Humble Beginnings

by Greg Alldredge

  “No.”

  “That is so cool.”

  “If you say so. It just gives me a headache.” Alliji went back to eating her spicy Plebian wrap. Hack ordered them a couple of drinks, preferring to remain in a public place instead of Eum-Yusin’s, just for safety’s sake.

  They had to cool their heels for half a cycle. In many ways, it was very swift, but Hack thought it took an eternity. However, four old Earth hours later, Alliji’s eyes did a little quiver, and she said, “I’m getting a call,” before going back into her trance.

  Hack had little choice but to watch Alliji’s eyes as they danced about behind her eyelids. He wondered what it would be like to talk to another without using his lips. Before he fully conceptualized the thought, Alliji opened her eyes.

  “I got a location.”

  “Lead the way.” Hack stood up, waiting for the more station-smart Alliji to take the lead.

  <=OO=>

  The train system above the main deck was still being constructed, and most of the moving sidewalks had not been installed. The only wheeled transportation was construction vehicles and the peacekeepers. That meant Alliji and Hack had to use foot power to reach the location. They started on the fourth deck section five-zero-two centerline. They had to walk down to section four-eight-one. It was four passageways out from centerline, around six kilometers. Thank the gods they were used to the higher gravity.

  They arrived at the location. Hack couldn’t tell a lot of difference between where they were and where they’d started. He did notice Alliji’s agitation grew the closer they traveled to their destination. She stopped and checked the food stalls, looking for someone.

  “Deckra, she said she would be here.”

  “Should we wait? Should we keep looking for her?” Hack was not a hundred percent sure of anything, but he guessed that “she” was her ex-wife.

  “No, she probably got called away. It might be some time before she comes back.” She did another quick scan of the scantly populated food stalls and shops before making up her mind. “No, we can’t risk losing Thursday. He should be in the building across the path.”

  Hack followed her across the passageway. He took a quick inventory and observed a total lack of security cameras in this area. Alliji bounded up the stairs, ready to be finished with the Owner’s unsavory business. Hack followed as best he could. He never realized she was in such great shape. He was short of breath by the time Alliji stopped outside an ajar door.

  She looked back at Hack with a questioning look. Hack shrugged, he had no idea what their next step should be. She used the back of her knuckles to push the door open a tad more to catch a peek inside. She saw a pair of feet sticking in the air, and the fragrance of ozone reached Hack’s nose about the same time.

  “Deckra.” Alliji stepped back out of the room, leaning against the narrow hall wall. She closed her eyes, slipping into her communication trance.

  Hack had seen death before. While Alliji was contacting the authorities, he did a quick search of the space. Whoever had killed —Hack assumed the body was Thursday —didn’t ransack the room. The whole situation struck Hack as strange. It seemed highly unlikely this corpse would show up without some connection to Thursday and the mask. There was no indication the mask had been searched for, unless the stiff had the mask on him when he was murdered. Hack was sure it was murder: the human had a twenty-centimeter hole burnt through his chest. Scanning the room again, Hack caught a glimpse of a piece of paper under the corner of the bed. He quickly snatched it up and stuffed it into his pocket, joining Alliji in the hall as she finished her communications.

  “I couldn’t reach my ex-wife. I had to call the peacekeepers. Someone needed to be informed about this. We need to wait until they arrive.”

  “I’m not too sure about that. Do we really want to get involved with the law? What will be our story, why we’re here?”

  “Well, we can’t tell them the truth, or at least the whole truth. We will tell them we came here to meet my ex-wife and we found the body.”

  “Why in the worlds would we come to meet your ex-wife in this dive?”

  “You must not understand the peacekeepers here. They will take the simplest explanation. Besides, they already know we’re both here. I gave them our names when I reported the body.”

  “Don’t you think that would’ve been something to discuss with me?”

  “I’m sorry, I told you I was always more of a female than a docile male.”

