Killing Gravity Read online

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m gonna take care of it. How do I get to the air lock?”

  “Can you promise me you won’t try and steal my ship if we help you?”

  I just nod, and then I remember that Squid’s oculars are probably busy with operational data. “Yeah, I won’t try it again; you have my word.”

  “Einri, show her the way, and find us a wormhole.”

  * * *

  The guy is standing naked in the vestibule, the pants half of his space suit pooled around his ankles. I stand in the doorway for a few seconds, not really sure where to look, unable to stop myself from seeing the way he has absolutely no hair on his body. In the mess hall I just thought his head was razored, but it’s more than that. I can even see his weird, hairless ball-sack dangling between his legs.

  He bends down to pull up his pants, and that’s when I finally look away. He holds the pants with one hand, turns around, and offers his other. “Mookie.”

  I shake it. “Mars.”

  Each of his forearms is decorated with a luminescent tattoo—fine lines that shimmer and glow above the skin. One is a caduceus, the other the schematics for some model of rifle. On his upper arm there’s a patch of pinkish skin, glossy like plastic, and I figure that’s where his unit insignia would have been. When you sign up to the imperial military—or are drafted—they put you through a process they call Temporary Augmented Alopecia. You go AWOL and you’re stuck that way for life. Some vets prefer to stay hairless after living like that for a few years; makes them feel like they’re still connected, I guess, still part of the service.

  “You don’t need to come out with me,” I say.

  “You’re not the only one with a dog in this race.”

  I put my satchel down, and Seven pokes her head out and stares at me. “Stay on board,” I say, “this won’t take long.” She runs up my body, coming to rest on my shoulder. I sigh. “All right then.”

  After I’ve suited up we pass through the air locks. As we leave the exterior door the artificial gravity releases its hold. I drift outside, and my eyes want to look out to the stars, but I force them down to the hull of the ship so I can see the handholds.

  I left my hooded cloak on underneath the space suit for Seven, because it’s better than her blocking half my view while I fend off a boarding party. Already I can feel her purring against my spine; she could sleep anywhere.

  “Einri, can you spin the ship around; give us a clear view?” Mookie asks.

  “Negative. Locating a wormhole takes navigational precedence.”

  We clamber around the hull fast, or as fast as one can in zero gravity. First a large orange planet comes into view, its surface obscured by gray-black clouds, then the Wolf-Spider is there, stars twisting and blurred in the wake of its engines.

  From the ship’s-eye-view it looked small and distant, but now seeing the frigate proper, my heart is thundering. Like all imperial vessels, MEPHISTO ships are Northern Cooperative designs; the hull’s curved surfaces make them look grown as much as built—biological, insectoid. Where an insect’s eyes would be are a hundred lenses and other sensors, and its carapace bristles with spikes that could be antennae or weaponry. I hope they still want me alive.

  This close I can see the shocktroopers on the ship’s hull—burgundy smudges shimmering against the background of space. I hook my tether to the hull and wait.

  Mookie comes up beside me, and through his visor I can see his facial tattoos glowing in the dim light of space. He takes hold of the waver that dangles from his belt, then asks, “What do you need me to do?”

  “Drag me inside if I pass out.”

  “Huh?”

  I ignore him because the Wolf-Spider has started banking. The first squad launches, and I focus on the trooper to the far right. I sweep my hand across, and they tumble sideways, spinning. The shocktroopers are all tethered together—I send the whole pack plunging left and down away from us, a tangle of bodies and tensile steel.

  “Void-damned spacewitch,” Mookie says, breathless.

  He sounds impressed rather than freaked out, but still I say, “Don’t fucking call me that.”

  The first squad is already retracting when the second blasts off from the personnel launch pads. I make a shoving motion, and they go backward, spinning head over ass until they collide with other soldiers on the hull.

