Romeo Delta 2

by Taylor Rikkinen

  “Did you win?” Romney asked, with a willfully naïve and a wholly condescending optimistic sarcasm.

  “No! Stupid Japs stole it again! They shouldn’t be allowed to race, especially the chicks! They’re naturally smaller and more aerodynamic. I just lost a grand because of her!” Eddie continued to rage as a Japanese businessman gave him the dirtiest of looks.

  “I think you lost a grand because you’re frivolous with your earnings,” Romney said coolly.

  Romney turned his gaze down upon the bloody track and took in the mayhem of crashed vehicles and medical crew rushing towards the fallen racers. He had never condoned the Death Row Derby, but it was hard to argue against it when it was the convicts that had shouted and volunteered for it to happen. The prize was simple and it drew in a respectable amount of cash. Every win added another couple months before the death row inmates had to face the gas chamber while at the same time withering the odds of survival down to a single digit percent while racing on the armored motorcycles. From the looks of it, Gogo had added just over a year of continued life to her and her crew in a single day and if her luck continued, there was a good chance that old age would get her before the government did. As the two left the derby with lighter pockets than they had arrived with, Eddie continued to fume ceaselessly as Romney tried to get him to focus on the task at hand.

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” Romney said with a tired tone. “You’re a degenerate gambler and in about two weeks we’re going to be kicked out of our place unless we get some cash, now quit whining and listen up. My data worm just got back to me about Major Tom.”

  “Meatball was a sure win…” Eddie sulked.

  “Eddie!” Romney snapped in exasperation. “We’re not going to be homeless. All we have to do is find out what happened to Major Tom and Doctor Singh’s payment is ours. I’ve already got a lock box ready so you can’t piss it away this time, so are you going to listen or keep sulking like a kid?”

  Eddie grudgingly straightened out his tie and tried to beat his hat into a usable form, but ultimately chucked it into an overflowing trashcan that they walked by. “Fine, what have you got? Is he working for Riggs Palmer?”

  “Interestingly enough, the answer to that question is yes and no,” Romney said as he displayed a holographic image of his findings in front of them as they walked.

  Eddie skimmed the documents and scrolled across them with his finger to move the digitally projected page. Eddie’s finger had no actual impact upon what was happening on the holographic display, it was just that Romney was too polite to point out that he was scrolling the pages for Eddie as he watched his hand go to work. Occasionally he messed with him and moved the text in the opposite direction or flashed some nude ladies on the screen, which would always embarrass and frustrate Eddie whenever they were in public. Romney had been putting up the act for a few years without Eddie ever catching on and Romney was certain that he would never set him straight for humor’s sake.

  “Well, that’s something,” Eddie said interestedly. “He took a job with them and got fired a few weeks later. It doesn’t say for what though…”

  “Yeah,” Romney agreed. “I’ve been digging through the archives ever since I got them and nothing is coming up. They knew who he was and his past was as clear as day, so if he went there to spy for Kyva Corp, then Riggs Palmer did a lousy job of screening him.”

  Eddie shook his head unconvinced. “Nah, he wasn’t fired. You don’t bring on a war hero like that and kick him to the curb a few weeks later. He was moved, or given some discreet task. See anything suspicious in the Riggs Palmer archives?”

  “It’s all suspicious, so take your pick of any file you want,” Romney offered. “Riggs Palmer is just like any other big company. They are so riddled and diluted with secrets and backroom deals that they somehow make their own conspiracies irrelevant when compared to any of their other ones. And that’s just what I can see on the unencrypted files, so who knows what’s in the juicy data stores?”

  “You can’t hack them?” Eddie asked hopefully.

  “I have protocols against it,” Romney said with a disheartened tone. “I lost a lot of rights when my brain was put into this body and given a boatload of restrictions on my actions on top of it. Having that wireless Ethernet receiver installed in my head was, in itself, a criminal act that could net me some jail time, along with a forced daily scan of all my hardware and software. If I get caught abusing my enhanced thought processes multiple times, I then get bumped up to a daily wetware scan and the last thing I want is the government literally poking around in my brain to find nuggets of thought crime.”

