by Jason Hutt
“Too long,” he said, “Three weeks.”
“You must really love being in space. Not me, I tried it once and threw up all over the place.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Just as well,” he said, “I doubt you’d last a day up there.”
“Rude,” she said and then picked up her drink and walked away. Akimbe shook his head and frowned. He forced down another sip of his drink and then turned his attention to his wrist computer. A note from Roland popped up.
Djimbe,
I hope you are well. I’ve heard about what’s going on and I’m sure you’ll be reinstated quickly. Try to keep yourself busy. Take in a couple of movies, get out of the Capitol and see some sites. Whatever you do, stay away from the bars, especially in the city. Try not to sit and brood.
I came across something from all the filters we set up to track the Cabots and knew you’d be interested. The Earth surveillance grid reported a system error last night. A contact appeared on radar and then disappeared 135 seconds later. Visual scans reported no sign of any ship, so the event was catalogued in an anomaly report.
We know Max is in custody. We know his daughter and his ship are not. Note sure if they’re related, but it’s something to keep an eye on. I’m sending this to HQ but I doubt it’ll ring any alarms. Probably nothing, but thought I’d mention it to you anyway. Maybe it’ll give you something-
Somebody pushed his shoulder.
“Hey asshole, what’s your problem?” A spiky-haired, fair-skinned young man glowered at him. Two dark-skinned young men flanked the kid on either side.
“You don’t want to do this,” Akimbe said after he finished the final sip from his glass.
“You didn’t answer my question, asshole. Why were you rude to Charise?”
Akimbe turned back toward the picture window, ignoring them.
A dark-skinned hand patted him on the shoulder. Akimbe breathed deep and scowled, keeping his gaze straight ahead. He flexed and squeezed his hands into fists – open, close, open, close. Each flex in time with a deep breath. Akimbe felt the hand grab his shoulder and he let the young man spin him around.
“Hey!” The young bartender yelled. “Not in here or I call security!”
Akimbe just sat there scowling at the kids. An arrest would not look good in his review board hearing.
“Hey buddy,” the fair-skinned kid said, “Let’s go check out the view.”
The largest of the three pulled Akimbe’s shirt, standing him up. He followed along with an amused smirk. The four of them squeezed into the lift, one on either side of him and the fair-skinned one in front, facing him.
Akimbe could smell the alcohol on the young man’s breath.
“What do you do?” Akimbe asked, “What do you do that allows you to be in this bar at this hour?”
“I’m not a sandie, dickhead. I do whatever the hell I want.”
They stood there, staring at each other. The young men puffing out their chests, trying to look intimidating. Akimbe started laughing. “You don’t deserve what I give you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The lift doors opened. They dragged him out onto the roof. At fifty floors up, the air was thin and cold and the wind whipped across the rooftop. Akimbe had enough of their stupidity. With blinding speed, he chopped the Adam’s apple of the man on his right, swept his leg around to knock the man to his left on his back, and then lunged forward and grabbed the fair-skinned young man by the lapels of his jacket.
“You insignificant little piece of shit, I give you all of this. I give you the right to live this life! Without me, you have nothing! Without the work that I do, you wouldn’t be able to look down your nose at the poor people that you call ‘sandies’! Those people at least work for a living. What do you do?”
“Screw you, man. Let me go!” There was a tremor in the kid’s voice. His eyes were wide from witnessing the speed and ferocity of Akimbe’s attack.
“I will decide whether or not you live!” Akimbe lifted the kid off his feet and started walking him toward the edge.
“What the hell are you doing? Get spaced man.” The bravado had disappeared from the young man.
“Never forget that it was I that let you live.”
“You’ve lost it, space cadet,” the kid said.
The spark of anger in Akimbe ignited and he slapped the trembling kid with a backhand across the face and then came right back with his forehand.
“You owe all of this to me!” He slapped the kid again. “To me!”
