The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  “Sorry!” said Garda. “I don’t care if you interview me. I just want you to see your people!”

  Silas nodded sagely. “Now get your ass to the Watch. It’s a party, and we’re not taking no for an answer.”

  “This is, without a doubt, the least cool thing we have ever done,” Orna said to Boots, fiddling with the half-moon lapel pin Silas had forced on her.

  “Be nice,” whispered Boots.

  “I’d rather be shot. You owe me for getting spotted.”

  Silas, Garda, and about fifty of their closest friends had insisted they come to the Widow’s Watch—a bar synonymous with beaten Arcan refugees for most of the locals. It was where forgotten Arcan soldiers came to wipe away their memories of the dead, and for her tenure on Gantry Station, Boots had hated the place. It seemed like another lifetime that she’d been in there, pumping Silas for information about Mother. At the time, Boots would’ve been hard-pressed to decide whether the watering hole was more like a sepulcher or a trash heap.

  It’d changed a lot in her absence: the metal bits gleamed; the wood was polished to a wet shine. Back in the day, he’d had four taps—one for water, three standard-issue megacorporate lagers—and a few bottles of rotgut. Now, there were hundreds of exciting beverages to try, and the taps jutted from the wall like a battalion at attention. Three colors dominated the space: brass for opulence, purple for Arca, and a lacy black wallpaper to give the Widow’s Watch a funerary flair.

  Back when the party started, Jeannie and Alister had returned to the ship to relay their intel and sent Orna over for guard duty. Upon her arrival, the quartermaster was instantly accepted as one of their own and captured by the revelers.

  “I brought you this,” said Orna, handing over Boots’s RVC jacket, complete with damaged elbow. “Seemed like the right occasion.”

  “I can’t be seen in this!” Boots replied. “What if Jack Rook sees the scuff?”

  “Jack Rook isn’t going to be here.” The quartermaster, by contrast, sported a jet-black Camden Cross suit that showed off her lanky silhouette. It was like sitting beside a rock star, which only made Boots more self-conscious.

  “People have imagers, Orna.”

  “You need to calm down about the jacket.”

  Boots scoffed and sipped her beer. “What would you do if I put a dent on Charger?”

  “I’d put a dent in your skull.”

  They’d just completed their third howling pub rendition of “The Golden Hills of Arca” and their tenth round of shots. Silas was a generous host, cutting into his best stores and sloshing them around the bar like he did that every day.

  They’d made Boots sit beneath her portrait, and the attention was nauseating.

  Despite her annoyance, the regulars at the Watch were looking better than ever—properly groomed, in clean clothes, lacking the dark circles under their eyes. Boots recalled old soldiers drugging themselves to death in the back, but the energy was different now. These looked like people with a purpose. When she’d mentioned it to Silas, he’d said something about the veterans’ fund and outreach programs really helping.

  “Have we heard from the captain yet?” Boots asked Orna, pushing away her shot glass, only to have it refilled and shoved back toward her like a bounce ball. For the first time in her life, she paced herself.

  Orna leaned in close. “Last I heard, the mission is still a go, so keep your head screwed on straight.”

  Boots laid her fingers to her chest. “Who, me?”

  “I’ve seen your benders. Just make sure they have some liquor left at the end of the night.”

  Drunken revelers began to line up.

  “Look, I don’t want to be here any more than you—” Boots paused as a woman stumbled over to her. “Hi, Susan, yes, it’s great to see you, too! Make sure more booze gets to your mouth than your clothes—” Then she whispered to Orna, “I don’t want to be here any more than you do, but why not postpone the gig?”

  Orna gave her a bitter smile, raising her glass so that no one could see her lips. “You drew too much attention, so we need to act now… Which is why you’re on command center support.”

  “What?”

  “Blow your cover, get scrubbed. Look at the plus side.”

  “Which is?”

  Orna shrugged. “Every one of these fools are packing. I’d love to see someone try to take you out in here.”

  Another pair of drunks, an elderly woman and a rosy-cheeked gent, sloshed to the front of Boots’s receiving line, arms around each other with goofy grins on their faces.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Elsworth,” said the woman, “you’re… like… an example to dull-fingers.”

