Chapter 10
I haven’t posted in a few weeks now, mainly because there’s been a lot happening in my life that has rudely demanded my attention, with no regard for my desire for creative output.
However, I’m hopefully returning to our regularly scheduled programming, but as an unreliable narrator myself, I’d advise you not take my word for it.
All that being said, please enjoy chapter 10 of my as-yet-untitled novel.
You can find all previous chapters HERE.
It took about 2 hours to gain access to the archived footage. What I didn’t know was that Khal-Sec actually moves each block of 30 hours of footage into a separate archive 30 hours after it occurred. Monday’s footage would be archived on Wednesday, and so forth. We didn’t actually use Earth days on Khalo. For whatever reason, lukshae had a hard time getting their heads around why we named certain days after gods of mythologies long dead. It also didn’t make sense to keep using months and seasons of Earth or Luksha, so Khalo adopted a purely matter-of-fact date-tracking convention. That day was 186-909. The 186th period of Khalo Station’s existence, the 909th day in that period. Every 1000 days the day counter resets and increments the period counter by 1.
I brought up the feed for the first of twenty cameras in the heart. It may as well have been a static image, so little happened in the 2-hour time frame I scrubbed through. The same went for the next eight feeds. I had started at the first feed from Sector One. The heart’s intermittently open structure offered top-down views of Cho, Krem, Works, and Pound. They looked like 3D models with infinite resolution. I methodically scrubbed my way through the same 2 hours of footage all along the length of the heart. I didn’t want to miss anything going on in there that could’ve been important. I got to Sector Three and spun up the first feed.
Nothing.
Then the second.
Nothing.
Then the third.
Nothing again.
Fuck! This had to be where she’d come up into the heart. If she did at all.
Then on the fourth feed, I found her crawling through a hatch and closing it off behind her. She floated there, limp, for what seemed like a long time. Then, she went back to the hatch, opened it and let someone else eerily levitate into the space. He had close-cropped brown hair and wore a dark suit with a white shirt and deep red tie. It took me longer than it should’ve to realise it was Ferro. He had something with him. Reaching through the hatch, he almost disappeared again, then steered a huge cargo case. It was matte black save for a flash of silver around the handle, ribbed and rigid. It looked like a giant’s lunchbox.
They floated there for the next few minutes, silently talking. There was no audio present on the file so it just looked like they were gesturing to each other. Del was still, calm even, in contrast to Ferro who looked around the chamber they were in every five seconds, clearly anxious about whatever was going on. They weren’t alone for long. The hatch swung open again, raising into the chamber, when another human man in a suit came in. He was bald, heavier-set than Ferro, and sported a giant red beard. He carried with him, an identical cargo case to the one Ferro brought. The hatch swung open again. This time a cargo case drifted ominously through the aperture before a lukshae woman, wearing the flowing, interleaved fabrics of lukshae formal-wear. Her rich lilac-coloured skin caught the harsh LED and reflected it like porcelain from under a thick crop of dark hair. The various textiles flowed as gracefully as the woman did in the null gravity.
Textiles from Luksha were their biggest export. People on Earth thought they cared about clothes before they learned about fashion on Luksha. It’s a far cry from the culture of haute couture on Earth, and they strive for a balance of form and function. A good garment strikes that balance. They make textiles from almost every natural resource on the planet, broken down and woven into infinitely intricate patterns or fine, delicate textures, sometimes the garments even tell stories, and fashion is taught in schools the same way reading is taught on Earth.
I wonder what the first lukshae to encounter humans thought about their utilitarian one-pieces and vac-suits. They must’ve thought we looked ridiculous.
The woman’s formal gown swirled and swept around her, each layer of neatly arranged fabric dancing to slightly different tunes. She expertly manoeuvred herself into the chamber as if she had been born in zero G, and set the cargo case aside with the others. The way her clothes undulated around her made me think of the tentacles of an octopus.
More people. Then more. People kept coming through the hatch with more identical cargo cases until the chamber was brimming with the congregation. Of all the lukshae present, Del had been the clear black sheep. Not conforming to the cultural wardrobe, opting instead for her recognisable boiler suit pulled down to her waist and tied by the sleeves and a plain black, oversized vest draped over her shoulders. The group hung in the space, attention focused on a human woman, wearing a light blue shirt neatly tucked into beige, high-waisted trousers. Her shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows and her hands were casually in her pockets as she spoke. She directed a few of them to start moving the cargo cases somewhere out of frame, leaving a loose semicircle of enraptured listeners.
