Waypoint Kangaroo

by Curtis C. Chen

  “It’s a game show,” I say. “You know. Like Twenty-One. Or Jeopardy!”

  Jemison squints at me. “You are not helping.”

  “I believe I have an answer,” Sawhney says. He touches the conference table to clear the display, then holds up a plastic bag containing two pill bottles. “These are David Wachlin’s prescribed medications: Stelomane and Dalazine, standard schizophrenia treatments.”

  He opens the bag, pulls out a bottle, and hands it to Logan. “Mr. Logan, please remove one of the tablets from that vial.”

  Logan unscrews the cap and gives the bottle a gentle tap. Three round yellow pills float up out of the container. He catches one between his thumb and forefinger, then scoops the rest back into the bottle and replaces the lid.

  “That vial is labeled ‘Stelomane,’” Sawhney says. “An antipsychotic. Here is the pharmacy reference.”

  He taps the table. A rectangle of text, a spinning molecule, and a photograph appear. He touches the image to make it larger: two pills with numbers embossed front and back.

  The pills in the picture are oval, not round.

  “These aren’t the right pills,” Logan says. “The shape’s wrong. And the code numbers don’t match.”

  “Could they be generics?” Galbraith asks.

  “That is what I thought as well,” Sawhney says. “But the labels on these vials claim differently. And when I looked up these actual tablets by their appearance, I was faced with disturbing results.”

  He brings up a second pharmaceutical record, showing the round pill Logan’s holding. A few keywords in the text jump out at me. Sawhney’s right. This is bad news.

  “Phencyclidine,” he says. “Originally an intravenous anesthetic, abused recreationally during the twentieth century. High doses can cause catatonia in schizophrenics.”

  Jemison says what I’m thinking: “Fuck!”

  Santamaria snaps his fingers. “Erica, I need passenger background checks. Find out who had connections to the Wachlin family.”

  “Yessir,” Galbraith says, and kicks herself back from the briefing table. She does a twist in midair to end up sailing head-first toward the door.

  “How does a schizophrenic not know he’s taking the wrong pills?” I ask.

  “As Commander Galbraith said. Generics often look different than brand-name drugs,” Sawhney says. “But I fear this was an intentional deception. These vials were not pharmacy printed. The bar codes are fakes; they don’t scan properly. Somebody wanted David Wachlin to take the wrong medication.”

  “Doctor, I want you to run another tox screen on David Wachlin,” Santamaria says. “Verify that these drugs were in his system.”

  “It’s been over two days,” Sawhney protests. Then he sees Santamaria’s glare. “We’ll do our best, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Santamaria drums his fingers on the edge of the table as Sawhney collects the bag of pills and heads for the elevator.

  “Jeff,” Santamaria says after a moment. “How do we handle this?”

  “We can’t tell the passengers,” Logan says. “Especially not now. A panic in zero-gravity would be impossible to control.”

  “Agreed,” says Santamaria.

  “We don’t know what the killer wants,” Logan continues. “It may be that he’s already accomplished his goal of killing Emily and Alan Wachlin and framing David. But if that was all, he could have waited until the end of the cruise, when we’d have less time to catch him.”

  “So he’s not done,” Santamaria says. “We need to find out who his next target is.”

  “I should go help Erica,” Logan says. “Cross-reference onboard activities. We’ll start with passengers who haven’t been doing much, haven’t been eating in public areas. The killer would need time to cover his tracks.”

  “Go,” Santamaria says. Logan spins himself and flies off toward the bridge.

  Now it’s just the captain, Jemison, and me in the briefing room.

  “Rogers,” Santamaria says. “I need you to contact our mutual friend and authorize the release of Alan Wachlin’s complete military service record.”

  * * *

  I see a message waiting for me as soon as I power up the comms dish. I blink away the notification. I’ll have to deal with that later.

  After coding a text message directly to Paul with my records request and very vague explanations for why I want the information, I turn back to Jemison, who’s huddled over the tabletop display by herself. I guess the captain returned to his other duties.

