Kraken Mare (5 page)

“You have my files, so you know I was assigned to the Second Marine Division. I found base housing for us. Concy was prepared to move in with me when news came that some family she still had in Uganda were in some serious shit. Like, in danger of being enslaved or executed because they had found themselves on the wrong side of the Caliphate. When she heard, she completely lost it and flew home. She had to get them out before anything bad happened to them.”

“Oh no…” Gerry's face was filled with sorrow and understanding. “She never came back?”

“She got caught in one of those religious dragnets where they whip women who are caught in public without their husbands or a male family member escorting her. They flipped out when they found out that she had come home from the US to save her family. They swore to make an example out of her. And they did.” I closed my eyes. I hated crying in front of people. Five years after the fact and it still pained me to even think about her death. “I heard about it and almost went AWOL to kill all of the bastards. Had a CSM literally drag me back on base so I wouldn't be counted as AWOL. He beat the shit out of me too, after roll call. I couldn't deal with anything at the time. Shelved all the pain and emotion for later. Broke down once in the barracks and just let it all out. Almost ended everything by eating a bullet. Again, the CSM kicked my ass and got my head back on straight. Asked me what Concy would think of me if she'd found out I had tried to take the coward's way out. Made me stop, made me think. So instead of ending the pain, I focused all of it into being the best Marine I could be. Got picked up for special ops a few years later, then my unit was sent to Soma to quell the civil war there…and here we are.”

“Damn,” Gerry said as I watched sympathy and…something else fill his eyes. “You probably suffer more PTSD from that than you ever could from being on the run from AIRS rebels.”

“That'd be a pretty good guess,” I agreed. “It hurts, but it's not nearly as bad as it was. It's worse when I think about what could have been. If I focus on what we had, it's sad, but manageable. So I lock on to the good times, like high school and stuff. Summer on the lake. Going up to Wisconsin to go snowboarding. Things that remind me of living.”

Gerry stood up from the chair. He stuck his hand out. Uncertain, I accepted it.

“You're going to be fine, John,” Gerry told me in a firm tone. “You'll fit in well here. Duty roster will be sent to you via PDA later tonight. I'll give you a day to get adjusted before you start your shifts. Get some rest and some food. Those are two things that we can offer down here that beat anything you got on Soma, that's for damn sure.”

Pretty sure the strangeness of this place beats Soma any day of the week
, I didn't say as Gerry walked to the door. Instead, I said, “I'm glad I'm here. I think I'll fit in well.”

“So do I,” Gerry said and left the room. I waited a few moments before closing the door behind him. I leaned forward and pressed my head against the cool plasteel surface of the door. After a moment, I turned back and walked over to my bed. I shoved the heavy travel bag onto the floor. I crawled on top of the covers and didn't even bother to kick my shoes off. I was asleep in seconds, dreams of a smiling face looking down upon my own from the night of our wedding.

Chapter Five

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me–

And I'm feelin' good.

–Nina Simone, “Feeling Good”

Gerry gave me some time to acclimatize myself to life in the station. Over the next week, I fell into a routine – I’d wake up, exercise in the gym, shower and shave, then report for my shift. Initially, I thought a twelve-hour shift would be dull and repetitive, but further exploration of the station changed my opinion. I discovered that the fascinating creatures who inhabited the lake and rose up from The Well made the time pass by quickly.

As intrigued as I was with them, it appeared that the creatures were even more interested in me. Multiple times while I was moving through the upper galley, I found that the aliens had banded together and were following my progress and using The Well to dive into the deeper levels of the station when I moved to a lower level. I wasn't entirely certain why they were interested in me, but some of the other guards had taken to calling me the “Kraken Whisperer.”

It wouldn't have mattered so much if not for the inordinate amount of attention I received from the scientists because of all this.

“In all seriousness, John, do you not realize how important this development is?” Dr. Marillac asked me for the umpteenth time a month later as we walked through the Gallery together. Quite a few of the krakens seemed to be lounging about in their specialized pods, basking in the artificial lights. The area had been designed as a lounge for the scientists, but the discovery of the krakens had turned it into dual-purpose section.

I had tried to simply shrug off the scientists at first, but Doctor Marillac was insistent. I'd finally given in and allowed her to pester me and ask me seemingly pointless questions. I had been reticent about answering but eventually I started replying in more than one syllable words.

“They recognize you, John, and actively communicate with one another that you're here,” she said as she folded her arms across her chest. She looked at me with a look that was a strange combination of annoyance and excitement. “This development puts their QE at potential human levels.”

“Don't crows do the same thing?” I asked, trying to deflect her interest. The scientist was undeterred, however.

