To start at the beginning: Convictions (Abrami's Sister, pt. 1)
The armored drop ship offered her no view from orbit. In fact, it offered her no view at all. Unlike during her descent onto Sky, she was no longer of any interest to LOW OrbIT. Like all the other Section 37 prisoners in cryogenic storage, she was bound for what they considered to be her final destination. There would be no pardon, no parole, no probation: Terminal was a life sentence, for as long as she could survive her seven million fellow inmates.
Terminal did not officially exist. It appeared on none of the star charts of human occupied space. Unlike Sky, its existence was a useful open secret, although like Sky its exact location remained classified. All that was known to outsiders was that Terminal had been set up as an inescapable exile for the socio-genetic Darwinists whose attempt at a unified world government had nearly ruined Terra, as much as it could be further ruined as it climbed back up the cliff after the Fall.
At least they’d given her back her name.
By the time she awoke, Josephine Sorin was no longer the vain, naive woman who had appeared that day in court. Sky had cleansed her of that mask, like the makeup she used to remove with a tissue each night before bed. Her captivity had hardened her in a way her childhood never had. Then she was a victim. Now she seized what control she had and used each situation to her own ends, while keeping her captors thinking she was still an motherless fawn skittering among the wolves in the forest.
Jo was thawed somewhere inside a standard LOW OrbIT medical chamber. She didn’t precisely remember being revived, just a slow-motion series of impressions of rooms and hallways and an express elevator with faulty grav compensation that sent her stomach tumbling down and down and down.
The first firm memory she had was of a cell in Egress Processing, everything automated and remote. Though hands-on enough that she spotted half a dozen heavily armed and armored LOW OrbIT Peacekeepers monitoring her progress through transparent plasti-steel observation ports.
The walk to her new, more spacious confinement was also automated, using a series of flashers and sonics specifically designed to interact with the primitive, sensory interpretive portion of her brain. Exploiting the remnants of the sedatives and cryo-drugs as will-suppressing agents, the tailored input switched her fight or flight instinct along the desired emotional channels. What started as mere discomfort then annoyance and finally a desire to escape increased to an almost overwhelming sense of fear and dread if she lingered in any corridor too long.
Through a series of automated security airlocks, she was guided toward an exit, like a trained rat in a freshly tailored maze. Along the way, she found the rewards Michaels had promised in the form of a breather, a wrist-comm, a satchel of military grade rations and miscellaneous gear. She donned the breather and wrist-comm immediately, stashed the smaller items in her pockets and slung the satchel over one shoulder.
Nick Michaels’ final instructions consisted of only a name and a description. The former Jo already knew, the latter just a confirmation of how the man had aged. “We’ve seeded your arrival through the rumor mill so let him come to you. It’s always better if they think it’s their idea. It keeps them malleable.” He’d previously given her a short briefing on Terminal and a handful of other likely players, names she could drop if she found the need.
Jo exited the LOW OrbIT control through a final set of blast doors into an empty square in the center of an immense valley at the bottom of a stone pillar that made the cells on Sky look like scale models in some sterile museum diorama. When she emerged, two intermingled sensations struck her: vertigo and a breathless sense of cold.
Her first mistake was staring up at the pillar she’d just come out of, then across to the surrounding canyon walls. Terminal dwarfed the interactive holo-vids of the Terra’s Grand Canyon. Valles Marineris on Mars were more comparable. It wasn’t so much the walls themselves that captured her attention as that every square meter of them was encrusted with human habitation, a ten klick high shantytown of castoff construction materials jury-rigged into something resembling civilization. Cargo containers, scrap metal, rigid composite sheeting, prefab plasti-steel with porthole windows, whole colony habitats and gutted emergency escape modules built layer upon layer onto a wall just a few degrees short of vertical, all interconnected by winding pathways, stairs and rooftop ladders. Like a completely alien version of the Mesa Verde cliff dwelling mated with destitute barrio districts of old Sao Paulo or the ever-expanding slum-fields of Lagos or Mumbai.
Even that panorama only phased her for a moment until she noticed the accusatory finger of rock pointing outward from the rim toward the pillar, a massive, multi-mega-ton promontory suspended from the upper cliff wall with no visible means of support. It, along with the entire rim, appeared polished, an integrated piece of architecture that tricked the eye from so far below, marred only by small scar like an ancient knife wound that sliced down one side.
Standing there, she felt like a medieval peasant who had never seen a two-story building staring up from the base of the cathedral of Notre Dame.
As Jo stood gawking like a first-time tourist in an interactive holo-vid, the children swarmed her. There were only half a dozen of them, but they were fast. Impossibly fast. At first they tugged her clothing and grabbed her hands, chattering as incomprehensibly as a noisy flock of starlings. They pulled her toward a winding stair in an ancient starport ritual, ushering an off-world tourist to the best taxi, informing her of a stunning local destination not listed in her travel guide.
Using her hands as steering points, they spun Jo first one way, then another until she became disoriented. In the tumult, they slipped the breather mask from her face. Her pulse quickened, trying to keep up with her body’s need for the air that suddenly seemed impossibly thin. It took her oxygen-starved brain a moment to catch up with reality. She hadn’t wandered into the poor district of some tourist enclave. She’d landed on a prison colony.
Like a pack-minded predator sensing its prey’s uncertainty, the children turned on her at the foot of the narrow stair. They employed a canine hunting strategy, latching onto her limbs with tiny arms strung like iron bands, using their combined weight to drag her first to her knees then pinning her to the ground at the base of the steps. A second, older cohort emerged from the shadows. When Jo resisted, they bludgeoned her with tiny fists and feet to all of her vulnerable areas, ears, eyes, nose, breasts, groin, knees, elbows, wrists, throat. They pinched, punched and kicked her into submission with demonic ferocity. Their blows echoed against her head until the sounds of their attack dimmed as if she were suddenly thrust underwater. She quickly tasted blood.
They stripped her of her bag, her wrist-comm and everything their tiny grasping hands discovered in her pockets. Her breather had already disappeared. They just had started pulling her boots from her body when she heard a high-pitched yelp followed by the sizzle of flesh. The pack scattered as if repulsed by the scent of bacon, their laughter still ringing in her ears.
What fresh hell was this? Michaels had not prepared her. And now the equipment she needed was gone.
Groggy, Jo rolled over and pushed herself onto hands and knees. Her breath came in croaking gasps. Strong hands hoisted her to her feet. An arm wrapped itself around her waist. Another threw her own listless arm around a neck. She caught a glimpse of a laser cutter. She tried to push away, but only ended up clinging to that neck as if it were a life preserver. That small struggle exhausted her ready reserve of oxygen.
When her head lolled in a direction that she could gaze upon her savior-captor, she could see he was male by body type. A breather masked his face, just like the one she’d had just moments ago. He half-helped, half-carried her up the narrow stair, then into an impossibly narrower back street that tangented off into a chaos of alleyways. Somewhere deep within the maze, her savior-captor keyed an ancient airlock door. It opened with a sigh. He manhandled her body inside, closed the door and tapped the inner control panel. After an interminable minute, it cycled open to reveal a dim two- by three-meter living area that resembled a steerage-class cruise ship compartment cobbled together from a scrap yard.
The man flung her body onto the foldaway bed and set the cutter on the desktop that doubled as a nightstand, then turned to rummage in an overhead cabinet. A bright light blinded Jo. Slowly, her breathing normalized and her eyes began to focus. Above her, the bottom of a disposable refreshment bottle filled with a clear liquid protruded from the ceiling. It glowed with an intensity that surprised her. She was trying to work out whether it was a homemade glow-stick or something even more primitive when her savior-captor bent over her.
He held a mask attached by tubing to a green, metallic bottle. What little recovery she’d achieved fled as she tried to prevent him from placing it over her face. While she’d intended to fight like a wildcat, her strength only allowed her to feebly swat at his hands like a day-old kitten. Her breath once again turned ragged.
Jo felt detached as if she were in that dream where her limbs would not obey. She felt like she was suffocating. The mask transformed in her mind to a pillow ready to smother her. Her only thought became keeping the man from covering her face.
He brushed away her hands as if swatting gnats, effortlessly. She twisted her head back and forth so he couldn’t seat the mask. He caught her temples with one hand. She tried to claw his eyes but only managed to hook his breather and pull it off from his face. She stopped struggling as soon as it fell away.
