Severance

by Chris Bucholz

  A cloud of dust erupted in the wall beside him as a cloud of charged particles smacked into it. Two more sizzling sounds and clouds of dust bracketed him before he dove forward, rolling onto the escalator.

  He gracelessly descended to the second level in a series of bumps and tumbles. The terminal fumbled out of his hands and bounced across the street. He regained his feet and scrambled after it, more gunshots impacting the ground beside him. The terminal danced and skittered away from him, evading his clutching hands, before he finally was able to scoop it up and turned again, running to the other side of the escalator bank. Here, he stopped and waited.

  The security officer on his heels rounded the corner of the escalator bank and gaped like a fish for a second before he caught a blast right in the chest. Bruce mentally applauded his cool hand as he ran down the final escalator to the first level. From here, he picked his way down familiar side streets and corridors in a roughly northeasterly direction, heading to the dankest part of the ship he knew. This area had had its security sensors obliterated long ago, so that by the time the next security officer cautiously set foot on the first level, the big man had effectively disappeared.

  §

  “Bruce? Bruce?” Stein said, staring at her terminal accusingly, blaming it for the dropped connection. It was therapeutic, but a frivolous act. She knew it was Bruce who had stopped talking.

  She ran Bruce’s words over again in her mind. It sounded like he was asking to shut the power off for some piece of equipment in the Bridge fan room. But Stein couldn’t tell what specifically. He was pretty excited about it, whatever it was, but whether that was about Gabelman or his own easily excitable nature, she couldn’t figure. What she did know was that he was probably in trouble.

  Stein looked up at Curts, who was staring back at her, wide–eyed. “What was that about?” he finally asked, a forced edge to his casual tone. Stein looked down at the desk, trying to mask her expression. “Bruce being weird,” she said, which was normally a fairly conclusive explanation.

  She wasn’t sure there was much she could do to help Bruce at the moment. And she wasn’t in any danger herself — she hadn’t actually done anything. But as Curts continued staring at her, her eyes drifted over to the terminal clutched in his hands, the terminal he had been rapidly tapping out messages on over the last few minutes. It hit her. He knew. He had been dragging out the diagnostic process, stalling for time. But stalling for what?

  Not wanting to find out, she stood up and walked past Curts towards the door. “Where are you going?” Curts asked, standing suddenly as she passed him. She ignored him and broke into a jog. This was going to look suspicious as hell if it turned out she was wrong. And even if Bruce had been caught, she could simply plead she knew nothing about his antics. I simply thought my team member was assisting with the sensor diagnostics, Officer. Now that you mention it, he has been acting unstable lately, yes.

  When she reached the door her ruminations on cowardly betrayals were cut short when she spotted the security van, a block away and moving towards her. Free of rails, and only allowed on the first level, they were permitted to be used by few people, usually for cargo. The smaller, faster vehicles were used exclusively by security, one of which was rapidly heading in Stein’s direction now. A bit too much of a coincidence for Stein, she turned the other direction and broke into a sprint, no longer mindful of looking suspicious.

  Behind her, she heard shouts as the security van accelerated, plowing its way through a population unaccustomed to avoiding traffic. A loud thump behind her announced that someone hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough. Stein looked back to see a pair of security officers exiting the van, one yelling at the person he had just struck, the other chasing Stein. As she ducked around the corner, Stein silently thanked the man who had bounced off the front of the security van, and in doing so, bought her that valuable time. And himself some broken ribs, judging by the way he was bleating.

  Two blocks down the street, Stein ducked inside a pressurization–fan room, where she knew there would be an access point for a utility pipe–chase. Hurling herself to hands and knees, she scrambled into the tiny crawlway. These spaces were completely unnavigable to anyone who didn’t regularly work in them and only marginally less confusing to someone who did. By the time she heard the security officer enter the room behind her, she was already out of sight behind the first turn.

  A few minutes of frantic crawling passed before she remembered to turn off her terminal to prevent security from using it to trace her. Several more minutes of more labored crawling passed before she stopped for the second and final time, this time over a metal panel set into the floor. Popping it up revealed a space not much larger than herself. She rolled into this, then carefully reset the cover in its spot above her, sealing herself off in a secret coffin, alone in the dark.

  Previously

  Whether he had been preoccupied or simply lying, Security Chief Hatchens had yet to contact Harold since their first meeting, when he had breezily passed on the news of Kevin’s death. What little Harold had learned since then was thanks to the news feeds, though judging from the lack of useful information they had, it seemed Hatchens wasn’t talking to them much either. Most of their content consisted of artistic reinterpretations of the murder, none of which Harold found terribly helpful. Or tasteful.

  After a day of waiting, Harold finally decided to go to Kevin’s apartment himself. Kevin didn’t have any relatives to bestow his belongings to, and Harold supposed he should go there to safeguard anything of value before the government packed it all off to the recyclers. He might be obligated to, in fact; he realized there was a good chance he may actually be the boy’s next of kin.

