on the cold overalls, Lou spotted a tag printed on one sleeve. Property of Orbital Police Authority. Reorder Number 440-34-2555. Blessed by the Office of the Holy Judiciate.

  She decided she better not fart while wearing these things, and immediately regretted the thought. She was remembering the prosecutor’s visit, telling her about God judging her actions, and finding her guilty.

  The garment was too small. It was tight across the back and in the crotch. Hunching over, Lou found she could move okay without feeling like she was about to burst out of the flimsy thing.

  The cop came back, noted she was ready, and grabbed her elbow. He didn’t cuff her or try to restrain her. But then, where would she go, dressed like this, with such limited resources?

  The cop said nothing to her the whole way to the court complex. Lou looked around at her grim surroundings. Everything was dull gray concrete walls with white offsets. Sometimes she saw huge static display posters promoting VIGILANCE, SECURITY, AND SACRIFICE. There was a variety of these, all urging the same qualities, and all from the Office of the Holy Judiciate. Along the tile floor she saw several colored directory lines, and noticed, as she moved, that she was following a pale blue one. This means of navigation surprised her; she was used to much fancier technology. These guys, however, seemed more inclined towards simplicity. She saw plain crucifixes on office walls, mounted behind large wooden chairs that didn’t look comfortable. There was a pervasive smell of some kind of harsh antiseptic cleanser, with tones of ammonia. She saw what she presumed were the senior officers, using either fixed or handheld Paper displays. She wondered if they used internal head systems and neuroid structures. Probably, she figured, only the disposables were permitted such corruption, leaving the human officers pure. Not that she saw many officers. There were fewer staff than she expected, perhaps less than twenty; she only saw one genuine human, who looked like a senior commander, working at a desk, studying a huge desk-sized display of the city. He was dressed like the prosecutor, but in red, with rank insignia.

  Lou only saw four other prisoners, all in the same blue overalls, escorted by disposable lower-ranked officers. One of these prisoners, a woman, still wore traces of fractal skinpaint. From Lou’s brief glimpse, it looked like someone had tried to wipe the stuff off, and was none too gentle about it. She saw small smears and streaks still swirling and shifting against the woman’s golden skin.

  They arrived in what appeared to be another building: the walls and floor were finished with polished granite, in contrasting subtle shades. Four big, impressive wooden doors stood on each side of the wide passageway. The wood, Lou noticed, was beautiful, a rich russet color, polished to a mirror shine, and carved in an intricate fashion reminding her of images she’d seen of illuminated manuscripts from Earth’s Middle Ages. She saw some judicial staffers, walking around, full of purpose, dressed in similar monk-like robes to those that the senior cop she saw earlier wore. There were about a dozen other prisoners here, too, sitting on the benches next to their cop escorts, waiting their turn. They all looked resigned to their fates. A few media crews worked their way around this area, shining their dazzling lights in prisoners’ faces, asking idiotic and annoying questions. The cop escorts threatened these crews with harassment charges if they didn’t move away from the prisoner concerned.

  A surprising number of people milled about, all whispering. Lou looked up and saw, high above, a glowing stained glass atrium, full of multicolored daylight and flitting, possibly synthetic, birds. She heard them twitter and squawk, chasing each other around the white atrium support structure.

  Lou was full of mixed feelings. For the most part she felt a weird kind of fatalistic calm after her extended wait in the cell. She’d had lots of time to think and decided she was off Dog’s case. She felt lousy about that, regretful, but didn’t see how it could have gone differently. She hated leaving Kid to swing in the breeze, surrounded by predators, and still remembered the sound of the kid choking. Lou kept remembering her first sight of Kid’s face, from Dog’s memory feed, and how the kid had been helpless, but not unhappy. How Dog had told him to go along with what Kid thought was a game. And she thought of Dog and his sad brown eyes. Sometimes she couldn’t get it out of her head. Lou wasn’t keen on going to prison for the rest of her existence, either. She quirked her mouth in a wry smile: she never did get to read that letter from her mother. Then again, she never got to hang out with Jen again, either. Wasn’t that typical — get something you really want, and then you’re too damn busy to enjoy it!

  And finally there was Bloody Tom, man of mystery and intrigue. Never have to worry about his stupid self again, either. There was some bleak pleasure in that prospect. Even though, if she hadn’t taken his damn launcher, she could have avoided at least some of her present trouble.

  Screw it. Might as well admire these atmospheric surroundings. Chances were, after today her digs would be rather more dingy.

  Lou took the damn case for all the wrong reasons, she knew that. She’d been unprofessional, letting sentiment override judgment. Hell, the dog had manipulated her!

  Lou took some deep breaths, as if to clear out the air of the past and bring in the air of her new reality, as a convicted murderer.

  It was still hard to think that she really did murder a person. She had trouble remembering the details of how it happened. She did feel sorry about it, but she also felt that she was defending herself from an abduction. Maybe she could argue self defence, if they gave her a chance. It occurred to Lou that she had very little idea how the justice system on the Orbital worked. So far nobody had presented her with a defender of any kind, or offered her legal services to prepare a defence. Maybe the case against her was too strong. Maybe she carried a taint of evil so obvious everyone could smell it except her, like body odor. Maybe she had no rights because she was a dead person. That would be about right. And there was all that contractual documentation she signed at Customs, agreeing to be a good little dead girl for the duration of her visit. They might just as easily chuck her out of an airlock for looking at a cop the wrong way.

  Yet, Lou figured the main reason she felt so strange today was that dream she’d had in the cell. She wondered if she would ever h
ave another. Dead people like her were supposed to be incapable of dreaming, and that incapacity contributed towards the madness that began to affect nanovirus victims when they approached Stage Five of the condition. If Lou was suddenly, inexplicably, capable of dreaming, she might somehow avoid a terrible fate..

  When Lou’s time ran out, she wanted full awareness.

  But there had been more to that dream. Its memory pulled at her, insistent about wanting her to see something. She remembered, closing her eyes, concentrating on the bit where Little Louise asks her mother if she can help with the weeding. And Mother turns around to look at Little Lou.

  Only it wasn’t Mother she saw in that dream.

  It was Kid.

  And in this dream, Kid was not the drooling almost-dead weakling she remembered from Dog’s memory-feed. Dream-Kid was a strong, handsome young adolescent, though still wearing the same torn red jumper Lou remembered from the feed. He looked fifteen or sixteen, with breeze-blown hair gleaming in the afternoon sun.

  His eerie colorless eyes smiled at her.

  Chapter 19

  “Ms. Meagher? It’s time.”

  Lou blinked, surprised, and looked up at the cop. She had not realized she’d been so deep in thought and felt an unnatural chill wash through her. Here it comes, she thought.

  There was a sign over the chamber door across the hall. Gold gothic script against dark polished wood, it read, Judicial Chamber II-IV.

  Shivers ran across her skin. Her mouth was dry.

  The cop opened the big double doors. “The hearing starts in about ten minutes. I’ll be taking you inside and guarding you.”