Deviation (11 page)

They had obviously been moved onto some sort of boat, which presented several problems. One, they would need some kind of life preserver if they ditched. This was not a feasible option since she had no idea how far away from land they'd gotten and would not be able to leave a distress signal before going overboard. Not without a crewmember noticing anyway. As it was, all three men sent her frequent surreptitious glances, as though they were looking at a ghost.

Clutching Reesa closer, she wondered just how deep their delusions had to be to keep up such an act.

She turned her focus to the only option left. They would have to wait until they came to a harbor somewhere. Until then, Kate needed to pay attention to details. Her old Drill Sergeant's voice barked through her memory; "Stay alert, stay alive."

The intercom crackled to life, "Report."

Keats moved to answer, "Hole patched."

"Mesa?"

"Both women are fine."

Kate felt the hair on her arms prickle. There was no mistaking who the men were more concerned with. It was going to be more difficult than she'd thought to escape. Maybe she could smuggle Reesa out and depend on her friend to get help. Glancing at the woman's face told her otherwise. Shock remained plastered to her features, her blue eyes glazed with that distant look that Kate had come to recognize in their friendship. Reesa was miles away from the situation, bodily functioning but otherwise incapable of coherent thought.

"Bring them to the cockpit," Hedric ordered through the intercom.

There was a respectful sort of distance in the men as they began to lead the way. Kate kept Reesa close, who remained silent through the ordeal, and prayed she could get them out of this alive.

The internal workings of the boat were startlingly impressive. If she hadn't known better she would have thought she'd walked onto a set in Hollywood. There seemed to be a mix of cyberpunk tendencies with the more elegant "Rodenberry" style battling for dominance in the place. She thought for a moment that it was a good deal like a house under constant renovation, old things making way for new things and such. Sleek, bluish metal curved along the walls, leaving no corners to be dealt with. The walkways were more practical, meshed so she could see the level below where there appeared to be a large storage space.

Large bits of machinery intruded along the outer walls, looking very foreign and unsettling her nerves further. There was something altogether familiar with the sight, something that made her glance at Reesa. But her friend was still gone, staring straight ahead, lost somewhere in her thoughts, and Kate sensed that it would be difficult to draw her back to reality. Her heart ached at that, worry firm in the pit of her stomach that Reesa Zimms had finally lost her mind.

Kate's thoughts flicked to Quinn.

Her fingers tightened on Reesa as images of her son bombarded her.

Quinn asking Ben where Mommy was.

Quinn as a smaller boy, the way she often remembered him, crying because he'd woken up alone in his crib. She could feel him cuddle against her shoulder, little arms holding her as close as possible. He used to pat her arm, a light pat, as though he were reassuring himself that she was solid and present. She must have made a sound because the men looked at her, but she couldn't do more than focus on the utter heartbreak that filled her.

By the time they reached the cockpit, Kate had grasped hold of the memory and determined - with that steely resolve that only a mother could appreciate - that she would kill every man that tried to keep her from getting home.

But if the rest of the ship was impressive, then the cockpit was outright mind-blowing.

One large screen showed an underwater view crowded with sea life and she knew by instinct it was real. There was a sense of pressure all around her, an obtrusive knowledge that the ship was blanketed by water. Control panels slanted around the oblong room, making space for three seats at the floor level. One chair, the pilot's chair, was held aloft by a gyrating bit of machinery, tilting here and there as the man sitting in it commanded.

Pilot, she assumed, and then remembered his name from the books; Myron.

Hedric glanced between her and Reesa, his mouth contorting in something that looked like disapproval, "I thought I sent them robes."

"They were delivered," the big man behind her replied.

"Where to, Captain?" Myron asked.

"Take us off the map," Hedric's frown deepened as he stared at her. "I want five minutes to figure out what's going on."

As much as Kate wanted to squirm under the unwavering scrutiny Hedric gave her, she found the willpower to straighten her back and lift her chin; "If you know what's best for you, you'll take us back home and turn yourselves in."

