by A. R. Knight
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, but we can’t stay here,” Phyla said. “Miner Prime’s not real happy with us, and I’d hate for their patience to run out while we’re sitting here . . .”
“Take off. Now.”
“And Cadge?”
“He’s not coming,” Davin said.
Davin usually had tints of sarcasm, humor in his voice. Here, there wasn’t any. Phyla punched on the jets, still primed from the earlier flying around the station, commed Trina to get back to the engines, and soon enough the ship was back into dark space.
Davin plopped himself into the seat beside her and stared out at the stars. Minutes passed. Being in a crew like this, a bubble built up. It felt like everyone was going to be fine forever. Until something, and it always happened eventually, came in and burst it.
Cadge wasn’t exactly the friendliest, the most stable member, but the man was always there for a fight. Always had her back. Had their backs. Hard to ask for more than that. Phyla took a deep breath as the console toned that they were out of Miner Prime’s control zone. In free space.
“Remember what you told me when we left?” Phyla said. “Best way to get over something sad was to focus on something new.”
“I remember.”
“We still charged with murdering those two?”
“We are.”
“Then I’d say we focus on that.”
Davin met Phyla’s look, set his jaw.
“Marl’s the answer. Let’s go find her,” Davin said.
Phyla plugged in the destination, routed the Jumper on a path tointersect in a few weeks with Jupiter’s orbit. With that frozen blue moon she’d hoped never to see again.
“Davin?” Erick’s voice crackled over the comm, tired. “You want to get down here?”
“Coming,” Davin said.
“Hey,” Phyla said as Davin walked out of the cockpit. “Tell Lina —”
“Tell her yourself, later,” Davin interjected.
But Phyla could see in his eyes that Davin didn’t believe his own words.
57
Goodbye
There’s an unreality that wraps itself around you when you look at a loved one lying in a bed, IVs sticking, face flushed and sweating, both full of life and losing it at once. Davin saw Lina and his stomach twisted. His legs moved him next to her, but he wanted to run anywhere else. Some place where this wasn’t happening. Where the girl he’d been loving for decades wasn’t fading.
Erick didn’t even have to tell Davin the details, but the doctor did anyway. Bosser’s blast tore through Lina’s left lung and seared part of her heart. It was struggling to keep beating, but would fail soon. They didn’t have the supplies on the ship to tackle this catastrophe. Maybe, if they’d taken her to a Miner Prime med center, they’d be able to save her. Until Bosser came by to finish the job. Instead, Erick was numbing Lina to the pain, keeping her on the edge of consciousness.
“Talk to me,” Davin said to Lina, leaning over the bed.
“For once, can you hold my hand?” Lina said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Davin did it, gripped Lina’s fingers tight. They felt small, cold. Davin didn’t know fingers could feel that way, drawn into themselves. As though the slightest push would send them crumbling to dust. Her eyes, though. Davin could sink into those eyes forever. As the rest of Lina fell away, they burned brighter and larger and Davin smiled right at them. A sad smile, one that carried tears along with it.
“You had to help us,” Davin started. “You could’ve stayed at home. Showed me the way up and let me do it.”
“Quit it,” Lina said. “Don’t make it cheap.”
Davin opened his mouth, but Lina squeezed his hand and kept talking.
“Erick thinks he’s numbed me, but I can tell what’s happening. Its like getting tired, Davin. Everything’s getting heavy. Nice thing is, the stress is going too.”
“You never looked stressed.”
“Whenever you came back, I was.”
“Sorry,” Davin said.
“Don’t be, cause those were my favorite times. Always wondered whether you’d be back again or get yourself killed out there.”
“And I always wanted you to come with me.”
“Then this time I do and what happens? I get shot.”
“Hey, don’t cheapen it.”
Lina gave him smile.
“Bosser won’t give up, you know. He’ll either kill you or do something worse.”
“I won’t let him,” Davin said. “He doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.”
“Good,” Lina said. “You’re going to find Marl?”
“We need to have a talk.”
“Give her a slap from me,” Lina said, then drew in a sharp breath, one that rattled her whole body.
“Lina?”
The woman blinked long, slow. Her eyelids staying shut for five seconds before popping open.
“I think it’s time to go. How about a kiss goodbye?”
58
Blackmail
“You didn’t inform me of how capable they were,” Bosser said to the screen.
While the message zipped along the interstellar breezeway towards Marl, Bosser poured himself another glass from the wine bottle. It was too good to waste. And besides, Bosser felt his shot was good. Lina Palatine, endless harasser, didn’t look good leaving his office.
“I take it that means they are still at large?” Marl’s reply jerked across the screen before again settling into the frozen mask.
“And heading your way, if their captain’s face was any inclination,” Bosser said. “Make sure your new protection is prepared. Davin left here with an android on his side.”
It would be an interesting study, Marls face. So calm, even a little bemused. Her hair done up in curls. Planning to go to an event, no doubt. Bosser wasn’t sure of the hour on Europa. Here, it was well into the early morning, when Bosser should be asleep. But such luxuries would have to wait. Business, as it always did, came first.