  The pleasant fog disappeared from Boots’s head as she sized the lady up. “Excuse me?”

  “A lot…” slurred the woman, “a lot of your types are always saying they can’t get work, but you’re out there saving the galaxy. You’re one of the good ones.”

  Before Boots could say another word, eight patrons descended on the pair, yelling and spitting, then promptly showed them the door.

  “I’m sorry, Boots,” said Silas, sauntering over with a full pint in his hand. He set it down, splashing the booth with foamy amber. “No accounting for the clientele around here.”

  “May I always be your worst,” said Boots, clinking her glass against his. “Some party.”

  Silas’s breath could still kill a person at ten paces. “Had to celebrate with the real deal Boots Elsworth, har! Besides, I had a part in saving the galaxy, too, so this is just as much for me.”

  “This’ll be good.”

  “I did!” Silas protested. “I told Cordell where you was hiding, so in a lot of ways, I got you two back together.”

  “Oh, my god, shut up, Si.”

  “Another job well done, I say,” he sang to himself before downing his pint in five huge gulps.

  The night wore on, and despite Boots’s hope, more people showed up instead of trickling away. Alcohol poured like waterfalls. Folks made salutes and toasts, compelling Boots to drink for fear of dishonoring the dead. She was entirely sloshed when the video of Bastion came across the news projectors in the corner.

  Boots squinted at it, trying to make it some hallucination brought on by the booze, but the blurry stars resolved into the swept lines of Henrick Witts’s battle station. Ships burned in the atmosphere of—what world was that? Pictures of Bastion should’ve been classified, so for them to be broadcast to the public would—

  Her mind assembled a hundred reasons why she couldn’t be looking at video of Bastion in the skies over Aior on Taitu. The wreckage of a hundred warships streaked across the stratosphere, trails glowing molten silver as the sunrise crested the horizon.

  “Hey!” A man across the bar frantically pointed to the news projection, and cacophony of voices vanished. All patrons turned to watch, not a soul daring to speak.

  “What am I seeing?” asked Boots, speech slurring.

  “Dominance,” said Orna, eyes fluttering. She looked as though she’d be sick. “This is Henrick Witts proving to everyone that he doesn’t have to hide anymore.”

  Boots washed down her growing nausea with a hefty shot. Seeing Bastion pointed directly at Aior conjured the destruction of her own home to her mind. “What are we going to do, Orna? How are we supposed to fix it when he’s holding all the cards?”

  “We’re going to work. You want to work, yeah?”

  Boots bobbed her head drunkenly yes.

  “We’re leaving!” Orna stood and shouted to all assembled, “Thank you all, but as you can see, we’ve got business to attend to.” She raised her fist. “Arca forever, now get the hell out of our way!”

  The roar of the crowd nearly knocked Boots from her chair. They stood and made their way through the streets, followed to the subway station by the revelers. At Orna’s urging, the group deposited the pair among a confused group of evening commuters and left them alone. From there back to the ship was smooth sailing.
>
  “Oh, my god…” said Cordell upon seeing her bleary eyes. “Boots, we’re supposed to be—”

  “I’m good, Cap,” she said, slow-blinking as she settled down into a chair near the main projector. “Just need some coffee is all. Flown drunker than this.”

  “Is that supposed to inspire confidence, Elsworth? Sokol, get suited up and get to the rendezvous. The twins are waiting.” And as Orna left, he added, “Mister Jan, can you please do something about Boots?”

  The first mate went to the cycler and printed out a large bucket, then set it before her.

  “Not sick yet, friendo,” said Boots, fearing what might happen later.

  “Oh, you will be,” said Malik, tracing a glyph. “I’m going to straighten out your cognition and ramp your metabolism. The effect is… disorienting.”

  “What did I do to deserve that?” She smiled up at him as the rest of her conversational ability floated free of her skull.

  Malik held the spell for a moment, his expression one of disappointment. “Don’t ever attempt to do your job drunk again on my watch.”

