Tag: S. M. Nolan

Bonus Short Story: Indifferent Reactions

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Marcus Emerson was one of the shy, introverted types that found few friends in school, even fewer through life. He was often bullied; both for his small, lanky size and his brainy smarts that regularly netted him high grades and the title of teacher’s pet. In truth, Marcus wasn’t a teacher’s pet. He wasn’t even much of a student. Most things of the academic nature came naturally to him, more instinct than nose-to-book study and grind. Nowhere was his natural prowess more obvious however, than the high-school chemistry lab.

There was something about the bonds of molecular structures that filled his lonely, longing heart with more excitement and intrigue than anything else he ever encountered. Perhaps it was their inability to truly break, but rather evolve, change over time to more. Chemistry was as much a metaphor for life to the teenage-recluse as it was its sole motivator. Where most kids his age worked for their first car, he made his first bout of cash to put toward a proper chemistry set. Then, with a constant income, he procured more and more chemicals and building blocks for his experiments.

It was not difficult to see how the boy might easily come to harm were he not careful, but he always was. He wore the proper safety suit of a lab-coat, rubber gloves, and goggles that did little to help his already-afflicted fashion sense. Day and night were spent in his parents garage at his father’s commandeered workbench. Across it were Marcus’ tools of trade and pass-time. Half-full Griffin beakers and Erlenmeyer Flasks were scattered where there weren’t racked test-tubes, droppers, burners or coiled tubing. Always to one side, was a sheet of paper of chicken-scratch formulas that gave all the more confusion to the Chemistry-genius’ ambitions and plans.

It was no surprise then, that Marcus became head of his chemistry-class in high-school. Finally he embraced the title of teacher’s pet and aided in demonstrative experiments. Before long, he took over the class, his teacher proud not to be capable of an edge-wise word. His appeal to classmates couldn’t stoop much lower by then. All it took were the needs of one, rather stubborn and more than occasionally disingenuous boy named Micheal for the seeds of tragedy to be planted.

Mike was a polar opposite to Marcus; a kind of ne’er do well that did nothing well anyhow. He was failing all of his classes, except the one with the teacher’s-aide he was dating. There was little doubt she’d changed his grades. It was said he had other, similar plans in the works for the rest of his classes. Marcus had heard all the rumors, knew something of the drug and sex-crazed kid that sought him out. Unfortunately, ever the social outcast, Marcus’ thirst for companionship was nonetheless unquenched when Mike approached him.

Marcus was at the edge of the high-school’s property, just past its football field, when Mike hailed him across the road. As was his way, Marcus approached with a feeble resistance and more than a gut-full of resignation. Mike needed help, he said with a little begging. He was going to fail chemistry, and with it, high-school altogether. It was enough to arouse Marcus’ sympathy. He’d never been hard of heart, least of all when his help was needed. If only he’d known what Mike’s real plans were, and where they’d eventually put him, he might have been more callous.

Instead, with a slow and insidious way, Mike used Marcus. First, to help write out his homework, the answers manipulated from the learned peer with blank stares and calculatedly-blunt self-flagellation. Then came the corrections and fully-written work by Marcus alone. Soon enough, Mike’s passing grade in Chemistry was as assured as his bad-boy-loving girlfriend’s Geometry class.

A single conversation between the two boys in the garage should have been enough for Marcus to spot Mike’s true intentions. Such was Marcus’ naivete that he couldn’t see the conversation for what it was. The two stood over a round of Hydrochloric Acid experiments that involved observing its effects on various materials– plastics, metals, rubber and the like. They wore respirators for safety’s sake, their voices muffled.
“Haven’t you ever thought about making stuff to sell on this thing?” Mike said innocuously.

Marcus was focused on his work, “I don’t make things here, Mike. At least nothing you could sell– what would there be to make and sell anyhow?”

“I dunno,” Mike lied sheepishly. He preempted the planting of a sinister seed with friendly laugh, “We could always make drugs. That’d be something to sell.”

Marcus snorted into his respirator, poured the contents of one test-tube into another. Perhaps if he were more socially versed, or slightly less-trusting, he’d have seen that playful banter for what it was; the feeling out from a juvenile reprobate ready to take his illicitness to the next level. Whom better to use for that next step than the easily-manipulated loner and chemistry-wunderkind that was Marcus Emerson? No-one would ever suspect someone like Marcus. He was a good kid, well-liked by adults.

