Erin took another deep breath and felt as though she was at a loss for words once more, but she got there eventually. “When I lost Rodger, everything changed. I was disconnected for a long time. Depressed and taking pills so I could go back to work and pay the bills. His funeral cost me a fortune and I had to declare bankruptcy. Everything he left me went to paying the corporation for the damaged equipment and body retrieval. This isn’t a sob story though. I’m hardly the first widow that this has happened to and I will not be the last. That’s just what happens when a big corporation like Kyva Corp is regulated solely by its own executives. They don’t give a damn about anyone and I was just another worker bee making their honey… I bet Kyva himself has enough loose change down his couch to pay for every funeral needed for every worker aboard every one of his Sky Bases, but like hell a guy like that would ever care about a grieving widow. If there are two things that man has proven over the years, it’s that he can’t seem to die and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone other than himself. How old is that augmented psycho these days? Last I heard, he was like 4 or 500 years old. I guess money can buy you everything…”
Erin went quiet for a bit as she tried to exorcize the bad thoughts away, but the task was hopeless and after staring at the recording device for a few more minutes, she figured that she may as well vent her frustrations. She was going to die anyway, so why not clear the air and try to find some comfort before that happened?
“The lousy thing about getting stuck on Sky Base 10 for just over 20 years is that Kyva Corp managed to become a sovereign nation by way of the lax maritime laws. The corporation sucks you in with bright and friendly advertising and a promise of a better tomorrow and all the usual crap… And I know what you’re thinking, doc. Only gullible idiots get drawn into that obvious lie. Well, guess what? I was one of those gullible idiots and what can I say? I was young and fresh out of high school without any direction. Kyva Corp was offering post-secondary education practically for free and I was short on cash. The whole idea is that you enroll in their program on either Earth or Mars, take some basic zero G training once you pass your year or two of college, and suddenly you’re allowed to go into space to work on one of their stations while finishing off your degree in the field of study you chose. You get the training and education all in one go. At least that’s how they sold it to everyone on Earth. I don’t know what the marketing campaign was like here on Dusk, but all I know for sure is that nearly everyone orbiting around this moon on Sky Base 10 was earthborn, so what does that tell you?”
Despite herself, Erin let out a small laugh as she began to get into her little rant. She felt like an internet radio host in a way and she wondered if she had missed her opportunity to become some sort of personality on a weekly broadcast.
“I was given a vacuum and a floor buffer on my first day and I figured that it was just a place to start. So, like a fool, I was determined to show that I was going to be the best at anything they threw at me, even if it was picking up trash and buffing floors. Years later, I now have the perspective and knowledge that if I had acted like an incompetent moron, then I would have been taken off that task and thrown into middle management where I could have a cushy job and decent pay. I was great at picking up trash and wrangling turds out of toilets though, so that was my downfall into stagnant living without any hope of promotion. I did eventually get my degree and that should have been my escape, but love happened. Stupid rotten love. I had a cute boyfriend and he had a program that ended a year after mine, so I decided to wait for him so we could move on together, maybe to Sky Base 9 or even back to Earth or Mars. There were possibilities brewing.”
Erin then grimaced when she realized what she was leading up to and decided to move ahead without sugar coating the truth. There was no point in lying about anything. People were going to hate her no matter what and she may as well give them as much ammo as possible because hating a corpse in the making was such an incredible waste of time that she would eventually have the last laugh.
“Least to say, it didn’t work out. It turns out that most good looking twenty-something-year-old guys are only good for looking at and little else. He suddenly wanted to stay on Sky Base 10, I got mad at him for lying about his plans, we started fighting, and two years later I cheated on him with someone I was not overly fond of, but who would break up our decaying relationship without the heartache of looking him in the eyes. That’s right, Doctor Singh. I screwed his best friend and what a best friend he turned out to be.”
Erin then let out a long sigh at her confession. “I was so young back then… Bouncing from one bad relationship to another and pretending that I was in love with emotional train wrecks and that we were going to build a loving life together… I was wasting time… More time than I would like to admit. I finally made an oath to myself to stay single until I got my crap together and I think I was doing good for a bit. I had my confidence back, I was paying my bills on time and I had a cat that I cuddled with every night. It was good. Simple, but good.”
She let a smile crawl across her face as she reminisced on the past and she was suddenly happy that it was all being recorded. It meant that someone somewhere out there may one day listen to the recording and connect with her memory and if she could give that gift before her death, then perhaps she had not messed up her life so poorly.
“It was only after I had stopped caring, and given up on trying to find myself another companion man-ape, that Rodger came into my life.” Erin snickered at the memory and began to blush despite being completely alone in her hospital room.
