The Silver Lining or "People Don't Kill People, Lasers Kill People" By Mark Rzeszutek June 2004 "Look at this," said the security officer gruffly, puffing on a cigar and tapping the video monitor. The name badge pinned to his otherwise rather bland black uniform read only "Lage." Seated rather uncomfortably in the chair facing the monitor, Paul Wilson obeyed. "Take the lights down," Lage said over Paul's shoulder, and the other officer in the small video room obeyed. The lights dimmed and the monitor Paul was facing, one of a row of ten, flared into life. Paul was looking through a surveillance camera mounted in the ceiling at the back of an elevator – an elevator he and the other trainees in his group used daily. There were two people in the elevator. One of them, he saw instantly, was himself. "This, as you can see, is the recording of the incident from inside the elevator," Lage explained. "This is what we've been looking at all morning, trying to figure out exactly what the hell happened here. The LSA training program here at Skywheel Station has never had an incident like this. A trainee was killed. When we notify the family on Earth, they're going to be very upset with us. They're going to demand an explanation. That's what we need, mister Wilson. That's what we need from you." Paul glanced from the monitor to Lage's stern face and back again. "I was reacting instinctively to defend my friend and fellow trainee," he said in monotone, as if reciting a rehearsed speech. "When I saw that he was in danger, I acted to prevent disaster. I did what I had to do." He waited for the real question. He was not disappointed: "Mister Wilson. Trainees are not issued NB-14s or any lethal firearm until they graduate from the program and enter Local Sector Authority service. Yet you had one, yesterday evening. You had one. Where did you get it? Who gave it to you?" Paul was silent, mind racing for a story – any story. "You're in danger, you know, of being expelled permanently from the program," Lage told him. "If we don’t get this thing smoothed over and the higher-ups happy, someone's going to have to fall hard. It won't be us. It'll be you." This was a real threat. To serve in the Local Sector Authority, the keepers of peace and security in the localized zone of space surrounding Earth and it's closest neighbor Prox, the two human planets, had been Paul's aspiration for all his conscious memory. He'd always presumed that he was headed for a career flying a fighter "cat" ship, so nicknamed for their nimble maneuverability and small size. Maybe even command his own squadron one day. And up until yesterday, he reflected, things were moving along so smoothly. Three months of intensive LSA training. Countless hours logged in the sim room. I know more about the LSA's inner structure now than anyone back on Earth. "Look," Lage said in a friendlier tone that Paul knew was faked. "I know you're young – what, 24?" "I was about to turn 23 when I left Earth," Paul replied. "You're young. Your blood is hot. You're ambitious. You're competitive. I know how it is," Lage continued. "I was there myself. The drive, the determination to be the best, to outfly and outperform your fellow trainees – that's the kind of spirit we look for at the Local Sector Authority. That's the kind of spirit Stellar Command looks for in the ranks of LSA. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, people get a little bit carried away. Someone's better than them in the sim, they get jealous. They start thinking about ways they can remove the obstacle. Injury. Sabotage. You never know what people might do in the heat of the moment, to get what they want." "It was never my intention to kill anyone," Paul said, staring at the screen. Inside the elevator, the display above the closed doors read 2nd Level. The doors began to open, and Paul knew what was about to happen. The sequence of events from last night was forever emblazoned on his mind. The doors opening. A laser beam – seen as a fuzzy white beam of light in the video image – appearing suddenly, fired from an unseen source in the hallway beyond the lift doors. Piercing the young man on Paul's left, Daniel Taine, through the chest. Paul himself, dropping, drawing the small NB-14, so named for it's 14 inch length, the sidearm that he wasn't supposed to have. Firing into the hallway. Twice, three times, four times. It doesn't get much more incriminating than that, Paul thought, feeling his lifelong dream slip away down a dark well. I guess I'm right good and fucked. "The men you fired at," Lage said from above him, "Jayson Lynd. Focus on just him for now. You two didn't get along, did you?" "No sir," Paul replied. "We didn't." He was the loose cannon, thought Paul. It took everything I had not to throttle him weeks ago. * * * "You're in my seat," said the dark-haired young man, standing in the aisle next to Paul. He looked about three or four years older than Paul, which made him curious: most LSA