I flew well-east of the colony, switched off all network interfaces, and steered clear of actively controlled airspace. Luckily for me no one in three generations had hijacked a flyer for evil purposes and Security remained fixed on finding the odd lost pilot and not those trying to remain unfound.
Once the course and programs were set, I moved to the back compartment and inspected the rudimentary fabricator. Flyers are expected to support teams working in the bush, but those teams pack sufficient supplies for their tasks. The flyer’s printer could handle very basic emergency jobs, fabricating dressings and simple medical equipment. The clothing options presented to me were limited to a patient’s gown or basic work clothing. I ran off a quick set of coveralls and shoved my soiled and smelly clothes into the recycler.
A search revealed that the craft had no food printer, just packaged survival rations of tough chewy bars packed with nutrients but lacking anything close to flavor. Resigning myself, I took several up front and settled into the pilot’s seat.
Pamela was at the theater. I wanted to call and warn her, but if I activated the flyer’s communications I’d alert the network and everyone else with access, legitimate or not, to my positions. I couldn’t even fly directly there without alerting Security, and once they spotted me they’d take control remotely. Right now they thought I had gone over the wall and until I fixed everything it was best to let them continue to think that.
Munching on the tasteless bars, I turned the problems over and over in my mind. They broke down into three major hurdles.
One: I had to erase those forged records in the colonial network. Sure, I had done illegal things and watched a few banned movies, but nothing like what Eddie had set me up for. Without Forge covering his tracks, his criminal empire would pop into view like an invisible man whose potion has run out. I was not going to take his fall. I needed Forge and only Pamela knew where it was. I had to hope that she wouldn’t bolt before I got there. Together we could beat this; apart we were dead and perhaps not just metaphorically.
Two: we had to make sure Eddie couldn’t keep coming after us. It couldn’t be murder. My stomach still threatened to empty itself every time I thought about those gunshots and his blood pooling out onto the floor. Forge couldn’t fix this. If Security grabbed him Eddie would surely talk. He needed to be removed so that he didn’t threaten me or Pamela and so that Security couldn’t get the truth out of him. That sounded an awful lot like killing him, but there had to be another answer. There had to be a way. Maybe his enemies the Tans were an angle?
Three: Hardgrave and the Tans were my biggest unknowns. Someone in Nocturnia knew about them, someone high up had to have helped them set up that clandestine operation, but why? Despite all those hours as their prisoner I still had no concept of what, besides Forge, the Tans ultimately wanted. Maybe giving them Forge would placate them and they’d leave Pamela and me alone, but that was a lot to take on trust and even with their overly civilized manners I did not trust them. If we handed over Forge we’d be helpless if Eddie or Security came after us.
I tried to raise my spirits by reminding myself that even if Eddie had gotten Forge, Pamela had still escaped, and she mattered more than any of the rest. She meant more than Seiko, or even me.
The flyer banked as it swung from a south-west path to a more southerly one. I looked up and in the distance Nocturnia’s light reflected off low clouds, giving the city an unreal and ethereal glow. I passed the final hills and crossed high above the surf. I programmed in a few more flight instructions and the flyer followed the beach toward the city.
It landed just over a mile from the outer districts and I stepped out into the hard-packed sand. This time I knew where I was, where I was going, and the ground did not slow me.
* * *
It didn’t take long to reach the trail for Founders’ Park. As I ascended the path, the night sea breeze blew in gently from my back, carrying with it the stinging smell of salt and decay. When I topped the small bluff the Ark monument greeted me.
I slowed and stopped next to the monument. The crashing surf was the only sound. I thought about the Founders themselves, those computer intelligences tasked with guiding our journey, clearing and terraforming our initial site, and gestating the Firsters before committing cyber-suicide and leaving the responsibility in our screwed-up hands. In only three generations we had divided ourselves into colonists and whatever Hardgrave and his Tans were. We devolved into bickering, greedy, murdering syndicates. I never wanted the responsibility of unborn generations. I had plenty of brothers and sisters taking up that task, but now for the first time I questioned the entire project’s wisdom. Maybe there was a God and that brown dwarf barreling into Old Earth had been his twenty-second century’s biblical flood.
Shaking off my melancholy mood, I started walking. The sound and smell of the surf died away as I left the park and navigated Nocturnia’s illuminated streets. Here, near the city’s center, the towers beamed brightly because every floor was occupied and the evening was not yet late enough to dampen everyone’s enthusiasm. Firsters occupied many of the central towers, living bizarre, idiosyncratic lives, but when you’re raised by machines instead of a family you’re allowed to be odd.
Brandon’s family had moved in with his grandmother, to take care of her as she declined through a rather nasty degenerative neurological disease, some terrible mutation in her genetic code induced by the long slow flight through interstellar space. After she had died, Brandon stayed on in her apartment, a decision that tonight brought a little good luck my way by housing him within walking distance of the sea.
