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Chapter 18 – And then…

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - A passage way inside the hydrogen fuel condenser facility]

As Charlie headed for the cafeteria, he ran through a mental checklist to try and determine which one of the visitors might have bludgeoned Roy to death and electrocuted Jozef in the high power lab.

He had a pretty good sense for reading people and thought that Jack was the least likely to have performed the murders. He seemed too genuine and didn’t appear capable of taking a life. All indicators pointed to Ruben being just a shy and stupid kid, but it was tough for Charlie to understand what was really going on in Ruben’s head since he didn’t say much. But he didn’t appear to have an agenda and Charlie thought the chances of him being the killer were low, but a few clicks higher than Jack.

The most obvious answer was Tom Salsbury. The guy was a loose cannon to begin with and just two short hours before had threatened Jozef’s life. To add more suspicion into the mix, no one had seen him for hours.

Charlie arrived at the cafeteria first and grabbed a seat. He sat there and inhaled the cool conditioned air, trying to clear his mind so he could concentrate. Over the last few minutes, a tension headache had erupted from is temples and sent a high pitched resonance through his head.

As he massaged his temples, he thought about Linda for a second and sighed with relief knowing she was safely barricaded in their quarters. He didn’t want to even entertain the thought of what he would do if she got caught up in all of this. As he sat there silently, a thought blossomed inside of his mind. He slowly turned his head to see the silver metallic cube still in isolation mode sitting a few feet away.

Charlie pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger.

There’s never been violence of any kind on D.D.315. Then these four goofs show up with a mass murderer as a prisoner and two people are dead within a couple hours.

Charlie stood from his chair and walked closer to the metallic cube. He closely inspected the device to see if there was any evidence that it may have been opened recently; it looked to be completely sealed.

McCormick would be the suspect on the top of the list, but I don’t see a way he could have gotten out of this thing.

Jack and Ruben entered the cafeteria and seeing Charlie, they walked toward him.

Jack’s pulse rifle thumped as he laid it onto the table along with two extra power magazines and his duty belt and side arm. “So…what’s up?”

Charlie stood in front of the two men with his arms folded across his chest. His eyes shot between them like laser beams. “My mechanic, Roy. He’s dead.” He paused to watch for a reaction. “Somebody decided to take a ballpeen hammer and pound the livin’ crap outta the back of his head.” He continued to stare at the men, looking for any indication they might already know what had happened.

Jack and Ruben stood speechless, their mouths open slightly and their eyes wide. Then Jack snapped out of it. “Details. How did it happen? What’d you find?”

Charlie remained standing with is arms folded. “I asked Roy to pull the video footage from the lab so I could see how Jozef’s accident occurred. When I went to check on him in the security room, he was hunched over the console and most of the back of his head was gone.” Charlie continued to watch each man’s expressions and mannerisms for evidence that one or both of them might be involved. “What were you guys doin’?”

Jack answered as Ruben looked on silently. “Like you told us. Ruben and I found Jozef’s body inside the shipping crate in warehouse three. We detached the freight pod from the ship and moved some of the cargo inside to make room for it. Then we wrapped the crate with some plastic to try and control some of the smell. We saw a pallet jack and used it to move the crate into the pod.” Jack pointed in the direction of warehouse three with his thumb. “You can check and see what I am sayin’ is true; the freight pod is still sittin’ on the floor in bay three. I haven’t loaded it back onto the ship yet.”

“What about Tom?” Charlie tried to swallow but his mouth had gone dry.

Ruben pulled a chair from the table and sat down. “We haven’t seen him since lunch.”

The trio of men remained silent and gave each other a serious look. From the looks on their faces, Charlie realized they were all thinking the same thing. It seemed pretty obvious to him.

As Charlie quietly stood there, he realized something: both of them had stun rifles to protect themselves but he had nothing. He didn’t like the idea of being at a ballistic disadvantage but at the moment, he didn’t have much choice.

Firearms had been confiscated from citizens across the world long before the infection started. In most countries, only the military had access. The last holdout to that ideology was the United States. When the infection occurred and healthy people from the U.S. were rounded up to transport to Mars, all of their privately owned firearms had been confiscated. It was a United Nations mandate that no one other than military or security personnel were allowed to have a firearm on a decontamination depot, a refugee transport ship, or the surface of Mars.

“There’s a second part to this story.” Charlie lowered his arms from his chest and put his hands on his hips. “Whoever killed Roy also took the twenty-four hour memory disk from the security console.”

Jack sighed. “Huh. Smart move…ditch the evidence.”

“Know what that means?” Charlie glared at Jack.

