by Barry Kirwan
He rubbed his eyes. He wanted to crack this one, and he knew why, aside from the obvious reasons. Lucidium was a difficult drug because it increased self-perception. But reluctantly, he admitted who he was trying to prove himself to. Maybe if he solved this one, helped humanity on the same scale as his father had done… Vince had been spot on.
Vince strode back into the room. "Didn’t go down too well. We need hard evidence." He glanced at his wristcom. "It’s late."
Micah stood, a little shaky. "Listen, Vince, I think I owe you –"
"Nothing. You’ve done your job; given me some leads even if they go nowhere right now."
Micah glanced toward the Optron. "Am I coming back?"
Vince nudged some of the fragments of the shattered terminal with his boot. "New computer will be here in the morning, Micah. Go home and get some rest, or else I’ll begin to think you look like shit all the time."
Chapter 20
Desert
Eden’s late afternoon sun strafed Blake and Kat, casting long shadows behind them as their skimmer wound through the dunes. After two hours of riding, Blake banked the skimmer in a tight arc, circling a bluff, conjuring up a swirl of fine sand. He skidded the vehicle to a halt on the summit’s bedrock. Kat was surprised – this flourish was like a surfer’s move. As soon as they touched ground, enveloped in a vortex of red sand, Blake leapt off, yanking a strip of clear plastic-looking material from a side compartment, and dashed toward the edge of the ridge. Kat stayed put, but armed her rifle, losing Blake for a moment in the temporary sirocco. Sand particles whipped against her visor. Blake returned, perched on the skimmer and waited till it settled.
Kat had no idea what was going on, but maintained her silence. She’d figure it out. The visibility returned, and she saw over the ridge to a huge bowl, more than a kilometer across. In the middle, some thirty meters below them, was the wreckage of a ship torn in half, definitely from Earth. She let out a sigh of relief. She surveyed the rest of the area, but detected nothing; no glints of silver.
"Okay, Kat," Blake said through the helmet intercom, "this is how it works. I get off and set up over there, where the plastic runner is lying crossways. You see it?"
She barely made out the cord laid out on the edge of the ridge. It was about as long as a grown man lying down, and finger-thick.
"Yes."
"Good. When I’m set up there, bring your viewer over and walk directly between here and the line, and lie down next to me so we can scout the ship. You got that, directly between the skimmer and the line. Stay within the line. Don’t touch it."
"Yes, Sir." She still didn’t understand, but it was a simple enough order to follow. Blake headed over and then lay down on the sand, propped up on his elbows, using a digi-viewer. Kat dismounted, retrieved her viewer from one of the skimmer pockets, and strode over next to him, her legs creaky after the long ride. Once down on the ground, she zoomed in on the wrecked ship.
Metallic objects and fragments, mainly silver and charcoal in color, lay scattered around the crash zone. The ship, like Ulysses, had been compartment-based; only one section had survived impact. The cockpit, or what was left of it, lay split in two as if a machete had cleaved open a coconut shell. The whole area reminded her of a junkyard.
The silence, after two hours of the skimmer’s constant humming, forced Kat to break the tension. She didn’t know why they’d stopped. She reckoned Blake was testing her; she hadn’t even worked out the test yet.
"Looks like they attempted a parachute landing," she ventured.
"Correct."
Okay; not on the wrong track yet. "Broke the cockpit clean in two. Not sure anyone would have survived. Must have come down pretty hard. Parachutes are usually only deployed for a sea-landing." She knew she was saying things Blake had already surmised, but the eeriness was getting to her. She stopped scanning for a while, and regarded Blake instead. Occasionally he focused on the other side of the ridge. Kat decided to check it out.
"Keep looking at the wreckage, Kat."
She tilted her viewer down. "Sir, what’s going on?"
"Why don’t you tell me?"
She had no clue. "Sir, I –"
"Tell me about your nightmares, particularly the recent one. All of it."
