Severance (28 page)

Looks of relief, mistrust, and confusion played across each
guard’s face, colliding into each other in often hilarious combinations. “You’re
not?” one of them finally asked, the smart one, presumably. His hand nevertheless
slid around to rest on the weapon he clearly had concealed behind his back.

“Nope,” Hogg said. “I just wanted to talk.”

“About what?”

“Not here.” Hogg jerked his head inside. “You know. Given
the circumstances.” Not waiting for a response, he stepped past the guards and
into the arena.

It was empty, or at least mostly so. The room was dominated
by the massive curved floor of the old rink, lined with low walls. A drift of
wheeled chairs had washed up against one of the walls on the side of the arena.
To the other side, he saw a group of bulky men just outside of the main rink,
standing around the mayor. Hogg began walking across the arena towards his prey,
one of the door guards in tow, feebly protesting.

“Mayor Kinsella?” Hogg said as he drew within conversing
distance. “I’m here to place you under arrest.”

“Hey!” The guard behind him shouted. “You lied to me!” He
stepped in front of Hogg and put his hand on his chest before turning to the
mayor. “He lied to me!”

Kinsella looked profoundly unimpressed. This was the first
time Hogg had actually seen the man without all of his teeth showing in a massive
smile. The rest of Kinsella’s friends spread out around Hogg, puffing up their
chests, playing with their weapons. Hogg watched them click the safeties of
their pistols on and off, trying to make menacing noises.

“You’re here to arrest me?” Kinsella finally asked. Not
frightened, but wary.

Hogg nodded.

“By yourself?”

Hogg looked around. “It seems that way.”

“Is that true?” Kinsella asked, turning his head to look at
his assembly of highly visible men. A lot of vacant expressions looked back at
him. Eventually, one of them began messing with his terminal and reported back that
Hogg indeed appeared to be alone.

Kinsella squinted at Hogg, shaking his head slightly. “Whhhhhhhy….no…that’s
not…nooooo,” he said quietly. “There’s something not right here.” He turned
away from Hogg, took a step, then immediately turned back to face him, still
obviously unsettled. “Could someone shoot him, please?” he asked politely.

So someone shot him.

§

Tiny signs of movement on the barricade two blocks away,
anxious security dorks shifting around. Bruce crossed his legs, his back
against the bench armrest, and watched them carefully. He was in the southern
end of the garden well, watching one of the barricades. He couldn’t make any of
them out individually but knew they would be watching him. For the third time
since he arrived, he gave them a cheery wave.

Here he was, the ship’s most wanted criminal, sitting in
plain sight of a dozen or more security officers, none of whom dared come get
him. It was shocking really, his tax dollars at work, not catching him. Bruce
opened his terminal and examined the locations of all the other known security
personnel, double–checking that none of the roving patrols were sneaking up on
him. Not a new tool, just one that had recently grown in popularity, his
terminal was currently set to identify security officers and report their locations
to a shared database. The database’s accuracy improved with the number of
people using it, and it had been
very
accurate lately.

He shut off the terminal and looked back up at the
barricades guarding the aft. Obviously, they were there to do a lot more than
just guard Stein, but they were inadvertently doing a pretty good job of that,
as well. A shame, because it was looking more and more like she needed some
help.

He had watched the robot come crashing down into the cell
and shut itself off almost immediately. He didn’t get a look at who shut it
off, but it had to have been Stein. It was the only occupied cell, and she was
the only one on the ship who would see a maintenance robot appear out of
nowhere and know instinctively what to do with it.

And then she hadn’t even said thank you.

The robot must have been taken from her. Those cells were
monitored, something he knew from the jail time that was an occasional side
effect of the rich life he had led. He felt stupid, should have found something
more subtle than programming the robot to chuck itself down the feeding chute. The
cell’s sensor had probably flagged it on the second bounce.

Bruce leaned back on the bench, looking up the nearly
vertical wall of the garden well that stretched above him. Looking up the
length of the wall from this vantage point gave most people vertigo, and it
wasn’t an uncommon sight to see puddles of vomit around these benches. But he
had a strong stomach for heights, or depths, or whatever this view was, and even
found it relaxing.