  A rush of awareness entered her as he touched her with his smoky purple spell, and instead of a fun, peaceful swimming, the world began to list and tilt with her inebriation. She turned and spewed a generous helping of bar food into the bucket as cold sweat beaded up on the back of her neck. Malik patted her back as she loosed more vomit.

  “Disgusting,” said Cordell. “Your conduct, that is. Going to talk about the stench later.”

  “Got to pee,” groaned Boots, slouching away for the head and tugging her sick bucket with her.

  By the time she returned, her body ached all over, and her right eye felt like there was an ice pick lodged in it, but she was tragically aware of her surroundings.

  “I hope you had fun, because you are manually swabbing the bridge tomorrow,” said Cordell.

  She was about to protest that she hadn’t missed the bucket at all, but she knew that wasn’t the point. “Fine. You saw the news about Taitu?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, “and the sooner we get the Wellspring, the better our chances are. What’s the status of the hunting party?”

  “All green,” said Malik, tapping his console. Maison Nguyen appeared in their midst, along with a set of location markers for Nilah, Orna, and the twins. “Hunter Team, this is Sleepy. Confirm mission ready.”

  The ground team acknowledged, and Boots nodded, sliding on her comm. “What are the odds this is a red herring?”

  Cordell seated a toothpick in between his lips, chewing the tip. “That intel Jeannie brought back? No one knows what Loy Vong’s deal is, but the other local kids are all scared of him. Certifiable creep.”

  “Maybe he’s just maladjusted?” asked Boots.

  “Only one way to find out,” said Cordell. “Hunters, execute mission.”

  “We’re outside,” said Nilah. “About to move in.”

  “I know your minds are all on what’s happening on Taitu, but you’ve got to hold steady and get this intel,” said Cordell. “Don’t make a fatal mistake because you’re not in the moment.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Nilah.

  The prosthetic leg had served Nilah through her dance routines, so she had high hopes for the mission. Malik had scored it for her while the others were partying, and Nilah had gotten just enough time to drop some of Teacup’s spare actuators in for extra kick. These made one of her legs hilariously thicker than the other, about to split the fabric of her pants.

  Orna, Jeannie, Alister, and Nilah climbed the stairs of Maison Nguyen, one torturous floor at a time, and somehow, a robot leg didn’t help it go any faster. They wanted to take the elevator, but jumping into an enclosed space during a mission was usually a no-no. By the time they reached the eleventh floor, everyone bore a thin sheen of sweat.

  “Wish we could’ve brought Teacup,” said Nilah.

  “Yeah, nothing says stealth like a white-and-gold battle armor,” said Alister, and she gave him a poisonous look. After a while, he added, “It’s not like Charger is any better.”

  “Hush. No shots unless I say so,” said Orna, handing out trip sticks. “We don’t know if there are detectors in this part of town.”

  Nilah checked the charge on hers, making sure the twins did the same, and they proceeded down the landing. They clustered around the entry, the only sounds the mournful honks of distant traffic.

  Orna held up a hand and signaled for Nilah to break the lock, readying her slinger.

  Tracing her glyph, Nilah touched the lock and connected to building access. Security was light, and she was through in seconds. She pressed the palm plate, and it chimed entirely too loudly as it lit green.

  Surprise blown. Nothing to do but open the door, then.

  She pushed, and it gave under her weight, clicking as the catch came loose. It’d opened just enough to see the mounted slinger inside when Orna shoved her to the ground. Hot shrapnel bounced off Nilah’s back as a pair of scattershot rounds blasted through the remains of the door.

  “We’re made!” said Orna, tossing a flare grenade inside. “Flash out!”

  Nilah covered her eyes until she heard the bang, then bolted to her feet and rushed into the room, arms strobing as bright as they’d go. What she saw inside made no sense—sparse furnishings with no adornment under blank white walls. The paint was sun-faded where pictures had once hung, and a hypnotic, colorful projection illuminated one side of the room. Two silhouettes sat before it, and Nilah screamed for them to get down. They didn’t listen.

  The passing lights of the projector shone upon the blank, smiling faces of Raty and Mansay Vong, and a chill ran up Nilah’s spine.