  “I’ll check for a response in half an hour,” I say. “What are we doing now?”

  Jemison frowns. “You go do whatever you want. Pick up a phone and dial security when you get the file.”

  “I can help with whatever analysis you’re doing there.”

  The frown becomes a scowl. “I don’t have time to explain this to you.”

  “I’m a pretty quick study. I can just watch over your shoulder—”

  “Let me put it another way,” Jemison says. “This will go a lot faster without you annoying me the whole time. Come back when you have the file.”

  The agency has never been shy about stating that the pocket is the reason they keep me around. But it still peeves me to hear someone say it out loud.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’ll try not to get too drunk because I have nothing better to do.”

  She doesn’t even look up when I leave the room.

  I’m getting tired of being treated as less than human. Special doesn’t always mean better; I’ve known that since I became an orphan. Discovering the pocket made things interesting for a while, but now I seem to be in a rut.

  As strange as it sounds, I think I was actually happier during the war, when I couldn’t go out on pocket missions and had to develop other skills to earn my keep at the agency. Well, now I’m on vacation. I should stop trying to work and start having fun.

  Just as soon as I figure out what “fun” is.

  An alert pops up in my eye again, reminding me that the comms dish still has a buffered message waiting. Might as well deal with this now. I move into an empty crew stairwell to watch the vid.

  It’s Jessica. “Kangaroo, Surgical. Respond soonest. Out.”

  Her words seem even more clipped than usual. I ping her to request a live connection. She responds in just under five minutes, wearing her usual white lab coat over a plain blue shirt. Steam rises in translucent gray spirals from a large mug on her desk.

  “I found out which radioactive isotope was used in Alan Wachlin’s PECC,” she says without any preamble. “I have a solution for the radiation treatment problem, but it’s going to require some work on your part. And you can’t tell anyone about it.”

  “If I can’t tell the crew, how am I supposed to treat them?” I say to myself.

  “I know that makes things harder, but you’ll figure it out.” Jessica looks into the camera. It feels like she’s staring straight at me. “You need to do this. We are talking about saving lives here. Please acknowledge, over.”

  “Surgical, Kangaroo,” I say. “I’m going to have to tell these people something. I can’t give them pills or shots or whatever without explaining it, right? I just need a cover story. Over.”

  “Kangaroo, Surgical. No.” She snaps the word like a curse. “We are operating off the books, fully in the black. If this goes sideways, you can tell them it was all my idea. Save this vid for evidence at my court-martial, I don’t care.

  “Now listen carefully. There’s a blood sampler in your emergency medkit, in the pocket. Get that out, then find a centrifuge and some very expensive liquor. Do this within the next twenty-four hours. We wait too long, and the tissue damage will be too extensive to repair. Please acknowledge. Over.”

  I have an inkling of what she’s asking me to do. Except that can’t possibly be right; it’s completely insane.

  “Surgical, Kangaroo. Please tell me you’re not asking me to do what I think you’re asking me to do,” I say. �
��Over.”

  “How the hell do I know what you’re thinking?” Jessica replies, scowling at me across time and space. “And I’m not asking, Kangaroo. I’m telling you, if you don’t do this, everyone who was exposed to that PECC radiation will develop some form of somatic cancer within the next decade. Acknowledge. Over.”

  There’s a murderer on the loose, and she wants me to go on a scavenger hunt? And then deploy experimental biotech into a civilian population? This is worse than any idea I’ve ever had. And that’s saying a lot.

  “Okay. I’m not going to say the N-word, but is that what we’re talking about here, Surge? And how the hell is it okay in any way to dose civilians with that tech? Over.”

  “Yes. I am talking about the nanobots. You’re going to separate a batch of them, then I’m going to reprogram them to function outside your body for thirty days. That, along with the standard meds, should be long enough to heal any major radiation damage. After a month, the nanobots’ hardware failsafes will shut them down, and they’ll get metabolized by the liver. Even if someone’s looking for them, there will be no evidence they were ever there.

