by Rob Boffard
A hundred responses dance for attention in Hannah’s mind. None of them do the job. Her tongue is a dead weight in her mouth. She wants to say that she knew some of the people on Sigma – that she knew Donnie, the guide with the ridiculous mohawk, and Atsuke, the supervisor who was nice to her. But she didn’t know them. Not really. She didn’t know what Donnie did in his spare time, or what kind of beer Atsuke liked.
For some reason, she thinks of the guide who interrupted her in the VR sim, the one who told her she was on tour ship duty. She didn’t even know his name.
“We could just kill you,” she says, after a few moments. It sounds pathetic, even as she says it.
“But you won’t,” the man says. Then, without changing his tone: “I need food, and water. And I need to be able to use the bathroom.”
Nothing else. He doesn’t continue, doesn’t elaborate. He says the words like he’s ordering a meal at a restaurant.
“We’re trying to help you,” Hannah says, biting back the frustration. “And we’ll get you something to eat as soon as you answer our questions.”
The man smirks. It looks strange, like his face isn’t used to holding any sort of expression. “That’s the problem with you people. You always think you’re doing the right thing. Always think you can help.”
“What do you mean?” Anita says.
No response.
Hannah climbs to her feet, doing it slowly, like she’s bored. “Fine,” she says. “I’ll tell the other three that it didn’t work. See how you like that. Come on, Anita.”
See how you like that? She might as well have stomped her feet. The prisoner chuckles, a sound like a heavy smoker clearing his throat. “Do what you have to. But it’s like I said: at some point, one of you is going to slip.”
Hannah opens her mouth, then closes it. What is she supposed to say? This isn’t corralling a group of scared passengers, or figuring out what to do about a frozen water tank. This isn’t dealing with Jack, or Seema – they might be assholes, but they’re all still on the same side.
This? She’s not ready for this. She doesn’t know a single thing about interrogation, and, even if she did, what possible reason does this man have to answer her? His ship is destroyed, his crew is dead. He’s got nothing left to lose.
Maybe they should let Jack try. Maybe –
No. We’re not doing that. Not ever.
“Please,” Anita says, and for the first time, a note of desperation sneaks into her voice. “My kids are on this ship. We can help you.”
“Food and water,” the man repeats, just as Hannah reaches the ladder.
“Watch him,” Hannah says to Everett, starting to climb, trying to fight back the frustrated, terrified tears. Behind her, Anita gives a shaky sigh, and follows.
Chapter 32
Jack once spent a lot of money on a home meditation course.
It was the kind of thing that came in a beautifully designed lens app, with its own bespoke voiceover and customised data gathering and a money-back guarantee. It promised a mind as clear and empty as a dawn sky – those were the exact words on the marketing copy, written in a font with softly rounded edges.
He shelled out for it around six months after he’d left São Paulo, in that confused, raw period after Hector had told him to leave. He badly wanted to move on. Get clear. Build a new him, a new life, one with a job he deserved and nights where he slept like a baby, instead of lying there for hours, his mind zigzagging from one thought to the next, until he finally got up and drowned it in beer or whisky. Or cheap vodka, if payday was a while away.
The whole idea was to focus on your breathing. You sat there, eyes closed, counting breaths. When you got to ten, you went back to the beginning. That was all there was to it – Jack went through a dozen virtually identical sessions with nothing but an occasional, monotone voiceover urging him to relax.
He didn’t. He couldn’t. He’d be counting breaths, doing everything he could to empty his mind, and then he’d suddenly be thinking about work or the booze or Hector or his damn credit account. He’d shift in his seat, irritated, getting back to the grim business of clearing his mind.
He’d lasted less than a week on the programme. When he tried to get his money back, the customer service agent had told him that he needed to wait another five months and three weeks for the money-back guarantee to kick in, which made him so angry he nearly tore his lens out in disgust. He’d gone back to the booze to help him drift off. At least that performed as advertised.
One, he thinks. Two. Before he’s even exhaled a second time, he’s thinking, with a sick inevitability, about Hector.