She knew him. Mike Dunne. The man Nick Michaels had sent her to find. He was older now, and grayer than the picture but no softer. If anything he looked more boiled down, more hardened. Deader.
“Through fighting?” Dunne asked. “It’s just oxygen. You’ll live but without it, but you’ll have one hell of a headache. If you don’t already. I need you able to think.”
She stared at him, wild-eyed, but allowed him to place the mask over her face, sucking in air as he spun the valve open.
“Slow and easy. You were short for a long time. Unless you lived in the mountains, you’ll develop altitude sickness. Here, take it.” He shifted his grip.
Jo reached up and held the mask against her face.
“The atmosphere settles in the depressions,” Dunne continued, “Down here in the valley is as good as it gets.” He turned back to search the overhead. “That tank is the only one, so don’t waste it. Once it’s gone, you’re back to what little extra I can afford. With two of us, it won’t be much better than outside. Just be glad I brought a spare mask.”
As the extra oxygen cleared her head, the cold reality of her situation began to sink in. Jo wondered whether Dunne was completely trustworthy. Her half-brother had trusted him like no one else but could she? Abrami was treacherous. He might have protected her when she was young but he’d earned a ruthless reputation on Darwin as the Collaborator of the Green Revolution. And Dunne as his driver had been almost as big a prize when he’d finally been captured on Anarchy.
Dunne turned to settle in a foldout seat by the makeshift desk, a large die-cube now in his hand. He quickly manipulated one face and set it on the desktop beside the cutter.
Jo twitched as a series of tiny explosions erupted across her skin, with one larger one up beneath her collarbone where Michaels’ tech had injected her transponder.
She immediately snatched the cutter Dunne had left within reach. With it firmly in hand and pointed at him, she pulled the mask away from her face. The air in the cubicle swirled with the bitter smoke of dead electronics. “What did you just do?”
“I destroyed the bugs LOW OrbIT planted in you, Josephine,” he said, his hands flat on the desktop. “They inject us with transponders so they can track and listen to anyone they want.”
“You know who I am?” she asked.
He nodded slowly, eyeing the cutter. “You’re Souleymane Abrami’s sister. I’ve been waiting for you. My LOW OrbIT contacts weren’t exactly precise on when you’d emerge from the Base.”
“Half-sister.” Jo corrected. “You’re pretty cozy with LOW OrbIT.”
“Terminal is penal duty for LOW OrbIT Peacekeepers.” Dunne remained still. “Anyone who wants to survive here has no choice but to develop contacts with them. It would take too long to explain the hierarchy to you.”
“I’ve got the time.” Jo leaned back into the corner, taking hits from the breather as she needed them.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “LOW OrbIT has listening posts and secret garrisons everywhere. If they want, they can lay down pinpoint barrages anywhere in the valley. It’s not like they’re concerned about casualties. Now that you’re offline, someone is wondering what you’re up to.”
Jo braced the cutter with her other hand. “Then we better make this quick.”
Dunne slowly raised his hands. “I never figured you for an assassin, Josephine. Was that Nick Michaels’ plan? Or did they reprogram you on Sky?”
“Michaels sent me to find Abrami.” She sighted in on the center of his chest down the barrel. “But I’m tried of doing what everybody says.”
“If you kill me,” Dunne spoke quickly, “you’ll never get off Terminal.”
“Who says I care?” Her finger tensed on the firing nub. “Killing you denies LOW OrbIT my half-brother. After everything they’ve done to me, maybe that’s enough.”
Dunne licked his lips. “What if I can give you someone Michaels wants more than Abrami?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you knew anything, you would have offered it up on Sky before you landed here.”
“Abrami was clever,” Dunne said. “He gave me the information in a way I didn’t realize. Michaels’ interrogation unlocked it but I didn’t put the pieces together until months after I was here.”
“I’m listening.” Jo continued sighting along the barrel.
“I can’t tell you where Abrami is,” Dunne admitted, “but I can give you Sub-Commander Z.”
“So, start talking.” She relaxed just a bit.
“First we need to move before a squad of Peacekeepers breaks down that door.” Dunne flicked a finger in its direction.
“Fine.” Jo raised the cutter until its barrel pointed at the ceiling but kept it braced with both hands. “But I’m keeping this.”
---
Dunne directed Jo through the alleys and open-ended corridors that passed for streets on Terminal. LOW OrbIT personnel transports traveled on designated routes, he said, leaving the back streets, alleys and narrow, winding stairs as the main thoroughfares for remainder of the population.
Just as Jo’s emergency oxygen was running low, Dunne keyed another airlock at the back of a blind, covered alley. Jo’s ears popped as he sealed it shut once he ushered her inside.
She found herself in a efficiency apartment that completely lived up to its name. Every cubic centimeter was used to create a mini-multi-room configuration, complete with a kitchenette and private san. The sliding three-dimensional puzzle fit into approximately twenty-seven cubic-meters cobbled together from cargo containers spot-welded as annexes onto a cannibalized starship compartment. The entire interior was a tumorous mismatch of castoff technology as though an architect-engineer turned discount surgeon had carved the still serviceable organs from dying prefab modules and rough-stitched them together into a Frankensteinian decor.
Dunne set the die-cube on a fold-down table adjacent to the kitchenette before removing his breather mask. He tapped a quick sequence across one face, then said. “Ok, now we can talk.”
“What is that thing?” Jo asked still breathless, eyeing it sidelong as if it were a serpent coiled to strike. The hollow beneath her collarbone still ached.
“A security cube,” Dunne said, folding down a seat.
“I thought this was a penal colony. I didn’t think LOW OrbIT let tech like that slip through.”
“They don’t. I saw one on Anarchy once. That meant I knew exactly what to ask for. On Terminal, anything can be had for a price.” He noticed her continued wariness. “Don’t worry, it won’t bite unless I tell it.”
Jo crumpled into a seat, exhausted from the climb, the cutter dangling loosely from her hand. She continued to take hits from the emergency oxygen canister. Once her breathing eased, she lowered the mask and tightened her grip on the cutter. “You said you could offer Sub-Commander Z. How do I know that isn’t Abrami? Or you?”
“Nick Michaels planted that story as we escaped Darwin to keep pressure on Abrami, to make sure he couldn’t escape. No one in LOW OrbIT had ever seen Sub-Commander Z, but Michaels had Abrami’s face on video tagged to intel that said the Sub-Commander was in a limo. But she wasn’t. We were. Someone set us up.”
“She?” Jo repeated just to make certain she understood.
Dunne nodded.
“And you know where she is?” Jo asked skeptically.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure Abrami told me where she is. Or at least was two years ago.”
“Two years is a lifetime,” Jo said. “What makes you think Michaels will be interested in ancient history?”
“All my information is at least that old,” Dunne replied, “and he still sent you to retrieve it. What did he offer you? Your freedom for Abrami’s location? Your brother’s safety?”
“Half-brother,” she corrected. “And yes, Michaels said he’d keep Abrami safe, and then it would be over, at least for me.”
“That’s because Michaels thinks he can to turn Abrami against Sub-Commander Z. It took me a long time to figure out what Michaels was really after. He’s a chess player. Abrami is one more pawn to him, just like you and me. Sub-Commander Z is the prize he’s really after. Do you think he won’t sacrifice you to get Abrami’s cooperation?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s not like I had a lot of choice after Sky.”
Dunne sneered. “I did my time on Sky, but you don’t see me collaborating. You do know it was probably Michaels who put you there in the first place?”
“No, he tried to keep me off of Sky,” Jo said. “I just didn’t know it at the time.”
“That’s what he wanted you to think. Nick Michaels runs both ends of every game. The sooner you understand that, the better.”
Jo sneered back. “Like I’m going to believe anything from the man who recruited Abrami into the Green Revolution.”
“You’ve got that backwards,” Dunne said. “Abrami recruited me. On Cooperation, I was content just to survive. Abrami was the one who wanted to right all the wrongs. And he always told me to look out for you.”
“So now you’ve destroyed my only way of communicating with the one man who can get me out of this hell-hole. Brilliant. That kind of help I can do without.”
“If I hadn’t, Michaels would hear everything we said. Once he had what he was looking for, he’d have no further use for you. Like it or not, I’ve put you in a position to actually get off this rock.”
Jo snorted.
“Humor me,” Dunne continued. “Where did he say to exchange the information?”
“All I have to do is get to the KenZen Temple.”
“Did he tell you how?”
“He only said he knew I was creative.”
“Nothing like asking the goddamned impossible.” Dunne said, shaking his head.
