Unclear Skies

by Jason LaPier

  She told him all about witness protection. She maintained the connections she’d acquired during her undercover days, which provided a never-ending influx of information, which she could do nothing with. Through the local networks, she’d caught wind of a public relations officer from ModPol coming to visit Epsilon-3. When she learned it was going to be Stanford Runstom, she arranged to have herself added to the partnership committee.

  Life for her had been smooth lately. Her mother – Runstom’s grandmother, whom he’d never met – had been a farmer in the early days of settlement on Terroneous. Sylvia remembered her youth fondly and so when she went into witness protection and needed to find a cover job, she started to study up on agriculture. She’d taken to it quickly over the years. Assistant Director on some unknown project was as far as she would be allowed to rise, so as not to draw any attention to herself.

  She claimed her spy network was underground, so far down that it was far below ModPol. She told him about a mole inside Space Waste, though whose allegiance he or she belonged to was unknown, nor what their agenda may be, but it was most likely a ModPol spy. Like she once was.

  She also heaped warnings on him as they talked. There was a reason that he was moved out of Justice, and she could not be sure of what that reason was, but there was one possible explanation: someone wanted to keep him from the kind of digging he did after the B-4 murders. He hated to admit that he agreed with her on that point.

  And it burned him that she was still looking out for him. Keeping tabs. But that was her nature, he told himself. She was being a detective, not just an overprotective mother.

  “I know you went to see Miss Zarconi,” she said. They were close to the center of the muck farm, the buildings in the distance nothing more than bumps on the horizon barely visible through the semi-transparent plastic of the arching walls around the path.

  “Is she in your network too?” he said, then wished he hadn’t been so defensive.

  “She has her own network. Let’s just say it overlaps with mine.” After a pause, she asked, “What did she tell you?”

  He struggled to remember the conversation. He knew Jenna wanted to say something, but she’d held back. The walls had been listening. “She knew I was going to the mining colony on Ipo. And she knew Jax was on Terroneous. She knew that McManus – from my old precinct – was supposed to go down and get him.”

  “Ipo,” Sylvia said. “Also a moon of B-5. And how did things go on Ipo?”

  Runstom cocked his head in thought. “I never got there. McManus’s ship had been in a fight with Space Waste after he arrested Jax. They were on the drift, and I picked up the distress call. By that point, I got new orders to report to Outpost Delta and dock my ship on the Garathol.”

  Once it had come out of his mouth, it sounded odd. “You never made it to Ipo,” she said.

  “Why would they send me there just to turn me around?”

  She nodded in thought. “Someone suspected Jax was on Terroneous. And that you two are close, given the circumstances. What was your plan, when you headed to Ipo? Who went with you?”

  “I was alone,” he said. “I was – well, to be honest, I was going to make a stop at Terroneous and feel it out.”

  He sighed then as it crashed together in his mind. Someone had made sure he had an assignment close to Terroneous – so close that he wouldn’t be able to resist contacting Jax. He would have led them right to their fugitive.

  “Is Victoria Horus in on this?” he said. “She sent me to Ipo.”

  “I suspect Horus has her own agendas,” she said. “And these games are long. Favors are traded. Horus has no interest in Jax, but someone else does.”

  “X,” he said. “What of Mark Xavier Phonson?”

  She shook her head and for the first time her face dropped in sadness. “He’s gone deep. Too deep to find. Deep, but still inside ModPol, where he can keep his cards close. But you can be sure he has a hand in all this.”

  “He wants Jax caught.”

  She grabbed him by the wrist. “You have to be careful. If they’d caught you and Jax together on Terroneous …”

  “Shit,” he said. He’d have been arrested right along with Jax. Taken out of the picture. In a way, they were lucky that Jax had made the mistake he’d made. His public appearance in the documentary about the magnetic sensor disaster had forced their hand early. And so McManus had gotten there first, only to lose Jax to Space Waste. If Runstom had gotten there first, someone would have known it. They’d have both been cooked.