  I don’t have to move my hands, but it helps focus my intention, pushing body and mind to one purpose. That’s what they taught us, anyway, when I was a kid. I can feel my brain inside my skull—not a pain, just a presence. No matter how many times I do this, I can never get used to it. It’s like my brain is vibrating in there, or swelling up against the bone. It feels wrong. It feels like I was born for this.

  They must think I could do this all day, because the next group are a pack of specialists, launching off the hull with personal blastpacks, white hiss of gas escaping behind them and no tethers to get tangled in.

  I yell, loud, forcing the sound up from my diaphragm—another trick they taught us—and swat these elite troops one by one. By the time they’re all spinning off into space, my throat is on fire.

  “You fucks!” I sweep my arm out, and the troopers on the hull scatter, bouncing off the hull and stopping suddenly at the ends of their tethers. I feel that pressure building up in my chest and pause. I exhale and I force myself to remember these aren’t the same troops, these aren’t the ones who were there; maybe they don’t deserve to die. Maybe.

  The Wolf-Spider spins again and banks up, revealing a series of tubes along its base. A missile shoots toward the Nova’s engines, and I reach out and grab it. I think about sending it back and killing every last one of those troopers, but I don’t. I crush the missile in my hand, and the explosion must be like a declaration of war, because more missiles tear through the void between ships, and I fling them away from the Nova.

  I’m screaming again and Seven is awake now. She’s in the helmet with me, and she’s baring her tiny little teeth at the whole universe like she’s going to kill it herself, like together we’ll watch it all burn. And there’s water building up in my eyes, and the missiles look like blurry stars streaking through space, and all I want to do is die and kill and cry, and then my vision shrinks down to a single pixel, and I know what that means, but it’s too late to stop it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I open my eyes and Squid is sitting over me. I turn my head and see Mookie, holding a needle.

  “No fucking needles.” I squirm away from him and it hurts, but I hold a hand out ready to throw him against the wall.

  “Relax,” he says, putting the needle down. “If you don’t like needles, best not to look at your left hand.” I’m about to tear at the drip I guess is stuck into the back of my hand, but he says, “You need fluids; just forget it’s there and I’ll take it out when you’re ready.”

  I ignore him and try to glance down, but Seven is curled up asleep on my chest and I can’t see over her. Cute little jerkface.

  “I was expecting another sphere,” Squid says.

  “Wasn’t sure I felt like killing that many people.” I can feel the headache building already. “You couldn’t have scavenged it anyway.”

  “I know that,” Squid says, “I just wanted to watch it happen. You know this ship is a crusher, right?”

  “Yeah, Einri said so.”

  “Well, you crushed that other vessel tighter than the Nova could have. I had Einri’s drones scan it, to try and figure out what it was and whose remains were smeared across the inside.”

  I can’t help but chuckle at that. “Bounty hunter,” I say; “tracked me for months.”

  “Why’d they want you so bad?” Trix says. I turn my head and see her leaning in the doorway, prosthetic arm crossed over her organic one. “First a bounty hunter, now a void-damned troop carrier?”

  I roll my eyes. “Maybe the rest of you like sitting around the viewport telling stories and holding hands, but that
ain’t me.”

  I try to roll over, but Seven digs her claws into my chest for purchase and I have to roll back.

  Mookie gets up, and I watch him walk to the door and put his hand around Trix’s waist. “Come on, we’ll let her rest.”

  Trix glares at me for another second, then they leave.

  After a pause I say to Squid, “There must be twenty years between them.”

  “If you aren’t telling stories, then neither am I.” They get up to leave, pausing in the door. “My offer still stands, if you want to join us. If not, we’re on the edge of Eridani now, and we’ll be at Aylett Station in a couple of days; you can disembark there and find your own way.”

  They leave before I can start to answer. After everything, Squid still wants me on board? I’m not sure if that’s brave or dumb. But I’ve got contacts on Aylett—not friends exactly, but familiar faces at least.

  I move my left hand and feel the tug of tubing, and I have to exhale deeply to push the image of my punctured skin out of my mind. I move my right hand instead and start stroking Seven, rubbing along her jawline.

