by Erik Hanberg
“Give them a month,” Grace continued, “and I will vote in favor. That will make it unanimous.”
Galway glanced at the wrap on her forearm. “You think you can give Shaw time to save himself too,” she narrated from the scribe’s report of Grace William’s thoughts.
“Yes. And I want to give Ellie as much time as possible to figure out how to get out of orbit before her due date,” Grace answered.
“A month is too long,” Galway said, shaking her head. “I’m tired of having this hanging over our heads. Five days.”
“Two weeks,” Grace countered.
“One,” Galway snapped back.
Grace was silent for a few seconds. Shaw held his breath until she finally nodded.
Galway gave a wicked smile. “It’s agreed, then. You need to do more than just vote for this one. Make the motion, Grace.”
Grace Williams looked around the room before she spoke. “I move that one week from today—July 17, 2082—this group uses all weapons at its disposal to destroy the ship known as the Walden. And that we do this regardless of the people—born or unborn, innocent or guilty—who are aboard at that time.”
Chapter 2
Shaw touched his ring to his temple, leaving the jump. He was sweaty, despite the cool air circulating through the mostly-empty Walden.
One week.
He would go back and listen to the thoughts of Zella Galway and Grace Williams later, but in some ways he already knew what was there: Galway—along with many others—were appalled and then furious at Shaw’s not-guilty verdict. Galway had pushed the U.S. to begin his trial despite the fact that Shaw was still orbiting the Earth as Taveena’s captive on the Walden. She hoped that a guilty verdict would make the case easier for the U.S. military to shoot down the Walden. Mostly she wanted Taveena dead. The deaths of Wulf and Shaw were just a nice perk.
Her pressure was strong enough that Shaw’s lawyers encouraged him to agree before the issue came to a head. Nevertheless, he was reluctant to agree to the early trial. If Galway wanted it, surely it was a bad idea. But his lawyers—who had been provided for him by Grace Williams as part of his bargain to save Ellie’s life and reunite with her—were sincere in thinking it was a good idea. It only took a jump into their minds to prove that.
Before he agreed, Shaw had asked Ellie for her advice. He explained that the trial could clear the way for him to come back to Earth as a free man. He would be free to be with his family—whenever they were able to get off the Walden, that is.
“You’re worried about the wrong problem, Byron,” she’d told him. She pushed off the floor and sailed, weightless, up the vertical hallway to her bunkroom. And that was all she had to say on the subject.
Shaw told his lawyers he was in, and the judge ruled that so long as Shaw was present—whether in person or in a jump—the trial could go forward.
Shaw hadn’t been prepared for just how long it would actually take to be present during a trial. He spent hours and hours of his days jumping into a drab courtroom in Carson City, Nevada. He listened as his state of mind was meticulously researched and examined; as the prosecutors and defense attorneys plumbed the depths of his inner psyche, guiding the jury on jump after jump to moments throughout Shaw’s life. He listened as his childhood, his work at the Nevada Lattice Installation, his time with the raiders, was heavily scrutinized by the prosecution and defense.
And in the end, he listened as members of the jury acquitted him of all charges.
The lawyers assembled by Altair had convinced the jury to give a not guilty verdict through the testimony of clinical experts who showed that Shaw had suffered from… Stockholm Syndrome. They showed Stockholm Syndrome’s effect on the brain on several abductees and prisoners throughout history. Then they showed the jury Shaw’s brain patterns during his abduction by Catholic terrorists in Rome as a child, and compared those to his brain patterns while he was aboard the Walden, a captive of the raiders. The jury agreed.
It felt like a version of “not guilty for reasons of insanity,” and Shaw hated that his lawyers had used it on his behalf. But it had worked.
And it had enraged Galway enough that she had immediately called together the members of the Lattice cartel to write their own verdict.
To be carried out in seven days.
