Chapter 15

Subject: Detective Elizabeth Ward

Ward pulled up to the hospital, the improvised chain link mesh on the patrol car banging against the windshield. They hadn’t needed the makeshift armor in quite a while, and they’d fallen behind on maintaining the fleet of decaying, beaten cars. Parts were hard to come by at the edge of space, go figure. 

“Okay, I’ll be back by in a few hours to interview the subject if he’s talkative. Feel free to ask him questions if you can,” Ward said to the patrol officer as he slid out of the car. He gave her a thumbs up, closed the door, and walked towards the entry. “Well, beats a standing post on a fucking sidewalk,” she muttered to herself, pulling the car back out on the roadway. The automated road barriers were still up, but they lowered automatically when the patrol car approached. 

Ward cruised the streets on the way to the security station. The planetary admin had finally sent out official word on the crisis. Even though it was caused by an alien incursion, of all things, the act of knowing seemed to ameliorate the public. Groups of people milled about the sidewalks and bodegas, but the energy was more reserved. Less ‘pissed-off citizens demanding answers’, and more ‘beaten down colonists weathering another storm’. 

The people of Oasis III had been through so much. Ward was a first wave colonist and had seen the whole thing firsthand. From the challenges of clawing out the bones of New Carthage from the brutal wildlife, to the first waves of illness and death. The months of sickness without any answers or progress weren’t the worst thing, it was being abandoned by ISD once the cause was found.

Most didn’t know, but the Iapetus System Development board of directors was ready to pull out; tear up the contracts and leave the colonists to die on the surface. Months of uncertainty plagued the colony, until it was announced that everyone would be getting medical nanites to keep them alive, and everyone would have to finish their contracts as a result. It was demoralizing beyond belief, especially if you considered what the colony would actually be like once colonists started finishing their contracts and moved on. 

The devolution plan was insane and it was destined to fail.  No one wanted to talk about it. The first wave of expiring contracts were high level administrators; politicians and the connected wealthy. They all took their turns guiding policy, brushing up their resumes, and getting out before the shit really hit the fan. Most of the skilled workers were on twelve or fourteen year contracts. Plumbers, water treatment workers, hydroponic farmers, nurses, doctors. They’d all leave, and all that would be left were the last wave, the laborers. The fifteen plus year contracts. No one to keep the lights on. Forced to stay on a decaying, dying colony for no reason other than corporate spite. Ward doubted ISD even remembered them. Even their paychecks were in the worthless local currency, not even a blip on the corporate ledger. 

Ward sighed and pulled up to another barricade, this one taking it’s time to retract. Reminiscing was always how she got through a crisis. Remembering how things had seemed so impossible once before reminded her of the true resiliency of the citizens of New Carthage. They had nothing, just the spirit of perseverance and grit. 

Ward thought about the off-world federal security team and their scientists. She recalled how their ‘liaison’ had once screamed at her for not cracking down on every petty theft, for not rounding up the animals and throwing them all in jail.  They didn’t even try to understand what that would look like. They didn’t care to learn that the jail only held two hundred people, or that a full twenty-percent of New Carthage’s population was thought to be using zoo. They weren’t here when the colony was abandoned, and the grants dried up, and the small army of chemists, scientists, and botanists found themselves without work or purpose. They came in with federal scientists to do work the locals would have killed for; and they didn’t even recognize it.

Where they saw rampant crime, Ward understood that it was stability. Not ideal, not even good, no. But it was far better than the early days when rival drug factions fought over territory. When addicts were used as expendable foot soldiers to wage terror campaigns against users of another faction’s particular flavor of zoo. Sure, the property crime was a problem, but it was non-violent. People weren’t dying anymore. Well, until the past few days, Ward figured. 

The missing persons cases continued to climb. First, it was kids. All of the kids, Ward was pretty sure. Then it ticked up a bit; folks who wandered out of hamlets and settlements outside of town but still within the barrier. Scavengers who looked for things of value in the forests. And now, apparently, a whole village had been destroyed by xenos. It was too weird, too specific, and too consistent to not be connected, and the new security-marine off-worlder that wanted to play federal police was claiming to have combat footage of an attack by some new kind of xeno.

The car pulled up to a stop in front of the station. The place was covered in cameras. It looked like a dump. She knocked on the door and waited a few moments until a young man with a wide, toothy smile answered.

“Hey, you’re the cop! Sarge said you’d be by. We were just about to watch the action. Come in, come in,” he gestured at her; he was very animated. 