  People have tried to tell me she looks like a cat, but tiny. Cats come from Terra, and as far as I know, cats can’t squeeze their whole bodies through gaps only big enough for their heads. They definitely can’t glide through the air on skin membranes.

  I clasp her against my chest, stand up, and walk over to the viewport, dragging the fluid pod behind me. Seven climbs to my shoulder and we both stare out into space, counting stars.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Every station has its own smell, depending on what kind of plants they use to make the oxygen, and what brand of scrubbers. They use ferns on Aylett, so the whole place has a sweet and earthy scent—a smell you can feel tingling your nose hairs. I fucking hate it.

  “You won’t reconsider?” Squid asks.

  They’ve followed me out into the bay, pretending like it’s to oversee the unloading of the scrap they’re hauling, but we both know Einri can handle that on its own.

  “Look, I appreciate you reaching out or whatever, but I’ve got my own shit going on.”

  “Maybe we can help.”

  “Or maybe you’ll die trying. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

  “If you change your mind, we’re going to be here for at least a day; got a long haul out to the Periphery, so I’ll be haggling ruthlessly for supplies.”

  They hold out their hand and I shake it.

  “Best of luck,” they say.

  “Thanks; you too.”

  I walk away, heading through the pallets, containers, and smaller vessels parked in the loading bay. I can feel Squid watching me leave, and I’m sure there’s another pair of eyes too—probably Trix’s, making sure I’ve actually gone.

  I fish Seven out from the hood of my cloak, stash her in my satchel, then pull the hood up over my head. I strap a rebreather over my face to hinder station surveillance. As a bonus it cuts out most of the fern smell.

  The dock is off-limits to surveillance because the transport union is crooked as shit and needs privacy to do its dodge, but as soon as I walk out, it starts: mounted cameras in every corner of the ceiling and floor, surveillance drones flitting through the air, the occasional squeal of feedback when two audio snoopers get too close.

  I hock the plasma charges and detonator and get royally screwed, but a few creds is better than a free forfeit at the weapons checkpoint. Hock anything other than weapons outside the checkpoints and you deserve to be ripped off.

  I skip the first couple of banks of vertilators, weighed down as they are with workers, tourists, and the odd newly married triple or couple. They flock to Aylett because it’s lousy with casinos, as well as the hotels and resorts that feed on casinos like mold on damp. Down the far end of the causeway are the vertilators I need—the ones scrawled with graf and spattered with the thick frogspawn of dried spit.

  FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL THE EMPERER

  GROUNDWELLERS, FUCK OFF!

  LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS ON SOME PLANET WHILE YOUR STUCK HERE

  I hit the panel for Ring One and grab on to the handhold as the vertilator drops me through a couple hundred meters of artificial gravity.

  * * *

  Beneath Ring One is Zero, but it isn’t called Ring Zero, because it isn’t a ring. It’s a spherical cavern housing the reactor that powers the whole station. They must figure it’s safer in the center, and they get to pump waste heat through the joint for free heating.

  I pull the rebreather off my face and leave it hanging around my neck. The smell of humanity is thick enough down here to cover the fern smell, but it’s still its own kind of unpleasant.

  Ring One is where my people live. Well, not my people, but the closest thing I want to find: the freaks, the runaways, the perpetual wanderers, the organized crime, the genehackers, the bodychoppers, the digital-wannabes, the loose, the inebriated, the ones with no common sense, no career and no desire for one, the fed up, fucked up, and flamed out. The whole place is like a dangerous chemical concoction. You never know what might set off a reaction, and the threat of violence hangs in the air thick as the smell.

  The main problem with being around my people is that I hate people. Spend enough time alone, and being surrounded by people is the least natural thing you can imagine; it’s like I can feel my psyche itch. Murmuring voices flood over me, and my lungs burn like I’m struggling to breathe through their massed exhalations.

