Memento Mori

by Gingell, W. R.

  Almost.

  “Just get us aboard the TCS Slider,” he said. “They should have their sensors off by now.”

  “Orright,” grumbled Kez. “But I wanna come back for it.”

  “Him.”

  “Yah. I wanna come back.”

  “I wasn’t agreeing,” retorted Marx. “Let’s go, kid.”

  ***

  “We’re getting a message through, sir.”

  Mikkel groaned, and said to Arabella, “What did I tell you?” At the communications officer, he waved one pained hand and said, “Put it through.”

  His communications officer looked surprised. “Nothing to put through, sir; it’s just a request for us to disengage our sensors so we can complete the Synch cycle without setting off every alarm on the console. We don’t think there’s any discrepancy, but you said we had to be extra careful with this one and they’re a bit nervous.”

  “There you go, sir,” said Arabella. “Here we are, safe and sound, and there they are, safe and sound.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mikkel. “It’s very suspicious. All right, all right; turn off the sensors. We’re Synching.”

  ***

  “’Ere we are,” Kez said. “Arabella’s room. Coulda shifted us into Golden Boy’s quarters, y’know.”

  “We don’t need Mikkel’s quarters; we need the Newlands Box.”

  “Yeah, but can’t we just mess wiv his stuff while we’re ’ere?”

  Marx shot her a look and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Where was the Box last time you saw it?”

  “I dunno!” said Kez promptly. “Don’t even know if last time was last time, if ya know wot I mean.”

  Marx knew. It was one of the worst things about the kind of ducking in and out of time and space that they routinely did: you could never be quite sure your actions were in sequence with the regular flow of time. Their Core hack helped with that, but it couldn’t keep quite everything in line.

  “Maybe we should ’ave a book or summink.”

  “I’m not writing any part of what we do in a book,” said Marx. “That’s what they call documentary evidence, kid.”

  “Oi. Where d’you reckon Bells put it? Now that she knows wot it is, I mean.”

  “If it was me—”

  “Well it ain’t, is it?”

  “Shut up, kid,” Marx said amiably. “Now, if it was me, I’d put it somewhere easy to see but hard to recognise.”

  “Like that bloke who wanted to hide leaves in a forest,” remarked Kez. “Silly git, eh? A forest has too many leaves already; ’ow would he find ’em again when he wanted ’em? And wot about when the autumn comes along and all the leaves fall orf?”

  “I don’t think he expected the analogy to be dragged out that far,” said Marx. “Obviously he didn’t know a bratty little mucker like you.”

  “Anna-wot? Who’s draggin’ her?”

  “Don’t worry about it; she’s a friend of mine.”

  “Maybe we should’ve asked her.”

  “Maybe. Hurry it up, kid. It won’t be long before they find that ensign, and our empty cell.”

  Kez dug through Arabella’s drawers with all the discretion of a terrier on the hunt, spilling underclothes and socks onto the floor. “Wot about your side, then? You ain’t found it, either!”

  “Where would you put it, if you were Arabella?”

  “Me? ’F I knew what it was, I’d be pretty sure we’d be back for it. An’ seems to be that I’m friendly about stuff like that, so I’d put it somewhere we could find it. Oooh. Like fillin’ it wiv choclits and turfin’ it on the fancy liddle shelf up ’ere!”

  Marx grinned. “Nice work, kid!”

  “Got it!” said Kez gleefully, scrambling down from the dresser with the Box clutched to her skinny chest.

  Overhead, an alarm began to wail, and Marx vaulted the requisition couch. “Time’s up. Let’s go.”

  “Orright,” Kez said, “but next time we should do summink more interestin’.”

  “What sort of interesting?” asked Marx, as a small, grubby hand closed around his.

  “Dunno, blow the place up or summink,” said Kez, and then there was no Kez and no Marx, and the alarm sobbed into an empty room.

  ***

  “You don’t think—”

  “Turn on the sensors!”

