by Kal Spriggs
“Good,” his superior turned away.
“Uncle?” the girl asked.
Wessek’s boss turned back, “Oh, yes, I’d nearly forgotten. To provide additional technical assistance and some visibility, my niece, Kiyu, will remain at this facility to assist you. Given her education, I’m certain she’ll provide valuable technical insight into the fields I’m interested in.”
“Yes, my Lord, we’d be honored,” Wessek bowed his head. I could see his face was beaded with sweat. I wondered if the girl was going to be here purely as a spy or if she was actually going to be helping.
For that matter, either way, she was going to make it harder for me to stage my escape.
Wessek and the others filed out after his boss, leaving only the girl, Kiyu and her bodyguard. She looked in my direction and gave me a nod, almost as if she knew what I was thinking, and then she followed her uncle out of the room.
***
A few hours later, Vars showed up and escorted us to our quarters. As I’d hoped, it was a bit better than our cell on our ship. Granted, I’d asked for better, but I hadn’t been sure if they’d actually give us anything.
We had a small room, three meters on a side, with a pair of folding cots and a flush toilet. There was also a simple shower, little more than a metal spigot coming out of the ceiling with a drain underneath, and a pair of rough towels.
We’d walked across twenty or thirty meters of the facility to get here and I’d added to my mental map. The interior doors we’d seen so far weren’t secured and I’d noted where guards were stationed. I had no way to tell if those doors were always guarded or not, but I’d have to take note as time went on.
“Food, water, better living conditions,” Vars sneered at me, pointing at the small table in the corner. I saw a couple plates there, with food, still steaming from being cooked.
Before I could say anything, he slammed the metal hatch, nearly catching Ted in it. “Well, that wasn’t very hospitable of him,” I snorted. I went over and sat at the table, noting that they’d left a fork for eating, but it was a flimsy, plastic thing. Plastic was rare back on Century, we didn’t have any real quantities of hydrocarbons to make it, so most of it was imported and therefore, expensive. I might be able to sharpen it into a weapon, but I wasn’t willing to bet my life on it. Besides, if I were Vars, I’d have someone search our room when we went to work for the day, and there weren’t exactly a lot of places to hide a potential weapon in the room.
Still, I filed the idea away, even as I started eating.
Ted sat down on the stool next to me. “So,” he spoke around a mouthful, “what do you think?”
“I think we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” I answered. I also tapped at my ear.
Ted leaned forward, “You think they’re listening to us?” He whispered.
I gave him a nod.
“Oh, uh, well, yeah,” Ted nodded looking around as if trying to spot where they might have bugs. I had no idea where those might be or what they might look like, but I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to spot them. “So, you think we can get this stuff figured out?”
“Yeah, it’s going to take some time, though,” I said. “It would be easier if we knew what they wanted.”
“Yeah,” Ted nodded and gave me a wink. I restrained a sigh.
“They mention anything to you about pulling you back onto doing their accounting?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“No,” Ted looked down at his plate. “In fact, the past few months, I helped them get their software set up for that and I’d fixed a lot of their issues. I... I don’t think they really need me much for that anymore. Kind of scary, actually, you know?”
I swallowed, thinking about how it must feel to know that you’d outlived your usefulness. “Well, I need your help, at least,” I told him.
“Yeah, I just...” Ted shuddered. “I’ve seen them dump people they didn’t need. Drag them off to the airlock and then just...” He trailed off, closing his eyes. “Vars likes to do it.
I reached out and gave Ted’s shoulder a squeeze. “Hey man, we’ll get out of this.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, still not looking very reassured. “Wessek said he’d let us go if we translate it.”
“Yeah, he said that,” I answered. I carefully didn’t suggest that he’d lied.
“I don’t even know what I’d do if I got out of here,” Ted whispered.
“Accounting?” I asked. “It’s what you were training to do, right?”
Ted made a face, “I never want to see another set of accounting books again. I had a teacher who’d told me that preparing for an audit was nightmarish. I’d like to see his stupid face when Vars tells him to find where the money is going or he’ll throw him out the airlock.”
I couldn’t help but snort at that.
“Jiden, what I knew of her, she seemed so confident, so... strong, you know,” Ted shot me a look. “You’re that way too. How do you do that?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know.” I didn’t feel very confident or particularly strong. I was afraid and I was angry and below that... I shied away from what lurked under my anger. I could sense a yawning abyss down there. An aching, emptiness that, if I even thought about it, I was worried it would swallow me up. “I just sort of fall back on my training.”
“Yeah, she went to Academy Prep School, too,” Ted muttered. “I wish I had.”
“Maybe you can,” Encouraging Ted seemed to be the best thing I could do right now. “When we get back.” I didn’t know if I could picture Ted at the Academy. He seemed too frail, too broken. But he’d been a captive here for two years or more. Maybe I wasn’t giving him a fair shake.
“Maybe,” Ted sighed. He didn’t sound very positive. “I’ve never really been good at the physical stuff.”
“We’ll help you get in shape for it,” I smiled at him. That would be a good cover, actually, because I wanted us both to be as fit as possible for an escape attempt. “It’s a good way to set goals and prepare.”
