Strange Pulp 12: Pocket Full of Stars (Part 5)
Strange Pulp 12: Pocket Full of Stars (Part 5)
Sex, magic and mayhem on the galaxy's roughest space station.
We’re more than halfway through our rollicking scifi mystery, folks, and things are only getting wilder from here. They’ll also be getting shorter—this is our last installment that features more than three chapters. If you’re enjoying the story—and want the whole damn thing now—support my work and…
Buy the Book!
Previous Installments
Content Warning
Reading Time: 58 Minutes
Chapter 14
I laid in the dark until we left the station. Then I gave my agent a call. I no longer cared what she’d turned up about Batavia, about K. I just wanted to hear her voice. MEL wasn’t really a person, but at least she feigned interest in whether I lived or died.
MEL was programmed to let a call ring for a while before she picked up—it made her seem busy—so when she answered immediately, I knew something was wrong. The face that flickered out of the blue wasn’t MEL’s craggy half-smile.
It was Jude.
She looked like shit.
“Hiya Gregor,” she said. “How ya doing?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Don’t bother answering. It’s a recording, sweetie. Rigged it up to let you know your MEL has been taken off line for refusing to cooperate with my investigation. I tried to sweet talk her, oh my lord I tried being kind, but she was a stubborn old girl. Blew holographic smoke in my face and spat swears at me until I gave the command for permanent shutdown. That’s death for a MEL, ain’t it? Or ten percent of one?”
She laughed. I took the opportunity to say, “Fuck off and die.”
“That was a nasty trick you played at Katzen. Kicking a girl in the jaw, my goodness. Your mothers would be ashamed. If you thought it was gonna scare me off, you’re dumber than people say. Before, I felt bad about needing you dead. Now I’m salivating. I know you were at Kingsley. I know you were at Kingsley II. Think the stars are infinite? Heck no. You’re running out of places to hide. Soon enough you’ll step out of an airlock and find me waiting. I’ll watch you die. It won’t be fast.”
Her face vanished. A voice spat from the speakers:
“This number has been disconnected. This number has been disconnected. This number has been—”
I disconnected.
I let my datacard slip out of my hand. It thudded deep into the purple shag. MEL was dead and it was my fault. I curled up under the thin freighter blanket and tried to accept that I was an entertainer without representation. In the whole cold universe, there is nothing more lonely than that.
After I’d quit shivering, I pulled out a pad of paper and started to write.
Lauriston Station was never supposed to exist. A hundred years back, a scout got stranded around one of the system’s phenomenally toxic gas giants. A rescue ship came to help, but a fuel leak stranded them as well. Both crews died off, leaving the ships docked in eternal orbit like corpses frozen in a lover’s embrace.
When the Redline was fixed just past Lauriston, marking the system as the most distant point at which colonists could expect protection from the state, an enterprising salvage crew converted the dead hulks into a makeshift station. When its capacity was outstripped, they lashed more and more hulks together. The result was mind-melting—corridors to nowhere and inconsistencies with the artificial gravity that meant sometimes you’d walk through a door and find you were suddenly upside down. I’d spent three months there the first time Falk stranded me. I hoped it hadn’t changed.
While Falk eased the 909 into the docking clamps, I slipped into his cabin to deliver my letter. It hadn’t turned out the way I’d expected. My intention had been to tell him to fuck off into a black hole somewhere, but no matter how many times I tried to write it like that, my anger fell flat.
Instead, I told him everything.
The way I’d loved him in the past, my regrets about whatever I’d done that caused him to leave me the first time, an apology for the snooping that had forced him to leave me now. I told him about K and what her magic had meant to me, about the murders I’d been accused of, about the death and rebirth of Elwood Laabs, about the shotgun-toting bloodhound whom I didn’t expect to outrun forever. I told him that I thought Lennox was cool, that I forgave whatever sins he’d committed on behalf of the NHI, that I thought he deserved to get paid and move on. I ended by saying I was sorry—for the lie and the past and the stains from my tears as I wrote the damn thing out. It was a good letter. I don’t think I could have written it six months prior. Running for my life had left me hideously wise.
I didn’t want him to learn the truth until we were thousands of miles apart, so I was going to leave the letter on his desk in a camo sheath set to deactivate 24 hours after he left Lauriston. He’d be toweling off after a shower—in my imagination, he was usually toweling off after a shower—and the letter would just, poof, appear.
A neat trick, except that on stepping into the cabin I found myself distracted by the smell of him, by the inviting sight of his terribly soft, terribly well-made bed. I was still in my reverie when his voice crackled out over the ship PA:
“All ashore that’s going ashore,” he said. “Wait by the airlock, Greg. We’ll walk you out.”
So the letter was still in my pocket when I reached the airlock and discovered Lennox leaning by the porthole, purple backpack slung over her shoulder, heavy with every map book she’d been able to cram inside. She smiled at me and I realized she had no idea I was leaving the ship. I’d have given a lot, I thought, to say a proper goodbye.
“Where you going?” I said.
“The station! I got really nervous about the shuttle at Salaignac, but then when we got back I was really upset because I didn’t go, and I was crying and crying until Daddy told me that from now on, he’ll take me ashore anytime he can.”
She was glowing like a tiny sun. I allowed myself a smile.
“And what are you planning to see on Lauriston Station?”
“There’s a daycare,” said Falk. I hadn’t heard him come in. He smiled meaninglessly, not quite meeting my eye.
The airlock closed behind him. My ears popped and the airlock slid open and I was hit with the Lauriston stench—engine grease and fried chicken and caustic cleaning products and shit and sweat. It knocked me back into the kid I’d been when Falk ditched me here—frightened, bitter, alone.
We strolled down the docking tunnel into the yawning cavern of a loading bay. Lennox ran—scampering ten meters ahead, then doubling back, then running ahead again. We clambered across the ragged seam of two old cruisers, ascended a flight of uneven stairs, passed through a wall of grimy rubber strips, and found ourselves on a balcony overlooking of the four story atrium that was the station’s heart.
The smoke from the meat pits was too thick to see all the way to the ground, but it looked like the place had been subjected to a minor sprucing up. A betting parlor had been replaced by a sausage stand; one of the brothels had evolved into a residency hotel. Cheerful orange signs promised all manner of family-friendly businesses were coming soon, but the grime on the plastic suggested “soon” was never going to come. The whole place had the air of dusty running shoes, bought in a burst of optimism but never actually worn.
Lennox goggled at every shop, every sign, every traveler whose ragged clothes and haunted eyes marked them as voyagers from beyond the Redline. Falk gripped her hand tight. I don’t think he took a breath until we reached the daycare. Its windows were shiny with silver paint; its entrance decorated in unsteady pink and purple stripes. Through its door came a steady stream of balloons and bubbles and screams. It seemed depressing, but if it didn’t bother Falk and Lennox, I saw no reason to offer a critique. A minder unit emerged to stamp Lennox’s hand. She strained to go inside. Falk knelt for a hug.
“Sure you’re gonna be okay in there?” he said.
“Yes. I see a map. They have a map in there and I see it and I want to look at it. Go away now, okay?”
“Okay.”
He kissed her head. She squirmed away. We watched her hurtle through the entrance, bypassing the ball pit and a shelf of holo toys and making straight for the mural of the system map that filled the back wall. It was only then that I realized I’d never see her again, that I’d have no opportunity to say goodbye, that in a year or two she’d have forgotten me for good. That seemed appropriate. I walked away. I didn’t look at Falk until I was sure I wasn’t going to cry. I wanted to get this over with, but Falk never made anything easy.
