by Jason LaPier
Barndoor chuckled heartily. “Tried, eh? Usually there ain’t no try when it comes to Dava offing people.”
“Right,” Jax said with a cautious nod. “She was being generous.”
“Even less likely,” Barndoor laughed, then shrugged. “But it’s been known to happen. I’m gonna get some grub.”
With that, he wandered off toward some dispensers along the side wall, leaving Jax alone with Dava.
“Hey,” he said. “I guess I owe you gratitude. Thanks for breaking me out.”
“Yes, well. You owe me more than gratitude.”
“I was afraid of that.” He leaned in a little closer, as much as he dared anyway. “Look, Dava. You know I’m not really psycho. You know I’m not a killer.”
“Your secret is safe with me.” A small and sharp predatory grin poked into her cheek.
“Great, I appreciate that. But you know I don’t belong here.”
“Nonsense,” she said, the grin vanishing. “You’re a hacker. You’re wanted by ModPol. Here is exactly where you belong.”
He drooped, then tried to make his voice firm, but quiet. “I want to go back to Terroneous.”
“Ain’t gonna happen.”
“Never?”
She stared at him in silence for a moment, hands on her hips. “Look, Jack. I won’t say never. But it’s best you don’t think about it right now. You got a debt to pay. And we need you for a few jobs. So get comfortable.”
He sighed. Was this debt smaller than the one he owed to ModPol? He had to hope it was. “What do I have to do?”
Her eyes rolled around in thought. “There’s some equipment we have. Real fancy, brand-spanking new, research-level shit. Except we can’t operate it.”
“Oh.” If Space Waste just wanted him for his technical abilities, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It sounded like the kind of work he’d been doing on Terroneous. A little less chance the equipment was found, and more likely stolen, but that was a difference he could get past if he had to. Though, the research-level bit worried him.
“Beyond that, well, you passed the door test,” she said. “So we’ll need you for stuff like that.”
“You mean like opening locked doors?” He physically shuddered. Working on stolen gear was one thing – helping to steal gear was something else. “Dava, I’m not cut out for this kind—”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll try to keep you alive, Jack. I can’t promise, but I can try. So go get some breakfast.”
Of all the emptinesses inside him, hunger was beginning to win out. “Breakfast,” he grunted. “At least there’s that.”
“I meant what I said,” she called after him as he headed for the dispensers. He paused and glanced back. “About the digs. That leather is workin’.”
As he tried to shake off the comment, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the window of a beverage machine. The dark brown of the leather was almost liquid in its texture, like landscape eroded by running water, then frozen into form. The Space Waste logo was burned into the right breast, a muted scarring of three black arrows that followed each other in a circle, each turning outward. It reminded him of the first time he’d seen it: on the arm of Johnny Eyeball, his cellmate when he’d first been arrested. Order into Chaos. Johnny Eyeball’s words. Nearly a year since that day, and as he looked into that reflection, the man who stared back had aged that several times over. He decided it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sure, there were the lines cutting through his fleeting youth, but there was a maturity that came with them. More than a maturity though, he realized. A hardness. The tarnish of his skin reflected the corruption of his world. The dome ceiling peeling back to reveal the real sky.
Order into Chaos.
Considering how badly Order had screwed him, Chaos was a temptation.
He loaded up a tray and looked around the room. There were a few gangbangers around, some muscle-bound and leather-clad, some that looked a little more like regular people. Why was he surprised? It would take more than muscle to keep a patchwork station like this running.
He didn’t see Barndoor anywhere, so his escort must have eaten and split, his duty limited to getting Jax a set of clothes and a meal. Since the hall wasn’t even close to full, Jax opted to take an empty table.
