Tethers

by Sara Reinke

  “You…you killed Doc…”

  Frank laughed. “I did. I cut his goddamn gook throat wide open—right after I set thermal charges in the cargo bay of the ship.”

  Kat swung toward Frank, her mouth dropped in a shocked, disbelieving gape. “You…” she whispered. “Alex and I did hear an explosion. You blew up the ship.”

  “Wuh…why…?” Eric asked on screen, taking the words out of Kat’s lips.

  “Because there was no other way to get this,” Frank said to Kat, spreading his arms wide. “All of this, the entire colony of X-1226. Unspoiled, undisturbed—a whole new world.”

  She watched as Frank delivered Eric’s lethal injection. He had pumped the morphine into one of the many IV tubes sticking out of Eric. She watched Eric struggle against the restraints that held him firmly. She saw the unmistakable expression of terror on his face as Frank administered the morphine.

  “No!” Eric cried. “No, no, God…don’t…”

  Frank leaned over the bed rails again. Eric tried to turn his face away, but Frank seized him roughly by the hair and forced his head back.

  “Don’t worry, Eric. I’ll take good care of Kat and Jerica in your absence.”

  “You son of a bitch…” Eric seethed. “You son of a bitch…don’t you fucking touch them…”

  And then the morphine had smashed into his brain.

  His voice immediately faded as he swooned, his mind caving to the effects of the drug. His struggles fell still, his entire body relaxing against the restraints. She could hear his breathing slowing, growing heavier and weaker with each ragged, rhythmic draw.

  “Eric,” she whispered helplessly, and she placed her hand on the nearest screen as if she hoped somehow to reach back through time and touch him, comfort him.

  In the video, Frank kept his hand across Eric’s forehead as if to console, murmuring in a low, taunting voice. “Take it, boy. That’s it. Take it all.”

  Eric was finally still. His head rolled to one side, and he looked just as he had when Kat had discovered him.

  “I’m sorry, Kat.” Frank pivoted in his chair toward her and started to rise to his feet. “I would have let him live, I really would have, but he—”

  Kat grabbed the nearest terminal keyboard and smashed it into the side of Frank’s face. He staggered sideways, crashing into the security monitors and then Kat whirled. She moved instinctively, scrambling for the door, but it slid shut in her face. She heard the audible whine of the laser locking mechanisms. She whirled to face Frank, frightened, and pressed herself against the door.

  “Amazing little things, these computer remotes,” he remarked, waggling the little control at her. “Especially once I figured out everything I could hook up to it. Doors, cameras…you name it. I guess I’ve always had a knack for this shit, though. Did I forget to stick that on my resume?”

  He touched his fingertips gingerly against his temple, where the keyboard had gouged blood. He winced slightly and looked at Kat. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m not going to hurt you, Kat. You or Jerica.”

  “What do you want from us?” Her main avenue of escape was gone; she cut her gaze around the dimly lit room, searching for any other exit, anything else she could use as a weapon.

  “Everything,” he said. “I want it all, Kat. Only…you don’t know what that is, do you? You don’t even know what you’ve got.”

  He laughed. “Right here, this place, this compound—you, me and Jerica. It’s the greatest thing in the world. I mean, can you imagine…no, no, of course you can’t…your heart ripped out of you, thrown on the table so you can watch it wriggle and dance and squirm…”

  He began to pace, muttering and laughing, his fingers toying with the bloodied place on his forehead. Kat stared at him in blank fright and disbelief. He’s crazy. Oh, my God, I’m locked in here with a crazy person.

  “I held my baby girl’s hand and she died!” Frank whirled to her, screaming, making her shrink back in terror. “Why? I’m a doctor, for Christ’s sake! It was my responsibility, my job…and I let her slip away…I…”

  He fell silent. He lowered his head, and his shoulders slumped in toward his chest. For a moment, Kat thought he was weeping.

  “Frank…?”

  He raised his head, and she saw he was laughing, silently, nearly breathlessly.