  “Before this is finished, you and I are going to have to work on our communication skills.” Hack motioned between the two of them with his right hand.

  They had to cut their conversation short. The flashing red lights could be seen emanating from the pathway below. The peacekeeper's electric car must have filled the passageway. In short order, two eight-foot-tall Rankin peacekeepers joined them.

  One of the officers went in to inspect the body, while the other began taking statements. Hack let Alliji do most of the talking. He stayed within earshot but went to the makeshift window looking down at the corridor below. In one of the storefronts below, he caught a glimpse of black granite, a KaMen was watching the building. Hack was willing to bet half his merits that it was Mister Wonderwho following them.

  “We are free to go.” Alliji had walked up behind Hack as he watched their tail across the way. He half jumped, surprised by the suddenness of her voice.

  “What do you mean, we are free to go?”

  “We called in the body. Most murderers don’t do that. They also scanned us for energy weapons that neither one of us are carrying or have fired recently. Also having an ex-wife in the Prodian Intel never hurts.”

  “I’m not going to be the one that tells them that wound could’ve been caused by something other than an energy weapon. I’ve seen wounds like that before. We have company across the street.”

  Alliji asked, “How would you know about energy weapon wounds? And why do you go by Captain Hack, why not just Hack?”

  “Ah, my dear, for the same reason you neglected to tell me why we’re mixed up in this. When this is all done, and you come clean with me, I will come clean with you. Now let’s head down and see if we can find the rock-man that is following us.”

  Alliji copied Hack’s righthand motions from earlier. “When this is over, you and I are going to have to work on our communication skills.”

  “Yeah, but let’s get away from these peacekeepers. I never liked the law much.” Hack took her by the elbow and pointed her down the stairs.

  They reached the storefront Hack had witnessed the KaMen duck into, but when they arrived, he was nowhere to be found. A quick search of the little store, and they found nothing to indicate they were even being followed.

  “Deckra! We have no leads now!” Alliji slammed her fist into the door frame.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Hack said as he pulled the slip of paper from his coat pocket.

  “What is that? Where did you get it?”

  “While you tattled to the law, I did a quick search of the room.”

  “You went into the room? You know you could’ve left evidence that might implicate you in the murder there.”

  “Don’t worry, I know how to not contaminate a crime scene.”

  “We really need that communication talk. What is it?”

  “Just one word, ‘Pyro.’” Hack thought for a moment and spoke to his smart glasses. “Do a search of the word pyro.”

  This time, Alliji was quiet as Hack did a search for any possible relevant meaning to the term, besides the obvious. He was busy when the two Rankin peacekeepers came out the door and pointed at the pair of them.

  “You need to finish that. We have company coming,” Alliji said as she touched Hack’s arm. “Can we help you, officers?” she said a little too loudly as the two giants approached.

  “Yes, we were trying to catch you two,” the taller of the two said. “Alliji, it seems we have some bad news. We hate to tell you this, but your ex-
wife was found one passageway over. A knife was inserted into her second heart.”

  “This can’t be right. I talked to her just an hour ago. She’s the one that wanted us to meet her here,” Alliji said.

  “Where were the two of you, again, say between an hour and thirty minutes ago?” the shorter of the two officers asked.

  “We were sitting in a food stall on the fourth deck in section five zero two. We were there until her ex-wife called us,” Hack added, as he had finally gotten off his data search. “We were right around the corner from Eum-Yusin’s. Should be easy enough to check the security cameras to verify our story.”

  “We find it rather odd that the two of you are found with a dead body, and shortly after, we discover your dead ex-wife. Maybe your pet human here killed your ex-wife while you did in the human for him up there.” The taller ranking officer ignored Hack, instead directing his question to Alliji.

  The hair on the back of Hack’s neck stood up as he was referred to as a pet. He was leaning forward, his fingers balled into fists, ready to take matters into his own hands.