hopefuls took their exams between age 21 and 23, but this man was closer to 30. "Get up," the man snapped, irritated, waving a piece of paper – presumably his ticket to the seat Paul currently occupied. "Excuse me," came a female voice. Fiora Wesgail, their guide aboard the transport to Skywheel Station, home of LSA headquarters in orbit around earth, "Let's avoid unnecessary hang-ups, please. Since Mr. Wilson here has already been seated, we'll just find you somewhere else." She gently urged the older man further down the aisle. He left with an annoyed glare at Paul, who shrugged his shoulders and wondered why a seating mix-up was anything to get upset over. A month and a half of training and dog-fight simulator exercises already behind him, Paul found himself neck and neck with the older man from the transport shuttle, a man he now knew to be a hot-headed, overly ambitious man named Jayson Lynd. He carried himself with a noticeable air of superiority and was focused with nothing but beating everyone in his way to the top of the program rankings. Lynd was the only person in the current training group with an undefeated record. Passing him in the hallway, Lynd stopped Paul for a moment. "How about a one-on-one?" he proposed to Paul. It seemed like an almost friendly offer. "Open space, just you and me. Tomorrow after dinner?" Paul agreed. "You can't bring a mine into the game like that!" screamed a very angry Lynd at Paul, in front of everyone in the sim room. "What the hell did you do, asshole, hack into the game program and give yourself a mine? What the hell did you do?" Paul backed away. Lynd's face was red with anger. It was understandable, Paul thought, seeing as Paul had just broken Lynd's undefeated record. But he thought maybe Lynd was over-reacting a bit. Truth was, he didn't really know where the mine had come from. It had been an open-space match, meaning no obstacles of any kind: no mines, no asteroids, no other ships, no planets. But, flying near the edge of the playing zone, Paul's fighter had suddenly detected a small object, and Paul had picked it up out of curiosity. It was the mine, dropped behind his fighter cat with Lynd in pursuit (already howling in triumph), that had turned the tables and burst Lynd's perfect bubble into so much vapor and debris. "It must have been a random glitch in the game – " Paul began feebly. "Bullshit!" roared Lynd. Paul knew then that if the sim room hadn't been so crowded with other trainees watching the match, Lynd would have struck at him. "Such convenient bullshit!" the older trainee continued, eyes throwing daggers. "I don't think they let lying cheats into the Authority!" And so he went on. * * * "You have to understand," Paul said to Lage, "the guy was gunning for me. He was overreactive, high-strung, and the exams on earth showed that he had a violent streak. Isn't it true that he was only admitted to this program because of the dip in applications?" Lage took the cigar out of his mouth. "Don't waste time on irrelevancies. Now, we've had rivalries develop between trainees before. We've had a few fist fights. But we've never had smuggled weapons into the training quadrant. You've got some explaining to do if you don't want to get dumped back on earth permanently. Get to it." The video on the monitor had looped. The doors were opening again. The laser coming through again. Paul pulling out his gun, taking quick aim into the hallway. Light from the ceiling reflected a spot near the front of the sidearm's barrel. Four shots, into the hallway. One of them had dropped Jayson Lynd, ending his life on the spot. Paul swallowed, counted to five, and tried to keep his voice steady. "I've heard that what people complain about in other people is what they most hate about themselves. The young guy, there, Taine – he'd been convinced that Lynd himself was cheating, somehow breaking into the sim programs and committing small acts of sabotage against other players, in the early mornings before games. Causing their guns to misfire, or de-calibrating their steering controls. Little things, often unnoticed. The other pilots would blame their failures on their own inferior skills. There was no proof, of course, because the cameras in the sim room don't go into the actual units…" * * * Daniel Taine, a bright-eyed, quiet but hopeful young man from Nebraska, beside Paul, walking down a Skywheel corridor after lunch. They'd become friends within a week after entering the program. "I've been wondering," Taine remarked in a quiet voice, "how closely the trainers watch the games. If the sims ever malfunctioned – not a complete train wreck, but in small ways, would they notice?" "I don't know," Paul speculated after a moment's thought. "If they've been doing their job for years, they've probably gotten used to the monotony of things. Especially if there've been no known problems previously. Why? Think your sim has been damaged or something? That could really hurt your record if