by Nick Webb
“You sure this is going to be okay?” he asked, cautiously, eyeing the tableful of implements Bratta had pulled out from his suitcase. Computers, random tubes, boxes and wires; junk he had shoved into sorted piles. No sign of clothes or personal effects at all. No wonder it was so heavy. Had Bratta been wearing his cowboy costume the whole time he’d been there?
Best not think about it.
“Welcome back,” said Reardon, stepping down the ramp into the cargo bay, a toothpick in his teeth and his stupid glasses on again. “Nice work recovering Bratta. All thanks to my tip, of course.”
Chuck glared. “Yeah. Is the Aerostar damaged?”
“Nah. We gave her an armor upgrade lately. Worth every—” he mumbled, “borrowed penny.”
Right. “Okay, well, just stay out of his way,” said Chuck, turning a skeptical eye to the table full of equipment. So much trash…
“Okay,” Bratta said, holding up a thick-looking needle to the overhead light and inspecting it. “First thing to do is to check his blood.”
Blood. Always with the blood. “The hospitals did that,” said Chuck, tired. “They always gave me the same bullshit.”
Bratta bristled slightly, a strange sight in his outfit. “My medical opinion is the opposite of bullshit.”
The opposite? Chuck stared.
“I mean, as a geneticist, I can probably analyse your son’s blood with this equipment much better than those monkeys at a general hospital could.”
Chuck wasn’t exactly sure about that. “Okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”
With one swift movement, Bratta slid the needle into the baby’s arm. Jack was so brave, he didn’t even cry.
Reardon grabbed his forehead, his tan skin noticably paler.
“You okay?” asked Chuck, worried.
“Look, it’s not…” Reardon shuddered, closing his eyes and looking away. “It’s not the blood. It’s the needles. Jeez…”
Bratta extracted a sample of blood, then injected it onto a small plate. One of the computers lit up, text scrolling. Bratta hunched over the screen, partially obscuring it, muttering something soft to himself as he read.
Silence. Chuck waited for the results.
More silence.
“Well,” said Bratta, trying to lighten the obvious tension. “He’s pregnant.”
With the adrenaline of the battle still lingering in his veins, Chuck wasn’t in a humorous mood. “Just tell me,” he said, a little more sharply than he meant to.
More waiting.
“We need to make a phone call,” said Bratta, a slight tremble in his voice. “I need to speak to John Smith. Sooner rather than later.”
Smith. The same guy Reardon had been looking for. Huge coincidence if it was the same John Smith… Chuck frowned. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Bratta, looking over his shoulder, the corners of his lips turned down. “But there’s no way this blood is normal.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Derelict Avenir vessel
Moon Debris
Pinegar System
Debris, powdered metal and sheets of bulkhead rained down from the roof of the corridor, bouncing off Mattis’s helmet and thumping against his suit. Strips of metal, corroded almost into powder, plinked off the escape pod. The denizen trapped within didn’t seem to react or complain in any way, even as the whole damn ship was collapsing around it.
But then again, having spent how many months in an escape pod, who knew how sane it was?
“Here!” said Lynch, panting as he ran up to the hole they’d peeled in the hull. “Exit here!”
Not a moment too soon. Mattis felt as though he was drowning in his space suit. Sweat was pouring off him like he was in a sauna, but his joints ached and his back felt strange. It had been a long time since he carried something as bulky as the pod. Even in the very low gravity, it still had mass and was difficult to move.
Mattis and the others sprinted out of the ship, Lynch guiding them urgently. The doomed vessel groaned, twisted, and the bulkheads collapsed in on themselves, becoming a massive debris pile on a debris-strewn moon.
The team ran towards the shuttle, which flashed its lights at them hurriedly.
“We know,” said Mattis, breathlessly, into the radio. “We goddamn know, alright!”
His boots pounded silently on the broken, powdery terrain, the pod jostling between them all. The hundred or so meters between him and the shuttle seemed the longest dash of his life; his breath came as thin wheezings and his whole body ached in a deeply profound way.