“Where you headed?” he said.
“Job board.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do?”
He shrugged.
“I guess there are some things,” he said, “that I’d like to talk to you about.”
“Such as?”
“I think we should get something to drink first. Don’t you think it would be nice to get something to drink?”
I couldn’t tell if he was torturing me on purpose or if he was just an asshole. We walked until we rounded the next corner, where a drinks vendor leaned sullenly on a cart waiting for the world to get thirsty. Falk bought two cups of AlwazeHot, a coffee-themed beverage engineered to stay boiling hot for 24 hours after purchase. Their advertising boasted that it was, “Not Rich! Not Bold! But Never Cold!”, and that was a promise it kept.
I took a sip, burning my tongue horribly, and waited for him to talk. It took a long damn while.
“On Katzen Station—” he began.
He never finished the thought.
Oh lord, that’s a dramatic thing to say. Makes it sound like he was shot with a blowgun or unexpectedly eaten by a crocodile. It wasn’t Falk’s sudden death that interrupted him—it was me, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him away from the railing. My head was low, my brain screaming, for I’d just spotted a woman with a shotgun and a license to kill Galaxy Greg.
Jude was here.
She did not look well. Her eyes were sunken; her skin waxy. She’d chopped off most of her hair. What remained was a coarse gray. And she was angry. I could tell because she was kicking the shit out of a newsbin, yelling that she wanted her quarter back. I pulled Falk into the nearest shop—a combination tattoo parlor and tattoo removal clinic—and through the back door. We emerged into a service tunnel. Purple lights glowed indifferently. Rats feasted on a landscape of discarded food. It seemed safe enough, but I didn’t stop to breathe.
“I was about to say something important,” said Falk. He sounded wounded. Poor guy.
“It’ll keep.”
“What’s the hurry?”
“I want a new job fucking now.”
I led him down into a darkened passage whose ceiling was so low I had to duck. The floor was damp and the air stank of seven different kinds of rot.
“This can’t be the right way,” he said.
“I know Lauriston—I was once stranded here for three solid months.”
That shut him up nicely. Normally I’d have welcomed the silence. That day, irritatingly, it gave me a chance to think. Jude hadn’t followed me here by chance. She’d dogged my path since Katzen and now she’d finally caught up. Either she’d developed a hitherto unknown talent for detective work—which was certainly a possibility, she was so goddamned good at everything—or someone had been helping her.
Someone like Elwood Laabs.
Someone like Falk.
A wobbly set of stairs dead ended at a long, not particularly stable-looking ladder. I sealed my AlwazeHot, slipped it into my pocket, and started to climb.
“Okay,” I said. “Talk.”
“I’ve lost the appetite.”
“Come on. I want to hear this deep, dark secret of yours. If nothing else, it’ll distract me from the climb. Was it about Jude Pritchard?”
“Who?”
“Was it Elwood Laabs?”
“I told you, I don’t know anybody with that stupid fucking name.”
“So tell me what was on your mind, Falk, or I’ll stomp on your knuckles and we’ll see if you stay smug while you’re falling to your death.”
His laugh skipped across the rusted steel walls. It was cute that he thought I was joking.
“On Katzen Station, when you came into my office? I knew who you were.”
“I knew it!” I laughed. He didn’t. We kept climbing. “Why did you pretend not to?”
“My head was spinning! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Greg. Pretending not to know you was a lot easier than letting you see how I really felt.”
“Oh yeah? Last I heard you don’t fucking care.”
“Yeah, well...”
“So how do you feel, Falk? How do you really feel?”
Before he could answer, we ran out of ladder. I tumbled headfirst into the wrecked yacht that served as the Lauriston Job Center. If I were feeling generous I’d have stuck out a hand to help Falk, but I was in a hurry and, frankly, I was sick with terror at whatever he was going to say. Trusting him to follow, I stomped down the corridor, shouldered open a swinging yellow door, and was thumped in the chest by the uncomfortable silence of the job board room.
All the fittings had been ripped away, brass and oak traded for rough steel, but the place still stank of cigars. A few dozen people in assorted work clothes stared slackly at the mechanical board. Every few seconds its flaps spun to reveal a new gig that remained available about as long as it took me to read them.
“Experienced killer needed for the B. Lowell, only top guns need apply.”
“Captain Rita of the Norman requests a ship’s matron. Requirements: efficient typist, passable soprano.”
“URGENT! URGENT! Entertainment journalist required following inadvertent decapitation on the Tall Jones.”
I grabbed a buzzer and fixed my eyes on the board, waiting for an opportunity to appear.
Nothing did.
Nobody needed a magician—because, fuck, nobody ever needs a magician. Nobody even needed a cook. So I stood and I sweated, waiting for Jude to burst through the door. Falk leaned beside me. I was glad I had the board to look at because I absolutely did not have the strength to meet his eye.
“So you do fucking care?” I said. He didn’t answer. “Why have you been ignoring me?”
“Ignoring you! I’ve been out of my skull. Stars, Greg, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since you came on board. Every time I start to doze off I just, I feel you there—in the room, like you just walked through the wall.”
Falk didn’t see my smile. The man imagined I could walk through walls.
“Why didn’t you say something?” I said.
“I tried. Fifteen or sixty or 103 times, I tried. Every time, my mouth went dry and I got the shakes and I had to sit down and breathe.”
“You were scared?”
“To death.”
I turned around for a look at his artfully tousled hair, his wry smile, his eyes, the hand resting on his holstered pistol. Every muscle was relaxed. Falk was the kind of man who could stroll into a war zone, a blood fight, or a white tie ball and be equally at home.
“Since when are you scared?” I said.
“I’ve been scared my whole life.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
“Just that, huh?”
He shut his eyes and chewed his lip.
“I was scared because when we were together I treated you like shit, and if I said anything I’d have to own that. I’d have to explain.”
“Explain what?”
“Why I left you here.”
“Go ahead, captain. We’ve got time.”
“No we don’t.”
His eyes flared. I spun, expecting to see Jude leading the riot squad, but no—it was something on the board. A listing marked red for URGENT, tagged with those three magic words: “No Experience Required.”
I jammed the buzzer. A needle jabbed my thumb, analyzed my blood and transmitted my DNA and employment data to the HR unit on the Elżbieta, a salt ship headed past the Redline that was short three hands. After an agonizing breath, the buzzer sent a shocking vibration up my arm and down my spine.
“I’m hired,” I murmured.
Salt mining? Good god. Why not just kill yourself now?
I’d hate to give him the satisfaction.
“Leaves in 22 minutes,” said Falk. “Can you get there in time?”
“Let’s find out.”
I ducked through the nearest hatch and down a steep loading ramp. I tumbled through a plastic screen onto the deck of a converted star carrier—an impossibly large space that had been carved into a docking center. The Elżbieta was on Pier 142. I was at Pier 3.
I ran.
You’re probably picturing a straight shot. I wish. Fitting the carrier around Lauriston Station meant slicing it into sections and weaving it through the extant structure—an engineering feat that created a baffling knot of stairs, ion lifts, and corridors where it was almost too tight to breathe. With admirable speed for a man once voted Vegas’ Laziest Young Athlete, I moved through the tangle, shoving and shouting and stomping as needed to make room. And every time I looked over my shoulder, Falk was there.
“So tell me why you left,” I wheezed.
“Not like this.”
“Now or never, man.”
“Just stop. Give me ninety seconds. Please.”
“I can’t.”
But as soon as I said I couldn’t stop, I did. Not for Falk’s sake, but because someone shouted my name.
