by V. S. Holmes
“Not to socialize. We aren’t to leave the base, except for missions. Care to explain why you were having brunch in Munashi Gamal’s garden yesterday, when you were scheduled for a glove assignment?”
She stepped back, suddenly fifteen again and being reprimanded in the hallway of the weird middle school she wound up at for her problematic behavior. “Look, I’m sorry—”
He held up a hand. “Don’t apologize when you neither know what you’re apologizing for nor truly mean it. Our intentions matter.”
She balked. “I’ve always been an ‘impact matters more’ person.”
“Our intentions matter,” he repeated. In a harder voice the phrase would have sounded admonishing. Instead, it was almost reassuring. “Care to explain why you met with her?”
The request burned in her ears. “Not really. But I will. I was researching. I get that I’m too hysterical or whatever to be a part of the main mission, but you have to know how it looks when a bunch of people show up to fix a problem they might have started in the first place. Most people I study have suffered under colonialism.”
“A white woman better not be about to lecture me on that.”
“No, just pointing out how it looks from here. I’m comfortable being wrong—fuck knows I’m wrong a lot.”
“Nel, I need you to listen to me: there are a lot of factors at play between IDH and the Founders. Even someone with my clearance and experience can’t know every detail. If you think there is some subterfuge, you’re probably right. But I caution you to keep a small counsel.”
“Why? I thought we were all here for the same reason—to fix this?”
“To be young again,” he lamented, eyes softening. “We are all here for our own reasons. I can’t claim to know why the Los Pobladores arrived in our airspace suggesting a truce after thousands of years of guerilla attempts to stunt out progress. But I can think of many more likely reasons than altruism. Your thoughts are powerful, Dr. Bently, but once they leave your mouth, they become something not entirely yours.”
“You’re telling me to keep my thoughts to myself?”
“I’m telling you to keep your ideas your own until you’re absolutely certain whomever you’re sharing them with isn’t going to use them to harm the very people you’re trying to protect.”
Nel looked after the helicopter. You think it’s them? But, as he commanded, she kept it to herself. “Guess I just thought this would be easier if things were friendly, if I’m working with them.”
“You don’t work with them. You work for me. And these people?” He gestured to the arrayed techs and military officers, the equipment and maps and gloves and acrylic. “They aren’t your friends.”
“I’m getting that,” she snapped. “I thought I was here to keep the daughter of the elite happy.”
His brows arched. “Getting educated while you’re down here, I see.”
“Well it’s not like anyone is forthcoming about who the fuck any of you actually are,” she drawled. To her surprise, it drew a chuckle.
“You are clever, and disrespectful, and far too assured of yourself for anyone’s good, especially your own.” It didn’t sound like an insult. Not in the traditional sense. Finally, the illusion of a smile touched his face for a moment before fading as fast as it had come. “And that is why I invited you down here.”
Later, when the long shadows across the walls were purple, bruised form the day, and the ibis cut quietly across the sky, Nel slipped out. It was the second night in a row Lin came back well after midnight. It wasn’t that she wanted more of Lin’s attention, though she enjoyed their sex. The woman’s frequent absence was a reminder that Nel was not, and probably never would be, part of the cool kids’ club.
The compound was dim, but laughter and conversation rose from the largest hut, what must be a mess hall. Taking the side path she’d used earlier, she cut through the base and to the rear. Sure enough, the armory lights were on. Within, Gussy moved along the rack of weapons. Judging by his rhythmic movements and bobbing head, he was singing.
“Doing good, Bently?”
She turned, catching sight of Moe, box of evidence in tow, heading toward the technical lab. “Hey, yeah. Thanks for being patient with me today,” she blurted, the words catching on her pride as they left her mouth.
He waved it away. “No, you’re great. Don’t pay half of us any mind. Just a bunch of dressed-up academics with fancy toys. You do good work, keep your head down, you’ll be set.”
“You run diagnostics on that shit yet?” Nel jerked her chin at the box. “Gives me the creeps.”
