by D. M. Pruden
“I’m not so sure about the ‘valued’ part. He won’t say it, but Chambers is still pissed at me for attempting to set the ship on fire.”
“I don’t believe that. Everyone understands it was an accident.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure the fire is what concerns him.”
“What do you mean?” asks Chloe.
Shit! I said too much.
I shake my head. “Nothing, I’m still a little embarrassed by my brief career as a pyromaniac.”
I inject her with the hypo, none too gently.
“Ow!”
“Sorry. You’re topped up for another two days.”
She rolls down her sleeve and slides from the table. “Any progress synthesizing a cure?”
Damn! She’s right. I’m playing cloak-and-dagger games when my real priority should be using all the fancy equipment that I borrowed to find a treatment for her.
“It’s a difficult problem. The pseudo DNA of the nanites in your system is polymorphic.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m still figuring that out. It is a property that’s only been theorized about in a handful of research papers. Basically, the code that governs their behaviour acts like a virus, constantly adapting to anything that attacks them and changing their structure; kind of like trying to cure the common cold.”
“So, I could be taking these injections for the rest of my life.”
I swallow. While showing off how smart I am, I frightened her.
“No, I’m not saying that. It will just take me more time than I first thought.”
“But you said it was like the common cold. There’s no cure for that, is there?”
My cheeks warm as the blood rushes to my face. “I misspoke. The fact that what is inside you is manmade is to our advantage. The cold rhinovirus evolved over billions of years. They are two totally different things. Humans aren’t a match for Mother Nature.”
She offers a faint smile. “If you say so, Mel.” She gives me a peck on my cheek and leaves.
“Shit! Fuck! Piss! Goddammit!”
“Is something wrong, Doctor?”
“No, Maggie; ignore that.”
“Of course. There is an incoming message for you from the station network.”
I frown. “From whom?”
“Unknown; it is identity-protected.”
“Okay, redirect it to the terminal, please.” It is probably Umbra wanting a name.
The computer scans my retina, and Owen’s face appears.
“Hello, Mel. I did some digging; this dude you’re looking for is mixed up in some bad shit. I tracked his arrival on Phobos to two months ago. As soon as he arrived, he just vanished, which is hard to do in this place. Someone must be working with him here, hiding him. There was no further sign of him until two weeks ago. The security system spotted him entering one of the old, deep tunnels. Twenty minutes later, three guys followed him inside. They turned up dead the next day, stuffed into the cargo hold of a small freighter. Anyway, I’m going to dig a little more to see what I can learn. I’ll keep you posted.”
With that, Owen’s message ends.
“My scan of the station policing records confirms what he told you, Doctor.”
“Maggie, were you listening?”
“I’m sorry, I was not aware you did not wish me to.”
“Don’t worry about it, I’m glad you did. Are the victims identified?”
“The forensic report is delayed. The resident coroner resigned a month ago.”
“When will the replacement doctor arrive?”
“None is assigned.”
“Seriously? What’s happened with the bodies?”
“They are scheduled for disposal tomorrow due to a shortage of stasis pods.”
There is either a major staffing problem, or Martian authorities don’t give a shit about who dies here; probably the latter.
If I knew who they are, it might provide a helpful clue about where to find Willis. At least I’ll learn who else is hunting him.
It turns out Umbra’s information is correct. It lends credence to his claim about Nancy being brought here. I wonder what else he plans to feed to me in bits and pieces. He’s probably aware of who Willis’s would-be assassins are.
Damn him! That might be useful for tracking down the asshole. He could be gone by the time Umbra feeds me another clue; another reason for me to break off this lopsided arrangement.
A crazy, completely irresponsible idea pops into my head. It is a long shot, but if it works, I might be able to tell Umbra to piss up a rope.
“Maggie, does this message contain a return address tag?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Prepare an encoded reply: verbal password clue is Mel’s favourite snack. Answer: apples.” I smile at the recollection of Owen plucking a stolen apple from his sack and sharing it with me all those years ago on Earth. I hope he remembers it the same way.
“I’m ready to record your message, Doctor.”
I clear my throat and grin awkwardly at the camera. “Hey, thanks for the info. There is another favour I need to ask of you: I require some Martian credentials to impersonate someone.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You don’t need to come with me, Owen. In fact, I prefer if you don’t.”
He flashes me a fuck-you smile and shifts the small bag hanging from his shoulder. “No chance, Mel. The forged docs list two physicians.”
“Given your supposed resources, why is that the best you can produce?”
“Because of the way Martian bureaucracy works. External consultants are not granted free run of any facility, even one as crappy as Phobos. They must be accompanied by a local watchdog.”
“That smells like a bullshit excuse that you made up. What is it, Owen, you want to relive the old days running a scam with me?”
“As fun as that sounds, Mel, I’m telling the truth. The only documents I could access and modify are for a contract physician and a government official. After a bit of creative forging, you are now Ingrid Edmunsun, a consulting forensic specialist newly arrived from Terra. I am Epnir Shamas, a Martian medical administrator.”