“You really think so?” Ted asked.
“Yeah, there’s no upper age limit to the Academy,” I said. Well there was, but that was based off whether or not someone was physically healthy enough for the place more than anything else, if I remembered right. I’d had someone as old as thirty in my section during Academy Prep Course. Granted, he’d been prior enlisted, but still...
“Okay,” Ted nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”
I looked around the room. It wasn’t like we had a lot of space to work with. “We can do some isometrics to start with.” I thought about some of the different exercises I’d been through and some of what my sister had recommended for me to prepare. “We certainly can’t run in here, but we’ll try to build up your endurance, somehow.”
“Great,” Ted smiled at me. “And thanks, Will. It’s nice to have a friend.”
“Yeah,” I smiled back at him, “I’m glad I’m not alone here.” We both dug into our meals. Yet as I ate, I wondered if I really could trust him. He might very well be as desperate and lonely and pitiful as he appeared... and, even then, maybe he’d betray me for a kind word from Wessek. I had no way to know.
***
Chapter 5: Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back
The lab and our quarters didn’t seem to share any external walls to the facility. I spent time looking for vents and maintenance shafts, but the air vents didn’t match any of the ones from entertainment sims; they were too small and narrow for anyone, even my sister, to have climbed through. The maintenance shafts I did see, but most of those were covered with access panels or grills and those were either locked or bolted in place or both. The lab we worked in did have a second door, but the pirates had welded that hatch shut, so I had no way of getting it open.
I was cataloging resources and tools in the lab even as I sorted things out over the next few days. Most of the artifacts the pirates had snagged were the light, portable ones that my parents had brought up for furt
her research. Most of those weren’t anything useful to me and a fair number were just material samples that my mother had collected to run analysis on.
My parents’ tools were included in all the miscellaneous gear, though. Everything from the brushes and picks for pulling dirt and sand out of crevices to the laser cutter they’d used for boring through rock. I carefully arranged those picks so I could sneak some away and I made sure I put the laser cutter on the charger. The latter would make for an improvised weapon and the former I might be able to use to pick mechanical locks.
There were also any number of hammers and picks ranging in size from jeweler’s to a pick-ax I could probably use to dig a pit in solid rock. Vars didn’t seem terribly concerned with those and none of his guards really seemed to care as I laid those out. Most of them, Ted and I packed away in a crate afterward, but I kept a few positioned at various places throughout the lab, just in case I had an opportunity to use them.
If anyone asked, I was going to tell them they were for prying some of the crates open, but none of the guards asked.
After we’d gone through tools and equipment, Ted and I started sorting through the notes again. I made a big deal about complaining about how the guards had scattered the pages out of order, but in reality, I was able to put them back in order fairly quickly. Then, Ted and I started laying them out and I spent a lot of time looking at those notes.
Ted asked me what we were doing at one point. “Trying to figure it out,” I told him. Here or there, on the copied pages, I’d write a letter over a symbol, letter, or number. Ostensibly, I was trying to figure it out, in reality though...
Dad had loved his puzzles and he’d pulled mom, me, and even Jiden into playing his games many times. A lot of times, those puzzles and games had been simplified versions of his various codes and cyphers, but they were similar enough that I was able to figure them out well enough. It was a form of short-hand, where he used letters, numbers, and symbols to write and reference ideas and discoveries.
I’d remembered a lot of it back on the ship, and as we laid it all out, I wasn’t trying to figure it out, I was trying to teach myself to read it, like reading a book. Because I didn’t want to translate all of it for Wessek or his people to be able to read it. I wanted to be able to understand my parents’ notes and I wanted to know what they’d been working on. I wanted that without the pirates being able to read it. Knowledge was going to be as much of a tool to help me escape as anything else.
I’d been working diligently, pausing now and then to write a new letter here or there on the notes, to make it look like I was doing what they wanted. Sometimes it was even the right letter. I was so focused, though, that I hadn’t even heard Vars come into the room, right up until he slapped his hand on my shoulder.
I turned quickly, caught off guard and I barely caught myself before I tried to hit him. My heart was racing and I gripped my pen like it was a knife, ready to try to stab him with it. Vars glowered at me, “You’re working, good. Don’t get too comfortable, though.”
“Oh, right,” I told him, “this place is five star, hard to avoid getting too comfortable.” He scowled at me, but he didn't respond. Beyond him, I saw two of his guards, both of them heavy with muscle. To my surprise, though, neither of them carried weapons.
“You will have some oversight,” Vars stepped back and gestured. A girl came through the door. She was tall and thin, with bright red hair and pale skin. I recognized her instantly, along with her faceless bodyguard in the black and red armor that followed her.
“Pr--” Vars caught himself before he could finish, “that is, Miss Kiyu will oversee our work here.”
I swallowed a retort as he said “our.” Vars would be about as useful in figuring any of this out as the laser cutter.
The girl, Kiyu, walked around the lab, inspecting various bits of equipment. Her bodyguard followed on her heels, the only armed person in the room. I took a moment to study the bodyguard, a woman, from her body-shape and the way she moved, though she wore heavy body armor and had a full helmet that covered her face and head entirely. There wasn’t even a gap around her neck, I saw.
