by Sayuri Ueda
Wolfren saw Tei and Arino standing next to the bed and swore. “What did you do?”
“We injected you with a drug-resolving molec machine and pumped you full of every psychotropic drug we could think of,” answered Arino. “We guessed at the chemical substance or ‘key’ plugging up the brain cell receptors and simply pulled the key from the keyhole.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“You didn’t think you were going to get off so easy, did you?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know anything about the dispersed substance,” Wolfren said.
“Then maybe you can tell me where you dispersed the mold.”
Wolfren fell silent.
Arino grabbed Wolfren by the arm and shook him.
“Let go of me,” said Wolfren through clenched teeth, flailing in pain.
“The station’s surveillance system is down,” Arino said. “Replacing the circuit boards only partially restored the electrical systems. Many of the station’s corridors are still dark, and we can’t get a visual read on Karina’s location.” Arino tightened his grip around Wolfren’s arm. “You know which circuits are rigged.”
“What makes you think there aren’t others on this station working with me?” Wolfren forced a laugh through the pain. “Like I said, I’m not the only one who questions Round society.”
“No, it had to be you that sabotaged the system. And then you induced yourself into a coma to avoid further interrogation.”
Clamping a hand over Wolfren’s forehead, Arino slammed Wolfren’s head down against the bed and twisted the arm in his grip. Wolfren cried out. Tei looked away but made no effort to stop Arino.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Arino said, his voice full of menace. “I don’t want to see people die. I want to get Karina without any more casualties. And in order for that to happen, we need to get the surveillance system working again. I’m looking at the bastard that can tell me how.”
“I’ve got my life riding on this plan,” Wolfren said in a rasp. “Someone like you who’s just here to earn a paycheck has no idea what that means.”
“Earn a paycheck? Our job is to protect the people that require our help, Round or Monaural. If you were somewhere and needed saving, we would dive into harm’s way without a second thought. Only those with the unconditional desire to do good are assigned to this job. What do you think you know, anyway? You don’t know the first thing about surviving on the planets or about the hardships of living in our society.”
“Shut up, you pig.”
“Start talking or I’ll break your arm.”
“Then do it,” Wolfren said.
“Tenebrae,” Tei interjected. “You didn’t really want to aid Karina. If there were another way, you would never have gotten involved with the Vessel of Life. If you had another choice, you would have preferred it to resorting to terrorism, isn’t that right?”
“I argued with Fortia and Kline time and again,” answered Wolfren. “The Planetary Bioethics Association had engaged in serious deliberations before establishing the special district. I pleaded with them to take up a similar discussion about creating laws to address the misfits of Round society, and to change the laws that restrict people’s lifestyle choices. You want to know what they said? That would go against the principles of why the special district was established in the first place. Its creation was approved on the condition that the Rounds would never leave the Jovian system, so they refuse to compromise those principles. What choice did I have? If they won’t listen to reason, then the only alternative is force.”
“The Vessel of Life is using you, Tenebrae. They oppose the existence of the Rounds. Don’t you see that their motives don’t conform with your own?”
“Of course I know. But they were a hell of a lot more accommodating than Kline or Fortia.”
“You prefer to deal with terrorists who will tell you anything you want to hear over your friends on Jupiter-I?” Tei said.
“Friends? I don’t have any friends here, and I certainly don’t trust the terrorists or Jupiter-I. I’m alone here and everywhere else. That suits me just fine.”
Arino loosened his grip. The tension leaving his body, Wolfren lay limply on the bed, gasping for air.
“People can’t choose where they are born,” muttered Arino. “So I can appreciate your wanting to leave of your own volition. But you can’t win your freedom at the expense of the lives of others.”
“That was the only choice I had. If you can’t understand that, then go ahead and kill me, like you did Lobe in the shuttle,” said Wolfren, closing his eyes. “To hell with this damn place. Destroying Jupiter-I would put an end to this senseless killing once and for all.”
Arino drew his gun and pointed it at Wolfren. Tei instantly put eir hand on Arino’s arm. “No, you mustn’t.”
“Stay out of the way, Doctor.”
“What good will come from killing him?”
“This is what he wants.”
“Please,” Tei said. “Wolfren is a friend and colleague. There is no justice to be won by killing someone who wants to die. No atonement.”
“My orders are to eliminate the terrorists. We kept him alive this long because he may be holding some information we need. But the original order stands if he refuses to cooperate.”
Arino nudged Wolfren’s head with the barrel of the gun. Wolfren scowled.
“I’ll ask you one last time. Tell me how to restore the station’s electrical systems.”
“So this is the Monaural way,” Wolfren said with a sneer. “You seek a resolution through guns and violence. Whenever anyone proposes a different idea, you people pretend to listen, going through the motions of a discussion, but in the end, you crush the new and revolutionary by brandishing morality and common sense as weapons. Looking at you, I know I’m justified in my actions.” Leaning away from the gun, Wolfren cast a pitying look up at Arino. “Shoot me if you want. If that’s what you believe to be right.”
Arino twisted his flushed face into an anguished look. The barrel of the gun shook imperceptibly as he pulled the trigger.
