Hugh Howey - Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions

“The Callites are huge,” Molly warned Cat. “Bigger than the guy beating you up at that blood-letting place.”

“Won’t be a problem,” Cat said.

“ Lots bigger,” she added, trying not to sound winded.

“Trust me,” Cat said, her voice even and smooth. “It won’t be a problem.”

They ran along in silence for a while, the buildings thinning as they reached the outskirts of town. Ahead, Molly could see the beginnings of the stables. Most of the ships had their anchor lights on, red over white up the back of their tails or on extended rods for the ships that eschewed tails altogether. Molly berated herself for having not turned hers on; but then, she hadn’t expected to be out all day.

“Where’re you parked?” Cat asked.

“Other side of the johns.” Molly pointed in the general direction, but didn’t need to. They were downwind from them and could’ve nosed their way in the dark. “What’s the plan?” she asked. “Should we get Pete for backup?”

Cat laughed. “He’d get in the way. The plan is for you to wait outside and for me to go in and handle it. I’ll try not to get blood all inside your ship.”

Molly wasn’t sure what to make of that. They ran past a few ships, ducking under wings here and there to cut down the distance. She yelled back at Walter to watch a power cord snaking from one of the pedestals toward a ship, then heard him trip over it and bite the dust, anyway.

“The loading ramp was down when I left, but I don’t— there!” Molly reached for Cat, trying to slow her up. “That’s her right there.”

Cat held up her hand. “I see her,” she said. “Wait outside.”

Molly nodded; she followed behind as Cat ran to the ship. She stopped just outside—close enough to hear what was going on. Walter caught up, dusting himself off as Cat disappeared up the boarding ramp. The two crewmembers crouched in the shadows, panting and looking at each other with wide eyes. The Wadi leaned over from Molly’s shoulder and hissed at Walter, the first time she’d ever seen it do that.

“No,” she whispered to the animal. She turned the other direction and peeked around the corner and into the cargo bay. She hated the idea of waiting and letting someone else take the risk alone; she felt on the verge of going in to investigate, when Cat came back down the ramp, her posture relaxed.

“Are they gone?” Molly asked.

Cat shook her head. “No, they’re sleeping—”

“Good! Then we can take them by surprise. I can rig up a taser from the twenty-four volt panel, hit them with wires—”

Cat waved her off. “No doing,” she said. “I know these guys.”

“You know them?”

“Yeah,” Cat said, nodding. “Old friends of mine. And they’re exhausted, so why don’t I introduce you in the morning?”

“ Introduce me? I want them off my ship!”

Cat leaned her head to one side. “I doubt that,” she said. “These are the people you’ve been wanting to meet.”

Molly woke up in the pilot’s chair sideways, her feet over the control console. She had an awful crick in her neck and a Wadi on it—the creature was curled up under her chin and snoring contentedly. Dawn had come and gone, the sun fully up and heating the cockpit, giving her the headache she always suffered from rising late.

She moved the Wadi to the back of her seat before sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that she was starving. Secondly, that the nav chair was empty. She leaned forward and turned on the cargo cam, then grabbed the helmet behind her. When the vid screen came up, she saw Walter pulling the galley apart to cook breakfast.

“Morning,” she said into her helmet, greeting her mom.

“Morning, sweetheart. Are you feeling better?”

Molly adjusted the volume and pulled the visor shut to muffle her own voice.

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t talk more last night. I was on empty.”

“Literally, from the sound of it. Sweetheart, before we do anything else, we need to look into this election place, find out who else has disappeared. This could—it could go back to one of the cases your father and I were working on.”

“Really? What would the elections have to do with fusion fuel?”

“Nothing, but when your father and I were stationed here, our main investigation kept getting sidetracked by a never-ending string of missing persons cases.”

“I remember you telling me that. Well, the other you. On Dakura.” Molly paused, trying to remember some things and forget others. “Do you think I just avoided becoming one of those missing people?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t an election year when we arrived, and yet some of the cases went back several years and were pretty steady. Maybe this is something different.”

“Maybe they preserve the blood,” Molly said. “They could steal it over time and then flood the polls with votes.”

“That’s what I don’t understand about what they did to you. The tally machines don’t work that way, otherwise donor banks would run dry every six years. The machines do skin conductance readings to make sure the voter is present, and they look for chemicals in the blood that have a very short shelf life, hormones and what-not.”

“Well, the boxes in that place were marked ‘Votes,’ and Walter said the building was some kind of election joint.”

“Which is how I would hide blood if I were stealing it,” Parsona said.

“Stealing it for what?” Molly asked, exasperated. “Why do you have to make everything more complicated?”

Her mom didn’t reply, and Molly regretted the outburst. She looked down at the Wadi, who had crawled into her lap and was looking up at her, a pink tongue spiraling in the air between them.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,” Molly said.

“It’s okay. I probably deserve worse.”

“No. You don’t.” Molly held the sides of her helmet and groaned. “This is just too much for me to handle, I think I… I need Cole, or somebody. Can we just go to hyperspace, find him and dad, just deal with all this other stuff later?”

“I think that’s a good idea, actually. We’ll talk about it after breakfast.” The cargo cam panned up toward the crew quarters, drawing Molly’s attention. “Walter’s cooking is waking the ship.”

Molly watched as two of the squatters emerged from their bunks. Her bunks, she corrected herself.

Molly flipped up her visor. “I’m gonna send Cat up here and have her put on Walter’s helmet. I haven’t told her about you, so break it however you like. Hopefully the two of you can figure out what to do next—I don’t think I can handle being in charge of this.”

“I need to talk to her anyway, find out how soon we can fill up with fusion fuel. Now, go drink plenty of juice, okay? I don’t want you doing anything for the next few days besides resting up and recharging.”

Molly mumbled a promise before popping off her helmet. She left it in the nav chair with the visor open and shooed the Wadi into what had become its favorite home. She crawled over the controls and exited the cockpit, entering a fog of tasty aromas.

“Good morning, guys.” She nodded warily to the two men, then squeezed Walter on the shoulder as he tended a skillet layered with popping meat.

Scottie tipped a non-existent hat at her. “You must’ve come in late. Sure left in a flash.” He crossed the cargo space toward the galley, and Molly saw he was wearing one of Cole’s favorite t-shirts, his bulk stretching it near to bursting. The sight of it on him undid everything the smell of breakfast was attempting with her tastebuds. It also made it easy to forget that these were the people she needed to associate with.