A Wilderness of Mirrors

by R J Johnson

“Me either,” she replied. “I’m saying their story don’t add up for me. They were about to run experiments on the both of us.”

  “But no one complained about that,” Meade said, seeing her point. “And you think the explanation will be in their laboratory? They’re bound to keep anything worth seeing under lock and key.”

  “That’s why you’re going to copy their armbars,” Emeline said. “We can use the professor’s armbar image to get us wherever we want to go. They won’t even know anything is amiss.”

  “Oh good, giving me the hard job,” he said, nudging her gently and winking.

  “Unimaginable pressure, high stakes, with death and injury a highly probable outcome?” Emeline said, a twinkle in her eye. “It wouldn’t be a date with Jim Meade without that.”

  He chuckled, and the elevator slowed as they approached their destination. “Game face on.”

  “Game face on,” she repeated.

  They exited the elevator arm-in-arm, the very picture of a Martian power couple. The long flowing purple silk dress Emeline was wearing hugged her every curve giving her a killer look.

  For his part, as much as he hated the idea of putting on a tie, the suit the professor had provided for him made his six-foot two-inch frame look good.

  They strode down the corridor to an apartment door where they could hear classical music playing softly.

  They glanced at each other one last time before he knocked at the door.

  The door opened and music filled the hallway. The professor emerged from behind the door holding a drink filled with liquid and garnished with a mint leaf.

  “Mr. Meade, Ms. Hunan, I’m so glad you could join us,” the professor said opening the door wide and indicating they should come in. “My guests are so looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Yes, well, we didn’t have much else going on tonight,” Emeline said sarcastically.

  Meade held back a laugh as the professor’s face colored slightly.

  “Yes, of course…” the professor said with a nervous chuckle. “Please come in.

  The professor stepped aside as he entered the living room with Emeline where several people were already standing, talking amongst themselves. A waiter approached and offered them a tray with tiny appetizers on it.

  “You must try the shrimp, it’s absolutely divine,” the professor said nodding at the plate of appetizers.

  Meade tilted his head in surprise as they entered the room. “Shrimp?”

  The professor closed the door behind them. “Indeed. We actually grow all kinds of things here at Shangri-La. Tilapia, salmon, and even shrimp are a part of the vast ecosystem that exist in the underground farm I showed you earlier.”

  They exchanged a look. The professor saw their skepticism and grinned. “Tony, please come here.”

  A waiter carrying a silver tray with several skewers filled with shrimp approached them. The professor grabbed one of the skewers off the tray and handed it to him. “Please, you must try one. I would be insulted if you didn’t.”

  He hesitated, looking at the pink meat on the thin wooden stick with caution. “I’ve never actually eaten one of these before.”

  “After tonight, you’ll never want to eat anything else,” the professor promised. He handed a skewer to Emeline who shrugged and began chewing it immediately.

  Her face lit up and she shoved another skewer toward him, barely able to get the words out between bites. “Meade, you have to try this.”

  She grabbed another skewer off the waiter’s plate and began eating that one too. He took a small bite, pleasantly surprised at the taste. Of course, anything would taste like ambrosia compared to the Coalition K-rations he had been dining on the last few months.

  “Not bad,” he said, nodding his approval.

  “And there’s far more where that comes from,” the professor promised. “Please, let me introduce you both to some of the people who help keep Shangri-La working as well as it does.”

  They followed the professor down the hallway and out into the living room of the penthouse. There a group of seven or eight people were congregating, chatting quietly amongst themselves. The chatter quieted once Meade and Emeline entered the room.

  The professor clapped his hands to bring everyone’s attention to him. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. James Meade, and Ms. Emeline Hunan. They’ll be our guests over the next few days touring our facilities and getting to know everyone around here.”

  The crowd regarded them for a moment. Feeling uncomfortable with the attention, he raised a hand in greeting. “I come in peace.”

  The joke landed terribly, and no one laughed. The professor chuckled nervously and began introducing people to the two of them.

  “My wife you’ve already met,” the professor said, indicated Dr. Hahn on the other side of the room. Dr. Hahn raised her glass to them.

  “This is Judge Rex Harrison,” the professor said, indicating a man whose belly distended well over his belt. The man was six feet 8 inches tall and had to weigh well over four hundred pounds. Meade extended a hand, which was ignored by the judge.

  “You’re part of the rebellion against Palmetto,” the judge said this as a statement of fact.

  Meade glanced at Emeline and then looked back at the man, nodding.

  “You’re doing some damn fine work out there, son,” the man said, his voice booming through the room. The gregarious man grabbed his hand and began pumping it furiously. “That administration has done a lot to roll back basic freedoms. I’m glad someone is finally standing up to that son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Thanks. We’re trying to make the Coalition realize they need to rethink how they run things in New Plymouth,” he said while shaking hands with the judge.

  The professor turned to a tall, thin blonde woman standing next to him. “This is Commissioner Evans. She’s in charge of our local police force here.”

  “Not that the paradise the professor has created here needs my services all that often,” the woman added, shaking Emeline’s hand first. “I understand you two were instrumental in saving the Homeworld from Rosetta.”

