“Wait, what?” Griese said, watching the mayor’s retreat. “Is he going to surrender or not?”
“I would probably say so,” Stein said. “He’s a dead man if he doesn’t.”
“He might be a dead man either way,” Bruce said.
“So, Ellen will be okay?” Griese asked aloud.
Stein looked at Griese. She held his gaze for a moment, still unable to say it. A moment passed, and then she didn’t have to; Griese collapsed to the ground, his body wracked with sobs. She looked away, numb.
§
Hogg felt sticky. It was too sweaty in there. This is no way to die. Gross and sticky. He levered himself up to a sitting position, with his back to the wall. Too much sweat, too many people: there were twenty–seven soldiers in the apartment. That made sense: it was one of the closest rooms to the bulkhead door. Of course it was going to fill up with people, sucking up all the air, dooming each other. Linze should have known better. She should have picked somewhere else to hide. But Hogg knew that was being unfair. Linze had acted, he hadn’t. Someone, hopefully, somewhere, will have survived thanks to Linze’s quick thinking. Just not here.
He supposed there was still a chance they would be rescued. Kinsella had surrendered. That had gotten everyone excited, again using too much of their precious oxygen. And Helot had said rescuers were coming. But Hogg knew it would be a slow process reclaiming the ship from vacuum. And he doubted Helot’s rescuers were going to work that fast.
He thought back on his time as Supreme Commander. How had he gotten here? He had done everything he had been told, as well as he could, better than most others. There was something deeply, profoundly unfair about how this had played out. It bothered him, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach. He had done everything he had been told. Why wasn’t that enough? It was frustrating and infuriating and exhausting to think about. So exhausting.
He closed his eyes and went to sleep.
Previously
The fabrication engine rumbled and hummed, making the floor vibrate, a thin layer of dust dancing in time. The pitch of the hum grew higher and fainter, past the limit of Harold’s hearing. Then it changed, slowing, winding down, as the engine slowed to a stop. The light on the display panel flickered yellow, then green. On the far side of the machine, a mechanical noise, and a thin plastic sheet slid out into a bin. Harold picked it up and examined it.
Andy’s Retro 40th Birthday Party
Everyone wear your wackiest, Earthiest clothes.
Ice Cream!
“Is that as fast as it goes?” he asked.
Martin walked over to the machine and entered something on the control panel. “Yeah. About thirty seconds per iteration for this template. Hard part’s done now — the machine will keep spitting ’em out. You said you wanted fifty?”
Harold nodded. “Can we use the other machines?” Fourteen other identical fabrication engines sat idle, scattered across the floor of the fabrication plant.
Martin looked around. “Could. What’s the hurry?” He activated the program, starting the machine up again.
Harold didn’t want to push the point. “So, about half an hour, then?”
“Your math’s better than mine, Doc.” Martin looked over Harold’s shoulder to the office on the upper–level of the fabrication shop. “Come on. We’ll take a load off.” He walked up the staircase set on one side of the room. Harold took one last lingering look at the fabrication engines, then followed Martin upstairs.
Inside the cramped office, they sat down on a pair of bruised and battered chairs, Martin putting his feet up on the desk. It looked like a familiar position for him. “Thanks again for helping with this,” Harold said.
“No problem. I’ve never made anything like this. It’s a real crazy idea.”
Harold snorted. “Yeah. You’re a regular Gutenberg.”
“Thanks.” A pause. “A what?”
Harold didn’t answer, looking around, examining the office. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked, pointing over Martin’s shoulder.
Martin turned to look at the uninteresting chunk of wall Harold was pointing at, then recoiled, clutching his neck where Harold had just slapped it. “What the heeehhhhh…” he said, before falling to the floor, unconscious.
“Sorry, Martin,” Harold said, bending down to check the anaesthetizing patch he had slapped on Martin’s neck. He checked his pulse – still there. Finally, he straightened out his friend’s limbs and stood up. “But it turns out I’m kind of a maniac.”