you don't get it checked out now." "Not me," Taine said. "It's that hot shot, Jayson Lynd. He doesn't do so well in studies – he makes a lot of mistakes. Can't identify complicated maneuvers in the historic dog-fight videos. Can't identify the battle from the footage. That kind of stuff. But the fact that he's so good in the sim room – it strikes me as odd. Don’t you think a guy that serious about flying a cat would also be serious about keeping up his learning? Especially if he wants to make squadron leader…" Two weeks before Lynd's challenge to Paul, Taine dropped into Paul's bunk room during their free time in the afternoon. Paul was the only one in, laying on his bunk and reading a book about the evolution of fighter cat design over the past hundred years. "I've been in the library since lunch," Taine announced without preamble. "Watching videos. Specifically, watching videos of Jayson Lynd's matches against other trainees. And I've been noticing things. Small things, but things." "Like what?" Paul sat up. "Sometimes," Taine said, "his opponents' cats behave oddly. Like they're sluggish, or handicapped. I saw his match with Tethelyn Sheer – her fighter was pulling left the whole time. I've seen her other matches – she usually flies straight and true. With all the close maneuvering going on, it's liable she didn't notice it. But whenever she had to cut to the right swiftly, her cat never wanted to go. Lynd took advantage of that." "Maybe she was just having a bad day?" Paul ventured. "That's what she said after the match," Taine replied. "I was there when it happened. And listen to this. Leese Artensen told me that it didn't seem like his cat's lasers were doing the normal amount of damage when he scored hits on Lynd a week and a half ago. He said it must have been because Lynd was flying a newer model with better shielding, a D-16 against a D-17." This got Paul's attention. He picked up his book. "There were no changes in the armor or shielding of the fighter cats between those two models," he reported. "Exactly," Taine said. "If Leese had done his homework, we might have caught on to this much earlier. Lynd must have lowered the hit value inside Leese' sim unit. Since Leese always used number eleven, it was a sure thing." So it went on: Taine had spotted small, suspicious things in the matches Lynd had flown against the other trainees, handicaps to the opponents' cats or small advantages in his own maneuverability or laser power. He decided to go, in secret, and reveal his findings to the training authorities. Two days ago, it was announced that Lynd had been caught cheating in the simulators and was to be permanently expelled from the program. When security came to Lynd's bunk to take him to the shuttle back to earth, he was not in his room. * * * "I know these things," Lage said, setting his hand down on top of the row of video monitors. "Did you know before hand that he was determined to take you and Daniel Taine down with him?" "I figured the guy would be in a rage," Paul replied. "I figured he would be out for my blood. It's no secret that if he was able to break into the simulator programs to make those changes, he'd be able to find out who it was that had told him. And he knew that Taine was my best friend here in the school. So he made a hazy connection – we had plotted against him to get him thrown out of the training program. Right after he had been served with his expulsion notice, he caught up with me in a corridor and let me have it. Shouted something like, 'hey, you-'" * * * "-fucking son of a bitch! What the fuck gives you the right to do this to me?!" Lynd was stomping down the corridor away from the mess hall, toward the lift leading up to the training group's bunk rooms. Paul, walking with Gladys Bethany Wren, a younger girl with hopes of serving aboard a Stellar Command cruiser, turned around when he recognized the voice. "I've had it with your shit!" Lynd pointed a shaking finger at Paul, slowing up a few feet away. "You and your- " and then he was swinging, a solid right fist coming up fast. Paul reacted fast, nerves on end, ducking under the swing. Other trainees in the corridor were staring their way, and a few took some steps in his direction. "I oughtta kill you right here!" Paul backed away, arms spread. Lynd tried to charge him, and three Skywheel security agents grabbed him and dragged him down. Paul decided it was best to get out. He turned, and ignoring Gladys' concerned look, walked into the lift and took it up. * * * "Where did you get the gun, Paul?" It was Lage, sticking his face right into Paul's, blocking out his view of the video monitor. Paul sighed. He'd held out long enough. "I got it from Taine. It was Taine – in his travels through the computer system while accessing the videos, he'd found a couple of loopholes. A few of the night maintenance workers got careless. One of them accidentally left their access code online in a door lock on our quadrant's third level. He'd