Salvaged

by Madeleine Roux

  There was a painful flash in her brain, a feeling like the sun searing across her eyes, and an even worse nagging sense that she knew what she was looking at. Sure, the small canister resembled any number of lab substances she had worked with in her previous life, but this bothered her. Her memory had gotten worse, alarmingly worse, since the drinking started. Maybe that was the point, she had thought in the midst of yet another hangover at Merchantia HQ.

  Rosalyn stood and studied the tube, then reluctantly raked her eyes across the covered floor of the cargo hold. Together, she and Owen had put together an audio report of everything they found aboard the science vessel, a record that would later be used for company purposes and the inevitable charges against the rogue captain. The forensics team had already been through, though their stay was brief; this would all be settled out of court, the families hushed up with fuck-you money from Merchantia. Outer space lab work was, naturally, dangerous, and the NDAs they had signed were biblical in length. The murders wouldn’t make a blip in the Tokyo Bliss Station or Earth headlines. A small article would be put out in the company newsletter. Just an outlying incident. Nothing to panic over.

  During the walk-through, she and Owen had noted that the killer had emptied the cargo hold completely, dragging out the storage and supply crates and piling them in the hall, then sealing his poor murdered crewmates inside. The spare crates had been used to barricade the door, which was nonsense, since the magnetic seal was more than capable of keeping lifeless bodies inside.

  She thought again of those heaped boxes. The captain had been alone on the ship with his deeds until the ship neared Tokyo Bliss Station and he could safely jettison in an emergency pod. What must he have felt, left in the cold, dark silence, with nothing but his dead crew and his crimes for company? Even the onboard AI Servitor, a kind of helper robot, had been deactivated and tossed into the hold, as if even lifeless, mechanical eyes were too cruelly accusing.

  The boxes. Why push them up against the doors that way? The crew were all certainly dead, but maybe, Rosalyn thought, just maybe, the captain was still afraid and wanted to make sure whatever was in the cargo lock didn’t get out. Perhaps he hadn’t barricaded them in out of guilt, but fear.

  The memory nagging at her before arrived, blistering in its clarity—she was back on Earth, in Montreal, at the lab with Angela while she introduced Rosalyn to all the newest xenosamples they were working with. Angela, direct and precise as usual, held up tube after tube, explaining to Rosalyn just what the substances inside might do for their project.

  There was a little crayon smudge on Angela’s white sleeve, the only hint of sloppiness on an otherwise immaculate person. She had kids, five, but she was always on time, always staying late. Once or twice, Rosalyn caught her on the VIT during lunch, giving her kids long-distance story time. Busy the bee goes, “Buzz, buzz, buzz!” Dizzy the dog goes, “Woof, woof, woof!” . . .

  “This is from Callisto,” she remembered Angela saying, a blue- tinted, clean tube pinched between gloved thumb and forefinger. “And frankly, I have no idea what it does. Not for long, though. We’ll get on it tomorrow. Just . . . be so, so careful, Roz, like I said: We really don’t know what any of this is yet.”

  Rosalyn heard Owen’s vacuum start up again, and it startled her. She dropped the tube, watching it sink slowly into the human muck at her feet. It couldn’t be the same kind of sample cylinder, and those were all so similar looking anyway. Montreal was at least five hundred million miles away. And then “Sexy Sadie” twanged through the hold again. It rang longer this time, and she heard more of the words. Kind of an odd choice for a wife’s ringtone, she thought. Now Rosalyn saw a sheen of sweat on Owen’s face as he raced to answer the call. He hurled her an apologetic look, but Rosalyn suddenly felt only sympathy.

  Owen’s ringtone was stuck in her head. She could recall the lyrics perfectly after so many hours on the job with him. She didn’t remember the song being so condescending to the woman; maybe the Late Nodes’ grittier take on the words brought out the darker vibe.

  Rosalyn looked at where the tube had disappeared. A little cylinder of secrets. She glanced back at Owen then, wondering just what his strange secret might be. He seemed so happy, so bubbly, but weren’t those smile lines carved awfully deep? Why did his face look taut now, as if he might at any moment break into tears? The raw truth of a human body could be hideous, and the mind? Uglier still.