Harold left the office and descended back to the main floor, where he shut off production of the party fliers. Repeating the steps Martin had just showed him, he created a nearly identical template with a different, far more politically explosive message printed on it. There was a lot of material to cover, and he had had to size the text quite small to get all of his points across. He hoped it didn’t come out too crazy. He turned on the fabrication engine and waited anxiously for the first one to emerge. It looked pretty good — not that crazy at all. Setting the machine to repeat the process, Harold then made a lap of the fabrication plant, programming the rest of the engines to do the same. The room hummed and throbbed as his screeds streamed into the hoppers.
Harold did some quick math. The patch on Martin’s neck was good for about an hour, which meant he could get over a thousand of these done before he woke up. He looked at the bag he had with him, wondering if a thousand leaflets would fit in the thing. He had no idea how much room they would take up or how much they would weigh. He was sure it would be fine. He felt really sure, in fact, surer and calmer than he had in a while. He guessed it was because, one way or another, it was all coming to an end. The story would get out. It was the end of a work week — the bars and garden well parks would be crowded with people, all of them certainly eager to read something as novel as a flyer. And once they knew, well, security couldn’t kill them all, could they?
Even if that was, ultimately, their plan.
His backup plan was also, for now, completely undetected; no one had said a peep to him about his work on the tinkering engine. If everything went right, if his flyers exposed the plot and he emerged a hero, no one would ever even know about it. He would quietly remove the patch from the tinkerers, leaving no one the wiser. He felt a little annoyed by that; it was amongst the most brilliant things he had ever done. But still, morals.
He was about halfway through the print run when the doors of the fabrication shop opened, three security officers sliding into the room, pistols drawn.
“Hands up, asshole!”
“Put your hands up, asshole!”
“Hey! Hey! Asshole! Asshole! Hey! Asshole!”
Harold watched all this happen without moving. His stomach sank; he knew there was no point in resisting. He was shoved to the ground, a knee pressed into his back, binders slammed around his wrists. He wheezed and sputtered, struggling to breathe with the officer’s weight on him.
A familiar voice. “Let him up.” Harold was grabbed roughly by the arms and pulled to his feet, to see Chief Hatchens standing in front of him. “Hello, Doc. What are you doing here?”
Harold resisted the urge to look at the drifts of incriminating evidence scattered around the room. “Friend’s having a birthday party,” he offered, nodding at the small pile of flyers that wouldn’t get him killed.
“Uh–huh.” Hatchens inspected one of the birthday leaflets. “Sounds like fun. Although,” he added, looking thoughtful, “I wonder if people will be in the mood for a party with all these horrible murderous conspiracies that have been going around lately.” He set down the birthday flyer and picked up one of the others, fresh from the machine. “You’re going to tell me these were here when you got here, right?”
Harold ignored him. “You were monitoring the fabrication engines.”
“That’s right.” Hatchens smiled. “Not for this of course — this was actually quite creative of you. No, just for regular old fashioned contraband.” The smile left his fac
e. “So, let me see if I can piece this together. Somehow your boy Kevin passed you a message. Is that right? You don’t have to answer; that part’s obvious. We found a copy of it on that poor reporter. He said he found it in a men’s room. That was you who did that? Also pretty creative of you — though maybe a bit cowardly. Wouldn’t you say?”
Before Harold could reply, he was interrupted by a noise from above. He looked up to see two of the officers dragging Martin’s still unconscious body out of the upstairs office. “Who’s that?” Hatchens asked.
“He didn’t have anything to do with this,” Harold said, voice tight. “I knocked him out before I started.”
