Slab City Blues: The Collected Stories
“Don’t have any illusions. Ten years is ten years, whether you live it or dream it. And it’s not Alice in Wonderland. You’re fed a series of scenarios designed to make you confront your guilt, develop a social conscience so when you get out you’re a tax-paying citizen with a phobia for violence and deceit.”
“Doesn’t seem to have worked on Jack.”
“Sociopaths tend to be immune.” I ordered a cargo bot to fetch the chosen material. “I’ll be in the power core.”
*
The war had left me well educated in finding inventive ways to blow stuff up and the colonel’s refresher course had added some new wrinkles, but the destructive potential offered by the Malthus II’s back-up power source was of a different order. This was no home-made plastique or hyrdogen-peroxide taped to a Fed Sec guard post, this was a fission reactor with a potential yield of five kilotons. Fusion had supplanted fission in the vast majority of orbitals and interplanetary ships well over a decade ago, but some deep-belt vessels still retained uranium reactors for back-up and auxiliary power in the event deuterium stocks ran low. It was aged but near-perfect technology, the flaws of the old twentieth century reactors designed out long ago and augmented by an extensive array of state-of-the-art safety protocols. Even with my unrestricted access to the ship’s systems, I was obliged to spend several hours circumventing or deactivating a myriad of software and hardware designed to prevent me doing this very thing.
“Why don’t you just use the nuke you attached to the Dead Reckoning?” Markov was framed in the doorway, limbs spread to clutch at the edges, a pale four-legged spider regarding me with a cocked head.
“Not enough bang,” I replied, guiding the bot with the new ingredient inside the spherical reactor core and uploading a command to its memory. When the time came, it would simply open the container.
“Then our target must be sizable,” Markov said.
“Quite.” I closed up the core and put the reactor in stand-by mode, ready for a rapid power-up.
“And well defended,” he persisted.
“I expect so.”
“We’re not going to survive this mission, are we?”
“I thought Belters were all about accepting the destiny offered by the void.”
“My exile was not accidental. I have issues with blind acceptance of fate.”
“Well, now you have a chance to reconnect with your faith. Good luck with that.”
He tensed in the doorway, muscles knotting on his spindly limbs, face flushed red with anger. “I’ll have no part in this. Whatever kamikaze mission you’re on, count me out.”
“Then find a corner to hide in and stay out of my way.”
“There are working lifeboats aboard. I request permission to leave.”
“No. You’re a wanted felon with a trial and a prison term waiting. Anyway, a Fed Sec security sweep might pick up your beacon.”
“The chances of that are minimal…”
“Not minimal enough. And don’t forget what remains of the defensive net is now under my control, so any unauthorised excursions are going to be very short.”
His tension went up a notch making my hands itch for a weapon. I had no confidence in the outcome of a straight-up fight with a Belter in his native environment, the control I had over this ship was my only real protection. I just had to hope his rationality outweighed his fear.
Markov’s long face twitched and he gave a final impotent snarl before twisting about and propelling along the tubeway with his usual fluency. I sighed, watching him go and knowing I’d grown too soft for this kind of work. If this scenario had played out during the war I’d have followed him, improvised a weapon from the tool racks and killed him when his adrenal levels had subsided. But it wasn’t in me anymore, the sight of Maddux’s disembodied head was taking way too long to fade. The commander and crew had been different, enemy soldiers in the heat of battle, but it seemed my capacity for outright murder had shrunk in civilian life. Too many years a Demon.
I contented myself with commanding the Malthus II to jettison all the lifeboats, uploading instructions to crash themselves into the first asteroid to happen along. It pays to be thorough.
*
Despite the comparatively plush accommodation offered by the Malthus II, Jack, Mina and Lucy still slept aboard the Dead Reckoning, now nestling in the Malthus II’s cargo bay. I suppose familiarity breeds a false sense of security.
