Retaliate

by Alex Albrinck

  Delilah Silver

  This woman… was Oswald Silver's wife?

  But… how? The death of Delilah Silver had been major news a few decades earlier, when Sheila had been just a child. She'd felt deep sadness and sympathy for the woman's young daughter, Deirdre; that sense of camaraderie only deepened years later after both of Sheila's parents succumbed to eternal sleep.

  But Delilah Silver was here before her, her identity obvious to Sheila now that she’d read the woman’s name. She wasn’t dead, far from it. In fact, the woman looked as if she'd not aged a bit in twenty years… which put her at a similar visual age to that sported by Oswald Silver aboard the space station.

  Was there something about the lack of gravity here that made people look so much younger?

  Or… something else?

  It made sense, given what Micah had taught her about a tiny percentage of the population living at the time of the Golden Ages. Like her husband, Delilah had learned the secrets of immortality, and her eternal youth was safely on display here where immortality was no secret. Perhaps the planet’s gravity made them look older, a cosmetic tax charged by the planet. Perhaps that was why she’d “died” and moved here a few decades ago; if she was a vain woman and living a few miles in space made her look thirty-five instead of sixty, Sheila suspected she might opt for this arrangement as well.

  But she wasn’t, and she didn’t have the youthful immortality option available at any rate.

  Delilah studied her door, then flipped a few switches that added physical barricades. “Can't be too safe around here right now, too much chaos,” she muttered.

  Sheila almost laughed. Delilah was worried about the one setting off the attacks around the space station tracking her here, entering, and doing her harm. And she had no idea she’d just locked herself inside her personal quarters with the one responsible for that feared chaos.

  Delilah looked around the room, studying the space like she’d never seen it before, perhaps looking for anything out of place that might indicate unauthorized entry. After a few moments, she moved to one of the interior walls, approaching a picture of a lovely teenaged girl. It was a picture of Deirdre Silver-Light, her daughter, as she’d looked several years ago. She rested her hand upon the picture, stroking her fingers down her daughter’s cheek, and Sheila felt a lump in her throat.

  The wall with the picture slid aside. Sheila gaped at the secret compartment within Delilah’s quarters.

  Delilah moved into the hidden chamber. Sheila followed.

  The space would best be described as a command pod. Screens of scrolling data, maps with dots highlighting specific locations, desks with piles of paper slapped messily atop them. Delilah plopped into a commander's chair that rode along the perimeter of the room on wheels trapped in a groove in the floor. The woman snapped a belt around her waist, a move Sheila found odd, and slid around to one of the computer terminals ringing the room. She began typing furiously, letters and numbers flying by on the screen at a dizzying pace.

  And then she started muttering to herself. “Commandeered Oswald's Ravagers and deactivated them before they finished the job… stole from the armory… planted timed explosives… freed the prisoners from the Brig and armed them…” She smashed her fingers into a key. “There. The Ravagers in the East… oops, sorry.” She cackled, loudly, a sound that sent chills down Sheila's spine. “The Cleansers in the East are now active. Hope you enjoy watching that, whoever you are. Because it didn’t have to happen… until you did all this.”

  Sheila felt the chill deepen, realizing the fatal flaw in Micah’s plan and her earlier work. They’d believed that all Ravagers were controlled from a single source. But Oswald controlled only half of the Ravagers, those stationed in the West. This woman controlled those in the East.

  Sheila had only stopped the Ravagers that had already killed untold millions, leaving an unknown number in the East primed for activation, waiting for the go ahead from Delilah.

  And now, in retaliation for all Sheila had done here… Delilah Silver had given that command.

  How many more would die now?

  Sheila gritted her invisible teeth. The answer, if she had any say in the matter, would be zero. She was invisible. She could knock this woman unconscious, bind her, force her to give up the codes required to deactivate the Ravagers under her control. She could only hope she could make a difference.

  She started floating down toward Delilah when she heard a loud snapping sound.