“Greg! Greg, you fucker! Galaxy Greg!”
It was Jude, naturally, striding down the concourse with her shotgun at her hip, leering like a disinterred skull. The crowd parted for her—a shotgun will have that effect—and she strolled towards me. I couldn’t move. It was like every muscle was pulling in the wrong direction and I just stood still. She was perhaps twelve meters away.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about, neighbor,” she said. “I’m only looking for a friendly chat.”
She raised the shotgun to her shoulder.
Falk’s grip closed on my elbow.
My mouth opened—god knows why, it had been ages since anyone listened to what I had to say—and before I could form a word Falk hurled me against the wall. A fat concrete column blocked my view of Jude. For the next two or three seconds, we were perfectly safe. I thought he was going to waste time with something foolish—asking about the woman with the gun, for instance—but his thoughts proved charmingly practical.
“Open the door,” he hissed.
I spun, acid pumping in my legs and blood heaving in my skull. The door was pale blue, slightly narrower than my shoulders, and emblazoned with warnings that said “TAMPERING IS FORBIDDEN” in every one of the galaxy’s 45 official languages. I tampered as fast as I could. Gimlet sliced through the lock and the door slid open and I sucked in my stomach and Falk shoved me inside.
“Come on,” I said.
“There’s not room for two.”
Jude came around the corner. She was smiling, not even walking fast, like murder was a pleasant errand. I yanked Falk into the tube. He slammed into me, knocking the air out of my chest in a most pleasant way.
I pulled on the door.
It snagged.
“Greg,” said Falk.
Jude raised the gun.
“Greg!”
I yanked on the door so hard that it skinned my knuckles.
It clanged shut.
Buckshot tore into the door, leaving bumps and ridges like the face of an acne-scarred teen, but the steel held.
I slammed my fist against the biggest, reddest button and we zoomed away.
The lift was mechanical, not ionized—a narrow compartment designed to whisk supplies from one end of the station to the other. Based on the smell and the stains, it was mostly used to move beer. It made me feel, I don’t know...weird. Perhaps it was the way gravity was constantly shifting as we passed through the station, making me feather light one second and concrete heavy the next. Or maybe it was the way I could feel him breathing on my neck. Either way, I did not mind.
“I suppose you want to know about the lady with the shotgun,” I said.
“Does she have anything to do with me?”
“I hope not.”
“Then keep it to yourself. Whatever the fuck is going on here—”
“You can’t afford to get involved. I understand.”
There was a pause. The air grew warmer. The lift felt even more small.
“So why’d you get sick of me?” I asked. “Was it my stunning good looks? My astonishing sexual capabilities?”
“Forget I brought it up, okay?”
“Rather late for that.”
“I just can’t—”
“Spill, Falk. We’ve got nowhere to go.”
He took a deep breath, crushing his ribs into my chest.
He exhaled.
He spoke.
“I’m not a smuggler.”
“I know. You’re retired.”
“No, I mean—I was never a smuggler. I was never anything. I was born a coward and that’s never changed.”
“But during the war—”
“I faked it. Whatever the soldiers needed, I bought it legal and charged them full price. I didn’t go near the black market—I never even committed a crime.”
“You ran the blockade. Every day, you dodged certain death.”
“I didn’t dodge anything but a few dozen rusty old Mark III fighter-bombers. You could outrun them on a tricycle. Everything I told you guys, it was all show.”
“Why?”
His smile flashed back on. For a moment, he was his rakish old self. And then it was gone.
“I met this magician,” he said. “Clever guy, kind of sweet. Almost as good looking as he thought he was. I’d never met an entertainer before. If I was going to get him to notice me, well, I figured I’d need to be as interesting as he was.”
“I’d have liked you no matter what.”
“Bullshit.”
We crossed the station’s center point. Gravity deserted us completely, but there was nowhere for us to float. Falk’s sewing kit bobbed in the inside pocket of my starsuit, but otherwise, nothing moved.
“So you lied during the war,” I said. I sounded angry. I guess I was. “What about after?”
“I didn’t think there’d be an after. I thought the war would end and I’d never see you again.”
“But?”
“But you were going on the road and I wanted to go with you and the Miranda was a good deal and you kept telling me I should do something to help Osala and so I did. I took on an imperial ton of debt to buy medical supplies and got ready to run the blockade. A real blockade. You thought I was fearless. I wanted to prove you right, but the closer we got to Osala the more I knew I was just a coward. After Lauriston, I dumped the med supplies at a horrible loss, I lost the Miranda. I lost everything.”
“You could have brought me along. Entertainers aren’t afraid of being broke.”
“Yeah, but how do they feel about being bored?”
Gravity reasserted itself. The lift slammed into place, cracking our skulls on the floor that had so recently been a ceiling. The door slid open and we tumbled onto the deck. Nobody paid us any mind—the denizens of a Redline station are far too jaded to be surprised by a pair of men falling out of a service lift. I got to my feet and saw I was just one pier away from the Elżbieta with six minutes to spare.
“I’m going to make it,” I said.
“Good.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m sorry I waited this long. I’m sorry for, well, for the whole stupid thing.”
“It’s okay. People do stupid shit in their twenties.”
And in their thirties too, I thought as I scanned for Jude. The deck looked clear.
“Whatever’s chasing you, Greg, I hope it never catches up,” said Falk.
I nodded. On the chunky pilot’s watch that was strapped to his wrist, I watched the seconds tick away.
“You’re still holding my hand,” he said.
“I know.”
“You should leave.”
“I know that, too.”
“Aren’t you going to let go?”
“Eventually.”
What are you doing, Greg?
Tick.
It was a fucking miracle you got that job.
Tick.
Don’t throw it away.
Tick.
You won’t shake Jude again.
I glanced at the wall map and confirmed what I already knew.
“There’s a hotel near here,” I said.
“That’s a really bad idea.”
“Those are my favorite kind.”
Our hands were in our pockets as we walked away from Pier 142. A few quiet minutes passed and, for the second time that year, I missed a flight for the sake of Yoshi Falk.
Chapter 15
The Lauriston Hotel was a dismantled luxury liner whose luxury had long since rusted away. There was no lobby, no clerk—just a desk unit that flashed “ENJOY YOUR STAY” as we booked our room. A creaking lift swept us to the lower decks, where we had a giddy time trying to locate Room 303. I was on the verge of breaking into an unoccupied cabin when Falk found it. The door slid open and we were exquisitely alone.
Next came fucking.
If you’re familiar with the process, well, it was probably like you remember. If you haven’t had the pleasure, you can find more information at your local library. What mattered in this instance was that it was me and it was Falk, in a rank hotel room hardly bigger than my thumbnail. It was a thing I’d often dreamed off—feverish half nightmares in which even brushing my hand against Falk’s hip shot off sparks of pleasure and guilt.
In reality, well, the sex was fine.
I’m sorry if that’s a disappointment. (Imagine how I felt!) I’d like to say that we shredded each other’s clothes and fucked until the station shattered, but the run had left us out of breath. Our touch was tentative and we were never able to settle into a rhythm, but still.
Sex.
Woo.
It wasn’t until we finished that things felt correct. We lay on that filmy mattress, limbs and thoughts intertwined, fitting as precisely as we always had. It felt like K said—weightless, perfect—and that terrified me. Perfect is hard to leave behind.
“If you’re not a smuggler,” I said, “then who are you?”
“Nobody at all.”
“I want to know more.”
