The Last Builder

by Simeon Graves

  “My private security team would stop you before you got in a second punch.”

  “You vastly underestimate what I can do with my first punch.” Cutler dropped his smile and held up a hand. “But that was only the first option. The second option is much better. I know Selene only lets you work out of here because you pay her. Plus, having your clients around is good for business. It elevates the level of clientele. It’s how she can afford tacky purple curtains and red leather sofas.”

  “Your point?”

  “A few well-placed questions to the wrong people, and all of a sudden your empire comes crashing down.”

  “You overestimate your abilities, Mr. Copeland.”

  “You underestimate people’s paranoia, Mr. Blair. Discretion is kind of your thing, isn’t it? What would happen if all of a sudden your clients thought you were letting slip some of their names to a guy with loose lips and a busted up face? I clean up pretty nicely, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. People might get a certain impression.”

  “You don’t know who any of my clients are to blackmail them.”

  “But I know they’re here, and I’ve got the rest of the evening to walk myself around the dance floor and find out who’s looking a little guilty for buying one of your products off the black market.”

  Blair ground his teeth. “What do you want?”

  “Just tell me who you sold my circuit board to, and I’ll be on my merry way.”

  Blair took a deep, calculated breath, and although his expression didn’t change, Cutler could tell the instant the other man decided to give in. “I don’t make a habit of giving into the demands of the maniacs who frequent my doorstep.”

  “Then it’s good that the only thing I’m interested in is my part. After that, I’m gone. You won’t have to deal with me again.”

  “See to it that I don’t,” Blair said, walking toward the curtain and ripping it open. He pointed to an older man sitting at the bar, sipping a drink and staring out into the dance floor with a mixture of amusement and envy.

  Cutler grinned when he saw the man. “Perfect.”

  11

  Cutler

  “I’ll have what he’s having.”

  The barkeep froze when he took in Cutler’s disheveled appearance, but the man beside him nodded and the bartender poured the drink anyway.

  “Thanks, Joe,” the man said, placing the arm with his Omnis screen-side-down on the sensor in front of him.

  “If I recall correctly,” said Cutler, “I believe I’m the one that owes you the drink.”

  “I’ll let it slide this time.” He turned to Cutler, sputtering a laugh when he took in his appearance. “You look like—“

  “I know, I know,” Cutler said, wincing as he brought the drink to his lips. It burned the cut at the corner of his mouth.

  “Cutler Copeland,” the man said, reaching out a hand.

  “Josiah Rex,” Cutler said, gripping the other man’s forearm. “It’s been too damn long, sir.”

  “That is has, that it has,” Josiah said. “But whose fault is that?”

  Cutler took another sip of his drink. He couldn’t argue. He’d been avoiding direct contact with The Society for Truth and Scientific Advancement for some time now. It had been even longer since he’d been in communication with his old mentor.

  “I don’t blame you,” Josiah said. “But I have to say it’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you too, sir.”

  “And stop with the sir. Makes me feel like a military man. Or worse, a politician.”

  Cutler cocked his head to the side. “You knew that circuit board was mine, didn’t you?”

  Josiah laughed. “You’re the only one in the galaxy who could still get a board that ancient to run like it was brand new. I knew it was yours the second I saw it.”

  “And you just bought it outright? Why?”

  “I have my reasons. Money well spent, if I do say so.”

  “I’ll pay you whatever you paid for it. I should probably jack Blair for the money. He doesn’t deserve to have it in his pocket.”

  “No, he doesn’t, but truth be told, it was pocket change for us. Like I said, it was money well spent.”

  “Us?” Cutler let his empty drink glass clink back down on the bar, and then lowered his voice, suddenly aware of the bodies pressing in on them. A man in a white suit stood on Josiah’s right, and two women laughed loudly behind him. “The Society paid for this?”

  Josiah nodded, and the smile slid gently from his face. “We have a mission for you, Cope.”

  “No more missions,” Cutler said automatically. “I told you that. I’ll keep scouting, couldn’t stay away if I tried, but no more crews and no more missions.”

  “We want you to keep scouting, and the only person we want with you is your daughter.”

  “How did you know—" Josiah cut him off with a look. "Nosey bastards,” he muttered.

  Josiah stared him dead in the eye. “We want you to become our next Builder.”

  The music and the conversation in the room seemed to fade away as Josiah spoke. Cutler forgot they weren’t alone, forgot they were surrounded by people who, if they had been paying attention, could have used this information to their advantage.

  He could barely manage the whisper. “I don’t get it.”

  Josiah cast a furtive glance around the room. “We want you to become our next Builder, Cutler. The last Builder.”

  “The last Builder?”

  “You know as well as I do that The Keresian Virus has done what it was meant to do.” Josiah paused while a woman in a sleek red dress leaned up against the bar to order a drink. Only when she walked away, wrinkling her nose at the state of Cutler’s face, did he continue. “It’s infected practically every human in the galaxy. News of New York’s fall will come any day now. That’s when the great panic will begin.”

  “That’s why I took Katherine off Earth. To get away from the panic.”