Since my target was occupied I was obliged to use a small conduit maintenance bot to gain access, little bigger than a mouse and resembling a hummingbird with grab-arms. I guided it in through the fuel lines, void of plasma now the tanks were full, steering it along the internal maze of valves and vents until it emerged in the central tubeway. I let it hover for a while as its audio-feed relayed the muted sound of Mina’s whimpers. I’d noticed she never slept very well, prone to nightmares and unconscious rambling. I listened as she came awake with a shout, cries subsiding amid Jack’s soothing whispers. I waited until silence returned then guided the bot to Markov’s workshop.
The safe sat in the Belter’s jerry-rigged sonic array unmarked and undamaged, Jack no doubt deciding other matters were more pressing at the moment. I had some notion of how to operate Markov’s contraption, but since I knew the combination, it didn’t really matter. The lock was an eye-scan, hand-print combo but, like all security systems, had a back-door in the form of a twelve-digit code known only to the captain of the Malthus II and senior Exocore executives. Securing it had been expensive and it was fortunate Fed Sec hadn’t bothered to change it when they took over the ship, it was also quite possible they hadn’t even opened the safe since what it held had no value to them. To Jack however…
The safe door swung open, the hinges creaking a little. There was a spike in the audio-feed as Mina’s whimpering resumed momentarily before settling back into fitful slumber. I didn’t push my luck, ordering the bot to retrieve the contents and close the door. The safe held only one item, a thin seven-inch square wrapped in cellophane, delicately clutched in the bot’s pincers as it made its way back to me.
Leverage, the Colonel had said, more than once. You can never have enough leverage.
Chapter 6
The Malthus II had an impressive meal and rec hall, a spinning hollow globe in the centre of the hab-cluster generating two-thirds earth standard gravity. Jack, Mina and Lucy sat eating breakfast next to a cascading water fountain, the droplets falling in gentle arcs through a multi-coloured light array. Jack scowled as I sat down to join them, ignoring my good-natured greeting. Mina avoided eye-contact and kept on eating her cereal. Lucy just grinned around a mouthful of bacon and eggs.
“Enough food in the stores to last us a decade or more,” she commented, cheek bulging. “No dehydrated crap either. Looks like Fed Sec knows how to feed its people.”
“The price of freedom is lousy cuisine,” I replied before turning to Mina. “You’ll find all the target info uploaded to the analyst station on the bridge. I’ll need you to produce a full intel picture, most favourable attack scenarios. Kind of thing you’re good at, right?”
Jack stiffened. “You expect us to take a part in this farce?”
“You’ve been press-ganged, cap’n.” I gave a hearty chuckle. “Best accept it and bend your back to the task at hand, matey, yo ho, etcetera. Think of it as repaying your considerable debt to the orbital community. Whilst Mrs Jack’s busy on the bridge you can take a look at the exo-suits. There’s bound to be some combat models among them, might come in handy.”
His hands twitched on the table and I noted he still had his impressive knife strapped to his thigh.
“Jack,” Mina said softly.
“Repaying my debt, huh?” Jack said, turning to me, red dot burning in his eye. “What about your debts, Demon guy? I’ve heard about you, often wondered if it’d be you they’d send. Not really a job for a hero, right? If you’re gonna send someone after me, they better be worse.”
I couldn’t fault
his reasoning, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “Much as I’d enjoy a lecture on morality from a king-size scumbag, I think I’d prefer it if you shut your mouth and go do as you’re told.”
I saw a wicked grin pass across Lucy’s face as Jack got to his feet, breath coming hard, hands twitching. “Always the same with you people. Fought a war for freedom and then made yourselves into what you fought against. The void should be free, beyond all your taxes and rules, but you want to turn it into just another prison.”
“Whilst you want it as a hunting ground,” I returned, rising from the table, forcing away the annoying realisation that I was letting him get to me and all this dick-measuring was seriously unwise. “Yeah, you’re free all right, free to steal and murder whilst your victims are free to suffocate in hard vac.”
“Jack,” Mina said again as his hand inched towards his knife.
“No please do,” I said, spreading my hands. “I’m happy to demonstrate how much worse than you I am.”