  She turned to find that the panel separating the command center from the rest of Delilah’s quarters had closed. Sheila was baffled, waving her invisible hands at the closed panel, trying to understand what was happening.

  But her left hand wasn’t invisible. She saw it, not with her mind’s eye, but with her real eyes. And then she saw her right hand, waving at the panel. A chill ran down her spine, and she dared to look down at her body.

  Her fully visible body.

  She turned her head toward Delilah, noting movement out of the corner of her eye. The papers stacked on the tables and work surfaces were floating in the air, along with the keyboards and pencils and pens.

  Everything floated except Delilah, strapped into a chair attached to the floor on a rolling track, because Delilah knew she’d be turning off the gravity in the room.

  The woman’s eyes bored into Sheila, hatred flowing out like fire. “So, you're the one who's been causing all the trouble here.”

  Sheila didn't respond. She tried to move as she’d been moving—by projecting herself forward with her mind—but her nanos weren’t working. In the zero-gravity room, she found herself trying to swim through the air at the woman, wanting nothing more than to smash the smirk off the woman’s cruel face.

  Her efforts were futile; she moved no closer to her target.

  Delilah laughed, a sound that sent chills down Sheila’s spine. “Save your energy, you disgusting creature. And save your breath. You'll get your chance to speak. I’ll take you to Oswald Silver—you know of him, don’t you?—and you can talk to both of us at once. I’ll spoil the ending: you’re going to die. But you’ll determine how much you suffer first. Tell us the truth, answer our questions honestly, and it will be quick, painless… well, maybe not completely painless. But if you lie, hold back, or otherwise fail to do as we require… well, it will go poorly for you.” Her eyes twinkled fire. “I’m almost rooting for you to lie, because a quick death is too easy an end for you.”

  Sheila tried to lunge at Delilah, but the frictionless air left her swinging at shadows. Delilah laughed again. “Oh, you’re a fighter, aren’t you? Not so tough now that I’ve disabled those old-time nanobots that allowed you to fly around my city, blow up my security team, and free my prisoners.” Seeing the shocked look on Sheila's face, she laughed again. “Oh, you think those machines are a secret? You think having them makes you special? Think again, sweetheart. I've had my own set of those since long before you were an unfortunate gleam in your dead mother's eyes.”

  Sheila felt a cocoon tighten around her, squeezing her like an invisible boa constrictor, pinning her arms to her sides, forcing her legs together, stiffening her spine. Delilah was demonstrating her possession and control over her own nano swarm, experience telling her exactly how hard she could squeeze Sheila and leave her prisoner conscious.

  Delilah turned from Sheila, unconcerned about the possibility of an attack, and tapped at her keyboard once more. Gravity returned. Sheila fell to the ground, buffeted by the pens and papers that joined her. The separation panel slid open once more and Delilah left, unconcerned as to Sheila’s well-being. The woman returned a moment later with a rope, which she secured around Sheila’s neck with a knot rather than a noose. Tight enough that Sheila couldn’t wriggle free, loose enough to let her breathe. Barely.

  Delilah patted her on the head, a gesture that led to Sheila’s eyes flaring in anger. Delilah snickered and pinched her cheek. “That's a good girl. Time to go visit my lout of an ex-husband.
If you behave yourself, I think we’ll inject you with something so death doesn’t hurt too much.” Her eyes twinkled. “Well, we'll see how your body reacts out in the void of space without any protection.” She leaned in close, whispering. “I've seen it happen to others, sweetheart. You aren't much to look at to begin with, but the darkness out there would transform even my daughter into an ugly, lifeless bag of mush. I shudder to think how bad a lesser mortal might fare.”

  The cocoon held her with so firm a grip that Sheila couldn’t even shiver in fear. She tried to pull her own nanos close, to force them inside Delilah’s cocoon, to see if she couldn’t pry herself free. But Delilah’s craftwork was impeccable, and she could do nothing to free herself. She wrapped her nanos around her body just the same, just in case Delilah lost focus. More critically, if they walked by an undetonated explosive on their way to Oswald Silver, Delilah would be exposed while Sheila would have a protective shield.

