The Last Builder

by C G Cooper

  “What are you two up to?” a deep voice asked, and a shriek from Katherine sent Cutler through the hatch, arms swinging.

  A shuttle worker with navy overalls and an orange jacket had both kids by the hair. Benji was struggling to break free, but Katherine’s panic had frozen her completely. She looked straight at her father, and the sheer terror in her eyes sent Cutler careening into the young worker.

  The two men hit the ground, forcing a wind-knocked grunt from the worker. Cutler didn’t give the man a chance to regain his breath before gifting him with an elbow to the temple. He went out cold immediately.

  Cutler looked to Katherine, who was staring at him with tears in her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked. She stood there, stunned, until Cutler asked the demanding question a second time. She nodded her head, but didn’t speak.

  He swung his head to Benji who was standing over the man with a smug grin on his face.

  “How ‘bout you?”

  “I’m used to getting tossed around. Now I’m realizing it pays to have someone bigger on your side.”

  Cutler strained with the body as he dropped the man through the hatch and to the ground below. It landed with a dull thud, and Benji shut the door after him.

  “He won’t be out for long,” Cutler said.

  Six ships were being prepared for takeoff. Workers were scrambling to and fro, gathering supplies, loading cargo, and trying not to get in each other’s way. Beyond a faintly glowing rail, a queue of passengers waited to board.

  “What order do they leave in?” said Katherine.

  Cutler motioned with his chin. “The far side launches first.”

  “Oh, well, of course, it would have to be the far side, wouldn’t it?” said Katherine. “We wouldn’t want to make it easy for our intrepid band of stowaways, now, would we?”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” said Cutler, refusing the grace of a side eye in her direction, “it’s usually an hour between each launch, correct?”

  “Provided nothing goes wrong,” said Benji.

  “Like apprehending fugitives from justice?”

  This time, Cutler shot her a disapproving glance.

  “Which one is ours?” she said, ignoring it. She leaned up against the cargo container, a steely look in her eyes.

  “That third one there.”

  She closed her eyes and took a steady breath. “Why?”

  “The first one is going to launch any minute,” he said, squinting to take in as much detail as he could from such a distance. The door had already closed and workers were clearing the area. A resounding alarm buzzed, signaling to keep a safe distance.

  “Once it launches,” Cutler continued, “everyone’s attention will be on the second ship. While everyone is focused on that one, we’ll sneak onto the third one and wait.”

  “For two hours,” said Katherine. “Easy.”

  “One hour. It’ll take us a while to pick our way to the third ship and get on board, and then of course we’ll have to find a way to stay hidden.”

  “And how do you suppose we do that?”

  “Still working on it.”

  Katherine groaned and put her head between her knees.

  A radio crackled behind them, turning all heads.

  A few feet away, the disposed worker’s sleek black radio lay on the ground. Cutler scrambled for the radio lest someone else hear it, retreating back behind the shipping container and holding it close to his ear.

  “Rogers?” a deep male voice said impatiently. “Rogers, come in. You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago, man.”

  “Say something,” Katherine said urgently.

  Cutler held a finger to his lips.

  “Rogers!” the voice repeated. The radio speaker roared with a sigh. “Whatever. If you hear this, don’t say I didn’t try.”

  Cutler stared at the radio, intensely focusing on how he could use it to his advantage. Another crackle snapped him out of his thoughts.

  A different voice said, “Paging TL-145. Paging TL-145. This is AW-674. Come in, TL-145.”

  “This is TL-145,” a bored voice answered. “Go ahead, AW-674.”

  “I’ve got AW-893 with me, sir. He says he was attacked over by his maintenance shaft while going about his duties.”

  “Attacked?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s banged up pretty bad. His assailant threw him down into the tunnels. He might have a broken wrist.”

  “Are you at your station, AW-674?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sending medical your way.” A faint crash and crackle rose in the background. “Stand by.”

  “You broke his wrist,” said Katherine. “Barbarian.”

  “They would’ve done worse to us if we had been captured.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Her face was a study in fear. But he wasn’t sure of what: the situation... or him?

  “Trust me,” he said, and turned back toward the radio when it came alive again.

  “AW-674, was the person who attacked AW-893 a white male in his 50s accompanied by a teenaged female with red hair?”

  “Terrific,” said Katherine.

  “Yes, sir,” came another voice, harried and in pain. Presumably this was Rogers. “There was a young boy with them, too.”

  “Do not engage. Medical and a team of officers are being dispatched to your location straight away.”

  “Copy.”

  “We need to get out of here,” Cutler said, stowing the radio in his pocket and pulling out his Omnis.

  “How?” said Katherine, hysteria building in her voice.

  “We’ll need a distraction. Shouldn’t be too difficult given everything going on around here.”

  “What can I do?” said Benji.

  “You’ve done enough.” Cutler punched a sum into his Omnis and placed the device on top of the one on Benji’s arm. “Keep your head down for the next couple of days. Do me a favor and do the right thing with this money, understand?”

  Benji nodded, once again dumbfounded by what his Omnis was showing him on his screen.

