Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  Music was blaring from the speakers around the Hangar. It was probably even patched in and pouring through the comm speakers we’d installed in Object E. That meant Moss was sitting there at his forever station, slowly rotting away, to a playlist chock full of some of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Earth’s grooviest goddamn pop music.

  A few of the bravest among us had turned Hangar Eleven into a dance floor. Lloyd was one of them, although you couldn’t really call what he was doing dancing: he was miming, probably with freakish accuracy, every instrument featured in every track, putting on a private little air concert for anyone who wanted to watch. Patty, meanwhile, had her full body invested in some sort of gyrating mosh pit of her very own. She was like what I’d imagine a washing machine looks like if you could remove its chassis while it was in the middle of operating. Her ponytail seemed to be in four different places at once. It was hypnotic.

  The Harp remained on the floor, safely inside the cube. They danced around it. I thought of old black-and-white movies set on mystical islands where the natives performed dances in front of some totem before enacting some sacrifice.

  That’s when Grant crept up to me, a tiny plate of food untouched in his hand.

  “I wonder if now might be a good time to speak with you regarding—”

  “Jesus fuck, Grant. Tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.”

  He looked at me for a moment, then acquiesced. “Yes, ma’am.” He drifted away as silently as he’d approached.

  Fuck that guy.

  And, look, I got it. He was probably a little jealous. Maybe he was harboring something for Shel (or Vonn, who cares) and wanted to get one of them in trouble for a little on-the-job flirtation. Also he was just following the rules, after all. But I guess it should be pretty understandable why I wasn’t especially sympathetic to anyone wanting to snitch on anyone else’s happiness. As long as I could avoid knowing about it, I could avoid acting on it. And as long as I avoided that, I could fantasize about my own happiness’s invulnerability.

  Speaking. Of.

  You’d disappeared on me. I had been tracking you throughout the evening but you shook me. That was okay—I let you do it. I could have found you if I’d really tried, but I thought it’d be fun to remember what the world was like without you for a little while. Let you remember, too, that I could cope just fine if you didn’t exist. But then you crossed into my field of vision again. Across the “dance floor.”

  Our eyes met and there was zero doubt what was on both of our minds. The look ran a hand down my cheek, my neck …

  “NOW HERE’S WHAT I DO WHEN I REALLY WANNA BRING ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD,” Patty screamed as the song changed and her dance moves evolved. Yells of admiration and derision met her advanced techniques.

  Where? Everyone was milling around, everyone was getting silly. We could do it, if we were fast and discreet. It was insane—insane—but doable. And totally worth it. But where? The cots by the showers? Too risky. What if someone decided they needed to lie down for a while, or rinse off some dance sweat. In fact, any sort of common area was risky—this little party was essentially a rare moment of sanctioned fraternization, sure, but given every employee’s cultivated sense of social discomfort, there were bound to be waves of wallflowers ebbing and flowing into the action.

  Then I realized: the place where nobody would think to drop by during a good time.

  The Slammer.

  I flicked my eyes in that direction and gave you a look I prayed you understood meant “Hold off a minute, let me go first.” I made my way toward the corner of the Hangar where the door to the Slammer, Quill Marine’s detention hall and island for misfit toys, was kept.

  Felt kinda appropriate, not gonna lie.

  * * *

  THE SLAMMER was not actually one individual room but a door opening onto a short corridor offering a number of options on either side: first interrogation rooms, then holding tanks and solitary cells. No windows for any of them, save for the Plexi slits around eye level looking into the tanks and cells.

  I popped in and out of the Slammer every now and then between shifts, just to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, so it shouldn’t seem too strange if I were noticed slipping in now. One of the perks of being security chief was I could practically show up anywhere under the guise of “Just makin’ sure.” But the Slammer was also far enough away from the action and so poorly lit that I had reasonably high confidence pretty much everybody forgot this corner existed. And it was just vaguely enough in the direction of the lockers that it shouldn’t even seem abnormal when you started gravitating that way on the floor. Frankly, it was so ideal for a quick-fuck-rendezvous I was almost kicking myself for not thinking of it until now.

