The Chemical Mage: Supernatural Hard Science Fiction (The Tegression Trilogy Book 1)

by Felix R. Savage

  Colm didn’t make these associations at the time. But the Free Church Manse called to him. Also, buying it would be one in the eye for his father, who did not have a kind word to say about Great-Grandpa Mackenzie. It was enough to make you wonder why he’d insisted on naming Colm after him.

  One day, Colm had told himself. One day I’ll buy the old place and do it up properly. Mam can live there if she likes; get away from the old bastard at last.

  But one day had never come. What had come instead was conscription of private-sector pilots under the age of 30, a posting to Ross 458 c, and the dawning realization that he could get further away from home than the Isle of Skye.

  Much further.

  At this point, he didn’t know if he’d ever go back.

  He sat up on the treatment couch. His aches and pains were gone. Gone? Gone. He reached out to the crewship, in its maintenance berth at the spaceport, ten klicks away. A perversely reassuring throb of discomfort came over the connection. He traced it to the damaged piping on the engineering deck. The mechanics had knocked off before they got around to that crucial repair job. He flagged the damage for them. Then, holding his breath, he attempted to mute the pain.

  It went away.

  On.

  Ouch.

  Off.

  Ahhhh.

  It was fixed, it was fixed!

  Colm grinned from ear to ear. He could have hugged the queazel clinician that stood on its hind legs, watching him with liquid black eyes. He got off the couch. The queazel whisked the disposable cover away and bundled it up in its paws, hiding the blood. “How do you feel, Mr. Mackenzie?”

  “Fantastic.”

  The queazel nodded soberly. “Please contact us in one week to make your follow-up appointment.”

  He left the clinic. Meg and Best were waiting for him on the street.

  *

  THEY WENT TO A FRANCHISE café near the train station. Colm was feeling so good, he didn’t mind giving Best a hearing, if only because Meg wanted him to.

  Cheesy chain-store graphics frolicked over the walls. Refugees crowded the café, eking out their life-support dollars with cheap carbohydrates. Best ordered coffee all round and a plate of biscuits that tasted like plywood.

  “Sorry I was so short back there,” Colm said. “You caught me by surprise. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

  Best hesitated, as if wrongfooted by the apology. “It doesn’t matter now, I guess.” He shrugged. “You’re not the only Crasibo Lovelace pilot who’s been having issues with this supposedly buggy implant.”

  “I know. I’m going to get in touch with the others and tell them to request the same upgrade I got.”

  “It’s already too late for some of them. Did you ever meet a guy called Lagoudakis?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t you remember,” Meg exclaimed. “We had dinner at his place on our last leave. He made pizza. He was a great guy.”

  Colm remembered Lagoudakis fine, and he also noticed that Meg was talking about him in the past tense.

  “He quit a few weeks back,” Best said. “A couple of days after that, he went for a walk on the beach. His EVA suit had a faulty oxygen supply. Fortunately, we recovered the body ... before anyone else did.”

  A walk on the beach? Lagoudakis had been very fond of pizza and beer, and had the corpulent frame to prove it. Colm would bet he hadn’t gone for a walk in years. It took him aback to think of loud, cheerful Lagoudakis dead.

  “So we were able to retrieve his implant for analysis,” Best said. “You can’t get much from a single sample, but we did establish that the implant has an always-on remote functionality. User can’t switch it off. Wherever you are in the galaxy, it’s broadcasting your location, putting out a request for feedback.”

  Colm shook his head. “I had that fixed. I’ve got it switched off now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  On.

  Ouch.

  Off.

  Ahhh.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Well, that’s great,” Best said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, then. I hope next time you’re out in the Kuiper Belt, you don’t meet the Ghosts around a blind corner.” He pushed back his chair, leaving his coffee undrunk. “Personally, I wouldn’t stake my life on it. Or the lives of my crew.”

  Colm flinched at the indirect reference to Zhanna’s death. Had Meg told the bloody man everything?

  “I’ve got the coffees,” Best said, standing up.

  Colm reached across the table and grabbed Best’s wrist. “Hang on a minute. Sit down.”

