The Lazarus Particle

by Logan Thomas Snyder

  Commander Orth pursed his lips, exhaling deeply through his slightly crooked nose.

  “I stand by my assessment of the situation. As I perceived it at the time, Quint and his men were trying to poach my bounty. It would not have been the first time, and I had no intention of allowing it to happen again.”

  “Be that as it may, a review board has been empaneled to sit the case. The fact that you apprehended Fenton Wilkes alive will augur in your favor; the circumstances, less so.”

  Xenecia received the news impassively, at least outwardly. Inside she was seething. Having had a moment to process the information, she saw it for what it truly was—a ruse. More specifically, an attempt by Morgenthau-Hale’s top brass to avoid paying out the bounty she had rightfully earned. Quint and his whelps weren’t credentialed security personnel. They never had been, at least not until after the firefight. No doubt someone very high up the corporate food chain thought themselves quite clever. Swoop in after the fact, slap security credentials on Quint and his corpse pals, then call the whole thing a wash. Corporate chicanery at its finest.

  The real question was whether Commander Orth was in on the ruse or merely its mouthpiece. She suspected the latter. By all accounts he was an honest broker, and certainly not one to question the corporate line. “And where does that leave me until then?”

  “Your quarters, I would expect. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to this report. The review board will be expecting it.”

  “Of course, Commander.”

  She made her exit to the sound of Commander Orth’s renewed scribbling, though she hardly noticed. Her own mind was racing just as quickly as his pen, if not quicker.

  04 • REPRESENTATION

  Fenton didn’t so much come to as cold reboot. One by one the critical functions that collectively defined his central nervous system powered up, came back online. He was flooded with sensation almost immediately upon rousing, chief of which was pain.

  His whole body, from head to toe, was a seething man-sized mass of pain.

  His feet and legs bristled with pins and needles from lack of movement.

  His stomach felt on the verge of imploding from hunger.

  Worst of all, his head felt… well, rather like someone had taken the butt end of a rifle to it at sixty-odd miles an hour. (Give or take.)

  Somehow he summoned the will to open his eyes. Well, eye. One was apparently swollen shut. He tried to focus, to bring clarity to his surroundings. The world presented itself in fuzzy relief and with considerably more pain for the effort.

  From what little he could tell he was being held in a small, boxy room. The walls were a paneled matte gray, bare and unadorned. With the exception of the chair he was secured to, what he could see of the room was empty. The chair itself was steel and numbingly uncomfortable. His arms were cuffed behind the chair’s back—he presumed with some sort of plastic tie—and the position was putting an incredible, almost dislocating strain on his shoulders. Try as he might, there was no way he could change position to reduce the strain.

  Fenton was on the verge of passing out once again when the door slid open with a pressurized hiss. Against the flood of light spilling in from the hall he registered a small, shapely silhouette. Not knowing what else to do, he feigned unconsciousness.

  “Fenton Wilkes?” It was a feminine voice, soft and placid. Its owner spoke in a low, soothing octave, as if she understood that anything more would be problematic for him given the state of his head.

  Something about her voice compelled him to respond. There was kindness to it. Sympathy. Swallowing and working his jaw, he found his voice for the first time in what felt like days. His lips were chapped and his mouth tasted like battery acid, but still he managed to form the words. “You found him,” he croaked. His voice sounded strange even to him. Like wet, crunching gravel.

  Muttering something he didn’t quite catch, the woman closed the distance with three easy strides. She was close now, practically hovering over him as she inspected his face. He could smell the scent of her shampoo lingering in her hair. It was disarmingly fragrant. Sweet, in a flowery sort of way. Vanilla and cherry blossoms, he decided.

  The woman straightened herself and walked around the chair. Fenton braced himself in anticipation of whatever fresh hell was to come.

  “My name is Roon McNamara, Mr. Wilkes,” the woman said. He heard a jet of water from an automatic faucet, then water splashing in a bowl or sink. Probably a sink, he decided. “I’m an advocate with Morgenthau-Hale’s Fugitive Reclamation Division. I’ve been assigned to handle your case at the hearing when we reach M-H Prime.” Behind him, the flow of water ceased abruptly. “May I call you Fenton?”

  Fenton affected as much of a shrug as his current state of confinement allowed. A sharp pain lanced down his back and shoulders and immediately he regretted it. “Whatever suits you.”

  “Great. Fenton it is, then.” She was dunking something in the water now. When she pulled it out he could hear the drip-drip-drip of lost drops dribbling back into the sink. The dripping became more frenetic when she wrung it out. “I’m going to clean you up as best I can, so just try and sit still, alright? If it starts to hurt too much, let me know and I’ll stop for a moment so you can collect yourself.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Of course, you do.” She reappeared a moment later, no sponge or washcloth in sight. “I’ll make sure someone brings you something to eat soon. We’ll get started reviewing your case file first thing tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure you were lucid and in good spirits.”

  She was practically one foot out the door before Fenton nodded. If she had answered any other way, he would have known she was something other than she claimed to be. “Alright, I’ll try my best.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “To sit still, I mean. I’ll try my best.”