She bit her lip, clicking off the electronic imaging device, though she rested her head on her elbows as if still scanning. "They began about a month ago." She glanced sideways at Blake. He gave every appearance of still scanning and recording, and not paying attention. That made it easier.
"I was here, on Eden, being chased by something. Always the same, running back to the ship. Something terrifying was chasing me, and I had to get back. I had this feeling… like everything depended on it, not just me or the ship, but, well, everything." She glanced down at the glimmering sand. "Earth's survival."
"Continue."
She sucked in a breath. "Sometimes Zack was there, sometimes… it was someone else, I mean not from the crew, someone… who couldn’t be there."
"Someone back on Earth?"
With a pang that made her close his eyes, Kat recalled her dead sister.
"Yeah, you could say that."
"Go on."
"Then, when I was in stasis, for the first time ever, I actually saw it. I mean the thing that had been chasing me. Silver and black, looked like a giant locust. Scared the shit out of me, and… we were in a desert."
Blake remained silent.
"That’s it." Her mouth was dry.
Blake switched off the viewer, and put it down. "On your feet."
She got up, slower than Blake. They faced each other.
"Now tell me the rest, the part you haven’t told anyone else."
She fumbled with the viewer, glanced over to the skimmer, but Blake’s eyes fixed on her like meat hooks.
"I… It was nothing more a fleeting feeling, Sir, I’m really not sure I saw anything else."
"Listen, Kat. I believe there’s more to your nightmare than we know. I’m responsible for this mission, our safety, and whatever it means for Earth. You have to tell me all of it. It’s your duty, it’s that simple. Anyone in this crew would agree with me."
And there it was, she realized: he was right. Zack would agree. Zack probably would have already told Blake if he’d known. She took a breath.
"Right at the end just when it was upon me… it had Zack’s face." She stared straight into Blake’s scrutinizing eyes. Blake pursed his lips, then gave a solitary nod and bent down to pick up the cord, and headed back to the skimmer.
Kat remained where she was. "Sir, what’s going on?" With a sigh she trailed after him.
Blake talked as he packed things away. "First, we’ve been scanning the ship and its wreckage. Someone did survive, because equipment was moved around after the crash, and the signal not to land is coming from the single surviving structure."
She turned back towards the ridge, then faced Blake. "Where’s it from, though? It’s not the Heracles, that’s for sure."
"No, it isn’t. It never made it here, was blown up en route, or ghoster-attacked. But it never arrived." Blake finished stowing the gear. Although the sun shone directly into his eyes, it didn’t seem to faze him.
"This was an IVS ship. I saw the logo on a hull fragment, rusted like hell but there anyway. God knows how they did it, but they got a ship here without us knowing anything about it. That’s one discussion I’d like to have with the survivor."
"But how do you know anyone’s alive? The wreckage is at least a year old."
"Eleven months, to be precise, from the readings I took. And I know he or she is alive because whoever it is has been watching us from the other side of the ridge. Don’t turn your head."
She managed to stop just in time. "One survivor?"
"There’s a small burial mound west of the wreckage, and that’s a two-person craft."
Kat shoved her viewer back into its compartment. She wanted to kick the skimmer. She’d looked hard, but had seen so little
of what mattered. She hated to ask, but decided to get it over with.
"And the cord?"
"Diffraction generator. Skimmer’s sensors picked up something moving – walking to be precise – a quarter of an hour ago. Whoever it is, is armed, most probably a pulse rifle, though the emissions are too weak to tell – their energy packs usually only last a year. Probably aimed at us as we speak. The cord creates a visual distortion. Anti-sniper device. Off-sets the perpendicular line of sight by a small angle, so that a good sniper will miss you by about a meter."
"So we were bait, seeing if he would fire?" Kat felt a shiver down her spine.
"He, or she, didn’t. We’ll meet this person, sooner or later. I doubt there are many callers. Might be hostile, but whoever is on the other side of the ridge is at least curious enough not to shoot us on sight." Blake mounted the skimmer.
