Mr. Body

by Caitlyn Konze -

Your mother is mad. Your father is false. Your soul is tainted. Her father lied to her about her mother's death. If one was true, what of the other claims? Her father had rescued her mother's body from the void of space. Enough time without oxygen could have left her mother alive but brain damaged. Dozens of scenarios, explanations, and questions saturated Anjelika's mind. A headache began to pulse in her temples. She spoke again to the hacker before her. “Search the names referenced in the feed, including the poster.”

Glass bent over the interface pad. Three faces appeared in the monitors: Darl Meerstein, Zauto Pulk, and Marget Seam. Each displayed their current status under their spinning silhouette. DECEASED.

“Darl's wife got a sizable settlement and still resides here. The other two have no surviving relatives.”

Goosebumps pinched Anjelika's skin. Could it be bizarre coincidence? Life expectancy was halved outside the bulwark of bureaucracy. Maybe these laborers just got unlucky.

“Search the roster of the Hekate, not including my father.”

Three more portfolios. Three more dead. It felt like a balloon expanding in Anjelika's chest until she reminded herself to breathe and the sensation faded.

Pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose, Glass whispered “I don't like this, Anjelika.”

“One more. The death record for Jeleen Loynis.”

There was some mumbling about moving camp, but Anjelika's friend continued to fiddle with the pad. The monitor wall flickered.

“I'm getting some resistance. The document could be locked.”

“Are death records usually locked?”

Glass's eyebrows met the rims of her glasses. “Not for this long.” She plucked the cord from her lap, inserting the flat end in the right side of the interface pad and the round end on the left.

“What's that?”

Half of her mouth curled in a lopsided grin. “My skeleton key.”

Before Anjelika could inquire further, the screens trembled again. All but the center monitor turned off, creating the sense that the room's shadows were animals, claws stretching toward the two girls. Glass's jaw sunk low. Anjelika followed her gaze to the contents of the screen. “No. That...that can't be right. You have the wrong document. Search again.”

Swallowing so hard Anjelika heard her throat bounce, Glass replied, “There was only one hull breach and one person spaced on this date. According to the postmortem exam, the body your father's ship recovered was male.”

Will Hack For Truth

by Caitlyn Konze -

To anyone else, it would seem Anjelika stood before one of hundreds of utility compartments on Avenir. She tapped her knuckles on the mag door. Twice hard, near the bottom. Twice gentle, at the top.

The door inhaled as it slid open and sighed as it shut.

“Figured you forgot about me,” came a nasal voice at Anjelika's feet. A dirty teen with oversized spectacles sat cross-legged on the floor.

Anjelika knelt. There was little room to do anything else. “Forget the first sub-level friend I ever made? Never.”

A smile raced across the girl's face. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Nice to be appreciated, but you're here for more than tea and cakes.”

“It shows.” It meant to be a question, but came out a statement. The pressure of her father's betrayal sat heavy on Anjelika's chest. How could her face not reflect the storm brewing in her heart? The truth would calm that storm and Glass could help expose the truth. Forcing a heavy smile, Anjelika asked, “How deep can you hack, twiddle-fingers?”

“Wherever you want to go, richy-poo.” Three of the four walls in the closet were composed of drawers. From them, Glass retrieved an interface pad and a cord with one flat end. Monitors of various sizes were rigged to the fourth wall. All of them blinked on as she tickled the touch screen. “Destination?”

“News feed archive.”

“Date range and keywords?”

“Nine Foundings ago. Hull breach accident.”

Fingers flying, Glass filled each monitor with a different article. Her eyebrows frowned. “Strange. Thought there'd be more on a story like this. No system feed either which means Avenir never made an official statement. Most articles bum off this feeder.”

A screen-shot in the bottom left-hand corner slid to the largest monitor in the center of the wall.

Woman Spaced After Breach Accident

Marget Seam

A body was recovered after an overloaded dock terminal exploded, breaching Avenir's hull. “It's a one-in-a-million chance this happened,” explains docking bay engineer Darl Meerstein. “If debris continuously struck the same outer plate, that point may have weakened enough for the concussion of the blast to break through. The air pressure discrepancy would take care of the rest.” The body has been identified as Jeleen Loynis, wife of Acquisitions Administrator Davik Loynis who was aboard an inbound ship at the time. The Hekate aborted docking procedure to retrieve the body. Also lost were three cases of medical cargo, a maintenance kit, and an emergency enviro suit. Dock hand Zauto Pulk lost consciousness due to lack of oxygen but has since recovered. Davik Loynis was unavailable for comment.

The knife of deceit twisted in Anjelika's heart. Her father had been there when it happened? Is that why he said her mother survived? The article did say an enviro suit was also spaced, but would she have had time to put it on before suffocating or freezing to death?

Of one thing Anjelika was certain. Part of the cryptic letter was true. Her father was false.