Hec is – was – a cop, and a clichéd one at that: muscles, tattoos, military buzz cut. The whole nine. Jack had met him on assignment in Brazil, on some travel junket for a company whose name he couldn’t even remember. He’d been working at a feed in Venezuela at the time, running their excuse for a lifestyle section.
He’d been outside one of the godawful restaurants they’d dragged him to, and had bummed a smoke from a cop on the other side of the rope. The cop had made a joke about the restaurant, and since Jack had no desire to go back inside sooner than he absolutely had to, they got talking. The cop’s English was pretty good. Later that night, after a few drinks in Jack’s hotel bar, he’d discovered that Hector Alarcón was pretty good in the sack, too.
They’d always joked – usually when they were lying in bed, Hec smoking, Jack’s leg twisted over his – that they were only together because Jack had a thing for men in uniform. The reality was that they worked, in a way that none of Jack’s previous relationships, with any genders, had. Jack doesn’t know if they were in love – they never discussed it, not in those terms. But they were so, so good for each other.
They both had the same sarcastic view of the world, the same low tolerance for bullshit. They both had trouble getting along with other people, and they were both surprised that they got along with each other so well. Like him, Hec didn’t hang out with his family much – Jack saw his folks back in DC once a year, if that – and he didn’t have all that many close friends. They had each other, and that was enough. Fuck everybody else.
And they had the same ethics. Jack was proud of that. There were plenty of bent cops in Brazil, more than there used to be after the coasts were abandoned, but Hector Alarcón wasn’t one of them. Jack had looked into that one early on, asking a contact at one of the local feeds for any scuzz on his new squeeze. There was none.
And so he went down south every chance he got, sitting on the ultraloop dreaming of Hec’s chest under his hand, of the pastel they’d soon be stuffing their faces with, of the glowing oil running down Hec’s chin.
He should have known better than to get attached. Drug squad was a hazardous occupation anywhere, but particularly in São Paulo. The Roses Cartel mostly operated out of Mars and Proxima these days, but they’d started in Brazil, and they still had operations there.
Hec had gone on a raid to one of the Roses safe houses (the flower beds, the crime reporters called them, either not knowing how cheesy it sounded or not caring). The flower bed in question was an apartment block in Alemão. Usually, droids handled the knock-knocks, but Hec’s commander sensed a victory, and wanted his officers on hand to personally claim the prize. Jack would never forgive him for that.
Hec had taken three bullets. C4 spinal cord injury. Full quad. Jack was back in Caracas when it happened, and it had taken three days before anybody had even thought to notify him. He’d all but sprinted down there, vanishing from his feed office forty-five minutes before a deadline. He doesn’t remember the ultraloop ride down, but he’ll never forget seeing Hec in that hospital bed.
There was treatment. Nano injections and artificial limbs, even a whole new spine. But Hec’s department had bureaucracy that made Jack want to personally strangle each and every person in it. You could have all the scientific and medical advances you wanted, but it meant diddly if the paperwork wasn’t in order.
&
nbsp; A month had turned into two, then three. Hec didn’t need a ventilator to breathe, thank God, and Jack had gone down every single chance he had. But … Hec wasn’t Hec any more.
They started fighting – small things at first, little firecrackers that sputtered out as soon as they started. But they got bigger, and longer, and the worst thing of all was seeing Hec wanting to move, willing himself to move, and not being able to do so. He didn’t want Jack to see him like this, and couldn’t – wouldn’t – try and understand why Jack kept coming.
Things had come to a head on a bright spring morning, with the sun pouring in through the window. Jack mentioned maybe taking Hec for a trip outside the hospital, maybe heading down to that bar they liked, the one in Lapa. That’s when Hec had accused him of being insensitive. Of not caring about his condition.
Jack had seen red at that. Insensitive? Hadn’t he been doing everything he could to be supportive? Hadn’t he put his life on hold to help? He’d said as much, and that’s when things got really exciting.
In the end, Hec had forbidden him from visiting. Jack still remembered the last time he’d tried, pleading with the nurse in his useless, inept Portuguese.
