Caitlyn Morcos

by M H Questus

  Morcos’s eyes widened momentarily. “A robotics technician? That’s an unusual role to be in a starship assembly area.”

  “Yeah.” Haley nodded. “He was checking on a faulty installation component. Apparently, there was a short circuit in one of the drydock’s assembly arms a few days before takeoff.” Haley checked her datapad quickly. “His name is Jeong Schnider.”

  “Hmm. Definitely worth checking up on.” Morcos nodded. “Who is on the ‘improbable’ list?”

  “That would be you and the crew of the Judicator.” Haley blushed slightly. “I would have excluded us entirely, but Chatterji insisted.”

  Morcos stopped walking and Haley screeched to a halt. “Haley, you do realize that you’re on the top of many people’s suspect lists right now?”

  Haley’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

  “Well, you have to admit your miraculous survival, and barely any damage from the explosion, is pretty damning.” Morcos held her hands up. “Don’t worry, I don’t think you did it. And not exclusively because I’m pretty sure that in any list where you’re the number 1 suspect, I’m sitting firmly at number 2.”

  Haley’s jaw dropped. “You?”

  Morcos chuckled. “Come on, deputy. People are simple. They look for easy justifications for things like this. I guarantee that by now somebody has discovered that Kristen and I fought over just about everything in the academy, and that I was constantly beating her by the narrowest of margins. I’m sure somebody is going to suspect that I am a jilted lover, or that I destroyed the Judicator because she had permission to leave first. Or something equally stupid.” Morcos shrugged. “The important thing isn’t that we’re on those lists. The important thing is to find out who is responsible, regardless of which list they’re on.”

  “Yes Marshal.” Haley nodded, clutching her datapad to her chest tightly. “Thank you. And I want you to know that I absolutely didn’t do this.”

  “I believe you, Haley.” Morcos gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder. “But just to alleviate my curiousity, why were you at the airlock during launch?”

  Haley blushed. “It’s… it’s a bit embarrassing, Marshal.”

  Morcos shrugged. “Try me.”

  “I had to go to the washroom.”

  Morcos cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Haley coughed. “Look, I was nervous! I thought I had plenty of time, but Marshal Smith pushed up our departure. So I was leaving my quarters, heading back to the bridge when the bomb went off. Just dumb luck I was so close to the airlock. I remember trying to open the airlock doors, and then nothing else until I woke up in the hospital.”

  Morcos nodded. “No risk of that happening on this ship.”

  “Because there’s no way that there will be a bomb placed on it?”

  “Well, that,” Morcos agreed, “but also the fact that there is only one washroom, and it’s right next to the bridge.” She smiled at Haley, who paled slightly. “You’ll get used to it, deputy.”

  “If you say so, sir.” Haley didn’t look convinced.

  “Okay, track down this Schnider. Then you and I are going to go have a little talk with him.”

  Morcos watched Haley walk away from her towards the bridge, the set of her shoulders fixed. Haley was obviously upset at the realization that people might think she was responsible… but was it because she was innocent, or was she concerned that she hadn’t been as accusation-proof as she had hoped? Morcos sighed, shook her head, and went to the mess.

  Morcos had barely wolfed down a quick dinner from the small mess deck in the Courageous before Haley sent a message to her datapad that she had tracked down Schnider. She threw on her trench coat again and rushed to the airlock, half a sandwich still clenched in her teeth as she walked.

  Haley smiled nervously at Morcos as she approached. “You could’ve finished eating if you wanted, Marshal.”

  Morcos nodded, taking another bite. “I know,” she said carefully between mouthfuls as the airlock cycled. “But this is more important than a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Probably.” She smiled, but the humour seemed lost on Haley, who nervously shifted from foot to foot. “What’s got you so bothered, deputy?”

  “This Jeong guy.” Haley answered, shifting her weight again and striding through the door the moment it finally opened. “He was surprisingly difficult to find.”

  “Surprisingly?”