His only ally in that meeting room, if you could call Grace Williams an ally of anyone but her partner Nosipho and her company Altair, might have negotiated to get a few extra days for him to save his own life and the lives of Ellie and his unborn daughter. Yet she had still voted in favor of his death and that of his family. With friends like these…
Shaw shook his head to clear the thought. A week was a week. He had to believe he could come up with something. As someone in the meeting had said, he’d pulled rabbits out of his hat before. Why not this time too? That hope was the only thing keeping him going these days.
He untethered from his bunk, slipped out the door, and went to find Ellie. When he got to her door he paused and strained for any sound from within. Nothing. He knocked softly. Still no sound. As he waited, he still couldn’t quite get over that she had chosen to have her own room instead of bunking with him.
He waited long after it was clear there would be no response.
Shaw passed silently through the halls but didn’t see her anywhere. He paused at the only locked room on the ship—the control room, as usual. Taveena was somewhere on the other side of it. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d seen her. He kept going, searching the ship room by room.
Behind every door he opened, he just found more silence. He still couldn’t get used to the quiet ship. It had been crammed with people the last time he was on it—eight raiders, and he had made nine. With nothing but silence, the ship was populated by memories. Behind this door was the room where he’d finally gotten a chance to really talk to Erling; behind that door was the mess hall where he had told Tranq and Kuhn and Helix how he would have taken out the Lattice. Over there was the airlock he and Annalise had used to exit the Walden and repair its surface after it had been damaged. Here, just outside the great room, was the place where Helix had told him she was bitter about Jpeg’s death.
Every one of them was dead. But to him, the empty ship was populated by their ghosts.
He opened the door to the great room. The Earth loomed out the window—they were passing over the Pacific in bright daytime, bathing the room in blue. Wulf was alone, standing in the middle of the room staring up at the Earth.
Shaw’s heart sunk. With no sign of Ellie anywhere on the ship, that meant that—just as he’d feared—she’d been in her bunk all along, ignoring his knock on the door.
A sign of the times.
Shaw debated whether to slip out before Wulf noticed him, but finally decided he needed to consult with someone. Having the smartest man in the solar system available to him was not the worst option. He stepped forward.
Wulf turned toward him, and his gaunt face caught Shaw by surprise. Here in the light of Earth, Shaw saw just how affected by the year’s events Wulf truly was.
The scientist had lost a substantial amount of his bulk, thanks to his time in a German hospital and the food rationing he and Shaw had voluntarily enacted, allowing Ellie to eat as much as she needed. (If she’d noticed, she hadn’t thanked him.)
Wulf’s injuries from the tunnels under Geneva during their raid were—in theory—healed. But Shaw kept seeing Wulf’s hand stray to the spot on his stomach where the laser had pierced him. Wulf also had a disconcerting inability to get his right leg moving at the same speed as his left. In micro gravity it didn’t affect him much, but there were certain motions that caused him to grimace in pain.
Wulf’s care had been almost entirely received before the Lattice had been revived. And while several midwives, obstetricians, and pediatricians had used the Lattice to consult with Ellie in recent months, no one seemed willing to risk their own neck consulting with Wulf, who was still considered a terrorist by most gov
ernments on Earth. Shaw wondered if things hadn’t been patched up inside him as well as they could have.
Wulf turned away from Shaw and looked back up at the Earth.
“Were you one of those boys who grew up loving dinosaurs, Byron?”
“Sure. They were the best. Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops, raptors. I had holograms and even old-fashioned plastic figures of them. By the time you invented the Lattice, I had grown out of that phase, but I still liked jumping back and watch them during the Cretaceous and the Jurassic. What about you?”
Wulf shook his head. “No, for me it was always the asteroid that killed them that fascinated me, not the dinosaurs themselves. I’ve always been an astronomer first. When I came up with the Lattice, I was just trying to build a better telescope. Yet nothing I ever do in astronomy will surpass the Lattice’s creation. I don’t have a place in science anymore. Not after what I’ve done aboard this ship. I’m a dinosaur to this new breed of scientists who are using it to explore the origins of the universe and look for alien civilizations.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “And since without me the Lattice wouldn’t exist, I guess I’m the primary reason I’m a dinosaur. What an unusual combination. Somehow I’m both the dinosaur and the asteroid that made the dinosaur extinct.”
