Unclear Skies

by Jason LaPier

  “We’re very proud of the work we do around here, Mr. Runstom. What we do benefits all mankind.”

  Troyo nodded knowingly and looked at Runstom. “Sounds like a place worth protecting, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, drawing out the word longer than he wanted to as he watched the doctor’s eyes narrow ever so slightly at Troyo.

  The door opened again and a tall woman with dark skin and a finely-cut lemon-yellow jacket came through.

  “Oh, hi, Rhonda,” Troyo said. “Glad you could make it.” Runstom had read the prep notes and was pretty sure there was no Rhonda on the list of people he’d meet. That meant she was unexpected, but Troyo played it off like it was planned. “Rhonda, meet Stan Runstom.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Runstom said, offering a hand.

  “Rhonda Harrison. Peter can never remember my title. I’m the Facilities Manager.”

  “Hey Rhonda, don’t you have a cousin or something that plays bombball? Hey Stan, aren’t you a big bombball fan? You like the Pioneers, right?”

  “Ah, yeah, I’m a Poligart fan.”

  “Tough luck with the Sirius Series, eh?” Troyo yammered. “Bumped in the first round?”

  “Right,” Runstom said, trying to gauge the woman’s interest in pursuing the conversation.

  “So Rhonda,” Troyo continued. “Your cousin, he’s like a backup center or something? Is that what he is?”

  “He’s the black one.”

  “Uh—”

  “He’s a lefter,” she said without missing a beat. “But he got injured after the All Star break so they had him playing as the designated bomber.”

  Runstom couldn’t help himself now. “Wait, your cousin is Jojo Harrison?”

  “Second cousin, but yeah,” she nodded.

  “Oh, he’s amazing!” Runstom said, allowing himself to slip into a time when the total excitement in his life centered around watching bombball games on the HV back on ModPol Outpost Gamma. “The way he swings the plank – he’s not a hacker, he’s got a true whip to it.”

  “Nice of you to say, but the boy couldn’t buy a bomb in the Series.”

  “Right, sorry. I missed most of it. Because of, uh …”

  Troyo leaned in and nudged him in the ribs. “Well, don’t be modest, Stanley.”

  “Stanford.”

  “Stanford here was only tracking down a mass murderer across the galaxy! That’s right – this is the Stanford Runstom.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Harrison said, looking him up and down. “I recognize him from the HV.”

  The director looked up from a handheld handypad she’d been occupied with. “So Mr. Runstom: are you another account rep?”

  “Oh no,” Troyo laughed, planting a hand on Runstom’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t give someone like Stanford a lowly job like mine. He’s a celebrity.” Coming from anyone else, it would have sounded like sarcasm, but Troyo put on a face of sheer pride, though oddly placed. As though he wasn’t proud of Runstom’s efforts as much as he was proud of being the account rep that showed up with a celebrity.

  “I’m a consultant.”

  “Our celebrity consultant,” Troyo said, beaming.

  “If he’s that good, then what is he doing here helping sell security upgrades?” Dr. Leesen asked, turning up the palm of her free hand. “Why isn’t he out chasing down criminals?”

  “Well, uh, that’s because—”

  Runstom put a hand out to still the suddenly anxious Troyo. “The ModPol mission is to prevent crime. We’d much rather keep crime from happening than spend effort tracking and punishing criminals.”

  The three of them stared at him in silence for a moment. Troyo seemed to be holding his breath while the doctor and facilities manager probed his face in search of sincerity. Runstom realized that the circular room had the odd effect of making it obvious whether its occupants were standing near each other or keeping their distance. With no flat walls to block out the space, it seemed that no matter where he was in the room, he felt as though he were favoring one person over another.

  “Of course,” Dr. Leesen said, breaking the silence. “Prevention is preferable to punishment.”

  He glanced at Harrison, but she only shrugged and nodded slightly, as if to concede: good enough.

  The door opened again – though Runstom still wasn’t sure if there was a single entrance to the disorienting circular room or if there were several that could appear anywhere in the uniform surface of the wall – and another Sirius-fiver joined them.