“Not like this. Crows call out for each other with distinctive cries,” she explained. “The krakens don't communicate that way. We thought their wings changing in color tone was indicative of a language we hadn't deciphered yet, but now we're thinking that it's body language and their real language is more empathic and they can detect this in others. It's the only explanation to how they call their brethren outside The Well to come into the facility and look at you.”

“Empathic…telepathic?” I stared at her and shifted my feet uncomfortably at the idea of aliens in my head. I scratched my chin to hide my unease as I recalled some book I’d read a few years ago. “No. Empathic is being able to feel…emotions, right?”

“Correct.” Dr. Marillac clapped her hands together and smiled broadly. She seemed immensely pleased with my apparent grasp of what she was trying to explain. “We're beginning to gather enough evidence to prove that they are both sentient
and
empathic beings, which we can bring forth to the UN for official recognition in accordance with UN Resolution 9012. Can you imagine it, though? Aliens, real aliens!”

“The UN is going shit themselves,” I muttered as I thought about the various geopolitical power struggles within the UN and the impact such an announcement would make. “I bet most of the countries will veto it, since the US and her allies have funded almost all of the research here.”

“No, I was thinking of the fact that we've scoured the known regions of space for signs of intelligent life, and it's been in our own backyard the entire time,” Dr. Marillac said, her tone slightly deflated.

“Oh. That too, yeah.”

“I never understand you soldier types,” she threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “You march around with your assault rifles—”

“A tranq gun is hardly an assault rifle…”

“—and your battle armor—”

“The impact absorption shirt is nothing more than an extremely thin layer of pillow to prevent me from getting punched hard enough to damage my internal organs…”

“—and when the greatest scientific discovery in the modern era is found, all you can think of is how a global cooperative of nations is going to try and shut us down,” she complained. “Just such a typical attitude of a warmonger.”

“Hey now,” I looked at her, surprised at the outburst. While excitable, I'd never seen the doctor angry before. Nor had she ever shown any sign of being anti-military. Goes to show you that you never really know someone until they get worked up. She blinked and looked away, confusion in her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized. “I have no idea where that came from.”

“It's okay, ma'am,” I said in a neutral tone. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, thinking. I did not need the lead scientist at the best job I'd ever had pissed off at me. I also didn't want to lose this job. Though I was pretty sure that I had not done anything wrong, I needed to make certain things remained on the up and up. That meant I had to make a sacrifice. “If you like, I can spend some of my downtime in the Gallery with the kraken soon.”

“You don't have to,” Doctor Marillac shook her head. Her tone, though, told me all that I needed to know. Interacting with the kraken would make all of the scientists on the station happy and would give them more time to research the alien creatures. More time to test their hypothesis, and potentially create the greatest scientific achievements since the splitting of the atom.

Plus, it would probably keep Doctor Marillac from going off on me again, which was even better.

“It's fine, ma'am,” I told her in what I hoped was a completely convincing tone. “I have plenty of downtime to spare.”

“I do apologize for my attitude,” the scientist looked back at me. Her eyes were alight with excitement, though her face was contrite. “I've been feeling a little under the weather lately. Headaches and such. It's making me irritable.”

“I'm off shift in four hours, ma'am,” I said after a quick glance at the digital clock on the wall. It was set to match UN headquarters on Earth, which was set to UTC–4.
Or
, I thought as I mentally converted the numbers,
two in the afternoon
. “I'll be at the Gallery around 1800 hours, ma'am.”

“I do appreciate this, John,” Doctor Marillac smiled at me. Her eyes clouded briefly as she thought about it. “That's six in the evening, correct?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Perfect!” she clapped her hands once more. “This will be a terrific scientific opportunity! I can hardly wait!”

“Neither can I,” I lied.

Women can be downright terrifying.

ঠ

I changed up my route a bit to make the Gallery my last stop, about thirty minutes before shift’s end. I hoped that whatever mental phone tree they used would have a head start, and maybe I could get away sooner.

I had to admit that while the scientists drove me nuts, the kraken were pretty interesting. Watching them feed was a bit disconcerting to see, but their swimming and playing evoked a subtle memory of my own childhood playing with friends. Of course, that led to other memories that were more bittersweet than anything else.

The Gallery was quiet. It was early still, and I had expected someone to be in the room when I arrived, but it had been surprisingly empty. I sat down on one of the benches in the room and watched as two of the kraken brushed against the station, their alien fingers touching the plasteel as they passed. They pivoted and swam back, their bodies changing colors as they moved. A varying array of pinks and purples covered their underbellies, changing rapidly back and forth. I chuckled as one of the kraken turned a deep blue for a moment. I could almost imagine a couple arguing about something and the man getting put in his place. I laughed at the idea of my dad trying to back his way out of an argument with my mom and failing miserably.

