Humble Beginnings

by Greg Alldredge

  This case required way too much thinking. Not Rollin’s style at all. The cyborg was a creature of action. Shoot first… question later… only ask for forgiveness if need be.

  Rollin knew it was normally easier and less paperwork to just pop a suspect. Especially if they were guilty. The people normally charged with a crime didn’t have the wherewithal to fight most charges, anyway.

  “Did you hear that?” Mal’s voice pulled him from his memories.

  “Hum?” Rollin didn’t hear anything.

  “Get out…” Came C’s hushed voice from behind the curtain.

  The alien musher talked to himself.

  The soft words escalated into a scream of terror.

  The room they waited in was small. Rollin reached out and pulled back the curtain. The man’s head had swollen to what looked like twice its size. His tiny eyes bulged from their sockets, about to pop out of his skull.

  Rollin pulled closed the drape, ducked in time to pull Mal back from the blast, covering her with his body.

  C’s head exploded, spraying the room on the other side of the curtain with his brains and blood.

  Rollin peeked from around the barrier, to spot bits of gore drip from the ceiling over the VR couch back onto C’s body. Blood painted the walls red, dripping into a puddle on the deck. C’s legs twitched as his body figured out he was dead.

  “Is he?” Mal asked her eyes closed.

  The woman’s squeamishness surprised Rollin. As a tech, she should have seen the worst crime scenes imaginable. A little splattered brain matter shouldn’t have even registered in the top hundred goriest ways to die. “Yeah, I think that a head explosion is fatal… You ever see a spike from the core explode a head like that?”

  “No…” The woman turned away from the curtain and the body beyond, Rollin assumed to distance herself from the sound of squishy bits dripping to the puddle growing on the deck plates. “Seems a little drastic for the core to send out a spike like that.”

  “Yeah, talk about sending a strong message of deterrence. You think the Rankin are that worried about the truth getting out? Would they kill to protect the files?”

  Mal looked like she might get ill at any moment. “What truth? What could those old files possibly hold?”

  “I’m not sure… I guess we need to find another way to search for them.”

  “We can’t ask anyone else… not if this will happen each time.”

  “I agree… Not enough hackers to run through… I guess we need to check the core ourselves.”

  “You ever been there?”

  “No, the security is too tight.”

  “How you plan on getting in?”

  “It will take a little work, but I know a back door.”

  Mal twitched with the question, “Back door?”

  “We should go… no need to be here.”

  “Yeah, besides, anyone you meet has a tendency to die.”

  “It is not my fault. You watched me. I didn’t do this.”

  “Yeah… I know.” Mal keyed the door open. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Lighting outside the small room had been cut. Not sure if it was a good or bad sign, the cop didn’t want to hang around long enough to find out.

  Rollin did have a way into the most secure place on the station, but it was dangerous just thinking of it. Thank goodness he wasn’t claustrophobic or agoraphobic. He always got those two mixed up. “We need to head deeper…”

  Mal hesitated in the limited light. “But the core is well in the center.”

  Visual implants still working, he pushed her inside the first lift they came to. “Yeah, I know, but sometimes the most direct route isn’t a straight line.” His thumbprint was the key to unlock the lower maintenance levels of the station. That was where they would find his back door.

  The car didn’t take his command.

  “Damn it. They must have cut my access…” Rollin pressed his thumb to the panel once more.

  “Qui n’avance pas, recule,” Mal mumbled.

  “What?”

  The car accepted his clearance and sprang to life, heading ever closer to the outer skin of the station.

  “Sorry… we need to keep moving if we are going to learn anything.” Mal quickly changed the subject. “That was… horrible.”

  The moment it took Mal to search for the words, Rollin was assessing the situation. He felt someone was leading him on. He hated that every step he took, it seemed like someone beat him to the punch. Better to try something completely different to reach the center of the station. Time to outsmart those bastards at the top of the food chain — the Rankin.

  The door opened at the lowest level of the station. Rollin knew just where he needed to go. His early years brushing against delinquency, and time on the force fighting crime, was about to pay off.

  He turned spinward and quipped, “After that excitement… I need a little air. Join me?”

  Chapter IV:

  Rollin’s earlier experience working the lower levels and chasing all manner of smugglers left him with an outstanding operational knowledge of the maintenance tunnels and their misuses. The dangers this far out from the central core were well known to him.

  The smugglers used the outer airlocks to sneak in contraband without paying duties. It was dangerous working in these tunnels, and the machines that repaired the outer hull were never meant for living creatures. This far outside, the pair was past the water tanks that served as ballast and shielding for the habitation zones deeper in the station. This far out, the shielding was shite. Over time, the cosmic rays would tear into the body of a person, causing all sorts of mutations leading to cancer.

  Not wasting time sightseeing became the first priority, the chances of running into some real nasty players was high, Rollin found just what he was looking for. An airlock with a yellow and red painted service bot waiting to fly out and work stood waiting for them.