Jo’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Aren’t they neutral territory on Terminal just like everywhere else?” That’s what Michaels had told her in the briefing.
“Technically, yes,” Dunne acknowledged. “But they control the most commanding piece of real estate outside the Base. The place is surrounded Uberlords. Those are the guys this place was originally built to contain.”
“I know who the Uberlords are,” Jo shot back. “They still teach us that in school, you know.”
Dunne didn’t seem to hear her. He tapped a finger against one cheek. “If Michaels setup a meeting at the KenZen temple, he must fear corruption on the Base. Or he’s running an unofficial game. Either way, he might just have a contingency to get you off of here so no one else can use you. We can use that.”
“Or I can just kill you,” Jo said. “Then Michaels has nothing.”
“Unless you kill yourself, he’ll still have you. Even if you do, he’ll find another way to get to Abrami. The only way to keep him safe is to trade up for someone Michaels wants more.”
“Abrami’s a terrorist, now,” Jo said flatly. “Why should I care what happens to him?”
“He’s your brother,” Dunne said. “You don’t sell out family.”
“Half-brother,” Jo corrected again.
“Either way, I think he knew that even if we escaped the Revolution on Darwin, one day LOW OrbIT would come for you. So he wanted to give you something to bargain with.”
“Sub-Commander Z,” Jo finished for him. “What makes you think you know where she is after all this time?”
“To guarantee safe passage off Darwin, Abrami kidnapped Sub-Commander Z’s daughter. Once we arrived on Anarchy, he started telling the girl, ‘One day soon, I’ll get my angel back to Heaven.’ He said it every day until I no longer heard it. I’m pretty sure that was less for her than me.”
“There’s no colony named ‘Heaven’ in human space,” Jo said.
“No, but there used to be one named ‘Halo’ before the Supremacists staged a coup and renamed it ‘White.’ On Sky, I still hadn’t made the connection. Michaels didn’t have enough time to get it out of me before LOW OrbIT dropped me here.”
“That’s pretty thin,” Jo said.
“Abrami knew someone betrayed us that day in the limo. After Darwin, he started acting crazy, like he was slipping in and out of time. I thought it was the shock of almost being assassinated as we tried to escape. But then he killed an informant on Anarchy and vanished just as LOW OrbIT was closing in. He tried to warn me, but until the last few days, I’m not sure he completely trusted me.”
Jo aimed the cutter at him again. “What says I don’t just kill you anyway and keep my bargain with Michaels?”
“You could.” Dunne smiled. “But I still have something you need.”
“What’s that?” Jo drew lazy circles around his chest with the cutter’s barrel.
“To make the exchange at KenZen, you need three things: a path to the front door, an invitation inside and a LOW OrbIT transponder to confirm your identity. I’m sure they’re waiting for you to show up. But you don’t know how to get there or have a transponder to prove who you are once you’re inside.”
“And if I go straight to the Peacekeepers and tell them what I know?” she asked. “I’m sure they can get in touch with Michaels.”
“LOW OrbIT is unlikely to keep Michaels’ promise unless you offer them Abrami,” Dunne said. “They still think he’s Sub-Commander Z.”
“It can’t be that hard to find my way to the temple,” she said.
Dunne laughed. “Ten klicks straight up for a newbie with no connections, no equipment and an atmospheric adjustment disorder? Damn near impossible. I still know plenty of Green Revolutionaries on Terminal who spent time on Darwin before they were sentenced here. More importantly, they know me. They don’t know you. Without their cooperation, no one climbs higher.”
Jo turned her chin over one shoulder and looked longingly at him through her lashes. “I can be pretty convincing.”
Dunne laughed at her again. “You couldn’t even handle a stray gang of pre-pubescent children. What makes you think you could handle their fathers?”
Jo changed the subject. “So what do you get out of all this? Saving your precious Revolution?”
“The Green Revolution is bleeding out slowly. It just doesn’t have the sense to finally lay still. I saw what your mother did to you on Cooperation, and how the corporate execs protected her. Abrami always blamed himself for what happened, never me. But I was the one who couldn’t get you out in time to change anything. Maybe this time I can.” When he finished, Dunne just looked at her with a silent appeal.
Jo’s instincts screamed at her to kill him, but her intellect told her he was right, that his death wouldn’t keep her safe. And her heart knew he was telling the truth. She didn’t remember much about Cooperation, but on Sky she’d remembered just enough to say Dunne probably wasn’t lying. But she didn’t trust him or his explanation. She didn’t trust anyone at this point. She wasn’t sure she could.
She lowered the cutter, resigned to his plan, for the moment. “Then where do we find a new transponder?”
“We don’t need one,” he said, lifting the security cube. “I had this capture the signal before it destroyed yours. So I can replicate it. All we need is a LOW OrbIT transmitter to upload it into.”
“And you can get that?” Jo said, feeling as though she was being led down a garden path.
Dunne nodded. “Plus, we need rebreathers and some other equipment. And I know just the person who might be able to supply us. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Just don’t think I won’t kill you if you try to double-cross me.” Jo brandished the cutter at him again. “I’m tired to being everyone’s favorite pawn.”
---
After a quick meal of pre-packaged food pouches whose expiration dates had long passed, Dunne dimmed the lights and crawled into the loft above the kitchenette. Jo slept in a chair that folded out into crash space by the door. She kept the cutter and emergency oxygen close at hand. Short of tying Dunne up, she had to trust him. She wondered what he did for a living on Terminal. Or whether people “did” anything other than survive.
Jo slept fitfully. The crowded room was full of shadows. Their angles reminded her of her bedroom on Cooperation, though the apartment was nothing like it. Back then, she still believed in monsters. Not the kind that hid in closets or under beds, but the ones that lived in the bedroom down the hall.
She dreamed of a dragon and an elixir, of heroes and demons, quests and magic swords. But she was no princess. She awoke sporadically throughout the night, short of breath, and had to take quick hits from the emergency oxygen canister. When she drifted back to sleep, the dream resumed, uninterrupted. She awoke the final time not remembering much other than an impending sense of dread.
Dunne was already up. He handed her a fresh oxygen canister. They downed a cold breakfast of more food pouches, and left soon after. He said the journey there and back would take most of a Solar day.
Outside, he wended his way down to the valley floor while Jo followed, as nervous as a cat in an unfamiliar territory that smelled of dogs. It was only when they reached the bottom that Jo began to comprehend the scope of Terminal.
The colony was situated in a deep, dry rift. The walls descended ten kilometers from the surrounding plain above to the valley floor. At its narrowest point, the rift choked down to five kilometers from cliff wall to cliff wall. A nearly sheer ten-klick high basalt pillar topped by a one-klick wide plateau dominated the valley. Dunne called that the Base. A half-kilometer, unsupported basalt promontory jutted from one cliff wall toward the Base like the wedge of an impending attack. The KenZen Temple.
Human habitation flowed down from the top of the walls, washing through the central valley and splashing halfway up the Base like a tide. The upper half of the pillar was clean, clear rock as though a giant had scraped away the barnacles of humanity. Like the worst concrete canyons on the highest density urban worlds, the sunlit sky was a mere slot overhead. The Base cast a long, gloomy shadow throughout the valley ahead.
The valley floor sloped up after they skirted a low, central ridge, which rose about a klick and ran for two or three. Dunne guided them up the backside of the ridge to an overlook where Jo could rest. Beyond, the valley broadened and sloped up gently, forming a bowl in which Terminal’s thin atmosphere settled. Where the walls retreated, the valley floor flattened, like a floodplain long devoid of water.
Above, a huge, ringed gas giant hung motionless in the sky. Dunne explained that Terminal was tidally locked, always facing the gas giant it orbited. Like Terra as seen from the facing side of its moon, only the gas giant’s phase ever changed. Terminal’s gravity was only slightly lighter than Earth-normal, twenty percent heavier than Cooperation where Jo had grown up. Her home world, too, circled a gas giant, but with a day-night cycle measured in hours not days.
Solar standard day one of Terminal’s five week orbit was pre-dawn twilight, day seventeen dusk. It's orbit was canted just far enough to prevent a daylight eclipse every cycle. Because of the rift’s east-west orientation, sunlight bathed the valley floor, heating it against the night. The light of Terminal’s sun drifted slightly redder than Sol’s. Even at noon, daylight took on the orange-red taint of a spectacular dawn or sunset. As if something were always ending or just about to begin. The subtle cast of fire.