“Well, why do you need to be my babysitter? One of my crew would be better suited.”
“Your Captain Chambers, for example? He and your shipmates all managed to get their IDs flagged. Something about an altercation on the docks?”
“It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Well, whatever happened, they are in the system now and can’t be anyone but themselves. We were just fortunate that you weren’t included.”
“That was dumb luck. I’m usually in the thick of things. How much farther is it?”
“We’re here.”
For the past half hour, Owen led me through a maze of tunnels, down several levels beneath the docks to where the administrative offices are located. The welcome pull from the artificial gravity as we step inside replaces the floating sensation Phobos’s almost nonexistent gravity gives me. My magnetic boots, while securing me to the metal decking, do not provide any sense of confidence. I worry with every step that I’ll inadvertently slip out of them and propel myself into a wall or ceiling.
I am surprised by the overt display of security. Armed soldiers are stationed by the entrance, and two others cradling automatic assault weapons scrutinize us warily. Owen leads me to the check-in desk, where the clerk studies our documents before calling over yet another officer. This one escorts past the guard station and leads us to a room a short distance down the corridor.
After a scrutiny of our forged credentials, we are shown to a small, private room, where they pat us down and check the contents of our pockets and bags. A jolt of fear seizes me when they take our documents and tell us to wait, locking the door behind them.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Owen cuts me off with a subtle shake of his head. He raises his eyes toward the ceiling and scratches his ear.
Like an idiot, I almost blurt
ed out his real name. I should have realized we are being monitored.
“Forgive the delay, Doctor Edmunsun,” he says. “The authorities are cautious about allowing off-worlders into government facilities. There is no call for worry; our paperwork is in order, so this will not take long.” He sits on the bench along one wall and silently invites me to join him.
I strain my memory to recall his false name. He is unjustifiably calm, as if he anticipated this would happen. It would have been helpful of him to tell me. I wonder if not warning me is his way to guarantee me the necessity of his presence.
“Thank you, Doctor...Shamas,” I say and sit next to him.
It takes all my self-discipline to remain seated and act calm. My foot taps rapidly, and I fight the urge to get up and pace. Being confined brings back too many bad memories. Just the idea of being locked up is enough to make me anxious.
I wipe the perspiration from my brow and check out Owen. He isn’t sweating like me, and I worry that whoever is watching us might suspect I’m hiding something.
“Is it warm in here?” I ask.
Thankfully, he picks up on my cue. “A little; you get used to it after a couple of days.”
He did that so well, replying in a way that reinforces my cover story. I’d forgotten how well we once worked together.
We lapse again into silence until the guards return a few minutes later. One of them hands us our documents. “You are cleared for access to the medical facility. Please do not wander outside of your designated security zone. The sergeant here will escort you downstairs.”
We rise to follow the soldier assigned to us. My underwear, wet with perspiration, sticks to my butt crack. Still concerned I might do something to blow our cover, I ignore the discomfort and try to walk normally as we leave the room.
He leads us to a bank of elevators. We enter one, and he keys in a security code. I compulsively stare at the indicator over the door as we descend five levels.
We are led from the elevator down a brightly lit corridor. Signs on the doors we pass indicate they are laboratories.
I had no idea a government research facility exists on Phobos. I was led to believe the moon is civilian run. It’s doubtful most people working several levels above us are aware any of this is here. Umbra’s mysterious interest in our cargo becomes more intriguing. The fact that not only does Owen know of this facility but can also gain us access to it sheds a new light on the kind of work he does for Vostok.
We are escorted through a doorway marked Forensic Medicine. Our escort instructs us to contact the security desk when we wish to leave and reminds us not to stray from the room.
After the door closes behind him, the first thing I do is exhale away my accumulated anxiety in one long breath. The second is to reach around and fix my underwear problem.
“This area is not monitored. We can speak freely here,” says Owen.
“How the hell do you know so much about how this place operates?”
“My job requires it.” He points to the wall of small doors, where corpses awaiting autopsy are stored. “Those can be accessed from the terminal on the desk. The reference codes for the bodies we want to examine are 54-987, eight and nine. The robotic system will retrieve them for you.”
I go to the computer. “Thanks, I’m familiar with how a morgue works.”
I key in the first number.
An articulated robot arm descends from the ceiling as one of the storage doors slides open. It extracts a pallet with a naked man’s body lying on it and deposits it on the autopsy table in the middle of the room.
“How much time do you need?” Owen asks as I step up to the table and examine the corpse. Based on the physique, he can only be from Terra.
“It won’t take long to confirm the cause of death. Half of this guy’s face is missing.”
Having worked an emergency ward during the waning years of the war, I am experienced with small-calibre-weapon trauma. I am sure this guy was shot in the head at close range; perhaps executed.
I make a cursory examination of the rest of him. “There is a nonfatal wound in his abdomen. Help me turn him over.”
Both of us slip on gloves, and together we roll the victim face down. “He shows no evidence of other injuries. Let’s see if we can get an identity.”