He dropped the kid onto the seat of his pants, turned on his heels, and walked back into the lift.
***
Maria stood just outside the cell door waiting for the telltale chime that the security scan was complete. Night had fallen outside the facility, though you couldn’t tell that with the lack of windows and the gleaming ultra-bright white lights that illuminated the white-walled corridor. She had expected she would follow the glowing white line to the visitors’ rooms and was surprised when she instead was lead to the door marked ‘Infirmary.’
The scanning system buzzed harshly and a red indicator light appeared above the door. Maria waited a heartbeat, then two, all the while gnawing on the inside of her lip. Finally, the red light turned to green and the door slid open. She steeled herself with one final, measured breathe and took a step forward.
Max Cabot lay on his bunk. Maria gasped when she saw his face. His right eye was swollen shut, his upper lip a bloody, mangled piece of meat, a gash creased his cheek, and the rest of his face was covered in bright red marks that would soon become colorful bruises. He didn’t move as she walked in.
The door slid shut behind her, and the echo of the mechanical lock latching the door shut was as loud as a gunshot. Maria opened her mouth to speak, but the words hung in her throat. She had no idea if he even knew she was here. She cleared her throat; he started.
Slowly and with obvious pain, he turned his head toward her, but he didn’t get up. He squinted with his left eye.
“For ten years, I’ve imagined this moment,” Maria said, “For ten years, I fostered the belief that you were the devil himself and that when that door slid open and I walked in here that I would unleash a torrent of hate that might cause you to burst into flames right on the edge of the bed on which you lay. I have spent the better part of a decade hating you, hating everything I knew about you, hating everything you could possibly be. I wanted you dead.”
She stared at Max. She wanted him to tremble, to cower, but he just laid there. Bits of dried blood were splattered across his face. His eyes were glazed over from painkillers but she could see tears welling in them.
“Ten years ago, my husband and my son died with you.” Her voice shook, but she continued, “My only son. My Nick. I remember the night he walked out my door. I remember the look of uncertainty on his face, the fear. Every day, I regret not reaching out to him, not holding on to him, not saying something to stop him. I regret not doing something, anything, that would have kept him safe, that would have kept him alive. Through all that time, the people who I blamed the most were that psychotic doctor who had the good sense to die that day…and you.
“I made it my mission in life to see you brought to justice. I ran for public office and have enacted legislation with the express purpose of hunting you down…of killing you…so you could pay for what you did that day.”
She hesitated. Max had tears running down his face. She wanted to look away because to look at him was to see his pain, but she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Max said. The words were slurred, liquidy, and soft as they left his mangled lips.
“I hate you,” Maria said, “I can’t just let that go.”
Max started to speak, but Maria raised a finger.
“For the past two weeks, I’ve been watching the memories of a little girl and I have seen that my anger, my hatred, has been misplaced. But ten years of hate is not that easy to wash away. Ten years o
f build-up, of expectation, and I almost hate you more for having the satisfaction of this confrontation ripped away from me.”
“I would give anything to give Nick back to you,” Max said.
Maria stepped forward and raised her fist, she wanted to hit him just for speaking his name. She stood there, hand balled into a fist. Max lifted his chin up and closed his one functional eye.
“Go ahead,” he said, “I deserve it.”
She didn’t speak; she just stared at him as her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Maria opened up her fist and Max could see the small silver cylinder she had in her palm. Maria slid her thumb over the side and the cylinder elongated into a foot-long prod. She stared at it.
“I bought this two years ago,” she said, “I’ve carried it with me every day. The administrator of this facility, someone who I’ve helped with modest budget increases over the years, knew that I was bringing this in. He overrode the security scan so I could bring it in here. They expect me to jab you with this as many times as I want, as many times as I need, until you’re left a quivering mess, writhing on the floor.”
“Do what you need to,” Max said.