The food wasn’t terrible, it was merely bad. He’d never felt so hungry in his life, so he didn’t complain. It reminded him of the food in the domes on Barnard-4. The fresh food of Terroneous had spoiled his standards. All in all, the sensation of starving and the act of eating reminded him that he was alive. Being with Space Waste was probably slightly better than being in a ModPol prison. He wasn’t sure which would be harder to get out of. In this place, he’d have to convince Dava – or someone else – that his debt was paid and he could go. In the hands of ModPol, he’d be waiting out the justice system. McManus had said that even if Jax was innocent of the murders on B-4, he was still guilty of fleeing the law. Whether or not the court would have mercy on him was a giant question mark. It made him seriously weigh that he had a better chance of getting out from under Space Waste than he had of escaping a prison sentence.
With half his food gone in a rush, he slowed down and paced himself. There was no sense in hurrying now, there was nowhere for him to go. He watched others coming and going. No brawls broke out, no gunshots, no marking of territory. It was just another dining hall.
A man approached Jax’s table with a tray of food. “Mind if I sit?”
The manners jarred him. He wanted to return kindness, but he let the leather speak. “Do whatever the fuck you want.”
The man stared him down with a frown, but sat anyway. He was the polymer class, not the leather class. “You’re new.”
Jax poked at his tray with a spoon. “Did I get the wrong slop?”
“That’s not what I mean.” He seemed uninterested in his own tray, and instead of picking up a utensil, he put his hands together in front of him. “It said in your dossier that your handle is Psycho Jack.”
Jax set his spoon down. “You know Johnny Eyeball?”
An eyebrow arched. “Yes.”
“I have him to thank for that nickname. What else does it say in my dossier?” He tried to restrain his surprise that Space Waste kept dossiers.
“Not much, I’m afraid. You’re from Barnard-4. You’re skilled with computers. You’re … wanted.”
“So what are you, like HR?”
“No, Jack,” he said grimly. “We don’t have a Human Resources department here. I’m Underboss Rando Jansen.”
“Underboss?” Jax rolled this over in his head. He had no idea Space Waste had titles, and he didn’t know what to do with this information. “That’s some kind of rank, right? Am I supposed to call you ‘sir’ or something?”
Jansen smiled. “Call me RJ.” He picked up a fork and began twirling a mass of pasta. “I just wanted to get to know you, Jack. Do you prefer Psycho Jack?”
“Jax,” he said without thinking.
Jansen shoveled a bite into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “You know, Jax, all of us here, we never thought we’d end up in a place like this. Once you get to know Space Waste, you come to understand it’s not the worst place to be. We’re all used to running, and so we look out for each other.”
“So, what are you running from?” Jax said, going back to his slop. “RJ.”
“A fair question,” Jansen said with a smile. “My family got into money trouble when I was young. Got into it and stayed there. My father was a fighter – professional. Zero-G martial arts. And my mother, she was a physical therapist. His physical therapist, actually. That’s how they met.”
“Are they still around?” Jax wondered aloud. The past tense description made him guess not.
Jansen’s mouth turned down slightly and he cocked his head. “They’re not dead, as far as I know. We’re no longer in touch.” He chewed through another mouthful of pasta. “Sport wasn’t the only thing they had in common. They were both terrible gamblers.
Severely addicted. I think my mother had it the worst.”
Jax huffed. “Wouldn’t surprise me to find a few gamblers around here.”
He nodded. “Of course, you’re right. We do what we can to mitigate the effects of all addictions here.” He leaned forward. “That’s what I mean. This place – this organization. Yes, we’re criminals. But we are also a community. If my parents – my mother – had this kind of support, it wouldn’t have gotten so bad.”
Jax wondered if his dossier had anything about his parents in there. He felt compelled to explain that he’d lost his mother, that he’d been a constant disappointment to his father, just to talk to someone for once. But one part of his mind was still on guard and he refrained from exposing anything more about himself.
“I see what you mean,” he said.
Jansen nodded and leaned back. “So Dava brought you in.”
“I don’t really know her.” Jax didn’t know why he felt the need to say that. Something about Dava frightened him to his core and he guessed he wasn’t the only one.
“Well. It was a good move on her part. We need skills like yours.”
