Gemma returned and began the slow process of removing screws from the permanent panels. Tadeo checked the space between the walls, but in each instance, they found nothing. Midmess was approaching when she finished removing the last wall panel and stepped up on the bunk to start on the ceiling.
“Sirs? This one looks like… like it’s loose.” She pulled on the panel, and screws clattered to the floor and smacked off the metal sheets they’d removed.
“Take it down.” Tadeo’s heart sped up, and he pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against as he waited.
The girl moved out of his way as he hopped up on the bunk. He activated his helio again and used it to cast light into the narrow ceiling space above. A bundle of wires were tied off up there, and a thin pipe ran across the middle of the space.
There. The helio moved with Tadeo, and metal glinted. Something shiny had been jammed far back in the space. He reached his hand in and felt for it, gently pulling at it to see if it would come away. Sharp edges, solid metal. Another tug, and the piece came away in his grasp.
Tadeo pulled the object out, and something fell off the top of it, tumbling onto the bunk.
He peered down at the heavy metal rectangle in his hands. It was longer than both his hands, etched with circuitry, and had a series of square indentations. He had no idea what it could be, but it didn’t belong up in the ceiling, loose like that.
“What is that?” Omar asked.
Tadeo jumped down from the bunk and snatched up the object that had fallen off the metal rectangle. It was a very old shift card. He could tell by the web of cracks covering the plastic. He turned it over. A helix and a three-sided symbol—the triquetra—were printed on the other side. The medlevel symbol. What was Era… or Dritan… doing with a medlevel shift card?
He held up the metal rectangle. “Do either of you know what this is?”
Gemma nodded. “I do.” She took it from Tadeo and turned it over in her hands. “Belongs in recyc. Look here,” she said, pointing to a jagged edge. “It has an odd edge, like someone took a welding tool to it.”
“So what is it?”
Gemma’s brow furrowed, and she looked from Tadeo to Omar with confusion. “Well… it’s a power cell. They’re all over the ship. In every cubic, they store back-up power for lockdowns or outages. But this one’s empty, see?” She pointed at the square indents. “Power strips go here. This one’s used up.”
Tadeo’s mind raced. “Where are they in the cubics?”
Gemma walked over to the door and tore off the panel Tadeo and Omar had checked first. She made a little noise.
“Needs new wiring in here,” she said, almost to herself. She drove her hand down into the panel and lifted out the insert. Bright yellow strips lined the indentations. “See? This one’s still good.”
“And where do they go when they’re used up?”
Gemma cocked her head at him, like she was surprised at the question. “To recyc. Then back to the power deka. They charge them on the Beijing.”
“Can we trace this, find out where it’s been?”
“No. They’re interchangeable—no unique ID numbers.”
Tadeo shook his head and glanced down at the cracked medlevel card still in his hand. Alone, the piece of recyc might be another bit of black market contraband… but with the medlevel card and hidden in the ceiling? No. Something was off here.
“Omar, finish searching here and get this cubic back together. When you’re done, comm me for instructions.”
“Got it. Sir.”
Midmess buzzer rang as Tadeo exited the cubic, still clutching the medlevel card in hand. This card had belonged to someone, and he was going to find out who—and why it had been hidden in the Corinth cubic. He hurried for the main stairwell. Colonists moved out of his way, but even then, it still took nearly a half hour for him to reach level four through the crush of the midmess crowd.
He hesitated when he reached the medlevel doors. He avoided this place as much as possible—but today he had no choice. He forced himself to enter the waiting area. High metal counters lined the walls, and clerks wearing holo gear stood behind each one. They worked with the bulky black boxes atop each counter, the stationaries, checking patients in. Tadeo went to the back of the area, to the station marked Records. The three colonists waiting in line stepped out of his way when they saw him and stared as he stepped up to the counter.
“Go back to your seats,” Tadeo said.
They all quickly backed away, taking seats at the nearest bench.
The clerk behind the records counter licked his lips, then glanced around, as if he wanted to escape and not be the one to deal with a guard. He twisted his wrist, shutting off his reflective eyepiece. The glasstex cleared.
“Yes, sir? How can I help you?”
Tadeo slid the shift card across the counter toward him. “I want to know whose card this is.”
The man picked up the card and scanned it against a flat gray scanpad hooked to the stationary. “No data. No record. The card doesn’t even exist. Must be an old one that got stripped and sent to recyc.”
“I need you to figure out who it used to belong to then,” Tadeo said.
The young man looked behind him, where an older black-suited tech sat on a bench against the wall, working on holo gear in his lap. “Day, will you come look at this? He needs to find out who owned it, but we have no record on it.”
Day got up and came over to the counter. “No number at all? Strange.” He peered down at the card. “They had these when I was a half—twenty years back. Old-style shift cards made on Dubai.”
“Then it should be easy to figure out whose this was, shouldn’t it?” Tadeo asked.
Day let out a surprised laugh, and Tadeo shot him a glare.
Day paled. “There are thousands of medlevel workers this could’ve belonged to.”
