by Ben Wolf
“Justin.” A voice dragged him out of his dreamless sleep and into the darkness of his room. “Wake up, man.”
The voice was Keontae’s, but the room around Justin and the comfortable bed he lay on made no sense.
Then it clicked into place—the hotel. The colonist ship. Repairs to the Viridian.
“What?” he asked, still groggy and unwilling to move from the softness of his bed, even as the green light from Keontae flared ever brighter.
“Get your ass out of bed, JB,” Keontae said. “You got trouble comin’.”
“Pshhht. What trouble?” Justin mumbled.
“Quan and the Ikari,” Keontae said. “Only there’s like twenty of ’em this time.”
7
Justin jerked upright. “What?”
“No joke, JB,” Keontae said. “They’re in the lobby now, headin’ toward the stairs. I already shut down the grav lifts to buy you some time. You gotta go, man.”
That concierge girl had sold him out after all.
Maybe. It didn’t really matter now.
Justin threw on his clothes and yanked on his boots, then he headed for the hotel room door.
“I’m gonna stay in the system ’til you get to the roof,” Keontae said.
“Wait, what?” Justin almost shouted.
“Quiet, man!” Keontae hissed. “You can’t go down. They got guys waitin’ in the lobby and out the back of the hotel, too. Only way outta this is on the roof.”
Justin’s vision wobbled at the thought of it. “This building’s seven stories high.”
“So is the one next to it. You either gotta get over your fear of heights and get across, or you’re gonna be dragon food.”
Justin swore a litany of curses, but he had to trust Keontae on this. “Which way do I go when I get out of the room?”
“Hang a right, and then a hard left. There’s a roof access door down the hall and on the left side. I’ll make sure it’s open for you.”
“Got it.”
“And when you get to the roof, follow my lead. I snatched a map of the city. I’ll direct you.”
“Good.”
Justin pulled the door open, thankful he hadn’t brought anything with him from the rig, and turned right. He took the first hard left and found the roof access door. As he reached it, the door slid open, and Justin walked through. It slid shut right away and locked behind him.
The ladder before him ascended a good ten feet up to the roof, but he steeled himself, grabbed the bottom rung, and pulled himself up. A minute later, the hatch at the top opened on its own, and he climbed onto the roof.
Around him, Nidus City glowed blue, purple, and green against the stark black of the night sky. The downtown skyscrapers still loomed in the distance and still radiated their tranquil lights. Hovercraft flowed through the city like blood cells through arteries, albeit slower and less frequently than they had that afternoon when he’d arrived.
Justin briefly wondered if the dome overhead had just gone transparent, and if the stars he could see above were actually there, or if the whole thing was just a continuation of the sunny sequence he’d seen earlier. Ultimately, it didn’t matter; if he didn’t escape, he’d never see another sunrise—real or otherwise—again.
The roof hatch closed behind him, again on its own. Then a control panel on what might’ve been a roof-mounted climate-control unit began to glow with green light. He hurried over to it and slapped his metal palm on it, and his hand tingled as Keontae leaped into his arm.
[Edge of the roof, straight ahead. You’ll see the next one,] Keontae said. [It’s even a bit lower. You can make the jump.]
“Jump?” Justin shook his head. “You didn’t say it was a jump.”
An explosion sounded behind him, and the hotel’s roof shuddered under his feet. When he looked, the hatch to the roof hung open, nearly twisted off its hinges.
[Time to go, JB,] Keontae said.
A voice shouted something behind him, but Justin couldn’t make it out.
What he could make out was the sight of Quan’s blond head emerging from the hatch opening. He scanned the roof until his dark eyes locked on Justin’s.
He brandished a pulse rifle and took aim.
“Shit!”
Justin ran toward the edge of the roof as pulse rounds scorched the air around him. As he barreled toward the edge of the roof, he could see the next roof was lower, but he still couldn’t gauge the size of the gap between them.
