Severance

by Chris Bucholz

  Harold nodded absentmindedly. A lot of people owe me favors these days. He tapped a couple of notes onto his terminal. “The nurses told you about the quarantine, correct? Your family knows? Your work knows? Supervisors?”

  “Yeah, they know. They made some jokes.”

  “I’ll bet. That’s what friends are for,” Harold said. He checked Martin’s chart one last time. “What do you do, Martin?” he asked as he did so, just to make conversation.

  “I run a pair of lines at a fab plant.”

  Harold looked up. “Oh, yeah? Cool.” He wondered what the odds of that were. A fabrication engineer who owed him a favor had just fallen into his lap. Harold felt his heart beat faster, his ever present paranoia squeezing his adrenal glands.

  “Doc?”

  “Yeah? Right. Okay, we’re ready for your treatment.” He opened the bottle and allowed the two robot pills to slide into his palm before retrieving a cup of water from a basin at the side of the room. Returning to Martin, he handed over the pills and water. “So. You take these and go through that door over there. That’s our quarantine ward. There should be a bed set aside for you — there’s a nurse who can show you around. It’s pretty full right now, so apologies for the lack of privacy. Although I hear they throw some pretty good parties in there.” He smiled, then watched Martin swallow the pills. Helping the young man up, he guided him to the door. “Good job, Martin. I’ll see you when you get out.”

  Martin gone, Harold returned to the stool and sat down, rotating back and forth, thinking about his possible in at a fabrication plant. If it isn’t a trap. It probably isn’t a trap. It hopefully, probably isn’t a trap. He spun around on the stool, considering the possibilities. It definitely sounded like it was worth pursuing. But his paranoia had served him well so far. What if it was a trap? Were there any precautions he should take?

  He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it but couldn’t afford the self–deception now: there was a good chance that if he kept pursuing this task he had taken on, it would end up poorly for him. He shuddered involuntarily but felt no rising wave of panic. Good, Harold. Steady on.

  If he did die, if he failed to spread the word himself, he needed to find a way to pass this information on post–mortem. Kevin’s trick, stashing a terminal in a closet, having that terminal not get found and deleted by a janitor, had been a massive stroke of luck. By all rights, the truth should be lost by now. If the knives came out for Harold, he would want a sturdier backup plan.

  There were some snags with that. First, who to send the message to? He had no next of kin. Both parents long dead, no siblings. His closest friends were work friends — not that close, and certainly not people he wanted to drag into this mess. The way some of them talked, many of their sympathies might even lie with the conspirators. In truth, the only person he had fully trusted was his almost–son Kevin. And he didn’t think he had any more sons left in him. He did have a reproduction credit that he had never cashed in, but it was a bit late in life for that now. And if he read the political winds right, they weren’t going to let him build any more canned babies.

  He looked at the big comfy chair that Martin had recently vacated and the empty pill bottle lying on it. But they were letting him do that. He swallowed. It was as unethical an idea as he had ever had. But it could work.

  And fortunately for Harold, flexible ethics were rapidly becoming a specialty of his.

  Chapter 7: Worst Case Scenario

  Kinsella poked at the heap of green and brown mush on his plate. Bletmann had assured him that there was nothing different about the food, but watching the way it clung and clutched at his spork, Kinsella wasn’t so sure. It was possibly a psychological effect — in the good old days, people would have paid a tremendous amount of money per plate of mush for the opportunity to speak with him, even more to get their picture taken with him, post–mush. Now, in the bad new days, Kinsella was lucky he didn’t have to pay for the mush himself.

  “Come on, Stan,” he said, pointing a mush–laden spork at Stan Reynolds, an old friend of the apparently fair–weather variety. “You know this will pay off.” He directed his spork along the length of the table, threatening the others gathered at the Reynolds home with the trembling mush. “You all know I’m good for this.”