  “Go back through the tunnels,” Cutler said. “They should be clear if you leave now. If that officer is still hanging around, run in the other direction. You’re fast, and she won’t be operating at her full potential.”

  “Good luck,” Benji said, hugging Cutler. The boy let go and wrapped his arms around Katherine, too. She looked surprised at first, but she patted him gently on the back as a look of compassion took over. Benji tore himself away and ran back to the hatch, opened it, and jumped through.

  “He’s going to die,” said Katherine. “He has the virus. He’s going to die soon.”

  Cutler swallowed. He wanted to sugarcoat it for her. It might be days, it might be weeks, or it might be months. Maybe even years if he was lucky. He wanted to tell her there was a chance Benji was one of the lucky few. But where they were headed, it wouldn’t help to keep her sheltered. In the end, he settled for stark reality.

  “Telling him that wouldn’t change anything.”

  “He might’ve spent more time with his family, told them how much he loved them. Said goodbye.”

  Noticing the way her voice cracked, Cutler said, “A kid like that is a survivor type.” He left it at that. He didn’t need this conversation now. It was becoming apparent how much Victoria had kept her sheltered from uncomfortable truths about the world. It bothered him to have inherited the role of Grand Revealer. Katherine already hated him. She didn’t need any more reasons.

  He poked his head around the edge of the shipping container again and saw a small group of officers marching toward them.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  Pressing the button on the side of the radio, Cutler quickly assumed a frantic tone. “TL-145, come in!”

  “This is TL-145. Identify yourself.”

  “Sir, I just saw the suspect running toward the last ship, sir!” The girl was with him. I think they’re gonna try to sneak on board.”

&nb
sp; “Copy that. Stand by.”

  Cutler watched as the small team that was headed toward them halted. The leader had his finger to his ear. He motioned for them to turn around, and the group headed back toward the ships.

  “Squadron six on its way. Are you hurt?”

  “Yes, sir.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Attacked me before he ran off. Can’t move my leg, sir.”

  “Who is this again?”

  He stared at Katherine.

  “Please ident.”

  Cutler pressed the communicator. Then took his finger off.

  “I repeat. Please ident.”

  Cutler cursed. “They’re gonna trace our location.”

  “Now what?”

  “Now we run,” Cutler said, sliding the radio about ten feet across the concrete floor. “Get ahold of your stuff. And keep as close to me as possible.”

  They began picking their way across the airfield as quickly as possible. The roar of rocket engines turned nearly every head. Sending ships off-planet wasn’t uncommon, but the beauty of a craft taking off and entering space wasn’t lost on anyone. Cutler himself would’ve taken the time to stop and stare had he not been too preoccupied with getting to the third ship on time.

  As everyone else watched the thrusts of jet exhaust shooting down through the floor grates beneath, Cutler and Katherine moved around the outside of the launch pad of the third ship, taking care to stay hidden behind shipping containers and large pieces of equipment. They slipped silently in and out of the shadows until they stood only a few hundred feet from the back of the rocket.

  “How are we going to get on board?” Katherine said.

  Cutler cut a glance back at her, noticing the way she stared up at the ship with awe. It wasn’t lost on him that this was a completely new experience for her. She’d never been off-planet before, and he wished he could’ve given her the proper experience.

  “Status report,” barked a voice from a radio, and Cutler and Katherine jumped back behind an unoccupied ground vehicle. Their vantage point allowed them to see the aeronautics worker sauntering some twenty feet away. “AW-881,” he said, “all clear.”

  Cutler placed the suitcase gingerly on the floor and took two long strides across the causeway, grabbing the worker from behind and slipping an arm around his neck. The man put up a struggle, but the element of surprise had landed the tussle firmly in Cutler’s favor. After another minute, the man went limp, and Cutler dragged him back behind the vehicle.

  “What are you doing?” Katherine hissed, shock registering on her face.

  “We’d never get on board with him hanging around.” He opened the door of the ground vehicle and dumped the man inside, then looked around for his radio. Seeing it on the floor, he leaned over the man and pried open the main panel to the vehicle. He grabbed a mass of wires and yanked them out, recoiling from the slight spray of sparks.

  “The car’s in safety mode now. Once I shut the door, he’ll be trapped inside. It should give us a little bit of time.”

  Katherine looked back and forth between her father and the man in the car. “You’re a sadist.”

  “Come on, already. We need to act, now.”

  The pair snuck across the tarmac and into the cargo hold of the ship, keeping to the walls and ducking down any time another worker came close. Cutler prayed no one would notice the worker in the car until they had a good enough hiding place, otherwise it could all be over before it started.

  Katherine stuck close to him. Her silence was unsettling. He could practically hear her grinding her teeth. It wasn’t until they found a container to slide into, tossing in their luggage and settling on top of several hundred stacks of dried food packets, that she finally spoke.

  “You’re a bastard, you know that? A week ago, my life was perfect. My mom was alive, school was almost over, and I was going to have my whole life to live. Now I’m running away from officers, following homeless kids into the tunnels, and sneaking on board a space ship headed for the moon with a stranger. I’m a criminal, Dad, and you made me that way.”