Something shifted among the group. Confusion or possibly disbelief, it was hard to tell from my limited vantage point. Then all eyes were on Ferro as he drifted through to the hollow of the semicircle, speaking directly to the woman in the blue shirt. He looked angry, throwing his arms and pointing his finger at the clear leader. She remained icy calm as Ferro ranted, then, after a minute, he stormed out, as much as anyone can storm out of a place in zero G. Nobody tried to stop him as he flew back towards the hatch in the floor, heaved it open and slammed it closed with his mass on the Redstone side. The congregation looked at each other, then to the woman in the centre, who remained deadly still, floating there. She said something else and the crowd looked at each other again, only this time, something else rippled through them. reluctance, maybe. Or fear.
At the leader’s instruction, most of them moved towards the cargo cases out of frame and in most cases, never returned into shot. Only one of them came back to interrupt the conversation the leader was having with Del. The bald man who had been one of the first to arrive. The three of them floated in the dim light, silently speaking about things I’d need to find out from Del. I was dreading the conversation. I wasn’t sure what even sure where to start, and if I should give Cora a heads-up about all this before confronting Del.
The leader handed something to Del, a small black box with a handle on the top. Del took it carefully then manoeuvred herself to leave. When she got to the hatch, the leader said something else. Del turned, then nodded, then disappeared through the hatch.
Shortly after, everyone had disappeared out of frame, so I went back to the previous feed and scrubbed through the timeline some more. They had emptied a few of the cargo cases and started assembling some components together. Before I could make out anything more than what looked like a few computer terminals and spools of wiring, the feed cut out and a window flashed up on my terminal.
Connection to server terminated.
***
Instead of spending another two laborious hours to regain access to the security server I tapped my temple to activate my SubCom and sent a connection request to Cora. She answered almost right away.
“Hey where you been?” said the disembodied voice in my head. She didn’t sound annoyed, but I could tell she had been talking a lot. Her voice got a little croaky if she was speaking for a long time, or particularly loudly. I wasn’t sure which it might have been. Maybe both.
“I went to see Adio then I was going through everything he gave me.”
“How did it go?”
“With Adio?”
“Yeah.”
“Not great, I’ll be honest.”
“Why?”
“Well, he was delighted to hear Ferro was dead, but because we weren’t the ones who made that happen, he didn’t think holding up his end of the bargain was necessary.”
“What an asshole! He got what he wanted, whether it was us or not, why not just give us what we wanted.”
“Yeah, well, he did, but I may have burned that particular bridge”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I threatened him and maybe broke something of his in an attempt to intimidate him into giving me the data.”
“Didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Anyway, I got the data and I’ve been going through it and corroborating with the security feeds. Listen, we should probably talk in person. Is Del still with you?”
“She’s sleeping in my bunk. I’m down at KK.”
“Order me a Wham Burger, I’ll be right there.”
“With or without sauerkraut?
“With, of course!”
***
Kibble King was quiet by the time I got there. It was 17H, right in the middle of the dead shift between lunch and dinner. There were several establishments in Cho that served all kinds of food, some even sold real and whole vat-grown meat, but the cooks at Kibble King had turned kibble meals into an art form.
Khalo kibble was a far cry from the kind you’d get on Earth, scraped from the bottom of the barrel of the food industry. The Crop district was fully kitted out with banks upon banks of hydroponics bays, grow houses and vertical farms, all equipped with everything they needed to grow a curated roster of fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains. Produce from both planets of the Bond, and enough production to cater to the entirety of Khalo’s population. Crop was the biggest improvement to the station since the industrial printing facilities were built in Works. It meant Khalo would be fully self-sufficient for the first time and once the first crops had started to sprout, they were creating enough oxygen that the main air supply could be turned off and the reserves saved for emergencies.
At first, Crop was slow to produce enough to feed everyone so the production of kibble became an easy way to draw out the supply, but before long, Crop flourished into a food production powerhouse employing thousands of residents and feeding millions.
Even though it wasn’t really needed anymore, kibble stuck around as a kind of local cuisine, and people started creating some spectacular meals with kibble as the main protein. The Wham Burger, for example. It was just being served to Cora’s table when I arrived. It was stacked high with two burger patties, a thick slice of juicy red tomato, gooey vat-cheese, red chillies and sauerkraut. Vat-cheese was another story entirely.