  Two of them, in fact.

  She couldn’t help but smile, but hid the look before Delilah noticed. Somehow, she didn’t think the woman would appreciate her gallows-style humor.

  Delilah’s cocoon pushed Sheila to the ground and gave her the appearance of walking as Delilah pulled the rope and walked ahead. The rope had nothing to do with propelling Sheila along; it was meant to humiliate Sheila on the way to her show trial before a kangaroo court led by the two clowns and cons in history.

  As they left Delilah’s room, Sheila’s eyes found the large digital clock hanging above the exit door.

  2120.

  She had ten minutes to escape, to get to the hangar, to get into the ship. And hope that Micah’s execution of his rescue effort went better than Sheila’s last minute curiosity tour. She wondered if the time was fixed, if he’d call the ship home then no matter what, or if he’d wait until she’d gotten inside. She had to assume the former; if not, he’d have no reason to give her a time.

  No matter the reason, she knew she had to act quickly. And she had no idea what to do next, despite thinking that there was an easy solution staring her in the face. But her mind, normally so calm in stressful situations, seemed foggy, as if some outside force was mucking up the internal gears, preventing her from seeing the solution to her problems, acting to get herself to the ship on time.

  She’d still try, though. She kept at her original plan, trying to use portions of her own nano swarm as a chisel, trying to bore a hole through the controlling skeleton and insert her own. It was a mentally fatiguing exercise, made worse by the fact that she swore Delilah was laughing quietly at the effort.

  She wondered how much time she had left and looked around.

  They were in the corridor outside hub AA, meaning she was exactly where she needed to be. If she could get free, then…

  But her eyes found the nearest digital clock, and her heart sank.

  2134.

  She felt the tears start to form. She was too late. Or was she? Was the ship still there? She needed to brush the tears from her eyes to look that far away, but her hands were out of her control. She blinked and looked at the clock again to check her focus.

  The clocked switched to 2135 as she watched.

  Her world exploded.

  The explosion was different than any she’d experienced before: all force, no fire. It was as if the vibrations of powerful drums reverberated through the hub and the corridor, but with an unstoppable amount of force they couldn’t see or hear.

  The hub vanished, shattering away from the rest of the space station.

  The wall separating the hub from the corridor disintegrated, and the wave of invisible force crushed into her, and she was left with the instantaneous thought that the powerful wave was decreasing in power as it reached her.

  It was enough. The wave seized everyone in that corridor and hurtled them against the far wall of the corridor. That wall remained intact, and the impact hurt Sheila; she winced, but outside some muscle strains and perhaps a cracked bone, she was unharmed. The double cocoon—Delilah’s and her own—had protected her from the worst of the damage.

  Delilah wasn’t so fortunate.

  Shrapnel from the disintegrating wall separating hub from corridor ripped through her, killing her instantly. The wave grabbed her lifeless body and smashed it against the same wall Sheila hit, but the lack of protection left her an amorphous blob, little more than mush, like she’d threatened to turn Sheila into as punishment for a lack of cooperation.

  There was no time for celebration, no time to marvel at Delilah’s ironic end.

  With the hub and corridor gone, Deirdre was now outside the space station, outside the safely pressurized space, beyond where she could get air to breathe, beyond the influence of the interior artificial gravity of the space station.

  Her impact against the wall hadn’t killed her. But she’d rebounded off it.

  As she floated off into space, farther and farther away from her final home, as she watched Micah’s flying sphere escape the pull of the now destroyed tractor beam… Sheila wondered if Delilah hadn’t gotten the last laugh after all.

  —23—

  DEIRDRE SILVER

  She’d wished for a quiet, uneventful escape. She knew that wish hadn’t been granted by the time she reached the end of the first row of parked cars.

  She saw a sign overhead. The word “Down” was etched inside an arrow pointing left. A second arrow labeled “Up” pointed right.

