by Dan Abnett
"What the fuck is it like, then?"
"It isn't like that," he said. "I didn't break."
"You're fucked," she said. "You should have seen it this morning, and stepped out. You should never have got on the boomer. You were fucked up first thing when I saw you, and you're fucked up now. You had no right to do this to us, Nes. No right."
"I'm okay."
"Oh please! What is it? Is it drugs again? I thought you'd kicked that."
"It's not–"
"It's something. That freaky limp, that look on your face. You're not even talking to me the way you talk to me!"
"Karin–"
"Shut the fuck up, Nestor! I'm going to speak to Cicero. No. No. You have to talk to him. Get him on the secure. You have to let them evac you before you get one of us scorched."
"No–"
"Nes, you've got to, and it would go much better for you if it came from you. If it was voluntary. They'd probably get you assessed, sort you out and get you back on active. If I speak out on this, you're gone. Out of service."
Preben appeared in the doorway behind her. He eyed them both suspiciously.
"Bigmouse found something," he said.
Bigmouse was sitting at the primary position in the hub.
"Personnel list," he said, nodding at the box. "It was tucked into one of the housekeeping files."
He splayed his fingers across the touchscreen and opened out four tiers of panes with small headshots and bio data.
"Seventeen residents," he said.
"It doesn't show children," said Stabler, "but there are clearly children here."
"So the list's not complete," said Preben.
"It may only show employees," said Bigmouse. "Here, see? AnniMari Tuck. Says she has two kids, but it doesn't show pictures of them."
"So do they live here, or does she just have two kids somewhere?" asked Stabler.
"I can sweep the station again," said Preben. "Count beds and cots."
"Where the fuck did they all go this morning?" asked Stabler, mainly to herself. "Why was it just her left behind?"
"She's not here," he said.
The three of them looked round at him. He pointed at the display with a jut of his chin.
"She's not there. She's not one of the seventeen."
"It could be her," said Stabler, tapping one of the panes.
"No, not if you look at it," he said. "The nose and cheeks are wrong."
"Her, then," said Preben, indicating another.
"Really not."
"It could be," said Stabler.
"It's not. She's not there."
He stared at them.
"Maybe that's why she isn't wearing a name tag. To make sure we can't compare it to the manifest."
"We already said this list doesn't show everyone," said Preben. "She might not be an employee. She might be a guest, a visitor. A sister. A girlfriend."
"Or something else," he said.
"Shut the fuck up," said Stabler. "Isn't it bad enough you made her crack her head open?"
He was going to answer, but a storm blew up outside. A boomer, swinging in.
They went out. The sky was bigger, clearer, but the rain was scattershot. Out to sea, the dark rumour of a real rainstorm loitered along the horizon.
Pika-don was descending, whipping up spray. It settled, gear struts creaking, in the middle of the station yard, aerosolising mud like a smokescreen. Then the rotors began to power down, the noise dropped and the spray fog began to waft away.
Cicero dismounted through the starboard hatch, followed by the PO and a private called Martinz.
He strode across the mud towards them.
"Inside!" he ordered. "Except you, Stabler."
They went back inside. Stabler came to the gate and stayed talking to the sergeant.
"Doesn't look good for you," Bigmouse said to him.
"Shut up," he replied.
They waited inside, in the hub, then Cicero joined them, bringing Stabler and Martinz.
"I want a word," Cicero said to him, then got the others busy stripping out all the data they could locate in the station system.
"Stabler says you're a little rattled," Cicero said quietly, when they were face to face in the hallway outside the hub.
"I'm wealthy, sergeant."
"You looked off this morning," said Cicero.
"I'm fine. I was fine then. I'm fine now."
"Not what Stabler reckons. She's worried. Says you're jumpy."
"I'm not."
"Now's the time to say it, Bloom. Right now. She's looking out for you."
"I'm wealthy, sergeant."
"So tell me about this woman," Cicero asked.
He explained the incident as best he could. He let Cicero borrow his glares so he could review the playback for himself.
"It's not clear she did have a weapon," said Cicero. "She's not even clear. You looked for a gun?"
"Preben did. So did Stabler."
"You didn't, Bloom?"
"I wanted to get her out of the pit and patched up, sergeant."
"Look, Bloom, I think this is one of those things. Just one of those damn things that happens sometimes. From the replay, I can't see you did much wrong at all, unless you were already spooked or wired. But if she's a civilian, and it looks like she is, there will be a report. Write-ups. She may even file for damages, who knows? I'm going to need the medic to take a blood sample from you, and check you out. Are you on anything you shouldn't be?"
