The Burning Dark (16 page)

Ida balanced on his heel, and then turned to head back to the elevator. There was something he didn’t like, something he didn’t quite
get,
about the security feeds King had just shown him. Something buzzed around the back of his mind as he stepped into the waiting elevator.

It was impossible, right? Nobody could have faked the security feed or the monitor readings. And yet someone had turned over his cabin. Even if it was possible to alter or erase data from the
Coast City
’s log—and Ida was pretty sure it wasn’t—the amount of time and effort required would classify the act as a conspiracy well beyond the petty bullying he’d been the subject of since arriving on the
Coast City
. That took Carter’s space apes out of the picture. And, besides, if they’d broken into his cabin to deliver a message, there wouldn’t have been anything left to pick up, let alone the computer terminal and the space radio set left not only perfectly intact but turned on as well.

But no one had been near the cabin except Ida and Izanami, and none of the security systems could be overridden and none of the data could be faked. And Ida didn’t believe in ghosts, not least ghosts in space. He stood in the elevator, running scenarios backwards and forward and sideways in his head, replaying King’s video feed, still unable to put a finger on what he felt was wrong. He couldn’t place it as he left the elevator on his level; he couldn’t place it as he walked down the corridor outside his cabin and turned to look back at the security camera up on the bulkhead. He couldn’t place it as he walked into his cabin and nodded at Izanami, lying on the bed and listening to the recorded message on repeat. It didn’t occur to him as Izanami met his eye with a smile and returned his nod.

Ida sat at the desk and massaged his temples. He had a headache coming on.

16

“And then what did
you do?”

Carter didn’t answer Serra’s question immediately. Instead, he stroked his chin as they walked down a corridor somewhere in the
Coast City
’s middle.

“So what did I do?” he repeated, glancing at Serra and turning on a wicked grin.

My God, that smile,
thought Serra. That was the Charlie Carter she knew and loved. He seemed better now, more like his old self. And how long before they were off shift and—

Serra stopped walking.

Carter didn’t seem to notice, and kept strolling slowly forward. “I said, ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Three bags full, sir.’” He stopped and turned around. “What did you think I said?”

He paused. His eyes played over Serra. “What is it?”

Serra stood motionless, eyes wide, looking to the floor. She held both arms straight down, fingers splayed out like she was preparing to walk a tightrope. She felt alert, suddenly energized, the corridor she and Carter were in and the conversation they were having now a million light-years away.

They were not alone.

Carter pulled in close. She could feel him tense up, could almost see a ripple of gooseflesh crawl up his bare arms.

She knew the feeling. It was the same sensation you felt, out in the field, when a patrol was going too well, the second before the ambush struck or the bomb went off. Serra could almost taste it. She had no doubt Carter could feel it too—all marines had it, the good ones, the ones who came back alive. But for her, it was like being thrown into an ice bath.

Carter’s muscles moved under his regulation T-shirt. He was preparing himself, Serra knew, to take on whatever was coming. Serra kept very still; it felt like she couldn’t move even if she’d wanted to. She knew she had the best goddamned battle sense in the Fleet, and when it was sharp like this, trouble was coming, thick and fast.

Carter looked to Serra, his brow furrowed. She knew that he was a pro, that he wouldn’t do a thing until she gave the word. She flicked her eyes to his and he nodded, almost imperceptibly. She slowed her breathing and listened, reaching out to the world,
feeling
it.

But feeling what? There was nothing on the station but a ragtag crew, some drone robots, and one washed-up ex-captain on board for some reason nobody really knew.

Serra’s mouth was dry. Maybe she wasn’t sensing anything but the fatigue of the machine around them. The station was being pulled into little bits. Every day tons of metal and ceramic and plastic were sliced up and boxed up, leaving the humans to walk around a cat’s cradle framework. What if something had gone wrong? What if a drone had malfunctioned, or crashed? Or worse, got stuck in some error loop and kept on slicing and dicing the station until it hit the habitable spaces. One stray demolition laser, and the
Coast City
’s atmos would be voided into space, the crew killed instantly by the peculiar light from Shadow.