They were silent together and then Wulf gave the wrap to Shaw without a word. Between them, they only had the one wrap and ring. Shaw shared freely of the wrap. The ring was harder to part with. Much harder.
Shaw had assumed that the weeks he’d spent without a working ring during the Dark Eighteen Days had cured him of any possible addiction to the Lattice. As it turned out, not having a working Lattice and choosing not to use the Lattice when it was omnipresent, were very different things. Was it possible that the time without a connection to the Lattice had made it even harder for him to part with it?
He pushed the thought away. “Were you watching Galway’s meeting today?” he asked.
“I didn’t need to listen to know what they were going to decide. Besides, I was sure you had it covered. How long do we have?”
“One week.”
“Hmm. That’s more time than I expected. I wasn’t sure I’d live through the night, to be honest. Why so long?”
“To give Ellie time to get off the ship. Maybe you and me too.”
Wulf met Shaw’s eyes directly. “I know you want to get out of this alive. But let’s be clear: It’s not going to happen. Maybe… maybe you can get Ellie and your soon-to-be child off this ship. But you and I are as good as dead.”
Shaw couldn’t help it. Hearing it from someone who was supposedly had the smartest mind in generations, was a dagger to the soul. Who was he to argue? But he had to. “I think you and I can go, too,” Shaw said. “Taveena doesn’t need me anymore. She wanted me to help her destroy the new Lattice and no matter how much I’ve tried, it’s pretty clear I can’t. No one can. Taveena’s accepted that.”
“Trust me, she’s accepted no such thing.”
“She and I worked on the problem for months. We destroyed dozens of Lattice satellites and new ones just self-replicated on the other side of the planet. The two of you both tried to hack into the new system, but you couldn’t get in. And they just laughed at us. The CEOs let us try it, just to show the world how impregnable the system is.”
“Nothing is impregnable. There’s a way.”
“No! It’s too good. The two of you are two of the smartest people alive—you invented the first Lattice and Taveena’s spheres powered its second incarnation—and still, you couldn’t hack into the system. What else is there? If Taveena can’t hack into the software and if we can’t destroy the satellites, the Lattice is here to stay. Full stop. And if the Lattice is here to stay, she doesn’t need me to play pretend at military strategy!”
“Playing pretend? Give yourself a little more credit, Byron. You showed us—and the world—that you are capable of finding strategic vulnerabilities in systems where no one else has. Taveena probably thinks you’ll still figure something out.”
“Maybe I don’t want to figure it out this time! I saw plenty of what happened the last time.”
“Yes. We all did.” Wulf scuffed his heel on the floor and looked away.
Shaw knew that the Dark Eighteen had affected Wulf dramatically. It had been Wulf who told Shaw that losing the Lattice would be a hiccup. It had been Wulf who told him that only the most industrialized countries would be shaken by losing some of their modern conveniences. But, of course, it hadn’t been like that at all. Shaw could tell he constantly dwelled on it, and constantly wondered how he had gotten it so wrong.
“Listen,” Shaw said hesitantly. “There might be one way we can get free. You and I and Ellie.”
“Storm the castle, you mean? Cross the drawbridge and pound on the gates until Taveena opens that door and then—” Wulf drew a line across his throat.
“We don’t have to kill her,” Shaw murmured.
“No. Although when it comes to that, knocking her out and abandoning her here is the same thing. As soon as we escaped the Walden, Zella Galway and her cronies would blow her out of orbit.”
“They’re going to kill her sometime. She’s not going to die of natural causes at a hundred thirty.”
“No,” Wulf agreed.
“I just want to save Ellie. Surely you understand that.”
“Of course I do, but that’s not exactly what we’re talking about, is it? Ask yourself, do you want me to help save Ellie or do you want me to help kill Taveena? They are different things.”
