by Elin Wyn
“I said I’d never seen anybody below yellow. Probably just a malfunction, next dayshift I'll see what I can do. But for now…”
She looked tired, lost. I turned away, looked anywhere else. This felt too private, too personal. But still, something had to be done.
“I was thinking about getting my bearings, checking out some more of the satellite. I did sleep most of the day, and, to be honest, the men’s quarters are a little...close.”
Her smile only twisted half her face up, but I’d take it. “I’ve always wondered about that, but never enough to check it out.”
She leaned against the wall, obviously weighing options, finger tapping against her thigh. “I’ve been waiting for a sign. Maybe this is it. Hell, maybe you’re it. Let’s go.”
With a final kick at the prone form of her vanquished opponent, she headed off through the corridors.
A small knot unwound from my gut as I followed her.
It was a good thing she’d agreed to let me stay with her.
I’d planned to, either way.
Zayda
As I headed towards my hiding spot, I tried like crazy not to limp, not to press my hand to my throbbing temple in front of Mack.
I don't know why, I didn't know him, had nothing to prove.
But, for whatever reason, maybe my own stupid pride, I didn't want to admit that Larko and his friends had gotten in more than just a couple of hits. Mack didn’t ask why they’d targeted me, the one small miracle of the night.
On the station and up here, I’d let my training lapse, trying to keep my cover. Lot of good it had done me. And now that lapse could have gotten me killed.
Two levels down, I found a pocket of the maintenance section that, due to some quirk of the original satellite plans, was still in an unsecured area.
“There,” I pointed.
Mack’s eyes followed mine to an air vent, half hidden behind a bank of machinery.
“This is where you show me how big the rest of the vent is, right?” he joked.
“Oh, Void.” I looked at the breadth of his shoulders and then again at the size of the air shaft. There was no way he would fit in there. It’d take hours with a torch just to cut a space for him.
He stepped forward to brush a section of hair that had fallen out of the braid away from my face. His touch surprised me, almost hesitant.
“You’re overthinking this,” he rumbled. “How often do you think people find this place?”
“I don't think anyone comes down here. No reason to, really.”
“Let's get you settled, and I'll just hang out here to keep you company. How does that sound?”
It sounded easier than it should have. I felt worse when Mack took it on himself to move the machinery that blocked half the vent.
“Do you have tools for that?” he asked looking at the bolts holding the cover in place.
“I try to be prepared. Some days it works better than others.” I found the tool kit I'd stashed on previous scouting trips and quickly undid the bolts.
Now that the shaft lay open before me, it felt silly to shimmy in. We were safe here. I was safe, wasn’t I?
“I don’t suppose you tucked a healing wand around here, too?” Mack’s question interrupted the circles in my head.
“Nope. Didn’t plan for that.” I spun the wrench in my hands, then blurted on. “Look, I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you, but…”
He held up a hand. “You don’t know me. Darkness, I don’t know me. Get in there, and we’ll make more plans later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” I slithered into the shaft. “I like plans. And lists.” Not exactly comfortable, but having solid permasteel all around did wonders for my sense of safety.
“Horrors,” he mocked, sliding down to lean against the opposite wall of the maintenance closet. “Not lists.”
I crossed my arms in front of me and studied him. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t seem headed towards sleep. Technically, even if he couldn’t get into the shaft himself, he could reach in, drag me out.
“I can hear you thinking from over here.” He cracked an eye. “Are you sure you don’t want me to leave?”
I sighed. “No.” I propped my chin in my hands, too tired and sore to hold my head up. “Ever since I was brought here, I can’t stop thinking about ways I could be attacked. I shouldn’t have let myself be taken.”
He tilted his head, and, just like in the infirmary, I was caught by his tawny eyes. “How bad manners is it for me to ask what you were arrested for?”
“I wasn’t.”
“What? Then why are you here?”
“Because someone wanted something I had. I’ve been trying to decide what to do next.”
“Isn’t there some sort of appeals board, something?”
“That’s not going to help me. I know why I’m here, but I don’t know who’s behind it.”
“Well, you’re one up on me, then.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I keep feeling like I need to get somewhere, but, every time I reach for it, it's a blank. If I’m your sign, I’m a pretty crappy one.”
I grinned. “We’ll manage.”
“What are you going to do about your cuff?”
“I don’t know.” Options scrolled through my mind, each demanding to be balanced, analyzed. “I need to be able to access the rest of Minor. There’s got to be a protocol for when this happens. I’ll ask Denon at the clinic tomorrow.” The need for a contingency plan gnawed at me. “If I can’t get it working again, the only reason to keep it on would be to blend in, and you can see how well that went.”
“Don’t forget about our lovely dining experience.” His eyes narrowed. “It sounds like you think keeping it on is optional.”
Damn. That’s what I get for thinking out loud.
“And now you’re all wary again.” He stretched out on the deck, rolled his broad back to me. “Sleep now. We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
I wanted to stay awake, figure out what I was going to do next, if I couldn't get the cuff reactivated. I've been waiting for a sign, maybe this really was it. I stared at Mack’s back, listening to his breathing in the tiny room, until I drifted into sleep.
