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By the time I reached my quarters, I was kinda relishing the idea of being away from Mack and Tens—and really liking the thought of being out from under Odyssey’s thumb. That last bit? That was something I was going to try and prolong, for as long as I possibly could.
I’d also compared Tens’ map, to the map the ship gave me access to, and a couple of scans that I’d done by tapping into the security system and tracking back through the files. There were some good matches, some glaring mismatches, such as the official map not having any of the hidden passages marked, and some curious discrepancies. I took a look at those, keeping a kind of half focus on the world around me, as I stopped in front of my door.
“Cutter,” I told it. “Let me in.”
I half expected to hear Tens’ voice in my head, saying something along the lines of ‘well done; nice and simple.’ It was unnerving when there was only silence, also unnerving when the door slid open to allow me entry. I caught a glimpse of movement, stepped back out, and grabbed for the fist swinging toward my head.
That was half expected. The way my luck had been running lately, it would come as no surprise to discover that Marl was still alive, and I was going down. Tens was laughing fit to bust, as he opened his hand, reversed my hold, wrapped his fingers around my wrist and yanked me inside.
“You sonuva...” I started, as he caught my other fist, and was surprised when I heard my own voice saying, “Close. Lock.”
“Sit down,” Tens said, waving the small player at me as he turned it off. “I don’t have much time,” and he pulled a small computer from inside his ship suit, playing out a length of cord.
“Sit,” he said, indicating the chair placed in front of an alcove that probably turned into a desk.
I frowned, but I sat.
“How—”
“Teleport,” Tens said, “but I’ve got to be outta here in another thirty minutes, so let me give your implant a quick upgrade.”
“Upgrade?”
“Unless you’re fond of getting zapped every time someone needs to put you down.”
“Fine.” I waited, watching as best I could, while Tens connected the computer to my head.
“Stay still,” he said. “It’s a biggish download.”
I watched as he plugged himself into the computer, and closed his eyes.
“What—”
“And keep quiet. I need to concentrate.”
I shut my mouth, and leant back against the cabin wall. Fine. Whatever. I sure as shit hoped Tens was going to have time to explain—and then I didn’t have to say anything, because Tens started talking inside my head.
“First things first,” he said, and handed my mind what looked like a set of keys. “Keep those safe. Now, come take a look at this.”
So, I did, following him through the inside of the implant, as he explained new security features, like the anti-intrusion software and extra fire-walling that should make it almost impossible to hack.
“Almost,” he said, emphasizing it, since we both knew there were people out there, who were like us, and specialized in getting into secure systems.
Like I needed the reminder, but then, I hadn’t programmed the implant, and I didn’t know how to hack my own head to do so.
Tens showed me how.
“Your head’s going to lock you out, once a day, for the next twenty Standard days,” he said. “It’ll be down for a half hour. Every time you hack your way into it before it unlocks, Mack’s going to pay a bonus into that account you wanted set up.”
I was very impressed. Talk about your ultra-incentive—and Mack didn’t even know what I wanted it for, although I suspected he’d worked it out. Hopefully, he hadn’t worked out that I intended to run from him, as well. I listened as Tens went on to show the improved communications protocols, and downloaded the files we’d taken from Bastien’s system.
“Go through these,” he said. “Make sure you know the layout of his complex like the back of your hand. See if you can find any records on Bendigo, in there. Mack has his own idea about who the guy is, and we’re wishing Odyssey had been a little quicker in their teleport... or that we’d been a little slower, but his credentials checked out, and he’d paid, and then you came along, and then Odyssey decided to let us continue your training.”
For a minute, I got the impression he wanted to add something to that, but he didn’t. He just went on to explain a few of the other handy-dandy bits and pieces he was adding. Thirty minutes wasn’t nearly long enough. Tens was caught mid-sentence as silver light engulfed him. He grabbed the computer, and I had to think quick to pull the hard-wire from my head.
I didn’t want to contemplate what might have happened if I hadn’t. I watched as the silver light shimmered along the cord and wrapped itself around the end, its flickering light vanishing after the rest of Tens, while I looked on. Nope. Did not want to consider what might have happened if I’d still been attached to that.