  “It’s worse than what you think,” she said, her grip tightening. “Right now it looks like ModPol wants to arrest Jax for evading the law. But X doesn’t just want Jax brought in. He wants Jax out of the picture. Listen, Stanley: the work you did made it so that X will never operate from anywhere except the shadows. He has his network, but his connections are weakened. A thorn like Jax can break some of those weakened bonds.”

  He looked at her eyes and felt her fear creep into him. “You mean they’ll kill him? Even if they arrest him first?”

  “They’ll make him disappear,” she said. “They’ll try like hell anyway. As long as X is still breathing.”

  At this statement, Runstom felt his palms go numb. It was almost like his mother was suggesting that if Jax were ever to be safe in this galaxy, X would have to leave it. How much did he know her anymore? Or ever? Was it something she was capable of? Taking another life?

  He shook his head and pulled away, loosening her grip on his arm. “If they hadn’t taken me out of Justice, I would have put him in prison for life.”

  “I know, Stanley.”

  They continued walking and he took out his notebook. Flipped through it with each slow step along the muddy path, as though it would tell him what to do. Make the connections. But the damn thing was just paper. If he couldn’t chase X, then what was his next move? What else was there?

  “I need to find out who’s on the inside of Space Waste,” he said as they sat down on a bench. He flopped his notebook onto his lap. “If there’s someone inside, the attack at Vulca was somehow linked.”

  “How’s that?” she asked lightly. She probably knew something about it, but would give him a chance to work it out on his own.

  He looked at the scribblings. Timestamps. Targets. Methods. “They knew how to disable the power in a way that cut off the observatory, which was the building they wanted to infiltrate.”

  “What were they after?”

  He frowned. “Some kind of detection equipment. They bungled it though, got the old stuff instead of the new.”

  “Because you ran them off,” she said with a smile. “Or so I heard.”

  He allowed himself to grin in pride for a moment, then pushed it away. “It helped that there was a trial unit there.” He looked back at his notebook. “In fact, they were given specific orders to go on patrol that morning.”

  “Mmm.” She lifted her chin slightly, folding her hands over one another. “Farmers on Terroneous used to say you could tell when a storm was coming because the leaves of the trees would turn over in the wind and expose their undersides.”

  “That’s useful,” he grunted, unsatisfied with her pontification. “If we found out who’s undercover in Space Waste, could we contact them?”

  “Possibly,” she said. “I must warn you, Stanford: once someone goes under, they lose some of their allegiance. They become … well, almost an independent entity. Which means they may be in a position to negotiate with both sides, to force compromise. In fact, they may have to.”

  “Because they’re both an ally and an enemy.” Just spending time with her and he was thinking like her again.

  “Precisely. So whomever this insider is, you can’t trust them to be ModPol any more. It takes a big sacrifice to get them to let you out.”

  “Right,” he said, then stopped himself. “Wait, do you mean for Space Waste to let you out, or for ModPol to let you out?”

  “I mean both,” she said quietl
y, her eyes falling to her feet. “I did. Gave something up to get out before you were born.”

  “What?”

  She put her hands on his and smiled faintly into his eyes. “Doesn’t matter. It was all worth it because I have you.”

  He looked down and allowed himself to feel the warmth of her hands. “Mom,” he said, but could manage no more.

  “So,” she said and stood. “We have an advantage in identifying this spy inside Space Waste. We don’t have to go at it from the ModPol side. I believe your friend Jax may have actually met them, during his short stint as a gangbanger.”

  Runstom stood with her and they began walking back. “That’s right,” he agreed, buoyed by the realization. “He’s probably been face to face with whoever it is.”

  “You’ve probably got a sketch-up app somewhere in that ship of yours. Get Jax to describe any Wasters he thought didn’t fit in. Then we can run them through some databases that I still have access to. It’s going to be grueling work, but that’s espionage.”

