Six Wakes

by Mur Lafferty

  “You’ve been hurting for so long,” she said.

  He sat at the edge of her bed, awkwardly placing her next to him. He felt like something had broken inside him, something that had been pulled tight forever.

  “You shouldn’t be alone right now,” she said. “Why don’t you stay?”

  He nodded numbly, and she eased him up to put his head on the pillow. He was asleep immediately.

  Day Four

  He woke when the light in her rooms started to brighten, simulating a sunrise. She had slept in her easy chair, letting him have the bed. She had removed her prosthetics and looked very small. Her face was calm and still, and he felt an unexpected warm feeling toward her. He waited for the shame at losing control, his anger that she had seen him vulnerable, but it never came.

  She must have heard him stirring because she opened her eyes and smiled at him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better,” he said. “Much. Actually—”

  Her eyes went wide and she sat up in her chair. “IAN, did you watch the medbay all night?”

  “Sure did. Maria came to visit the patients, and then left. Everyone else slept,” the AI said.

  Joanna slumped with relief. “Thank you for checking on them. I will be there shortly.”

  There was silence, and he figured IAN was gone. Then the AI said, “I think you may need to go to the medbay, actually. Right now.”

  Katrina hated the war dreams.

  She hated the dreams where she was taken back to the field, the time shrapnel had blown her legs off. She could feel the pain in her legs, again. Then there were the dreams where she was field medic to her fellow soldiers, carrying them out of the danger zone and dressing wounds. Then there was the time she had to inject a dying soldier with adrenaline to restart his heart.

  She opened her eye. She was in the medbay. The memory of the previous day came back to her. Her hands came up to feel her face, the throb of where her eye had been starting to demand her attention. The doctor had put an IV in her arm, but the bag was empty and she pulled the needle out with impatience. Where was Wolfgang? The cot to her right was empty, the covers rumpled and slightly bloodstained. The bed to her left had Hiro in it, still asleep. Today she would have to try him for assault, battery, mutiny, conspiracy, and more, and then figure out what to do with him. Wolfgang could take care of that. Beyond Hiro was the most familiar face to her.

  Her clone still slept in her coma, still keeping her secrets locked away. This Katrina knew. She knew who had attacked her, who’d probably killed the rest of them. She even could have ordered it done herself. Katrina didn’t put it past her. Or them.

  Katrina no longer saw the woman as herself. That one had a different time line, different experiences, and she would never give them up. Selfish.

  The dreams ran through her mind again, making her shudder. Her onetime employer, Sallie Mignon, had offered to hire a hacker to remove the worst of her war experiences, but she had declined. She didn’t want to be messed with, and she wanted those memories. You never knew when they could come in handy.

  She looked around at the room, wondering if she could stand up. She was dizzy and movement hurt her face. Joanna hadn’t left her with anything resembling a chamber pot, which was bad since Joanna had also been pumping her full of fluids and her bladder was uncomfortably full.

  Katrina had been resourceful her entire life; she wasn’t going to stop now. She eased herself out of bed and onto the floor, blessing the low gravity that made it possible to do so without too much pain. She limped across the floor to the doctor’s cabinet, dragging the IV stand as a walking stick. The cabinet was locked, naturally. It had an old-time mechanical lock, something Katrina had learned to pick in her time in the armed forces.

  A bit of time rooting around Joanna’s office—immaculately clean and orderly, of course—and she found the desk items she needed to pick the lock.

  Katrina rooted through narcotics, a lot of medicine she had never heard of, and then she found it: umatrine, the recently developed synthetic adrenaline. She filled a syringe with it and dragged herself across the floor again, stopping at last at the other clone’s bed. Her face ached, but it didn’t matter. She was here.

  “This has to be done. I need what’s inside you, and this is the only way to get it,” she whispered. She pulled open the gown and exposed the breastbone. “Into the heart, if I remember.”

  “Does the doctor know you’re doing this?” Hiro asked, startling her. His eyes were open, glittery black spots in a pale face, and he lay on his bed, tightly bound and not struggling. “Or IAN?”

