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Chapter 20 – Did you sign the manifest already?

Chapter 20 – Did you sign the manifest already?

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Cafeteria]

Charlie lifted his glass and took a drink of lemonade. As the cool liquid sloshed inside of his mouth he felt it was a little too tart, so he swallowed and decided to wait a few seconds and let the ice melt a little. The liquids dispensing machine always seemed to make it that way, but it was synthetic after all so what more could you expect? He thought how Linda had made real lemonade back on Earth and it had always been a perfect mixture of lemon and sugar. But right now he wasn’t on Earth—far from it.

With the data he had, he was trying to put the puzzle together but he didn’t have enough of the pieces to see the entire picture. One of the guys who had arrived on the Elysian Fields had just murdered two people and he wasn’t exactly sure which one of them had done it. Both Tom and Jack had motives and were on the top of his list. Ruben had given him no indications that he was a psychotic murderer so he was a few notches lower, and McCormick was stuck in his cell so Charlie stuck him on the bottom of the list—at least until he had a chance to see the video from the cafeteria.

Charlie scratched his ear and then stuck his elbow on the table in front of him. He rested his chin on his fist and exhaled, staring at the condensation dripping down the glass. Trying to give himself a break from the tragedy on D.D.315, he let his mind relax and wander freely.

The lemonade reminded him of his second date with Linda. They had packed a picnic lunch and drove to the Locked Valley State Park to enjoy the day. It was late spring, the temperature was mild by Alabama standards, and the forest foliage had reached maturity. They ate liver sausage sandwiches and potato chips while they sat on a picnic table, sipped lemonade, and talked.

As day turned to dusk, Charlie said to Linda, “When it starts to get dark, I want to show you something on the other side of the park. My Uncle Bob and I found it when I was a kid; I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“What is it?”

“I’m not gonna tell you. It’s a surprise.”

Linda hugged Charlie and began to tickle him. “You know I can’t wait. Please…you have to.”

“Come on!” Charlie laughed and squirmed as Linda continued to tickle his stomach. “It’s only a couple hours. You’ll just have to wait.”

Linda loved surprises, especially when they came from Charlie. “Okayyyy.” She hugged him close and kissed his neck.

Soon after, Charlie led Linda down one of the wooded walking paths that headed toward Locked Valley. He draped his arm over Linda’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head as she wrapped her arm around his waist. He inhaled deeply and smelled the fragrance of her blonde hair. The aroma reminded him of a mixture of warm cotton candy and spring flowers. The two happily headed down the path without a care in the world. Charlie had never felt so at ease with a woman, and was completely relaxed when he was with Linda.

After about twenty minutes, the path led to a rocky area next to the edge of the valley. Charlie took the lead and Linda followed behind, warm hand in his. He bent down and walked through an archway of tan stones that led them to a small ledge on the face of the valley. They looked out over the rolling green slopes and smelled a mixture of plant oils and ozone from the foliage as well as the aroma of fungus from the moist earth. The falling sun had dyed the western sky red as it headed toward the horizon.

Linda squeezed Charlie close as she gazed across the Garden of Eden. “This is beautiful. How did your uncle find it?”

“He and I used to come here a lot. We happened to stumble on it one day just by chance. And there’s more to it than just this.”

“What do you mean?” Linda leaned back and looked at Charlie out of the corner of her eye. “There’s more? How could this be any more beautiful?”

Charlie motioned for her to take a seat. “You’ll see.”

The two held each other as the temperature faded and the sun continued to drop below the horizon. She closed her eyes and pulled him closer as he took both of her hands and cupped them inside of his own and exhaled a breath of warm air across them. As darkness continued to creep into the sky, the grinding sounds of crickets and the singing of cicadas began to croon in unison.

“Okay.” Charlie nodded toward the darkening valley. “Check it out.”

Linda scanned the greenery of the valley wondering what Charlie was eluding to. Then she saw it. As darkness continued to invade the valley, she saw tiny specs of glowing yellow light spread across the terrain.