I felt something ping across the outside of my implant, and figured it was Tens checking up on me.
I’m fine, I thought, remembering what he’d said about not transmitting ship-to-ship, and I set about exploring my cabin. I hadn’t had time to investigate the lock-boxes, let alone explore the strange hollowness I’d detected behind the narrow space serving as a closet. First things first, though, I had some equipment to explore.
I eyed the lock-boxes that Tens had stowed in the storage space behind where the bed folded into the wall. They were, of course, locked. Combination locked. Searching my implant showed there was a special application for opening them, waiting in the programs Tens had downloaded into my head. Great!
Not so great was the way the application had been carefully labelled, and then locked. Thanks a lot, Tens. I swung the bed down, trying to sort priorities, and was knocked across the room by a blast of heated air.
“You will have to be a lot more careful than that, if you are to survive.” Mack’s voice in my head. “You are not on board my ship, now. You are not safe.”
I picked myself up off the floor, and leant against the wall, catching my breath.
Way to make a point, Mack.
“Fine,” I muttered, and ran another scan of the room.
Heavens knew how long Tens had been in here unsupervised—or what orders Mack had given him. This time, I noticed more than just the hollow behind the closet. Red lines lit up along the rims of all the storage drawers, and a blue outline marked a curious space in the center of the room. I made a mental list of what I needed to do, and then altered the parameters and ran a third scan.
Nice. Yeah, thanks a lot Mack.
Orange warmed points where my sheets could be seen at the edges of the part-closed rectangle of my bed, and I frowned. Biologicals, or poison. It was hard to tell. I glanced at my closet, and then remembered that I couldn’t scan for that kind of thing through the closed door. Damn, because that door was also outlined in red in the other scan.
Fine. I got it. I had to disarm the explosives... and I hoped they were all just as harmless as the one Tens had used on the bed frame. I reached for the closet edge, intending to take a closer look, and then realized I needed the tools in the lock box. And that, of course, was when my implant locked me out.
There are words for situations like this, and I used them all, and then I made a few up, and then I got creative about Mack and Tens’s genealogy, and then I sat myself right down on the chair, and got to work. I was not successful, and I hoped I’d have more luck with the combination for the tools, I needed.
“Dammit, Mack,” I whispered, when I didn’t get it open on the first try, “I don’t have time for this.”
Which must have triggered my implant, because I could hear Mack inside my head, again.
“You will never have all the time you want, or need. You have to learn how to run with that.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, and wondered if this was part of Odyssey’s advanced training schedule, or if it was just Mack’s idea of filling in the gaps.
With a sigh, I tried again, and then again. So much for the third time being the charm.
It was the fifteenth time, and by then I’d learned an appreciation for the deviousness that hung out in Tens’ mind. I scanned the box, discovered the simple trigger mechanism and disarmed it, and then unlocked it. This time, I hesitated before opening it.
What had Mack said? That I had to be a lot more careful if I was to survive? Well, no one said I was anything if not a quick study. I checked the lid. It was difficult without tools, but I found the narrow wire that would have triggered the vial of I-don’t-want-to-think-what-but-maybe-it-will-come-in-handy-later.
Once that was disarmed, I resisted the urge to reach in and take out the vial, or the tools I needed. Instead, I opened the lid, and scanned the contents of the box.
“You are such a bastard,” I said, when everything showed some kind of substance coating the tool handles and the outside of the vial.
I sat back on my heels, and thought about it. Right now, I needed a pair of gloves, but the gloves I needed were locked away in a lightly sealed packet smeared in questionable goo. Just how much did I want to be sure the tiniest smear wouldn’t do something I really didn’t want it to? Or that I could sit here long enough for the stuff to lose its efficacy?
I glanced around the room. Not long, I decided. Firstly, because this was a Mack-‘n’-Tens' combo, and I doubted there was an easy way out, or that it wouldn’t do something I hated, and secondly, because I had a bad feeling about the spaces behind the closet and under my floor. Thirdly, too, because I had a really bad feeling about Bendigo and this ship.