Ruben glanced between the two men. “That Jozef was murdered too?” He crinkled his lips and rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“Egg-zactly.” Charlie nodded a bit as his eyes widened and a slight smile crossed his face. “And my guess is your buddy Tom killed both of them.” Charlie had been hiding his true feelings and his body relaxed now that he had laid all of his cards on the table.

Ruben leaned forward in his chair, closed his eyes, and wrung his hands together. “Jozef and Tom were about to fight just a few hours ago…”

“Uh-huh…and a little more than fight. They were about to slice each other’s fuckin’ throats.” Charlie nodded and then huffed. “So nobody’s seen Tom in the last few hours, correct?”

Jack sat down next to Ruben, bent forward slightly, and held his head in his hands. “You think he did it?” He paused for a moment in thought. “Yeah…Jozef and Tom both hated each other and it had gotten worse as we got closer to Mars…but…” He paused again.

“He killed Jozef because he hated his guts and he killed Roy to get rid of the video evidence!” Charlie yelled. “Look at what’s going on right in front of you, man! Isn’t it obvious?”

Jack calmly leaned back in his chair, gazed into the distance, and sighed. “It’s feasible.”

Charlie clenched his jaw, his eyes excited. “Feasible? Well it’s gotta be one of us, and right now Salsbury looks like suspect number one to me. Unless—” Charlie caught the words in his mouth.

Ruben lifted his head and looked at Charlie through squinted eyes. “Unless what?”

“Is there any way that the killer in that box…” Charlie pointed at the metallic silver cube, “could get himself outta there?”

Jack and Ruben sat in silence for a few seconds, processing what Charlie had just said. “Get outta the box?” Jack asked. “The cell? Mr. McCormick?” Jack jerked his neck back a bit and declared, “Absolutely not. There are a bunch of high tech safeties that prevent the cage from being opened during transit. It’s not technically possible.”

Charlie put his left arm across his waist and stuck his right elbow into it. Then he stuck his thumb under his chin and pressed his fore finger under his nose. “What if somebody helped him get out?”

Jack’s forehead wrinkled and a frown washed across his lips. “One of us? Oh, I see. So you think Salsbury somehow figured out a way to get Mr. McCormick outta there.” Jack paused and then shook his head. “I’d say it’s highly unlikely. All of the tech stuff on the cube is uncrackable and to be honest with you, I don’t think Salsbury’s smart enough to do something like that.”

Charlie countered, “Yeah, Salsbury might not be smart enough to figure it out but the guy inside the box is. He might have told Salsbury what to do.”

Jack squinted and scratched the stubble on the side of his face. “Ahhh…still, I don’t think it’s technically possible.”

Charlie moved toward the table, rested his knuckles onto it, and leaned forward. “Think about it. There’s never been as much as an argument on D.D.315 in the four years I’ve been here. Now you four—check that—you five show up and two people are dead. And one of the five is a convicted mass murder that tells us that ’killing is his business.’”

Charlie’s eyes glowed with excitement as the pace of his speech quickened. “You put some of these dots together and tell me what you see.” He paused. “Do you even know if McCormick is still in there?” He pointed toward the cube. Charlie could tell that his last comment hit a chord with Jack when he saw him blink and a look of realization wash over his face.

Jack slid his hand into his right pants pocket and pulled out the control for the cell. “If McCormick was somehow involved, there should be evidence to prove it.” He pushed the button to take the cell out of isolation mode and the three guys looked inside.

Harry was reclining on his chair with his hands steepled across his chest and his eyes closed. When he noticed that isolation mode had been turned off, he yawned and said, “Gentlemen, nice to see you again. Now that we’ve had lunch, will we be departing soon?”

Charlie walked close to the cubicle and visually inspected the prisoner inside. There was no blood on his hands or jumpsuit. He didn’t look the least bit disheveled.

Shit, he still looks as fresh as a spring daisy.

McCormick quickly looked between the three men, arched his brow, and held both hands open in front of him. “May I help you? Is there something you’re looking for?”

Charlie looked at Jack. “Put him back into isolation mode.”

Jack followed Charlie’s order and the metallic cube changed back to a pixelated silver.

Charlie looked down and rubbed the back of his neck. “Whoever pounded a hole in the back of Roy’s head would have been covered with blood and pieces of skull and skin. This guy’s jumpsuit is as clean as it was when you guys showed up.” He huffed and cocked his brow in thought.

This asshole’s involved somehow. I just know it!

Jack replied, “As I mentioned, it is highly unlikely that Mr. McCormick was able to get out of his cell by himself or with help from Tom. And based on the way he looks, he would have had to commit the murder then clean himself up and return to his cell. That just doesn’t make sense.” Jack crossed his arms in front of him and shook his head.

Charlie took a deep breath and exhaled. He looked at Jack and then at Ruben, then rubbed his reddened eyes. “So if we rule out McCormick, then we need to take a look at Salsbury. I don’t know him as well as you guys do, but just from the few hours he’s been here, I think he’s capable of something like this.”

