22


“This way. Elise first, then me, and then the doctor. Don’t get too far ahead.” I ran beside Hastings, frequently looking behind us for pursuit. There were a lot of danger areas to watch, including smaller towers, converted point-defense turrets, and a series of metal domes that I didn’t recognize.
The doctor couldn’t keep up. I estimated he’d lost fifteen or twenty pounds in captivity, but it was obvious he’d never been a runner. His life had been pampered and completely devoid of physical challenges. Elise pushed the pace but never abandoned us completely. I thought I was going to have to rein her in, but she stopped to check on us from time to time.
Her instincts saved us from two groups of the RSG. I watched her stop and hold up a hand for us to hide—like something she’d seen in an action vid. Moments later, a group from the RSG mob swaggered by with guns rested on their shoulders or holstered dangerously in their waistbands. The men were shirtless and covered with tattoos despite the shifting atmosphere.
On one section of the top deck it was humid and hot, and the next dry and cold. Steam vented from the failing ventilation system, shooting toward the sky where there must’ve been a gap in the environment shield. In one direction, it was snowing, and another, raining. The shifting light and shadows caused by the orbital pattern gave the landscape a surreal quality.
It was fascinating and horrifying to watch gaps appear in the artificial atmosphere and reseal themselves, sometimes in the space of a few heartbeats, but other times lasting nearly a minute. Tremors continued to shake Dreadmax but not as frequently as I had feared earlier. The station was like a living creature—or maybe a dying leviathan.
If there was one big quake, we were all royally screwed. We were hours past the mission clock I was given and even farther beyond Hastings’ estimation of how long the place could stay in one piece.
I heard something that didn’t make sense at first: loud music. It wasn’t the same as the techno hip-hop and thrash metal montage I’d heard at the RSG stronghold. This sounded like someone was playing horns and drums, maybe even some sort of whistling flute section.
Elise held up a hand for us to stop, then walked backward several steps to where we were crouched down behind a power converter box.
“We can’t go this way,” she complained, shaking her head. “A bunch of gangsters are camped out around the fire barrel, drinking and popping needles.”
“Stay here.”
I went to look for myself, hoping it was only a small group that we could either sneak past or I could eliminate.
The maintenance alley opened into a wide surface area like the aperture of a camera. I hadn’t seen anything like this during my flyover of the main ring and wondered how far we’d come during our desperate flight from the spec ops teams, gangs, and half-mad below-deck dwellers.
The effect of the opening was a clearing where a large number of people could gather. It was slightly concave as well, giving it a natural amphitheater feel. A stream of RSG tough guys arrived even as I watched.
Around the perimeter of this clearing were simple dwellings, gun turrets, and maintenance pods that had been converted into apartments. The locals kept their distance from the growing number of gang members—resentful expression controlled to avoid a violent confrontation. Beyond the impromptu gang party was the strange festival music making me suspect the people there had made other plans for their final days than hosting a bunch of tattooed murderers.
Doctor Hastings and Elise were waiting silently when I returned.
“What are we going to do?” Elise asked, arms crossed and one foot tapping nervously. “We can’t just sit here.”
“That’s absolutely what we should do. The real Union soldiers will arrive soon. They’ll take us back to the ship before Dreadmax comes apart,” Doctor Hastings said.
“We’re moving. It’ll be a slow process, because we have to go around this aperture. Once we make it to the next section, we can probably blend with non-gang civilians,” I said.
Doctor Hastings opened his mouth to protest.
I pointed my high tech HDK rifle at him, then waggled it in the direction I wanted him to go. “We’re done with this conversation. When I say move, you move.”
The doctor complied but complained the entire time. “All you were supposed to do was find me. Lieutenant Grady and his people should have dropped in to secure an extraction zone or moved us to the predetermined landing site for the shuttle. But instead, he abandoned the plan for an old buddy. Very unprofessional.”
“Grady’s dead. Let’s not talk about why. Unless you want to give me a full disclosure about your mission here and what you expect will happen to me when it’s done,” I said.
Doctor Hastings backed out of the conversation quickly. His pace improved.