“Nah, ’bout to do some research though. Gonna test a few things, see if any of the circuitry’s intact.” He winked. “Headphones on, of course. Plus, any stray signals come through, my system’s programed to shut down.”
“Good luck, then.”
“You too, have a good night!” He offered a wave and disappeared into the lab.
Nel stared after him for a moment. She wanted to ask if it was like the Samsari tech. She wanted to know what a “thank” file was. She wanted to know how long they’d be here. Instead, she turned back to the armory door. Bright, bombastic sound reverberated through the thick walls. Nel knocked, then again, louder.
The music, if you could call it that, softened, followed by the click of a lock, then the door opened.
“Ah, our prodigal archaeologist,” Gussy drawled. “Round two?”
“Kind of.” Nel winced, catching a few lines of the deceptively cheery music. “What is this?”
“Ah! It’s French. Doomsday in cheerful packaging. Sparked a Graffiti movement even.”
The anti-establishmentism in her grinned. “Cool, even if it sounds like a migraine. Do you think we could try all this again?”
His bouncy shuffles stilled, and he took her in, quiet for a moment. “Why the change in heart?”
She shrugged. “You were all gung-ho earlier.”
“I’m an enthused dude. But I’m the weapons specialist here and part of that is being one of the people who determines if it’s unsafe for an individual to bear a weapon in the first place. Noting when a person wants to be armed. And why.”
Nel hadn’t expected to have to explain herself. “I was out on a mission today. Reaper strike just a few streets over. You could say I’m realizing the world I left here isn’t, ah,” she cleared the rasp from her voice, “isn’t here anymore.”
His expression softened and he settled on the corner of the table. “Yeah. That’s a good reason. We can try again, for sure. I ran those models through our diagnostics three times. Nothing. Working perfectly. Took them out to test myself this afternoon. Bullseyes each time. I’ve never heard of someone stubborn enough to simply will the pairing away, but science can’t always explain stuff, even IDH’s high-tech understanding.”
“Just about anyone who's known me for longer than two minutes will agree if there’s a head hard enough, it’s mine.” Nel chuckled darkly. “Maybe now that I’m open to the idea, we’ll have better luck?”
He nodded, glancing at the number projected on the wall beside his battered desk. “Got about forty minutes until lights-out. We could do some tests.” Gussy disappeared into one of the storage rooms, the clatter of rummaging emanating a second later.
Nel stepped through the rear door. In the dim evening light, the blasted targets were pitted eyes. She fiddled with the pendant under her suit and wished the anxiety bubbling in her gut was useful, like it had been on the powerlines, or with a thousand tasks to keep track of on a job site. Instead she was waiting, waiting, waiting. Nel wasn’t good at waiting.
She raised a naked hand to one of the targets, closing one eye to watch it bounce with her perspective. Opening both again, she flexed her hand and whispered, “Boom.”
Concrete dust and rebar exploded through the air.
TWELVE
I have superpowers. Nel’s ears whined. Salty heat trickled down her face, stingi
ng her eyes as much as the smoke from burning plastic. The pain in her back seemed superficial. After a cursory test to confirm what toes she had left still wiggled, she dragged herself upright. The left wall of the armory testing area was in pieces. The lab hut was obliterated. Her childish fantasy dissolved with the recollection of who had been in the lab. And what he was working on.
“Moe!” Her stinging throat said she was shouting, though the ringing in her ears muffled the world, let alone any response. She stumbled over the rubble. Metal supports were twisted. Water shot from a broken supply line, turning packed sand to mud in seconds. She wiped water and blood from her eyes, squinting against the haze of demolition. “Moe?”
A dark river snaked from beneath a pile of the former ceiling, merging with dribbling toilet water in a crimson tributary. Nel’s adrenalated heart faltered. She dropped to her knees, ripping cinder blocks and ceiling tiles away, heedless of the scraps of skin she left on the ragged rubble.
Finally, her palm found something soft and still warm. Efforts redoubled, she tossed another chunk aside. Moe’s body was crumpled beneath a support beam, exposed ribs glistening with each shuddering, shallow breath. Nel wiped viscera from his bloodless face, whispering platitudes neither of them could hear.
