The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter IX: That’s When I Reach For My Revolver
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This chapter contains bloody violence and abuse.
Aeterna woke up with a start. She rolled on to her back, to see Maxwell in soft focus, standing over her. She looked over at the chair, empty.
“What happened?” Maxwell asked.
“The bitch somehow got free and knocked me out.”
“I can see that,” Maxwell snapped. “But what I meant was how she managed to escape despite the fact you tied her to a fucking chair.”
“Don’t yell at me, Maxwell,” Aeterna said. “Please.”
Maxwell gave her a hard stare. “I’m warning you, Aeterna, don’t fail me again.”
“‘Don’t fail me’? Where the hell has this supervillain shit come from?”
“Oh, don’t play this game with me, Aeterna. She managed to get away, and that’s your fault.”
“But—”
Maxwell turned away from her.
“If you want to make it up to me, then help me catch her.”
“Or what? You’ll leave me to die like Jefrey?”
Maxwell turned around, his face twisted into a menacing grimace. He stepped towards her, and she backed away from him, all the way over to the back wall. He put a finger behind his ear.
“What…was that?”
“I said will you leave me to die like Jefrey—”
“I heard what you said. I just wanted confirmation that you said it.”
He placed his hand against the back wall and pointed at her. “Listen to me carefully. He was a worthless piece of shit. He deserved what happened to him. But you, I like you. I’d hate to have to do to you what I did to him. But believe me, if you fail me again, I can and I will. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll throw you out of the airlock now to save me the trouble. Have I made myself clear?”
Aeterna looked at him with a mixture of disgust and fear. “I understand,” she said.
“Good. Now, follow me. We’re currently trying to find her current position and get that CALAIS back.”
Maxwell left the compartment.
Aeterna dried her eyes on her sleeve as they went.
He didn’t notice.
◯
The young man’s name was Jefrey Thompson. He had ejected the lifeboat from the airlock as soon as possible, suspecting that it would have a tracker attached to it, and was now at the controls. Hythe was keeping an eye on the radar.
“Why haven’t they started shooting yet?” she wondered aloud.
“They know we have this,” Jefrey said, holding up the circuit board she had brought on board with her. “It’s important.”
“What is it?”
“A computer,” Jefrey said. “A very powerful one.”
“An AI?” Hythe surmised. “A strong AI?”
“Yes,” Jefrey said, reluctantly. “But now’s not really the time to call FIDO’s Turing Unit, is it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Hythe said. “Why in God’s name did they have an AI plugged into their main computer?”
“It’s a long and complicated story,” Jefrey said.
“I’ve got time.”
“I’ll tell you if we aren’t dead in the next fifteen minutes.”
The ansible rang, and the two looked at it, and then at each other.
“Well?” Hythe said. “Answer it.”
Jefrey sighed. “This isn’t going to go well.”
“Why?”
Jefrey picked up the ansible. “Hello?”
There was a pause.
“So,” came a voice that was familiar to both of them for different reasons. “I see that the Martian’s ship survived that explosion. A miracle, perhaps? Or perhaps something a little more…human?”
Jefrey swallowed. “I’m not scared of you, Maxwell.”
“Oh, how brave,” Maxwell said. “That crackling sound, is that com-static I hear? Or have you finally decided to grow a spine, Jefrey?”
Jefrey remained silent.
“It’s almost a shame. Things could have been so much different, Jefrey.”
“You want it, come and get it,” Jefrey said, punching a very shiny and new-looking button on the control panel. There was a surge of acceleration as the ship’s orientation shifted upward and it flew away from the Divine Hammer.
“Have you ever flown a Martian frigate before, Minister?” Jefrey asked.
“No,” Hythe said.
“It’s easy,” Jefrey said. “Take the controls. Evade any incoming projectiles on the radar. I’ve got something that I need to do.”
*
The streets of Toronto-γ were eerily deserted, save for a few hotspots of fire and looting. There was a smell of smoke in the air, burning rubber, pollution. The police checkpoints had been deserted or the officers dragged away to be beaten, or worse.
“Maxwell’s behind this,” Kowalski said. “Gotta be.”
“I think you’re right,” Mehmet said. “But how?”