He’d gone back to work. Or tried to. He didn’t feel a need to drink then, mostly because he didn’t feel anything. It was only after everything went tits up at work that the need to drink became a terrible, burning urge.
He was never naive or stupid enough to expect that the world would stop. His colleagues at the feed had jobs to do, whether Hector was in his life or not. What got him – what really and truly got him – was the pity. The slightly nervous pauses before anyone spoke to him. The whispers at the staff canteen, only just audible.
His editors were the worst. They’d told him that out of respect for what had happened, they’d be assigning him a few easy jobs, to let him get used to working again. The easy jobs had slowly become the ones no one else wanted – and the crazy thing is, he’s pretty sure his bosses thought they were just being kind, that they were doing him a favour. A senior position he was gunning for mysteriously vanished. Too soon, they’d said. Next year perhaps. Just keep filing your little hotel reviews. What the hell, enjoy yourself. Take an extra day. On us.
In the end, he’d decided to get as far away as possible. Europa seemed like a good bet. The dome colony there had a new feed, part of a big post-war media boom in that part of the Frontier, and they were looking for a travel guy. Europa was cold, and boring, and far from everywhere. Which was just fine by Jack.
He can’t pinpoint the exact moment when the drinking got out of hand. When it became Too Much. But all of a sudden, it was too much, and he didn’t really see the point in stopping it.
It helped dull the icy shame he felt: that Hec’s rejection didn’t send him to the bottle, but his career dying did. That he didn’t stick it out – push past Hector’s depression, work harder to remind him that they were both miserable shitheads, and that miserable shitheads had to stick together, no matter what. The shame created a feedback loop: one he eventually decided to stop fighting.
He’d always told himself he’d go back. Go and see Hec, and fix things. Not going to happen now.
It’s been around eight hours since the prisoner first came on board, and Jack’s mind is a whirling hornet’s nest. He has more chance of producing whisky out of thin air than he does of going to sleep. It doesn’t help that he’s starving, and freezing cold – he’s curled up under the bar counter, lying on his side, using an empty box as a pillow. He came down here because he wanted to get as far away from everyone as possible. By the time he realised he was too cold to sleep, he had no desire to go back upstairs.
The ship is dark. Volkova turned off the lights after dinner, when everyone decided to turn in. Dinner. What a joke. A JamFizz and half a bag of stale soychips that he had to share with Malik Livingstone. Jack’s stomach is both empty and disgustingly bloated, and every sound the Red Panda makes feels magnified, the clanking of the metal hull and the rumbling of the engine drilling into his brain. He shivers, hugging his legs to his chest, pulling his jacket sleeves over his fingers.
And round and round the hornets go.
In the darkness, his thoughts balloon, mutate, swelling into grotesque monstrosities as if stung repeatedly. He keeps replaying the past day in his mind. How could these people – these fucks – try to kill them not once, but twice? That would have been bad enough, but then one of them somehow lands up on the Red Panda, and gets treated like royalty. Gets his own private room, a full-time minder, has half the passengers protecting him …
His hands are trembling, and it’s getting harder and harder not to fixate on a drink. Any drink. Whisky, vodka, beer, frozen fucking margarita …
Jack rolls over, hunching his head down into his jacket collar, letting out a soft sound somewhere between a moan and a snarl. He has to sleep. He needs to sleep. He counts, exhaling clouds of white vapour. One. Two. Three. Nothing to lose, probably laughing at us, laughing at me, he just grabbed me and threw me out the way –
Jack opens his eyes.
He stares at the inside of the bar counter for a good ten seconds. Then, limbs aching, he slowly clambers to his feet.
Chapter 33
The bar is dark, but Jack moves with more purpose than he has in months. Years.
He makes his way around the side of the counter, running a hand along it for balance, ignoring the stickiness from a puddle of spilled JamFizz. He pauses a few feet from the bathroom, waiting to see if anyone is inside. When he hears nothing, he keeps going, moving quietly onto the stairs. Above him, someone is snoring.
