Renegades, page 23
When he asked if there was a place on Orris that brewed real beer, he received dumbfounded looks. To them, the weak bread water was beer. The only information of value he received was from an older bartender who told him he might find more variety as he moved back through the links.
“It’s funny,” the old barkeep said. “So many things are the same as you travel through Orris, but not everything. Different peoples tend to stick together, for the most part, I find. I think it’s a good thing. At least some of the culture is preserved. Who wants to live in a completely homogenous world? No variety? Not me, no, sir. I enjoy traveling through the machine. It’s big enough that you could never discover it all. That’s a comforting thought, don’t you think? Well, I imagine you would come across what you’re looking for if you look long enough. And even if you don’t, I think you’ll enjoy the journey.”
While Garrett appreciated the old man’s wisdom, he had no intention of going without decent beer for any length of time. He could make it himself, as long as he could get the ingredients and a few pieces of helpful equipment.
He scanned the online marketplace for over an hour before being interrupted by a knock at his door. He approached and touched the security display, which revealed two people, Canda Onivour and a young-looking man he had never seen before. He opened the door and as soon as he saw Canda, he could tell she had been crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Canda lifted a stack of file folders. “We found the archives. Can we come in?”
“Of course, have a seat in the kitchen. I’ll get us some coffee. Who’s your friend?”
The young man froze and looked at Canda.
“You can talk to him, Vic. He’s not a ghost.”
Garrett extended his hand to the stranger. “Garrett Rhodes. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Oh, um, yes, sir. I’m Vic. I mean, my name is Turelliger, um, Oslo. I can’t believe I’m meeting you. The real you, an envoy!”
“I’m retired, so now you don’t have to be nervous. Come on in. Let’s sit in the kitchen.”
After Garrett had placed the two cups of coffee in front of his guests, he joined them at the small table.
“So, what did you find?”
“I’m sorry, Garrett, but I have bad news, sad news, and some strange news,” Canda said.
“Well, let’s get through it.”
“I guess the sad news first,” Canda said, and slid a folder to Garrett.
The folder title was Rhodes, Hope Laine. It was empty. Garrett looked up at Canda.
“I’m sorry, Garrett, but that was the only thing I found that had anything to do with your daughter. The only other relevant detail is that search results including her name were in bold. Every time it popped up, it was in bold. None of the others were in bold, but there was no other information.”
Garrett nodded and ran his fingertips over the empty folder. He sighed, but the thought that videos existed, ones he had not yet seen and were specifically made for him by his daughter, alleviated the greatest part of his disappointment. “What’s the bad news?”
Canda slid another folder, one packed with papers, over to Garrett.
“Your mother. She tripped and hit her head, and she died a few days after being admitted to the hospital. I’m sorry, Garrett, she was young. It was a horrible accident.”
Garrett nodded. He suspected that something like this had happened. The message from his father announcing that he had taken her to the hospital, then no videos featuring his mother after that.
“I suppose I’m ready for the strange news.”
“Okay. It’s about your wife, Lauren,” Canda said, and slid another packed folder to Garrett.
“There is no death date anywhere. The information is thorough until she was forty-two, and then it just stops. No further information.”
“How much of this did you go through?”
“Not all of it. There are financial records in there that I had a hard time understanding, but it took us all night to travel back here after we left the archives. I had a lot of time to read.”
Garrett looked back and forth between the two. The young man was sitting up, but his eyes were closed. Garrett was beginning to think that Canda had not been crying, but rather that she was exhausted. “Have you slept since yesterday?”
“A little on the axle after we left Rhodes-1. I’m not sure if Vic slept.” Canda reached out and touched Vic’s elbow. He snapped awake again.
Garrett stood and took Vic’s other elbow. “Come on, come with me,” he led Vic into the starlight room and to a couch that rested against the far wall of the long, narrow room. “Lay down, sleep. I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”
Vic did not protest. He collapsed onto the couch and closed his eyes again. He was snoring in less than a minute.
Garrett returned to the kitchen. “Now you. Go into my bedroom and go to sleep. You’ll have privacy in there. I’ll wake you both up in a few hours. You’re no good to anyone or yourselves like this. We can talk more then, if you like.”
Canda inhaled, as if to protest the order, but ended up sighing and nodded.
3
The amber door light flashed, and Chuck’s heart sank. He had called for a transport service to bring him back to Rear Command, and it had arrived. He was hoping there would be a problem, that he would be delayed, so he could return to Jemma, but the transport had arrived right on time.
The hotel room he had booked for the three nights he stayed on the Command cylinder went largely unused. Except for the first night, he had stayed with Jemma at her apartment for the duration of the trip. She was supposed to work for the last night of his stay but used a sick day so she could spend it with him. From the night of the banquet, their connection was almost instant, and it only grew stronger as they spent more time together.
