“I’m sorry, you mean the Squire uprising?” Dawn prodded, chewing her lip. She wasn’t about to be made an outsider at her first WCC meeting. “The Chrysum thefts are connected to that?”
“Sixty years ago, we sent a unit into Shanghai to investigate the uprising. We lost them to unknown causes, shortly before the Squires regained control of themselves. These are pictures from a hospital just outside Shanghai’s security perimeter, the last night of the uprising,” said Marcus. A few final pictures popped up around him. They were all of a gruff man with black slash lines down his eyes, in a hospital. They caught the light in such a way that they looked to glow. There was no denying a similarity to the blur called Drogan. “The images are too similar to deny some correlation.”
“And we’re… going to find him?” Howard shuddered.
“You’re going to bring him to us. You’ll look starting with the two most recent sightings. Neptune, then Saturn. If Drogan is related to the Precinct 117 uprising, the past might be the key to whatever’s coming. The SkyLine reaches farther each year. Some people believe… it’s reaching too far into things we don’t understand,” Marcus trailed off.
“Which is why you need us,” said Miller. He put a hand on his own chest, and a hand on Howard’s. Howard sat up as if woken from a dream. “You need the Arcadia.”
“If only a less frustrating man was as perceptive as you, Captain Miller, it would be someone else in your chair,” Marcus grinned. “Yes. We need your ship. Thanks to Wellsworth’s prodigal engineer, the Arcadia is better equipped than anything we have to work the outerworlds.”
“Which… is why I’m going,” Howard, the prodigal engineer, realized.
“You helped build the Arcadia, and… Alice. Can you keep her running - there and back? No matter what you find?” Marcus posed. There was a time such pressure would have put Howard in a shivering fit for hours. But his creations were his responsibility.
“I can.”
“And I’ll… fly the ship?” Dawn surmised. It was the only role between the three she was suited to fill.
“Yes,” said Marcus, “In the event of a catastrophe.” Dawn scrunched her forehead. Miller shook his head with a bitter grin.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You’ve got a captain, a technician… I’m a pilot. Don’t you need me to... fly?” Dawn tried to wrap her head around.
“Yes, in the event Alice fails,” said Marcus. Dawn leaned forward to raise a confused eyebrow at the projection of Marcus Brass, but was stopped by Captain Miller.
“Autonomous Life Including Cognitive Embodiment. Sometimes I forget Alice stands for something. She’s my ship’s AI. The Arcadia can fly itself,” he told her.
“What?” Dawn coughed.
“We still need a pilot, in the event the systems are damaged. You are tracking a dangerous… fugitive,” the word sat sour on Marcus’ tongue. Dawn froze, mouth hung half-open. “Pack for two months. The Arcadia departs tomorrow at eight,” said Marcus, before she could spit out the knots caught in her gut.
“Sorry, kid,” Miller whispered with a gentle pat on her shoulder, “At least you made runner-up.”
Chapter Four: Before Dawn
“Howard,” Marcus rumbled on their way from the office. Dawn and Miller stopped along with him, until the Councilman specified, “Another word or two. In private.” Dawn hung back a second longer with the shared wonder of what could be inappropriate for their whole task force to know. But Marcus was a patient man, and Miller had done this dance before. He gave Dawn a gentle nudge towards the door. The two left Howard alone in the room at the speed of drying paint.
“What can I help you with, Councilman?” asked Howard when the office door sealed him inside.
“You mean besides running IT for an autonomous ship and bringing back the first interplanetary outlaw?” Marcus laughed. When the extent of Howard’s rise expressed itself as a lip twitch, Marcus reverted to business mode. “I need you to collect and review research from a few labs when you get to Neptune.” Howard crossed his arms. It took the grate of every tooth in his mouth to muster this much confrontational energy.
“Research? I’m sorry… I’m afraid I work for Wellsworth,” said Howard.
“You’re too smart to play dumb, Howard. Your father worked for Wellworth. Your grandfather worked for Wellsworth. The company office is on Mars, yet their paychecks- along with yours- come from central Shanghai,” said Marcus. Straight from the horse’s mouth, Howard thought. Wellsworth, the WCC - two names for one monster.
“There are labs out as far as Neptune?” said Howard after a tense gulp.
“There are.”
“I… didn’t think the outerworlds had much of anything on them yet. The SkyLine to Neptune was only finished two years ago,” said Howard.
“Yes, it was. And there isn’t much out there. Not according to documentation,” said Marcus, “You don’t have to dance around what you want to say, Howard. It’s one of the few perks that comes with the weight of that giant brain in your head. It would be very hard to replace you.” He extended a hand of invitation as if he were really there in the room. As it stood, Howard felt more in the chill of a phantom than the presence of any man.
“The only reason you would build a lab out so far is… to avoid WCC sanctions,” Howard theorized.
“Wellsworth is an independent health practice, regardless of where the money to pay for it comes from,” said Marcus, “What they do out so far, I’m afraid, is out of our hands until we establish a Consulate there.”
“Like you did on Mars,” smoldered Howard. The stories handed down from his grandfather, Tim, scorched fresh across his brain. He imagined the stony crimson hallways of underground lab offices and treatment rooms more vividly than ever. The spread of nanomachine-maintained terradomes across Mars had brought with it an explosion of farming and mining colonies. With the growth in jobs and population came the call for the first off-world WCC consulate. Just like that, the scales had tipped in favor of galactic expansion. Suddenly, there was a place for people to go, and they did. Howard’s grandfather did. His father’s decision to return their family to the fading rock called Earth was still a touchy subject with his mother, especially since the passing of the box twenty years ago.