Titanborn

by Rhett C. Bruno

  It finally dawned on me. Zhaff was young, precise, loyal, driven by an unyielding sense of logic, and he likely didn’t even require payment outside of his meals. All I was really doing out in the middle of the wilderness was helping to groom my own replacement.

  The notion sent a chill up my spine so palpable that I had to sit. We had a wait ahead of us while the Pervenio airships were en route, and the darkening sky was making it colder. I left Zhaff to whatever it was he was doing, and headed into the ruined shack nearby to take advantage of what little shelter it could provide.

  —

  Half an hour passed with me unsuccessfully trying to keep warm. The shack’s crumbled walls were enough to block the wind, but the full coming of night was making the air even colder on its own. It got so dark out that I couldn’t even see my own hands, which would’ve been fine if I was able to sleep. The only light in the area came from the faint glow of Zhaff’s hand-terminal outside, where the Cogent continued to analyze the Ringer’s likely frozen-solid body.

  As our wait extended to an hour, I started contemplating what I might be capable of doing after retirement. I had no idea what old collectors out of a job did until their inevitable deaths. Most of us never made it that far, and those I knew who did led secluded lives.

  I could open up a restaurant on Mars, maybe, if I knew anything about cooking. Or maybe I could get a gig training security officers on burgeoning Europa. Corporations were always searching for men with field experience to help on new colonies, and that seemed to fit my bill of skills. Though I had a feeling I’d wind up like the Ringer lying outside if I was forced to live the rest of my life doing that.

  None of it had the appeal of hunting targets as they fled throughout Sol, bounties on their heads. The only possibility I sincerely entertained was spending my twilight years tracking down my daughter to see if I could even get a few words out of her in person before the end. That at least seemed like something as challenging as being a collector.

  For whatever reason, seeing the Ringer blow his own brains out caused her to stick in my head after that consideration. It could’ve been because I actually felt a tiny bit of pity for him after he’d brought up how he lost his own child. More likely, what had happened merely reminded me of another mission I’d screwed up, back when Aria was the closest thing I had to a partner. I’d messed things up with her just as bad as I had with Zhaff.

  It was six years ago, and we were back on her homeworld, Mars. I’d asked for her help with a mission and she reluctantly agreed. It was the last time she would ever do so…

  I sidled around a corner, pistol drawn. I was surrounded by complete blackness, and I had my barrel-fixed light off so I wouldn’t draw attention. My spotters were resting on the top of my head. No heat signatures were in sight so they wouldn’t accomplish much covering my eyes. The darkness didn’t bother me. The smell of the sewer I was in was horrid enough, so seeing what I was standing in might’ve been enough to make me gag anyway.

  My hand grazed the moist, ribbed wall wrapping beside me so that I could keep my bearings as I trudged forward. My feet sloshed through half a meter’s worth of shit and who knows what else. If I didn’t know any better I’d have thought I was traipsing through the innards of a giant.

  They were the waste trenches beneath Mars’s oldest colony, New Beijing, tracing dark webs beneath a tiny terraformed portion of the planet covered by a translucent dome. Garbage, excrement, used water—they carried everything unwanted out of the colony and dumped it all in rocky trenches exposed on the planet surface.

  I’d spent a larger portion of my life down in the sewers beneath Mars’s many domed colonies than I cared to admit. Most of them were extensive enough to serve as perfect hideouts for the homeless, prostitutes, and fugitives. It was inside them where I’d met Aria’s mother years back, and where she herself was born. Most people didn’t delve as deeply into them as I was then, but Elios Sevari, the offworlder I was after, was clearly desperate to stay hidden.

  He’d stolen valuables from a Pervenio merchant stationed in another Martian city and fled to New Beijing. The Red Planet was split among many corporations, and while New Beijing was run by Venta Co, it was hard to escape the influence of my employers. Still, I was on rival turf so I couldn’t take the man down on the surface where I’d be seen.

