by Helix Parker
AVA
Larso had access to several databases that a civilian could never even look at. He scanned them for arrivals in the past week and searched for Casus, but of course nothing came up. He wouldn’t be using that name.
We sat at a café, a cozy little place on the hundred and tenth floor of a building in Sydney overlooking the ocean. There were no seagulls up this high but the wind had an icy chill to it that gave me goosebumps. Larso was sitting across from me with a holopad, scanning different names.
“There’s gotta be something,” he said. “Something you can tell me about him.”
“We’re each given dozens of fake identities. He could’ve used any of them when he landed.”
“I’m not finding any ships with the name Red Stripe either.” He placed the holopad down. “I don’t know how we can find him.”
“There might be one way. If he’s waiting for a signal, he should leave after that signal’s given. Let’s give him a signal from Prator and see who leaves the planet.”
He nodded. “Not bad. How do we fake the signal?”
“That’s the easy part. I have the encryption Prator used. He sent it to everyone in the field. The more difficult part is how we identify the ship.”
“Well, we’d need Flight Command to help us with that. There’s probably two or three hundred ships coming and going every SGH. We can’t do it without them.”
“Can you get them to help?”
He looked out over the vast expanse of blue sky. “I know someone. But we’ll have to go now.”
Flight Command was the agency that dealt with all ships coming and going to and from Earth. It consisted of over ten thousand employees and handled everything from ship repair to emergency management. They were notoriously difficult to be employed by, as smugglers were always attempting to secure employment or buy off those already employed. The screening process lasted two years.
Larso had secured a meeting with a mid-level executive named Baron. We sat outside his office and the entire building was nothing but white and silver, both in décor and furniture. Before long the door opened and a young blond male stood before us and motioned with his head for us to enter. We went in and sat down.
“I haven’t seen you in six years and you come in and ask me for a favor?”
“I wouldn’t do it if I had anyone else to turn to.”
Baron leaned back in his chair. “You didn’t come to Mother’s funeral.”
I glanced to Larso who didn’t look back but kept his eyes on Baron.
“She was already dead, Baron. What could I have done?”
“You were the baby. You could have shown up so that Dad could at least see that you gave a cap about your family.”
“Dad disowned me a long time ago.”
“And he regrets it. He told me once that was his biggest regret, that he treated you unfairly. But what did you expect? We’re a family of businessmen and you go out and become a soldier? And then a mercenary on top of that?”
“It doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. Can you help us or not?”
“Why do you need to find this man anyway?”
“That’s classified.”
“I’m sure it is.” He was quiet and just looked at Larso a bit. “Fine, I’ll help … in exchange for something.”
“What?”
“Go and visit Dad. Make amends, Larso. I’m not kidding.”
“Help me find this man, and I’ll do it.”
He exhaled and looked to me. “And who are you exactly?”
“Just a friend,” I said.
He shrugged. “Fine, don’t tell me. You have one hour and I’ll assign one hundred technicians. That should be enough.”
“Make it two hundred, Baron. Trust me, it’s for a cause that you are very much in favor of.”
“Two hundred? Do you know how much paperwork I have to—nevermind. Fine, fine. Two hundred. When do you need them?”
“Immediately.”
“Okay, gimme one SGH.”
We rose, the two men looking at each other a moment before Larso said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now get this done and go visit him.”
We walked out of the office and through the hallways of the luxurious building before taking an elevator down to the bottom floor. It was dark down here and monitors were hung on every wall. There were, I guessed, hundreds of rooms, and each one held about fifty technicians, monitoring ships and chatter and running bios on pilots and communicating with the administrative authorities.
We went to a large viewscreen and a man stopped us before we were able to reach it. Larso told him to check with Administrator Moore. The man called him on the comm and received clearance. We approached the viewscreen and I pulled up a frequency graph. I found the frequency we had been forced to memorize and looked to Larso.
“We only have one shot,” he said. “Make it count.”
I sent out the message:
MISSION SUCCESS, LEAVE EARTH IMMEDIATELY, ONE SGH 75H893M4J-K-PRATOR
“That’s it?” Larso said.
“He’ll receive that on a comm he wears. If he’s still here, he should be jumping on a ship.”
The man that had stopped us and verified our permission with Baron informed us that the administrator had cleared the use of two hundred technicians.
Larso said, “We’re looking for a one-man vessel wanting to jump into FTL immediately. He’ll probably have a destination as far as he can comfortably get. He should be in a rush too, so I want the technicians to inform any vessel carrying a single male passenger that we are delayed due to high traffic volume for at least two SGH, but if he would like we can set up an immediate departure on a general transport.”
At that point there wasn’t much to do so we sat in the back of the room and watched the viewscreen and tried to listen in on the technicians. We had a few hits of single occupancy vessels but two were women and one was a man who had no problem with waiting two hours.
Half an SGH passed and we still hadn’t received anything.
“You didn’t tell me you had a brother,” I said.