“In a few more minutes the place is going to look like a fireworks show.” Charlie smiled and pulled her close.

Linda was memorized by the tiny specs as they continued to increase in number. She spoke softly. “Lightning bugs?”

“Uh huh. There must be a million of ’em down there.”

Linda caught her breath as the intensity of the glowing yellow creatures increased. “I’ve never seen so many of them in my life.”

“I knew you’d love it.” Charlie slightly nodded as a smile graced his lips.

Linda’s eyes welled as she hugged Charlie and watched the spectacle of nature in front of her. She ran her finger under her lower eyelashes to keep tears from flowing down her cheeks. “This is heaven.”

Charlie looked down at his glass of lemonade and remembered how beautiful Linda looked that day at Locked Valley, with her blonde hair rolling onto her shoulders and surrounding her pretty face.

She’s more beautiful now then she was back then.

He took a drink and prepared himself to come back to the real world. Charlie took a deep breath as his thoughts returned to D.D.315, and he started to rough out a loose plan. That was what he was good at: looking at a situation and trying to lay out a schematic of what should happen.

Somebody had killed two people on D.D.315 and that person had to be stopped without anybody else getting hurt. Then he would contact Central and they would dispatch a law enforcement crew to follow up the investigation and take the killer into custody.

Hell…I should just call Central now and have them arrest all of these assholes. Then it would be done and over with. But…shit…it’d probably take four, five hours for them to get here. We might all be dead by then…I gotta figure this out first.

The thing that rubbed Charlie the wrong way was that he didn’t have all of the data. He wasn’t exactly sure who the guilty person was and how this would all play out. If Charlie had a personality flaw, it was that he never believed anything unless he saw it with his own two eyes.

When Charlie was a boy, his mother took him to church every Sunday. Every week after mass, Charlie would talk with Pastor Phillip and ask him a number of questions about his sermon. He always argued with the pastor that the stories in the Bible were just that: stories and myths. Charlie had pressed him many times for proof of Noah’s Ark as well as the Story of Creation. The pastor would try and answer his questions the best he could, but always ended with, ’Now Charlie…that’s what faith is. You have to believe.’

That answer wasn’t good enough for Charlie and he continued to doubt most things until he could confirm them himself. That was just the way he was wired.

While gathering hard evidence is a prudent move when an engineer designs a skyscraper or when a doctor performs an operation, it tends to lead to an unenjoyable existence for a human being in everyday life. Never believing in things like Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy slants the development of a child’s personality. Sometimes to be human we have to set aside tactical thinking and rigidity and just go with the flow.

Spontaneity is a gift in life that Charlie had never inherited and did not understand. He figured he had Linda for stuff like that and that was why he found her so attractive; her abundance of spontaneity was enough for both of them. So trying to lay out a plan of what to do when he was not sure who was the good guy and who was the bad guy was driving him crazy. The only thing he knew for sure right now was that Linda was holed up and safe, and for him that was the most important thing.

Charlie’s handheld popped to life. “Charlie, this is Jack. Copy.”

Charlie’s nerves tightened as he remembered the conversation he just had with Tom. Then he keyed the mic. “Yep…right here.”

Jack replied, “We’re making good progress on the circuit board. We haven’t been able to remove any video yet, but we should have it figured out pretty soon.”

Charlie answered with guarded words. “Kay.” He fidgeted in his seat because he couldn’t wait to see the video with his own two eyes to find out what really happened to Jozef and Roy.

Jack continued, “While we’re workin’ on this, did you sign the manifest already?”

“Manifest?”

“Yeah. Jozef should have given you a manifest to electrically sign on his e-pad.”

Charlie nodded and relaxed. “Ahh…he did. Before we ate, he had me sign some decontamination paperwork to verify the prisoner was in transit.”

There were a few seconds of silence. “No, this is different. You need to sign the manifest to verify our ship and its cargo have been sniffed and no trace of Filoveridae was found.”