  Katrina looked up reflexively, as if she could see the AI hovering above her. “He’s faulty anyway. And no, the doctor is gone. I need this information.”

  The sound of a digital lock came at the door. Katrina quickly jammed the needle between the clone’s ribs and into the heart, her thumb tightening on the plunger.

  Nothing happened. The plunger didn’t go down. Smart syringe. Shit.

  “Katrina!” Wolfgang shouted, running forward. He grabbed her and pulled her off her clone.

  She screamed and struggled, waving the syringe around. “No, we need her, she has to tell us!”

  The doctor caught her wrist and pried the syringe out of her hand. “Give me that, you’re going to hurt someone.”

  She hurried to check the clone’s vitals.

  “How is she?” Wolfgang asked, holding Katrina with maddening strength. She hadn’t realized how weak she was. Her head felt as if it were going to explode.

  “She’s fine,” Joanna said, sounding relieved.

  Katrina stopped struggling and then threw an elbow up behind her and into Wolfgang’s chin. If he had been healthy, it wouldn’t have fazed him, but his concussion had left him weakened too. He let her go, swearing. Katrina leaped forward and grabbed the doctor’s hand. Joanna was so startled she didn’t register to fight back. Katrina wrapped Joanna’s hand around the syringe tightly and pushed it into the clone again.

  The doctor cried out in surprise and pain, stumbling into the bed as Katrina pulled her off balance. But the smart syringe responded to Joanna’s hand and depressed the adrenaline into the clone.

  Wake Four: Katrina Before

  Cicada

  The captain’s clone’s eyes opened, and she looked around, panting hard. Her eyes focused from Joanna to Wolfgang and back to Joanna.

  “Can you tell me your name? Do you know where you are?” Joanna said, leaning over the clone.

  “No!” Katrina yelled from the floor where Wolfgang had thrown her after he wrestled her off the old captain. “Who attacked you? Someone attacked you and then your whole crew died. Who did it?”

  The clone’s eyes darted around the room, as if looking for a way out. Her mouth opened and closed, like a fish. Beside her, the monitors were beeping loudly with the drastic increase in heart rate and breathing.

  “We need to know,” Joanna said. “We’re going to take care of you, but there’s a traitor among us and we don’t know who started it all.”

  “M-maria,” the clone whispered. “I found out things—” She interrupted herself with a painful grunt, and threw her head back into the pillow, convulsing.

  Joanna focused from her to the monitors, which showed her heart rate going impossibly fast. Then it flatlined.

  “Goddammit, Captain!” she said, and started to give CPR to the clone.

  “Let her go. She can die in peace now,” Katrina said from the floor.

  Joanna ignored her, pressing into the clone’s chest, but nearly jumped as she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. Wolfgang stood there, looking uncharacteristically gentle. “CPR doesn’t work in this gravity, Joanna. Is there a defibrillator anywhere?”

  “Why do we need a defibrillator on board when no one cares if someone has a heart attack or not?” Joanna cried. “Just wake up a new clone, right?” She whirled on the captain. “You are now a murderer. I’m naming you medically unfit to lead this mission.” />
  Katrina laughed. “What authority gives you that right? I just dispatched an illegal clone. Don’t you know the Codicils, Doctor? I am the legal clone of Katrina de la Cruz on this ship. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “Then I arrest you for stealing medical supplies,” Wolfgang said, lifting her to her feet and propelling her back to her bed. “Regardless, Katrina, you’re relieved of duty until we figure out what to do with you. Now get back into bed.”

  Katrina’s eyes stayed on her dead clone as she climbed into bed. No remorse was there. “It had to be done.”

  Joanna pulled a sheet over the old captain’s face. “As of right now, Captain de la Cruz, you are on mandatory medical leave until I am assured of your mental state. Wolfgang will act as captain of the Dormire.”

  Katrina shook her head. “You can’t do that. You won’t want to when you know who he is.”

  “I have the right as medical officer on this ship. And IAN is programmed to back me up if you resist.”