  “Hey, Petey-boy, how you goin’?” the new arrival said, pointing gun-fingers at Troyo. “You come back up here to pay me that money you owe me?” The man nodded at the facilities manager and the director. “Hey Rhonda. Dr. Leesen.”

  “Willy, good to see you!” Troyo said, edging the others out of the way not with physical force, but with pure enthusiasm. He wrapped an arm around the man’s shoulders. “Hey, you’re gonna love this – check it out: Stanford Runstom.”

  “Well, I’ll be – how you goin’, sir? Willis Polinsky. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Runstom shook the man’s hand. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Polinsky.”

  “Willy is the head of security for the research base,” Troyo said.

  “I’m a big supporter of ModPol. My daddy was an officer. He was always so proud. Died in the line of duty.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Runstom said.

  “He fell into a methane swamp on Sirius-7.”

  “Methane isn’t toxic,” Dr. Leesen said, narrowing her eyes at the security head.

  “Oh,” Polinsky said quietly. “Well, it was deep. He drowned.”

  “I think we’re all here then, aren’t we?” Troyo said before Runstom could attempt to offer more condolences. “Yes? Shall we begin the tour?”

  “Yeah, let’s get on with it,” Harrison said. “Follow me.”

  * * *

  The tour ate up most of the day. Runstom had no idea what he was supposed to be doing in his new position, so he did what he always did: he took notes. He jotted down any useless, insignificant details he noticed, not really sure if he was trying to do real work or just stay awake. They went from building to building, compound to compound, even to a marketplace at one point, though briefly – there was no time to shop – and eventually to the living quarters of what Rhonda Harrison bitterly referred to as “the defense contractors”, by which she meant the ModPol Onsite Rapid Defense Unit. It was there that the rest of the party clocked out for the evening, leaving Runstom and Troyo to finish the tour on their own.

  There was a reception area to the “Guest Defense” quarters that had decor more appropriate for a hotel than barracks, and after they checked in with the clerk at the desk, Troyo led Runstom down a series of hallways that ended at a large set of double doors. The doors swung open as they approached and a short woman with red-brown skin poking out of silver-and-gray patterned fatigues stepped out.

  “Captain Oliver,” Troyo said, giving the woman a half-hearted salute before turning and gesturing. “Allow me to introduce you to Stanford Runstom.”

  “Nice to meet you, Captain,” Runstom said, offering his hand.

  She pulled off her cap to reveal stark red hair. “You can call me LJ, everyone else does,” she said, tucking the headwear under her arm to receive his handshake. Her hands were strong and wiry and she gave him a solid up and down motion, meeting him eye-to-eye. “Very nice to meet you, sir.”

  “I assume you know about Stanford’s exploits,” Troyo said with a nonchalant twist of his hand.

  “Of course,” Oliver said with a smile. “Pretty impressive work. For a Pollie.”

  “Ah, yes.” Troyo looked to Runstom, unsure of how the comment would go over.

  Runstom opened his mouth, but the captain raised her hand. “No offense meant, sir. After all, way the story goes, you were the most competent person involved in the whole ordeal.”

  Troyo sighed, his smile taking only minor damage. “I�
�m afraid that qualifies as high praise coming from Captain LJ, Stan.” He flinched then, reacting to an unseen interruption, and glanced at the device on his arm and frowned. He tapped at it – one of the ubiquitous WrappiMates that Victoria Horus was so proud of. She’d even given one to Runstom, though he’d forgotten to wear it. “I’m sorry guys, I have to deal with this. I’ll be back in a few. Stanley, can you hang out here for a bit?”

  “Sure.” When the other man didn’t wait for his answer before flitting out of the room, Runstom found he didn’t mind. He turned back to Captain Oliver. “It’s Stanford, by the way.”

  “He was right, you know,” she said. “That was the highest praise you’ll get from me. You might be a darling on the HV and around HQ, but not everyone can swallow what you’re selling.” When his jaw dropped open to respond, she held up a hand. “I’m not calling you a liar, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that no one really knows what happened, except you, Deputy Inspector Phonson, and that civilian woman. And the only word in the media comes from you.”