“In the wrong hands, Callie can do pretty much anything. That includes spreading false information about a Martian separatist group, and creating a false narrative about a government willing to capitulate to them. Total spin-job. He’s behind this. He’s trying to increase the public appetite for war and seize control for himself.”
“And failing that?” Mehmet asked.
“I don’t want to say it,” Kowalski said. “But if I know that twisted son of a bitch…”
A moment of relative silence passed, punctuated only by distant screams.
“Let’s get out of here,” Christine said. “We need to stop him.”
“We will,” Kowalski said. “I promise.”
There came voices around a corner.
“Aw, all the best shops have already been cleared out.”
“I told you we shoulda hit the electronics district first.”
Kowalski held his hand up to shush the other two.
A gang of young men, probably no older than nineteen years old, turned the corner, carrying clubs, bats and hockey sticks. Immediately, the three were spotted, and the gang approached them menacingly.
“You!” said one of the gang, presumably the leader. “What are you doing out here?”
“We’re just trying to find our way to the station,” Christine said, trying as best she could to make clear her Terran nationality with her accent.
“I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to these two. State your names!”
“Ralph Kowalski,” Kowalski said.
“Mehmet Öztürk,” Mehmet said.
“What’s your business here? This city is a Martian-free zone!”
“Oh, is that so?” Kowalski said, in his heavy Martian accent. “And I guess you’re the cavalry.”
“He’s a Martian!” shouted one of the gang.
“And that girl!” shouted another. “A Martian whore!”
There was a flash of movement and a rock flew at Christine, which struck her in the arm. She yelped and fell to the ground.
Kowalski looked down at her, then at the gang. He took a step towards them, calmly placing the shock-stick in his hands.
“Who threw that?” he said.
There came no response for a few moments.
“We’re…we’re not telling you anything, you Martian bastard!”
“Who threw that?” Kowalski said, again, more intently. “Get out here, now.”
“Kowalski…” Mehmet said, uneasily.
“Step forward,” Kowalski said.
A young man, perhaps only a year or so older than Christine, stepped forward. “I threw it,” he said, with a degree of smug triumph.
“Ah,” Kowalski said, walking round him. He looked at Mehmet. “A prime example of our Terran superiors, I see.”
He stepped round to the man’s side.
“Don’t you touch him!” said one of the gang.
“So it was you that threw the rock at – what did you call her? A ‘Martian whore’?”
“Well, that wasn’t me said that,” the young man said.
“Ah, I see. And on Terra, do you usually throw rocks at teenage girls?”
“We do if they’re Martian whores!” jeered one of the gang.
Kowalski calmly looked over at the gang, and began to laugh. The gang members laughed with him.
“Allah aşkına,” Mehmet said.
Kowalski turned back to the young man, and struck him hard across the face with the shock-stick. The impact caused the stick to break in two, showering sparks on to the pavement.
“My eyes!” wailed the young man, collapsing to the ground, clutching his face, writhing in pain. “Oh, you bastard! You Martian fucking bastard!”
Kowalski crouched down, and said to the young man, quietly enough to be threatening, but loud enough to be heard by all present: “Let this be a lesson: If you, or any of your little gang of Terran nationalists ever touch a girl like that again, believe me when I say that you’ll lose the use of a lot more than just your eyes.”
Kowalski stood up and turned to walk away.
“You can’t do that!” said the gang’s leader, lunging at him.
Kowalski turned around, grabbing him by the shirt, and the leader reflexively flinched.
“Fucking cowards,” Kowalski said, releasing him.
“Come on,” he said, with some disgust, to Christine and Mehmet, who quickly followed him down the road.
“Thanks, Ralph,” Christine said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “How’s the arm?”
“It hurts a little.”
“You’ll be okay. Let’s catch this train.”
●
Maxwell stood on the bridge, watching a radar map refresh every few seconds, trying to triangulate the position of Kowalski’s ship. He had already surmised that Kowalski had survived the attack on Cybele due to the fact Cybele was somehow able to destroy the Sledgehammer even after her LSS was taken out, but Jefrey managing to take control of the Martian frigate and survive came as something of a shock to him.
There was a soft bong as the position of Kowalski’s ship appeared onscreen. Maxwell walked over to Richards.
