Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume (19 page)

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 white 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.

“Fortunately for you,” he said over his shoulder, moving away to open a nearby storage locker. “This little arrangement of ours won’t last. The body can only take so much after all. So rest assured you’ll probably suffer a cardiac arrest in about forty-five minutes, not that you have that long.”

He pulled a modified EVA suit from the storage locker and began to put it on. It seemed the standard model wasn’t constructed for Belter proportions so he had stitched together four separate suits with a distinct lack of tailoring expertise, making him resemble a poorly made rag doll by the time he clicked the helmet into place. I stifled a shout of pain and concentrated on the command display, picking out a graphic showing a countdown.

“Of course I’ll need to blow the hatches,” Markov said through the helmet’s speaker, floating closer to peer down at me. “Clear a path to avoid any embarrassing encounters with my crewmates. But don’t worry, this compartment is air tight, need you to keep the window open whilst I make my way out. We’re only two AUs from a clan-ship trade route. When that bot you put in the fission reactor opens its canister… Well, bang that size is bound to draw an audience. Shouldn’t have to float around for more than a day or two before someone comes to investigate. Easy time for a Voidborn.”

“L-” I managed through a cloud of spittle, jerking with the effort. “L-lucy…“

“Sorry. Only room for one. And isn’t it a little late for all this chivalric concern?”

My eyes flicked to the countdown, thirty minutes.

“Yes,” Markov said, tracking my gaze. “I’m afraid this predicament is going to last until the reactor blows.”

He propelled towards the exit then twisted about, spreading his too-long arms in an elaborate gesture of farewell. “I killed the great Slab City Demon. Pity I’ll never get to tell anyone…” He trailed off as the exit slid open behind him, turning to regard the figure who hung there, a bulky silhouette with a long-bladed knife in his hand and a single red bead glowing in his shadowed face.

Markov’s helmeted head swung to the scrambler still sitting on its sticky pad, at least two metres out of reach. “I… I have a way to defuse the nuke…”