LoneFire

by Stephen Deas

  ‘Look at the firearms,’ I say to Jez. They’re practically antiques. Place like this, everything is going to be clunky and patched together from spare parts. Still, can’t be as bad as Szenchzuen, can it?

  ‘Su Kitumi,’ says Su.‘This vessel belongs to me. I have a small cargo to trade, and wish to purchase spare components for my engines. Also I have passengers.’ She gestures at Toni and Andreas.‘They want to make a film. I would like to stay here and take them home when they finish.’

  Voir isn’t interested in Toni and Andreas, which is another favour I’ve done them.‘And the one who said he’d crash your ship into my home? Where’s he?’

  ‘They are in a cabin. They are waiting to know if we will stay here.’

  ‘Oh, you fucking stay here all right. Get them out here. I want to talk to them before I eject them into space.’

  Jez and I grin. So far, so good. Voir doesn’t give a fuck about anyone except me.

  ‘Try to keep it that way,’ says Jez.

  We switch off the monitor.‘We talk to him in private somewhere,’ I say.‘Give it to him like it’s some secret we haven’t told the others. See what happens.’ Jez nods. I can walk all over a man like Voir. Authority freak. Predictable, small-minded, ruthlessly abusive to those below him, fawns pathetically to those above. So stand above. It’s that easy.

  Su knocks on the door. Jez answers.

  ‘Tell him we’ll see him here in private. No guards, just him and us.’

  Su leaves. I don’t bother with the monitor to see how that plays because no way is a jackass like Voir actually going to do that. No, he wants to show us how he’s big and powerful. Needs to thump the table with the size of his own penis.

  ‘Used to getting his own way,’ murmurs Jez.

  I grin.‘Won’t have a clue what to do when that doesn’t work out.’

  Jez and I give Su a minute to look all uncomfortable and helpless and then stride towards the bridge before Voir can send her back a second time. Best make sure he knows who’s who, keep his attention off the rest of us. We pass Doyle watching everything from another corner monitor. Still makes me uneasy. Too cold. Humanity wasn’t one of Jester’s strong points either but it doesn’t sit well on Doyle. Maybe because she’s built as a woman. Maybe if she was a man I wouldn’t notice. But I worry– something was wrong in Jester’s head. Whatever it was, Doyle’s got it worse.

  I smoulder into the lounge. Mess room. Whatever.

  ‘Mr Listel.’ I give him the slightest of nods– of course, he doesn’t acknowledge it.‘My name is Constantine. This is my partner, Miss Breen. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You can hand over your weapon and come with me to face charges of hijack.’

  ‘You know your authority stops at the airlock, right? But okay.’

  I don’t know what he’s expecting but he doesn’t like it that I’m not fazed. I can see the knowledge in his eyes. He’s had time to scan my picture, query the hypernet, match it, get a few files on me. Maybe more than I’d expected for a community as retarded as this one, but if that’s the case then so much the better.

  I meet his eye.‘I’m taking a little vacation. Looking for some peace and quiet. I wouldn’t want to bore my fellow passengers with the details, but if you have any recommendations for, say, best places to eat, where I can find a local guide, that sort of thing, I’d be more than happy to discuss them with you.’

  Voir looks me up and down, takes his time about it. Trying to make me squirm a little, but I graduated from such primitive tricks before I’d ever even heard of the Company. I change my posture slightly, let him drink in assured arrogance, stare steadily back at him. I can feel the conflict, feel it like it’s a living thing writhing between us, and I know I’m going to win, and I know that Voir knows it too. He meets my gaze for a moment and then breaks away.

  ‘You’ll all need to sit through an immigration interview to explain your presence on Freeport. We have a lot of trouble here. Corporate agents, police, they want to shut us down. Criminals think they can hide here. We don’t tolerate either sort.’

  I nod. Listel’s retreating as gracefully as he can and so I let him go. No sense in backing him into a corner– he’ll only get nasty.

  ‘If your stories check out you’ll be issued with a three day pass and allowed access to the common areas of the Freeport. At the end of those three days you may apply for an extension. Extensions are rarely granted. In the meantime, the docking fee is one thousand ICU per day, payable in advance. Linkage to the Freeport oxygen, water and waste systems can be arranged for an additional fee. No firearms across the airlock.’

