The Nexus

by J. Kraft Mitchell

  “A problem, yes. My problem, no.”

  “You’re the one who suggested that Miss Branch,” he spat her name like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “try to break into GoCom, which she has done. Are you unwilling to accept any responsibility?”

  “As I recall, you seemed quite sure she would never succeed.”

  Riley’s lips quivered. “I know you’ve got her down here somewhere, Holiday. I demand that you turn her over to me.”

  Holiday shook his head sadly. “When will you learn to stop making demands which you have no authorization to make?”

  “Give her to security, then.”

  “They had their chance to nab her, and they missed it. I’m afraid I don’t feel responsible for their failure, as you apparently think I ought to.”

  “You seem to be admitting that Miss Branch is down here.”

  “You know the rules of our department, Riley. I reserve the right to recruit people like her. Their services for Anterra shall be considered their sentence, should they agree. If she’s here, she has a perfect right to be—which is more than I can say for you. Please be careful not to let the door hit you as leave, presently.”

  Riley tried to force his tight facial features into an angry expression. “The United Space Programs will hear about this, Holiday! I’ll be speaking to them before the night is over.”

  “And I’m sure they’ll be rapt with attention, as they always are when you call them up.”

  Holiday was smiling to himself as Riley left.

  Riley wasn’t.

  SHE was dreaming again.

  The same dream.

  A face was looking at her—a beautiful Korean face.

  “We can do this, Jillian.”

  Fifteen-year-old Jillian didn’t answer.

  “Come on, it’s not so bad, is it? Are you ashamed to be working with your mother?”

  Yes, Jill thought. “No,” Jill said.

  “Then let’s do this!”

  They stood at an abandoned pier on the north shore of the lake. The water rippled behind her mother, reflecting the lights of the city.

  Her mother got into a motor boat.

  Jill got into another one.

  “Good luck!” called her mother.

  Jill didn’t respond.

  She wished she would have. She couldn’t begin to describe how much she wished she would have. They would have been the last words she ever spoke to her mother.

  APPARENTLY the bed in Jill’s room was comfortable. She vaguely remembered lying on it to see how it felt, but she didn’t remember falling asleep. Apparently she had because now she was waking up. Laughter from the lounge drifted through her balcony door and woke her.

  Jill wasn’t used to drifting off to sleep. In her line of work you didn’t sleep very easily until exhaustion caught up with you. And even then you slept “with one eye open,” as they said—several locks on the doors and windows, a gun under the pillow, waking instinctively at the slightest sound.

  In her former line of work, that is.

  She stayed on the bed, listening to the sounds of conversation coming through the open sliding glass door. She couldn’t make out any words. But she could hear the light-heartedness, the contentment in the voices. It was peaceful just to lie there and listen.

  Peaceful. That was the perfect word for this place. It had already sent her dreaming, made her let her guard down. At first she criticized herself for letting her guard down; then she felt glad that she could.

  Another voice joined the others down in the lounge. She recognized this voice—Corey Stone.

  Suddenly things didn’t feel quite as peaceful anymore.

  14

  WHEN she went out into the hallway, she saw her possessions neatly boxed and stacked by the door. Only then did she remember she was still wearing a business suit. She pulled her stuff into the room and exchanged the suit for jeans and a T-shirt. Then she headed for the lounge.

  It was the last place she wanted to go. Corey Stone was the last person she wanted to see. She’d rather head back up the elevator and face the GoCom security personnel again. But she had to see him, had to try and say something to ease the tension between them.

  She’d used him—lied to him—to get out of jail.

  He’d held a gun to her head earlier that morning.

  How did you salvage a relationship that had gotten off to a start like that?

  Jill tried to rehearse some lines as she headed down the stairs out of the girls’ dorm area. Nothing she came up with sounded that good. Even if it had, these things never go like you plan them anyway. You just have to start talking and see what happens.

  She stepped into the lounge. He didn’t see her. He was pretty preoccupied with the striking blonde sitting on the couch next to him.

