An intense wave of nausea poured over me. I stumbled to the washroom and retched over the sink. I hadn't eaten dinner the night before, but my body didn't seem to care that my stomach was already empty. It tried repeatedly to expel nothing.
When I recovered, I shouted, "What time is this fucking
meeting
?"
"Thirteen hundred Zulu. Shizuka is on a Russian military hypersonic out of Khabarovsk which picked her up in Osaka. She will be landing at Andrews about the same time we land. Not sure about Cedric. That's all the man from CM who called me was able to tell me."
"You and Irenka will need to get your own transportation because I'm damned sure going to be the first one at Central."
"Okay, Sean. I understand," he said before disconnecting the call.
I slumped onto the floor.
I didn't go to the bathroom when I felt the urge to vomit again. I spat only saliva and sputum into the wastebasket. I gasped for breath, winded from the bout of heaves. My gasps became sobs.
Less than twenty-four hours earlier, Aly and I had made slow, tender love in my bed, then showered and dressed. We ate breakfast together, then I invited her to join me in a new phase of our relationship.
When the last call to her comm as well as two messages failed, I wondered if I'd been blocked. Maybe she needed a little distance and time to breathe. Maybe she needed time to consider my proposal, so I didn't press. I should have known better. I should have pushed. I would have, perhaps, been with her before, or, at the very least, known sooner.
It took me almost an hour to will myself back to my feet and dress myself. I draped on a false veil of composure after I summoned an
Adev
to take me to Central. I noted its approach from seven kilometers away on the moving map in the Metro app. I knew it'd be about ten minutes before it would arrive at the entrance of my building, so I secured my apartment, opened the door to depart, and surprised the man whose knuckles were already moving to knock on it.
I was just as startled at the presence of two more uniformed men standing in the hallway behind him.
"Commander Emerson, I'm Captain Sachs. I need you to come with us, sir."
I sighed in frustration. "Oh, god. Here we go again.
Sirs
and
ranks
, Captain? It doesn't matter! I've been detached from Central. I'm not under your authority, but it just so happens I'm on my way there right now. An adev is about to pick me up. You can follow me if you want."
If we'd been members of the same branch, a captain would outrank a commander, but we weren't, and I would have outranked him had I still been active.
"Sir, you've been recalled," he said, handing me a sheet of paper. "I need you to give me your comm for a moment. Under subsection seven of
10USC688
, I have the authority to restrain you if required."
"Section 688 only applies in exigent circumstances," I argued, reading the order.
"I am told, Commander, such circumstances exist."
The two men flanking him had already unsnapped the top straps securing their stuns in their holsters and held their hands near them. I was familiar with their effects. I and my crew were trained to use them. They were a contingency in case someone went bonkers on Mars and needed to be restrained. Part of the training was being subjected to a demonstration of their incredible effectiveness.
The devices have a tendency to cause a specific unfortunate effect. It doesn't matter how recently bowels or bladders have been evacuated, a stun will very effectively eliminate more from both if food or drink had been consumed not long before. During training, I had, but that morning, I wasn't wearing appropriate undergarments.
I slowly reached into my jacket pocket, removed my comm, and gave it to the man standing in the center of the group of three holding out his hand. He deftly extracted the encryption and authorization chip then handed my comm back to me. He placed the chip in a plastic bag, pulled a red strip of film from the tab, then sealed it. He returned the bag to the breast pocket on the right side of his utility blouse.
"Thank you, sir. This will all go much easier with your continued cooperation. Please proceed to the exit."
The three trailed me.
What is it about being on an elevator that renders people mute? I pondered the question as I bent to pick up a bit of detritus someone had left on the floor. I absentmindedly fiddled with it until Sachs spoke.
"I'll take that for you, sir," he said, pulling it from my fingers and shoving it into his pants pocket.
When the elevator opened at the ground floor, I turned for the main doors.
"No, sir. This way, please," one of the others spoke, leading me down the service corridor to an exit into the alley.
Not five seconds later, the vehicle I was rushed into departed quickly.
We entered the Central Mission campus through the main gates after Captain Sachs was admitted by security. The gate guards were armed, which was highly unusual, and I began to get an eerie sense that Aly's death might have been part of something sinister.
When I noticed the odd refraction of the window, I asked the uniformed man seated next to me, "Is this vehicle armored?"
"Yes, sir."
Everyone's heads were on swivels, and I began to suspect the three men who'd come to my apartment weren't simply escorts, they were a protective detail. The vehicle turned in a direction away from the main building.