With Operation Robot Surprise a seeming failure, he had been
considering brasher ways of retrieving his friend. He had found a bulkhead door
on the other end of the ship and spent most of an afternoon fiddling with its
various controls, eventually figuring out how to open, close, and then jam it
open. The latter proved almost comically easy, the communication chip clearly
visible and vulnerable to stabbing. Which solved at least part of his dilemma —
he could now at least get closer to Stein. Where several hundred security
officers would be waiting, possibly mad about all of their colleagues that he
had shot.

Shadows passed over him. He tilted his head to see a group
of teenagers walking past, coming to a halt a short distance away. They stared
straight up, peering up the same length of garden well wall Bruce was.

“I don’t feel anything,” one of them said.

“You will.”

“Yeah, just give it time.”

“Try spinning,” another suggested.

Bruce watched the teenagers staring straight up, spinning
around slowly. Before too long one of them abruptly stopped, squatted down, and
tried to brace himself with his hand, not quite succeeding, toppling to the ground
on his side.

“Ahh, you flinched!”

“I’m going to be sick,” the one on the ground said.

“That’s the point.”

“Oh, shit,” another said, lowering her head, her eyes
swimming. Her neck curled back then propelled her head forward, a voluminous
stream of vomit spewing from her mouth, spraying her friends. This set off a
chain reaction, three others barfing in quick succession, spraying the ground
in bile, causing the sole survivor to slip and fall, laughing.

Bruce hadn’t seen a vomit club in a while. It was a hobby
which hadn’t been in fashion for at least a couple of years. A reminder that even
though the ship was in desperate peril, most people didn’t know or care enough
to be anything other than bored. With no government jobs to go to, and no
school to sleep through, the amount of time being wasted on the ship was reaching
a generational peak. Even the mayor had been able to get nearly a thousand
people to show for his ‘Old Tyme Politic Rap Session’ at a moment’s notice,
simply by the promise that something interesting might happen.

Bruce watched one of the teens attempt to stand up, putting
his foot in a slick of vomit and slipping, legs jackknifing in the air as he
came down in a thud. Just a bunch of stupid kids, looking for stupid to do.
Sitting
at the feet of the Argos’ biggest stupid–dealer
. A plan was forming in
Bruce’s head. It wasn’t, happily, a smart one.

§

“He’s waking up, boss.”

“Then shoot him again.”

So, someone shot him.

§

“Coming around again.”

Hogg raised his hands in protection. At least, he tried to.
He knew that he probably wasn’t moving much, having seen more than a few people
recover from stun shots before. He was probably curled up in the fetal
position, pawing at his own face.

“Shoot him again?”

No answer. So no one shot him.

Slowly, the remainder of Hogg’s senses reported in. He was
still in the arena, apparently right where he had been shot. Feet, all around
him, belonging to Kinsella’s posse. Hogg looked up, spotting the mayor himself
walking over.

“Why’d you come alone?” Kinsella asked.

Hogg ignored him, knowing from experience that it would take
another minute or two before he would be able to say anything intelligible. He
instead maneuvered himself into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around
his legs and squeezing. He held up one finger to Kinsella, indicating he hadn’t
forgotten him, and began the unpleasant process of clearing his throat.

“Hrrrk. Haaap. IIIIch. K. Okay. Okay.”

“Okay, what?” Kinsella said. “Why did you come alone?” he
asked again.

It was a good question, and Hogg wasn’t sure he had an
answer. Finally, he said, “Orders. Gotta do ’em.” A pause. “Don’t have to do ’em
well.”

Kinsella’s nostrils flared. “I will shoot you again. I will
do it and like it. You guys say I’m a terrorist? Well, maybe I’ll terrorize
your unconscious ass. Now, stop speaking in riddles. Why are you here alone?”

Hogg looked down at his feet. “Because I’m not even supposed
to be working right now.”

“What the fuck did I just say about riddles?”