I glanced around the cabin, located the emergency marker for the locker that should contain, at worst, a suit for hull breach, and, at best, supplies and a beacon I could activate for rescue. It proved to be an ‘at-best’ situation, with the locker not being booby-trapped, and then it occurred to me that Mack might also have a really bad feeling about Bendigo, and maybe he hadn’t left me entirely to my own devices. I made a note of the beacon, in case I ever needed it.
Was this what all this stupidity was about? Mack wasn’t just training me; was he also making me aware of the options I had, if things went south? I wondered if that meant Mack wasn’t doing what he’d told Bendigo he’d do, and then decided that maybe that wasn’t something I should bank on.
It was good to discover that this locker came with a first-aid kit, too. Inside that were several sets of surgical gloves, perfect for keeping infection from passing from the patient to the responder, and vice versa—and doubly perfect, when coupled with a sterile cloth, for wiping goop off tool handles without letting it touch skin.
Win.
I made doubly sure of the cleanliness, by using a sterile wipe to go over the surfaces I’d just cleaned, and then I picked up my tools and turned to the closet.
After everything I’d gone through to get the tools, defusing the closet was simple—which left me with the problem of how I was going to identify what it was that had been smeared along the collars and cuffs of most of the new clothes... hanging... there...
“I am such an idiot,” I said, backing away from the closet, as a large figure shoved the clothes aside and stepped into the room. Bendigo looked at me.
“Man has to wonder,” he said, his gaze taking in the tools set neatly beside the closet entrance, “exactly why one of his passengers needs a voice-locked cabin on a ship that’s meant to be friendly.”
I backed up another step, moving toward the cabin door, although the stars knew where I was going to run.
“Or,” Bendigo continued, the turn of his head showing he was taking note of what remained of Mack, or Tens’, booby trap, “why anyone would want to booby trap the cabin of someone they said was one of their valued staff.”
“It was a training exercise,” I said, peering past him, as though the idea my closet could hold him had come as a surprise.
It was a good thing I didn’t have to pretend much.
“Truly?” Bendigo said, and I watched the gears turning behind his eyes. He indicated the room around me. “And all this?”
“Mack thought I had time for training activities on the way out.” I injected some concern into my voice. “He wasn’t wrong, was he? Has something happened?”
Bendigo shook his head, and a faint look of amusement crept across his face.
I frowned, and peered past him, again.
“Why were you in my closet?” I asked.
I’d reached the door leading to the corridor.
“Open,” I said, and then remembered what Mack had said about being careful.
Far too late, as it turned out.
The door opened, and I was grabbed. By two sets of hands. While two snub-nosed blasters were pressed hard into my ribs. And the muzzle of a third touched up against my spine.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Why were you going to run?”
I gave him my widest, most-disbelieving stare.
“Uh, you came out of my closet! What was I supposed to do?”
Bendigo didn’t have an answer for that, but he recovered quickly enough, and tilted his head to one side, as he swept his gaze from my head to my toes.
“Why can’t I access your implant?” he asked, and I let my jaw drop.
“You what?” I asked, managing what I thought was a perfectly credible half-shout.
“Tried to access your implant,” he said, as though it was a perfectly understandable thing for him to be able to do. “If we’re going on a mission, together, we need to be able to communicate.”
Well, that made perfect, operational sense, except we weren’t actually on a mission, right now... well, apart from the whole travelling to one, thing.
“I lock it down, when I’m off duty,” I said.
“So, how am I supposed to contact you?” he asked, and I shot a meaningful glance at the intercom.
“Without the entire crew being privy.”
“Did you try the console?”
“I would have, except it wasn’t running.”
Not running? Oh, right. Yeah. That was because I’d caught the warning flash of red outlining the panel covering where the desk was stowed.
“I hadn’t gotten to clearing it, yet.”
Bendigo looked concerned.
“Just how much training did Mack have lined up?”