The sun stood halfway to the horizon.
Once she caught her breath from the exertion of the climb, Jo studied landscape ahead. The plain glittered as though strewn with mica, pyrite or mother of pearl. It was only when she reminded herself of the scale of the panorama that it became clear that those glints weren’t flecks of minerals scattered across the valley floor but something much larger.
As her mind was struggling to make sense of the scene, a boom rumbled overhead. The silhouette of a tiny bird stooped down the valley, descending like a dive-bomber. As though aiming for bull’s-eye only visible from above, it unleashed a sparkling, silvery rain as if voiding its bladder.
“Welcome to the Collector,” Dunne said as she turned toward him with a stunned look of non-comprehension.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing to the debris settling from the sky.
“Charity,” he said. When Jo just stared at him, he added, “Everything we need to survive.”
“Charity?” She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the word in context. “I didn’t know you could make a donation to Terminal.”
“There is a hierarchy of donations,” Dunne said as he watched them trickle down. “Those clothes and broken electronics you give to your favorite charity? They only keep what they can resell. The rest gets traded on a secondary market to other charities. Each has its own specialization and standards for quality, descending until you reach the stuff that can only be salvaged for recycling and parts. What no one wants or can use or is too lazy to disassemble ends up here, supplemented by failed corporate prototypes and unsafe recalls, plus whatever LOW OrbIT deems to be a minimum daily allowance for us to survive.”
“Why don’t they just land and unload it?”
“Section 37 prisoners. Minimal contact. Plus it keeps our hands busy.”
“So what happens after it’s…” Jo trailed off looking for the right word.
“Dumped?” Dunne volunteered. “Even on Terminal there’s a hierarchy. Salvage crews sift through it until they no longer find anything they can use. They consume what they need and trade the rest to consortiums controlled by various Uberlord factions. What remains is hauled across the valley to the Emitter along with other trash where those without friends or allies sift through it again for anything the others might have missed. It’s the economics of how we stay alive.”
“And which group do you fall into?” Jo asked with a sharp look.
“My own.” Dunne shrugged. “I have contacts and a few allies among the Greens. A lot of people still owe me from Darwin, but no one I’d call a friend. Now, I trade skills and information.” He surveyed the valley a moment, then rose. “If you’re ready, we should keep moving. We’re about halfway. Depending on how it goes, we’ll likely need to hike back before the daylight’s gone. I don’t want to be caught out on the Collector if LOW OrbIT decides to do a night drop.”
They descended the ridge, skirting along the edge of the Collector, eventually hugging the canyon wall to avoid the deepest areas of the immense debris field. In the distance work gangs harvested the most recent crop of donations like serfs gleaning the fields after a harvest. Or rats.
By the time they hit the shade of the canyon wall, Jo was burning through her emergency oxygen in gasping breaths. Surrounded by no substantial atmosphere, the rocks and debris heated up as soon as the sun touched them. Dunne waited patiently each time she had to rest, but his eyes constantly scanned the figures in the distance. If any of the gleaners began to so much as drift in their direction, he nudged Jo into stumbling forward again, his eyes always focused on the same dark smudge at the base of the canyon wall.
The shade provided only minor respite. By the time they’d reached it, Jo had lost her breath and no amount of rationed oxygen seemed to help her catch it again. Her eyes felt hot and dry. The veins behind them throbbed erratically. Her head felt ready to explode. Dunne plied her with water. Dehydration was the other major danger of hiking across the open plain, the only one he could counter with anything other than rest and time he didn’t have.
As they trudged across the shadowed plain, the dark stain of their destination slowly resolved into a cave mouth. Jo only began to realize how large it was when they rested a few hundred meters away. After her breathing slowed to merely labored, her concentration returned. Behind them, the Base appeared only slightly shorter than it had been a few hours ago. Ahead, she spotted several small figures beneath the overhang of the cave mouth that snapped it into perspective. Their postures and positions marked them as guards.
Dunne let her recover until her head was almost clear. By then, she’d burned through most of her oxygen for the entire roundtrip. She had no idea how she would make it back again. Dunne only cast narrow glances at the gauge on the tank but said nothing. Instead, he cautioned her on their approaching encounter.
“Accept nothing from these people and give nothing to them,” he warned her. “They may seem to know who you are but they’re looking for confirmation. Information is currency on Terminal. The rules of trade are different here. Especially between me and them.”
“These people allies?” she asked, dubious.
“The man who runs this operation has a long reach on Terminal. His claws are into everything. The last time I dealt with him, it didn’t go well. The safest thing for you to do is keep your mouth shut and let the pressure fall on me.”
Jo took a long, euphoric hit, draining the tank like an alcoholic taking that one last swig from a bottle to brace her courage. “Let’s get this over with.”
As they crossed the final distance to the cave mouth, Jo was surprised to see the guards were armed with makeshift rifles, like long arms cobbled together from a low-tech, insurgent armory. Improvised but not shoddy. Unique and elegantly dangerous. By contrast, their comm gear looked fairly ordinary.
The guards recognized Dunne, greeting him with sadistic smiles Jo had come to recognize from her travels though LOW OrbIT security.
“We’re here to see your boss,” Dunne said, ignoring the sly looks and half winks passing back and forth between the four men. Their rifles were cradled with barrels pointing toward the dust that occasionally stirred in the cool, clean air that wafted out from the cave.
“What makes you think he wants to see you?” the lead guard said.
“Not me, her.” Dunne nodded toward Jo. “I’m just her escort.”
“And she is?” The lead guard leered.
Jo stared straight back at him. “Someone who’s been around enough to know that petty gatekeepers like you aren’t the ones I need to explain things to.”
“Watch your mouth sunshine or I’ll find a better use for it,” the guard snapped.
“Only if you want to go through the rest of life known as ma’am,” Jo shot back as her patience wore away like her last hit of oxygen. She turned to Dunne. “If this mental defective is the fastest swimmer in your guy’s gene pool, we’d be better off taking the offer somewhere else.”
The guard backhanded her as quickly and casually as if he were disciplining a wayward cur, spinning Jo until she ended up leaning heavily against Dunne’s shoulder.
“Hey, don’t damage the merchandise until I have a deal,” Dunne said, his arm around Jo’s waist to keep her on her feet.
“Then put a muzzle on your bitch,” the guard responded.
Jo’s face crimsoned in anger and humiliation. As she tried to turn back and face him, a wave of dizziness overcame her. She almost sobbed in frustration as her body betrayed her will. She knew she couldn’t afford to be dependent on these men. Any of them.
After a long hard glare from Dunne, the lead guard turned his back and stepped just inside the cave mouth. A moment later, Dunne nudged Jo with his shoulder and nodded toward the guard who now had that faraway look of a functionary interpreting orders over a comm. After a brief, murmured negotiation, Dunne and Jo were admitted.
One of the younger guards acted as both their guide and escort. Dunne bore most of Jo’s weight without effort. The air inside the cave was cooler, richer and more damp. As soon as she was able, Jo shrugged off Dunne’s support and stumbled along on her own. Her cheek still stung with shame.
“What the hell was that about out there?” Jo asked when their escort drifted just beyond earshot. “Do we have a problem?”
“I told you to let me handle them,” Dunne responded quietly without glancing in her direction, “You want to play tough on Terminal, you’d better get used to it.”
“Next time, back my play,” she said, slipping her hand in her pocket, “Because if I go down in here, I guarantee you won’t see daylight.”
Dunne only grunted.
As they continued in silence, Jo chose to focus on the caverns. They passed a series of excavated chambers, leveled and expanded to exploit the natural features with a minimum of effort. Both the rooms and the descending passageway were lighted by strings of compact LEDs shaded toward the yellow-white end of the spectrum that emulated the natural light humans craved. Though their insufficient numbers failed to cast an illusion of being anywhere but underground.
Most of the chambers contained sorting stations stacked with bins of detritus hauled in from the Collector. At long, utilitarian tables, haggard women and children mechanically sorted gold from lead, silver from dross. Two or three armed guards monitored each room. The first checkpoint occupied a bottleneck in the main passage fitted with a bulkhead that held airtight doors.
Beyond, the passageway wound deeper into earth like a serpent navigating its way through the undergrowth of a garden. The distance between lights grew greater, the shadows longer and deeper. Storehouses piled high with crates of supplies and provisions replaced the sorting stations, with an occasional locked and guarded strong room interspersed between.
