*** Two months ago ***
Her daughter’s eyes searing into her own. This moment is always present for Crass.
“How could you?”
Take away the fine wrinkles of middle age, and Sera’s still the little girl. Crass has always wondered when she’d cross this line.
No trust left in those eyes.
So this is what it feels like.
###
*** NOW ***
The Corp logo rotates in the middle of her security dashboard, an unblinking eye.
Trust Volga Corp.
More slogans slide by on a chyron under the bank of security screens. Why are they there distracting Crass from her job? She has no idea, but she has a few choice slogans to counter them.
Volga Corp gets what Volga Corp wants.
Crass is somewhat like that herself. Perhaps there’s something magnetic in that that has drawn her to this job this night.
Volga Corp will outlast us all.
Crass is cut from the same cloth. A cockroach.
Shit, what’s got into me tonight?
She’s never been the introspective type before.
Something in the viewport catches her eye. She takes a breath, then looks up from her security station. “Lido?”
“Yeah?”
“Something’s happening in Sector Delta. Sensors aren’t reporting in.”
“Sabo?”
“I’ll bet my paycheck.”
“I’d say you better not waste Sera’s money like that, but then again, all my money’s going to her and the brat, too, so a bet between us is a wash.”
Crass lets the unspoken words simmer against her sealed lips: don’t you call my grandchild ‘brat’, you sad excuse for space debris. “I’m going to check it out.”
“I’m coming too.”
Standard procedure? Not at all. But not unexpected. She rolls with it. It’s too late to kick up a fuss about the procedure. “Come on then.” She chucks a security vest across to her co-worker Lido, her son-in-law, avoiding his eye.
The walk to Delta involves a few short twists and turns through identical black and silver corridors on the orbital warehouse-office complex. It’s quiet tonight, and the skeleton shift is not currently active in this sector. Rounding one last corner, they come up against the first sign, an unexpected one.
“The hell?” Lido bangs the butt of his pistol against the door. “This isn’t supposed to be shut. What’s going on?”
###
*** Three weeks ago ***
“Cressida Hill. Thirty-five years’ service planetside. At your age, why are you so keen to go orbital?”
The company slick grinned inanely at her polite, blank face, no idea of the rage contained in her fists under the desk. “It’ll be a nice break from planetside. See what’s out there before I die.” That much was true. Working security in the distribution centres down here on the ground, so she could head back to her one-room shack with her bed sticking its fucking springs into her arse, so she could piss in a filthy communal bathroom and ration out a three-minute shower once a week, so she could eat gruel with everyone else – no fucking thank you. From what she’d heard, Orbital had many creature comforts to make up for the distance, the long deployments, and the threat of cold, strangling emptiness outside its tightly sealed walls. “I still have my health and the best money’s up there. Plus, my super recommended me and said they were looking for someone with my skill set.”
“That we are, Cressida.” No ‘Ms Hill’? Interesting how pompous the slicks were these days. Fashion when she was younger was for them to Ms, Mz or Ma’am femmes of all ages. Now she was of an age to expect those manners, informality was all the rage. But she bit that back. Maybe she didn’t look all that femme post-menopause. God knows she didn’t have manners herself. Irrelevant. All that mattered was getting a nest egg set away for Sera and Ana.
As if that could make up for a life ruined.
“You’ve passed the discretion test to HR’s liking, so we are happy to let you sign on. Then we can fill you in on the true nature of the job.”
So, it was that level of secrecy then? The kind where she couldn’t even know ahead of signing? Again, irrelevant. She needed this. A chance to make up for her past as a deadbeat mother and an all-round bitch.
“You know me. Company woman through and through.”
“Oh, good. Then you won’t mind a few implants. Now that we’re moving Headquarters up to Orbital, we want to make sure all our security forces are armed with the latest. Visual, audio, olfactory sensors, adrenaline boosters, quick draw responses, bio-locked access. The works.”
Over his shoulder, Crass made out the protesters on the road outside the office building. No wonder the higher-ups wanted to elevate themselves further. “Sure.”
He shoved a tablet across the desk, the white pages of the contract flicking by under his lazy finger until he reached the dotted line at the end. Crass signed quickly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the way her veins stuck out the back of her hand from rage and age. “All right, time to let you in on the big security problems. I take it you’ve heard of the terrorist group, Gaia’s Children?”