“Well, then, you,” Tadeo said, pointing to Day, “will find out when this card was manufactured, then go make a list of every person it may have belonged to since.”
Day looked at the floor. “Yes, sir.” He moved to an empty counter beside them and logged into the system, apparently getting to work.
Tadeo shook his head, frustrated at the dead-end lead. Omar was finishing up in Era’s cubic, and then they’d begin the very long process of searching the Repository. Tadeo had time to pull records—see if Dritan, Era, or any of the terrorists Dritan had been involved with, had done anything suspicious on medlevel. Maybe there’d be a hint as to how the Corinths ended up with that card.
Tadeo took the blank data storage cube from the pocket where he’d stored his holo gear and handed it to the clerk. “Now I need some records.”
The clerk inserted the small metal cube into the stationary and twisted his wrist. His eyepiece darkened. He gestured in the air, accessing patient files on a 3D interface only he could see.
“Names?”
“Dritan Corinth and Era Corinth. Put all their records on the cube.”
“Anything else, sir?”
“I also want full patient records on Samuel Smith, Tatiana Carizo, and Jonas Keen.”
The young clerk’s mouth dropped open. He no doubt recognized the names of the three terrorists who had just been airlocked. He licked his lips and gestured for a few more minutes, then popped the cube out of the stationary.
“Here you go.” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “Anything else?”
“This is a confidential investigation.” Tadeo lowered his voice. “If you tell anyone about this data pull, you’ll find yourself in the brig. Or worse.”
The man held up his hands. “I understand.”
Tadeo took the cube and strode to the corner of the waiting area. He chose an empty bench against the wall and pulled his holo gear out of his pocket. He put on the eyepiece and pushed the cube into the handheld’s slot, then activated it with a twist of his wrist.
The Infinitek logo, an infinity symbol, twisted in the air before him and faded into the man
tra of the fleet.
A Better World Awaits.
Then five files appeared, the traitors’ names beneath each of them. He selected Dritan’s.
Dritan Corinth; Sub-level maintenance
MedBay: Physical
Transfer from the London - Physical Results: Good health
MedBay: Injuries
Second-degree burn
Follow-up - Healed and cleared for sublevel work
Dritan had seen two different medics in his ten months aboard the Paragon. Nothing strange noted. Tadeo opened Era’s files next.
Era Corinth; Repository Tech
MedBay: Physical
Transfer from the London - Physical Results: Good health
MedBay: Population Management
Implant removal
Pregnancy test - Positive
Follow-up – Genscanning - Canceled, amniocentesis performed
Follow-up - Pregnancy defective
The final date was flagged, and Tadeo’s stomach churned as he read it.
Termination Procedure - Appointment missed
Tadeo closed out Era’s records. Nothing strange mentioned on them, but he made note of the medic she’d been scheduled to see for her last three appointments—Medic Nora Faust.
Sam, Tatiana, and Jonas had all arrived ten months ago, during the same transfer period as Dritan and Era. He combed through their records next. All of them had the standard physical exams as well as several follow-up exams for minor sublevel work injuries.
When he reached the end of Tatiana’s record, his eyes caught a flagged item. He tapped it.
Tatiana Carizo; Sub-level maintenance
MedBay: Population Management
Annual Implant Renewal
Note: Patient arrived for yearly implant renewal complaining of pain from termination procedure performed on the Meso one year prior. Patient refused procedure and demanded consult with Medic Nora Faust. When Medic Faust was not immediately called in, patient grew angry, striking out at Medic Meletsky. Medic Faust brought in to perform patient’s implant renewal procedure, and patient was started on 80mg grimp.
Tadeo deactivated the holo gear, and his pulse quickened. Why had Tatiana asked for Medic Faust, specifically, by name like that? Medic Faust had also treated Era. Could there be a connection?
Tadeo’s commcuff buzzed, and Omar’s ID popped up. Tadeo stood and walked to the edge of the waiting area, away from anyone who might overhear.
He answered the comm. “Raines.”
“We’re done in the airlocker’s cubic,” Omar said, his voice thin, tinny through the ancient earbud in Tadeo’s ear. “Found nothing else. Where do you want me next?”
“When you looked through the terrorists’ cubics in singles sector,” Tadeo said, “you didn’t allow maintenance workers in, did you?”
“No—only guards. But we did a clean sweep.”
“Is it possible you missed any attached panels?”
Omar paused. “Maybe? We didn’t rip the whole cubic apart to bare metal like this.”
“Bring the power cell insert to my locker on six, grab something to eat from mess, then head back down to singles sector with Gemma,” Tadeo said, keeping his voice low. “I want you two to tear apart the terrorists’ bunks again. Every single place in the wall, ceiling, and floor. Just to be sure nothing was missed. I’ll meet you there soon.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tadeo turned off his commcuff. It would take the records tech hours to figure out who that medlevel card may have belonged to. Omar’s search would likely turn up nothing, and then they needed to search the Repository, which could take days. So while he was still on medlevel, he’d follow up on this connection between Era, Tatiana, and Medic Faust.
