by Bill Denise
“Not much that your official report didn’t already cover.” Ken snorted, sounding disgusted. “Another somebody making and hording weapons, sentenced for sedition.”
“Sounds easy, I’ll finish my recon sweep, and I should be back in time for lunch. I’ll send the reports to Gregor and wait for further instructions.”
Ken was quiet for a minute. “How many of your missions have been on account of sedition?”
Damon didn’t give it much thought, “Well, most of them, why?” An image of Shrigauri Krych formed in his mind.
“Uh huh, doesn’t it strike you as awfully convenient? ‘Sedition’ is such a broad term, it could be used in many cases to put an end to almost any activity that the Council didn’t like. It’s not illegal to manufacture weapons. It’s not illegal to stockpile them—suspicious, yes—but not illegal. Are these people actual threats to the Consensus, or are they just threats to the profits of the Council families?”
Damon was no longer listening to Ken, but heard the voice of Shrigauri Krych instead:
“That's right, Demon, you're a pawn, being used like a tool, a mindless drone, helping the Council to kill off your own kind.”
“No!” Damon interrupted Ken and the voice of Shrigauri together.
“What?” Ken responded.
“No, I’m not a tool. And I’m not killing my own people.”
“I . . . didn’t say that. I was merely pointing out . . .”
“NO! I’m following orders. Sometimes the orders are tough. Do you think I like following orders?”
Ken hesitated a second before replying, “Yes, actually, I think you do.”
Damon stopped walking and growled “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sometimes we have to think for ourselves. We can’t follow the word of those in power, not always, not blindly. We have to think things through and be sure that it makes sense.”
“Ha!” Damon exclaimed out loud. Seeing the strange looks from people nearby, he started walking again. Once he’d moved on a little way he continued, “I learned the hard way what happens when I make my own decisions.”
The face of Melanie popped into his head, laughing and mocking. He pictured that last time he saw her as she walked out of the building back home, calm and at ease with her friends.
“I get my orders from the Council,” he continued. “They may not be perfect, but they work in the best interests of the Consensus. Who am I to judge? What do I know about the working of the Consensus?”
Ken was silent for a moment, and then he answered slowly, “Damon, you can’t trust the Council. They only worry about their own families and fortunes.” He started talking faster, “They only care about the well-being of the Consensus so they can continue to feed off of it. They stifle progress, and keep the people beholden to them in order to keep the beast alive, but only well enough to sustain their own extravagant existence.”
Damon could hear him breathing heavily. Ken was very passionate about this subject.
Tiny seeds of doubt had lived in Damon’s mind since the day Andrea told him she’d rather rot in jail then work for the government. Ken cultivated the seeds over time with his knowledge of the Council and his experience in the system. Now, finally, Damon allowed himself to at least acknowledge the existence of the seeds.
“Can we talk about this more later?” he asked, as he approached the borders of the local Ruins.
“I’d love to,” Ken said earnestly.
Damon took a deep breath and asked, “Now. Do you have anything actually useful to tell me or not?”
Nearly an hour later, Damon wound his way through the deeper sections of the Ruins, wrapped in his thoughts. He didn’t mind the isolation, it reminded him of patrols back at home. He drifted along this path of memories until it brought him inevitably to Andrea, and to the ill-fated solo patrol that started all of his troubles.
If I’m working for the greater good of the Consensus, he asked himself, why then do I think of this current situation as ‘troubles?’ He had no answer, but he continued to contemplate his own feelings about himself and his role in Council affairs. Finally, he found no other alternative than to accept that Ken may be right.
“Have you found anything about the target?” he asked.
Ken cleared his throat and replied, “Nothing.” He paused before elaborating, “Meaning I found nothing at all to suggest they are producing or stockpiling weapons. As far as I can find, they are making high-end electronic components to be sold at ridiculous profits, but that’s nothing new and certainly no crime. The fact that they are being made in factories inside the Ruins and off the official logs is suspicious, but, again, not a crime.”
Neither one spoke for a few minutes as Damon continued toward the suspect factories. Damon tried to make sense of his actions on behalf of the Council. If I’m truly taking out rebellious factions then it must be good, right? He asked himself over and over with no good answer coming forth. Why would they be running factories hidden in the Ruins, anyway? Legitimate business would be carried out in the light of day, not hidden away and suspicious. Damon’s attempts to rationalize the mission sounded hollow, even to himself.
“Maybe it’s a lie. Maybe they are just making it look like they’re producing electronics. I’ll know more when I get inside,” Damon said as he approached the outside of a decrepit but intact building. “Which is where I’m going now.”
“Be careful,” Ken said seriously, “you never know what you’ll find down there, and you’re going deep enough that we won’t be able to maintain contact. Last check—what’s your power level?”
Damon flicked up a reading on his HUD and reported “I’m good to go at 92%, thanks.” And with that he entered the building in his unique way, by making a door with his fist.
