Breakout

by David Ryker

  As Schuster stared into the box, he couldn’t quite fathom what he was seeing. Not metal, not rock, and yet solid, despite the watery light it was giving off. What fascinated him even more was the overpowering feeling of déjà vu that was washing over him as he looked at it.

  None of that appeared to matter to Sloane. His eyes, which had seemed almost dead since their last trip to the surface, now looked to be dancing in the light of the element. Next to him, Boychuk twitched and fidgeted, suddenly more animated than he been throughout the entire trip.

  As the ship lifted off and the surface receded in the porthole, Schuster found himself wishing that they were back on Oberon One already, because he couldn’t shake the feeling that something unpleasant was going to happen to them before they got there.

  26

  It had been only twenty-four hours since her call to her father, but Chelsea Bloom was already beginning to second-guess herself. Maybe his idea of getting the hell off of Oberon One wasn’t so bad after all.

  She had seen only a handful of guards on duty as she walked through the station over the course of the day, and only two of those had acknowledged her. The infirmary had been empty all day. That wasn’t out of the ordinary, but usually whoever was the duty officer on the dayshift would buzz her at some point to remind her to file her report. And a day rarely passed when someone didn’t at least poke their head in and check on her. It was a prison, after all.

  As she sat at her desk, bored and more than a little anxious, she scanned through the public records of Napoleon Quinn and the three others who were referred to as the Jarheads. They had been on Oberon One for just under two years after being convicted of treason. They had handed over a member of the UFT Senate to a terrorist group when they had been assigned as his security detail. Gen. Morley Drake himself, who had been elected the faction’s tribune on the campaign of fulfilling King’s dream, had testified at their court martial.

  The court saw video evidence of Quinn kidnapping King in an abandoned compound in the dead zone of Astana, Kazakhstan. The Jarheads had been escorting the senator via a secret underground vactrain to crucial armistice negotiations in Seoul at the time. King hadn’t been seen since, and the consensus among most officials was that the terrorists, a group out of the Allied States that called themselves the Children of Saul, had killed him.

  According to the record, all four Jarheads had claimed they couldn’t remember what happened in Astana; in fact, all had large gaps in their memories before waking up in a prison hospital at Fort Schwarzkopf in Shanghai some forty-eight hours later. All had pleaded not guilty, but their lawyer hadn’t offered any explanation of what had happened. Several independent expert witnesses had testified that the holographic footage of Quinn couldn’t have been doctored. Quinn himself had no explanation.

  All four had received very public death threats after they were convicted, including from some criminal organizations such as the Southern Saints. Now that she knew their story, Chelsea thought it was a testament to the Marines’ grit that they had been able to survive as long as they had in the prison. She had no illusions about the life the prisoners led.

  But as she flicked off her monitor, she couldn’t help feeling that, for the first time since the war, she might be in danger herself.

  “Doc! Y’all gotta lemme in!”

  Her heart gave a hard thump as Ulysses’ bald head appeared on the screen. He was outside the door to the infirmary, and his eyes were frantic. Despite the fact she’d just been thinking about being in danger, instinct took over and she hit the control to let him in. Someone needed help.

  Ulysses burst through the hatch and flattened with his back against the adjoining wall, motioning for her to close the door again. She complied, concerned by the look on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked as she approached him. “Are you injured? Was it the guards?”

  Interesting how your mind automatically went there, she pointed out to herself.

  “Doc, it’s Maggott,” he said. His breath was ragged. “Sump’n happened to him.”

  “Calm down, Ulysses. What happened to Maggott?”

  “We was… look, we was doin’ sump’n we ain’t s’posed to be, all right? Quinn tapped us for recon while him’n the others were down on the surface on some kinda secret mission. So we got into the restricted area—”

  “Restricted?” She scoffed. “No wonder you got in trouble! Inmates aren’t allowed in there. How did you even get inside?”

  Ulysses held up his hands palms-forward to stop her. The look on his face convinced her to let him speak.

  “Ah know all that,” he said. “But we was lookin’ into the crazy shit that’s been goin’ on lately. Don’t tell me you ain’t noticed it yourself.”

  Chelsea stayed quiet and motioned for him to continue.

  “So we was wanderin’ around, and we ain’t seen any o’ the guards anywhere. Then we got to the warden’s office n’ turns out they’s all there. And they heard us. So Maggott took one fer the team and I bounced on outta there.” He took a breath. “But then I heard sump’n.”

  “What something?”

  “Maggott screamed, Doc.” He shook his head. “I mean, like a l’il girl scream.”

  Chelsea peered at him. “Maggott.” She spread her arms wide, then turned them forty-five degrees to indicate height. “That Maggott. Screamed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Hard.”

  She ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe they hit him with the shock rifle. I mean, they pretty much discovered him behind enemy lines. Makes sense that they’d make an example of him.”

  “Look, Doc, I been shocked plenty here, but I ain’t never screamed. And definitely not like that boy did.” He drew a shaky breath. “B’lieve me, I’m gonna take that sound to m’grave.”