  I force myself not to flinch but it’s an effort. Su and Toni are less reserved.

  ‘A thousand ICU?’ Su looks at Toni.

  ‘We’re a news crew, not a bank!’ says Toni.‘Why so much?’

  ‘We don’t like to encourage visitors.’ Voir smiles.‘Our rates are the same for everyone.’ He’s lying. Getting what he can from a situation he didn’t want. I shrug. Not my money. I don’t give a shit how much the Company has to pay. Don’t even need to pretend to care.

  Toni looks down and shakes her head.‘You’d better give me a damn good tour.’

  ‘If you expect to stay a while, we only charge twenty thousand for a permanent docking residence, all facilities included.’ Voir smiles as Toni tries not to choke.‘Welcome to the Crypt.’

  The Crypt, it turns out, is what the locals call the place. Voir is still smiling as he leads us out of the Spiral Dance and into Vednar Freeport and suddenly I wonder whether he kinda expected this to happen all along. He did roll over a bit easy. He leads us through a confused network of tunnels and elevators and into a large office. I recognise the far wall from when he first spoke to us. He leaves the rent-a-thugs outside– turns out there were real people in there instead of security clones, though apparently with just as little personality– and sits himself behind a wide sprawling desk. He gestures to Jez and me to take one of the stools scattered around the room. They look short and uncomfortable. I can see what he’s used to, him at his desk looming over lowly supplicants. I decide I’m not playing and lounge in a corner instead. The distance between us close enough to talk, far enough to be uncomfortable. I can see the confusion on his face. Jez slinks in beside me.

  Voir gives it one last try, flicking a glance up and then looking studiously down again. ‘Sit!’

  I smile at him.‘I like having my back to something solid. Otherwise I get kinda twitchy, and I don’t think we want that.’ I don’t want to give him room to argue about this so I go straight on.‘So you’ve had plenty of time by now to work out who I am. And?’

  He swivels his chair. Now he has to look up at us instead of down and he doesn’t like it one bit. But he doesn’t want to get up either because that would be an admission that we were making him uncomfortable, that he wasn’t in charge. He leans back instead, trying to make the best of it.‘What do you want here?’

  ‘I have no interest in your community, Mr Listel. You were simply the closest and most convenient option. I’ll be here for a few days. To all intents and purposes, I’ll be on the Spiral Dance when she departs. In reality I will make my own arrangements. I suggest you don’t look into them too closely.’

  I tell him about Szenchzuen just like I told it to Jez.‘Last time I checked they still think I’m on Cestus. I intend to ensure they never find me.’

  Voir clasps his hands behind his neck and leans even further back. He thinks he’s got me. Why shouldn’t he?‘You’re a wanted man. I should turn you in. You could cause us trouble.’

  Yeah, and if you weren’t as bent as a fucking corkscrew that’s exactly what you’d do. I smile some more.‘Yeah, you should, and I could. But think how much that would piss me off. And think how much fun I could have mouthing off about you and some missiles– I wouldn’t get anything out of it, of course, except some petty revenge, but then I can be a very petty man sometimes. But most of all, think how much you’d hate you
rself for throwing fifty thousand ICU down the toilet. And if there’s no record I was ever here, then who’s to ever know?’ I hold up a credit wafer. Payoff time. Either he’s greedy or he’s not. I’m quite sure I can trust him to risk a double cross at some point and I have to remind myself that I’m only playing at being me here, that in the real world I don’t give a fuck what he does once I’m gone.

  He looks blankly at me. He wants that money real bad but he’s frightened too. He’s going to try to stall for time. He’s got his space-marine guards only a second away, dozens more in the room next door and he knows, he knows that means fuck all. Jester would be proud.

  ‘I… need some time to consider your proposal.’

  I take two quick steps closer. I throw my coat open. He flinches and twitches and slides away as he sees the Tesla. I reach into my pocket, pull out a small silver insect shape and place it delicately on the corner of the desk.‘No you don’t.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘That’s an assassin bug. My guarantee to keep you honest. They have all these neat imaging sensors right across the spectrum, olfactory stuff too. They can spit a poison dart right across this room, straight through your eyeball and into your brain, or they can bite and inject it into your carotid. They pretty much never miss, they’re next to impossible to find once they’re released, and if the worst comes to the worst, they can just jump on top of your head and let off a shaped charge powerful enough to shatter your skull. It’s learning to recognise your face and your smell right now. So what’s your answer?’

