“Freya?” he asked.
“No, Colin. It’s Ida,” she said softly. “You are on the colony world. Do you remember?”
His mind was foggy, but a flood of memories rushed back to him. If, in his disoriented state, he had not thought it was Freya who was with him, he could have handled himself better. But with the cruel combination of feeling her loss all over again and the harsh reminder of the truth, he started to weep like a child.
“Freya,” he said again, and wailed, his body trembling. She was truly lost to him, and it was more than he could bear. Ida kept stroking his forehead and hair, but he could hear her sniffling also. She just let him cry it all out before she tried to speak to him again.
“I know, Colin. I lost Eddison, too. I don’t know if I can go on without him,” she whispered.
A medic came into the room just then.
“He needs another cold pack; this one is growing warm,” Ida said to the medic.
“Well, that is just too bad for him, now isn’t it?” the medic spat at her. “I don’t have an abundance of cold packs, and the ones I do have should be saved for those who deserve them. Not the people who cause trouble.”
“Please. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand.” Ida pleaded. “We have all lost so much. Can you not have some compassion?”
The medic paused, looking at her sternly for a moment. She left the room and returned with another pack.
“That is the last one he gets. He is your responsibility. Try to keep control of your partner next time he throws a fit.” She left the room. Colin didn’t look up at her, but he recognized her voice. It was the same medic who awoke him from his chamber.
“Why does she think we are coupled?” Colin asked.
Ida let out a deep sigh. “Because according to the State, we are,” she replied. Colin took in a sharp breath. “I would like to see how they plan on enforcing that, though. I mean, no offense, Colin, you are cute and all, and we did have some fun once; but even if I did fancy you, which I don’t, I won’t couple with anyone the State tells me I have to.”
“It’s okay. You don’t particularly do it for me either. And I won’t be coupled again anyway, especially not by the State,” Colin replied. “How is Aakil?”
“I’m just bloody great, thanks for asking, you asshole!” Aakil yelled from another bed.
***
Colin woke up to a dull throbbing pain in his head. There was no Ida with him, and no ice pack, but at least the restraints had been removed. He sat up slowly, looking around the room. Aakil was still lying in a bed off in the corner. Colin got up and moved slowly toward him. Aakil turned his head but looked away when he saw Colin.
“Are you okay? Colin asked.
“Just peachy, as long as I don’t have to eat or breathe, or get up for a piss,” Aakil replied.
“I’m really sorry.”
“Well, sorry isn’t going to get me any pain meds, now is it?”
“Why won’t they give you anything?”
“We haven’t got any. The State ever so graciously sent medical supplies for emergencies only—they don’t consider pain an emergency, see.”
Colin let out a sigh. He didn’t think he could feel worse about his current situation, but everything kept progressively sliding downhill. Everyone on this colony world was suffering; they had lost everything, and they were scared, yet he had made it just that much worse for this poor fellow. He wasn’t even that big. It was wrong on every level for Colin to attack him the way that he did.
“Can I do anything to help you?”
“Well, I’ve had to piss for the last hour or so,” Aakil replied.
Without another word, Colin took Aakil’s hand, and put his other hand under Aakil’s shoulder.
“On three?” Colin counted down and pushed Aakil into a sitting position. He let out a murmur of pain, took some deep breaths. Once recovered, Colin pulled him onto his feet and walked with him to a door in the medical room.
“You coming in to hold it for me?”
“I’m sure you will manage without me,” Colin replied. Once the door was opened again, he helped him back into his bed.
“You know, the ladies are in a right tiff about this being the only bathroom on the ship, and only for the use of the sick.” Aakil lay back down. “I suppose that’s why they started waking mostly men up first.” In spite of his misery, Colin gave a slight chuckle at this remark. “So I couldn’t help to overhear your conversation with Ida.”
“I am sure you did,” Colin replied.
“They actually told you we were going to another place on Earth?”
Colin’s jaw tightened, his eyes moistened, and his entire body went rigid. “Yep.” He sighed. “They said if I behaved well on camera, got on the ship, did my job, my partner would be on the next vessel shortly.”
“Shit,” Aakil whispered. “That’s cold, man.”
“What did they tell you?”
“Nothing, not a damn thing.” Aakil shook his head. “They just sent me a message saying I was being promoted and was to report in for training. I showed up, and I was locked in this small room with a guard. I had to build a machine, but was never told what it was for until I got here.”
“Did they torture you?”
“No—shit no. Why would you ask me that?” Aakil asked. Colin’s face fell, and he looked away, his face expressing what no longer needed to be said. “What did they do to you?”