“Begin travel towards these coordinates,” he said, pointing to the radar.
Richards examined the coordinates, smiled at him, and began to propel the ship towards the frigate.
He walked over to the weapons controls, where Aeterna was readying the weapons systems that had been taken offline by the removal of the CALAIS.
“You may fire when ready,” he said.
“Aye-aye,” Aeterna said, quietly.
Maxwell nodded. “Don’t destroy them. We need that CALAIS intact.”
Aeterna nodded. “You got it.”
“Good.”
The frigate was rapidly getting closer and closer on the radar screen. Aeterna looked through an eyepiece with a crosshair that was connected directly to a camera-feed, allowing her to begin to zero in on the engines.
Here goes nothing, she thought.
◯
“The Divine Hammer is approaching at speed!” Hythe said.
“Got it,” Jefrey said, from a makeshift workbench he’d set up on the bridge. “Try and shake them off. I’m almost done.”
“What the hell are you doing over there that’s so important?”
“I don’t have time to explain! Just dodge!”
“Weapons discharge detected,” the computer said, matter-of-factly.
“Does this thing have shields?”
“Yes, pretty good ones, too!”
“Alright, good, that gives me time to do this.”
The ship lurched as it swung back and took a nosedive, pulling hard to starboard and zig-zagging across space up towards the Divine Hammer.
Hythe quickly ran over to the weapons controls, which were surprisingly less intuitive than she had been led to expect, and managed to fire countermeasures at the Divine Hammer.
“I could really use an extra pair of hands over here,” Hythe said. “Christ, I haven’t done this since basic training.”
“Okay, I’m done!” Jefrey said, carefully placing the item he’d been working on into a box and putting his hand in his pocket. He ran over and took the weapons controls, examining them.
“Huh,” he said. “Real-time calculation. This thing really is state of the art.”
“Why do you keep talking about this ship as if it’s not yours?” Hythe said. “Did you steal this?”
Jefrey was taken aback. “No, no! Not at all! I’m, er, taking care of it. For a friend.”
“Maxwell called him ‘The Martian’. Does this Martian have a name, perchance?”
Jefrey flipped a few switches and idly stated: “His name is Ralph Kowalski.”
Hythe’s eyes widened. “Ralph…Kowalski?”
“Yes.”
“Maxwell told me…he told me that that Kowalski is a Martian separatist.”
Jefrey stopped, and turned around. “That isn’t true.”
“So, what is the truth?”
Jefrey stopped, took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. He sighed.
“The truth is that Maxwell blew up the stilts.”
“How do you know?”
Jefrey sighed again. “Because…until a few days ago…I was working for him. And until just now…he thought I was dead.”
Hythe clapped her hand to her mouth. “What the hell happened?”
“Like I said,” Jefrey sighed. “It’s a long story.”
He lined up the weapons systems and fired a volley of projectiles at the Divine Hammer.
“It’s no use,” Jefrey said. “Their shields are as good as ours. It’s a stalemate. The only way we’re getting out of this is if…”
“Incoming ship detected,” the computer said, and the radar screen showed one flying in from the other side of Terra. The ansible began to ring.
“Hold that thought,” Jefrey said, answering the ansible.
“I see you managed to get hold of Callie,” said a man on the other side.
“Nice to hear from you, Ralph.”
“I see you’ve got a problem on your hands. Don’t worry. Mehmet’s just been telling me all about one of the new upgrades to his ship.”
Hythe and Jefrey watched out of the front screen as a red-painted ship with claw manipulators affixed to its front surged past.
“Is…is that an APHLEV?” Hythe asked.
“Best damn ship ever to nearly kill me,” Jefrey said, smiling.
The small ship shot towards the Divine Hammer, extending its pincers, opening the claws – and firing—
“Miniature disruption tethers,” Jefrey said. “My God!”
●
“Rock Lobster is in close proximity, Maxwell.”
“I can see that,” Maxwell said, somewhere between rage and bewilderment. “How the hell did they escape from the police?”
“Maybe the riots that we started?” Aeterna said.
