Griffin hadn’t followed my instructions and was coming up behind me, deepening my concerns of having no real authority on this ship. The red lights filled our slender hallway with the many shades of war, flashing to an eye searing brightness before receding and bursting again in waves. The Reaper was near, the scales shifting. Something wasn’t right.
“David? What are you doing? Damn it! What are you doing?” I spun to see Griffin staring at me from two feet away.
“What do you mean?” I demanded, my voice harsh like a steel file drug over raw flesh. “What am I doing? Huh? What am I doing? My damned job, that’s what!”
She flinched at every word, hands raised to protect her face. “I—I—didn’t say anything, sir. I’ve been silent.”
I took a step back and went cold. It hadn’t been her voice. Not at all.
“Why would you? It’s like Harrison’s boy all over again.” The voice. But from where? My head was killing me.
I started searching the hall, running up and down its length inspecting the bulkhead beside and beneath me, sticking my head in sections to see surprised crewmembers gaping back. It wasn’t Kelly. It wasn’t Doc. It wasn’t the nurse or Lank Hair or Dour Face or Higgins. I knew the voice. I knew it well. But where the hell was he? How the hell had he gotten on board the Vindicator? He’d wanted to take me away once, but not on this ship. I’d left him alone. Alone. Was he dead? Had he come to haunt me?
“Sir?” Griffin asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Are you alright? What’s wrong? Is the ship okay?”
I shrugged her off and squeezed between the monoplace hyperbaric chambers of Med 1, lowering the maintenance core’s ladder to take a look inside the spine. As I climbed the rungs I felt the earpiece vibrate more intensely against my chest. The spine of our ship was bathed in red like bone marrow, but was empty. No one was hiding in here but ghosts. There was another doodle in black marker, this one of a cross aloft a hillside, drawn beside the hatch on one of the water recyclers.
I descended the ladder and the alarms shut off. My heart was exploding in my chest, every sore muscle drumming an uncomfortable tattoo.
“Are you alright, Master Engineer?” the Nurse asked, needle still in hand. She raised it ever so slightly and clear fluid shot out the end.
I backed into the hall, hands up, nodding absently. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
But it wasn’t. I had to get the fuck out of there.
Once free I bolted down the narrow passage, seeking salvation in the arboretum, pushing aside anyone who got in my way. The walls were too close, and growing closer by the second. They were now only as wide as my shoulders and tapering down to a point. I was choking on the miasma of musty sweat and tangy bodily odors that filled the passage like a nerve gas. There was no escaping it. I was trapped in here, forced to run in circles on a hellish exercise wheel with no end.
I would never again see an expanse of sky, never again breathe sweet freedom or have a moment to myself, even in my own head. I was a prisoner, a convict, locked up with two pleading dead men, their fingers raised in constant accusation for my crimes. My soul was no longer mine, but had been left adrift in the void with no chance of rescue. I was forever lost to hope. Damned beyond salvation.
My chest pocket vibrated ever harder, as if Liberty could sense my growing urgency. I burst into the arboretum and fled for the hidden spot among the trees. I threw myself on the ground, pounding my forehead on the dirt. My body convulsed. My lips trembled. I put an ear to the ground and let it all go, cool soil turning damp. Images of César flashed in my mind. I couldn’t save him. I had needed to save a life for the one I’d taken, but I couldn’t save his. I would never set things right.
My fingers closed into tight fists, muscles aching under the strain. Blood oozed between knuckles and the dark crannies beside joints, staining my jumpsuit with great blots of crimson.
“Son, keep telling yourself you did what you had to,” the voice said, but I didn’t look up. “You know you wanted to see that asshole die for what he did. You enjoyed it. And when you did it, you knew it might kill him. No one can survive that, but you did it anyways, that’s right, you did it. Come on, David, you’re not afraid of a little blood. It doesn’t make you an evil person, you did what you had to in order to survive. We all did. We all do.”
“Shut up!” I shouted. “Shut the fuck up!” The soil was dark and sticky, dim light shimmering across its wet surface. “I never wanted to, he forced me. He forced me!” I slammed my fists against the puddle of blackened blood again and again and again, praying it would vanish.
“He forced you,” the voice agreed.
Something warm folded around me. I scrambled back out of reflex, slapping at the air with eyes squeezed shut. I was so bad off that invisible things were touching me. I dared for an instant to let my glassy vision return and saw a concerned Liberty through the murk. She threw her arms around me, drawing me in.
“I killed him,” I whispered, pleading for forgiveness. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No you didn’t. César made his own choices.”
The gasket on my right ring finger suddenly felt heavy as a neutron star. “No, I killed him, Harrison’s thug.”
Liberty’s soothing hands paused. “What, David? What are you talking about?”
Words I never dared speak outside of family spewed out of me, the emergency pressure valve of my psyche having reached its critical limit. “They beat me half to death after I crashed the skimmer and left me naked in the streets. That’s why we never met up the week after. But it wasn’t the end of it, they would find me once every few days and take my rations, boots, anything they could to make me suffer. This burn on my chest was from where they put out their cigars while pouring liquor down my throat.” I paused, fingers rubbing across a divot in my right thigh. “Once, they held me down and cut a lump from my thigh with a filet knife, only to box it up and mail it back to me on a bed of flowers. I was terrified, but then one day, coming back from helping dad repair a PV array I—on the path home I ran into Harrison’s lead thug, Brice.
“We were outside the city wearing environmental suits in a bad dust storm. Brice threatened me, threatened me and mom and dad if I didn’t do what he asked. And I was tired of it. I couldn’t take any more abuse. I was being tortured for a mistake I made by living life to the fullest. But I knew in my bones he was never going to stop. Brice would never let up, unless I replaced that damned skimmer or died trying. Shit, maybe not even then. He was a sadistic son of a bitch.
“I swung my toolbox as hard as I could, cracking him in the visor. He rolled off the cliff beside us, hitting a sharp rock face first twenty feet down. I didn’t try to help as he flailed about, didn’t try to save him as he reached for my aid. I just ran, ran as fast as I could until I wasn’t afraid anymore. Trouble was, he followed me all the way. In here.” I tapped my right temple.
“Then, César came along and I thought maybe, just maybe I could save him from himself. Teach him skills and a better way to live. Maybe I could tip the scales, make things even again.” I glanced down at my hands and found them clean. The blood hadn’t been real. I was losing my shit double fast.
Liberty squeezed me so hard I almost couldn’t breathe, but said nothing. It was more than enough. The way she cradled my head and kissed it said she understood everything. Still, I felt a need for forgiveness beyond hers. Could my hands ever really be clean? What if we used this ship to destroy entire colonies as the Axis intended to do? How could that ever be set right? How could mutually assured destruction be the only answer to our problem? An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. There has to be a better solution.