It was the perfect plan, Mike knew, he bore all the risk as the bad-seed, could easily hide the worst of his wrong doings by deflecting with Marcus’ presence alone– the mentor to Michael’s apprentice. All he needed was Marcus’ compliance and ultra-powerful brains, and they’d be rolling in dough and dope.

In the scheme of things, it didn’t take long to convince Marcus to try it. Like all great snakes, he played on the boy’s curiosity and before long had his mouth watering for results.

“It’s not like we’re hurting anyone, Mark,” Mike said with his usual, pleading way. “We just gotta’ see if we can actually do it.”

“You swear this won’t get out?” Marcus asked, less concerned than he came across.

“Hand to God,” Mike said as he raised a hand.

“I mean it, Mike, if anyone finds out we–” he lowered his voice severely. “– made crack in my garage, the whole county’s going to come down on us.”

“I would never do that,” Mike assured him with a hefty lie.

To his credit, Mike didn’t tell anyone for the first week. It was purposeful; he needed to feel out the neighborhoods, find which ones were frequented by junkies. Then, with “samples” from Marcus’ trash-can, he made a thick of wad of cash he later taunted Marcus with. The promise of money lit in the boys eyes. After all, why wouldn’t it? He was only doing as he’d been taught– using his inherent skills for money– or at least that’s what Mike assured him.

No matter what way Marcus rationalized it, his state of mind decayed quickly. Before long, he was doing nothing more than slogging through classes to get home and whip up more batches of his new cash-cow. Mike did the running, left the boy alone to the cat-piss stench consuming the garage. His parents had long ago learned not to enter the den of chemical experiments, their senses one too many times assaulted by its innards.

Then, as with all tragic figures, Marcus fell to the vise he so casually created.

In the midst of a lonely bout of depression, spurred both my Mike’s obvious abuse and Marcus’ own, lack of sleep and nourishment, the boy vaporized a rock in a test-tube and inhaled its fumes. His world spun with euphoria until he fell over dizzy, vomited on the floor.

Over the next few weeks, he kept his pass-time hidden. Granted, the signs were there, especially to Mike whom noticed the dwindling supply to feed his dope-hungry clients. He was wild, entered the garage as usual, found Marcus hunched over a heated test-tube and huffing its fumes.

“What the–” he yanked the hot tube from Marcus, looked it over, burned his hand, then dropped it. The tube shattered on the floor. Mike’s eyes lit with rage. “God damn it, Mark. I fucking told you! I told you, don’t get high on your own supply. That’s how you fucking get caught. ‘Cause you fuck up.” He pulled Marcus up from the floor, his eyes still dazed, shoved him backward across the garage. “Didn’t I fucking tell you? You fucking loser! Screwing me over.” He spit venom as Marcus landed with a crash against the work bench, “You fuckin’ loser. You fuckin’ cheat!”

Mike fumed, released his anger the only way he knew. He left Marcus in a heap on the floor, bloody, bruised and broken, and stole the last of the drugs around for a sale. The boy wasn’t sure how long he lie their, half-dead, half-high, but it eventually prompted a search for him. He was immediately rushed to a hospital. His addiction was discovered, and preceded weeks spent getting clean and healing fully from the beating he’d continually blamed on a fall.

But Mike grew more paranoid, as addicted to cash and the rush of slinging rocks as others were to smoking them. Without Marcus at his side, he was forced into hiding, running from Junkies that needed their fix and pestered him relentlessly. Just as Mike was hitting his own bottom, Marcus was in recovery, finally able to walk again.

It was late in the evening when the two finally met again, outside an addiction recovery center Marcus had been court-ordered to attend. He didn’t mind. He’d found new friends. Real ones– however admittedly older than himself. They knew the perils of addiction and loneliness as he did. Mike on the other hand, knew only the paranoid terror that comes from having one’s deepest, darkest secrets known.

Mike was haggard; hair wild, face soot-blackened, and stinking of whiskey, “Marcus!”

The boy turned at the shout, saw the shambling figure, “Mike?”

He entered the light that shone through the doors of the recovery center, within arms reach of Marcus, demanded an answer, “You kept my name out, right!?”

