§
“So, when you get a desk like one of these sent to you, what do you do with it?” Bruce asked.
“A desk like one of these? We put it right here,” the recycling plant supervisor replied. “Beside all these desks.” He pointed at the massive stack of desks, just one stack in the room full of shattered furniture. He winked at Bruce with one of his heavily wrinkled eyes. On board the climate controlled Argos, it was hard for any person to look weathered, but this man managed it somehow. Bruce wondered what effect the recycling process had on the local atmosphere.
“You don’t do anything else with it? Like wipe its memory?”
“Oh, sure. We’re definitely supposed to do that.”
“Supposed to? You mean you don’t?”
The recycling wizard licked his lips. “You know how many people care about the recycling department? How many people come here and ask questions?” He studied Bruce’s face.
“A lot?” Bruce guessed. “Because people find you and your work enthralling, and love to hear your stories?”
“Hah!” the recycler said. “No one gives a good goddamn about recycling.”
Bruce’s heart raced. “Okay. I’m looking for a specific desk. Which hopefully still has some data in its memory cache.”
“A specific desk, you say? Well, what does it look like?” The recycler waved his hand at the stack of cracked and broken desks, all identical, save for the damage and disfiguring marks that presaged their visit to the room.
“You don’t keep an inventory?” Bruce asked.
The recycling wizard’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know how many people care about…”
“No one cares. Got it. Okay, I’ll look around.”
It only took forty minutes before Bruce found the right desk. The crack across the screen wasn’t terribly distinctive — it was a common problem with desks and asses on board the ship — but the corners and edges of the desk’s surface were badly chipped and scuffed from its life in the maintenance office. He stared at it, a mixture of excitement and worry washing over him. He had no idea how he would find out if there was any information on there, much less how to get it off. By powering on the desk, it would probably connect to the network and be immediately wiped.
“If I wanted to get the data off here, do you know how I could do that?” Bruce asked.
“You mean without anyone finding out about it?” the recycler asked, grinning. “I might be able to help you out with something like that.”
Bruce gritted his teeth. “And will you?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m the first person to have spoken to you in months?”
The recycler considered that for a moment. “Fair ’nuff.” He retreated to his little office, returning in a minute with a modified terminal with its rear cover removed, a long strap protruding from the circuits within. The recycler crawled under the old maintenance desk, and after some prodding around, popped off a panel. Some more fiddling attached the thin strap to something inside the desk. He set the terminal down on the floor gently and crawled back out. “Takes a few seconds,” he explained.
“Done this before, then?” Bruce asked.
The recycler scratched his cheek, then made a vague gesture with his hand. “Sometimes find some pretty interesting things on these units. Usually not. Usually not worth my time.” He looked up at Bruce and winked. “Sometimes is.”
Bruce desperately wanted to avoid learning what was worth the man’s time, so he stopped talking to him. They waited in silence for the next few seconds until the terminal beeped. The recycler undid his handiwork with the cables then tapped a few commands into the terminal. “I’m wrapping all the information within a generic document with no access restrictions,” he explained. “Makes it a little cumbersome to read, but it won’t look the same if anyone on the network is scanning for it. Your terminal?”
Bruce held up his terminal, thumbing the confirmation to accept a terminal to terminal file transfer.
“Though if this is real important, I’d put a copy on a dummy. Got a spare one right here I can sell you.”
“Maybe another time,” Bruce offered. The file downloaded, he tucked his terminal away. “Can you keep a copy yourself, though? Just in case?”
“Was going to anyways.”
“Thought so,” Bruce said, backing away from the strange little man.
§
Thumping and groaning sounds heralded the arrival of Griese, the man himself arriving a minute later, crawling headfirst out of the crawlspace. He stood up in the pump room, clothes spotted with grime, offered a wan smile to his wife, turned to Bruce, and shook his head. “I checked three. Two of them had doors down and locked.”
“And the third?” Bruce asked.