  “I can have it all again,” he said. “A goddamn bona fide family. All for me. I can see it in Jerica’s eyes. Ah, sweet Jesus, such a beautiful, fucking brilliant piece of genetic engineering is that kid, Kat. My friends are gonna love her.”

  “Your friends?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.” He started to unbutton the front of his flight suit. “We’re Legion. Maybe you’ve heard of us.”

  A leaden chill shuddered through her as again, she remembered the day the Daedalus had exploded; she had been talking to Trina, aboard the sister ship, Icarus.

  That militia group, Legion’s been bombing government buildings again. They blew up federal depositories in six states. Killed several hundred people. Really gruesome.

  Frank pulled his arm out of his sleeve and turned around slightly so she could see an odd mark on his back. She remembered the morning they’d tricked Eric, he had tried to tell her something about it. I saw something today, this morning, a mark on his back…

  And then, just now on the recording, she’d heard Eric mention it again. That brand…I…I know what you are…

  Oh, God.

  “We’re branded with the mark of infinity,” Frank said. “Our fight will never be over until democracy flourishes again.”

  He turned to her. “And this is where it will happen. X-1226. Fuck American colonists…fuck an American stellar empire. Legion is going to conquer and control the Number Nine platform, and then we’re going to establish our own world, our own democratic, free home here.”

  Kat blinked at him, unable to comprehend everything he was saying.

  I think it’s safer up here, personally, Trina had told her. Where freaks like that can’t get to you.

  Don’t count on that, Trina.

  “It’s already starting.” Frank walked toward her. “Why do you think we haven’t heard back from the platform yet? Because by now, Legion will have seized control of it. Hopefully, they’ve already dispatched some men down here, so we can get to work setting up some kind of defenses.”

  He had been speaking in a robotic fashion, as if he regurgitated someone else’s rhetoric from memory. Now, his face softened. His eyes lost some of the manic glaze. “But none of that matters to me, not really. Those are their plans, their agenda—Legion’s, not mine.” He looked at her, pleading. “All I want is to have a family again. A wife, a daughter—you and Jerica.”

  Kat blinked at him. “Me and Jerica? You’re crazy. No.” She shook her head fervently. “No.”

  Frank went to her, and she had nowhere to run. When she tried, he caught her roughly, his hands clamping painfully against her cheeks. “Kat, don’t you see? Legion would have just loved to come down here and find Eric. I mean, a goddamn Sovereign pilot—the government’s golden boy? I had to kill him. That was the kindest way…the only way. I knew if they found out who he was, they would torture him. Just for shits and grins. Just because of who he was.”

  “No,” Kat said. “That wasn’t kind, you bastard. What you did to him wasn’t—”

  He slapped her in the face, sending her sprawling.

  The shock of the blow stunned her more than the pain, at least at first. It had been a long, long time since a man had last struck her. Kat landed hard against her hip on the floor. She touched her mouth and her fingertips came away spotted in blood. She could feel it filling her mouth, warm, bitter and salty.

  Frank moved toward her again, and in that moment, she felt her strength dissolve, the strong woman she’d built up over the years abandoning her. All that was left was the frightened girl, Chris Emmente’s timid bride, and she cowered, trying to cover her face with her hands.

  Franks gra
bbed a handful of her hair and yanked. Kat cried and stumbled to her feet. He clasped her by the throat and slammed her backwards, into the wall. Her head hit painfully, and her brain rattled.

  “What do you think Legion will do to you and Jerica?” he snapped. “Jesus Christ, Kat, they’ll kill you both, too, without me here to protect you. You need me. You and Jerica—if you want to stay alive, you need me.”

  He slapped her across the face, first with his palm and then again with the back of his hand. She wailed miserably, and then pressed her lips together, her voice stifling to a mewl. She had learned about being beaten a long time ago from Chris, her ex-husband.

  Lesson Number One: the sooner you stopped crying out, the sooner it might be over.

  “We’re going to be a family, Kat.” Frank leaned toward her until they were nearly nose to nose. “You understand me, you stupid bitch? You, and Jerica, and me.”