“I got the same message. I reported in, was arrested and brought underground into a cell. I was given a tablet for training, and when I refused it, well…it wasn’t good.” Colin knew he hadn’t really answered the question, but it was too awful to relive.
“So then you did your training, and they threw you on the ship? When did they tell you the bogus story?”
“Well, I did my training, and then James felt the need to remind me what would happen if I didn’t behave.” He paused. Aakil let out a deep breath and cursed again. “When I had recovered, James told me he would make me a deal. If I behaved on camera, he would send Freya immediately.”
“And I would assume he forgot to mention the twenty-two years passing?”
“Yeah, he skipped over that part.” Colin fell silent for a moment. “The part that really gets me is that I don’t even need to be here. You could have built the communications device. I think it was personal.”
“Who is this Captain Dickhead?”
“He was the head of Security, my supervisor.”
“Why would he hate you then?”
“Hard to say—It’s not like I didn’t give him plenty of opportunities,” Colin said with a bitter laugh. “I was kind of a bad kid. Never knew how I got into Security in the first place, if you know what I mean.” He paused. Colin didn’t know whether it was because he felt he had nothing left to lose, or whether he just felt as if he could trust Aakil or he owed him something after what he had done to him. “I also think he busted me doing something bad. I guess I will never really know, you know? He never confronted me on it, or admitted to knowing. I can’t think of any other reason.”
“And you did what?” Aakil asked. “You have not come across as a terribly likable character, and I know those guys at the top are just plain evil, but seriously, this?”
Colin drew in a deep breath. He was giving Aakil the chance to slit his throat, but felt it had to happen. “My parents were part of the rebellion. My dad asked me to fuzz out a camera, and to just not notice that one, and what was happening on it.” Colin took another deep breath. “They created a diversion in a common room, a fight. I tuned the frequency to just get static, then ran to break up the fight—you know, my cover for not noticing.”
“What was it you didn’t notice?”
Colin sighed. “That about twenty people were making a run for the surface. They chose that access specifically because it was on my camera. When I got back, he was sitting at my terminal, and commented on a camera he had to fix. He made some other comments about how fast I ra
n.” He gulped. “And then commented on how Freya liked to run. My gut told me it was a threat, but then I just told myself I was being paranoid.”
Aakil laid there, his eyes bulging and his jaw hanging wide open. “Wow, wow,” Aakil said, almost stammering. “I seriously misjudged you.” He started to laugh. “You just jumped off that ship and started working like you were Captain Courageous or a Super Soldier or something. I totally thought you were this brainwashed, militant, superhero of the State.”
Colin smirked. It was a little funny. Never before had anyone thought something like that of him, like he himself could be a poster child.
“Nope, not me. I just thought if I worked hard enough…” Colin said, and then lost his voice.
“You thought you would get her back,” Aakil answered for him. Colin nodded and then looked away. Men didn’t cry in front of other men. “Thank you for telling me.” Aakil hesitated. “I have really been struggling with something, and now that you told me all that, I think you are the right kind of person to talk to about it.”
Colin turned back to him, his eyes slightly squinted, looking at him sideways. “Right kind of person?”
“Yeah, you are. I could have finished my assignment a while ago, before you even woke up actually—it’s not hard—but I just don’t feel like I have the right to make that kind of call on my own.” Aakil took a deep breath. “The thing is, right now, the State can’t touch us. We may have been sent here against our will, but as of right now, we are all free men. If I do what I am supposed to do, then the State gets to walk back in here and take over. But if I don’t, we never have to worry about them interfering with us again.”
“I just grasped the concept I am on another planet. I really have no idea what you are talking about,” Colin replied.
“You see, I am to build a device that can transport people back and forth between our worlds, instantly. All the parts are there. I just have to put them together.”
“So you are saying you want to stop working? Just not build it?”
“No, I’m afraid they have a backup still sleeping on the ship. I have to destroy it, and all the parts.”
Colin stepped away from the bed. He was suddenly filled with nervous energy. “But if you built it, we could go home. I could.”
Aakil cut him off. “Mate, I get that you want to see your girl. I bet she was great, but that was twenty-two years ago, man. It doesn’t matter how much she loved you then; that girl is long gone. I’m sorry. I lost my girl, too; I get it. But we can’t think about that now—we have too much at stake.”
Colin began to pace, running his hands through his hair, down his face. “What if the people here revolt? What if they kill you for doing it?” Colin asked after a long pause.
“I know that they still have a bit to wake yet, but I think any loyalty people had toward the State got lost in the vacuum of space,” Aakil said, with a bitter laugh. “So no, I’m not worried about any repercussions from them.”