By the time they reached the second set of bulkhead doors, the increased oxygen had revitalized Jo. Compared to the surface, the air had become thick, almost cloying. Her headache and heat flush faded into a chill sweat of giddiness. Either the atmosphere had settled into the nooks and crannies of the cave as an extension of the valley or some geologic feature down here was generating a fresh supply. Either way, she began to feel more herself again, more in control of her situation.
The passageway drifted into a maze of twisty little side passages, almost all alike. Finally, they stood before a third, guarded, airtight door. At a murmured word from their escort the door ground open.
Inside, a powerfully built man smoking a cigar, real tobacco by the smell and thick, bluish cloud filling the room, reclined in an executive chair. His feet were propped upon a brushed metal desk embellished with custom scrollwork in the form of serpentine Gothic figures with tortured expressions on their all too human faces. His posture was relaxed yet tense, like a slit-eyed cat tracking its prey while pretending to sleep. Or a pit viper curled before a strike. Over his left shoulder a patch of iridescent crystals, their facets sparkling scales in the cold light of a goose-necked lamp, had broken out like a rash in a corner of the room.
As the door closed with an echoing boom of finality, the man unwound from his seat. He slid from behind the desk as lithe and graceful as an Olympic gymnast, and stood confronting Dunne, the cigar still clenched in his teeth. Removing it, he stared for a moment at its naked coal. Then blowing a cloud of oily blue smoke that cascaded around over Dunne’s face, he smiled with narrow eyes. The smile of a predator.
“Hello, Mikey” he said, tapping ash onto Dunne’s boots. “I told you if I ever saw you again, I’d kill you.”
Dunne didn’t flinch. “You’ve waited this long, Gantt, what’s a little longer? How’s the head, anyway?”
“Fine, no thanks to you.” Gantt rubbed the hand with his cigar along one temple.
“I couldn’t help myself,” Dunne smiled, shaking his head. “That LOW OrbIT animatron had you down cold. When I saw you again, I had to be sure.”
“Next time ask for references,” Gantt growled. “So what do you want? Come to offer up an apology?” His eyes slid over Jo’s body but not her face, cold yet sensuous. It was all she could do to hold in a shiver. She could almost feel the guard’s handprint throb on her cheek again as blood rushed back there.
“I need some equipment,” Dunne said. “Rebreathers, weapons, survival gear, a LOW OrbIT transmitter. Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Sounds like your mounting an expedition.” Gantt blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Where to?”
“The KenZen Temple,” Dunne responded. Jo was surprised. After his display at the cave mouth, she wasn’t sure what to expect from him. Up front honesty certainly wasn’t it. Seemed like a dangerous path.
“Ambitious. Uberlord territory. You’re moving up, Mikey.” Gantt nodded with approval. “But what makes you think I’d help you?”
“Not me.” Dunne pulled a thumb toward Jo. “Her. I’m just riding shotgun.”
Gantt turned back to Jo, drawing on his cigar, this time focusing on her face, a prize as much as prey. “And what’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Josephine Sorin,” she answered, looking him directly in the eye, crossing her arms across her chest. She permitted herself a sly smile as she saw Gantt’s breath hitch as if his heart had missed a beat.
He recovered quickly, his eyes turning back to cold calculation. “Abrami’s sister. I heard they picked you up.”
“Half-sister,” Dunne corrected from beside her.
“I also heard you collaborated,” Gantt finished, leaning closer until Jo could smell his nicotine-stained teeth.
“I collaborated so well that I set a new record on Sky and still ended up here.” Jo held his eye. Her head clearer now, she decided to run her own gambit, one she’d dreamed up the night before based on Michaels’ briefing and the terror her half-brother’s name invoked like protective spell or an amulet. “But this is where Abrami wanted me, where I could sort through the refuse firsthand to see who can be salvaged and who’s fundamentally broken.” She cocked her head and asked him, “Which way would you categorize Sub-Commander Z’s Enforcer?”
Gantt’s eyes froze for an instant. Then he laughed. “Like it matters. In case you missed the memo, honey, Terminal is a life sentence.” He took another pull on his cigar and blew a stream of smoke across her lips in a bitter kiss.
Her mouth twisted further into a smile. “Not for me it isn’t.”
Gantt betrayed his confusion with a quick glance at Dunne who only nodded. He rolled with Jo’s improv without a hitch. Now she wasn’t sure whose side he was on.
“That’s why I came to you, Gantt,” Dunne said. “Call it a kiss-and-make-up gift. For the price of a little equipment I know you have laying around, you could end up with a piece of the biggest bargaining chip this world has ever seen, an exit strategy.”
“Ok, say I buy this bag of bullshit you two are shoveling.” Gantt leaned back against the desk, his eyes flicking in calculation. “How exactly will you get inside? The Uberlords have all access to the temple locked down tight.”
Dunne just turned to Jo, silently allowing her to take the lead. Perhaps she could work with him after all.
“Don’t worry about the how, Gantt,” Jo said, knowing with his question they’d just secured a bargain. “Leave that part to me.”
---
They stayed in the caves as Gantt’s guests, up on the first level off a passage with dormant workshops and empty sorting stations. Most the equipment they needed Gantt said he had on hand. The transmitter would take longer. He had to call in a major favor to acquire one. Dunne didn’t ask from where.
Dunne said Jo should use the time to better acclimate to Terminal’s atmosphere. Each day, he accompanied her on a walk around the plain of the Collector while one or two of Gantt’s people shadowed them, out of earshot but well within range. Dunne clandestinely fingered his security cube like a talisman, to prevent eavesdropping he said. Jo kept both hands in her pockets, her right caressing the cutter still secreted within.
Each day, Jo grew a little stronger, her endurance of Terminal’s thin atmosphere a little longer.
Each time they headed back to the cave, the sun had descended just a little farther, its light dying a little more each day. Each time the returned to their quarters, Dunne set the security cube on the table between their bunks and manipulated its faces. She never sensed that it destroyed anything, which seemed to make Dunne nervous.
On the fourth day, Gantt sent word they could pick up their equipment at the cave entrance as soon as twilight fell. Dunne told Jo to get some rest. Even with rebreathers and a few days to acclimate, the climb was going to be strenuous. She dozed but didn’t really sleep.
Just before they headed up, Dunne manipulated the security cube again and handed Jo a blue lozenge about the size of an analgesic.
“Peacekeeper pharma-tech designed specifically for Terminal,” he said. “It will help you breathe and stay alert. Twenty-four hour dose. Don’t mention it to Gantt. And don’t take anything he offers.”
She eyed the pill between her thumb and finger. “Why should I trust you over him at this point?”
“Because if he finds out we’re trying to save Abrami by selling out Sub-Commander Z, we’ll both wish we were back on Sky. Or Cooperation.”
“You were really on Cooperation?” Jo asked, trying to sound skeptical. She thought she knew the answer from her time on Sky but wanted to hear whether Dunne confirmed it again now that she could think. Her memories had grown unstable and untrustworthy. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“You don’t remember do you?” Dunne asked. She shook her head, another lie. “You wouldn’t I guess. You would only have been four the last time you saw me. I tried to get you out but you wouldn’t go.”
“And Souleymane asked you to help me?” she said.
Dunne nodded. “He always felt responsible for what happened, like he could have prevented what your mother did somehow. He tried to shield you on Cooperation. You mother was just too powerful. He made me promise him that I’d always try to keep you safe. Maybe this time I can.”
She wondered if what Dunne said was true. She’d been too afraid to trust him back then but maybe she should have. She had to trust someone. She knew what Gantt and his people would do with her. Enemy of my enemy?
No, that wasn’t quite right. Dunne was trying to keep Abrami safe. And Abrami had always tried to protect her. Maybe she owed her half-brother more than she knew. She’d hated him because he’d abandoned her. Her mother, for all she’d done, never had. Maybe it was time to rethink the lies of her past. She just wished her own survival wasn’t on the line. And that all these people weren’t all trying to manipulate her to get what they wanted. Again.
Jo swallowed the pill. Within five minutes she was breathing easily for the first time since her arrest. She felt alert but not anxious. Everything came into sharp focus as all her stress melted away. She knew exactly what she had to do. Maybe she could save them both.
Gantt was waiting just inside the cave mouth. Jo smelled his cigar long before they arrived. He stood beside three satchel-packs of equipment.
“You didn’t mention anything about coming with us,” Dunne said. “I envisioned you more as a silent partner than an active participant.”