“Let’s see, there’s explosive charges on pretty much all the access panels, except the emergency locker, because even Mack isn’t that stupid, and I’ve got some kind of biological or poison on the bedding, and on all the clothes in the closet, and there’s probably some kind of contact poison on the contents of the remaining lock boxes, which are probably also booby-trapped to hell and back. After that, I’ll have to do another scan to see if he left anything hidden on a timer delay.”
I waited, enjoying Bendigo’s look of stunned horror, and then I decided to push my luck, just a tiny bit.
“So, what were you doing in my closet?”
And that was when my luck ran out.
“You need a new room,” Bendigo told me. “These men will show you the way.”
One of the men, tugged on my arm, but I’d decided I wasn’t going anywhere, and I resisted the pull.
“I like this room,” I said, “...apart from the hole in my closet. That I don’t like.”
“Too bad. This room’s taken. Now, go.”
I wanted to know who by, and I wanted my gear.
“I’ll just get my stuff,” I said, but Bendigo shook his head.
“I’ll put your gear in storage,” he told me. “You won’t be needing it, until we get there.”
I stared at him.
“Better idea. You seal up that hole in my closet. You leave my gear where it is, and you tell your men to let go of me, or you can go do your mission on your own.”
I waited, watching those cogs turn, watching as he calculated whether or not I’d carry out my threat.
“I’ve got an airlock, just your size,” he said, signaling to the men on either side of me, and I was lifted and carried down the corridor.
“Well,” I managed, when we’d gone half its length, “good luck with Mack, then.”
He didn’t pause, and his men didn’t stop either. They turned into a cross corridor, and then moved along another section that ran parallel to the one my room was in, until they came to an airlock. Fear jolted through me like a wave, and I wanted to scream, or fight, or... something.
Being pitched into a small cubicle linked to the vast nothingness of space is not an experience I’d like to repeat. Neither is picking myself up off the hard, steel floor, as the inner door was shut and locked against me. All I wanted to do was scream.
I wanted to rush over to that door and pound on it, try to pry it open with my bare hands, force an override with my implant. Anything. Anything, except stand and stare helplessly at it, as the seals took hold.
I thought hard, and fast, but I couldn’t think of what to do. If I let Bendigo get away with his demands, I wasn’t going to be any good to Mack. And then the warning lights began to strobe, and I didn’t know why I’d bothered standing up.
Try as I might, I couldn’t find the courage to turn around and face the outer doors. I didn’t want to look out at the stars, like some lonely vid-star-hero preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I didn’t want to admire their beauty, or step out toward them in a final act of defiant bravery. I wanted to live, not face death as it came.
I stared at the inner door, catching a glimpse of Bendigo’s face looking out at me through the viewing hatch, and then I sighed. Around me, the amber lights changed to red, and a klaxon started to bleat out its rhythmic warning. I didn’t know what to do. I guessed that there was nothing I could say to change Bendigo’s mind, and I wasn’t going to beg.
Instead, I took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh.
“Well," I said, “if that’s the way you want it,” and I dropped down onto my knees, and closed my eyes, trying not to hear the sound of the outer doors unlocking, but reacting to it anyway. I wrapped my hands around the emergency grab bar running around the lock at ground level , and pulled in close, hunched and tense, as I waited for the doors to open, and the lock to spit me into space.
Air started to whistle past me, as the doors began to part. I leant into it, curling in on myself as despair washed over me, and waiting for the moment when I’d lose my grip and be thrown out of the ship. Tears sprang to my eyes and traced their way down my cheeks, but I didn’t move.
It was a surprise to hear the doors suddenly snap shut, to feel the wind stop blowing, to be able to breathe more easily, as the klaxon quieted and the lights stopped flashing red and amber, but went back to a steady, burning white. I didn’t move.
I did move, when two sets of hands grabbed hold of me, yanking me loose before they dragged me through the inner door. As it closed behind me, I gasped with delayed fear, and more tears prickled my eyes as my nose started to run. I was stood in front of Bendigo, but was too hunched in on myself to look up at him.
“Learn your lesson?” he asked, and I could think of only one reply.
Lifting my head, I looked him right in the eye and said, “Do I get my room back?”
