by Mike Freeman
Havoc did a double take. 'Baggy shorts' Weaver was wearing a crop top and a white plaid miniskirt that ended high on her slim thighs. The effect was rather startling. She grinned from ear to ear under her cap.
“You just look, don't you? When you like something, you just look rrright at it.”
The skirt had some kind of gold braid thing around her waist.
“I just...”
“Yes?”
He laughed. He actually had to look away to stop from staring. It was ridiculous. She bounced up and down, twisting her lithe body from side to side.
“You ready for this?”
“Wild horses wouldn't stop me.”
“Great. Enjoy!”
She slipped out and reappeared a moment later, projected on the wall of his sim in near perfect fidelity. She simulated the entire walk to her baseline, waving to the crowd as her disc moved invisibly beneath her. Psychological warfare, Havoc thought, hypnotized.
He hefted his racket in his hand. He'd loaded a tennis configuration, so hopefully he'd give her a match – after all, he didn't want to disappoint the audience. The crowd cheered in anticipation as Weaver prepared to serve.
“You ready?” she shouted.
No, he thought.
“Yes!”
She leaped in the air. He'd intended to watch the ball, but as Weaver reached the apogee of her jump her little white skirt floated up around her hips. The ball hurtled past him. She landed; her skirt, landed. He breathed again.
“Oooh,” said the crowd.
“Fifteen, love,” the Umpire said.
“Were you ready?” she shouted.
“No.”
“Oh.”
She bounced from side to side.
“Are you ready now?”
“Yes.”
She jumped and let out a little yelp as she struck the ball. He relaxed into the config. He stepped right and returned the ball down the sideline, way to her left. If you hit a great shot, even though the skill to line it up was coordinated using your augmentation, it still felt terrific. Great shot, he thought. Got to be fifteen-all.
Weaver came off her line like a cheetah exploding after prey. Her legs thrust almost horizontal as her arms bent at right angles, torquing her body for more speed. He was surprised to see the ball hurtle past him. The crowd went berserk.
“Thirty, love,” the Umpire said.
“Good shot,” she shouted.
“Thanks,” he shouted back, bemused.
He recalibrated to match her acceleration. She really had come off the line like a cheetah; actually, he reviewed, faster than a cheetah. She'd knock out a hundred meters in less than four seconds. He wouldn't go over that, but he didn't think she'd appreciate him being under either.
“You ready?” she shouted.
He waved his hand to say yes.
Game on.
Weaver’s play was graceful and ruthless. He could match her acceleration but he couldn't match her tennis. He was fit, willing and able. She slapped his butt until it shone.
Every time Weaver jumped, spun or reached for a shot her miniskirt flew up around her hips. 'Baggy shorts, baggy shorts' Havoc repeated to himself. When Weaver changed direction the feeble sliver of material at the front of her skirt parted to reveal another three inch slash of thigh. Balls flew in all directions. His free testosterone index climbed steadily into the red zone.
He could feel himself regressing back through geological time. He might as well be wearing a bearskin and wielding a flint spear, pointing at a woolly mammoth track and rubbing his stomach. All higher order thinking was gone as man's ultimate evolutionary purpose beat through his psyche like sixteen Taiko drummers on full tilt.
Set point came all too quickly. He made a good return. Weaver sprinted across the court, ferocious and focused, beads of fine sweat exploding away from her as she pirouetted through the air, reaching at the limit of her extension and crying out as she made yet another shot. The crowd erupted and she waved at them. He laughed at her control of the crowd to punctuate the highlights of the match. He was completely helpless and loving it, an unusual feeling; flickers of joy sparking through a blocked grate.
After she crushed him in the first two sets, she walked round to his sim for a break. She stretched out in front of him, sweat glistening all the way up her long legs.
“So what brings you here, Mr Havoc?”
He poured water over his face, trying to cool down.
“I work for Mr Darkwood.”
“Security.”
“Right.”
“You going to tie me up if I misbehave?”
“Trust me, if I was going to do that, you'd already be hanging from the ceiling.”
“Ooh, promises promises, Mr Havoc. Don't go getting a girl’s hopes up now.”
He laughed.
“So how about you? Why physics?”
She stopped to think.
“I love it. I love the elegance of it; the beauty; how things mesh perfectly together. The universe is so much more amazing than we could ever imagine. And not only that; physics makes you work. It's beautiful and seductive and entrancing but it doesn't give up anything easily; you have to earn your rewards. And when you put the work in, when you've truly earned it; you have breathtaking moments of incredible clarity; insights into how things relate to one another. The interconnectedness of things.”
“And are things truly interconnected?”
She smiled.
“Pick a flower and you move the farthest star.”
He laughed.
“Your passion is inspiring.”
“Man is only great when he acts from passion.”
He laughed again.
“A philosopher too.”
She looked whimsical.
“I'd rather have been a great physicist.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think if you’re a great physicist you get, for a fleeting moment, to glimpse the mind of God.”
