Black Hull (28 page)

“You stay right here, you know why?”
Mick said.

“Please Mick, calm down,” she pleaded,
managing to stop her tears.

“Sit down in the chair,” he pointed.

“What are you going to do?” she asked,
wiping her mouth.

“Sit the fuck down!” he yelled.

He grabbed her arm tight, without
caution or concern, and throttled her down into the chair.

“I’m calling Eric. He better, and I mean
he
better
have the same story,” Mick said.

“It’s eleven o’clock Mick,” Karen said.

“I don’t give a shit if it’s three in
the morning. I’m calling now.”

Karen tried to decide how to handle it:
should she arm herself? Pick up a kitchen knife while he dialed? No—she brought
this on herself. She could save the children. Maybe he wouldn’t pick up?

Mick dialed. She could hear the muted
ringing.
Riiing. Riiing. Riiing. Riiing. Riiing.

“Hello?”

“Eric, Karen told me she had to clear
some things up with you about Fedeli’s,” Mick said.

“Mick, hey. Yea, a while back we did
that.”

“Oh really? A while back? When was it?”
Mick said, trying to keep his tone in check. He turned, glaring at Karen, his
fists balled.

“Oh, I don’t remember man. After you
left. After it happened. What’s going on?”

“I was just concerned about you coming
over my house after I left. I mean, you wouldn’t do something like that, would
you? Coming over to sign some papers?” Mick said.

“No, of course not Mick. She came to the
office, always out here. It’s business, you know. We’re best friends Mick.
Mick?” said Eric, but the line had gone dead.

The boys’ bodies rattled, the dog’s ears
shot up in alarm, as a phone exploded in the kitchen below, shattering in a
million pieces. They heard shards of plastimetal sliding, tracked their
individual movements across the floor. Heard paintings shatter, smash, and fall
down from the walls.
Why? Why does this have to happen? Why does he have to destroy
everything, why does he have to ruin everything, why does he have to hurt us,
when he says he’ll do anything for us? That he loves us?
Christopher could
only spew questions—the darkness forbade any form of answer.

“He’s dead,” Mick said, grabbing his
Mustang keys.

“It was a mistake Mick,” Karen pleaded,
crying again.

“I don’t give a damn,” Mick said.

“Well you should—you’re frightening your
sons,” Karen replied, summoning her last strength to stand up against her
powerful husband.

“This guy has been in our fucking house
Karen!”

“I know that, but you can’t go after
him.”

 
“I’m done with this—I’m taking care of this
myself.”

“Don’t go Mick!” Karen sobbed. Her voice
trembled.

“Get the god damn kids to bed. Stop
crying. It’s always more of the same with you. He comes into my house? I’m
gonna snap his fucking neck.”

“Who’s there?” Eric said, groggy.
“Hello?”

“Open the door,” Mick said.

“Mick? Is everything okay?”

Eric’s phone buzzed. Someone was
calling. He glanced at the clock: it was nearly midnight.

“Hold on one second Mick,” he said.
“Hello?”

“Eric, he’s coming, I had to tell you, I
don’t know what he’ll do,” Karen said.

The door broke down, Mick stood over its
splintered frame. Eric dropped the phone and stared at the wildest face he had
ever seen. Dark, bearded, and mad, Mick ran at him. Eric backed up, half-awake.
He tripped over a bar stool and banged his head.

“Did you fuck my wife?” Mick said,
dropping his body onto Eric. Eric reached to his side, Mick slammed down.
“Going to pull a gun on me? Your best friend?”

“Mick—you have to understand—we have to
talk this through.”

“That’s a yes?”

Mick didn’t allow a response. He lifted
Eric up by his throat, twisted, then slammed his body through the glass coffee
table. Long after Eric’s heart stopped beating, Mick pounded his fists into his
face, until the blood running over his fingers was equally mixed with his own
sweat and tears. Lights flashed through the broken door behind—red and blue.
Traditional UCA law enforcement colors. He collapsed.
Is this the meaning of
my existence? Torture?
The voice of Eric Reynolds father replied:
You
torture yourself Mick. I gave you a choice. You had a shot, and you didn’t take
it.

The
The Great Auk
sped toward a
black obelisk that filled the horizon.

“Pull it up yourself Mick,” FOD
instructed, walking to the cockpit. He strapped himself in and kicked
The
Greak Auk
into gear. Mick pulled himself to the nearest wall terminal,
swiped his fingers. Axa huddled behind him, watching.

The entry appeared:

THE BLOCK ZONE: The Block zone, or Vital
Extraction Center, consists of a series of detention centers used for the
collection of organic matter essential to the creation of human life and
health. The UCA initiated the construction of the Vital Extraction Center under
the Genetic Betterment branch of its Fundamental Math and Sciences Association
(This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be
researched further). The block is known as the foremost wonder of the M82
galaxy, and the universe, as it consumes a space equivalent to that of
seventy-five solar systems (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and
opinionated, and should be researched further). Originally the size of a moon
in 3740, the year of its creation, the venture soon increased profitability by
ten-thousand times its original worth, and expanded in an exponential fashion,
supplemented by numerous private corporate entities (This sentence has been
flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further).

Some terrorist sects, namely the Force
of Darkness, have compared the Block zone to “ultimate form of torture,” citing
its extraction methods as “evil incarnate.” Despite the misinformation spread
by the Force of Darkness, the contiguous stretch of the block zone continues to
grow.