  Josiah shook his head. “You can’t run from this, Cutler. You have to embrace your role in all of it.”

  “My role? I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Josiah said, a calm smile on his face. “You and your daughter are immune. I am not, and neither is the rest of The Society. Neither, for that matter, is the majority of the human population. All those dead bodies pile up, and soon every planet we’ve colonized will become inhospitable.”

  “One person can’t take on the duties of the entire Society and terraform the galaxy.”

  “Humanity is moments away from falling, Cutler,” Josiah said. “But you will still be standing. And so will others. You can teach them, and together, we will live on in the memories of those we have left behind.”

  Cutler took a deep breath and let out a strangled laugh. “I just wanted my part back.”

  Josiah chuckled mordantly. “I know it’s a lot to ask.”

  “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  “You always have a choice,” Josiah said, rising as he tapped his Omnis on the sensor strip.

  “I can’t abandon our mission. I can’t abandon the others who will survive this. What kind of person would I be?”

  “Not the Cutler Copeland I know, that’s for sure.” He clapped Cutler on the back. “It sounds like you’ve already made your decision.”

  “There’s so much I don’t know still—”

  “There will be time to learn. For now, let’s get your ship up and running.”

  Cutler nodded and the two left Selene’s amidst strange looks and nods of respect. Josiah Rex was a bit of a legend out here, but not for the same reason many other frequenters of the nightclub were. As part of The Society for Truth, Josiah was practically untouchable. He wasn’t above the law, but there were still very few that applied to him.

  And yet Josiah was, perhaps, the best man Cutler had ever known. The Society was filled with scientists and philosophers, people who made it their life’s work to move humani
ty in the right direction. They didn’t always succeed—life had a way of fighting back—but their efforts meant billions of people had the chance to seek out a better life for themselves.

  Until the virus came along.

  There was a bitter taste in Cutler’s mouth as Josiah ushered him to his car and set a course back to Jessie’s. He was taught that knowledge was power. Josiah, of all people, had ingrained that in him from a young age. The Society was about using knowledge to improve lives, and yet Cutler’s knowledge of the virus had saved no one, least of all Victoria.

  “As promised,” Josiah said, handing Cutler the circuit board and simultaneously snapping him out of his spiraling thoughts.

  “Are you sure you don’t—” Cutler began.

  “We don’t need your money. We need you to ensure The Society will continue on even after we’re long gone.”

  “So this is a bribe, huh?” Cutler asked, holding up the circuit board.

  “We can never pay you enough for this,” the man said, either not getting the joke or choosing to ignore it.

  Cutler nodded solemnly, turning the part over in his hand. “I know you said I have a choice, but you and I both know that I don’t. Not if I want my daughter to grow up in a world where people are good and kind and use their brains before they use their fists.”

  “How is Katherine doing? I’m sure it was hard for her to leave everyone behind, especially after just losing her mother.”

  “She’s a strong kid.” Cutler rubbed the knuckles on his left hand and cleared the emotion from his throat. “And smart. But she’s afraid.”

  “She should be afraid. Think of what we can accomplish when we’re afraid of what we might do when we sit on the sidelines.”

  “I sat on the sidelines for too long thinking that was protecting my family.”

  “Now’s your chance to change that."

  As the car approached Jessie’s, Cutler was about to speak, but the words died in his throat.

  The door to the bar was hanging off its track.

  He was out of the car and running before the car had even come to a complete stop. Josiah yelled after him, but all he could hear was the blood roaring in his ears.

  Pushing past the door and stepping over someone who lay unconscious in the entrance, Cutler skidded to a stop as he entered the main room. People lay in heaps, shattered glass littered the floor, and Jessie was holding a rag to her head that was soaked with blood.

  “Are you okay?” he said, kneeling beside her. He peeled the rag back to take a look at the wound. It didn't look too serious. As long as they could staunch the bleeding, she would be fine.

  “Katherine,” Jessie said, looking up at him with tears in her eyes. “They took her.”

  Waves of heat, anger, and terror coursed through his body. As if from some distance away, he heard himself ask, “Who?”

  “Greenwood,” Jessie said. “Greenwood kidnapped your daughter.”

  12

  Katherine

  She was still trembling when Greenwood and his men pulled her from their car, shoving her roughly toward the hangar where her father’s ship sat dead on the ground.

  “Please,” she begged Greenwood, who had an iron grip on her injured arm. It was throbbing constantly now. “Please let me go.”

  He smiled down at her. The man she had seen earlier on Earth was gone. Where there had been a pleasant, albeit distant, glean in his eyes, his pupils had formed into pinpricks that made him look more animal than human.

  “I only want one thing from your father. Once I have it, you can return to Earth and your old life.”

  “What are you going to do to my dad when he comes after me?” Fear racked her body when she thought about it. She couldn’t lose another parent.

  Greenwood’s smile grew broader, but he didn’t bother answering. He didn’t need to. Katherine’s brain was doing more than enough to make her realize how dire the situation was. Being flanked by four men with guns didn’t help.

  “What do you want from him?”

