Pacing The Cage

Amy Benning wanted nothing to do with Mars.

She didn’t want to be on Jupiter Station, waiting to board the ship that would take her to the red planet. She didn’t want to work with John Temple. She knew this would all end badly.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice. She went where they sent her, killed who they told her to kill and destroyed what they told her to destroy. They owned her, body and soul, for two more years.

If she survived.

Sometimes, she was astonished that she had made it through the first eight years of her contract. Most operatives didn’t, the average survival rate was five years on a ten year contract. Those that did survive were often injured beyond repair.

A few re-upped. Like John Temple. Rumor had it that Temple was on his fifth contract, something no one had ever done before. But he had paid the price for those years, no one doubted that. Amy had no intention of ever paying the price that he had.

All she had to do was survive for two more years. Something that might be hard to do working with Temple. His teams had an unbelievably high casualty rate. She had friends who had died working with him. The thought left her cold.

She paced back and forth in her quarters, her impatience growing. She had rejected the offer of being in on the briefings and the preliminary legwork. She had files on her computer, but she refused to open them. She’d read the final prep file on the journey to Mars, not before.

She wasn’t an investigator, like Temple. She was just a soldier. She’d kill what they told her to kill, that’s all she needed to know. Where to point her gun.

But the waiting was torture. She pulled the station guide from her bag and looked for the closest bar. Maybe a drink or two would settle her nerves.

A Very Bad Idea

Stan Barrow could think of thousands of places that he’d rather be than this little back office behind the Marshal’s office on Jupiter Station. Not that it was a bad office, it had all your basic amenities, especially for offworld. The chair was comfortable, the terminal was new and the coffee was pretty good.

But the data he was sifting through was something else. It was nightmarish in ways that he couldn’t even get his head around. Things that nobody could possibly have imagined.

Even if they were dealing with some kind of parallel reality (something his research considered extremely unlikely), even then, to imagine this sort of casual menace, this kind of uncaring cruelty, as if it were mere afterthought. It was beyond his comprehension.

The reports on the terminal in front of him, transcripts sent up from the computers on the surface, he couldn’t look straight at them for more than an instant. When he tried, he could feel his sanity slipping through the cracks of his mind.

Information wasn’t supposed to do that. It was supposed to be precise, orderly, easy to classify and correlate. He had spent his whole life being the person who could make sense out of the seemingly random patterns of data, who could see the shapes that hid within. That’s why Temple had come to him. He was the best, he could cut through anything and find that shape.

But this had no shape. It was fluid and amorphous, unlike anything in his experience. How could he send the team in to deal with this if he had no idea what the hell they were dealing with? How could he prepare them for this level of madness?

Unless…

It only took him two hours in the bazaar to find everything he needed. He returned to the office, frightened, but confident. He unpacked his kit and started his preparation. Two audio crystals were placed into receptacles and turned to full volume. One featured the sounds of passionate love making, the other, brutal screams of torture. He lowered the lights in most of the room, leaving only a spot on the terminal.

Then, the drugs. Digitason, to kill his sense of touch. Inheradol to shut off his sense of smell. Then, taking his seat at the terminal, the master stroke. Two old fashioned tabs of lysergic acid diethylamide. Now, let the work begin.

Stepping Through Memories

Temple let out a deep breath as he stepped onto Jupiter Station for the first time in 30 years. His last visit here had left him blind in one eye and unable to walk for six months. The memory still gave him a chill.

He looked around the main gateway, not exactly nervous, but certainly cautious. He had no intention of staying here long, but he had to see Gillen before he rendezvoused with his team and made the journey to Mars.

Gillen obviously knew something. Whether that something was going to prove useful or not, well, that was a wait and see proposition.

The main deck of Jupiter Station, what they called The Bazaar, while mostly made of iron and steel gave the feeling of a large, outdoor market. People of all sorts walked about, trading with each other, conversing, arguing, kissing. Their mode of dress was as varied as they were, some dressed in elaborate uniforms, some wearing nothing at all.

Tables and booths littered the floor, some offering items for sales, some games of chance. Prostitutes, both male and female, walked about in search of business. None of them approached John Temple. The sellers ignored him, the con man actually stepped from his path.

He wondered if any of them and actually been there during the riots, if they remembered what he had gone through. Most had probably just heard the stories, maybe some had seen the vids. It hardly mattered now.

He made his way across the crowd and pushed through the steel doors at the far end. they led to a familiar, narrow corridor that took him past maintenance and monitoring and into the Marshal’s office.

“Welcome back, Temple.” The voice that greeted him was hard and unyielding.