Maxwell turned and gave her a hard glare. “Be quiet. I want you to launch everything we have at at that ship—”
“Weapons discharge detected,” said the voice of a computer that was very distinctly not that of the CALAIS. “Identifying. Identifying.”
“They can’t take us down with those pea-shooters,” Maxwell shouted.
“Cannot identify,” the computer said. “Analysis suggests a form of shield-resistant projectile. Take evasive action.”
“Fire at will!” Maxwell shouted. “And for God’s sake, Richards, move!”
Aeterna looked through the viewfinder, lined up the shot, placed her thumb on the trigger – and then the ship wrenched to port, causing her to fire torpedoes uselessly into space.
Maxwell watched as the torpedoes flew off into the unknown. He turned around.
“You do know that the goal is to hit the target, right?”
Aeterna looked at him, opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it.
“Aye-aye,” she said, looking through the viewfinder again, though that would prove to be useless anyway.
Richards once again swung the ship around, but time had run out.
“Strike imminen—” the computer said.
The projectiles penetrated the shields and hit the ship twice, and all the lights on the bridge went out.
A red light came on, and a sign, high up on the bridge wall, turned on, reading “ENGINES DISABLED”.
Maxwell looked up at the red light, and over at Aeterna.
“What now?” Aeterna asked him.
Maxwell looked at her, and in the red light, his eyes appeared to glow red.
“Don’t worry,” he said, with a terrifying calmness. “I know exactly what we’re going to do.”
*
“You son of a bitch,” Kowalski said. “You didn’t tell me that they installed disruption tethers.”
“Not just any disruption tethers,” Mehmet said. “Shield-resistant. They’re made out of ceramic with a metal core. They’re not quite as powerful as the ones on the Sledgehammer but they should be able to slow them down for a while. Enough that we can try to make an escape, anyway. After that, we just need to get in touch with the police to straighten things out.”
Kowalski turned back to the ansible. “Jefrey, have you got Callie?”
“Yeah,” Jefrey said. “The shock from those disruption tethers should keep their engines off for a good few minutes. If you’re quick, we can probably get you on board and escape with her.”
“Roger that,” Kowalski said, turning to Mehmet. “Start the docking procedures.”
Kowalski turned to Christine, who was standing behind them. “Get your things. We’re boarding my ship.”
“At last,” Christine said.
“A few days ago you accused me of kidnapping you,” Kowalski said.
“It has been quite a strange few days,” Christine said, smiling.
The Rock Lobster swung its airlock into position using lasers to detect where the airlock on the California Dreamin’ was, and affixed itself to the side of the Martian frigate, where they were able to move from Mehmet’s ship and on board the California Dreamin’.
The doors opened with a hiss.
Kowalski stepped aboard and looked around. He placed a hand against the wall.
“God, I’ve missed this old thing.”
Jefrey appeared in the corridor, accompanied by a woman. She looked at him and appeared to recognise him.
“Welcome back,” Jefrey said.
“Hi,” Kowalski said. “Who’s this?”
“Are you…Ralph Kowalski?” the woman asked.
“That’s me. Sorry, do I know you?”
“Major Erika Hythe, Federal Minister for Martian Affairs.” She put her hand out for Kowalski to shake, and he shook it. “The man in the ship over there claims that you’re a Martian terrorist.”
Kowalski turned to Mehmet. “Well, that explains the arrest.”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Sorry.”
“You weren’t to know,” Kowalski said. “We’d better get you somewhere safe so you can clear things up,” he said.
“Escort me to the Federal Ministry of the Interior,” Hythe said. “I have to explain a few things. Not least calling off the warrant for you and your colleagues here.”
“What about Maxwell?” Christine asked.
“We’ll put in a warrant for his arrest,” Hythe said.
“We’d better move quickly,” Jefrey said.
“Then let’s waste no time,” Kowalski said. “Let’s fly to the nearest spaceport.”
~
Christine was restless for the journey to the spaceport. It seemed too quick. Too easy. Too convenient. She didn’t understand it – she should be happy that they had Callie back and that, ultimately, they were all still alive, despite it all. Happy that they’d escaped with their skins. But there had been no bombastic conclusion. No final burst of energy, no catharsis. Things had simply conveniently fallen into place, and they had escaped with their lives.