Once inside, he decided to take a more conventional approach and used stairs or convenient existing holes in the floor to descend into the roots of the Ruins. His intelligence stated that the factories were built inside of, but separate from, the original buildings deep underground. Detectable only through WERA scans, the only way to reconnoiter secretly was to do it personally. Attempts to send in remote observation equipment had all been effectively countered, raising the suspicion level, which reassured Damon that he must be doing the right thing. Why all the secrecy if they’re innocent?
He eventually found the factories, although he had to make some more holes in order to enter the space. Once inside, he realized he had no way of telling what they were making. He stood for a few moments looking at complex machinery whirring away in front of him with absolutely no idea what it was doing. He decided that he needed to find the control room, or at least the end of the process where whatever they were making would be coming out.
After searching through the huge underground factory for more than an hour, Damon realized he had no idea what he was looking for. It was not easy moving around the machinery since it formed an inexplicable maze. There were access corridors, but none of them ran in straight lines and some ended abruptly for no apparent reason. He dared not use his active sensors to map the area, so he stumbled around lost. Many times he had to smash a hole in the wall just to avoid backtracking again. These self-made doors often led outside the boundary of the factory and he found himself in the old abandoned areas of the original building.
The farther he went, the more confused he became. He couldn’t understand why there was such a huge underground complex and yet he didn’t meet anyone or detect any alarms being raised. What is this place? he kept asking himself, but he found no answers. He tried to contact Ken a couple of times, but there was no connection through the concrete and steel above him.
Damon decided that he did not want to make a return trip to this place if he could avoid it. Therefore, he made the decision to place the high explosives now, set to detonate only if he sent an activation signal. This way, he reasoned to himself, if they tell me to destroy it, the charges are ready. If they tell me to leave it, I’ll deactivate them remotely. I won�
��t have to come all the way back down here, I’ll only have go get close enough for radio contact. Damon felt relieved with his decision, because this whole place was making him uncomfortable.
Another hour passed and he still had no idea what they were producing, and now he had no idea where he was, either. Until he could get closer to the surface and make contact with satellites or other radio beacons, his systems couldn’t determine his location. It was an odd feeling to be disconnected after spending so long intimately tied into the pervasive communication system. He had grown used to having his every question answered immediately with information pulled from the network. He wondered how he had ever survived when he was isolated and on his own. He even missed Ken’s incessant chatter.
Lost in thought, he walked directly into a room full of people. Surprised, he realized he hadn’t been paying attention, and he should have heard their voices a long time before walking into their midst.
Alarmed and angry over his lapse, he immediately dropped into a crouch and deployed slug guns at both wrists. He was about to open fire when he realized that no one had moved to threaten him. Everyone had turned toward him and the talking stopped, but other than that, everyone simply stared.
His HUD identified forty-one targets sitting in chairs facing away from him, one target sitting in a chair in front of them off to the side, and another standing in front facing the big group. They were all looking at him in surprise, but no one made any threatening moves.
Damon felt he must be hallucinating when he realized the one sitting in front was holding a guitar. A plain, old-fashioned, non-amplified guitar. With real metal strings.
He stood up and retracted his weapons, since no one seemed dangerous. It was one more crazy scene in a night of confusion. Nothing made sense, and his systems were not offering any additional info other than target tracking. Which was distracting with so many targets, so he switched it off too.
“Can we help you, son?” the standing man said to him in a deep, kindly voice. He was short and thin with graying and thinning hair. His most remarkable feature was his bright blue eyes that seemed to radiate light.
Damon stood awkwardly without answering. He couldn’t make sense of anything he had seen tonight, and this current situation was the strangest yet.
“Son?” the man repeated and slowly moved toward Damon, showing no sign of fear.
In fact, he was acting as if he didn’t want to scare Damon! This was too much, and Damon no longer trusted his eyes. There must be a malfunction in my operating system that’s affecting my brain.
“Just stop right there,” Damon said loudly and deployed a single Trip-PC trained on the man’s face. The weapon hummed quietly and the distinctive green glow began to suffuse the barrel and his arm. Many in the audience gasped and scrambled away from Damon, but the man never flinched.
“I’m not going to hurt you, son. No one here will try to hurt you,” he actually chuckled as he continued, “and I don’t think we could even if we wanted to, judging by what I see.”
“What . . . what are you doing here?” Damon asked, still flustered and disoriented.
“Why, we’re simply worshipping our Lord. Would you care to listen in?”
Great! Damon thought, religious fanatics! Just what I need. “No thanks, father,” he said sarcastically and retracted the cannon. “But you need to get out of here, far away, because I’ll be destroying those factories next door very soon, and this whole place will go with them.”
Why am I telling them? Damon panicked when realized he was casually giving away tactical information. I have to kill them all now, he thought for a moment, but rejected the idea. They were obviously innocents and he didn’t want their blood on his hands. He realized that was what made him warn them, he wanted them to be clear of the destruction.
“I’m sorry I reacted like I did,” he said to the whole group, “but you must believe me and clear out of here—now!”
“Why destroy them? What have they done? They’ve never bothered us and they‘ve even made some donations to help us with expenses and missions.” Some of the crowd began murmuring their agreement with what their leader said.