  She turned just in time to see Loy Vong poke his head out of his bedroom door and level a too-large slinger rifle in her direction. The volley of flame bolts flew wide as she rolled away, and to Nilah’s horror, they struck Mansay about the neck and shoulders. The man’s head lolled with the impact, and he slumped forward, brain case smoking.

  Not willing to risk another casualty, Nilah leapt the couch and dragged Raty to the floor, shielding her with her own body. Loy impassively held down the trigger until the clip ran dry, then ducked back into an adjacent room.

  “Little bastard!” barked Orna. She leveled her double-barreled slinger and blasted her way into Loy’s room, powdering the drywall.

  On the other side was a plain room with a simple cot and a few pieces of cheap furniture—with a yawing opening into a deep, rocky chasm. Otherworldly sunlight spilled into the apartment, along with the scent of fresh mountain air.

  Nilah staggered back, struggling to understand what she was seeing. Chunks of the apartment cracked loose underfoot, tumbling into the widening portal and dashing upon the rocks below. He’d opened a doorway, but to where?

  Clouds rolled past the jagged hole in the floor, obscuring fractured granite, moss, and ferns a hundred meters below. Wind whipped Nilah’s hair, and she had to squint against the sunlight after being outside in Gantry’s night cycle.

  Orna cried out as her footing gave way, and she slid toward the open portal, catching herself on a jagged board. Rivulets of blood ran from her sliced-up hand, and the quartermaster gritted her teeth, trying to pull herself up.

  The little boy stood to one side, eyes aglow, fingers flicking as he began to trace another glyph. If Nilah didn’t do something, he’d find a way to knock Orna loose. She charged and leapt the wide gap, slamming into Loy full-force on the far side. His glyph popped with the impact, but he remained conscious. After a snarl and a lightning-quick snap of his fist, he smacked Nilah in the throat. Her windpipe closed, and she staggered away, choking in shock.

  She’d expected him to run, but the small child struck a fighting pose and attacked.

  Her long-held combat certainties became shoulds and shouldn’ts. She should’ve opened the gap instead of standing her ground. She should’ve watched her footing more closely. He shouldn’t have dodged her opening kick, or blocked her hook
, or punched her right in the jaw with a shockingly hard set of bony kid knuckles.

  The world jerked to the left as the blow landed, stealing her equilibrium and blurring her vision. Before she could recover, he was on her again, a dervish of punishing hands and feet, pressing his advantage.

  So she took a big step back.

  Into the chasm.

  Orna’s hand wrapped around Nilah’s arm as she fell, and both women screamed.

  “I’ve got you!” grunted Orna as they swung down into the abyss, only anchored by her wounded hand.

  Nilah looked up to see a small patch of bedroom ceiling hanging over them, the entrance to her universe. Then Loy walked to the edge of the portal and snapped it shut, severing Orna’s handhold, along with her fingers.

  In her racing days, she’d only had one truly embarrassing habit: one thing that ever made her the butt of many jokes. Whenever she lost control, and she saw a hungry wall looking to crush her chassis and end her race, she always said the same thing:

  “Bollocks.”

  Nilah squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Orna close, and her fiancée returned the embrace while they plummeted through an open sky.

  At least it was quick, Nilah thought, the second before she hit the rocks.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Darkness

  The sound of slinger fire ripped through the fog of definitely-being-torn-apart-on-a-jagged-rock-face, and Nilah jolted. Every nerve in her body should’ve been pulped. She should’ve been in shock. Was life so unfair that she’d have to experience her final moments as an exceptionally mangled pile of meat?

  The shots came again, and her head pounded. She tasted blood.

  “He’s getting away!” shouted Jeannie.

  Nilah blinked sticky eyes to bring light, then shapes, then the details of the Vongs’ apartment into focus. The floury taste of acoustic wall dust choked her, and she coughed one short puff back into the air. Mansay and Raty remained on the couch, fully intact, though their eyes were glazed over. There was a gaping hole in the bedroom wall where Orna had shot it with a knock round, but no portal to another world.