“You didn’t tell me you had a father.”
I grinned. “Why didn’t you tell him what we were doing?”
“He’d panic. He’d notify the authorities and we’d have so much red tape the bomb would go off before we got anybody to listen.” He looked to me. “If we can’t find him, we’ll have to try and get enough authorities to listen to us to issue an evacuation … I’m not sure they will.”
“We could always—”
“Sir, got something,” one of the technicians said.
Larso was on his feet and quickly at the man’s side. It was more painful for me to stand and I had to check my bandages as I did so. I walked over and could hear the chatter on the comm.
“No good, Command,” a man was saying through the comm, “I need to leave within the hour.”
“Sir,” the technician said, “we can have you on a passenger flight within twenty SGM’s if you wish. As a courtesy, you would not be charged for the flight.”
A pause and Larso was biting his thumbnail.
“Good enough. Tell me where to go.”
“That’s him,” I said. “That’s Casus.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s been a long time since I heard his voice but I’m almost certain.”
“Tech, have him meet us at the nearest hanger bay. And tell him the transport leaves in twenty and if he’s not there it’ll go without him.”
2
The hangar bay was cold and traffic had been allowed to continue so it was filled with the sound of ships docking and lifting off. Larso and I stood behind a glass viewing screen in the visitor’s booth and waited. Several tourist ships came and went. Earth, though the financial and political center of the PR, was no longer where the majority of its citizens were born. Many people wanted to see where it was exactly that mankind had originated, and of course see where it had nearly fought itself to extinc
tion.
“Is that him?”
I looked out into the line of people waiting for admittance into the hangar bay. At the back of the line was a portly man with a black beard. He looked impatient and his eyes were darting around furiously.
“That’s him.”
“Let’s go.”
Larso stepped out of the booth and walked toward the line. Casus saw us but it didn’t register who I was. Not at first. Then he looked back and our eyes locked. His mouth dropped open, and he turned and ran.
I sprinted for him, not waiting for Larso. The pain in my stomach and chest was intense but I didn’t stop. I pushed through the doors into the lobby and saw Casus running for the front entrance. I chased after him, Larso right behind me. I pushed my way through crowds and leapt over a luggage carousel. He was nearly to the front doors. I sprinted with all I had and felt small tears in my stomach; the wound was reopening.
I grabbed a pole used to hold the official flag of the People’s Republic. At a full sprint, I cocked back and flung it at him in a straight line. It slammed into the back of his head and knocked him forward into the glass of the doors and he fell onto his back. In an instant I was on top of him.
“Hello, Casus,” I said, out of breath.
Larso came and we lifted him and carried him out the doors. A transport was there awaiting passengers and we pulled him in and told the driver to leave. Now.
“Where to?”
“I don’t care,” I said.
The transport began to move and I looked back. No authorities were there, either as a result of Baron’s clearance or because they hadn’t caught on fast enough.
“Where is it?” I said.
“You weren’t supposed to come here,” Casus said, rubbing the back of his head, his fingers coming away with blood.
“Tell me where it is, Casus.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to stop it.”
He chuckled. “Prator always said you were weak. He said you felt too much sympathy for them.”
“It’s too much. It’s the destruction of their home world. Do you honestly think they will ever stop? They will fight to the death to destroy us.”
“Let them,” he said. “We’re better.”
“I was wrong, Casus. We were wrong. This isn’t the way. We’ll just create monsters. The survivors will know that they’re fighting an evil that they didn’t ask for. It will lead to the extinction of our species, not theirs. This has to stop.”
“Go cap yourself, Ava. I don’t work for you.”
I snatched the comm off his wrist. “You left this on the entire time, didn’t you? How much do you want to wager all the locations you’ve been on this planet are held in this comm?”
“Go to hell.”
I flipped the comm to Larso who immediately went to the standard tracker included in every comm and began going through locations.
“You’re too late,” he said. “It’s going off no matter what you do.”
“How long do we have?” When he didn’t answer I stuck my finger into the wound on the back of his head. “How long?”
He groaned. “Two days.”
I let go. Larso looked at me. “There’s about a dozen locations. We can hit them in two days.”
“You won’t get away with this, Ava. Prator’s going to—”
“Prator’s dead. So is Vane. We’re an army with a dead general, Casus. There’s no point to this. Just tell us where it is.”
He didn’t say anything. I turned to the driver. “Stop here.”
The transport stopped and I went to push him off the vessel when Larso grabbed him. “We can’t let him live.”
“He’s not a threat,” I said.
“Ava, he knows what we’re doing. He could alert any number of his buddies to come and smuggle the bomb somewhere else. He can’t live.”
I looked to Casus, who had a look of terror on his face. I knew it was true. Larso removed the blaster he carried with him and put it to Casus’ temple.
“No,” he begged, “wait, wait! I can take you to it. I can take you!”
“Too late,” Larso said.
“No, no. I can take you. The comm didn’t get all my locations. I wouldn’t have it with me all the time. You can’t find it without me.”