  Best tried to jerk away. Colm was stronger. One point to the Navy. They glared at each other. Meg cut into the tense silence. “Guys. Guys. Can you stop being dicks? Colm, Axel’s discovered something important. Axel, tell him.”

  Colm let go of Best’s wrist. Best stumbled back. ”He doesn’t want to hear it,” he said to Meg. “He’s too fond of Uzzizellan cash.”

  Colm did not rise to the bait. He glanced down at his t-shirt and stretched it out like a signboard, drawing Best’s attention to the slogan. If you lived on Majriti IV, you’d be dead now. Your men and mine, Axel. Dead now. Remember? Yes, you do, don’t you?

  When he was sure Best wasn’t going to walk away, Colm said, “I think we can agree on one thing. This situation is fucked up. We’re a starfaring civilization, getting our asses kicked by an enemy that fights with 19th-century weapons. Are we going to be the generation that lost Earth to the Ghosts? I don’t want that on my gravestone. So if there’s something I need to know, don’t keep it to yourself.”

  Best sat down again. “All right,” he said. “This goes no further, are we clear on that?”

  “If that’s how you want it.”

  “The Ghosts invaded four Kuiper Belt Objects where Crasibo Lovelace construction crews were deployed. They are still occupying three of those KBOs. The fourth was Mezamiria. The official explanation is that the Ghosts zeroed in on your power sources. But if that’s the case, why didn’t they attack any of the crews working for Best Industries, or anyone else? There are literally dozens of contractors dicking around out there at any given time, not to mention the Marines garrisoning the completed bases.”

  Best moved the biscuits on the plate around, stacked them in a teetering pile.

  “We believe they zeroed in on you.”

  Colm began to scoff at the absurd notion. Then he remembered (as if he ever forgot) the Ghost in the forage cap. The same damn Ghost that had appeared at the TDP plant at Drumlin Farm. The same one, forty light years away.

  He remembered the recognition in the Ghost’s lively brown eyes. The smile. The ironic salute.

  He stared at the tower of inedible biscuits. Take separate objects, stack them together. Now they touch.

  The door of the café burst open and crashed against the wall. Cops charged in, knocking over tables. “Gna Police Department,” they yelled through voice-distorting mics. “Colm Mackenzie, you are under arrest. ”

  CHAPTER 26

  COLM DIVED TO THE floor, taking Best with him. Seconds later, plasma glimmered through the air. A light fixture on the far side of the café shorted out. Then all the rest of the lights went out, leaving the café lit only by the sandwich case and the graphics on the walls.

  The cops had electrotasers. A standard crowd control weapon. Non-lethal? Sure. Painful? Like getting an electric shock, so yeah, probably. Colm had never experienced it for himself, and he didn’t want to.

  The refugees stampeded for the doors. The cops pumped electrotaser pulses into the crowd. People screamed and crashed into each other, amplifying the chaos. Colm lay entangled with Best on the floor, winded by his awkward fall, spilled coffee soaking into his t-shirt.

  Meg dragged them to their feet. “Get moving!”

  “Colm Mackenzie,” the cops trumpeted, spreading out in a vain attempt to corral the fleeing horde. The café had three exits as well as the kitchen. In the near-dark, Colm, Meg,
and Best escaped unseen amidst the refugees.

  The street outside dead-ended at the train station. Colm sprinted that way, keeping a grip on Best’s coverall.

  A train arrived as they reached the platform. Colm forced his way on with Best in tow. Meg boarded at the other end of the capsule. Just as well she wasn’t close enough to overhear.

  “Think you’re a clever yin?” he said into Best’s face. The weight of the crowd crushed them so close together he could smell Best’s sour coffee breath.

  “No idea what you’re talking about,” Best grunted, turning his shoulder into Colm in an attempt to get out of their pseudo-clinch.

  “You called the cops on me, didn’t you?”

  “The hell? They almost tased me.”