  Kat didn’t answer him. It was Frank Brown speaking, but Chris Emmente’s voice she could hear, his face she could see before her, superimposed over reality in her terrified mind. She could feel blood coursing down her face now, from her nose as well as her mouth. She could feel her left eye starting to puff up and burn; soon it would bruise and swell closed.

  Frank shoved Kat with all of his might across the room. She fell against a console, taking the brunt of the blow with her belly. He was somehow still right behind her, with his hands in her hair again. Kat tried to twist out from under him, and he slammed her face-first into the console.

  “We don’t really even need you,” he seethed at her. “You’re expendable, Kat. I’ve got a woman coming down from the platform who will make a better mother to Jerica than you could ever dream of being. Reba could teach her things you can’t even imagine.”

  She felt him jerk her face up again and slam it back down again. The room began to swim.

  “But I don’t want that, Kat,” he said, his breath against her ear. “I want you to be a part of things. I want you to understand how things are going to be from now on.”

  She felt him jerking at her pants, trying to force them down over her hips.

  “No.” She tried to struggle against him. “No, Frank, please…”

  He was leaning over her, using his superior weight and strength to keep her pinned forward. He jerked her pants down, and she heard the zipper fly break from the force. The material cut into her skin, raking her outer thighs as he pulled them down.

  “I want you to understand.” His fingers touched her bare ass, fumbling roughly between her legs.

  “No.” Kat began to squirm harder, forgetting the pain in her head and face. “No, no, please, don’t…”

  He covered her mouth with his hand, and forced her legs apart, using his thigh to shove his way. She felt him against her, the swollen, awful length of him and then she began to cry, weeping against his palm as he forced himself inside of her with rough, scraping, furious thrusts.

  She lost herself.

  In her mind, she snapped back to a summer day…

  At the picnic…in Illinois…Jerica had been smaller then and Eric had picked her up…her bare legs had brushed against the gun he kept tucked in a small holster in the waistband of his faded Levi’s…

  “What’s that?” she asked him. She had this ridiculous pair of hot pink plastic sunglasses on. They were too big for her face. The lenses were purple.

  “What?” Eric replied, glancing over at Kat and handing her his bottle of Heineken before Jerica could kick it out of his hand.

  She remembered taking it, stealing a sip. The beer was cold and tasted good. Alex had his arm around her, and he smelled good, and she felt loved by him.

  “This.” Jerica reached down toward Eric’s ass, startling him. She remembered leaning her head against Alex’s shoulder and how the two of them laughed.

  “That’s my gun.” Eric caught Jerica’s hand against his hip.

  “Why do you have a gun?” Jerica asked.

  “I’ve got one, too,” Alex said, swallowing a mouthful of beer.

  “Why?”

  “In case we have to shoot somebody,” Alex told Jerica solemnly, and then he and Eric laughed.

  “No, really, we got them in the Corps,” Eric said to Jerica.

  The sky was so blue and flawless. The sun blazed in Jerica’s golden mane.

  “Officers always carry their guns with them.”

  “But you two aren’t in the Corps anymore.” Puzzled, Jerica looked between the two men. She had a pink, sun-kissed nose and cheeks.

  “We carry them anyway,” Alex explained. “Always. Don’t leave home without them.”

  “I don’t think I could ever use a gun.” Kat eased closer to Alex without even realizing, shivering despite the warm day.

  She remembered Eric looking at her, smiling, as Alex had offered her a momentary squeeze. “Sure you could, Kat. You have to defend yourself, your home, Jerica? Yeah, you’d use a gun.”

  Frank finished and she slumped to the floor. She could feel something sticky and wet against the small of her back, her buttocks. It had splattered there when Frank had pulled away from her.

  She thought she was going to throw up.

  Frank turned to her, and Kat shrank. He was flushed and winded, running his fingers through his hair, trying to smooth it back. “I didn’t want to do that,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

  He pulled the remote out of the pocket of his suit, and opened the command center door.

  “Go on, clean yourself up. If you try to run from me, or hide somewhere in the compound, I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you.”

  Kat believed him. She scrambled into the corridor, and then forced her tired, hurting legs to run. She began to sob. It had been a long time since she’d been beaten up, and she had almost forgotten how it felt to have a busted lip, a boxed, blackened eye, a bloodied nose.