  The first thing Jill felt was jealousy.

  The next thing was anger—at herself. She had no right to be jealous. Where had that feeling come from anyway?

  Next, fear. Corey was looking at her now.

  But he didn’t seem mad—maybe even a little victorious? “Jill! Meet your fellow new recruit. This is Amber Phoenix.”

  The blonde girl stood up to greet Jill. She might as well have just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Her hair fell perfectly about her neck and shoulders. She had a perfect outfit, perfect skin, a perfect figure.

  Jill tried not to look as disgusted as she felt. “Nice to meet you, Amber.”

  “You too. I think I’m in the room next to yours.”

  “Really? Cool.” Thank heaven Dizzie was on the other side.

  “Amber will be on our field team,” said Corey. He talked about her like she was his sister or his girlfriend or his protégée or something—like he hadn’t just met her five minutes ago, which he had. “She should come in handy. She’s a martial arts expert.”

  Amber smiled, blushing a little.

  Jill wanted to be sick. “Great.”

  “I’d better get going,” said Amber, “settle in and all that.”

  “I should get back to my room, too,” said Corey, standing. “See you tomorrow at orientation.”

  “You’ll be there?”

  “Yeah, I’m helping the director show you around.”

  “Cool. See you then. Nice meeting you, Jill.”

  “You too.” Not nice at all, actually.

  Corey nodded a slight goodbye to Jill before heading up to the guys’ dorm. She thought about calling his name, asking him to talk, trying to get a helpful conversation going. She thought about it.

  But she didn’t say anything.

  THE rest of the afternoon basically consisted of unpacking. There wasn’t much, but Jill was moving really slowly for some reason. Maybe because everything was still sinking in. Maybe because she still didn’t feel like this was really happening, like she was really here...like she should be here.

  The thing that took longest was figuring out where to put the photo—the one photo she’d ever bothered to keep and to frame. It was a picture of her and her mother. More than that it was a picture of another time of life. Another life altogether, almost. The smiles in the picture were innocent.

  Jill barely remembered what innocence felt like anymore.

  Should it go by the bed? On her desk by her computer? On the dresser?

  Before she could decide it was suddenly seven o’clock. There was a knock at her door.

  She set the picture down on the bed. “Come in.”

  Dizzie was as smiley and bubbly as ever. The girl behind her—Mandy, apparently—was studious-looking, with bangs and horn-rimmed glasses. They were carrying grocery bags.

  “Ready to feast?” said Dizzie.

  THEY started chatting while the macaroni boiled. Other than the three of them, the kitchen/dining loft was empty and silent, as was the lounge below. Everyone was at the cafeteria.

  “Thank heaven we’re doing this tonight,” said Mandy. “It’s meatloaf at the caf.” She seemed nice—a lot calmer and quieter than Dizzie, that
was for sure. No big surprise there.

  “You’re...an analyst, is that what you said?” Jill asked Mandy.

  “That’s right. I look at whatever information Sherlock wants me to look at, and see if anything needs further investigation or response.”

  “You like it?”

  “I like it all right. So what about you? What’s your story—you know, how you ended up here, and all?”

  The question caught Jill by surprise. No one ever asked her anything like that. She found herself inexplicably wanting to tell everything—her father, her mother, her downward spiral, all of it. All that came out was: “Oh, you know...I was an errander. Director Holiday thought this would be a good opportunity for me.”

  “How do you like it?”

  “I just got here, really. But it seems like a cool place.”

  “Oh, it is!” chirped Dizzie. “I’m gonna make us a salad, I think.”

  “My mom always tried to make me eat salad,” said Mandy, “and I always tried to get out of it. I would even feed it to the dog when she wasn’t looking. Now I love a good salad. It’s weird how when you get out on your own you do a lot of the things your parents always wanted you to do and they don’t seem so bad anymore.”

  “Yeah,” laughed Dizzie.

