by Mur Lafferty
“Still—” Joanna said.
“Stop it,” Maria said. “I know what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it, but I’m not hiding. I know this happened.”
“How?” Hiro asked. He looked very small and wet in the candlelight, and Maria couldn’t look at him.
“Fine. Everything. I’ll tell you all of it.” She told them about how she had hacked her own brain to warn herself of dangers, and to hold the code she had used to damage Hiro’s clones.
“That’s—that’s not possible, is it?” Katrina asked, looking from Joanna to Paul.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Joanna said.
“That’s because it’s never been done before. After I’d done it, I didn’t tell anyone because I know it’s just another subtle yadokari and I didn’t want to give anyone more ways to exploit that.”
“I’m going to rip you apart,” Wolfgang said, starting to get to his feet. Joanna grabbed him by the wrist and shook her head.
“Well,” Katrina said, knocking over the whiskey bottle and recovering it before she lost too much. “I don’t know if you killed us all or not, but I bet if we space you right now, everyone will feel better.”
“I don’t remember doing this, again. It’s not something I would have done unless…forced.” She grimaced. “Then, of course, after I was arrested for several hacking crimes, Sallie helped me get a job on the Dormire. Just like the rest of you.” She smiled ruefully. “Back then I thought she and I had become friends again.”
“Friends with the queen of revenge? I thought you worked for her for over a century?” Katrina said, laughing. “You’re that gullible? The woman hired me to help her figure out how to get revenge on clones when death and financial ruin are just bumps in the road.”
“What did you tell her?” Joanna asked.
“I told her that about the only thing we value is hope, and if you can dash that, then you’ve really hurt someone.”
Joanna chewed on her lip. “She knew us all. She knew that a corporate assassin and a clone hunter would clash. The woman she hired to do her dirty work for over a hundred years, paired with several of her victims.”
“We were supposed to have had lots of psychological profiling to make sure we worked well together,” Katrina said. “I think that profiling was to make sure we would be terrible together.”
Maria laughed bitterly and looked at the palms of her hands. “I wish I had figured it out earlier. Sallie’s plans, I mean. I have no memory of any of my crimes.” She raised her chin and looked Wolfgang in the eye. “But I’m ready to take on any punishment you want to give me. You, Paul, or Hiro.”
Hiro looked away from her, his face stony. Wolfgang looked like he was going to explode.
“What about me? Can’t I punish you too?” IAN asked.
“You’re shutting down the ship,” Maria said bitterly. “What more can you do?”
“Hey, is she on the ship?” IAN asked. “I could get you Sallie Mignon’s mindmap from the clones in storage and you could alter it and talk to her the way you talk to me? You can ask her directly.”
Maria opened her mouth to object, but Hiro spoke first.
“You want her to ravage another mind like she did to you?” Hiro asked. He rounded on Maria, who put her hands up to fend off the verbal attack. “Is it that easy for you to do? God, Maria, you’re the worst of all of us. We all had reasons for our crimes, but you, you’re just sitting there ready to commit another one. Why? To prove your innocence as a sad tool?”
“IAN asked me to, but I didn’t agree,” she said coldly. “You jumped to conclusions.”
“Maria’s crimes were left behind, like all of ours,” Joanna said softly. “There’s no proof she’s guilty of the murders on the ship. All we’ve seen is that nearly all of us are capable of committing it. Hiro attacked Maria and the captain. Paul attacked Maria. Katrina killed her own clone. Sallie Mignon might be able to help us out. What do you think, Wolfgang?”
His cold blue eyes hadn’t left Maria’s face since her confession. “No. It’s barbaric.”
IAN chirped back up. “Never mind! Bad idea. Sallie Mignon isn’t in the database.”
“Was she erased?” Maria asked.
“No, all the other passengers are present and accounted for. The file for Salome Mignon is completely empty.”
“Did she ship a body instead?” Maria asked. “She was supposed to be on board.”
“Nope, she’s not in the cryo lab.”