Myron glanced over at her and shock knotted hard into her belly. "Ben?" she gasped.

But then, she knew it couldn't be Ben. Her husband would never abduct her, number one, and there was something strange about his eyes. Something harder that Ben had never displayed in their twelve year marriage. But it certainly looked like Ben, straight down to the scar on his upper lip; same high cheekbones, same curved jaw; same wavy brown hair curling in disarray around his head.

The moment stretched as the pilot stared back at her, his expression cautious and his features paling under halogen lights. Hedric - the Hedric wannabe, she corrected herself - glanced between them with growing agitation. An alarm squealed and the pilot had to turn away.

"That's Myron," Reesa said in an odd voice. "I wrote him to look like Ben."

"What?" Kate blinked up at her friend, the confusion of the last moments suddenly coming clear. "You wrote Ben into your books?"

Reesa looked at her then, nodding once in confirmation before Kate's mind registered what was happening. Hedric had said he was taking her home, had continued to call her Mesa. The other men kept looking at her like she was an apparition. She'd recognized Keats by the physical description Reesa had made in her books, which meant that all these men were recognizing her for the same reason.

"You wrote
me
into your books?"

"You read them and didn't seem to notice," Reesa squirmed a little.

"Of course I didn't notice!" Kate felt betrayed; more than betrayed. Millions of people had read the books. She felt open and exposed and indignant. "How could you!"

"Like I knew something like this was going to happen!" Reesa defended. "And you said you liked Mesa."

Kate stepped away from her, getting far enough that her hip encountered the railing. The tight space kept her too close to Reesa as she battled her temper. The men around them watched with varying degrees of confusion and curiosity. She saw Hedric's eyebrow lift, felt the danger of their abduction settle hard and firm in her chest, and thought of Quinn again.

If she failed to return home, if the psychotic men surrounding her managed to keep her, if she died in the escape attempt - her mind rattled off all the possible endings to this scenario and overwhelming rage took over. With one quick, violent movement she punched Reesa square in the jaw.

Her friend's head snapped back as Kate's fist connected, and Reesa fell limp against Keats, who scrambled to catch the woman's body.

"Nice," the big man said with a note of humor.

"What just happened?" Myron asked from his chair.

Kate glanced at him, but became distracted with the view screen. They broke the surface of the ocean, water making rivulets over the screen as orange sunset overtook the view. She saw Myron flick some sort of toggle and heard a not-so distant clank and subsequent grind of motors somewhere in the main area of the ship. She had to steady herself as everything jolted and they became airborne.

There was conversation around her but she missed it, she was so intent on the screen.

It's fake, she thought. Think of the Star Wars ride at Disneyland.

But at the same time she felt dread well up in her chest.

"Get them in robes," Hedric said.

A hand touched her shoulder but she couldn't move.

"Captain," Myron reached into the folds of his shirt and pulled a rectangular and awkwardly mundane object into view. "You might want to take a look at this."

She saw the item pass to Hedric, registering at last what it was. The title of the book glinted silver letters up at her: Lionskins, A Tale of the Lothogy.

"Got it off a pretty girl on the beach," Myron said.

The hand on her shoulder increased pressure and she turned. She was so shocked she felt numb and could do no more than obey. She was led away from the cockpit, away from the view screen, and deeper into the ship.

"The World Science Community announced the successful melting of the Martian core. After months of drilling, W.A.S.A astronauts planted several specially designed explosives around the core. The experiment is meant to create the shifting tectonic plates necessary for the building of an atmosphere on the planet. With the successful bombing of the core, the astronauts of the Voyager 79 now have several months of observation as they wait to see if the core solidifies again."
- A.P. May 9, 2213

" ... The little ship was faster, more agile than anything Mesa had ever handled before. She had to rely on her cybernetic arm to keep the movements on the yoke precise because it was infinitesimally picky. With her free hand, she tried to staunch the flow of blood from her thigh wound, stubbornly willing herself to think around the light-headed pain.

