Guardian

by Matthew S. Cox

  Cadet Peña fidgeted. “The rules are usually the same as doing what’s right.”

  Shani stared at her black ballet flats while swishing side to side, making her dress flare.

  Evan felt worse about getting Shani in trouble than whatever punishment awaited him. “It’s not her fault. I dragged her down here… can you say she wasn’t here?”

  “You got adopted by Agent Wren, right?” Cadet Peña seemed to sense the surge of warmth in his chest at the thought, and smiled. “Guess so. She’s nice. Okay. Let’s see this brain. If you can show me a ghost that wants peace, I’ll stay quiet.”

  Shani looked up in shock.

  “Yay!” Evan whirled back toward the archives. “It’s over here, but I’m not sure how to get in. Can you open the door?”

  He jogged to the four-way intersection and went right. About thirty yards down on the left side, an imposing set of double doors in plain brushed plastisteel bore the simple black word: Archives. The conspicuous absence of either a keypad or a reader panel twisted his stomach with the unease of his quest failing before it even started. A physical lock secured the doors, and the side without the keyhole had pins securing it to the floor and ceiling.

  “Crap.” Evan slouched. “No electronics.”

  Cadet Peña shook her head again, her long ponytail dancing. “Electronics are too easy for a psionic to get past… well, at least a technokinetic or an EK. I don’t have the key.”

  Evan studied the doors for a few minutes and wound up staring at the locking bar between them. “Hey, Shan. Can you TK that open?”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Cadet Peña. “If she’s strong enough to break that door, all three of us are gonna be in deep poo.”

  “I can’t break that whole door.” Shani folded her arms.

  Evan couldn’t help but giggle. He backed up as Shani walked over. “She’s strong, but she’s got a sick amount of control. She can make her stuffed animals walk around like they’re alive.”

  “Wow, really?” asked Cadet Peña. “I wanna see that.”

  Shani approached the door and peered into the gap. Seconds later, she let off a tiny grunt. A rattle of metal broke the silence, and the half with the keyhole glided open. As soon as she stopped concentrating, the locking bar snapped out. “It had a strong spring.”

  Evan examined the stationary door for alarms, but only spotted levers to retract bolts into the floor and ceiling on the edge. Inside, an enormous two-story tall room yawned before them, lined with warehouse-style shelves.

  “Wow.” Shani walked in, gazing up and around as she spun with each step. “How are you gonna find it in here? There’s so much stuff! We’ll be grown up before you find it.”

  “Did you ask the ghost where it is?” asked Cadet Peña.

  “Uhh, no… I didn’t. I wanted to surprise him like for his birthday.” Evan felt tiny in the face of such a huge room full of junk. “Maybe I can get a feeling for it… I’m clairvoyant.”

  “Samantha.” The older girl smiled. “But only my mom calls me that when she’s mad. Call me Sam. And I think you should ask him.”

  “Is that a sword?” Shani ran a few paces deeper among the shelves, pointing at a metal blade that looked older than the planet.

  “Wow.” He ran up behind her and somehow managed to resist the urge to pick it up. “We shouldn’t touch anything except Abernathy’s brain. We’re gonna get in enough trouble already if we get caught.”

  Shani spun to face him. “We got caught.” Her arm rose, pointing at Sam. “She’s a cadet.”

  “I’m not ‘catching’ you yet… if this ghost is real, and he’s trapped… I guess that kinda counts as kidnapping.”

  Evan smiled. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to reach out with his mind to find what he needed. The soft scuff of Shani walking around distracted him far more than thin shoes should have. Or perhaps the worry she’d touch something bugged him; hearing her move around only made that fear worse. Inexplicably, her being in this room worried him. He stared at the insides of his eyelids for a few minutes before an image came to mind of a folding table full of junk. His attention centered on a small statuette depicting a male figure with his arms folded over his chest, fingers splayed to grasp opposing shoulders.

  “Hey, kid,” rasped Sam. “Don’t touch that.”

  “I’m not ‘kid;’ I’m Shani. And I’m not touching it.”

  Sam grumbled. “Telekinesis counts as touching… don’t be literal.”