  Reynolds put down his own spork. The current chair of the Argos Club, a collection of some of the ship’s most self–important assholes, Reynolds had supported Kinsella for years. He hadn’t done this out of any special passion for public policy; it was more in the same manner in which an ancestor of his might have taken an interest in fast horses. Or really mean chickens. “Eric, you’ve been a good friend to us. And you’re always welcome here.” He smiled, obviously thinking of a joke. “No matter which door you use.” A trill of laughter from the lesser weather vanes around the table. Security had been almost invisible in this half of the ship since the riot two days earlier, but Kinsella hadn’t let his guard down, still entering and exiting from back doors and side entrances, often bewigged. “But this doesn’t look good for you, does it?” An obvious spot for a wig joke, though thankfully Reynolds didn’t see it. “It doesn’t look good for us,” he said instead.

  “Things will look better with your support.”

  Reynolds tented his fingers and flexed them back and forth. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Don’t pull any punches, Stan,” Lady Cathy said. Kinsella did everything he could not to roll his eyes. Lady. Not actually a title, barely even a description. “We liked you when you were in charge, Eric,” she said. “And you aren’t in charge of shit now.”

  I’ll take charge of caving your head in with your own severed arms, Kinsella didn’t say, his face a mask of serenity. “I’m in charge of a lot more than you think. And I haven’t failed you guys yet,” he said, unleashing his winningest grin. “Three elections in a row.”

  “That’s what the last guy said,” Lady Cathy observed. “He won three in a row as well. Would have kept winning too, until he didn’t.”

  Kinsella pushed back his chair and stood up, a signal to Bletmann, lurking at the edge of the room. Time to take charge of the situation; he was losing them. And he really did need their help; all of the slush funds and caches attached to the mayor’s office had been frozen. He had already started drawing on his own collection of physical loot, built up from a lifetime of public service. But he would need a lot more for what he had planned. “Okay,” he said, “I get it. I’m down now. You like winners, and I don’t look like much of one.” A few of the less subtle weather vanes nodded. “But let’s be frank. I’m cheaper to bribe than the other guy. Has he returned your calls yet?” He watched everyone’s reactions, a mixture of confusion and annoyance.

  From down the hall, the sound of a door opening, followed by sputtering protests from one of Reynolds’ servers. Moments later, Hogg strode into the dining room in full security regalia, every metal and hard plastic surface on his uniform shined to a deep luster. Beneath his outward expression of mild shock, Kinsella bit his tongue.

  “Mayor Eric Kinsella, I’m here to place you under arrest,” Hogg said, his voice firm and not at all wooden.

  Kinsella stood up straighter, shoulders rolling back, gut in a little. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

  “And I’m afraid you don’t have a choice in the matter,” Hogg said, rushing, trampling Kinsella’s show of defiance, diminishing its impact. You idiot. Kinsella glared at the security man, who was now looking decidedly more nervous than his position would imply.

  It had been too much of a stroke of luck to not use him like this. Kinsella had always suspected there was something a bit funny about the way security officers behaved. Too deferential. Too eager to please. He knew he was accustomed to the snake pit of Argosian politics, where everyone’s motives ran ten layers deep. Most people were surely more straightforward. But there was something about security officers that went way beyond ‘straightforward,’ and after some quiet research early in his
first term, he eventually figured it out. They had to follow orders. It hurt them not to. Most of the navy geeks were the same way. It was something bred into them, something Helot and his predecessors must have been doing for generations.

  A useful fact to know, though Kinsella had never found a way to take advantage of it; security officers didn’t normally report to him. It required a damaged one, a chance encounter with a reject looking for a new home, for him to put his theory to the test. And damned if he didn’t seem to be right. Hogg would do anything he said, conduct any act asked of him.

  But no amount of asking could get him to act well.

  “What you’re doing is illegal,” Kinsella said, knowing he would have to carry the show on his own. “This is an illegal attempt to silence this ship’s legitimate civilian government.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hogg said. He seemed to remember he was supposed to be physically menacing the mayor, took two steps forward, then stopped abruptly, remembering that by this point he was now supposed to be doubting his purpose.