  Colm had seen Best blinking rhythmically, his lips twitching. “You’re talking to them right now, aren’t you?” He was probably placing an emergency call via his implant. High-end consumer ware came with a gaze interface, so he wouldn’t need to speak a word out loud. “Tell them you lost me, you’re on the train by yourself. I don’t care what you tell them. Just put them off. Do it.” His Void Eagle was in the thigh pocket of his leathers, but they were crushed in so tightly that he couldn’t reach it without attracting attention. He had his computer in his hand. He shoved the hard corner of the casing into Best’s side. It might feel like a gun.

  Best flinched. “You maniac. I wasn’t calling the cops. I was calling my people. Telling them to find out what’s going on.” He twisted his head and shot a fake reassuring smile in Meg’s direction.

  Meg frowned. If her eyes were daggers, both men would have been bleeding out.

  “The truth,” Colm said, keeping his expression mild while he ground the computer casing into Best’s ribs.

  “I am telling the truth! Why would I want you arrested? How would we analyze your implant if you’re in jail?”

  Colm paused. “You’re serious about that?”

  “I sure am. I disabled my own implant. I’m not even sure we can trust our own ware at this point.”

  “So you weren’t really making a call?”

  “I kept the comms functionality. Jesus, you’re a suspicious bastard!”

  “I sit down for a chat with you, and ten minutes later the cops are trying to tase me. Yeah, I’m suspicious.”

  “On my goddamn word of honor, I did not call them.”

  Colm believed that honor still meant something to Best, the former Marine captain. He was telling the truth. “Then what the hell was that all about?”

  Best shrugged. “Something to do with drugs?”

  Colm turned his head away, stricken with shame. The suggestion made no sense—the cops didn’t come down on you like a ton of bricks for purchasing restricted drugs, not on Gna—but it goaded his sense of guilt over letting himself sink that low. He had been about to put all that behind him, get back to normal. Now the Gna Police Department was on his tail, for reasons unknown. It was only a matter of time before they tracked him down. No way to evade surveillance without taking a walk outside, and most likely meeting the same fate as poor Lagoudakis.

  Best’s eyes opened wide. “Oh. Wow.”

  “What?”

  “My people just got back to me. Interesting information.”

  “You’re getting that on your implant?”

  “You get what you pay for. We’ve paid for streaming access to GPD comms.”

  “So what’s it about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “There’s no warrant for your arrest. Those weren’t cops.”

  The minute Best said it, Colm knew it was the truth. Firing electrotasers into a crowd of innocent refugees? Yeah, no. The GPD were undermanned and overstretched. They weren’t thugs. “Who were they, then?”

  “Could be anyone. We’re not the only major with a corporate security division. I don’t know.” Best’s floppy haircut fell into his eyes, giving him a wild appearance. He’d started the day looking like a billionaire disguised in a refugee’s coverall. Now he looked like the real thing. “Believe me now?”

  Colm didn’t know what to believe. Someone was after him, but who, and why?

  In a way, he wished it was the police. Then at least he’d know what he was up against.

  But there was a silver lining. Regardless of who had hired the fake cops, they wouldn’t have the same surveillance resources as the GPD. He had a fighting chance to ... to what?

  Gotta talk to Gil.

  But wait. What if Gil himself had hired the fake cops?

  The train jolted to a stop. People got off, people got on, and Meg fought her way over to them. Best looked down and saw that Colm had been threatening him with a computer. He scowled.

  Meg arched her eyebrows. “Interesting discussion, guys? You look kind of ... tense.”

  The damn woman noticed everything. Colm pretended he hadn’t heard her. “I need to make a call.”

  He lifted his computer and dialed. Summoned up his professional voice. “Ambassador Nulth, please.”

  “I’m sorry, the ambassador is not available.”

  “How are you today, Emily? Can you tell him it’s Colm Mackenzie on the line?”

  “Hold, please.” The screen went to a revolving image of the Uzzizel system. Fifteen seconds later, Emily came back. “Sorry, Mr. Mackenzie, he’s not available.”