“This is embarrassing to admit, but we found each other on an online message board for casual sex.” She began snorting like a dork as she let out an embarrassed laugh. “The experience was so good that we decided to meet again… and again… and again… and one more time where we both promised each other that it was definitely going to be the last time, because neither one of us wanted to be nailed down to someone as we worked on our careers. Three days later, we were texting each other like a couple of horny teenagers and it swiftly became a regular thing again. I can’t say for certain when we started dating, but I seem to recall a point where we were hanging out a lot and sex stopped being a requirement for us spending time together. We did it all backwards and I think that’s why it worked so well for us. Neither one of us liked doing things conventionally. We were a couple of oddballs living our lives completely out of order and that was Rodger and me for six wonderful years.”
Erin let a tear fall from her eye and she tried to wipe it, but her hands were cuffed to the bed frame and she was bound down by a leather strap across her chest, so she opted to try and wipe her teary eyes and runny nose on her pillow. With a quick sniff, she composed herself and continued forward.
“Then the accident happened and I was gone for a long time. I was checked out for maybe two years in all. Not constantly, but it was on again off again depression. I was seeing a therapist often and letting life push me along like a leaf in a river and I pretty much gave up on my career. I went back to scrubbing floors because I needed a simple task to occupy my mind as I dealt with my grief. I can’t say for certain when I came out of it, but I remember my friend Audrey telling me a really dirty joke one day and making me smile and laugh for the first time in ages. I really miss Audrey; she was so patient with me and she never left my side. I wish I knew what had happened to her, but I doubt she survived the crash. She may have even died during the initial meltdown. I just don’t know… Those first 20 days were… I can’t remember them. The alarms went off and within seconds all the safety systems were triggering. The blast doors were coming down as if there had been a breech and some people got crushed in the doorways. It was horrifying. Everyone panicked as they tried to get back to their living quarters. It was complete chaos. I honestly can’t believe that I survived it…”
Erin went dead quiet for a few minutes as a wave of tears flooded into her eyes. She was overwhelmed with guilt at bringing Sky Base 10
down because every last one of her friends may have been killed by her actions and she wanted to close her eyes and face away from the truth. She wanted to curl into a ball and die in that moment, but she was restrained from comforting herself in any way and her heart was heavy with remorse. Her sobs were captured by the recording device and she wished that she could turn the thing off to hide her shame, but she could not.
“What was I supposed to do?” she pleaded into the microphone. “It was either save some or none at all. We weren’t going to be rescued. We were all left to die. What other choice did I have, Doctor Singh? What would you have done in my place? What else could I have done? I didn’t want to do it, but I had to… In my mind, I was given no other choice…”
Chapter 03 – Dissected Memories
Doctor Singh was at her desk with a cup of coffee, staring at her computer screen with a damning email on display. The President’s right hand proxy had laid out an incredibly threatening message in the politest way possible. Lawsuits were being threatened and her license to practice medicine was going to be revoked unless Erin made a swift recovery to meet the deadline of her execution. It was a horrible double standard because to treat Erin’s illness before her psych evaluation came back clean would be breaking the law and she would lose her license on that end, but if the recovery was not up to par by a stifling deadline, then she would lose her license as well. The President apparently wanted Erin walking healthily to the gas chamber instead of being rolled there in a wheelchair on the verge of death and he didn’t seem to care if a good doctor was a casualty in that process. The email mentioned something about the President not wanting anyone feeling sympathy for a mass murderer and other media spinning nonsense, but there were other obvious factors that remained unmentioned. Doctor Singh sighed deeply and took a sip from her coffee as she scanned the email once more. It was bullshit. She knew exactly what it was all about. Elections were coming up and the President wanted a third term.
The President made a habit out of glorifying public executions and oh, the people were ever so thirsty for blood. Over half of Dusk’s population of two-million were death row convicts that had been sent there to serve their sentences because they were deemed too dangerous to be on any other planet and there was the kicker that went along with that terrifying fact. A bunch of doe-eyed human rights activists forced Dusk legislation to give those sociopathic maniacs voting rights and it had been a downward spiral ever since. Every convict alive on Dusk wanted to watch their celestial moon catch on fire and plunge into Hades and that thought alone made Doctor Singh feel a moral repugnance toward each and every convicted rapist and murderer behind the dividing wall. If she had it her way, she would put them all in a mass gas chamber and let the chemicals flow. It would be cruel genocide, but it would make Dusk a hell of a lot safer. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone had ever gotten a repeal on their sentence and if someone ever did, then Erin Wilco would be the furthest flung candidate from that prospect.
Doctor Singh was not too worried about the email though. She had an ace up her sleeve that she was saving for an opportune moment to use. Something the bleeding hearts would eat up in a second and plaster all over the headlines to buy her some time. Dropping a lie to her outside source in the media about Erin being pregnant would almost certainly stir up a storm of sympathy as well as a demand that Erin be kept alive until she birthed her fictitious child. It had worked before with smaller newly arrived and deathly ill convicts during their psych evaluations and since she was the one in charge and on the board of directors, hardly anyone ever questioned her. She had been dealing with convicts and psychopaths during her whole career and President Hair-do along with all his little crony lawyers did not scare her in the slightest. Her project was Erin Wilco, and she would get to the bottom of that medical mystery if it was the last thing she ever did.