Kat twisted to see the wreckage one more time, and then gazed across the ridge. Blake didn’t stop her this time. Whoever you are, we’re here. Come on down, let’s meet. She was relieved. If a human could survive here for eleven months, then maybe the monster wasn’t here. No monster, and Zack is just Zack. She straightened up, and in one smooth movement threw her leg over the skimmer, behind the Captain.
"Ready, Kat?"
"Yes, Sir,"
She wished she’d known Blake a long time ago. Her sister Angel and Blake would have got along just fine. Blake gunned the skimmer engine, and they catapulted off, skirting along the ridge, before veering down toward the IVS crash-site. Kat was reminded of sitting behind Angel in Bells’ Bay near Melbourne, when a giant wave would catch their board and thrust them forwards. No more than a kid, she’d shriek with excitement, never fear, as long as Angel was in front of her. She closed her eyes, recalling the taste and smell of biting sea-spray, imagining for the first time in a very long while that Angel was with her.
Chapter 21
Interrogation
Sandy perched with one heel on the lip of the chrome chair in the Spartan room. Its chalk-white walls and ceiling were almost low enough to make her stoop. Operating-theatre clean, and about as relaxing. It smelled like a hospital, but she was there for interrogation, an operation she knew the Chorazin carried out with surgical precision.
She’d been blindfolded on the way in – not that she wanted to know where this place was. She stared at the over-polished floor. Maybe things get bloody in here, she thought, so they keep it sterile. The only door was currently shut, no handle on the inside. She hadn’t heard such lack of sound since the temporary deafness after the first detonation. Strange to watch everyone running, screaming, and catching fire, with the sound turned down. She brought her knee closer to her chest.
She wondered why there was no one-way mirror. She’d seen the vids like everyone else. Chorazin didn’t stop at extracting confessions, or even at the truth, which was, sooner or later, whatever they wanted to hear. Instead they always extorted additional information – intimate details, inside the dark recesses of the mind, fears they could use in the future. Mental finger-printing one Vid had called it. Mind-rape was her label.
The idea was simple and ruthless. Since the 104th Amendment, all suspects could undergo – at Chorazin discretion – DPP: "Deep Psychological Profiling". It meant intense probing, uncovering traumatic detail, and scenario-immersion to see how likely you were to commit a crime. By the end, the Chorazin had two things – a pretty good idea of whether you would ever commit a crime, and the level of crime you were capable of, on a neat ten-point scale running from shoplifting to terrorism. They saw criminal behavior as a relative, rather than absolute, character trait.
It meant they ended up with some dirt on you, which acted as a deterrent. The 104th had been one of the most hotly-contested amendments this century. And yet within three years crime had dropped eighty per cent. Anyway, Sandy thought, I’ve got nothing to hide. Well, almost nothing.
She looked at her wrist again and cursed; they’d confiscated her wristcom, and there was no clock in the room. She was positive there were micro-monitors recording her every move. Her first two fingers rubbed together, longing for a cigarette between them. Manipulative bastards. At least when there’s a mirror you know where not to look, or where to scowl when you don’t care anymore. She wouldn’t have minded the opportunity to tidy up. But this was no time for one of her fleeting moments of femininity – she needed to play tough.
The door slid open – barely an audible swish – revealing a slim, bald-headed man who entered as the door sealed behind him. He occupied the steel-framed chair opposite her; no table between them. She guessed it was supposed to make her feel more vulnerable, naked, more inclined to talk. But she didn’t give a shit; especially after all she’d been through. She resisted the urge to put her knee down, and stared into his eyes; ocean blue, no flecks, just blue. She wondered how he got such clear irises; if they were indeed natural, or were cloned.
"May I call you Sandy?"
A crisp voice, she thought, well-spoken, honest-looking face – it all summed up bad news. This man’s whole demeanor purred "Trust me" from every pore. She tried to recall the name of the evil character from a book she’d read in her childhood, about a snake and a boy in a jungle.
"Call me what you like. What do I call you?"
"You can call me Vince. Just Vince."