  “What’s literal?” asked Shani.

  Evan’s eyes snapped open. His friend had drifted five shelves deeper into the room and stared up at a silly looking black helmet, which floated in midair above her. “Shan… please put that down.”

  The helmet glided to a position on a shelf taller than the ceiling of a normal room.

  “Don’t do that.” Evan ran over to her. “If you knock something over that high up, it could hurt us.”

  She smirked. “Stop treating me like a little kid.”

  “You are a little kid.”

  “So are you,” said Sam.

  Evan glanced at Cadet Peña. “You’re still a kid too.”

  “I’m almost twelve.” She struck the imperious pose again. “And activated.”

  “Activated?” asked Shani.

  “It means she’s got some authority.” Evan grumbled. “Almost twelve means you’re eleven. You’re only older’n me by two years. Did you see a table with junk on it? This little statue?” He sent the mental image on a telepathic burst into both girls’ thoughts, one after the next. “The brain’s gotta be somewhere near that table. I’ll check the back, Sam the middle, and Shani near the door?”

  “‘Kay.”

  Sam smirked at him, probably for being bossy, but nodded. “Fine.”

  They split up. Evan lingered for a few seconds watching Shani, unable to get past that feeling bringing her here was a bad idea. When she disappeared around a shelf, he ran as far back as the central passage among the aisles allowed. The innermost wall also bore several shelves. He didn’t bother digging among the relics, instead searching for the dead-end corridor from his vision. He checked three offshoots before Sam’s yell broke the subdued squeaking of his sneakers.

  “Got it.”

  He ran toward the voice, arriving a second before Shani, who looked annoyed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You gave me boring hallways. It’s full of dusty old gamepads.” She leaned close and whispered, “They’re heavy, and I couldn’t turn them on.”

  He skimmed her surface thoughts, equally confused by stacks of rectangular objects that varied in thickness and size. Most had titles on one side and cover art that looked like video game boxes, but they turned out to be stacks of paper full of words glued together on one edge. “Weird.”

  “It’s here,” yelled Sam.

  Evan darted down between the shelves toward her. She’d stopped by a folding table laden with statues, pyramids, clear orbs in wire stands, and a handful of decorative knives. At the dead end of the passage where the shelving wrapped around the wall, a few old-style composite alloy broadswords lay on a shelf. One lacked a sheath, and its shiny blade had been stained dark black by something that gave him a bad feeling.

  Aside from the weapons, everything else here sat in boxes. He slouched. Even searching this immediate area would take hours, and he had no idea what a brain in a jar looked like.

  “Well, it’s around here somewhere, I think.”

  “You think?” Sam exhaled. “There’s like hundreds of boxes here.”

  Evan shrugged. “Sorry. I saw this spot, not the exact box.”

  “Ask the ghost,” said Shani. “I wanna go upstairs. I’m scared now. I don’t like it in here.”

  “Yeah, I feel it too.” Sam spun in place. “Something here is radiating like… anger and hate.”

  He gazed around at the shelves, boxes, and stuff on the table. No spirits showed themselves, but the little statue with folded arms g
ave off an energy as though it looked at him with sentience in its carved eyes. “Uhh, I think it’s that statue. Don’t touch it.”

  “What?” Sam walked over to it. She didn’t reach for it, but did lean over it. “Wow. You’re right. How can a lump of… whatever that is have emotions? It’s radiating anger.”

  “Dunno.” He looked at the shelf opposite the table. A dented metal box with a medical symbol on it caught his eye. He pointed. “That one. Shani, can you float it down?”

  She looked up at it and concentrated. One by one, three other cartons on top of it lifted, moved to the side, and set down. Finally, the white box wobbled and rose into the air. Shani let off a grunt of exertion and seemed to hold her breath as she guided the container to the floor. As soon as it landed, she slumped to her knees out of breath. “That’s heavy.”

