by Patty Jansen
“But that’s where the recycler is! We have to wait with switching it over until power comes back.”
Moshi asked, “What now? Do we go to plan B?”
“Not yet.” Iman dropped to his knees. “I’ll try to fix this first.” He pushed aside broken glass with a gloved hand and pulled out a chip from inside the control panel, which he dropped in his pocket. Fatima had taken off her gloves and handed him another chip. “Be quick.”
“Any reason why it exploded?” Moshi said.
Iman said, “Same reason power goes out: because the main power supply is unreliable. Because the new owners can’t even run a station properly.”
Fatima was looking at the screen of her PCD. “Just hurry up. Someone’s coming this way.”
As Iman slotted in the chip, a zap of electricity sparked across the control panel. He cried out and jumped backward. The chip fell out, bouncing over the floor almost as if it had been spat out by the substation’s control panel.
Fatima gave a little cry of surprise. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I just tested if it was live and it wasn’t. I swear that system is having it in for us.”
The overhead lights flickered and went out. By God, it was dark. Moshi’s chest grew tight with panic. He felt around him and his hands met a metal wall, which felt warm under his touch.
A deep hum reverberated through the floor and walls.
Fatima whispered. “Whatever was that?”
The light in the ceiling made a sputtering noise. It came back on, then went off and then came on at half strength. Further down the corridor, the fire hydrants came on. There were shouts and a couple of people came running past, all of them soaking wet. Another sputtering noise issued from the ceiling.
Iman shouted, “Get out of here or we’ll be electrocuted!”
Moshi was about to run down the corridor when the overhead sprinklers came on in this section, too. The water was icy cold and drenched him in seconds.
Then the air vents, which had let out pathetic amounts of fresh air over the last few months, roared into life, pushing a blast of freezing air through the passage.
It was so cold that Moshi clothes became hard with frost.
“Turn it off!” someone yelled down the corridor.
Iman muttered something, staring at the panel. “How am I supposed to do that? This thing doesn’t even control air flow.” He picked up the chip from the floor. “It’s not even supposed to work without an authorisation chip.”
A tinny voice said in Iman’s helmet, “Hey, man, what are you doing?”
“I haven’t touched the settings yet. Is there a problem?”
“We’ve got an outage here.”
“But you should already be on our system.”
Some garbled noises came though the speaker, followed by the man’s voice. “Turn it off! The vent has just started blowing hot air. What are you doing, man?”
“Nothing!”
There were shouts at the end of the corridor. Moshi looked over his shoulder. In the darkness, an ethereal shimmering shape formed in the passage. It hovered about knee height off the floor. He whispered, “Look at that.”
Fatima looked and tapped Iman on the shoulder. He turned his head. The facemask of course hid his expression, and he said nothing, just slowly straightened while watching the shimmering form.
Fatima said in a dry voice, “Well, it seemed Auntie Widya was right about the ghosts.”
“It’s not a ghost, it’s some sort of projection,” Moshi said. It had to have a logical explanation. Everything did.
“Using what? The power is out.”
“Maybe it’s causing the power to go out.”
“Yes. It’s a ghost.”
Moshi rolled his eyes. That was infallible New Jakarta logic. Can’t explain it? It’s a ghost. He didn’t believe in ghosts.
The shimmering form came closer and even if it was not a ghost, he didn’t want to be close to it.
Moshi backed against the wall. In fact, the air stream from the vents had lessened, but it was still cold enough to make him shiver. He couldn’t stop looking at the shimmering form, but he wanted to turn away with all his might. This was just some sort of projection. A practical joke by someone who was going to jump out of the stairwell and laugh.
He didn’t believe in ghosts. He really, really didn’t. They didn’t exist. They were a construct of the imagination, mostly the imagination of old women like Auntie Widya.
Even she said that ghosts were not aggressive, and didn’t attack people. They were . . .
By God, it was coming close. The air shimmered with the form that looked semi-human, and as if it was walking. Walking or even running. As the shape passed Moshi, it turned its head to him. It exhaled a breath cold as ice that cut into his skin. There were two holes in the glowing form that looked like hollow eyes. A third hole opened underneath them. A whispering voice wheezed on the air. “Give it to me. Give it. Give it.” It had spoken Centrasian.
He shrank back, but hit the wall and couldn’t go any further.
“Give it, give it!” The voice was clearer now. He was only imagining this, because why would a ghost here speak Centrasian? It made no sense at all.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice was hoarse.
“It’s mine. Give it to me.”
Moshi hadn’t the faintest clue what the apparition wanted. He groped in his pockets—nothing. Then around his belt. Found his PCD and held it out. “What, this?”
“Give it, give it.” A tentacle like hand lashed out and went straight through his upper arm.
It hurt like being scalded with hot water.
Moshi cried out. “Hey, leave me alone! That hurt!”
“Give it, give it!”
The lights in the corridor flickered and sputtered out again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He clutched his arm, which hurt like blazes. Whatever it was, this thing was going to kill him.
