The Free Citizen

by T. J. Sedgwick

  Battlesuit integrity: 100%

  Rebreather operating state: Normal

  Breathing a sigh of momentary relief, he knew he was still in trouble. His eyes darted around as he moved his head scanning the scene—no sign of the Screamer, no sound but for the station itself. An unhealthy odor was just detectable. He assumed it was coming from the two corpses still floating near the hatchway, although he could only discern their presence in his peripheral vision. A surge of motivation grew, the fog of unconsciousness now gone. He strained against his restraints—first the arms and then the legs. No-go.

  “Shit!” he whispered, teeth gritted.

  He still had no idea what the Screamer had pointed at him and why he’d blacked out. It must’ve been some neural-interference weapon—probably of alien origin. He’d never heard of the Alliance deploying something that could render someone unconscious like that. Sure, there was knock-out gas and sedative rounds and electrical devices, but his suit protected against all those threats. This was a pulsing red light. Now his headache had gone, he recalled something else. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt somehow different. Something had changed. Memories from his past kept randomly entering his consciousness. Much clearer than before. Not of the recent past but from years back, from the time before he’d become an American Union citizen. Of his days in New Zealand, his parents, long-forgotten childhood friends. He tried to focus on his predicament, accessing his suit’s log via thought. The events log scrolled onto the helmet HUD, the video feed of his glass cell the back-drop. He’d been out for just over three hours. One of the last entries—corresponding to the time of the last Screamer contact—was telling. An electromagnetic pulse or EMP registered by his suit’s sensors.

  A woman’s voice over a nearby PA speaker broke his train of thought. Scared. Traumatized. Foreign-accented. German.

  “Don’t try to escape,” she said. “I’ll vent the module if you try anything!”

  He angled his head up, towards the source. Her face filled the integrated display on the bulkhead. The background was dark, but the points of light and faint glow from nearby computer monitors illuminated the scene enough to tell him she was in the command module. She was early-fifties, collar-length, ashen hair, strands floating around her face, her light blue eyes reddened and swollen like she’d been crying. Kind eyes. A lined face, telling of past happiness. No sign of her being a Screamer. He continued to examine her dimly-lit features: well-defined, hearted-shaped with high-cheekbones. He needed to be sure. The fifteen intervening years and gloomy lighting had done its best to conceal her identity. But there was no mistaking it: he knew her.

  Doctor Stephanie Muller had tutored Rae as an undergrad at UCLA where he read Mechanical Engineering with Computer Science. He couldn’t remember from where in Germany she hailed but knew she’d have had a choice to make in 2075—the year after the Renaissance. All qualifying foreigners—or part-foreigners, like himself—had been given a choice. Become a citizen, renouncing any foreign citizenships, or leave. Rae’s father was a US Citizen, his mother was from New Zealand, where he was born. As a dual-national, he had this choice to make. He’d spent his youth and entire adult life in America and had been on active service for eight years. He’d married Cora a year prior. His life was in America. He renounced his New Zealand citizenship and stayed. Millions of non-qualifying foreigners were given a week to leave or be designated Illegals. After the Sanctuaries Act of 2077, many of the same people became fair game in the Badlands, away from the gleaming, walled cities in which Citizens lived relatively privileged lives. Some Illegals opted to become Serviles—mindchipped and subservient to their employers but fed and clothed and safe from the horrors of the Badlands and the failed states to the south. Dr Muller would’ve had a choice too, given her skillset and standing. Clearly, she’d declined if she was working on an Alliance research facility. He’d been twenty when he’d first met Dr Muller at college, she had been late-thirties. He couldn’t forget the mutual attraction. The flirting, eye contact during private tutoring, always-on smile when he was around pretty much meant the green light as far his young-man mind could tell. As a tall, tanned and handsome guy with a muscular, athletic physique, he had no shortage of interest from others. But nothing had come of it with Dr Muller. And besides, he was in love with someone else at the time. Or what he thought was love and had turned out not to be. Dr Muller was still an attractive woman—that was plain, even in her current distraught state.

