Miss the start?
Miss last week’s?
Author’s note: Substack doesn’t support right-aligned text. You can get the correctly formatted edition here.
At least the elevator worked. It whisked Korvus toward the top of the prison colony, a rise toward the heavenly majesty of Lethe’s acidic atmospheric crown.
He exited the car on the medbay level.
I need you to harvest the station’s forensics. I need to know who’s been logged as sick. I think we’re going to find a spider’s web of cases linking back to Aris.||:KORVUS
HERALD:||Sure.
I expected more sarcasm, to be honest.||:KORVUS
HERALD:||Higher forms of wit are wasted on you when you’re in this kind of mood.
And there’s my boy.||:KORVUS
His fingers itched to hold the Adjudicator, but his fingers also itched to not die in an explosive pressure incident after the station’s walls deformed and let the ocean in.
I remember when I only had a ballistic weapon. Simpler times, although I almost died about a hundred times.
A klaxon sounded, followed by Mercer’s voice. “Station personnel, a security incident has occurred. Facility-wide quarantine is now in effect.”
Korvus stalled out, head cocked, listening, but that was all in the message. He wondered why Mercer hadn’t Chainlinked the broadcast, then it arrived.
MERCER:||A security incident has occurred. Quarantine is in effect.
He started moving toward the medbay again, rounding the corner just in time for the bay’s doors to grind shut. Korvus picked up speed, arriving just in time for the security seals to lock into place with the kind of deep-seated thud that meant no amount of hammering would open them.
The door had standard nanospun glass inserts which allowed him to see inside. Aris was there, of course, surrounded by a sea of thrashing patients. New to the situation was Eckles, who was seated on a table, sleeve rolled up and ready for whatever was in the injector in Aris’s hands.
Doctor, please open this door.||:KORVUS
Aris turned, face gaunt and haggard under the strain, hypo lowered for a moment.
ARIS:||I can’t. Warden Mercer has locked the facility down. I don’t have the privileges.
Korvus looked to Eckles.
What’s up with him?||:KORVUS
ARIS:||Pressure fever symptoms. I’m trying out a new cocktail. In high doses, it doubles as a paralytic.
He laughed, then sobered. He tapped a tray beside the guard.
ARIS:||There are other side effects, of course, but Eckles is in discomfort, and I’m out of options. The man’s losing teeth. The usual Communion medicine is powerless in the face of this plague.
It might not be a plague. I met some maintenance workers. One, at least, had dental issues. Do you remember Technician Cooke?||:KORVUS
Aris frowned, turned to Eckles, pressed the injector against the guard’s arm, and fired. The man relaxed, shoulders slumping, and then Aris turned back to the sealed door.
ARIS:||He was here not two days ago. Another pressure fever case, of course.
Dr. Aris, does the ‘fever’ cause loss of rationality?||:KORVUS
ARIS:||You surely don’t think the warden..? No, Mercer is fine. I examined him myself just this morning. Corrector, I must return to my work.
The medbay’s windows turned black and opaque as Aris lowered his privacy screen.
HERALD:||That was abrupt. Do you want me to override it?
Can you?||:KORVUS
HERALD:||No, but it’s nice to ask, don’t you think?
“Fucker,” Korvus muttered.
HERALD:||I can hear you. I’m literally with you at all times.
I meant Mercer. He’s locked us out of the station.||:KORVUS
HERALD:||Sure you did. Do you want to go talk to him?
No.||:KORVUS
HERALD:||But you’re going to anyway..?
No.||:KORVUS
The Corrector started to wind his way back to the main elevator. Mercer might be sick. Compromised. Of all those on this facility, there were only two who couldn’t get sick, and only one of them had been here this whole time.
The lighting strips leading toward Verity’s cell didn’t illuminate as Korvus walked the corridor. Maybe there was a ‘security incident’. Maybe the reactor was dying. It could be sabotage, or a hundred other things. None of the options were things that would make a Corrector feel welcome.
The door to her holding bay didn’t open when he arrived.
What shit is this?||:KORVUS
HERALD:||Do you know the definition of ‘lockdown’?
I need a way in.||:KORVUS
HERALD:||How do you feel about crawling?
Not amazing, but will it get me in?||:KORVUS
HERALD:||Magic 8-ball says ‘signs point to yes’.
The Herald System dropped a route on Korvus’s overlay. He backtracked along the promised route, arriving at a large ventilation grate set in the ceiling. The turret whined up from behind his shoulder, and four quick shots blasted the bolts free. They probably also did tremendous damage to ventilation machinery, but Korvus felt his field of fucks would need resowing to rustle up concern over that.
He crouched, then jumped, hands grasping the shaft’s lip. Metal groaned at the weight of the Corrector and his armour, but it held. Good Communion technology would be engineered for a little extra load. Korvus muscled himself inside. He found himself in a standard vent shaft. It wasn’t large enough for him to crouch, but he could crawl.
The overlay’s route beckoned.
TO BE CONTINUED…