Without a chrono, it's damn hard to tell the time. Back on the station, most levels had lights rise and dim in time with an Imperial day cycle, just to try to keep things more or less in sync. It worked that way in the dorms, but in this forgotten little nook it was just the same mostly dark grayness.
I checked my cuff out of habit and then kicked myself. The status band was programmed to dim during the night cycle, but, obviously, that wasn’t going to help me now.
So I had no idea how long I'd slept when I jolted awake.
I strained my ears but couldn't hear anything over the sound of my heart beating, couldn't figure out what had dragged me from sleep.
Then I heard it again. “Go to hell,” came a soft murmur. And then a low grunt, like someone being hit.
In the dim light I could see Mack tossing and turning.
I shimmied halfway out from the air shaft, then paused. This wasn't any of my business. The half-light was enough to see the look of anguish on his sleeping face. Whatever he was remembering in his dreams, it had to be pretty awful.
I wiggled closer to him, laid my hand on his chest, half prepared to duck back in case he was one of those who woke up swinging. There'd been a guy like that in training.
“Mack, it’s okay, wake up.”
He flinched, and then relaxed under my hand. I could feel the muscles of his chest beneath the thin fabric of the prison-issued jacket. His breathing slowed, and, although he didn’t wake, the lines of strain on his face eased.
Good enough.
I started to head back to my hidey hole, but his hand shot out and pulled me to him, tucking me against his side.
This wasn't what I had planned. His arm wrapped over my waist like a vice. Well, I thought as I pillowed my head on his shoulder, it wasn't an
y less comfortable than sleeping in the air shaft.
And I had a feeling that Mack was just as solid as permasteel walls.
Mack
“It’s time to go.”
The command rang clearly in my ears, even as I jolted awake to a sitting position.
“Hey,” Zayda fussed sleepily. “Quit moving.”
Sometime during the night she had come out from the safety of her air vent to sleep curled against my side. I shook my head. It seemed so out of character for her. Then I remembered a cool touch in the middle of dreams of fire.
Maybe I just didn't know her well enough to know what was really in character at all.
The stripe on my cuff still glowed green, fractionally brighter than it had during the sleep. How long would it take to shade to yellow without restocking my points?
I reached down to where Zayda had curled up on herself and lightly touched her shoulder. “It's morning. Let's go see if we can get your cuff sorted.”
Her eyes flew open as if she had only been resting, then I could almost see the list scroll in her mind, boxes ready to be checked.
“We should get you to the farm first.” She sat up and began to rebraid her hair.
“Nothing doing.” After the events of last night, I was going to see her safely to the clinic, no matter what she said. “You can give me directions from the clinic. Until you get that thing fixed, you need to stay with people you trust.”
Zayda huffed, but didn't argue. Back onto the main level, she stopped suddenly. “There's no point in me going to the mess, but you've got to be hungry.”
I shrugged. “I think my stomach would consider it a favor if I missed one of those meal packs. Besides, if I’m going to be on some sort of a farm, there's got to be snacks around, right?”
She turned, mouth set and grim. “Don't try to steal the product. Seriously. Having a source of fresh grown food is one of the things that's made Orem Station so rich. The only person I've heard of who tried swiping some for himself ended up losing points immediately, almost got beaten to death.”
Her wide eyes held just a touch of fear.
“I promise, I'll keep my fingers out of the cookie jar,” I joked.
“Cookie jar? What the hell is a cookie jar?”
I stopped, shook my head. “No idea.” I had a flash, an image of an older woman, scolding me and…my brothers? Then it was gone again.
“Must've been something somebody told me when I was growing up. I don't remember now.”
Zayda tucked her hand around the crook of my elbow and squeezed my arm. “Never mind, it's a perfectly reasonable phrase. I'll try to use it myself.”
I used my cuff to trigger the doors into the clinic and Zayda slipped inside alone. I stuck my foot on the track to keep it from closing immediately.
She looked around briefly. “Denon's not in yet, no surprise. I can use his passcode to log into the comms, see if I can figure out what's wrong with my cuff.”
I didn't like leaving her there, but she'd shown she was a competent fighter, and she had more than a small interest in her personal safety. So I fought down my instincts and forced a grin. “You have fun with that. I'll see if I can get a little hurt and come check on you during the day.”
She smiled and returned, “You are an odd, odd man. But thank you.”
The door slid closed behind me and I headed through the labyrinth of corridors down to the level called the farm.
Even though Zayda had told me the satellite raised enough food for the needs of the station below, as well as for export to this section of the Fringe, I was surprised at the complexity of the system before me.
It must take up an entire floor of the satellite, trays stacked in racks almost to the ceiling, soft light coming from beneath each tray to shine on the plants beneath. I could hear the faint sound of water, then noticed a network of tubes connecting each of the trays.
As I took it all in, a battered ’bot rolled down one of the pathways. Its screen was set for telepresence, but the image was grayed out, unrecognizable. If there had ever been anyone at the other end, it was more likely that now the ’bot had simply been programmed to greet and assign workers as efficiently as possible.
