The Killing Jar (10 page)

LRF-CENTRAL

AUGUST 7, 2232

“Are you all right?” Calvin Hill emerged from LRF Central only moments later, but Aida wasn’t all that surprised. Sal would never have bothered.

“I just—I don’t know. I need to think for a minute.” How could she explain it? Without evidentiary support and a well-developed hypothesis, her delusions were baseless. No one would give her any credibility if she went of spouting ideas about Dr. Parr.

She would lose her position.

“Would you like to be alone?”

“Not particularly.” Aida wanted to expel the idea that something had happened to her mentor, and that she had been oblivious to it until it was too late. “What did you want to talk about?”

“It can wait. We should probably go back inside.” His green eyes flashed kindly and he held out his hand to escort her.

“I don’t want to go in,” she admitted, her eyes cast down to avoid his gaze. There was no way she could watch the holograph of such an important person in her life, especially when it was so clearly not him. At least, not anymore.

“All right, then. Come on.” This time, Calvin extended a bent elbow and waited for the several seconds it took her to wrap her arm around his. Aida had seen the move before, but never actually touched anyone that way, even her husband. The close contact sent all thoughts fleeting from her mind.

“Did you present Dr. Parr with your report on 196?” he asked as they walked through the empty corridors. Made to hold thousands, the synthetic polyblend walls were absurdly empty, as if they were the only people within the moon.

“Of course, I gave it to him last night.” Aida couldn’t imagine what that had to do with anything.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. He told me to signal the full work-up. That was the last—” Aida’s voice faded when she considered the idea that she would never speak to Jackson Parr again, that he would never offer her his classically sound advice or help her work through a particularly troublesome system. He was gone.

“I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about this now.” Calvin covered her hand with his.

“It’s all right. Why are you asking me about 196? You said you thought it was the most desirable planet we’ve had this quarter. Even better than your 113.”

“Well, 113 showed a hostile native species and a flora that couldn’t sustain humans due to its high levels of bromine,” he explained, as if Aida hadn’t been in the meeting with Dr.s Parr, Niemeyer, and Hill, even Director Filmore, to disqualify 113 as their target exoplanet.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I found something on your report that I couldn’t figure out.”

Aida swelled defensively. How dare someone question her data? How
dare
he? “There’s nothing wrong with my report,” she huffed and pulled her hand from his arm.

Dr. Hill smiled. “No, it’s perfectly accurate. Let me show you.”

The two walked in uncomfortable silence until they reached the Planetary Systems wing of the LRF. Identical to every other department, it featured a long central corridor with four branches and a conference room at the end.

Calvin led her to the second branch on the left where his office was housed. While it was a mirror image of her own office that branched to the right, Aida had never been in the space before. She felt like a guest in someone’s home.

“Here, sit down,” Calvin said as he pushed the chair toward her and began making a series of complex hand motions on the large screen that covered much of the wall. Within seconds, her report showed in massive size before them.

“This is the report you showed Dr. Parr?” he asked, his eyes locked on her features.

Convinced of an error, or some sort of fraud, Aida carefully examined her report, evaluating each section in turn. At last, she spotted it:
Canis minor
. “No, this one has been modified. The constellation section, not that that matters.”

“Right. So I admit, I had to look it up, but Canis minor is a small subsection of the constellation Monoceros, the one listed on your original report.” Calvin swiped at the screen and produced a celestial map with a dog inlayed across the top.

Aida searched the map with her eyes until she found her planet. “196 isn’t in Canis minor. It’s here.” She stood next to Calvin and pointed out the Earth-sized world in the southern hemisphere of the constellation.

“Why would Dr. Parr change it? He wasn’t interested in constellations any more than the rest of us, and he was prone to extremely accurate data.”

“He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t change something correct to incorrect. That doesn’t make sense.” Aida’s stomach flipped. It wasn’t her imagination. Something had been wrong with Dr. Parr. And she had failed to notice.

“When I spoke with Fobbs from Robotics, he verified they were sending a probe to 196—”

“So it makes no difference,” she replied, more than a little relieved. It would kill her to have Dr. Parr’s scientific reputation tarnished after his death.

“Not exactly. They sent the probe here.” Calvin touched the planet overlaid by the dog’s ear, more than fifty lightyears from 196. They were investigating the wrong planet.

COLLECTOR PRECINCT 914, CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 8, 2232

Caught.

It wasn’t a word Mable had much experience with. Then again, she had become a friend to betrayal long ago.

No matter. She was a decent enough actress. She would be in and out with Hadley in a few hours. As long as they didn’t figure out who she was, she’d be free to return to the Root and get on with her life.

Then she would have to work through the resulting paranoia from Arturo’s deceit. How could she ever trust anyone?

A room too small to house cleaning supplies. An uncomfortable metal chair. A boring metal table. Even a pair of metal shackles to tie her to it. They’d really gone all out to keep her put.

A middle-aged Collector pushed open the door. His eyes never strayed from his tablet as he read aloud, “Margaret Elaine Wilkinson. Age 19. Undeclared. You’re a little old to be undeclared, aren’t you?”

At last, he looked up, though it wasn’t because he expected a real answer. To him, a law enforcement Craftsman, a Collector, she was lower than a germ. She was less than human. Mable was reminded why she hated society.