  A wail sounded through the bridge, a background against which the ship’s well-modulated voice interface said pleasantly, “Person or persons unknown on board. Sector Three is compromised.”

  Arabella said thoughtfully, “Sector Three—”

  “The living quarters? Why?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, sir,” said Arabella. “I don’t think they’re in your room. I think they’re in mine. And if I’m right, they won’t be there lo—”

  “Person or persons unknown have left the ship by an unknown means,” said the interface.

  “What the—!” Mikkel half rose from his seat, and sank back down again in defeat. It was too late—far too late—to do anything about the incursion now. “Did they get themselves captured by a cruiser full of green officers in order to get on our ship without being noticed until it was too late?”

  “It seems likely. But look at it this way, sir,” Arabella added comfortingly. “They weren’t technically in our custody at the time, so Time Corp can hardly reprimand us. And nobody hit you on the head, either, which I think we can take as a hopeful sign. All in all, that’s a good day, wouldn’t you say?”

  Internal Noticeboard, TCC Umber

  Latest Onworld News

  Nine Saved by Crew of TCC Umber

  Yesterday, at 15:00 LRT, nine members of the Fifth World ambassadorial staff were saved when a routine inspection of suspicious activity aboard a craft in orbit turned up two wanted individuals. The incident drew attention to the suspicious nature of the craft itself, and led to the capture of several pirates who had made a covert raid on an ambassadorial vessel and were returning with their prisoners.

  The original captives have since escaped, but the pirates remain incarcerated, pending formal charges.

  Hearty congratulations to the crew of TCC Umber and her new ensigns, who carried out the capture.

  Transfers and Appointments

  Notice of the Transfer of Ensign Li from TCC Umber to the TCS Slider, pending disciplinary action.

  The Box that Travels Through Time and Space

  “YOU REMEMBER WOT WE’RE s’posed to do there?”

  “We haven’t done it yet. How can I remember it?”

  “We makes summink blow up an’ then—”

  “No, that’s what happens after.”

  “Can’t we do that bit first?”

  “We haven’t done this yet!”

  “The Core says we ’ave.”

  “The Core is current in all aspects of time.”

  “So are we.”

  “It’s still listed under possible occurrences,” said Marx. “There isn’t enough info to be sure of what we’re doing yet.”

  “I wanna look at that bit!”

  “Too flamin’ bad! I gave you the personnel list at that Cop shop. Do your own research.”

  Kez, ignoring him, hung over the back of his seat, pulling it back with her weight. “Look, it says we go to Eighth World, an’ that summink gets stolen. We should do that instead. ’Oo cares what order we do it in?”

  “We don’t know exactly what it is we’re trying to steal—”

  “—ain’t stopped us before—”

  “—and it’s still sitting in possible occurrences. It could change if we go to Eighth World first. I’m not going to do it out of order just because you like doing things out of order.”

  “Anyway, we do know what we’re goin’ after,” argued Kez. “It’s a box thing. You said it’s called the—the Newlands Box.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know exactly what it is,” repeated Marx. After stealing Mikkel’s Core Password, he’d spent most of the last Relative Week Unit digging about
in the Core. At first it had seemed possible just to use the Core to dodge the attentions of Time Corp, but the deeper he dug into the ever-changing records of time and space, the clearer it grew that it wasn’t so much a case of dodging the Time Corp as it was making sure they stayed just one step ahead in the chase. In fact, in terms of lifestyle, not much had changed by having a Core password. It was just that now they knew when they were going to be in a tight squeak with Time Corp or WAOF instead of being unpleasantly surprised by it. The number of incidents didn’t grow any fewer; just more predictable.

  “Anyway, ’oo says Fourth World orbit is where that Box shows up first?” asked Kez, reaching around him to brandish her thin handful of papers in his face.