Definitely something to blame on the radiation, old man. Not the fact that you’re old as fuck and running around on a broken moon fragment hauling a massive lump of metal with a huge mutant inside it.
Closer. Closer. Mattis closed his eyes, focusing only on the effort of putting one boot in front of the other. He just had to get to the shuttle…
And then he was there. Practically falling over the damn loading ramp.
Modi, Mattis and Lynch—along with the Marines—pushed the pod up the loading ramp and unceremoniously jammed it inside the shuttle, the container stuck in at an awkward angle. But it fit. “We’re aboard,” he said. “Get us out of here.”
The shuttle almost immediately began to move, jerking from off the surface of the debris with a painfully sharp motion that nearly sent them tumbling.
“Spears,” he said into his radio. “What’s the situation out there?”
“We’re working on IDing that skunk,” said Spears. “Stand by.” There was a long pause as the shuttle, its engines whining with the strain, took them farther and farther away from the moon debris. Of course, that meant that it might be taking them closer and closer to an active firefight, but… Mattis put such thoughts out of his mind.
“Admiral,” said Spears, relief in her voice. “It’s the USS Stennis. They weren’t expecting us here so they were running on stealth mode.”
Dammit. Those Chinese engines were fast and quiet. Then again, that’s exactly what he would do in that situation. Leverage the hardware he had. And the Stennis had no way of knowing there were friendlies in the area.
But what the hell was the Stennis doing here? Something deep in his gut told him that something was—off.
“Copy that,” said Mattis, fighting the urge to say what he was really thinking. “We’ll talk more when we get back to the ship.”
“Actually,” said Spears, “I have Captain Flint on the line. Given that you’re a US admiral, he’d probably prefer to talk with you rather than me.”
That was true enough. Mattis lumbered over to one of the shuttle’s monitors. “Sure, put him through to the shuttle. I’ll route it to this station.”
The screen flickered to life in front of him. Seated in a command chair was a young, clean-cut man with racially ambiguous features and a completely shaved head. Even his eyebrows seemed to disappear into his face, giving him a slightly alien, unsettling look.
“Captain Flint,” said Mattis, nodding respectfully, trying hard not to think Captain Prick. “Good to see you here.”
“I’m afraid I can’t say the same, sir,” said Flint, adjusting his grip on his command chair. “My sensors are detecting heavy amounts of highly damaging radiation down there, and also, you. What in God’s name are you doing down there?”
The way he spoke was some kind of strange mix of respect and contempt that Mattis couldn’t help but scowl at. Fortunately, his spacesuit’s visor would hide his expression. “Completing an important mission,” he said. “Following up on a lead.”
“Ahh yes, Mister Modi’s pet project.” Flint leaned forward in his chair slightly. “The vast amount of processor time Modi was consuming at the Canberra Naval Supercomputing Laboratory hasn’t gone unnoticed and, frankly, his results aren’t that difficult to interpret. My mission was to follow up on what he’s learned and assist you in any way possible.” He looked at someone off-camera, then back to the screen. “Mattis, it
would probably do you well to return to the Stennis and turn over everything you have to me. As you’re part of the United States Navy, what you’re doing would seem to fall under our jurisdiction. Plus…” Flint nearly sneered at him, “shouldn’t you be on Earth? Sir?”
For some reason—a little niggling feeling inside him that he couldn’t quite give voice to—Mattis didn’t trust Flint one bit, no matter what he said. Maybe it was him giving orders as though Mattis was his subordinate or, possibly, just his tone. “On behalf of Captain Spears,” he said, well aware that she was listening in on the conversation, “I’d like to thank you for your offer of aid and welcome what support you can give us. However, this operation is being conducted under the auspices of Captain Spears and the Royal Navy. I’m just here for the ride.” A little lie wouldn’t hurt. “I’m familiar with the Stennis’s capabilities, Captain, and the HMS Caeravron’s facilities are better suited for our operations at this time. But, of course, we welcome you to join us and assist us in any way you can.”