  “So you don’t believe my side of it.” Runstom felt a tingle of fire in his chest, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. “With all the evidence I collected? With the recording we got of Phonson?”

  She looked away and flicked her hand. “Oh, the evidence is there, I don’t doubt that. But it’s not the whole story. It’s never the whole story.”

  “No,” Runstom said firmly and waited for her eyes to meet his once again. “It’s not.”

  “Well, I guess you should meet the squad.” She flicked her head toward the room behind her.

  Before he could respond, she spun around and was on the move. He followed her into what looked like some kind of recreation hall. There were a few long tables, and about half a dozen men and women sat at one pushing colorful playing cards around its surface. A few more were standing around chatting and picking at a spread of food along one side of the room. A third cluster were sitting at the far end of the room in front of a holovid, quietly immersed in some slow-moving drama.

  “At attention, Defenders,” Oliver belted with alarming volume, causing Runstom to flinch.

  The faces in the room all turned at once, frozen for only a few seconds that felt like an eon. Then one woman stood and saluted, and the action took on a contagious quality, causing others nearby to stand and salute and spread the sentiment to their neighbors.

  “Stanford Runstom, I present to you Squad TORDU-12. The finest Defenders in all of – in Sirius – on Vulca.” Oliver’s head wavered from side to side for a moment. “Well, they’re fine troops. Damn fine Defenders.”

  They stared at him and he was suddenly struck by panic, fear that he was expected to give them some kind of speech, or at the very least, a public-relations-sounding greeting. “Uh, hello.”

  “At ease, Defenders,” the captain shouted, releasing him from the public-speaking death-grip. The room resumed where it had left off, into a sigh of quiet conversation.

  “This is the whole unit then?” Runstom tried not to sound disappointed.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, leading him off into a quiet corner. “Twenty-four men and women. All of them from Sirius-5, if you couldn’t tell.” He hadn’t put any thought into it, but her comment made the squad’s homogeny suddenly obvious: they all had the pale skin of domers and the short, broad bone structure of the heavy Sirius-5 gravity that had weighed on him for the past four months. She leaned in a little closer. “None of them have ever seen combat. Other than simulated, of course. Most are here just trying to earn housing credits for the subdomes. Some got families planetside, crammed into those little apartments in big cities like Grovenham. The subdomes are a dream for folks like these.”

  “At least their captain has seen live combat,” Runstom said.

  She looked at him, her eyes going up and down for a moment. “Yes.”

  “Sorry, Captain. I read your file on the ride over. There wasn’t really any data on the squad, except for a short dossier on you.”

  He paused then to see if she would offer a comment, though he didn’t expect her to. There was only one real skirmish she had been involved in, but it was enough.

  “I don’t really know why you’re here, Runstom.”

  “I’m a public relations manager.”

  “I know what your title is. I got a dossier on you too.”

  “Look,” he said, folding his arms. “All I know is I’m here to talk to customers. I’m not a salesperson. I’m just here to answer questions.”

  “To make us look good, right? Being that you’re a celebrity and all.”

  “Yes,” he said sharply, causing her to blink. “We might as well be honest about it. I’m not a very good liar.”

  A smile escaped her. “Well who am I to say? Me and my unit are armed to the teeth, but we’ll never fire a shot.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Runstom said quietly.

  She lost her smile. “Did they at least give you a tour?”

  “Yeah, they did. Administration building, staff quarters, some kind of marketplace, then out to the research park.”

  “Good. At least you’ve got a feel for the place.”

  Runstom thought about his desperate note-taking, and how disconnected it had felt. He tried to place everything he listed off onto a map but he couldn’t. There was no map in the files they gave him, and during his whole tour he never got a chance to look outside; every building was connected to the others by tubes and tunnels. He spent the whole day in mazes of twisting corridors and he had no way to establish any sense of direction – in fact, still didn’t.

  “To be honest, we could be standing upside-down right now and I wouldn’t have the faintest. I haven’t seen the surface since I arrived.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, this place will do that to you. And people are always telling you to go down the ‘maroon hall’ or through the ‘azure door’.”