  A block away from Kevin’s apartment Harold stopped, a thick security officer blocking the door. Harold hesitated and considering turning back for a moment, until the officer swiveled his meaty neck around and looked straight at him, at which point Harold gritted his teeth and continued on his way. As he approached, the officer leaned inside the open door and said something to an unseen figure inside. A moment later, Chief Hatchens stepped out and moved to intercept Harold before he could reach the door. “I’m afraid you can’t come in right now, Doc,” Hatchens said, placing his own bulky frame between Harold and the apartment. “This is a crime scene.”

  Harold looked over the security chief’s shoulder to Kevin’s front door. It was open, but from this angle he couldn’t see very far inside. “I thought his body was found on the first deck?” he asked. “Why’s this a crime scene?”

  “Because I said so,” Hatchens said in a tone meant to end conversations. An uneasy moment passed between the two men. Hatchens cracked a thin smile. “Come on. I don’t tell you how to do your job, Doc.”

  Harold stared back at Hatchens’ face and its display of false mirth. “I’m the next of kin,” he said, guessing. “I’ve got a right to go in there.”

  Nothing changed on the man’s face, but Harold could feel the security officer working through the implications of that. “You’re right,” Hatchens said finally. “I’ll personally ensure that nothing is disturbed beyond what needs to be for the sake of our investigation. I don’t think it’ll be much longer. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

  Harold grunted something which he hoped would be interpreted as sounding appreciative and left the security man. Although he had always kept his distance, he had never held any specific ill will for the security department, and had always been suspicious of those who did. Students and assholes, with student and asshole theories. Even here, he knew Hatchens was well within his rights; it was entirely legitimate for them to secure Kevin’s apartment to conduct their investigation. But he was starting to get a sense of what the students and assholes were on about.

  The next day he awoke to find a message informing him that security had cleared out of the apartment and Harold could attend to Kevin’s belongings as he saw fit. When he arrived at the apartment a half hour later, Harold fo
und the front door closed, the area completely vacated of thick people.

  As he’d guessed, the door unlocked for him without incident. He watched it slide open, revealing the simple two room apartment within. He stepped inside and allowed the door to close behind him. It was quiet. Harold felt like an intruder — he had never been there without Kevin.

  After he was hatched, Kevin had been placed in the care of the ship’s social services department, legally an orphan. Which wasn’t a huge problem for Harold’s work, as he had essentially unlimited access to Kevin throughout his childhood so that he could continue his work.

  And that work ended up going very well. Kevin was a remarkable boy, smart as hell, good in school, sociable, and well adjusted as could be. He had even made it into the navy. The antithesis of every stereotype of canned babies, Kevin was the perfect poster child for Harold’s work, even if he hadn’t wanted to be.

  There was more to it than work of course. Harold’s involvement with the boy may have fallen short of what an ordinary father would provide, but it was more than just a professional obligation. Whether as a mentor, or just an older, gray–haired brother, Harold was always there, ready to listen, or help steer the boy through the trials of adolescence. It wasn’t a textbook kind of relationship, nor a textbook kind of love. But it was still love.

  And now he was gone.

  Harold blinked away some of the moisture building up in his eyes and pushed himself into his clinical, data–gathering frame of mind. He started picking through the apartment, finding it full of the standard artifacts and detritus that tended to wash up in young men’s apartments. Sporting equipment in the closet. A picture of an unpopular musician on the wall, placed there for ironic purposes. Beside the desk, a framed image of Harold and Kevin on skates, taken when Kevin was about eight. Harold’s throat grew thick.

  But there were no pools of blood, or stained knives, or threats carved in ancient runes on the wall. Whatever Hatchens and his men were looking for, it probably wasn’t forensic evidence. But they had been in there for hours at least and could have searched it top to bottom several times over. It wasn’t torn apart — as promised, Hatchens’ men had reassembled everything in the same state as they had found it. Harold couldn’t figure out what any of this meant. Short of forensic evidence, what else could they be searching for? Some other sort of clue to the identity of Kevin’s killer, perhaps. Which would mean that it wasn’t a stranger — someone Kevin had known had done this.

  Harold mentally tried to assemble a list of Kevin’s acquaintances. He had given Kevin more space during recent years — young men didn’t need bearded geneticists cluttering up their social lives. It was Kevin who initiated most of the contact between the two, in fact; Harold never let on just how much he appreciated this. But their conversations had mostly been about work, trading grievances about that particular day’s labors. Nothing about the interactions with Kevin’s friends and — presumably — lovers. Harold simply didn’t know much about Kevin’s personal life. And he certainly didn’t know why someone would want to murder the boy.

  Weary, Harold sat down on the bed. There was nothing here for him. He’d assumed that when he got here he would spot some trinket or belonging of Kevin’s that he would immediately recognize as a perfect memento or keepsake. But there was nothing like that. He wasn’t even the sentimental type, he realized. The memories were good enough for him.

  Harold tensed, remembering the message that Kevin sent and recalled before he could read it. That must have been just before Kevin’s death. His mind raced, spitting out wild theories. Was it a plea for help? A warning? This time Harold refused to chide himself for his paranoia. An erased message just before Kevin’s death was too much to be a coincidence. There must have been something in that message. Something important.

