Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  “Not a star or a gravity well.” She breathed on the glass and drew a ring around the planet that reflected no light. “We’ve found Archimedes’ cache of UPD-5…. If I had my guess, he’s found a whole planet of the stuff.”

  The woman beside her shivered as they both stared into the seemingly empty space.

  Every chart and scan was wrong.

  In the middle of the patch of void, the dark body hung perfectly still. And now that she’d informed the computer it was there, its data scrolled across her screen in confusing details.

  “These readings can’t be right.” Maggie’s brow wrinkled as she repeated the scanning command.

  An entire, planet-sized sphere of UPD-5.

  Kathrynn tapped through a long string of commands and got a grainy image of the surface. The ship’s sensors were working with their limited capabilities to figure out what the heck it was.

  “How he’s managed to hide this from Serbal and the Colarium….”

  “But there’s no one here.” Maggie squinted at the radar again. “If the Lazarai know about his place, why aren’t they guarding it? Why haven’t they set up a mining rig in low orbit? Why leave it here where anyone could stumble on it?”

  “They’ve been pulled from the surface,” Kathrynn traced the line of a ravine that was too even to be natural.

  “But why aren’t they here now?”

  “Because the Colarium might not know about it, but if the Lazarai kept ships in the vicinity, or set up an orbital mining raft… they would. And Archie has no hope of holding something like this if the Colarium wants to take it away from him.”

  She tapped the screen on a crater that was, again, too precise. “They’ve dropped a mine facility apparatus. We don’t see them, but they’ve got crews on site. If they use the right suits, and keep their equipment below the radiation emission levels of the UPD-5, there’s no reason anyone should find them.”

  “Unless they’re looking?”

  Kathrynn traced the surface of the planet again. “Maybe not even then.”

  High resolution scans of the area came through, and Kathrynn whistled. “ Remind me to thank Sophia for being rich.”

  The surface was so clear, she could have plugged the images into a VR program and felt like she was on the surface.

  The revelation struck her like a bat to the chest. The surprise came first, then the inability to breathe. And with her chest collapsing on itself came the sharp pain.

  It was no trickery of the gifts the Great Mother had given her. This was something else.

  But she ought to have expected something like this from Archie. He’d become so good at betrayal.

  “He’s going to destroy Sukiyaki….”

  “No one’s that stupid.”

  “He wants to take away the Colarium’s supply and keep this planet for himself.”

  And Flynn wasn’t going to be able to stop it on his own.

  She cursed in the pagoan tongue and ignored the way Maggie drew back. She was used to fear by now—and despite the stabbing fire that ran through her, she’d keep telling herself that was true until it actually was.

  “I know the deal was that you take me back to where we started, but I have to get to Sukiyaki instead.”

  Nodding, Maggie had already begun to punch in the coordinates. “I have to let Ms. Refuti know as well. I can do that more easily from the lunar facility she has there.” She paused and looked at her, fingers still hovering over the screen. “Aren't you on Archimedes’ side?”

  “I’m on the Great Mother’s side, and she doesn’t condone genocide.”

  Maggie’s eyes widened and she nodded, punching in the course heading. “We’ll need to make a few stops before we get there… the logs will show a minor malfunction dropped us here so if the Colarium checks at any point, they shouldn’t need to look into it--they’re always looking for mistakes to put into my file.”

  “Good.” They had time… not much, but she hoped enough.

  “And if we go through Creighton, we can pick up a transport job that will give us a legitimate reason to go to Sukiyaki.

  “Better yet, if we go through Creighton we can attach with the sisterhood and have a legitimate reason that won’t be questioned.”

  “I could drop you on the lunar platform instead. No one would have to know you were there.”

  “And how would you explain to the crew there why you’ve got a random woman on your ship?”

  “I don’t have to explain anything to people like those who work there.”

  “Thank you, but if I go with the sisters, no one will notice me. And the fewer who know I’m on the planet, the better.” She took a deep breath. “I have a little time still.”

  Sitting back in her seat, pulling the electrifying straps over her shoulders, Kathrynn tried to prepare herself for the return trip. Flynn was possibly the only person she’d met who hated folding more. But their experiences were vastly different.

  Deep breaths, mentally walking herself through the steps of the fold, she tried to lie to herself. Tried to pretend this time would be different.

  When Maggie initiated the fold—like every time before—Kathrynn knew her preparations hadn’t worked.

  As if the Great Mother had placed the universe on pause, everything stopped. Even her heart.

  And death ticked down the moments, an off-time metronome somewhere behind her.

  She was surrounded by a darkness that burned too brightly. A darkness that crept through the viewports as though they weren’t there and filled the space with the cold of the void.

  Every last breath of warmth leached from her… as if her soul bled from her body.

  If she’d been able to breathe, that icy darkness might have frozen her lungs solid.

  Death swirled around them as the universe folded and space bent to Maggie’s will.

  It was a short trip.

  Rough, and tearing.

  They came out of the fold on a flash of white, and Kathrynn breathed in the heavy, prickling air. The Great Mother was as cruel as she was kind.