“Of course, Mike, I’d never do that to you,” Marcus said earnestly.

Mike knew nothing of sincerity, trust, nor friendship. He didn’t believe him, “Bullshit.”

He launched himself at Marcus, shanked his gut with a shattered bottle. A large, middle-aged black man that had taken a liking to Marcus’ smarts– and saw enough of himself in the boy to sponsor him as a former addict– appeared at the door. Before he could react, Mike was disarmed, on the ground, pinned by the grieving giant. A crowd formed to phone the police and ambulance, apply pressure to Marcus’ wounds.

He died in his hospital bed, seventeen and lost too young with a corrupted innocence. Michael was taken to prison for murder without chance of parole, for life.

Many might seek a moral to the tale the two boys’ lives have formed. There are few, but not one seeks to place blame. It is neither boy’s fault to have been children, playing with adult toys and ideas, and too immature to know better. Morally, they cannot be blamed. Nor can Marcus’ parents, whom believed their son, like always, was teaching and bettering himself with the help of a new friend. Not even the oblivious school-teachers, administrators, or peers for their disregard of obvious signs, can be blamed. Though a case could be made against, Michael’s own, abusive and neglectful parents, such arguments are moot. Both boys were the sole masters of their lives, destined or not, to helm it toward tragedy.

Perhaps the only true entities at fault are those of the collective effects of loneliness, curiosity, and the lust for companionship. Even if that were true, they could hardly be blamed either. They are but mere fragments, indifferent reactions from a solution of human-consciousness and the human condition ne’er to be properly controlled.

Short Story: Eternal Optimists

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Paris Incident by now. Who hasn’t? It was the sole trigger to the single greatest atrocity in modern history– and I speak as a German whom hasn’t forgotten her history. The Corps may have purged the bombings from the light ‘net and the media archives, but where I’m from, we still live with it. Everyday.

I wake up to a half-leveled horizon outside my window. There’s always frost there when the sun comes up. It doesn’t help that we have no heat in the building. Unless you count barrels of fire as heating. I don’t. After I eat whatever I’ve scrounged up or gathered from the air-drops by neighboring rebels or surviving humanitarian organizations, I head downstairs to the book store I live above.

Funny how some things never quite go out of style. For decades there were people who said that print media was dead. E-readers and web-books were supposed to make the written word obsolete. I can only laugh at the thought– one of few that elicits such emotion nowadays. Those people never realized you couldn’t use e-readers without electricity, or god forbid, the internet.

I miss the light ‘net. All we get around here’s the dark-net, and that’s used for encrypted communications between rebel cells. We simply can’t risk linking the light-net to any of the people here. The few that even have access are lucky. Most of them rigged scavenged-solar cells to old, power-hungry laptops provided by various cells around the continent. Most are grateful, but it makes me feel like we’re a charity case.

Imagine that, all of Berlin, once a powerful seat of progress in a technologically-minded country like Germany, groveling for scraps and hand-outs. There are probably only a few thousand of us left now. The corp-bombings saw to that. When Lemaire fell, and Paris burst into flames, London and Berlin were next in line. There were other places too, but most were small– too small to notice when they were wiped out completely.

But as a haven of technology and free-thought, instilled since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we had the greatest concentration of Augs– that is to say Cybernetic or bionically augmented humans. Whoever wasn’t directly an Aug, was an “Aug-sympathizer.” Everyone knew that, including the corps. So when the proverbial sheisse hit the fan, everyone was splattered with it. When I say that, what I mean is; after two weeks of battling on the streets in major cities around the globe, the offended players banded together to bomb the rest of us back to the stone age. Literally.

Berlin got the worst of it. If there’s any solace to be take from our fate, it’s that we managed to wound the corps’ bottom lines enough to push them out of Germany altogether. We’d taken over most of their buildings, destroyed the rest, cut down those whom sided against us in the fighting. Most were slayed by the waves of bodies that filed through the burning streets.

We Germans have a way of being ruthless to a point of barbarism at times– not from a lack of humanity, quite the opposite in fact. We care so deeply and passionately about things that our natural ambitiousness makes us too strong-headed and hardhearted at the worst of times. Maybe if we weren’t so consumed by our ambitions then, we’d have stopped to look around at what was happening, or sensed what was about to.