“Did you?” Hatchens asked. He watched the officers deposit Martin on the floor, then bent down to inspect the patch on his neck. “Yes, I suspect you did.” He stood up, turning back to face Harold. “The problem with that though, Doctor, is that if I’m wrong, if you’re lying to me, then this nonsense will keep going on. He’ll tell his friend, who’ll tell his friend, and they’ll all have to die. It’s an awful big risk. You can see my problem.” He looked away from Harold and tilted his head back and forth, deciding something. Finally, Hatchens bent down, rolled Martin over on to his front, withdrew a knife from his boot, and thrust it into Martin’s back.
An unearthly moan slipped from Harold’s lips as he sank to the floor. He wanted to cry, knew he had to cry, felt the misery course through him. But the tears weren’t there. He could only stare and shake.
“You see what’s happening here, don’t you, Doctor? Everyone who finds out about this has to die. Has to. We can’t have it any other way.” Hatchens peeled the patch off Martin’s neck and pocketed it, then stood up and pulled his pistol from his holster. “See this, Doctor? Looks just like all the other pistols we have, doesn’t it? Works just like them, too.” He smiled. “Essentially. Sometimes it hits a bit harder, I guess. Doesn’t stun very effectively. Or is it too effectively?” Another smile. “You get me? Now, tell me about this evidence you have. How many copies are there? Where have you put them? Because if someone else stumbles upon it, they will die. And don’t start squawking to me about that not being right. I know it’s not right. It’s not fair, and it’s not just, either. But it will happen. And only you can stop it. If you tell me what I need to know.”
Harold moaned. He had been sure he was ready to die for this. He had told himself he could do it, that it was important enough to die for. That he had nothing left to live for with Kevin gone. But he had been wrong. Here on the floor, snot running out of his nose, he knew how brave he actually was. “Please don’t kill me,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
Hatchens strained to hear him, or at least pretended to. But he seemed to get the message. He swallowed. “Because of your particular skills, we might be able to do something about that. Your recent work has done you much credit. But you have to tell me everything. Okay?”
Harold nodded eagerly, gasping, snot everywhere. “Of course.”
“Where is the evidence? Every copy of it.”
Harold sniffed. “A dummy terminal in my office. Hollow shelf in the cabinet.” He snorted, more snot pouring from his face. “That’s it. That’s the only copy.”
“That’s it?”
Harold nodded. The tears were coming now.
“Could be lying,” one of the other officers said.
Hatchens tilted his head, looking at Harold on an angle. “Could be. I don’t think so, though. And don’t look at me like that. We’re not going to torture the man.”
Harold looked up, face soaked. “Thank you. I swear it’s the only copy. I swear.”
Hatchens smiled. “Okay. I believe you.” He pointed his pistol at Harold. “Still going to have to do this, though.”
“But you…”
“Of course I said that. But we’ve got kind of a thing going here — need to frame you for stabbing that poor guy. Sorry, Doc.” Hatchens smiled weakly, genuine sympathy on his face. The muzzle of the pistol flashed.
Chapter 10: Outside the Box
Millions of stars drifted past the window, Stein hating every one in turn. She slumped forward on the bench, elbows on knees, chin resting in hands. Beside her, Bruce listed a bit to the right, insulting a number of different objects and persons, aided in this task by the large amount of purple liquor he had just consumed. On her other side, Griese, sober, quieter than normal, his arm resting on a small can in his lap.
It had been a week since the disaster in the aft. Kinsella hadn’t taken long to fold, surrendering completely within minutes of the ultimatum, presumably right after he had found a place to hide. True to his word, Helot had immediately sent his rescuers in to save Kinsella’s trapped soldiers. He had even been kind enough to provide footage of this to the news feeds. The images were humiliating, stern and competent security officers caring for the gasping amateurs. It was enough to make Stein ashamed, which was clearly the point. Everyone watching would come to the same conclusion — fighting Helot was hopeless. When they played the footage of the security forces retrieving Hogg’s body — the feeds stressing his rank as “Supreme Commander” — she had flipped off her terminal, eyes choked with tears.