“Killing Taveena saves Ellie.”
Wulf shook his head. “Maybe. But it’s not enough. You see only her vengeance. I see her pain. The reason she’s doing all of this is because she believes the Lattice is terrible for humanity. She sees the way people become addicted. The way people lose their connections with each other. The way it ravages and destroys families and relationships and so much more. She’s shown it to you, remember? She took you on a guided tour of all the worst sides the Lattice has to offer. You forget all that, but I don’t. I was with her before you. For years we were together. She wants to do good, Byron.
“And now… She’s lost everything. Everything she believed in and worked toward for years has been wiped away as if it never existed. Everyone she worked with, except for me, is dead. If I betrayed her now… well, it’s just not in my nature. She deserves better than that from me.”
“I need to know your answer, Wulf,” Shaw pressed. “Are you willing to help me save my wife?”
Wulf sighed. “Yes. I’ll do whatever I can to get Ellie off this ship. But I won’t help you kill Taveena. That you’ll have to manage yourself.”
Shaw knocked on the door of Ellie’s room, but again there was no answer. Now that he knew she was in there for sure, his knocking felt different. Painful. She was listening to see if he’d go away. And he was listening to see if she’d come.
He gave up.
His ring buzzed and he realized he was late for a call.
He hurried to his own room and put his right ring finger to his temple.
He was in a jump. It was a chat room, designed to look like his old high school computer lab. At a table, in his usual spot was Shaw’s oldest friend, Peter Mayfield.
“Ready to get started, Byron?” Peter asked.
Shaw nodded. “You saw what happened today?”
Peter nodded solemnly. “One week.”
“And we’ve been working on this for months. With no success.”
Peter nodded again. “We’ll find the answer. C’mon. Let me show you what I’ve found since we last talked.” He kicked a chair over to Shaw and Shaw sat down next to him.
Shaw, Peter, and their friend Elvin had been inseparable in high school until Elvin had become addicted to orgasm jumping through the Lattice. Elvin had followed the usual addict’s journey—looking for a fix wherever he could get it and eventually resorting to theft to fund his addiction. Peter, on the other hand, had joined the Blue Skyer mov
ement, a group that had sworn off using the Lattice entirely.
A few months ago, Peter had abandoned his Blue Sky beliefs long enough to make contact via the Lattice, and they set up these regular check-ins during which Peter offered whatever help he could to get Shaw off the ship. As a result, Peter had been kicked out of the Blue Skyers. That Peter was willing to be excommunicated from the movement that had so inspired him had humbled Shaw.
“Look,” Peter said, “I finally found Taveena’s code for booby-trapping the control room. Any tampering with the door to the control room will automatically open all airlocks and internal doors, except to the control room, of course. and expose the entirety of the ship to…”
“…to the cold vacuum of space,” Shaw finished. “Right.”
“We knew it would be something bad,” Peter said quietly.
“Sure. I just didn’t think that trying to gain control of the ship would mean risking Ellie in the process. What else did you find?”
“There are a lot of things that would trigger the airlocks, unfortunately. Opening by attempting to hack the secondary ship controls in the great room, manually shutting off the air in the control room, trying to reprogram the ship’s autopilot, attempting to—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the gist,” Shaw said. “Anything I can think of—and probably plenty of things I haven’t—will result in me and Ellie being violently sucked out of the ship.”
“You and Ellie could probably get into spacesuits before trying,” Peter said.
“Maybe. But doesn’t that just delay the inevitable? We’d be… we’d be out of the ship.” A new thought dawned.
“You’re wondering if there was a way to turn that to your advantage?” Peter asked.
Shaw nodded, his mind racing. “We could attempt to raid the control room not with the goal of actually getting in, but with the goal of triggering the security system. Airlocks open, we’d be prepared and … boom. We’d be outside the ship. Exactly what we’ve been working toward.”
“Use her own security system against her, basically,” Peter concluded.