Larso looked to me and then back down to Casus. He replaced the blaster. “Tell the driver where to go. If you lie I’m going to spatter your brains over his nice seats.”
3
The building appeared like any other. It was tall and white, square with blue windows. We stopped the transport nearby and got out. Larso kept his arm on Casus as we walked in. No security was there to greet us. We took the elevator down to the bottom floor, which was a storage facility. Several ships were parked there, many of them dusty from not having been used for so long. Casus led us to one tucked away near the back.
Larso opened the ship. It was a four-person vessel. In the back was a silver oval of steel with small white spikes. We stood staring at it a long time.
“This it?” Larso finally said.
“Yeah,” Casus mumbled. “That’s it. I want to go now.”
“How do we disarm it?”
“You can’t. It’s armed. Once it’s armed that’s it.”
Larso looked to me. “It’s true,” I said. “Once it’s armed there’s no way to initiate a stop of the countdown.”
“Well, looks like we’re going for a ride. Get in.”
“No,” I said. “not him. I should pilot it.”
“Ava, we have to space this thing.”
“Bring our ship. I’ll get in orbit and we’ll space it toward the sun.”
He looked to Casus and then nodded.
I climbed into the vessel and flipped it on. The gate leading to the tunnel outside was open. As I lifted the ship and turned to leave, I saw Larso blow me a kiss. I smiled and continued to the tunnel.
Flight Command didn’t even enquire as to my leaving Earth. I flew up past the atmosphere and soon felt the weightlessness and euphoria of space. I shut the engines off and floated as if adrift on an ocean. I watched the ships as they flew in and out of orbit, lighting up momentarily a dim red and then fading into the blue of the planet below.
“You there?” my comm crackled.
“I’m here.”
“We’re heading into orbit now. Send me your coordinates.” I sent them. “Is Casus with you?”
“Yes.”
I waited until the ship arrived. I looked down to the wound on my torso. Blood had soaked through the bandages and they looked like they had been dyed black. As I was tightening the bandages, a large freighter arrived in front of me.
“Larso, is that you?”
There was no reply but I felt the tug of a tractor beam, and the bay doors to the vessel opened.
“Larso, did you get a bigger ship? Are you there?”
I got a queasy feeling in my gut as the freighter sucked me into the hangar bay. The doors closed behind me as my ship entered and as soon as I touched down the bay was pressurized. I stepped out of the ship.
“Larso?”
“He’s not here.”
I turned to see a female before me. She was dressed in black, with raven hair that came down past her shoulders. The plasma blade was clipped to her hip.
“What did you do to him?” I said.
“If you kill me you can find out.”
I stepped forward, trying not to show any hint of the pain that was radiating from my stomach. I stood my ground and she grinned.
“I can see you’re in pain,” she said. “A wounded little animal waiting for the hunter’s kill.”
“Wounded animals are more dangerous.”
She pulled out her blade and ignited it.
“How long have you known you were a clone?” I asked. She didn’t respond. “You try and fight it, I know. I know better than anyone. You try to pretend that it’s a bad dream, but deep down you know that nobody can do the things you can do. No
one has the abilities you have. You think to yourself that you have memories from childhood, you couldn’t have been grown in a lab. But when you think back you see that those memories are nothing. You remember big events, your parents, your first kiss … but you can’t remember what a rose smells like. Or what color the ocean becomes as the sun is rising over it. They didn’t implant you with those memories. You convince yourself that you’re really human and that what you’re doing is for humankind. But it’s not.”
Her face contorted in rage. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you honestly believe that? They have you assassinating your own people and you think it doesn’t matter? You can fight them though. You don’t have to be their slave.”
“Better a slave than a corpse.”
She spun and a bolt of energy shot out of her blade. I ducked underneath the ship as the bolt impacted the steel and rocked it to the side. I rolled out the other side as another bolt hit the ship and then the floor where I had been. I spun backward and got behind the ship’s thrusters. She leapt onto the wings and threw another blast of energy, this one barely missing me, as I ducked underneath and rolled, coming up across the floor.
“I have something they want,” I said. “Something they’re scared of. They don’t want to acknowledge that we’re people, just like them.”
“You can breed,” she hissed. “So can any vermin. It doesn’t make you special.”
“I can bring unity. We can have a race made up of the best of both of us.”
“Is that why you wanted to destroy Earth? Unity?”
“I was wrong.”
“Yes, you were. But I can alleviate your guilt.”
She thrust out toward me like a spear, cutting through the air. I dodged her initial blow which hit the ground and a shower of sparks went up. She spun around without missing a beat and attempted to lop off my head. I leaned back as far as I could, the heat of the blade on my face as it cut across the tip of my nose.
I lunged forward and impacted against her waist. She spun out of my grip and came up with a kick to my jaw that sent me flying backward. She was in the air before I even landed and I twisted away from the blade, which entered the floor where my chest had just been.