He makes his way up to the main deck. It’s not quite as dark as the bar – there’s a little light coming from the Neb, just visible at the edge of the viewing dome. The dark, hulking wreck of the Colony ship, the fires inside it long since burned out. Beyond it, a billion miles of nothing.
No one coming for them. No patrol ships. No Frontier cruisers. Nobody outside this ship who’ll even know what he’s about to do.
There are huddled figures curled up on the seats at the far end of the deck. Jack stops on the last step, not moving, not making a sound. Waiting for one of them to sit up, focus on him. They don’t.
His eyes slide sideways, to where Brendan and Seema are sleeping, up against the wall. Brendan has his back to him, his head supported by a balled-up jacket. Seema has deactivated her glowing tattoo, the ink invisible in the darkness.
The entire place stinks – Jack thought he would have got used to the smell by now, but he hasn’t. There’s a faint tang in the mix of body odour and food smells: he never cleaned up that puke from before. Fuck it. He can worry about it later.
He starts moving towards the sleeping couple – and is brought up short when he steps on an empty soychip packet. The crackle-crunch sounds louder than a bomb going off.
He freezes, not sure why he’s being cautious – after all, it’s not like he’s banned from the main deck. All the same, he waits for a good few seconds until he’s sure no one has woken up.
When he reaches Brendan’s slumbering body, he goes down on one knee, looking back over his shoulder again. When he turns round, Brendan is looking right at him.
Jack puts a finger to his lips. After a moment, Brendan nods.
“If I go down there,” Jack says, speaking as softly as he can. “Will you have my back?”
Part of him expects Brendan to say no, maybe even to raise the alarm. But the man just looks him, eyes bright and alert, fully awake.
“What you gonna do?” Brendan says, his lips barely moving.
“What do you think?” Jack glances at the area of the main deck where the trapdoor is.
“We’re in,” Seema says, making Jack jump. Her eyes glint in the dark, picking up the light from the Neb.
“OK.” Jack puts a hand on the floor, ready to push himself up. For the first time he gets a hint of what it might be like to have a mind as clear and empty as a dawn sky. “We go in quiet. No
t a sound. Once we’re in there, we figure out how to lock the trapdoor.”
“What about daddy dearest?” Brendan murmurs. “He’s still down there.”
“Three of us, one of him. Let’s go.”
Slowly, carefully, they make their way across the main deck. Jack runs through a mental list of the other passengers, ticking them off. Everett downstairs. Anita and her two boys are on the other side, and Hannah is well behind them, sleeping in the passage leading to the cockpit. Lorinda is closer to them than Jack would like, at their two o’clock, but she’s passed out cold, curled in a blanket. Of course she’s asleep. Nice and warm and comfy.
He can’t see Volkova – she must be back in the cockpit. Are there security cameras? Can she see them? Maybe – but he’s pretty sure any cameras on this piece of crap won’t have night vision, and in any case, by the time she figures out what they’re doing, they’ll be down the trapdoor and home free.
Then they can get some answers.
The trapdoor is a few feet away. They’re going to have to be very, very careful when they open it. A single noise could – shit, did the hinges creak the last time? Jack can’t remember. He glances at Seema, moving alongside him. She’s looking at the trapdoor, too, her eyes never leaving it. Despite the cold, she’s not wearing a jacket, and her muscles ripple under her top.
A few seconds later, they’re crouching around the trapdoor. Brendan is reaching for the handle when Seema holds a hand up. Wait.
The three of them listen hard. Nothing – just the rumble and hiss of the Red Panda, blank as space itself. Seema nods, and Brendan braces himself. Slowly, oh so slowly, he starts to tug the trapdoor up.
It takes a whole minute to get it open. Several times, the hinges start to creak and Brendan has to slow right down, not wanting to make a sound. But, eventually, he lowers the trapdoor onto the floor, exposing the ladder to astronautics. There’s a light on down below, and it illuminates the main deck a little.
“Hello?” says a voice from below them. Everett. Jack bites back a curse, starts to move faster, before they can raise the –
