Refraction, page 34
“I wonder what he’s got in there,” another boy said, tapping his baseball bat on Custos’ metallic head. “Maybe we should finally find out for everyone.”
Ignoring the encircling gang, Custos looked up through the buildings and into the blue Martian sky. “To succumb to some petty criminals in an alleyway seems like a good punishment for me. I did… nothing with my gift—squandered every chance and everyone I love. I’ve been foolish to think I could change anything.”
“What’s he saying?”
Custos looked at the boys. “I could disarm you all in seconds. I could have you begging for relief in moments.”
“He’s lost his bolts now.”
“But it goes nowhere,” Custos said, looking beyond the gang. “My gift has only made things worse. I am the reason for all of this. Humankind would’ve done better without me.”
“You got that right,” a boy said and cracked his baseball bat over Custos’ head. Custos fell to his knees as laughter filled his ears. “We’re gonna find out what’s in his head and spray it all over the cameras. Then maybe The Copperhound will leave Mars.”
Custos didn’t fight.
He didn’t dampen the neural feedback from the blows to his body. He wanted to feel the crowbars and baseball bats as best he could as a distraction from his own self-torture. No physical pain could ever match my failures. He wept, not for his life but for the lives of the people he had let down or sacrificed for his own self-righteous journey.
Several more blows followed and Custos found it fit that after all he had been through, a darkened alley is where it would end. It wasn’t pain that kept him on the ground, it was hopelessness. Hopelessness for himself, New Athens, and also for the young men that delighted in beating a conscious being to death. He laughed within himself, embarrassed at his own naivety in thinking that the people of New Athens no longer thrived on violence. Violence wasn’t an Earth thing—it was a human thing. It had just been dormant in New Athens. History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.
“Hey!” a voice sprang from the mouth of the alleyway. The gang turned in surprise and scattered as a shot was fired into the air.
“Custos!” a familiar voice approached him. Custos looked up and saw the battered face of his vice president.
“Dev! Y-you’re here. What about—”
“I escaped from him this morning, been out all day looking for you, following the news feed about sightings of you. You look—” Dev tried to hide the shock in his face. “Those bastard kids. I can’t believe they would do this!” He grimaced, taking in the dents and scrapes that covered Custos’ head and torso. Custos realized that Dev had probably never witnessed a violent act. The robot still managed a weak smile from his silicon face.
Custos stood while Dev yelled back to the police officer who stood with his gun. “Go after them!” The cop wiped the perplexed look off his face and ran after the gang. “Are you okay? I’ve got a lot to tell you. The Copperhound is planning—”
“Wait, wait, how did you get away from him?”
“I just… slipped away. I overheard all his plans. He kept me in a shed on a farm in Terrabel. I only saw him come in and out but he always had the lights off—would never show his face.”
Custos shuddered. “I never thought he would come, Dev. I never really thought he was real. It’s why I didn’t do anything. I didn’t want to believe… all these years, I never thought—”
“He’s here. And he’s very real.”
“I know now.” Custos’ mind flashed to his destroyed penthouse. The Copperhound had been there.
“Listen, I overheard him talking to someone on the phone outside the shed. It’s really bad.”
“More so than right now?”
“The Copperhound planned Vana Iberian to get into power. He wanted her to take over the Presidency.”
“No surprise there. The man’s power comes from driving up the people’s fear. Vana Iberian captures that fear and leverages it into power.”
Dev shook his head. “No, no, it’s different than that. I think him and her were in on it together.”
“Why would you think that?”
“It was the way he talked over the phone. He was talking to someone important—someone who was in the government. The Copperhound was receiving detailed information from someone high up. I think she helped him hide away in Terrabel and that the two were working together to get her in power. He does all the theatrics that whipped up the people in a frenzy and she swooped in and stole the presidency from you. I think they’re working together.”
“Hmm.” Custos considered his words as Dev spoke with a new confidence that he hadn’t before seen in his friend. Maybe facing a little fear did some good for Dev.
“There’s more.”
“What else?”
“I overheard him talking about a cache of nuclear weapons,” Dev said with wide eyes. “And they are in Terrabel.”
White fear bloomed inside Custos.
“He’s been stockpiling ancient nuclear weapons brought from Earth. I overheard him talking about specific shipments with someone. He already has thousands hidden in the farmland in Terrabel.”
“But how?”
“All the freighters from Earth, that’s how. The thing is, I don’t think Vana knows about any of this.”
Custos sat on the concrete and considered Dev’s words. What could possibly convince Iberian to collude with a maniac from Earth? How could a lone man get that many nuclear weapons from Earth to Mars? How stable would century-old nuclear weapons be? Could they spontaneously explode any minute? Everything seemed so ludicrous, but considering how everything else was crumbling beneath his feet, he knew he needed to accept the absurd. “You didn’t see what he looked like?”
Dev shook his head. “Never saw his face.”
“But you were in the same room with him, right? What was he like?”
“Big man. Angry, but also…”
“What?”
“Gentle, somehow. He’s smart—complex I should say.”
“Did you hear what his plans are with the nuclear weapons?”
“No, but could it be anything good? The man has publicly said he’s going to destroy New Athens.”