###
*** NOW ***
Crass holds her right wrist to the sector door. With a flicker and a beep, the sector unseals.
“You got implants? Since when?”
“They offered a pay raise if I took them.”
“Geez, and they didn’t offer me?”
Yeah, cos no one here is going to trust a bankrupt gambler with company secrets. “Tenure.”
At the smell of blood, she slips back against the bulkhead and unsheathes her pistol. Lido doesn’t copy her until they turn the corner, and he sees the blood trailing down between the rows of product shelving.
She raises her left wrist comms to her lips. This, at least, is not implanted. “Central, we’re going to need some backup…”
No response on the other side. She keeps her eyebrows flat, looks sidelong at Lido under her fringe of permed grey-brown hair.
“Weird.” He looks genuinely spooked. “You think they…”
“Yeah, probably already in there, engaged with… whatever.”
“Why didn’t they alert us? And how come we didn’t see anything on the cameras?”
“Could be they’ve looped the footage. Guess this is the big one, kid. GC maybe. Must have knocked down certain parts of the system before striking. Come on.”
“Shouldn’t we alert someone? But if Central is out…”
Crass lets the thought cross her face, as obvious as she can make it, then holds up her comms to her mouth again. “Moonside, do you read?” Silence. Tap. “Zenith, do you read?” Silence. Tap. “Nadir, anyone home?” Silence. “Nothing.”
“Well, damn. We really are on our own.”
“The way I see it, we have two options. Either we go back and barricade up, try to get the sensors back online remotely, and contact Planetside. That’s the sensible thing to do. Or, we gun for a bounty by taking on the saboteurs ourselves. How lucky you feeling, kid?”
Lido’s eyes light up, and his tongue darts out to lick his lips. “You know me, Crass. Every day is my lucky day. And hey, if we die, the pension goes to Sera from both of us, right? The way I see it, we’ve got nothing to lose.”
Crass chuckles and slaps Lido on his black ceramic pauldron. “That’s the spirit.”
Taking point, Crass ignores the way Lido ‘provides cover’, practically bouncing from wall to wall behind her like some actor playing at super-spy, announcing their arrival with every heavy-booted step. The trail of blood leads to a dead body at the next corner—security, from Central by the look of the badge half hidden under their bloodied chest. Crass listens out, but the sounds of active fire are notably absent.
Everything going according to plan. So far.
###
*** Two weeks ago ***
When she found Sera, it was cleanup time in the communal kitchens. Sera moved in deeper amongst the other workers to avoid Crass. Crass shouldered her way through the cleanup crew, cornered Sera at the back by the greasy frying slabs.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”
“I had to tell you. I’m taking a job up in Orbital.”
Sera stopped, put aside the barely functional rag she’d been using to dry the meal tray she clung onto when pursued. It was probably unconscious, the way she held it between them like a shield. “What, so you can chase Lido?”
“Pfft. Boy’s yours, sweetheart. But hear me: you can do better.”
Crass bit her tongue as rage and annoyance flicked across Sera’s face, silent and indistinct as a meteoroid. How did she get to be so restrained? Certainly wasn’t my example.
“Don’t you trouble him now, Mom. He’s got to be on his best behaviour. They’ve had him up for illegal gambling already. One more strike against him…”
“Sera, it ain’t gonna be me getting that boy of yours in trouble. Shit… can’t believe you got back together with him.”
“It’s none of your business. What do you want?”
“To say goodbye.”
“’Kay. Bye.”
Sera turned to pick up her rag again, but Crass grabbed her wrist. Her daughter fixed her with that glare Crass wished she wasn’t so familiar with.
“I want to say goodbye to Ana too.”
“I already told you, you ain’t never seeing Ana again. You’re not even ‘sposed to be seeing me again.”
“You can’t -“
“Take your hand off me right now and leave, or I will scream and call security on you. I’d love to see your job prospects with a fresh charge on your rap sheet, Mother.”
Her eyes were ice on fire, and Crass had never been so proud of her. Proud and fucking enraged.
But for once, she took a cue from Sera’s restraint and unhanded her. She backed off, looking for something smart to say. This was unfamiliar territory. “You’ll regret it one day.”
