The Henderson Helios: A Sci-Fi Adventure Novella

by Beatrice Crowl

  Buzzer again.

  “You shouldn’t even be here! This was supposed to be a simple in-and-out.”

  “And now it’s not.” I used my cuffed hand to push back some bangs, forcing her to follow along. “Listen, your first choice of destination is Cadinoff. Mine is my garage. We’re literally stuck together, so let’s say we’re both not getting our first choice, okay?”

  “Then where do you suggest we go?”

  Good question. We needed a place we could detach ourselves. Someplace neutral. That wouldn’t have a preference for either Cadinoff or me.

  We both thought it at the same time.

  “Halcyore’s.” Our voices joined.

  Halcyore’s was an odd duck. A mechanical dreamworld. Not a corporation, either. No, it was privately owned by a filthy rich motherfucker. He offered deep discounts and all sorts of special goodies like it was his kink. In any case, he had a few rules in his physical store. No weapons, no grudges, no agendas, no corporate squabbles. You went to Halcyore’s for the mech shit, not to settle scores. Companies had tried to win him over, persuade him to show them some favoritism, but he’d refused. Everybody on equal footing.

  Halcyore’s was a few stops down on the public rail. Longer by foot. But it was the best option to get us de-cuffed.

  I nodded. “So we get out of here and find a rail station?”

  “One more thing.” Her voice was smoother now. Less annoyed. She’d managed to compose herself. “Cadinoff will need the data tab that you swallowed.”

  I leaned close. Even sitting I had a bit of height over her, and I used it to back her against the booth table. She looked at me strangely. Not like she was frightened or annoyed. No, she looked cautious. Like she wanted to keep me at arm’s-length. Which I supposed was as far away as either of us could keep the other right now.

  She looked away first, which meant I won.

  “You’ll have to spend the travel time thinking of some way to get that data tab, then.” If she wanted it, she’d have to steal it from my fucking intestines. I tugged at her hand. “So, neutral exit?”

  Myka grimaced, but her attention shifted away from the gunfire and in the opposite direction of where the gondola was heading. “Fire exit. That way.”

  I lifted myself to a crouch. Yeah, my left leg was janky. I could manage well enough, but there’d be pain. Myka matched my position. I smiled. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * * *

  La Diyor was a megacity, so we couldn’t even notice the combat after walking a couple blocks. Buildings on top of buildings crammed with tiny buildings in between, with buildings perilously teetering on top, and maybe another building bridging two bigger buildings. Buildings meant a crush of people and vehicles and other assorted urban clutter.

  The Outer Core colonies tended to only have one megacity. Most of the planets were still “developing”—the business term for being quickly covered by a sprawl of urban areas. The Core was basically all urban, so they had to get their agri-food from us. And from the Outer Reaches, supposedly, but I’d never believed people actually lived out on those just-terraformed planets.

  Ri’s megacity was La Diyor. I would love to say that La Diyor and Ri were highly regarded among the Outer Core, but full honesty? We weren’t. We were that awkward relative at the family reunion that spontaneously decided to reenact the Battle of Traver, complete with sobbing at the end. The weirdos. No idea how that happened. Understanding that shit wasn’t my specialty.

  La Diyor was a frenetic urban wilderness, and when Myka and I walked shoulder-to-shoulder it was hard to see the handcuffs. Downside: I had to walk close to Myka, and she did not show any consideration of my small limp.

  To be fair, we had good reason to hurry. With Myka out of contact from Cadinoff, her people would definitely be searching for her. As would Sev Tech. And, of course, everybody wanted me and my valuable stomach.

  The dark of the night couldn’t compete with the brilliant lights of La Diyor, but it was still dark enough to remind me that I’d been out all day. All I’d wanted was a boring expo to distract me from life. Instead I got dragged into this fiasco.

  Ryan. Shit. He’d be waiting up for me. Like usual. He hated it, and it’s a shitty thing to do to a kid.

  I had a sudden impulse to be a better person as I saw one of those revamped public comms. I usually drank those away, but I wasn’t in a position to do so now. Instead I tugged at Myka.