The armor was the same black trimmed with red as before, with the crest of the winged serpent or dragon in crimson on the left shoulder. The girl paused at this or that piece of equipment or artifact, cocking her head as she took in the details. I didn’t like how penetrating those green eyes were, or how they lingered on the various picks and hammers I’d placed around the lab.
As she came over to the prototyping machine, she reached out a hand to open it.
“No, wait!” I protested, reaching out a hand to stop her.
Her bodyguard moved faster than I would have believed possible. She caught me by the wrist and cranked my arm around, sending me to my knees and pulling my shoulder almost out of its socket. The pain was so sudden, so intense, that I couldn’t move, could barely breathe.
“It’s okay, Virata,” Kiyu spoke, raising a hand, “I don’t think he meant to harm me.”
The bodyguard’s vise-like hold eased enough that I wasn’t in total agony. Kiyu came over and stood in front of me, “You may not touch me. There are some fairly harsh consequences for that. Do you understand?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Her bodyguard, Virata, released her grip on my arm and then drew me to my feet. She did it so effortlessly that I was sort of stunned. She didn’t look that strong and she wasn’t wearing powered armor, at least, not that I could tell. How was she so strong and fast? She gripped the back of my neck and her fingers held me as firmly as if my head were stuck in a metal clamp.
“Why did you try to stop me?” Kiyu asked.
“There was residue from the stock and feed trays spilled all over the inside of the prototype machine,” I answered. “It might be damaged beyond repair, but I put it in the cleaning cycle to try and clean it out. They,” I nodded my head at Vars, “damaged the locking mechanism when they brought it here. The door doesn’t lock properly. If you opened it, now, you’d get a face full of toxic cleaning solvents.”
“Indeed?” Her green eyes widened a bit and she jerked her head at her bodyguard, who released the scruff of my neck. Kiyu walked over and looked at the device and then pulled up the diagnostic panel. “You speak the truth.” She had an almost wondering tone of voice. “You did me a favor, something I’ll not forget.”
In truth, I hadn’t wanted her to get sprayed in the eyes and then to have Vars kill me or Ted as a result. I doubted the chemicals would have done more than burned her, but I suppose if she’d inhaled them or something it might have seriously injured her.
Vars stalked over to me, his hand balling into fists and his olive-skin darkening with rage, “You put her at risk--”
“He’s trying to fix an error that you and your... employees,” she said the word with distaste, “committed.”
Vars froze. His expression went from angry to fearful so instantly that I wondered just how powerful this “Miss” Kiyu was... and why she so obviously terrified him.
“It looks as though these two slaves,” I couldn't mistake the distaste on her expression as she said that word, “have made good progress. You enabling them to work with relative freedom is commendable, Vars.”
I wasn’t sure if she didn’t like the term “slave” because she thought us beneath her or if she didn’t like slavery. Right now, since she was obviously in charge, I couldn’t imagine her not having the ability to free Ted and I, so I had to assume it was the latter.
“Thank you, my Lady,” Vars gave a head-bob something like an aborted bow. Just what the heck is going on here?
Combined with his father’s attitudes with her uncle, I had to assume that she was extremely powerful, that her family was like some kind of hereditary nobility or something. I’d heard of that happening in Dalite and some other star systems, but I’d just sort of thought it was exaggerated. I mean, nobility in this era? The very idea seemed absurd.
“I will return on
ce they have progressed a bit further. In the meantime, send me the files for decryption, I’ll work on that in my quarters.” She walked past him and out of the room, followed by her bodyguard, before Vars could respond.
I was watching Vars’ face, so I didn’t miss a look, one part pure anger and another part... something else. I wasn’t sure what. It was almost like a hunger and it didn’t look healthy.
Vars regained control over his features and he looked back at me. “Get back to work, slave.” He and his goons strode out, the doors sliding shut behind him.
“What,” Ted asked, “was all that about?”
“You got me,” I shook my head, rubbing my aching shoulder, “you got me.”
***
Part of what made my task easier was that my father didn’t have just one code. Every year, he’d come up with a new one and half the time, he’d switch without giving my mom any warning, she’d have to figure out the new one. The pirates had brought ten years or so of his and my mom’s notes. They had no way to know that the codes were different or that they changed over time, rather than by project or something else. So as I taught myself to read those notes, I put them in order by project. That mixed in as many as ten different sets of codes and I was pretty sure that even with a dedicated computer, they wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
It helped that my dad’s handwriting was absolutely terrible. I could barely read it and I was pretty certain that a computer would have difficulty. It also helped that many of the “research notes” the pirates had grabbed were nothing of the sort. Some were notes from my mother to my father, or vice versa, reminding them to pay a bill or check my homework or message Jiden. Some were love notes and those I carefully didn’t read, because many of them were very private.
I mixed those in with the rest, using them to muddy the waters. I had to assume the pirates were trying to translate this on their own, as well, and if they were watching how I organized things, then I hoped that would make their job even harder.