Lightspeed: Year One

“Yeah, I’ll bet you could, but I know what makes you tick.” Your smile drops. “None of that for you. I’m leaving you weak, and slow for now. Just stay on the bed, don’t move, and I’ll bring you some diet soda.”

You stare at her, and she laughs at you.

“I know a lot about those systems in you. How do you think I ended up with those little pips I hit you with? I designed them myself.”

She walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and tosses you a can.

“Drink up . . . what is your name?”

You look down at the sugarless drink in your hands.

“Pepper,” you say.

Susan Stamm. ShinnCo property since birth. Mother died having her, orphanage signed Susan over. She starts telling you all this stuff as she sits at a small table across from you and eats obscene amounts of breakfast sausage and eggs. The place reeks of it.

“You never even realize there is a different way of life,” Susan says. “But I remember, when I was twelve, suddenly understanding that there were people who didn’t have to have logos on their bodies, who didn’t have to report into minders once a day, who weren’t being encouraged to study certain things that the company needed.” She picks up a greasy link, pauses.”And then I decided I would escape it.”

“How many years has that been?”

She flashes a smile and downs the sausage.

Then the dishes are tossed in the sink, she washes her hands while looking over her shoulder at you. You’re still sitting in the pink bathrobe, sipping from the can.

“Just on the other side of Eleytheria is a launcher. I have a ticket off this world, and out there I have passage far out as crew on a mining ship. I know it won’t be easier, but I’ll be my own person.” She raises a wrist. “I can burn this fucking logo off my skin.”

“So you’ll leave me here?”

She shakes her head.

“I have a proposition. You can’t buy your freedom from ShinnCo, I’ll bet, not for a long time yet. But what would you do for a ticket offworld?”

You just stare at her.

She takes it as hesitation.

“You owe me your life anyway. I need someone at my back, because if it’s just me they’ll try and pick me up at the gates to the launcher. Last ditch, overwhelming numbers.”

“Okay.” Opportunity glints in your eyes. At any point along this journey you may have an opportunity to overpower her. She spots the reaction. She thinks she has you.

“You’ll walk me to the launcher, then I’ll hand over the ticket. Try to double cross me before then and I’ll fire another one of these nasty little critters into you. So it’s in your best interests to work with me.”

You nod.

She laughs.

“You realize you’re free, don’t you? You weren’t just physically disabled,” she says.”I scrubbed clean all your systems. You understand what that means?”

You test everything she has just said, and she is right. But . . .

When you look down to your wrists she steps back slightly. It’s an unconscious move.

“Those still work,” she says. “They’re bio-mechanical. Nothing that can be scrambled, infected, or shut down.”

For the briefest flash of a moment you’ve seen freedom. And then, you think to yourself, there is the matter of the countdown. That’s firewalled off from the rest of your body and bio-mech. You can’t see the countdown, but you know it’s there. You don’t explain this to her. Right now she thinks you’re in her debt.

Play along.

“I’ve set you free from them,” she says. “You can do anything you want now.”

You nod again. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll help you for the ticket. Can I have my clothes back?”

The smile on her lips fades. She sizes you up, squinting. Apparently something satisfies her.

“Other side of the bed.”

They’ve been washed, pressed, and folded into a neat pile. The Astra Model Cub pistol lies on top of them all. It’s loaded.

Golden. Like that tantalizing glimpse of freedom she’d tried to give you.

Fifteen minutes later you’re both out the door. You’ve got the overcoat draped over your right arm. You’re weak, tired, and at a disadvantage, but all it will take is one well-placed shot where you can drop behind some cover, and she’s down.

Susan faces you as she locks the door, still wary, but there is joy in her face. She can see the end of the road.

It’s almost sad.

You walk down a corridor toward a pair of steel doors. As sunlight spills into the dimly lit area, you scope a vending niche just ahead and to the right. A drink machine hums a long low note.All you have to do is slow down, just get behind her by one step, shoot her, and use the machine for cover if she tries to use one of those lethal darts.

Two shadows force their way through the doors at the end of the corridor.

The gun’s easy enough to spot; you duck and jump to your side. Susan fires at one of them as you dodge into the niche.

What puzzles you is the wrenching pain in your shoulder that drops you to the floor in front of the neon glow of the soda machine.

They’re not aiming at Susan.

That was meant for you.