Maybe if we weren’t so enamored with listening to our hearts we’d have heard the Raptor-cries. Maybe even, if we hadn’t been so loving of our augged brothers and sisters– whether literal or figurative– we’d have been righteously hardhearted enough to save ourselves.

But we weren’t. We were eternally the optimists. The same people whom, even generations later, were socially guilt-ridden for Hitler’s actions and determined to make up for it. Each of us felt the shame of World War II, promised not to repeat the mistakes that led to it. Somehow, we still let the corps take charge, and until they began their Nazi-esque campaign of extermination against the Augs, we supported them.

That was the issue though. It always has been for us. We let the evil into our hearts with open arms, ever-believing in the good of Humanity. Instead, we’re soon shown to have been manipulated, our love used against us and those that would otherwise truly deserve it.

The first bombs that fell over Europe targeted three, initial cities; Paris, where it all began; London, where the revolution looked to spread most violently, and Berlin, where the Augs that wouldn’t or couldn’t fight were likely to find sanctuary.

Raptors screamed over Europe with their hard-angled noses spitting chain-gun fire and their rounded bellies splitting to unleash hell. In minutes, any hope for a life in Berlin– for Aug or otherwise– was exterminated, burned to dust in the fires of evil. Before the sun rose the next morning, tens of thousands were dead or dying. Those not killed or critically wounded– and even then some– were distraught, chaotically confused. They tried to save what few they could. Everywhere you went it was like standing in a crowded metro whose noise and movements made you want to cower and weep. Many did. A few couldn’t take it, led themselves out.

I was eighteen when the bombs fell, just into university. I was just old enough to drink, and just young enough to feel the last of my innocence dissected from my heart. It was like I’d been given bypass surgery without anesthetic. The sharpness of grief in my chest was omnipresent in those days, punctuated by the stabbing sounds of rubble as we combed for survivors and dead alike. Most found were the latter.

I remember the worst of it, not because of the grisly scene, but because it was the first time I felt hatred. Hatred is something humans speak of out of anger most times. It is often despair masked by the ego to keep one’s image intact. This was different. This was real, pure hatred; a feeling that filled my mouth with a wetness as though I were goring the throat of a foe with my teeth. From there, it infected my being with a sharpened determination, a strength I have not lost since. It has kept my muscles taught when they should have faltered in fear, steadied my hands when they would have trembled with terror.

I saw a young girl curled in her bed. We’d dug a path to her grave from beneath the collapsed upper-floor of her apartment building. Everything around us was charred black. We were forced to don respirators from the dust and stink of days old, immolated flesh. Then I saw her; curled in her bed as if sleeping peacefully, but where her skin should be was the marred, blackened flesh of a war-crime. She was like one of those Pompeiian victims, forever frozen in her death-pose.

I am a healer, a medic, a surgeon and I feel no shame in admitting I have a strong stomach. I have seen things that could bring the strongest men and women to tears and pained retching. Most of the time, I’m forced to power through them for the sake of the victims– my patients– and I do so. This was so awful I stumbled away in tears and vomited all the grief that I’d held back since the attacks.

Every morning I wake up she occupies my thoughts. Even as I go down through the bookstore, and out into street I think of how she was stolen from this world. She could have been my daughter had I not been more careful. At that, she could have been me if the bombs had been dropped only a few years further beyond than that.

So I walk along the street, largely clear of its debris, and watch the city around me with her in mind. It still has the look of the blitzkrieg turning in on itself. Full, corporate towers are replaced by mounds of rubble, steel and concrete land-fills. Nature has done its best to reclaim the rest while we keep it enough at bay to carry on in our missions.

To that end, my part is simple; keep people alive. I do it for her. Most that come to my clinic down the street are badly injured, either from work-accidents, refugee status, or as acting rebels for the cause. Germany is not without its remaining corporate outposts, but even they steer clear of Berlin. I guess it’s to pick their battles. They already took our government away, any representation or sympathy therein gone with it. Maybe they let us live just to remind the world that, while there may be a place for Augs to hide, it is still due to their good graces.

All the same, every morning I rise for her. The hatred of her image never falters or fails to arouse my determination. So I leave, patch up those whom may one day lead us from darkness and into light. While Lemaire’s death may have caused everything, an unwitting catalyst to a global revolution, it was us that let it happen– the survivors. Whether from our own convictions, or a greater cause, we can not allow ourselves to fall again. At least for us Germans, we’re eternally optimists, believing in a better world with heads even stronger than our unshakable hearts, and finally working toward it.

