Waypoint Kangaroo

by Curtis C. Chen

  “So tell me again why you’re wearing a commando pullover in the dark?” I ask. “Because it’s a very flattering look, and I wonder why you don’t go with this particular ensemble more often. Over.”

  “It’s a funny story. I’ll tell you later,” she says. “Upload complete. Your nanobots are now programmed to seek out and destroy cancerous and precancerous cells, and repair chromosome damage. Get them inside each of the affected people before noon tomorrow, and they should be all right. But first you’ll need to let them multiply for a while.”

  The nanobots replicate themselves using compounds found in my bloodstream—they have to, since multitudes of them need replacing every day as they wear out from normal operation or are destroyed by my body’s natural defenses. I try not to think too hard about the fact that billions of tiny robots are cannibalizing each other’s parts all the time inside my body.

  Jessica walks me through the procedure. My vial only contains five cc’s of nanobot serum, which is less than one percent of the volume of the wine bottle. In order to make sure that a single sip will deliver at least one nanobot into the drinker’s bloodstream, I need more nanobots. And they need more fuel.

  I pull a candy bar out of the mini-bar, break it into pieces inside a plastic bag, and grind the pieces into as fine a paste as I can between a metal spoon and the desktop. Then I scrape the candy paste into five empty plastic vials, use an eyedropper to transfer one cc of nanobot serum into each vial, fill it the rest of the way with water, close the lid, and shake to mix everything up before stowing the vials in another of my jumpsuit’s many zippered storage compartments.

  “Replication confirmed,” Jessica says after I scan the bottle. “Leave that for an hour and you’re good to go.”

  “Look, I know this is a stupid question,” I say, “but I have to ask. Are you sure I can’t tell anyone about this? I could probably work the ship’s doctor with a cover story. This will go a lot easier if I have some help.” And I’m afraid I’ll screw it up. “Over.”

  “No, no, no, and once again, NO.” Jessica leans forward. The fact that she’s not yelling is even scarier than when she raises her voice. “Let me remind you that the very existence of these nanobots is classified Above Top Secret. Nobody finds out about this. Nobody. Best case, it causes a shipwide panic; worst case, Lasher is indicted before Congress and we all go to federal prison. Do you understand? Over.”

  “Yes,” I say, “I understand. But if this is such a terrible risk—” I can’t think of an elegant way to ask her what I want to know, so I just blurt it out. “You’ve never even met these people, Surge. Why do you care so much? Over.”

  Jessica stares into the camera for what feels like a lifetime. “I’m a doctor,” she says, finally. “I took an oath.” She looks over her shoulder. “Dammit. I have to go. I probably won’t be able to contact you again today, so it’s very important that you get this right. Don’t screw it up, Kangaroo. Those people are depending on you.” She pauses. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter. I wonder what the hell is going on back home.

  The image of Jessica in my HUD reaches forward, then pauses. “One more thing. Stop calling me ‘Surge’! Over and out.”

  My doorbell rings.

  I float over and look through the peephole to see Jemison. She raps the door with her knuckles. “Rogers! Open up.”

  The centrifuge is still strapped to the coffee table. If Jemison sees it, she’s going to ask a lot of questions I don’t want to answer.

  “Just a minute!” I shout through the door. “I’m not decent! Let me get dressed first!”

  I push back from the door, stuff the Red Wine back into its box, and shove the box into the bottom drawer of my desk. Then I launch myself to the coffee table, unstrap the centrifuge, and suck it back into the pocket, hoping the rush of air into vacuum isn’t audible through the stateroom door.

  I strip off my jumpsuit—with my luck, Jemison will have a reason to search me at some point—then yank open my closet and retrieve the first outfit I see: a pair of plaid pants and a short-sleeved, Hawaiian-print shirt. I pull on the clothes and open the door.

  Jemison scowls at my wardrobe. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “You don’t like it?” I say. “I’m trying to blend in.”