been sneaking out on a regular basis for at least three weeks, but I don't know that he ever went very far. I…I just don't know where he got the gun. He mumbled something about an open locker not far from the quadrant, but it was rather vague and suspicious to me. All I know is that he offered it to me for my protection. Because he knew that Lynd was out for my blood." "It doesn't make very much sense," Lage said. "Taine had gotten the gun somehow – we'll never know, now that he's dead – but why would he give it to you? Wouldn't he, you know, have been worried for himself?" "Lynd didn't make very much sense either," Paul remarked. "He might have understood that it was Taine who had ratted him out, but what he knew was that I was with Taine and that I had tarnished his otherwise shiny record. He was angrier at me than anyone else. He probably made up his mind that I had put up Taine to the investigation. Taine's like that – he considers other people. I love the kid. And I don't like being blamed for his death." "Nobody's blaming you," Lage said, but Paul doubted his sincerity. "You didn't shoot Paul. The video clearly shows that. If only we could find out where Lynd got ahold of his own gun…" "Am I free to go, then?" Paul asked mildly. "You can go, and you're no longer on lockdown," Lage said, referring to Paul's 12-hour confinement in his bunk room after the incident. "Just don't cause any trouble." Paul nodded as he rose. "I won't." He took the lift down to level 1, mess hall and classrooms. He met Gladys Bethany Wren outside the cafeteria. They stood and talked in low voices, pausing whenever anyone came through the doors. They received no small number of curious looks, but no one spoke to them. "I understand you're upset," Gladys began. "I am extremely upset," Paul interrupted, glaring at her. "You told me the gun you had was harmless. 'Just a harmless beam of light,' you said to me. You said there was no chance of Taine being harmed. I can't believe this happened…" "I don't believe it either," Gladys said, trying to reassure him. "Daniel must have made a mistake. I thought my gun was just a placebo. He checked it himself – he assured me he did." Paul's hands were clenching and unclenching into tight fists. "I was just in there for almost an hour, being drilled by the head of security. Watching the camera tape. Have they questioned you?" "Yes," Gladys said. "Right after being taken out of lock down. But not very much – they must have had sympathy for my trauma." "Your trauma," Paul bit out. "My best friend here at Skywheel is dead-" "-It's not my fault, Paul, please." Paul: breathing deeply, trying to calm himself. There was nothing to be done now. They just had to accept what had happened. "I can't believe he's dead…" * * * In the bunk corridor, almost midnight. Taine was showing Paul a small NB-14 he'd snatched away from an off-duty guard while sneaking around outside the training quadrant. "These things can shoot to kill," he spoke in Paul's ear, conspiratorially. "They can also shoot a harmless beam of light – looks and behaves the same as a real laser, but wouldn't hurt anything. Used for target practice and drills. It's not a matter of flipping a switch – you have to take it apart and put in the right type of cartridge. But I got one." He held up a small, black box for Paul to see. Paul was silent, looking at it. "I can't believe you'd dare to steal this – you're in training!" "I want to help you!" Taine said in a harsh whisper. "Nobody likes that asshole Lynd. We know he's cheating…" * * * "Paul," said Gladys, quietly, inside the lift. "Do you… blame me?" Paul shook his head. "I'm not even thinking about that right now. How - ? How could it go wrong like this?" "We overstepped our place," Gladys said, more to herself than to him. "We were doing so good in the training courses. Confident of our futures with the LSA. Except Lynd … was getting in our way. In everyone's way. We thought we could put him down ourselves. I guess we overestimated our own powers…" Inside the video room, Peter Lage and the other officer, Greg Franklin, were watching the video again. The doors opening. Daniel Taine, pierced by a deadly laser beam. Paul, firing into the unseen corridor, hitting, they knew, Jason Lynd in the chest. Lage stared at it, crushing out his cigar. "Franklin," he said after a moment. "This corridor – it's about, what, a hundred feet long, right? And it intersects another corridor at a right angle where it terminates – that's the way to the mess - and there's a staircase leading upward to the sim room." "Right." Franklin nodded. Lage watched the video again, and something began nagging at the back of his mind. Daniel Taine, hit dead on by a laser. Paul Wilson, firing back into the corridor… It was time for dinner. Paul was standing in front of the lift, waiting for it to come up. He heard distant voices, and turned. The security door leading out of the training quadrant was open at the end of the