  I did have one pretty major concern, though: I’d been riding adrenaline for like fifty hours straight and there was a real danger I might experience a complete postcoital crash. A person can’t power through forever. I considered briefly the idea of just focusing on you, but then pretty much every nonrational part of my body howled fuck that very much. I’d just have to remember everything got pulled up and zipped right away after—

  Wait.

  I cocked my head to the side and realized I was hearing something. Breathing. Moaning.

  Is that me, my brain, like … sneak-previewing somehow? That doesn’t …

  It was coming from one of the interrogation rooms; the one nearest to me, in fact. The door wasn’t shut and I pushed it farther open. It swung silently. The lights were off inside but it certainly wasn’t empty. Dismay dumped into my guts and I realized almost instantly what was happening.

  Those fucking idiots.

  The noises hadn’t stopped yet—they weren’t seeing me, standing there in the doorway, but I had no doubt in a second they would. And then a second after that they’d see you, meeting me here. Could I think of an excuse fast enough? Some shit about needing to talk in private? But why here? If we needed privacy it was a secret, if it was a secret it would put us in the position of four people trying to keep it—that’s a lot of variables. That’s a lot of potentially destructive leverage. No, I couldn’t let them even suspect I was as vulnerable as they were. Somewhere down the line they could get desperate. They could try anything, say anything. If there was anything I was already learning it was that having a secret like this did feverish things to the brain. So I had to move first and fast.

  I flicked on the lights. Huge, quiet Vonn was taking tiny, acne-faced Shel from behind, as she leaned over the table. They stared at me wide-eyed, in complete, horrible horror.

  “You stay right there,” I said through gritted teeth, and moved toward the door to the Hangar. I made sure they could tell I was poking my head out, not talking to someone with me.

  “Hey! You. Salem!” I barked.

  You were almost at the door—I was louder than I needed to be for you to hear me, but they didn’t know that. Thank fucking God you were quick. You picked up on the tone of my voice right away.

  “Chief?” you responded, as if you’d been plucked out of the blue to assist your commanding officer.

  Vonn and Shel were already righting themselves, begging desperately for my attention, my understanding. Apologizing, equivocating, explaining. It’ll never happen again. They got swept up because of all the stress. And so on.

  “Get in here, Salem, I need your assistance!” I called over my shoulder.

  “Right away, ma’am!”

  “Best way to help yourselves is to shut up right now,” I shot back to Vonn and Shel. Tears were streaking both of their faces already. They knew how bad this was.

  You came in and joined me. You saw them.

  “What do you need, Chief?” you asked, stern and at attention.

  “I’m going to need your assistance detaining Lansing and Michaels here.”

  “… Detaining,” Shel whispered. It wasn’t a question. It was a resignation.

  I radioed to Patty. “Patty? Yeah, I’m sorry to call you right
now. I need you to meet me in the Slammer. We’ve gotta prepare a room.”

  “Matt … man…,” Vonn was pleading, but the energy in his voice betrayed any optimism he might have had.

  You and I hadn’t entered the room. We were still standing in the hallway. You took the doorknob to the room in your hand and said, “You guys should say your piece to each other now. You’ve got two minutes.”

  And you pulled the door shut.

  11

  I SAT across from Shel, looking into my reflection. It was younger and pockmarked, but it was me all the same. The same stupid ideas, the same risks. The same potential fate.

  Patty had never run an interrogation like this before, so I let her run Vonn’s first. I sat in only in case she absolutely needed me, but men tended to be easier—they go stony, hurl a little obviously defensive abuse, and just overall make for a less personally painful dynamic.