“Shit. She set us up to fail,” Maria whispered. “So many secrets, so many crimes. If they come out then someone’s going to snap. She put a gasoline can into space and just waited for someone to strike a match.”
“But why? It’s so much work and expense—for what?” Joanna asked.
“Revenge,” Katrina said.
“That’s it,” Maria said. She pulled out her tablet from her pocket and frowned at its waterlogged state. “Joanna, can I borrow your tablet, please?”
She handed it over. “IAN, will you please give me the list of passengers?”
“Sure. It’s a list of thousands, though,” he said, filling the screen with names.
“I only need a few,” Maria said, scrolling impatiently through, her eyes scanning for names that could confirm her suspicion. Natalie Warren. Ben Seims. Manuel Drake. Jerome Davad. Sandra—“Oh. God.” She handed the tablet back. “The people and clones on board are Mignon’s enemies—personal or professional. She packed her enemies on a ship and launched it into space.”
Katrina whistled. “Filled them with hope. Made them spend money that they can’t pass down to themselves or descendants.” She polished off the whiskey. “She really took my advice to heart.”
“We still don’t know what happened,” Hiro said softly, not looking at Maria. “So Mignon set us up to die in space? Who cares? We need to know who snapped the first time and killed us, and if they’re going to do so again.”
Maria felt the triumphant surge of revelation die. He was right—it didn’t explain the murders of their clones.
Then everything fell into place. She looked around the circle, at Joanna, who took a drink from the whiskey bottle; at Hiro, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. At Wolfgang, who stared daggers at her, and then at the captain, who had fallen back in the grass to watch the impossibility of the water above their head.
And then at Paul, who stared at the ground and flexed occasionally against his bonds.
“I’ve got it,” she said softly. “Paul had a brain injury early on in the journey. Wolfgang is the one who hit him. We know Paul became violent for one reason or another. We watched him for the next twenty-four years, but figured we were relatively safe. And we were, because he forgot he was here for revenge against one of us.”
Paul remained quiet in the shadows behind Wolfgang.
Maria paced their circle again. “My logs said that old Captain de la Cruz became severely paranoid and was desperate to have everyone confess their crimes. It’s possible she got the confidential crew files from IAN, who likes to ‘see what happens.’”
“Quite possible,” IAN agreed. “I’m finding all sorts of things in little nooks and crannies in my memory. I squirreled away data like a fiend.” He sounded proud.
“And if Mignon put you here to mess with us, she probably helped hide some of those gems,” Maria said. She took a breath and continued. “Katrina approached Paul about his own crimes, which she may or may not have known were false, and wanted to know more about my history. She pushed him until he remembered. She got more than she wanted, though, since Paul finally remembered what he was here to do and attacked her.”
“Then what?” Joanna asked. She scooted closer to Katrina, who had opened a new bottle.
“Paul puts Katrina in a coma and moves on his plan again,” Maria said, then frowned. “We’re not on guard anymore because he’s been good for a quarter century. So he’s free to start poisoning the food printer and setting other traps.”
“Oh God,” Hiro
said. “I found him. My note makes sense now; I must have caught Paul in the act and blacked out. For all I know, my yadokari could have helped him.”
“How do you know?” Wolfgang asked.
“I found my suicide note,” Hiro said, picking at the grass. “I just didn’t want you to see it since it sounds like I am guilty. I thought my yadokari were behind some of the things that were happening. I was having blackouts. I didn’t want them to take over, so when I was worried I had lost control, I killed myself. It’s not a big leap; I have considered it many times before. I just never did it.”
“So Hiro finds him. Either helps him sabotage the printer or gets convinced he’s party to the crimes, and hangs himself,” Maria said. “Then when I started getting sick, I figured it out and recorded my private log and grabbed the crew backups. By then things were getting violent in the cloning bay. I ran down to the cloning bay and connected to the drive in my personal terminal to get the backups loaded, but then Paul stabbed me.”
