by Alec Taylor
“What does that mean?” I asked him calmly.
“I mean,” he continued in a pleasant voice, “if you know what’s good for you, you won’t rock the boat. You could end up in the ocean without a life jacket.”
“Wow. Okay. Thanks,” I said, running out of patience with his passive-aggressive metaphors.
When I turned back to my screen, I was outwardly calm but inwardly troubled. Jan seemed to genuinely think I was in danger. I wondered if he represented the danger and if he was capable of Imani’s murder. He was a smart and snakelike person. I didn’t like the idea of taking him on—I didn’t think he would play by the rules, by any standard of ethics. He seemed like a dirty cop, which made my blood boil. However, I wasn’t deterred—if anything, it strengthened my resolve, just with greater discretion.
Later that day, I went back to my room. Tony was still participating in the lounge games, so I had it to myself. By then, Liu had given me a secure wireless connection to the main system, so I could work remotely and privately.
I hadn’t had much luck with the phone and video data, so I started to think about a profile for the killer. We had deep psych analysis for every colonist, which had been collected as part of the response to the dining room incident. But, unfortunately, I felt that a profile wouldn’t help in this situation. It had been a single crime and my instinct was pointing toward an impersonal motivation, rather than a personal one.
The idea of a profile forced me to return to an idea that I had previously entertained—someone had already proven themselves capable of murder: Glen. I started looking for any connection between him and Imani. I remembered that he had been passively resistant on the first day of the investigation…but that had been normal for Glen.
I looked back at the log of his suit transmitter from the time of Imani’s murder. It had been functioning in his room but showing no vital signs—presumably he had been sleeping in his undersuit only. I supposed he could have stolen Eli’s suit, or any other suit, disabled the transmitter, and asked Imani to meet with him privately. There didn’t seem to have been any emotional connection between Glen and Imani. Why would he kill her? He hadn’t been in a relationship with her, but perhaps he had been obsessed with her? Maybe I wasn’t thinking big enough—could Glen have been a pawn for JOSEV, and killed Imani and framed Eli?
I opened the footage that I had collected in Glen’s room after the dining room incident. I rolled through it a few times, forward and backward, immersing myself in the details. Then I paused the footage on an image of the clothing rail. Something about it piqued my interest. It was plain and ordinary. It had an outersuit hanging from it, and spare undersuits.
My transmitter searches had consistently returned more suits than colonists. I was focusing on the active suits because they were the easiest source of information, but what if what I was looking for was not in the system? How easy would it be to take an old suit and keep it for your own private use? How many people might have additional suits, I thought—suits that were permanently off the grid, or maybe even outside the system completely?
I looked back through the log of supplies and manufacturing, then painstakingly totalled the suits that had been brought over from Earth. I looked up the number of suits made in the colony and then looked for records of suits being returned. I found that most had been repaired and overhauled and put back into service, but some had been decommissioned. Where were the decommissioned suits, I wondered?
I took a walk down to the supply room and found an administration officer tidying up. I asked her what happened to old suits that were decommissioned. She said they were thrown into the spare materials pile for people to take as they pleased, and she pointed to a big container in the corner of the room. I asked if she would mind if I looked through it and she said, “No problem. Knock yourself out.”
It took a while to systematically search the enormous, smelly pile of disused materials. The most common item was threadbare undersuits, which couldn’t be easily recycled into anything else. I found a couple of outersuits—nowhere near the number of decommissioned suits that I had found on the system.
I asked the admin officer how an old outersuit could be recycled. She said that the material was strong and useful, that it could be remoulded and hardened into many things.
I was nearly back at square one. I had a new line of investigation—anyone who possessed a suit that was not in the system. What I needed was a detailed audit of every suit that every colonist owned. Perhaps I could do it under the cover of the request for suit integrity, I thought. I bet the first settlers had lots of suits.
I decided to finish for the day and went to the lounge to find June. I knew something was wrong the moment I walked into the room.
31. DEATH
People were leaving the lounge, which was strange at that time, and then I realised why. Over by the tennis tables, a colonist I didn’t recognise was yelling obscenities in a strong American accent.
A couple of other colonists were trying to calm him down, but he seemed to be raving incoherently and swearing at ‘the fucking Chinese’. Everyone else in the room was quietly watching him.
I approached some people standing near the door and asked them how long it had been going on. They said he had been loud for the last couple of hours but had escalated in the last few minutes. A group of Chinese colonists had sat down nearby, which had set him off. I called the Security Office.
“Security,” answered Pete.
“Pete, it’s me. Has anyone called in the disturbance in the lounge?”
“No. What’s happening?”
“Some guy is losing it. Can you come down here?”
“I’ll send Jan.”
“We might need you as well. I think we’ll have to subdue him.”
“Okay, I’m coming,” he replied.
I walked over to the table. The man didn’t seem to notice me. He was incoherent, except for occasionally yelling, “Fucking Chinese.” He was raving like a madman—like someone having a very bad drug-related experience.
