She huffed. “Kind of hypocritical coming from a crime lord,” she said with a smile.

He grinned back, but only mildly. “Yes. They’re naïve to have that dream, but I admire them for it anyway.”

“What’s the other half of the problem?”

The grin melted again, this time into a full facial scowl. He turned and paced as he talked. “Some of these dreamers, these utopia-seekers. They see the path to the perfect end – to peace – they think it can only be accomplished through a kind of cleansing. See, the exploitation goes both ways. They use ModPol as a way to export their criminal element. These peace-thinkers, they looked over the history of civilization and they seen a pattern. They seen the prison-system cycle. Small-time crime, do the time, but when you get out, you’re worse off than you were before. And you got no means but to do more crime. The cycle.”

She watched his deliberate and slow strides around the comm room. “So they outsource the prison system.”

“That’s right,” he said, turning to face her. “Out with the system, out with the cycle.”

“Why did we attack the prisoner barge?” She knew the answer, but she asked anyway. She wanted to hear him tell it. She wanted to know there were people like Moses Down in the world.

He stared at her silently for a moment before launching in. “These people want to systematically eliminate scum like us from their happy little supermall lives. But they underestimate us as much as they loathe us. We are resourceful. We are organized. And we will break their fucking toys. We are the stones that clog their perfect machines. We are the grime that refuses to be washed out of the universe.”

CHAPTER 17

“Well, now what do we do?” Runstom said as they tried to stretch themselves awake after disembarking from the long-range space-bus.

“Blarg.” Jax rubbed his eyes. “I need coffee.”

“First time in cryo, eh?”

“Merf.” Jax flexed his fingers. “My hands feel like oatmeal.”

“Come on, let’s get out of this terminal.” Runstom grabbed Jax’s suitcase and passed it to him. He picked up his own suitcase and nodded toward the exit. “There’s always a few good cafes right outside these places.”

A few minutes later, they were pouring coffee down their throats as fast as they could without scorching themselves in a little cafe that was packed to maximum capacity.

“So anyway,” Runstom said. “What’s the next step?”

“I feel heavy.” Jax lifted his arms experimentally. “Is this the effect of the cryo? Is it going to wear off?”

“That’s gravity-lag. You didn’t complain about feeling lighter on the superliner or on Terroneous.” Jax gave him a furrowed look. Runstom continued, “Anyway, gravity is heavier here than it is on Barnard-4. It will take some getting used to. Probably a couple of weeks.”

“Fuh, I hope we’re not here that long,” Jax grumbled.

“Which brings me to my original question. What’s the—”

“I heard your goddamn question,” Jax snapped. It felt like his brain was running on rusty gears that were caked in mud. He frowned and looked at the officer. “Sorry, Stanford. I guess I need more coffee.” He took another gulp and sighed. “This damn coffee is hot. Why is it so hot?”

Runstom grabbed his arm. “Come on Jax, snap out of it. We have to figure out our next move.”

Jax pulled away hard, almost knocking over his coffee, catching it at the last minute and pulling it close like it was a precious loved one. “Well,” he said, closing his eyes tightly for a second then reopening them. “The person who wrote that program is somewhere here on Sirius-5.”

He looked out of the window of the cafe and into the streets of Grovenham. It was a domed city, the largest on Sirius-5. Buildings rose into the artificial skies all around them. The streets were packed with people. Most of them were white-skinned, like Jax, being born and raised in a large dome where the cost of living was “economical” and therefore featured low-end solar filters, though their white skin was different than his. Sirius is a white star, or technically a pair of white stars, whereas Barnard’s Star is a red dwarf, so no doubt that difference accounted for the slightly more beige color of the local skin, making Jax’s look pale gray by comparison. The people were, on average, stouter than B-foureans, who were often tall and skinny. Probably a side-effect of the higher gravity.

“Shit,” Runstom said, his voice rising, pulling Jax’s attention away from the streets. He sounded surprised about something. “That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it? You dragged us from one star to another and our only lead is somewhere on this planet!” he said, waving his arms around as if to encompass all of Sirius-5.

“Well, you’re the cop! You tell me what we should do—”

“Oh, I’m the cop now?” Runstom said, standing up and pointing to his chest. “I get to be in charge? Are you sure you don’t want to just walk out onto the street and start bullying people? Like the little stunt you pulled with Markus Stallworth?”

“Yeah, well, if it wasn’t for me we wouldn’t have even found him. I—”

“Oh yes, I see.” Runstom nodded his head vigorously. “The unappreciated genius that is Jack J. Jackson. Thank you, Professor Doctor Jackson for narrowing our next lead down to a single planet. Just let ol’ Officer Stanford take it from here, no fucking problem!”

“Yeah, Officer Stanford. Officer.” Jax felt like he was listening to himself, his voice acting on reflex, but he didn’t stop it. “That’s what I’m dealing with here. Of course you don’t know what to do next. Why would an officer know what to do?”

Runstom glowered. “I may be just an officer, but I saved—”

“Sure, sure,” Jax said. “Saved my ass, I don’t even know how many times now. But the whole reason I’m in this mess is because of your fucking incompetent organization. Mod-fucking-Pol. Great police work, ModPol.”

“Oh, big loss. Big loss, Jax. What an important life you were living in some cookie-cutter dome on Barnard-4. Pushing buttons all day and then going home to your family and friends.”

“I didn’t have any friends,” Jax said before his slow brain processed the sarcasm. “Goddammit,” he muttered.

“I wonder why,” Runstom said. “You’re such a charmer. A real pleasure to be around.”

“Oh, excuse me for not being happy-go-lucky about being wrongfully accused of mass murder.” Jax threw up his hands. “An injustice that you’re supposed to trying to fix, Mr. ModPol.”

“I’m trying to fix it.” Runstom stabbed the table with a finger. “I’m trying Jax. But I can’t do everything. I thought you had a plan for once. Isn’t that why we came to this planet?”

“Dammit, yes,” Jax said. He rubbed his blurring eyes. He tried to fight through it. Was it the cryo? Was it gravity-lag? Or was he finally cracking? If he wasn’t so tired and heavy, he might be reaching the breaking point anyway. They’d come so far, but for what? To prove his innocence, something he shouldn’t have to do in the first place. So far. Too far to just give up, but he couldn’t think. “The original code came from here,” he said, forcing the words to come. “We just have to find it.”

“Just search the planet?” Runstom grabbed him by the arm and started speaking with a hushed intensity. “Jax, listen to me. We are back in ModPol jurisdiction. How long do you think we have to do this? We’re on the clock. Get … your … shit … together,” he said, shaking Jax’s arm with each word.

“Okay, you know what?” Jax stood up and yanked his arm away. The weight of his own body made him instantly tired and he closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing them with the palms of his hands. “I can’t think with you yelling at me. And I can’t take any more this fucking hot coffee. You want my help?” He opened his eyes and pointed out the window to a bar across the street. “I’ll be having a real drink. Otherwise, you can fuck off.”