The tingling in my brain had taken a hold of me. I couldn’t think about The Accelerator. Couldn’t help Johnny, Cliff, and Alyssna as they searched the labs for the neutral beam generator. I stared at the deck, not seeing a thing.
Only images that had already happened strobed through my mind. Things that others had said, or actions I’d witnessed, or events that had seemed coincidental at first but really weren’t.
They slowly solidified within me and my eyes glazed over in anger and rage.
Richard was standing in the corridor with me. Johnny was calling to me, but I couldn’t answer him.
Cliff appeared at my side to tell me they had located Component Four, then he stopped as he noticed my expression.
I muttered to Cliff, while still staring at Richard, “I think we have some things to figure out.”
“We have the component. We’re getting it ready to move. When Meg returns with SC-1 we can take it through the umbilical. It’ll fit, but barely. We can leave the Commodore here.” Then his eyes flashed. “Or, I can take care of him.”
“Load the components. Leave Clarke here. He’s on his own now.” I was still staring at Richard.
“Got it, Boss.”
“Wait.”
He stopped and stood there, staring. “Everything okay?”
“No, it’s not.” I sighed and said, “When the bomb went off at the torpedo launcher inspection and hurt Renée, weeks ago at Trieste, what did your investigation show?”
He frowned. “Is now the time—”
“Yes!” I roared. “Answer me, Cliff!”
He stared at me for a heartbeat. Then, “A bomb. Ammonium nitrate, stolen from the Mining Division.”
“That’s right. And yet, when it happened, Richard said that it was likely a torpedo detonation. That’s the theory that he was pushing.”
Richard’s face was a mask of confusion. “We all thought that. It was the likely cause.” He tilted his head. “Mac, what—”
“And what did you find, Cliff?”
“There were too many suspects. It was impossible to narrow down.”
“You told me that you had a list. You said there was ‘nothing believable’ on it. Why’d you say that?”
Cliff hesitated. “Well, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it just now.”
“Tell me.” My voice was steel.
He hesitated and then said, “I cross-checked the people who had been near the stores of explosive with the people who had also been in the moonpool when the culprit sabotaged your tank with Carbon Monoxide.”
“Go on.”
“There was a name, but I didn’t think it possible.”
“It was Richard.”
Cliff stopped and studied me. Then he glanced at Richard, then back to me. “Yes, he was near the explosive stores. He’s in charge of the shelter constructions under the Living Modules. He had also swum out by the torpedo launcher days earlier.”
Richard said, “But I always swim a five kilometer—”
“But it was a different route than he usually takes,” Cliff continued. “And only that one day.”
“Go on,” I pressed.
“He was also in the moonpool in the hours before your swim outside.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
He shrugged. “I kept it in mind, but it didn’t seem possible, like I told you, Boss.”
I said, “In Churchill, Renée’s PCD went missing. Lost. We found it later, still in Sahar’s office. It’s seems hard to believe that it was in the office the whole time and she couldn’t find it.” I pointed at Richard. “What were you doing to it, while the rest of us were outside Churchill?”
He just watched me and didn’t speak.
I pressed on. “Later, in Trieste, there were two more attacks. The first was the Carbon Monoxide attack. We’d assumed it was against me, but it wasn’t, was it, Richard? It was Renée!”
Cliff swore. “Are you—”
“You switched her tank for one contaminated with CO. The video picked you up in the moonpool. And you planted the microbombs that shorted our comms.”
Richard said, “Mac, this is not the time to—”
“You sabotaged my comm not to keep me from calling for help for myself . . . but to keep me from calling for help for Renée!” I took several deep breaths. “Then the airlock attack,” I spat. “You had already inserted some code into Renée’s PCD. It didn’t work in the airlock. You did that. In fact, her PCD comms stopped working entirely, and didn’t again until just a few minutes ago!” I paused and took several deep breaths. “You planned to lock her in that airlock and kill her. She was unable to call out.”
“Mac, I—”
“But I was with her, which you didn’t expect. Sahar too.” I thought back to the sequence leading up to that event. “You’d been showing Sahar around. When I called to invite her for the swim to tour the outside, you resisted. Sahar said you didn’t want her to go. It’s because you’d arranged the attack on Renée!”