Bonus Short Story: The Legend

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

The curved fingers of his left hand formed quarter-notes in andante while his right hand thrummed eighth-note cut-time against it. Ebony and ivory gleamed between shadows thrown from the spotlight in the rafters. His eyes were closed while he crooned a painful symphony of blues-like harmonies. They rumbled from his throat to tell a story of love won, lost, emptiness without it, and finally the love’s return. All the while, the empty opera hall filled with a phantom audience to his side behind his closed eyes.

The sound men readied their mix while their board-lights spiked red. Someone cut the gain on a mic and the mix was perfect. The Legend played on, oblivious to the technical orchestrations. He’d become too enamored with the crowd streaming in through the doors in his mind. His vocals were crisp, clear, perfectly overlaid beneath the piano that accompanied it. Breaks in verses were accented with hard dynamics that would bring even the hardest of heart to tears.

The sound crew gathered near the curtain to watch The Legend, lost in his world. Across the hall, the lighting crew gathered on a cat-walk. They hung in half-hunches on the railing or else dangled their feet through it, heads and eyes fixed as they watched along either side of spot-lights.

As if with the fade of one falling into sleep, the stage-lights dimmed. The lighting guys thought to get up but something held them in place. The Legend launched into the first chorus, his throat rumbling and crooning the highest notes as even his younger-self could have never done. The phantoms suddenly appeared below. Silhouette people streamed in from the doors, shuffled to their seats; a faceless audience that didn’t exist.

The crews wished to look to one another, express some disbelief, but the Legend had captivated them. Instead, they merely listened, mouths half-open and drying against open air.

The Legend’s gray hair began to darken to its youthful chestnut. His wrinkled face tightened, its smatter of salt-and-pepper five-o’-clock shadow darkened too. He unripened from the old, grizzled troubadour to the young, boyish song-poet he’d been. He almost shriveled in place from the change. The room merely watched in awe.

He started the first verse over inexplicably, crooned with less gravel, though its presence was undeniable. All the same, it was the least of the crowd’s focus– phantom or otherwise. The stage had darkened to a lone spot-light across he and his piano. His rhythmic melody thrummed and sustained with ear-warming vibrations, filled the audiences’ hearts with a curious, sharp pain.

Beside him, the Legend felt his thoughts and memories project across the black curtains. The heat of the light dissipated and the spot-light died out.

He sang of love won: the projection shone like an eight-millimeter reel. It even shook and bucked with the same, hand-held framing and fast-motion movement of the era’s film quality. He stood before a woman on a platform, their unceremonious wedding officiated beneath a banner that said “Cinco De Mayo” in a dingy looking bar. They wore day-old street clothes, her hair golden as it cascaded down her shoulders with fatigue.

He sang of love lost: The projection jumped through time with the eight-note thrum as its beat. The two people aged a decade in half a phrase. Through the verse, his hair and face grew heavier, longer, her more angry, fierce. At the second half of the verse, he stood alone on a road, began to walk it toward a setting sun. The wandering continued over the rise and fall of more suns. The city he’d left turned to woods, plains, then more city until he hunched over a scotch in another bar.

A man approached from one side, a cigarette in his mouth, put a hand to the Legend’s shoulder to impose for a match. A short conversation took place. The Legend began sang of desolation, sadness. He and the other man took off in a truck. The sun gleamed off its dirty windshield while he stared off at the road, his mind elsewhere. The scenery turned colder, became filled with snow while canyons encompassed the truck. He gave a pained wince, his eyes telling of an obvious longing for the woman.

When he sang of emptiness, the cold truck turned to the cold innards of a darkened cabin. He and the other man were now beneath piles of blankets on chairs before a roaring fire. The man gave a few hacking coughs into his clenched fist. His body heaved. There was a hesitation in the young Legend before he rose from to help his comrade. The emptiness in the elder Legend’s voice apexed as his younger self stood before a filled grave, his face pale and body hunched against cold.