  Elios stayed holed up somewhere in the sewers, only ever surfacing in order to find fences through which he could gradually sell all of his stolen items. That was where my daughter came in. Aria was a perfect choice for the role of a black-market trader. By that time she was a beautiful young woman, with fiery hair as red as the planet she was from, and skin as fair as milk. Offworlders are easily drawn to one another, so I knew it wouldn’t be hard for her to catch Elios’s eye. She only agreed to help after I promised her that she was just trying to catch him in the act of breaking the law and that nobody would get hurt.

  I sent her into an underground cantina in New Beijing to earn his trust. After meeting Elios, however, she went missing with him for the better part of two weeks, only making contact once over Solnet in order to send me the merchandise she’d falsely purchased from him. I was confident that I’d taught her well enough how to survive and deceive, but I won’t say I wasn’t nervous for her life. So I’d taken things into my own hands and followed her trail into the old waste trenches to help her bring Elios down.

  I rounded another corner and heard talking up ahead. I stopped, crouched, and glanced at my hand-terminal, taking care that no light would escape from the screen. A red blip on my radar displayed the location of a tracking program I’d planted in Aria’s hand-terminal without her knowing, just in case things went wrong and her true identity was discovered. That was when I finally decided to pull my spotters over my eyes. I made sure to keep my gaze straight ahead, and after a short walk I found a cluster of heat signatures, Aria’s among them. I breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive.

  I shuffled forward, the current of the muck covering the sound of my movement. I got close enough to distinguish the other heat signatures. There was Aria, the fugitive Elios, as well as two children—twin boys—sitting on the landing of a service station that popped up from the slosh.

  “Elios Sevari, you are wanted by Pervenio Corporation for robbery in the first degree,” I announced. All their heads snapped toward me. Elios scrambled to the children and held out his arms.

  “Run!” he hollered to them. The twins’ tiny feet splashed through the sewers away from me. They weren’t able to move fast with the muck rising up to their slender waists.

  “Come peacefully, and you will spend the next five years in a cell aboard Pervenio station. Resist and the punishment is death,” I warned.

  Elios slowly knelt in surrender, but as he did Aria stepped in front of him. She switched on the light of her hand-terminal and illuminated the sewers. I lifted my spotters to see her plainly.

  “Stop, Dad!” Aria yelled. “I won’t let you take him!”

  “Dad?” Elios asked.

  “Just pretend you never found him,” she continued. “I already gave you what he stole and he’ll return the credits. He doesn’t deserve this after…after everything.”

  “Dad…” Elios repeated.

  He was behind Aria, but he crawled over toward a pile of bowls still full of some manner of leftover, lumpy soup. In the light I truly saw him for the first time. His left arm was a mangled stump beneath the hollow sleeve of his boiler suit, and that side of his face was also mottled with shiny scars that stretched all the way up to his receded hairline.

  “I’m begging you,” Aria pleaded. “Just let him go.”

  “You know I can’t do that, girl,” I said. “He doesn’t have to get hurt anymore today, though.”

  “You liar!” Elios spat. His voice spoke of heartbreak and betrayal. “A collector all along.” He glared at Aria with disgust. He bent down, and as he did I noticed the pistol lying beneath the rim of one of the bowls. “Liar!” He wrapped his only
hand around the grip, but before he could move any farther I buried a bullet in his chest.

  The gun flew from Elios’s hand and got lost beneath the muck. Aria dove to catch him, but was too late. He slammed against the ground and she was left cradling his limp body in her arms. Elios tried to speak, but all that came out was a glob of blood before the life fled his eyes.

  When his children heard the gunshot they stopped running, turned around, and shrieked. They hadn’t been able to get far. “Papa?” one of the two twins asked. They were skinnier than even offworlders ought to be.

  Aria gazed up at me, tears running down her muddied cheeks. Her lips were quivering.

  I stared, unable to lower my weapon. I’d never seen her look so shattered, and it didn’t take me long to realize that the reason they were so deep in the sewers was because she hadn’t intended for me to find them. She’d pretended to buy the goods from him and squared the debt, hoping that I wouldn’t follow, but I did. I always got my man, no matter the cost.