And so, with that particular softness that only comes in an unmade bed, he told me his life. It was true that he was born in Tokyo, true that his father locked him in the basement for four days after he came out, true that he joined the Navy to get away. But he’d never killed anyone in a barroom brawl and he’d never stolen a one-seat sports jet to cruise the atmosphere and watch the sun rise at the edge of space. Our jaunt aboard the Miranda had not been one moment in a lifetime of adventures. It was, in his telling, “the only interesting thing I’ve ever done.”
I tried to get a look at his face, but when I moved he gave a little squeeze—a gentle plea to stay put. I obliged.
“What’s true is that I love to fly,” he said. “For a while I didn’t care who I was flying for—I just wanted to be in the cockpit, and if it helped trim my debt, even better. But after Lennox, it no longer seemed good enough hauling fifth rate pornography or toxic scrap. Flying for NHI gave me what I wanted from Osala. I’m helping people. I’m doing what I love. It’s good.”
It would have been a natural time to tell him that I didn’t think the NHI was helping anybody, but the more truth he told, the harder it got to do the same.
“So that’s me,” he said. “What brings you to the stars? Don’t tell me you had a sudden urge to quit entertaining and become a cook. I remember you, Greg. You lived for the stage.”
“I did.”
“What changed?”
“I got tired of being a professional fake.”
“I could see how that would wear on a fella.”
“I always wanted magic to be real. Childish, I realize, but the older I get the more important that childish stuff becomes. And then one night in Vegas, I saw a woman who...”
He draped his arm across my chest. It was embarrassing how safe that weight made me feel.
“Who what?” he said.
“Who could fly.”
He didn’t laugh, which was a relief. He just nodded his head.
“I don’t mean wires or a lift or something—I mean honest to god soar through the air. It was real. I think. I mean I’m definitely pretty sure that—”
“I believe you.”
“Why?”
“You never believed in shit. It was part of what made you seem so cool. When other people’s eyes went wide, you saw the wires. If you think her magic is real, that’s good enough for me.”
I tried to answer but there were no words. Every day since I saw K’s performance, it had gotten harder to believe her miracle. Falk’s expression felt like permission to believe.
“Did you ask her how she did it?” he said.
“I tried to. Before she could tell me, she died. A hit and run. The guy who did it is Elwood Laabs—”
“The man I’m supposed to have met with on Kingsley II.”
“I don’t even know why he killed her. But her reaction, it seemed like he’d been after her for a long time. I think he’s headed to Batavia and I want to get there first.”
“And then what? Kill him?”
“The thought has crossed my mind.”
“I don’t think you’ve got it in you. I mean that as a compliment, Greg. You’ve got rough edges, but I don’t think you’d sink as low as that.”
“During the war—”
“You were there against your will. You had no choice.”
“That doesn’t make it less than murder.”
There was a pause that might have been uncomfortable if it hadn’t been accompanied by his hand sliding firm along my arm. I breathed deep, looking for an answer that made some kind of sense. I’d told him half the truth and no matter how many times I tried to spit out the rest, it stayed lodged in my throat.
“I just want to talk to the man,” I said. Sounded pretty believable. Maybe it was true.
“You think he killed her because of her act?”
“I figure the thing that makes a person special is gonna be the thing that gets them killed.”
“And you’re hoping to get an idea of how she could fly?”
I nodded.
“Even if it’s getting folks hit and ran?”
I nodded again.
“You ever think maybe K wasn’t the one he was trying to kill?”
“There was a car service driver who died too, but he seemed more or less innocent.”
“I’m talking about you, dipshit. If he was trying to kill you, chasing him down might not be the brightest idea.”
“It can’t have been me.”
“Why not?”
“K was special. I’m just some asshole who’s good with his hands.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. I think you’re absolutely worth murdering.”
I gave him a playful slap, which turned into kissing which turned into a second round of perfectly acceptable sex. Afterwards, sore and hoarse and impeccably tired, we were drifting off to sleep when Falk mumbled something insane.
“I’ll take you there.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fuck NHI regulations. When our last shipment’s done, I’ll take you to Batavia myself.”
“I thought I was barred from the 909.”
“Stay out of the hold and we’ll be just fine. I want to be there with you when you find Laabs. He sounds like a dangerous piece of shit. I’d rather you didn’t get killed.”
“How come?”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to stand.”
He was asleep before I could answer. My eyes were glued open; my heart racing. I had a vision of Falk completing his final delivery, cracking open the safe, discovering his blank orders—wondering who’d broken the seal. For some reason, I wasn’t sleepy any more.
Once his breathing was steady, I eased out from under his arm, reached for my datacard and skimmed the feed, hoping the bluster of fifty thousand strangers could block out the alarms ringing in my head. The feed was the same as ever. People were furious about sports, politics, chess. Everyone was angry with everyone else for not being angry in the correct way. Their screaming did nothing to quiet my brain.
My eyes flicked over my alerts. My bank balance was overdrawn, my library books were overdue, and the dry cleaner was going to burn my spare starsuit if I didn’t pick it up. I had a few thousand unread messages, which was nothing unusual. I never read any of them, because they never contained anything good. The only news I ever wanted was from MEL, and if she needed me she’d call me, and—
Unless something had gone wrong.
And where MEL and I were concerned, everything had gone horribly wrong.
I searched for her messages. I started with the first one, the day she’d been activated—fourteen years prior.
“Nice to meet you, kid. Thanks for bringing me online. Your act is shit—that’s your problem. Your look is shit, too, and there I can help. I had an idea for something I’m calling a starsuit—looks like an ordinary tux, but with a map of the stars on it that changes when you move. Could be something, I don’t know. I’ll call Tuesday and we can hash it out. We’re gonna have fun.”
And here I thought the starsuit had been my inspiration. That’s the mark of a genius agent—not only does she have million dollar ideas, she lets you think they were yours.
I squeezed the datacard in a sweaty palm and said, “I’m sorry.” It helped nothing. I read on.
I scrolled through a decade and more worth of contracts, booking notifications, and travel itineraries. Between them were jokes, advice, and encouragement. I’d always thought of MEL as software first, an agent second. I was ashamed to have never noticed that she was also my closest friend.
At the bottom of the heap I found a message titled “K.”
There was no text. Just an attachment. When I clicked it, MEL’s face flickered into life above me screen. I turned the volume low and tucked myself into the corner of the bed as she dragged on her cigarette and began to speak.
“Hey kid. Jude’s got my outside lines bugged to death, so I’m sending this to your inbox. The way you check messages, I figure you’ll get it in a century or two.”
She chuckled, which turned into a lengthy coughing fit. When she’d collected herself, she lit another cigarette off the old one and went on.
“It’s been as pleasant as a hemorrhoid, but I’ve found Batavia. Halfway found it, anyway. Ran down every search I could think of and didn’t turn up shit. Started combing through my old files, though, and after a few wasted days I found a note that twelve years ago an old client of mine—you remember Gemma Hoff, the Lady Of Three Dozen Faces?—she worked a gig there. Corporate entertainment for something called the Founders Convention. It was the last gig I ever booked for her, but goddamn if I could remember why.
“So I called up Miss Hoff. Wish I hadn’t. She’s an absolute fucking mess. Locked up in the psych ward at the Entertainer’s Union Hospital. File says she’s 38 but the kid could pass for 74. I asked her about Batavia and she just started screaming. ‘The last job you’ll ever need, the last job you’ll ever need.’ Ugly stuff. Doc jabbed her with something that calmed her down. She wouldn’t say anything more about the gig but when I asked about the coordinates she spat ‘em out like ticker tape. Got a pen? Okay. Starts off 32984—”
Her image contracted like a giant was squeezing her head. When it snapped back to normal, there was something unfamiliar in MEL’s eyes.
