“We have to move,” she said, pulling me to the stairwell while glancing down the hallway.
I shuffled forward as I gasped for breath. “Something is wrong with me.”
“We’ll get you out of here, and then you’ll be fine.” Somewhere between gently and urgently, Sylvia helped move me forward into the stairwell. She held me tightly as we slowly went down the steps; I really was barely able to stand under my own power. Plus any movement made me dizzy.
“You’re at the Deraw Clinic,” Dip informed me. “An isolated, very modern medical facility on the planet Lavaria. By all reports, it is completely under the control of the mercenary group Tsado. It’s confirmed that many have been killed, and they’ve put pretty much everyone who can be moved in the cafeteria, where they’re being held hostage. There is also apparently a gunship in orbit keeping any vehicles from leaving the area and anyone from coming in to help. No demands have been made, though, and they have not communicated with authorities other than to say that anyone who interferes will be killed. They claim to be operating under the authority of the Galactic Alliance.”
I took some more steps with Sylvia, who was doing what the Tsado would probably consider interfering. I hoped the movement would get my muscles going and make me feel stronger, but I was just getting tired. I heard something about the Fathom.
“There’s chatter that they’ve taken over the Galactic Alliance,” Dip said. “Which is weird, because I thought they were an urban legend — an advanced, unknown alien race lurking out there — but according to local news ...” There was a pause, I assumed as Dip processed data. “They are allying with violent groups, killing lots of people, and taking everything over. So less of an urban legend now.”
Well, this is a fun situation. Can you find anything on Laurence Dunn?
“Just that he was a patient admitted here who was in coma after a vehicular accident. He worked for the Galactic Alliance. Job: accountant.”
Who admitted him?
“I can’t get that data.”
Any sign of Diane around here?
“I wouldn’t know what to look for. She certainly wouldn’t have checked in under the name Diane Thompson.”
“You’re doing good. We’re almost there,” Sylvia said, smiling at me encouragingly. It was an obviously fake smile, but she gave it a good effort. “You holding it together?”
“Just barely. It’s a lot to take in.” I took deep breaths as if trying to will my body back into working right.
She took a peek out the door and then led me out of the stairwell. She helped me hobble through another door. There were pipes and dim lighting, and it looked like a maintenance area. Sylvia secured the door behind me. She patted me lightly on the shoulder. “We just have to go through here, and we’ll be pretty close.”
I smiled and continued walking, holding on to her for support. Any information on her, Dip? Claims to be Alliance.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Dip answered. “I don’t have information on her particularly, but there seem to be two main groups claiming the authority of the Galactic Alliance. One is controlled by the Fathom; the other has some continuity from the previous government — some officials thought to not be tied to criminal syndicates. That government is what this planet was loyal to. Maybe she’s with it.”
Whatever. Don’t care that much. Not really into politics.
“Do you plan to harm her?”
You know me. I have plans to harm everyone.
“You’re doing great,” Sylvia told me, giving me another encouraging smile that didn’t quite conceal how scared she was. “A little bit farther. Then we —”
“Laurence Dunn,” boomed a voice over the intercom. “My name is Collazo, leader of the Tsado, and I have been authorized to use any force necessary to secure you for the Alliance. I don’t know where you are or who has you, but you will come to the cafeteria immediately. No harm will come to you. But we have no patience, so harm will come to others. For instance ...”
I could hear a woman sobbing over the intercom. “Please! Don’t! I —” She was cut off by the sound of a blaster discharge.
The man let the silence linger a moment before speaking again. “We have many more people here to kill. So I can just keep doing this until you do what’s right and come here and save these people.”
Sylvia turned and faced me, her expression now more stoic. “There’s nothing we can do for them,” she said as firmly and as kindly as she could manage. “We can’t risk them getting Mountain Fall. We have to get out of here. There is no other option.” She was shaken — she couldn’t hide it that well. But she was trying to be a professional — which for others often meant being a bit of a sociopath in the short term for the logically better long term.
As for Larry the accountant, I assumed he would be a bit torn, but I decided he really just wanted off this planet and that the only person Larry really cared about was Larry.
“They’re going to kill those people if you don’t do something,” Dip said.
They’re going to kill me if I turn myself in and they find out I don’t know anything.
“You put your life above all of theirs?”
I don’t know any of them and don’t care. Sucks for them, but it’s not even my doing.
“You care enough to feel the need to rationalize not doing anything.”
I’m just pointing out how pointless it is to try to hang this on me even if I was the sort of person who could feel guilt. And anyway, the nurse here is very determined to get me off planet, and I can barely stand.
“Now you’re just making excuses. I thought you made a resolution to try to be different if you survived.”
I was out of my mind on drugs, poison, and blood loss when I made that vow. I could barely remember it. I searched my brain, and all I could recall was an image of Diane above me, crying, as I felt my life slip away. And there was this ineffable feeling of something I wanted — something I needed — but not until that moment did I even know existed.
Rationally, the explanation for that was my brain playing tricks on me. We all need the lie that there’s some sort of purpose in life to keep us moving. I had lived my life seeing through that lie, though just barely.