  There were so many questions buzzing around his mind. About Muller herself. About the Erasmus. About how the Arrival had affected them. About why she wasn’t a Screamer yet in a space station full of them? Had they discovered a new vaccine or something to reverse the parasite’s effects? He knew identifying himself would aid intel extraction but doing that would be completely against protocol. If he didn’t get out of the binds and to Dr Muller, showing his identity might be the only way. And not just for intel gathering’s sake. It might be the only way to survive. The only hint she may pick up on would be his voice. Using thoughts, he commanded the suit to engage voice disguise. When he spoke, his voice would take on a higher pitched, a less gravelly tone—unthreatening.

  “It’s okay, ma’am,” he said reassuringly, “no need to vent the module. I’m not here to harm you—only Screamers.”

  He could see her fighting back the tears. She took a long, full breath, before exhaling slowly, controlled.

  “How did you get here? Who sent you? What the hell do you want? Screamers?” she said hysterically, struggling to control herself.

  She started shaking. To Rae, she looked on the edge of breakdown.

  “Look, I know this is traumatic,” he said, trying again to work his legs free. “I have to tell you: there are more of us. You need to release me. I promise you won’t be harmed.”

  She’d used plastic cable ties. Chunky ones too and damned tight. They were looped through something solid below the table he was on. Whatever it was, he hoped rubbing the cable ties would wear them enough to break them without alerting her. He guessed she could only see his helmet and shoulders but couldn’t be sure.

  She shook her head, not buying it.

  “Oh no… No way!”

  “Maybe you don’t call them Screamers… Look, just tell me why you’re still human? Is it something to do with your research? Something to do with that… that weapon you fired at me—the thing with the red light that knocked me out?”

  “You’re crazy!” she screamed before sobbing, still shaking.

  She reached up and pulled herself out of camera shot, the display now showing the dim command module.

  “Hey, it’s ok!” he called. “Come back!”

  Shit. Who knows what she’ll do in her state of mind? he thought.

  Images flashed of her returning with a big knife and getting to work on him strapped to the specimen table. Or worse: exposing him to the spores. That thought drove him to redouble escape efforts. The rubbing of the arm and leg binds reached a furious pace. Then he stopped, the decision made. There was no point trying to hide his escape efforts if she was coming for him. Using thought-control he cranked up the power to the suit’s artificial muscles, not bothering to confine it to the arms and legs. It didn’t make him Superman, but it multiplied his already considerable strength, loudly snapping the cable-ties in short order. As the release sent him floating upwards, he switched off the strength function and flew out through the open glass door and behind the sphere and its surrounding server cabinets. He listened and scanned. No sight, no sound. With no weapon, and with no desire to kill Dr Muller anyway, she had the upper hand. He paused, trying to understand why he didn’t want to kill her. After all, it was a mission objective. No survivors. Familiar face or not, Screamer or not, the mindchip shouldn’t allow such a deviation. He shook his head. No time to rationalize. It was her home turf and she had that damned red-light weapon, whatever the hell it was. He couldn’t let her incapacitate him again, so he returned to glass roo
m he’d just left and grabbed a scalpel, complete with protective sheath and stowed it in his side leg pocket. He wouldn’t need it close-up, but if it came to it, he’d use it as a throwing knife. The thought saddened him. He knew and had liked Dr Muller immensely but still couldn’t understand why he was thinking so sentimentally. Whatever she’d fired at him felt like it’d done something to his mind, screwed him up somehow. Those weak-minded thoughts would only make the job harder. He expunged them and flew hard, distancing himself, seeking concealment. He needed to plan his next move. He thought about Darkstar. But it was too risky. If she tracked him there, then his escape would be revealed. Darkstar wasn’t the sole means of escape—there was the Skylon possibility and the station’s emergency pods. But Darkstar was the best means. Certain. Reliable. Deniable. Who knew if he could hack the Skylon spaceplane or pods before they locked them down remotely?

  He reached the accommodation module—a cluttered space of sleeping pods, a fabric-sided shower cubical and some lockers. The tight environs of the station helped his cause, putting less distance between him and the doc should she try again with that knock-out gun. He’d flown a circuit though half the stations, now just a closed hatch separated him from the command module where he’d last seen her. He unzipped the shower cubical and got inside, quietly re-fastening the door flap. Time to think.