  Voir gulps, his Adam’s apple frantically wobbling up and down. It’s an effort not to laugh while he gets a hold of himself.‘Mr Constantine, whoever you are, you’ve got a week to get the fuck off my station.’

  I smile at him.‘Jez, give the man his money, honey.’

  I feel her slinking presence across the floor behind me. She pulls a credit wafer out of her pocket and flicks it onto the middle of the desk.

  ‘Fifty k. I still think it’s a waste, snookums.’

  Just for a moment my poise is gone. Snookums? But it’s only a moment and Listel doesn’t notice. He’s staring at the wafer like it’s a poisonous snake.

  ‘Take it. It’s not going to eat you.’

  He snatches the card away. He’s not looking at me at all any more. He’s watching the assassin bug.

  I take another step forward so I’m right by the desk, standing over him.

  ‘Nice doing business with you. You’ll send our passes to the Spiral Dance. If all goes well, you’ll never see me again.’ I bring a fist sharply down onto the desk, crushing the bug. Voir almost has a heart attack. I pocket the wreckage. We see ourselves out.

  ‘Snookums?’ I ask, once we’re clear of Listel’s goons.

  Jez does a falsetto singsong.‘Give him the money, honey. Fifty thousand?’ She kicks me sharply.‘That’s the Company’s money that is. You could have paid him ten.’

  ‘Fifty’s enough to make him bloody sure that I’m trouble. He’ll fret for days about whether to keep quiet about it before he decides to sell me out. Ten would only have him fretting for hours. Anyway, I don’t give a shit about your money.’

  ‘Oooh. Grumpy snookums!’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘And where did you get an assassin bug?’

  ‘Didn’t. Was a bluff. Tin foil and bits of junk I found in the cabin.’

  Jez sighs and shakes her head.

  Kirsopp, D., & Norton, S. ‘Genetic engineering– a new race?’ Journal of Medical Ethics, 127, 5488-5527 (2314).

  Security clones have been around for a while – apparently there’s three companies in the Old Worlds that grow them and they’re mostly based on a mixture of human and gorilla DNA among a few other things– guess that explains why they’re all kinda big and dumb. There’s rules and stuff– no firearms for a start. The fact is, though, they’re getting brighter and cheaper. Most of this is refers to points of law and test cases. Bottom line seems to be that clones have the same rights as the rest of us. So what about AIs? What about recordings? What about me?

  Eighteen – Tunnels and Terrorists

  The next two days are slow. Su wanders about looking for anything that might have come off a missile. Bit of a long shot but it keeps her busy and out of my hair and it’s about all she’s good for. Toni and Andreas roam and make a nuisance of themselves, interviewing everyone they can get their hands on as if they are actually more interested in making a documentary than finding anything for Jez. Maybe they’re just good at keeping cover. Either way, they find out more about the Crypt than any guide would have shown us.

  Jez and I spend the first day on the Spiral Dance. The second is wasted clomping aimlessly about the place in magnetic boots, cursing the fuck out of the lack of gravity. Have I mentioned yet that I don’t like zero-g? The only thing we find out is that we’re being watched. We act stupid and pretend we don’t notice.

  Day three and Toni and Andreas have found a secret corner of the Crypt running a healthy trade in narcotics. They go down all excited, fizzing and bouncing like a kid with a new toy to do their stuff. Jez and I follow. I figure this way we’ll be seen but everyone’s attention will be on Car-Crash Flynn and the Big Blond Grin. Doesn’t quite work like that though. Plans never do.

  The market where the honest traders hawk is in the guts of an old water tanker, a vast cavernous space which makes free and full use of the lack of gravity. In places like that it’s obvious I don’t belong– my movements are all panicked and jerky, not graceful and effortless like the seasoned veterans. I cower near walls, clinging to them in clumsy magnetics and feeling dizzy, while Jez hangs out floating in the middle of it all with a silly grin on her face. Toni and Andreas drift straight through, out the other side through a jumble of corridors and access-ways. It’s a struggle to keep pace without puking.