  Marx reached back and pushed her away with two fingers on her forehead. “There aren’t that many traces of it in the Core. Actually, it’s easier to spot if you’re looking for sudden, violent deaths as one of your search parameters. And Eighth World…well, I need more time to think about it. The sensors there are very specialised; we’ll need something just as specialised if we don’t want to be ripped to shreds by the grid.”

  “Yeah, well, I wanna know ’oo did that,” Kez said resentfully. “Ain’t any sense sendin’ the Box there!”

  “Don’t know; we haven’t done this bit yet.”

  “Yeah, but it don’t make no sense, Marx!”

  “Nothing about the Core makes sense. Nothing about the Newlands Box does either, if it comes to that.”

  “Might as well do it backwards, then.”

  “That’s not what I was getting at. Anyway, if we do it right the first time, the Eighth World trace of us might disappear altogether. If we can steal the Box before it gets sent with the rest of the evidence to Eighth World—”

  “But it’s more fun—”

  “No.” Marx looked at Kez sideways. There was a cross, pinched look to her mouth and a pebbly sheen to her black eyes that, with Kez, didn’t indicate actual crossness. No, Kez was scared.

  “I don’t get why we’re stealin’ the Newlands box anyways,” she muttered. “Ain’t like we know what it is.”

  “No, but I do know someone tries to kill us every time we get our hands on it. Will try to kill us. The Core’s pretty clear about that.”

  “Then—”

  “—and that’s something I take personally,” finished Marx. “Just keep looking over the personnel file so we know who we’re talking to when we get to Fourth World orbit.”

  “Already looked it over,” Kez mumbled. “Gimme summink else to look at.”

  Marx’s eyes flicked back to her. “Givus it, kid.”

  He twitched it out of her fingers without waiting for her, and Kez stared angrily out the Upsydaisy’s front viewscreen. Marx scanned the papers quickly and whistled.

  “Marcus, eh?”

  “Might not be him.”

  “Of course it’s not him,” said Marx. “Look, would he leave his whole name like that if it was him? This is about the Newlands Box; we hadn’t even heard about it when he was chasing you.”

  Kez muttered something that could have been flamin’ confident mucker, though, and said aloud, “Yeah, but wot if it is him? ’Ow can we go there? He might—he’ll figure out that we killed him and then he’ll come after us again, an’—”

  “If it’s him and if he comes after us again, I’ll kill him again,” said Marx.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing. You’re a grubby little mucker but you’re useful to have around. I’m not having anyone offing my swabber.”

  Kez looked gratified, but all she said was, “’Ow’s an old man like you gonna do anything, anyway?”

  “I won’t have to do anything,” said Marx. There was a WAOFy grey hat hanging on the back of his chair along with a folded sergeant’s dress jacket. He rescued both from Kez’s sticky clutches and shrugged into the jacket. “It’s not him. He wouldn’t be that stupid.”

  Kez, looking slightly less apprehensive, said, “Oo-er! You look like a right proper cop an’ all! ’Ow’d you do that?”

  “It’s all in the worlds-weary air,” said Marx. “And the suggestion that you’ll murder the next crim who knocks your coffee into your lap.”

  “’Ang on! If you’re gonna be a WAOFy cop, what am I?”

  “You’re a criminal, of course. Just grin that feral grin at everyone you pass and they’ll give us a wide berth.”

  Not entirely to Marx’s surprise, this appealed to Kez. “Orright, then. Gonna wrap lock me?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” said Marx. “Get a wriggle on, kid. The station might still be here tomorrow, but the Box won’t be.”

  ***

  Sergeant Gormley was a good sergeant. Not a great sergeant, or even a particularly intelligent one; he knew his level. No, Sergeant Gormley was a solidly good sergeant who tried not to play politics or get caught up in the petty corruptions that abounded on small onworld WAOF stations. He clocked in on time, did his day’s work, said a great many variations of “don’t do that sir”, “sir I said don’t do that”, “nobody wants to see that sir”, and “now was there any need for that sir?” as he shut criminals into their cells; and then Sergeant Gormley clocked out on time and went home. Through solid good work and not being too clever, he had worked out his term as the desk sergeant of a small onworld station, and was now being transferred to a vastly better location on Fourth World’s offworld orbiting station.