“You have no idea,” Sera sniped back with a bitter smile.
Crass moved fast out of the kitchen, away from humiliation and any chance of going back and making a mistake. Put an hour of footsteps between them, for everyone’s sake, walking through the concrete and glass labyrinth here, tent city there, until she found herself in a purely Corp territory of the city.
There was a protest. Bodies pressed together in the acid rain before the main Corp HQ. Plastic umbrellas swiss-cheesing as she watched. Back when the protects started out in her twenties, she’d watch them and wonder where they got the hope and the energy from.
Now she knew better. It wasn’t hope or energy; it was this or giving in.
A flash above. The Corp logo stared her down in silver and teal. Beneath, on a chyron: Everything you want in one place.
The gall of it stopped her dead in her tracks.
You don’t know shit about what I want.
###
*** NOW ***
Docking bay coming up. The mapping implant tells her so. That, and her careful study of it leading up to today.
The scene in front of her is not the one she expected.
She waves her hand in front of Lido to stop him rushing ahead of her. Through the golden haze of the airlock, Bertram, that blonde jerk from Central, sighs and waves them over. “Finally. Took you slackers long enough. Hurry up and open the internal door. We’ve subdued the terrorists.”
The bodies of the Gaia’s Children terrorists and one dead guard litter the floor of the docking bay leading up to the airlock. Two other guards beside Betram are up and walking around, trapped. One terrorist is still alive, slumped against the bulkhead. Under the straight black fringe, all blood and missing teeth.
Crass walks over to the airlock panel on the wall and dithers over the selection. “What are you waiting for?” Bertram growls.
“You don’t want me to fuck up and eject you, I assume.” His response is a grunt.
The GC agent stares at her, gathers her rattling breath, and yells, “Chicken!”
Got it. Regrettable, but it’s gotta be.
Crass slams her fist on the eject button. Without warning, everything beyond the golden forcefield is yanked into the open maw of space. Crass turns her pistol on Lido. He’s too distracted by the horror of the bodies, dead and alive, flying into the blue and black beyond. Only once he’s ready to confront her does he notice, flinching from the pistol leveled at his head.
“What the hell, Crass?!”
Young eyes, so wide. Crass remembers another pair of eyes, much dearer, bruised black, weeping.
His fault.
Never again.
The second he starts to aim his pistol, it is a second too late for him. Her enhanced visuals read the subtle movements and feed into her semi-automated response centre—one shot in the chest, another in the head. Crass ignores the steaming holes in her son-in-law and goes to the computer banks, trying to remember what the codeword ‘chicken’ meant exactly. How much had Gaia’s Children managed to achieve before the guards arrived?
###
*** Two months ago ***
Sera’s friend, whoever she was, took one look at Crass storming through the tent flap and grabbed up Ana. Gave Sera a nod, cradled Ana’s head, feathery light hair sticking through her fingers, and scampered out the rear flap into the corrugated corridor of tent city. Crass had half a mind to go after her, but Sera’s face stopped her.
“Who did this to you?”
Blinking her swollen, bruised eyes that barely opened, Sera trembled. But her finger jabbed out at Crass. “You did.”
“What?”
“You as well as did it with your own hands.”
“Now I ain’t never laid a hand on you, as your mother -“
“Some mother! What kind of mother fucks her son-in-law?”
Crass stumbled back as if it were a real blow. “Shit… he told you?”
“I’m not stupid. I figured it out. And then I confronted him -“
“What, and he decked you?”
Her silence was enough of an answer.
“Where is the little fucker? I’ll kill him -“
Sera dragged her back from the flap by the shoulder, then recoiled as Crass met her eyes, disgust at war with her need to mediate. “Just stay out of it. This is between me and Lido.”
“Between you and… you can’t mean you’re trying to work it out with him?”
Crass already saw the answer in Sera’s defeated eyes. Ever since the boy picked up with her, pregnant with someone else’s child, he’d been Sera’s Golden Boy and couldn’t do anything wrong.
“He’s trash! I just proved that.”
“He’s trash, is he? And you slept with him. So what are you?”
“He’s the one done you worse – and then beat you when you got angry -“
“You’re supposed to be my mother!” Her voice had never been this loud before.