Gantt dropped the stub of his cigar and crushed it into the dirt with the toe of a boot. “You don’t think I got this far by leaving my investments unsecured, do you, Mikey? Not that I don’t trust you.”
“What about the transmitter?” Dunne ignored the barb.
Gantt tossed him a whitish plasti-steel cylinder about as long as small flashlight. “I can’t guarantee it’s clean, so don’t activate it until you absolutely have to.”
“What the hell, Gantt?” Dunne glared at the unit. “I thought you said this wouldn’t be a problem.”
“You’re lucky I could come up that on three day’s notice. And it cost me pretty, too. Now, are you going to keep whining like a little bitch, or should we get on with this?”
Dunne rummaged through two satchel-packs verifying both his and Jo’s equipment. They each contained a civilian comm unit, complete with earbuds, an inertial navigation module and pre-loaded maps of the warren that was Terminal. Plus UV-filtered goggles with starlight enhancement, a cold light, pre-packaged rations, a liter of water, some miscellaneous survival equipment and rebreather with three supplemental O2 bottles. Jo was pleased. The equipment looked as good or better than what she’d lost. Finally, each held a gray, homespun robe with a corded tie.
“Weapons?” Dunne asked after passing one of the reloaded satchel-packs to Jo. She let the rebreather mask hang around her throat and propped the goggles on her forehead.
“You weren’t thinking of shooting your way in, were you, Mikey?” Gantt asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, but it’d be nice if we could defend ourselves on the way up,” he replied. “We’ll pass through a lot of hostile territory.”
“You just get us to the Temple and leave the rest to me.” Gantt patted the pistol holster at his hip.
“Better and better,” Dunne said, shouldering his satchel-pack. “Fine, let’s get moving.”
They set out as the long shadow of the Base inched over the Collector in the tentative foreplay that brought on night. As twilight descended, cold lights winked to life in the valley in the hierarchical strata of privilege, from the top down.
Their initial progress was quick, a retracing of Jo and Dunne’s steps a few days earlier. But where Dunne would have guided Jo back up to overlook on the central ridge, he stuck to the valley floor. Only once they stood deep in the cleft of between the promontory of the Temple and the pillar of the Base did he diverge from the route of heaviest air and begin to climb.
Now their path snaked up the wall in an erratic series of switchbacks, sometimes outside, sometimes inside, sometimes through tunneled alleyways, sometimes across rooftops. Sometimes they ascended ladders, sometimes narrow, stair-like roads. Back and forth they traversed the urban chaos clinging to the outer wall, zigzagging but always climbing even if only a few meters each pass.
The higher they climbed, the more Dunne guided them through the back alleys and covered passageways out of sight. They slipped through many people, on Terminal, no one was ever alone, but with a preternatural sense Dunne always guided them away from large congregations and anything that looked like an armed patrol, LOW OrbIT or domestic. Jo suspected he was in contact with various groups, paying some manner of electronic tribute as they passed through each new territory. Though if he was, she never caught so much as a whisper of it on her comm.
Their ascent quickly became disorienting. At every pause, Jo searched for landmarks. It shouldn’t have been hard, but with views limited to only tiny slivers of sky, the ever-shifting geography blurred into the sameness of cramped human habitation. The map on her comm was out of date and nearly impossible to navigate. Only the altimeter was of much use in gauging their progress.
By the first quarter mark of their ascent, all three of them had pulled up their rebreather masks after a quick meal of ration bars and stale water. By the midway point, they had donned goggles and earbuds, the former to enhance the fading twilight and shield their eyes against the desiccating lack of air, the latter to facilitate comms and protect their eardrums from the mismatched pressure. By the three-quarter mark, each of them was almost fully reliant on their supplemental oxygen. Only then did they begin to feel the cold creep in as the radiant heating from the rocks and habitats began to fade with the sun. The trace atmosphere up here couldn’t hold in what remained.
Increasingly, they spent their time in a three-man scouting formation, Dunne out on point, Jo and Gantt moving in bounding overwatch once Dunne hand-signaled their passage was clear. Not that Gantt’s pistol ever left its holster. Nor had Jo revealed she possessed Dunne’s cutter. Even for the hours of exertion, Jo had yet to feel the taint of tiredness lurking behind her eyes. Whatever was in that pill Dunne had given her was potent. Unfortunately, it looked like Gantt had access to the same resource. If anything, he looked ever sharper, his eyes dark and intense behind his goggles. Almost manic.
With two kilometers left to climb, the wall approached vertical asymptotically. After negotiating a series of steep, covered switchbacks through an oddly dark and deserted section of the colony, Dunne guided them to the mouth of a blind alley. At the far end, someone had mounted a bulkhead with space-rated door into the native rock.
Dunne fished into his satchel and came out with the gray robe. He slid it on over his head then motioned Jo and Gantt to do the same with theirs. He told them to stay put until he had the door open and then to approach slowly but purposefully.
As she waited for Dunne’s signal, Jo glanced back over her shoulder. The alley afforded a clear view toward the Base. She could see they had drifted far afield from their goal of the promontory, almost to the edge of the inhabited zone of the upper valley.
Behind her, Jo noticed Gantt murmuring behind his mask. Nothing on the comms. He must have a cutout channel. And an accomplice. That didn’t inspire trust. A conspiracy between him and Dunne? Jo’s paranoia began to spin out all sorts of shadowy scenarios. Only the solidity of the laser cutter in her pocket dispelled them. Though it was no match for Gantt’s pistol. She’d need surprise to make it work, especially if she had to take them both.
After the subtle gesture like a stage magician’s parlor trick, Dunne eased open the outer door and waved them both forward. Behind the bulkhead lay an airlock the size of a small elevator, perhaps large enough to accommodate half a dozen people, maybe four in EVA suits. Once Jo and Gantt had crowded inside, Dunne punched up a code on the inner keypad. The door silently swung closed, sealing with a jarring impact Jo felt through the floor but did not really hear. Soon, she heard the hiss of incoming air. Her ears popped as her earbuds normalized the pressure.
Once the airlock indicators went green, they all pulled off their rebreathers. The sweat from where the seal rested on Jo’s face evaporated almost instantly.
“Rest stop,” Dunne said. “From here, it’s all inside. But keep your rebreathers handy. Breaches happen.”
“Where are we?” Jo asked.
“Access tunnels to the upper rim,” Dunne said. “Most built before LOW OrbIT started using Terminal as a dumping ground for Green Revolutionaries. Back then, they didn’t much care what the Uberlords got up to.”
“They sure as hell care now, Mikey,” Gantt said. “And so should we. The Uberlords catch us roaming the halls, the best we can hope for is a quick, anonymous death.”
“There’s no other way,” Dunne said. “We climb much higher outside and their observation posts will spot us. There’s no cover the last klick anyway. Besides, we’re shielded from LOW OrbIT in here.”
“But not from Uberlord patrols,” Gantt grumbled.
“After a hundred years of infighting,” Dunne responded, “no one faction knows where all these tunnels run. But even they need safe passage in and out. As do the monks in the KenZen Temple.”
“That’s what the robes were about,” Jo said.
Dunne just smiled.
“These guys wage constant warfare up here same as down below,” Gantt said. “What’s to say the territories haven’t shifted?”
“If so,” Dunne replied, “it’ll be a short trip.”
“And where’s it dump us?” Gantt asked.
Dunne paused, then said, “Right at the KenZen Temple’s front door.”
A gauging look passed between Dunne and Gantt. Jo didn’t know what it meant, but she knew she didn’t like it.
For the next several hours, they wandered through a labyrinth of access corridors, crawlways and conduits. Every so often they emerged into a regular passageway but then never traveled down it far. They entered and exited recessed hatches in floors and ceilings and walls.
Unlike the hive outside, the tunnels did not sink any daylight heat. Quickly, Jo felt a chill flowing from every metal ladder and seeping into her knees and palms whenever she placed them on smooth, laser-burnished stone. This final phase of her journey was more disorienting than navigating the termite mound outside. The comm maps came up blank with boxed warnings that flashed “no sync point.” They might as well have read “here be dragons.”
The tunnels were as dark, dank and rancid as a Minoan nightmare. Water dripped, unseen machinery hummed and throbbed, distant hatchways creaked open or echoed shut. Rats and roaches, the ever-present if uneasy companions of humanity, skittered and squeaked just beyond the protective halo of their cold lights. The musty stink of spores attested to the Darwinian strength of mold.