“Killing you would be too merciful.” Maria stared at the prod and pressed her thumb to the control stud. It sparked and crackled as she held it in front of him. Her hands began to shake and her knuckles turned white as her grip on the baton tightened. “I hate you.”
Maria shook her head in disgust and threw the baton against the far wall. It shattered into several pieces and clattered across the floor. Her jaw unclenched and she took a calming breath.
“I can’t do this. You’re not the man I thought you were. You’re not a demon or a devil. You’re just a beat up old man.” She turned and headed for the door. She stood with her hand just above the touchplate that would signal she was ready to leave. She chewed at the inside of her lip. “In truth, I need your help, Max. My people need your help.”
Chapter 19
Somewhere farther down the dark tunnel someone fired up a laser auger. Hannah recognized the familiar hum from when she lived in the ever-expanding subterranean hideaway on Maisha. As families trickled in, Victor Chen had coordinated with the base engineers, plotted out the directions for new tunnels, living spaces, and other rooms needed to house the families that had come to seek shelter. No more though, Hannah thought, Victor won’t be directing any more expansions.
Hannah slowly rolled her head from side to side, working out the sore muscles in her neck and shoulders. She squatted, picked up another large chunk of rock, and loaded it on the sled. The sled full, she pushed a button and the full drum went up the chute only to be replaced seconds later by another empty container.
The broken hoversled sat just to her left, taunting her. She looked at it again, tried to power-cycle it, then a hard reboot, but the controls wouldn’t come back online. Her shoulders sagged as she grabbed the handles of the makeshift wheelbarrow they had cobbled together and headed back down the tunnel to the rest of the work crew.
Getting here on day two had been a bit easier. In her second trip through the day laborer line, she noticed she wasn’t the only one to be waiting on a specific job. A small crowd of men and women waited for specific worksites by lining up with their backs to the fences on the left. As the site they wanted came up, they peeled off and jumped into line with no fuss.
Hannah even saw the red-headed woman come through again, looking just a little paler than she was yesterday, but she paid Hannah no mind. That was good as Hannah had applied a couple of cheek prosthetics, a fake scar, and a slight change in hair color to create just enough of a difference in appearance that hopefully no one would recognize her or that she was using a new name.
“Twenty-four hours,” Ironheart had said, “That’s how long you have on each. We can only go to so much depth on these fake profiles, after twenty-four hours, the system will just find a bunch of dead ends in its trace. You don’t have to remember it, because the power supply will run out at that point. A person with a counterfeit signal is of interest to law enforcement; a person without a signal at all will draw the attention of a lot worse. Slap one on, change up your looks, and you’ll blend right in.”
Hannah had three remaining, more than enough to get the job done. She didn’t plan to come back through this construction site again. She looked up at the site coordinator, Saul Karlamov, a short squat man who carried himself with a constant chip on his shoulder. Yesterday, he had taken breaks every two hours to return to the surface. Given the way his shirt was soaked through with sweat, the occasional furtive glances at the ceiling, and the near panic he exhibited whenever someone cracked a rock, Hannah guessed he must have pissed off someone higher up the chain to be forced to lead the crew for this job.
“Hey, Sutton,” he shouted. With an annoyed glare, he took another step toward her and started snapping his fingers in her face. “Yo, Jonie Sutton. You’re not getting paid to stand around. We’re already behind, you dumb shit. Get back to work.”
“Right,” Hannah said, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her brain. Jonie Sutton was her name today; it was hard to remember that through the aches in her muscles and the tired pull of her eyes. She went back to loading up large bits of rock into the barrow.
The auger’s constant hum changed octaves and someone started yelling. “Manny, back it down!”
“It’s jammed!”
Something sparked and Hannah had to cover her eyes. The flash blinded her and she heard a chunk, then a fading whir of a power supply spinning down.
“Shit…Manny!” Someone yelled; Hannah thought his name was Hector. He had been here yesterday and, more than likely, many other days prior to that.
