Anjelika's Heritage: Bad Intentions

by Caitlyn Konze

Mia Meerstein rested her head against the patch-worn seat and sighed. Anjelika could not relax as easily. She had just cashed out her credit stick and bartered passage on the first shuttle off Avenir, paying no attention to its destination or condition. Her knuckles were an angry red from constant rubbing, and she kept glancing at the hatch as if Enforcers waited on the other side. A ridiculous fear since they had left Avenir’s docks twenty minutes ago.

The vibration of the shuttle grew violent for two seconds then faded back to a steady hum. Anjelika glanced down. Her hands gripped her arm rests so tight her irritated knuckles looked pale. She forced her her fingers open. Five crescents on each arm marked where her nails had dug into the seat.

With eyes closed, Mia spoke. “Relax, honey. You did better than I expected from a pampered heiress.”

The way Mia said her last two words made Anjelika’s mind race with uncertainty. Had she mentioned her social status, or was it just that obvious? Anjelika shook the worry from her head, reminding herself why she was here.  “Tell me what happened to your husband.”

Mia sat up and addressed the pilot though her eyes were on Anjelika. “Privacy please.”

A small slit lining the doorway to the cockpit grew white, blinked a few times, then buzzed as a the space blacked out. Anjelika opened her mouth, but Mia held up her index finger. The widow unbuttoned a pouch on her belt and pulled out a flat, diamond-shaped piece of metal twice the size of a thumbnail. She slid the only switch on it. A high-pitched tone screamed in Anjelika’s ears, then diminished.

Mia jerked her head toward the cockpit. “Privacy screens are light-proof and sound-proof, but there’s still the com system.”

Anjelika nodded. Once again, Mia slumped in her chair. She folded her hands over her stomach before she began.

“Almost nine Foundings ago, an investigation was ordered about a dock breach. Darl had the bad habit of being perfectly honest all the time. His report concluded the hull had to have been weakened intentionally.”

Anjelika realized her jaw was wide open. She shut it. “But that would mean. . .”

Mia nodded. “It means the explosion that almost killed your mother was no accident. Darl knew, and that’s why my husband’s dead.”

The Engineer's Widow

by Caitlyn Konze -

The scrap of paper trembled in Anjelika's hand as she compared the scribble to the mag door identification. This was it. She flicked roaming hair off her shoulders. Auburn briefly haloed her face. Glass had insisted on repairing the shorts in her optic filaments before relinquishing the location of Mia Meerstein, wife of the dock engineer who investigated her mother’s accident.

A man with a briefcase clang-clipped past Anjelika, cloudy mustache perched on his lip. Most of his features were hidden below the brim of a cap.

“Can I help you?” Anjelika hadn't hailed the room yet, but a garbled voice came from the door's peep screen. Just a voice, no visual.

A clatter made Anjelika twitch with fear. Data sticks slid across the floor from the open briefcase of Mr. Mustache. Coincidence? Was she being tailed? Or was she slowly sinking into paranoia?

“Hello?” the voice in the door buzzed. “Who’s there?”

Anjelika pointed in the man's direction with her eyes. “It’s me, Mia. Did you forget about the recital?”

In a moment long enough for sweat to form on Anjelika’s brow, the only sound was Mr. Mustache plopping his data sticks into his briefcase one. At. A. Time.

“Is that you, Deedee? Sorry dear, vid screen's on the fritz. Be right out.”

Anjelika pinched her bottom lip between her teeth.

The mag door hissed open., and Anjelika was caught in a current of tangled, fading black hair.

“Your face is too honest to be one of them. What do you want?” the woman asked in barely a whisper. Then louder, “Sorry for the delay. You have the tickets, yes?”

Anjelika mimicked Mrs. Meerstein's whisper. “I need to know what your husband knew.”

Mia's pace slowed. “Somewhere public. Loud. I know a vapor bar in – ”

“No!”