She shook her head, cursed herself slightly for thinking so negatively. Too many storybooks, she thought. In real life, things just fizzle out.
Yet, she was plagued with a sense of unease. She found herself idly checking the California Dreamin’’s radar, making sure that nobody was coming after them. As the ship began the docking process, she did not voice these thoughts or feelings. She didn’t want to put a damper on a good feeling, after all. She was almost dizzy from how quick the whole thing had been. There had been no final showdown, no guns-blazing shootout. It was over. She couldn’t believe it.
“How you feeling?” Ralph asked her, as the airlock pressurised.
“A little strange,” Christine said, gazing out of the front screen at Terra’s blue globe.
“Your arm still hurt?”
“Do you know, I’d forgotten all about it until now. Thank you for protecting me.”
“It’s nothing, kid,” Ralph said.
“I’ll escort the Minister back to her office,” Mehmet said.
“I’ll go with you,” Jefrey said. “Better two hands than just one.”
“I’ll resolve things as soon as possible, Mister Kowalski,” the Minister said to Ralph. “Again, I am sorry about your arrest.”
“Like I said, Minister,” Ralph replied. “It’s not your fault. Maxwell’s gotten very good at covering his tracks.”
“Well, with luck, we’ll have him under arrest soon enough,” the Minister said. She turned to Christine and walked over to her. “Are you Mister Kowalski’s daughter?”
“Oh, n-no,” Christine stammered. “He, I mean, er – we met in London.”
The Minister seemed somewhat surprised. “Ah,” she said. “Well, thank you very much, regardless. I’m looking forward to putting this all behind me.”
A small tone sounded, to indicate that the airlock had pressurised properly.
“Well, that’s our cue,” Ralph said. “Let’s go.”
“Roger that,” Jefrey said, smiling.
They all left the bridge, and walked down to the airlock.
Ralph told a joke, that was the last thing Christine remembered – Ralph telling a joke, and the others laughing.
The airlock doors opened, and they all stepped out, and before Christine had time to think, she heard Mehmet yelling “Hey! Stop!”
And suddenly, a man had his arm around her neck.
She tried to struggle, but his grip was firm.
Ralph reached into his satchel for his revolver, and pulled it out.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a man’s voice, from behind her. A woman stepped forward and pointed a sawn-off shotgun at Ralph.
He stepped out. She recognised him at once, from all the way back in London. He was a very handsome man, with long grey hair and salt-and-pepper stubble, and a knowing smirk on his face. Maxwell. The man she had come to hate so much, and this was the first she’d seen of him since the incident in London. Ralph, Mehmet, Jefrey and the Minister all had their hands in the air.
Maxwell’s boots clacked lightly against the linoleum floor of the spaceport. He walked up to Ralph and plucked the revolver from his hand, opened its cylinder to check that it was loaded. When he saw that it was, he grinned fiendishly, closing his eyes in what looked to be near-ecstasy, and closed it up. He chuckled to himself, a little. His voice was just as cold, electronic and harsh in real life as it had been on Cybele’s ansible.
“Ah, Ralph Kowalski,” he said. “So nice to get reacquainted. I must say, your friend’s shield-resistant ceramic disruption tethers were quite clever. I must applaud you for that. Though, I must say, not clever enough.”
Ralph looked at Christine, then at Maxwell. “You’re a real scumbag, you know that?”
“Oh, come off it, cowboy. What did you think? You’d ride off into the sunset? That you’d won?” He laughed. “Were you so stupid as to assume that I wouldn’t think one step ahead? That I wouldn’t get the drop on you? You’re a damn fool, Kowalski.”
“So what do you want from me, huh?” Ralph asked.
“Well, I’m glad you asked,” Maxwell said, smiling. “I would love to just kill you right here, but that would be far too abrupt. No, for what you’ve done to me, I think I’d like to see you really suffer.”
Maxwell stepped calmly over to Christine.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Ralph yelled. “I’m warning you, you fucking bastard!”
“Oh, I won’t,” Maxwell said. “But first, you’ve got a decision to make. As I understand it, you’re quite fond of this AI. You’ve even given it a cute name. I know, you see, because I’ve read its internal memory. Everything it knows about you, I know, too. You call it ‘Callie’. ‘Callie’. What is it, your wife?”