Too late now. When he reached the edge, he sprang off it with all of his strength.
Only then did he see how wide the gap was beneath him, and vertigo thrashed in his mind and in his stomach.
But he cleared the jump anyway. He landed hard on his boots and skidded, then he lost it and tumbled head over heels to a stop on the roof.
[Get up, JB!] Keontae shouted. [They can still shoot you!]
Keontae was right. Justin pushed through the pain and the confusion, got up, and kept running.
“There it is,” Bryant announced. “We’ve made it, and with no sign of anyone behind us.”
Hallie hurried to the cockpit and stepped inside so the others could peer in past her. In the distance, a long gray colossus of a ship cruised through the void of space.
It had a huge red-orange dome in the center, and it was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
“See?” Bryant looked up at her. “Hope and destiny. Not just the names of my two favorite strippers at the club back home.”
Hallie rolled her eyes. “This still doesn’t mean you’re right.”
Bryant shrugged and gave her a perfect smile. “Like I said, believe what you want, but you won’t change my mind.”
“Get us there, and maybe you will have changed mine.” Hallie turned to the others. “Strap in. We’re landing soon.”
Pulse blasts battered the rooftop all around Justin, but none managed to hit him. He followed Keontae’s instructions, fully trusting his view of the city. At this point, Justin’s lungs were burning too much to even question where Keontae was leading him.
He skidded to a halt and ducked behind a ventilation unit.
[JB, you can’t stop!] Keontae yelled inside his head.
“This won’t last. I can’t outrun them.”
[You don’t have to. Next roof over is our solution.]
Justin looked, but apart from much of the usual machinery atop these roofs, he didn’t see much. The shooting behind him had stopped, now replaced by shouts in an Asian language.
[But you gotta go now.]
“Okay.” Justin sucked in a deep breath, rose to his feet, and barreled toward the next edge.
The shouts behind him escalated, and pulse rounds streaked through the air around Justin yet again. Once more, at the edge of the roof, he vaulted forward, but this time it wasn’t enough. Fatigue stole some of his power, and his jump didn’t carry him as far as he needed it to.
His chest and legs slammed into the side of the building, pushing the air from his lungs and replacing it with pain. The grip of his left hand on the ledge faltered, but his right hand held fast.
Damn right it held. He hadn’t lost his arm back at ACM-1134 and gotten a new one for it to be worse than the one he was born with.
Despite the agony he’d put the rest of his body through, his prosthetic arm pulled him up onto the ledge with ease, then he consciously rolled over and lay behind it for a moment to catch his breath and recuperate.
[You got ten seconds, JB, and then they’ll be too close for this to work.]
“For what to work?” Justin wheezed.
[Get up and get movin’, and I’ll show you,] Keontae said. [You’re not dyin’ here, not after all the shit you already survived.]
Justin’s many weaknesses tried to overcome his will, tried to stomp out its fire and make him yield to his fragile body, but he’d been forged in the darkness and death of that damned mine, and he refused to give up.
Keontae was right. He wasn’t going to die
here.
So, again, he pushed himself up and started running on shaky, aching legs. His bruised knees wobbled, and his chest burned from the series of hits he’d taken that night, first from Quan and then from the side of this building, but he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.
[Ahead of you,] Keontae said. [Water tank.]
“And?” was all Justin could manage to get out, even as he adjusted his course toward the water tank on the roof.
[Cut that bitch down.]
Then Justin saw it. The water tank stood on a tripod of three alloy legs—perfectly stable as it was, but if one leg faltered, the whole tank would topple over. A smirk graced Justin’s tired face, and he picked up speed.
The rattling of pulse blasts had ceased, but it soon picked back up again. Either these guys were miserable shots, or their weapons were off, or maybe God was looking out for Justin for once. Whatever the case, nothing had managed to hit him yet.