Damon was feeling even more ill-at-ease, he didn’t like how this whole scene was playing out. He should be in control of this situation, but he couldn’t get his bearings. Everything seemed to be working in concert to disorient him; the disconnection with the communication system, the mysterious gigantic factory with its inexplicable complex of passageways, and now a group of people worshipping deep underground who were not afraid of him.
“Look, I’m trying to save your lives! If you don’t want to be saved then stay here, I don’t care!” Damon was yelling by the time he finished, even though he knew his reaction was unwarranted.
“You don’t understand, son, we are already saved.”
Damon shook his head and stomped out of the room, and mumbled “Crazy fanatics!” as he left, still not sure why he felt scared.
“Feel free to come back if you want our help!” the man yelled after him.
Damon started to run, determined to find the quickest way back to the surface.
**** ****
Damon sat at a table on the sidewalk outside of a small cafe and ate a leisurely lunch. The cafe was located near the Ruins, but far from the marketplace he had visited before, so he would not be recognized. A few days had passed since his reconnaissance mission and he was still slightly shaken by it. He had submitted his report to Gregor, but carefully edited out the encounter with the religious group. All he could do now was wait.
After almost two days on the ship, Damon decided to go back down to the planet in order to stretch his legs.
He hadn’t told Ken about the people he found and he wondered why he didn’t want to talk about it. He ran through the scene over and over, using his own memories and the actual transcript from his system store. Nothing new caught his attention, which was no surprise since he’d already been through it at least a dozen times. Damon sighed and turned off the playback, wishing he could think about something else. He had a gnawing feeling that he shouldn’t let them die in the attack, but his thoughts returned to his often-repeated question: I tried to warn them, I told them to leave, what else can I do?
Absorbed in his thoughts, Damon didn’t notice the man approaching from behind, and his HUD didn’t identify a hostile target.
“Mind if I join you, son?” a man said from right next to Damon. He nearly fell over backwards in his haste to stand up, the chair crashing metallically to the sidewalk. He started to deploy weapons, but stopped in time to avoid notice. Standing there was the man from the religious group, the leader who was not afraid to face down the Trip-PC.
“Well, may I?” the man asked as if nothing unusual had happened. Nearby diners took notice of the awkward moment, but soon resumed their meals. The man pulled out the other chair at the small table and sat down, motioning Damon to sit back down. He gathered up the chair, smiling sheepishly to anyone looking his way and joined the man at the table.
“Leland McKrae,” the man said holding out his hand to shake.
Damon hesitated, feeling completely disoriented again. Finally, he came to his senses and grasped the man’s hand. “Damon,” was all he said.
“Pleasure to meet you, Damon. I wish you hadn’t disappeared the other night—you’ve been a hard man to track down.”
“How did you find me?”
“Ah,” Leland laughed easily, and his piercing blue eyes lit up with the sound, “I’ve got lots of friends, and you’re fairly easy to spot.” He laughed again. His mood was infectious, forcing Damon to smile along with him.
“But, why?” Damon found he was having trouble putting sentences together, much less his thoughts.
Leland leaned forward slightly, “I could tell,” he said, his eyes lit with excitement, “that you needed to talk to me.”
Damon realized he must have a stupid look on his face and Leland smiled at him. “I don’t understand,
why would you think that?”
“I’ve been a pastor for a long time, son, I can see when a person is carrying demons.”
Damon flinched at the inadvertent use of his nickname. “They call me that now. Demon.” he said quietly, “Actually, it’s a name I’ve had for a while.”
Leland nodded, downplaying Damon’s reaction, “I think you need a little of what everybody around here needs.” He paused, drawing the other man into the conversation.
Damon complied with “And what is that?”
“Hope. Everybody needs hope. Today’s world is crazy, life is difficult, and the powers-that-be make it downright miserable. People are lost, they need help and they need hope. Hope for something better, a new life, a way out.”
Leland leaned back again in his chair and signaled the waiter to come over. After ordering an iced tea, he turned back to Damon, the laughter on his face replaced with a pensive look. “Why do you need to destroy the factory?”
“What?” Damon had been thinking about hope and the change of subject threw caught him off-guard. Why did I tell him about my mission? He glanced around nervously and activated the combat mode in his HUD.
“Don’t worry,” Leland reassured him, “there’s no trouble to be had here, and believe me, we have nothing that could put a scratch in that armor of yours.” He reached out and patted Damon’s forearm.
Once again, Damon gaped, open-mouthed and mentally off-balance. I have got to get away from this guy, he thought, but made no actual move to leave. “How—”
Leland waved him off before he could finish the sentence. “It’s really not important. Just rest assured that we know we can’t hurt you and we don’t intend to try. However, I did want to warn you about the factories. I don’t really know what they’re making there, but I don’t think it’s anything that warrants destruction.”
“Not my choice.” Damon replied matter-of-factly.
Leland merely looked at him for a moment before continuing, “But, there have been men and equipment moving into the area recently. They’re bringing in some heavy weapons and extra personnel. For whatever reason, you’ve attracted a lot of attention here.”