  2

  Rosalyn peeled herself out of the environmental work suit, exhaling as she did, as if she could breathe out the last twisted eight hours of toil. A harsh, lemony vodka scent wafted out with that breath. It was a short ride back but it had felt like years and years, and she had indulged a little on the way. There were flasks that fit perfectly into an under suit. She half wondered if they had been invented by someone in the salvaging field.

  The spare three-person crew of the Salvager 5 had spent the ride back to HQ in almost perfect silence. Owen tried to start up with his theory of the crime a few more times, but he sputtered out fast when nobody joined in. She craved a hot shower and a drink (another one), and the cool, comforting darkness of her cramped room. It was only a hop back to the campus, a few hours after their initial light-speed jump, and climbing out of the suit felt like being born back into the world. The antiseptic white tunnels of the Merchantia headquarters weren’t filled with fresh air per se, but it was a welcome relief after the musty, recycled air in her suit.

  She, Owen and their pilot, Griz, were met at the air lock by an older man in a crisply pressed gray suit and narrow silver tie. Everything from his shellacked helmet of hair to his twinkling cuff links said HR. Owen bumped into her after a tech helped him out of his suit, and he swore softly against her shoulder. Her hackles were up and the others immediately paused.

  “Suits don’t come to the air lock,” Owen muttered.

  “Guess we’re just lucky,” she replied. “Maybe they’ll throw a parade.”

  Griz, who rarely spoke but communicated plenty with his big, twitchy mustache, stepped up next to Rosalyn and grunted. She found a kind of comfort in their presence, though they didn’t make much of a phalanx. In Rosalyn’s experience, nothing good came of surprises like this. Why would someone this clean and presentable detach from their desk to mingle with the mere body janitors? They could’ve just sent a message if something needed doing. But then she considered where they had just been, and all of Owen’s conspiratorial mutterings filled her head with noise. A rogue captain, crew reduced to mush, the boxes stacked against the doors, and that little floating tube hiding among it all . . .

  “The crew of the Salvager 5,” the man in gray said, opening his hands. “Welcome home.”

  Home? Rosalyn’s eye twitched. The hall blinked with soft blue and green lights, a voice chiming over the intercom that they had successfully docked and disembarked. Those corridors and the surrounding launch bays always smelled like fresh bandages to Rosalyn, but now there was a new smell, a too-strong cologne that made her eyes water.

  The man in gray closed the distance between them, casting a glance at the far-more-colorful suits the tech had collected. They had been rinsed off before ever being back on the salvaging vessel, but Mr. HR wrinkled his nose anyway. The smell of death was damned hard to get out, and hard to forget, even if Rosalyn was used to it now.

  “I thought we might have a chat,” he said. His head swiveled immediately to Rosalyn, inspecting her closely. She swallowed hard, keeping her lips sealed. Griz and Owen were good guys. They wouldn’t tell on her; they wouldn’t rat her out for having a quick drink on the ride back to headquarters. Hell, Owen had asked for a swig, too. Not that any amount of liquor existed that could flush out the memory of what they had seen in that cargo hold.

  Rosalyn, admittedly, had taken more than a sip. She didn’t like how close the suit was standing, but she kept eye contact, willing herself to breathe in short bursts through her nose, n
ever letting the man get a whiff of her incriminating breath.

  This is it, she thought with another twitch. I’m canned.

  “A chat,” Rosalyn repeated, monotone.

  “A discussion. What you witnessed on this assignment . . . Well, we know it can’t be easy. It’s best we just touch base, make sure you receive the proper debrief. The proper counseling.”

  “Counseling?” Owen chuckled, walking past Rosalyn and down the freezing cold, tubelike tunnel of the air lock toward the outer launch bay. “Sure, mate. Sure. Let’s get this over with, yeah? It’s not something I’d like to dwell on.”

  “I’m good.” Griz popped a breath mint in and went the same way, hands in his flight suit pockets, a whistled tune fluttering his mustache.

