I realized I was still in cuffs, when I went to knock on the lid of the box.
“Well, star-sucking turdlets,” I said—loudly, because it made me feel better.
When I got out of this, I was going to go a few rounds with Mack… That thought stopped me cold. Mack. Where in all the stars and suns was he? And that was when I remembered that there were supposed to have been instructions dropped with my gear.
“Oh, crap,” at which point, the lid to the med box swung open.
Mack’s was not the face I expected to see, which doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy it was there. I stared up at that face, and then looked past him, searching for the other face—the one I was terrified of seeing. My movement sent the heart monitors soaring, as I tried to climb out of the box—and that was without me seeing the arach. I kept staring, and he still didn’t appear. Which was good.
Very good. I remembered how to breathe, and let myself settle back in the box. Mack watched, waiting until I started to relax.
“You done?” he asked.
“Done?” I managed.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe. Depends on what happens next.”
“Well,” he said, letting down the sides of the box, undoing the cuffs, and helping me out, “now, I take you out of here to the holding cells, where you’ll be tried for treason, and sentenced…”
My heart plummeted, and my mind went into freefall. Tried? Treason? Sentenced?
“…to death.”
I felt like he’d tipped a bucket of iced water over my head.
“What?”
At least, that’s what I was trying to say. I opened my mouth, and no sound came out, so I closed my mouth, swallowed, and tried again.
“Tried?”
Mack nodded, pursing his lips.
“For treason. The instructions in the gear bag were pretty specific.”
“What gear bag?” I asked, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“Are you saying you didn’t have a gear bag with you?”
“No…”
He frowned.
“So there was a gear bag,” he said, and that was when I finally got it.
“There was a gear bag?”
“Are you telling me you were ported without a gear bag?”
“Yes,” I said. “I was definitely ported without a gear bag.”
“From a ship overtaken by arach.”
“Yes,” I said, again. “Ported from a ship overtaken by arach, without a gear bag.”
“And where is that ship now?”
“In orbit?” I asked, but he shook his head.
“There is no ship in orbit.”
Again, my heart went into freefall. No ship? No… I pushed myself off the med box, and tried to stand up.
“No ship?” I asked, and I didn’t have to pretend to be shocked.
I grabbed Mack by the arm.
“But where’s the ship? It’s supposed to be there. It can’t be gone.”
I made to walk past him, and he grabbed me by the arm, and turned me to face him.
“There is. no. ship.”
“I ca.. I can’t be here,” I said, my heart going into freefall. “There has to be a ship.”
“There was a gear bag.”
“There was?”
“There was.”
“But I didn’t have a gear bag.”
“Are you saying the gear bag wasn’t yours?”
I vaguely remembered something about there being a gear bag at the drop site, but there had been a security patrol at the drop site. There couldn’t have been a bag. My head started to spin, and my knees gave way. Or it had been the wrong site, and the bag wasn’t mine… I was so confused. Mack caught me, let me settle on the floor.
“The bag,” he insisted, crouching down in front of me.
“There was no bag,” I said.
“It’s not yours?”
“It’s not mine.”
Mack got to his feet. He left me sitting on the floor, as he looked across the room.
“You need to keep looking,” he said. “She isn’t the one you’re after.”
I drew my knees up to my chest, and rested my chin on them.
I wasn’t?
“The best you can charge her with is illegal immigration.”
I… what? I stared up at him, hugging my knees tight, as I felt my eyes grow to what felt like the size of small moons.
Mack let the silence drag out for a bit longer, and then nudged me with the toe of his boot.
“Or I could take her off your hands.”
I just hugged my knees tighter, and closed my eyes, feeling sick to the stomach. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said he didn’t really want to take me… but that couldn’t be true, could it?
“We should check her implant,” said a voice, through the speakers.
Mack nodded, even though I knew them checking my implant would be about the last thing he wanted them to do… unless it wasn’t Mack. The spiders could change shape. What if this one had changed to look like Mack? What if he was just bartering to get me out of the authorities’ hands?
It was not a thought I needed, but, then, neither was the idea that his current behavior was anywhere near normal.
“You could. How long is this disablement going to last?”
“A week.”
“I could bring her back in eight days. Start the conditioning process early…”
“How much were you willing to pay to take her off our hands?”
And I started to breathe again. We’d ended up on a world where corruption held sway. I tucked my relief away, out of sight. Made a show of looking up, then around for the door, and carefully inching back from him. Mack named a figure that made me gasp. He even let me get a bum’s width back, before side-swiping me with his boot, knocking me sideways, and then planting his boot on my chest, and using it to pin me to the floor.
There was silence, as the voice considered.
“And you’re sure the gear bag isn’t hers?”
This time, Mack rolled his eyes.
“Well, you heard her. She didn’t get ported with a bag.”
“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there waiting for her.”
“I don’t think there’s