No … there
was
something. The dreams and the voices and the odd feeling she’d had for weeks, and now … this. A presence, nearby. Someone watching them. Some
thing
watching them.

Then it was over. The corridor was suddenly warmer, and the unpleasant weight in the center of her chest evaporated. Serra relaxed and allowed herself the luxury of oxygen.

Carter sank a little as he lowered himself from his toes. His chest heaved, and he looked sideways at her. “For crying out loud,” he whispered. “I hate it when you do that.”

Serra walked forward, comfortable enough now. She stopped, then walked back toward Carter and looked into the marine’s tight eyes.

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear it?” she asked.

Carter glanced up and down the corridor, then back at Serra. “Nope. What’s up?”

His words were light, but that was something else you learned from battle. There was enough death and despair around you without going all down and serious. There was a time and a place for that. Standing in a corridor in a far-distant, decommissioned space station was not one of them.

Serra shrugged, and they resumed their walk. But it was different now. Serra was tense, her eyes flicking around. She was waiting for her grandmother to call her name again. But after a while no voice came, and she tuned back in to Carter’s diatribe.

“I mean, what are we here for?” he was saying. “Security and engineering, right? Making sure this hunk of junk is sent back to the Fleet with all the right parts back in the box, right? So why the goddamn hell is a celebrity starminer coming here? Like anybody has time for that.”

Serra snickered. “She’s hot, you know.”

“Oh,” said Carter. His surprised expression might or might not have been faked, and she slapped him on the back anyway, not without a smile on her own face. He yelped playfully.

“What—?”

Carter came to a halt, Serra’s hand pulling at the back of his shirt. This time Carter pulled himself in close to her side instantly, fists clenched, and glanced up and down the corridor. He opened his mouth to say something, but Serra pushed her hand into his chest and his jaw snapped shut. The sensation of a presence was as thick as a blanket.

As they stood in silence, Serra heard it again. It was another voice, distant but at the same time right over their shoulders. Then the voice stopped, leaving an unsettling, hollow echo. The passage they were in was lined with standard rubberized floor tiles and interlocking plastic panels on the walls, slotted into the underlying metal skeleton of the station. This section was a main thoroughfare and wouldn’t be marked for demolition for weeks yet. There was no good surface for that kind of reverberation.

But as the seconds elongated, the bad feeling only increased. When Serra blinked, her vision flashed purple and she couldn’t help but flinch back, the weird sensation that there was someone standing right in front of her impossible to dismiss.

This was different, a creeping dread that wasn’t battle sense, not this time. This was something older, simpler, something that didn’t require Fleet training and pharmaceutical enhancement, something that pulled on the primal, lizard part of Serra’s brain. She pressed her hand hard into Carter’s chest and focused on the real, physical connection. His chest shook with short, shallow breaths, and she could hear the saliva moving in his mouth as he wet his lips.

He felt it too; she could tell. It wasn’t fear they shared, not really. There was no room for that kind of reaction in the Fleet Marine Corps. They faced injury or death constantly, not just from the enemy but also from the million things that could go wrong in space that would end them in a millisecond. That was life in the Fleet. And Serra and Carter were marines, the best of the best.

This … this was something else, something worse.

They were not alone. Now she was sure of it.

“Now what?” Carter’s whisper was surprisingly loud.

Serra shushed him, but a second later she gasped herself.

There was someone at the end of the passageway. The light ahead of them was at minimum, part of standard energy conservation. The passage was dark behind them too, the lights of each section dimming after they passed. A few hundred meters farther back was a main intersection, well lit, spilling a pool of light into each of the four corridors that branched from it. Alone in their passage, Carter and Serra were standing in a glowing bubble that stretched just two meters ahead and behind. Standard procedure on any U-Star during the night-cycle, or when a section of a station had a minimal number of crew in it.