She poured over the biometric scan with the audio logs next to her and twirled her pen absently in thought. Erin was a mystery and about 80% of her story was checking out, but there was something off. There were no records of her ever being aboard Sky Base 10 and yet the friends that she had mentioned were all accounted for in the database, including her late husband Rodger Wilco, who was, in fact, married before he had passed away in the space walk accident, but the database did not show who he was married to and once again, there was no mention of Erin Wilco to be found anywhere. She had either been erased or else she was lying rather convincingly.
In Doctor Singh’s mind, Erin could not even be considered a ghost because that would imply some record of a previous life, which made Erin nothing more than a phantom haunting the plains of Dusk. She looked back at the threatening email on her screen and gazed at it with her cold and calculating eyes. The President was afraid of an infirmed cripple and in her mind, whatever scared a neo-Nazi wannabe dictator, must have been something worth investigating. Given the audio logs and Erin’s accounts up to that point, Doctor Singh had to wonder if there was some sort of conspiracy involving Erin and if she was even aware of it if that was the case. The evidence was pointing to Erin being unaware of a greater situation, but Doctor Singh had been around enough highly convincing pathological liars to remain skeptical until all avenues were explored with an intrepid thoroughness.
She wrote up a quick email to her discreet outside source in the media and asked for a few favors as she downed her coffee before gathering up her things to continue working on her project. She walked down the twilight corridors until she approached a door with four armed guards wearing riot gear and standing stiffly with their hands on their assault rifles.
“Good afternoon,” she greeted the men dully.
All four of the guards greeted her back stiffly and the one with a key turned the lock and opened the door for Doctor Singh.
“No hazmat suit again?” the guard asked.
Doctor Singh shook her head. “The patient is not contagious. Whatever she is infected with is solely targeting her body. You can all rest easy and will soon be allowed to leave the hospital. I apologize for raising the quarantine, but the last thing we needed was some unknown disease spreading across Dusk and wiping out the entire colony.”
The door man nodded. “It’s understandable, Doctor Singh. It was for the greater good.”
“Indeed,” Doctor Singh agreed.
She entered Erin’s hospital room and after a few moments the quarantine airlock closed behind her and sealed shut with an airy sucking sound. Erin turned her head from her restrained position on the bed and gave Doctor Singh a forced smile.
“It’s odd hearing an airlock seal while being groundside,” Erin said. “I heard it a lot on the station, but I only seem to notice it now whenever you come walking through that door.”
“I can imagine. How are you feeling today, Misses Wilco?” Doctor Singh asked.
“Fine I guess, and please, just call me Erin. Calling me Misses makes me sound old,” she said sulkily.
“Certainly, Erin. Now would you like the good news first, or the bad news?” Doctor Singh asked in her monotone.
Erin made an attempt to shrug. “Surprise me.”
The doctor took a breath and moved forward in a professional manner. “Well, the good news is that you are not contagious.”
“And the bad news?” Erin asked bravely.
“You are still infected with a mysterious disease that has never been seen before in human history and my team is having much difficulty isolating a possible cure. Extracting a sample for proper study is proving uncharacteristically difficult.”
“Great,” Erin said moodily.
There was a sudden loud bang hitting the window and Doctor Singh flinched while Erin simply turned her head calmly towards the scuffed window looking nonplused.
“I think they’re taking shots at you as well now, doc. I normally only get bullets hitting the window when no one else is around. I get this odd feeling that they’re not happy about me receiving medical treatment.”
“Ignore them,” Doctor Singh s
aid darkly. She moved to the other side of the room and drew the blinds with the touch of a button and the room lights came on automatically to emulate the outside light.
“Are we going to continue the psych evaluation?” Erin asked.
“In a way, yes,” Doctor Singh said with a nod. “I would like to pick up where you left off last time.”
Erin let an embarrassed look cross her face and began to look uncomfortable. “I can’t really remember where I left off… I had a bit of a sobbing fit that I’m not entirely proud of.”
Doctor Singh nodded in understanding. “It is part of the healing process. Your physical health goes hand in hand with your mental health. I am not here to judge you or your actions. I am only here to listen to your story and heal you to the best of my abilities. Do you understand this, Erin?” Erin nodded without a word and it looked as though she wished to sit up and stretch, but she had no such luck. “Good,” Doctor Singh continued. “I will be recording this conversation and reviewing it later. I believe you began speaking about the initial outbreak. I would like to hear more about that day and your experiences during the incident.”
“Sure, doc… Umm…” Erin let out a long sigh as her eyes slid over to the nightstand. “I don’t know why that listening device makes me all shy. I feel like I’m being observed.”
“You are being observed,” Doctor Singh pointed out. “How about I put the recorder in my pocket? Out of sight, out of mind.”
“I think that might actually help,” Erin admitted.
After a bit of a slow start and some gentle goading from Doctor Singh, Erin began opening up about the events and Doctor Singh resumed the jotting down of notes on her clipboard in silence.
Romeo Delta 2 Page 2