  Jill forced a smile. Her mother had never tried to get her to eat a salad. Her mother had never tried to get her to do much of anything—go to bed on time, stop running with the wrong crowd, finish her homework. She’d just gotten her into her career, that’s all. “What about you, Mandy? How did you end up here?”

  “My parents were both involved in an embezzlement scandal. They’re in prison now. The courts weren’t sure what to do with me, put me in foster care or send me back to my grandparents on the Home Planet. Director Holiday found me and offered me a position here since I’m good with computers. I jumped at it. I’ve been here almost two years, now.”

  “Good choice,” said Dizzie, now furiously chopping carrots. “I wish I’d had any choice other than foster care when my parents got busted!”

  “Bad experience?” asked Jill.

  “The worst! Actually, I had one foster mom that was pretty amazing. She would have been great to stay with longer, I think. But by then I was in too much trouble. It was go to jail or work here—like a lot of us here at the department.”

  “There must be hundreds of kids like us on Anterra,” said Jill. “How does the director decide which ones to go after?”

  Dizzie shook her head. “Not sure.”

  “He has his methods, I suppose,” said Mandy. “He’s a little mysterious, our beloved director. The macaroni’s ready!”

  “Salad, too,” said Dizzie.

  “I didn’t help,” said Jill sheepishly.

  “It’s cool. You’re new. This is like your little welcome party!”

  “I still could have done something.”

  “You could grab us drinks from the fridge,” Mandy suggested.

  It was a relief to have something to contribute, even a small thing. “Okay. What’ll it be?”

  “OJ, please,” said Mandy.

  “With dinner?” asked Dizzie.

  “And Desiree would like grape soda, as usual,” said Mandy, ignoring Dizzie’s comment.

  “Never call me Desiree. Ever. And yes, I would like grape soda, please!”

  Jill grabbed a bottle of water for herself too. “Listen, it’s really great of you two to let me join you.”

  “Of course!” beamed Dizzie. “We didn’t want you to have to endure caf meatloaf your first night.”

  “Plus, too many new people all in one place,” said Mandy.

  “Yeah, I remember my first dinner here,” said Dizzie with a scowl. “It was like so overwhelming! I had no idea where I should sit, or who I should sit by, or anything. I ended up sitting in a corner by myself. No one even said hi. It sucked royally.”

  “Is everyone here that unfriendly?” asked Jill.

  “Not anymore,” said Mandy. “We have a lot of great people working here now.”

  They started digging in.

  “So, Mandy,” Dizzie asked with her mouth full, “what’s Sherlock been sending your way tonight so far?”

  “Nothing interesting yet,” she said. “Not like last night.”

  “Mandy caught a guy with an unregistered weapon,” Dizzie told Jill.

  “I heard about that. Nice going.”

  “Thanks. Every once in a while I’ll have an exciting shift like that. Not all the time, of course, but often enough to feel like my job is worthwhile. What are you working on tonight, Dizzie?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Paperwork, mostly. I hate it when there’s no mission. If I had it my way, I’d run com on missions all shift every shift. But any time you run com for a mission you have to make a detailed testimonial of everything you witnessed.”

  “How often do missions happen?” asked Jill.

  “Depends. We have several teams that do missions. Sometimes it seems like there’s one after another for days on end. Sometimes we’ll go a couple days or so without any.”

  “So what will my job be when I’m not on a mission?”

  “Director Holiday will find something for you to do. Don’t worry, you won’t be bored!”

  “Do we have time off?”

  “Oh, yeah! We never work more than six days in a row.”

  “Can we leave? Like, leave the base?”

  “You have to get permission, but yeah.”

  “We all have lives outside of the department,” said Mandy. “The director makes sure this is just our job, not our life.”

  “So what do you guys like to do when you’re off?”

  “Play guitar!” said Dizzie without hesitation.

  “You should hear the Lawn Flamingos—that’s Dizzie’s band,” said Mandy. “They’re pretty good.”