Ah, there it was. The snap of Marl’s features. The slight frown betrayed by the widening eyes, the flare of the nostrils. These tiny delays brought him much closer to his subject. An opportunity to study them with intensity that would be impolite in real company. How much could Bosser learn from watching Marl twist in snapshots? Enough to know when to pounce.
“Can’t you turn it off?” Marl said.
“They are required to send a code every twenty-four hours. If the sending device does not receive a reply from Earth, the android will degrade. Its code will delete itself,” Bosser took a slow sip from the glass and waited.
“So it will be useless?”
“I’m afraid relying on that would be a mistake. There is at least one capable programmer among Davin’s crew. I suspect they will resolve the transmission before it causes any harm.”
“Then why tell me? Are you trying to taunt me, Bosser? Because I have better things to do with my time than play your games.”
Bosser gave the screen a nod.
“In a normal situation, I would release two androids. Part of the escalation protocol. An ever-increasing volume of resources dedicated until the problem is solved.”
“Mine is not a normal situation?”
“Why did you have those inspectors killed, Marl? Convince me, and I’ll make sure Eden continues to pay for more androids to do your dirty work.”
Marl’s face withered on the transmission, her eyes sunk back as she collapsed into the chair behind her. The moment wasn’t long, though, and her experience asserted itself. Her mouth set and she leaned forward.
“You and I both play outside the lines, Bosser,” Marl said. “I know enough about what you’re doing to bring you down with me. So you’ll make sure Eden sends those androids, and I’ll keep your secrets. There doesn’t need to be a loser here.”
Interesting. It wasn’t likely Marl knew everything Bosser had in play,because the only person who did was himself. Still, she might do
enough to bring him harm, and Bosser wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
“Fair enough, Marl. You’ll get your androids,” Bosser cut the transmission.
It’d been a risk to tell Miner Prime’s security forces to stay away , to let the Jumper and the Wild Nines run. And now that bet was paying off. He’d underestimated Marl, and there was no better way to get rid of a potential problem than to have someone else solve it for him. With any luck, Davin Masters and his band would eliminate the leader of Eden Prime, and Bosser wouldn’t have to lift a finger.
59
Operations
The android watched Viola and Trina eat their breakfast. It was unnerving, the way Fournine stared while you slipped a spoonful of flavored mush into your mouth. The lack of blinking, the rise and fall of the chest that didn’t happen, they were the worst parts. Not that she hated robots, but when Fournine looked so like a normal man, it was hard to remember. Forget for a second, then a glint of perfect skin, unblinking eyes, no breathing, would jolt her out of nowhere.
“I can do that,” Fournine said in response to Viola’s look. “Breathe, blink. Even twitch every once in a while if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Why?” Trina said. “That wouldn’t be efficient. It might also be counter-productive by causing comfort around bots to decline. An arbitrary concession to the needs of one person who feels nervous.”
“Want to know what my sensors are getting from you now?” Fournine replied. “You’re relaxed. There’s not a tightened joint anywhere that’s saying you think I will reach across this table and bend you into a pretzel.”
“You couldn’t. Part of your system restrictions,” Trina replied.
“Ah, but Viola overrode those when she adjusted my directives,” Fournine said, then paused, staring across the table at Trina. Then the android broke into a perfect smile. “There it was. Your heartbeat increased. Eyes narrowed. You see, Viola? Trina is indeed a normal human.”
“Thanks for clearing that up,” Viola said. Trina adjusted her glasses and leaned forward over the table towards Fournine, examining him .
“So we know what we’re made of,” Trina said, nodding towards Viola. “The question is, what are you?”
“Viola already had a look,” Fournine said.
“But it was a quick one. While people were trying to kill us,” Viola replied. “I didn’t exactly explore.”
Fournine looked at the two of them. Hard to know what calculations ran behind those eyes. Secrets Viola would love to have. One android initially. If that failed, the Free Laws program would send two. Then three and more, provided the sponsor kept footing the bill. If somewhere inside Fournine was a key to stopping other androids, then opening the bot could save their lives.
“I’m as curious as you are,” Fournine said. “Who wouldn’t want to know how they are made?”
Viola had Fournine on the workbench ten minutes later. Trina grabbed tools. Puk, recharged, floated around making cracks about how, after stitching up Erick, it made sense for Viola to surgically take apart an android.
“Are you ready?” Viola asked Fournine when the tools were ready, the bot lying on the workbench.
“I’ve never been asked how I feel about something before,” Fournine said. “I will take the opportunity to say yes. Tell me what I am.”
Viola pressed Fournine’s temples again, causing the android’s eyes to close and the small panel to rise through its metal skull. Without the threat of gunfire, Viola could dig a little deeper into the rudimentary settings that defined how the android operated. A personality filter, a choice of either protect, apprehend, or kill for mission parameters. A few other items about power management and check-in times.
“Check-in?” Viola said and Trina looked over her shoulder, reading the code on the console.
“An automated process,” Trina said. “It communicates with the host network for updates on mission parameters. Every twenty-four Earth hours.”
“What happens if it doesn't get any?” Viola said.