"No."
"Really no?"
"No, sergeant."
"Nothing in your system you don't want me knowing about?"
"No, sergeant."
"Okay, Bloom. We should take a look at her too."
He led Cicero over to the alcove.
The girl was gone. There was a faint smear of blood on the upholstery, and a whiff of antiseptic gel lingering in the air.
"Where is she, Bloom?"
"I… I don't know, sergeant."
"Nobody thought to watch her?"
He didn't know what to say. He went with, "We didn't, sergeant. We were trying to find out who she was."
"We'd better find her."
"I'll start looking."
Cicero shook his head.
"Not you, Bloom."
He turned and called out to Martinz, Preben and Stabler. He told them to mount a search.
"Go and sit down somewhere. Keep out of trouble," Cicero told him. "I'll get the medic in from the boomer to do your bloods."
He went back to the restroom so he could pace and stop his hands from shaking while he waited for the medic to come inside. An exam, any exam, would reveal things, the needle tracks and pinpricks from the biologic tests the corp's people had run on him. He didn't know what part of the process might show up in a blood test, but they'd shot him full of all sorts of shit to prep him for the reposition match, and some of that had to be detectable.
He was screwed. He'd gambled, and he'd lost. His career was in a place that smelt worse than the station restrooms.
It was airless. The stink of damp and excrement was nauseating. He went to open a window, let some air in. The mesh grilles, thick with blurd husks, were bolted in place.
Except the end one. The dead blurds were scattered on the floor under the sill because the grille was free. Someone had taken the bolts out so it could be lifted off to open the window. They disturbed the collection of blurd corpses every time they did it.
He lifted the mesh off and opened the window.
The smell was worse. Overpoweringly worse. The fearsnake squirming in his gut, he peered out.
The restroom windows looked out into a dead space, a blind gravel sump or run-off between the wings of the station. Directly under the window, five human bodies lay face-up, clothes plastered to them, skin like white cheese, draped over one another where they had been rolled out of the window and dropped. Black blurds were buzzing around pale, open mouths, clustering like sequins around unblinking eyes or the bl
ack-red punctures of hard-round entry wounds.
He lurched backwards, feeling the panic attack hitting him like a roadliner. The window banged shut, and he threw up down the inside of it, then again on the floor.
He spat. He moved towards the door. He tried the secure.
"Sergeant? Sergeant, this is Bloom. Come back. Stabler? Kilo One?"
He went out into the corridor.
She was right in front of him, the young woman they'd raised oh-so-gently out of the inspection pit. She halted in her tracks as he stepped out of the restroom in her path. Her face was set with purpose but a curious lack of emotion. Clotted blood matted her sealed scalp wound.
There was an SO-issue PDW in her hand.
She shot him with it.
FIFTEEN
Someone in the sky was smiling down on him. Maybe it was God. His mother would have told him that it was God, God smiling down from the sky and watching out for him, but his mother wasn't around and he didn't know where she had gone.
The smile was a big smile. It filled the sky up. It was a cheerful, happy smile, a smile full of big white teeth that were so big and polished, one of them was actually catching the light, like a cartoon glint. There were dimples at the corners of the mouth, smile dimples.
He wanted to know where his mother was.
Cold rain fell on his face, like dressmaking pins. The smile did not alter. He could hear voices in the distance. It was very strange. There was no sign of his mother.
He recognised that this was an occasion when he'd been really scared. He'd been scared because he hadn't really understood what was going on, and he'd got lost, and his mother hadn't been there to find him or explain any of it.
The smile was becoming a little unnerving. No one held a smile for that long. But there were periods of visual blackness, the durations of which he couldn't estimate. Each time his vision returned, the smile was still there. It hadn't gone anywhere, it hadn't stopped smiling, even when he hadn't been able to see it. It was all still there, the smile, the voices, and the rain on his face.
It meant something. All of it meant something. It had great significance, just not to him.
His hip hurt. His head hurt. He wondered where his mother was.
They'd come into the city together, leaving home early. She had put on her best coat, and he had been able to tell, though she had said nothing directly, that there was something going on. Putting on her best coat and leaving home early meant something. It had significance, just not to him.
They went on the rail instead of the bus. That had significance too. His mother said she wanted to be sure of being on time, and you couldn't trust the buses. The rail was much more expensive. His mother kept blowing her nose.