“That was the vent. Same deal, different door. Kind of a slatty kind of door.”
“Damper,” Bruce corrected him.
“Well, it was also locked.”
“Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuck,” Bruce said, exhaling heavily. He kicked over a chair. “Fuck you, chair.”
Using the drawings that he had recovered, Bruce had been trying to find a way into the aft of the ship that didn’t involve strolling past a dozen security officers. But there were only a handful of between–deck passageways large enough to fit a person, all of which were apparently shut with the same kind of bulkhead doors blocking the main streets. Griese had offered to investigate those on his behalf — the underground stuff had always been Stein’s specialty due to Bruce’s diameter issues.
“I did only check three,” Griese said. “Maybe one of the others will still be open?”
Bruce shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
“So, what now?” Ellen asked. “Can’t you bypass that somehow? Isn’t that part of your job?” she asked. “What is your job, anyways?”
Bruce righted the chair he had just kicked over, then kicked it over again. “Probably. No, definitely. It just won’t stay secret for long. They’ll have a big screen which will start flashing red, saying some asshole is opening doors.”
Griese sat down at the crate that was serving as their workbench. He gave his wife a grimy hug, which she squirmed away from. He then turned to the plans open on the terminal in front of her. Neither of them had actually admitted yet that they believed the theory about the ship splitting in two. But given the goodwill they generally felt for Stein, and the ill–will they generally felt for security officers, it hadn’t taken much convincing on Bruce’s part to get them involved.
“Have you come up with any brilliant scheme we would employ if we could actually get past these doors?” Griese asked.
Bruce jabbed the terminal, dragging the image on the screen, his heavy touch spinning the terminal around as he did so. “Sort of. If she’s anywhere, she’ll be in the security base. Not that we’ve really got a good way of getting in there anymore. Not one that doesn’t require shooting a bunch of dudes in the face, anyways.”
“I still don’t see what’s wrong with that plan,” Ellen said.
“Too many dudes. Too many faces.” Bruce tapped idly on the terminal, the map shifting in a jerky manner. “If she is here,” he said, pointing at the holding cells, “she’s completely on her own.”
Ellen snatched the terminal from Bruce’s hand and concentrated on it. Suddenly, a startled look appeared on her face. “I’ve got it! Okay, here’s what we do. Bruce, you put on a skirt. I’ll bake a cake with a file in it. Then you go to the security chief, seduce him, eat the cake, and stab him in the neck with the file. Ok? Good, because next the plan gets weird.”
Bruce snorted, not especially amused, and not game enough to return a volley. He nodded absentmindedly, eyes moving up, drifting across the pipes running across the ceiling, continuing to nod, the nod starting to make him look a bit unhinged. He stopped mid–nod. “Oh, shit. Cake. Of course.”
“Shit cake?” Griese asked.
Bruce looked at Griese solemnly. “That’s right, friend. Shit cake.”
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A lengthy pause, accompanied by more crazy nodding from Bruce. Griese and Ellen shared a glance. “I sure hope he’s using that as a figure of speech,” Griese said.
“Bad news for them if he isn’t.”
“Bad news for everyone if he isn’t, I think.”
§
Leroy Oliver made his way to the front of the crowd, his best friend Rick close behind, helping him through the mass of people with judiciously timed shoves. The plaza in the northern end of the garden well was already full, crowds spilling over into the surrounding streets. Even with the short notice, a lot of folks had shown up to see their mayor speak. Or get arrested. Or shot. Anything interesting, really.
Leroy collided with a bulky blond man, who pushed Leroy back harder than Rick could push forward. They had reached the front of the crowd, on the southern edge of the plaza. There wasn’t much to see — a desk had been dragged out of an apartment building and placed against the wall. A loose semicircle of stupid–looking guys was arrayed around it. On top of the desk, Leroy could see men adjusting some sort of device on a stand, the sound equipment that would be used to broadcast the mayor’s voice and make it sound more regal. The whole operation looked laughably makeshift.
