“Is that what you called the little grey men?” Joe asked.
Erin nodded. “It’s what I called them. Other people had different names, but no matter what they were called, everyone understood well enough that there was one specific monster we feared over all the rest.”
Joe frowned and looked at Erin with concern. “Wait, was there something other than gremlins aboard the station?”
“Yeah…” Erin said quietly. “Terrified people. They were as dangerous as the gremlins.”
“I see…” Joe said in thought.
Erin nodded. “You wouldn’t believe what fear can make people do. Good decent people twisting into cruel creatures because they think it’s the only path for survival. It’s one thing to hear about it, but when you watch it happening before your eyes it’s hard to have any real faith in humanity. Every act of kindness a person once showed you starts to feel like an act of self serving fraud. It hurts to have everyone turn on you because there is a slight shred of doubt lingering in the air.”
“I can imagine,” Joe said offhandedly.
“Try not to. It’s a lousy feeling,” Erin suggested. “Dale, you remember him? He had the fire axe strapped to his back. Dale the Barbarian. After we got hit with that grey dust a bunch of us got sick, and I mean worse than we already were, but Dale had gotten it the worst. He had grown violently ill quite quickly and within his hallucinations he must have seen some awful things.”
“Did you all suffer from hallucinations?” Joe asked.
“Oh yeah,” Erin confirmed without hesitation. “We all saw some weird shit after that. That grey dust that had exploded out of Romeo Delta 2 messed with our heads in a lot of ways and I succumbed to it just like everyone else, but the effects wore off eventually.”
Joe looked down at the clipboard with the suggestions that Doctor Singh had left him and he saw an opportunity. “Is there a chance that these gremlins were also a hallucination?”
Erin shook her head. “Not a chance. They were real. It’s one thing to see strange things on your own, but when everybody sees the same thing and they’ve all got pictures to prove it, a perceived imagination quickly turns into reality.”
“Wait, you have proof?” Joe asked incredulously. “How come you never mentioned this?”
Erin sighed as if the answer was obvious. “Because I assumed that the lawyers and you guys went through my possessions and found my PDA. It was in my pocket at the time of the crash, but I get the feeling that it magically disappeared while I was in a coma because neither the lawyers nor Doctor Singh seem to know where it is. My guess is that someone went through it and saw a few things that they didn’t want the public to see.”
“This sounds like a bit of a conspiracy,” Joe admitted.
Erin closed her eyes and tried to adjust herself beneath the bindings. “Joe, let me ask you something. I was in a coma and nearly burned alive after I crashed Sky Base 10 into this moon we’re on. I was accurately convicted of that crime and sentenced to death before I even woke up. Tell me… How did they know that it was me who crashed the station before they even found the black box? The box was only dug out of the wreckage a couple weeks ago and there were 3 dozen dead bodies in that control room with me. How did they know that it was my hands on the controls?”
“Uhh…” Joe had nothing.
Erin nodded with a dull look in her eyes. “Ever since I woke up planet side, I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that Kyva Corp knew exactly what was going on up there the whole time. Perhaps Doctor Singh would call it paranoia, but I hardly think that’s the case when you are actually being watched and followed by electronic eyes and ears…” She caught Joe’s expression and let out a breath. “I know that look. It’s the same look my lawyer gave me when I told him my story for my appeal. It’s the same look that everyone in the med bay gave me when I told them about the gremlins. You just labeled me as crazy.”
“No I…”
“Don’t lie,” Erin said with a dull and penetrating perception. “You don’t have to spare the feelings of a death row convict. No one is obligated to believe me and last time I checked, free thought isn’t a crime. No one believed me back then, and no one believes me now. No one seems to ever have time to talk about witnessing seemingly invisible gremlins. The reasons always change, but there is always a pending crisis that seems like a much bigger issue than it really is. Right now, getting me to walk to the gas chamber is the most important thing on Dusk. Back on Sky Base 10, it was watching Dale spiral into madness…”
“What happened to him?” Joe asked.