Hannah blinked to clear the after image from her eyes and noticed everyone had stopped. Several people were kneeling around someone who was lying on the ground. A couple of others stood just beyond them, watching without moving. Hannah stepped forward.
“Ah, this is just great,” Karlamov said, “This is just what I needed. We’re already behind schedule.”
Hannah peered over Saul’s shoulder. Manny’s face was unrecognizable, a tangled mess of burnt skin, blood, and exposed bone. The man kneeling to Manny’s right, Hector, started praying.
“Ah, damnit,” Saul said and then he looked around. “All right, this isn’t a goddamn show. Back to work! If you don’t hit quota today, you don’t get paid.”
“He’s dead,” Hannah said.
“And now your team is a man short. Get cracking or you get nothing. Hector, bag him. I’m calling it in. The rest of you better get your asses in gear.”
Hector hadn’t moved, he still knelt next to Manny, tears rolling down his face. Saul trudged up the incline and heaved his bulk into the lift. He was fumbling with his wrist computer as the doors closed. Hannah walked over to Hector and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “He was a friend?”
Hector nodded; he couldn’t take his eyes away. Hannah went over to the supply table and dug through the medical locker. At the very bottom, she found the body bags; there were twenty of them, one for every person on the crew.
“Every day,” Hector said, “This is what we did every day. For what?”
He spotted the body bag in Hannah’s hand and ripped it from her grip.
“Don’t touch him. I’ll do it. It’s my job.”
Hannah didn’t fight him. She watched as the older man tenderly arranged Manny’s clothing, straightening whatever he could.
“This is no life,” Hector said.
Hannah turned. She was compelled to go up in the lift, find Saul, and extract whatever payment she could from his callous, inhuman hide. She would cut him, a bit at a time, to make sure he felt the pain as his life slowly bled from him. That was what he deserved. That was what whoever ordered Saul around deserved. These workers were just cheap bots to whoever was financing this project. Throwaway labor, Hannah thought, as Hector started putting his friend into the body bag.
Hannah marched back to the lift, looked around, and saw that the few others on the crew that she could still see were now back on the job. After one last check to make sure no one was coming behind her, she pushed the close button for the lift doors. Maria Cahill lived somewhere up above. Hannah pushed a button to go to the penthouse.
The system beeped. “You are not authorized for this level.”
She took out a small black disk and placed it on the lift control pad.
“Most interior systems will have little in the way of security. Won’t have much for firewalls or encryption,” Ironheart had said, “The whole system is predicated on being able to filter you out based on your personal ID. That’s the top-level control; get around that and the rest is pretty easy.”
“But they know I’m a threat. Surely, they’ll change the system.”
“Hannah, you’re one in what? Fifty billion? All the undocumented people in the Republic account for maybe one thousandth of a percent of the population. You really think they’re going to devote budget and redesign the system just to account for you? You’re an anomaly. An outlier. The whole construct of society and the security they’ve built to maintain that construct are designed to overlook you.”
The control panel beeped. Hannah pressed the penthouse button again. The lift chimed and started to move.
***
How many days since I last had a drink, Max asked himself. He tried to think back – yesterday, he got his face bashed in, the day before that he arrived on Earth, he wasn’t sure how long the transit from Ceres had been, so that meant it was on the long shuttle ride to Ceres, which meant it’d been…a week and a half? Maybe two. Just trying to add the days caused a ripple of pain to rip through his skull. His head felt as though someone was pounding on it with a sledgehammer, someone who was taking full swings and really putting his back into it.
His goal for the day had been to move as little as possible, easy enough to do since he was still lying in the infirmary bed. They had given him something to take the edge off, but it hadn’t worked. The last time something came in, it had been one of the nurse robots, asking again if he wanted something to treat the bruises on his face. The pain from the beating hadn’t been that bad and it distracted him from the pounding of his head. He cracked his eyes and felt as if he was staring into the sun. He closed them again and tried to will away the pain.