  “He knows. He’ll bring it.”

  “But maybe if you told me, I could help you find it, and then you could let me go.”

  “You don’t have what I’m looking for,” Greenwood said, pulling to a stop at the door that led to her father’s ship. He peered down at her.

  “Please,” she said.

  Greenwood’s grip tightened around her arm, causing her to cry out. “I recommend you stay quiet as a mouse if you don’t want anything to happen to your father.”

  She couldn’t look away from Greenwood’s beady eyes. They pulled her in and kept her rooted to the spot. She thought she knew fear when her mother died, when the loneliness had hit her; or when she and her father had to sneak onto the ship that brought them to the moon. But these were nothing in comparison to this.

  Pressing his Omnis arm up against the sensor screen, Greenwood unlocked the door as quickly as her father had earlier that day. A man in a white suit and another in black combat gear cleared the room first. Then he dragged Katherine toward the ship and pushed her down to the ground beside one of the landing gear legs.

  “Do not speak unless you’re spoken to,” Greenwood said, motioning for his men to follow him back toward the door.

  “I can’t imagine why my mother didn’t want anything to do with you,” Katherine spat back.

  Greenwood laid a backhand across her face. She gasped as she brought her palm to her cheek.

  “Speak again, little mouse,” Greenwood said, stepping forward and pointing a finger in her face, “and rest assured it’ll be the last time.”

  She held her tongue and her tears until the men were through the door. As soon as it clicked shut, they spilled. Gasping and shaking, she forced herself to her feet and took in the hangar for the first time.

  Other than The Artemisia, the only other thing in the room was a long workbench and several cabinets she could only assume were full of tools and paperwork for the ship. Circling around the landing leg and walking under the ship, she searched for another way out of the hangar, but to no avail. There weren’t even any windows for her to attempt to climb through.

  Upon closer inspection, the workbench was surprisingly messy, like it had already been tossed by Greenwood and his men, probably looking for whatever it was they wanted from her father. Katherine sorted through the tools on the table and found a long screwdriver with a surprisingly sharp tip. She tucked it up the sleeve of her jacket.

  The paperwork on her dad’s bench made no sense to her. Between diagrams of planets and sketches of plants and trees, she gathered it had something to do with terraforming, but it looked more like something her father had drawn up for fun rather than something he’d done as part of his job.

  Or was this part of his job? Katherine was struck by the notion that she didn’t know her father very well at all. Worse yet, she hadn’t allowed herself to know her father. He was the only family she had left in the entire universe and she had been pushing him away since the day he’d come to rescue her.

  She felt her knees begin to buckle, and placed her hands on the workbench to steady herself, ruffling some of the paperwork that lay there haphazardly. It was only then that she saw the familiar sketch of a figure rather than some unrecognizable piece of flora.

  Lifting the paper out of an open folder, she instantly recognized her mother’s eyes, which seemed so lifelike even in black and white. Her smile was slight, but it was reflected in the push of her cheeks, the wrinkling of her forehead. This was how Katherine always wanted to remember her mother—happy, peaceful, and even a little wistful. Her mother had always been a bit of a dreamer.

  Her eyes began to sting, and she turned away from the picture. That’s when she saw the other drawing, the one of her. She reached out for the sketch and lifted it until the two were side by side. From her father’s perspective, she and her mother were nearly identical. The hair, the eyes, the smile, it was all so similar. The only difference was that Katherine’s face wa
s smoother. It was the face of one who didn’t hold the weight of the world on her shoulders. That her mother had known about KV, and had not been able to save her friends and family and colleagues, had to have been the biggest burden the woman had ever carried. And yet she did it, without question, in order to keep her daughter safe.

  A tear fell from the real face onto the imagined one, and the picture blurred before her.

  Carefully she folded up the drawings and tucked them into her pocket. She wiped her eyes and backed away from the workbench before she disturbed anything else.

  A leaden fatigue overtook her. She leaned up against one of the landing legs and allowed herself to fall asleep.

  Her head snapped up when she heard the door whoosh open. The relief she felt upon seeing her father was quickly torn away when she took in the state of his face, and the fact that Greenwood was leading him toward her, the gun in his hand aimed directly at her.

  “Katherine,” her father said, his voice sounding relieved and angry at the same time. “Are you okay?”

  “Dad, I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay, honey.” Then, turning to Greenwood, he added, “Let her go, Tobias.”

  “Not until I get the information Josiah Rex gave you.”

  “He never gave me any information.”

  Greenwood lowered his gun a few inches and pulled the trigger. A blue light flashed and seared the air as the beam hit the ground a foot in front of Katherine.

  She screamed and scrabbled back, tucking herself behind the landing leg of the ship.

  Her father jumped in front of Greenwood, arms outstretched. “You point that at me, you bastard. Leave her out of this. She’s just a kid.”

  “Not a problem,” Greenwood said, taking a single step forward and pressing the barrel of his gun against her father’s forehead.

  Katherine cried out. Her father was steadfast.

  “The only thing Josiah gave me was the part I need to get my ship in the air.”