  Deirdre scowled. How was that supposed to help? She needed an arrow pointing toward the exit; nothing here indicated whether she should go up or down to reach that point. She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking, trying to remember if she'd gone down any steps during her time here, and remembered nothing of the sort. Since she'd entered on what must be the ground level, she decided she must be one level above the ground.

  She turned left and headed down, reached the end of the row below where she’d entered the garage, and then looped left once more. She neared the end of the row of parked cars.

  Instead of the exit, she found yet another “Up” or “Down” sign.

  Maybe she was two floors above ground level?

  She continued, stubbornly refusing to admit she’d made the wrong decision until she’d looped down a half dozen levels… and found herself facing a solid wall.

  A dead end.

  Dammit. When had she gone down a level during her time there? She must have, must’ve been one level below the ground, which meant she’d need to go right and head up. And then she remembered her unceremonious deposit into the chute that dropped her into the decontamination system. That had certainly moved her below ground. And she’d never noticed a change in level.

  Growling at her poor memory and subsequent series of poor decisions, she used a three-point turn to reverse course and drive more quickly back up the winding parking levels than she’d driven on her way down.

  And it was then that all hell broke loose.

  “Miriam, why are you in the parking garage? And why are you driving the all-terrain vehicle around inside? You have no reason to be driving.”

  Oh, dear. That sounded like a warning. A sensible person—like Miriam, no doubt—would stop the vehicle and address the mysterious voice of authority.

  DEIRDRE ACCELERATED, TIRES screeching as she careened recklessly around corners.

  “Miriam, the all-clear for outside activity has not been issued. There are no confirmations that the Cleansers have completed their efforts, and thus we cannot confirm that anyone can travel outside in safety. There are many Cleansers outside our doors. Please park the vehicle, return to your quarters, and attend to your duties, Miriam.”

  It sounded sensible and reasonable when the voice explained the situation. Miriam would, of course, do exactly as she was told, and accept whatever punishment was deemed appropriate for her temporary lapse in judgment.

  Deirdre tested her ability to corner at even higher speeds.

  The speaker seemed to realize that Miriam didn’t care about the ris
ks and consequences, and offered a final sobering message. “We can't let you leave, Miriam.”

  Dammit again.

  A klaxon sounded, startling her. She composed herself, swerving back into the center of her driving lane before she hit one of the many parked cars here, idly wondering why there were so many. The sound continued reverberating around the steel and cement underground parking garage.

  And then she heard a different sound, one that kept her panic levels rising far more than the klaxon: squealing tires.

  And they weren’t hers.

  She looked in her mirrors and saw them, three smaller vehicles deployed after her, chasing her down the wide lanes of the parking garage. Deidre gritted her teeth and pushed the accelerator all the way down, barely halting her momentum as she wound her way around the next corner, hoping she'd not see more chase cars coming at her from the other side, or a barricade in front of her.

  And she hoped she didn’t flip her car over.

  Nothing like that happened, though the right side of her car lifted slightly as she banked right through the turn without slowing down. She’d instinctively let off the accelerator a bit when that happened, but as she cleared the turn she smashed the pedal down, trying to create distance between herself and the pursuit cars. She hoped the drivers had strong survival instincts, disinterested in dying as they tried to chase down the crazy woman driving like a maniac through the parking garage.

  She glanced in her rear-view mirror as she approached the next corner and saw only the hint of the front of the first pursuit car rounding the bend as she banked into the next turn. Her crazed driving was working, adding distance between her and her pursuers.

  Her fender caught one of the parked cars and her car fishtailed counterclockwise. She wrenched the wheel to the left, turning into the spin, and regained control, straightened out the car, and breathed a sigh of relief. She’d lost a precious second or two not moving at full speed, but her pursuers were clearly disinterested in driving in as reckless a manner. It either meant they valued their lives or they knew something ahead would stop her… and they wouldn’t need to drive so quickly.