  He assumed ground control had been notified when the station’s alarm went off. And there was no doubt Dr Muller would’ve call in with the details once she’d tied him up. So, taking out comms wasn’t the top priority—it was getting to Dr Muller. If she didn’t have her knock-out gun, he’d have gone straight for the primary target—the device. But she did, and he couldn’t. Yet. Unless the Screamer-originators—the aliens that had sent the Screamer parasite—had some undetected space assets, he knew the enemy cavalry wouldn’t be there for a while. There was no evidence for such an alien presence near Earth. The theory was that the aliens had sent the small, interstellar vessel with the parasite so they didn’t have to expend the massive resources that an invasion force would demand. That armada might come in future, once the humans-turned-Screamers had taken over Earth. So, he waited, biding his time, letting her make a move. It was what he’d gotten good at during his time in the military, even more so in Special Forces. Twitchiness and indiscipline were killers in situations like this.

  It wasn’t long—just minutes—when there came a clang from the adjacent command model; next came an electrical humming and a clank. The sounds compelled investigation. After easing down the shower cubicle zip, he slipped out and towards the hatch to the command module. Opening the hatch, he slid gingerly into the command module where his fears were confirmed. There was her face, scared, peering at him through the porthole of the escape pod. He held the handhold by the escape pod’s hatch, his body floating weightlessly, his reflection in the glass. He regarded himself momentarily. His visor, rendered visible by a rough coat of spray-paint, cast a sinister, warrior visage. The urge to pull off his helmet and establish some human contact nearly overcame him. But it didn’t. Spores would be everywhere. Not a risk worth taking.

  “Please let me go,” she said, her voice distant, attenuated by the pod.

  Her pleading confirmed something to him: there was a way to stop her. But he didn’t want to do it by force but through words.

  “If you tell me what I need to know… Please… I just need to complete my mission, that’s all,” he said, overlooking that no survivors was part of it.

  There were times when he wanted to do the right thing, but darker thoughts usually appeared from his subconscious, derailing his goodwill. He didn’t understand why and wondered if there was a craziness in him, uncontrollable, at times malign. Still he couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since awakening from the blackout a weight had been lifted. It was how he used to feel—less intense, more trusting… freer.

  “I’ll tell you what I can.”

  He gave a curt nod. “What’s in the sphere?”

  “It’s classified. I… I really can’t answer that”

  “Come on, we have a deal. Tell them I threatened you. They’ll understand.”

  Her head dropped, she exhaled then straightened up, looked right at him.

  “It’s a computer.”

  “What kind of computer?”

  She paused, internal conflict seemingly making a last stand. After a few of seconds, she sighed, relenting.

  “Ok, ok… It’s a prototype AI called ASTRA.”

  “ASTRA? An artificial intelligence?”

  She nodded, her face glum.

  “Why build it here? Why not on Earth?”

  “It’s part biological—very fragile… Delicate. Requires microgravity to build. We constructed the sphere around it to—”

  “Take it to the surface, right?”

  “Yes, right.”

  “Next question—”

  “Why did you come here? Why did you kill them?”

  “Look… I ask, you answer. Got it?”

  She nodded nervously.

  “How do I remove ASTRA without damaging it?”

  She explained how, continuing to hold up her end of the deal.

  “Now tell me about the alien parasite. To what extent—”

  “Alien parasite? What are you talking about?”

  He paused, thinking why she’d deny such a self-evident fact. In that moment it also bothered him that the face he saw was someone he knew.

  What are the odds of that? he thought. Could it be the last Screamer had somehow manipulated him into believing it was a human? And a human he’d once known? Is that what the red-light device was for?

  He peered as closely as the porthole would allow, searching for aberrations, tell-tales that her face was an illusion. Nothing. He’d had enough of her stalling.