We roll the body to its back again. Owen extracts a small device from his bag and passes me a mesh netting hat dotted with metal nodes.
“I have my doubts this will work,” I say as I slip it over top of what remains of the man’s skull.
“All will be revealed in a moment,” he says as he opens the device and presses some buttons. After a half a minute of staring at it, he says, “You might be right. I can’t even get a connection to his cortical implant.”
“Based on what little remains of his brain, I’m not surprised. The shot to his head took out his CI.”
I take a moment to study his mutilated face, trying to imagine what he looked like whole. “Let’s take his picture and make eye scans.”
While Owen does that, I extract a venipuncture kit from the bag and take a blood sample for later analysis. On a whim, I examine the corpse’s hands. “No fingerprints. I don’t think he wanted to be identifiable.”
“Real old school. It could mean he’s from the outer system, since they are about the only ones who still maintain fingerprint identification records.”
I go to the terminal at the desk and instruct the robot to return the body to its place and retrieve the next one. Even before the pallet is laid on the table, I say, “This one isn’t in any better condition.”
Like his companion, this body was shot in the head.
We repeat the CI scan with the same negative result.
Owen catalogues the victim’s picture and ocular data while I extract blood.
“There are no prints on this guy either,” I comment over my shoulder. “Want to place a bet on what we’ll find with the last one?”
Owen is tight-lipped while he waits for the third body to be extracted from cryo-storage.
The third man’s face is missing entirely. In the middle of his sternum is a bloody, gaping hole. “This fella was killed instantly by a shot to the chest. The head wound is postmortem and was intended to destroy his CI.”
When we’ve done what we can, and he’s returned to his spot, I say, “I doubt any DNA or optical ID matches in anything in the databases we can access.”
Owen doesn’t respond for a long time. “We need to leave.” He starts shoving the scanner back into his bag. I can only stare at him, confused. He peers up at me. “I’m not kidding, Mel. We have to go right now.”
I quickly pack my things while he goes to the terminal. He types string of characters into the interface then sends a message that we are finished.
A moment later, the door opens and the soldier who escorted us enters. He obviously didn’t wander far after dropping us off.
Within ten minutes, we are outside the building.
“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”
“Not here,” he says as he grasps my elbow and leads me away from the doors.
We walk in silence for the next quarter-hour, retracing our route back to the upper levels. Having enough of the intrigue, I stop. When he turns to me, I say, “What the hell is going on, Owen?”
“You are right, Mel. None of those men will turn up in any public record.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m fairly sure we will only find them in classified military records.”
“Okay, I’ll play along with this game. Assuming you can get access to that kind of database, why do you believe they are with the Terran military?”
He shakes his head. “Not Terra. Mars.”
“Those guys were Martian military? Impossible; they were all built like Terrans.”
He nods. “Martian forces train under Earth normal gravity conditions. They also recruited soldiers discharged after the lunar conflict.”
“That still doesn’t explain why or how you’re familiar with all this shit?”
“Mel, relax. I work for Vostok. My purpose here is to keep an eye on everything, including military activity, both overt and covert.”
“You spy on the Martians for him?”
“Among others, yes.”
“Why?”
“Competing elements are attempting to take advantage of Terra’s weakened dominance of the system; Mars, Luna, the Jovian Collective, and some you’ve never heard of. Everything is in flux, and until a clear indication of how things will play out becomes apparent, people like Vostok need information.”
“Yeah, I realize that, but what I don’t understand is you. All this knowledge you have; somebody who got himself demoted and sent to Phobos shouldn’t possess your skill set.”
“You’re right, Mel. I was recruited specifically for this kind of work. I used to be with Terran counterintelligence.”
“So, you’re an ex-spy who spies on other spies?”
A wry smile turns up the edges of his mouth. “Not exactly, but close enough.”
“Does that mean you lied when you said you don’t know Umbra? Would you tell me if you did?”
“I didn’t lie. Who is he?”
I sometimes wish I were a more trusting person. It would make my life a lot simpler at times. I want to tell Owen the truth. Maybe he can assist me to learn Umbra’s identity and what sort of trouble I’m flirting with by associating with him.
“Uh, he’s nobody important.”
“Mel, what are you involved in? I can’t do anything for you if you don’t tell me.”
“Who said I need your help with him? All I asked you for was assistance tracking down that scumbag, Willis. The next thing I realize, I’m in the morgue with three murdered Martian agents.”
“Okay, I won’t press. Let’s focus on Willis. From what I saw, he’s a very dangerous man.”
“I’m very aware of that. I still need to track him down.”
“Why? Is finding him worth your life?”
Thoughts of Chloe and Chambers come unbidden. If I drop this now, chances are that Willis will vanish, along with any leads about what happened to Nancy. Maybe Umbra holds more information about her sitting in reserve, ready to blackmail me with to gain my cooperation. I’m still having trouble imagining how I can be of use to someone with his apparent resources. The waters of that mystery are deep, cold, and scary. This is all getting crazy.