  Strictly speaking, Kinsella did have the less challenging role: defiant self–righteousness. Barely a role really, for him. “It’s also wrong,” he said, his voice strong. “You’re destroying this ship. You know what Helot’s doing,” Kinsella said. “You know what’s going to happen to us.”

  “I still have to arrest you.”

  “Even if it’s true, you still have to arrest me?” Kinsella said, filling in Hogg’s misspoken line. “So, you admit it?”

  Hogg hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it is true, isn’t it? Helot is planning to split the ship.”

  This was the tricky part; there was a certain salesmanship necessary to handle the next exchange. “So, what if it is?” Hogg finally said.

  Kinsella shook his head. “So, what if it is?” he repeated, turning to survey the room. Dim faces stared back at him. Kinsella held his breath, waiting. I think we got ’em.

  “Are you two rehearsing a play?” Lady Cathy asked.

  “What?” Kinsella said. Or not.

  “You are clearly rehearsing a play,” Reynolds said, “though I don’t know why. Nor why you didn’t rehearse it before you got here.” Chuckles down the length of the table. “Was this supposed to impress us, Eric? Having some fake security officer try to arrest you?”

  Kinsella held up his hands. “Well, obviously. But he is a real security officer.”

  “I am a real security officer,” Hogg acknowledged.

  Reynolds looked Hogg up and down, and wagged his head back, seemingly unsure. “He does look like a security officer,” Lady Cathy said, her voice a bit breathy.

  “No, look,” Kinsella began. “Yes and no. This isn’t what it looks like, except it is a bit.”

  Reynolds interrupted him. “You were actually able to bribe a security officer?” he asked. “I’m impressed. I had no idea you had this kind of sway anymore.” The weather vanes murmured and nodded. Kinsella blinked, completely stunned. “Look, Eric. You’ve got a good point about the other guy not really playing ball with us. So, yes. I’ll help.” Reynolds looked around the room. “We’ll help. But you’ve got to cut it out with this crazy ship splitting stuff. It’s completely insane. No one’s buying it.”

  “Okay, sure,” Kinsella said, not believing his luck. He directed a pointed glance at his costar, but could see Hogg didn’t need to be told when to shut up.

  “And this little skit is a great idea,” Reynolds went on. “It’s classic you. Just maybe, you know, get a real fake security officer next time? I think the fake ones might be more convincing.”

  §

  Many people noticed the large, bulky object Griese and Ellen carried down the street. But they were all locals, unlikely to tattle on them. And by that point, almost all of the security sensors had been shot out on the third level, following a dedicated few days of work by a group of goons in Kinsella’s growing militia. They would do the same on each level in turn, but had been told to make the third level a priority, presumably because it was the fastest level to move around on, and Kinsella was tired of his selection of wigs.

  So, they were pretty sure they weren’t noticed by anyone official when they entered the service entrance of an art gallery, the main floors of which extended up to the garden well. Once inside, they picked their way to the rear staircase of the building, hefting their load upstairs. When they reached the uppermost floor, they found an unmarked door, which opened to reveal the roof access staircase. Climbing this, they emerged on the roof of the gallery, facing the north, the bulk of the gallery’s roofline blocking their line of sight to the south. Crouching, they picked their way across the roof to the spot they had observed from across the garden well, an odd architectural feature which created a fold in the roof permanently in the shade.

  There they unrolled the garish carpet that concealed their load. Long, bulky, and matte black, any observer at any time in human history would immediately recognize it as something nasty. A boxy frame mounted on a low profile tripod, with a thinner rectangular block extending out the front, surrounded by a series of other protrusions sprouting out in a seemingly careless manner. This was a smart rifle, as ugly as it was rare.