At increasingly shorter intervals, they all needed breaks for food, water and rest just to clear their heads. Whatever pharmaceutical miracle had been bestowed by Dunne’s bitter blue pill faded toward the heresy of fatigue. Dunne’s ragged edges began to show, as well, as more and more frequently he was forced to backtrack, squeezing by Jo and Gantt, cursing under his breath. Only Gantt stayed sharp and focused. During one of Dunne’s muttering forays to regain his bearings, Gantt offered Jo another pill, this one small and red like cinnamon candy. When she waved it away, he shrugged and downed it himself.
After hours only accounted on the comm clock with any accuracy, Dunne squatted by yet another large, circular hatch recessed into a wall, this one with a covered access panel beside it.
“Ok, kids, we’re at the end game,” he said. “This is an emergency airlock, like a few hundred others installed as breach shelters up here in case LOW OrbIT gets frisky. On the other side is the main passage that leads straight to the KenZen Temple’s front door. We exit five meters on the wrong side of Uberlord territory. Beyond that is a ten-meter stretch of no-man’s land that is inviolate. Technically, it’s KenZen territory even though it’s outside the doors. As long as we make that, we should be safe.”
“You mean as long as the temple opens its door.” Gantt corrected.
“Don’t worry, they will.” Dunne waved the LOW transmitter. “The signal is already activated, too late for anyone to intercept once we clear the airlock. Only thing is the Uberlords have this breach shelter locked down. That means I have to override it. Fortunately, I brought a friend.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the security cube.
Gantt glared at the die-cube, absently rubbing a pockmark on his neck. “I thought that thing was only a bug detector. How’d you smuggle it in anyway?”
Dunne ignored the question. “You don’t think I showed you all its tricks on Anarchy, do you?” Quickly, deftly, Dunne began manipulating the die-cube’s faces. After a moment, all the airlock indicators turned green and he opened the outer door, revealing a low, three-meter long cylindrical chamber with benches running down both sides to a twin egress. The walls and ceilings were studded with looped handholds like a subway car. Dunne closed the outer door behind him once they were all inside.
“Ok, Gantt, you’ve got point,” Dunne said.
Gantt narrowed his eyes. “Why me?”
“You’re the only one who can take a sentry and lay down covering fire,” Dunne replied. “Unless you want to give me the pistol.”
“Not a chance, Mikey,” Gantt said.
Gantt drew his pistol and crouched by the outer door like a pit bull ready to lunge. Dunne hung back. Slowly, purposefully, he reached out to grip a handhold, motioning Jo to do the same. Still holding her eye, he put his other hand on his filter mask. “Ready?”
Something in Jo’s movements must have alerted Gantt. He glanced back just as Jo was reaching out for the handhold, her other hand on her mask. He turned, his pistol sweeping the small compartment until it came to rest like a compass pointing to the North Pole of Jo’s abdomen. She stopped moving like she’d been caught in a child’s game of Simon Says.
“On second thought, we’re going to play this differently.” Gantt motioned Jo up beside him. “Your girlfriend goes first.”
“I thought we had a deal, Gantt,” Dunne said, frozen by the pistol. An old-fashioned slug-thrower, though modern enough to accept self-oxygenating vacuum rounds. Messy and painful.
“We’re old friends, Mikey,” Gantt replied, “so, let’s not lie to each other. And while you’re at it, drop the jamming on that security cube. I have some people I need to talk to.”
Slowly, deliberately, Dunne manipulated the cube. “This is like a bad rerun of Anarchy. If you were going to sell us out, why not just hold us back in the caves?”
“Do you know how much a path the KenZen Temple sells for?” Gantt asked, his pistol steady. “The inertial nav data alone will buy me a retirement villa somewhere high on the wall. Now quite stalling.”
Dunne finished up with the security cube.
“Still nothing” Gantt said as he flicked a glance at his comm. “So, where are we really, Mikey? And remember, I promised her alive, but not healthy.” He jammed the pistol toward Jo.
“Just where I said we were,” Dunne said. “This is a breach shelter, Gantt. Radiation shielded.”
“If you’re lying,” Gantt said, “I’ll pop her first, then do you, slow. Now open it so I can confirm the data’s good. Then pass me the cube. That’s got to be worth something, too.”
Before Dunne triggered the door mechanism, his shifted his glance to Jo’s eyes, his expression one of remorse. I’m sorry, he mouthed as he keyed the door open.
The instant the seal broke, Jo’s world erupted in light, sound and pain. Yellow warning lights swirled past, klaxons blared then faded. Jo flew as an unseen force pulled her out the door like a fish on a line. She landed hard on her left shoulder then slid across an uneven surface until she jarred to a stop with her head thumping against the hard, cold corner of a wall.
Her eyes drifted closed but snapped back open in panic when she found she couldn’t breathe. A sharp pain stabbed her side. Her eyes bulged behind her goggles. One ear rang, the other felt as though an ice pick had been driven straight through it into her brain which was now leaking down her neck.
Slowly, her mind synched up the still frames of her unexpected flight with a nearly nonexistent soundtrack and the memory of Dunne’s vague warning. She had been thrown outside in an explosive decompression. She did a mental inventory. One of her earbuds had been jarred free, rupturing an eardrum. She’d cracked a rib at the very least. She couldn’t breathe because there was too little oxygen in the trace atmosphere up here.
She scrambled to pull up the rebreather mask still dangling around her neck.
A portion of her pain receded as she thumbed the emergency release on her supplemental tank and felt the cool spray of oxygen against her face. Her eyes drifted shut again as breathed in deeply.
And again, they popped back open as the black wings of panic fluttered behind them. Dunne. Gantt. Where were they? What just happened?
She fumbled for handhold on the wall and discovered it was only a meter high. With both hands, she levered herself to her feet only to be greeted by the lights of seven million souls spread ten klicks below in all their vertiginous glory. Not even the softest breath of air caressed her clothes.
Her head spun. Yet she managed to stumble backwards. She went down hard on her tailbone and discovered the promontory looming over her. As her eyes and mind reoriented, she found she was on a small platform partially protruding from a niche in the canyon wall. One full and two half sides stuck out in an overlook, a meter high protective wall the only barrier between her and the colony below.
To her left, a stairway carved into the native rock ascended to where the promontory clung to the canyon wall. To her right, the pillar of the Base raised its defiant finger to the sky across a two-kilometer divide. Above her, the first quarter gas giant burned the sky, its rings largely unaltered by atmospheric distortion. She wondered if she’d escape its pull.
Only once she twisted to see behind her did she spot Dunne, Gantt and the door through which they’d emerged. She had been thrown from the emergency airlock embedded in a side of the niche to the far corner of the platform overlooking the colony. The breach shelter gaped at her, its door swung open at an unnatural angle. Halfway between, beside the parapet, Dunne and Gantt were locked in a contest for control of Gantt’s pistol like sociopathic Siamese twins.
Jo reset her damaged comm. Through one ear she heard a hollow rendition of their struggle. Through the other just a hiss of white noise surging like a gale force wind. She dialed the audio balance from stereo to one-sided mono, which only dropped the hiss in her left ear to steady summer breeze.
“You didn’t think you’d get away with it did you, Mikey,” Gantt grunted, clutching the pistol, one iron hand around the other. “You betrayed us on Darwin. You betrayed us on Anarchy. You betrayed us on Sky.”
“I betrayed nothing.” Dunne emphasized each word while slowly levering Gantt back. “After Darwin, I was out. You signed up with LOW OrbIT.”
“You stole Z’s daughter,” Gantt spat, his wrist bending inch by inch. “After that, it didn’t matter who I had to work with, the only way you were leaving the Revolution was feet first.”
“The… Revolution… is… over ...” Dunne pounded out each word as he gained the upper hand. “… We… lost.” With each of the last words he smashed Gantt’s wrist against the edge of the stone railing until the pistol went spinning into the abyss below. Dunne relaxed just a fraction.
“I don’t need a gun to kill you, Mikey.”
Gantt shifted his weight and suddenly Dunne was tumbling toward the center of the platform. Dunne regained his feet as the other man stalked him, guarding his breather mask from Gantt’s menacing hand. Dunne fended it off at the expense of his goggles, which went skipping across the cobblestones. With a quick feint Gantt grappled Dunne. They both went sprawling. Gantt pinned Dunne easily.