  These service bots provided the station with multiple purposes. Some were even controlled via VR. Mostly, they kept any debris from slamming into the outer hull or repairing damage after the unstoppable impacts. No matter the technology employed, living in a tin can surrounded by vacuum was hazardous to most biological life. Rollin’s implants wouldn’t save him for long if exposed to space. Only death waited for someone outside.

  He glanced down at Mal and grinned through the pain.

  She asked, “What the hell we doing here?”

  “See these things don’t have an atmosphere, but I know people use them… override the dumb ones to deliver things where they are needed.”

  “Not seeing how that is going to help us reach the core. Last I checked, we both need oxygen.”

  Rollin laughed. “I know, stay here.” The experience of C’s death must have damaged his brain. He shouldn’t be laughing. Surely, he sounded like a crazy person, and each chuckle only caused him more agony. Just like Kano, Rollin felt his tenuous grip on reality slipping. Unhinged, the politically correct term, not that he cared for such PC bullshit.

  Not far down the hall, he found what he looked for, a wall-mounted cabinet with bright yellow emergency workmen’s suits. Not made for prolonged exposure to vacuum, they should be good enough for the short trip coreward. Protecting them from the cold and giving them much needed air. This far from the local star, the risk of overheating was limited, and solar radiation was manageable over the short term. However, the risk of overexposure from cosmic rays was a danger. The flimsy suits offered no protection from background radiation. They were meant only for emergencies. This was definitely an emergency.

  If the pair survived the round trip, they would require some time on the med tables to repair the damage from the cosmic rays.

  A suit in each hand, he found Mal standing wide-eyed, watching the stars move past the small observation porthole.

  “I forget how far out we are.” Her voice held a certain awe to it. The local star was not much brighter than the rest of the sky. Its light blended in with the background s
tars. Far Reach sat so far from the center of this system. “And how pretty the stars are.”

  “And how tiny and fragile we are.” Rollin handed one of the bright yellow emergency suits to her.

  “What’s this for?” Mal’s face tightened in fear.

  “We need it for our trip.” Rollin started pulling one leg over his boot.

  “You’re crazy… These were never meant… We will die out there with only these on.”

  “Probably… look, you don’t need to go. This still isn’t your fight. Go back to C’s and report me. You can return to your normal life. I can track down who is screwing with my head.”

  “Yeah… I don’t think I can do that. What is normal, after all?” Mal surprised him when she started putting the suit on over her clothes. “I need to discover the truth. Maybe we can find some justice…”

  “For who?” Rollin asked. He wasn’t sure why he did all this crazy shit, but surely truth and justice had nothing to do with it.

  Mal shook her head. “I don’t know… for everyone? There needs to be some meaning to all this.”

  “I learned long ago, truth and justice are the first causalities of life. I doubt we find either in the core or ever… As for meaning… not sure it is even real…”

  Mal stopped dressing. “Then why are you doing this?”

  The question stopped Rollin in his tracks. He didn’t know why he felt so driven now, but he knew he needed to reach the core. “I don’t know… Life and the decisions we make… They rarely have simple, clear answers.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy Mal for the moment. She asked, “Do we have any chance?”

  “Sure, better than you might think, but I doubt either of us will have kids after the experience… but I’m no doctor.” Rollin pulled the zip-locked seal closed and fastened the hood over his head.

  Mal did the same. “How much air we got?” she asked before sealing the hood.

  “Depends on how much you talk… or hyperventilate.” Rollin let the words sink in before stepping into the airlock and the waiting service bot. Tether in hand, he strapped himself to a safety rail of the yellow worker bot. “Try to focus on the rock at the core. It might keep you from barfing in your suit and drowning in it.”

  He was surprised when Mal didn’t quip back, stepped up, and tied off next to him.

  Despite the wide-eyed look of fear, she gripped the handle best she could. Rollin knew as soon as they hit the vacuum of space the suits would swell with the difference in air pressure. Any grip would be near impossible to maintain.

  There was no time to comment. The airlock cycled. With no installed radios, there was no reason to speak. Com units could be traced. This was going to be a silent lonely trip toward the asteroid core.

  Hacking a service bot must not have been a concern for the designers, or they would have made them harder to hijack.

  A few turn-latches opened a panel and revealed a small maintenance keyboard, joystick, and screen. Thank the gods this trip was line of sight. This screen allowed for no telemetry of incoming ships or other hazards. Rollin had no scans, radar, or real controls, save engines and directional thrusters. This little joy ride to the core was little more than point and shoot.

  The engines fired as soon as the craft cleared the airlock. Never designed to take biological safety into account, the robot accelerated much quicker than Rollin found comfortable. Mel must have felt the added weight more severely.

  Lucky for both, the burn was short, and they both took the time to tether in because the rail was stripped from their grip under the acceleration. If not for the lifeline, they both would have found themselves floating free in the space between the torus and the asteroid that made up the core. With no coms they would have drifted until they succumbed to the elements. There was no such thing as backup on this operation.

  Mal flailed about, reaching for anything to find a grip on. She grabbed Rollin’s arm in a death grip. If she didn’t hyperventilate during the course of the short trip, it would be a miracle. If the difference in air pressure hadn’t ballooned the suit to marshmallow-sized proportions, she might have strangled him in her grasp. Her legs wrapped around his waist, a firm lock holding her next to his side.