Iman had taken the laser from his belt. This type of laser would normally be used for welding, but it also made an excellent weapon. He held it in both hands, arms outstretched, and aimed it at the form.
“That’s not going to do any good,” Fatima said, her voice disturbed. “You can’t use it against a ghost. Auntie Widya says—”
“I don’t care what Auntie Widya says. She’s not the dukun and she’s not standing here.” He fired.
The beam struck the patch of light. It flashed, and pulsed a few times with the frequency of a heartbeat. With each beat, it grew fatter and more bloated. Then it exploded with an ear-splitting crack. Moshi ducked and hid his face in his arms. Someone in the corridor swore.
At the same time, people came running into the corridor out of the stairwell.
“Hell,” a male voice said.
Moshi looked up. Globs of the luminous material had sprayed everywhere. They dripped from the ceiling and oozed off the walls.
“What has happened here?” The newcomers were Allion guards. Two, three, four, five of them, and more poured out the stairwell into the passage.
They had spoken Centrasian, but one of them shouted in B3, “Everyone freeze or you will be shot.”
Chapter 6
* * *
A COUPLE OF PEOPLE further down the corridor tried to make a run for it.
The soldiers didn’t shoot, so Moshi tried to run as well, but his head was still reeling from the sound of the explosion and the stinging pain in his arm. In the dark, he crashed into someone he hadn’t noticed.
One of the Allion guards shouted, “Stand back.”
His colleagues came away from the stairwell and fanned out over the corridor. People pressed to the sides. Moshi ended up with his back against the wall, which still felt cold.
They were guards from the First Division, the elite troops that Sep Kerakis had taken to occupy the station and who provided his personal security. They walked down the corridor, scanning the scene
with their reflective visors that were not unlike those of the hypertechs.
Their helmets bristled with electronic equipment.
One of them turned his head straight at him. It was impossible to see what the soldier was looking at. For a moment the man stood still, but then he continued to scan the corridor.
Moshi breathed out a sigh of relief. He edged sideways. The lift door stood open and with a bit of luck, he would be able to follow the others inside. He gently pushed people so that they stepped aside to let him through. One step, and then another and another . . .
“You!” one of the soldiers shouted. He spoke Centrasian.
Moshi froze. Didn’t look in their direction. He waited, his heart thudding.
“You there. Mo.”
They’d recognised him. His heart thudded like crazy.
“Why haven’t you reported to command?”
“Who speaks?” In his panic, Moshi thought of running, but he wasn’t sure where he could run in this closed-off sector. There would be more guards in the downstairs passage. There always were. Back when the station was still in the hands of the Taurus Army, the service corridors were heated, but now he would freeze in there. Also, he couldn’t flee for the sake of the safety of the people who had declared him their family. They would suffer if he managed to hide or, God forbid, even leave the station. He couldn’t let them come to any harm.
The man dug in his pocket and pulled out an emblem on a metal chain that was attached to the inside of the pocket. He showed it to Moshi. At the top it read, Allion Aerospace Ltd. Security Officer.
He moved up the visor of his helmet.
Moshi looked into his face, expecting one of the familiar guards that he could maybe talk around, but he wasn’t so lucky. The man’s skin was as black as the night. His eyes were golden brown with a metallic sheen to them.
Moshi knew the signs. These were not humans. They were aggregates, half human, half machine. They would do what they had been ordered to do and wouldn’t listen to arguments. The regular guards were likely to accept bribes for minor transgressions. These wouldn’t.
Someone pushed in front of Moshi, a smaller person clad in black wearing a visor. One of the hypertechs.
“Leave him alone,” the hypertech said in B3. Because the voice came filtered through a voice box, it was impossible to guess the hypertech’s gender. She, Moshi and Melati thought. Probably Fatima.
The soldier laughed. “Who gives the orders in this place?” Also in B3.
“Orders? If only you lot did give orders then we’d be happy. When you came in and got rid of Bassanti and his band of thugs, you promised a whole lot of things,” Fatima said. “So far, we’re still waiting for any of that to happen. You promised our lives would be better than before, that we’d get passes to leave the station, that we’d get the opportunity to do station work and get education. You promised that we could lead real, worthy lives and stop being second-class citizens.”
“We also asked you to be patient.”
“We’ve had ten months’ worth of patience.”
“You don’t understand what we’re dealing with.”
“I do. You wrecked the station’s recycling plants and processes and you’re not even attempting to fix them. You’re letting us rot. You’re not taking care of the station, not running it properly. And we’ve offered help many times, but you’re ignoring us.”
A second hypertech, probably Iman, had come up behind her and was making an attempt to quietly pull her away before she said anything that would get her into trouble.
“It’s not our fault. We’re trying to do the best we can.”
“I don’t like your definition of ‘the best we can’. Why won’t you accept our help?”
Iman pulled harder at her arm, but she remained stubbornly in place.
“Get out of the way so we can arrest the man responsible for this.”
“Moshi? He’s done nothing.”
“We’ll decide about that.” The soldier pushed her roughly aside. She protested, but Iman drew her away, speaking soft words to her and she quietened down.