They stopped. Anjelika’s ankle was well taped, the pain reliever amazing, and she walked with barely a limp. Thanks to Daddy’s demand for defense lessons, her attacker was in far worse shape. Still, the thought of being near that place chilled her from the inside out.

“No tickets?” Right. They were still pretending to be old friends on an outing. Bootsteps crescendoed behind them. Mrs. Meerstein drove Anjelika into a jog. “You know, I remember ordering them on my credit last week. Silly me!”

They snaked around to a transport tube just as Mr. Mustache shouted “Door, hold!”

Mia waved. “Sorry dear, full tube. Door, close. X-Unit.” The widow turned to Anjelika, voice absent of warmth. “I’ll tell you everything if you get me off this floating prison.”

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.

Come On Home

by Caitlyn Konze

Come back to us, Daddy. Please.

Leothold was buoyant when he heard it. Her voice wrapped around him like a zero-G harness. Pressure built around his shoulders and thighs. His tried pulling as much air into his lungs as possible, but it wasn't enough. He needed to get to the adjustment clips but his limbs were dead in the water.

“He's waking up. Hot damn, he's actually waking up!”

His need for that voice drove his eyelids open.

“Everything's fuzzy.” His voice sounded like someone chucked a bag of bolts into his ship's thrust reactor.

“You haven't used your eyes for nine Foundings, Dad. Just give yourself a minute.”

“Soepy?” A tall, thin blob slid to his side. After a few blinks he could start to see a long nose, pointed chin, and wide, dark eyes.

“Yeah. I'm here.” Leo's vision cleared enough to notice the differences in his daughter. Her cheeks were no longer rounded with baby fat, but concave. The skin of her face was pulled tight. Her trachea bulged from her neck. He wondered if she had gone nine Foundings without a proper meal. Nine Foundings. Could it be true? It had to or he'd be in a horse, not a bed. Dangerous work, wrangling ore, but it put food on the table.

“What happened?”

Soepy sighed. “Your boys said you were lining up for a drive. Debris caught your horse. Lost pit pressure in seconds.” She shook her head slowly. “Your insides would have been your outsides if your team hadn't scrambled like they did.”

Strands of memories began weaving together. Nalia ripping into him for putting off suit maintenance. Little Sephon crying in the background. Leo arguing that his oxygen tank was still a quarter full, not yet worth filling. It was probably his tank that spared him. Leo thanked God he was still alive.

Soepy flinched like someone moved to hit her.

“You okay, kiddo?”

Soepy looked at her feet and whispered, “It's war, Dad.”

Leo figured it was just disorientation from being unconscious for so long, but his eyes were good now and his voice was smoothing out. Still, his gut wouldn't unknot. There was a piece missing from this puzzle, but he just couldn't find it. Nalia would know. Sharp as a beetle mandible, that one.

“Where's your mother?”

“Dead.” said a voice deeper than Leo's daughter's.

“What? Impossible.” He tried to throw his feet over the bed, but his entire body was bound in gauze. Various tubes snaked around his limbs, holding him in place.

The hissed as it lifted. A thin boy and man in a white lab coat ducked into the room. The boy pumped his arms forward and back with exaggerated effort with a sing-song laugh.

“Tell me what's going on, or so help me—”

“You'll what,” said the man in the white coat. “You'll breathe on us?”

The crazy kid slapped the wall with his large hands. Another round of giggles spewed from his mouth.

“Sephon!”

He heard Soepy bark his name, but Leo's brain rebelled against the knowledge.

“Say hello to Daddy, little brother.”

“They'll be plenty of time for family reunions later.” White Coat pulled a syringe of red liquid, and a thick needle from his pocket. Something inside Leo twisted like a cut hydraulic hose.

“Flip him.”

His children tugged on the sides of his bed and the whole thing spun so Leo had only the floor for company. He heard his son start singing.

“The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.”

Soepy stuck her head under the bed. “Your body will last longer if you’re willing, Leothold. Everyone lives like this now. Get used to it.”