  “Why, Dad?” she whimpered. “He was only trying to keep them fed.”

  “He went for the gun—”

  “You weren’t supposed to find us!” she snapped. “He had no other choice! An accident in the water plant crippled him and Pervenio wouldn’t let him work anymore. Oh, Elios.” She squeezed his head against her chest. As she did his children got close enough to see him covered in blood and began to sob uncontrollably.

  “I didn’t know,” I said. I was being honest. It’s not a collector’s job to ask questions. I did what was asked of me and made a good living doing it. That was probably why Pervenio had kept me on for so long. “But he was going to hurt you.”

  “I deserved it…”

  She stared down into Elios’s glassy eyes, and then placed her lips against his, blood and all. I could hear her whispering to him. The sight of her like that made me feel sick. Who knew what lies he’d spewed to win her affection.

  I waited there for a few minutes as the three of them wept, not sure what to do. Eventually the foul stench got the better of me. “Aria,” I said, “we’ve got to go.”

  She wrapped her arms around his limp body and squeezed. “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Yes you are. If Venta Co finds out we were operating here then there’ll be hell to pay.”

  I reached out to soothe her, but she pulled away. “I’m not leaving him!” she shouted. She started to cry into Elios’s chest, and I placed my arm on her shoulder. That time she didn’t fight it.

  “Aria. It’s not easy what we do, but it’s necessary. Say your goodbyes, and then we have to get rid of him.”

  She slowly rose to her feet without looking back at me. “You do it then,” she said with rancor. “Just another offworlder to you, right?”

  “No, a thief and an attempted murderer,” I answered, trying not to let her tone make me lose my temper. I knelt down by the body and took out my hand-terminal.

  “Yup, just another offworlder.” She sloshed over to Elios’s children, head bowed. When she reached them she turned them around and held them in her embrace. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to them. “Look at me and it’ll all be okay.”

  I waved my hand-terminal in front of Elios’s eyes to get a positive retinal ID. Then I took a picture of his body, ensuring that I captured the bullet hole in his chest. Without his corpse I needed something to present to Pervenio in order to get paid.

  When I was done I shoved him off the maintenance platform with my boot. He fell into the muck with a splash, and then the slow current carried him along.

  “Let’s go,” I ordered.

  I walked back in the other direction, but when I didn’t hear any footsteps behind me I paused and glanced back over my shoulder. The twins continued to cry, but Aria watched in silence as Elios’s remains drifted into the darkness, never to be found again.

  —

  Aria didn’t stick around for long after that day. She stayed behind on Mars to find honest work and I set off to continue doing what I did best alone, until Zhaff was forced on me at least. We’d exchange the occasional message over Solnet, but it’d been a year since the last time she responded and the only words she wrote back were NOT ON MARS ANYMORE. It was clear she didn’t want to be found, and this time she wouldn’t make it easy for me. As far as I knew she could be anywhere in Sol.

  Sometimes I thought about asking Pervenio Corp to track her down so I’d know she was all right, but I didn’t have the spare credits and there was no reason to tell them about her existence now. Considering her streetwalking mother dumped her at my feet, Aria was an unsanctioned, illegal child born from parents who weren’t cleared for mating by the USF. People like her were considered illegitimates. My position probably could have kept me out of a cell if anyone found out, but I kept her a secret regardless. Director Sodervall would’ve never approved of me dragging her with me on assignments and winding up distracted. After deciding to keep her, my plan had always been to train her so well that when I did reveal her existence he’d have no problem with us remaining partners.

  I sighed. There was no worrying about that anymore. Illegitimates could get around the world they were born on with relative ease, but traveling between planets was difficult without a “real” identity. Apparently I’d taught her enough for her to figure out how to get off Mars and travel throughout Sol without needing one. It was hard not to feel at least the slightest bit of pride about that.

  I pulled out my hand-terminal and swiped the screen until I reached Aria’s contact information so I could see her picture. I’d taken it right before I first sent her to see Elios. She was looking back at me with the spunky smile on her face that she always wore when she was happy. Her pretty red hair was tossed haphazardly over her shoulder. She never did care much about how it looked.