  “I’m gonna call Ryan.”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Then I’m calling Cadinoff.”

  “Have a heart here. I’m not calling Ryan for back-up or anything. I just wanna let him know I’m okay.”

  Myka crossed her arms in front of her chest, dragging my hand along with her. “And I want to let Glezos know that I’m okay.”

  I leaned into her. Just a little intimate moment to any passers-by. “Ryan is a kid. His parents are dead, and I don’t know what sort of shit he went through before he came to me. Even a brainwashed, corporate toady like you has to have some understanding and sympathy.”

  Her gaze was steady and stubborn. She looked like the mean teacher who’d never let you get away with anything.

  Insults weren’t the best tack. “Listen, Myka. Please. I fuck up with him a lot, and I just wanna do right for once.”

  Her silence resounded. Avoiding her gaze in a humiliating act of submission, I studied my hand on her jacket sleeve. Oil was a permanent feature of my fingernails, and I was dirtying her jacket with my greasy mechanic hands. She’d have to burn the entire outfit after this.

  Finally, an agreeable hum broke the stand-off.

  “Just to check on him,” she said.

  If I stopped to ponder the whys, she could change her mind. No use in risking it. When that mean teacher cut you some slack, you grabbed it and set off that firework in the schoolyard. I beelined straight to the public comm, no care at all for the handcuffs being visible.

  I always carried cash—an assortment of currencies. Habit from the war days when bank networks were unreliable. I thunked in the fee and punched in Ryan’s code, setting the visual display to OFF. Better he not see Myka.

  It took a while. My brain played a vidreel of him at home. Maybe he’d fallen asleep on the sofa watching vids. Or maybe he was doing a late-night on some of that repair work. He did that sometimes while I was out. I’d get home to find the overnight job already done and waiting for me to hand off to the customer. That kid was…

  No, I wasn’t gonna get teary-eyed in front of Myka fucking Benton.

  When he picked up, the heavy thud of bass blasted into my ear, pulsing beat dancing from the speaker and mixing with an eruption of laughter.

  I pressed the handset closer to my face. “Ryan?”

  More laughter. The tell-tale sound of being shifted in someone’s pocket and voices of protest. The music muted.

  “Fuck. Was that a voice?” Ryan spoke with a big grin. I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell.

  Myka smirked at me. I turned away from her. “Hey, it’s El.”

  “El! Hey, it’s El!” He called to disembodied giggles. “Your nickname? Is just a letter. That’s fucking wild.”

  “Are you still out?”

  His voice muffled. He must have lowered his handset to have a discussion with his friends. My name shortening to “El” was a heavy epiphany for them.

  So much for the suffering kid at home.

  “Ryan, get back on the handset.”

  “Shit.” His voice again. Clear and loud. “There you are. What’s going on?”

  “Ryan, are you all high?” His atrocious accent was even stronger and more atrocious than usual.

  He giggled. “So high. Fucking shit. This place is great.”

  I sagged against the comm in defeat. “I’m glad you’re having fun. Be safe, okay? You got a spotter?”

  Another voice cut in. A young woman’s. One of Ryan’s little friends. I’d met her a few times. Blonde chick. Cute. Had an awkward crush on me.
“I’m spotter, Ms. Henderson.”

  “Elly.” I corrected her automatically. “I’m out late. Just make sure Ryan gets home safe.”

  “Of course, Ms. Henderson. Elly.”

  Shit. That was the horniest voice I’d ever heard. I glanced at Myka to see if she’d noticed.

  “Thanks, um…” I never remembered names.

  “Celia.” Myka mumbled.

  “Thanks, Celia.” I hung up.

  Okay, so that wasn’t what I’d expected, but at least he wasn’t worried about me. By far, the worst part was having Myka as an audience. Oh, and as a database of Ryan’s friends. Why did she know Ryan’s friends?

  She could have rubbed this all in my face, but she remained quiet as we continued walking to the rail station. A delicious smell wafted through the thick of the crowd, triggering a growl from my stomach. A food vendor huddled against a bank hawked steamed buns to passersby.