bunk corridor was open. Two guards were there, speaking to a slightly older woman he did not recognize. But he saw that she was wearing the standard brown Local Sector Authority uniform. An employee, he realized. One of the training security turned and looked at him. The woman spoke a few words that he couldn't hear, then also looked at him. Paul felt an uneasy shiver try to run up his spine, as the lift doors slid open. He watched the trio at the end of the hallway start walking toward the lift as the doors slid closed. He kept watching the mess doors as he ate with Gladys, but the woman and the two guards did not appear. "Something's odd," said Franklin in the video room. "Those two – Taine and Wilson – they were in the lift for almost fifteen minutes before the incident happened. Just standing in it. They must have ridden it up and down almost a dozen times, but they never got out." Lage frowned. Why would they do that? * * * It was after midnight. Paul and Taine were sitting in Paul's bunk room, while his roommates were out flying in an informal tournament. "I've heard people talking, Paul," Taine said gravely. "Lynd's been served with his expulsion notice, and he's made up his mind that you're behind it. You know how it is with some people – their temper blinds them." Paul nodded. "I know. But at least he'll be gone." Taine shook his head. "No, Paul. He was supposed to go tonight. Security went to his room to get him – and he wasn't there." "Can't they find him on camera?" Paul asked. "Paul," Taine said. "How much have you paid attention to your environment since you've been here? This place is too knew – the training quadrant, Skywheel Station itself. They haven't got cameras everywhere yet; only in the restricted areas and the lifts. That's why they're relying on human security. So they can't find him just on the cameras. But I know what he's doing, Paul. He's looking for you. I think he wants a battle, Paul." Paul sighed. "That's exactly what I don't want." "Look," Taine said. "It's obvious he'll find a way to kill you if he can. I've been thinking a lot about this, and I say we fight fire with fire." "What are you talking about? That I fight him?" "Not exactly…" * * * Lage and Franklin watched the video yet again. This time, however, Franklin's eyes widened. "Stop the video!" he exclaimed. "Freeze it right there!" Lage, reacting swiftly, punched the pause button. The image of Paul, gun out, froze on the screen. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Franklin asked Lage. Lage stared at the screen. "Look at the angle that the first beam came in to the lift. It was straight on, chest level, Lage. Straight on." "Okay," Lage said, wondering what had his partner so excited. "So Lynd had a good aim." "Where is the light in the lift?" Franklin asked, his voice full of excitement. Lage made a face at the odd question. "What the hell? It's just directly in the ceiling…about right over Paul's head, there. What the hell does that have to do with anything?" "Look!" Franklin was pointing at the screen, at Paul's NB-14. "Look at the spot of reflected light on his gun barrel. It's near the tip. You can see." Lage looked at it, and then suddenly, it clicked. "He wasn't aiming at the source of the shot that killed Daniel Taine, Lage," Franklin said in a hurry, "He was aiming upward. He was aiming at something else!" At that moment, the door to the video room buzzed open. Both officers turned around. The two security officers nodded at Lage. The woman stepped forward. "Hello, Peter," she said in greeting. "Hello, Sway," he said back. "Have you figured out what's happened?" she asked. "I'm about to," Lage said, standing up. "I want to go to that corridor intersection. I want to look at that staircase leading to the sim room. We need to check it for blood, DNA, anything. And we need to do it NOW." Paul was alone in his bunk room, studying for his next History of Open-Space War Strategy exam at eleven pm that night when the door buzzed open. He looked up, into the face of a livid Peter Lage. He was alone. Lage pointed an accusing finger at Paul. "You murdering bastard. I figured you out. I never expected it out of you, but I know what you did." Paul felt his nerves flare for an instant, but composed himself. "You don't have proof of anything. Why don't you explain to me exactly what you think I did. I already told you, I was defending the life of my friend." "I think you made a mistake," Lage said. "There was an accident in there somewhere. You orchestrated the shot at Taine – but it was supposed to be a false shot, not a real laser. That was your mistake. You planned to kill Jayson Lynd. You set it up to look like self-defense." Paul put down his book. "You don't have anything," he said, but his breath was a little shaky. "I know enough," Lage said. "You had someone, a friend of yours, fire that shot into the lift when the doors open. I watched the video – you and Taine were in that elevator for a long