Their goodbye had been a difficult one, with uncertainty regarding when or even if they would ever see each other again. Chuck had promised her he would look for employment on the Command cylinder, so they could at least give the relationship a fair chance.
“Mr. Simms?” the operator called through the open door.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“We’re going to…” the operator looked at his work order. “Oh, wow. All the way to Rear, then?”
“Yeah, all the way to Rear,” Chuck said, and stepped into the passenger seat of the craft.
The two men talked as the operator unlocked from the dock and started his drift up to the flight corridor he was assigned. He first asked Chuck about life on the rear-most cylinder of Orris, then about Chuck’s job, which naturally led Chuck to mention that he was looking for work on the Command cylinder, the opposite extreme.
“Huh, well, I don’t know much about the Command cylinder, but it’s too bad you’re not a pilot. We’re desperate for pilots. We’ve been on overtime for over a year now. It’s killing us. The kids just aren’t picking up the trade like they did when we were young.”
Chuck shrugged. “I ran a rigging tug for eight years. I can’t imagine this is too much different. I just never had any use for a flex. I don’t really know anything about warp fields.”
“Oh, really? So, you are a pilot? The flex is the easiest part of the job, man. The hard part is docking, but you’re probably an expert at that?”
“I’m sure I’m rusty, but yeah, docking has never been a problem for me.”
“Hey, man, the money isn’t great, but you can live anywhere you want, go anywhere you want when you’re off. It’s not a bad deal. We each get one of these transports assigned to us, and we can use them for whatever we want when we’re off. We just have to keep a log. It’s a really nice perk.”
“Do you think I’d have a chance of getting hired?”
“If you have the experience that you say you do, I’d say it’s all but guaranteed. We can stop in the office on the way to Rear if you want to talk to my boss… if you have time, that is.”
“Sure, I’d really appreciate that.”
“I’d be the one to appreciate it, man. The more pilots we get working, the closer we can all get to working a normal schedule. It’s a win-win.”
4
Canda awoke naturally, in darkness except for the blue glow of a clock on Garrett’s nightstand. The sleep had been good for her, although judging by the time of day, Garrett had allowed her to sleep for a lot longer than a few hours. She needed to send a message to Dex. It had been almost a full day since she had communicated with him.
She emerged from Garrett’s bedroom to find him sitting on the floor of his foyer with papers spread out all around him. He looked up.
“What’s ‘the vault?’ Do you know?”
Canda rubbed her face and yawned. “Um, the vault? Hmm, I don’t think I do. Did you find something?”
“Maybe. I’ve traced everything in here chronologically for Lauren. The last activity is in a bank statement, first a payment to ‘the vault,’ and then three days later the transaction was reversed. The reversal is the last sign of any activity from her in the whole folder.”
“We should ask Vic. He’s a young guy, but he’d surprise you…”
“Ask me what?” Vic emerged from the kitchen, stretching and yawning.
“The vault? Have you heard of it?” Canda asked.
“Oh, I guess that depends. I know the cryo-storage vault in Felenci. Is that what you mean?”
Canda and Garrett shrugged simultaneously.
“Oh, yeah. They freeze people, among other things, I guess. Why?”
“They might have more information about my wife,” Garrett said.
“Oh, well, let’s go check it out, then. I have to be back at school the day after tomorrow, so it would be good to get back to Rhodes-1.”
“They freeze… people?” Canda asked Vic.
“Yeah, someone told me once that they don’t actually freeze them. They said it was a myth, but they do something to them, something to suspend their lives. It’s not Sterilex or anything that messy, but something. I don’t really understand why, but I guess people have their reasons.”
“I would guess there are as many reasons as there are subjects,” Garrett said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m anxious to find out what they know.”
5
After his conversation with the Commander, Todd felt better than he ever had about his new career path. He was looking forward to having a functioning staff that actually took the job seriously; he was not looking forward to firing anyone. He knew it was necessary, but the thought of permanently ending someone’s source of income made him sick to his stomach. The commander must have sensed the new struggle Todd was facing. Before he left, he said, “Remember, Todd, you’re not firing them. They fired themselves. It’s just your job to let them know and do the paperwork.” Easier said than done, Todd thought.
He tore several sheets out of a small notepad and wrote a name of one of his employees on each. To his surprise, it only took him a few minutes to arrange them in a ranking he felt good about. The name at the bottom was Zan Klept, as he knew it would be. Zan called out of work more than anyone else, and when Todd tried to think back to the last task the man had completed, or even a larger project that he had worked on, he came up with nothing. Zan was useless, completely useless.