  He walked around the waist-high box once before pushing on it to gauge is weight. Since he couldn’t budge it at all, he gave up before the girls noticed him even trying. He peeled old tape from the lid flaps and pushed a button that caused them to open on motorized struts, revealing a canister of clear fluid with a metal cap on each side. A brain floated at the approximate center. He grimaced at the thought of what it might feel like to touch, and placed a tentative hand on the lid.

  “Evan?” asked Abernathy. He faded in from the ceiling and glided to his feet among the kids. “What are you three doing down here? Get away from that!”

  Samantha, staring up at the ghost, screamed and jumped back, bumping the table.

  A few objects fell from the force of her hitting it, but Evan’s gaze snapped to the statuette as it tumbled over the edge. He barely formed the thought to yell for Shani to ‘catch’ it before the figurine smashed into pieces on the floor. A wash of bright peach-hued light rolled away from the fragments and streaked off into the shelves.

  “Uh, oh.” Evan gulped. “We’re in trouble.”

  he elevator doors parted, allowing a bastard of a breeze in, which knocked Kirsten off balance. She grabbed for Dorian, passed through, and fell against the back wall.

  Captain Eze reached down to help her up. “Bit of wind today.”

  “Thanks.” She braced against the gale and stomped out onto the roof, hair whipping at her ears.

  At the far end of a metal grating walkway, a DS2 dropship perched on a hexagonal landing pad. Drab green with a trefoil tail, it perched like a giant, wingless dragonfly. Two helmets in a nose section mounted above an open ramp swiveled in their direction. The chamber in the main body held an armored personnel carrier, with only enough room on either side to shuffle sideways to a ladder leading up into the ship. Watching it sway on its landing struts made her feel less self-conscious about being little enough to have the wind knock her over.

  “Dorian,” yelled Kirsten, over the sound of the idling ion thrusters. “I’m glad you got over that 200 meter thing.”

  He cringed. “I’m not sure it’s a great idea for me to attempt to leave Earth. Last time, I was stuffed inside that damn gem, remember?”

  “You’re not coming?” She blinked.

  He shook his head. “After what it took out of me to get back down here… I would prefer not to.”

  “Oh… I…” She looked down. “Dunno what I’m going to do without you.”

  Captain Eze took a step back, seeming amused by watching her talk to empty space.

  “I’m not sure I can leave Earth on my own power.” He looked up. “Feels strange to think about. There’s a force binding us here. As soon as that demon’s influence faded, it felt like I’d been fired out of a cannon from the Moon to the Earth.”

  Kirsten tried to hold her hair down against the wind. “So you don’t think this is the same entity?”

  “Why do you assume I’m an authority on all things dead? Just because I happen to be a ghost doesn’t mean I’ve studied up on them.” He winked. “I suppose I could try and find out, but I’m a little hesitant. It’s doubtful I have enough energy to go that far away from my attachment point. Most likely, whoever it is died up there. A starship production facility doesn’t sound like the safest place to work. My guess is you’ve got a dead ex-employee looking for payback.”

  “Hmm. Are you sure? It’s not like you’d be swimming. There’s the ship.”

  “Maybe if I jumped inside a person for the ride.” He shook his head. “Nah. This is pushing the two-hundred-meter thing a bit much, I think. The farther I get from the car… or my ashes, the more anxious I feel. If something took that spirit up there against its will… if his remains are on Earth, he might be completely psychotic with fear or rage.”

  “Great.” Kirsten grumbled. “Can’t be worse than getting slapped around by a thirteen foot tall demon with Konstantin’s face.”

  “There, see? You’ve become an optimist.” Dorian grinned. “I’ll keep an eye on Evan for you.”

  “Thanks.” She patted his non-shoulder and jogged to the ship.

  Captain Eze kept pace until the bottom of the ramp. “Vid me with an update as soon as you can. I don’t care what time it is.”

  “Sir.” She saluted him.

  Fear gripped her as she looked into the dark APC bay. Going too far away from home was scary enough… leaving the planet? Not like she hadn’t been to the Moon once already… but still. After a breath of courage, she clenched her hands into fists and shimmied past the slab-shaped armored transport to the ladder.

  A tall, skinny woman in an olive-drab flight jumpsuit and oversized helmet dangling with disconnected wires met her at the top of the ladder. Over her right breast pocket, a patch bore the word ‘learner’ in all caps.