  “Forget it,” Jemison says. “I need to show you something.”

  That sounds ominous. “Is this murder-related?”

  I can’t decipher her expression. “It’s easier if I just show you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Dejah Thoris—Deck D, security office

  3 hours after I voiced my suspicions about the crew

  Jemison leads me to the ship’s main security office. I hope we can wrap up whatever this is in time for me to get a new outfit tailored for tonight. I’m thinking about that so hard, I don’t even notice Mike and Danny flanking me as I float through the doorway.

  They slam the door shut behind me and grab my arms. My reflex is to throw them off and get the hell out of there, but I suppress that and settle for glaring at Jemison. “Something you forgot to tell me, Chief?”

  “Funny.” Jemison taps a control panel. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  The display screen in the center of the vid bank behind her lights up with what appears to be security footage. It takes me a few seconds to recognize one of the thruways on the Promenade, right next to—

  “Oh,” I say.

  It’s a recording from the first night of the cruise, showing my drunken tirade in front of the Mars projection globe.

  “You want to tell us about your friend?” Jemison asks.

  “My what now?”

  She freezes the image and points at the man standing next to me. “I don’t know if you’re actually drunk here, Rogers, but that is the worst goddamn brush pass I have ever seen.”

  “What? No. No!” I shake my head, causing my whole body to move, and Mike and Danny grip me tighter. “I don’t know who that is. I met him at dinner that night.”

  “Right.” Jemison folds her arms. “And he just happened to follow you out of the dining room to have an extended conversation about a children’s educational exhibit.”

  “I was drunk! He was drunk! And the entire ship is designed to funnel passengers through the Promenade, because that’s where all the retail shops are!”

  “That’s the best you’ve got?” Jemison says. “Did you not even bother to work up a cover story? Did you think we were just going to let you do whatever the hell you wanted on this ship?” She looks over my shoulder at Mike. “Check his fingers.”

  Mike and Danny each grab one of my hands by the wrist and pry my fists apart. I resist the instinct to fight back. I can probably get some leverage by pushing off the floor, but I don’t quite have my zero-gee sea legs yet.

  The two security guards rub the tips of all my fingers—not very gently, either. What are they looking for? Chemical residue? What do they think I touched?

  “Nothing here, Chief,” Mike says.

  “Times two,” Danny says.

  They release my wrists and clamp their hands on my shoulders again. I raise both hands as much as I can, palms forward, in a gesture of surrender. “Look, Chief—”

  I’m suddenly staring at the business end of her stunner. Damn, that’s a fast draw. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Now I’m getting angry. “I don’t know who that guy on the vid is. And I don’t know why you’re pointing a gun at me!”

  “Mike, Danny, cuff him,” Jemison says.

  I will myself to keep quiet and stay still while Mike and Danny grab my wrists, yank them behind my back, and secure them together with something cold and metallic. I lose my cool again when they also bind my ankles.

  “Oh, come on!” I say. “What the hell do you think I’m going to do?”

  Jemison’s lips have pressed themselves into a thin smile, but her eyes are still glowering. �
��You know, I didn’t give you enough credit, Rogers. You really had us fooled. Even the captain. But you got sloppy with your computer hacking, or maybe just lazy. I don’t know. I don’t care. Whatever deal you were running on the side here, it’s over.”

  My stomach is churning almost as much as my mind. Why am I so anxious, when I know I didn’t do what she’s accusing me of? The computer thing is a problem, but all I did was set up an encrypted comms channel to the office—there’s no way Jemison could tell who I was talking to, or about what.

  I feel my arm and leg muscles tensing up, instinctively testing my restraints. I have to pull myself out of operations mode. If I fight back, Jemison will take that as further proof of guilt. Of course, pretty much anything I do right now is likely to aggravate her. I can’t give her what she wants. How do I convince her of that?

  “What did the other guy tell you?” I nod at the screen behind her. “The guy in that security vid.”