Hogg smiled and looked up at the mayor. He swallowed and
collected his thoughts, wondering if he could explain it even to himself. “I
was supposed to be off–rotation right now. It’d been scheduled for months. It’d
been
deliberately
scheduled for months. About a year ago someone made a
real fuss about messing with my rotation schedule, which ended up with me being
off–rotation this quarter.”

“What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”

“Depends.” Hogg studied the mayor’s expression. “Are you
lying about this whole thing? About the captain?” Kinsella closed his eyes,
rubbing his face. With a flick of his hand, he gestured at one of his goons,
who obediently raised his pistol. “Whoa!” Hogg said. “It was just a question. I
believe you.” He stopped speaking, suddenly tired. “I believe you,” he
repeated, trying the words on for size.

Kinsella’s gaze narrowed. “Why wouldn’t you?”

Hogg snorted. “Don’t you get it yet? I was supposed to be on
a freaking staycation right now. On this side of the ship. Not that side,” he
jerked his head to the south. “I was getting left behind, too.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bulltruth. It was only a last minute screw–up that brought
me back on duty. And when I was brought back, I was given an abrupt and
unexpected promotion, put in charge of the fucking Community Outreach Centre.
That’s in the bow of the ship, in case you didn’t know.”

At the time, he had been dismayed by the assignment but not
entirely surprised. He had known for a while that he didn’t play the right
games, perhaps shared his opinions a little too readily. So, it made sense for
him to be assigned to command the squad of lost souls. They were simply trying
to keep him out of the way.

He just never could have guessed how out of the way they
intended to keep him.

“Why would they leave you behind?” Kinsella asked.

Hogg looked up at the mayor and cracked a half smile. “I’m
curious to know myself. Don’t know if I’d like the answer.” He lowered his head
and studied his own feet.

Kinsella considered that for a moment, then smiled himself. “Okay.
So, you’re being left behind. But if you believe that, and you believe me, then,
why,
oh why,
the fuck would you come to arrest me?”

Hogg threw his arms around his legs and squeezed. “I honestly
don’t know. It’s a job. Gotta do your job, right? Though I guess that doesn’t
make a lot of sense, does it?”

Kinsella looked at him appraisingly. “You security guys are
a different breed.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Huh,” Kinsella said. He chewed his lip, staring at Hogg in
a way that made him feel extremely uncomfortable. “Goddamn,” Kinsella said and
began pacing. “Now, that is an interesting possibility. Not that I’m sure I’d
trust you enough to try.” He stopped. “But what the fuck. Everything’s worth a
shot.” He turned to Hogg. “Do you have handcuffs? Binders? Whatever?”

Hogg nodded.

“Good. Put them on yourself.”

Hogg fumbled in his belt for the binders. Cuffing yourself
was a pretty clear sign that something hadn’t gone according to plan. But then
he remembered that he hadn’t actually had a plan coming here. Just a lurchy
sort of instinct that he should go at Kinsella and see what happened. And now
he knew what happened — you got shot a few times and had to cuff yourself.

He held up his bound wrists, showing them to Kinsella, who
gave one of his all teeth smiles. “Amazing.” He began nodding tightly, clearly
plotting something. “We’ve got that cart still, right?” he asked one of his men.
“Okay, cool. Go get that. We’ll need to put him on it.” He crouched down to
talk to Hogg, “I’m going to have to shoot you again.”

Hogg’s shoulders slumped. “Are you sure?”

Kinsella nodded.

So, they shot him again.

§

The trolley slid to a stop at 10
^th
Avenue, which
was as far south as it still went; someone evidently had the sense to change
the trolleys’ programming so that they wouldn’t start slamming into closed
bulkhead doors, although Bruce supposed it was perhaps more likely that the
trolleys had simply changed their own programming in the absence of any signs
of operator sense. He stepped out of the rear doors, Ellen and Griese in tow, and
headed confidently towards the escalator beside the intersection.

“I think it’s a stupid plan,” Ellen said as they descended down
to the first level.

“Obviously,” Bruce replied. “The stupidity is key. We need a
lot of stupid for this to work.”

“Dammit, Bruce, it’s dangerous.”

“It’s safer than what you were planning,” Bruce said and
looked over his shoulder at the couple. “With that little toy of yours.”