I called Medical.
“Medical,” said a voice I didn’t recognise.
“This is Mike from Security. Who is this?”
“This is Amber,” she replied.
Great, I thought. A newbie.
“Hi, Amber. We have a disturbance down in the lounge. I need you to prep the infirmary and ask Chris to come down here with a tranquiliser.”
The raving man was now swinging his fists. He kept saying, “FUCKING Chinese,” and lunging toward anybody within reach.
I slowly approached him and asked him his name. He lunged at me, too slowly, clearly intoxicated. I easily sidestepped his hand, tripped him with my foot, and pushed him onto the ground. He collapsed and started to push up on his hands.
“Help me,” I said to the two colonists who had been trying to calm him down.
We pulled his hands together behind his back and held him down. Chris and Pete arrived and we gave him a tranquiliser shot. He became unconscious almost immediately. I thanked the guys who had helped and then we carried the unconscious man to the infirmary to sleep it off.
When I got back to the lounge, the mood had changed completely. It was as if a weight had been lifted and everyone was letting off steam. The conversation was loud and fast, and people were arriving all the time.
I looked around for June and caught a glimpse of her sitting with some other colonists on the far side of the room. As I moved toward her, a young woman grabbed my arm.
“There you are!” she said.
She was compact and redheaded, with a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her voice sounded familiar—I realised she had answered the call to Medical.
“It’s me, Amber! From Medical!”
“Oh, hi,” I said, looking over at June.
“I heard about what you did earlier. It was very brave!” said Amber.
“It really wasn’t,” I replied. “He was drunk. Or high. Or something. A toddler could hav
e overpowered him.”
“Now, I know that’s not true. You’re so modest. I know all about you. You’re the hero from the dining room murders. And you were an Australian spy. And a policeman before that.”
“You really do know all about me,” I said dryly.
“I’m a big fan. I’ve read the reports. And you know you made the news back home after the murders.”
“I did?” I asked. I was a little uncomfortable with that knowledge.
“Well, they didn’t make a big deal out of the murders, but they did talk about you.”
Amber had been gradually turning me around. I looked over my shoulder at June and caught her eye. She widened her eyes in mock surprise, then winked and smiled. I looked at her with consternation and tipped my head in a ‘come over here and rescue me’ motion, which she completely ignored.
“I’m very interested in Security,” said Amber. “I’m actually thinking of applying for a rotation through your office. Perhaps you could tell me about it and maybe help with my application?”
“There’s not a lot to tell,” I replied, trying and failing to turn around to look at June. “It’s one of those jobs that sound interesting but are actually a lot of tedious deskwork.”
“But you get to solve crimes?”
“Not very often. Not here, anyway. Mostly what we do is prevent accidents and watch the weather.”
I was talking on autopilot, wishing the conversation would end.
“Well, I think it’s very noble,” said Amber. “You must be very loyal.”
She suddenly had my full attention. I studied her face but could only see sincere interest and warmth.
“Sure, I’m loyal,” I eventually replied. “But then, isn’t everyone?”
“So modest,” she smiled. “Aren’t you going to buy me a drink?”
“What?” I asked, perplexed.
“I know they’re not real, but I’m thirsty and we’re in a bar. I’d like a vodka on the rocks.”
“Oh, okay,” I said and looked around the room for somewhere to get a drink. Anything to get away from her.
I went as quickly as I could to the drinks machine sitting on a table in the corner. I selected vodka on the rocks and it dropped ice into a little plastic cup and poured a clear liquid over it. It smelled alcoholic but clearly wasn’t. I selected water for myself and went back to Amber.
“Here you go,” I said to Amber and, while she was taking a sip, I added, “It was great to meet you, but I’m actually meeting someone here, so…”
“Oh, okay,” she replied with obvious disappointment.
I wove across the room and finally made it to June.
“Was that fun?” she asked. “I see you’ve met the effervescent Amber from Medical.”
I rolled my eyes.
“She’s quite cute, isn’t she?” said June, teasing me.
“Will you please stop it?”
“Okay, okay,” she said, still smiling.
“I have something important I want to talk to you about,” I said, then tapped my helmet cam.
She tugged her collar and nodded, then said, “What is it?”
“What we saw out there, you know, it made me realise that I need to keep investigating Imani’s death. There are forces at play here that need to be uncovered. So I’ve started digging again and Liu’s been helping me. I made some assumptions about the suits in the first investigation that weren’t right. You’re a first settler, and you know almost everybody. Do you know anyone who has more than one outersuit?”
“A lot of people do.”
‘No, sorry, I mean a suit that isn’t recorded in the system. One that they got in special circumstances.”
“I don’t know. What’s this about?”
“I’m thinking that I might be able to look for people who have a spare suit that’s off the grid. If there aren’t too many, maybe I can find Imani’s killer.”
“Well, that might work. We had a few big blowouts in the first year, and I remember people grabbed spare suits to help with reconstruction. There could be a few out there.”