“So what is your plan?” Dip asked.
As I stumbled through the maintenance area with Sylvia, I realized I hadn’t given that much thought. Find Diane. That was about it. Was I really going to just go mindlessly after her like some lovesick puppy? I envisioned such a person and instantly hated him. And what would happen when I found her, anyway? I was still me. An empty killer. What worth was that to her? To anyone?
Well, it was worth something to the criminal syndicates out there. I thought about going back to my old life — a hitman — as it was the only thing that made sense. Kill. Enjoy the challenge. Earn money I never did anything with. Repeat.
Pain shot through me, and my legs gave way. Sylvia held me up, barely keeping herself from tumbling over with me. The pain faded as quickly as it came, leaving me gasping for air.
“Are you okay?” Sylvia asked.
“No.”
“Just try to keep moving,” she said, helping me limp again. “We’re almost there.”
What was the vow I made, Dip?
“To try to live your life differently. To be someone better.”
I tried to remember why I would make such a vow. It was easy again to just blame the drugs and blood loss, but perhaps that had dropped the defenses on some deep portion of my mind that was always there. I wanted something — and knowing the human psyche, probably something I could never have — but there was the desire.
We came to another door and Sylvia peered out a window in it. “Three Tsado people out there,” she whispered. “We’re going to have to wait for them to move.”
“Shall we get to killing someone else?” boomed Collazo over the speaker system.
I heard another male voice. “Please! No! I have a family —”
S
ound of a blaster. Silence. “Things can go well for you, Laurence,” Collazo said, “or they can go very bad for everyone. Do not make me wait.”
Sylvia didn’t look at me. “If we want to save people, we need to get you off this planet.”
“You can do something about this,” Dip urged. “You can stop the killing now. And if you don’t do anything, the hundreds of people here are going to die.”
But I don’t care about people, I objected. I saw the face again. The tears. Tears for me. So pointless. What was my life worth? Well, if I didn’t value my life ... Fine. Let’s do something different. “We have to help the people here,” I said. My voice was still weak.
“I’m sorry, but we really can’t do anything for them,” she stated firmly while keeping her voice a whisper. “And I can’t let what you know fall into the hands of the Fathom.”
I tried to stand up straight but needed to lean against some pipes. “I don’t know anything about Mountain Fall. I have no idea what that is.”
She took another cautious glance out the window at the armed men out there. “What are you talking about, Laurence?”
“That’s not my name. And I assure you I’m no accountant.”
She stared at me a moment. My vision was getting better. Judging by her face, she had to be early to mid-twenties. She really looked in over her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m getting you to the ship. Do you understand?” Definitely a threat. She had killed a couple people in front of me, but I still didn’t find her all that intimidating. Frankly, though, I was in no condition to intimidate back.
She’s not listening to me, Dip. Should I kill her?
“You shouldn’t do that. But you do need to get past her to help the others.”
She’s not going to like that. I need a plan.
The intercom came to life again. “Let’s speed things up,” Collazo said. “We have a lot of people here, so why don’t we kill three this time?”
“No time!” Dip shouted in my ear.
Sylvia had her back to me and was still watching out the window in the door. I ran into her, sending both of us tumbling out the door. “Stop!” I shouted to the men in the hallway as we fell to the floor. “It’s me! Laurence Dunn!”
I fell on top of Sylvia, and from my previous surreptitious grope of her, I knew where she kept her weapons and pinned them as the armed men came running for us. Suddenly, more pain ripped through my body. It felt like small pieces of glass had been shoved under all of my skin. Sylvia was able to push me off of her as I writhed and tried to keep from screaming. When the pain faded, I looked up. One of the Tsado thugs had Sylvia’s arms pinned behind her, while another hit her in the stomach with the butt of a rifle. The third roughly pulled me to my feet. “We have him,” he said into a radio. “Some woman was with him. Armed.”
He urged me forward, and I slowly walked along with him, having to use most of my concentration to stay standing.
“I think you stopped them from executing hostages,” Dip chimed.
For the moment.
I looked over at Sylvia, who was being pushed along with me, though not as gently. She gave me a look somewhere between confused and betrayed.
“It’s kind of mean, what you did to her,” Dip stated.
Don’t hit me with that! I answered, a little bit angry. She was in the way of saving people. And she’s not an innocent bystander. I didn’t kill her; I should get points for that.
“Morality isn’t really a points system,” Dip said.
I looked at the armed men I was walking with. I assumed they were taking us to even more armed people I would have to deal with. So what now?
“I’m just trying to inform you on the moral choices — I don’t have further plans. Even if you die now, most would consider that a noble sacrifice if it saved at least one life.”
I don’t. They’re going to kill everybody. This is stupid. I should have just let them execute more people while I devised a plan. I was more likely to save people in the long run that way. Instead, in my tired state I listened to a stupid AI like it has any idea what it’s talking about.
“Many would consider it cold to make calculations with lives the way you’re suggesting.”
I am cold. And if morality means charging in dumbly to get killed for no purpose, we’re stopping this experiment now.