“But why wait? Why wouldn’t he have done it already?”
Dev shrugged, wincing at the pain in his shoulder.
“Something is off about this. Are you okay? What did he put you through?”
“He kicked me around a bit but not much more.”
“You seem… different, Dev.” Custos somehow felt better talking to Dev—lifted from the hopelessness.
“I escaped from The Copperhound. I feel different.” He nodded proudly.
“How did you get away?”
“I wriggled out of my ties and ran out of the unlocked shed. No one was around.”
“That’s strange. Too easy.”
“It doesn’t matter now. Look, The Copperhound is just a man, he’s not a ghost.”
“Men are worse than ghosts. But we can stop him.”
“How? We’re not exactly in a position of power anymore. Do you still have any contacts with the council? I know there’s a ton of colonial delegates that would still support you.”
Custos waved his hand. “No, no, it’s all corrupted now. We can’t risk trusting anyone. For all we know, Vana is well aware of the nuclear stockpile and would try to have us eliminated if she found out that we knew.” He stared vacantly at the brick wall of the alley. “We can’t use diplomacy anymore. It’s time we stop trying to outsmart The Copperhound.”
“So, what do we do?”
Custos stood, supporting himself with Dev’s arm. He looked at his vice president, his friend for over ten years, and admired him. “Thank you for finding me, Dev. I needed you more than you could know.”
Dev shrugged. “Of course, Mr. President.”
“It’s time for us to start doing the manipulating.” He limped out of the alley as Dev stood, puzzled.
Phobos moon looked like a brown, oblong pebble floating above the atmosphere of Mars. Dev had to squint to distinguish the speck of a moon against the streaks of marbleized greenery and rusty soil of Mars. Phobos was pockmarked with thousands of craters—suffering an eon of asteroid bombardments but nevertheless undaunted in its endless march around its planet. The moon glided through space as if oblivious and uncaring about the New Athens turmoil happening beneath its orbit. As their ship approached, Dev spied small sprouts of research labs on the underbelly of Phobos. Various domes with connecting causeways became larger through his small window.
“How long has the GraviWave lab been up here?” Dev asked.
Custos looked up from a few pages on which he was scribbling calculations. “About fifteen years. They first tried to set up triangulating stations on the highest peaks of Mars but seismic activity prohibited good results. I helped renew funding for their station here on Phobos just a few years ago. Probably one of the biggest reasons I had the backing of the scientific community during my election.”
“I remember it. The council thought it was pointless to sink so much money into it, but with the backing of ‘Custos the Dreamer’, they gave in.”
“I’ve been thinking about the message they sent.”
“Who?”
“The gravity wave beings. Whoever they are.”
“Right, the ‘Destroyer of Worlds’ people. They sound very hospitable.”
“Do you know where that line comes from?”
“What line?”
“‘The ‘Destroyer of Worlds’.”
“No.”
“It’s from a Hindu sacred text but it was made famous by Robert Oppenheimer, the man who helped create the atomic bomb. He marveled on mankind’s new destructive capability after seeing what his own creation could do.”
“And these gravity people are what, quoting him?”
Custos tapped his chin. “That’s the question. Why would they use that phrase in particular? There’s some sort of connection to me—to us, I mean.”
“What connection?”
“I intend to ask them.”
Their ship approached Phobos and lowered toward the GraviWave lab. A small docking bay accepted them after Custos confirmed who he was. He heard a commotion over the radio as the lab scrambled to accommodate their unexpected guests. A woman with thin-rimmed glasses and sandy-blonde hair inched toward them as Custos and Dev came down the docking ramp. It was Dr. Farr. Dev tried picking up the pace but stumbled with his footsteps, unused to the light gravity on the moon.
“Mr. President!” she said, extending her hand. Her face soured when she saw the dents that riddled his body. “What happened to you, Mr. President?”
“Oh, I’m not sure how much you’ve been keeping up on New Athens’ events, but I’m not the president anymore.”
“You’re still my president. Are you okay?”
Custos looked down at the dents in his body and shrugged. “I’m fine, just got into a sticky situation with some kids.”
Farr’s face turned pale. “Are things really getting so bad? People actually… did that damage to you?”
Custos nodded. “We need your help.”
“I’ll do anything.” Shock still flooded her face.
“I’m sorry we’ve arrived unannounced. I needed to talk in person about the gravity waves.”
Farr put up her hand. “No need to apologize. I’m glad you’re here. There’s more I need to tell you, too. Come with me.” She abruptly turned, leading Custos and Dev to a pod vehicle that zipped around on tracks along the moon station. They sailed through long hallways with small windows showing the rough surface of the moon.
They entered an extensive laboratory full of people looking up from control comm stations or toying with electronic arrays that spanned dozens of feet. Workbenches were scattered with thousands of electronic components, gears, coiled wires with twisted metal covering the floor. The entire lab barely stopped working to notice the new guests.
Farr gave a polite laugh. “Sorry, things here are kind of crazy at the moment. I’ve had every available person working on the gravity wave message. No idea is a bad idea to decipher the message.”
Custos asked, “Have you deciphered the whole thing?”