time, waiting for something. Waiting for Jayson Lynd to come out of his hiding spot – the sim room. You knew he was hiding inside one of the units, somehow. I don't know how, but you knew, and you were waiting for him. You knew what he wanted – your head, and you were going to dangle it right in front of him. Just the excuse you'd need to get him out of your way, permanently." Paul shook his head. "And just how – how did I 'set it up', as you say? If you're going to take my case before a jury board to get me expelled from training, you have to have a solid case against me. What can you prove?" "You weren't aiming right," Lage said. "The light in the top of the lift gave your aim away. You weren't aiming at the shooter who killed Taine at all. You were aiming to the right, and slightly upward. You were aiming at the staircase, just as Jayson Lynd was coming down. You shot him before he even realized you could see him. And you tried to make it look like he'd shot Taine first." After this, there was silence for several tense moments. Then, Paul said quietly, "You know he deserved it." Lage glared at Paul. "I know he was a motherfucker, that kid. I know sooner or later someone was going to do something about it. But not like this. Not kill him, even if he was rotten. I have a job to do. I don't have enough to prove your intent to murder yet, but when I'm through with my investigation, you will be permanently removed from this training program, and your chances with LSA will be destroyed forever." With that, he turned and stalked out of Paul's room. Twenty minutes later, his door buzzed open again. It was the LSA woman he had seen looking at him in the corridor earlier. She also was alone. "Hello," she said warmly, looking at him. "May I come in?" Paul shrugged. His confidence had been sinking for the last twenty minutes. "Sure." "My name is Sway Crixton," she said, closing his door behind him. "You've never met me before. I do … sort of out-source contract work for LSA. I'm considered an employee – as you can see by my uniform – but I work with a specialized group of 'dirty work' agents. It's our job to do, well, jobs that the LSA doesn't want highly publicized." "Okay," Paul said. "I presume you know what's been going on with… with me." "I know," Sway said, fixing him with a meaningful stare. "More than you think. I've been keeping track of you and your friends ever since Daniel Taine started sneaking out of the training quadrant. He must have been quite naïve if he thought he was getting away clean. Especially after stealing that gun." Paul gulped, feeling truly trapped for the first time. "I know a lot more than that security officer, Lage," she went on. "Believe me, I know all about how you and Daniel, and the girl, Gladys, planned your murder of Jayson Lynd." Paul started. "That's right, Paul," Sway said. "You've been caught." "I don't believe you," Paul said with less defiance than he'd hoped. She pursed her lips, then spoke rapidly. "Daniel Taine caught Jayson Lynd cheating and moved to have him expelled from training – a move none of the other trainees disputed. Because of your defeat of Jayson Lynd in the sim match earlier, and your friendship with Daniel Taine, Lynd fixated on you as the source of his troubles. Taine, having swiped a couple of guns, without realizing I knew what he was doing, offered you the guns to kill Jayson with-" * * * Taine: "You want to put an end to this bullshit, Paul? For good?" * * * "-and together you formulated a plan. One or the other of you spotted Lynd hiding in a sim unit, but said nothing. Because this was your golden opportunity. You waited in the lift, for a quiet moment. You were signaled by a third friend – who this was, we don't know – when Lynd tried to sneak out of the sim room. He was looking for you, to finish the score before the opportunity was lost, and you gave it to him as he walked down the stairs. As the elevator doors opened. Your friend, positioned at the end of the hallway, was to fire a few shots at the lift, shots that should have been harmless, and then you would fire back – killing Jayson Lynd in what would appear to be self-defense. A quick planting of the gun on the body, and nobody would figure it out. Am I right, Paul?" Sway stopped and looked at him. Beads of sweat were sliding down Paul's face. He watched his dreams of an LSA career vanish into a black well. He was silent, staring at the floor. There was nothing to say. "If you won't admit to it," Sway told him, "there will be a long, hard investigation. Lage's team has already found traces of blood on the staircase where you dropped Lynd. A few weeks at the most, then you'll be gone forever." She paused. "Except." Paul looked up. "Your thinking in this incident – your initiative, your planning, your sudden, ruthless action… this is the sort of thing I need in my group. We recently…lost an agent, and have been keeping an eye on the training records to see if anyone might display the qualities we