Ahead the familiar darkness was punctuated by steady LEDs in three colors that studded door controls and comms panels at regular intervals. In that darkness the figure stood, swaying on its feet. Serra’s eyes were drawn past it, to a red light that pulsed on and off as the figure’s waist moved side to side—gently, rhythmically blocking and unblocking the light.

The figure was nothing more than a black silhouette against a blacker background, wide and bulky like the person had something on them or around them. The head was large, circular, like they were wearing some kind of helmet.

Serra called out, “Hello?” which seemed redundant. She turned to Carter and watched as he squinted into the dark ahead of them. So it wasn’t just her; he could see it too.

“Why hasn’t the light come on?” Carter whispered.

That was precisely the problem. Serra turned back to look down the corridor. For a second she saw nothing but dark, and then the darkness moved and she could discern the figure again. She didn’t like it. It was fucking creepy as hell.

“Maintenance?”

Serra knew Carter was wrong as soon as he said it, but the explanation helped break the tension, the hesitation, the lead-limbed feeling she had. She felt tired, heavy; the air of the corridor suddenly thick. The sensation was alien but at the same time familiar; the sensation of helplessness and dread from a thousand childhood nightmares. Serra muttered something colorful in Spanish, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Carter’s breaths were still small and tight.

Serra and Carter turned to each other, and then it was over. Serra could feel her heart beating like a hammer, trying to burst out of her chest, and the feeling of weight was replaced with a slight light-headedness. Carter raised and lowered his arms, flexing his thick fingers. He looked at Serra; then his eyes flicked back down the passage. Serra turned and followed his gaze. It was still half-dark, but the figure had gone along with the weird, oppressive atmosphere.

Serra opened her mouth to form a question, but nothing came to mind.

Carter sighed loudly. “For fuck’s sake.” He walked heavily to the comms panel just behind them and thumped the control hard with his clenched fist, shaking the plastic wall panel.

“Bridge.”

Carter flicked the comms switch more delicately with his thumb, and turned his back to the wall, his eyes scanning ahead.

“Carter on Level Fifty-five West—” He looked across the passage to the wall opposite, reading off the bar code stamped along the edge of the panel nearest the bulkhead. “—Alpha Ninety. Who’s on demo on this deck?”

There was a pause. Serra walked up to Carter. She saw the skin of his arms was covered with gooseflesh and noticed how cold it was in the corridor. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed at her own icy skin.

“Negative,” came the tinny response from the wall. “Demo not booked until alpha ten-ten is taken down.”

Carter exhaled, his breath whistling between his teeth. “So who’s down here? We got a problem with the environment lights. Someone checking?”

Another pause. Carter tapped his fingers on the wall panel.

“Negative. Scan shows Carter, C, and Serra, C. She there with you?” The Flyeye sounded like he was a million miles away.

Serra leaned forward, arms still folded, balancing on her toes.

“Affirmative, operator.” Her eyes met Carter’s. Their gaze lingered for just a moment before Carter broke it to look back down the corridor.

“Give me environment control.”

There was a click from the other end of the comms, and Serra’s eye was caught by an LED on the wall opposite that flicked from red to green. Carter pushed off the wall and punched the panel. The corridor lights increased evenly in brightness until Serra almost needed to squint. The entire passage was illuminated, behind them to the intersection through which they’d come and ahead to the bend in the corridor where whoever it was must have turned out of sight.

While Carter took a few steps down the corridor, almost as though he didn’t trust his own eyes to show him the completely empty passage, Serra flicked the comm. “Operator?”

“Standing by.”

“Patch me to DeJohn.”

Carter turned, mouthing something. Serra waved him off.

“Hold a moment, please,” came the voice from the wall grille. “DeJohn is not responding.”

Carter stomped back toward Serra, shaking his head. He flicked the comm, and Serra stepped back.

“Bridge, what’s Corporal DeJohn’s twenty?” Carter glanced back over his shoulder. “We’ll meet him in person.”

“Locating,” said the operator.

Carter turned to Serra. “What’s DeJohn got to do with it, anyhow?”

Serra shrugged. “He’s been wired the last few cycles. Who knows what he might pull.” The idea sounded weak, even to her.