“Now I know how to get you to a place in a hurry. Just order a burger.” said Cora, her mouth curled up at one side.
I sat down and lifted the burger to my face, taking a huge mouthful.
“Am I usually late?” I tried to say around the burger, but it came out as a string of vowels.
“Mostly.”
She waited for me to finish chewing before she spoke.
“So what did you want to talk about?” She raised her eyebrows as she waited for my answer.
“The drive Adio gave me had some footage from a security feed just outside Del’s. It showed Del leaving the stall with a packed bag just minutes before it blew.”
I went through everything I saw with Cora, only the facts, everything I saw in as much detail as possible before I offered anything subjective.
“I don’t know how you see it, but it looks to me like either Del knew the stall was going to explode or even set the charges herself. And I’m not exactly sure what to deduce about the secret meeting in the heart but it didn’t look good. Ferro clearly disagreed with whatever was going on and, for my money, it seems like this woman who looked to be in charge, gave Del an order to take Ferro out.”
Cora nodded as I spoke, taking in all the information before offering anything in response. When it came to this kind of thing we had developed a way of talking through what we’d found. Facts first, then observations and opinions, then speculation and planning the next steps. We were in the observations and opinions phase. Her hands were flat together, her index fingers pressed against her lips.
“If he was expecting some sort of backlash, it might explain why he was being so jumpy when we were tailing him.”
“I mean, I’m a little hazy on everything that happened that day, but I do remember him looking over his shoulder a lot. And he caught you following him the first day, right?”
“Shut up.” There was a softness in her face for just a moment.
“I think this woman, whoever she is, gave Del an order to kill Ferro and she did it. As for the little case she gave her, it must’ve been whatever device she used to shatter the balcony.”
She looked at the plate of fries on the table, started pushing a pile of them around the plate with the one she’d picked up but hadn’t yet eaten. I felt like I should’ve said something. It must’ve been difficult for Cora to realise a person she obviously cared about had been involved in something so nefarious. We both knew Del was a criminal, hell, we were criminals, but whatever this group are up to, for Del to be involved, and murder for it, had to be a blow to Cora’s trust in her.
“Hey, listen–”
“Del told me about killing Ferro. She said she didn’t have a choice.”
I took another huge bite of my Wham Burger and looked at Cora as I chewed.
I’m listening.
“She said she’d gotten involved with a group that call themselves “The Fall”. A fringe group that started among the ranks of Neotec. They’ve apparently been targeting players on Khalo and hundreds of truckers since the rumours of teleportation started.”
I took another bite.
“So they’re selling the idea that ‘when’ teleportation becomes the method of travel and freight, it’ll destabilise the entire logistics industry between Earth and Luksha. It also ties in with the idea that Khalo is pretty much fucked if that’s the case. So this group, The Fall, are saying they are getting ready for what’s to come and convincing people that they want to be on side when it happens.”
“So, what? Del is an enforcer for them or something? What was Ferro’s deal? And why was he killed for it? And what are they doing up in the heart? And… What?”
I’d thought I’d almost had a handle on what was happening and there were just a couple blanks to fill in, but all this just raised more questions until I was suddenly in the dark again.
“Yeah,” said Cora. “I have a lot of questions too. I tried to dig into it more but we got into something else.”
I didn’t want to know.
“We should speak to Del, together.”
“Let’s.”
I piled the remaining mouthful of my burger into my mouth along with a few fries and soaked it all with whatever sweet fizz they put on the side.
***
Cora’s locker was just as cramped as mine, especially with the three of us inside. Del sat on the bunk while Cora and I stood over her in the tight floor-space in front of the kitchen counter.
“Okay, let me get this straight.” I said. “The Fall, this fringe group from Neotec, who are mostly still involved in Neotec at high levels, think Khalo is going to be rendered obsolete by this new teleportation tech. And in order to get out in front of this industrial collapse that they’re predicting, they are planning to, essentially, take over Khalo with the help of truckers and people with influence on the station. And to top all that off, they’re building something that will ‘change everything’ and you don’t know what it is.
“Yes.” said Del.
“I have so many more questions.”
“Okay, look. Yes, but there’s more to it than that. These fucks are legit crazy. Sure, there are so many of them now that some of them are just cogs in the wheel. Workers and scientists and whatever else, yeah? They’re just along for the ride out of fear of being left behind. But the people running the show are working towards something…different.”