A shot rang out. The bullet shot a clean hole, not through Wolfren, but through the mattress. Wincing from the crack of the gun in his ear, Wolfren glared up at Arino.
Arino lowered his gun. “I’ll fix this on my own,” he told Tei, who was nearly in tears. “I’ll leave him in your hands, Doctor. Don’t let him escape.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tei.
“I’m wasting my time. I can’t stay here while the others are running into danger without me. Better to fight along with them.” A sad smile came across Arino’s face. “Looks like I’m not very good at these psychological head games. I have neither the talent for persuasion nor Harding’s fervor for violence.”
“Please be careful, and look after yourself.”
“Thank you. If we come out of this on the other side, maybe you’ll take me to the special district again.”
“Of course,” answered Tei. “Tigris and Calendula would like that.”
After returning the gun to his holster, Arino exited the room without looking back.
Wolfren lay perfectly still and stared up at the ceiling with a look of silent conviction.
7
AS SHAKEN AS Calendula was over the darkness that had descended upon the corridors, ey had no choice but to push forward.
No doubt the security team was on eir tail.
Calendula resolved to find Karina before they caught up to em.
But first, ey had to get eir hands on a weapon. Ey should be able to find something in the warehouse in the residential district. Although the warehouse was typically kept under lock and key, this was a crisis situation. Calendula was counting on the door being unlocked in order to facilitate mobilizing supplies. At least that was the way it had been during a fire many years ago.
Calendula hadn’t a clue where Karina was being held but figured Tei would have some information.
C
alendula turned the corner of the corridor and stumbled on a mass blocking eir path. Falling to the ground, ey recognized instantly upon impact that it was a human body. As Calendula searched the body, ey felt something warm coating eir hands.
Ey brought a hand closer to eir nose and nearly cried out.
The security team member was already cold. His ballistic suit had been stripped from his body. The ground around him was sticky with blood.
Calendula gagged as ey backed away on eir hands and knees.
Then ey had a flash of inspiration.
Ey reversed eir retreat and crept toward the guard. Ey patted down his entire body and found what ey was looking for in his boot.
A backup pistol.
Calendula removed the gun from the ankle holster. Though ey’d never handled a weapon before, ey pointed the barrel toward the ground and tried pulling the trigger.
The trigger did not budge. The revolver did not discharge. Calendula fumbled with the gun for a moment, wondering if there might be a safety somewhere, but found nothing.
Calendula pulled the trigger again, squeezing the grip with both hands this time.
There was a muffled bang as the revolver recoiled in eir hands and drilled a hole in the ground. The safety, a lever located on the grip itself, was automatically disengaged when ey squeezed the grip and pulled the trigger at the same time.
Calendula removed the data goggles from the guard. Slipping them on enabled em to see in the dark corridor. Calendula stood up with the gun cocked in eir hand.
Now to kill Karina Majella.
Calendula’s wearable bleeped. Ey pressed a button and Tigris’s voice blared out of the speaker. “Where are you, Calendula?”
“I couldn’t tell you. With the lights down, I’m not sure where I am.”
“Then retrace your steps back here. Karina’s escaped. There’s no telling where she might be lurking.”
“Escaped? Perfect.”
“Calendula?”
“I didn’t know how I was going to find out where they were keeping her. But if she’s escaped, there’s only one place she can be headed. The emergency escape shuttles.”
“What are you thinking? Don’t be stupid.”
“I’ll be fine, I’m armed.”
“What?”
“I found a gun on one of the guards Karina took out. She must have taken his primary weapon but overlooked his backup.”
“You don’t know the first thing about handling a gun. You’ll only be a danger to yourself. Get back here right now,” Tigris pleaded.
“I didn’t have any trouble shooting it. I also found some data goggles to help me see in the dark.”
“Stop what you’re doing, Calendula. I can’t bear to see you die.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s no turning back now,” Calendula said. “I feel as if something inside me has been shattered. At the same time, my mind is clear.”
“That’s the fever talking. You’ve been infected. You’re sick. Right now you’re not thinking straight. Come home so you can have your medicine and rest, Calendula. I promise I won’t leave your side.”
“How are the children?”
“Fighting the fever like the others, but they’re tough. They’ll stay strong until they enter remission.”
“Look after them for me, Tigris.”
“Please don’t go. I’m begging you.”
Calendula ended the transmission. Then ey ran down the corridor with the gun in eir hand.
Using his implant, Shirosaki split up the members of his security unit into teams and dispatched them to guard the escape shuttles. Then he proceeded to put on his ballistic suit. With their depleted numbers, he would have to engage in combat himself. Even if Karina did not surface near his position, he would have to get between Karina and Harding to keep him from killing her.
Harding was intent on killing Karina. Miles’s death had put him over the edge.
Shirosaki was painfully aware of Harding’s need for revenge. But at the same time, he desperately wanted the data Karina was holding—coveted it, in fact. Even learning how the parasitic machine worked would help the medical team save the Rounds.
