Version Innocent

by Pete Molina

Chapter 37

  Dawson was torn. His information source was moving too far from the Powel and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it if he wanted to keep the antimatter business under wraps. If he told the Captain, she would begin to suspect and would surely report it to her superiors. On the other hand, the Marines were having rotten luck penetrating the Gates Dome. They knew where the secret entrance was that Terra had used when she entered from the surface, but they also were told by Dawson that using that way in would surely be detected. The Marines were waiting for someone to come in or go out of the main entrance in the hope that they could just sneak in behind, but so far there had been no callers that had been allowed in and no one had left.

  He already knew who Sam’s contact was, but he wanted to know what Sam’s other version had planned and how he had smuggled so much antimatter off the station. Unfortunately, the buffer in Sam’s implanted bug would store only about five hours of video and audio that he could access after Sam returned, one of the limitations that he had to work with. So all he could look forward to seeing was five hours of Sam on the transport which wouldn’t be useful in the slightest. What he really needed to know was what Terra Gates and Jeff Hughes were planning inside.

  When Lt. Madison had asked him if his information source would reveal the inside information about their plans, he had told her that his source was intermittent and that he couldn’t be positive he’d get what he needed. She had looked a little dubious and asked what his source was, but he had told her that that information was “need to know” only, which she seemed to accept.

  On top of all that Dawson had recently received a message from Damon Harding informing him that Harding was putting to space on his recently constructed ship The Golden Rule. Dawson understood that Harding probably felt vulnerable on the surface.

  Harding had also requested to be informed of the trio’s next destination as he wanted to be closer to the action where he could make sure things went off without any problems. It all came down to the same conclusion. Whether he found out where they were going ahead of time or not, Damon would be at the other end waiting to take over, or at least just make him a go-fer. He would be the one taking the real risks while Harding held back and directed from afar.

  Obviously he wasn’t going to be able to do anything useful, and he briefly considered heading to the bridge but discounted that after only a moment. He wasn’t particularly well liked by the Captain and her first officer since the Marine incident, so he had decided just to let them be. He didn’t really want to wander the ship at all, but his quarters were feeling pretty small now and he was starting to get a little cabin fever. This was just making him think more and more about the full immersion stim terminal four decks below that could provide him with some new scenery and a little relief from the tedium and stress of the mission.

  He’d been off stim ever since his last restoration, and although it drew him strongly, he had managed to resist it by never getting any stim equipment in his apartment. He had limited himself to what his implants could provide, which wasn’t much more than sound and visual, and only when he needed to do something important, never for leisure. But the stress was getting to him and making him remember too much about why he’d liked stim so much in the first place. After all, it wasn’t he who had totally degenerated and died of stim addiction; it was some other version. He only remembered the first few months which had been so much nicer than the reality he’d been living with at the time.

  The only times he’d stimmed since his restoration was for some of the tactical and situational training he’d had to go through to become an agent. Those simulations were usually gruesome or unsettling, so he’d never felt an urge then like he was feeling now. Dawson knew enough about psychology to understand that his cravings were part of the addiction, but he rationalized enough to disregard most of the signs.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he’d already dropped down the four decks to the rec room and was standing in front of one of the terminals, just staring at it. His strong disgust for his own addiction had given him just enough awareness to let him see what was happening here. He glanced around, embarrassed that he could be so controlled by virtual anything. He was strong enough to resist, at least that’s what he told himself. There was no one in the rec room at the moment to see him, for which he was eternally grateful.

  Still, would it really hurt anything if he used it for just a few hours? Surely he needed some R&R. He’d been going nonstop for weeks now on this case, and now he couldn’t do anything except wait for word from the Marines or for Storm to return from Hyatain with the name of their next destination. He took a step toward the machine. Just a few hours, then I’ll go back to work. I’m strong enough to do this. It won’t control me, he thought as he stepped up to the stim box, the same size as an old fashioned telephone booth. He opened the door and stepped inside.

  The door closed behind him. The fog that would provide him with tactile sensation along with the other systems that would provide taste and smell came on line, covering him like a light blanket. He ordered his companion to interface with the terminal, which his companion did after several warnings that Dawson had himself put in place just in case of such a temptation. The world went even more black as his companion interfaced, and after a moment he found himself standing on a vast gray plain with a red stormy sky. It was void of everything except the background and a slight wind that felt cold to Dawson. He tried to get his companion to bring up something nicer, but his companion returned that this was the only program it could access.

  Then off in the distance a figure appeared, still small but walking towards him. This was most definitely the strangest stim Dawson had ever encountered. Dawson started walking towards the figure and in only a minute was close enough to identify him. It was Damon Harding, or at least a representation of him. Harding’s sim walked toward him and stopped only a few feet away.

  The sim gave him a tisk tisk sort of look. “Agent Dawson, I think you know better than to be here,”

  “What are you talking about?” Dawson asked, getting angry at what was obviously Harding’s attempt to block him from any pleasant stim experience.

  “You know very well what I’m talking about. I am well aware of your past history with stim, and this simulation of me has been put here to make sure you don’t have a relapse of your condition.”

  “Just who the hell do you think you are. This is illegal. You can’t control a person’s access to information or the datasphere, regardless of any conditions they may have,” Dawson retorted loudly. It was true. There had been nothing stopping him from using stim during all his current version’s life on Earth, only his own will power.

  “Agent Dawson, remember that you are on a Fleet ship and are currently on assignment. You are not under civilian law anymore and as your assignment is of such high importance, I’ve decided to err on the side of caution,” the figure replied stoically, which just aggravated Dawson further.

  “You have no right,” he complained.

  “Doesn’t matter. In two minutes the stim terminal will kick you off, I’ve had all the terminals programmed to do so on the ship. If you attempt to access a stim again, the ship will notify my real counterpart automatically, and if you try a third time, it will make your condition known to the Captain. She will be ordered to not allow you access to the stim even if you have to be confined to quarters. Sorry for the inconvenience, but you’ll just have to stim yourself to death after this whole thing is resolved and I don’t need you any more. Good bye, Agent Dawson. Don’t come back,” the sim said.

  The apparition then disappeared from sight which left Dawson fuming mad standing in the simulation. He cursed for the whole remainder of his time, and then the world went black again and than the door opened behind him.