  Jemison scoffs. “I’m not going to waste time interrogating a cutout. You’re the goddamn operator.”

  “Wait.” I study her face. “You didn’t even talk to him?”

  “I want the op-tech,” Jemison says through clenched teeth. She thinks I’m using some kind of agency equipment to do … whatever she thinks I did. “Where is it?”

  “Now hold on,” I say. “Both of us were right there when Security showed up. We were both forcibly escorted out of that area. You’ve got a security breach, fine. Why would you assume I’m to blame? The other guy had just as much opportunity.”

  “We didn’t catch the other guy doing an unauthorized spacewalk,” Jemison says. “The other guy didn’t trick our chief engineer into giving him a centrifuge out of ship’s stores.”

  My stomach knots up as I realize what I have to do—what I have to tell her to clear my name.

  “And the other guy hasn’t been acting squirrelly ever since the captain and I learned who he really is,” Jemison continues.

  “Whoa,” I say. “Chief. I don’t think Danny and Mike are dog people, are they?”

  I stare hard at Jemison. These civilians are not cleared for what we need to discuss.

  She stares back, then says, “Mike. Danny. Wait outside.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Chief,” Mike says.

  “He’s tied up. I’ve got a stunner.” Nobody moves. “Now! That’s an order!”

  “All right, we’re going.” Danny opens the door. Mike pulls himself through, shaking his head. “But if we hear any screaming, we’re busting right back in here.”

  “You hear screaming, it’s going to be him,” Jemison says.

  “We don’t want you killing anybody, either, Chief,” Danny says. “Too much damn paperwork.”

  He closes the door, and it’s just Jemison, her stunner, and me.

  “That was a joke, right?” I ask. “About the screaming and the paperwork?”

  “You try using your ‘pocket’ and I will crack your skull open,” Jemison says. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Chief, I know it’s not what you want to hear, but I honestly do not know—”

  I don’t even see her hand move. The butt end of the stunner’s handgrip hits my cheek, snapping my head to the right. Pain shoots through my jaw.

  “Ow!” Did she just fracture a tooth?

  “Was it a graph-glove?” Jemison asks. “Mimic film? What did you use?”

  Those are both devices used to fool biometric sensors. She thinks I copied someone’s fingerprints. Why would I want to do that? “I didn’t—”

  Jemison smacks me again, with her open palm this time, which brings an entirely different type of stinging pain to the other side of my face. “Who are you working with?”

  “Nobody!” I say. “I’m on vacation!”

  The third impact knocks my head back to the right. “Why the fuck do you need a centrifuge? And don’t give me any of that bullshit you fed Ellie.”

  “I’ll tell you!” I say. “But can we stop with the hitting and talk like civilized people?”

  Jemison is still as a statue except for her right index finger, which moves off the trigger guard of the stunner and onto the trigger. “Talk.”

  Cards on the table, Kangaroo.

  I take a deep breath and say, “I have nanobots in my blood.”

  She blinks. “What?”

  “Nanobots,” I say. “They’re microscopic machines that—”

  “I know what the fuck nanobots are,” she says. “You’ve got a swarm in your blood?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “They’re tech only. No biologics. Software driven, very limited functionality. I hacked into my stateroom computer to set up encrypted comms so I could talk to my Surgical officer, and I borrowed the centrifuge so I could spin down a blood sample and extract some nanobots for Surgical to reprogram.” Jemison’s not hitting me, so that’s good. “I couldn’t tell Ellie because she’s not in the loop.”

  “And what exactly are you going to do with this classified, experimental, military biotech on my ship?” Jemison asks. Her finger is still on the trigger.

  “We’re using the nanobots to detect and eliminate precancerous cells.”

  Jemison sighs. “I don’t know how your Surgical talked you into this, and I don’t care how noble your cause is. You’re not running unauthorized medical experiments on civilians. How do we stop these crazy robots?”