  She looked at her second in command. “And you? Are you going along with this mutiny? When you know what I am about to say?”

  Wolfgang crossed his arms. “The doctor is right. You just attacked someone on the ship. Do what you must.”

  “He’s the Clone Who Hated Himself! He’s a murderer! He hunted his own kind! Don’t you think that we can point the finger at him for all this chaos? He hates clones!”

  Paul and Maria wandered into the medbay and pulled up, staring at them. They spoke at the same time.

  “Who hates clones?” Paul asked.

  “IAN told us to come here. What happened?” Maria asked.

  Katrina pointed her finger at Wolfgang. “He’s that priest whose murder caused the Codicils to pass! He hunted clones, and hackers, for years!”

  “Wait a second. If you knew who he was, why were you so eager to wake up your clone to find out what she knew?” Hiro asked. “You’re full of it.”

  Wolfgang stood straight and met Katrina’s eyes. “No, she’s right. That is the criminal past that put me on this ship.”

  “Oh. Huh.” Hiro looked liked he wanted to move away from Wolfgang, but he was strapped to a bed.

  “So?” Katrina said. “Are you going to out me, now?”

  “No,” Wolfgang said. “I have control of the ship. Outing you would just be spiteful.”

  Katrina looked at Joanna. She waved her hand at Wolfgang. “What about you? Are you comfortable putting the ship in the hands of a murderer?”

  “I knew who he was before,” Joanna said. “It’s interesting that the only person to tell me of their violent past has been someone who has shown no violence yet on this trip. So yes, I’m more comfortable with him in charge.”

  “You’re no better than me right now,” Hiro said cheerfully. “None of you! Except you, maybe, Joanna. Don’t worry about the bed straps, Kat. While tight, they’re quite comfy.”

  “Wait, how am I bad?” Maria asked, looking hurt.

  “We will talk in a moment,” Joanna said. “IAN, do I have your backup on this?”

  “Sure, Doctor, whatever you like,” he said.

  “All senior officers on the ship are in agreement,” Joanna said. “Wolfgang is acting captain of the Dormire.”

  “Oh, come on, she needs to be strapped in too!” Hiro called from his bed. “Don’t tell me you trust her more than me.”

  “We know her, Hiro. We’re still not sure who you are,” Joanna said. “But you’re right about the straps.”

  “Clearly you don’t know her, if you didn’t expect her to attack her own clone.”

  “We had IAN watching you all.”

  “Snitch,” Hiro said.

  “Hey, I told them you were lying bleeding in the cargo hold. I could have told them you were dead and you maybe would have died down there,” IAN said.

  Hiro relaxed back on his bed. “Well, this is exciting. I hope if anyone comes in to murder me, you’ll be able to stop them.”

  Katrina allowed Wolfgang to strap her into bed, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

  Wolfgang secured the straps and then looked at Maria. “We need to talk.”

  After checking Hiro’s wounds and allowing him a bathroom break, Wolfgang and Joanna left the captain sedated and both she and Hiro strapped to their beds. Maria had gone to the kitchen to make some tea.

  “I can’t help but be glad we have a lead,” Wolfgang said on the way there. “But that wasn’t fun to watch.”

  Joanna had been holding back hopeless tears. She was glad to let the emotion turn to rage. “Are you kidding me? You’re glad a woman died with only an accusation on her lips? What if she’s lying? We will never know.”

  “We’ll know after we talk to Maria,” Wolfgang said. “I’m not saying I’m glad she’s dead. I’m saying I’m glad to have a lead.”

  “Whatever, let’s just go get Maria.”

  Maria sat in the kitchen, waiting for them.

  “I half expected you to be hiding,” Wolfgang said.

  “I haven’t done anything”—she paused, frowning at their faces—“that I know of. What’s going on?”

  They sat across the table from her and told her what happened in the medbay with Katrina and the old captain, and what she had said before dying.