  Smart rifles were an Earth invention that had immigrated to the Argos about halfway through Argos War I. While a computer–assisted rifle was useful on Earth, on the Argos it was absolutely necessary for anyone who wanted to shoot something further away than they could yell. In a spinning cylinder, where the very concept of gravity was openly mocked, the ballistics of a projectile weapon became incredibly complicated. Bullets followed long, spiraling paths, making accurate shooting over distance an impossible task. Several friendly fire incidents during that first conflict provided grim illustrations of this. A smart rifle was capable of compensating for all these insanely complicated ballistics with the help of a small processor and some extremely accurate sensors. Because the ship hadn’t sailed with military hardware, the smart rifles on board the Argos were all makeshift, designed from first principles and cobbled together using whatever components were available. Only three had survived the first war, none of them fired in anger since.

  They carefully positioned the rifle in the darkest part of the shadow, Ellen setting up behind it. Griese lay on the other side, his terminal in front of him with its sensor on maximum zoom. For ten minutes they lay there, slowly scanning the aft wall of the garden well.

  “I think I got one,” Griese whispered.

  “What?” Ellen asked, her voice tight.

  “I think I got one,” he whispered, somewhat louder.

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “Darling, you are looking at something over a kilometer away. You could scream ‘SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT IN THE HEAD!’ and no one but me would know.”

  “The whispering felt appropriate.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Eleven o’clock, maybe a third of the radius out from the center. Just underneath the light panel.”

  A few tense seconds passed while Ellen maneuvered the rifle around, searching. “Got it,” she finally said. Through her scope she could see a dark patch just underneath the blinding glare coming off the light panel. The security sensors at street level were small, only practicably detectable with special terminal programs. But the ones mounted in the garden well, like the one she was looking at now, were much larger.

  Ellen centered the crosshairs on the boxy shape. She tapped the target lock button and watched as CALCULATING…appeared on the viewfinder. After a couple of seconds, a blue arrow appeared on the right hand side of the screen. Tilting the rifle to the right and up a bit, she chased the arrow a few degrees until it disappeared and a blue reticule appeared on the scope, superimposed on an otherwise unremarkable piece of wall. She lined up the crosshairs with the reticule. “I love this thing,” she said, smiling. She rubbed the sweat off the palm of her right hand. “Okay. 3…2…1…go.” She pulled the trigger.

  The rifle burped out
a ‘pwwwww–schwack’ noise, followed by a sharp crack, as a series of magnets propelled a lump of ferrous metal out of the barrel at twice the speed of sound. Immediately after firing, she panned back to the security sensor, missing the impact, seeing a cloud of debris floating in the lowered gravity of the upper well.

  “Nice shot,” Griese said, watching the same scene beside her on his terminal.

  She winked at him. “Damn right it was. You set ’em up, I knock ’em down.”

  “I’ve seen it happen many times in other contexts,” Griese agreed. He looked back down at his terminal and began searching for their next target.

  There was no real reason for blowing away security sensors other than to satisfy that particular type of boredom that people with really large guns often experience. A boredom possibly enhanced by frustration that they were unable to help their two friends, currently trapped in medium–to–high danger. A brief message from Bruce had let them know he and Stein were safe–ish, and that they needn’t worry, but if they did want to worry, they might busy themselves by distracting Helot.

  Three shattered sensors worth of distraction later, Griese looked up from his terminal. “Hey, they have more of these, right?” He patted the body of the smart rifle, its case warm to the touch.

  Ellen looked up at him. “Yeah, probably. Why? Ohhhhhh,” she said, getting it.

  Quickly they scuttled back into the shadows, dragging the rifle with them, until they reached the cover of the roof access stairs. There they slumped against the wall, breathing heavily, adrenaline pumping.

  “I mean, I don’t know that they’d actually shoot back at us,” Griese said.

  “No. They would,” Ellen said. She pounded her fist into her thigh. “Just give them an excuse. They would have no hesitation at turning me into a widow.”

  Griese gasped, mock shock on his face. “Why would they shoot me? You were the one with the gun.”

  Ellen smiled sweetly. “This time. It’s your turn next.” She patted his shoulder, then smiled. “I love you.”