“You might still get there.”
She smiled excitedly.
“Well I did score a ten on the Blue-Truvelli Optimism scale this morning.”
“Ten? Wow.”
“What did you score?”
The system hadn’t offered Havoc that test; it had offered him the Triolet-Volkov Depression and Stability test instead.
“Less than that.”
She took her cap off and pulled her hand back through her hair.
“And what about you, are you passionate about what you do?”
He felt strangely uncomfortable at the spotlight being turned on him. He didn't want to pretend, but he didn’t want to spoil the mood. He was having too much fun. For the first time he could remember, he felt like a real person.
“There are things I love. Wild places, exploration. And stories, of course – great stories.”
“What kind of stories?”
“Well they're all love stories, aren't they, Weaver?”
“Are they?”
“Sure. You know, will the nice guy get the screwed up girl?”
She laughed.
“But not what you do?”
He shook his head.
“No. I mean, I love performing at my potential. Who doesn't? But not what I do, not any more. It’s time for a change.”
He'd been attempting that change when the trading cruiser he’d bought on account from Pertinax had gone up in flames; another victim of the small but steady stream of bounty hunters that defined his life.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Havoc?”
He flinched at the non sequitur. He found the question staggering in its naivety. She made a face.
“I'm sorry. What a stupid question. I don't know what I was thinking. They just kind of bubble up from nowhere. I’m sorry.”
“Don't worry. I didn't mean to stop in my tracks.”
“I just find the idea so strange. I'm a pacifist at heart. I guess you're not?”
He chuckled as he shook his head.
“Pacifism is a wonderful idea until someone steals your lunch. Then your dinner. Then your breakfast. But it is a wonderful idea.”
“So what are you looking for?”
A man.
“I'm not sure.”
She looked at him playfully.
“Sometimes you're looking so hard for something, you don't realize it's right in front of you.”
He smiled.
“True.”
“What would you do instead?”
“Oh I don’t know. Intergalactic jewel thief, adventurer and savior of damsels in distress. What about you? What do you do when you're not deep in your equations?”
“I love to fly, and wild places. I used to go for walks as a girl with my dad.” Her face grew more serious. “I should have said that's one of the reasons I love physics – my dad. When I was a girl we would do proofs together. How sad is that?”
“Someone once said to me, ‘never be ashamed of the things you love’.”
“Good advice.”
“Do you still talk about physics with your dad?”
“No, we don't talk. I mean, we didn't talk.”
“I don't mean to pry.”
“Don't worry. It's just... we had a silly fight. It was a long time ago. I knew we'd sort it out eventually, you know? But then he was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Over a year ago. He disappeared. You know when you have that feeling? You can sense someone...?”
He nodded.
She looked crestfallen.
“I don't have it. I think he's really gone. I can feel it. And I never told him...”
Havoc had his confirmation. He wondered how on earth to do this, if it was even the right thing to do in the circumstances. Telling Weaver about her father's fate just before their first briefing might be insensitive to the point of heartlessness. I met your father, Weaver. We died together.
“I never told him a lot of things, you know. I mean, people don't age now do they, not if they're lucky enough and we were. And he did theoretical physics, for goodness sake, at a university. I just never thought...”
She shook her head as she tailed off.
Havoc spoke quietly.
“I'm sure he knew you loved him.”
She stared into the middle distance.
“I hope so.”
There was never going to be a good time, Havoc decided. He needed to get it done.
“Look, there's something––”
She jumped into the air.
“Sorry! I didn't mean to get all morbid!”
He tried again.
“No, don't worry. Look––”
“No, you look.”
She said it in an inviting way, giving him an enticing glance, bouncing in front of him in her little outfit. She spoke, rhythmically, to her bounces.
“It’s just like physics. Keep looking and every now and again,” – she turned and jogged away, the view was great – “you get a glimpse of something incredible!”
He couldn’t help laughing as she vanished, reentered her sim and jogged across the court.
He shouted over the net.
“Look, Weaver––”
She shouted happily as she launched a ball over the net.
“Look out you mean! We have to get this finished in time for a shower. Some of us have to give a briefing you know!”
He gave up for now. She was a force of nature, this girl.
It wasn't long before, match complete, she popped into his sim again. She looked at him invitingly.
“You want to take a shower?”
He was dumbfounded. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“Er...”
“Cos there are some in here as well as in the home hab.”
“Uh...”
She looked mock sternly at him.
“Oh, Havoc, you didn't think I meant...?”
He sputtered.
“No. No.”
“I mean, what kind of girl would...”
His face burned.
“No. Of course not. No...”
“Great. Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
She pulled her hand through her hair one last time and then her green eyes, toned legs, enchanting smile and cute butt sashayed toward the exit. At the door she flipped up one side of her skirt to reveal a final glimpse, in the full and certain knowledge that he was watching. At the same time, she made the crowd roar and a loud wolf-whistle ring out. Then she was gone.
