The Second Sphere
Chapter 48

My eyes opened. There was darkness in the center of my vision, speckled with yellow orbs. The room was silent except for my own breathing and the whir of the ship’s engines. Doing a couple of doses of Love had run over me. My head snapped like a snare drum. I sat, yet felt like I was swaying in a breeze. I steadied myself against the back of the chair, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did.

Then the haziness began to melt, and I started to be able to recognize the outlines of objects—chairs, various electronic panels along the walls, the case with Love drives on the floor.

My throat felt itchy and my ears compressed. I shook my head, and the cobwebs began to fall away. The ship shuddered. Dust now plastered the windows.

At first, the mound on the chair next to me was like a sack of vegetables. It didn’t move. In the darkness it appeared harmless. But then the cobwebs were gone, and my vision became clear, the sack of vegetables morphed into something much more important, a person—arms splayed to the side, legs spread. Then the face became clear and I saw that the person was Quincy. His head was back, almost like he slept. His mouth was wide open, and he looked like he wanted to scream. But there was a smell about him, metallic and tangy, that made me realize he had no future.

Blood stained his shirt, collected in small pools in the chair on either side of his legs. Quincy’s neck had been sliced. The knife seemed to have gone past his larynx, almost like the person tried to cut a new mouth. The work was smooth, done by someone who knew just how to kill and who had the tools to get it done.

Then I felt weight in my hand. I realized it was a knife.

My thoughts turned to Love and all that it could do to a person. I never had the sense that my hallucinations or fading inhibitions led me to violence. If anything, I felt like the drug took me away from hostility. It gave me refuge from all the bad things I’d ever done in my life. The drug begged me to forgive myself, begged me to forgive others. It made me a more humane person. Or at least, that’s how I rationalized it.

But this; this knife meant something. What it meant, I wasn’t quite sure. I let it fall from my hand. It hit the ground with a thud. The metallic tangy smell filled my nose. Blood soaked my pants.

My seatbelt was no longer across my lap. I didn’t remember getting up, didn’t remember even having a knife. I thought back to when Malinda and I were in the weapons depot and tried to find a moment where I considered bringing a knife. I couldn’t find such a memory in my chip.

Something moved in the corner of my eye. It was just a wiggle at first, a streak of black. Then I heard feet shuffle across the floor. Malinda walked into the light and looked at me, then looked at Quincy and shook her head. She ran her hands through her long, black hair and went to the window. She wore a grey Laslow combat uniform that hugged against her curves tightly.

“He was actually a much braver man than you gave him credit for, Orion. All of the superficial bullshit that he purported to like? It was all fake, all a put on. The man actually had a moral compass, if you can believe it.”

I tried to speak, but my throat was so dry that all I could do was emit a little warble. My head began to spin and with it, Malinda began to fade. I grabbed the armrests of the chair to steady myself, to bring back the image of this woman.

“Poor man,” Malinda said. “He really had no clue what he was doing. Thought he was fighting for a great and noble cause when really all he was doing was playing the role that had been handed to him. It’s kind of pathetic, really.” She pushed her lips up and shook her head.

“But you have more of a choice, Orion. You understand what we have to offer.”

“We?” I whispered.

“The Gagotrothes.”

“You’re a Gagotrothe?” I asked. Malinda laughed and shook her head.

“No, Orion. But I represent them,” she said. “Despite what Quincy said, despite his belief that they’re bringing humanity to the brink of destruction, nothing could be further from the truth. What they’re doing is what needs to be done for the survival of our race.” She tilted her head and batted her eyelashes. I thought about the first time I met her, sitting in that conference room.

“We agree with the Green Revolution on this much; there has been enough of this experiment with the Three Spheres. Enough is enough. The Gagotrothes are actually doing something that should’ve happened a long time ago; exterminating the weak.”

“The hell are you talking about?” I asked. My tongue moved along the base of my mouth between my lip and gum, trying to find some moisture to get the dryness out of my throat.

“I’m talking about exactly what Quincy said, returning to normal human life, a normal human existence on earth, without having to support those other two spheres. The Gagotrothes can help us do that.”

“You were behind it? The virus? Newberry? Dahlgren? You set me up?”

Malinda leaned against the windows and sighed. “What do you think this is, Orion? The end of one a movie?”

“You’re sick,” I said.

“Ha!”

“How’d you get to us?”

“For all of the security measures that are supposedly in place, all of the personality tests and analyses of past life that the Corporation claims to do, they’re actually kind of bad at determining when people are working under assumed identities.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Who I am doesn’t matter so much, Orion. I’m just a bit player in all of this.”

“You’re being modest,” I said.

She smiled and dropped her hands to her hips. “You think fast on your feet, Orion. Very fast. Even with all of that programmed opiate I pumped into you. I’m impressed. Fast recovery time. We could use someone like you, you know.”