“Hey, hey, I’m here, it’s alright, you’re okay, medics are coming.” Except she wasn’t sure if he was okay, or who had heard the blast. She pressed a hand on his shoulder and found nothing but torn pink flesh and rent bone. His blank, roving eyes met hers.
Something warm settled on her shoulder and she batted it away. When it returned, firmer, she whirled, voice cracking with her shout. “What?”
Gussy stood behind her, face lined with horror. His mouth moved rapidly, but Nel jerked away.
“I can’t fucking hear you and he’s under there, he needs—” Two hands now, strong ones, towed her out of what remained of the room and into the armory. Dizziness swallowed her thoughts, but she shook it away. She twisted, trying to free herself, rush back to help them save the friendly tech.
“Nel!” Emilio’s voice wormed into the static and screeching. His dark face swam before her eyes, watering with the smoke and frustration. “Nel, come here. Sit.”
“I’ve got to—”
“He’s dead, Nel.” His matter-of-fact tone cut through the babbling in her brain. “Nothing to do. Sit here.”
She couldn’t sit, though, with energy and fury coursing in her body, and instead began rocking, anything just to move. “But I saw breathing—”
“Sometimes our body does things because that is what it evolved to do, even after the signals stop. He’s dead the moment that beam’s lifted. You know it well as I do.”
She blinked in confusion. Outside a crowd gathered around the bloodstained rubble. Across the training yard Lin’s eyes locked on Nel’s and she made a frantic attempt to shove through the people.
“I need—”
The door to the armory swung shut. “A medic is here to check your injuries. Sit.” Emilio reiterated.
Nel’s vision tunneled and abruptly she was seated on the bench. Jem’s face and voice swam through the panic clotting her thoughts.
“Can you hear me? Good. I’m just going to scan you, then we’ll get you patched up.” They opened their medic kit on the bench next to Nel, dabbing away blood and dust.
“What about the person bleeding out in the lab?”
“Dr. Bently.” It wasn’t Emilio’s voice, but the authority of Dr. Ndebele’s. “I have some questions.”
Jem glanced up. “I still have to examine her, Doctor.”
“I can do both,” Nel ground out, teeth still aching from the blast that knocked her from her feet.
Dr. Ndebele turned to Emilio. “Munashi Sepulveda, would you mind telling Letnan Nalawangsa that she will have her girlfriend back as soon as we’re done here, and I would appreciate it if she ceased screaming at the door?”
Nel glanced at the door. Muffled voices drifted through the heavy wood and tinnitus. Was this the last thing Paul heard?
Emilio nodded, catching Nel’s eye before he left. Her com blinked a message a second later.
We’ll talk soon.
Nel stilled as Jem scanned her skull and body for hidden injury. When they stepped back, she glared at the mission supervisor. “You need forensics in there.”
“They already are.” She settled on the edge of Gussy’s vacated desk. “I know you’re in shock, but anything you can tell us now, in the moment, would help us, and help Moe.”
“Think he’s beyond that now.” Whatever made Nel’s thoughts muddled seemed to fast-track them to her mouth.
“Can you explain what happened? What you were doing in the lab? You’re not authorized—”
“I wasn’t in the lab,” Nel snapped. “I was trying to get fitted for a glove again, since we had issues earlier. I was waiting for Gussy to find one and the lab just…blew.” Nel watched the smoke still drifting past the windows. Distant stinging bloomed where Jem carefully laid a few pads on Nel’s scrapes.
Dr. Ndebele frowned. “Moe, along with all our techs, was outfitted with a kill-switch upon transfer to this mission. If you think something triggered it, we need to know.”
Kill-switch? “Who the fuck puts kill switches in their employees?”
“Someone who wants the rest of their employees to survive. Moe volunteered. They all did.” The woman’s eyes closed, lips moving, perhaps in prayer. When they opened again, they held new fatigue. “Was there anything else? Do you know what might have happened to trigger his switch?”