“He lost it,” she said vaguely. “It was hard watching him being restrained, but Major Tom insisted that it was for Dale’s own safety. I couldn’t argue. Dale had started chewing the skin off his arms while screaming about something living inside of him… He was screaming and rambling for days and keeping everyone awake. When I started hearing whispers of a plot to put him out of his misery during lights out, I began sleeping in front of his hospital door. It was all for nothing though…”
Erin went quiet as she closed her eyes and collected her thoughts once more. “I want to believe that Dale had already gone insane when he escaped his restraints. I want to believe that he was no longer himself when he smashed his head into the wall over and over again, but given my own experiences, I can’t help but think that he knew exactly what he was doing and why.”
“Did he…?” Joe asked without needing all the words.
Erin nodded. “He barricaded himself in his room and committed suicide… I tried to break down the door before he bled out, but…” A tear formed in Erin’s eye and she turned her head to wipe it on her pillow. “They… We burned Dale’s body and let his ashes float off into space like so many before him. As I watched I couldn’t help but feel that there was something beautiful about that moment. Even though my eyes were full of tears and I needed Major Tom to help me stand, there was something comforting in watching Dale escape that nightmare and return to the rest of the universe as fragments of star dust. Maybe in a billion years Dale’s ashes will have swirled and collected enough mass to the point where he becomes reborn as the core of some distant planet full of life and happy people. I think he would have liked that. He was the ambitious type… I’m sorry… Can we cut this short? Dale was a good friend and reliving it… It hurts… It hurts more than I thought it would…”
“Sure,” Joe said with sympathy. “We’ll pick this up after lunch.”
Chapter 10 – Empty Sacrifices
Eddie Knox was walking through the slums of the Dusk colony next to the prison district and beside him was his digitally transcended partner, Romney. There was an old rundown veterans bar that had seen better days and within it was where a lot of the old marines from the colonial wars drank their memories away. The poor bastards had been sold out and disbanded by the corporation after the victory against the mining company Riggs Palmer & Co. Though many heroes were honored and medals were handed out, it didn’t change the fact that nearly all the veterans beneath a certain rank had their pensions revoked roughly a week after the homecoming parade. The war was finally over and no one wanted to talk about it anymore, so when the story broke about the soldiers getting screwed out of a deal and being stranded planet side without any real hope of getting home, it was pretty much swept under the rug and forgotten about. Though the people forgot their sacrifices, the soldiers did not, and they honored their own with shots of whiskey and injections of drugs.
As Eddie and Romney approached the doorway, they were stopped by a meaty looking guy that had equal portions of muscular arms and bulbous paunch. By his rugged jeans and the patches on his leather vest, it was easy to tell that the guy belonged to a biker gang called The Dusters. Eddie thought the name was cute at best. Maybe those gorillas thought that the name sounded tough and was reminiscent of their pilgrimages out into the dust fields on their motorcycles, but Eddie figured that they sounded more like a maid service for hire. It was probably best that he kept hi
s mouth shut so Romney could take the lead.
“Hey Buck, how’s it going?” Romney asked.
“Not bad,” Buck said with a stony expression. “Your girlfriend has got to wait outside. You know the rules. Vets only.”
“Don’t give me that elitist shit,” Romney said with irritation. “Eddie was in the reserves and you know it.”
“Yeah, the reserves,” Buck agreed. “Nice and cozy away from the war. His boots never touched the ground and that don’t make him a real vet and it don’t help none either that he’s got a mouth on him that I’d like to knock off his face.”
Romney’s cycloptic eye narrowed on Buck and he spoke with a dangerous tone. “You sat in front of a computer in an air-conditioned office while dropping drone missiles from a time zone away like some sort of kid playing video games. What does that make you?”
Buck glared at Romney and his fist began to ball up. “How did you…?”