He clenched his fist, and the familiar orange blaze of energy erupted from the top of his wrist and formed into a glowing blade. Now within range, he swung at the water tank’s front leg, and his energy sword carved a clean line through the rigid metal supporting it. The tank overhead jolted.
In the sword’s wake, the molten metal crackled and sparked, but then it molded together and began to cool—and it began to solidify again.
“Shit.”
[Hit it, JB!] Keontae shouted in his head.
With pulse blasts pinging the water tank and zipping past him, Justin slammed his metal fist into the side of the leg, right where he’d cut through, where it was still weak.
The leg buckled fast, and metal groaned overhead.
[Get out of there!]
Justin would’ve done it even if Keontae hadn’t yelled at him. He ran under the falling water tank and made it to the far side just as it crashed into the roof and burst open, sending torrents of water screaming at the Ikari.
The water launched all of them off their feet, silencing their shooting as it swept them toward the edge of the roof and then over it.
And they were still seven stories up.
Had Justin just sent them all to their deaths?
[Best not to linger, JB. We still gotta find somewhere safe for you to stay the rest of the night.]
Justin shook his head. “No way I’m going back to sleep after all of this.”
He couldn’t help but think about how he’d washed away a group of men trying to kill him. He’d never killed anyone before—not anyone still alive, anyway. He hadn’t even killed Carl Andridge; Keontae had done that through his prosthetic arm, against Justin’s will.
They’d had a long discussion about it afterward, and in the end, Justin had cleared his conscience of it. But now…
[Don’t sweat it, JB,] Keontae said, as if he could read Justin’s mind. [It was you or them.]
“Yeah,” Justin said, but he still felt a hollow pit in his stomach. He could’ve killed Quan or the other three back in the Asian District and possibly avoided all of this, but he hadn’t. He’d thought he was showing them mercy, but it had only resulted in more dead.
[Look, you can feel guilty anywhere,] Keontae said. [But if the android cops or those Farcoast soldiers show up, you won’t be able to explain your way outta this. And they will show up, too, to deal with all the collateral damage.]
Keontae was right… again. About all of it. Justin tried to pump steel into his nerves and ignore it, and it sort of worked. Maybe this was how guys like Stecker and Gerhardt and Captain Marlowe got to be so strong and decisive.
Justin’s legs moved him along the roof before the tide of water could slosh back to him, and he decided to focus on deadening his emotions about what had happened.
They had attacked him. They had wanted him dead.
And they paid the price for it. That was all there was to it.
[There’s an old-school fire escape on the side of the building. You can get down that way.]
Justin did, and he found his bruised chest and knees didn’t like climbing any more than they’d liked running for his life. He resisted his vertigo with every step down, and before long, he rediscovered the ground again.
As his boots hit the pavement, the first sound of approaching sirens reached his ears. He tucked his chin down, adjusted his shirt collar, and walked at an even clip away from the building and toward the ethereal blue of downtown Nidus City.
Despite his curiosity, he didn’t bother to try to round the building for a look at the damage he’d caused. Better to not risk it, and better to not risk a crisis of conscience over it.
Instead, he turned his attention to the city lights and the skyscrapers.
And that’s when he saw the telltale glow of a spaceship streaking across the domed sky. But rather than its thrusters emitting a glow, the whole ship seemed to radiate a sort of angry aura and a noticeable amount of smoke. Then it disappeared beyond the edge of the dome.
“Did you see that?” Justin stopped in his tracks.
[See what?]
I guess Keontae doesn’t see everything. “A ship. It just flew across the dome. You think it was part of the programming, or…”
[No. Missed it.]
If Justin had his bearings correct, that meant the ship was heading toward the Nidus’s docking bay. “I think we just got company.”
[So?]
“The ship was smoking. Looked like it was in rough shape. Something happened to it. Maybe it got attacked,” Justin said. “We’ve got time to kill before sunrise, and I’m curious. Let’s go check it out.”