  Her crotch ached. She felt filthy and nasty and dirty. Her pants kept wanting to slip down her hips, and she had to keep hitching them up around her waist. She heard footsteps, light and soft, coming toward her from behind and she shrieked crazily, whirling around.

  Oh, God, he followed me!

  She crumpled to her knees and cowered against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible.

  Please no, no, no I can’t.

  “Mommy?” Jerica said. She ran over to Kat, her little feet pounding noisily against the floor. “Mommy, what’s wrong? Mommy!”

  Jerica touched her mother’s shoulder, and Kat looked up at her. Jerica shrank back when she saw Kat’s bloody face. “Mommy…!” she gasped, bursting into tears. “Mommy, what happened? Mommy!”

  She threw her arms around Kat’s neck. Kat took her daughter by the shoulders and pulled her away so they could look at each other in the eyes. “I’m all right,” she said, struggling to speak coherently. “Jerica, Jerica, honey…listen…listen to me…”

  Jerica touched Kat’s mouth with careful fingers. “You’re bleeding, Mommy…”

  “I know, pup.” Kat nodded. “Listen to me. Frank…Frank is not your friend. He’s a very bad man.”

  Jerica blinked at her, her eyes swimming with new tears. “Frank did this to you?”

  “He’s a very bad man, Jerica. He…he put bombs on board the Daedalus and that’s why it crashed. He killed Eric…pup, he murdered him…and now he wants…he wants…”

  “It’s because of the Legion, isn’t it?” Jerica whispered.

  Kat stared at her. “How do you know…?”

  “Because he told me,” Jerica said. “He said they just wanted to come here and live and be free. Free from the government.”

  “Oh, my God.” Kat jerked Jerica against her, squeezing her tightly. “Oh, Jerica…”

  “I didn’t know it meant he’d kill Eric, Mommy.” Jerica began to cry. “Or…or that he’d hurt you…I just thought…I didn’t know…!”

  “I know, Jerica.” Kat glanced up and saw a wink of yellow light. She frow
ned, puzzled, and then realized it was a surveillance camera, hiding in the shadows near the ceiling. It had turned toward them, and light had reflected off of its small, smooth lens.

  Frank doesn’t need to follow me. He’s got his cameras.

  His goddamn cameras.

  “Come on,” Kat said, and she stood, holding Jerica’s hand.

  The little girl stared up at her, wide-eyed. “Where are we going to go, Mommy? What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Kat led Jerica down the hall. She scanned the ceiling with suspicious eyes, watching for more cameras.

  They walked until they reached Eric’s room.

  “In here,” Kat whispered, ushering Jerica in quickly.

  Jerica stood by the bathroom door, looking confused. “Why are we here?”

  Kat placed her index finger over her lips. Shhhhh.

  Jerica’s eyes widened; she understood. She nodded, pushing her lips together into a thin line.

  Kat looked around the ceiling, trying to remember the angle of the view on the command center monitors. She saw the camera angled just above the doorway.

  She picked up the small aluminum trash can from near the sink. She went underneath the camera and raised onto her tiptoes. She swung the trash can up over her head and smashed it into the unblinking, unflinching black eye of the camera. There was a tinkle of broken glass, and a spattering of blue-white sparks. Jerica squealed and backed away, frightened.

  Smoke rose in a thin grey line from the broken camera.

  “Fuck you, Frank.” Kat dropped the trash can.

  She closed and locked the door to Eric’s room.

  “Come on, pup,” she said, and she wiped at her face on her sleeve. The blood was staving, crusting on her cheeks and chin, making her skin feel tight. She began snooping around the room, poking in the closet, nosing through the small metal bureau.

  “What are you looking for, Mommy?” Jerica asked quietly.

  “Something,” Kat said.

  Something I remember from that picnic in Belleville…

  “Don’t leave home without it.” Alex had laughed around a mouthful of baked beans, and I’d seen it tucked down the back of Eric’s jeans. When the wind would blow, it would push the material of his shirt against it, outlining it.