“He didn’t give me anything like that to sign. Other transports just need the data sent to the ground crew on Mars; they don’t need anything else.”

Jack came back. “Well you need to sign it before we leave. Elixer demands we do it…it’s part of the regs.”

Charlie scratched his brow and sat back in his seat with a confused look on his face, wondering why the additional paperwork was necessary. He had never been required to sign a separate manifest for any other transport that docked at D.D.315. Normally, he would sniff a transport and just send the all-clear data to Mars. He wondered if what Jack was saying was really true. And if it wasn’t true, what was he trying to get Charlie to do?

He brought his left arm across his stomach, rested his right elbow on it, and stuck his thumb and forefinger into the ends of his mouth. He stared blankly into the distance. Not having much choice, Charlie decided to play along. “Okay…I never had to do this before, but I wanted to come and see how you guys were making out anyways. I’ll sign it then.”

Jack replied, “I don’t have the e-pad.”

“Well who does?” Charlie looked at his handheld with a frown.

There was a pause and then Jack said, “Jozef.”

“Jozef?” Charlie sat erect in his chair as his body spasmed. “Jozef!” Charlie cringed from the reply. Jack had been so easy to work with before and now he was setting up a strange set of circumstances. Charlie thought about the conversation he just had with Tom and wondered where all of this was leading.

“He always carried it with him. It’s probably still in his pocket.”

Charlie huffed and his body slumped. He looked down at the floor and lifted his handheld to his mouth. “So you want me to open up the crate, search through his pockets, and bring you his e-pad?”

Charlie’s handheld speaker chirped with Jack’s response. “Yep.”

“You gotta be freakin kidding me.” Charlie put his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his fist.

“Nope. We can’t leave without that signature.”

Charlie whispered to himself, “This has gotta be bullshit.”

He gulped down the last of his lemonade and the ice jingled in the empty glass as he slammed it on the table. “Fine…fine. Whatever… I’ll get it.”

Jack came back. “The freight pod is still in warehouse three. I haven’t loaded it onto the ship yet.”

Charlie stood from his chair, pushed it forward, and slammed it into the table. “Kay, I’ll get it then head over to the ship so you can witness me signing it.”

“Roger that.”

He started to slip the handheld into his pocket, whispering to himself, “What the hell is this guy up to?” Charlie raised his handheld and keyed his mic again. “Hey, by the way…did Salsbury get the repulsor installed?” He placed his free hand on his hip and turned his ear slightly toward the speaker.

Jack answered, “Haven’t seen him.”

Charlie’s head bobbled while he rolled his eyes and exhaled. Now he was really puzzled. He had just talked with Tom Salsbury a few minutes ago and he was headed toward the Elysian Fields to install the repulsor. Either Jack was feeding him misinformation or Salsbury was off somewhere doing who knew what.

Charlie’s mind raced in every direction trying to get some handle on who was telling the truth, but he still came to no conclusion. He decided, at least for the moment, not to tell Jack about the conversation he had with Tom. He thought providing too much information to too many people would show his hand and he didn’t want anybody to know that he was suspicious of every one of them.

He exhaled and closed his eyes as he used a calm voice to toss out a measured response. “Well…anyways, I’ll get the e-pad and be by the ship in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Roger that.”

Charlie decided it was a wise move to keep the holster and side arm inside of the box and brought it along as he headed toward dock number three. He always liked going to the docking and warehouse areas because it was much cleaner and quieter than the rest of the plant. He could still faintly hear the muffled roar of the hydrogen facility with his ear muffs removed but it gave him a chance to actually hear himself think. It was also nice that the black, greasy hydrogen soot that hung on every piece of machinery in the plant had not made its way into these areas.