Eventually, the men on the desk stepped down, satisfied with whatever they had done. The crowd began to simmer, bubbles of anxious whispering percolating to the surface. Another five minutes passed before Mayor Kinsella stepped out of the apartment door, where he was hoisted gracelessly onto the stage by one of his large men. A handful of people began clapping, but this failed to catch on, the applause lamely petering out a few seconds later.
§
A growl deep in Kinsella’s throat, which he struggled to tamp down. Normally, Bletmann would have salted the crowd with more clappers, but he evidently hadn’t had the time for this occasion. No applause would have been better than that feeble exhibition; it would have lent the event a somber, sober effect. Now, he just looked unpopular, some asshole with a microphone.
“Good evening, citizens,” the asshole said into the microphone. “I am here to speak to you about the events of the past week — the events that have caused so much confusion and mayhem. I apologize, deeply and sincerely, for the lack of communication from myself and your government. I can only state that this disruption has affected me just as much as it has you. Perhaps more.” He frowned, looking down at the text Bletmann had insisted on preparing for him. That idiot. Eyes back up at the crowd. “No, not more. You have suffered more than me.”
“Although a victim myself, I have not been idle. Your government has been working tirelessly to uncover the truth about what has happened over the past few days.” Kinsella took a deep breath and put his ‘very serious and extremely concerned’ face on. “But I’m sorry to say that the truth is far different from the story we’ve been told by our captain.
“First, the parts that you already know. Captain Helot has seized control of the aft of the Argos. In doing so, he has deposed the Argos’ rightfully elected government from power and forced several hundred innocent civilians from their homes. He has slandered and falsely accused me and other innocent people. These acts alone rank amongst the most outrageous crimes ever perpetrated in our history. But they pale when compared to what Helot tried to do first.”
A chorus of chirrups interrupted Kinsella, erupting from every terminal in the audience. A small cough, then the diffuse sound of Helot’s voice speaking via the ship’s public address. “The only thing I’ve tried to do is protect the ship from your plot, mayor. Everything you’ve said is a lie. Everything you’ll ever say is a lie.”
Kinsella swallowed and remained calm. He looked down at Bletmann on the floor below him. Kinsella said nothing, letting his eyes talk for him. “Blind rage,” the eyes politely informed Bletmann.
Bletmann swallowed. “Keep talking,” he mouthed, pointing at the audio system they had set up. Kinsella got it: the system was a hack job, completely independent from the ship’s main PA system. Helot could interrupt, but not silence him.
“Everything I’ve said is the truth!” Kinsella shouted back. “Asshole!” he added. A few hurrahs from the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I’m not spoiling your innocence when I point out that the mayor does occasionally lie to us,” Helot said. “We all know this. We expect it from him. That’s why we voted for him. Because he was the best liar.”
“I am not a liar!”
“Hands up if you suspect the mayor might lie sometimes,” Helot asked the ship.
Hundreds of outstretched hands appeared almost instantly, their numbers swelling as the crowd exchanged reminders with each other of his past over–promises.
“The reason the mayor is lying right now is to cover up what he’s done,” Helot continued. “He was planning to destroy the engines of this ship so that we couldn’t stop at Tau Prius.”
Gasps filled the crowd, most still standing with their hands up.
“That’s the biggest lie of all!” Kinsella shouted. “You were trying to split the ship in two!”
Helot laughed, a fake, forced, utterly unbelievable stretch of a laugh. But the audience laughed alongside him. “Kinsella,” Helot began, his exasperation clearly feigned, at least to Kinsella’s ear. “Do you have any proof of this at all? Of these wild accusations you’re throwing around?”
“You told me all of this yourself!”
“Do you even know what evidence means?” The audience laughed again. A woman in the front row fainted. Not now, you idiot. Kinsella glared at Bletmann, who waved frantically at someone in the crowd, which only seemed to prompt more women to faint.
“Allow me to show you what evidence means,” Helot continued. “You’ll recall our conversation right before you tried to blackmail me into silence?”
