by Jamie Sawyer
“It’s me,” I eventually answered.
A shadow padded up behind me, the gentle slap of bare feet on the tiled flooring.
“Is he the man for the job? It’s an interesting question. Some commentators have suggested that Francis is too old, been in-seat for too long. His empty threats have been ignored before, after all…”
The news-feed snapped off in the background.
When I turned around, there was no one there at all.
Just a figment of my imagination.
I activated the tap. Splashed cold water over my face, allowed it to drip onto my uniform.
“I can tell you the story again, if you’d like,” Dr Viscarri said, shaking his head. “I was the first man to examine you when you got back from that damned mission…I’ll dine out on that story for years.”
I was in the Point medical bay; a special wing dedicated to monitoring and certifying Simulant Operations crews. Such a familiar setting: the beige walls, tired metal bunks, exhausted medical teams. Viscarri sat on a stool opposite me, completing the assessment. Most tests were done remotely via the subdermal chip in my neck but some assessments like bloodwork were still conducted manually. Viscarri had done most of those. His diagnostic kit was on a table between us.
“I couldn’t believe it was really you,” he said. “We all thought that the mission had gone wrong, that you’d been killed in the Maelstrom…”
“It was supposed to be classified.”
“You think ‘classified’ means anything to an old man like me? I have my methods, Harris.”
Viscarri chuckled to himself. The doctor was a senior medico, white coat straining against a frame grown flabby over the years. He shook his head a lot, which made his sagging neck shake. Viscarri was the lead medical examiner for the Sim Ops Programme. Something of a Point fixture, he’d held the job for as many years as I could remember. That said, he was genuine enough: knew a lot about me, had been my assessor before and after the Helios mission.
“My blood all good?” I asked, eager to get this over and done with.
Viscarri was more interested in retelling the story of my return – as some Point commentators had termed it, my “resurrection”.
“When I first examined you,” he said, reading now from a data-slate he had perched on his knees, “you had a recently healed injury to your right thigh – possible deep tissue infection, although an inexpert attempt to remove that seemed to have been made. You had multiple rib fractures to the right of your cage. You’d a gunshot injury to the right shoulder, causing damage to your collarbone.” He paused, sighed. “The things you soldiers do to yourselves. Let’s not even get started on your face: the broken bones and nose.”
“I didn’t do anything to myself. I had some help.”
“Of course you did,” he said, shaking his head again. He sipped from a cup of cold coffee. “Whatever happened out there, you were damned lucky to be alive. You escaped the Asiatic Directorate. Few Alliance troopers can say that. The last prisoner of war who was returned to the Point by the Directorate came back in bags.”
“A body bag?”
“No. Grip seal bags.”
“What a way to die…”
Viscarri sighed. “Oh no, he wasn’t dead. It’s a new Directorate interrogation method. Keeping the body costs storage space; the mind can be probed without the rest. Try explaining that to the family, eh?”
I shivered. Wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“I’m an old man,” Viscarri said. “Too damned old. I go back to the Core, next rotation.”
I stood up from the bunk and rolled my sleeve into place. I’d miss Viscarri; he always did his duty with good humour. Many physicians might’ve taken a dimmer view of my health; certified me as unfit long ago. At least Dr Viscarri had kept me working and for that I was grateful.
“Going anywhere nice?” I asked.
“I have a retirement plot on Alpha Centauri. It’ll see me out until Gaia takes me back.”
“Who’ll bust my chops when you’re gone?”
“A new doctor. Young, blonde.”
“Then I should like her.”
Viscarri rumbled a laugh. “You won’t like him. Now, listen: you often skip these tests. Why did you really come down here today? Surely can’t have been to see an old man off on his lonely retirement…”
How best to phrase it? I’m experiencing hallucinations of the woman I love – a woman that I lost to the Maelstrom – and I never feel at ease in the body I was born in.
“Nothing,” I said, lying easily. “I just wanted to be sure that I’m in good health is all.”
“You’re getting older, Harris.” He flipped through his data-slate again. “Forty-two objective years. Given that you’ve spent so long in hypersleep, your subjective age is a matter for debate. What’s this really about? Are you expecting another mission?”
“Always.”
“Is what happened on Helios still getting to you?” Viscarri asked. “I could—”
“No need. I’m fine.”
“There’s nothing physically wrong with you, Harris. Just look after yourself.”
The psychiatric evaluation chambers were uniformly small, no bigger than a Detroit Metro cube. An estate agent would probably call them “personal” or “intimate”.
What went on in them was often intimate.
I sat across from the psych. There was a metal table between us, surface covered with childish graffiti.
FUCK A FISH HEAD.
MAKE WAR, NOT LOVE.
IF I FUCK THIS LIFE UP, CAN I HAVE ANOTHER?
A picture of a pyramid – wavy lines emanating from an open eye at the tip—
“What is troubling you?” the psych asked me.
There was a slight lilt to her voice, not quite placeable.
Russian? French?
I always found these sessions awkward. I didn’t know where to start. If it wasn’t for my urgent need to get the episode off my chest – out of my head – I’d have terminated the session right there and then.