“She mentioned something about some new equipment. Can you tell me what that is?”
Jansen’s head bobbed from side to side. “Well, we actually have another man on that job. But don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of other things for you to do.” He smiled warmly, then looked at his armband. “You’ll have to excuse me, Jax. I have a meeting I have to run to. I’m glad we had a chance to talk.”
Jax took the underboss’s offered hand and shook it. “Sure.”
Then the other man looked up, and Jax heard a deep voice behind him. “Ready, RJ?”
Jansen stood. “Yes, of course, Moses. I was just saying hello to one of the new recruits.”
The man behind the voice came around to Jax’s right and looked down at him. He was black – with skin darker than anyone Jax had ever seen – and tall, even taller than many B-foureans. There were scars on his face, but they weren’t fresh, and gave him a look that Jax couldn’t quite place. Wisdom, he supposed, though also terrifying. But there was something else about him.
“You look very familiar to me,” Jax said without thinking. “Have we met?”
His rough face broke into a mischievous grin and he glanced at Jansen. “I’m pretty sure you’d remember me if you’d met me.” He offered a large hand, exposing a gray palm. “Moses Down.”
“Oh.” Jax stood and shook the hand, which had the feel of the leather clothes he’d recently acquired. He recalled the name coming out of Barndoor’s mouth, something about the leader of all of Space Waste. His brain was ruminating over smart-ass comments about this being the “Boss Man”, but looking up at that face and feeling the grip of that hand, he felt an unexpected respect. “Good to meet you, sir.”
“This is Jack,” Jansen said.
“Jack,” Moses’s low voice rumbled. “Ah, Psycho Jack. Welcome to the family.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jax said, then was at a loss for any other words. This was the big boss, the one man who might grant Jax his freedom if he could be convinced. And yet, somehow the thoughts of escape were fuzzier than they were a few moments ago.
“You survived Dava long enough to make it here,” Moses said. “We honor survivors.”
Jax opened his mouth and nothing came out. Jansen turned to Moses and said, “Moses, we should be going.”
“Of course. See you around, Jack.”
Then he was alone again. His hunger abated, the rest of the tray looked like shit. He took it to the bins where he’d seen others dispose of their leftovers. Then out of sheer desperation, he spoke to someone he didn’t know: an older man with dark-red skin and plastic clothes. He asked if there was a bar around, and the man gave him a half-grin and directions.
It was just back to the octagon and through another passage. The place was just what Jax was hoping for: it was dark and the tables were small and isolated. There was a sign that read, “Order at Bar”, and so he did and then took a very tall beer back to a table off to the side.
The word family bounced around his head, having been thrust into it by a terrifying, bloodthirsty gangbanger, who hadn’t been as terrifying as he should have been. Moses Down had been familiar and – oddly – made Jax feel safe. Was it that he was the kind of terrifying that felt good to have on your side? That sense that he was a protector? That he would protect his family, and it was better to be in it than outside it?
His mother had made him feel that way. Dad, sometimes, but not in many years. And what difference did that make? She was gone. And he was – well, Jax hadn’t spoken to the man since before the arrest. He’d planned to send d-mail. His thoughts turned to his old notebook. A number of letters, unsent, inside. He had to believe Lealina would keep it safe for him.
He thought the beer would make him feel better, but instead it just reminded him of Terroneous. It wasn’t as good as the brew he’d had there, that was for sure, but its shortcomings only served to remind him of what he was missing. Good drink, good food.
Bright blues.
He closed his eyes and tightened his throat. For months he’d been on that moon, always careful not to get too comfortable, not to get too close, always reminding himself that he was in hiding. And then she came along. And he wanted it to be normal, he wanted it to be just life, just plain, boring life.
And ModPol had to come along and take it away. To chase grudges against a wrongfully arrested innocent man, for the sake of their process. And their reputation, likely. As he sat there in the corner of a bar tucked deep inside the deep-space headquarters of a criminal organization, he sighed at the realization that he was the safest he’d been in a long time.