Through the haze of frustration and fear, Nel felt pity for the woman. And shame. “I found a circuit board thing. Altered, Moe said. And it was plugged in. Its catalog number was, ah,” she frowned, forcing her brain to supply the string of numbers through the bombarding gruesome images. “Q1-R82—no R87-something. I saw him on his way to the lab on my way over. Said he was going to run some scans on it. The augments looked like what we saw on Samsara, kind of, but tiny.”
“There was no record—”
“When Lin and I went back. The trip you tried to court martial—”
“Not my department, Bently,” she warned. “It was similar?”
“Moe seemed to think it was altered due to lack of resources. Instead of making something new. He wasn’t concerned. But I’m not sure if he had seen the notes about it being still wired in. I know power was cut, but,” she shrugged. Adrenaline was fading, and pain started to clamor. “Can I be done here?”
The mission supervisor looked to Jem, who sat back with a tired attempt at a smile. “You have a minor concussion. No sleep for the next few hours. Scrapes and bruises will heal with a bit of time. I’ve sent you care instructions. If you have dizziness or vomiting have Lin call one of us right away, alright?”
“Will do.” Nel watched them leave but couldn’t bring herself to rise. “Think we can be done too?”
The woman heaved a sigh, arms crossed. “I have something to say first.”
It wasn’t the dread of being called to the principal’s office, but it was close. “Shoot.”
“I don’t like you. You’re impulsive and mean and see very little of the larger picture. It’s obvious you don’t respect me or this organization as a whole.”
Nel pursed her lips. “You kind of fucked up my site and tried to frame me for murder—”
“We meddled with your work and you did the same with mine. And I don’t run the judicial branches of IDH,” she reiterated, but it was exhaustion, not contempt in her words. She pointed to the door separating them from the carnage outside. “A man is dead and both of us would rather he wasn’t. Let’s put things aside until we get through this.”
Nel looked away. Her mind flashed images of torn flesh across the backs of her eyelids until she couldn’t tell if the injuries were Moe’s, Paul’s or Mikey’s. Mikey. “You’re right,” she admitted. “I couldn’t do your job. Don’t really know wh
at it is, half the time. I do respect you. But IDH is another matter. And right now, you’re its face.”
“You’ve managed to put the past aside for Emilio and Los Pobladores. I would appreciate the same consideration.”
“I’ll try. Thank you.” She forced grime and bile past the lump in her throat. When she saw Dr. Ndebele’s questioning frown, she explained, “For trying to save my planet.”
“My people came from here once too, you know, and I honor them. That’s why I wear their name.” She rose, gleaming facade in place again. “Would you like me to get Letnan Nalawangsa in? It’s a miracle she didn’t break down the door.”
Nel shook her head, then wished she hadn’t when her brain seemed to bounce against the thick bone of her skull. When the woman was at the door, however, she looked up. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to be, what else to do. I’ve never been this powerless.”
“What we’re all doing. Try to process this in a way that doesn’t make nightmares. Take a walk in a peaceful place. Check the foundation of your worldview. Talk to Dr. Lieberman or someone else.” She offered a reserved smile. “Personally, I prefer the walks.”
Nel only made it as far as the stairs into the train before Lin found her. A strangled cry was Nel’s only warning before the other woman’s lean arms were locked around her shoulders. Kisses and tears rained on Nel’s soot-stained cheeks.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Lin whispered, thumbs wiping the trace of her panic from Nel’s face. “I heard the blast and saw you covered in blood—”
“It’s not mine. Again.”
“Thank goodness—”
“I think I’d prefer no blood, at this point,” Nel muttered, levering herself up the stairs. “I’m fucking tired of death. And just tired.”
“Did you get cleared by a medic?” Lin slid open their door and helped Nel limp to the bathroom. When the archaeologist halted mid-strip with a flinch, Lin eased the tank top off and guided her to sit on the toilet lid.
“Banged up and concussion, but fine.”
“Concussion isn’t fine,” Lin snapped, deftly removing the rest of Nel’s clothes. It might have been the least sexy disrobing, but it made Nel’s heart jump in a way seduction didn’t.