His mouth was forming into a snarl when a shrill klaxon sounded through the hall, quickly followed by the cool tones of the automated warning. “Fire detected on maintenance deck four. Suppression systems off-line. Initiating emergency protocols. Fire detected on maintenance deck four…”
“Markov!” I hissed as the holo schematic came up on a nearby data node, a red smear of fire steadily growing on a deck close to the ore processing levels, multiple icons flashing to indicate malfunctioning safety systems.
“Hacked the safety protocols,” I muttered. “Nice and quiet so I wouldn’t notice.” Must’ve started before he came to beg for a lifeboat. Too soft.
“We didn’t know about this,” Mina said quickly.
I glanced at Jack, surmising from his evident rage that she was telling the truth.
“Another ten minutes and we’ll be cut off from the Dead Reckoning,” Lucy said, reading the schematic. “Guess he’s trying to steal her.”
“With a nuke on board?” Jack said.
“Probably hoping to max-burn towards the nearest hab before it goes off,” I said.
“He must be desperate.” Lucy shook her head with a wry smile. “There’s nothing close enough.”
“Could be he has some idea how to defuse it,” I said. “He’s a clever fellow.”
“And willing to leave us behind,” she said. “And I thought we were such a happy family.”
I rebooted the safety protocols, extinguishers springing to work on the effected deck, the red smear stalling but not diminishing. “Too much fuel down there,” Jack said. “It’s taken hold.”
“There’s still a path to the Dead Reckoning.” Lucy’s finger traced through the holo. “If we detour through medical and accommodation…”
“Feel free,” I said, making for the exit.
“The off-switch for the nuke!” Mina called after me.
“Yeah, I lied about that,” I said over my shoulder before propelling into the weightless corridor beyond. “Good luck if you make it out.”
I’d stashed some weapons in various locations whilst the others had been asleep. If things had continued to escalate with Jack, I’d have made for the carbine secured behind an access panel near the meal hall entrance; you don’t fight fair with the likes of him. It was a standard issue 4mm caseless of bespoke Fed Sec design, completely recoilless and intended for close-quarters combat in a micro-grav environment. It was odds-on Markov had found a weapon of his own, if not fashioned one from the various doohickeys he’d purloined during the voyage.
The automated warning shifted from full alert to an emergency containment scenario, indicating the fire was starting to abate. Either the suppression system was winning or more likely it had just run out of fuel. Either way the main decks between me and the cargo bay were still flooded with toxic smoke and I had no time to find a respirator.
I paused at a data-node to gauge Markov’s progress, the red blob of his thermal signature inching towards the cargo bay. I abandoned Lucy’s suggested route in favour of the ventilation system, blowing the hatches and hauling myself along in a four-limbed sprint, carbine strapped tight to my chest. The vents brought me out in the central tubeway, the schematic putting me ahead of Markov. In retrospect I probably should have wondered why a Belter seemed to be moving so slowly.
I found cover behind a bulkhead and waited for him to appear, carbine set to three round burst. I had no intention of offering him the chance to surrender. A faint scuff of metal brought the carbine up as the figure rounded the corner, lumbering along like a drunken ape, long metal limbs flailing about, each one fitted with a small heating unit. Bot! I realised, twisting about. Clever bastard built a decoy.
I was way too late, a searing pain lancing through my head as my extremities spasmed and the carbine drifted away from a suddenly nerveless grip. My vision fragmented into a yellow haze lit by the occasional blossom of branching red lines. I was dimly aware of connecting with the tubeway wall, of drool trailing from my lips, and the faint sensation of the neural interface being plucked from my head.
“Never hacked a brain before,” I heard Markov say. “This will be interesting.”
*
I came round with the sting of lubricant and solvent assailing my nostrils, lids scraping over gritted eyes and what felt like a hatchet buried in the base of my skull. Tight restraints kept me from floating free of some kind of gurney. My clouded vision traced a thick cluster of wires from the trodes fitted to my forehead to the array of sensors before which Markov was hunched, long neck twisting as he switched gazes from one holo to another. From what I could glimpse of my surroundings he had taken me to a long disused storage compartment, close to the ore processing levels judging by the constant din of conveyors and pulping hammers. I closed my eyes, forcing my swelling heartbeat to a regular rhythm before speaking in a faint croak. “There’s no off-switch. You’re wasting your time.”
