She kept walking, past the larger saplings, and the tiny ones, to the section filled with pots of dirt. With the shelves bare, the view out of the greenhouse was unobstructed storm. Clouds in every shade of gray, black, and purple swallowed the interior like she stood in the belly of a beast. A streak of lightning tore from the sky. It hit near Research Station 214, or maybe right on it, illuminating the tether like a monument. Another bolt followed, then another, in what looked like an orchestrated attack on the scientific community.
Unbelievable. In all her time on Earth, she’d never seen the equivalent. Her heart raced, and her insides clenched.Beautiful and dangerous.She turned slightly, noting the glow of the enviro-net in the distance. It might be operational, but that didn’t mean runoff hadn’t affected her newly planted seeds.
A crack of thunder boomed around her, rattling the interior of the greenhouse. Wynn clenched her jaw and turned her back on the storm to grab the trowel sitting on the edge of the workbench and the container of unmodified seeds beside it. She would focus on tasks, on making this outpost produce results even as the storm ravaged the work she’d accomplished over the past week.
Tapping on the work surface’s terminal, she found a downloaded spaceball game, letting the announcers’ voices fill the greenhouse like an echoing cave. When she became bored with that, she changed to a soothing playlist, then an uplifting one, before finding another game.
But no matter what she listened to, her thoughts returned to the person in Foster’s room. Another person she couldn’t save.
There was nothing more she could do. He’d be dead by morning.
Chapter five
Across the solar system
Sector Two
They called him Carver.
Of course, it wasn’t his real name, just the one his superiors used when they wanted to make sure they were talking about the same person, but it fit.
Working for the CORE government day in, day out, it was always the same bullshit. Receive new orders. Follow new orders. Complete the assignment. Reward. Rest. Repeat.
Carver knew nothing else, not since his first kill at the age of ten. Sometimes there were months between assignments, sometimes only a day, never predictable. He couldn’t actuallyrest. He lived in a perpetual state of waiting, at the whim of the higher-ups whoneeded wet work. Whenever and wherever they wanted him, that was where he went. No questions asked.
He’d been doing the same job for the past twenty years, and knew he was old for an agent. The clock was always ticking. On him. On his next target.
But this assignment? This one was different.
His target, former civilian captain Milo Archibald, hung suspended by his wrists in his own living room, shirtless. Blood dripped from parallel cuts all over his body to the plastic sheeting below, mixing with the piss that had already fallen.Drip. Splat. Drip. Drip.It counted down the remaining seconds of the old man’s life.
Archibald’s wheezy breaths interrupted the smooth sound of the laser scalpel humming in Carver’s right hand. He gripped a regenerator in his left. The little room was dark except for the one light behind him, illuminating the old man, but casting Carver in shadows. He’d shut off the bulkhead viewer that played a spacescape ofLunar One.
Usually, a sense of justice fueled him as he took the life of a corrupt diplomat, or a rogue agent, or the potential head of a terrorist cell. But this? Carver’s skin tightened against his muscles in a way it hadn’t in a very long time.
As soon as the unsuspecting man had opened his door to him, nothing had gone as expected. Because the old captain had said, “Ah. Finally. I’ve been expecting you for a while now.”
Despite the perplexing statement, Carver had pushed his way in, and ensconced them within these quarters ever since.
And for the first time since becoming an agent, doubt flickered in his stomach.
He paced in front of the man, not wanting to cut him again, but needing to follow orders and retrieve his answer.
“They just want a number,” Carver repeated, his fingers flexing around the laser scalpel.
A fucking number. The guy could say any number in the world, and Carver would be able to end it for him. The old man could lie, could say a hundred, a thousand, amillion, and Carver wouldn’t know the difference.
Because those were his orders: Ask him how many. Get the answer by any means necessary.
How manywhat? What had this man, this regular civilian, done? Carver shouldn’t be asking these questions, even in his head. He wasn’t paid for questions. It didn’t matter how nonthreatening, how innocent, his target appeared, he had a job to do.
Restlessness settled into Carver’s body, an agitated sensation crawling over his skin as he continued to pace. He needed to move on, but he couldn’t leave without finishing this.
The old man wouldn’t give him a number, even a fake one. Carver paced back and forth, his ocular implant recording everything to report back when the job was complete.
“I always knew they’d send someone like you,” the old man croaked, his head hanging. Only his toes touched the floor. “I’m so glad Miranda passed on already.”
He’d said similar things earlier, things that didn’t matter.