During his initial travel from Rear to the Command cylinder, Todd had befriended the two diplomats who had given him a ride to the front of Orris and had even met them for drinks on two occasions. He picked up the phone and called the one with access to a transport, Mat, and asked about getting a ride to Holly-2 on Link 4. There were employment agencies on every cylinder, but there was an organization on Holly-2 that called themselves “Orris Interconnect.” They compiled the data from all of the agencies on Orris and could make connections the others could not. Todd intended to go to Orris Interconnect and open an account, create a profile, and have them look for candidates, as he expected to need several over as many weeks.
Mat told him it would be a few days, but they did plan to travel past Holly-2 and could give him a ride. “You might have to spend a night there, though. We rarely come back the same day.”
“That’s not a problem, Mat. I really appreciate it. If I took the axles, it would take me a week, so one day is still a huge improvement.”
Todd finished his call and sat back in his chair. He was smiling.
6
“Am I glad to see you!” Sola said when Chuck stepped onto the Rear Command dock for the first time in four days.
“Ha! I wish I could say the same,” Chuck said, and slapped Sola on the shoulder. Despite the sarcastic comment, Chuck was smiling, and Sola could read his mood on his face.
“Wow, you must have had a good time, then?”
“Yeah, I had a blast,” Chuck said, and some of the cheer drained from his face. “With one exception.”
“Ugh, no luck on our probation?”
“Bellinger basically told me that all three of us could go pound sand. He said it would be lifted eventually, but it could be months or even a year.”
“You have to be kidding!” Sola said, exasperated.
“I wish I was, pal. I’m as disappointed as you about it.”
“It doesn’t seem that way.”
“I met a girl, that’s all. I’m livid about the probation.”
“A girl, huh? Does she have a name?”
“Jemma. She’s an operator up in command. I’ve known her for a couple of years, but we finally met in person. It went well.”
“I guess it did! Good for you, Chuck. Too bad she lives so far away.”
Chuck nodded, but he did not reveal his plans for getting back to her. He knew there would be complications with getting a new job, and abandoning Sola was a complication he decided to avoid for the time being.
7
Vic, Canda, and Garrett stepped into the reception office of the Felenci Cryo-Storage Vault thirty minutes before they closed for the day. It was a large and bright hall with a high ceiling. The walls and ceiling alike were painted a warm taupe. Vic took the lead and strode up to the reception counter, staffed by a young, spectacled man hair and an overweight, middle-aged woman with a plume of frizzy brown hair. The young man looked up at Vic and smiled.
“Good afternoon, sir. How can I help…” he flinched, and interrupted his greeting when his desk mate spilled out of her chair and crashed to the floor. “Oh! Della, are you okay?” he kneeled down next to her and tried to help her up.
“Is that? Is… he’s… the, the…” Della said, and pointed through their desk at the newcomers.
The young man wore his blonde hair short and neat, with a nametag that read “Ben.” He stretched up and peered over the desk and into the face of a forty-something-year-old man who looked exceptionally familiar. Ben tried to recall how he knew the face when he looked over the man’s shoulder and saw a portrait of the same man, twenty years younger, nailed to the wall beside the heavy exterior doors. It was the Envoy; it was Garrett Rhodes. The very man the nation cylinder was named for.
Ben helped Della up and attempted to get her back to her chair, but she stood all the way upright and leaned over the desk.
“Envoy Rhodes? Is it really you?” Della blushed as the man walked up to the desk and took her hand.
“I’m afraid so, ma’am. Are you okay? That sounded like a pretty bad fall.”
“Oh, no, no. I’m fine. I never dreamed I would meet you,” Della said, smiling ear to ear. Tears had formed in her eyes, and she wiped at them with her free hand.
Vic determined that the woman would be no help and turned back to Ben. “We’re here to find out if you can tell us anything about Garrett’s wife. It’s all ancient history, but…” Vic took the bank statement from Garrett and offered it to the young man.
Ben studied the bank statement for a minute before flipping it over and shaking his head. “This document is from Osa. It’s got to be, what, six billion years old?”
“Eight,” Garrett said.
Ben shook his head again, but he sat at his terminal and keyed in some data. Vic noticed him shaking his head a lot as he navigated from screen to screen, but after a few minutes, his face brightened.
“Oh, no kidding. I just found where we keep Osan records. I can’t believe we still have them.” He went silent again as he continued his search. The look of interest on his face changed to determination, and then shortly after that, confusion. “Della, what’s the last floor in the basement?”
Della smirked. “Ben, you know it’s ‘J.’ Where is this coming from?”
“If the bottom floor is ‘J,’ then where is cell,” he leaned forward and squinted at his terminal screen. “N1168c?”