“It’s a short stay, Glenn. I won’t be causing any trouble.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Where is he?”

“Holding room 5.”

Temple walked past the Marshal and down to the holding area. He stopped outside room 5 and his stomach tightened. He recognized the smell.

“Marshal!” he yelled.

Glenn strolled down the corridor. “What is it, Temple?”

“I wanted you here when I opened the door, Glenn. Take a nice, deep breath. We both know what’s on the other side.”

He nodded and Temple slid the door open. The smell of death and decay was even stronger from inside.

But the cell itself was empty.

Transmissions

It only took four hours. The initial rescue and research team sat down in New Austin, got everything running, and started firing information back to Jupiter Station.

Jupiter relayed the information to Earth.

Fourteen scientists poured over the information with terror in their hearts.

This was new.

This was The Unknown.

The military wanted answers. The scientists only had more questions.

And then, four hours after the first transmission……. nothing.

All attempts to contact the research party were inconclusive. Two more days passed. Governments debated on a proper course of action. Too much had been spent on the Mars Project to abandon it. Another team would have to be sent.

Not a rescue team. Not a research team.

An Investigation Team.

And that’s when they called John Temple.

Austin Control Facility

The computers have been back online for two hours, The things they have to say? Well, they’re unusual.

One of them talks of the infestation, and how it must be cleansed. I think it’s talking about us. Humans. Another talks about transition theory. I can’t tell what it means, but it has something to do with a doorway.

The third computer, I don’t think I like the third one. It makes even less sense that the others. It keeps talking about something called meatspace. I think it means us.

They all seem to have developed sentience. And they don’t appear to like us very much.

Richards is trying to communicate with them. To learn what happened to the colonists.

I’m sorting through actual notebooks, astonished that some people still write longhand. Most of it is boring day to day stuff. Most of it. Some of it, though. Are these feeling, dream diaries? Or did they actually do this stuff. Did a Nobel Prize winning geneticist actually sew her daughter’s lips and eyes shut?

Did the town’s heroic Sheriff actually rape and kill his own fourteen year old daughter?

And where did the all go?

New Austin

All the people are gone.

We were expecting something bad. No power, no atmosphere, we knew something had gone wrong. Nobody could survive on Mars without the artificial atmosphere.

So, where are the bodies?

The colony looked old. Abandoned. Like no one had been here for decades. The last transmission was only three days ago. What could have done this?

My crew is offloading equipment now. We’ll re-establish the atmosphere, bring the grid back online. Maybe there’s a clue in their computer system, something to tell us what happened here. Something to explain why there’s not even a trace of DNA left in any of the colonies.

It started here, according to the warning systems. The first alarm sounded right here, in New Austin. The final message came from here, as well.

“What fools we’ve been, not to have seen. What heights of arrogance we have reached, what incredible hubris. It laughs at us. We amuse it. And we deserve all that is to come.”

That message was sent by a Nobel Prize winning geneticist. She was designing a new strand of wheat that could grow in artificial soil. It would have made the colony self sufficient in forty years.

Where did everyone go?

Ten Colonies Monitoring Station.

“They woke it up.”

That’s a hell of a thing to see on your monitor first thing in the morning. Even before you figure out what it means, even when it’s just four little words staring right at you, it makes your blood run cold. At least, that’s what it did to me.

Little red warning lights are flashing on nine different panels. Nine? How is that even possible? Nine separate catastrophes in one night?

Monitoring station offline. Power grid offline. Atmosphere failing. Temperature settings reading off the scale. What the hell?

I looked back to the message on my main terminal, to those four words. I knew who it was from before I even opened the header. Gillen. That crazy old bastard on Jupiter Station. He’d been right all along.

And now New Austin was gone.

What about the other colonies? My station was only connected to the one colony, the others all had their own monitors. Were they all gone, too? Would we all be making the same call back to Earth this morning?

I knew the answer was yes, down in the pit of my stomach, I knew. And I felt the coldness pass through me as I reached for the phone.

Mars

The wind was increasing.

Wyatt watched as it blew red sand across the surface of what had been New Austin, coating the rubble with its rust like palette. He sat, perched on the remains of a Tucker ’96 Shadow ATV, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the end.

All those years of terra-forming, then the growth pains of setting up a new community, all for nothing. Soon, the old atmosphere would return and all life here would once more be extinct.

Almost all life.

It would continue of course, just like it had for ages untold. If only we had known that before we came to this barren world. If only we had known that all the legends had sprung from here, so very close to our home.

All the legends, the myths, the stories of ancient evils. All true, every last god forsaken one of them.