  Rollin knew the dangers of space, ignored them mostly, but one of his greatest fears was drifting alone in the void until his air ran out. Lifelines could not have had a more appropriate name.

  An unfamiliar pain burned into his chest. He should have been Kano’s lifeline. When his former partner came for help, he should have done something to keep him safe. Now Kano was gone, and the only person who cared about the cyborg was probably dead. Rollin failed the man he once considered his only friend.

  The burn finished, Rollin had no more time to cry over the should have been. The pair used the lines to pull back to the rails. Bloated as they were, their major joints suffered limited flexibility. Any gross movement took a great deal of effort. Rollin wasn’t sure how Mal could even move in the suit. She seemed so strong for her slender size.

  Before much longer, the maintenance bot the pair hitched a ride on would flip around and use a short high-gravity burn to slow their speed. They needed to be gripping the rail before that happened or risk slamming into the craft as it slowed. As the thrust developed, broken bones became a real hazard. Even Rollin’s implants could be damaged in the extreme cold and a high enough impact.

  After the robot slowed to a manageable pace, Rollin would use the retro jets to find an open airlock they could sneak into. At least that was his original strategy.

  The things that might go wrong with this insane plan were too many to calculate. Thank goodness the lack of coms made it where they didn’t need to make small talk during the journey. The cop didn’t want to use his limited oxygen explaining everything that could go wrong with his idea to the skittish lab tech. She would need to keep herself calm during this trip.

  They reached the rail before the craft flipped for the deceleration burn. It kept a steady course long after Rollin anticipated the maneuver. That was bad. Maybe Rollin had miscalculated the distance and the bot would make the course correction soon. The robot never flipped.

  That was worse.

  The rocky surface of the central core grew larger with every second. Rollin didn’t want to admit it, but something was wrong. If they didn’t start slowing soon, the repair droid would slam into the asteroid with sufficient velocity to kill them both. Never a navigator, Rollin knew enough about physics — mass times velocity equaled death.

  Not the way Rollin planned on checking out, a bug splattered on the proverbial windshield.

  The panel was still open. Rollin needed to reach the controls or die trying. With no acceleration, the three objects moved through the void of space at the same relative speed. There was nothing save the growing central core to give any indication they moved at all.

  Words in a strange language flashed red on the screen. With his implant malfunctioning, he couldn’t read the blasted warning, but the color red was bad in most cultures. He didn’t have time to consider the strangeness of that small factoid.

  For testing, the unit was equipped with a joystick and a few manual wheels. His suit was never meant for fine motor control in vacuum, the fingers of his gloves swelled from the air pressure. The longer exposed to the void, the stiffer his suit became, the harder to flex his joints and manipulate the controls. Cold seeped into his body, his mask fogged with the frost from his breath. Fine motor skills were lost under the extreme conditions.

  After a quick glance, he spotted Mal’s face, behind her frosted face shield. She stared at the scenery flashing by, eyes wide, a broad smile spread across her face. Her fear lost. She was either space sick, or her trust had been severely misplaced in Rollin’s skills of getting them across the void alive.

  He knew if something drastic didn’t happen soon, they would both die.

  “Maybe the retros will be enough to slow us.” Rollin spoke even though he knew no one heard him. The sound
of his voice echoed in his thin helm and gave him confidence.

  Ham-handed, he stabbed at the controls. The error in his ways became evident when the probe started to spin wildly out of control, nearly flinging him off his grip.

  Mal wasn’t so lucky, the only thing that kept her alive was the tether attached to the handhold. She swung about, the weight at the end of a string, each circle amplifying the whirling of the robot through space. They entered an uncontrolled death spiral.

  The barren rock grew closer with every passing second.

  The spin accelerated.

  With few choices, Rollin mashed more controls. Small puffs of energy blasted from the jets, doing little to stop the impact. His air must be running out. Each breath he took became harder. Fear caused the normally stoic male to hyperventilate.

  No one was coming to their rescue; they would soon die if Rollin didn’t do something.

  Frustrated, he slammed his fist into the flashing control panel. A silent jolt of power melted the glove of his emergency vac-suit. Sparks flew from the smashed panel, and energy flashed through the metal frame of his body, knocking him out in an instant. He would never see the final moments as the repair unit slammed into the rocky surface of the central core.

  Chapter V:

  Not sure where it came from, Rollin thought, Bon temps… let’s get this party started.

  Groggy, he opened his eyes to find himself floating in a white hall. A small section lit under a bright light. A slight twist of his head and there was the airlock, inner door opened, outer door closed by the interlock. Mal stood, legs spread wide, hands on her hips, feet stuck to the floor without magnetic boots. The safety suit shredded. The pink of her flesh unblemished as a newborn.

  Death waited only a closed door away.

  Somehow, they survived the impact, the vacuum, the cold, everything. It was impossible. Frost burns covered a good portion of his hands. The sting of blisters screamed from his face. They should both be dead. Pus oozed from his eyes, making sight difficult.