  It wasn’t in Sergeant Gormley’s nature to celebrate excessively, but he had celebrated in his own particular way; he took an afternoon to look over the floorplan of Fourth World’s orbiting station and familiarise himself with it. He had worked at his old station without either fuss or celebration, and he expected to enter his new station and proceed in just the same way.

  To say that he was startled to find himself tied up and bundled into a quiet interview room on his first day of duty at that new station, therefore, would be to greatly understate the matter. Sergeant Gormley had never made an enemy in his life. Even the criminals he locked up regarded him more in the light of a talking cell door than an actual WAOF sergeant. He had simply not expected to be hit on the head as he made his way to the punch-in clock. Or, if it came to that, to wake up with a headache in an interview room that smelled of puke and old cigarettes, trussed tightly by a modified wrap lock and watched over by a gleefully unrepentant child who offered him orange slices with a grubby hand and warned him in the same breath that she would “scramble ’is brains for ’im” if he so much as made a move.

  Sergeant Gormley, cautiously, went with what he knew best. “Now is there any need for that?”

  “Yeah,” said the child. “We ’ad to steal yer name. Can’t ’ave two Sergeant Gormleys walkin’ round the station, can we?”

  “Oh,” said Sergeant Gormley, stymied. Vague curiosity prompted him to ask, “Where did you get that orange?”

  “Stole that, too,” said the girl. “It was in yer pocket.”

  “Oh,” the sergeant said again. “I will have some, then.”

  ***

  It was a good day to sneak into the WAOF station. It was the new desk sergeant’s first day—a new desk sergeant whom nobody had yet seen, whose records were marked as processing delay in the system—and besides a new desk sergeant, the station was also expecting a visit from WAOF Central. There would be very little work done today, although everyone would be looking as busy as possible. It was the best day to sneak into this particular WAOF orbiting station.

  The thought worried Marx, because it had already occurred to him that if it was a good day for him to sneak into the station, it was also a good day for someone else to sneak into the station. And as much as he had assured Kez that it couldn’t be Marcus Solomon working at an orbiting WAOFy station, the unpleasant thought that it actually could be Marcus Solomon lingered uncomfortably in the back of his mind.

  That was why Kez was locked in an interview room, babysitting an overgrown sergeant who had eaten a few too many good me
als. The lock wouldn’t stop Kez getting out, of course, but it should stop anyone from getting in, and that was all that really mattered. Meanwhile, Marx was free to report to his first and last shift as desk sergeant, and hope that it would be a slow enough morning to do a bit of poking about without raising suspicion.

  Despite his hopes, it wasn’t until midmorning that Marx was able to get away and explore. That state of affairs wasn’t due to an overabundance of work; it was due to the fact that it was apparently impossible to for him to start his first shift without being shown over what felt like the entire station by an overzealous and overfriendly human resources officer, who peppered him with questions the entire time. Marx’s mostly monosyllabic responses had absolutely no effect upon his effervescence, and in the end Marx began answering questions with questions in an attempt to make some use of the quickly draining time.

  “Oi,” he said, during a brief lull in the conversation for the officer to refill his coffee cup at one of the refreshment stations around the station. “Anything interesting arrive in the last couple days?”

  “Home invasion,” said the officer, stirring his coffee. “Two murders, a robbery, and a fatal stabbing that looks accidental. Pretty quiet apart from that. We got the boxes this morning; they were playing with the home invasion render earlier.”

  “Only five boxes today, then?”

  “Yeah. It’s been a quiet week. We wouldn’t even have had five if they hadn’t closed the stabbing as accidental and unlikely to produce a perp. Actually, I don’t know why they’re sending us something that small; usually the local precinct’d keep it. The home invasion, now; that should be a big one.”