“I—”
But I didn’t let him finish. Cliff was staring at me in horror. “In fact,” I snarled, “you disabled her PCD. But now, she’s outside, and you just triggered it to signal their position. You just did it, from in here.”
He remained silent.
Cliff said, “But Mac, this doesn’t make sense. Why?”
“It’s the reason you didn’t pay attention to his name on your list of suspects. It’s the reason he was able to do what he did without anyone suspecting. Because he’s so obsessed with independence and defeating the superpowers, no one would ever suspect him. It’s the reason we weren’t able to figure it out until now.”
“But we still don’t know why. What’s the motivation?”
I sighed. “Richard has said to me repeatedly to focus on the mission. To not get distracted. He’s said that over and over. First on SC-1 when returning from Churchill. He said, ‘We just have to stay away from distractions. We need to focus and stay the path.’ Then, back at Churchill in the BSFIF labs, while stealing Component One, he said again, ‘Keep your mind on the job . . . distractions, remember . . . ’” I paused and took a breath. My heart was pounding.
Cliff’s face, usually so calm and serious, was now displaying a cascading series of emotions. “I had my people check your tank before your swim with Renée, Mac. I never thought to have hers checked. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even consider that she might have been the target.”
I sighed. “Each time it could have been me. I was scheduled to do the torpedo launcher inspection. I was out with Renée when her tank poisoned her. I was in the airlock with her when it malfunctioned. We just assumed . . . ” I stared at Richard. “After the airlock attack, you knew we’d blamed the Commodore for it. Cliff had traced the hack back to his computer. But it’s only because you were deflecting suspicion! You broke into his cabin and did it! You pinned the blame on the person we already suspected. Naturally, we’d also think it was him. But it wasn’t at all. Clarke isn’t a saint, but he isn’t trying to kill one of our team. It was you, Richard. It was you all along!”
—••—
“In fact,” I said, “this whole thing has been you. This whole mission. From the very start. You started us on this. To steal the weapon. You introduced us to Sahar, to Alyssna, to Chalam. You wanted to go get this neutral beam. You’ve manufactured this entire situation.”
“I didn’t manipulate you!” he shouted. “I presented an option and you agreed with me! Trieste needs the neutral beam!”
Behind him, Johnny and Alyssna had hauled a trolley into the corridor with the large device perched atop it. It looked deadly; a single massive barrel three meters long. The lasers we’d already stolen would enclose it. There were wires and cables spiraling around it.
All it needed now was for us to connect it to the Laser Module, the Staging System, and the Aiming Module.
And a fusion source, of course, to feed power to the weapon.
I exhaled. “Richard, you’ve been a long-time proponent of independence. You fought beside my father. But you’ve become obsessed with it. You’re so focussed on it that you’ve resorted to killing the people I love just to keep me ‘on the path,’ as you say. You’re sick.” I clenched my teeth. Hard.
I almost tasted blood.
The rage was burning through me.
I couldn’t control it.
Then I raised my pistol and pointed it directly at Richard.
His face went pale. “Mac, I only want what’s best for Trieste. After they killed your dad, Jessica and I fled. For thirty years we worked at Ballard and waited for the movement to take hold again. And then you started it! With the SCAV drive, you finally had a way to achieve what your dad started. But then I saw that things distracted you. Kept you from working sometimes. Your mind started to stray.”
“So what did you do?” I roared. I held my gun steady. My palm was sweating, and then the barrel started to tremble. “Did you kill her?”
The horrible truth had occurred to me. Every muscle in my body quivered.
I couldn’t control it.
Cliff was watching me. “Uh, Mac. She’s still alive. Renée’s outside. We have to go—”
“Not her,” I said. My finger twitched.
“Then who?”
“He killed her, Cliff, to keep me ‘focused.’ To keep me working for independence. He was telling me he was with us, working for us, fighting for independence, but at the same time he was trying to hurt me. Trying to make me angry. Trying to keep me consumed with rage.”
Cliff shook his head. “I don’t understand. Who are you talking—”
“Katherine Wells, Cliff. He’s not just trying to kill Renée. He killed Kat, one year ago.”