  “Please tell me that’s your name and not your experience level,” said Kirsten, saluting.

  Lieutenant Learner laughed. “A sense of humor… that’s gotta come in handy in your line of work. I need to ask you to unload your sidearm. E-90 might poke holes in my baby if it hits the right spot. That’s not a great idea in space.”

  Kirsten drew her weapon and removed the e-mag, which she tucked into one of the little pods on her utility belt. “Not a problem. I’m kind of addicted to breathing.”

  “Yeah, same here. Pretty common addiction; someone should do something about it.”

  Kirsten chuckled.

  Lieutenant Learner guided her down a cramped hallway to a little room with six fold-down canvas chairs on facing walls. Kirsten sat in one along the right side wall and the pilot helped her harness in before giving her a spare helmet from a cargo compartment. “Once we break atmo, you don’t need to stay strapped. There’s a head there if you need to piss or whatever.”

  Kirsten’s cheeks lit on fire when the woman pointed at an exposed toilet opposite the passageway to the cockpit.

  “Hah. I love that face.” Learner patted her on the helmet and started for the cockpit. “You react like a civvie.”

  She grimaced. “Showers are bad enough… ugh. How long’s this gonna take?”

  Learner stopped and glanced back. “We’ll be out of Earth grav in about sixteen minutes. Moon in about two hours.”

  “Great.” Kirsten let her head back with a dull clonk.

  A moment after Lieutenant Learner vanished down the cramped crawlway to the front, the thrum of ion engines built up and the entire DS2 shuddered. Kirsten’s stomach lurched as gravity seemed to increase before pulling to the side. In time with a blast too close to sounding like an explosion for her comfort level, a violent acceleration hurled her left against the harness. Kirsten screamed, but someone in the chair next to her wouldn’t have heard it over the roaring of thrusters.

  Sunlight in the shape of a rectangular patch crawled over the drab green metal floor. Her weight shifted, dangling in the harness, suggesting the DS2 had pointed nose up. The shuddering airframe banged her helmet against the metal bulkhead in a rhythmic tapping. No matter how she tried to hold on, the forces on her body threw her about like a ragdoll.

  She clenched herself as tight as possible, closed her eyes, and waited for it
to stop.

  Eventually, engine noise faded to a distant electronic hum, and all the turbulence stopped. It occurred to her that she more or less floated, held in the seat by the harness. Kirsten waited another twenty minutes before she felt confident the total stillness would remain. She unstrapped and removed the helmet before setting it in the next ‘chair.’ It glided up and away. After a blink of surprise, she tethered it with the harness and tried to stand. Her arms flailed at the air as she floundered in zero-G. Eventually, she glided close enough to the side to kick off the wall and launch toward the entrance of the crawlway leading forward. At the end of the passage, one olive-drab helmet peeked around the right corner. Now the cramped size made sense―the designers intended people to float horizontally rather than walk. She pulled herself along, gripping thin railings on both sides. In zero-g, the too-small passageway didn’t feel so bad.

  The tunnel ended at the top of a tiny staircase that descended between the left wall and a pair of pilot stations, the forward of the two seats much lower. Learner had the nearer seat, and the voice muttering from up ahead sounded male. Beyond the canopy, the star-dotted blackness of outer space went on forever. Sunlight glared and flashed from a handful of satellites and other space junk.

  Stars smeared into lines, heading up and right. The Moon glided into view from the lower left corner of the windscreen. As still as the craft felt, she could’ve been watching a video game on a holo-bar in her living room. Once the Moon centered on the windscreen, a faint sense of acceleration pushed her back. She grabbed the walls to hold still.

  “Locked course,” said the man up front.

  “Copy.” Lieutenant Learner glanced at her. “We’re reading an ETA of one hour fifty five minutes.”

  “Okay. Wow that’s fast. I thought shuttles took like eleven hours.”

  “Civilian ships do. You’re getting the VIP treatment. You must be some kinda special shit for them to give us the detail of bussin’ your ass out there.”