The woman waited for my response. She was stock-still, except for her eyes. Those gently darted between me and the data-pad in front of her. Such pretty eyes.
“Would you rather that we spoke another time?” she asked.
She was unobtrusively attractive, with a full face and a lightly brazened complexion. Early thirties, probably, although her age was hard to place. She tapped the pen from her slate on the table: a nervous tell. She always did that.
Tap, tap, tap.
The ticking of a clock. A reminder that time was finite, that I had to make the most of it.
“We can talk about anything you like. I’m here to help you.”
I let out a long sigh and leant back in the chair. It creaked under my weight. I slightly over-adjusted, because I was used to living in a body much larger than the one I currently inhabited.
“It’s complicated.”
“Go on.”
“I’m having dreams.”
“Of a sexual nature?”
I snorted. “No. More like nightmares.”
“Of a sexual nature?”
“I said no!”
The psychiatrist nodded sagely, wasn’t disturbed by my tone. “These sessions are confidential. We can talk about your work if you like. Where did your last mission take place?”
“It wasn’t the last mission.”
“But I take it that your concerns are work related?”
“It happened on Helios III. In the Maelstrom.”
“I understand,” the psych said, although she really didn’t. No one did.
I told her everything, everything that I could remember. When I’d first started having these sessions again, it had been a painful experience. Reliving those memories: dwelling on the discovery of the Shard wreck out in the desert, on the death of Michael Blake. Then the revelation that Dr Kellerman was a Directorate agent, and retelling the battle at the foot of the Artefact itself. By the tenth session,
the memories had dulled in their intensity. I only really remembered the detail in dream and nightmare – bad enough, but not the same as a conscious retelling.
“What did you learn from the mission?” the psych asked me. She shifted her body under the table. I imagined that I could feel the tip of her shoe brush my trouser leg.
“That I should never trust Command. When I got back, I was interrogated for months. They wanted me to revisit every aspect of the Helios mission, of Operation Keystone. They picked apart my responses.”
I’d answered all of their questions as best I could, but it had been wearing.
The woman looked down at her slate again. “What did you bring back with you?”
“The Key. That’s the only physical evidence of the Shard – all that’s left.”
“When was this?”
“Over eighteen months ago. Objectively, it happened two years ago.”
The realisation disgusted me: that I’d been back from Helios for eighteen months. When we’d been retrieved by a salvage team, after the trip from Helios back to Alliance space, I’d handed the Key over to Science Division. I hadn’t seen it since then. Sci-Div had been ecstatic with the find; promised that it would bring a new era of understanding to the Alliance. Months on, there hadn’t been any progress at all.
Except for, just maybe, Professor Saul.
Between missions I spent hours pacing my quarters – hoping, expecting, needing some discovery to be made about the Key’s astrocartography. As the days became weeks, weeks became months: nothing. The discovery had been taken from me, coveted by Sci-Div.
“How did it make you feel to have your version of events questioned by Command?”
I grunted a laugh. “I’ve told you this a hundred times. I had no other choice: we were stranded on Helios, and the only way to escape was to use the Directorate Interceptor. The Artefact’s signal was interfering with the starship’s navigation systems, and so we destroyed the Artefact with the onboard plasma warheads.”
The psych paused for a moment. Then looked up at me, over the rim of her glasses. That look: so familiar. “Are you perhaps being paranoid?”
I leant across the table. I could smell her scent: sweet and intoxicating. It made something in my groin stir. “If I’m being paranoid, tell me why I’m being followed? Surveillance drones down in the dry dock. Everywhere I go, they’re watching me.”
“Is it possible that you have some form of transient brain damage?”
“Believe what you want. You’ve seen my brain pattern scans and I’ve been certified for active duty for several months.”
“What do you want to do about all of this?”
“I want to follow Elena. Kellerman told me that there were other Shard sites. There might be other Artefacts out there. I want to go back into the Maelstrom.”
“Do you really think that is possible?”
“Maybe. If Command authorises another strike team.”
The psych nodded solemnly. “Is there anything else that you wish to discuss?”
“I’m still hearing things.”
“Auditory hallucinations?”
“At night, since I came back from Helios.” I shook my head, struggling to order this. “I’m remembering things. Memories I thought that I’d long-forgotten. Painful things.” I sighed. “Sometimes I think I can see and hear Elena. Other times I can hear the signal. I think that I’m going mad. I destroyed it. But what happened there – I still carry it.”
“Would you prefer to forget the encounter? I can refer you to a psychosurgeon for a consultation at a low, low price—”
“I don’t want to forget! I want to understand.”
“What about friends, family? Perhaps visit a sibling. Have you considered some shore-leave?”
This was a topic that the psych returned to every session: a persistent suggestion. I always dismissed it.
“I’m not talking to you about my family,” I said. “I’m not here to discuss what happened to them.”
“Very well. My working diagnosis is post-traumatic stress disorder. Regular exercise and a course of barbiturates will improve your mental state. Based on your alcohol consumption, you might be a functional alco—”
The woman froze. Stylus poised over pad, chest slightly pushed out, lips parted ready to speak.