  Inside the second market I lose sight of them. Used to be a ferry, by the looks of it. Lots of tiny cabins. Even in the halls, everything’s partitioned off, jumbled multi-coloured curtains just hanging from nothing, hiding what’s going on behind them. One great motherfucker of a three-dimensional maze where everything keeps shifting and drifting. Eventually I hear Toni’s voice somewhere nearby, but I still can’t see her.

  ‘ What are you saying? That the only drugs sold here are medical ones? What if I wanted Gyralene or something like that? Could I get it here?’ I’m drifting, weightless past a stretched out curtain. I think Toni’s right behind it.‘Then where? But Gyralene isn’t even illegal…’ Except I can’t reach it.‘Yes, it’s a… That’s right…’ I’m floating helplessly past.‘A designer drug manufactured by the First Republic military. An alertness enhancer. No, it’s restricted, but that’s not the same as illegal…’ I suppose I could throw something and try to change course…

  A tug on my shoulder.‘Excuse me!’

  I look round then up. A wiry black woman is floating upside down just over my head. I realise I’m tipping over and flail for a balance I don’t need. She laughs.

  ‘Obviously you’re new here. You’ll have to get used to thinking in three dimensions if you’re going to have any fun.’ She gives me a lecherous look.

  ‘What have you in mind?’

  ‘Name’s Jones. You’re Constantine. I think we might be able to help each other. Follow me. If you can!’ She pushes herself off my head, somersaults upwards and disappears through a hole in the ceiling.‘Come on, Mr Constantine. We have something you might want.’

  I look up. What I want are some better nausea suppressants. I feel sick. I hate zero gravity so much.

  But she knows who I am. Maybe we got lucky at last. Jez gives me a nudge; I sigh and nod and then shrug and look helpless as I tumble completely the wrong way until she grabs my hand and throws me after the woman towards the hole. A hole that’s smaller than it looked, and Jez’s aim could be better, so I catch my shoulder on the edge. It’s dark up there but a hand reaches out and grabs me and hurls me further along. My arms flail
and find nothing. Suddenly I’m in a dark space. I feel the air sliding past me but all I can see is the hole behind me, below me– above me? I don’t know, and neither is right– a circle of white, blinding against the surrounding darkness. It dims for a moment, someone else coming through. Jez, I hope.

  ‘Jez? Jez look out for…’ A confusion of movement in silhouette.

  ‘Shit!’ Jez’s voice.‘Sweetheart?’

  ‘Up here. I’m…’ Up, down, words like those don’t have any use in zero gravity but we try them anyway. I crash into something solid that hurts and then it seems to grow arms and I’m off again. I can’t see, I can’t feel an up or down and suddenly I haven’t a fucking clue what’s going on.

  ‘Up?’ says a voice somewhere beside me.‘Up don’t have no meaning here.’

  I fumble for the flechette gun.‘What about dead?’ Gotta keep my cool. Holding a gun makes me feel better. Sometimes. But reaching for it here is stupid.‘Yeah, yeah. I hate this shit.’

  ‘You don’t wanna be talking like that about a man’s home. We gotta talk, you and the boys.’

  ‘And which boys would those be?’ I keep my voice icy calm even though I’m hanging in nothingness and can’t see shit. Wish I’d worn some IR kit. Or maybe had some artificial optics that can see all manner of shit. Like Jez probably has. Next time we’re fucking and I look into her eyes, I’ll check for serial numbers.

  ‘You’ll see. Soon enough. Now hold your hands out in front of your head.’

  ‘Why?’ Have to drop the gun to do that. Don’t want to drop the gun. Nice gun.

  My head hits a wall. The rest of me crumples up around it.‘That’s why,’ laughs the voice. ‘Feel out to your left, my man.’

  I let go of the flechette pistol. My hand finds an opening.

  ‘You find the hole, you go down the hole. Simple, man, like falling down a hole!’

  Fuck you and your smugness. I feel my way to the hole, muttering as I go. It’s narrow. An air shaft or something.

  ‘Where’s this going to take me?’