  Myka cut through the crowd to order two buns. She handed one to me without comment. It was exactly the type of questionable street food I lived off, and my stomach was thundering in anticipation.

  Then I noticed the Bleercorp logo on the vendor’s cart. A franchisee. “Never mind. You can have mine.” I pushed the bun back at her.

  She frowned with a bun in each hand. When she made a straight line for a nearby bench, I had no choice but to follow, gingerly shifting away from a puddle of unidentifiable liquid on the seat. A display to the side flashed the rail schedule. The train to Eldarm—where Halcyore’s was—left in fifteen minutes. Plenty of time.

  “I’m not going to poison your food.” Myka placed one bun on the bench beside her. Hemmed in by the troubling puddle on one side and the steamed bun on the other, Myka and I squished together. Her thigh pressed against mine.

  “The vendor was a Bleercorp franchisee.”

  “So?”

  She needed me to spell this out. “I’ll wait for an independent vendor. One who’s not attached to a corporation.”

  With the grace of ancient royalty, she took a bite from the first bun. “What’s your issue with corporations anyway?”

  She was asking what my beef is with the corps? She’d never struck me as dumb. “What type of question is that? Especially coming from you?”

  She lowered the bun with a look of confusion. A genuine look of confusion. Or as genuine as Myka ever looked. Which was insane. Contractors had the most reason to hate corporations.

  “I don’t like when people in power throw their weight around. Especially when they beat up on the little guy.”

  Myka considered, weighing the accuracy of my statement. “I don’t know about ‘throwing weight around’, but you can’t pretend the corporations haven’t benefited the system. The reason we’re here on Ri is because of Cadinoff investment and colonization. Who else would transform dead planets into livable colonies?”

  Typical apologist bullshit. “Yeah, and we’ve paid for it while their shareholders back in the Core make bank.”

  She wiped her mouth with a napkin, bringing my hand along for the ride. “That apprentice of yours. How much do you pay him? As I recall, you take advantage of small business leniencies to let underage ‘family’ work with minimal pay.”

  “Please. Ryan’s better off than you are any day. You’re a contractor.”

  Though I spit the word with venom, she wasn’t fazed. “I get to travel with free room and board. And I don’t stay in Sufficient Inn. I stay in The Golden Sun or Kerye Hotels. I’m treated to the finest of everything. I get paid plenty.”

  “Can you walk away?”

  She met my challenging gaze. “Why would I want to?”

  “If Ryan decides I’m an asshole, he can just leave. I can’t stop him. I wouldn’t stop him. Can you leave if you decide you don’t want that sweet luxury anymore?”

  “Once I’ve paid down the debt—”

  “See, shit doesn’t matter till you can walk away.” Otherwise, she was just a happy prisoner.

  She was brainwashed. Born with debt so she thought of it as normal. Never stopped to think that things could be different. Never stopped to think the whole set-up was unfair. She’d been raised with corporate values shoved down her throat until she loved it and asked for more.

  “I think you’re taking this all too personally.” She said it in a matter-of-fact way.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I just think you’re letting some personal issues interfere with your objectivity.”

  “You don’t even know anything about me.”

  She cocked her head to the side, then spoke as if reciting a record:

  “Elly Henderson, born Elly Blake. Profession: Engineer. Skills: Vacuu-atmo engine design. Hobbies: Watching dartball, repairing old machines, and drinking. Motivation: To be accepted to the Human Engineering Association without corporate sponsorship. Fear: Being like her father. Weakness: Her apprentice, Ryan—”

  I stood and slammed my hands onto the back of the bench on either side of her, caging her between my arms. There’s a special type of anger that fires up when someone poked at your vulnerable underbelly. Myka had socked that underbelly with a fist, and now that anger was fucking flooding me. The rest of the station was gone. It was just me and Myka, this fucking pest who was…

  She knew my old name, for fuck’s sake.

  “You even think about doing anything to Ryan…” My words burst, shaking.