He sat on the floor laughing, happy and helpless, feeling for all the world like a pool of melted butter.
17.
Havoc showered, changed and felt his hormone levels renormalize – meaning that he no longer felt like a rutting stag in the springtime. He entered the Hub Hab feeling refreshed and optimistic, the best he’d felt in a long time. He wandered over to the counter to get a drink. Fournier stood there, looking agitated.
“You ok?”
“My coffee. Any minute.”
Havoc gave Fournier's arm a reassuring pat then moved off, having just spotted Weaver walking across the room.
“Hi.”
She hadn't seen him.
“Weaver.”
Her eyes flashed with anger as she hissed at him.
“Don't you talk to me.”
He recoiled at the aggression in her voice. She kept walking. Not thinking, he reached out for her arm.
“Hey.”
She wrenched her arm away.
“Don’t touch me! I know who you are, you butcher! I can't believe you didn't tell me!”
She shouted the last part, her voice almost hysterical.
Havoc felt a blurring dislocation from reality. Streaks of white noise filled his sound and vision. He'd taken so much shit in his life that he'd got used to it. It was like static on the radio, he tuned it out. He hadn't known anything different for years. But this was different. He'd just had a taste of being a normal person. He'd let his guard down to Weaver and made himself vulnerable. Big mistake.
He froze, breathing deeply, trying to stabilize. His face set in a grimace and his head nodded back and forth, going into some kind of regression. He couldn't help it. All the shit he'd taken for years. All that had been taken from him. A dam burst inside him. Fracture lines rippled out across his face. What was happening to him?
He turned away and took a couple of dazed steps. The tiny flicker of joy he'd felt earlier perished. He struggled to hold himself together. He could feel the eyes on his back as he focused on his breathing. Leveque approached him as he faced the wall.
“You want to talk?”
He glanced at the woman who not two hours earlier had screamed in his face. He found it hard to speak. Trying to open his mouth to talk was like trying to part the jaws of a trap. His words came out syllable by syllable, each under tremendous pressure.
“Are you serious?”
“I might be able to help.”
Leveque’s eyes gave her away. She was feeling guilty and probably hating herself for it. He turned away. The tension across him was too much; he felt like a cable cross loaded in a way it wasn’t designed to bear.
He hit the button on the wall and stepped into the self reporting room.
~ ~ ~
Havoc stepped into a diary room for the first time in his life. The door shut behind him and his world imploded. His fucked up, dead end, hamster on a treadmill life collapsed around him. He could feel hot tears rolling down his face. What was happening to him? He couldn't stop. His head rocked back and forth and he closed his eyes, trying to block it out. What could he do? Guilt and remorse washed over him. He had been lined up and royally fucked and no matter how fast he ran, he couldn't outrun it. He had massacred all those people. He was guilty. This was his whole life.
He stood quietly, breathing and flexing his hands, occasionally leaking involuntary tears.
~ ~ ~
Abbott considered what he'd just seen. He looked at Stephanie.
“Y
ou think he can handle that?”
Stephanie reached for a drink.
“Yes.”
Abbott nodded.
“You're not worried at all?”
Stephanie looked around for a place to dispose of a teabag.
“No.”
“So, he'll be fine?”
Stephanie smiled. Abbott was clearly communicating to his Chief Adviser that he wanted this question fully engaged with and answered comprehensively. She stopped, turned and gave her boss what he needed to hear.
“He'll be fine. He's tough. He has, despite what happened on Jemlevi and I can't explain that, got a strong moral code. He will pull himself together, walk back out and you will never know, for the entire rest of this mission, that what just happened, happened. And he is absolutely, definitely, not going to go nuts and blow up this ship.”
Abbott nodded.
“Good. Especially the last part.”
~ ~ ~
Havoc stood for a few minutes. He got his breathing back to normal. He felt his eyes dry. In place of that flicker of joy was his usual slow burn of controlled anger. He was who he was and he'd done what he'd done.
He couldn’t outrun his past. There was no way out. His false hope had hurt him more than he would have anticipated. He’d made a mistake in trying to step outside his fate.
He would find Claudius Forge and kill him. It wouldn’t be a life filled with joy but it gave him stability and purpose. He would play his part for Darkwood, complete this mission and get back on track. Sort out his finances and move on. He took a deep breath and pressed the button.
The door slid open and he stepped into the Hub Hab. People looked over at him; some furtively, some openly. Havoc didn't care.
He was relaxed and back in control.
~ ~ ~
Abbott thought Havoc looked balanced, even relaxed, as he reentered the room. The diary room had obviously done its job. He looked at Stephanie and nodded.
She raised her eyebrows back at him. 'I told you so', they said.
~ ~ ~
Havoc was approaching the counter when Ambassador Abbott stepped forward and raised his hand, inviting him over. As a convicted genocidal terrorist, Havoc braced himself for a rough ride.