  “Don’t deny it. Screamers. The Arrival, three years ago!… Come on, you’ve done well so far—don’t mess up now. Don’t make me—”

  “Listen to me—if the device I used on you worked you will see…”

  “See what?” he said, shaking his head dismissively, showing her his palm. “Just quit with the BS. Just—just shut up. Please, just...”

  His voice trailed off. He needed to think.

  The device, the red light... Maybe the enemy’s used it to trick my mind. Has it somehow manipulated my visuals, made the Screamer in front of me look human? I mean, what’s the chances of someone I know being the first human I see up here? Alliance bastards… Can’t trust ‘em!

  Then it happened. Her hand yanked something below, sending her tumbling backwards into the pod. A whoosh followed as the pod’s inner door slammed shut. Rae reflexively pushed himself away. Instantaneously, a repeating alert sounded, followed by a recorded message over the PA.

  “Emergency pod release initiated. Ejection in ten, nine…”

  He returned to the porthole. Dr Muller was now strapped into one of the seats facing him.

  “Call off the launch, ma’am!” he shouted above the count-down.

  “Six, five…”

  Observing through her through the glass, she bowed her head, shaking, cutting off any vestige of contact.

  “Two, one…”

  He stared, eyes wide.

  “Pod release successful.”

  The capsule slid away revealing the majesty of Earth below, Dr Muller’s face transfixed on him, framed by the porthole. He guessed for her it was a relief, but her face just showed sadness. Multiple, complex, rapid puffs of propellant rotated the pod, heatshield now prograde, obscuring the Erasmus’s sole survivor.

  He’d surprised himself in his equanimity. Logic, not to mention orders, dictated he should have tried to terminate Muller immediately he had the chance. He couldn’t do it though. His fondness for her had stopped him. Sentimental weakness still resided somewhere deep within him. Maybe she’d reminded him of a time before events had shaped him. Before he had joined the US Army. Before he took what he’d later find out was the Citizenship Pill. He
gritted his teeth. Right when he’d concluded she wasn’t Dr Muller at all—that it was a trick—she’d escaped! He should’ve opened fire whether he’d recognized her or not. The resistance he’d felt to killing her worried him. Dispassionate execution of orders made him an effective operative, gave him purpose and pride. The training, the belief they’d instilled in him about national primacy in a world of foes all made him… him. And, of course, the mind enhancements implanted in his brain in 2076 as part of the Army’s Biological Upgrade Program. The post-Renaissance, American Union armed forces had few of the qualms of the US military. He could communicate directly with computers, recall facts, visualize things photographically, access a world of information. He tried to pull up schematics of the Erasmus—the detailed engineering drawings of the sphere and the system to which it was attached. Intel had somehow gotten their hands on these and uploaded them to him during the briefing. Nothing. He tried again, but his mind drew a blank. Whatever that escaping Screamer—masquerading as Dr Muller—had done to him had screwed up his mind.

  The escape pod was now a speck against the radiant deserts of North Africa and Arabia.

  He’d seen no evidence of anyone else—Screamer or human—so he flew quickly into the adjacent L2 module and cast his eyes over the sphere, surprised again at his foggy recall of so-called-Muller’s removal instructions. She’d only cooperated up until the point she’d worked out how to release the pod without him noticing. He had no choice but to take it step-by-step and follow her instructions as far as he could remember. He worked fast, shutting down the sphere via the controls on one of the server cabinets. Then, after locating a toolkit, he unbolted the flanged connections on the tubes connecting sphere to cabinets. After easing the tubes’ plugs from the sphere’s internal sockets, he retrieved the aperture covers and installed them on the sphere as so-called-Muller had advised. Hundreds of golden connector pins sat on the face of each tube’s plug. Finally, he released the sphere from its tethers, floating it clear of the cramped confines of the computer hub. Initially surprised by its inertia, he floated the satin gray sphere through the station to the dock, paying no attention to the Screamer corpses floating statically against bulkheads and equipment. He needed all his focus for guiding the sphere through the hatches without collision. With the sphere floating nearby, he opened Darkstar’s hatch, before easing it gently through with just millimeters to spare. Once he’d swaddled the cargo in strapping, he exited Darkstar. There was still work to do.