  Vonn was no different. He snarled. He scoffed. He rightly guessed there was no real room for leniency—he’d signed contracts, he knew the score—and used that as his excuse to respond to every question with bitter cynicism. Hell, he even refused his right to an advocate. It would have been a Sierra-employed advocate, he explained, so what’s the fucking point?

  When Patty read to him the relevant section from the rulebook covering punishment for failing to comply with the fraternization policy—Violations of this prohibition carry an automatic penalty of six years’ incarceration at a Seirra-owned-and-operated penal facility, followed by reassignment to a different Sierra program to be determined at that time—he got even hotter. He knew what “reassignment to a different Sierra program” most likely meant. One of the Zones. Hazard suits every day. Shortened life expectancies, some rumored as low as five years. His time in jail would probably be the high point of the rest of his life.

  But soon he got quiet.

  “I did good work for you,” he spat. “And before that, I served this country with distinction. I should be getting a fucking parade and a … a medal.”

  The problem with handling the situation like he was—as most men invariably learn—is it’s like lugging a bag full of iron. You tire yourself out. You have to take breaks. Vonn’s energy was fading fast, although he had one more offensive maneuver up his sleeve. He leaned forward, as far as the restraints holding him to his chair would allow, and looked Patty right in the eye.

  “I just want you to say something. While we’re still on the record. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you think this is right. I want you to do that.”

  I looked at Patty with interest. Vonn was far from the first person to use this tactic in his position, but I was curious to see how Patty would respond.

  “This is right, Vonn,” Patty replied squarely, holding and matching his icy stare throughout. “It’s one hundred percent right. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have signed the exact same contracts you did.”

  With that, the rest of Vonn’s reserves were up. He sagged back in his chair, spent. Patty continued.

  “You’ll remain in the brig here two nights. Transport’ll pick you up Thursday morning.”

  “I can’t leave tomorrow?” he asked weakly.

  “Tomorrow’s when they’ll move Shel.”

  “Right. To a different facility.”

  Patty nodded. “Very far away.” Then she looked at the guard standing in the room with us. “You can take him to the brig now.”

  The guard approached Vonn, detached him from the chair, and then, with an absurdly (given the situation) respectful “sir?” lifted Vonn up.

  “You know my name,” Vonn said to the guard.

  The guard only nodded, put a hand on Vonn’s lower back, and said “sir” one more time as he led him out.

  Patty had done well—really well. She even offered to handle Shel next. I refused her. I’d never done two interrogations like this in a day—no one had. Ending peoples’ lives administratively was hard enough. When it was people you’d worked alongside…?

  Also I deserved this. But I didn’t tell Patty that.

  We had Shel brought in next and, for a few moments, I just looked at her.

  * * *

  SHE ONLY sobbed once, quickly, as I read her the code. It was a tiny gulp, barely more than a crack in her otherwise collected demeanor. But I knew a stress fracture when I saw one—it was going to get messy.

  EXCERPT OF INTERROGATION TRANSCRIPT, August 12, 2029

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Now, Shel, you understand this is the portion of the code you violated?

  MS. LANSING: Yes, Chief.

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: And that this code was included, verbatim, in your contract, over your signature, a copy of which we have here?

  MS. LANSING: Yes, Chief.

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Do you have anything to say on the record before we conclude this session?

  MS. LANSING: No, Chief, I fully … just so, just so I know—

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: If you have something to say, that’s one thing; but this isn’t where you ask questions.

  MS. LANSING: But just so I know, Vonn’s—

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Vonn is outside your purview. Permanently. You knew that before you asked.

  MS. LANSING: I did, I knew, I just— (unintelligible)

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Okay—

  MS. LANSING: I just had to— (unintelligible)

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Is crying really how you want to go out, Shel? Come on. Stop.

  MS. LANSING: I don’t even know if it’s Vonn, you know, that I love, or if—

  (CROSSTALK)

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: All of this, everything you’re saying right now, is being documented and added to your record—

  MS. LANSING: —Or if I just had all this love and I just had to—

  DEPUTY SEC. CHIEF GARBER: You were horny, soldier. Own that.