  And Hatchens knew it, too.

  That explained Hatchens’ oddly casual behavior around Harold. Hatchens would know all about Kevin’s communications on the day of his death; it was probably standard procedure for such an investigation. So, it was reasonable to assume he knew of the message Kevin had sent and then recalled. Maybe he had read it himself. Would he know that Harold hadn’t read it, or simply assumed he had? Harold didn’t know enough about the messaging system to be sure.

  He wondered if the message explained the lengthy search Hatchens had been doing of Kevin’s apartment. Maybe the message referred to something he had hidden in the apartment? But, what? That, Harold couldn’t say. He looked over the room again.

  The picture was wrong.

  Harold tilted his head to look at the framed picture beside the desk of him and Kevin at the skating arena. Harold hadn’t been in Kevin’s apartment in over six months, but he knew that picture had changed since the last time he had been there. The flimsy digital frame normally displayed an image of Kevin’s graduation from the naval academy — Kevin in his uniform and an embarrassed grin, Harold beside him, eyes obviously watering. The only time Kevin had ever seen Harold uncomposed. That was why he had liked the picture so much; it had been in that frame for years.

  Harold swallowed, working through the permutations of what that meant. For him, the picture on the wall was a huge glaring clue; he knew exactly what it was pointing at. For anyone else — like a searching security officer — it would be meaningless. If Kevin had left a message only he could read, he had done it for a reason.

  Harold felt various muscles tighten, suddenly sure he was being watched, remembering his confrontation with Hatchens just outside. The security chief had calculated a little too obviously when he agreed to clear out of the apartment. He had wanted to see what Harold would find in this place, what the security officers missed. Harold looked around the room, trying to figure out where they would hide a sensor if they wanted to watch him. He then realized he had no idea what a sensor looked like or even how large one was. He turned his terminal over in his hands. That had a massively powerful sensor in it somewhere. A security sensor would probably be even smaller. He had read that during the war, the Hungry had rigged up special programs on their terminals to spot the things, which is how they’d been able to destroy them. But Harold, mild–mannered genetic engineer, certainly didn’t have anything like that with him now. He flexed his fingers, and took several deep breaths. Slow down, Harold. He reminded himself that the ratio of Actual Massive Shadowy Conspiracies to Predicted Massive Shadowy Conspiracies was vanishingly small.

  That said, some precautions probably couldn’t hurt.

  In a stack of boxes beside the desk, he found a paper book he had given to Kevin as a birthday present. It was from Earth and was decidedly worthless — everyone on board the ship had been hoarding natty Earth objects, convinced they would fetch them vast sums one day. He walked out the door, clutching the book tightly in his hand. As good a token as any to remind him of Kevin. And if his paranoid musings were correct, it would serve as one hell of a red herring for his watchers.

  Chapter 4: Stuck

  The first hour of every morning was Kinsella’s time, which he spent alone in his office, often doing nothing more productive than breathing. Sometimes he stared out the window, an enjoyable compliment to, but no substitute for, the breathing. Mostly, he daydreamed. Winning fistfights. Laying multiple women at once. Replaying recent conversations in his head, with wittier lines for himself. Winning fistfights with multiple women at once.

  He wouldn’t have much more time to spend like this. Probably wouldn’t have much free time at all for the next several months. He tried to enjoy the moment while it lasted. By himself, away from all those troublesome people.

  At 9:01 a.m., his assistant Bletmann opened the door to the office and stood quietly at the threshold. “Chief Thorias is on his way, sir. Should be another ten minutes.” Kinsella dismissed him with a wave, then watched the door close, before exhaling slowly. It was really happening.

  He spun around again in his chair to face the window, then allowed himself another couple of rotations, just for fun. He
would make sure to have this chair brought up to his new office. Or, get a second one made. Couldn’t hurt to have two. He couldn’t recall what Helot normally sat on. Something dull and utilitarian he imagined, just like the ass it supported. Kinsella extended his feet to the carpeted floor, allowing them to drag himself to stop. He looked out the window at the garden well in front of him.

  He was doing it for them, not that they would appreciate it. Not that they would even understand it. Not that they really needed to understand it. He didn’t need to understand them to do his job. Kinsella had watched from his window the previous day, as the horse–orgy wound through the streets below, progressing to its inevitably distressing conclusion. “Morons,” he said, shaking his head. And yet, it was ultimately the morons’ ship. They had a right to be heard, to have a voice. And he was the morons’ choice to be the morons’ voice.

  The morons’ voice spun around in his chair at the sound of the door opening, seeing Chief Thorias standing at the threshold. “You asked to see me?” the security chief said, his voice barely audible. Kinsella knew he did that deliberately, the big man that spoke softly; a trick he had read somewhere to appear more intimidating. Kinsella wished he had thought of it first. Awkward to copy it now.

  “Yes, Chief. It’s time,” Kinsella said, pausing for effect. “Will you accompany me to the command center?” A thin smile crossed Thorias’ face. He had been relishing this nearly as long as Kinsella had. Maybe longer.