He headed over to the population management station.
A brunette clerk gestured, engrossed in her holo screen. “I have an appointment during the morning shift,” she said to the patient in front of her.
“Excuse me,” Tadeo stepped up to the station.
The girl’s head jerked toward him in surprise. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I need to see Medic Faust.”
Her hand tightened into a fist mid-air. “Nora Faust is no longer a medic.”
“What do you mean?”
“She has power core sickness. She’s in hospice.”
“What room?”
The girl pressed her lips together and performed a series of hand gestures. “Hospice MedBay D, Bed 124.”
Tadeo turned and headed for the back of the waiting area. The glass doors slid open, and he forced himself to pass into the wide corridor beyond. The sharp, sickly-sweet mix of cleaning solution and power-core sickness drugs made him break out in an immediate sweat and sent a wave of nausea through him. He breathed through his mouth and focused on the metal triquetra and double-helix symbol engraved on a panel at the end of corridor. Medics in light blue suits bustled around him, heading deep into the level.
His mind went to the grimp in his pocket—and to the fact that he could get high for the rest of his life off the stash they had on medlevel.
When he’d been coming off grimp on the Meso, his mother closed down the command level medcubic under the pretense of repairs, and one medic watched over him every shift until the grimp was out of his system.
The bone-deep pain, the hallucinations, the sweating and vomiting—it was unbearable. But then the grief returned along with the rest of his emotions. Dealing with his pain over Kit was the worst part of the withdrawal.
After Kit died, his mother was there for him every hour of every day. She saved him. She somehow managed to run the ship and nurse him through his grimp addiction, then through his grief. She was his strength when he had none.
He was sixteen when Kit died, beyond the caretaker sector mentality of desiring to be coddled by a mother or by anyone else. But he loved Kit, and she airlocked herself because of him. There was nothing worse than that.
As he came down off the grimp, all the grief rooted within him bloomed into something fierce and terrible. His mother held him and talked him through it, made him see the truth.
“She made her own choices,” his mother said. “Both of you did. And her last choice was hers and hers alone. Some of us simply don’t have the genes needed to bear this burden. Some can’t handle the pressure of doing their part in this fleet—of living selflessly to ensure humanity makes it to New Earth.”
“This was my fault,” Tadeo said.
“No. Kit chose this. Not everyone can see the truth—that the darkness of space will end someday. And that the end of our darkness will be our new beginning. It could be just on the other side of the next jump. The survival of the human race depends on colonists who believe in that and have enough faith to do what’s needed to get there. Kit didn’t have that faith.”
He felt betrayed when she said it, as if Kit hadn’t deserved to live. “The fleet’s not better off without her.”
His mother gripped his hand tight. “You may have made mistakes, but you get to live and make new choices. Will you dedicate your life to this fleet—to leading your ship? Or will you let her choices and mistakes destroy you both? I know what you’re made of. I know what this family’s made of. We’re strong. The Raines family never quits.”
He got angry at that—punched a dent in a wall panel and injured his hand. But his mother was right. Kit killed herself. She’d quit. In the end, he’d decided to survive. And to lead.
Tadeo kept his eyes on the words engraved above each corridor he passed.
Population Management.
Physicals.
Injuries.
Hospice.
He turned down the hospice corridor. Half the level was dedicated to the dying. He reached medbay D and stepped into the vast, dimly lit space.
A young medic got up from a chair near the door. “Can I help you?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes. I need to speak to Nora Faust in bed 124.”
“Right this w
ay.”
She led him past dozens of cots, each with thin curtain barriers between them. Most had the curtains drawn for privacy, but the patients he could see were hooked up to machines, sleeping or staring into nothing with glazed eyes.
Some people chose to die on their own ships when the power core sickness came for them, but many chose to die with the comfort of an unending supply of drugs in Paragon’s hospice bays. Core sickness spared no one. For an entire lifetime, the power cores radiated every colonist’s cells. Their superimmunity—a gift of the Legacy Code—kept the radiation at bay for only so long. Eventually, the immune system turned on itself, confused, overzealous, attacking the very body it was supposed to protect. Tadeo didn’t want to go out like that.
They reached bed 124. An old woman with short gray hair lay in the bed, a white sheet pulled up around her. Tadeo shifted on his feet and glanced back toward the exit. There was no way this dying woman was any kind of lead. He’d made a mistake coming here.
As the medic set up a chair beside the bed, Nora’s eyes opened.
“Medic,” Tadeo said. “Can you turn on that light?” He gestured to the lume bar above Nora’s cot.
“Yes, sir. I can from the front of the bay.” The medic drew the curtains, and the sound of her boots on the tile floor receded.
It was even darker with the curtains drawn. Tadeo took a seat, but the space was so small, his knees brushed the cot. Nora Faust sat up, flapping impatiently at the wires attached to her chest. They connected to a metallic disc and led to the life monitoring box beneath the cot. The metal machine beeped lowly in the silence, joining the chaotic hum of the other machines in the bay.
Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle (Books 1-3) (Fractured Era Series) Page 23