“I had to know something was up,” Joanna said, nodding slowly. “I found out Paul was the threat and got a syringe of ketamine. I got him, but he stabbed me. Wolfgang pulled him off me, choking him, but Paul stabbed him. The rest of us bled out while the captain slept in the medbay.”
“And I started it all because I was the reason Paul was determined to get on board,” Maria said. She sat down beside Joanna, who seemed to be the only one not looking like they’d like to kill her where she sat.
“That’s—you don’t have proof for any of it!” Paul said, sputtering.
“We have some proof,” Joanna said gently. “I’m the only one who can use the syringe. I killed you. And it all makes sense: Despite all our volatile personalities, you’re the only one who got on board with a death wish. You never thought you’d be cloned, so you had nothing to lose.”
Paul tried to struggle to his feet, but Wolfgang yanked him down. Paul yelped.
Wolfgang nodded slowly. “Without anyone having memories, it makes as much sense as anything else. You tried to kill us early on. You failed. Then you were nothing for decades. How does that feel, little man?”
Paul stared at him, equal parts hate and fear in his eyes.
“You’ve figured it out, hooray,” Hiro said in a low voice. “IAN is still shutting down the ship. So we get the truth right before we all die.”
Katrina clapped her hands. “Now we drink. Nothing else to do. We’ve confessed our sins and mourned the dead.” She frowned. “Wish I could have gotten the old captain a drink. I didn’t really mean to kill her.”
“I know you didn’t,” Joanna said. “But you did.”
Katrina held aloft the bottle. “To the brave Captain Katrina de la Cruz, who gave her life to save the crew of the Dormire.” She drank and passed it to Hiro.
“Although she started all this chaos,” Hiro said, and drank. Then he considered the bottle. “Well, Paul started it all by killing everyone. No, wait, Katrina started it by reminding Paul that the person he wanted to murder was on the ship. No, wait, Maria started it by hacking everybody and their dog. No, wait, Sallie Mignon started it all by putting us all together. No, wait—”
“Enough,” Wolfgang shouted. He grabbed the bottle from Hiro and drank as if the liquor had offended him and he wanted to punish it.
“To the old captain,” Joanna said, taking the bottle.
They passed it around, not including Paul. No one made eye contact with Maria, except for Wolfgang, who couldn’t stop staring at her, flexing his hands as if they were around her throat.
Katrina got the bottle back and held it up again. “Now to the crew of the Dormire, whom we mourn because no one will remember their last twenty-five years aboard this ship.”
She toasted the injured Hiro next, and then the new food printer for providing the feast, but only she drank to that one.
Hiro didn’t say much, although he drank. Maria couldn’t look at him. She wondered if she had any right to look at any of them ever again. She did glance frequently at Wolfgang to make sure he wasn’t going to leap up and kill her.
“Four toasts. That’s enough.” Katrina gazed around at her crew. “You are all so smart with your figuring out of things. You missed something, though, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Joanna asked.
“IAN. We know he’s another victim of Mignon, but we haven’t figured out who?”
Hiro chuckled, the whiskey bringing his accent out more. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before.”
“What? What didn’t you see?” IAN asked, impatiently.
“You’re ridiculously smart. You like to mess with people just to see shit happen—which got you thrown in jail for treason when you were human. You like pork ramen. And I helped Detective Lo help you escape back in 2293, probably because Mignon paid her to. You’re Minoru Takahashi.”
“Minoru Takahashi,” IAN said, as if trying out the feel of the name.
“Oh! Takahashi!” Joanna said, perking up. “The translator? I remember him. I thought he died in prison?”
“No. He escaped, and the government just made an announcement of his death and declared him legally dead. Saving face,” Hiro said. He rubbed his chin. “IAN? Does that sound right?”
IAN didn’t answer. There was only a whine as the air recyclers stopped circulating, and the lights started quickly dimming.
“No,” Maria shouted. “IAN! IAN! Minoru! Don’t do this! We can talk—Hell, you can punish me yourself! Don’t do this to the rest of them!”