Jack glanced back and forth between Charlie and Ruben. “I would have to agree with you. Tom is a bit aggressive to say the least. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“A bit aggressive? He’s a fuckin’ nut case!” Charlie huffed, wishing he had an antacid to help calm his stomach.

Ruben chimed in, his voice cracking and a bit shaky, “I say we just load the freight pod, move Mr. McCormick onto the ship, and leave.”

“And leave Salsbury here?” Charlie threw up his arms. “Are you freakin kidding me?”

“We’re not leaving Salsbury here,” Jack declared. “We’re not leaving until we have this figured out and Charlie and Linda are safe.” He paused and looked at Charlie. “Is there a camera inside the security room?”

Charlie thought for a second. “Not in the room itself, but there’s a camera in the area outside the door. It’s not gonna do us any good though ‘cause the video system is N.F.G. Remember, somebody decided to pound the livin’ crap out of it with Roy’s hammer and take the twenty-four hour disk?”

Jack looked at Charlie, and put his hands on his hips. “I know, but…most video surveillance systems have a cascading memory system. The raw images from the cameras get fed into a RAM memory array first where they are temporarily stored and organized and then they’re sent to the twenty-four hour disk. The disk holds twenty-four hours’ worth of video and will pass its info to a server for storage and then rewrite another twenty-four hours’ worth of data over itself.”

Charlie bit his top lip and shook his head slightly as he began to understand what Jack was saying. “Our system has a server, so we only need one disk and as you said, it just keeps getting written over each day.” He pinched his chin. “But…but the disk is gone. Somebody took it.” He opened his hands in front of him.

Jack walked to Charlie and put a hand onto each of his shoulders. “I know, but the video feed that’s on the RAM array is still there.”

“But how can we access it?” Charlie questioned.

Ruben chimed in, “We have similar equipment on the Elysian Fields. All of us have been trained to perform repairs on it. We know how to extract the video data from the RAM.”

Charlie looked at Jack. “So we can see who followed Roy into the security room?”

Jack’s brow popped up and down and he nodded once. “Exactly.”

Charlie continued, “And we can do this…even though the disk is gone?”

Jack nodded again. “Exactly.” He lowered his hands from Charlie’s shoulders and stepped back.

Charlie glanced at the metallic cell. “I also want to see what happened in the high power lab…and if possible,” he pointed to a few video cameras mounted in the cafeteria, “I want to look through the video feed from the cafeteria. I’m still not one hundred percent convinced that McCormick isn’t involved with this somehow.”

Charlie glanced back and forth between the two men in front of him.

These two are moving lower and lower on the suspect list with all of the information they’re providing, but is it genuine? Or is it a trick to through me off their trail? Are we really all on the same team?

But at this point in the game, Charlie had no choice but to follow along with their blossoming plan. He had to figure out who was the guilty party and put a stop to the killing, but his number one priority was to keep Linda safe and he was going to do everything possible to achieve that goal.

Charlie turned toward Ruben. “So what do we need to do to access the RAM?”

“We need to take a look at the equipment first,” Ruben said. “If you have schematics for the console it would be very helpful. We need to identify which board the RAM array is on. Then we can remove the board and connect it to our own equipment on the Elysian Fields.”

“Okay…but we need to do this as a group. No one goes off by themselves anymore.” Charlie glanced between the two guys and pointed to each of them.

“What about your wife?” Jack nodded toward the cafeteria serving line. “Is she okay?”

Charlie thought about the question before answering. He was still not one-hundred percent sure who was on who’s team right now and didn’t want to provide too much information as to where Linda was holed up. “She’s safe. Not to worry.”

Jack nodded again with a slight smile. “Okay…good.”

“If we’re going as a group, you’ll need a firearm.” Ruben stood, removed his duty belt and holster from his waist, and handed it to Charlie. “It’s a phase-two pulse firearm. It has selectable settings.” He pointed to the side of the weapon. “We normally have ours set to stun but it might be best to change it to lethal.”

Charlie took the holster and began to put it around his waist. “I’m familiar with this type of armament. I trained with them in the Army.” He pulled the firearm from the holster and inspected it. Then he adjusted the power setting to lethal and enabled the safety. “Niece piece.”

Jack slid his pulse rifle onto his back. “Elixer doesn’t skimp on our firearms.”

“Obviously.” Charlie slid the handgun into the holster.

Charlie ran through the plan in his mind. Find the circuit board that held the RAM memory. Take it to the Elysian Fields. Connect it to the ship’s video equipment. Scan the video to see who followed Roy into the security room. And then…it was the and then part that worried Charlie the most.

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