“Because I downloaded your file,” Romney said dully. “Your story always sounded like shit to me, you know, a guy whose boots actually touched the ground. You’ve been spinning a story about being a front-line veteran for years now and I’m sick of hearing your bullshit. So, either step aside willingly, or I’ll make you move myself and send everyone inside a copy of your record straight to their PDAs. Your choice.”
Buck tried to stare down tall and metallic Romney, but failed miserably in his intimidation tactic and eventually shrunk away from the door to let the two through. He wasn’t brave enough to stand up to Romney, most people weren’t, even if he was a dead man walking, but nearly everyone was willing to stand up to Eddie and his big mouth. So, it came as no surprise that Buck gave Eddie a scathing look and a discreet middle finger.
“I hope someone strangles you with that stupid tie, Knox.”
“And I hope you die alone on a toilet while yanking your worm to your sister’s old wedding photos, you fat little monkey,” Eddie fired back.
Romney and Eddie made their way into the veterans bar and were immediately met with a wall of cigarette smoke and the stale smell of old varnish. An old jukebox was flickering in a smoky corner and playing some old-school Rick Hart rock and roll jams from its well kicked speakers. Many eyes turned to Romney and his tall robotic form and he was greeted pleasantly as a brother in arms, while Eddie was treated like an invisible man who was making too much noise by standing there in silence.
Eddie had expected the tender loving treatment for Romney and he had grown numb to the ridicule he received himself long ago. He was drafted and put in the reserves against his will and it wasn’t his fault that Kyva Corp never got around to deploying him, but apparently, some of the old vets felt that he was supposed to beg for deployment to the front lines where he could be slaughtered with the other half million souls that had lost their lives. He didn’t see the point though; two companies were fighting over mining rights and he didn’t feel like laying down his life so one had a better chance of digging up rocks over the other. It was the ad campaigns that made it sound like they were fighting for freedom and independence on Dusk and unfortunately a lot of suckers bought into the fear like eager cattle heading towards the slaughterhouse.
After some pleasantries were exchanged and Eddie was firmly ignored, Romney emitted a hologram from his cycloptic eye and displayed a rotating head.
“I’m looking for Major Tom,” Romney said. “I remember seeing him here a few times after the war. I was wondering if he still hangs around?”
“Shit Romney, how long have you been out of the loop?” one patron said. “Tom ain’t welcome around here no more. He sold out and took a job with Riggs Palmer. Fucking traitor abandoned his principals and started working for the enemy.”
“That’s your opinion. What I’m looking for are facts,” Romney said curtly. “I have reason to believe that he was aboard Sky Base 10 when it fell, but he’s nowhere on the registry and apparently he’s been seen a few times since the incident. I’m just trying to clear up some air and get the facts straight.”
“Don’t know what to tell you,” the patron said. “He wouldn’t have been allowed on Sky Base 10 and he was certainly recognizable enough thanks to his fame, but he was Special Forces, so he probably knows how to keep a low profile and blend in. I’d say check out the Riggs Palmer head office, but that may involve leaving the planet first unless you want to do a turn in the joint. Hell, you can get jail time just for making a call to their HR department, so you’d have to personally go to their station orbiting Hades and hope that Kyva Corp doesn’t find out.”
“Great…” Romney said in a drawn-out tone. “Any idea why he’d sign on with Riggs Palmer after fighting them for nearly six years?”
“Money,” the patron said with a grimace. “It’s always about money. If you ask me, my gut is telling me that Riggs Palmer is gunning for another war. This moon may as well be one giant hunk of uranium and in the business world, the word uranium spells cash.”
“Seems kind of odd, don’t you think?” Eddie interrupted as Romney went quiet and sighed. “That guy was a hero, right? Single handedly turned the war around and saved thousands in the process. Do you really think money would have turned him?”