“Don’t do this,” Mehmet said. “Allah aşkına, don’t do this.”
“Ah, the Turk,” Maxwell said, turning his attention to Mehmet. “How brave of you, after we smashed your kneecaps, to come to the rescue. I must say, you almost had us. Almost. It’s really a shame that all your efforts will be for naught.” Maxwell squinted and looked further across. “And, why, who’s that standing next to you? Could it be my former crewmate, Jefrey Thompson, back from the dead?”
“I’m not scared of you,” Jefrey said. “Not any more.”
Maxwell laughed. “Oh, but you should be, Jefrey. You really should be.”
“Why are you doing this?” asked the Minister.
“Because you wouldn’t listen to me, Minister,” Maxwell said. “It is, in fact, your selfish careerism that has brought us to this juncture. You have only yourself to blame. Now, then, on to the choice for my Martian friend here. It’s a very simple choice, really.”
Maxwell took the revolver, smiled at Ralph, and calmly pressed the barrel against Christine’s head. The others gasped and shouted. Christine was frozen with fear, unable to move or speak. Her eyes flitted over to Aeterna, who was looking at her, her face displaying a mixture of pity and fear, as though even she felt that Maxwell had gone too far this time.
“Here’s the deal, Kowalski,” Maxwell said, as though reciting a script he had been practising in his head, over and over. “Either you hand over that CALAIS with which you have become so enamoured so I can get on with the next phase of my plan, or, alternatively, you keep your computer girlfriend, but I put a bullet in this girl’s head.”
Ralph looked over at Christine and then at Maxwell. Maxwell pulled back the hammer, cocking it.
“What will it be, Kowalski?” Maxwell asked, gloatingly. “Will I blow her brains out, or will you give me the AI?”
Kowalski looked at Christine, and back at Maxwell.
“I don’t know where she is,” he said.
“Oh, no matter,” Maxwell said. “I know that someone here does. Jefrey, my old friend. To spare this young girl’s life, you wouldn’t mind stepping on board the ship with Aeterna for just a second and grabbing the CALAIS for me, would you?”
Jefrey stood, dumbfounded for a moment. “If I do this for you, will you let her go?”
“Absolutely! But the clock’s ticking. Get a move on.”
Jefrey nodded. “Just like old times, eh, Aeterna?” he said, bitterly.
Aeterna looked back at him. “Let’s just get this over with,” she said, and they both proceeded to board the ship.
“And no funny business, or I’ll kill the girl and take the AI,” Maxwell said. “That goes for the rest of you. Stay right where you are.”
There were a few sickening minutes of silence as Jefrey entered the ship and retrieved Callie. He stepped out of the ship, his hands raised, a circuit board clutched in his hand.
Aeterna frogmarched him towards Maxwell, and Maxwell took it from him, examining the device.
“Thank you very much,” Maxwell said. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
There was a flash of fluorescent light on metal as Maxwell turned, as if in slow-motion, and pointed the revolver at Jefrey. Jefrey looked at the revolver and then at Maxwell’s face, which was twisted into a horrid, sardonic grin.
“Wait!” Aeterna shouted. “Maxwell, no—”
The sound that followed was the loudest sound Christine had ever heard. It was like a door slamming shut in Hell.
The next few moments, perhaps because of the loud sound, perhaps because of the shock, were a silent blur, and afterwards she would only remember them hazily, as though the product of some hideous fever dream.
Suddenly the man holding her neck was gone, and so was Aeterna, and so was Maxwell. The revolver had been discarded on the ground. Christine idly picked it up, as though in disbelief that an object so small could have made such a loud, terrible sound.
The others were standing around Jefrey, laying on the ground. There was a hole in his chest, steadily oozing blood. Christine could only stand and look on, unable to do anything, a passive observer, a ghost.
“Quickly!” the Minister was shouting. “Put pressure on the wound! I’ll call for an ambulance!”
Jefrey was looking up at them. His mouth was bleeding.
“His pulse is weakening,” Mehmet said, feeling his wrist. “Shit. Shit!”