  Alliji placed her right hand in the center of his chest. “Hack, you will control your emotions, or later you will be disciplined. Officer, you know I still hold some power within the Prodian security forces. Do you really want an interplanetary incident on your hands, all because you let your loose tongue wag when it shouldn’t?” Alliji’s eyes flashed a silver glow of anger as she looked up at the Rankin’s head a full meter above hers.

  Hack’s machismo really wanted him to pound the offending officer, but he saw Alliji’s methods achieved an effective, and less painful, result.

  “You two are free to go, but don’t leave the station. Our investigation is just getting started.” The shorter Rankin touched the arm of the taller one. They both disengaged from the potentially hostile situation, leaving Hack and Alliji alone in the passageway.

  Once alone, Alliji was free to show her actual emotions, starting with a single blue tear flowing down her right cheek. Hack understood the pain she must be feeling, so he took her by the elbow and led her to a table at the closest food stall.

  “I know I shouldn’t be feeling this pain. We were so angry with each other when we got divorced. It is hard to believe she is dead.” Alliji cried softly once they had sat down.

  “At one time, you loved her enough to marry her. I have to imagine that love never truly went away.” Hack took her left hand in both of his, trying to comfort her.

  “Prod women are supposed to be stronger than this. I shouldn’t be crying. I should be forgetting her or seeking revenge.”

  “If you want, we can go back and tell the Owner to pack sand. We can run away from this tin can and start a life somewhere else,” Hack said before thinking. What the hell am I saying? I’ve only known her for less than a week, and I am asking her to run away from the law, the Rankin law. You must’ve taken a blow to the head.

  “No, thank you for the offer, but I don’t think we need to run away. Besides, something tells me this is deeper than what the Owner originally told us. We have two dead bodies within a hundred meters of each other. Something’s not right,” Alliji said as she tried to dry the tears from her eyes.

  “I offered to see this through with you, and I will keep helping you as long as you want to keep chasing this down.”

  “Chasing what down? We have nowhere to go. A word: pyro. That could mean anything.”

  “Sure, it could mean anything, but soon there is a ship scheduled to dock at the five hundreds named the Pyro. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Alliji stood, her jaw set, a look of conviction on her face. “Let’s go meet the ship and find out if we can find this deckra mask.”

  They never noticed the miniature drone following them at a discreet distance.

  <=OO=>

  It was another five-kilometer walk back to the elevator which would take them to the five hundred’s loading dock. Once the couple reached the high-speed lift, it was a much more comfortable ride to the low gravity area where the ships commonly unloaded. Here, five days earlier, Captain Hack had strolled off the Olagarros’ spacecraft and into Alliji’s life.

  The lift was scheduled to arrive just a few minutes before the Pyro was expected to dock. The elevator they rode in held fifty recliners, each equipped with a seatbelt. They traveled from an area with an equivalent gravity to old Earth and raced to a zone with one-tenth the gravity. On the floor below the passenger level was the cargo area, large enough to fit two large cargo containers. The spoke held a total of four elevators, each a combination of passenger and freight traveling on a rotating schedule between the station and the asteroid.

  The elevator stopped and began disgorging its passengers. Alliji and Hack had planned a quick escape and sat right next to the door. Before all the passengers disembarked, and the tiny drone could follow them, a klaxon began sounding, and the doors of the lift quickly shut behind the few passengers that had exited.

  After three blasts of the siren, a mechanical voice came over the loudspeaker, “A shipboard emergency has been declared on loading dock five hundred dash two. As a precaution, all airlocks might close in one-thousandth of a cycle. Anyone still on loading dock five hundred dash two might be subject to negative pressure. All personnel on the loading docks be prepared to evacuate.”

  “What the hell is a thousandth of a cycle?” Hack asked as he started heading towards the affected loading dock.

  “Roughly thirty Earth seconds,” Alliji answered as she followed close on his heels.