“What do you mean?”
“I deleted everything in Fournine's operating logic back in the apartment on Miner Prime,” Viola said. “Just wrote a simple line to protect people I choose. There's nothing telling Fournine to run the check-in code.”
“Interesting,” Trina said. “Well, if Fournine missed the check-in, they would likely release the second wave of androids.”
“So they’d assume its dead?”
“Technically, Fournine can’t be dead because—” Trina started.
“I get it,” Viola said.
“So, continue?” Trina said. “There has to be more to it than its head.”
Eventually Viola found a maintenance release that split open a number of joints across Fournine’s body. Here was how they’d put back a lost leg, or repair a busted arm. A slot near the abdomen led to the battery. Across from it, though, sat a small black rectangle that didn’t seem to have any purpose. There was only one small wire leading to it, one that sped back to the battery and nowhere else.
“Ideas?” Viola said.
“Black boxes can be all kinds of things. Recordings. Power supplies. Bombs,” Trina said.
“A bomb?”
“What better send-off? An inch away from mission complete, you take a shot,” Here, Trina acted out the scenario. “Your systems shut down, but when the battery dies, or maybe there’s a manual trigger, the whole place explodes. It’s plausible.”
“So we brought a bomb on the ship?”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you speak of?”
“Okay, fine,” Viola said. “I brought it on. Can we disarm the bomb?”
“Disarming chances triggering it,” Trina said. “We should jettison the android out the airlock.”
The two of them looked at each other. Waiting on the other to take the next step and move the android. The airlock was the easiest choice - Viola couldn’t argue with that. Except they’d be throwing away their best weapon. Fournine had single-handedly cleared the way off of Miner Prime. Now they were heading back towards Europa, towards an enemy that was waiting for them.
“We can’t,” Viola said. “We’ll need Fournine on Europa.”
“A valid assessment,” Trina said. “I was about to suggest the same. Our odds without the android will be poor. I have no desire to die on that moon.”
“Then let’s get to work,” Viola said.
And try not to blow the Jumper to pieces.
60
Counting Casualties
“Cadge and Lina,” Davin said to Phyla, back in the cockpit.
Chills. Phyla didn’t know how to have this conversation. It’d been clear, back in Vagrant’s Hollow, that Lina and Davin still had the same relationship they’d had as teens. A connection that Phyla watched grow from the outside. Those moments where one held the other’s hand without thinking. Davin’s look towards Lina after a fall, if something went wrong, full of wide-eyed concern that Lina might be hurt. At first, jealousy. Wondered why neither of them cared as much about her as each other. Time salved that pain away.
Now she reached out and held Davin’s hand, gripping it.
Davin wasn’t looking out the window at outer space, the bright circle of Jupiter growing from a dot in the distance. Phyla followed the captain’s eyes to the sensor board, a view on the cockpit’s console that displayed nearby objects. One, a small thin box was sliding from the screen as the Whiskey Jumper gained speed. They’d jettisoned the container a few minutes ago, Davin and Mox loading it into the airlock. Lina, wrapped in a sheet, inside.
“If you blame yourself for what happened, I will slap you.” Phyla said.
“I don’t,” Davin replied. “I can’t. Because if I blame myself, then the ones who deserve to pay go free.”
“The android killed Cadge,” Phyla said.
“Cadge killed Cadge. We all knew the guy was going to go off sometime. But he would have been nice to have now.”
“He’d probably go charging in fi
rst and die anyway,” Phyla said.
“I know you didn’t like him, but don’t pretend he wasn’t useful.”
“I’m not pretending.”
Davin laughed, threw up his hands in mock surrender. Good to see the captain still capable of that. Meant Davin wasn’t going to sink into one of his moody depressions. Phyla wasn’t sure whether the rest of the crew picked up on that or not, but Davin was prone, had always been prone, to attacks of consciousness.
“So we’re attacking Marl head on?” Phyla said.
“I don’t want to, but I’m not sure we have a choice,” Davin said. “Eden Prime isn’t that big. We just have to beat those two androids there.”
“How do you know Bosser will call them off if we win? He could keep the charge there, even if Marl reverses it.”
“I don’t.”
“So we’re not running to the edge of space because?”
“You know that.”
“I want to hear you say it,” Phyla said.
Davin gave her a weird look. Sometimes, though, you had to make someone commit. Davin didn’t break promises. Get him to say something, and he would follow through. Phyla waited.
“You think I’m gonna say Lina. That I’m going to launch into a tirade about how this is for her now,” Davin’s voice scratched itself as he talked, rasping. “You know what? You’re right. It is about Lina, dammit. It’s about how a friend tried to help us and died for it. It’s about how this whole situation was caused because a company didn’t want its dirty secrets going public and thought the best way was to turn us into criminals.”
“It worked.”
“And we’re going to make them regret it.”
Lina’s coffin, on the console, hit the edge of the radar and, with a blink, vanished. Davin tapped a button and the near-field display switched to a navigation chart, a scrolling set of numbers telling how many kilometers they were from their target. Phyla and Davin watched the number spin lower in silence.