“I surmised that from my first look at your nuke,” Markov replied without turning. “But, since I’ll shortly have command of the Malthus II, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
I fought down a wave of nausea, digging my fingernails into my palms to keep from zoning out. “What did you hit me with?”
He flicked a long-fingered hand at a contraption stickied to the wall, a small plastic and glass device resembling a flashlight. “Ocular scrambler. Induces a form of epilepsy. Should’ve worn a visor, Inspector.”
“Chief Inspector.”
“Of course. I am remiss, please forgive me.”
I watched him run some algorithms, long lines of code scrolling in a migraine inducing haze. “It’d take a planet-sized quantum computer a year or more to break a CAOS Intelligence hack,” I told him. “Tick tock, Markov.”
“Don’t have to break the hack.” He propelled back from his console array, limbs extending as he revolved above me, a faint smile of regret on his long face as he placed the neural interface back on my head. “Just you.”
I immediately tried to access the Malthus II’s internal security net, hoping to vent the air from this compartment, but received no response. I was completely cut off from the ship. I noticed Markov had a remote of some kind in his other hand, a small plastic box of mismatched parts held together with duct tape and featuring a single red button.
“My people are often deeply spiritual, as you know,” he said. “Borrowing from various belief systems, the older and less Judeo-Christian, the better. My clan were all about the eastern philosophies, one of which holds that the eyes are the windows to the soul.”
He plucked something from the toolbelt around his too-thin waist, a small data-stick with an odd sucker-like attachment in place of the usual connector. He powered it up and placed it on my sternum where it gave a small spasm before lancing something narrow and very sharp into my chest, punching through the bone into the nerve centre beyond. The flash of agony was only just within the bounds of my control, making me jerk, teeth clenched as I hyperventilated, spittle rising in small wh
ite globs from my flaring lips.
“Curious thing about neural interfaces,” Markov continued. “Feedback. Strong emotional or physical responses in the wearer produce a kind of fuzz in the sensory readouts, noise in the machine you might say. Just for a split second, but it opens a window, all those unfamiliar impulses flowing through the command interface produce a tiny moment of opportunity. One I’m afraid I need to prolong. So you see, my parents and all those other deluded, sanctimonious nutbags were wrong. The baring of a soul is not a matter of vision, just pain.”
He gave another oddly regretful smile and pressed the button on the remote.
Up until this juncture the varied paths of my life had tended to cultivate the illusion that pain is endurable, that nothing hurts so bad you can’t control it, focus it, use it to fuel hate and rage, or compassion and sacrifice should the need arise. Pain was the spark to my enlistment in the Resistance and later Covert Ops. It also gave me the strength to say goodbye to Consuela and stand by and watch after Choi drank poison. Pain was an old friend, I thought. I was wrong.
It was as if a multi-fingered hand of white hot metal had cracked open my chest and begun to rummage around inside. The first flare of it was enough to leave me awash with instant sweat, every muscle tensed, teeth clenched so hard I wondered they didn’t shatter, tears streaming from my eyes and bowels voiding to stain the air. For a second all sensation slipped away and my vision dimmed, leaving a faint and not entirely unwelcome realisation that I was about to die.
“Little too much,” I heard Markov mutter, very far away. The pain receded, not a great deal, but enough to uncloud my vision. I managed to swivel my spasming neck enough to see him scrutinising the displays, eyes narrowed in concentration. It may have been no more than a few seconds, but it felt like a century. “Yes,” he breathed with a small grin. “Yes, there we are.”
The display flickered then lit up with a now familiar interface: the Malthus II’s main command menu. A little fuzzy round the edges but still usable. Markov donned a neural interface, one of his own making judging by the lack of any concession to ergonomics. Through the rivulets of sweat stinging my eyes I managed to discern he was accessing the maintenance bot controls.