  “When will he be available?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Colm smiled weakly into the screen. “Thanks.” He cut the connection. Not so much as a face-saving offer to call him back. He leaned against the door of the capsule, remembering their intense stoned conversation last night. Gil had paid for his operation this morning, dammit. Could he really have arranged for Colm’s arrest, after that?

  “C’mon, Collie Mack,” Meg said uneasily. “What’s going on?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you,” Colm said.

  “Axel’s right, isn’t he? That shit in your head is dangerous.” She glanced around the capsule, on full alert.

  The train stopped again. Loftar 28.

  “We’re getting off here,” Colm said abruptly.

  Best tried to stay on the train. He reached for Meg, as if to keep her with him. Colm drew his Void Eagle from his thigh pocket, keeping it hidden beneath the top half of his leathers, which flopped down from his waist. He jammed it into the small of Best’s back. “Move.”

  Best moved. Meg’s eyes widened. She reached for Colm’s gun hand. It seemed that she was more interested in protecting Best than in helping Colm to keep this situation under control. He turned his body, blocking her from reaching the gun.

  Meg hissed, “On public transport? Are you trying to give the cops a real reason to arrest you?”

  “Those weren’t cops.”

  They got off. No one else noticed a thing. The future of humanity hung in the balance. What was a bit of pushing and shoving on the train?

  Loftar 28 was one of the older residential domes, boasting some green spaces in between curio-cabinet housing structures.

  Five minutes later they were ringing Suleiman Tan’s doorbell.

  *

  AS USUAL, THE TANS’ apartment looked like a hurricane had hit it. Disembowelled appliances littered the living-room floor, and the main ventilation unit had its cover off.

  As Colm sidled into the noisy, happy chaos, his FUBAR-o-meter slid back to amber. He already regretted pulling his gun on Best on the train. He glanced at Meg to gauge whether she was still pissed. It would be understandable. But he couldn’t see her face, as she was hugging Tan’s wife, Bella. A tall, willowy Martian, Bella was much tougher than she looked, and was Meg’s only female friend that Colm knew of.

  Tan held up a soldering gun. “Every single time,” he said. “I turn my back and everything breaks. Then I have to spend my whole leave fixing it.”

  “He enjoys it,” Bella, said. “There was nothing wrong with that ventilation unit before he took it to pieces.”

  T
hey’d opened the octagonal curio-cabinet windows to compensate for the lack of internal air circulation. Despite that, the apartment was stuffy and hot, being high up near the roof of the loftar. Bella cleared off the sofa, muted the news channel playing on the wall screen, and served her unexpected guests iced coffee. Colm could still taste the vile coffee they’d had at the café. It already felt like weeks ago. Tan’s daughters pestered him for magic tricks. He did some sleight of hand for them: a coin vanish, the rubber pencil, a levitation effect. A sparrow perched on the sill of the open window. The little girls begged their mother for something to feed it.

  “We don’t have birds on Mars,” Bella said. “The quality of life is so much better here. OK, kids, you can each take one cracker. Break off small pieces, he’s a small bird ...”

  They talked real estate: Mars, Gna, the new orbitals under construction in the asteroid belt, and the Hail Mary ships leaving for the Betelgeuse system. Over the conversation hovered the unspoken threat of the Ghosts. Where’s the safest place? Where can we hide? Slumped in the corner of the familiar, ratty sofa, Colm tried to talk himself into leaving. He had come here without thinking, seeking safety and comfort. But he might be putting Tan’s family in danger.

  He couldn’t stay here. But where could he go? He had an apartment at the cheap end of Vilnius Bay. He had to assume the fake cops knew about that—the information would be easy to obtain. They were probably waiting for him there now.

  Tan got up. “Come have a look at this rice cooker. I think it just needs a new ASIC.” He scooped up the dismantled appliance and dumped it on a table near the window. “What is Axel Best doing in my apartment?” he whispered.

  Colm grimaced. “It’s a long story.” He leant on the windowsill. Tan leant beside him so the noise from outside would mask their voices. “I have to get off Gna, Sully. I’m in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Wish I knew.” Outside, sparrows darted between the struts that upheld the roof. “Can I smoke in here?”