  “Sheesh…” Eddie said with a frown. “I never realized you were walking such a fine line. I’m surprised I didn’t know that. I must have not been paying attention.”

  Romney shook his mechanical head. “Not quite. The less I talk about it the less likely people are going to find out that I’m being naughty. You’re my best friend and all, but you’ve got a real big fucking mouth, Eddie.”

  Eddie immediately proved it with a wide shit eating grin. “That I do, partner. That I do. So, what do you think? Is Major Tom planet side or what?”

  “I can’t say,” Romney admitted. “I asked Norah if she had found anything yet, but all I got in response was a picture of her giving me the middle finger and telling me to stay off her terminal, so I would suspect that she is having just as hard of a time finding him as we are.”

  Eddie let out a sigh. “We are going to be homeless at the end of the month at this rate.”

  “That’s more your concern than mine,” Romney said with a bit of coldness. “All I need is a plug socket every few days and I’m good.”

  “Well, I’m happy for you,” Eddie said scathingly. “But I think you’d change your tune the second you were stuck outside during a dust storm. All those exposed joints of yours would get clogged up in a heartbeat.”

  Romney looked down at his skeletal frame and felt like a bit of an idiot for not thinking about it earlier. “Hmm… I guess you’re right. We need cash sooner than later.”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” Eddie said a bit sourly.

  “Well…” Romney said thoughtfully. “We could pay a visit to ground zero. I’ve got a security guy patrolling that biodome over Sky Base 10 who owes me a few favors. He could probably get us in and allow us to look around.”

  Eddie’s eyes went wide in surprise. “You can swing that? You’re sure we won’t get caught?”

  Romney nodded his mechanical head with confidence. “Try to remember that Sky Base 10’s wreckage is the size of a city. Not nearly as big as this Dusk colony, but still sizable. There isn’t enough manpower to patrol every inch of the wreckage. That’s the whole reason they inflated a biodome around it. One entrance and one exit. If we get past that, then anyone inside would probably just assume that we’re meant to be there. I would suggest a disguise for you though. You’re kind of recognizable to those that read your articles.”

  “Fair enough,” Eddie said. “But I would argue that you stand out more than me, so I guess we’re doing the old head in a bag trick?”

  Romney groaned at the prospect. “Yeah… Just try not to shake me around too much. Despite being mostly mechanical these days, I do still fall victim to motion sickness from time to time and when that happens my hardware goes haywire.”

  Eddie laughed. “All that technology and they still needed to use your original inner ear for balance.”

  “I’m a firm believer in not fixing what ain’t broke,” Romney said wisely.

  Chapter 16 - Volatile Salvage

  After arrangements were made and a disguise was applied, Eddie Knox hitched a ride on a mining truck out to the Sky Base 10 crash site with Romney’s head tucked away in the bottom of his travel bag. Upon arrival, Eddie let out a whistle as he stared up at the dirty white biodome and marveled at the size of the thing. He knew that Sky Base 10 had essentially been a floating city, but it was hard to appreciate that fac
t when viewing it from afar. It was nothing short of luck that he had been dropped off relatively close to the entrance, because there was no discernible road that led to the wreckage and walking along the outskirts towards the only entrance would have been a nightmare.

  As he approached the gate, he was met with Romney’s contact, who was looking shifty at best, and Eddie introduced himself under his fake name and told the guy to be cool and relax.

  “Easy for you to say,” the nervous contact said. “I could lose my job over this. Just be sure not to attract any attention while you’re in there and don’t pester the diggers.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eddie lied with a casual grace.