Military speak for fuck you, I’m in charge here, bitch.
“Admiral,” said Flint, “perhaps you’re not fully understanding the situation here—”
“Perhaps you’re not understanding that admirals give orders to captains.” Now he was definitely being a dick. “You might be God aboard the Stennis, but right now, I’m not there.”
Flint hesitated a litttle—just a little—then nodded his head reluctantly. “As you wish…” He stressed the word, “Admiral.”
Mattis extended a stubby finger and went to close the connection.
“Before you hang up,” said Flint, looking back to the person off-camera once more. “I have someone here who wants to talk to you. Someone who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. And, truth be told, is the real reason I’m here and not on shore leave at New Kentucky.”
Mattis shrugged a little. Then again, much more visibly, remembering that the suit would hide much of his expressions. “Who’s that?”
With almost palpable reluctance, Martha Ramirez stepped into frame, moving to one side of the camera beside Flint, her hands folded in front of her. “Jack,” she said, “we need to talk. Now. Or a lot of little kids are going to die.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cargo Bay
The Aerostar
Upper Atmosphere of Los Alamos v2.0
Tiberius Sector
Chuck hesitated. “What’s wrong with the blood?” he asked. “Specifically.”
Such a sea of emotions. He felt intense relief that someone, at least, was finally acknowledging that something was wrong—but Bratta had only barely glanced at the results to see it. How had the hospitals missed it?
Or had they deliberately turned a blind eye?
Bratta closed his eyes for several moments, deep in thought. “Okay, this is complicated, but let me try and explain it in a way you might understand.” He sighed and clapped his hands together. “Okay. Imagine a junkyard that has been neatly organized. Whitegoods to one side, metals to another, furniture to another. It’s still pretty chaotic, but it makes sense, right? There exists a sense of order and structure to the junkyard, even if it’s full of trash. Right?”
“Right.”
“Well, imagine that a tornado whips through that junkyard. Distributes everything randomly. Totally randomly. Nobody has any control over it. That’s basically your junk DNA. Yours, mine, everyone’s. It’s totally random. It doesn’t do anything.” Bratta pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. “I mean, look. It’s a lot more complicated than that, because there are, in fact, some things that it does do and we’re discovering more all the time, but… as Jeannie says, ‘keep it simple, stupid’. So, it doesn’t do much. With me so far, yes?”
“Sure,” said Chuck, not entirely clear on which one of them was supposed to be ‘stupid’ in this case. “You’re saying my son’s DNA is all scrambled?”
“No,” said Bratta, “I’m saying that it isn’t. It’s supposed to be, like all of ours. But his has been re-ordered and restructured and it’s … neat. Clean. Everything isn’t where it’s supposed to be, no, but it’s all clumped together.” He cupped his hands, moving them over the table. “The whitegoods are here, now. But they’re still whitegoods. The furniture has been restacked and re-ordered, and moved over to here, but it’s still all furniture. It’s been randomly reordered, true enough, but the staggeringly impossible odds of it happening in this way…” he gave a nervous laugh. “Well I mean it’s many, many, many, many orders of magnitude more unlikely than a million to one.”
It was a lot to take in. “So what are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you,” said Bratta, “that the only organization who could do this is either a massive private bioengineering company—someone like MaxGainz—or… a government. Someone like a big bio corporation subcontracted to the CIA or DOD or something.”
“And Smith,” said Chuck, starting to piece the bits together. “Is a CIA officer. You think he might know what this is?”
Bratta hesitated a moment, obviously confused as to how Chuck knew that, but then he nodded in understanding. “Exactly. He won’t know how to fix Chuck, but he might be able to give us a solid lead.”
“Great.” Chuck set Jack down gently, then threw his hands up in frustration. “Well, he’s missing too, and frankly I don’t think we’ll just randomly stumble onto him like we did with you.”