  “We usually get a couple gigs a month, or so,” said Dizzie.

  “Cool. What about you, Mandy?”

  “Rawlie-boy!” Dizzie giggled.

  Mandy blushed a little. “What Desiree,” she emphasized the name with a glare, “is trying to say is that she thinks I spend a little too much time with my boyfriend.”

  “Only if practically every waking hour is too much,” said Dizzie. “His name is Broderick Sebastian Rawlings, or so he tells us. He’s a lawyer.”

  Mandy rolled her eyes. “Other than that, I like to do photography.”

  “Check out her room sometime,” said Dizzie. “She’s got a bunch of her photos on the wall. They’re amazing!”

  “What do you like to do, Jill?”

  Another question no one had asked her in a long time. What did she like to do? It had been so long since she had a hobby or a social life...

  “I like museums,” she said at last. “And I like reading. Biographies, mostly. At least, I used to. I haven’t had a chance to read much lately.” She laughed shyly. “I’m a little nerdy, I guess. Oh, and bowling. I haven’t bowled in a couple years, but I used to love it.”

  “No way!” burst Dizzie. “The Lawn Flamingos’ next gig is at a bowling alley.”

  “You should go,” said Mandy. “I’ll be there with Broderick. I’ll bowl against you, Jill. But I have to warn you, I’m pretty darn good.”

  “You’re on,” said Jill.

  “I’m terrible,” said Dizzie, smiling widely as if she were proud of the fact.

  “You’re also incredibly purple,” said Mandy with eyebrows raised.

  “Am I?” she asked, taking another huge swig of grape soda and then sticking out her tongue.

  Jill snorted, then busted out laughing. “Um, yes, you are.”

  There was more chatting and laughing while they did the dishes. Then Dizzie and Mandy’s break was over and they had to head back to HQ.

  Jill stood alone in the kitchen loft. The only sound was the news coming from the TV in the corner of the kitchen. It hadn’t been much, Jill thought as she dried off the plates. It was just a simple meal with simple co
nversation.

  It was also the best time Jill could remember having in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

  “...only fifteen years old,” the news anchor on TV was saying as she put away the last plate, “making him the youngest known fatality caused by the new illegal substance known to users as ‘hysteria.’”

  Jill’s eyes drifted to the screen. It showed a grainy

  photo of a boy with shoulder-length red hair and a decent case of acne. His mouth was sort of smiling; his eyes were sad, desperate.

  “Police are still tracking the ring of criminals who have been smuggling the substance from the Home Planet,” the anchor went on. “Officials believe the man ultimately responsible for the distribution of the drug on high school campuses is thirty-seven year old Robert Zinn.”

  Now the TV was showing the kid’s parents. There were tears in their eyes. Jill couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  Her vision was blurring.

  She was having trouble breathing.

  Unsteadily she made her way as quickly as she could back to her room.

  SHE’D forgotten about the picture.

  When she walked into her room she picked it up off the bed and looked at it again. She stared into her mom’s eyes for a minute. Then she stared into her own innocent eleven-year-old eyes.

  She started to feel something she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

  Guilt.

  When you’re an errander, you don’t feel bad about what you’re doing. Sure, the first few jobs you feel a little pang of conscience. But pretty soon you harden yourself. Any guilt you may feel is buried under the hardness. You need that hardness to survive, to do your job and not get caught.

  She’d needed that hardness a few weeks ago when she’d worked for a client named Robert Zinn.

  Jill stashed the picture in the bottom of a box where she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.

  15

  NO one knew how the boss had lost his eye. And he never told anyone. He liked leaving it a mystery. It would have been easy to get a glass eye, even a state-of-the-art robotic eye that would partially restore his vision. But his black eye-patch added to the mystique. The boss loved mystique. He liked that no one knew much of anything about him beyond the fact that he was the boss, that he was a full-blooded Korean, that he was missing an eye, and that he was involved in almost any illegal activity you could shake a stick at.