"Captain Sachs," I asked the man seated directly in front of me, "where are you taking me? There's a meeting I need to attend in the main building in about an hour."
"For security reasons, the meeting has been moved from Building 1 to Auxiliary Building 7."
Like Building A which held mission control, Building 7 had enhanced security and guards. It was rumored to be where the vault securing the eight locks was housed. Building 1, the main building, had no enhanced security.
"Stay seated for a minute," the man next to me instructed once the vehicle stopped at a side door. All three men exited the car. The driver opened my door shortly afterward, and the three men flanked me as they ushered me inside.
I was handed off to a man in the corridor who nodded to Captain Sachs. After the captain handed the man the plastic bag holding my comm's chip, he and the two other uniforms turned and exited the way we had come in.
"Commander Emerson, please, follow me."
He escorted me to a large conference room which could seat twelve people at the table and another dozen along one wall. A commissary employee wheeled an empty cart out the other door. She'd placed an urn of coffee, a tray of mugs, plus loads of pastries, various fresh fruits, sliced melons, and chunked pineapple on a sideboard.
"Make yourself comfortable, Commander. It may be a while. There's a private lavatory through that door," he pointed, then left the room. I heard him lock the door behind him. That I'd been locked into a room gave me a sense of dread.
Though I hadn't eaten in eighteen hours, I wasn't hungry. The aroma of the coffee made me think of it as a necessity, though, so I poured myself a mug. Out of sheer habit, I pulled my comm from my pocket. Of course, it had no connectivity since its chip was absent. I passed the time as best I could by solving logic and arithmetic puzzles on it until I heard the door being unlocked.
Through it walked Cedric, escorted by the same man who'd brought me to the room.
"Sean!" he said with wide eyes, rushing to me. I rose and we embraced. It was the first time in a long while that I'd seen him in person. The last was on the surface of Mars. I'd only seen him through video calls during my recovery.
"Holy shit, man. I can't believe what's happening."
"I can't either. I talked to her just yesterday."
"Talked to who?"
"Alyonka. I was with her yesterday morning. She seemed perfectly fine," I said, pushing my emotions back to the core where they needed to stay.
"Okay, whatever. I have no idea what all this drama is about. Do you?" He grinned. "I wonder if all of us are going to do some sort of publicity tour or something."
It was at that moment I realized he hadn't heard.
"Cedric, why are you here?" I asked cautiously.
"Not like I had a choice, man. Last night, I went to a pub with some buddies, and got home around midnight. Pub, eh? Liquor, eh? Well, it took me three tries to enter my apartment door's unlock code, so I
know
it was locked. I wasn't
that
drunk, but I was feeling pretty good!" He laughed.
I held up a palm to try to rein him in. It didn't work. He wasn't paying attention while he paced and jabbered.
"So, just as I got the door unlocked, I see these three …
goons
coming my way up the corridor. One said I had to come with them. I was too drunk to open my door on the first try, I was probably also too drunk to realize who the guys were, and I went after one of them.
"Anyway, I had to change my shorts after I got zapped. Next thing I know, I'm sitting on a high-speed train from Toronto to Baltimore. The four of us—"
"Alyonka is
dead
, Cedric!"
"—had the whole carriage to ourse—wha—
what did you just say
?"
"Alyonka died yesterday. Apparently, she was found in her office at Georgetown. That's all I know. Siemen called me this morning and informed me before I was brought here."
He stumbled to a chair and slumped into it.
"Oh, my god, Sean. What the hell
happened
?" he asked. He seemed as aghast on hearing the news as I still felt.
"I've told you all I know."
"This cannot be true!" Shizuka Ayani gasped.
I hadn't even noticed her entrance, but she was always a stealthy individual. She embodied her given name, 'Quiet.'
"Did you overhear what I was saying?" I asked.
"
Hai
. How did she die?"
Cedric reached out to her and grasped her hand.
"I don't know yet."
"When did this happen?" she asked.
"I don't know that either. All he said was that she was pronounced … um, that she—"
I couldn't continue speaking. I envied Shizuka's ability to compartmentalize her emotions. I'd witnessed it first-hand on a number of occasions, particularly during training. When we were drilled, trainers would pepper and pound us with multiple, simultaneous, or overlapping failures in emergency scenarios. She'd simply take a deep breath and help me triage. I heard her take that exact sort of breath right then.
"You had an incident involving an automation malfunction on your module which led to you being injured. Alyonka had no such issue," she said.