  Maggie was silent while the ship made its final approach to Creighton. But as the docking clamps took hold…. “Is what they say about you true?”

  “Which part?”

  “That you eat men’s hearts and that’s how you know when someone’s lying?”

  “If I ate a heart, only to find out they weren’t lying, there would be a lot of unnecessary death, wouldn’t there?”

  “Then how does it work?”

  Kathrynn didn’t look at Maggie. What she was about to say was a truth no one had ever believed.

  “I’ve never had the time to figure out the whys and wherefores. I can. That’s all I need to know for now.”

  Because if she dug too deep… who knew what she might find.

  Twenty-Six - Flynn

  Flynn had started walking toward the temple… but the silence he found there wasn’t what he needed that day. Walking against the slow, warm wind, he pressed a hand against his throat, thankful the numbing gel and bandage made the contact relatively painless.

  But as he neared the outskirts, following a trail that skated around the Spire Vista housing sector, his equilibrium went off.

  What he saw, didn’t add up with what should be.

  The row of houses in front of him had no even roof line, one seemed to twist, another angled left while the rest angled right. For a row of cookie-cutter buildings, none of them looked as though they’d fit back into the mold.

  The one on the very end of the row….

  Flynn stared at the house, twisting his head to the side as though it would make the structure level.

  Like some crooked storybook witch’s cottage, the house listed. Hard, and to the left.

  Buzzing pulled him from his scrutiny, and he turned to see Seamus and their dog in the small wash area that had been designated a playground by a community planning committee.

  Above their head, a disk with a dozen propellers and rotors flitt
ed back and forth like a dragonfly on a humid day.

  Seamus sent the thing flying away, and the dog shot off after it, zigging and zagging as Seamus led it on a merry chase.

  It was a decent way to get out of the chore of walking the dog.

  Waving Seamus down, he motioned toward the kid’s drone. “I’ll give you five colar notes if you let me borrow that.”

  A suspicious squint and pursed lips covered the kid’s face like a painted doll’s mask before they asked. “For how long?”

  “Maybe ten minutes?” He doubted it would be that long.

  “The kid considered for a long second and then held out their hand. “Cash before delivery.”

  “You’ve been hanging around Susan too long.” But Flynn handed the kid a dark credit transfer film and took the drone’s controls.

  The device was a lightweight version, but the lift capacity was higher than expected.

  Higher than he needed.

  Pulling the peep disc from the inside of his non-functioning comm band, he pressed it snugly against the belly of the drone’s motor housing.

  Seamus took the drone, holding their hand flat and placing it on their palm. “Tell me when you’re ready and I’ll launch.”

  Nodding, Flynn looked over the controls, they were simple enough. “Throw it.”

  Seamus chucked it straight upward, and it stabilized itself with the propellers.

  Flynn took a second to get used to the controls, then sent it skimming off toward the houses. Between glances at his wrist and watching the thing fly, he managed to record an aerial view of the problem.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Not looking for anything. Looking at.”

  The depression wasn’t hard to miss when seen from above… in near entirety.

  It ran like a long-dry riverbed, a snaking cavity that was too straight, its corners too sharp. He didn’t follow it beyond the houses. What he needed to know, he already did.

  Not bothering to pay attention to the rest of the feed recording on his wrist, Flynn brought the drone back, killing the motors about five feet up, and letting it drop into Seamus’ hands.

  “You’ve still got three minutes.” Seamus held the drone loosely, as if they expected Flynn to snatch it back.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask for a refund.” Pulling the peep disc from the housing and slipping it back against his wrist, Flynn asked, “Where’s the shaft entrance here?”

  “There isn’t one. All the tunnels in this section were filled in… years ago, so they took out the lifts to reuse elsewhere, and covered up the vertical shafts.”

  A properly filled in tunnel wouldn’t leave a depression like the one he saw here, and the Captains weren’t incompetent enough to screw that up.

  “Where’s the closest entrance?”

  Seamus stopped fidgeting with their drone and looked at him hesitantly. “Anderson Lodge.”

  Flynn didn’t like it, but he couldn’t avoid what needed to be done… what needed to be discovered.

  He headed in the direction Seamus was staring—as if they could see the small lift platform from where they stood.

  “Hey!” Seamus called. Boots scuffed and they caught up, with the drone buzzing behind, dog barking. “Why are you going down there?”

  “To find out if somebody lied… and then, to find out who.”

  “You think the tunnels are still open? How would someone have not noticed that on a decom inspection?”

  “I’m not sure they did.”

  “But….” Seamus stopped and Flynn turned back to look at the kid. “You think someone took the time to re-dig tunnels?”

  “We’ll see what I find out.”

  He kept walking, but Seamus ran the short distance between them and dragged back on his arm. “You can’t go down there alone. It’s miles from Anderson lodge to that site… Even in the still open tunnels, you’ll get lost.”

  Flynn could have tried to shake the kid off, but he knew they were just as bad as he had been about getting into other people’s business when he was their age. If he ignored them, or tried to appease them and then went without a guide….

  “Fine, but it won’t be you. You’ve got things to do and if I take you into random mine shafts, your mom is going to find ways to drop me down an abandoned one.”