He screamed as the needle pierced his spine.

#

Leo's body twitched. His breath came in sharp gasps. His closed eyes searched for something. Nalia would give anything to know for what. Six-month-old Sephon arched in her arms. She bounced from foot to foot.

“He's been like this since the accident last month.” The man in the white lab coat assured her there was still hope. But hope had started sliding from her heart weeks ago. She was slowly preparing herself to accept her husband might never wake up. Little Soepy held her daddy's hand, petting it like one of her stuffed animals.

“She'll be fine here. If you'll follow me, we can discuss your options.”

Nalia nodded. Before the door lowered, she heard her daughter's small voice.

“Come back to us, Daddy. Please.”

Anjelika's Heritage: Secrets

by Caitlyn Konze -

A stuttering hiss made Anjelika jump and back-pedal into her father. His firm grip on her shoulders melted her fear like light dissolves nightmares. Pistons twice her size inhaled hot air and exhaled steam that left a tint of iron on her tongue. Chunks of metal clanged together somewhere beyond her field of vapor-obscured vision. When her father said they needed to talk, the intestinal workings of Avenir was the last place she thought they'd go.

“What are we doing here?”

“Making sure we aren't overheard.”

Anjelika raised an eyebrow. Mission accomplished, considering the only way to communicate among the mechanical cacophony was to shout directly into each other's ears.

Her father shook the battered letter centimeters from her nose.

“I don't know who wrote this, but it means we are not as safe as I thought.”

The muscles in Anjelika's jaw clamped together and her eyes widened. Avenir Acquisitions Administrator Davik Loynis, her father, whose orders came directly from the Peace Council, was concerned for his safety? No one gained or relinquished permanent residency on this orbital ship without her father's signature. Do the Council not trust the people they appoint? Had her family been under some kind of surveillance this whole time? Who else would have the resources to harm someone with her father's status? The direction of Anjelika's thoughts propelled her to more and more preposterous conclusions until she arrived at one that made her heart protest its own rhythm.

“Mother...”

“Was not the victim of an accidental hull breach.”

Anjelika wrenched her head out of her father's hands and locked gazes with his red, baggage-laden eyes.

“Then what was she a victim of?”

He couldn't have heard her, but her father's shoulders rose and drooped with the heavy understanding of his daughter's inquisition. She allowed him to speak into her ear again.

“There are things you wouldn't understand–”

“Then start explaining them.”

Her father pinched the bridge of his nose before leaning close. “I love you, Jeli, and you have to trust that I continue to love no woman more than I love your mother.”

The use of her childhood nickname stung the backs of her eyeballs with tears. She swallowed. “Continue to love?”

Her father cupped either side of her head so she couldn't pull away. “Yes, honey. Your mother is still alive.”

Anjelika's Heritage: Daddy's Reaction

by Caitlyn Konze -

Pain lanced Anjelika with each layer the cyborg added to her taped ankle. With every wince, her hair blinked canary yellow.

“I told you not to get those implants. They're shorting out.”

Anjelika smashed a leaking tear with the heel of her hand. “Dad, I'm not a child anymore. I can make my own decisions.”

“Yes, decisions that cause sprained ankles and attempts at...at– ”

It was hard enough for Anjelika to think the word rape. She forgave her father for not being able to shove the ugly word from his mouth.

“I'm fine. Nothing happened.”

Her father's fist struck her bedroom wall. “But it could have! That piece of bug scat deserves the broken jaw you gave him, but things could have easily turned out...different. Do you want to tell me what you were doing on the lower levels of Avenir to begin with?”

Several reasons came to mind but Anjelika doubted “because a space urchin has more joy than people up here” would do anything to minimize her father's pulsing neck vein. Instead, she pulled the tightly wadded ball of paper from her pocket.

“What is that?”

She opened her hand, and the letter began to bloom. Her father pinched it with his thumb and forefinger, shaking it open.