She raised an eyebrow. "Are you just?" The instant riposte, as usual, wanting to see his reaction, his reflex. A smile evaporated just as it was arriving. Of course she knew he must have heard that before. In fact, she wondered if he’d set her up to see if she would rise to the bait. She matched his stare for a few moments. He held up two fingers about shoulder level, and then put them down again in his lap. She didn’t know what it meant, and had zero intention of asking. At least he had no holopad.
A knock on the door ushered in a brunette in a black pencil skirt and blouse with a cigarette pack. She gave one to Sandy, lit it for her, and left. All the time Sandy felt Vince’s eyes on her. She noted that he hadn’t answered her question. But she wasn’t the type to ask anything twice. People always heard, she had determined long ago. Always.
"Are you going to ask me all the shit again about Keiji’s murder? About what I saw, which was pretty much nothing. Why I hid?" She inhaled deeply, blowing out a long plume of smoke sideways, not at him. "That’s the way it always goes in the vids, isn’t it? Ask everything four times, story cohesion, all that bullshit?"
She watched him as he uncrossed one leg and crossed the other. Muscular thighs. Shit, she thought, as she flushed, I don’t believe this. What’s this crap I suddenly have for bald-headed, athletic, blue-eyed men? She wondered if he’d noticed; of course he had.
"No," Vince said. He spoke with an unexpected nonchalance. "As you say, that’s what they do in vids. In any case the Sensex cleared you three hours ago of being Mr. Kane’s murderer or an accomplice. According to your deposition you saw little, given your relative position to the killer."
Yeah, right, I was giving Keiji a blowjob under the desk when the killer walked right in.
"And you yourself were potentially a target, depending on what the killer thought you knew. But staying there all that time was a little extreme, don’t you think? The killer had made his getaway. You could have left."
Sandy crossed her legs, then changed the cross. His gaze didn’t falter. She looked around for an ashtray. She flicked a small head of ash onto the floor, and took another long drag.
"You know that blondie Chorazin is screwing Micah? I had a ringside seat. She’s kinky, you know. A bit out of his league." She watched for a reaction, a movement, a flicker of the eyes. Something; anything. Nothing. She pressed harder. "They must train you people pretty good not to react to shit like that. Must take stuff out of you, huh? You must lose something, you know, a piece of yourself."
Vince’s eyes intensified then broke her gaze. He stood up and walked around to the back of his chair. "Actually, it’s more like they put ‘stuff’ in."
She gave a short, hollow laugh. "Good grief, a piece of Chorazin philosophy! I’m honored." She took a last drag and dropped the cigarette on the floor, stubbing it out with her shoe. She ground it longer than necessary with her heel, not looking at the messy stain.
"Okay. Here goes," she said. "As I’m sure you’ve been informed, we were having an – er – intimate moment, when the killer arrived. Keiji had always wanted that particular little fantasy – anyway he got it, just in time, you might say. And in case you’re judging me, don’t. We had a relationship once, but it burned out years ago and he went back to his loving wife." She smiled, all sweetness. "So, anyway, lately he’d been asking me for one more fling for old time’s sake." She raked a hand through her hair, flashed her eyes. No reaction.
She continued. "And why not? He’s – he was – a model citizen. Just that age-old sad and pathetic story of lots of love for wife and kids, but a bit short on passion between the sheets. So, where was I?" She wanted to see if he would make some low remark, like "with your head between his thighs", but he said nothing. The lack of repartee made her decide he was professional at least. She cut to the chase.
"So anyway, the killer arrives, and Keiji says his name, and starts to get up, zipping up first, signaling me to stay there – as if I was going to jump up like some girl out of a cake –"
Vince raised an open hand. "Stop. You’ve changed your story. You said you didn’t know who it was. You lied to the Sensex?" He paused, and then smiled, and this time it hung around. "Ah – you knew the fellatio aspect could cover up an omission, because the Sensex would write off the electro-dermal variance as being due to embarrassment."