Jo struggled back to her feet. She had to pick a side. Her bruised and aching gut told her Dunne had been the right choice all along. Her only choice. She needed him if she had any hope of saving herself. She pulled the laser cutter from her pocket and staggered toward the fray.
The movement drew Gantt’s attention. He grabbed Dunne’s head and cracked it on the cobblestones. Dunne slackened. Gantt snatched the LOW Orbit transmitter, gripped it like a weapon and stepped away from Dunne’s seemingly lifeless body.
“Fucking clever,” he mumbled, “I should have remembered the goddamned night stairs to the Temple.”
Jo raised the cutter in both hands. She knew it was only good out to a couple meters.
“You don’t want to do that, missy,” Gantt said, angling his way toward her. He moved as confidently as a cat on a cornered mouse.
As he came into range, Gantt pirouetted, dodging sideways as Jo shot exactly where he had been an instant before, then kicked her wrist in the same fluid motion. Jo felt bone snap in an explosion of pain as the cutter sailed across the platform and bounced off the parapet wall, barely contained within their arena. Gantt stepped back, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for her to decide what to do next, his expression one of pure malicious joy.
“For all the trouble you’ve been, I’m tempted to auction you off to the Uberlords,” Gantt growled as she slowly backed toward the railing. “But first I’ll have to see if you’re up to their level endurance. Of course, you’d only be entertainment. You’d never pass as a breeder.”
Jo backed away, casting a desperate look over her shoulder to where the cutter lay, mindful now to keep at least three meters between her and Gantt.
“It won’t save you this time, either, princess.” Gantt smiled, doggedly pressing forward, his voice rumbling in her good ear. “Keep it up, and you’ll really make me mad.”
Jo responded by continuing to back up, with snap shot glances toward the cutter.
“Too bad I already promised you to LOW OrbIT,” Gantt sneered, “just like your ‘half-brother’ on Darwin. The boys on the Base are real interested in testing that record you set on Sky, this time off the books. So much so, they’re tracking us right now.” He waved the transmitter for emphasis.
Jo had almost reached the cutter. A quick spin and grab, and it would be hers. This time she knew what to expect and wouldn’t let Gantt get as close. When she turned her eyes to find it, he sprang, this time with a flying kick that caught her dead center of her sternum with another white-lightning crack of pain. She sailed along the parapet until she slid to a stop in the corner near the breach shelter’s open maw, dazed. Gantt sprang back to his feet to continue stalking her, kicking the cutter behind him.
“You want it, honey,” he motioned her with the fingertips of both hands, “come get it. All you have to do is get by me.”
Jo looked for somewhere, anywhere to run. A desperate glance at the breach shelter’s door told her it would never close again. Dunne’s deception had bent one of the wrist-thick hinge pins. Gantt would intercept her long before she could reach the stairs. She didn’t even know where they led.
“Not that it’ll do you any good even if you kill me,” Gantt taunted her as he advanced. “If this my transponder goes dead, LOW OrbIT will lock onto the transmitter and kill everyone within a hundred meters.” Casually, he stuffed the device in a pocket.
“If the transmitter goes offline,” Gantt continued as he closed with her, “they’ll blow this platform right off the wall.”
Jo shot her gaze over to where Dunne lay then slid it away so she didn’t attract Gantt’s attention. Dunne was moving. Gantt didn’t appear to notice. He remained intent on her.
Through her peripheral vision, Jo saw Dunne wobble to his feet. She knew she had to keep Gantt’s attention focused on her. She tried to lever herself up, her first attempt aborted when her right wrist exploded with pain. Fighting through a veil of tears, she hugged it to her chest and relied on her left. Her shoulder screamed but held.
“Oh, good, still a little fight left in you. I do like a woman with spunk.” Gantt sounded sadistically pleased, enough so to keep talking as he slowly advanced along the parapet. “My friends really don’t want you in that Temple. And boy do they pay well. Not that I wouldn’t have done your boyfriend over there for free.” Gantt shot a glance over his shoulder to where he’d left Dunne just as Dunne charged like a sprinter from the blocks.
Gantt barely had time to turn before Dunne was on him, his arms wrapping around Gantt’s waist in a flying tackle, driving him toward the wall.
Gantt reacted like a zero-G kickboxer, just a fraction too late. As Dunne slammed into him, Gantt sprang up and scissored his legs around Dunne’s torso, interlocking his feet in midair. Gravity took care of the rest as Gantt tucked and rolled into a back flip, propelling Dunne in an arch over the parapet. As Dunne reached the apex of their entangled flight, Gantt released his grip.
Dunne didn’t. His arms still banded Gantt’s waist like a vice. Hands grasped wrists, refusing to relinquish their prey despite the nearly perfectly executed surprise move. As Dunne cleared the wall, his momentum dragged Gantt after. Gantt slithered over the rail, scrambling to grasp the parapet, establishing a hold just as Dunne’s momentum slammed to a halt against the wrong side of the wall, pulling Gantt fractionally farther over.
Jo froze, uncertain what to do. “Dunne?” she sobbed into her comm.
Dunne’s voice rasped in her right ear. “Now’s your chance to carry through on that threat.”
“Hang on, I’ll find a way to...” she began.
“No,” Dunne interrupted. He coughed heavily then wheezed, “Remember what I said. Kill the bastard and it all ends here.”
It took a moment but she understood. If she couldn’t save him, she could at least save someone. Jo shambled toward the cutter with a contemptuous glare at Gantt on her way by.
“Don’t listen Sorin.” Gantt consolidated his grip on the wall and began thrashing his legs like a drowning man trying to stay above water. “I can set you up like a princess.”
Jo picked up the cutter and stumbled back on as straight a path as her bruised and broken body would let her. When she squatted two meters in front of Gantt’s face, he redoubled his efforts to shed Dunne’s weight. She sighted down the cutter left-handed, bracing on her right forearm just above her shattered wrist, aiming dead center of his mask.
Dunne’s labored breathing rasped in her ear. She paused involuntarily. She knew if she thought too long, she would never be able to fire, knowing she would doom Dunne as well. Months of shock and mental exhaustion began closing in.
“Kill me, bitch, and you die, too,” Gantt hissed. He began to muscle himself over the parapet despite Dunne’s dead weight. That snapped her out of it.
“Who says I want to live anyway?” Jo replied, squeezing the trigger. “This is for my brother.”
Slowly, the center of Gantt’s mask bubbled and blackened. A small hole formed. Air jetted out in a flash frozen fog. Gantt thrashed like a landed fish as his oxygen slowly bled away. His grip began to slip and falter. The hole grew, its edges spreading like a cancer. The cutter died just before its beam fully pierced teeth and bone. A second later, Gantt slid over the parapet, out of sight.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Jo whispered, casting the cutter into the absent air after him then crawling back from the edge in revulsion. “I should have trusted you when I had the chance.”
Any reply Michael Dunne might have uttered was cut off by the impact of heavy weapons fire from the Base, making the platform ripple and shudder as if constructed wholly out of water.
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As evening deepened into night, three gray-robed monks in goggles and rebreathers emerged onto the night stair to check for damage before descending to minister to the poor and sick in the prison below. They were surprised to find a woman curled up on the cobblestones at the base of the steps like an unnamed orphan. After a brief debate, they carried her inside the temple to tend her grievous wounds.
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Somewhere in the maze of tunnels under Mare Frigoris, one of humanity’s oldest functioning colonies, a man whose hair might have been blonde or brown or auburn received a communiqué, that contained only a triple set of numbers, coordinates in three-dimensional space. The man, who sometimes went by the name Nick Michaels, though that was not the name outside his door, smiled. He knew just by the format and the point of origin that he had finally received the information he’d been after all along, the location of Sub-Commander Z. Halo. He refused to call it White.
Before he walked down the hall to inform Micah Aaronson, he had to decide what to do with Josephine Sorin. He was inclined to keep his word. He had gotten what he wanted out of her. He knew Micah would argue against it. Official LOW OrbIT policy was that no one left Terminal alive. But Peacekeepers did all the time.
Plus, the official record already said she’d been killed in a heavy weapons training incident on the Base. So that wasn’t a problem. All he had to do was erase her particulars from the database, fingerprints, DNA, retinal scan. He doubted she’d go back to anywhere she was known. She’d become a non-entity, another Fringer with no past and no real future. Like her brother.
It wasn’t sentimentality. He just hated wasting a still viable resource. So, he sent a coded message telling his operatives in the Temple to evac her then cut her loose. Abrami’s sister might prove useful again one day.
© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III
