22. Scars that can’t fade

“Hold him down!” — Dan shouted into the suit’s intercom and continued brawling with his colleague’s leg.

“Hold him down!” — Dan shouted into the suit’s intercom and continued brawling with his colleague’s leg.

His colleague was screaming into their comms for a few seconds until the automatics cut it off. Dan sat onto his colleague’s abdomen, opening a medical box with one hand while holding trembling leg in his another. A leg that was clean shaved off under the knee, bone and the layers easily distinguishable for laymen. Owner of the leg in shock, screaming muted into his helmet only. An unlucky millisecond, the force of Perseus Train thrown away in a straight line went through his body like it wasn’t even there.

“Got you, here” — Dan’s calming voice surprised himself too as he managed to attach an automated device blocking the wound.

Over the hundreds of years of space faring, suits became a survivalist’s wet dream, small pockets inside able to close off on vacuum detection beside other fancy “keep the wearer alive” tech integrated. In a minute, Dan was able to stabilize his colleague and sedate him, without an ounce of medical training. This won’t save his life, yet buys enough to get to specialized facility.

They grabbed whatever they could in one hand, put their sedated colleague between and walked back to the muster station, to the nurses and delivered the medkits first. Able bodied men took a few turns to pack all the supplies from the port to their station.

Dan took a medkit and a food ration box into his hands and silently left the station, alone. Just to find himself staring into the well known pair of blue eyes. Unlike to himself, frozen for seconds between relief and confusion, just stared silently into those blue oceans.

“The hell you have been so far?” — rush of emotions do weird things to men.
“Tracking down you in this huge dangerous maze! And I am fine, thanks for asking!” — Ava may seemed to blush under her eyes.
“That is great” — Dan dropped the boxes and hugged Ava for a moment before jumping back one step — “Oh, excuse me, just I am glad seeing you, that was too much.”
“Ahm, what are you doing with those boxes? Did you steal them?” — the momentary redder blush gone unnoticed by Dan who looked to Ava’s point.
“You remember the doctor operating me? Thought to bring some of these to them, we just got these from a cargo ship.” — then Dan filled in Ava of their best news since they met while they worked their way toward bow sections.

While wondering if he really saw and heard Ava or just his own subconscious reached out to him under stress, he kept talking of other topics. They talked, more precisely, he talked way more than before. The time passed by and didn’t even experienced it as Dan talked and talked, walked and climbed, helped her to reach higher places, passed by free swinging cables and broken screens, until they reached a familiar corridor. The same one where Dan passed out by bleeding, which still weakened him after a few days now.

Yet he was still alive. But not honest entirely. Yes, he planned to bring those supplies to them. But he expected something in return. A clue of who tried to kill him and why. Another string of data, a recording, anything that would lead him to those wanting him dead. Not just to survive, he had more to drive him. A wish to best them, to beat them at their game. He traded information for a living, he didn’t get into this job out of a goodness of heart. He wanted to be a shadow broker, one who pulls the strings of politicians and puppets from the dark corners of the world.

But he had a lot of steps on the ladder to get there. So far his contracts were pity hidden camera revenge sex videos, with the occasional affairs and other blackmail material for the rich passengers of this magnificent cruise liner. He maintained a civilian cover, working at the docks, other small jobs in the service sector. Who suspects their waiter to be holding your affairs evidence on cam?

His big step would have been the job with those gang members. First time he bore encrypted data, and not even a rookie encryption he would break under ten minutes thinking strongly about a pass phrase. No, this was military grade encryption, could unlock by multi-phrase in perfectly synced times. Only an ex-intelligence agent was capable of decrypting, or the strongest quantum computers which only a handful was ever built, and guarded on fortress moons scattered along Earth defense perimeter.

He longed for power, which comes with the ability to influence people and events. If he would have the power, they could never hurt him again. They could never took her away.

Yet, Dan messed up big time and he knew it. He was blinded by the opportunity and skipped due diligence. Now he realized the fish tattoo meaning. Swordfish got him off guard, and he almost paid the price. Well, Fred did pay his price already, and who knows how the would turn out if the ship didn’t suffer the catastrophe exactly in that moment.

Dan went down the rabbit hole of “what could be” and talked about none of it at the same time. He never knew another person who could do this real time, thinking along one line, talking along an entirely different. Maybe some politicians, none of them could track their lies for long. Dan was different, he kept consistency toward everyone and every lie he ever told. Maybe his brain was built differently.

“Doc, got some supplies for you!” — radiating some happiness as he crossed the infirmary door with Ava on his heels. Didn’t take long to notice a burnt victim in the corner.

While the doctor checked and distributed the content of the medkit, Dan stepped near the victim. Then almost jumped out of his skin by a loud slurp and chest movement. The victim wasn’t dead, though not far from it.

“We can’t do anything for him.”
“Who he is?” — Dan expecting what the answer is.
“We don’t know, a few engineers brought him in, they said it was an explosion.” — doctor moved away to tend to another patient going into a shock, quickly drawing the attention of the nurses too.
“Do you think it is who I think?” — Ava whispered.
“Aham, keep an eye out. I am going in.”
“Oh not again.” — but was too late, Dan already connected his cable to the engineer, fishing for the brain port under burnt fat and skin.

Took only a second, the pain and feeling of helplessness, and regret, was overwhelming. Dan could not maintain the connection, the engineer’s port wasn’t designed for this, only to process small sensor intakes and issue text commands to specialized equipment. The strongest feelings could bleed through these connections, but the bandwidth is not enough for conscious thoughts to travel through.

As Dan stepped back disoriented for a moment, Mitch took his last deep breath before freezing for ever. Remembering a fraction of a human connection, he chose to pass away with a fresh feeling.

Amidst the whirlwind of regret, Dan scooped out one bright image, a single frame recorded as a black box, the moment of the detonation. A yellow ball of fire, right under Mitch’s nose, originating from the control pads.

“He was killed, a bomb under the engineering desk.” — as Dan whispered his insight to Ava, his eyesight locked in with Brad’s in the doorframe.

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