  “Good. Now listen, I’ve got you an old security pass that should fool anyone unless they look closely at it, so don’t engage with security in there,” Romney’s contact warned. “I don’t know what you’re going to do in there and I don’t want to know. If you get caught, I’m gonna say that I never saw you, which means they’ll assume that you cut the dome to get in, which is a class 5 felony. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Eddie said dismissively. “Just let me inside and I promise to be good.”

  Romney’s contact gave Eddie a displeased look, but let it go. “Fine. I hope you don’t have any allergies because people have been complaining about the smell of mold lately.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I brought a mask just in case,” Eddie said dully. “Any idea what’s causing it?”

  “Not really, but I would guess it’s the corpses,” the contact said grimly. “Those bodies have been in the rubble for a while now, so it wouldn’t surprise me that they’re the ones stinking the place up. There’s been a lot of body bags coming out lately and just between you and me, it’s been giving me the creeps.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Eddie said with a little bit of sympathy.

  Romney’s contact took a moment to run inside and switch off the security camera and let Eddie walk through the gate without a word. As soon as he was inside, Eddie gagged and swiftly dug through his bag for the breathing mask. The thing covered his mouth and nose and as he tightened the strap, he was relieved to be rid of the smell of burning rubber and things decaying in the rubble. He had seen a lot of terrible things over the years and had bared witness to atrocious acts of violence, Dusk was just that kind of place, but he had never been at a ground zero before. It was almost worse than everything else he had lived through, because simply looking at the city sized wreckage distilled a raw sense of hopelessness through him. There was nothing anyone could do, but clean up the mess for the next few years and move on. He began to understand why so many people had clung to Erin Wilco as some sort of criminal mastermind. They needed someone to blame, someone to vilify so that their anguish felt justified.

  Thinking back on the audio logs and hearing Erin’s story from her own mouth, Eddie had to ask himself if he would have dropped Sky Base 10 if he was in her shoes and the answer to that question was nearly an immediate yes. People only ever got one shot at life and if there was even a sliver of chance that he could save himself from suffocating to death on a drifting space station, he would have done it in a heartbeat and he wouldn’t have cared if that path was cruel or morally sound. He wasn’t even sure if he would feel guilty about it, which led to another thought. Maybe Erin Wilco was a better person than him, because she actually seemed to be broken up about it.

  Eddie’s PDA vibrated in his pocket and he flipped it open quickly to see a text message from Romney asking him if they were in the clear. “Yeah, we’re in. Just keep your voice down. I’ll pull you out when I find a hook up station.”

  “Be gentle,” Romney pleaded in a quiet tone from Eddie’s bag. “I swear that trucker purposefully hit every pothole he could find…”

  “Awe, quit your whining. It’s not like you can spew,” Eddie said dismissively.

  A little ways into ground zero, Eddie found a kiosk with a PDA port that had been erected near a bunch of branching pathways and it appeared to be an upload for map data.

  “Déjà vu,” he said under his breath.

  “What?” Romney asked from within his bag.

  “Oh, nothing,” Eddie said dully. “I can get us a map for this place and I couldn’t help but think of that Erin chick’s story. The part where her rangers mapped the station.”

  “Hold on a second,” Romney ordered. After a few seconds, Eddie’s PDA let out a beep and he had an attachment from Romney. “Install that program onto your device and no one should be able to tell that you’ve been sticking that thing where it doesn’t belong. It should help us keep a low profile.”

  “Thanks partner,” Eddie said with a smile.

  Once the data was collected and he got a full display of what had been mapped out up to that point, Romney snatched the info from Eddie’s PDA and began compiling it. Highlighted markers began presenting themselves on the PDA screen, along with distances in meters, possible points of interest, elevation from sea level, patrol positions, cleanup crews that were currently working, worker camp sites, and all the other kiosks that had been set up.

  “Whoa, easy there Romney,” Eddie said in surprise. “This ain’t some video game and we don’t have all day. Let’s keep it simple. Clear this shit off the screen and just give me Erin’s supposed residence and we’ll work our way from there.”