“Well, fortunately,” said Bratta, brandishing a phone from his pocket. “I actually spoke to him just yesterday.” He stammered a little. “I-I mean, I got a message from him yesterday, I didn’t speak to him, exactly.”
“He wrote you a message?”
“No,” said Bratta, confused. “It was a bunch of images.”
Chuck shook his head in annoyance. “Huh? Let’s see.”
Bratta fiddled with the device and handed it over.
It was just as Bratta said. A bunch of images. The first one was of a table, shot at about head height, with a magazine on it; some kind of picket fence enthusiast rag. The number 4 was carefully torn out of the price and placed in clear view. The next was a wall, the number 6 scratched into the paint. An image of a pen, laying straight on a table, an eraser underneath it, the whole shot framed as though taken with a shoulder mounted camera. A picture of a pile of trash, papers and plastic. There were many more.
“What am I looking at?” asked Chuck, scrolling through them. More images. One of a sickly green sky, seen through a window with thick glass. Another of a brown sea, stretching out to the horizon; the view was distorted, as though seen through a space suit. The “beach” at the bottom of the shot was littered with garbage, a man’s hand barely in the frame.
“I have no idea,” said Bratta, sighing. “They just look like… random snaps of some dump.”
Chuck continued to flick through them. “They’re all from head height,” he said, curiously. “Like someone was holding a camera… but Smith didn’t need one, because he has—”
“He has a prosthetic eye.” Bratta’s eyebrows shot to the roof. “Of course. That’s what we’re seeing! We’re seeing what he sees!”
He scrolled through them faster, each image coming as a blur. And then something caught his eye.
An image of a finger drawing on a steamed up mirror. Drawing a bunch of numbers. The first few were 4-6-1…
“What’s this?” asked Chuck, showing Bratta the screen. “These numbers.”
He read for a moment. “Looks like planetary coordinates,” he said, realization dawning. “Followed by latitude and longitude. He’s telling us where he is.” Bratta smiled. “You’re not bad at this investigation thing.”
“Thanks,” said Chuck, genuinely. “Okay. So where are we going?”
Bratta typed on his computer for a moment. “Oh boy,” he said, grimacing. “And here I thought New Los Alamos smelled bad…”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Pilot’s Ready Room
USS Stennis
D
ebris field
Pinegar System
Guano slumped in one of the huge beanbags strewn around the ready room, giving the cloth covered bag a firm pat of approval. “Damn,” she said to Roadie, grinning like a jackal. “This is some serious comfort right here. Beanbags. Why didn’t we think of that back on the Midway?”
Roadie sat opposite her, almost completely sinking into his own spongy seat. “Well, I guess we were too stupid back then, and now we know.”
She snorted dismissively, leaning back and getting comfortable. It wasn’t the Midway, but it was shocking familiar, as though ready rooms came in some kind of stock format. “You and I both know that’s true. The kind of people who climb into metal tubes to go shoot other tubes in an age of nukes and drones are kind of dumb.”
It was the sort of comment that would never have been allowed between pilots and non-pilots and would have absolutely been considered fighting words, but between Roadie and Guano, it was not just okay, it was their own language.
“Yeah,” said Roadie, grinning cheekily. “Well, I’m glad you’re here with me.” His eyes lit up, as though remembering something. “Also… um, how did you go with the… thing?”
“The thing?” She stared blankly.
“The…” Roadie tapped his temple. “The thing. The thing that happens when you fly sometimes.”
“Oh,” said Guano, relaxing comfortably in the puffy seat. She wasn’t sure where the words in her throat were coming from, but they seemed natural. Not really a lie. Just the truth spoken with a confidence she didn’t quite understand. “I got that on lock now.”
That seemed to pique Roadie’s interest. “You serious?” he asked. “I mean, just like that?”
“Yeah,” said Guano, conjuring back into her mind the story she’d told earlier. “While I was those guy’s prisoner, I figured it out. It took some time, some alone time, you know, but I… I figured it out. I can basically turn it off and on at will now.”