Moshi didn’t know what to do. By God, he felt like a coward, letting this young woman stand up for him, but these guards freaked him out, and anything he would do was sure to reflect badly on him. If he fought, he betrayed the command. If he came willingly, he admitted guilt where there was no guilt to be admitted.
Two soldiers on Moshi’s sides took his arms and forced him forward until the patrol superior was closer to him than he was comfortable with.
“Are you happy with your work?” The soldier switched languages to Centrasian. His metallic golden eyes were lifeless and cold.
Moshi replied in the same language, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you think that whatever you’re chasing has anything to do with me, then you’re wrong.”
“You let him escape.”
“I did nothing.”
“You slippery snake. You sat in Serakis’ office and told him you knew where Ormerod was.”
“I knew where he was, right up until he disappeared from the den. I don’t know where he is now. I’ve learned a lot more about what he was up to, and I’m thinking that maybe it’s a good idea that he stays vanished—”
The soldier lashed out and hit him in the face. “You had an agreement. You’re undermining us.” Another slap in the face. Ouch, that glove had hard points at the fingers. Moshi tasted blood.
The hypertechs had fled into the crowd, hopefully to get help, but he wasn’t sure. No longer sure of anything. He had, perhaps stupidly, believed that the soldiers would leave the civilians alone, and would reward the ones who had helped them. Maybe he had just been here too long. Cared too much. If there was such a thing as caring too much.
The soldiers set off at a good pace through the corridor, dragging Moshi with them. Into the lift, and down the stairs into JeJe.
At seeing her home, Melati cried out and almost lost contact with the mindbase. She recognised the sector’s main thoroughfare, but what had happened to the vibrant, noisy, messy passage that used to be the lifeblood of the B sector? All the stalls were gone, the tables and the furniture and rubbish were gone. The illegal modifications, build outs, awnings had all been taken down. The wall paintings had been painted over with bland grey paint, the floor polished, but markings on the painted floor still showed where all the stalls had been.
The doors to the apartments on either side were closed.
What happened to all the people? What about Uncle’s rumak? If he wasn’t allowed to cook, what would he do? And then an even more chilling thought: the hypertechs had always told Ari that Uncle and Grandma and the aunties were all right. What if they weren’t?
Moshi, dragged along by the soldiers, arrived in the foyer where a passage would lead to the station’s main hall and docks.
As Melati had heard, the fire doors between the B sector and BC block were down, an ominous grey metal wall, bearing the scrapes and stains sustained in fire drills. Melati had seen these doors down only a few times in her life, usually when they went down by accident.
There was a little door with an airlock to the side, which one of the soldiers used a pass to open. The safety panel was new. Whoever would put a lock on a fire-escape door?
The door let through only one person at a time, and Moshi was handed from one soldier to the next, into the airlock, where it was cramped and smelly. The airlock was not in operation, but the panel flashed briefly with the air quality parameters. Several lights on the station side of the door were yellow instead of green. It was too dark to see what they indicated.
On the other side, they came into the passage that led to the station’s main entrance, where it was dark and deserted. The shops on both sides stood empty, dusty shells of their former selves. Gone were the endless streams of visitors. Gone was Li Wei and his hideously overpriced wares. Gone were the little warungs where grandmothers sold roasted pumpkin seeds and the boys with scooters offered rid
es to anywhere in the station.
The air was stale here, hence the warnings.
There was a bit more activity in the commercial area. People in drab grey clothing or station suits moved about, but they were the New Pyongyang refugees. They moved in groups, each kept in check by a couple of First Division guards.
The main hall was also empty, with a new wall in front of the lift foyer where the ISF ring used to be attached.
They went across that hall into the C sector, on the ground floor past the hall that was used for funerals. Melati had been this way only a few times. The C sector housed the station’s administrative offices and many of the passages were off-limits to those who didn’t work there. They went through numerous corridors before entering a room bare as a prison cell. The walls and floor were all white.
The room contained only a battered metal table and single chair with plastic seating. The soldiers forced Moshi to sit on the chair, tied his hands to the backrest and tied the chair’s leg to the table, which was bolted to the floor.
The soldier who did this laughed at him, not in a nice way. “We’re onto your tricks. We know how you keep avoiding punishment.”
“I did my service. I was finished.” His conscription had been as crew at the Pakhbar anyway, and had nothing to do with this station. He had worked as maintenance staff in Habitat Services. Nothing sensitive.
“A soldier’s task is never finished.”
There was a fuss at the door, with soldiers snapping into salutes and extra guards entering the room. A woman came in. She was dressed in a blue uniform that Melati didn’t recognise but that Moshi knew as a general’s with the gold stripes and three little meteors on the chest. Her name was Mariam Denzel, and her skin was so dark that it had a greenish sheen.
Moshi thought aggregate. Melati was amazed at the golden gleam of her irises making them appear metallic.
She waved the soldiers out of the room and shut the door when they were gone.
“Fancy seeing you here, like this,” she said, in Centrasian. She walked around the chair in slow paces.