The lights of his tower burned as bright as the others. Thirty floors later I stood, dressed in those ridiculous coveralls, and signaled at his door. His wife, Nikita, slid it open, her sandy-brown face set in grim anger.
“You’re not coming in.”
“Nikita—”
“You didn’t listen. I said you’re not coming in here.”
She stood quite a bit shorter than me and after my captivity I had little patience, but I didn’t shove her aside.
“I need to talk to—”
“What you need to do is leave. We don’t want your trouble and I’m not going to have your perversion around the girls.”
I sputtered.
“Nikita, you know me. You know—”
“I don’t know a damned thing, hedonist.”
She started sliding the door closed but Brandon’s large brown hand appeared on the lip, holding it still. He stepped up behind her, his face sad, but equally grim.
“Why are you here, Jason?”
“I’ll tell—” My voice slipped and I pleaded with him. “I’ll tell you everything, but I need your help.”
Indecision crossed his face while Nikita gave us stares worthy of death.
“They said you went over the wall.”
I shook my head. “You know I’d never do that. There are no movies out there.”
He cracked a smile, but Nikita snorted her anger and stormed off. Brandon stepped aside and I entered. I caught a glimpse of Nikita herding their two girls back into the master bedroom. She slammed the door closed.
“I’ve brought you trouble.” The sorrow in my voice was genuine.
“More than you know. They’re reviewing my position. I think before the quarter’s out I’ll be in the bush.”
“That’s not what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
I moved to a sofa and sat. He slid a chair across from me and settled in. I started with the night I saw Pamela in the theater and told him everything, holding back nothing, not sparing my ego. He fetched us drinks when my mouth turned dry, and fairly early on he left me alone for several minutes while he conferenced with Nikita. During those very long minutes my heart raced and my palms grew slick with sweat. I expected Security at any moment, but in the end he came back and I returned to the story.
When I recounted my affair with Pamela, Brandon’s fingers tightened around his glass, his dark skin going pale with the tension. He held onto his anger until I reached Jones, her trap, and Forge. Curiosity displaced rage and he leaned forward, asking questions that I had no answers to. His demeanor turned sad and disappointed as I recounted Eddie and Pamela’s enslavement. The theft and near killing of Eddie revolted him, but Hardgrave and the Tans left him, like me, befuddled.
I finally finished and looked out the large window toward the bay. The sky remained dark and I realized that in all the terror of the recent days the Long Night had slipped my mind. Somehow it seemed fitting that I’d fix this mess while we lived up to our uninspired name, enduring a thirty-eight-hour night.
He sat silent, then rose and fetched another round of nonalcoholic drinks. Now, even after everything I’d been through, he still clung to Nocturnia’s idiotic social customs.
* * *
“You got to go to the Governing Council.”
Brandon stood and paced back and forth in front of me.
“This thing is simply fantastic. You’ve got to take the hit, stand up to your punishment.”
“That’s easy advice to give. You’re not the one they’re going to toss over the wall.” I stayed in my seat, tired and frustrated.
“You don’t have a choice, Jason. This is bigger than you and it’s bigger than any of us. The Tans, Eddie, Forge, all of that is a threat to Nocturnia, to humanity. For Christ’s sake, you can’t just think of yourself.”
“I have to because no one else will. If there’s something I’ve learned the past three weeks is that no one watches out for you except you.”
He stopped his pacing and gave me an unfriendly glare. “You didn’t learn that in the last month, that’s always been your opinion. You’ve got a chance to do something right, to do something besides avoid responsibility.”
“You do understand that being tossed over the wall is a death sentence, don’t you? They can preach all day about leaving it in God’s hands and all that but—”
“They aren’t going to throw you out. Not with this sort of thing going on.”
I ignored his interruption. “Out there there’s nothing to eat. If you’re not part of this fucked-up colony you’re dead, dead, dead!”
He threw his hands up in an overly dramatic demonstration. “They are not going to throw you out. You haven’t committed any capital crimes—”
“Attempted murder is a capital crime.”
He moved over next to me and took a seat, bringing his dark brown eyes level with mine.
“That wasn’t you, that was her. Turn evidence and you won’t be exiled.”
Condemn Pamela to a slow painful death by starvation, for what? For defending herself? For not wanting to be a sex slave? No, that wasn’t an option.
“That’s if they believe me,” I said, avoiding the touchy issue of my love. “They’re not going to do that, Brandon. They’re not going to believe that there’s a magic box out there subverting the network. They’re not going to believe that there’s a secret society of raceless people living here under their noses.”
“You’re going to have to make them believe. It’s too important.”
“Yeah, right.”
I stood up and marched around the room, my anger and frustration building. “They’re going to be looking for easy answers and easy people to pin it all on. That’s Pamela and me. They’ll just say I made Hardgrave up.”