  “Right,” Runstom said with a smile. He hadn’t felt so good in so long. Even with the thought that something ugly was working against them, he felt like a kid again, side by side with his mother, solving something.

  When they got within sight of the office, she stopped and held him by the elbow. “Stanford, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  He stopped and turned to face her. “What, Mom?”

  “You’re thirty-eight now. It’s been hard to watch you grow up from a distance. I mean, I kind of forgot that you’ve turned into a man. It’s hard not to think of you as my boy. But I’m proud of you.”

  He swallowed. “Thanks, Mom.”

  * * *

  Jax ducked as he stepped through the pressure door and into the passage that would take them back to the main complex. “This place definitely wasn’t designed for B-foureans.”

  “No, probably not,” Runstom said distantly as he strode on.

  Jax stutter-stepped to catch up, dodging light fixtures as he went. They’d taken the railway from the farms back down to the central city and during the entire ride, Runstom had spoken maybe ten words. “So, I guess you have some other meetings to take?”

  Runstom didn’t answer. He looked down at his WrappiMate for a moment, then selected a side door that led down yet another narrow passage. After a few more twists, they finally came to the main dome, and Jax felt like he could relax. He hadn’t realized how tight those tunnels felt until he was free of them. It was an odd sensation, and he realized he was learning why Lealina had called the domes claustrophobic. Only he didn’t know why all of a sudden he’d be feeling it too. He reflexively glanced upward to look for something – for what? Barnard-5, the gas giant that sometimes loomed on the horizon of Terroneous? He only saw the blue sky and a handful of drifting pure-white clouds. The dome-ceiling illusion. He looked away.

  “Stan, maybe we could stop for a bite,” he said. It’d been several hours since their half-finished lunch. The memory of it and those bug-fish-things made him second-guess his suggestion. “Maybe we can find a place that serves just veggies. Or at least beer.”

  “Later,” Runstom said.

  They were moving quickly across the dome, passing buildings both complete and incomplete in their construction. The population was minimal, but very active – everyone seemed to be going somewhere. “Where are we going?” Jax asked with a tug on Runstom’s arm.

  “Back to the ship.”

  “But I thought you had more meetings to take.”

  Runstom sighed. “Yes. I do. Tomorrow. I just need to do something right now.”

  “Well, what?” Jax said, gripping tighter and pulling his companion to a stop. “What’s going on?”

  Runstom frowned at Jax’s grip, then turned a glare up at him until he released it. “Something’s not right.”

  “Yeah, no shit, Stan.” He sighed as he looked into the other man’s thousand-yard stare. “Okay, whatever. I’m going to go get a drink. You can catch me up when you come out of orbit.”

  “No,” Runstom said. “I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  He looked over one shoulder, a movement Jax thought he’d never see Runstom be paranoid enough to make. Then he leaned close. “First, I want to check the ship for bugs.”

  Jax flinched at the thought of those squirming, slimy muckbugs sliding around the chambers of the ship. “Gross, what? You think those nasty things got in your ship?”

  Runstom crooked an eyebrow and tilted his head, then shook it. “No, I mean bugs. Surveillance.”

  “Oh, right,” Jax said. Maximum paranoia achieved. “Maybe you better tell me – actually, first things first. Before we go anywhere, you really gotta tell me who that woman was.”

  He frowned. “Sylvia Runstom. Well, Rankworth, now.”

  “Your mother.”

  “My mother.” He seemed to deflate at the admission. “I didn’t know she was going to be here. I didn’t know she was going to be anywhere.”

  “Something tells me you caught up on more than just family matters.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Jax. We both may be in some bad trouble.”

  That Terroneous horizon grew fuzzier in his mind and he rubbed his eyes. “What did she tell you?”

  “For one thing, she knew I was sent to Ipo,” he said in a tight, quiet voice. “She knew that someone thought if I went to Ipo, I might make a stopover and contact you on Terroneous.”

  “Shit,” Jax breathed. Ipo, one of the other moons of Barnard-5. Of course, he’d have been so close. “Would you have?” he asked, wishing he hadn’t sounded so desperately hopeful as he did.