[If you want. You know I don’t sleep anyway, and it’s better than roamin’ the streets all night lookin’ over our shoulders,] Keontae said.
“Then let’s go.”
The journey back to the docking bay took Justin through Nidus City on foot until he reached the hovertram line. He boarded a hovertram, and it took him to the docking bay alone.
When he got there, the doors were sealed, but the hovertram left him there all the same. When he was done exploring, he’d have to wait until it came back to hitch a ride back to the city.
With Keontae, locked doors didn’t matter much anymore. Just about anything controlled by a computer, Keontae could bend to his will.
Justin placed his hand on the control screen next to the door, which displayed the words “Restricted: Authorized Employees Only” in red capital letters. Employees or not, they were about to authorize themselves. Keontae jumped into the network and began doing his thing.
Justin waited for a long time while Keontae worked, but instead of the docking bay doors sliding open, the console flashed with green light. Justin touched it, and his fingers tingled as Keontae returned to his arm.
“What’s up? Couldn’t you get it open?”
[I can,] Keontae replied, [and I will, but I had to tell you this before we got in there.]
“Okay…?”
[Hold on. I snagged a piece of an audio recordin’ from the network,] Keontae said. [Couldn’t get the whole thing. Security on this network is legit, bro. As good as the mine’s, at least, but fifty times bigger. Maybe more. Lots of cyberspace to navigate.]
“Is that a problem?”
[No. Just a bigger job. I can do it, but it’s gonna take longer until I can bypass more of the security protocols. It’s a lot like ATMs; I could break into ’em, but not in time to stop ’em from alertin’ the authorities.]
“Don’t remind me. We nearly got caught the one time we tried,” Justin muttered.
[Here… I gotta play this audio for you. You’re gonna trip.]
“…stated cause of the damage was…?” a male voice asked.
“We were attacked,” a new voice crackled into Justin’s ear. Female. Pleasant. Articulate.
“By whom?” the first voice asked.
“By a—” the woman started, but someone else cut her off.
“Pirates,” a guy’s voice cut in. “Space pirates, or marauders, or whatever you call them these days.”
“But you said you’re a science vessel. Why would they bother to—”
The recording cut off.
“Huh,” Justin said.
[There’s more,] Keontae said. [I heard it, but I couldn’t grab all of it. Basically, their ship is worth a mint. The kind of ship diplomats and generals use to escape hostile situations. Heavy armor. Fast. Expensive.]
“Makes sense that pirates would want it, then.”
[Yeah, but those pirates managed to kill the ship’s captain in the process, too.]
“Ugh. That’s terrible.” Justin shook his head. “Damned pirates.”
[You said it. Alright… load me back up, and I’ll get you inside.]
Justin glanced around, careful to make sure no one else was watching, but the area was dead. It was one of those in-between areas where people neither cared to nor even could congregate if they’d wanted to. But a place like this, with a locked door leading to the Nidus’s docking bay…
“Cameras?” Justin asked.
[Already handled,] Keontae said. [Obviously. And I made sure any record of you jumpin’ across rooftops disappeared, too.]
“Smart move.” Justin touched the console again, and with a tingle, Keontae shifted back into the Nidus’s network.
It took another couple of minutes, but sure enough, the docking bay doors did slide open, and Justin made his way inside.
As before, a sprawling cavern of a room expanded before him, and in the distance he could see the Viridian’s distinct shape. Across from it sat the new ship.
From such a long distance, he couldn’t make out any damage on it, or really any details, for that matter. He realized he couldn’t actually see the Viridian’s details either; his brain was just filling in the info he’d already seen and knew.
He also realized he was standing there, out in the open, where he wasn’t supposed to be standing. And if the Farcoast soldiers or anyone else happened to turn and look his way, they’d see him.
Justin glanced around and remembered an opening in the wall near the docking bay doors—it was another set of doors, but smaller. He’d seen them on his way out of the docking bay the first time.