He muttered something beneath his breath, then turned away. The cold scenery wandered past again, the Legend ambling along snow-laden streets. He stumbled drunk most times. It was obvious in the sad droop of his eyes, but bleak grays and drab blacks suddenly began to recolor as the roads turned rural once more. The weather visibly warmed, his posture straightened. Trees budded with beauty that fanned out in stop motion across the road. It lined the edges of an asphalt horizon as the eight-millimeter film shook and bucked more than ever.

He wandered almost endlessly, aimless until he sang of love’s return. The younger visage of himself watched his feet as he walked through a verdant forest. His downcast eyes were prompted upward by a shadow and the face of the woman he’d long ago married and left. They were older now, both more slacked and their eyes heavier than before.

He approached with a cautious, slow gait. She dangled her feet off the edge of a dock, her arms locked behind her to prop herself up. He stopped a few feet away. She seemed to sense his presence, but made no protest. He continued and sank into place beside her.

The last verse cried out over the two once more falling in love. Time passed while the Legend and his wife were hobbled by age. Until at last he stood over her bedside, as weathered as he had first been on stage. She held his hand with a smile, then closed her eyes. The Legend’s last lyrics were echoes. The piano faded out. The crews watched the lights fade up and the phantom crowd disappear. With them, the Legend had gone too, the piano now vacant in the spotlight’s center as its last chords echoed into silence.

No-one was quite sure what to make of it, but neither were they willing to speak toward speculation– or anything really. The Legend had given his final performance to an empty room– yet somehow it was more full than any over-sold stadium. Whatever had happened, the Legend had not died, merely faded out, and that much would forever be certain.

The Nexus Project: Part 2

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

2.

The plasma propulsion laboratory at ISC was one of the most closely guarded. Everyday that human, Simon Corben, went to work, he had to pass through more than a half-dozen security measures to get into the building. First, the basic pass-code/keycard combo at the thick, outer door. Two Then, inside it for the inner door; a voice-print, retinal scan, and visual ID through a camera. Five. When he finally made it into the building, he was met by a pair of security Bloodhounds that ran literal sniff-tests to ensure his pheromone signature was correct. Only after did they carry out the last two security measures; a thermographic scan and a wand-based metal detection. Eight.

Despite the seeming complexity of it, Simon couldn’t complain. It was routine, fluid enough that he hardly noticed it anymore. He merely sipped coffee with the same lethargic, zombification that infected everyone first thing in the morning, regardless of species. Besides, the measures were as much necessary as common sense. Apart from the Bloodhounds, it was old tech that ensured no secrets got out or saboteurs got in.

He reached the hounds with a mumbled “hello,” passed the sniff test. With a wave of the wand, he was let through, headed for an elevator at the lobby’s rear. Where most people found the Bloodhounds intrusive, Simon empathized with them. The poor bastards had to sniff all the employees, and as of late, they weren’t exactly the most hygienic bunch. He couldn’t imagine going an hour like that, let alone a whole life-time.

He entered the elevator alone, sank twelve floors to his lab. Due to the new Nexus Project, compartmentalized across several of the facility’s labs, most of his colleagues were now elsewhere. It left him alone elevator rides, during lunches, and forced him to run his lab on minimal staff. In other words, alone. Such was the nature of the project though, that no part could know too much about another lest their loosened lips let slip something vital or dangerous.

The elevator door opened on a long, narrow hall buffered by windowed walls. They looked in on massive, hangar-like testing areas. Inside, countless remote operated drones and bots, and molecular manufacturers, built, scanned, and maintained, each of the prototype engines to be tested. If First Contact hadn’t brought a massive boost of technology, Simon’s lab wouldn’t even exist. Even if had, it would’ve been theoretical for more decades than Simon was expected to live. Such was human technology before, that though they could colonize Sol, it had taken generations.

He followed the hallway to a flight of stairs that led up, right-angled, then up again. The control room and the practical portion of his lab was set on-high. Its windows fully encapsulated the view of the quarter-mile long testing grounds. Today, their drab, autonomously occupied expanse brought on a pang of depression.

A series of beeps sounded from the floor beside him, lifted his spirits somewhat, “Morning, Rearden.”

A small bot, like a lopsided gourd, nudged Simon’s foot. Its lone, ocular sensor, like a flexible eye on a thin neck, stared up myopically. Simon swore he saw partied out red-lines in their somewhere, but knew it was just his imagination.