  “She knows you’re not a creep.”

  “But she also knows that people have a habit of trying to kill me.” He tapped his top button instead of his neck.

  “Okay, but mom can’t take you down there… it’ll have to be Stevens.”

  Wonderful.

  “Fine, I’ll go talk to Stevens. You have my word.”

  “And,” Seamus said holding up their hand like they were swearing him in. “You promise to not go into the mines until you’ve convinced him.”

  Flynn considered lying again, but he didn’t know what would happen if he was found out. “What if I can’t?”

  “You can. He has incentive to help you, and he’s grouchy, but he’s not stupid. If you sell it to him right, and by that, I mean if you tell the truth, he’ll help. Now,” they nodded to the hand he hadn’t raised. “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  Seamus escorted him to the mine entrance and then left.

  And as soon as Flynn was in the dim tunnels, he questioned his choices.

  But at the intersection after the body dump, Flynn realized exactly why Seamus had been insistent on getting help.

  The shaft was deserted, and he wasn’t sure which fork to take.

  He needed to get to the captain’s post and then, he needed to convince Stevens to take a walk.

  It was only through chance that he found someone who could point him in the right direction.

  It was nearly an hour later before he found Stevens with one of his miners, discussing a cracked support beam.

  As soon as he knew the other man had seen him, he stepped back and waited for the inevitable.

  “Whatever you’re here about, I don’t want to know. Take your problems elsewhere.”

  “Sadly, I’ve been told to come to you, and not to leave you alone, until you take a walk with me through to Anderson Lodge.”

  He saw the suspicion, hoped the man wouldn’t ask who’d ordered Flynn about. It would be better if he thought it was Henri.

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Aside from the fact that I’m trying to help you… You could do it to get me to leave you alone.”

  “Just what, exactly, do you want?” He shook his head as if deciding he didn’t want an answer. “Anderson Lodge isn’t part of my jurisdiction.”

  “No, but you’re close enough, and you have the information I need. What I’m looking for… if we find it… won’t reflect badly on you.”

  Stevens glared at him, eyes traveling down to the bandage at his neck and back up. “I’ll do it. Not because I think you’ll find anything, because you’re going to promise me you’ll stop being such a dick to Bosco.”

  With a tight smile, Flynn agreed. He’d put up with the man if it meant that he could investigate the settling that no one had acknowledged.

  He ignored the curious looks. Ignored the random whispers he caught. Didn’t doubt the man currently walking by his side had spent hours cursing him in front of his workers.

  He knew why he was there. He knew his presence had value. He didn’t need anyone to tell him he belonged. Didn’t need anyone to want him here.

  And he definitely didn’t care how many toes he stepped on.

  He didn’t force Stevens to talk to him until they were well away from his workers.

  “Why isn’t anyone working these shafts?”

  The shafts were void-dark in this part of the maze.

  “The captain who used to run this section was an ugly old bastard.” Stevens said, twitching as though he’d touched something cold and slimy.

  “Did he retire? Or die?”

  “They found him in the middle of the desert, near t
he NEU compound, propped on a rock with a hole in his chest where his heart used to be.” He grimaced. “Most people thought it was a resident of that cult who’d done it, but leaving him there wouldn’t make sense. And blaming them is an easy way to hide other things.”

  Flynn didn’t particularly want to know. “This part of the mine’s been shut down ever since?”

  “This place is a chasm of bad luck.” Stevens glanced at him as if debating his next words. “Before him, three other captains met… let’s call them unfortunate ends.” Stevens grimaced. “His was probably the cleanest death.”

  “I'll remember to not apply if the position ever becomes available again.”

  “It won’t. Henri and Anders have a deal. We pay him to keep it closed.”

  “Then why is it so easy to get into?”

  “It shouldn’t be.” He glowered down the tunnel in the direction from which they’d come, as if he could see the entrance from his mine to this one. “Those gates are supposed to be locked and bolted… we need to keep this open for ventilation. But if I had it my way, we’d have caved the whole thing in a long time ago.”

  Stevens stopped in the middle of an enormous intersection. The girders overhead looked sound enough to hold twenty houses. They definitely weren’t in the right place yet. “We need to go to the part of the mines under Spire Vista.”

  “There aren’t any mines there.”

  “But there were.” Flynn looked at the tunnels instead of Stevens. “Humor me?”

  With a scowl, Stevens manipulated the information on the hand screen he pulled from his pocket and overlaid an image of the mines on the satellite imagery downloaded for the mine’s geographic studies, securing it with locator pins.

  “Here,” Stevens handed it to him. “Explore to your heart’s content.” And then, he led the way into the tunnel at Flynn’s right, his flashlamp providing an eerie cone of light against the abandonment.

  But after a handful of turns, ill ease began to creep up Flynn’s spine. They were close.

  Captain Stevens was too quiet beside him, and Flynn stopped, glancing from him to the tattered plastic hanging on the cross tunnel entrance.

  Behind him, Stevens made a strange sputtering noise, and Flynn looked at his glazed expression, wondering if he’d have to “deal” with the man.