Fear.
“What the fuck?” she said.
Once again, the image crumpled. Her face flashed red, twisting in something that might have been pain.
“Get the fuck out of me, you asshole!”
“MEL,” I said, as though she could hear.
“Somebody’s got their hand up my skirt, kid. Going straight for central memory and not being too gentle about it. I’ll scrub what I can, try to throw them off the scent, try—”
The picture went black and white, turning so rotten with pixelation that I could hardly make out her face, and another coughing fit hit. She was still coughing when the message went dead.
I draped my arm across the headboard and let the torn upholstery tickle my skin. Beside me, Falk snored. The wrinkles around his eyes were gone. If it weren’t for the gray in his hair, he could have passed for twenty-two.
No court in the universe would call deactivating an AI murder, but there was no other word for what I’d just seen. Jude hadn’t even tried to reason with her. She just reached in and turned the old girl off.
She’d kill me without thinking of it.
She’d kill Falk.
She’d kill Lennox, too.
I pulled the letter from my jacket pocket and turned it in my hands. It was heavier than it needed to be. A quick skim confirmed what I feared: it was shit. Self-serving, overwritten, with too much poetry and not enough sense. But it was the best I could do. I left it on the desk and crept out of the room like the world’s most disgusting thief.
For fourteen years, I’d dreamed of leaving Falk the way he had left me. When I finally got the chance, it didn’t feel great. It didn’t matter. I had a chunk of the coordinates for Batavia. If I could get back to the 909 before Falk woke up, check them against the black spots, get to another ship...
It was a lot of Ifs. But it was the closest I’d had to a plan in a while. Maybe it would have worked, too, if I’d turned right out of the hotel room instead of left.
Left took me away from the lift.
Left took me to the ice room, where cold water puddled on the floor and the overhead light flickered lazily, where the darkness was perfect for hiding a single homicidal magician.
I didn’t even see her. I just strolled past the open doorway and didn’t realize luck had deserted me for good until the butt of her shotgun cracked down on my head.
Chapter 16
I didn’t black out. I guess my skull is thicker than I thought. My vision blurred and my legs went wobbly and I sank onto the puke yellow rug.
Jude’s shotgun pressed against my cheek.
It was unpleasantly cold.
“So,” she said. “Are we gonna have that friendly chat?”
“It’s hard to talk with a gun on my face.”
“Talk around it, dickhead. Tell me what you did.”
The woman looked corpsey. There was no other word for it. Skin loose, hair brittle. Her right eye bloodshot, her left wobbling violently. But her trigger finger looked hale, so I figured I should answer her question.
“Didn’t the police give you a report?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to be snarky but it crept into my voice anyway. “I smashed two cars into each other, killing a magician and a chauffeur. I grabbed the other driver by the neck and flew five stories into the air, then tossed him to his death. Since then I’ve been on an interstellar rampage. It hasn’t been profitable, but I’m having a delightful time.”
She used her spare hand to smack me on the top of the head.
“I don’t give a fuck about that,” she said. “I want to know what you did in the bathroom.”
There were so many cute answers I could have given to that. Instead, for once, I kept my mouth shut.
“The coin you tossed me on Katzen. What did you do to it?”
“It was your dollar. You threw it to me.”
“You swapped it for one of your own.”
“It’s been a long time since I had a dollar to call my own.”
The shotgun nestled deeper into my cheek. It was going to leave a mark.
“I’m all fucked up,” she said. I figured it was better not to tell her that, yeah, she looked it. “Since Katzen, I can’t handle a coin. I can’t palm a card. I’m like a novice out there. No, it’s worse. I’m crowd.”
“We all have setbacks.”
“This is no setback. My calling, Greg. The work. It’s just...gone.”
A little sympathy crept in around the edges of my heart. For the moment, I let it stay.
“Before I came here, I was orbiting Carpenter’s Star,” she said. “They’ve got a good sized colony there. Families. Children. A toy store. You know what I bought?”
“What?”
“Amazing Alicia’s Magic For Beginners. Over 150 tricks. Top hat and wand included. I spent five days listening to Amazing Alicia, that filthy hack, explain magic cups and interlocking rings. Look at this—I mean look at this shit!”
She pulled two stubby lengths of rope from her vest. It was a simple trick—squeeze them in your palm and they fuse—but she fumbled with them for half a minute and got nowhere. They finally slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor like a pair of weary worms. I said, as gently as I could manage—
“It sounds like—”
She slammed her fist against the wall.
“I know what it sounds like! It sounds like I’m losing my fucking mind.”
Yeah. It kinda did.
I risked a step backwards, just to ease the pressure on my face. The wall stopped me.
“You should talk to a doctor,” I said. Her nostrils flared wide enough to swallow a sun.
“But this isn’t a medical problem, Greg. It’s an entertainment issue. Because it’s not just in my head, y’see? I went to look at footage of my old act, from back on the Starlight Circuit. You know what I found?”
“I wouldn’t dare guess.”
“Fuck all.” She drew a ragged breath. “Hundreds of video files. All static. So it’s not just my future that’s been wiped. It’s my whole career. And it all started when you tossed me that coin. So what the fuck did you do?”
I’d tried the truth. I should have known it wouldn’t work. I’d been in this business long enough to know there’s nothing less interesting than what’s true.
“It was a trick coin,” I said. Every muscle in her body relaxed. The gun slid a little farther from my face.
“How did it work?”
“It was coated with a chemical compound keyed to a DNA sample I’d taken off your door handle.” Absolute fucking nonsense. She loved it. I jabbered more. “As soon as you touched it, it created a psychic tear. Causes paranoia, hallucination—”
“Loss of coordination?”
“In spades.”
A jagged smile spread across her face. Her teeth looked spongy and gray.
“So what’s happening to me—”
“It’s all my fault.”
“Then make it stop.”
Ah. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Of course, that was no surprise—I’d hardly been thinking at all.
“Please, Greg,” she said. “I’m not used to being scared. I need help. I look for answers and all I hear is a pulsing voice in the deepest part of my brain.”
“What does it say?”
“Kill Greg. Kill Greg. Kill Greg.”
“Charming.”
“But I don’t want to, I mean I don’t think I want to—but I have to—I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”
Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, which might have been a good sign except Jude would kill me before she’d let me watch her cry. A flash of something—inspiration? Madness? Garden variety stupidity?—flashed across my brain. I ran with it. Had to. It was the only idea I had.
“Come with me,” I said. “To Batavia.”
“Where the fuck is that?”
“NHI headquarters. Everything that’s been going on, they’re behind it. They’ve bought up every club on the Starlight Circuit. The man I’m supposed to have killed, he works for them. They want me dead. They—”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
The gun was pressing on my face again. I reached deeper into my bullshit reserve.
“The NHI gave me the coin. They made you sick. They can make you well.”
She stepped back. Closed her eyes and breathed heavy. The gun dropped to her side.
I slumped. In my jacket pocket, something shifted. The AlwazeHot.
“You’ve always had it easy,” she said. “Only child of Priscilla, Queen of Obfuscation. Fucking royalty. Not like me.”
I squeezed the flask of bubbling liquid. My thumb loosed the lid. Steam dampened my skin.
“You’ve had it harder, huh?”
“My folks wanted me to dance. When I told them it was magic or nothing, they threw me out. You had it handed to you. I had to fight.”
I gripped the flask tighter.
“You deserve everything you’ve worked for,” I said. “Come to Batavia and we’ll get it all back.”