“Different how?” I asked.
“Different like more religion than science, get me? You should hear the way they speak.” I looked at Cora. She just stared at Del, her expression carved in stone.
Del sighed. “The way I understand it, you’ve seen the footage Allard put out, right?
We nodded in unison.
“Well, after whatever the fuck that was, these idiots believe that in the course of the teleportation testing, they somehow contacted extradimensional gods or something. They call them idols. I can’t really explain it, but they’re fanatical about it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you to get involved with a bunch of fanatics” I was having a hard time understanding or believing anything she said. Every answer raised yet more questions.
“You don’t get it, they aren’t just a few outliers, there’s hundreds of them. I’m involved because I can see the writing on the wall. What’s that movie from Earth? They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“The Godfather.”
“No, The Fall.”
“No, Th– Nevermind. Why blow up your stall, though?” I was through being lied to. Del fell silent and looked at the floor. A second later she cracked the knuckles of her right hand. The sound made something in my stomach shift to one side.
“Answer him,” Cora said, somewhat breaking the tension by adding more. Del cracked the knuckles of her left hand and the thing in my stomach jumped to the other side. She squinted up at me.
“They needed a distraction.” She said.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “So you blew up your business?!”
“It wasn’t my fucking idea, okay? They said it was the perfect way to draw Khal-Sec away from their regular patrols and didn’t want to just set off an explosive in a random place. At least if it was somewhere somewhat isolated, like my stall, we could control it so that nobody got hurt.”
“People did get hurt.” Cora said. Her voice was calm and level, her expression still statuesque.
“Yeah, well, that was their own fucking fault, wasn’t it. We did everything we could to make sure it didn’t play out that way.”
“And you just went along with this?” I interjected.
“I didn’t exactly have any grounds to argue, so yeah, I took their money and set a little bomb. Easiest hundred-K I ever made.”
I had to admit, if someone offered me one hundred thousand credits to blow my shitty locker to smithereens, I’d probably take it. I’d probably do it for a lot less.
“Why did they need a distraction?”
“I told you, to draw Khal-Sec away from their regular patrols.”
“Yeah, but why?” I snapped.
“So they could fucking move a bunch of fucking equipment without being fucking noticed.”
“What’s the equipment for?”
“I don’t know,” Del said. Cora and I let our stares fill the tiny room with expectation.
“I don’t know!” She said again, this time rather more believably, but I was still sceptical, and I know Cora was too. “I swear. They wouldn’t tell me. They said I didn’t need to know right now but I’d find out when the time was right.”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Cora asked. I nodded my approval at the question.
“Do you really expect me to just give you a bunch of names?”
“Maybe just a couple.” I said. “Like the woman in the blue shirt and the bald guy with the beard. The ones you met in the heart.”
She looked at me hard for a few seconds, “How do you even know about that?”
“I cracked the feeds and followed your flight from Cho.”
“Y’know, sometimes I forget that you’re actually useful.”
“Thanks.” I tried to not be offended.
“Fine, Pleks is the bald guy. I don’t know his full name, I only know him as Pleks. He’s some big deal scientist from Neotec.”
“Wait, Dr. Lincoln Pleks?” Cora said.“The renowned scientist whose work on space-time warping made the first FTL drive possible?” She seemed both surprised and excited by this?
“Yeah, that sounds probable,” Del shrugged.
“Who?” I said like the philistine in the corner.
“THE Dr. Lincoln Pleks! Holy shit!” Cora let out an incredulous chortle and put her hands on her hips. Her face remained a picture of delighted astonishment.
“Okay, the Dr. Licoln Pleks. What about the woman? She seemed like she was calling the shots, correct?
“Whatever Pleks is doing there, it’s because she has told him to do it.” Del said, her tone conveying a deep and intrinsic fear of the woman. It was surprising to think that Del could be afraid of anyone. I’d never seen her show even a hint of fear from another person. A healthy, and evolutionary appropriate fear of Luksha fauna, sure, but never another biped.
“Her name is Priya Kesh.”
“Huh…“ Said Cora, breaking the momentary silence.
“Know her? I asked.
“No, but… she’s kinda my aunt.”
I looked at Cora, then at Del who looked dumbfounded. Then Del and I spoke in unison.
“WHAT?!”