“What?”
“Security Chief Thorias is shortly going to be transmitting proof to the ship that you ordered the creation of falsified images of child pornography, which you intended to plant in my personal effects. To blackmail me to stand aside as you attempted your plot.”
“That’s not why I was trying to blackmail you!” Kinsella shouted. He groaned at the exact same time that everyone else in the crowd groaned. “That was a joke,” he shouted. “I was joking.” At the edges of the crowd, people began filtering away. “Come on! I’m not the bad guy here.”
Helot went in for the kill. “Kinsella’s been on the run ever since his plot failed. That’s why you haven’t seen him; he’s been hiding from our security teams. And now he’s trying to orchestrate a coup. Or more of a reverse coup.” Clearly seeing the same looks of confusion on the crowd’s faces that Kinsella was looking at, Helot hesitated. “A coup is when the army…never mind. A coup is a bad thing. Kinsella is doing a bad thing.”
The crowd had no problem accepting that. A discontented murmur started to build, punctuated by a few angry shouts and at least two more faints. “Stop doing coups!” someone close to the stage yelled, pointing at Kinsella. “Stop couping us, Mayor!”
“Are you fucking serious?” Kinsella shouted, quivering. “You fucking imbeciles.”
“I would ask the citizens of the Argos to please restrain the mayor until security can arrive to take him into custody,” Helot said, the punch line echoing off the buildings lining the plaza.
Kinsella knew when cowardly running was the better part of valor, and had already leapt off the stage by the time Helot had finished his request, retreating into the building from which he had emerged, his bodyguards forming a vanguard behind him. They at least had understood who was really couping who, or perhaps more likely, hadn’t followed the conversation at all.
§
A click interrupted the daydream Stein had been having about punching her boss in the face. In an alcove on the side of the room, a meal bar rattled down a chute, bounced once in the dispensing alcove, then fell to the floor below, marking the arrival of lunch time.
Getting up from her bunk, Stein crossed the r
oom and picked up the meal bar, her bruised body complaining with every movement. It turned out that Hogg was amongst the gentlest of the security goons; every other one Stein had met since her capture had taken a vigorous interest in foiling the many attempts at resisting arrest they imagined she was making. Although not an expert on the matter, she suspected she was earning a little more attention than most criminals in custody. So, they actually think I set off a bomb.
The cell was nicer than the one in the bow, not much different from the basic ultra–low–end studio apartment she’d had in school but for the door that never opened. A solid platform mounted to one of the walls held a pair of mattress approximations, one above the other. In the opposite corner sat a toilet, beside that a sink. Further down the wall was the alcove where food regularly crashed into view. An armored security sensor in the upper corner of the room watched over everything dispassionately. Opposite the bunk was a desk, outwardly identical to every other desk on board the ship. Inwardly, it had a sharply limited interface and was unable to send messages or access many parts of the network, only allowing the cell’s occupant to read filtered selections from the public news feeds and library. Stein had done little but read this for the past two days, at least when not fantasizing about making her boss wet his pants in front of his new peers. She slumped down in the chair, and began picking at her meal bar, paging through the news feeds.
Kinsella’s impromptu debate with the captain was all anyone was talking about. Even knowing that he was telling the truth, she still thought he had come off poorly. That said, it appeared there were still a few people taking his side; being labeled a criminal had actually improved his reputation somewhat. Argosians loved an underdog.
She turned off the desk and painfully flopped into bed, rolling onto her back, her eyes sliding up the wall towards the ceiling and the membrane housed just over the door. The membrane regulated the carbon dioxide differential between the room and the corridor and could seal shut in the event of a vacuum on either side. The only opening in what would otherwise be an airtight room, this particular membrane, unlike most, was secured behind thick metal bars. She had already identified it as the only potential route of escape. But two days of staring at it — and she couldn’t have been the first of the room’s residents to do that — had yet to reveal a way through those bars.
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