You saw the city a great deal better from the rail than you did from the bus. You saw it sprawl out, veiled by plumes of white steam from the processor factories, glinting in the sun, catching the sunlight like polished teeth.
He was hungry, but they had to keep an appointment. He wanted to stop at a ProFood counter and eat a chocolate stick or a Bill Berry Muffin. His mother held his hand and pulled him along. His mother said they had to see a man. She said orbital construction work was dangerous, a very dangerous occupation, and you had to be brave to do it, and they'd always known that, they'd always known the risk. She said it was a terrible thing, but they would be all right. The Office would look after them. That's why they were going to see the man.
It all meant something. He knew it meant something. It had great significance, just not to him.
The man was waiting for them in a brown building off the crowded streets. Sunlight outside, echoing halls inside, hushed voices lining the interiors like velvet. His mother had stopped on the steps outside the brown building and taken a breath, as if she was getting ready to sing. When she sang at church, she always took a moment to get ready and compose herself.
The man was nice, but it wasn't real nice. It was put-on nice. Making-an-effort nice. The man kept looking at him and smiling.
"And this is your son?" he asked.
His mother sat down. She pulled down the hem of her best coat. The man offered her a tissue from a box on his desk. Someone brought tea-effect. Through the windows behind the man's chair, the glass of the city twinkled in the sunlight like polished teeth catching the light.
The man talked about stuff that he didn't really understand, but the man was evidently worried that he could understand, that he understood too much, and kept looking at him, just to check. Another man came in. He was younger, and he wore a long black garment, and both his mother and the first man called him father.
But the man in the black garment wasn't his father. He wasn't even Father Ercole from the church where his mother went to sing, though the garment he wore was similar to Father Ercole's. Father Ercole was old, and nice. Genuine nice. Father Ercole would ask his mother to sing most Sundays, and give his mother a moment to get ready and compose herself before singing out in front of all the people.
This man, in his black garment, was too young to be anyone's father. He certainly wasn't his father. His father was older, and taller, and had big heavy arms, and worked in orbital construction, and they didn't see him very often because he was always away on contract.
They hadn't seen him for months.
The man in the black garment asked what kind of preparations needed to be made, and his mother said that her husband had never really been of the faith. It was her faith. She was the churchgoer. She liked to sing at the services. It was a community thing. Her husband, he'd never really been bothered with such matters. Even when he was home, he hadn't cared to come with her to church, even though he'd never stopped her doing it. He was a rationalist, she explained. That's how he'd described it. That's what the future was all about. God had only ever got people into wars and things. You didn't need God when you had space.
The man in the black garment had expressed some concern. On the deceased's form, it clearly stated his personal conviction as being the same as hers. Many aspects of the deceased's work with the Office had been predicated on this, including work placements, family and accommodation allowances, and holidays. The Office funded a funeral service based on personal conviction, as it was listed in the form. The man in the black garment was concerned that his mother was misrepresenting her husband's choices and beliefs. Perhaps she was upset, and angry at God because of the accident? If so, this was understandable, because of grief but, the man in the black garment insisted, he needed to get at the truth. She mustn't, she shouldn't, let her own feelings get in the way of her husband's wishes.
Besides, if it turned out that the deceased had misrepresented his personal conviction and registered false information, there would need to be an investigation to see if allowance and compensation had been wrongly administered.
Her mother said that her husband had been brought up in the church, just like her, just like their son here, but it had become just a notional thing. He had ticked the box for the want of ticking a box. These last ten years, his faith had declined.
His mother needed some more tissues to blow her nose on. Her tone changed. He knew this meant something. It all meant something. It had great significance, just not to him. She said she couldn't believe they were saying these things at a time like this, after what had happened. He'd given good service, devoted service. What did they mean, an investigation? If there had been overpayments or payments made in error, she couldn't afford to pay anything back. They had so little anyway, and particularly now. The man in the black garment assured her it wouldn't come to that, and that there would be full industrial compensation. But a few things might have to happen. They might, for instance, have to relocate to different accommodation. Smaller. There were only two of them now, and tied housing was in demand. This was especially likely if they had been receiving a faith-supported accommodation grant under false pretences.
His mother said, in a very quiet voice, that this simply couldn't and shouldn't be the case. It
was her home, her family home. Her son's home. Her son, her boy here, his home. She was part of the community, the church. They had neighbours and friends. They'd been there ten years.
The man in the black garment suggested to the other man that perhaps the child would be better off waiting out in the hall while they talked. He might get upset. He didn't really seem to understand what was going on. He was only four, after all. There were picture books outside, and some toys.