“I go by Mable,” she explained instead.

As the Collector sat, he rearranged his bulky belt decorated with a comms device, nerve-deadening spray and a dozen other tools. Mable caught sight of the name embroidered along his collar: Teveren. She smiled at the irony. Oh how Rowen would laugh when she told him.

“You’re unregistered, undeclared. What exactly are you doing in Chicago, Margaret?”

“Just passing through.” She hadn’t broken any laws. She hadn’t stolen anything—yet. They had nothing on her, and as long as she played nice, they’d let her go before they realized anything else.

“We have a nice city here, you know. This isn’t some Mecca for flea-ridden trash. I trust you’ll be on your way.”

Mable bit back her tongue. “We’ll be gone before daybreak.”

Collector Teveren stared at her features, evaluating her words before he stood and made a few motions on his tablet. “Very well. I’ll get your release squared away.” He was gone a moment later.

When the door opened again an hour later, Mable thought it would be to release her. She never expected the man that came instead.

Mable’s jaw fell as her eyes locked on the mid-forties man who entered her narrow holding cell. The thick metal shackles that encircled her wrists kept her pinned in place, unable to run from the man who had taken so much from her.

Silas Arrenstein. A silver-tongued fox with a penchant for lying smiles and sugar-sweet promises he didn’t intend to keep. Mable had never hated anyone the way she hated him.

“Well if it isn’t little Maggie. You’ve, uh, grown?” He cocked an eyebrow at the piercings in her cheeks, the tattoos that crawled up her neck, and the too-dark shade of her once blonde hair.

She curled her lips in disgust at him. “Fuck you. Get away from me.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve given it much more thought since our last conversation?” He smiled through his teeth as he closed the door behind him. If she hadn’t known better, she might have thought him genuinely nice, a handsome, older man who wanted the best for her. His permanent day-old shave, sharp tan suit, and kind blue eyes were almost convincing.

Almost.

Mable tried to lean back in her chair and look as disinterested as possible. She didn’t want him to know he got under her skin so easily. Instead, she opted for an offensive approach. “In fact, I think about you a lot. I think about the day you came and ruined my family, and the smug look on your face that never quite seems to come off.”

But he only smiled again.

“I thought you’d be this way. It’s part of your charm, really. So predictable these days.”

“So I’m free to go?” Mable lifted her wrists as far from the table as the short chain would allow, her eyes expectant and her lips pursed with aggravation. It wasn’t fair he was allowed to live in the same lifetime as her.

Yet again, she was sure there was no justice in this world.

“Well, no. Not quite.” As if to prove it, Arrenstein stripped away the tan suit jacket that probably cost a year’s salary and laid it carefully across the tabletop. “You see, this time, I have something you want.”

Hadley.

Mable’s stomach flipped so hard she thought she might puke on his jacket, though in different circumstances, she might have enjoyed that part.

“No, you can’t,” was all she could squeak out. Of all the good, sweet people in the world, she wouldn’t let him have Hadley.

“It’s settled then. We’ll get you moved into the complex this afternoon.” Dr. Arrenstein held out his hand as if to shake hers, but she only sat frozen in shock.

“What? I’m not going with you. You make promises you can’t keep. You
murder
people.”

Arrenstein leaned back into the simplistic metal chair that matched hers, crossing his legs and even bouncing one of them. “Now, that’s not true, is it Maggie?”

How dare he call her that?

“You know it is. And, what’s worse,
I
know it.” Mable paused to bring her voice back under control. She wanted no part of what she said next to go misunderstood. “You’ll never get me. You’ll never get Hadley. There’s nothing you can do or say that will ever change that. Go find some other hapless victim to play your games.”

She tried her best to cross her arms indignantly but only met the full length of chain halfway. The failed motion left her with sore wrists and a bruised sense of pride, but still, she wouldn’t crack in front of him. Mable swallowed her pain and glared her disapproval.

“Ah, well, that’s a shame. Thing is, our next session is closing up this week, and we’re one recruit short. Seeing as how such viable options are so hard to come by, I’ve really got no choice. I need one more, and you two are too good to pass up. You were really my first choice, but since you’ve made it clear you’ll offer no cooperation, I guess I’ll have to go with Option B. Look at it this way, at least you’ll never see me again.”

Arrenstein smiled as if he’d confirmed her order for a birthday cake. He maintained his poisonous grin as he scooped up his jacket and turned toward the single door. His hand was on the knob and turning as Mable watched in horror.

She didn’t want to do it.

She knew she wouldn’t survive in Arrenstein’s program. She knew she couldn’t live with him day in and day out, knowing what he’d done.

But she couldn’t sentence Hadley to that same fate.

“Wait,” came the sound from her throat before she even realized what she’d done.

Basking in his victory, Arrenstein folded his hands under his jacket and waited, his smile never fading.

“You promise to let her go home?”

At last, Arrenstein cracked. He lifted a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat before answering, “Well, the vulgar underground is hardly a home, but yes, I’ll make sure she gets back there. You have my word—for all that it’s still worth to you.”

Already she felt trapped, as if she’d become claustrophobic in the tiny room. Breathing became hard and blinking couldn’t hold back her frustrated tears. Head bowed in shame, she finally said, “Then I’ll come with you.”