Mick backed away from the screen, sped
toward the cabin. In the cockpit viewscreen was the obelisk, crawling from one
side of visible space to the other, no way around its mass.

“What is it?”

“Didn’t you read?”

“Yea, it’s all bullshit. What is it
really?”

“Do you know what the best source of
organic molecular compounds most directly suitable for humans is?”

Fill me in…

“Humans. Do you know how to make it more
effective?”

“How?”

“Keep them alive, thinking, emotionally
charged. Develop an entire branch of military devoted to gathering more raw
resources.”

“But this thing, its endless,” Mick
said, staring again at the incomprehensible, unlit form that blocked out all
starlight.

“It’s the all-purpose human depot. Human
anything, at the cheapest prices. If you’re poor, and can’t afford an organ
body dedicated to you, made exactly from your own genes, then you’ll always be
able to shop here.”

“My god,” Axa said.

“Eyes, skin, brain, slaves, torture
victims, whatever your delight is.”

“How is this allowed?”

“This? Do you mean how is the most
profitable factory in the known history of the universe allowed to thrive? Do
you have to ask that, Mick?”

“It’s the—”

“The human factory farm. And we’re
riding in with a taint.”

“Can’t we get around?”

“Nope. We can’t do anything. They’re
pulling us in. Directional gravity.”

“No!” Axa cried.

“They’ll be on us in a minute, maybe
ten.”

FOD stood up from his cockpit chair. He
looked at Mick with tired eyes. He’d been fighting the corruption for too long.
A fatigue, inexorable, intonated in his voice:

“You’re the only one who can leave.
Through the entangled particle transfer.”

“Use the damn wormhole generator,” Mick
said.

“Hah!” FOD said. He walked out of the
cabin as two blips appeared on the radar. “It’s gone. One time use. Requires a
fuel cell that never had more than one production run. Do you know what they’re
going to do to us if we transfer—me and her?”

“But you’re not tainted,” Mick argued,
trailing him out of the room as more blips filled the radar screen.

“I know, but it doesn’t matter. They
know the contingencies now. Every .HUM with a plant that we transfer—tainted or
not—will be scanned, scrutinized, mapped. They’ll take every last bit of me,
and then they’ll wipe me. They’ll torture me first. And her,” he said, looking
to Axa, whose starving eyes teared.

“So what then? I transfer and what?”

“You go unnoticed for a little longer,
an unidentifiable .HUM file, no plant signature. You’ll be like a million other
files on their system.”

“What the hell can I do as a .HUM?”

“Hope that you go unnoticed long enough
to transfer into a body.”

“You want me to disappear, and hope I
reappear in some other body?” he repeated.

“Unless you want to go in there,” FOD
said, turning to the cockpit window and the colossal Block. “You have to trust
me. I planned for this.”

“What about us?” Axa asked.

“We die before they get to us.”

Axa turned and left the room. Mick heard
her sobs, but could do nothing to prevent or console them.

“Can’t we fight them?”

“There’s nothing Mick—nothing at all
that we can do.”

“What about XJ and GR? I promised I’d
take them to Utopia for Sera.”

“That’s a pipe-dream, nothing more. It
means nothing. And it can’t be done now.”

“Well what good are you then, with all
your fancy words and ships, what the hell good are you?” Mick cursed into his
stony eyes. FOD reached back and pulled his hood over his head.

“Now I need you to promise
me
something,” he said.

Mick backed up, braced himself against
the wall, felt the ancient swell of rage burning in his chest. The undeniable
impossibility of his hope had been fragile, easy to destroy. Somehow he’d kept
it alive. Now it had shattered irreparably.

Karen, I’m not going to make it. I’m not
coming home after all. I have to tell you something, so that you can hear me. I
need you to know, I wanted more than anything in the world to start over. To
live open, honest. To communicate. To grow, to love, to share our dreams. To
better myself, using my past as my teacher. It took me too long. I was blinded
by ambition, my drive…I know now what matters most, and it is too late. I
cannot right the wrongs. I cannot forgive you, and you cannot forgive me. But
through the span of space and time, I need you to know—I love you. Christopher,
I love you. James, I love you. Selby, I love you. Goodbye.

Karen awoke with a start, checked her
wallscreen for the latest FRINGE news—nothing.

Mick had disappeared weeks ago, without
a trace. Some said he’d gone on a smuggling run to raise money to buy out the
judge. Others said he’d split altogether to live on some fringe colony, totally
forget his life back home. Karen refused to believe he would abandon them for
good. Something told her they would somehow be together, that somehow
everything would right itself. Despite the evidence, and all signs pointing to
the truth that he’d left, hope held out. He’d escaped from prison, that much
was certain. The last they’d talked, through the bars of the UCA penitentiary,
he’d been a picture of emptiness—a blank stare his only expression. It was as
if he couldn’t grasp what he’d done, what she’d done, what had become of his
once beautiful life. His hopes, dreams, spirit, had been gone. She’d
tried—she’d said that he shouldn’t beat himself up. That it was her fault. That
it was the rewiring, and that with the right appeal, he’d get off. He hadn’t
bought it.

She laid her head back down on the pillow
and stared at the clock. Four thirty in the morning.
The endless insomnia.
But
something happened—she fell asleep. It was the first time in nearly a month.
And then it came.