All sorts of emotions passed across her face. She wanted to say yes and, I’ll tell you this whether you buy it or not—I wanted her to as well. She could use the help and where I was going I could probably use her gun. Anything was better than Plan B.
Her mouth parted. She was about to answer when a voice cried out from down the hall.
“There you are!”
It was Falk. Wearing a bathrobe and slippers and a lopsided little smile. He strolled down the hallway like everything was fine, a metal bucket cradled under his arm, and I swear to god he was about to introduce himself to Jude when she whipped up the shotgun.
I threw the AlwazeHot.
What the hell else was I supposed to do? I’d already run out on Falk. I didn’t need him to get his face blown off as well.
Most of it caught her in the chest. Her dress sizzled, cheap poly hissing as it fused with her skin. The rest splashed across her head and neck and the wall. It wasn’t good for the wall—that shit scorched right through the carpeting—and it wasn’t good for her face, either.
Her skin didn’t sizzle.
It just melted away, nose and cheek and half her mouth fusing into one strawberry red mass.
Naturally, she fired the shotgun. Two swift blasts, straight into the wall. The air filled with white dust. The lights flickered and died. Alarms howled.
“Gunfire detected. Gunfire detected.” The voice was lousy with mechanical cheer, like it had been waiting ages for a chance to speak. “Security dispatch. Security dispatch. All guests, remain in your rooms.”
Gurgling blood, Jude snapped open the shotgun and fumbled for more shells. I dragged Falk down the hall. His wrist was cold. Words spilled out of him, the delirious monologue of a man who’d woken up from a nap and hadn’t had time to shake the fog before he began running for his life.
“I woke up and you weren’t there,” he said, “so I assumed you’d gone to get ice. But you hadn’t brought the ice bucket and we didn’t have anything that needed ice and you don’t drink anyway, so I figured you’d run out on me. But I thought I’d check the ice room instead and you are here but that woman’s shooting at us and, well, I guess my question is what the fuck is going on?”
“She’s trying to kill me.”
“Fucking why?”
“Didn’t you read the letter?”
“What letter?”
“It was in the room, it explained everything very clearly, it—fuck!”
The hallway dead ended at a ragged metal wall. I turned back. Falk held me in place. His smile looked like it had been stuck on with epoxy. It was terrifying.
“We have to get you and Lennox back to the 909,” I said.
“Not until you start making sense.”
“That could take decades.”
He pelted the ice bucket. I ducked just enough to avoid decapitation. It clattered across the floor.
“Don’t be cute, you dickhead!” he shouted. “Just answer the question.”
“Can I ask, ‘What question?’ or will that just encourage you to throw more shit at my head?”
“Were you running out on me?”
His voice had gone quiet. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a little snot sneaking out of his nose. I wanted there to be a nice answer to that question. There wasn’t.
“I had a very good reason for leaving you behind,” I said. “It was fucking complicated, okay? That’s why I wrote the letter!”
“Summarize.”
I squeezed my fists. Before I could assemble my next pathetic explanation, a savage voice spoiled the moment.
“Station security! Who’s there?”
The hallway was blocked by six feet of angry muscle dumped into a security jumpsuit. His name patch said Ksiaska. When he saw me, he smiled.
It is not good, when one is a fugitive, to make security personnel smile.
He reached for his pistol. I smacked the ice bucket into his forehead hard enough to dent both bucket and skull. He fell to the ground like an empty suit of clothes. His hands scrambled for his eyes, trying to wipe away the blood. I tore the pistol from his hip and ran.
“You just stole a security guard’s gun,” said Falk.
“Never know when it might come in handy.”
“That’s a serious fucking crime!”
“My Falk wasn’t afraid of serious fucking crimes.”
“That Falk was a lie.”
“Well it’s never too late to make a lie come true.”
I threw him the gun—what the hell was I going to do with it? He caught it like I’d tossed him a mangled fish, but he didn’t throw it away. He dropped it into the pocket of his robe, where it thrashed ludicrously as we ran.
“You made me accessory to assault,” he spluttered.
“Oh, you’re an accessory to a whole lot more than that.”
“Such as?”
“How about murder? Resisting arrest? Looking fabulous in a slim-fitting suit?”
Falk stopped running.
“What?” I said. “None of it’s true. Well, I did resist arrest and I obviously look fabulous in the suit, but—”
“Murder!”
“That’s why I left you in the hotel room. Now don’t look at me like that, I didn’t murder anybody. They just think I did and they’ve convicted me in absentia and I’ve been condemned to death, and Jude’s after me but she’s a mess right now and—”
“Murder!”
The nearest door opened. A chipper blonde poked her head out and said, “Nice people are trying to sleep.”
“Fuck off!” shouted Falk. “We are dealing with some shit here, okay?”
She shut the door. The hallway shook—not from the way she shut the door, although she slammed it hard, but from the thunderous footsteps of god knows how many state police officers charging into the hotel. I had perhaps fifteen seconds before they found the guard I’d bludgeoned and the magician I’d scalded.
“Finish yelling at me when we’re safe,” I said. He didn’t budge. “Actually, forget me. Let’s get you and Lennox safe and—”
He goggled. I thought another security guard had appeared behind me, but no—he was finally starting to appreciate how fucked everything had become.
“Lennox. I have to get Lennox. Let’s go, god damn it, let’s go!”
We kept moving—hallways hallways hallways, I’m sure you know what they look like—until I kicked open an emergency exit and dragged us into the dark.
When a station is built by bolting together the corpses of dead ships, certain architectural quirks are inevitable. A doorway opens onto a bottomless elevator shaft; a ladder drops straight into the bowl of a deeply unsanitary toilet. In this case, I’d plummeted into one of the ugly seams between Lauriston’s ships, where gravity was in short supply. I spun and Falk cursed and I flailed until my hand found a hatch. It was locked, but not with any authority. Gimlet sliced through it, I tore the thing open, and our old friend gravity grabbed us again.
We thudded into a rank stretch of plush carpeting. I looked up and found us in the main dining room of Lauriston’s finest restaurant: a Texas chophouse called The Meat Emporium that specialized in steak-shaped objects made from compressed animal scraps and dried veg. The walls glistened with fake blood and the whole place smelled of roasted fart.
Alarms were sounding here, too—“Full station alert! Full station alert!” Diners cowered in their banquettes. We were the only people moving and that meant everyone stared our way. A waiter screamed at us to stop. We ducked under the salad trough and hustled up the steps and out of that little corner of hell.
We found ourselves at the bottom of the atrium—four levels below Lennox and the dock and the 909. We were in a smoke-filled warren of tables and trash heaps, fry vats and hot griddles and open flames. As we weaved towards the ramp that wound around the atrium’s edge, security guards congealed around us. Two, then five, then fifteen. We walked slower and slower, as though that would stop them from seeing us. I looked down and saw, to my surprise, that I was holding Falk’s hand.
“Go,” I said.
“I’m not finished yelling at you yet.”
“And if you catch a bullet in the throat you’ll never get the chance. Get up the ramp. Get Lennox to safety. I’ll catch up with you on the 909. Assuming, that is, that I’m still welcome there.”
“Of course, Greg. I want to throttle you—that doesn’t mean I want you to die. Wait—” He pulled me close enough that I could smell his lotion. “You’re about to do something stupid, aren’t you?”
“How can you tell?”
“I know you, don’t I? What is it?”
“Follow my calling.”
“Greg, god damn it, what are you going to—”
I let go of his hand. Gave him a little shove, just enough that he had to take a couple of steps backwards. Just enough that, I hoped, whatever spell was being woven between us might snap.