  “It was a team effort,” Emeline replied, casting her eyes down.

  “Still, you saved a lot of lives that day, including my grandmother who still resides on the Homeworld,” the commissioner said, grabbing Emeline’s hands with both of hers. “It’s my privilege to be able to thank you in person for that.”

  “You’re welcome,” Emeline said softly. Despite having been kidnapped to bring her here, he could tell she was beginning to soften up to these people.

  “These three are our top researchers,” the professor said, motioning to three people standing quietly against a wall. “May I introduce you to Peter Stevens, Josephine Han and Travis Johnson.”

  The trio raised their glasses saluting Emeline and Meade.

  For his part, he wasn’t used to people honoring him like that. His smile became strained, his eyes casting about for anything else to look at while the compliments rained down. Emeline noticed his discomfort and squeezed his hand to reassure him.

  “Ladies, gentlemen,” their host’s voice boomed through the living room. “If I can entice you all to come to the dinner table. Our chef has prepared some lovely lamb shanks for us that will be served with some homemade mint jelly.”

  “Delightful,” the woman with the mohawk said. “It’s about time we had something besides steak out here.”

  Meade’s eyes lit up at the mention of red meat. “Steak? You have real meat here?”

  Professor Benson chuckled. “We’ve been growing the base proteins for SUMP for years, but thanks to my wife’s genius, we’ve been able to make some adjustments to the recipe which changes the flavor profile to whatever protein we desire.”

  Waiters began bringing out plates stacked with food, setting it down in front of them. Meade couldn’t help but be impressed by the presentation. The food looked and smelled amazing. His mouth was watering as he watched steam f
loat lazily off the potatoes and meat.

  Emeline didn’t wait for the rest of the guests and dug into her meal quickly, devouring the meal in front of her. He was always impressed by how much the tiny woman could eat.

  “That stuff is SUMP?” she asked, her face clearly betraying how impressed she was with the taste of the protein.

  Dr. Hahn narrowed her eyes and spoke derisively toward Emeline. “SUMP is the past. My serum is injected into the mass of meat while it’s being grown in the saline solution which changes the flavor profile. It’s far beyond seasoning for SUMP. It’s practically a new protein.”

  Emeline took another bite. “It’s delicious, whatever it is.”

  Dr. Hahn regarded Emeline for another moment with a steely glance before looking away, returning to her glass of wine. Professor Benson cleared his throat, hoping to move past the awkward moment.

  “Emeline and Jim are considering joining us here at Shangri-La,” the professor said. “I was hoping you folks could help us convince we’re doing great work out here.”

  The woman with a mohawk looked over in surprise. “The tour wasn’t enough to convince you?”

  “Tours and speeches are one thing,” Meade responded dryly. “But I like to judge things on people’s actions and choices.”

  “We’re mostly deciding how the Martian Independence Movement wants to get involved,” Emeline added quickly. “We’re here to find out what your group could offer over the Coalition’s current governance.”

  The group looked around at each other and began to chuckle which made him uncomfortable. He never liked it when other people were in on the joke and he wasn’t.

  The professor look pained, “You’ll have to forgive us Mr. Meade. These are some of our best people who are working on the more, shall we say, advanced technologies at our disposal. They’re laughing because they know what you’ve seen today is only the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Oh?” Meade took a drink, swirling the ice in his glass. “Care to show something off?”

  The professor chuckled and shook his head. “All in good time my boy. All in good time.”

  The professor turned to his wife who was engaged in an animated conversation with the mohawked woman.

  “Pardon me lovely,” the professor said trying to get her attention. “Perhaps you could tell Mr. Meade about some of your other projects.”

  “I’m a big fan of uhh… science,” Meade said. “Like, for example, what were you planning on doing with me when I was back on your table?”

  Dr. Hahn’s face fell when he mentioned her attempt to experiment on him. “The pursuit of science is littered with casualties of war. You have to understand, at the time, I thought you and your friends were coming to kill us.”

  “Life is cheap out here in the Martian outback I guess,” he replied. Emeline kicked him under the table, glaring at him.

  “It’s more than that,” Dr. Hahn replied. “It’s about the survival of the fittest. You must be able to appreciate something like that.”

  He looked her up and down, his eyes narrowing, “Experimenting on the weak doesn’t seem to be the way to go about it though.”

  “As I said when we first met, your life was forfeit the moment your people attacked our structure,” Dr. Hahn said frostily.

  “You’ve done this before?” Emeline asked.

  “Many times. And I’d defend each one,” the professor stopped, his face coloring slightly as he realized that included Meade and Emeline. “Present company excluded of course

  “People who come to us out in the outback are desperate beyond hope,” Dr. Hahn said, fixing him with her cold blue eyes. “Desperation is a virus we do not allow into our colony. Besides, my experiments led to breakthroughs that have helped our people tremendously.”

  Meade felt a sinking feeling in his stomach but couldn’t help asking the question.

  “Like?”

  Dr. Hahn pointed to an older woman sitting on the other side of the table who was engaged in an animated conversation with her dinner companion.