“And doing what instead?”
I ignored Dip. The Tsado thug was now practically carrying me so we could all move faster. I assessed my current physical readiness at about 10 percent — and that’s when I wasn’t being incapacitated by sudden spasms of massive pain.
We soon came to the cafeteria. It was filled with hundreds of people — patients and staff all kneeling down with hands behind their heads — except for the few lying dead and bleeding. Almost all the hostages looked human — it was a high-end human hospital. Standing around the perimeter of the room were a dozen Tsado mercenaries. All of them in black. All of them well armed. There didn’t seem to be enough of them to control this many hostages, but I was guessing the dead people in the room were other people who shared that opinion. I looked at the faces of the men and women there — all the randos I had just decided to toss my life away for. In their countenances I saw not only terror but a certain hopelessness. It was as if they feared things bigger than just the guns in this room.
At one end of the cafeteria, away from the hostages, was a table where a man and a woman sat. I assumed it was Collazo and the young blonde woman I had met earlier, though my vision was too blurry to make them out at a distance. I still didn’t know the woman’s story; did the Tsado mercenary group have a press secretary?
I was dragged closer to them and could soon make out Collazo’s big smile — the smile of a man with a gun in a room full of unarmed people. Some people love that feeling of power. Not me, though; what always thrilled me was a challenge.
“I thought we lost you,” Collazo said as he and the blonde stood up. “Sorry to get all dramatic.” He motioned to a couple bodies covered in tarps lying nearby. “But we’re trying to be quick about this.” He walked over to Sylvia, who still had her arms pinned behind her by a much larger man and was looking more than a little scared — for good reasons, I would say. “And who the hell are you?” Collazo asked.
She took a deep breath and stood up straight. “I ... I’m with the Galactic Alliance. What you have done here —”
Collazo’s pistol smashed into her face, knocking her to the floor. “You’re not with the Alliance,” he announced, standing over her as she clutched her cheek, eyes wide and frightened. “There’s only one authority in this universe, and as soon as everyone understands that, we can avoid unpleasantness like this.”
“You should try to save her, too,” Dip chided.
I looked at all the hostages shaking in terror and the armed mercenaries all around the room as I leaned against a pillar to stay standing. I’ll get right on that.
The blonde woman stared down at Sylvia and then turned to Collazo. “Do you think the old faction has more people here?”
“I’m thinking we should wrap this up,” he said. He turned to me. “Do you feel well enough to get moved off of this planet?”
A little dizziness almost made me fall, but I kept my feet. “I don’t know. I can barely stand. And I still don’t understand what’s going on here.” I pointed at Sylvia. “That woman said she was with the Alliance. And mentioned something about the Fathom.” I could see some of the hostages, already inconsolable with terror, become even more frightened at that name.
The blonde helped steady me, holding me gently. “There are factions left over from the old, corrupt Alliance,” she explained calmly. “There was an incident on Nar Valdum that tore things apart, but a very wise and powerful group has formed a new Alliance to unite everyone. That is who I represent.” She frowned and looked at Sylvia. “But an old faction is fighting us, turning planet against planet. War could follow. We all know history. We all know what a
war of that scale means. Dead beyond counting. We need to make sure the true heirs of the Galactic Alliance control Mountain Fall to keep that war from happening.”
“What’s going to happen to the people here?” I asked about the thing I was pretending to care about. I mean, there are billions and billions — trillions? — of sentient beings in the universe, and most of them seem boring and unimportant. It was hard to fathom why I’d care about the random few here, but this was the course of action I’d chosen, and there was no use doubting it at this point except to increase the chance of failure.
The young woman took a deep breath, preparing to give bad news. “That’s not in my hands, but keep in mind these people resisted us. And with billions of lives on the line, that is a very bad thing. We can’t risk letting others follow their example. The consequences would be too dire.”
She genuinely looked torn. That was not true of Collazo, who still had that giant smile of someone who wielded the power of life and death and felt himself untouchable. I looked at the other soldiers. Many of them were much more stoic — faces of people ready to slaughter. All the people here were going to die.
“You have to stop this,” Dip said. “I don’t know all the details of what’s going on, but it is definitely wrong to murder all these innocent people. By the vast majority of beliefs, you have a moral right to use force to stop this.”
That’s great that I have a moral right, but do I have the ability, considering I can barely stand and —
It was if all my veins were on fire. I immediately fell to the floor, slipping from the hands of the blonde woman. I tried to vomit, but my stomach was empty.
“Whatever is going on, we need to stabilize him!” Collazo yelled.
Just as I thought I was about to die, the pain began to subside. I lay there panting, my heart racing, adrenaline pumping through me. My body never felt the need to give me adrenaline very often; it was kind of nice, actually. Just what I needed. It got my brain racing, which I focused on what assets I currently had — which was basically nothing. Except that as an accountant who just woke up from a coma and looked to be barely functioning, there was not a lot of scrutiny on me. They may all have had guns and the ability to stand without swaying, but I had what every good birthday party needs: surprise.
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