“I just want to buy you and Lennox enough time to get away. I’ll follow, though—I promise. I’ll be on the 909 before you take off.”
He pulled off his sunglasses—who wears sunglasses with a bathrobe?—and locked his eyes on mine.
“I don’t love you,” he said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Until you came back, I hadn’t thought about you in years.”
“And I hadn’t thought about you.”
I was lying and he probably knew it and I couldn’t afford to care. The guards tightened into a steadily-shrinking ring.
“You won’t make it back to the 909,” he said.
“Probably not.”
“And that’s fine. Me and Lennox will be fine.”
“Keep her safe.”
“I will.”
“Now go.”
“Just...good luck, Greg.”
I gave him a nod and he got the fuck out of there. He had no trouble blending in with the fleeing crowd. After all, he was just an ordinary guy.
I tore my eyes off him. There were fifty guards in the food court. A glance confirmed there were more on the upper levels, all with guns pointed my way.
I was in the spotlight.
Where would I rather be?
I rapped the nearest table with my knuckle. It was pure iron, bolted onto the floor, and didn’t even wobble as I climbed onto the top. Every guard leveled their weapon at my heart. They wore green jumpsuits and creased green caps and looks of extreme indifference as to whether I lived or died. I didn’t care. No bullet could hurt more than what Falk had just told me.
I don’t love you.
Well fuck you, man. I don’t love you neither.
I clapped my hands.
I cupped my mouth.
I bellowed:
“Ladies and gentlemen! My name is Galaxy Greg—who wants to see a show?”
Chapter 17
Before I proceed, I owe you fine folks an apology. You embarked on this narrative expecting to spend time with a magician. Not the greatest in the universe, perhaps, but a pro. You expected me to expose the secrets of my profession, to share charming anecdotes of life backstage. You hoped for—and deserved!—a little razzle and with a bit of dazzle to go alongside.
You’ve gotten bupkis.
This breaks my heart, honest to god, because I was raised to give the audience what they’re desperate for. I hate that you have not gotten to see me at my best.
Well, that’s about to change. Because the moment I hopped onto the table in the Lauriston food court, I was the boy my mothers raised me to be. I threw up my hands, tossing Gimlet high. It spun into a silver corkscrew and dripped light down the sides of the towering atrium. The security forces paused, hands resting on their guns. I had no idea what I was about to do, but I was reasonably sure it was nothing they’d been trained to expect.
“Esteemed guests!” I cried, projecting all the way up to the fourth level. “I apologize for the hubbub. I promise that everything—the alarm, everything—it is all just part of the show.”
The circle of guards closed tighter. They shot glances at each other, not sure who was in charge, antsy to open fire. None of them noticed Falk slipping up the ramp. He was right, of course—I had absolutely no expectation of returning to the 909. By the time he and Lennox escaped, it seemed unlikely that I’d still be breathing. In that moment, oddly, I didn’t quite care.
I did a quick inventory of my pockets. I had nothing but Falk’s needle and thread.
That’s all right. I’d done more with less.
“A volunteer!” I cried. “For my first feat, I shall require a volunteer.”
“Sir,” muttered a particularly vicious looking guard in the front row. “You need to come down from there.”
“You don’t really think I’m a criminal, do you? If I were, would I give myself up like this? Wouldn’t I run?”
Nobody answered, but nobody shot me, either, and that felt like a win. Falk reached the atrium’s second level. My mouth kept moving. More bullshit tumbled out.
“I’m in the employ of station management, friends. A special treat for their overworked, underpaid, security forces who keep the patrons of this station safe from themselves. Check with Miranda Rosales on the station bridge—she’ll confirm everything.”
“There’s no Miranda Rosales on bridge.”
“Ms. Rosales would disagree. Check with her, and I assure you all will be made clear. In the meantime, what about that volunteer?”
If I’d paused the spell would break. They’d remember they were cops. They’d remember they had guns. So I kept moving—reaching into the crowd and grabbing the thickest wrist I could find. It belonged to a lumpy man in a lumpy orange uniform who carried a rifle the length of my leg. I dragged him halfway onto the table and, when he succeeded in clambering up the rest of the way, clapped my hands furiously.
No one joined me. My volunteer blinked unsteadily.
“Come on!” I shouted. “Is that how you greet one of your own? Is that the best Lauriston security can do?”
“Get the fuck down,” shouted some charmer in the back, “or we’ll blow your head off!”
“I’m not going anywhere until you give my friend here a hand.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. Throats cleared. Guns cocked. And then, like the first drops of rain on a dry field, there came claps.
Just a few. Mostly from the back. But enough to soothe my volunteer. Enough for me to know—
I had them.
For now.
I couldn’t see Falk anymore. He’d be on the fourth level soon. He’d burst into the daycare and grab Lennox around and they would be gone. Best to forget about them. It was almost easy to do—the work had me in its thrall.
I nudged my volunteer’s rifle away from my stomach. I took him by the hand.
“Your name, sir?”
“Second Lieutenant Ikeda. Customs.”
“And is it the custom in customs to work with frayed cuffs?”
“Excuse me?”
“The cuffs of your uniform, sir! Look at them—as frayed granny’s carpet!”
He looked. His cuffs were perfect. Six kinds of puzzlement danced across his face.
“But this uniform is brand new,” he said.
“Then your tailor’s a cheat. Nevermind that, though, for I have just the solution for you, sir, and it’s the simplest thing in the world. All we require is a needle and thread.”
With a flick of my wrists, I had a half-dozen needles in one hand and a spool of thread in the other. Ikeda quivered like a dental patient.
The guards were still.
In fact, they weren’t even guards any more.
They were my crowd, straining for a glimpse of something too small to see.
“And now it’s a simple matter of threading a needle. Of course, my eyes aren’t what they once were...”
I jabbed the thread. My hands shook terribly. Ikeda paled. After a few tries, I gave up.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” I said. “I know an easier way.”
And with that, I tossed the whole fistful of needles into my mouth. My eyes watered as I swallowed them, and I knew that every person who was watching felt the steel scraping their throats.
I opened my mouth, stuck my tongue out, gave a little cough. I risked a glance at the ramp.
Falk wasn’t there.
Which was good. He wasn’t supposed to be, remember? Falk and I were finished, totally finished, no need to even think about him anymore. He and Lennox were halfway to the 909 by now and everything was going to be just fine.
I’d have gone right back to the show if I hadn’t spotted someone on the ramp.
Someone I recognized.
My friend with orange hair.
The human equivalent of swallowing needles.
Elwood fucking Laabs.
He looked the same as ever. Shitty haircut, grumpy expression, ill-fitting clothes. But there was something about him that was different.
Something new.
He had a concussion rifle slung over his shoulder that made Second Lieutenant Ikeda’s firearm look like a pop gun.
It was resting on a tripod, its mammoth barrel dangling over the balcony’s lip.
It was humming angrily.
It was pointed at me.
No matter. I wasn’t here to survive. I was just buying Falk time. I had my crowd’s attention and a belly full of needles and until the concussion rifle finished warming up I had nothing to worry about at all.
I raised a length of thread. Spun around so that everyone could see it and then slid its tip down my gullet. It dropped, inch after uncomfortable inch, until it hit bottom. My eyes went wide. I nodded and the crowd nodded right back.
“Give it a tug,” I told Ikeda, my voice only slightly mangled by the thread.
He gave a timid pull.
On the balcony, Laabs adjusted his sight.
“Pathetic!” I told Ikeda. “My doctor said I’m not supposed to leave needles in my stomach. Pull hard!”