  “I can’t order you to take this action,” Jessica says, her expression softening. “But this is why we created nanobots in the first place, why we didn’t abandon the research after the Fruitless Year. The potential rewards are tremendous. We can use this tech to repair any living tissue precisely and reliably. We can use it to save lives.

  “You are the only person who can do this, Kangaroo. Nobody else can help those people resist radiation poisoning. This is the only chance they have. And in twenty-four hours, not even you will be able to save them.”

  I shake my head, trying to dismiss the names and faces running through my head: Captain Santamaria. Chief Jemison. The firefighting crew. Anyone else who went into that burned stateroom.

  Ellie.

  “I’ll contact you with a full procedure soon. Get the equipment. Over and out.”

  Goddammit.

  Special doesn’t always mean better. Being unique means having responsibilities that other people don’t. I’m the only one who can possibly do this. And I can’t ignore the one thing I can do to help right now.

  I hover in the stairwell, first wondering how I’m going to get access to a centrifuge, then racking my brain for another way. After fifteen minutes, I give up. Anything else will take too long to execute.

  I have to go tell more lies to the woman I slept with last night.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Dejah Thoris—Deck B, crew stairwell

  23½ hours before my nanobots can’t help these civilians anymore

  Unlike the passenger areas, the crew sections of Dejah Thoris don’t have large directional signs or maps displayed prominently every few meters, and there are no large touchscreen kiosks to help guide a person to the nearest bar or other desired attraction. PMC must train their crew members to know what these alphanumeric codes painted on the bulkheads mean. Deck number is easy to figure out, but the rest is tougher to decipher. I remember the code I saw displayed in main engineering, but it takes me a few trips up and down the stairwell and peeking in other sections to figure out the pattern.

  Before leaving the stairwell, I pull my State Department legend out of the pocket. Most of my fake papers are just simple cards or badges that look plausible when flashed in front of a guard or receptionist. I use this one quite a bit, so it’s actually tied to a full cover identity that will pass even the most rigorous background check. Just in case.

  A jumpsuited crewman accosts me as soon as I enter main engineering, the large chamber overlooking the ionwell I toured earlier. His name tag says XIAO. “Sir! I’m sorry, sir, you can’t be in here right now.”

  I hold up my phony identification. “I need to speak to Chief Engineer Gavilán.”

  Xiao’s eyes widen. He looks from my ID to my face and back again. “Is there a problem, Mr. Rogers? Perhaps I can assist you?”

  I briefly consider bluffing this guy instead of Ellie. He looks young, certainly not older than I am, probably just out of the military or trade school. The way he responded to my show of authority implies the former. If I can get what I need from him, then I won’t have to lie to Ellie.

  But I want to see her again. And what’s one more little white lie on top of the mountain I’ve already built?

  “Thank you … Xiao?” I’m not quite sure how to pronounce that name.

  “Xiao,” he says.

  “Xiao,” I do my best to repeat.

  “Xiao.”

  “Xiao?”

  “Close enough, sir.” His expression tells me I should just drop it. “How may I help you?”

  I tuck my ID into the back pocket of my jeans. “I just need to talk to the chief.”

  Xiao nods. “Very well, sir. What should I say is the issue?”

  “Tell her it’s about photosynthesis.”

  Xiao’s face lights up with a grin. “Right! I thought your name sounded familiar. Chief Gavilán said she had a very nice walk through the arboretum with a young man last night.”

  I blink at him while processing this information. “Is that, uh, common knowledge, then?”

  “Only among supervisors. She mentioned it during our morning briefing.”

  “Ah.”

  “I love the arboretum. So romantic.” Xiao holds up his left hand, showing me the silver band around his ring finger. “I proposed to my husband there.”

  “Mazel tov,” I say reflexively. “By the way, just curious, what else did Chief Gavilán say about last night?”

  Xiao winks at me. “Don’t worry, Mr. Rogers. She’s not one to kiss and tell. Wait here, please.” He caroms off the floor and spins toward one of the consoles.