  Cutler was speechless for a moment, feeling hurt and anger bubbling up in equal measure, but he pushed it back down to where it couldn’t retaliate. It wasn’t Katherine’s fault they were in this position, and she had every right to feel like he had yanked her away from a life that was seemingly perfect on the surface.

  He measured his words with care. “I know you feel like I’ve messed everything up for you, Katherine, but this is the only way we’re both getting out of here alive.”

  “And what about all of them?” she said, jabbing her chin in the direction of the city. She had tears in her eyes. “What about Benji? You just sent him away to die along with everyone else. Why are we the ones who get to live?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shifting into a more comfortable position. “But I do know that they’re better off not knowing what’s coming next. In some cases, rare cases, it’s ok not to be able to tell the difference between real hope and false hope.”

  Her voice was watery. “And what about us? Hmm? What about what’s ahead for us? Do you know what’s going to happen, or are we both just working on false hope, too?”

  He breathed deeply. He could lie to her and tell her he knew all the answers, but despite his view on real and false hopes, he couldn’t bring himself to manipulate his daughter like that. He wanted her to learn to be strong, despite the odds.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I do know we’ll get through it, whatever it is.”

  He noticed the strong set of her jaw line. She was his daughter, which meant that she was resolute, resilient.

  7

  Katherine

  She jolted awake as the ship touched down on the moon. The hole she had dug for herself in the pile of food packets shifted, and several of them poured down on top of her head. She groaned and stretched, wincing as her shoulder twinged. She rotated it a few times and sat up, blinking against the darkness, searching for her father.

  “Over here,” he said, off to her right.

  “So, we’re on the moon,” she said. She was trying to sound cavalier, but the idea of being somewhere other than Earth was intriguing to her.

  Light streamed in from tiny cracks in the container. She could barely see her father nodding. “It’s basically a galactic pit stop,” he said. “Private ships dock here so people can get on commercial crafts to go down to Earth. It’s also a universal refueling station. It stays pretty busy, but that might be good for us. It’ll allow us to go unnoticed.”

  “It feels... funny. Like I’m wearing weights on my limbs.”

  “The moon’s artificial gravity is a little different than the one on the ship. You’ll get used to it.”

  “How are we going to get out of here? They’re going to open this container at some point.”

  “That’s the question.”

  He leaned up against the wall and Katherine followed suit. For a moment, she didn’t hear anything, but a huge whoosh of air made her jump and hit her head on the top of the container.

  “What was that?”

  “My guess is they’ve opened the cargo door.”

  Katherine leaned up against the wall again and closed her eyes, trying to make out the voices she could hear shouting orders on the other side.

  “Greenwood’s orders,” someone yelled. “Check all the containers for stowaways.”

  “Christ,” someone responded. This voice was much closer, and Katherine shrunk down out of instinct. “What’s up his ass today?”

  “Today? Every day. Man’s a damn neurotic.”

  “Doesn’t change your orders, men,” said a third. “Get to it!”

  Katherine felt movement to her right as her father swam over to her.

  “Bury yourself,” he said, starting wriggle deep into the pile of packets.

  “What? You’re kidding. They’ll spot us!”

  “Bury yourself,” he repeated. “Leave enough room to breathe, and when th
ey open the lid, take a deep breath and hold absolutely still.”

  “They’ll start digging.” She began to move deeper down into the packets as well. “They’ll check every inch of this thing to find us.”

  “Don’t underestimate people’s laziness.”

  She didn’t bother arguing. It was either try to hide or be caught as soon as they opened the container. She’d rather find out what sort of luck they had on their side.

  Someone kicked the side of their container and shouted something indistinguishable. Katherine shot a glance over at where she had just seen her father, but he was gone, swallowed up by foil packets.

  She shimmied her shoulders back and forth to get even deeper under the supplies, silently cursing the sharp foil as it scratched at her skin.

  A crack of light appeared along the seam of the container as someone lifted the lid, and with one final breath, Katherine shoved her head under the packets and closed her eyes against their sharp corners, hoping she had covered every inch of her body.

  “Whole load shifted in transit,” someone said above her.

  “This one too,” someone else said from a few feet away.

  “Gonna be a bitch to restack all these,” the first voice said.

  “Not our problem. Anything in yours?”

  She felt the movement of packets above her, and shut her eyes tight, lest she see a hand dip through and swipe before her.

  “Nothing here, you?”

  “Nada,” the other voice said.

  As darkness closed in around the edges of her vision, she took a much needed breath. When the lid was completely sealed again, she sat up and inhaled the stale air of the container. She had never tasted anything so sweet.

  “Okay?” said her father. He sounded out of breath, too.

  “Never better.” She didn’t bother to keep the bitter tone out of her voice.

  He seemed to have fallen suddenly silent, listening, as she was, to the commotion outside.

  She waited until her breath had slowed to a somewhat normal pace before asking, “What’s going on out there?”