  “They never brought him to me,” she said defiantly.

  Ulysses rolled his eyes. “Well, I guess that means he’s right as rain, then.”

  Half a dozen thoughts flew through Chelsea’s mind, from whether to believe Ulysses (she did) to whether this was somehow connected to the way Farrell and Kergan were acting, and how most of the guards seemed to be on paid leave of some sort (she was positive it did). But underneath it all was the firm belief that something was terribly wrong on Oberon One, and that she had to do something about it.

  “I’ll got to the warden,” she said. “Maybe I can—”

  “Jesus, woman!” Ulysses blurted. “Y’jes don’t get it, do ya? Maggott may be dead! And I been hearin’ stories about Farrell pissin’ in his pants while Kergan stood there laughin’ about it. You really think he’s gonna be any help?”

  She immediately flashed back to her bizarre meeting with Farrell and Kergan, and the smell of urine. She couldn’t deny it any longer—whatever was going on, it wasn’t going to be stopped by following the chain of command.

  “I have to find Maggott.” She called up her wristband display and did a location search on her official account. Nothing.

  “As far as the system is concerned, Percival Maggott has no official location at the moment,” she muttered.

  “Five’ll getcha ten they put his giant ass in the Can,” said Ulysses. Then his eyes widened. “Wait, d’you say his first name was Percival? Damn, that boy got some cold parents.”

  Chelsea called up the system again and accessed the video feed outside the solitary confinement cells. Her heart sank a bit when she saw Maggott’s prone body stuffed into the space like a sardine in a can. He wasn’t moving.

  “I’ve got to get to him,” she said. “I can’t tell what kind of shape he’s in.”

  “Or if he’s still alive.”

  She shook her head. “No, I won’t accept that any guard would kill an inmate.”

  “Seriously? You been ‘round Ridley at all lately?”

  She ignored that and rushed past him into the corridor.

  “Get somewhere safe!” she called back as she jogged toward the central tube that would take her to
Maggott.

  “There ain’t no place safe!” Ulysses called back, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say.

  Chelsea’s heart skipped a beat when she spotted someone above her in a brown uniform coming down the central access tube as she floated up. She debated whether to acknowledge him—Holden, she saw as he got closer, one of the rougher guards—but he made the decision for her and passed by her on the ladder as if she weren’t there.

  As she reached the sixth level and climbed through the hatch into the corridor that led to the solitary confinement area, she found herself hoping that Quinn and his friends would return soon from their mining excursion to the surface. Quinn had been the first to alert her to the threat, but she had dismissed him. Now she wanted him here.

  What did that say about her? She was looking forward to seeing an inmate who was convicted of treason for kidnapping and very likely killing a senator, yet she was doing everything she could to avoid running into the officials and security personnel who ran the prison where that man was incarcerated.

  But once she did meet with Quinn, she could use her personal commlink and get in touch with her father on Earth again. This time she would have a solid case, and she’d convince him that something needed to be done immediately. She tried not to dwell on the fact that they were more than a month away from the nearest ship, which was on its way now with supplies.

  Chelsea reached the entry hatch to the corridor that housed the Can. A quick glance when she entered showed her Maggott’s enormous bulk stuffed into the third of six cells. He was on his back on the floor, his knees bent to accommodate the fact that he was easily six inches longer than the two-meter space. His left shoulder was under the bench that ran half the depth of the cell.

  She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding when she saw his wide chest rise and fall. Whatever had happened to him, he wasn’t dead. At least, not yet.

  She crept closer so that she was right next to the clear front of the cell. If she could open the cell, she could examine him better, but even though she was technically a guard, Chelsea had extremely limited security access. Here in the Can, it was meant for her own safety, since she had to sign off on all inmates before they were allowed to leave. There was never a guarantee that they’d be in a good mood when those doors opened.

  But as it was, without being able to examine his eyes, she could only guess at Maggott’s situation. It was possible that he’d simply been knocked unconscious, but it was also quite possible that he was in a coma or pseudocoma. Each had their own particular risks. Simple unconsciousness was the easiest of the three, and would almost certainly result in him waking up sometime within the next thirty minutes. Coma or pseudocoma, on the other hand, could mean any number of things, and were much more dangerous.

  “Maggott,” she hissed, for lack of a better idea. “Maggott, it’s Chelsea Bloom. Can you hear me?”

  “He can’t,” said a female voice from the corridor, startling her. “But I can.”

  27

  Chelsea bit down on a yelp that threatened to escape, and did her best to act natural as she rose and turned toward her new companion. It was Iona Ridley, sporting the cold look that seemed to be her go-to lately. In her right hand, she was carrying her shock baton.

  Fortune favors the foolish, Chelsea thought, swallowing hard and curling her upper lip into a snarl.

  “What the hell are you doing, Ridley?” she barked. “This inmate is in distress! Why was I not notified immediately?”

  It was instantly clear that the gambit wasn’t going to pay off. Chelsea’s stomach dropped as Ridley activated the baton. It hummed to life with blue light.

  “Remember what I said, Iona,” called a voice from the corridor. “No harm must come to her.”