Gangs continued to mass in the large open area. I couldn’t hear or see the progress of the spec ops teams but had a good idea of what was happening. They had tried chasing us with overwhelming speed and firepower. Now they were going to do things by the numbers, secure bridges and walkway crossings and search on a grid pattern that I wouldn’t be able to escape without a ship or a miracle.
Our arrival among the civilians went almost unnoticed. The few who saw us welcomed us with fuel cans full of alcohol. Some of them smoked what I thought was fungus wrapped in paper, and others had actual tobacco, probably stolen at a high price from the agricultural level below decks or smuggled into the prison station.
The strange music grew louder, distorted by the artificial atmosphere of this place. I was impressed at how many people were coming out onto the streets. It was night again but wouldn’t be for long. The way Dreadmax orbited its host planet and turned on its own axis created a nearly random night and day schedule, or that was how it seemed.
I’d had a lot of things going on other than setting my watch or watching the sun come up.
“Welcome, strangers!” said a man with a crazy half beard and wild eyes. “Do you love a parade?”
“Sure.” I glanced at Elise. “Keep hold of your dad and don’t wander off.”
“Relax, my man!” the half-bearded stranger said, giving me a hug. I grabbed his left hand to make sure he didn’t pick my pocket. His right hand wasn’t a danger because it was holding a large metal container of what might’ve been pure alcohol.
“Hey, dude, not so rough.” He lifted the can toward me, offering a drink. Then he pulled away and threw his free arm around a woman about his own age. It was unclear whether they knew each other before this chance encounter.
He continued to talk. I tried to listen to what he said, but there were a lot of people now and everyone was moving. It wasn’t a parade exactly, but a large shuffling progression across the top deck with music, drink, and smoking.
I pushed the pace, moving through the crowd, hoping the camouflage would hold until we could get a good distance away from our pursuers. The way was blocked for a time when we reached the center of the end-of-the-world celebration. They had one motor vehicle, a huge flatbed truck with dancing girls and a band.
“Are they all playing the same song?” Elise asked.
“No idea,” I said.
“They are in fact playing a highly bastardized version of jazz music with classical overtones,” X-37 said.
“Good to know,” I said. “You have anything else useful to share?”
“I detected gun fire. Didn’t you hear it?” X-37 asked.
I jumped onto the step rail of the truck and looked for trouble. Callus had caught up with his scout team, apparently. He had also decided that body slamming one of the festival goers was the best way to communicate.
“Hey, asshole, what the hell are you doing?” someone yelled.
A single gunshot followed.
Another squad of Union commandos dragged one of the more sober participants away from the others and forced him to sit next to a wall, where they interrogated him.
In another quarter of the celebration, RSG and NG rivals were mingling with the crowd and looking for a fight.
“What do you see?” Elise asked.
“This festival is about to get a lot less festive. We’re almost through it.” I jumped down, leading the girl and her father toward a set of stairs that descended into a low area where large ships could be docked and repaired.
A volley of gunshots echoed behind us.
“None of this would have happened if you had just taken me to the proper authorities,” Hastings said.
I ignored him and kept moving.
* * *
No mission was easy, but this was fucking ridiculous. I started to wonder if Hastings was right. Maybe this was all my fault. Did collateral damage matter here? I tried not to think of men, women, and children getting blasted into the void or crushed by collapsing infrastructure.
“Callus has summoned reinforcements. From what I can see, they’re all spec ops. That’s almost a full Battalion,” X-37 said.
I repeated what X had just told me.
Crouching beside me, watching the same area I was looking at, Elise seemed younger than she was. “What does that mean?”
“It means they brought enough firepower to have a war,” I told her. “A Union destroyer can deploy a battalion of spec ops soldiers and a division of troops. There’s a good chance they expected to storm Dreadmax. Given the timeline, I imagine the rules of engagement would be very relaxed.”
“What happens to all these people? Not that I care. Even the shipbuilders are despicable,” she said.
I shifted my position so that I could see back and make sure the doctor hadn’t run off. He sat with his back against a railing near the center of the building we were on, looking as beaten as any human being I had ever seen.
“Your dad looks tired,” I said.
Elise didn’t respond.