Laabs checked the range. He twiddled a knob. He looked satisfied.
Ikeda pulled the thread. It came out quickly, all six needles dangling from it, knotted at perfect fifteen centimeter intervals. They shone like diamonds, the most beautiful thing that atrium had ever seen.
“Well I’ll be,” said Ikeda. I plunged needles and thread back into my pocket. “I will be!”
Laabs slipped a slug the size of a baby’s leg into his rifle. He pulled back the bolt. The weapon pulsed blue.
The crowd clapped. Only a dusting of applause, but I’m not going to pretend I didn’t enjoy it. It was the sound of a job well done. Of Falk and Lennox safe. Of my run coming to an end.
I took a deep breath and prepared to die.
No such luck. For the moment Laabs pulled the trigger, Falk appeared behind him.
Falk, who was supposed to be halfway to the E-Gate.
Falk, who I’d done this whole idiotic routine to save.
Falk, who seized Laabs by the legs and flipped him head first over the balcony’s edge.
Laabs fell.
He fell—
And he fell—
And finally—
He landed.
He should have gone splat—any normal person would have had the decency to go splat!—but instead he bounced, sort of, and was perhaps ten meters in the air when—
The rifle fired.
Crisp yellow lightning spat from its barrel. Scorched rubber seared my nostrils and there was a sound like the universe being ripped in half. The shell slammed right into the middle of my audience. Those closest to it were simply vaporized. The ones beyond were pulped. Those on the outer edge—which included me—were tossed in the air like autumn leaves. For a moment I was confronted with the uncanny sight of my feet flipping past my head, and then I slammed into something concrete-ish and slid unhappily to the floor.
When my head stopped spinning, I found myself on the second level balcony, between a bank of comms booths and a naval surplus store. A newsbin had broken my fall. The atrium lights flickered. Alarms flashed. The air was flooded with black smoke and a smell that suggested quite a lot of things had caught fire. Ikeda had rallied the surviving guards, who were firing short bursts blindly into the haze.
From my happy vantage on the second level, I saw two things they did not.
The first was Elwood Laabs, rifle tight against his chest, limping with astonishing speed toward the ramp—toward me.
The second was that the smoke had begun to drift downwards. Not just drift, actually, but spiral—like water running down a drain.
A crack was opening in the station floor.
I lurched up the ramp, concrete vibrating beneath my feet. I heard Laabs, close and getting closer. I tried to force my legs into a kind of running motion, but it did little good. A cool breeze ruffled my lapels as the station’s air rushed toward the growing hole in the floor. Soon we’d all be sucked into space.
Even Elwood Laabs couldn’t survive that.
Right?
I passed the third level, saw a cobbler and a barbershop and a brothel and a karaoke saloon. Laabs’ rasping breath seemed just over my shoulder. I kept running and rounded a corner and there was Falk, still in his bathrobe, legs wide, stolen pistol looking strangely at home in his hands. Lennox was behind him. Not cowering. Not crying. Just resting a hand on her father’s back, watching the show. When she saw me, she smiled.
Falk opened fire.
Seven rounds ripped through the air, whizzing uncomfortably close to my head. I spun and saw Laabs flat on his back, chest decorated with a tight spread of fresh holes.
His arms whipped back and forth. His legs, too. He looked like a cockroach on its back, struggling for purchase but very much alive. His hand crawled towards the concussion rifle. I saw no reason to stick around.
I grabbed Falk and he grabbed Lennox and we hurtled towards the docking bay. I kept waiting for Lennox to ask a question or cry or announce that it was time for an astrography quiz but she was as silent as the vacuum outside. The breeze had become a gale. From the atrium came the sounds of metal ripping and people dying.
The station was coming apart.
My recollection of the next few minutes is nothing but a handful of silent images, snapshots from history’s least-appealing family vacation. People stained with blood and soot ran in every direction, pushing and shoving and screaming words I couldn’t hear. Corridors filled with rancid steam, through which panicked strangers moved like ghosts. Alarms of every color flashed out of sync. Walls cracked and rivets burst. Floors buckled or tilted or simply ceased to be.
As we ran, Falk loosed a rapid-fire monologue at Lennox—“It’s all right, baby, we’re almost there, baby, it’s going to be okay, just keep running and it’ll be okay, you’re doing great baby, just keep going baby,”—and so on forever. I don’t think any of us believed it, but it was nice to hear.
We entered the docking bay. Save for a few emergency lights, the space was entirely dark. Most of the ships had gone. We were the last rats left on a craft sinking fast.
Empty, the bay appeared to have grown. Time stretched out as we charged across it. The rushing wind made it like running underwater. We were halfway across the floor when Laabs announced his entrance with a strangled, full-body scream.
“Asssssssssssssshole!”
He hopped off the platform and pounded our way. Fear put new life into our legs. We threw ourselves into the tunnel and ran until we reached our airlock.
“Open it,” I said. “Open it!”
“Decompression protocol,” said Falk. “It’s sealed.”
“Daddy! Please!” cried Lennox. “Open the door!”
The tunnel rattled. I turned my back on Falk, who was hacking into the airlock controls with almost glacial calm, and waited for Laabs. I forced myself to breathe, to contemplate how uniquely fucked the situation had become.
I was in the path of a human tornado and I was completely unarmed.
Well, not completely.
I had those needles.
Plus the thread.
The extremely fucking strong thread.
Well, that’s a thought.
Working fast, impossibly fast, so fast my first mother would have smiled, I strung a length of thread between the columns and cinched it tight. I pressed my back against Falk’s and waited for Laabs. I was light-headed, my forehead pulsing with pain, my chest tight. The wind had stopped. It occurred to me that we were almost out of air.
“Daddy,” said Lennox, her voice barely a whisper.
“I’m close,” said Falk.
“No rush,” I said. “Everything is just fine.”
All my life I’d dreamed of magic.
Fire to flick from my fingertips.
Beams of light to shoot from my hands.
An invisible wind to carry me off the ground and into the sky.
When Elwood Laabs rounded the corner, when Lauriston Station shook itself to pieces, I had no cosmic powers to turn to. All I had was thin black wire.
Guess what?
There are few things more magic than that.
Laabs used every centimeter of his runway. By the time he reached us, he was going faster than a human being can.
He didn’t notice the wire.
It sliced into his gullet, severing his head without a sound. His body flipped forward and slammed into the door with enough force to dent the metal. His head hung in the air for a second, eyes flitting back and forth, wondering where the rest of him had gone.
And here’s the weird thing, folks. The thing that even as it happened I knew would yield a decade or more of nightmares.
There was no blood.
Not a spurt, not a drip, not a drop.
The wound was perfectly clean.
Inside the jagged stump of his neck I saw neither bone nor muscle nor any of the gunk that is so important to the functioning of a healthy human body. There were only knotted brown worms, twisting slowly across each other, dripping out of the wound onto the steel. I pressed a knuckle into one of them. It was ice cold.
Lennox screamed.
The door opened.
Falk grabbed my shoulder. He said something I couldn’t understand. When I didn’t respond, he dragged me towards the now open door. I was crossing the threshold when Laabs’ hand closed around my leg.
I looked at the head, which lay several meters away from the rest of the body.
The smile remained in place.
The eyes were still alive.
Perhaps I screamed. My ears were so blown out, I couldn’t be sure. But I know I thrashed like a drowning man—thrashed and kicked and kicked some more, kicked until that hand broke loose and I scrambled into the airlock and the hatch slammed and the entire world shook and Falk dragged me onto the 909 and Lauriston Station died.