  Roon crossed the room, briefly disappearing behind him again. When she returned, she placed a chair across from him and sat. “I’m going to start with your eye, okay?” she said, lifting the cloth in her hand. “I need to see if it’s actually damaged or just crusted over with blood.”

  He winced as she dabbed at his unseeing eye. The sound that escaped his throat was practically a growl. Still, he didn’t tell her to stop.

  “I’m sorry, Fenton. I can’t imagine how badly it must hurt. I almost have it clean, though.” She dabbed at his eye a few more times before announcing, “Okay, it looks like it’s going to be fine. The blood must have just been from the break in your nose. Can you blink it for me a few times just so we’re sure?”

  Fenton opened the one first, followed by the other. It was watery and even more unfocused than the good one, but he could definitely see out of it. Still, just to be sure he blinked it a few times. “I can make some things out. Colors and shapes, mostly, but they’re there.”

  “Good, good.” She sounded genuinely relieved. “How does your nose feel?”

  He took a deep breath, almost trembling at the resulting pain. “Yeah, it really fucking hurts.”

  Roon winced sympathetically. “I’ll be honest, I’m not surprised. It doesn’t look too great. I can get you something for the pain, if you’d like.”

  “I think I can live with it. My hands, though… anything you can do about that?”

  “I don’t think so. My word only goes so far. Sorry.”

  Fenton smirked manfully. “And you call yourself an advocate.”

  Roon spared him a rueful smile in return. “Anything else I can get for you?”

  “Water. From a bottle.”

  “Now that I can do.” She walked to the door and made a tipping motion against her lips. A moment later she returned, twisting the cap off a fresh bottle. “Slow sips, okay? If you drink too much at once you’re more likely to throw it up than keep it down.”

  Fenton nodded. Even in small quantities the water she fed him tasted like it was fresh from the Garden of Eden itself. “Thank you,” he said after the third mea
sured swallow she allowed him.

  “For what?”

  “For cleaning my eye. You seem pretty committed to this whole advocate thing. I didn’t even know M-H had those.”

  “Well, we’re part of M-H’s nonprofit wing.”

  “Ah. That would explain it then.”

  “How so?” She seemed genuinely perplexed by his answer.

  “I didn’t know M-H had one of those, either.”

  Roon laughed airily in spite of the their situation. “Yeah, we’re not exactly priority one come budget time. In fact, to be totally honest, yours is the first case file that’s come my way in months. Usually when M-H puts a bounty on someone…” She brought herself up short, obviously unsettled by the thought. “Let’s just say by the time they’re brought in they tend to be past the point of needing someone to advocate on their behalf. You’re lucky the huntrex showed such restraint apprehending you.”

  “Tell that to my face,” Fenton snorted.

  Roon smiled wanly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. All I’m saying is, you must be pretty special for someone to commission a life premium.”

  “So, we’re talking shop now?”

  “Only if you want to.”

  “I’m just surprised it’s not in my file.”

  “All it really says is that up until six months ago you were a biomechanical engineer working in the Biotech Development Initiative, Applied Sciences Division, when you absconded with a cache of proprietary information belonging to the company.”

  Fenton snorted again. “Unbelievable.”

  “What’s unbelievable?”

  “There’s no cache of information! And even if there was—” Fuming, Fenton cut himself short. There was no way to know who else might be listening.

  “Hang on, hang on. What exactly are we talking about here?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Fenton said just as the door slid open.

  Into the room strode a man not much taller than Roon. He was lean in an almost sickly way, with a sallow complexion coloring the pockets of flesh drooping just so beneath his eyes and jowls. He squinted over a flexpad as he spoke, at least until he lifted his head to find the room occupied by more people than he had been expecting. “Let’s see here, Fenton James Wilkes—oh my. Advocate McNamara. I apologize, I didn’t realize you had arrived.”

  Roon narrowed her eyes, affecting a much cooler demeanor with the man than she had with Fenton to that point. “Why has my client not received medical attention? And is it really necessary to bind him to the chair? You’re holding him prisoner under armed guard aboard a military-grade facility. Where could he possibly go?”

  Taking her cue, Fenton did his best to look as absolutely pathetic as possible while the man inspected him. It wasn’t a hard sell under the circumstances. “I see your point. I’ll have the station’s chief physician sent for at once.”

  “That should have been the first course of action once he was brought aboard,” Roon said. “Now, may I have a moment to finish speaking with my client?”

  The loose skin around the man’s face jogged up and down as he nodded. “Of course. I shall wait in the hall.” He turned sharply to exit the room. The door swished closed behind him.

  “Well, that was impressive,” Fenton said once they were alone again. “I’m starting to think you undersold the weight of your word.”

  Roon ignored the compliment, leaning in close and pitching her voice low. “Listen to me. Don’t say anything to that man. He’s going to threaten you, offer you deals, whatever he thinks might get you to cough up whatever they want to know, but nothing he offers you is binding and the corporate charter prohibits any physical interrogation until after the hearing, and only then if you’re found guilty. Understand?”

  Fenton nodded. “I’d zip my lips if I could move my hands.”

  “Good. Just keep thinking that: zipped lips. I’ll be back soon to go over your case file and anything you think I should know prior to the hearing.”