He opened his eyes and scowled. Took another swallow of the bitter ale. In that moment, he couldn’t feel anything for ModPol but hate. Still, he was no criminal. He shouldn’t have to join Space Waste just to escape injustice. He deserved freedom. He deserved happiness. Didn’t he?
A slow, rhythmic thumping floated around the bar, coming from unseen speakers, and he took another drink, allowing himself to taste the beer, his tongue to identify the elements of sweetness mixed with sourness, to feel the roughness of bubbles. He’d been through worse shit, he would get through this. He just had to stay calm, do as he was told, and he would stay alive.
And somehow, he’d find a way to get back to Terroneous.
* * *
“So this transport,” Captain 2-Bit said. “What kind of ship is it?”
“A Colossus 9K.” Jansen paced anxiously around the oval table. “Designation is MPP Garathol.”
“And what exactly is on it?”
“Weapons.”
Other than the captain and the underboss, there was Moses and another man that Dava didn’t know in the war room. She sat next to Moses and fidgeted. She usually avoided this level of planning, but he’d insisted she be there. More of his attempt to press her into leadership.
“What else?” she said.
Jansen looked at her. “Supplies. Probably some other equipment.”
“The weapons are the real value,” Moses said, his deep voice threatening to lull her into agreement.
If she was going to be forced to attend the planning meeting, she wasn’t going to just nod along. “We already have weapons. What’s so special about these?”
“Good question,” Moses said with a broad smile. “RJ, tell us about them.”
“Very well,” he said with a clearing of his throat. “They’re straight out of the lab. All experimental. Highly destructive while at the same time very highly precise. Designed to strike fast and accurately, reducing collateral damage.”
“Since when do we care about collateral damage?” she said.
“Well.” He gestured, as though unsure of himself. “There have been incidents where the very goods we are trying to acquire accumulate damage, uh, from—”
“He means sometimes we shoot holes in the stuff we’re try
ing to steal,” 2-Bit said, sitting back and nodding with an air of wisdom.
“Yes, thank you, Captain.” Jansen continued his pacing. “These weapons are also a chance for us to take the lead in the arms race against ModPol.”
“Exactly,” Moses said, pointing a long, dark finger at the underboss. “This is their latest and greatest. If we can get it, not only do we get state of the art weapons for our armory, we set ModPol back several years of development.”
Dava didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. She wasn’t sure if that statement was true; even if they managed to steal some ModPol prototypes, they must have the means to replace them. “So these weapons are so new, they don’t even know if they work. Why would they be taking them to Epsilon Eridani?”
“Testing, right?” 2-Bit raised his hand as though he were in school. “Nothing really out there yet, so there’s no traffic to get in the way, no civilians to accidentally injure.”
They all thought about it silently for a moment. 2-Bit was making sense for once. The first Xarp route to Epsilon had only been established about twelve years ago, from what little Dava knew about the system. There was supposedly one planet being groomed for domes, and that was it. No one else had any reason to go there, at least not yet.
“So ModPol must have a base in Epsilon,” she said, thinking out loud. “They’re not just going to point their guns out of the windows of that transport.”
“Right, of course,” Jansen said. He walked to the screen at the front of the room and with a swipe pulled in a system map. “Here’s Epsilon Eridani, the star itself, in the middle. There are three planets here – the third is where terraforming work has begun to support domes. Then there is this inner asteroid belt. A fourth planet, a gas giant, orbits outside the belt. Between that and this outer asteroid belt is a gap of roughly ten astronomical units. We believe that somewhere in that gap there is a ModPol outpost. There’s enough room there for plenty of weapon and flight testing, with pockets of debris for target shooting.”
“Ten AU,” 2-Bit said. “That’s a big gap.”
“There’s a good chance it will be close to Epsilon-4,” Jansen said, pointing at the planet at the edge of the inner belt. “The gas giant’s gravity would clear out most debris, and it gives them a gravity well to orbit around.”