  They reached the still open dock airlock. Looking inside, he saw the mechs and proxy units working to ensure the fire did not leave the affected ship while strapping down in case of decompression. Hack recognized the immigration officer he met when he first arrived at the station.

  “What are you civilians doing here? You should be in the safe room!” the officer had to shout over the blaring alarm.

  “We got cut off from the elevator when the alarm sounded,” Alliji shouted back.

  Followed quickly by Hack shouting, “We were supposed to meet someone here.”

  “If they were on the dock, they will be in the safe room. Where you should be!” The officer pointed to add emphasis.

  Playing stupid, Hack continued, “Where is it?”

  “Follow the deckra arrows!” The immigration worker pointed down at the bright yellow arrows leading away from the airlock in quick flashing succession.

  “Oh, that’s what those are for!” Hack turned to follow the arrows, noticing Alliji had already disappeared, but he followed the yellow arrows. He came upon her in a flash, as she was peeking around a corner.

  He moved in closer to be heard over the din of the claxons without shouting. “Did you find anything?”

  She transferred an image to his smart glasses. He could plainly see three KaMen holding on tight to a human. The human clutched an aluminum briefcase to his chest. Hack studied the image a few more seconds, inventorying the civilians surrounding the human and the three thugs.

  “Deckra, I am going to do something stupid. You can ask me later how I did it.” Then Hack disappeared.

  In the blink of an eye, he was back. Aluminum case held tight in his hand. “Let’s go!”

  Alliji gasped at Hack and did a quick look at the three KaMen lying on the ground and the human male standing there in astonishment, his trousers around his ankles.

  “Look, can we go now? I need to eat!” He grabbed her hand and started running as best he could. Even in the ten percent gravity, his legs felt made of iron. Before they went twenty steps, Alliji was all but carrying him.

  With the lift blocked, Alliji knew a seldom used way to safety, the stairs. They were at the ten percent gravity level, they had to descend to the fifty percent level to catch another lift.

  “How long will the KaMen be out?” she asked.

  “Not sure, they have heads like rocks. I probably bent the case when I hit them. I need something to eat. I don�
�t think I can make it much farther.” Then Hack passed out.

  <=OO=>

  Hack woke, on his back, in strange surroundings. He felt a satin material covering his whole body, and the warmth of another’s flesh next to his. He listened to the soft breathing of the body lying next to his. He didn’t want to open his eyes. If it was a dream, he wanted it to keep going. If it was reality, he just wanted to lie in the dim room, letting his body and mind rest. A slender arm reached over his bare chest. He couldn’t help himself. His eyes shot open, looking at who he was in bed with. Catching a glimpse of Alliji’s ebony arm, he relaxed, timing his breath to hers.

  He gazed up. The bed they occupied was covered with multicolored gossamer fabric. Hack thought, Very girly, but the cloth kept him from seeing more of his current sanctuary.

  “I thought you might die,” a familiar voice murmured to Hack.

  “I’m not that easy to kill, am I?

  “I had to carry you down to the fifty percent level. I had some friends meet us there. We got you here.”

  “Speaking of which, where is here?”

  “We are in one of the apartments the Prodian delegation keeps around the station. Think of it as a safe house.”

  Not wanting to answer any awkward questions, Hack kept himself from asking any specific questions of Alliji.

  “Is the case safe?” he did ask.

  “Yes, I did not open it. It has an intricate locking device. I was concerned I might damage the contents.”

  “That is great. If it contains what I think it contains, we don’t want to touch it anyway.”

  “What do you think is inside?”

  “Thaumaturge tech.”

  “Then we need to open it to see what it contains.” Alliji sat up on the bed. Hack couldn’t help but eye her naked athletic body as she sat up.

  He reached up and touched her back. “No, we don’t. I think it is cursed. Not like old-dead-people-attacking-us cursed, but Thaumaturge cursed.”

  She turned to look into his eyes. “What do you mean?”