I wanted to ask what she meant about the shipbuilders but didn’t have the energy or the need to argue. They were obviously saints compared to the RSG, but my own experience with humanity had been generally disappointing. There was good and bad in everyone. “Grady told me he put in a request for an evacuation. He seemed to think there is some sort of contingency for the civilians.”
“You believe that?” she asked.
“What the hell happened to you that you’re so untrusting of human nature?” Something was wrong with this kid.
“You really don’t want to know,” she grumbled. “I wish they’d never brought me here.”
“Tell me about that. The real story.”
Her tone betrayed her frustration. “I have my own conspiracy theories about secret labs and my father’s work. You know what he did to save me and what that could mean.” She paused. “But what makes you think I know the real story? They took me from the one place I was starting to fit in and kept me locked in a tower. The literal tower, kind of like the metaphorical version of my childhood. Safety and comfort, sure. Freedom, not so much. I’m sick of it. If we get off this place, I’m never going back to that life.”
Callus’ backup teams searched on a grid pattern, pushing a hungover group of civilians ahead of them.
“X, how bad is our timeline?” I asked, instantly regretting the words. Dreadmax would probably explode in the next ten seconds just to teach me not to jinx the mission.
“We have far exceeded the estimated time of collapse. My analysis shows that there is a shrinking area of survivability on the top deck. You might want to keep that in mind.”
“Thanks, X.”
“What’s it like having nerve-ware? That’s who you’re talking to, right? Your Reaper AI?” she asked
“Yeah, kid. It’s not as fun as it sounds.”
“I wish I was a Reaper,” she said through clenched teeth.
I used my augmented left arm to turn her head until she was forced to look into my cybernetic left eye. “No you don’t, kid. Never wish for something like that.”
She jerked away from me. “You’re such an asshole.”
I wondered if the doctor wasn’t right about turning ourselves in. If I could find somebody other than Callus, it might be the only way to survive this clusterfuck. "Stay here and keep an eye out. I'm going back down to check on the doctor."
"Good luck with that," she said, arms crossed.
"Do you know how to whistle?” I asked. “Signal me if the spec ops team gets close."
She whistled a familiar melody, then a darker, sadder tune. “One for the Union, and the other for Dreadmax baddies."
“Good thinking.”
I found the doctor munching on a protein bar. "Where did you find that?"
He slipped it back into a pocket. “I've had it for a while."
"Keeping it until you need it, that's smart. Elise might need one soon, if you have more stashed away," I said.
He looked away guiltily.
"What are you really doing here, Doc?” I asked.
He tried to back away, avoiding eye contact. “I told you everything. The Union funded my research, extremely important research that will help a lot of people someday."
I listened to what he was saying, but also watched for non-verbal cues. He wasn't exactly lying, not yet, but we had a long way to go in this conversation.
"Things got complicated,” Hastings explained. “There were accusations against some of my associates. Claims of disloyalty to the Union. They took hostages like Elise to force good behavior. It sounds bad when I talk about it like this, but the things we were working on were bigger than each of us individually.”
"Nice. I'll put your name in for father of the year."
"My research on Elise is irreplaceable!" he insisted. “You have no idea what I learned simply from working on her and adjusting the formula. It was revolutionary.”
"Interesting. I thought you gave her that medicine to save her from a childhood illness. Now it sounds like she was just a lab rat," I said.
"I don't have to take this abuse,” he scoffed.
I grabbed the front of his jumpsuit and pulled him close. "You do, Doc. But only if you want to keep breathing. I don't have anything to lose. Piss me off, things will go badly for you."
"Are you taking me to the Union or not?" he said, feigning confidence. “They can punish you even here. No one can stand against the government. Not against them. They control everything. Isn’t that why you’re here? Because they control you?”
I ignored the question. “What I do really depends on what keeps the most people alive.”
Hastings laughed skeptically. “You’re concerned about innocent lives? That's an interesting thing to hear from a Reaper."
I glared at him. "Ex-Reaper."
The doctor shook his head with a cynical expression on his face. "I doubt you can leave that behind so easily. You don’t fool me, Reaper Cain. You like killing too much. I think you’re just looking for an excuse to kill me and my daughter.”
I stared at him for a long second. “Not your daughter.”
He stopped talking after that.