Ellen’s body had been turned over a few days after that. That was lucky — Stein imagined security would have been reluctant to hand over anyone nearby the smart rifle. Griese had gone to the hospital alone, firmly turning down Stein and Bruce’s offers of support, returning a few hours later with the small can in his possession. In the days since, he hadn’t said more than a dozen words.
An extremely conspicuous man walked in front of them, eclipsing the stars with his passage. His eyes were fixed firmly forward, almost deliberately not looking at them. Which didn’t seem very likely; Bruce alone was in fine form, as worthy of attention as anything on the ship. Stein was immediately suspicious of the man and only grew more so when he sat down a couple of benches over, again pointedly not looking at them. Other than him, the lounge was completely empty. Most Argosians seemed a bit shy of the big windows since the vacuum disaster; the picture of the kid who had gone missing had been on the feeds more or less permanently the past few days. Stein looked out the window and shuddered.
A few seconds later, Stein heard more people arriving behind her. She turned to see two more figures entering the bow lounge, the larger of them a near twin of the conspicuous man who had first arrived. The smaller one was a woman with an awful haircut, ragged brown locks hanging over her face. The odd couple dropped down to the same tier of benches Stein and her friends were on, then turned, coming directly at them. A tense moment before Stein recognized the woman.
“Ms. Stein,” the mayor said from behind another one of his disguises. He parted the hair of his wig so he could see them. Stein realized he had it on backwards.
“Mayor. I thought you’d be torn to small pieces by now.” She watched him for a moment, not getting any reaction, then for the sake of politeness added, “Glad to see I was wrong.”
Kinsella let half of his hair drop over his face and held up a hand in a gesture of resignation. “That’s politics for you. Always ups and downs.”
“Uh–huh. Like messing up a reverse–coup? How are you not in prison right now, anyways?”
The mayor swept the hair back out of his face. “Oh, I really should be. I think it was part of the deal. I guess I’m reneging on that bit.”
“That sounds about right,” she said. Beside her, Bruce made noises that indicated he was having trouble figuring out who she was talking to. Griese, still mute, tensed beside her. He may have guessed the same thing as Stein. “You’re going to do it again, aren’t you,” she stated.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“How many people did you get killed the last time?”
“I didn’t count. And I also didn’t kill them, don’t forget. That was the other guy.” He turned around to face the window, hands clenched behind his back. “It was a good idea, really. I just didn’t go far enough. Not like what you did.”
“What did I do?”
“It took me awhile to figure out. It was brash wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“The brash. You goosed up those rioters with brash.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“He’s talking about the time when I rescued you,” Bruce said. He hiccoughed, which seemed to startle to him.
“When I rescued you, you mean.”
“That, too. There was a riot going on at the time. That I made.” Another hiccough.
A lot of that escape was a blur to Stein, her time spent lying around in the hospital afterwards having eclipsed the finer points of her flight. “And you drugged them up. Of course you did.”
Kinsella nodded. “I can’t believe I never considered it myself. Clean living, I guess.” He smiled. “Maybe I just assumed people would love their mayor enough to go get shot up for me.”
“You weren’t completely wrong,” Stein pointed out. “That was a pretty big mob you formed at one point. Though I guess that’s over now, wig–boy.” Kinsella’s smile spread wider, and he waggled his head back and forth, looking coy. “No,” Stein said. “There’s no way you’ve got volunteers willing to help you anymore. Brash or not, there’s no way anyone’s going to take a pill from you.”
“The way to their hearts…,” he said, smiling broadly, waiting for her to finish the sentence. She stared back at him, her face blank, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. His face sank. “It’s through their stomachs. You haven’t heard that before?”
Bruce patted his belly earnestly. On her other side, Griese let out a disgusted sound. “You’re going to taint their food?” she asked. Not needing him to confirm any more than his twinkling eyes already did, she turned away, looking back out the window. “You know how pointless that is? Because security’s going to blow away anyone that comes near them, brashed up or not.”
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