  “Well, most people on the station are registered to a specific address. Either a hotel, hostel, boarding house, or living quarters in one of the residential districts.” Haley seemed not to notice the shorter Morcos having to jog to keep up with her long strides. “Even registered transients normally have an address we can use to start looking. But for Jeong, all I have is an apartment he apparently vacated a few days ago, and even that I had to track through secondary sources. Shortly after he fixed the malfunctioning robotic arm building the Judicator he cleared his residency history as best he could.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say our Mr. Schnider didn’t want to be found. Deputy, what is that sound?” Morcos cocked her head to one side, trying to get a better read on the noise that hovered just beyond her hearing.

  Haley shook her head. “You got me, Marshal. Chanting?”

  The doors to the drydock had barely opened before the wall of sound hit them. It was, indeed, chanting. A group of no less than several hundred people, mostly Martians based on the predominance of pale skin and blonde hair, were standing right outside the drydock, yelling and stamping their feet.

  As soon as the crowd saw Morcos and Haley, they roared almost in unison, and both officers took an instinctive step backwards. A ring of station constables, looking resplendent in their silver-and-green uniforms, were standing in front of the crowd, most of the officers looking nervously at the screaming masses.

  “Racist!” came a scream from one side of the crowd.

  “Hater!” came another.

  “Earth-lover!”

  A constable gestured to a waiting taxi, which hovered over to Morcos and Haley. “Best to get out of here, sir!” shouted the constable as he opened the door.

  “What seems to the issue, constable?” Morcos shouted over the crowd.

  “We’re trying to figure out what they want, but for now they seem more angry than anything!” He opened the door to the taxi.

  “Thank you, constable!” Morcos shoved Haley into the taxi ahead of her. “Keep your officers safe! Fall back to the Courageous if you need support!”

  The constable nodded over the din, saluting as Morcos ducked into the taxi.

  “Coincidence?” Morcos was smiling, her eyes narrowed. The taxi picked up speed and flew off, leaving the crowd behind them.

  “Unlikely, Marshal.” Haley shook her head, apparently oblivious to the rhetorical nature of Morcos’s question. “Looked like a group of Free Mars supporters. Perhaps upset at the death of Deputy Hendor?”

  “Safe bet, but a weird thing to be upset about.” Morcos bit her lip. “At least one other deputy is dead, and a marshal is in critical condition. They can’t really think that Hendor was a target of the attack because his heritage, can they?”

  Haley gave Morcos a sideways glance. “Did you know that Hendor was the only Martian deputy in Delta?”

  “What? No! I had no idea!” Morcos was taken back. “Really? The only one in the whole sector?”

  Haley nodded grimly. “Yeah, he was pretty proud of it too. Said he was going to make marshal in a few years. Probably would’ve. He’s a bright guy… was a bright guy.” Haley looked out the window for a long silent moment. “I was looking forward to getting to know him better, you know? I had seen him around headquarters a few times, but he arrived before me and already had his own circle of friends on the station. We only chatted a few times before…”

  Morcos put a hand on Haley’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” Haley kept staring out the window.

  Morcos let the silence linger for a few mom
ents. “About this Jeong fellow. Are we heading to his previous apartment?”

  “No. I managed to get a ding off a facial recognition search through the station. He was last seen heading into Down-Below.”

  “Down-Below?” Morcos scrunched her face up. “I don’t think I’m familiar with that section.”

  “It’s a colloquial nickname for the areas surrounding the station’s fusion power plants. Noisier than normal, plus if anything ever goes wrong with the generators, that section is getting vaporized first. Personally, I always thought that was something of a mixed blessing. The rest of us would freeze to death or suffocate, at least they would die quickly and warm.”

  “Cheery thought, deputy.”

  Haley shrugged. “Just the kind of pragmatist I am, Marshal.”

  Chapter 12: Down-Below

  The taxi ride was circuitous, weaving through the zero gravity industries that clustered around the station’s fusion reactors. The lighting became more sporadic and dimmer and the hallways dirtier. Morcos could see a few broken-down robots that had been torn apart for pieces.