Matthew Borden would not tolerate the loss of one of his Fomorri vessels. She could almost feel time slipping through her fingers, seeping past pants and robes with the steady flow of her blood.

An alarm sounded as she was targeted and she had to flip the ship to avoid gunfire. Mesa suddenly wished she'd let Myron teach her the finer points of piloting. Which led her to think of Hedric and her heart ached with failure.

If she'd stayed with the plan, if she'd only gone after the MRD's, everything would have been fine. She would have made it off Outboard Jupiter with the information, delivered it to her husband, and they would have finally, finally taken a break together. There were moments it felt like they had never even had a honeymoon, Hedric kept them so busy with the Lothogy. She'd always dreamt of a lazy day on a warm beach somewhere with him, no contracts to bother them and no emergencies cropping up.

But there had been all those women.

All those poor women.

"Volunteers," she growled into the cockpit and swung the ship around in another evasive turn.

No woman would volunteer for a death like that. To be tortured with needles and tests and proddings, experimented on like animals, she thought with growing anger.

A line had to be drawn.

The alarms went off again and she prayed that Hedric would forgive her in the end."

Hedric stared at the book as he was bombarded with emotion. The narrative even sounded like his wife. It was so achingly frustrating that he growled at the paper-bound book. The words had Mesa's distinctive style to them, but the actual lilt of her voice eluded him. That seemed so damned unfair that he almost threw the book across the room. His fingers tightened on it instead, bending the binding until he heard it crack under pressure.

Mesa hadn't died for nothing. She'd died for a cause, for something more real than any mission they'd taken. David Borden was hunting for a cure to the Mavirus. While the cause seemed noble enough, the means could never be justified.

And that was exactly what his wife had found.

Hedric flinched at a sudden image of Mesa. She'd been wearing green when she left him; a dark green robe, her face the only part of her visible. But her face was enough. Serene, open, brave, she'd kissed him prior to walking away. He could remember a distinct swelling in his heart as she'd boarded the transport frigate. They had both known the danger she was walking into, but in his arrogance he hadn't been worried.

He closed the book.

Bright silver letters taunted him from the cover; Reesa Zimms. Science Fiction.

Fiction.

Rage consumed him. If the book could be believed then ultimately, Reesa Zimms had killed his wife. Reesa Zimms had murdered billions of women with a pen-stroke, shattered the human race and disfigured the entire female population.

And she'd done it all for money.

***

Recycled air had a smell to it. Musky, Reesa thought as she peered through the small porthole window, like standing next to a swamp cooler. If she hadn't been so preoccupied with the impossibility of her current situation, she might have remembered that she'd described the air filtration system on board the Lothogy in precisely that manner. As it was, she was lucky to remember why they had not disembarked from the ship yet.

When her pulsing headache had finally brought her back to consciousness she'd found that they had been moved to a more standard room on the ship. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she thought she knew where they were. Likely in Mesa's quarters, given the unusual secondary door in the left wall, she thought. It was only slightly more furnished than their original accommodations, boasting a small desk-like structure and chair bolted down beside the cabinet and bed.

Kate hadn't spoken to her since she'd woken and Reesa couldn't blame her. God knew she deserved every ounce of her friend's ire. This was, by most accounts, Reesa's fault.

Rather than face the silence, Reesa pooled her attention into the details of the room. Aside from the sparse furniture, there were no trinkets or paintings taking up space. It just didn't make sense to have the normal memorabilia on board a space ship. Too often the Lothogy would have to take evasive measures and anything not bolted to the floor became a liability. But there was one small porthole. The Lothogy was the only ship in its class that could afford such a luxury. Science being the ever-evolving beast that it was, the Community had not come up with a reliable means to allow more than a five by five inch view through heavy plastic-like glass. In fact, whenever the ship had to make a jump through a worm hole, the porthole would be automatically covered by polyethylene cobalt steel. At present, however, it was open and she could see that they had landed in Australia.