A wide variety of class three and class four ships entered the depot through an enormous rolling door in the docking area. The door separated the dock and warehouse areas from the cold vacuum of space. Once a ship had docked and spun down its engines, the large rolling bay door would close and the area would fill with an oxygen based atmosphere similar to the one on Earth. Because of the atmosphere replacement, the docking area always smelled clean and fresh—a big difference from the rotten smell in the plant.

Automated equipment called a sniffer would take atmospheric samples both inside and outside of the ship to check if any amount of the Filoveridae serum was present. The sniffer used advanced technology to identify the serum in a sample as small as one part per billion. At this point, if no evidence of the serum was detected, the passengers were allowed to disembark and any cargo could be off loaded.

If the serum was detected, things got scary. The few times this did happen, protocol dictated Charlie was to contact Central immediately. They would quickly dispatch a detention crew to remove the passengers from the depot, load them onto an incarceration craft, and then confiscate their ship and its cargo. The crew was not made up of human soldiers, but ten android beings that followed orders without mercy and were not affected by the serum. No one knew what happened to the contaminated passengers, but there was a rumor going around the depots that they were jettisoned out into space and their ship and cargo were destroyed to ensure the serum never reached Mars.

Charlie located the freight pod from the Elysian Fields sitting just where Jack said it would be. He glanced to his right and could see the Elysian Fields sitting in the dock area about one hundred and fifty yards away. Freight pods of this style were typical for personnel transports. They normally held luggage and belongings for the passengers during their transit from Earth to Mars. It would be a pretty rare case that a freight pod such as this would transport a dead human body, but today seemed to be the exception.

He spun the hatch lock and pulled on the large metal door to open the pod. The door made an echoing thunk and the hinges squeaked as it began to move. As he opened the door he immediately noticed the slight aroma of a decomposing body. Jack and Ruben had wrapped the shipping container holding Jozef’s body with a plastic sheet to try and contain some of the smell but it must not have created a perfect seal. The body had off-gassed decomposing vapors that seeped through the small creases of the plastic and into the air of the freight pod. Charlie covered his nose and mouth and tried to control his gag reflex.

Once he had the door open he pulled his flashlight from his hip and shone it inside the pod. Charlie saw the container sitting on the right side and headed in that direction. He washed the shipping container with light and saw that Jack and Ruben had used two ratcheting tie down straps to hold the plastic tightly in place. He moved some of the other packages out of the way so he had some space to work, and then he tugged at the first strap and popped the latch. He located the second strap and repeated the process.

He paused for a second to imagine what he would see when he opened the lid. Jozef’s corpse had been in pretty bad shape when he shoved it into the container, and now he wondered how it would look after four more hours of decomposition. He pulled the lid open and an invisible cloud of decomposing stench filled the air. Charlie gagged, closed his mouth, and pinched his nose to fend off the potent fragrance of death.

He pointed his flashlight forward and saw Jozef’s body inside. He closed his eyes for a few seconds because of the ghastly sight, hoping it would somehow disappear, but when he opened them again it was still there. Rigor mortis had started to creep into the corpse and had twisted the legs and arms into strange directions and gave the appearance that the body was taking on a contorted fetal position. Likewise, the dead man’s mouth had opened and his jaw was set in a strange way that exposed a set of twisted teeth. It gave the strange appearance that the corpse was moaning.

Charlie pushed the container cover back so it would stay open and then went about the task of finding Jozef’s e-pad. He bent next to the corpse trying to elude the pungent smell and stuck his hand inside of the dead man’s pocket. The first pocket he searched was empty. The second held the small controller that was used to change McCormick’s cell in and out of isolation mode. Charlie looked at the small device and figured it might come in handy, so he took it and continued to search. Charlie found Jozef’s e-pad in the right side pocket of his military style pants.

Curiosity crept into his mind as he tapped the screen to wake up the electronic device, wondering if it might supply any clues to what had happened in the heavy lab. The e-pad displayed the article Jozef had located describing his brother’s execution. Charlie’s eyes widened and his breathing stopped as he read through the grizzly details of Johan Baca’s execution.