  “Alright.”

  She stood to leave. “It was good to meet you, Fenton. I want you to know I’m going to do everything I can for you.”

  Somehow, when she said it, he believed it. “Thanks.” Fenton opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. He couldn’t let her leave without asking the obvious question. “Hey, Roon?”

  “Yes?”

  “That man. Who is he?”

  Roon stopped just short of the door. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. “My godfather,” she finally said. Pivoting on her heel before he could respond, she exited the holding room brusquely.

  05 • GODMONSTER

  Roon was lying in bed. The room was pitch dark, but still the bedding was drawn up high over her head, cocooning her against the monster that lurked in the blackness just beyond. She could hear its breathing, low and measured, through the flimsy protection of her downy shield. She lay utterly motionless, praying that if she didn’t move the monster wouldn’t know where to find her. Like so many others, her prayers went unanswered. Soon the creature was settling upon the edge of the bed, gently cratering the mattress beneath its weight. Roon’s breath quickened, overtaking the sound of the monster’s within her ears. She whimpered and fussed with the duvet, her last line of defense, clutching at it meekly as the monster slowly peeled it back. Her eyes watered with tears as she felt that first hot breath upon her neck. Next came the scaly, rough-hewn caress of its paws through the fabric of her nightgown. She let out a single shaky sob, knowing there was nothing she could do—no power she possessed—to prevent the monster from consuming her now.

  “Shh, little dove,” the monster whispered coarsely into her ear. Its breath was laced with something strong and sour. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

  But the monster was wrong. It did hurt her; it always hurt her.

  And then came the moment she dreaded, that horrible moment when the monster straddled her and lifted the nightgown over her head as if to shield them both from the horror it was about to inflict…

  Roon jerked and sat bolt upright in bed, fighting off invisible monsters in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. Her pulse was racing, pounding in her ears and at the corners of her eyes; her breathing was so erratic she was on the verge of hyperventilation. A cold sweat wreathed her from head to toe despite the ambient warmth of the room. From somewhere deep in her throat, a ragged scream clawed its way out into the world where it rattled urgently and wailingly off the walls of her stateroom.

  A flighty, birdlike chime sounded from somewhere both near and far. Somehow Roon remembered the therapy—the need to focus on her physical surroundings, not the ones constructed in the dark well of her subconscious. The chime sounded a second time. She grasped at it desperately, like an ancient sailor lost at sea. With the chime as her lifeline she began to itemize her surroundings, just as her therapist had instructed: the worried and synthetically scented bedding bunched all around her; the blocky nightstand flanking the bed; her rectangular, wireframe reading glasses folded and placed carefully atop it.

  She focused on the glasses intently. With her bright, inquisitive young eyes, twelve-year-old Roon wouldn’t have need of them for nearly a decade or so more.

  Slowly the dream-state dissolved into the latent ether of the waking world. In its place, reality reluctantly resolved itself for her.

  She was not twelve years old.

  She was not at the mercy of the monster.

  She was a woman grown and in the prime of her life.

  Yet one apparently still unable to escape the clutches of the ghosts of her past.

  The chime sounded a third time. Distantly it occurred to her that someone wished to gain entry to her quarters. She also became aware of voices, or rather, a single voice repeating itself outside her door. She supposed it had been speaking this whole time she was fighting to return to the present, but she couldn’t say with any real certainty.

  “Advocate McNamara? Are you alright i
n there? Please open the door, ma’am, or I’ll be forced to call for station security!”

  Roon fumbled her way out of bed, groping for a robe draped over the back of a chair in which she had spent the previous night reading. She tried announcing her actions to the person or persons outside her quarters but found her mouth too dry to form words. She found half a bottle of water—under the circumstances she made a deliberate point of thinking of it as half-full—sitting on the floor beside the reading chair and chugged it. The water was tepid after sitting out all night but it served the purpose of loosening the words lodged in her throat. “Coming,” she bleated hoarsely as she cinched the robe around her waist. “I’m coming.”

  She opened the door to find the face of a young ensign looking back at her, his youthful features etched with obvious concerns. “Advocate McNamara,” he said relievedly at the sight of her. “Are you alright, ma’am? I heard a scream.”

  “Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I was… just having a bad dream.”

  The ensign nodded understandingly.

  An awkward beat passed as neither of them said anything.

  “Is there something I can help you with, Ensign?” she finally prompted.

  “Ah, no, ma’am.” The ensign glanced down at his polished boots, as if to hide a flush of embarrassment creeping into his cheeks. “You asked to be notified after Fenton Wilkes was examined by the chief medical officer?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, of course.”

  “There appears to have been no long-term damage done to his eye. He has a broken nose but otherwise he’s been given a clean bill of health.”

  “I see.” The words drifted from her lips numbly. It was as if she failed to understand why she had ever wanted to know such a thing in the first place.

  Having delivered the notification, the young man turned to make his escape of the awkward exchange.

  “Ensign?”

  “Advocate?”

  “May I ask your name?”

  “Pruitt,” he answered without hesitation. “Daniel Pruitt.”

  Roon offered him a shaky but altogether genuine smile. “Thank you, Ensign Pruitt.”