A part of Crass questioned, what exactly drove her to this? Alcohol, pills, joint winnings from the night gambling, scraping some small bit of joy out of this miserable existence? She couldn’t remember.
Sera was never supposed to know.
“How could you?”
Now that… that stopped her. Strip all the layers back, and all that stood before her was her little girl, and by god, she’d fucked up this time all right. She’d finally done it. After a lifetime of waiting to see the true hatred in her daughter’s eyes, there it was.
“Get out. I don’t want to see you again. And don’t try to see Ana. We’re done with you. I’ve had enough of you fucking up my life. I’m not going to let you fuck hers up.”
“But -“
“Get out!”
###
*** One month ago ***
The GC local chapter agent had a straight black fringe and warm tan skin, not a wrinkle in sight. The apartment for their meeting was dark, stale, lit by passing lights coming through the slats of torn blinds.
The young woman folded her arms, confidence in the set of her chin, uncowed by the age gap between them. “They’re opening new spots on security teams up in Orbital.”
“So? They’re always doing that. Orbital grunts burn out faster than anyone – going up there, thinking zero-grav’s gonna make lifting packages easier -“
“Yeah, but now they’re moving the collars up there, which makes it one juicy target. So they’re beefing up the security forces, adding in tech to help you do the job, cos they’re getting real scared of us. And that tech could, in the right hands, be used against them instead.”
“Why trust me? As far as any of you know, I’m the company stooge. Loyal Volga girl all my life.”
The agent shrugged, her eyes narrowing with a smirk. “You got any young relatives?” Crass couldn’t help but respond with a minute nod. “If you let us down in favour of the Corp, it’s them you’re betraying.”
I was expecting some ‘for the planet’ bullshit.
But no. This is for Ana.
Crass bit back the lump growing in her throat. “And if I do this, what will happen to them? Will they suffer any repercussions?”
“Should anything happen to you in the course of this mission, succeed or fail, your full account will be paid out to your family, and they will have protection, I promise.”
“One thing. I wanna see my granddaughter before I go.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
“Yeah.”
The agent shrugged, started to reach out, then dropped her hand back to her side. “I’ll see to it.”
“Tell me what I gotta do.”
How to write the job application, how to ace the job interview, a rundown of all the tech she’d need to be implanted, mention of the crew she’d likely come up against – pretend I don’t know the name Lido, that’s a cheeky bonus for me – and finally, hours deep, running through all the different ways the plan could go right or wrong.
“Here’s a list of codewords, in case I need you to take over any aspect of the plan because me and my team are out of commission.”
###
*** NOW ***
Weird to think I just killed that same woman.
But that was her plan.
“Chicken.” Her old memory jogs back into step. Nearly complete. Finish the job for us.
Alone in Delivery Bay Delta, she finds the datakey plugged into the computer bank, and wakes up the idle screen.
Your screen saved 6 watts while sleeping!
“Lot of good that’s doing the planet, with all the waste this company puts out.” Her voice bounces through the empty cavernous warehouse. Chills run down her spine, until they hit the lumbar auto-response implant, where sensation goes dead. Don’t need the adrenaline right now. Keep calm, remember the mission. Take out Orbital, save the world.
The datakey is still working away, 87% uploaded. Crass considers the best position to defend the computer in case another team comes a-wandering. Lodges herself between two standing computer banks, around the corner of a partition so no one can creep up on her.
Click.
“Hell was that…” She rubs her ear. The numbing resonance of the click fades away. Out of paranoia, she peeks around the bank to see that Lido is still lying there, dead.
In the lonely silence, she laughs.
“Oh, we done screwed each other, Lido, haven’t we?” In a darker mood, she glares at him and mutters, “Beat my child, will you?” If she’d known breaking her daughter’s heart yet again for being the world’s worst mother would lead to a domestic episode, well… “You piece of shit.”
Click. She rubs her ear again, remembers that chickens, like so many other critters from her childhood, are extinct now, and catches the update on the screen: 96%.
There’s a chyron running under the screen. 97%. She moves to read it, pistol out ahead of her, 98%, hoping it’s not detecting the presence of the datakey and – 99% – stopping the program from running.