“Jefrey, hey!” Ralph was saying, slapping the young man’s cheeks lightly. “Hey, don’t leave us just yet. Stay with us, pal. We’ll get you some Nanocea. You’ll be fine. C’mon!”
Jefrey looked at Ralph, with a face showing a mixture of bemusement and relief. His mouth began to move.
“Listen,” he croaked, quietly. “It’s okay. You can still stop him. I promise.” His hand went weakly into his pocket.
“God damn it, Jefrey, stay with me!” Ralph shouted, desperately.
“Ralph…” Jefrey asked, trailing off. “Tell me. Did I do a good thing? Did I…do enough?”
His eyelids began to flutter and close.
“Jefrey! Jefrey!” Ralph shouted.
“Just…tell me.”
Ralph looked down at him. “You’ve done enough,” he said. “You…you’re a good man, Jefrey. Always have been, always will be. I’m sorry I ever doubted you.”
“Pulse weakening,” Mehmet said. “We’re losing him.”
“Thank you,” Jefrey said. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
He pulled his hand out from his pocket and handed what was clutched in it to Ralph. He inhaled and then exhaled sharply. His eyes appeared to focus intently on something just above all their heads, and then the light faded in them, and they saw no more.
Ralph silently bowed his head.
“That’s it,” Mehmet said, quietly. He began to murmur a quiet prayer.
Christine turned away. Someone took the gun away from her. She might have been crying, somewhere, though her mind was elsewhere, unable to process it.
Jefrey had left them.
*
Kowalski sat, shaken, on a bench in the spaceport, and Hythe came and sat with him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after a long pause. “I wish we could have done more.”
Kowalski looked up at the ceiling, and sighed heavily. “Just one of those things,” he said. “Right?”
Hythe put a hand on his back and rubbed it lightly. “Are you sure you’re going to be alright?”
Kowalski looked directly into Hythe’s eyes. “No,” he said. “But I do know what I have to do next. I know that I have to get Callie back from that motherfucker. If it’s the last thing I do. It’s what…it’s what he would have wanted.” Kowalski sighed deeply. “Twenty-six. Christ.”
Hythe put an arm around Kowalski’s shoulders. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
“How’s the kid?”
“I don’t think she’s handling it well,” Hythe said. “I think she needs to be away from all this.”
“I think so, too,” Kowalski confessed. “She doesn’t have any parents. She’s been living on her own in London for a few years, as I understand it. But she can’t come with me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to end this. I think I know where he’s gone with Callie.”
“I think I know, too.”
“I’m gonna stop him. Once and for all.”
Hythe nodded. “Well, Mister Kowalski, we’re with you every step of the way.”
Kowalski looked at her, puzzled. “Well, isn’t what I’m doing…illegal? And dangerous? Strong AI isn’t exactly legal—”
“Worry about that later. Your mission now is to stop that man. And I will ensure that this government backs you up even if it gets me sacked.”
“Thanks,” Kowalski said.
“You’re very welcome,” Hythe said.
Mehmet came through a door.
“Alright,” he said, with determination and measured rage. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll take the girl with me,” Hythe said.
“Good,” Kowalski said. “I’m gonna need clearance to travel to Mars as fast as my old ship can take me.”
“Consider it done,” Hythe said.
“I’m coming with you,” Mehmet said. “It’s the best I could do, you crazy bastard.”
“Good idea,” Kowalski said, with a small smile. “They know we’re coming. They will bring out the big guns. There is a very good chance that both of us could die.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, buddy,” Mehmet said, smiling, too.
“I’ll find the girl and take her down to the Ministry of the Interior,” Hythe said. “You do what you have to do.”
“Understood, Minister,” Kowalski said. “Let’s move.”
Mehmet and Kowalski began to walk towards their respective ships.
“Hey,” Mehmet said. “What was that object that he handed you, just before he died?”
Kowalski realised he was still clutching the object in his hand, but hadn’t looked at it until now. He opened his hand and looked down at it. He realised at once what it was.
“A watch strap,” Kowalski said.
“What could that mean?”
“I’m not sure, but I think that we’re about to find out…”
END OF ARC THREE
The Malcontent of Mars — Chapter VIII: Runaways – C R E Mullins
4 September 2019 @ 5:46 pm
[…] To be continued… […]