Farr scoffed. “Yes and no. I realized just a few days ago that the problem isn’t that we haven’t arranged the message in the right order, it’s that we don't even have the full message. The majority of it has been lost on its way here. Bits of the message dissipated by the time they reached Phobos. It took our cryptologists weeks to even realize that they were trying to decipher parts of the message that weren’t even there.”
“What more of the message do you have?”
“I’m glad you asked. We’ve finally finished an algorithm that has pieced together the entire gravity wave message. Everything we’ve received has been deciphered. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the past two days to let you know.”
Custos’ face grew concerned. “Did you tell Vana Iberian about this?”
Farr shook her head. “Of course not. I wouldn’t trust that charlatan as far as I could throw her.”
“Good. Well, let’s see the message.”
“Absolutely.” She led them around a conference table, partitioned from the rest of the lab by glass walls and dimmed the lights. She typed into a computer panel on the wall, prompting a display in the middle of the table. It was the decrypted message.
“Keep in mind, we’ve only received bits and pieces of the original message and we have no idea if it’s even in the correct order.”
Custos read the words floating in front of them:
…much more advanced weapons than we have—a Destroyer of Worlds—Our last option is a trick—a trap—something to lure his forces in… see there is no gradient of gravity in the direct center, this makes positioning of the halo extremely important… it’s too late… it was a mistake, but we were so desperate. I designed the Halo with one purpose—the Halo opened up… but it’s too late… please…
Custos stared at the words for a moment, lost in thought. “Halo…”
“Mr. President?” Farr said carefully.
He looked up at her, his porcelain eyes wide in their metal sockets. “Halo…” he repeated.
Dev nudged him and said, “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would they send an incomplete message through gravity waves? Why not just normal radio waves? They could’ve sent us—or whoever—a complete message easily by radio.”
“We have no idea,” Farr said. “It is incredibly bizarre.”
“Is that all there is?” Custos asked.
Farr nodded in silence.
“And what is this about… a halo?”
“We’re not sure, but it likely has something to do with whatever weapon is also referenced in the message.”
“How are they creating these gravity waves?” Dev asked.
“We don’t know.”
“What about Casimir Drives? They bend space,” Custos said.
“Casimir Drives? True, the Casimir effect can, on a small scale, bend space. But the bending is short-lived and doesn’t create a rippling effect at such long distances.”
“If they’re trapped and have the potential to destroy worlds, why would anyone want to help them?” Dev posited.
“The message isn’t necessarily a threat,” Farr said. “In addition, there is a single word at the end: ‘please’. I think whoever these people are, they are in a position of vulnerability.”
“This algorithm that you’ve figured out for decrypting the waves, can I use it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Is it a safe assumption that the closer one got to the source of the waves, the more of the message would still be intact within the waves?”
“Yes, we’ve been working on that assumption. We were planning, in fact, on asking for a grant soon to get closer to the waves to obtain more of the message.”
Custos stood. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be going to the source myself.”
“You will?”
Custos nodded. “Can you outfit my ship with the gravity wave algorithm? I may have to do some more translating on the fly as I get closer to the source.”
“Mr. President, we were planning on sending an entire team but we’ve barely planned anything out right now—”
“No. I’ll be going alone. And I’m not the president anymore. You need to recognize that you’re giving state secrets to someone who may be considered a traitor very soon. Your acts will be considered treason.”
Dev stood. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m going to take control of this weapon,” Custos said coolly.
“Take control?” Farr asked.
“We don’t even know what it is, or who this is—”
“It’s a week’s journey. I’m going to go and take this weapon and stop The Copperhound. Once I’m there, I’d like you to make it public that I am in control of a world-destroying weapon. New Athens is imploding in on itself all while a madman may or may not wipe us off the face of Mars in a single nuclear detonation. We have to do something. I’m going to take control of this Destroyer of Worlds.”
Dev shook his head. “And do what with it?”
“Threaten The Copperhound.” Custos walked to the glass doorway.
“Threaten him with what? That lunatic just wants to burn everything down.”
“What is the one thing that we know he cares about?”
Dev shrugged.
“Earth,” Custos said. “He cares about Earth.”
Chapter 25
September 29th, 2098
Cal’s Casimir Drive shrieked across the sky.
“Jelena!” he yelled into the radio. “Jelena, report!”
“—firing at me, Cal—” It wasn’t static that broke up the communication, it was gunfire.
“I’m coming!” He knew he would get there. He had to.
A Central Cell fleet followed Cal as he rocketed away from the city, in hot pursuit of the Straus-heir fugitive. He headed north, over old Texas, and then to the yellowed plains of the Midwest. His eyes stung with sweat as he checked the navigation guidance system. His mind went back to the asteroid belt during the Jupiter Run. He had been marooned inside a gigantic rock in the middle of the solar system. There was no one to save him—not his mother, not Bene, not Captain Kalai, not even Raz. It was Jelena. She looked after him, cared for him. She invited him out, made sure he felt like he was part of the circle even though he really wasn’t. There was no one else like her in his life. She was there at the asteroid and he would be there for her now. There were so many things he was going to tell her.