  “It’s mandatory, I’m afraid, for all of you,” the suit said softly. Sternly. People listened to him, Rosalyn thought, and they did what he asked, even if he never raised his voice. But Griz wasn’t people. Griz was Griz. She heard him snort before he turned and leaned against the circular portal that led to the bay.

  “Mandatory,” the suit said again, never bothering to turn and look at Griz. Then he stuck out his hand toward Rosalyn, his gaze fixed on her mouth. Rosalyn held back a shiver. She didn’t like the way his face could remain so impassive, or his oozy corporate voice, or his overgroomed eyebrows.

  “Josh Girdy,” he told her, waiting until Rosalyn shook his hand. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Ms. Devar. I’d very much like to know what you saw on that ship.”

  * * *

  —

  Rosalyn was the last to be called in.

  The waiting room outside Josh Girdy’s office teemed with the kind of comforts and style missing from the rest of the station. A few large fronds arched over the sofa where Rosalyn waited, and the coffee table near her feet was a long, low modern affair that gleamed like a polished tooth. A holographic display beamed down from the ceiling, a smiling white woman repeating the company’s mission statement and policies with a hardwired smile.

  Rosalyn tried not to sink down on the couch, but she was exhausted. She bounced her foot, impatient, feeling in her guts that these meetings were taking just a little too long. Griz had gone first, then Owen. Her fingernails would be bloody stubs by the time it was over. It wouldn’t have bothered her so much if it didn’t remind her of waiting outside her father’s office to tell him she was quitting. The meeting had never happened. Rosalyn lost her nerve and left, deciding her sudden absence would send a louder message.

  Her VIT monitor dinged with another message from her mother. Rosalyn checked the display, choosing the text version. It was hard still to hear her mother’s voice, to detect the rising panic, and then the obvious despair.

  I’ve gone back to Chennai with the relief team. Oh, Rosie, you wouldn’t believe the flooding. You could join me. I know you would be good at this and we would be together. Your father . . .

  Rosalyn tore her eyes away from the display and told herself the tears gathering behind her eyes were from the harsh lighting. Ever since leaving her previous job and Earth, she had existed in the razor-thin margin between screaming constantly and weeping constantly. She blamed the need for a drink. The impending stress of this HR meeting. She had never seen her mother’s home, never gone back to India . . . Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  “Ms. Devar?”

  The door had opened, Owen scuttling out. He wouldn’t make eye contact with her. Rosalyn stared, willing him to look at her, but he refused. Owen never did anything very quickly, but now he all but sprinted for the door behind and to her left.

  Standing, she mimicked the frozen smile on the holographic woman’s face and stepped into the cool, silver space of Josh Girdy’s office. It wasn’t nearly as lively as the lobby. A single fake succulent plant sat on his otherwise empty desk. Rosalyn sat and bounced her leg again, smoothing down a company uniform hopelessly rumpled from her long day of work.

  “Sorry for the wait,” Josh Girdy said, rounding his desk and dropping into his chair, flinging out his tie to keep it from sticking into his trousers. “I know you’re probably tired, so I’ll try to keep this brief.”

  His lower lip stiffened, and he tented his fingers, bouncing them just like Rosalyn’s leg. He was lying, and not with much skill. Just like Owen, he hesitated to meet her eye.

  “So,” he said, puffing out an exasperated breath. “Why don’t you give me a reason to keep you on this team, Ms. Devar.”

  She froze. “Sorry? I thought this was a debriefing . . .”

  “It is. Well, it was. But to be frank, there’s no point in debriefing you if you’re going to be let go.”

  Rosalyn flinched. Let go. Passive language. Cowardly language.

  “Fired. Don’t look so shocked, we both know you’ve been struggling.”

  Aggressive language. Somehow she didn’t like that either, even if it was more to the point.

  “None of my performance reviews have been poor,” Rosalyn said slowly, feeling as if she had been dropped into a deep and icy pool. Her throat felt tight. Her leg bounced faster. “I know I have two absences but that’s well within my allowed time off.”

  One, admittedly, was for a hangover. Sick leave. One lie hardly warranted all of this.