  Runstom’s face wrinkled. “Right, and when you think you’ve found the right blue door they go, ‘No, you don’t want the cerulean door, you want the azure door!’”

  She laughed. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

  “Tomorrow I’m supposed to go out to the observatory.”

  “Then you’ll get to see the surface, cuz it’s a drive. No train either, you’ll have to go over in a rover.” She looked at him a moment, then added, “I’ll get a MapPad sent over to you. Something more tactical than anything Peter Troyo might have.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” Runstom said. “I appreciate it.”

  She shrugged, almost sheepishly, her eyes turning away from him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been looking forward to giving you shit ever since I found out you were coming. Turns out you’re not a whole lot of fun to fuck with.”

  Runstom felt himself smile. “Never been happier to disappoint.”

  She returned his smile, but then the conversation suddenly went flat.

  “This crew,” Runstom said after a moment’s thought, gesturing at the nearby group that was playing cards. “You called them TORDU-12 earlier. Onsite Rapid Defense Unit, that’s ORDU. What is the T for?”

  She followed his gaze to the card players. “Trial,” she said quietly, and looked away.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Come on, man.”

  “Nah.”

  Dava tried to ignore Freezer’s pleas and Eyeball’s comebacks as she peered through her nightscope across the desolate landscape of Vulca. There was nothing since they’d left the little outpost – what the locals endearingly referred to as a city, what others would barely call an outcropping – and started making their way to their target. It was a trek measured in hours and, at Dava’s insistence, made on foot and in the dark. The former was made awkward by the weak gravity and the thin atmosphere, but the latter was made easy by the slow rotation of the moon and the shadow of Sirius-5.

  “Come on! Last time there was all kinds of shooting going on. I’m defenseless here!”

  “You’re not defenseless – you got
me.”

  She was sick of telling them to keep quiet, so she concentrated on getting them into position. She’d have made better time without Eyeball, Barndoor, and Thompson, all three weighed down by unnecessary weaponry and armor, and Freezer, whose idea of a hike was going from his bunk to the canteen and back. But she’d done all her lamenting on the drive from their drop point to the town and finally decided she wasn’t going to gripe, even to herself.

  “Psh. Uh, I mean –” Freezer changed his tone. “Of course I appreciate that you got my back. But what happens if you have to go … take care of something? Or someone? What if I get jumped when I’m all alone?”

  “You ain’t gonna be all alone,” Eyeball muttered.

  “It could happen.”

  For whatever reason, Moses had been cutting down on Dava’s solo missions and forcing her to go with small strike forces. Sure, whatever reason. He’d gotten it into his thick old head that she needed to be around other people more often. She pocketed the nightscope and turned back to them.

  “Freezer, you gotta be dense or somethin’,” Barndoor said, brushing his long inky hair out of his face. “I ain’t been a Waster much longer than you and I know better.”

  “Yeah, but you have a gun. Why can’t I have one?”

  Dava took a moment to glance at Freezer, then at Barndoor. The latter was wearing his favorite leathers and toting a leg-sized spray-n-pray shrapnel gun. She looked at the scrawny, lanky hacker and decided he would buckle if he even tried to pick up Barndoor’s gun, let alone fire the monstrosity.

  “Ain’t what I’m talkin’ about,” Barndoor said. “I think you should have a gun. Bigger the better. But if you want one of Johnny’s – and he’s the only one who brought extras – you gotta give him something for it.”

  “Right. Right.” Freezer tapped his head in thought. “Of course. Of course, Johnny. I didn’t mean I wanted you to just give me one. I meant, I want to trade.”

  “For what.” Eyeball had a way of turning questions into statements.

  “Well, I uh – what do I have …” Freezer seemed to struggle for a moment and Dava was hopeful he might drop the whole thing. She didn’t think he needed a gun, but then again, she didn’t want Barndoor with his shredder, Thompson with her custom submachinegun retrofitted with a drum magazine, or Eyeball with whatever the hell ballistic, incendiary, or explosive nightmares he’d brought along. But she wasn’t going to gripe. And she knew Johnny Eyeball and his guns were not easily parted, so she let the hacker go on with his begging.