  Runstom looked at him for a moment. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I would have tried. And then we’d have both been fucked.”

  “You’d draw me out and so they could arrest me. And they’d find a way to nail you too.”

  He shrugged and shook his head. “Who knows. It’s possible it was set up to be that way. Or she’s putting paranoia into my fucking head.”

  Jax didn’t know how to respond. He thought back to the events on Terroneous. If someone had suspected that he was there, sending Runstom to the nearby moon of Ipo was a sure way to draw him out without breaking jurisdiction – and it would have worked, because Runstom would have come looking for him. But because Jax had blown his cover, he’d forced their hand. They had to send someone else after him before he could disappear again.

  And here he was, running around with Runstom on Epsilon-3. If anyone found out he was a fugitive, they’d lock him up right quick, and Runstom would be just as fucked. They’d be in the same stew they would have been in had they made contact on Terroneous.

  “Maybe we should—”

  “Jax,” Runstom said, leaning in close again. “We’re not splitting up. No one here knows who you are. No one anywhere knows who you are.”

  “Right.” Jax took a deep breath. He was a nobody. An invisible B-fourean. “Of course not.”

  “Anyway, I need you,” Runstom said abruptly. “So deal with it.”

  Jax released a short laugh. Fearing for his life and his freedom, somehow he felt relief in that simple statement. “Sure, of course.” He gestured in a direction that may have been toward the docks. “You said first we’re going to check for bugs. What comes after that?”

  Runstom gave him another slow nod, his mouth scrunching in thought. “She thinks there’s someone in … Space Waste,” he said, whispering the gang’s name.

  Jax cocked his head. “Someone?”

  “On the inside.”

  “Undercover?”

  “Yes. Undercover.” Runstom swallowed and looked around again. The handful of residents – all of them workers of some kind, as the domes weren’t yet ready for their destined occupants – buzzed about their business paying no attention to the green-skinned, well-dressed man and his mutely-dressed B-fourean companion. They must have lingered too long for his tastes because he once again set off for t
he docks, gesturing for Jax to follow. “When you were … when you were with them …”

  “Oh,” Jax said, realizing what was being asked. Had anyone stood out? Anyone not quite belonging. An odd notion, since he’d considered himself the biggest outcast of the bunch. Though if he gave it any thought, he would have to admit it was the most diverse collection of men and women he’d ever encountered. Even the population on Terroneous – which had its fair share of immigrants – didn’t match the range of backgrounds Jax had seen in his short time at the Space Waste base. Still. “I can think of one or two.”

  Runstom put a finger to his lips. They’d arrived at the hangars already. “We’re not making any moves until we check the OrbitBurner.”

  The other man’s paranoia seeped into Jax like stale dome air sucking into his lungs, and they walked stiffly through the yard until they came to the hangar where they’d parked the OrbitBurner.

  It was empty.

  Runstom tapped furiously at his WrappiMate, then at the wall panel outside the hangar. “Where the fuck is my ship?”

  “Uh, Stan,” Jax said, putting a hand on his shoulder to try to calm him. It vibrated at his touch and he yanked it away. “Look, Stan. I think I know what happened to your ship.”

  Blazing eyes spun to face him. “What?”

  Jax threw up his hands defensively. “I’ll tell you, but if I’m going to explain, we might have to go get those drinks after all.”

  “Jax.” Runstom looked as though he were going to explode, but at the same time was on the edge of collapse. He sighed heavily. “A drink.”

  “A few,” Jax said. “Because I have a bit to catch you up on.”

  “And my ship?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jax said, allowing himself a sly smile. “It’ll be back. I can promise you that.”

  CHAPTER 28

  The OrbitBurner ticked along at a nice pace and within a day they were back at the site of the battle. Only once did they see a ping from a distant ModPol patroller and then it was gone. The ship drew no attention, just a civilian out for a spin around the planets.