  “Take Misandre for example. She was one of the first settlers we took in. Misandre is a brilliant woman with two PhDs, one in theoretical physics and another in hydrodynamics. She’s also the foremost expert in the system on supercooled superconductors. All of those skills were made useless under the Treaty of ‘44.”

  “All she had left for her after the Last War was working on a Consortium barge with a poor safety record,” the professor added. “She spent years trying to keep that radioactive bucket flying. When she came to us, cancer riddled her body and she only had weeks left to live.”

  “We cured her,” Dr. Hahn said. “My research over the last few years here gave me the knowledge necessary to rip the cancer out of her body.

  “And I was able to do that thanks to the knowledge I gained by working on specimens who came before her. She’s now one of Shangri-La’s most valuable members, someone I can’t imagine our colony functioning without.”

  Meade glanced at Emeline who was staring at Dr. Hahn with an intense fury.

  “You see Mr. Meade, Ms. Hunan, I can’t allow myself to be concerned with one life when I know the knowledge gained will go on to save hundreds more.” Dr. Hahn waved at the crowded room. “Without Misandre, there’s no way we’d be able to support this many people all at once.”

  The waiters began clearing their empty plates. Meade hadn’t even realized he had finished eating. He was hungry and the food was good, but they weren’t there for a nice meal and conversation.

  “The problem with the Coalition and Consortium,” the professor said, “is that they have a culture of throwing people away once they are no longer useful to them.”

  Meade looked away. The professor had a point.

  “Arguably, you’ve one of the most famous men in the system, responsible for saving billions of lives. But who are you to them? A runabout. A man with no use to those who draw loyalty from a flag.”

  “I have a flag,” Meade replied. “We call it the Martian Independence Movement.”

  The professor waved at him wearily.

  “Of course. I don’t mean to disparage what you’re trying to accomplish. What I’m saying… we’re saying,” he reached for his wife’s hand. “We believe in a better future than our enemies and think there’s a better use for the power they have.”

  “So, we can leave?” Meade asked after a moment.

  “I wish I could,” Professor Benson said gravely. “As I said, we have certain things in motion that require our colony to remain in an extended period of radio silence. Your leaving would put my people in danger.”

  “That’s convenient,” Emeline snorted.

  Dr. Hahn smirked at her. “It is reality. I suggest you begin living in it.”

  Emeline and Meade exchanged a glance.

  The professor’s tone became softer. “In the meantime, please take advantage of our facilities. I can’t imagine life back in New Plymouth had anything so luxurious as what we’re offering you.”

  “We’re not going to be bought off by a day spa,” Emeline said, rolling her eyes.

  “Yes, well,” Dr. Hahn coughed. “Regardless, as our polite hostage, we ask you cause us no trouble while you’re staying here with us. That’s all.”

  They glanced at each other.

  “You’ll get no trouble from us,” Meade replied. “We want to go home in one piece.”

  “Excellent,” the professor said gleefully, clapping his hands together. “I have a brandy I’ve been saving for a special occasion. Why don’t I go and get that, and a few snifters and we can celebrate our newfound friendship?”

  Meade looked over at Emeline. “I never say no to a –”

  “Actually,” Emeline interrupted, pressing a hand to her temple. “If you wouldn’t mind. It’s been a long day and we have things to discuss, especially after everything we’ve seen and heard today.”

  The professor’s smile faded, “Yes, of course.”

  “We’
ll regroup in the morning,” Meade said, glancing at Emeline. He wasn’t ready to be left alone with her yet. He still hadn’t told her that Kansas, her friend and mentor was dead thanks to him.

  “Excellent,” the professor said, his smile brightening once again. “Get some sleep and tomorrow we shall go over further details on how I believe our two organizations can help one another.”

  They stood and moved to the door, saying their goodbyes to the rest of the group. He hated social niceties, but when in Rome and all that.

  “Thank you for everything tonight,” Emeline said. They stood out in the hallway, when they were stopped by the professor.

  “If you need anything…” Professor Benson began.

  “We’ll be sure to page one of your people,” she replied. “Please give our best to your wife.”

  “I will, thank you,” the professor paused. “I know you want to be alone to discuss everything you saw tonight, but I want to tell you, it has been our honor to break bread with you here in our home.”

  The door slid shut, leaving Emeline and Meade alone in the hallway for the first time since they had arrived.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Confession

  Meade and Emeline walked back to their room in silence, knowing they were being watched. He held her hand, wondering how he was going to break the news to her about Kansas. He’d kept their friend’s death from her long enough and every step closer to the room was another nail in his heart.

  “You get copies of their armbars?” she whispered to him in the elevator.

  He felt his mouth go dry when the elevator slowed at their floor. He had to tell her the news and was not looking forward to their next conversation.

  They arrived at the room and used their key to get in. Once the door shut, Emeline melted into his arms, holding him tight.

  “Thank God we’re finally alone,” she said. “So, what’s the plan? Where’s Kansas set up?”

  He swallowed. “See, the thing about that…”

  She rolled her eyes and pushed back away from him, slapping at his chest. “Great. Did you come in here half-cocked with no plan? Didn’t Kansas just rip you a new asshole over that exact thing?”