  I typed another message into my hand-terminal that I knew she wouldn’t answer. It was all I could do. I took my time, making sure my numb fingers were striking the correct keys.

  ARIA…I HOPE YOU’RE OKAY. I DON’T KNOW IF YOU HEARD, BUT THERE WAS A BOMBING IN NEW LONDON BY AN OFFWORLDER. IT CUT THE M-DAY ADDRESS SHORT SO I HOPE SECURITY ISN’T TOO TIGHT WHEREVER YOU ARE.

  I’M OUT IN THE WILDERNESS ON EARTH, NOT A STAR IN SIGHT. IF I DON’T FREEZE TO DEATH OUT HERE, I SHOULD BE BRINGING IN A NICE HAUL FOR FINDING THE BOMBER.

  “Malcolm, they’re approaching,” Zhaff said, poking his head around the structure of the ruin.

  I’d been so invested in choosing the right words that I didn’t even hear him approaching. The hand-terminal slipped from my hands and hit the frozen dirt.

  “Dammit, Zhaff!” I yelled. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “You said to inform you when they were close.”

  “I…” I groaned. “I’m coming.” My heart raced until he turned and walked away. I wasn’t prepared to let him in on the existence of my daughter. I groped at the ground and found my hand-terminal. It was pure luck the thing hadn’t broken.

  I lifted it up and reread what I’d already written. As I did, the hum of anti-grav engines greeted my ears from outside. The emptiness of the derelict city made it resonate so loudly that I could feel my ribs vibrate. I wiped off the screen of my hand-terminal and then finished the message with the first words that popped into my freezing head.

  I MIGHT NOT GET A CHANCE TONIGHT, SO HAVE A DRINK ON M-DAY FOR ME…DAD.

  I took a deep breath, stared at the screen for a moment longer, and sent the message before I could second-guess myself. Then I stowed the hand-terminal.

  A bright spotlight shone down from the descending airship as I stepped outside, allowing me to make out its silhouette. It was a standard inter-atmosphere Pervenio carrier with broad red wings that housed rolling, 360-degree anti-grav engines on the underside. It had the look of a stingray I’d seen a picture of in a pre-Meteorite museum, minus the tail.

  A unit of officers hurried down the aft ramp once the landing gear touched down. They kept their pulse-rifles ai
med while they spread out and secured the landing zone, as if there were anything to fear out in the wilderness. Pervenio officers never miss an opportunity to show off how well trained they are.

  Zhaff saluted them as they approached. I thought about it but settled on a nod. My arms were getting too stiff for me to be willing to muster the energy for anyone other than Luxarn Pervenio himself strolling down the ramp.

  “The body is over here,” Zhaff said.

  The soldiers quickly pulled out a shrink bag and got to stuffing the body in. Once they were finished they carried it onto the ship.

  “You two coming?” the leader of the unit asked.

  “Don’t have to ask me twice,” I responded, relieved. I beat Zhaff to the ramp and wasted no time climbing up. Warm air washed over me from an exhaust vent and started to thaw my aching joints.

  I crossed the cabin to an empty seat and pulled down my restraints. Zhaff sat in the spot next to me, his eye-lens poring over his hand-terminal. Once the ship took off, he turned to me and said unemotionally: “We’ve been requested to go to Titan.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. I’d been expecting the next message from the Pervenio directors to concern my failure, but he’d definitely said we. “Titan?” I asked. “But we’ve already caught the Ringer here.” I yanked out my own hand-terminal and checked for a message from Director Sodervall. There was none. Nothing from Aria, either…as usual.

  “Further examination of the blast site in New London has determined it was caused by an improvised EMP device. This was used to provide cover while a small group of Ringers infiltrated the nearby Pervenio hospital. Supplies and documents crucial to the operations of Pervenio Corp were stolen. USF security has locked down all grounded ships for investigation, but it was likely too late. The stolen property is small in scale and would have been easy to smuggle through private transportation if that was the intent of the Ringers.”