  A second later, Butch Kergan emerged through the hatch and stood next to Ridley in the corridor. He crossed his arms over his chest, giving Chelsea a withering look that sent a chill through her.

  “Chelsea, Chelsea,” he sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Whatever’s going on here has to stop,” she warned. “Whatever this man did, he doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment. And he needs medical attention.”

  “He is of no consequence,” Ridley said with a wide grin. “Isn’t that right, Officer Kergan?”

  Kergan nodded. “You’re learning, Iona. What Officer Ridley says is correct. Three attempts at attenuation were made on this man, Maggott. The first two were in the hopes of being able to take over his mind. The third—well, I confess, I was angry and I thought it would kill him.” He chuckled softly. “Anger. Revenge. This vessel has been a revelation. Until now, we’ve always observed violence from a distance, simply using it to achieve our desired outcomes. But somehow, with your species, we are actually experiencing it along with you. I find it absolutely intoxicating.”

  He turned to look at Maggott lying on the floor of his cell. “This one proved more resilient than I could have imagined. No species has ever survived three attempts.”

  Your species? Chelsea felt the floor tilt under her, and it had nothing to do with the station’s gravity.

  “Wh—what are you talking about?” she stammered, her voice weak and uncertain in her ears. “What do you mean by attenuation?”

  “The process of subjugating another species’ will to our own,” Kergan said blandly. “It’s how my species survives in this dimension. We attach ourselves to your thoughts and eventually take them over. This is how we reproduce and colonize.”

  Chelsea could hear her pulse coursing in her ears. Everything was falling into place, all the signs she’d dismissed.

  “You were controlling the warden,” she said, wide-eyed.

  Kergan smiled. “Of course. The vessel you call Sloane and I have had a degree of control over the majority of humans on the station since we emerged into your reality ten cycles ago. Some only partially attenuated. Others are complete and carry out our commands as virtual extensions of us.”

  “What do you mean, partially attenuated?” Chelsea felt a stab of panic at the idea that her thoughts might somehow not be her own.

  “There are degrees with your species,” Kergan said with a look of bemusement. “This hasn’t happened before. Iona, here, for example, is still capable of independent thought, but she is completely obedient to my will. Almost desperate for my approval, in fact. Poor Warden Farrell seems to have lost his ability to reason, but not to feel, so he has been in a state of low-grade hysteria since his attenuation. Sloane and I soon learned that attempting full-on attenuation was far too risky with your species, and instead we’ve been making… I suppose the word would be suggestions to the guards and others on the station.”

  “Suggestions?” Chelsea was still struggling with processing it all. “Is that why people have been acting weird?”

  “The influence is not strong enough to cause attenuation. It simply pushes the mind to think in a certain way.”

  “To think about killing!” Ridley cackled.

  “Yes,” Kergan sighed. “Attenuation has always targeted whatever version of the limbic system exists in a species; the most primal, instinctive part of the mind. But for unknown reasons, some humans have so far proved capable of resisting to varying degrees.” He pointed to Maggott. “Some have resisted completely, like this one and the others known as the Jarheads. The woman called Senpai Sally as well, even though her two companions attenuated completely during the same attempt. The uncertainty prompted us to suspend the process.”

  The unreality of the situation was enough to make Chelsea believe she was dreaming, but it seemed so real. That thought brought with it a sudden flash of hope. She squeezed her eyes shut and shouted, “End program!”

  When she opened her eyes, her surroundings hadn’t changed, but Kergan’s smile had widened.

  “I admire your ingenuity, Chelsea, but I’m afraid this isn’t a cortical reality experience. It’s the real world, or at least as much as much of it as your s
pecies is able to perceive.”

  She cursed herself for a fool and took a deep breath. This was no time to stick her thumb in her mouth. You’ve been in combat zones with active battles raging around you! You can deal with this!

  “So you suspended the process,” she said. “What does that mean?”

  “We stopped trying until Sloane can return with something we need from the surface of Oberon. With it, we can force full attenuation on every human aboard the station.”

  Her mind suddenly flashed back to what Ulysses had told her: Some kinda secret mission on the surface. She was sorry she had doubted him.

  “But you just told me some of the people can’t be fully attenuated,” she said.

  Kergan shrugged. “They will either attenuate fully or die. Some may survive, as the giant did, but without their minds. They will be euthanized. In any case, the uncertainty will end. As this vessel is fond of saying, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.”

  “But why? What’s the point of all this? What good will it do you to take over a prison in space?”

  “Everything is in space,” Kergan pointed out. “But to answer your question, as with any species, our imperative is to reproduce. Once we gain control of the station, we will begin planning the attenuation of Earth.”

  Chelsea latched onto a desperate idea. “You’ve been telling me that humans are unpredictable,” she said. “Taking over two hundred people and taking over twenty billion are two different things. There’s nothing on this station that can come close to competing with the military might of the entire Earth. And trust me, we humans are vicious enough fighting each other; you can’t imagine how hard we’d fight if we were actually united against a common enemy.”