  My fight-or-flight response is kicking in hard as I push through the throng, and I’m starting to get a headache from the way my eyes dart left and right looking for incoming danger. They’re not looking low, though, so Seven’s hissing is my only hint that a prepubescent pickpocket is trying to rob me. I turn around just in time to see a small hand disappear back into the crowd, caked in dirt and bleeding from razor-fine scratches.

  I still check my satchel as I walk up to a little cart that’s pouring steam and filling the air around it with the smell of teriyaki.

  “Just one,” I say, holding up a finger. I pay and slip one of the crickets off the skewer and into the satchel, where Seven chomps on it greedily. I eat the rest and dump the bamboo skewer just as I reach the entrance to the Hub.

  It’s been a while since I was here last, and I don’t recognize the bouncer. He’s got an ocular implant that must be rigged to the Hub’s server, though, because when I hold up my cred chip he says, “Nah, you’re good, Mars; head on in,” just like we’re old friends.

  If someone is going to use my name, I’d rather it was because they know me, not because my face is in their database.

  I get a drink, spot Miguel in one of the booths, and walk over. Miguel Guano is a digital-wannabe, though they call themselves stackheads. Miguel Guano is not his real name, though. He wants people to think he’s batshit so they don’t fuck with him, but he’s a scrawny body beneath a head made unnaturally large by too many augmentations. The augs turn the products of his sensorium into data and then store it all, building a database for that impossible endgame of full personality upload. He’s so pale he almost looks white, but that’s a pretty common look this deep, where everyone’s too busy grinding to catch any UV.

  The upside to Miguel being a stackhead is that you can send him a burst about a job any time and know he’ll start working on it ASAP, but there’re downsides too. First off, stackheads tend not to have an internal monologue, so you’ve got to listen to every dumb thought that goes through their heads; it’s a side effect of them wanting to record everything but not having figured out how to capture thoughts. Second thing is, you’ve got to look at his dumb slack face across the table while he’s wired in and mentally elsewhere.

  I’m halfway through my tea wine when Miguel’s eyeballs and mouth stop twitching and he rejoins the land of the flesh—that hated meat vehicle.

  “Oh, hey, Mars, you should have sent me a burst telling me you were here,” he says, then: “She’s looking run-down; must be in the shit. I’d still bang h
er.”

  Live without an internal monologue for long enough, and you end up living without shame too.

  “I refuse to burst someone that’s sitting right in front of me. And that’s never gonna happen.”

  He smiles and shrugs.

  “You get the info I asked for?” I said.

  “You got my creds?” he says.

  I check my cred balance and see Squid’s already paid me for the scrap of my former ship. “Right here, Guano. Open a cred link.”

  His eyes go distant for a second, and the funds transfer across. He pulls a shard from one of the many pockets on his vest and slides it across the table.

  I hold a finger over the shard. Playback starts and Miguel talks at me. I pause so I can hear him properly, then realize it’s a voice-over he recorded ahead of time. I hit play again.

  “Everybody knows there’s no surveillance in the dock, but if you’re clever, there are ways around it.”

  The image is clean but oddly faceted, like it was put together from a bunch of different feeds. There’s a figure leaning against a container, waiting. I can tell she’s a bounty hunter from her jacket—a bright green bomber with kills and captures marked on the left arm; little ship silhouettes run from shoulder to wrist.

  “Plenty of reflective surfaces in the dock; with enough processor cycles you can pick out an image.”

  A second figure walks up, and my breath catches in my throat. I zoom in, but the image just turns pixelated.

  “For audio you’re looking for vibrations in membranes, like glass. Takes even more processing power, but the result is, well, listen.”

  The second woman speaks—“Here’s everything you need”—and passes the bounty hunter a shard like the one I’m holding now.

  “But, she’s dead,” I say. Sera.

  “What?” Miguel asks.

  “That other woman; I watched her die.”

  My middle finger and thumb wrap around the bracelet on my left wrist, any decoration it once had eroded by years of wear.