He pulled the gun from his holster, a silly but functional replica of the six shooters they used to carry in the old west, on Earth. New Austin had been a bit of an affectation, really. A designer colony, for those who wanted to live the pioneering lifestyle of ancient America.

What pioneer ever had to face this reality?

Wyatt considered ending his own life, all it would take was a single bullet. But he had five left and it seemed like a waste not to use them. They wouldn’t do any good, bullets had already been tried. But still, it would bring him some small bit of satisfaction before his time was done.

As long as it got there before the atmosphere turned….

Crosses: An excerpt From a Novel In Progress

I don’t know why I rented the office on Main Street.

When I retired from the force in Baltimore and moved to Northern Michigan it was my intention to live out my life in peace and quiet, but in a little town like Frankfort, having no livelihood seemed somehow decadent . So, I filled out the appropriate forms, took the necessary tests and found myself with a private investigator’s license.

I never really intended to become a working investigator. It was all an elaborate bit of self-deception. Now, when people asked me what I did for a living I could show them my license. Then they’d say something about how it must be interesting and I’d respond that it was mostly boring routine.

Still, I felt obligated to put on a good front, so I went in search of an office. I found the perfect location. An apartment over a flower shop, right across from City Hall. The floor had two apartments and the front one was vacant. It didn’t take much to convince the landlord that I could use it as an office without making any major conversions. Mostly it required simple redecorating. Doors closed off the kitchen area so that it couldn’t be seen by clients, the living room became a waiting room and the bedroom became my office.

It took about a month for me to get it furnished to my needs, which were spartan at best. The waiting room had two couches and a coffee table covered in magazines, mostly current. I’d pick them up at the Frankfort Bookstore, read then in my office and then leave them there. My office had a single oak desk with a computer at one end. I had a nice leather chair behind it and a simple wooden chair in front, for clients. I hadn’t done much decoration, but I did have a large framed photo of Orioles Park in Camden Yards from Baltimore hanging where I could see it comfortably from my desk.

A book shelf in the corner held a bunch of books on Michigan State law, which I might get around to reading someday, along with all of my old crime scene manuals. A small refrigerator held mostly beer and a few microwave sandwiches in case I got hungry. The microwave itself was in the closed off kitchen, where I almost never set foot.

In the first few weeks, I didn’t use the office much. Wednesdays I would pick up any new magazines that interested me and take them back to the office. I’d spend an hour or so flipping through them then I’d lock up. Fridays I walked from my house on Forrest Ave down to the post office and picked up my mail, which I would then take to my office and open. If it was a bill, I dealt with it there. I had taken to leaving my checkbook in the desk drawer. If there were letters, I read them. If they called for an answer, I’d compose one. Usually I was only there for about an hour, and then I locked up and headed for the Mariner Pub.

So it surprised me, when this particular Friday I got a knock at the door. I had been staring at the far wall of my office, under the picture of Camden Yards. It was empty of furniture and I was thinking that it could use a coffee pot. Of course a coffee pot would mean I’d also have to buy a table to place it on and that felt like a large commitment for me , considering I really only drank coffee once or twice a week. I had almost made a decision when the knock caught my ear.

I crossed the waiting room and pulled the front door open. In the hall stood a very serious looking woman. She was probably beautiful, it was hard to tell under the business like clothes and strict makeup. Her suit jacket was tailored well and showed the subtle curve of her waist and her skirt stopped just below the knee, with traditional tan stockings covering what appeared to be shapely calves. Even her dark brown hair was pulled tight in a ball as if to avoid offending her. Her eyes were a pale blue and gave her an other worldly look. It was impossible to tell her age.

“Can I help you?” I asked. I gave her my best smile but it didn’t even crack the frown she was sporting. I wondered if anything could.

“Are you Mr. Kellerman, the detective?” She made it sound like she was asking for something incredibly distasteful. My ex-wife would assert that she was.

“I’m Nicholas Kellerman, please, come in.”

She moved in slowly, taking everything in but careful not to touch anything. I guided her into my office and indicated the wooden chair. She grimaced, but bit her lip and sat down.

“Can I get you anything?”

She nodded. “Coffee, please.”

I stared at the empty wall where my coffee pot should have been. “I don’t suppose you’d settle for an Amstel Light?”

“No, I’m fine. Never mind.”

I crossed behind my desk and took my chair. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. You know me but I don’t know you.”

She shook her head as if I had asked a yes or no question and she was answering in the negative. Then she realized that wouldn’t do so she took a deep breath, folded her hands in her lap and muttered, “I’m Ms. Cafferty.”

“Well, what can I do for you, Ms. Cafferty?”