“Thank you for using Weller Enterprises psychiatric services. Bringing better mental health to Liberty Point, in association with the Alliance military.”
The voice was male and very annoying: piped into the room from speakers somewhere in the ceiling.
“You can continue this session with the psychiatrist for a low, low price of only fifty Alliance credits: good for another ten minutes. To choose this option, please say ‘yes’ now.”
“Fuck you,” I said, leaning over the table and swiping a hand at the psych.
My hand passed harmlessly through the holo: a perfect reproduction of a real woman, probably downloaded and decoded from somewhere Coreside. I doubted that the real model had ever been a psychiatrist. Her reactions and responses were controlled by the chamber’s medical AI.
“Thank you for your business,” the room said. “Based on the subject matter of today’s session, can I suggest that you consider using the Weller Enterprises sexual experiences programme? Available at a low, low price; just select option three from the touchscreen menu, or say ‘sex’ now…”
I got up to leave the room, but as I did the psychiatrist came to life again. Just a recording now, she wasn’t responding to anything that I had done or said: gyrating in front of the metal table, grinding her hips back and forth, tearing at her blouse to reveal her breasts—
I left the chamber, the door shutting behind me.
As a simulant operator I was entitled to free and proper psychiatric intervention – indeed, the psych-evals were supposed to be obligatory. But I’d rather pay for private medical care, because I didn’t want to tell the medtechs about what had happened since Helios. The consequences of that might be revocation of my active duty certification.
No. That would never do. I had to be ready for Elena, ready for Command when they sent for me: when they gave me the all-clear that I could follow her. That I could use the Key.
The boulevard outside was choked with soldiers and sailors. Overhead, a surveillance drone watched me go.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANY VODKA
I might have been on active duty but until I had a new mission my time was my own.
Seeking the familiar, I wandered down to the District.
But even that had changed.
Enormous view-screens were mounted in the ceiling, far above: set to show news-feeds. Concerned news reporters, ticker-tape headlines shuttling along the bottom of each screen. Lots of the news was months old, sent on the civilian feeds. We were so far from the Core, even a decent FTL broadcast took that long to reach the Point. The military had their tightbeam transmitters – their instant comms – but the civilian networks were still catching up. It was the same old news.
A colony-shuttle collision with Ganymede Docks.
Escalating political tensions between the Alliance and the Directorate.
Chino and American talking heads, promoting pro-or anti-war sentiments.
A new viral outbreak on Ventris II.
Carrie had been on Ventris II. Turn away. Don’t think about her any more. My only sister. The damned psych had stirred something up – reminded me of a memory long forgotten. Reminded me that I was supposed to care about things outside of the spinning top that was Liberty Point.
“Unless we stand united, the Krell Collective will consume us all!” a voice rasped across the crowd.
A clutch of religios on the corner of Main and Ninth Intersection. Proper old-school priests; unkempt, with dirty beards, eyes like sapphire.
“This universe is ours to inherit, but we will only get one chance!” the lead prophet shouted. “Great Gaia has ordained our supremacy! As her children, we have a duty to wipe
the xenos from existence!”
I paused for a moment, looked at the bedraggled figure. God only knew how he had got onto the Point; it was supposed to be reserved for military personnel and civilian support staff. But more and more of these sorts seemed to be seeping through the cracks. The appearance of the religios was one of the more unusual developments that had occurred on the Point. A wide range of new sects had sprung up: Krell worshippers, Gaia Cults, post-humanists. I didn’t understand any of them. This wasn’t religion as I knew it, nor as Martinez knew it. These people harboured a fervent, dangerous passion: born of the desperate will to carve a bloody empire into the stars. It had spread out from Old Earth, from the Core Worlds, and was enveloping the rest of us like a tsunami – like one of the Directorate’s lab-borne viral attacks.
The preacher stared down at me, from atop a makeshift pulpit of cargo crates, and there was something almost knowing in his eyes.
“There will be no resurrection,” he said, his voice lowering in pitch. “Those that have already been taken are lost to time…”
I walked on. The sector was swarming with off-duty military personnel; full of light and sound.
I used a comms-booth to put in a call to Kaminski, to see if he wanted to join me, but he didn’t answer. The same went for Jenkins and Martinez. They had other lives, I guessed, that didn’t involve fixation on the next resurrection. Maybe Martinez was more than a little fixated with that but not in the same way as I was. Although I thought about calling Mason, the idea of drinking alone with the young trooper didn’t appeal.
So I pushed my way through the crowd, past the street hawkers and local marketeers. The throng parted easily: I’m a decent six foot even skinless, and although I’m past my physical prime I’m no slouch.
But the reaction wasn’t about that, and I full well knew it.
“Uh, sir,” someone said, pausing in front of me.
A young-faced trooper saluted. He wore Sim Ops Programme fatigues; likely one of the newer recruits. He stood with three other troopers, all almost identical. Collectively, they looked a little shell-shocked by the District experience. One of the troopers pushed the leader in my direction, encouraging him, and he awkwardly took a step towards me.