Shirosaki called Kline from his implant. “I’m headed for shuttle number three now. How much power has been restored to the station?”
“We managed to get some of the high-velocity elevators working.”
“Any near my current location?”
“There is one working elevator in your vicinity.”
“Any concern about it malfunctioning?”
“No, it’s been cleared with maintenance.” After a pause, Kline informed Shirosaki of another piece of bad news. “Dr. Tei is down with the fever.”
“The doctor’s been infected?”
“It appears so.”
“The doctor was wearing eir protective suit when ey was examining the Rounds. How in the world was ey infected?”
“The doctor thinks it was Karina.”
“I don’t understand.”
“None of the station staff or Karina have manifested symptoms, so the doctor assumed that Monaurals can’t be infected. But maybe they can be carriers of the disease,” Kline explained. “If what the doctor is saying is true, it’s possible everyone who’s been in contact with Karina, including the people who interrogated her, may have been infected. We may be looking at a good number of security personnel, including you.”
Shirosaki quickly did the math in his head. The security team members who had cornered Karina in the maintenance shaft, Harding and the two guards present during the interrogation, and himself. “So the reason Karina has been running around the station is—”
“She may be a carrier and is trying to spread the agent throughout the station.”
Unbelievable, Shirosaki thought. To think that Karina would use her own body to spread a potentially lethal contagion.
But if she would resort to such methods, she must be familiar with the nature of the dispersed substance. Even she isn’t so suicidal as to poison her own body without knowing how to neutralize its effects afterward.
“What is the doctor’s condition?” Shirosaki asked.
“Despite running a very high fever, ey seems conscious and alert. Ey asked me to pass a message on to you.”
“What is it?”
“Ey was sorry for having accused you earlier. Ey knows you’re here fighting as much as the Rounds. Ey also said, please don’t die. Ey asked me to tell you that ey didn’t want you to throw away your life needlessly.”
“Please tell the doctor that ey needn’t worry. I’m not so easily angered. Once we’ve dealt with Karina, I’ll look in on the doctor. Tell em ey can count on it.”
“I’ll do that,” said Kline. “Be careful, Commander.”
“You too, Ms. Kline.”
8
KARINA WAS ABLE to visualize her exact location as she continued moving toward the shuttle. She had been coming to Jupiter-I as a scientist for ten years, and in the last two years especially, Karina had walked every inch of the station and committed it to memory.
From the location of the room where she’d been kept to the closest high-velocity elevator that would take her to the shuttle, as well as the alternative routes to get to her destination—all flashed across Karina’s mind without having to rely on a map.
Karina took a mental tally of how many security personnel she had disposed of.
The two in the maintenance shafts, four during the escape from the room, the three that had pursued her afterward. The four she’d shot when she’d been on the run with Fortia. That made thirteen. Since there were forty members on the security force, that made twenty-seven left standing.
The cockpit of the shuttle that Lobe attempted to board had been destroyed in the gunfight. Aside from the shuttles dedicated to the special district, there were only three operable shuttles remaining. And the two cargo vessels from Asteroid City. With the exception of the passenger vessel the relief team had come in on, the security force
would have to split up to guard all five of the remaining spacecraft, making out to roughly five members per vessel. Even if the station staff were sent to aid in the defense, there was little help that a bunch of gun-toting amateurs would be able to offer.
Five more. Five more kills and she would be able to board a vessel.
Having seized not just the ballistic vests but the firearms and ammunition of the guards she’d killed, Karina was amply armed.
Although a bullet at close range would likely break her ribs or certainly injure her anywhere else, thanks to her vest neither would prove fatal. She would be able to go on fighting as long as the neural inhibitor was working. She would be able to withstand a hit or two.
And as long as they wanted the data, they couldn’t kill her. But there was nothing stopping Karina from killing them.
Harding was the one she had to worry about. The bastard was out for blood. She could see it in his eyes. Harding was using the job as an excuse to come after her with everything he had.
As prepared as she’d been, Karina could not help but smile bitterly at how she’d been doing nothing but killing since she’d arrived. When she left Libra, she had sworn to never pick up a gun again. How had her life come to this?
After Karina had learned to fire a gun at age nine and been party to countless acts of terrorism by the end of her teens, her last kill on Earth had been her own mother.
When a Libra sleeper cell took an all-out attack by antiterror forces, Karina and her mother had run into each other during their ragged escape.
Her mother had been trying to catch up to the others fleeing the compound.
Karina had been in the midst of fleeing Libra.
“Help me get back with the others,” her mother had begged. Karina had cried, “No more,” and pointed her gun. Her mother’s face grew red with rage and terror, and she opened her mouth like a snake threatening to swallow her prey whole and shouted hysterically. “You’re going to shoot me? Your own mother? Who do you think raised you? Put food in your mouth?”
“I’ve had enough,” cried Karina. “You—a mother? Don’t make me laugh. You fell in with a good-for-nothing man and dragged me along for your selfish desires. I couldn’t go to school. I have been on the run my entire life because of you. I’ve wanted to kill you for a very long time. Since I was a kid, I knew I had to kill you to get out of this life.”