“It sounds like there might be a lot,” I said, a little disappointed. “I’m going to use the suit integrity request as an excuse to audit and tag everybody’s suits. It’ll take a while, but I’ll find out who has a suit that’s off the grid.”
But I never got the chance. The next day my heart stopped and I lost my job.
*
The following morning, I woke up very early, went to the gym, showered and went to breakfast. I took my meds as usual, ate a light breakfast, scanned the news headlines briefly (almost immune to the hostility they described), and rushed to work.
I could tell that something was wrong as I was walking to the office. The passages were spinning in front of me and I had to stop a couple of times to steady myself against the wall. As I entered Security, I saw that Jan was already there, which would have seemed strange if I hadn’t been completely focused on how bad I was feeling. He looked up and did a double take—I must have looked bad. I felt burning hot and the whole room whirled.
Suddenly, the room turned a myriad of colours. And then my heart stopped. I collapsed to the ground on my side and the room faded away.
I was unconscious for 24 hours and missed the holiday feast. My dreams were filled with grotesque and horrific images. Strange alien jellyfish, giant monsters, dark shadows, interspersed with the contorted faces of Robbie, Glen, Eli, and Imani. The following morning, I slowly became aware of my surroundings and the dreams faded. I was lying on the operating table in the infirmary, feeling cold.
“You’re awake,” said Chris from behind me.
“I feel terrible,” I croaked, barely managing to speak. Each word reverberated in my head. My throat was sore.
She came around and looked down into my face.
“You’ve had quite an experience, and you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’m supposed to call Pete as soon as you wake up, but I’m going to give you a heads up, because we’ve worked together and I respect you. The sensors in your suit detected a problem with your heart rate, and then your blood pressure and body temperature, and then sent a message to us here in Medical. I saw the call and came to your office. When I got there, Jan was performing CPR on you. He saved your life.”
“My God,” was all I could manage to say.
“Your heart had stopped beating on its own for almost two minutes. I gave you a shot of adrenaline, which restarted your heart. Then we brought you here to the infirmary. Sorry I had to cut off your suits to put in an intravenous line.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“But here’s the real problem, Mike, the diagnostics detected a massive amount of psilocybin in your blood. I administered a tranquiliser, pushed fluids and pumped your stomach. The fact is that you nearly died from an overdose.”
“What?” I asked, my head thumping with a massive headache.
“You overdosed on psilocybin. You know, from the mushrooms.”
“What mushrooms?”
“What mushrooms indeed. I pumped your stomach. You ate a normal breakfast, with no sign of mushrooms or anything else that wasn’t from the breakfast menu.”
“I’m not following,” I said, my head reeling.
“They found cookies in your room, in your drawer,” said Chris.
“What?” I said again.
“Breathe slowly. Collect your thoughts. I’m calling Pete now,” she said as she walked away and called him.
He came in a couple of minutes later. I barely had the energy to keep my eyes open. The shock of Chris’ heads up was all that was keeping me awake.
“Pete…” I said.
“Mike, what were you thinking?” said Pete, frowning.
I didn’t have the energy to respond. It felt like a nightmare.
“I can’t believe you ate ’shrooms!” spat Pete.
“Pete, I didn’t.”
“Peter, I told y
ou yesterday,” said Chris, “there was no mushroom-related food in his stomach. The drugs made it into his system some other way.”
“He probably smoked them,” said Pete.
“I didn’t smoke anything,” I said. “I must have been drugged.”
“Drugged!” exclaimed Pete, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“Pete, listen…” I said.
“No, you listen. I’m sorry that you had to crack down on the mushrooms and that it’s hard out here. But we’re all in this together and I needed you in Security. Now I have to stand you down. You’re being reassigned to Metals.”
He leaned back, crossed his arms and shook his head.
“Pete, you know me. I would never do anything like that,” I pleaded.
“I don’t know that at all. We found a bag of cookies in your room.”
“They’re not mine.”
I was struggling to think straight and come up with a logical explanation for what had happened.
“I’ve been set up,” I said slowly.
“Sure,” said Pete sarcastically.
Suddenly, Imani popped into my head.
“I was sniffing around Imani’s case again,” I said, “and somebody didn’t like it.”
“You were what?” said Pete, his face flushing with anger.
I didn’t reply.
“What the fuck were you doing digging into that again? Jesus H Christ, you fucking arrogant…We closed that case, for Christ’s sake!”
His outburst made me flinch.
“Pete, can you just give me some bloody credit for a second? Something just doesn’t add up. I don’t think Eli killed her; he didn’t have a motive. I think that’s why this has happened to me. Someone is trying to take me out of the game. Can’t you see that?”
“No, I can’t see squat,” said Pete, more quietly. “This is out of my hands now, anyway. You’ve already been reassigned. It’s done. Sober up and sleep it off. Tomorrow is the first day of the New Year. You can go straight to Metal Production in the morning.”