“Good luck with that, buddy,” I told the kraken who had turned blue.

Both kraken suddenly stopped swimming and turned towards me. For the barest of moments, I felt as though the aliens were staring
through
me, peering into the depths of my heart and soul. I shivered and looked away, trying to appear as it the kraken's movements had not bothered me in the slightest.

I was fairly certain I wouldn’t have fooled anybody in the slightest had they been there.

“Stop it,” I whispered as I watched the kraken out of the corner of my eye. “That's creepy as hell.”

My PDA chirped. Saved by the bell. I glanced down at the screen—it was Poole. I think. It could have been Lockhart.

“John,” he said. “Report to Control for prisoner transport.”

“Transport? I haven’t been trained on that yet. Besides, shift ends in less twenty minutes.”

“Won’t take long, and you gotta start sometime,” Poole (or Lockhart) said, before being shoved out of the way by Lockhart (or Poole). “Consider it oh jay tee, rookie.” He was replaced by the first guy.

“Knock that off. You two are making me dizzy.”
On the job training
, I translated internally.
Well, it could be worse. People could be trying to kill me with artillery
.

Twin grins filled the screen. I sighed and made a silent promise to get their names tattooed on their foreheads once the contract at the station was up.

“Roger Control, will be there as soon as I can. Out.” I clicked off and stowed the PDA. I could still feel the two Kraken watching me. I met their gaze and gave them my best All-is-right-because-I’m-A-Marine grin. “Duty calls. You two play nice.” I pointed at the kraken I’d designated as the husband. “And trust me, buddy, just take out the trash. And tell her she’s got a nice butt or something. Chicks dig that.”

I would’ve sworn the alien gave me a thumbs up in reply.

It only took a few minutes to get to Control, most of the time taken by the elevator ride. I stepped out and walked towards the desk. One of the Things stood up as I approached. Behind him was Neil Frandsen, another guard that everyone else called Bigfoot for some reason. I’d only spoken to him in passing since he typically wasn’t in my shift rotation. He seemed like a decent enough guy.

“I’ll go with you to show you the ropes, rook.” On the PDA, I could only see faces. In person, Poole’s name tag was visible. I sighed with relief. No more guessing games today, thank God. “Don’t worry, you’re starting off with Holomisa. We’ll work you up slowly to the more…difficult inmates.”

We started towards the holding area, Poole in the lead. Bigfoot followed behind. I took this to mean he had the heat today.

Protocol stated one guard per shift carried a firearm, concealed, as well as the standard issue tranq gun. The designation rotated with each shift, and the same guard never carried twice in a row. A message on the PDA prior to clocking in would send the designated guard to the armory to pick up the firearm.

“How difficult is difficult?”

“Well,” Poole said, scratching his goatee, “let’s see—most of them aren’t too bad, just the usual bullshit that comes with prisoners. Wheeling, dealing, trying to get something they don’t have. That would be…” He ticked names off on his fingers. “Wohl, Hernandez, Jones, and Aviotti.”

“And the others?”

“Flynn and Dupay are surly, to put it mildly, but fairly compliant for the most part. The occasional outburst, but loss of a privilege or two for a while brings them back in line.” He paused, frowning. “Gentry and Jou make me nervous. With those two, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before something happens.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’ve been doing this a while, back home I did a rotation in Leavenworth. I’ve seen the type before. Always probing, looking for something they can use. Information, patterns, weaknesses of any sort. Be careful around them. Gentry will try and get your goat, make you slip up and reveal something about yourself. He’ll use that to mess with you. My advice is to just keep your mouth shut and follow procedure.”

“And Jou?”

“He’s more physical. Don’t move him without a partner. He’ll resist without making it obvious, you know? Passive resistance, when it’s someone that big, could cause some problems.” Poole checked his PDA and jerked his head down the corridor. “We gotta go, they’re expecting us.” We moved on. “With Jou, he’ll make it difficult to restrain him, but nothing overt. He’s strong, though. Very strong.”

I nodded, making mental notes. My ego scoffed at the idea of anyone getting the better of me, but I knew deep down that Poole was speaking of lessons learned from experience. I would heed his words carefully.

I had a list of all of the prisoners and their backgrounds uploaded onto my PDA, but I hadn’t quite gotten around to reading them yet. I’d been on rotation since I’d arrived and had been putting it off. I made another mental note to go over them later after my shift ended. If I was going to start doing transport work, now would be a great time to know more about the prisoners.

“What about the last one? Bastille, right?”