“There’ll be proof,” he insisted. “These ‘customers’ of Eddie’s, you said it yourself, their crimes and Forge have to come to light. There’s no way to avoid that. That’s your evidence!”
“Maybe, maybe that’ll happen. Even if it does it might not happen in time. Once Pamela and I are tossed out no one’s going to be interested in making anything public and panicking everyone over secret enemies, just to bring back a couple of hedonists.”
I stopped and leaned with one hand against the wall. The whiplashing emotions and energy had set my muscles quivering.
“I have to find a way out and the Admin’s not going to help me.”
A silent moment passed and he considered me with hooded eyes and a wary expression. “Then why come here?”
My anger and impatience exploded. “Because I have to get to the theater! She’s there and she needs my help! Hardgrave is closing in and for all I know so is Eddie. I have to get there and you’re the only one who can do that!”
He started shaking his head with slow motions reminiscent of an executioner.
“You have to help me! If I call for a car Security will pick it up. That’s the end of Pamela and me, and Hardgrave and Eddie will get away with this!”
“Go to the Administration,” he insisted, his voice level and calm. “That’s the right thing to do.”
“That’s not an option. Let me use your credentials—”
He snapped his answer hard and fast. “No.”
“Brandon—”
“I mean it, Jason.” He stood up again and stepped a few paces away, putting distance between us. “I can’t let you do that. I’ve got a family to think about. You would drag me into this murderous mess.”
I didn’t let him escape that easily.
Moving close, inside his personal space, I said, “If you don’t give me help, I’m dead. Do you understand that? I’m not talking metaphorically. Your refusal will literally kill me.”
He leaned in even closer, his face just inches from mine, his breath hot and fast across my face.
“Don’t fucking try to guilt me. You got yourself into this. You wanted to fuck this woman and you’re paying the price – not me, not Nikita, and not my girls.”
“Brandon, please….” My voice cracked and a half sob escaped. It wasn’t forced. I’m not a talented actor.
“You’re not endangering my family.”
I collapsed into a chair, my hopes dashed, my mind filled with images of disaster and death. Even if Security didn’t arrest Pamela, eventually Eddie or Hardgrave would catch up with her and when that happened she was doomed. She was just a few miles away, in the theater, in my home, and I had no way to cross this damned city and its flying spies.
“I’m sorry,” Brandon said, sincere but with enough steel in his tone that begging would be fruitless. “You have to go to the Administration. That’s the only option left.”
I sat there with long minutes passing in silence and I knew in a few more moments he would throw me out. He was right, but without proof what was the use?
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll both go to Security, Pamela and me.”
Brandon nodded, not quite smiling, but with a trace of satisfaction on his face.
“Let me use your slate.”
His satisfaction turned to puzzlement.
“I don’t have mine,” I explained. “The Tans took it. I’m going to try to call Pamela at the theater—”
“What’s she doing there?”
“I don’t know. Looking for me, I guess. The Tans showed me with their bug.” I sighed, letting my shoulders fall. “I doubt she’ll answer, but I have to try anyway. It’s safer if we both go in together.”
He nodded and pulled out his slate. At least if anyone came snooping in the records they wouldn’t think twice about a call to the theater, because it was his workplace too.
As I expected she didn’t answer. Hell, she might have left already. Naturally I didn’t bother with leaving a message. Brandon patiently waited for me to hand the slate back, while I sat, desperate for another chance, another option.
Knowing it was an utterly futile gambit, I signaled Pamela directly. The line connected! She must have risked Eddie getting onto her trail again just in the hopes I would call. After a few short moments that seemed very long she answered.
“Hello?” she said, momentarily bewildered. I doubted she recognized the ident of the person calling her, then suddenly she smiled and her entire face erupted in joy.
“Jason!”
She started to speak but I cut her off fast. “I can’t speak, not long, my love.”
When I called her ‘my love’ Brandon’s eyes rolled. I thought, damn him and his refusals.
“Listen, I don’t have my slate and Security is searching for me.”
“I know.” She ran right over me. “Our…friend alerted me. I’ve been so worried.”
Our friend. She didn’t want to mention Forge if others might hear and I didn’t take the time to tell her Brandon already knew everything.
“I can’t signal a car,” I explained. “So you’ll have to come to me.”
She shook her head and her long black hair flew in great sweeping arcs.
“No. That’s not safe. I can send a car for you. You tell me where and it’ll be there, off the books and Security won’t have a clue.”
I smiled. “That’s my girl.”
I quickly gave her an address not far off, then ended the call and handed the slate back to Brandon.
“That didn’t sound like turning yourself in,” he said.
“We will,” I lied. “There’s no way I can talk her into that over a call.”
I got up and headed for the door. Brandon didn’t see me out.