“How’d you guess?” Ward said sarcastically. She was in her full patrol uniform, still running patrol shifts as the department tried to ease back from emergency staffing. 

Ward followed the young man into a common area. A large kitchen in the center, flanked to the left by a living area with couches and chairs surrounded a display screen. To the right was a a dining area with several tables. A group of security folks were gathered in the living room, Maddy and the older guy she’d had with her back in town were in the kitchen, somber expressions. Guarded body language. They were alone, trying to talk away from everyone, it seemed. The kitchen had a half dozen people in literal lab coats. Obviously the science team. They didn’t interact with the security team much, by the looks of it. One creepy looking bastard was hovering by a stairwell, his skeletal face marked by a reptile grin and a wild mustache. A pair of men were standing around with him. 

The screen started showing helmet cam footage, and both Maddy and dad turned away and winced. The footage was a split screen of both of their points of view as they cleared buildings in some dump of a settlement. Ward walked into the kitchen and approached Maddy.

“Appreciate you taking the time to look into this for me,” she stuck her hand out and shook Maddy and the other man’s hands in turn. 

“Of course,” Maddy said. “We actually had some science shit to do in the neighborhood, go figure.”

Ward hid her discomfort. Locals should be doing the science work, they were perfectly capable. A thin, woman in a lab coat walked up and joined them, she looked away from Ward, overcome by her shy nature. Ward ignored her. 

“I’ve got someone keeping an eye on the guy you pulled out of the village. The survivor has apparently been a handful at the hospital and had to be chemically restrained. I guess he went through some shit, huh?” Ward studied the security officer’s reactions. Both of them seemed to be lost for a minute. Ward could hear them alternating “clear” in the videos as they moved to new structures. 

“Not surprised,” the man said, “we had to cuff him to get him on the shuttle. Hope you aren’t expecting a use of force report from us.”

“Technically, I should be paying you a bounty for bringing him in. He violated his employment contract. Course, the payment would be in local currency…” Ward said, interrupted by screaming coming from the display. Maddy winced, but Ward turned and watched. 

What followed was absolute hell. Ward couldn’t look away. The reality of the attack on the village was far worse than Ward thought. Someone paused the video and rewound,  trying to clarify some detail. Ward was able to break focus from the madness and looked around the room. Maddy and the older guy were turned away, whispering to each other. The young scientist girl had her hand over her mouth an was trembling. Everyone was glued to the screen. There was silence. They watched the video three times through. The science team was the first to talk. 

“That creature is highly unusual. Everything about it is odd, even the coloration,” a tall nerdy man said. 

“Did we get a sample?” An older blonde scientist said. She had an air of authority about her. Ward assumed she was some sort of higher up on the team. 

“Maddy, do you still have the knife?” The shy one asked. 

Maddy sighed, nodded, and pointed at a pile of garbage bags on the floor. “My uniform is covered in samples, it’s all in that bag. Knife’s in there too. All of my gear is in there.” 

The science team started babbling excitedly. Ward chose to ignore them and turned back to Maddy. “Well, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Maddy nodded. “Good job killing the fucking thing. Send me a copy of this video? I want to share it with our control teams.” Knowing the control teams, they’d probably fly out there in that gunship of theirs and burn the whole village to the ground in response. 

“Yeah,” Maddy said, humorlessly. Ward caught the creepy smiling man in the corner backing away, gesturing wildly as his escort led him up the stairs. Hang on a minute, she thought, thats their liaison!

“Jesus, is that Chief?” Ward asked. Maddy nodded. “He looks like shit. Is he using zoo?”

“I wouldn’t think so, why? Isn’t acting like one of the animals,” Maddy replied.

“Look, I’ve been around the stuff for forever now. Small doses are sustainable for a while. It makes you act weird and crazy, sure, but you don’t turn into a quivering mess all at once.” Ward dug into her vest pocked and pulled out a small plastic bag. “Here,” she said, handing it to Maddy. “This is a test kit. Works on any bodily fluid. Blood, saliva, you know. Might be worth looking into.” 

Maddy seemed exhausted by the thought, but the older man only nodded. 

“Thanks Ward, “ she said. “I actually don’t really want to know but I guess I have to look into this now.” 

Ward understood that perfectly. Some stones are better left unturned. She said her goodbyes, promised to share updates on the investigation and left. Her smart link buzzed, and she checked it. Twelve notifications on new missing persons cases since she’d been inside. I actually don’t want to know, she thought.