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Patty.

  MS. LANSING: No! No! It was more than that—you don’t know!

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: This isn’t the venue for any of this, Shel—

  MS. LANSING: And now no one’s gonna touch me for six years! At least six years! Probably forever if you send me to a—

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: No one in this room’s sending you anywhere but the brig. Everything else is decided up the chain.

  MS. LANSING: Is this just how we’re supposed to live? Until we die?

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: You could have gone buck-wild off base, but we have rules—

  MS. LANSING: Do you? Do you date off base? Do you, Patty?

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: This is your last chance to make a proper statement—

  MS. LANSING: I’ll tell you why not, I’ll tell you why not! ’Cause what do you even say? To a person who’s not in here? They don’t live in the same universe! What do you even say?

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Okay, you’re done—

  MS. LANSING: Look at my face. Look at my face. I got this acne when I was eleven, this bad, and it never went away. Two tours in Zones didn’t make it go away! Men don’t see me. Men don’t even … but he did. I don’t know if it’s him or just … the feeling that happened when he saw me.

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Jesus, kid …

  MS. LANSING: Six years. Maybe the rest of my life.

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: You shouldn’t … you shouldn’t think that …

  MS. LANSING: Why?

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: You gotta stop crying, Shel.

  MS. LANSING: Why shouldn’t I think that? I’m fucking disgusting and— (unintelligible)

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: You’re not … come on, you’re not … You deserve love, Shel. For fuck’s sake, of course you do! You deserve love. That’s not—you just— Fuck! Stop crying. STOP—

  MS. LANSING: Are you—

  (CROSSTALK)

  DEPUTY SEC. CHIEF GARBER: Dak! Whoa! Okay!

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Stop it!

  MS. LANSING: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, don’t hit me again.

  DEPUTY SEC. CHIEF GARBER: Come
on over here, Dak, cool down. Are you okay, Lansing?

  MS. LANSING: My jaw …

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: Lansing, you stow that shit right fucking now. You’ll remain in the brig tonight. Transport’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.

  DEPUTY SEC. CHIEF GARBER: Dak—

  SEC. CHIEF PRENTISS: This session is concluded.

  Shel was led out of the room. After she was gone, Patty looked at me. She looked at me for a long time. My hand tingled and throbbed from where I’d struck Shel. My cheeks burned. That had been a massive fuck-up, on camera no less. Still, part of me felt relieved. Or maybe just momentarily exhausted.

  “Dak—”

  “I have to go put the Harp back,” I said to nobody, and my chair scraped hard against the floor as I stood.

  * * *

  I WALKED quickly across the Hangar, which suddenly felt like a goddamn tomb. Not that it was empty, or even that quiet—Guardshift was back in swing, the still-reconfigured Bazaar was murmuring, and there were already three crews hard at work applying N5 solution to the walls and ceiling of the Hangar to keep people safe topside now that the Harp was out of the engine room. But everybody liked Vonn and Shel. The jubilant, relieved atmosphere of earlier had been sucked out of the room as sure as smoke through a ventilation fan and what was left was funereal.

  I stood in the center of the room by the Harp.

  “Okay, people?” My voice pinged off the walls. “I want everyone to take ten! We’re putting the Harp back in place and we’re assuming it’s gonna get cranky!”

  Everyone began packing up. They’d gotten good at it over the past few days. You were standing nearby, on quadrant shift out on the main floor. I called to you without looking in your direction.

  “Salem.”

  “Lloyd Suits?” you asked, already moving.

  “Fast as you can.”

  I’d started crying. Jesus fucking Christ. Right before I smacked her, I started—

  “Chief?”

  FUCKING GRANT.

  “Not now,” I seethed, wishing I had somewhere to walk to quickly.

  “Chief, I just wanted to make sure it was on the record that I raised the original objection to Lansing and Michaels’s conduct—”