need. That's how we found Daniel Taine, who looked promising until he was killed in your mix-up. But there's you, Paul. It's a big risk, one I'm not entirely sure I should be taking, but… I'd like to offer you a chance at something similar to your goal." "What?" Paul said. His spirits had hit bottom, and he was not ready to believe this. "Your chances of a normal, honorable LSA career are shot," Sway informed him. "Even if you're cleared, your reputation has taken too much damage. LSA will reject you now, no matter what. I'm here to offer you a way out. We can sweep this whole incident under the rug, and life will go on as before for the rest of the trainees. Only, you will come with me and join my group for new, specialized training. It's not the same as the standard LSA career path, and admittedly it's dirty and much of our work is done in secret. But it's the only choice you have at this point – come with me, or go home in shame." Paul sat on his bunk, his heart pounding. His best friend in the program, dead. His fault. His chances at a respectable LSA career, vanished without a trace. There was no way he could face his family after this. There was no way he would live with this failure. We overstepped our place. We overestimated our powers… He looked at Sway, this woman who came out of nowhere. His only chance at something. In less than one short, explosive day, his world had come down to this. This choice, this single offer. "If I say yes," Paul asked quietly, "all traces of this incident disappear?" "No one will ever know," Sway told him. "You leave here quietly. All your family will know is that your work is classified." Paul looked down at the floor, then up again. "Do they…know about me?" Gladys asked him. It was early morning, and Paul had stopped in at her room on his way to breakfast. He shook his head. "No. Nobody mentioned you. Nobody knows it was you who…who…" He choked on the words. It was you who shot Daniel. You were the one, firing those shots down the corridor. You were the one who killed him… Her eyes were wide and worried. "So what will happen to you? Have you been…expelled?" "No, Gladys," Paul answered, "not exactly that. But I have to leave – this morning. Right now. And I won't be back." "Why?" she asked. "Where are you going?" "I can't tell you," Paul answered. "But let me say this. You should try and put this thing behind you, as best you can. It'll only drag you down, otherwise. I … I know you'll never forget it, as long as you live. But I do know you didn't mean to kill him, Gladys. I understand - it was a mistake. Nobody else knows, and they don’t have to know. Not now, not ever." She took a deep breath. "There's no reason for you to get all torn up inside over this. Where I'm going – it's, it's not bad," Paul continued. "I have no chance with the LSA now, but I got an offer for something else. I don't know exactly what it is, but it was made clear to me that it was either this way, or a life in shame. I can't do that, Gladys…this is something I've wanted all my life. I threw my career away, and I'm taking the best thing I can get right now." Gladys nodded. Her face betrayed an inner struggle. After a few tense seconds, she said, "I wish I knew, Paul. I wish you could tell me…" They stopped just outside Gladys' bunk room door. It was here that they would turn, and go in opposite directions. Gladys, to her future with the LSA and life on a Stellar Command cruiser. Paul, into the unknown. Into a hidden world that he had somehow, strangely, found his way. Sway was standing at the door leading into the rest of Skywheel Station, a place he'd never seen before. "It's over," Paul said quietly to Gladys. "I have to leave now. It's over, this whole incident…it's over." Saying it aloud, he tried, with all his will, to believe it. "By the time we see each other again," he said, forcing a smile, "You'll be serving proudly aboard a Stellar Command liner. You'll be one of the fleet's prized officers. All you have to do is put this behind you, and move forward with your life. They don't know about you. Don't worry about me." "But-" she began. "Go," he said firmly. "Go have breakfast. You have hard weeks and months ahead to finish your training." She nodded, staring at him. Then, she turned and started walking slowly toward the lift. Her pace picked up as she continued, and she didn't look back. He stood there for a minute, aware of Sway Crixton waiting at the other end of the corridor, the lit EXIT sign beckoning to him in more ways than one. He watched Gladys walk away from him, into places he would never be able to see. Into a life he understood he would never know. Then, as the lift doors closed behind her and she still hadn't looked back at him, he turned and walked the other way down the corridor, toward Sway, toward the larger Skywheel Station, and into a future full of secrets. Copyright Mark Rzeszutek. No modification, alteration, or any use for any reason beyond reading is permitted.