“Use me for what?”

“We could use people on the inside of Laslow, trusted people.”

“That’s what this is about?” I asked.

“I’m still small. I don’t count for much. You, on the other hand. You’re quite important. You could help all of this happen much more quickly. We could help you with your legal problems. Make sure that everyone knows about Luis’ mistake analyzing the virus, that it was Quincy Laslow who was behind it, and that you stopped him from escaping. And, of course, you’d be generously compensated for your efforts once we’re successful.”

“You think I’m interested in this game you’re playing?”

“Orion, it’s time to stop thinking about games and start thinking about how our species is going to survive if we continue down this path. If we don’t try to stop this madness we’ve created, we’ll have civil war on our hands.”

“And what do we have now?” I asked.

She smiled at me, a thin, condescending smile. I felt blood charging through my veins, and all I wanted to do was rip her heart right out of her chest.

She shook her head.

“I’ll give you another shot, Orion,” she said.

“Fuck your shots. And fuck you.”

Malinda made a clicking sound. “No? Well, I guess I’m going to have to work on your story, figure out why you might’ve decided to murder Quincy Laslow.” I heard her slow, sure steps as she began to pace the room.

“Sounds like someone had a problem with Quincy. Sounds like someone who had infiltrated the intelligence service from the Green Revolution hid aboard this ship and killed Quincy. That’s the way it seems to me, Orion.” Her voice rose and fell with the inflection of an impatient adult trying to implant a lie.

“I should kill you right now. And I’d be well within my right to do it. But, knowing that we’re in the middle of a war, Laslow always wants people from the Green Revolution. Wouldn’t that make you useful? You’re a perfect headline.

“And, of course, we do have evidence about your involvement with the virus,” she said. “It all makes perfect sense. Anyone would find it credible.”

She continued to pace around the room, her chin firmly pressed between two fingers of her right hand. From where I sat, I saw the power that she had, the flexibility of her mind; how she examined unfavorable situations and made them work for her. “It was a difficult journey you made, Orion. It was bent with self-destructive activity and lies. But hey, it was all for the revolution.”

She stopped walking. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Orion. I’m telling you. You can be a part of what’s to come.” She stood near and gazed down at me, waiting for me to tell her that I’d changed my mind and that I’d do anything she said. But I wasn’t going to give her such pleasure.

Malinda shrugged. “I’m just as happy to make you a patsy, deliver you right to Mars. To have you see what it’s like to suffer. You’ve been on the other side plenty of times, but this might be the first time that you’ll be made a fool out of. That’ll be a side benefit to all of this.

“The good thing is that we’re almost finished with what we’ve started, to let them take what they need and make sure that we have everything for the future. Then, I won’t have to look at pathetic people like you ever again.”

I had one chance. One push. I dipped my hand to the floor and grabbed the knife. Malinda’s eyes remained on my face. I leapt at her, but she shoved me to the side. I rolled on to the floor. We circled each other, waiting for the other to make a move. I went first, slashing at her with the knife. She tried to counter by slapping at my wrist, but the movement just missed. The knife tore a bloody gash in her shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter what you do, Orion,” she said as we paced slowly. “It really doesn’t. We can fight to the death and no one will care because this won’t change anything.” I stepped toward her and she delivered a high, solid, roundhouse kick to my chin. Stunned, I stumbled back. She drew close to me in an instant, grabbed my hand that held the knife with one hand and delivered a series of rapid fire punches to my stomach. Each blow drew the breath from me.

But her grip wasn’t strong enough. With one fluid motion, I ripped my hand from her grip and brought the knife down into her back. She stood up straight and screamed. I delivered a head butt to the bridge of her nose. Synthetic blood gushed. She fell back to the floor, writhing in pain as she tried to pull the knife from her back.

I didn’t wait to see what happened. I ran from the room. Out in the hallway, Shari stood. She was still, unmoving. I walked toward her, but she retreated to the rear of the ship. I turned back and walked down the hallway. There was a ladder that descended into the belly of the ship. I went down.

There, I found the escape pods that all such cruisers were required to have under TSG directives. I slipped into the first one that I saw. It took me a few moments to orient myself to the controls. But when I did, I re-programmed the on board link-up.

I wasn’t sure whether I’d made the right choice, or whether I even really had any choices left.

The door closed. Around me, there were little gasps of air. They sucked at me, pulled away at what was left in my chip. The Source node slipped around my hand and the little beams of light began to flash. I felt the nothingness overtake me, pull me into its warm tentacles. The memories started to circle above my head.

The pod launched.

I knew the darkness would be with me soon. I saw it on the edges of my vision, waiting to take over. For the moment before everything went blank, I tumbled down, down, down.

END

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