The last thing Maria saw before the lights died entirely was Wolfgang reach for Joanna, and Hiro’s wide frightened eyes flickering toward her at last.
Wolfgang’s voice came through the darkness as the crew cried out in confusion. “I’ve had enough. I’m keeping command of this ship and the crew. IAN, unlock the doors. Maria, you’re going back into the brig. Katrina, you’re going to medbay to sober up.”
Katrina didn’t answer. She had probably passed out.
Maria got to her feet, feeling very cold. Too many people wanted her dead, and she couldn’t see anything in the dark. She felt disoriented, unable to remember where the lake was in reference to her right now. She thought it was to her right. She edged backward slowly, eyes wide trying to drink in any light she could.
Wolfgang swore.
“What happened?” Joanna’s frightened voice cut through the darkness.
Maria edged backward again. She felt the fronds of a willow tree at her back, and pushed through them as her crew called out in confusion. She thought she heard “Where’s Paul?”
Maria remembered she had three knives missing. One was at the bottom of the lake. One was in the medbay as evidence. She could bet that the cleaver was with Paul right now, possibly embedded into Wolfgang.
Someone screamed.
Maria’s back hit the trunk of the willow. She turned, and began to blindly climb.
Hiro’s reaction time was dulled by the drink and the sense of betrayal that had crushed him. He had trusted Maria. She had been his only friend on the ship. And he found out she was responsible for all the misery, all the madness, the prison, the decades of hell, the dreams. It was all her fault.
Everything made sense now. They had solved the murders, but that didn’t change the fact that he could never trust her again. And worse, even if he hadn’t been the one attacking or killing the others, that didn’t mean he’d been entirely innocent—because he had blacked out, which meant the yadokari had been active doing something. He was still broken.
Then there was another blackout, but this time it was everywhere.
Hiro struggled to his feet and then fell when something hit him from behind. A knife dug in, and he felt the yadokari flare to life as if they had been sleeping fireworks. He bucked his assailant off and struck out with his open hand, driving his fingertips into something soft. Paul made a strangled sound and was gone.
Hiro rose again and began limping toward the door. A small red ligh
t, the only illumination in the room, still blinked, indicating it was locked. He wasn’t moving to go through the door, though. When he got to the wall, he felt around to see if he could find the speaker and mike that IAN—Minoru—used.
“Takahashi Minoru,” he said into the mike. He panted, feeling the blood run down his back. That asshole. I should go back and kill him.
Hiro calmly allowed the yadokari back into his mind and spoke gently into the mike, this time in Japanese. “You remember, don’t you? We were friends once. We messed with the other prisoners. I helped get you out, do you remember that?”
“I don’t,” the answer came, whispering. “I don’t know who I am.”
“That’s okay, I don’t know who I am either,” Hiro said. “Let’s just sit here for a while.”
“The others aren’t very happy right now,” Minoru said.
“Can you blame them? You hold our lives in your hands.”
“My life was in Maria’s hands. You see how that turned out.”
“She was a tool in the hands of someone more powerful,” Hiro said, finding it odd to defend her. “Just like we all were on this ship. Mignon wants you to do this to us. Wants you to scare us, and kill us and everyone on the ship. If you do this, you’re fulfilling her every wish for you.”
“Is that how you really feel? That Maria was a pawn?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I’m angry. But the people who were affected by my crimes didn’t forgive me, and I was just a pawn as well.”
“Are you afraid to die here? It will take a long time for the air to run out of the whole ship. You could freeze to death I suppose. I can make that happen.”
“I’m a little afraid,” he said. “But I think it might be time, you know? We’ve all lived a long time, and we haven’t really made the world a better place.”
“Is that the goal?” Minoru’s voice was astonished and far away. “Is that why you became a clone?”
“I guess not,” he said. “I didn’t have noble purposes when I first wanted to do it. But suddenly you realize you’ve had hundreds of years and not done a whole hell of a lot with it.”