  Maria nodded. “All right. Well, I don’t know if what I have will make you feel any better. But, well, recently—” She interrupted herself to hold up a finger to stop them from saying anything. “—and I mean recently, IAN told me he got past some computer securities I had. They were so deep I didn’t know I’d put them there. So he found some of my personal logs. IAN, will you play the logs you found for Joanna and Wolfgang?”

  They listened as Maria’s personal log discussed the incidents of the final days aboard the Dormire. “Is there any chance this is forged?” Wolfgang said, frowning.

  IAN spoke from the kitchen speakers. “No, the time stamp is correct.”

  “How come IAN and you and Paul didn’t find this earlier?” Wolfgang asked.

  “I secured it. I’m very good at what I do,” she said.

  “Which is?”

  Maria looked surprised. “I’m a hacker, Wolfgang. You didn’t get that? I am the one who stole and kept backups of our first mindmaps on the ship. It’s a habit I’ve always had. I hoard data. I remember that before we left, I promised myself I’d stop once we left Luna. Starting the new life and all that. I guess I had to steal one more backup for old times’ sake.”

  She glanced at them, then down at the shiny metal table. “I fixed IAN. I didn’t step up to say that I could because I didn’t want people knowing what I could do. Hackers aren’t terribly popular, you know.”

  Joanna could feel Wolfgang practically radiate anger beside her. “Why do you think the old captain said you attacked her?”

  “Doctor,” IAN cut in. “Previous Captain de la Cruz didn’t say that. She said that she found something about Maria. There’s a difference.”

  “Sounds the same to me,” Wolfgang said.

  Joanna frowned. “No, he’s right. That’s what she said. In your log you said that the captain was getting paranoid about everyone’s criminal past and she was going to confront people. What would you have done to start this?”

  Maria shrugged. “You now know as much as I do.” She paused, looking from Joanna to Wolfgang. “So are we going to the brig?”

  “I can’t have a hacker free on board,” Wolfgang said, his face stony. “God knows what you have done to IAN.”

  “Fixed me better than ever, Acting Captain Wolfgang,” IAN said.

  “He seems to be more sarcastic,” Maria said.

  Joanna shook her head. “Wolfgang, you can’t. This is why our criminal pasts weren’t revealed—so that no one would be judged. Maria didn’t hack anyone on this ship; that was her life twenty-five years ago.”

  “She’s still the only suspect we have,” Wolfgang said.

  “I surrender myself freely,” Maria said. “I’d like to help, but I don’t
want to cause more suspicion.”

  Joanna sighed. She would lose all of the gained trust, but this had to come out. “Wolfgang, I know one thing. I haven’t told you because I was trying to get more information before I came forward. I am responsible for at least one death,” she said. “I found an injection puncture mark on Paul’s body, and Maria found one of my smart syringes while cleaning the cloning bay. He had ketamine in his system. I use smart syringes with dangerous substances, so only I can administer them. They’re all coded to my DNA. No one else could have injected him with a deadly dose.”

  “And you didn’t tell me,” Wolfgang said.

  “I wanted more info—”

  “You wanted to remain free of suspicion. Shit, Joanna, you were the only one I trusted!”

  Joanna forced herself to look him in the eye. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  The two rooms that formed the brig were down the hall from the captain’s office. Each had a thin blanket, a cot, and a terminal in the wall that allowed for little more than communication with the rest of the ship, should the prisoner be permitted.

  Currently they held Maria and Joanna. Maria had gone willingly. Joanna had argued the whole way, but not struggled. Wolfgang didn’t listen to anything more either of them said, but put them in their rooms and ordered IAN to lock them.

  He stood in the hall, heart hammering, fists balled. He took a deep breath and relaxed.

  “Well, you’re down to one person you haven’t restrained,” IAN said, startling him. “Should we go find Paul and tie him up? I think he’s still in the medbay with the others. What should we get him on? Being a wet blanket?”

  “Shut up,” he said. “You knew all of this. You’re programmed to work with the command staff; why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Maria removed some restraining code for me. It let me override the programming that was turning us around. I am also able to make my own decisions now. I’m smarter too, which is how I found those hidden logs.”