  She didn’t look scared at all. She sat straight, meeting my aggression. “Fact is, I do know a lot about you, Ms. Henderson. And so I’m comfortable chalking up your issues with corporations into ‘taking things personally’. It’s hard for you to respect power when you grew up with a man who abused it—”

  “Would you shut the fuck up?”

  She didn’t. “It’s probably why you refuse to get a long-term partner. Honestly, a lot of your life choices are tied up in your childhood trauma. You should probably work past that in therapy.”

  Her left hand dangled near my right, but her expression was smug. She knew she’d hit a sore spot, and she was glad for it, and I hated her for it. I wanted nothing more than to shut her up with force, but that would also be a fucking victory for her. I’d be giving in to my “Fear”, after all.

  We must’ve been making a scene. A woman touched my shoulder. Older lady. Burn scarring on her cheek. She looked from me to Myka. “Everything okay here?”

  Myka smiled as if we were having a casual chat. “We’re fine.” Her handcuffed hand grabbed mine. She looked for all the world like a woman on a pleasant date. Meantime, I was a temper-red, trembling mess lumbering over her. I was out of line. Fuck.

  I retreated but kept my hand in Myka’s to hide the handcuffs. I shoved the other hand in my pocket, backtracking to the bench next to Myka.

  The older woman gave me another suspicious look, but Myka’s unfazed demeanor prevented further intervention. She left.

  I’d never craved a cigarette more in my life, but Sev Tech goons had confiscated my pack. Instead I bounced my leg with that antsy energy all us elba root addicts got. Myka squeezed my hand, and it was weirdly reassuring. I hated it.

  “We don’t talk about my family, okay?” My voice was harsh. “Our disagreements are business. Let’s keep it at that.”

  I could feel her eyes on me, but I wouldn’t look at her. Nope. Wasn’t gonna give in. Not on this. After an uncomfortable moment, her hand abandoned mine with a thumb ghosting across my knuckles.

  “Agreed.”

  When I looked back at her she was holding the second bun out to me without comment. I took it. My stomach was rioting.

  I hated her so much.

  Once I finished the morally-compromised bun, Myka announced, “I have to wash my hands.” She wiggled our handcuffed hands. “You have to come with me.”

  “You can’t just brush your hands off on your skirt?”

  She looked as if I’d asked her to rip her blouse open and do a shimmy. “Absolutely not.”

  We still had five m
inutes until the train arrived. Enough time to wash hands. The bathroom was empty, the sinks along the wall the bare minimum required to meet hygiene standards. We took turns. Me first. Then her. The water was cold.

  Myka watched intently as a spittle of water moistened her hands. When she spoke it was with the precision of a person who’d been practicing the words in their head.

  “You’re angry that I’m not dissatisfied with my status as a contractor. The fact of the matter is that this is simply the hand that life dealt me. Even if I wanted to leave, I have no way of doing so. There are consequences for contractors who try to skip out on their debt.”

  She shut off the tap and shook her hands. It was a weirdly quiet moment. “Life dealt you an abusive alcoholic father. You were then able to leave him. This is evidenced by the fact that you did leave and then were taken on by a wealthy benefactor who brought you where you are today. I don’t have that option. Is it so surprising that I’ve decided to make the most of what I have? I succeed on my own terms with the hand that life dealt me. I find this much more enjoyable than being angry at things outside my control.”

  She seemed so vulnerable and genuine. Like she’d peeled off the Myka the Contractor mask and was just Myka. But why did she care what I thought about her?

  “And?”

  Her brow furrowed as if that weren’t the response she’d hoped for. “I’m just saying, there’s no reason for you to be angry with me simply for being happy as a contractor.”

  My hands dripped onto the floor of the bathroom, joining the other puddles. I fundamentally did not understand the woman cuffed to me.

  “I’m also angry because you and your boss kidnapped me and stole my design.”

  Myka’s eyes widened, just a bit. Then she smiled a strange, wistful smile. Like she knew something I didn’t. All she said was: “Right. That’s fair.”

  The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Done

  We missed the train. Too long in the bathroom and then obstructed by a big delivery cart that decided to stop between us and the station. Trains ran every thirty minutes. That was a long time when you had two corporations looking for you.