  “This isn’t an experiment,” I say. “This is triage. To fix the radiation damage from Alan Wachlin’s PECC. Surge tested the new program on me first, and now I need to administer the same treatment to you, and Captain Santamaria, and Ellie, and any other crew members who spent more than five minutes in the Wachlins’ stateroom after the fire.”

  Jemison stares at me, then shakes her head. “No. I’m not an idiot, Rogers. This is an interplanetary spacecraft. We have safety protocols. Everybody who went into 5028 followed procedure to limit their exposure.”

  “Only after you knew Alan had a PECC implant! How much time did you spend in there before then, checking the crime scene? How long were you and I and the captain in there looking for the murder weapon? How long were you and Ellie in there that first night?” I pause to let that sink in. “Nothing else on the ship can treat this type of radiation damage. I don’t do this, and you all die of cancer.”

  Jemison’s finger slowly moves off the stunner’s trigger and back onto the trigger guard.

  “I want to check these robots before you deploy them,” she says.

  I nod. “I’ll tell you how to scan for—”

  “No,” Jemison says. “I’m going to draw your blood and run my own damn tests.”

  “You can’t tell the doctor. You can’t tell anyone,” I say. “I told you because I need you to believe that I’m telling the truth. I did not copy anyone’s fingerprints!”

  Jemison frowns. “How the hell does telling me about your nanobots—”

  “Because why the hell would I tell you something that could end my career,” I say, “and not admit to picking a damn lock?”

  She stares at me for a second, then slides her stunner back into its holster.

  “Does this mean we’re friends again?” I ask.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, Rogers,” she says. “Do you have a lot of practice rolling over and showing your belly, or is it just dumb luck that I got the big show today?”

  I glare at her. “Maybe you should visit the casino later.”

  “Yeah.” She opens a cabinet. “Right after I test your blood for swarming robots.”

  “Nanobots.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Dejah Thoris—Deck D, security office

  3½ hours after I opened my big suspicious mouth

  Jemison brings Danny and Mike back into the room, but leaves me tied up while she does the blood draw, which means after she’s done, I can’t apply pressure to the hole she’s poked in the crook of my elbow. When Jemison leaves to tes
t my blood, Danny holds a gauze pad against my arm. Mike watches me suspiciously.

  “You’re probably wondering how a blood test is going to prove my innocence,” I say.

  “Not really,” Mike says. “Chief’s going to do what she does, and we’ll take it from there.”

  I study his face, then look at Danny. “You two really trust her that much?”

  “She’s the chief,” Danny says, as if that explains everything.

  “How long have you worked on this ship?”

  Danny narrows his eyes. “I think we should all just wait quietly.”

  “Come on, guys—”

  “There might be some duct tape in one of these storage compartments,” Mike says.

  “Okay, okay! I can take a hint.” I turn my head and look straight ahead, at the image still frozen on the main display.

  The security camera must be mounted on a wall opposite the Mars display, about three meters up. Jemison froze the image just as I was leaning over to talk to the other guy. I don’t remember the conversation very clearly. The vid shows our faces in profile, and I struggle to recall what the other man looks like. I do have some practice recognizing faces, even though my eye can automatically tag and record any suspicious characters in my vicinity. You never know if poor lighting will confuse the face-reco software, or whether you might lose the data link with the office.

  This guy, though—I’d be hard pressed to describe his features in any sort of detail. Brown hair, yes, and maybe brown eyes? The face I see in my memory is hazy, as if nothing about him was remarkable or unusual enough for me to notice and remember. How is it possible for a person to look so bland, so—average?

  The door opens. Jemison pulls herself inside, her face neutral. That’s an improvement.

  “Untie him,” she says to Mike and Danny, then continues over to the control console under the vid screen.

  “Aye, Chief.” Danny undoes my wrist restraints, and Mike rotates in midair to do the same to the ties around my ankles.

  “Just like that?” I ask as I float free of the wall. “You’re not even going to ask what she did with my blood?”

  Jemison shoots me a look over her shoulder. “We don’t have time for this.”