He exhaled, then tightened his lips and slowly shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”

Fear and confusion worked together in Charlie’s mind as he tried to make sense of what he had found. He tried to remember Johan Baca’s execution but he had electrocuted a number of inmates and the memories had sort of blended together. He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger as small beads of sweat leaked from the pores of his forehead.

Asshole knew I killed his brother. Did he tell anybody else? Are we in any kind of danger? Was he planning on hurting me? Or Linda? Getting revenge?

Charlie glanced down at the e-pad again and cleared the display. He swallowed hard and slipped the device into the side pocket of his coveralls.

Happy that he wouldn’t have to see Jozef’s decomposing body any longer, Charlie reached up and began to close the container cover. As he pulled the cover down, he noticed a reflection of light in the corner behind Jozef’s boots. Curious, he raised the container cover and took a closer look. He pointed his flashlight toward the reflection and noticed something small and metallic. Charlie pushed Jozef’s boot out of the way and looked closer.

Charlie was motionless for a few seconds. His flashlight showed the head of a ball peen hammer that had been tucked between the back of Jozef’s boots and the side of the container. He took a breath to get his bearing, reached down, and pulled the hammer, handle and all, from behind the dead man’s feet.

Charlie held the hammer by its wooden handle and inspected it. It appeared that the operator of the deadly device had attempted to wipe it clean but he could tell it had once been covered in blood. There were no pieces of skin or skull but a thin line of dried blood had taken residence in the crack between the hammer’s head and the wooden handle. Roy’s blood, he thought. Charlie squinted with confusion as he realized that the hammer he was holding in his hand was the weapon that was used to kill Roy.

How the fuck did this get here?

Jack and Ruben were the only ones, other than Charlie that had handled the shipping container with Jozef’s body inside. Realizing that he had not taken a breath in the last few seconds, he exhaled.

It must be one of them. Or both of them!

Charlie swallowed hard, closed the cover of the shipping container, and sat down on top of it.

How much crazier can this get?

He sat there for a few minutes, accessed the situation, and tried to plan his next move. Charlie was never one to beat around the bush and knew that he had to handle this situation head-on. Realizing that he had to confront both Jack and Ruben with what he had found, he stood, grabbed his card board box, and headed toward the Elysian Fields.

As he walked toward the ship, he slid the hammer into the deep right pocket of his coveralls. He wanted to show his findings to Jack and Ruben but he wanted to do it on his terms. He surveyed the area around the Elysian Fields to see if either Jack or Ruben might be someplace outside, but he saw no one.

He also looked toward the back of the ship for evidence that Tom had installed the repulsor, but he saw it sitting on the cart along with a couple hand tools and some dirty rags. On the lower tail section of the ship he saw an open space and wires dangling from where it had been removed.

The condensed hydrogen check valve that fed the repulsor, must have had a slight leak because Charlie could faintly smell the nasty aroma of compressed hydrogen as he walked toward the ship. He wondered where Tom was and what he might be doing if he wasn’t working on the replusor.

As Charlie came closer to the Elysian Fields, he stopped and removed the holster from the box. He dropped the box on the ground and wrapped the black duty belt around his waist. He tugged the belt tight, then reached down and pulled the side arm from its holster. He checked its power level indicator and released the safety with his thumb. Then he slowly slid it back into position until he heard a slight click that let him know it was securely in place. Charlie had absolutely no problem using the firearm to protect himself and Linda, and he realized that he may be forced to do just that.

With his right hand resting on his side arm, he walked up the ramp that led to the gang way of the Elysian Fields. The hatch way was open but he stopped in front of it and located the intercom on the wall to his right.

He pushed the red transmit button. “Guys, it’s me, Charlie. Permission to come aboard.” He waited for a response. After a few seconds, he repeated his request and again there was no answer. Then he called them by name through the open gang way. “Jack, Ruben, I have the manifest. Tom? Anybody?”

There was still no response.

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