  “There are a lot of those on this station,” Morcos pointed out, more to herself than Haley, but the deputy nodded.

  “It’s regulation that every service robot have the Interplanetary Government logo on it, but no defensive measures. People see them as a vulnerable part of the government, something they can actually lash out at without repercussions.”

  The taxi landed with a silent bump and Morcos opened her door and got out.

  “This is as far as we can travel by hover, marshal,” Haley stated as she exited the taxi. “Down-Below is a warren of tunnels and hallways, none large enough to pilot a hover down.”

  Morcos nodded and adjusted her cap, striding next to Haley towards a set of heavy doors. “Keeping the police on foot gives the merchants time to hide any of their more illicit goods, gives the slave-traders oppportunity to move out of the way or hide, and makes it difficult to arrest hordes of people unless a large number of officers are involved. And with that many officers needed…”

  “Somebody always tips off somebody else, and the thing packs up and moves.” Haley finished with a sad sigh. “Thousands of years of human history, and some things never change.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Morcos pushed open the door with a metallic clang. The noises and smells poured out like a wall of sensory overload, assaulting Morcos with memories dragged up from a childhood filled with visits to similar places. The smell of something roasting and exotic spices. The noises of haggling, arguing, laughing, and crying. The very floor vibrating from the fusion reactor’s constant thrumm of power and the force of hundreds of feet stomping along narrow roadways choked with merchants. The air even had a familiar taste, the combination of sweat, fear, and exhilaration leaving a palatable trail as she breathed. Morcos stood in the doorway and let it wash over her for a long moment.

  “There’s something to be said about these sorts of places, you know. For example, if I ever need to get a poorly translated film featuring people kicking other people, I know where to go!”

  Haley smiled with a grimace. “Or authentic perfumes from far-off totally-genuine Earth-cities like Parix or Londan.”

  “Exactly! This is human commerce writ small.” The two officers began to weave their way through the crowd. “Hand on your sidearm, deputy. We don’t want somebody walking off with it.”

  Haley nervously placed her left hand on her hip holster and nodded. The press of humanity was impressive, with people of every race and colour weaving through the crowd. Most seemed to be shouting things at other people, either insults, pick-up lines, prices, or a combination of the three.

  “Excuse me!” Haley tapped a passing woman gently on the shoulder. The woman put down her head and shook it side to side.

  “No, no, don’t know!” muttered the old woman through the shawl covering her face. She pulled away from Haley and disappeared almost instantly.

  “I didn’t even get to ask a question!” Haley spat angrily.

  Morcos laughed. “Don’t bother asking the transients, they don’t want anyone to know they were here.”

  “Why, it’s not illegal… for the most part.”

  “True.” Morcos pointed a man that shouldered past them in a long robe. “He is a politician.”

  She pointed at a tall woman with tightly twisted hair.

  “Hiring for a mining expedition to someplace remote. Almost certainly claim-jumping or purchasing slave labour.”

  She pointed at three kids, none older than 10, that ran past, one bumping into Morcos as he went.

  “Pickpockets, trying to practice their trade.”

  A young woman with thick makeup and platinum hair in an overcoat brushed past.

  “Professional escort, currently unescorted.” Morcos shrugged. “Sure, most of it isn’t immediately illegal, but none of these folks want to be seen talking to an authority. It will just make their lives more difficult.”

  “So how do we track down Jeong?”

  “Same way as always, deputy.” Morcos held up a few folded credit bills in two fingers of her left hand. “We find somebody who makes money off of knowing these things.”

  Haley blinked and the bills in Morcos’s hand disappeared.

  Morcos’s right hand launched out and intercepted a small fist, currently tightly clutching her money. The hand was attached to a suddenly screaming young girl who was dressed in rags and a protective layer of dirt. Her voice rose to a fevered pitch. “RAPE! RAPE! HELP!”

  Morcos drew her stun pistol swiftly with her left hand while still tightly holding the girl with her right. “One more word out of you, child, and you’re going to wake up with a splitting headache in an orphanage.”