  I notice he didn’t actually answer my question. I do my best to appear nonchalant as I look around the compartment to see if anyone else is eyeing me now.

  Most of the engineering personnel are wearing small jetpacks. The shoulder straps and belt blend in well with their uniform jumpsuits, but I can see and hear the tiny blue-white plumes pushing them around the open space. Probably some kind of compressed gas, like the hand thruster Jemison gave me. I’ve seen astronauts who can perform entire acrobatic routines in spacesuits. These engineers aren’t quite that graceful, but they’re good at holding position, which is most of the trick. All the little twitches and shifts that don’t matter in gravity push you all over the place when you’re weightless.

  A hissing sound catches my attention, and I grab a handhold on the wall and turn to see Ellie, parking herself in front of me by manipulating a control paddle in her left palm.

  “Hello, stranger,” she says, smiling. “You know you’re not supposed to be down here, right?”

  “I just couldn’t stay away.” I return the smile but make no move to touch her. If I start, I won’t want to stop. “So I hear we’re the talk of the town.”

  “Sorry about that. My colleagues like to gossip.” She shrugs. “They don’t get out much.”

  “Right. Listen, I need to ask you for a tiny little engineering-related favor.”

  Her eyes twinkle. She uses her jetpack to move down to my eye level. “This sounds interesting.”

  “Yeah, you don’t know the half of it.” And I can’t tell you. “I need to borrow a centrifuge.”

  Her smile falters for a split second. “A centrifuge.”

  “Just for, like, an hour or so.”

  “There are so many issues with that request,” she says, “I’m not even sure where to start. Why do you want a centrifuge?”

  “It’s kind of a long story. I don’t suppose you could just trust me?”

  We stare at each other for a long moment. She does trust me—I can see that—but only up to a certain point. That’s fair. She’s only known me for one day, and the most personal thing I’ve told her is about my abiding love of coffee. Not exactly a deep dark secret.

  “Are you actually going to use it?” Ellie asks.

  I conside
r lying, but decide against it. “Yes.”

  “What are you spinning down?”

  Well, now I have to lie. “I don’t know.”

  She frowns. “Okay, I’m going to need a little more here, Evan.”

  I thought up a ridiculous story on my way down here. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use it. I don’t usually devise my own legends, and this one is pretty over the top. But that’s what the agency teaches us: the more outlandish the lie, the better. Make the target laugh if you can. Elicit her sympathy without explicitly asking for it. Encourage her to underestimate you.

  “I made a bet,” I say. “At the bar. With a chemist.”

  Ellie folds her arms. “You bet him you could get a centrifuge from engineering?”

  I make a show of sighing, as if I’m preparing to reveal some particularly embarrassing details. “You know the drink of the day? The ‘Zero-Gravity Football’?”

  “I’m not really much of a drinker.”

  “Well, it’s today’s mystery drink. The bars advertise a different one every day, because booze has the highest profit margins—”

  “I know how cruise ships work,” Ellie says. “So you enjoyed a few too many of these drinks and made a stupid bet?”

  “No,” I say, “I made a stupid bet about the drink.”

  She’s smiling again. That’s a good sign. “Do tell.”

  I give her the most pathetic expression I can summon. “Because it’s a mystery drink, the servers and bartenders won’t tell us exactly what the ingredients are. The chemist thought he could distinguish at least two different types of liquor. But I think the crew are going to keep it simple, because they’re making a lot of these drinks all day. I’m thinking there must be some kind of premixed flavor packet—to make it taste more complicated than it actually is, right? That would be cheaper than using more booze.”

  “I’m still waiting for the part where you need a centrifuge.”

  “Well, the guy at the bar—the chemist—said he could analyze the ingredients if we separated them by—I think ‘specific gravity’ is what he said—”

  “Hold on,” Ellie says. “You’re talking about an alcoholic solution. You’d have to boil off most of the water to do any useful analysis.” She narrows her eyes. “Please do not tell me one of our passengers has built a still in his stateroom.”