“New arrival?” a voice crackled from the speakers.
“Yep, someone told me to come down here and make myself useful.”
“There's plenty to do.” It rolled back the way it had come from. “Follow me.”
As we went through the narrow paths between the racks, the ’bot recited the variety of tasks needed to keep the operation running.
“Should be self-sustaining, even down to the harvest, but machinery hasn't been updated in years. Nutrient lines get clogged, the compost mixer broke down too long ago to remember, and the rack loader works at about half capacity.”
The ’bot rotated its top half towards me, continuing to roll on, it's blank screen giving me the eerie feeling of being sized up.
“You're too big to be of any use trailing the tubes, so loading and mixing compost it’ll be.”
Other men and women had started filtering in, taking up their tasks with little chatter. “Makes no difference to me, as long as I'm useful.”
A noise escaped the ’bot, enough like a snort that I wondered how much latitude the AI it housed had been given.
“Helpful attitude from the beginning. We don't see much of that around here.” It turned another corner, out from the rows of growing racks, into a more open, industrial- looking area. “Don't cause trouble. This is your life now.”
I stopped. “’My life now’? I’m just up here like everyone else, for the terms of my sentence.” Which I didn’t remember, but I was pretty sure that that’s how prison worked, right?
The ’bot didn't pause. “Who told you that? Once you’re here, you stay. At least, you better hope you stay.”
Well, that was going to put a crimp in my plans. I spent the morning stirring piles of compost with two other surly looking men. They weren't particularly forthcoming when I tried to make small talk, or even direct questions.
The job required that we stand waist deep in a vast metal half-cylinder, stirring and churning half-rotted remnants into sludge. We worked around the tines of the huge mechanical forks that still hung from beams overhead.
I looked at the broken cables leading through the machinery. “What are the chances those things start up while we're in here?” I asked.
The bald guy, whose name I still hadn't gotten, shrugged. “You move fast. Most of the time, the machinery stays dormant. Every now and then it seems to get a little kick, though.” He grinned, not in a particularly friendly way. “Why do you think there was an opening on the unit?”
Well. That was reassuring. We stirred and turned and churned the stinking mass until the bell rang for a break.
The three of us climbed the ladder out of the vat and headed to rinsing tubes. As we pulled our uniforms back on, I noticed that both men had the same black mark below their ears as the man who had approached me in the men's dorm last night.
“What's that about?” I asked.
The bald guy crossed his arms. “Marks us as Skulls, man. I'm surprised Jado hasn't talked to you already. You’re big enough, you'd be an asset.”
I thought back. “Tall guy? Blond? He might've tried to last night, but I had stuff going on.”
The other one, skinny with shifty eyes, finally spoke up. “You don't want to blow off Jado. The Skulls are the strongest gang up here, you can’t go it alone.”
I nodded, and then remembered what the ’bot had said earlier that morning. “But what about when you go back to the station? Do you want a mark like that where everyone can see that you did time?”
They both looked at me with something in between shock and amusement on their faces. “Man, the only way out of here is when the black ghosts come for you.”
We stood in line with the others to get our mid-shift rations, my apparently stupid questions having finally done the trick to break the ic
e.
I had promised to get up to the clinic and Zayda, but this sounded like information we needed.
“Black ghosts,” I continued after we got our trays. “Sounds like some sort of boogeyman, stories to keep us in line.”
“No way.” Now that he had an audience, the shifty looking one seemed more than happy to spread the story. “I've seen them, just the once, but it was enough. They only come at night, that's why curfew is such a big thing.”
“The governor doesn't want anyone seeing those crazy fuckers.” He shuddered, seemed genuinely rattled. “Wish I hadn't. Black uniforms, black gloves - and man, they don't have faces!”
Well, that wasn't going to be as helpful as I'd hoped. Apparently someone had found a way to stay hopped up even here. Maybe I should ask if he'd share his stash with Gozer.
Zayda
The quiet of the clinic was oddly comforting. Since I'd been up on Minor, I'd probably spent more of my waking hours in this small room than anywhere else on station.
I logged into the deskcomm with Denon's credentials. He never bothered to change his password, seemed never to have heard of basic security.
Yet another reason I couldn't trust him.
“Cuff maintenance, it's gotta be here somewhere,” I muttered to myself.
Surely this couldn't be the only case of a malfunctioning unit. Just because I'd never seen one didn't mean it never happened.
But, so far, I wasn't finding anything. Like all communications on the Minor, the terminal was locked down. Information could come in, but nothing could get out.
Even with full access, I wasn’t sure where else I would look for a manual on the damn things without giving myself away completely.
I kept hunting until finally I found a subdirectory with a list of emergency reset and control frequencies.
I had always known I could get the cuff off, some variant of the device was used in a number of Imperial facilities, and they all had some of the same basic characteristics. Usually operations were controlled by a series of frequencies. Facilities could reset and customize theirs, but most didn't bother.