The patron glared at Eddie and the nerve he apparently possessed to speak up in a place he was not welcome in. “Maybe you should try living in the slums instead of visiting them, Knox. Maybe then, your ignorant ass would finally learn a little something about the world.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Eddie said with a lazy smile. “Seems to me that the only thing keeping you sorry fucks in this dive are your own bruised egos. You want to call me ignorant without knowing the first thing about me, fine. That’s your bag. At least I’m wise enough to know that drawing invisible lines in the sand and segregating people by saying dumb shit like, us and them, is only perpetuating the war you pack of miserable bastards refuse to let go of.”
Bar stools squealed as they were pushed back roughly and a pack of angry old veterans surrounded Eddie. As guns were drawn and knives were pulled, Eddie stood there with his lazy smarmy smile still on his face and his hands in the air. The patron that had been speaking pressed the barrel of his gun right against Eddie’s head and got in close to his face.
“I think it’s time for you to apologize and leave,” the patron seethed.
“For what?” Eddie asked. “Calling you out on your bullshit? Fuck you. Is this how war heroes act? They hear something they don’t like and pull out weapons as they surround an unarmed man?” Eddie let out a chuckle with the gun barrel to his head. “No wonder Kyva Corp kicked you dickheads to the curb. What a pack of whining sissies you guys turned out to be. I’m starting to think that maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was Major Tom that distanced himself from you guys, because I wouldn’t be caught dead associating with a bunch of thugs like you.”
Moments later, Eddie Knox found himself being thrown from the veterans bar with more bruises than he entered with and found himself being pelted with whisky glasses and plastic ashtrays as he rolled around in the dirt. Romney casually walked out as he gently pushed the crowd of enraged chain smokers out of his way. He noticed that Buck the doorman was looking a little too smug and he decided to silently send a copy of his war record to the PDAs of all his buddies. Buck would get his within the hour, but until then, all eyes were on Eddie Knox and his apparent amusement with the situation. Romney sighed as he reached down and lifted his partner to his feet and smacked some of the dust off of his trench coat.
“Now why would you go and do something like that?” Romney asked with a completely unsurprised and unimpressed tone.
“I was bored,” Eddie said with a wounded smile. “Besides, the more people I piss off, the more likely they are to flock to the newsstands once my articles hit. Everyone loves to hate me and tell me I’m full of shit.”
“Too much hate could be hazardous to your health. Best not to push your luck,” Romney advised. “I take it you would like to go see Norah
next?”
“You read my mind,” Eddie said with a nod. “If anyone can figure out where Major Tom is or has been, it’s her. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it turns out that he was up on that station when it came down, but I do find some of the witness reports from afterwards a bit weird. Something ain’t adding up or else we’ve been grossly misinformed.”
“I agree,” Romney said with a nod. “It’s starting to look like we have a long day ahead of us. I suspect that Doctor Singh may have dropped a doozy in our laps without us realizing it.”
“Yeah… Any idea on how we’re going to contact Riggs Palmer without being thrown on the other side of this dividing wall?” Eddie asked as he punched his thumb towards the sectioned off prison district.
“Already done,” Romney said casually. “I fired them off an email just now.”
Eddie furrowed his eyebrows. He always forgot how fast his partner had become since his death. “I should have known, but do you really think anyone will get back to you?”
“They don’t need to,” Romney said. “In about two minutes the Riggs Palmer HR department will be receiving my message and a data worm will be triggered. It’ll take a couple days to go through all of the encrypted software, but if Major Tom’s name is anywhere in their registry as either a citizen or a worker, then we’ll have our lead. Until then, Norah is our best option for anything planet side.”
“I love Norah…” Eddie said dreamily.
Romney sighed. “Try not to flirt with her too much this time. She’s clearly not interested and you always end up stifling our investigation more than anything else when you do… It’s also painfully embarrassing to watch.”
“What can I say?” Eddie said with a charming smile. “I’m a sucker for a badass woman in black.”
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