  Haley looked around nervously, but either nobody noticed the scuffle above the general chaos, or everyone was very pointedly not noticing.

  The girl continued to squirm, but kept her mouth shut.

  “Good. A quick learner.” Morcos knelt, keeping the pistol levelled at the left eye of the child while holding tightly to her wrist. “You want to earn those credits?”

  “I already did!”

  “No, you stole them. Not the same thing at all.”

  “Says you, pig!” the girl went to spit at Morcos, who raised an eyebrow and pointed the pistol a little closer to the girl’s face. The girl, lips already pursed for launching the spit, seemed to think better of the idea and swallowed.

  “A very quick learner. Now, who’s the knower around here?”

  “The wha?”

  Morcos scrunched up her face a moment in thought. “The wiki? The searcher? The ticketmaster?”

  “Oh! You want the ‘cyclo! Fine, he’s down there.” The girl pointed over her shoulder. “Gib me money now!”

  “Yeah, right. Because I trust a quick thumb-jerk over your shoulder.” Morcos holstered her pistol with her left hand. “You lead, we follow. We get to this ‘cyclo’ of yours, you get to keep the credits.” She plucked the bills out of the girl’s hand and released her.

  The young child rubbed her wrist theatrically, and was obviously struggling with leading them to their destination or just bolting. The decision was solidified as Morcos held out the credits again and the girl’s eyes grew wide.

  “Fine! Dis way.” The young girl, a flurry of feet and arms, headed off down the corridor. Morcos and Haley followed, shouldering their way through the crowds as politely as possible.

  “Here. Dats da ‘cyclo.” The girl pointed at a small booth, its shelves sagging with unlabeled jars and the counter cluttered with bags, sacks, satchels, and paraphernalia of no apparent use or value.

  Morcos nodded and handed the credit bill to the girl, who snatched it out of her hand.

  “Time to think about a career change, kid.” Morcos said to the receding form of the girl.

  “Screw you, pig!” came the reply screeched at the top of her little lungs before the girl disappeared into the crowd.

  “Cute k
id” Haley said with a grimace. “Downright adorable.”

  Morcos smiled and shrugged. She walked up to the booth and moved aside a low hanging scrap of the awning, ducking her head into the dark space enclosed by the booth’s goods.

  The grinning face of an immensely fat man slid out of the darkness. His multiple chins wiggled as he smiled, and the faint scent of cinnamon wafted up as he spoke.

  “Greetings, Marshal Morcos. Deputy Haley. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” His voice was as smooth and thick as honey, slow and methodical in his pronunciation.

  “You have the benefit of me, sir.” Morcos tipped her cap at the obese man.

  “Yes. Yes I do.” He took a long, slow drag from a glowing electronic cigarette. “How may I help you, Marshal?”

  “Two questions. First, what’s the going rate?” Morcos realized that the awning was positioned in such a way as to make it impossible to stand up straight and remain within the confines of the booth. The fat man had designed it such that anyone speaking to him had to remain hunched forward. It was uncomfortable for Morcos, but for Haley, who was a full head taller than her, it was obviously very unpleasant.

  “Ah, that depends strongly on the answers, my good lady.”

  “Ha!” Morcos scoffed loudly. “Wow, Delta really is backwards. Information in most of the civilized sectors comes at a fixed rate. Saves time from people asking a constant stream of inane questions.”

  “What makes you think my default price isn’t high enough to discourage such behaviour on its own?”

  Morcos smiled “The lack of a lineup, sir. Nobody around here needs you anymore. No crowd of waiting inquiries? No beefy bodyguards standing nearby except for that one guy with a magazine about ten meters away with a pistol in his lap. No, my chubby friend, you are being rapidly pushed into obsoleteness, and I suspect your prices have dropped correspondingly. We may be your last, desperate chance to remain viable compared to whichever upstart has taken away your clients.”

  If her words upset the fat man, it wasn’t immediately visible. He took another long drag of his electronic cigarette, the red LED glowing brightly in the dim confines of his booth. “Your questions?”