“You were off your charger all night again weren’t you?” He asked with a disappointed look down. It beeped a binary lie of “No.” Simon rolled his eyes, “Great. You’re turning into a lying smart ass.” It beeped cheerfully. He sighed, led it to a table, and went about plugging a battery pack into its rear-panel. “You know you’re useless when you don’t charge properly. You were up data-changing with that maintenance bot again weren’t you?”

Rearden gave a few quick beeps as he switched on the batt-pack. A moment later, the bot hovered from micro-jets on its belly, beeped a “thank you,” then whizzed off for a computer across the room.

Simon sank into a chair at a holo-terminal, keyed the desktop interface with a coffee-filled sigh, “Even my damn bot gets more action than me.”

The holo-screen projection appeared at eye-height, lit up with the pro-OS bios post. It scanned through its associated hardware and networks, then flashed a password prompt. Simon keyed in his credentials, and the log of previous activity appeared. He gave an acidic belch. Coffee crept back up his throat– he’d had too much already today and he’d only just started work. It was going to be a long day.

He scrolled down the list of log-ins with hopeless procrastination, “What the–”

He double checked a secure entry from his off-site network. Connections details scrolled off;

Login: 12/6 04:30

Details: Restricted file access. Sync and download of X:\. Download completed successfully. User credential login terminated at 04:40.

Simon’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head, “Oh shit. Oh shit.”

He slid back so fast he knocked Rearden through the air. Its thrusters compensated over a squealing beep. It stopped just in time to avoid smashing through a glass panel that separated a pair of holo-displays. Simon was too concerned with sprinting from the lab to notice. Rearden revved its thrusters, barely able to keep up.

He took the hallway in roughly a quarter of the usual time, threw himself into the elevator and slammed the button for the top floor. Rearden zoomed in just in time for the doors to close, collided with Simon over a squeal. It beeped erratically, questioned Simon’s sanity and sudden lack thereof.

“Rearden!?” He said with shock. “Did anyone come into the lab last night?” An uncertain beep replied. “C’mon, think!” The bot processed, then its flexible eye shook sideways. “Damn it!” Simon fidgeted, paced small circles. The bot beeped an inquiry. “Someone hacked the terminal. It’s the only thing that makes sense. They hacked it, spoofed my address, cracked my credentials, then downloaded the data.” A few terrified beeps, then, “Yes! All the data.”

Rearden was now beeping like mad, its tones the same absurd terror of Simon’s thoughts. The elevator doors parted. He scrambled out on rubber legs for an office at a corridor’s end.

“Rearden, go to my apartment and run scans,” he instructed. “Check the interior and perimeter, and link with the Security mainframes. Pull any possible angles of the building. We have to get on top of this now!”

Rearden whirled around, whizzed off with a loud squeal. The elevators doors slid closed again. Simon threw open the door at the end of the hall, the head of the Plasma Propulsion Lab sat in a conversation with a weaselly-looking Muroidean– a common brown-rat that managed to seem more like his cousin than his now noble-race. All the same he and the graying Lioness, Niala Martin were taken aback by his sudden, explosive entrance.

“Matriarch,” he said in grave accordance with her customs. “We have a problem.”

3.

As expected, Simon was escorted to a holding cell in the security building across the complex. Even Rearden knew where he’d end up. Simon on the other hand, knew he needed to go himself, remain as compliant as possible, or else look more guilty than he already did. Thankfully the Matriarch had assured him she believed his innocence. Putting him in a cell made any immediate incidents less complicated, and acted as a sign of faith that he remained innocent.

The one thing it didn’t do however, was allow him to work on discovering the perpetrator. He could trust Rearden, but the little bot might miss crucial evidence. It lacked both human determination and bloodhound senses. Part of Simon wished he’d investigated further before rushing to the Matriarch, but the rest of him knew it was safer this way.

He paced behind the security barrier of his cell, his hand at his chin as he made short circles. There were a million reasons someone might want to break into the ISC or even the Plasma Propulsion lab, but all of the information stolen pointed directly to the Nexus Project– a project that had only just begun. Moreover, no single laboratory knew enough to have put together its true intentions. Although Simon had his hunches, even he didn’t know. It was impossible anyone could know the information’s true value.