“Okay, what about the State then? What do we do when they show up?”
Aakil shook his head. “The way I see it, it will take them twenty-five, maybe even fifty years to get here. They have to build another ship, if they even can build another one,” Aakil said. “If we don’t turn it on, maybe they will just think it couldn’t be done.”
“Like they may think we crash-landed, or got lost in space or something?”
“No, they know we are here, and alive. There is a radio beacon on the ship, and the ship’s life support is part of the message. They will know we are here and woke up; they just won’t know why we didn’t call home. They might think we died as soon as we stepped off the ship. They may think a lot of things, but whatever they think, this project has a better chance of being scrapped than repeated.”
Colin stopped his pacing near the wall and kicked it, cursed, and then slid down the wall onto the floor. “What about everyone else? How can we live here knowing about all the people we left behind? There are good people down there, like my parents, people who are willing to fight.”
“That’s my problem. I don’t know that I could live with that on my conscience. But then I ask myself, could we get them over here? And if we did, how do we shut the State out again? We have an opportunity here that comes around maybe once in a hundred years, or maybe never again.”
“Can’t you destroy it from this side just as easy after it gets turned on?” Colin asked. “I mean, give it a chance. We open it up, see if we can get some of my people over here, and shut it down again.”
“What if they send a bunch of those soldiers over the second we open the door?”
“We don’t give them a reason to. We do our jobs, act all compliant; they don’t have the manpower to send over just to babysit,” Colin answered. “If we act like we are keeping our noses clean, they won’t feel the need.”
“That is quite a gamble you are willing to take without any proof,” Aakil said. “Outsmart the State? The State is ten steps ahead, always.”
“I know. I know it is a risk, but it might also work. I also know that if we put up a fight, there will be another ship in twenty-odd years that shows up to wipe us out. But with enough people, and that kind of time, we can make weapons and learn to defend ourselves. We have something you are overlooking. We have more resources, and without population control, we will have a bigger army. We train everyone: men, women, and children. We will have a war against the State, here, for our planet.”
“You have a plan for all the people on the other side to get over here?” Aakil asked.
“No, but we will come up with one. We need to get that device working first.”
“So if I disagree, and try to sabotage it, you will try to stop me then?”
“You aren’t going to do that. If you wanted to destroy it, it would take a lot more than a few broken ribs to stop you.”
“Yeah, I guess I’m all talk.” Aakil laughed. “We best get to work then. If I take any longer, it will make those militant types twitchy.”
“Can you work like this?”
“No, but I can sit on my ass and tell you what to do.”
Colin got up from the floor and helped Aakil to a sitting position. They had work to do.
***
Every day, the colony grew. Everyone was now awake, and the land seemed to blossom from their touch. Aakil and Colin put together the final pieces of the transport device, and got the radio ready.
“So, we turn this thing on, and then it will take the message back to the State instantly?” Colin asked.
“Apparently,” he replied. “Have you figured out what you are going to say?”
“Me? Why do I have to talk to them?” Colin asked, sounding like a child.
“Well, I think your title was head of communications or something of the sort?” Aakil replied dryly.
Colin gulped hard, his throat dry. Aakil started up the transport device, and looked to Colin to begin.
“What should I say?”
“I don’t know. Just try to sound happy.”
***
“Okay, let’s go over the plan one more time,” said Aakil.
“You turn it on, then I step onto the platform on your signal,” Colin replied, in a disinterested voice.
“Correct. Then when you get there, what are you going to do?”
“Look for any contacts I can find in the rebellion,” he replied, sounding just as bored.
“Yes, and what aren’t you going to do?”
“Look for Freya.”
“Correct again. And how are you going to act while you are there?”
“Compliant and grateful,” Colin said. “Just turn the damn thing on. Let’s get this over with.”
Aakil let out a sigh. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m just not convinced that you will keep your mind focused on what little time and opportunity we have to pull this off, and you will look for Freya instead.”
Colin sighed. “I won’t look for her.”
“See, y
ou keep saying words, and it’s not the words that are wrong per se. I just don’t really believe them—you have to make me believe them, Colin.”
“What if I run into her?”
“See, there it is.” Aakil threw the tin cup that was in his hand. “You are still thinking about Freya!” he yelled.
“But what if I do? What do I say to her?”
“You won’t! You won’t see her. She won’t be there. Get this through your thick skull!” Aakil yelled again, and started pacing. “She is gone, and I can’t send you like this. You have to move on, mate!” Colin sat down on the ground, his head in his hands. He must have looked pathetic, as Aakil took some deep breaths and sat down beside him.
The State Series Box Set Page 75