  “Right, sorry. I get carried away sometimes,” Romney said with embarrassment.

  “Don’t worry,” Eddie soothed. “Better to be thorough than sloppy.”

  After nearly an hour of walking and climbing through unstable structures, Eddie finally found a torn hole in the side of the station that would lead him relatively close to his desired location, but it turned out to be pointless. The district that Erin had apparently lived in was smashed beyond recognition and partially melted together into a giant ball of steel and wires, which had probably happened upon reentry into the atmosphere. He climbed his way through an upended train, but that only led to another dead end and he nearly took a dive while climbing back down the rail cars.

  Eddie swore under his breath as Romney did a few scans of the more shadowy areas to see if Eddie’s eyes had missed anything, but that too turned out to be a waste of time. They decided to regroup and see if Romeo Delta 2 was at all intact and that’s when alarm bells started sounding in Eddie’s head. Romeo Delta 2 wasn’t on the map or in any way mentioned, but by the quarantined zone that was sectioned off with armed mercenaries in the distance, both Eddie and Romney guessed where it might be.

  Upon a large scrap heap that was roughly a mile away from the quarantine, Eddie laid down as flat as he could and pulled Romney’s head out of his bag and propped him up as straight as possible. There were a few awkward moments of silence before Romney let out a sigh. “Eddie… You’re holding me upside down…”

  “What?” Eddie said in shock while taking a look at Romney’s head. “Oh, sorry. It’s hard to tell without your neck attached.”

  “There is a very distinct top and bottom,” Romney protested indignantly.

  “To you maybe. Just shut your trap and zoom in already,” Eddie said peevishly. “Tell me if you see anything worthwhile.”

  Romney continued to grumble over Eddie’s inattentive familiarity with his best friend’s head and began recording and taking in as much data as possible. He narrowed his cycloptic eye until the digital pupil was nearly the size of a pinprick and began snapping pictures. Eddie received the live feed on his PDA and got to see what Romney was looking at.

  “Hey, go back for a second,” Eddie said. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Romney panned back and zoomed in on a group of soldiers. “That’s a lot of flamethrowers. I wonder what they’re planning on burning?”

  “Still burning,” Eddie corrected. “Look at that smoldering pile in the corner just past the entrance. Can you zoom in any closer?”

  Romney tried to shake his head and was so transfixed that he momentarily forgot that he w
as without a body. “Not really. I can go in a bit more, but the picture will become overly pixelated and distorted.”

  “Damn…” Eddie said in annoyance. “We need to get in closer. How’s your battery?”

  “Don’t worry about it, we’ve got lots of time. I can go a couple days without my body,” Romney said.

  “I know, but it makes me nervous whenever we do this,” Eddie said with a grimace. “The last thing I need is for you going brain dead on me.”

  “Your concerns warm my heart, wherever it may be,” Romney said jokingly.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re not nervous,” Eddie fumed.

  He began lifting Romney’s head to put it back in the travel bag, but there was a sudden burst of noise from Romney’s speaker and he began speaking quickly.

  “Eddie! Turn around and point me back to where we were just looking. Quickly!”

  Eddie nearly fumbled Romney’s head, but swiftly pointed him back to the previous direction all the same and tried to hold his partner still. “Is that it? Am I in the right spot?”

  “Close enough,” Romney said. “Hold your breath and keep me still.”

  Eddie did as he was told while also pulling out his PDA to see what Romney had spotted. It was blurry at first and Romney had difficulty adjusting for every subtle movement his partner made, but eventually the picture cleared and Eddie had a hard time grasping what he was seeing. A deathly thin and malnourished person of indeterminate gender was being pulled kicking and screaming out of the quarantine and brought towards the burn pile. Moments later, they were brought to their knees and a mercenary pulled out a pistol and sunk a slug into the back of the person’s head. When the lifeless body slumped forward, the team of people with flamethrowers came in and incinerated the body without a second thought.