The chyron says: Defensive measure D3LT4 BR1CK BR1CK BR1CK
Crass’s legs give way under her. She can’t feel them anymore. Click. Something’s happening in her head.
“Motherf-!” Searing pain when she tries to speak.
“Oh shit,” she can’t help but murmur and regrets it as pain buzzes up and down her spine. Of course, the stupid implants weren’t put in her to make her better at the job. They were there to provide the Corp with a method of control.
No time to think about this. She lets go of her pistol and pulls herself up by her arms to look at the screen as all of her implants fight to shut her down.
100% complete. Retrieve Datakey.
It’s all she can do not to scream as she takes all her weight on one arm and, with the other, pulls the key free. She’s back on the floor; the key is safe.
Time for the rest of Chicken. She holds her curses back in her head, trying to save her energy by not triggering the vocal pain: None of this is fucking worth it if I can’t fucking complete motherfucking Chicken.
Crass shucks the heavy weight of her body armour. The metal floor is cold through her underwear. She pulls her limp lower half across the floor, datakey around the neck and tucked down her vest, grateful for having always been strong in the arms, enough to carry Sera, enough to see her through many a pub brawl, enough to hold her own with all the sons of bitches who tried to screw her, and the ones she screwed. In all senses of the word.
Never should’ve gotten involved with GC. Of course, I’d get screwed. Of course, the Corp would screw me worst out of all of them. Breaking their own implanted workers in case of emergency… son of a –
In the blue glow of the planet ahead, beyond the open airlock, Crass faces the truth as she drags herself towards the bay controls. Only one person has screwed her life well and truly.
She’s seen it reflected in her daughter’s eyes, narrowed with the mask of hatred, bleeding pain. She just didn’t want to admit it then.
Distant Mother Earth gets to be her confessor, a fellow drunk at the bar.
“Sorry, I dared to want it all!” she roars past the implanted pain delivery system keyed into her skull behind her ear. Waste of time, suffering all that pain for the sake of a lie. And what had she wanted anyway? All the signs on all the roads in her life pointed to one destination: Destruction.
“None of it’s fair! The world was screwed before I was even born!” Again, why waste your breath?
She lies in the throes of pain, unable to hold back a primal wail that has nothing to do with the false pain stimuli this time.
“Sorry…” she whispers past the flares, screaming up and down her body, “Sorry… Sera…”
###
*** One week ago ***
Pudgy hands touched her face, big dark eyes smiling up at her. The agent holding Ana murmured, “Make it fast. I can’t keep Sera distracted for long.”
“Bye-bye babygirl. Grammy loves you, you hear?”
She placed her lips on Ana’s forehead. I hope I don’t leave any of my filth on her by touching her.
When she pulled back, Ana’s skin was clear, her eyes still bright and upturned.
###
*** NOW ***
And then, because there’s no one else to bloody do it, she fights her way back into her sick slither of a cobra pose and continues dragging herself over to the console.
Some lazy grunts left packages stacked up by the screens. She piles herself onto these in a slump so she can reach them.
First things first. All hands abandon ship. Datakey will have sorted it out so the alarm sounds only in the workers sectors, and not the C-suites. The klaxons blare, a woman’s too-calm voice declares, ‘Make your way calmly to the nearest escape pods’. None near here, so she shouldn’t have to worry about interruption, or rescue.
Five minutes later, ten escape pods counted in rapid succession, and then there were no more. She plugged in the datakey.
One turn is all it will take, the agent said. Then, a minute later, boom. Enough time for the key-turner to run to a pod, right? Then, all the sector doors will open, and the detonators attached to trigger this action will blow the Orbital complex into oblivion.
She turns the key and tries her best to ignore the redoubling of the klaxons’ screaming.
60
Crass stares through the airlock at home and somewhere down there, Sera, Ana. Safe now. No Volga Corp, no Lido to screw them over.
45
No Crass to screw them over either.
30
And out of all of this – the total victory of Gaia’s Children in taking down this moon-blotting monstrosity of a warehouse and all its execs – the Corp paycheck from the last six months always went straight to Sera, not Crass – the second paycheck was about to head her way from Gaia’s Children if those hippies kept their damn word – out of all this, isn’t Sera’s freedom the biggest win?
15
As far as Crass can see, her prize is right there, a blue and green and white circle in the darkness.
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