  Girdy leaned forward, still tenting his fingers, and placed his wrists on the desk. Studying her, he blindly reached for a panel under the table, and a gently glowing holographic display like the one out in the lobby scrolled up from the smooth white surface of the desk. He flicked his eyes toward it and cleared his throat.

  “Both of your cohorts on this assignment reported that you were drinking alcohol on the job. That you were . . .” He paused, squinting to find a direct quote. “Distracted, disoriented and unfocused. And this isn’t the first time, Ms. Devar. I was hoping you would turn it around on your own but you haven’t, so here we are. You’ve only been with us six months. That’s a lot of screwups for six months. This job is hard on everyone, but if you’re having trouble this early, then maybe it just isn’t for you.”

  Rosalyn shook her head, then blinked down at her knees. Owen and Griz. She couldn’t believe them. Had she really been so bad? Maybe it was worse—she was worse—than just what she could see. But she had tried to be discreet, maybe less so once she was off the clock, but that was her right. Still . . . that word, discreet, bothered her. If she had to be that way, then maybe it really was as bad as Owen and Griz said.

  “I want to keep this job,” she said quietly. There she was again, hovering between screaming and crying, knowing she had to strictly avoid both and look ahead, clearly, at Josh Girdy and his extremely unlikable face. “And you’re right, I could be doing better. It’s been . . . a very difficult year, you understand, but I’ll clean it up. You have my word, Mr. Girdy. I won’t disappoint you again.”

  He pinched his lips together and nodded once, then dismissed the display on his desk and waved a hand through where it had been. “That’s fine, Ms. Devar, that’s just a fine promise. But your breath smells like a distillery and you’re on company time. This is sensitive work. Delicate work. We’re dealing with the remains of valued employees. People. They deserve your full and unaltered attention.”

  That was some truly audacious shit, in her opinion, coming from the rep of a company that would gladly pay whatever it took to make the grieving families look the other way. They would sweep the murders under the rug, and quash any salacious reports before they could hit the mainstream outlets on Tokyo Bliss Station and then Earth.

  Earth. She didn’t want to go back. If she lost the job at Merchantia, she would be untethered again, and a failure at something else. She couldn’t lose another thing, not one more thing. Leaving Earth had meant giving up everything, her family, her one friend, even her fish, Stanley. She genuinely missed that little guppy.

  Rosalyn copied Girdy’s posture, sitting up, putting her hands primly o
n the edge of his desk. “It’s completely inappropriate to beg, I know, and I won’t, but I will ask—ask—for another chance. Please give me one more assignment, and I can assure you the report will be very different.” She saw his face soften, but not enough. A PhD from Berkeley and a nod from major alien biomedical publications and she was all but begging to keep a janitorial position. But she couldn’t lose this, too, couldn’t go back to Earth, to her father, to anywhere near him.

  There was one last weapon in her arsenal, and she wasn’t above using it. She needed the job. She wasn’t losing something else.

  “Please, Mr. Girdy,” Rosalyn said with a sad half smile. “It’s my birthday.”

  3

  You’ll be teaming up with Walters. Last chance, Devar. Happy birthday.

  Dave Walters was a loudmouth and a loser, but Rosalyn shut up and took the assignment. She had to survive a quick turnaround, just one day of recovery before they left the station again, and Rosalyn spent it throwing out the bottles she had hidden around her company-issued apartment and gear. She meant to keep her promise to Josh Girdy, even if it meant feeling like a headachy piece of shit until the symptoms of withdrawal passed. With six self-help manuals downloaded to her VIT, she decided to eat something real before launch and the monotony of MREs.

  The only place on the Merchantia campus that felt anything like Earth was the memorial garden, and there was usually silence there. Artificial sunlight streamed in through a silver web of skylights. Real grass and flowers grew, and a pleasant lightness of pollen floated in the air. It was always cool with mist. Occasionally the fake sun hit the real pollen at the right angle, and it felt like sitting in a room full of tiny fireflies. She dimmed the functions on her integrated augmented-reality display to make the atmosphere that much more peaceful. It was distracting to be bombarded with advertisements and stickers and whatever other bullshit streamed in through her implant.