A distant door slid open down the long cell-block. It muted to heavy footfalls from three pairs of feet. Simon stopped at the center of the barrier. From the outcrops at either edge of the cell, he couldn’t see the trio headed his way, but knew they were there for him. There were no others in holding.

Two bloodhounds appeared, flanked Matriarch Martin as she sauntered to a spot across the barrier.

“Matriarch Martin,” he said with a respectful bow of his head.

She gave a droopy-eyed smile with a warm purr, “Simon, please.” He bowed again with a hint of confusion. She glanced back at the Bloodhounds; one keyed at a wrist-computer, deactivated the security barrier. Her gaze lingered on them, “You may go.”

One of the blood-hounds gave a huffed sigh, spoke with a gravelly fatigue, “We’re not to leave prisoners unguarded.”

She raised a paw at the two bloodhounds, flashed her claws with a deathly speed, then retracted them, “I don’t believe he would be a problem were he intent on it.”

The bloodhounds swallowed hard, a primal fear obvious in their throats from countless, generations of predator-prey instincts. They left, however apprehensive.

As soon as they were out of sight, she gestured to Simon’s cot on the left-wall. “Please, sit.” She stepped in to stand before him, “I’ve no doubt you were set up, Simon, but convincing Frost and the ISC’s going to be difficult without evidence.”

“I understand, and thank you, Ma’am,” he replied graciously.

She half-frowned with a tilt of her head, “Simon, drop the formalities. I’ve bore more young than most through more than a dozen mates, and I’m tired of formalities. I use my position to remind underlings of my position, but you are a friend. One in need. I won’t have you pretending I’m any more important than you right now.”

He swallowed, “Yes, Niala. Thank you.”

Niala sank to the bed beside him, “I know you put Rearden on surveillance footage. I commend you for that, but if someone was inside with ill-intent, they won’t be easily pinpointed.”

Simon agreed, “I want to cover all the angles. I know it won’t be simple, or I’d have done it myself. I wanted Rearden to analyze the systems.”

Niala gave a thoughtful nod, “That was foresighted.”

He sighed, pushed up from the bed to begin pacing again. She watched him for a moment before he stopped in the center of the cell, “What would someone want with my research? And why now? We’ve barely even begun the project, why not wait until we had more– and what good is it to put me as the fall-guy?”

Niala mused her thoughts aloud, “More than likely you’re just the unlucky one with access.”

He shook his head, hand once more at his chin, “No, I don’t believe that. There’s five other people with access to the lab. Four if we discount you. If the object was merely to disrupt our research, steal it in the meantime, why not implicate you?”

Her pupils narrowed to slits, “You’re not suggesting–”

“Of course not, Niala,” he interjected. “It just doesn’t make sense to implicate me when there’s more damage that can be done.”

Her eyes lowered, pupils widened, “Unless the primary motive is not to hobble the project.”

Simon opened his mouth to speak. A series of beeps sounded down the hall. Rearden’s thrusters were maxed out. It squealed, calling for Simon.

“Down here!”

Rearden rocketed forward, bypassed the cell, then whirled round to zoom into a spot just past the security gate. Irate beeps of binary were foreign to Niala’s ears.

“What’s it saying?”

Simon focused harder on Rearden, “Buddy, slow down. What’re you talking about? What kind of problem?” A few quick beeps replied. “A leak? What kind of–” More beeps and suddenly Niala was beside him. “What d’you mean the security system’s leaking?” Niala bared her teeth at the thought. Rearden fidgeted with squeals and beeps. The thrusters bucked the bot up and down as if it danced in place. Simon suddenly swore, “Shit!”

Niala’s teeth still flared, now with a low predatory growl, “What’s going on?”

He spoke quickly to Niala, “Rearden says someone’s hacked security. There’s some kind of external data mining in place.”

“That’s impossible,” she said on the verge of a roar. “Our firewall’s would’ve caught it.”

Rearden beeped in emphatic reply. Simon waved it off, “I know, I know! You’re right, unless it came from inside ISC.”

This time she did roar, enough to rattle his chest and send Rearden backing away in fear. She readied to storm off, snapped after them, already four steps ahead, “Come with me! Both of you!”

Simon half-stumbled in a jog to catch up, “Why? Where’re we going?”

“There’s only one person here that could’ve overridden the firewalls,” Niala said. She growled to an angry roar, “We’re going to see Gnarl.”