She glared at me. “Nothing for me, Mr. Kellerman. I represent Mr. Sebastian Richmond.”

I waited for her to go on, but she just sat there looking at me. It occurred to me that Sebastian might be some local big shot, hence her expectations. Still, I’d never heard of him. “So, is there something I can do for Mr. Richmond?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she muttered, “He doesn’t confide his thoughts to me.”

“Do you have any suspicions?”

“It is not my job to have suspicions and even if I did, it would be inappropriate for me to share them.”

I thought about it for a moment. We seemed to be engaged in some strange sort of game and I had to ask just the right questions to get any sort of answers. “Why are you here, Ms. Cafferty?”

“Mr. Richmond is confined to a wheelchair. He couldn’t make his way here even if he so desired.” The look on her face left no doubt that he certainly wouldn’t desire to be here.

“So he’d like me to visit him at his home?”

“Yes, at your earliest opportunity. Say, this afternoon?”

“That sounds like there’s some urgency to it. Are you sure you don’t know why he wants to see me?”

            Her lips tightened. “You’ll have to speak with Mr. Richmond directly.”

“Any idea why he picked me?”

“I believe you are the only private investigator listed in the Benzie County phone book.”

I scratched my head and stared at her some more. I decided she really was attractive in a black widow sort of way. “Where does Mr. Richmond live?”

“2452 Deer Ridge Trail. It’s off Highland Drive on the North Shore of Crystal. Think you can find it?”

I smiled. “I am a trained investigator.”

Ms. Cafferty stood from her chair and was about to leave the room when I asked, “You think the room needs a coffee pot?”

She turned back towards me and gave me a quizzical look. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I’m thinking it needs a coffee pot.” I pointed at the empty wall. “Right over there.”

She stared at me for a minute, then at the wall. “You’d need a table.”

I nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

She lingered a minute longer, then turned and walked out. She seemed insecure to me. Insecure, but smart. It didn’t take her much effort to switch gears. I wasn’t sure if that information would ever prove useful, but I’d always worked on the assumption that knowing too much was better than not knowing enough.

Something in the back of my mind reminded me that it was that assumption that had led to my divorce. Was I better off?

I turned on my computer and went straight to MapQuest. Deer Ridge Trail was indeed off the North Shore of Crystal Lake, but not by far. It was an expensive area. A house up there probably cost at least a million. A million dollar house could lead to a nice size fee. I didn’t really need the money to live on, but if I was going to be extravagant and buy a table for a coffee pot then a sizeable fee couldn’t hurt.

I kicked my feet up on my desk and flipped through my mail. It was mostly junk mail, flyers and credit card offers, but an envelope postmarked Florida caught my eye. There was no return address on it, but I recognized the hand-writing. I hesitated for a moment, but gathered my nerve and opened it. Inside was a note and a photograph. The photo was of a couple in their early forties, sitting on a beach with their dog, a collie, between them. They all looked attractive, they all looked happy. The woman was Marcia, my ex-wife. The guy’s name was Rick. He was a TV reporter. I didn’t know the dog.

I put the photo down and looked at the note. It was from Marcia, of course. She hoped I was doing well. She hoped there were no hard feelings. She wrote that I could come visit her and Rick anytime I liked. She was pregnant, 5 months. She was going to have a child. I saw the word ‘finally’ in there, hidden between the lines. She signed it ‘Best Wishes”. She used to sign her notes “Love, Marcia.” She probably saved that for Rick, now.

I looked at the picture again. She looked good. In fact, she looked better than she had in years. Maybe it was being with me that had made her look worn out and haggard. She didn’t look pregnant, but the picture might not be recent. I wondered about the dog’s name. Probably Lassie or something equally uninventive.

We had owned a little mutt once and she named him Benji, despite my protests.

The picture was making me angry and I wasn’t sure why. I decided I was better off not dwelling on it and headed off for some lunch and a beer at the Mariner.

Slow Days Are Here Again….

Not much to report at the moment. As most of you know, I work in retail, which doesn’t leave a lot of free time during the christmas season. I do have a few lengthy posts in the works, but they’re all too important to me to rush through, so they’ll have to wait until I have the time to do them properly.

I hope everyone had a lovely turkey celebration. My wife was home from school, so I certainly enjoyed myself.

The novel is progressing slower than I’d like, but it is progressing. And I’m still fiddling with a story for Alfred Hitchcock Magazine. Also thinking about another christmas short story for this year. Still not sure on that one.

I’ll probably be transitioning the blog a bit. Less frequent updates, but much longer, essay style pieces. Anyone have any opinions on the idea?