As he read, his skin lightened a shade, the skin under his eyes twitched, and his shoulders drooped like the gravity generator kicked into overdrive. A swell of regret chilled her heart. Then those words haunted her again, warming her with indignation. Your mother is mad. Your father is false. Your soul is tainted.

“Does it mean anything to you?” She hadn't meant her voice to sound so stern.

“Where?” The paper trembled in his hands.

“A runner passed it along while I was at a vapor bar.”

She winced at the word “bar,” expecting the conversation to divulge into a lecture, but her father's only response was to teeter from one foot to the other. How painful was the truth if this was how her calm, collected administrator father reacted? Was she ready for the answers she sought?

Anjelika inhaled and choked. She expected regret or a fond recollection, but what she smelled was fear. Heavy, paralyzing fear.

“Daddy?”

He looked at her with eyes that saw through Avenir and into the vast expanse of space. He dismissed the medical aide with a tight jerk of his head.

As the door slid shut, her father whispered, “We need to talk.”

Anjelika's Heritage: The Letter

by Caitlyn Konze –

Your mother is mad.
Your father is false.
Your soul is tainted.

Anjelika had the letter memorized, but one word pulled her eyes over it again like gravity. Is. The first line should read “your mother was mad.” Not is. She died ten Foundings ago this Macbane.

The wall she sat against blinked from prime beetle cuts to land-side job opportunities. It was an ill-conceived, anonymous note. Nothing to take seriously. Yet, something about it birthed a horror in Anjelika. As if the whole of Avenir could implode at any moment.

“Hey, hot stuff.”

Her head turned so fast her vertebrae groaned. The sour potpourri of lust settled in her sternum like a rock in a pillow. The dispenser from the vapor bar around the corner leaning over her, more red in his eyes than white.

Anjelika pushed off the grated floor, but he grabbed a lock of hair before she could rise higher than her knees.

“I love a girl with implants.”

He licked his upper lip while rolling her hair between his fingers. It phased from cyan to violet to crimson.

Anjelika's fist tightened around the letter. She would talk to her father about it. But first, she had to run.

Anjelika's Heritage: The Scent of Intrigue

by Caitlyn Konze -

Anjelika flicked her hair off her shoulder with the back of her fingers. The motion initiated a rainbow eruption in each individual strand like the waves of Eclectia on a summer-side cycle. The dispenser's head turned her way before her straight, heavy locks settled back to somewhere-between-blonde-and-mud. Ignoring the line of current customers, he put on a crooked smile and sauntered her way.

“What's a high class act like you want in the butt-crack of Avenir?”

Anjelika's breath caught before she dismissed the dispenser's banter as a bad line. If he knew, her father would know, and enforcers would be hauling her back to top level. “I want a can of pine.”

“One essence of extinct planet, on the way.”

He flipped a tall, thin canister into the air, caught it behind his back, and presented the scented air in a mock bow. Anjelika couldn't completely hide her smile. This was exactly why she preferred bottom-feeder bars to the cred-stick machines on admin levels. She took the canister and tipped a few extra credits.

With a sniff, she turned away. A rotting sweetness overwhelmed her senses. She glanced back at the counter and caught the dispenser's eyes boring through her clothes. The scent made this morning's beetle steak crawl up her esophagus. Anjelika locked her jaw while she found an empty hoverbench. She had to get the smell of lust out of her nose.

The pressure just hissed from her can of scented air when a young man paused at her table. Either a miner or orphan by the look of his thread-worn and dirt-encrusted clothes. Sweat-laced apprehension and leafy dirt tickled her nostrils. She swatted the air. “Sorry, I don't do handouts.”

The guy looked down at a piece of paper, then back to her. “Anjelika Loynis?”

Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”

He slid an envelope onto the table. “Delivery.”

Anjelika fingered the letter. How could someone know she'd be at this exact vapor bar? She opened the letter carefully and read it. No. Her eyes started at the top again. Was this some kind of sick joke? She reread it another three times.

“I demand to know who sent –” But the runner had already left.