The Henderson Helios: A Sci-Fi Adventure Novella Read online

  The guy on my right, Benjamin Brassard, had been in the graduating class just behind mine. He wore what looked like your bog-standard polo shirt/trouser combo. Looks were deceiving, however, and that Elfanta polo shirt cost as much as I earned in a year. The trousers? I’d have to drain my savings account to get them.

  That was a joke. I didn’t have a savings account. The only way I’d get those trousers was if I stole them.

  Brassard laughed like gold coins were going to spurt from his throat. Oh, and he worked for Sev Tech, one of Cadinoff’s big competitors. I hated both of the big corporations, so that didn’t earn any brownie points with me.

  Holding his glass of wine, Brassard leaned forward, “This new design will revolutionize the way we think about engines, I swear.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, even as excitement fluttered among the other attendees. Everybody spoke in these grandiose terms, about “revolutionizing” the industry or “chop-socking” the universal constant. In the end, it never amounted to anything more than some modest, incremental improvement. The jazzy language was just to hoist up the profit potential.

  My lack of enthusiasm must have been noticeable because Audrie Tritton, across from me, raised an eyebrow. “What projects are you working on, Henderson?”

  The Solar Forward 280 wasn’t nearly as impressive, but I didn’t have much else to offer. Cadinoff had gotten a design out of me—against my wishes. Since then, my mind had been an empty canvas. But this was a lunch to show off accomplishments, so I had to make up something.

  “I’m doing freelance for a certain organization. I’m not allowed to talk about it, but it’ll be pretty big when it’s released.”

  That was so obviously bullshit, the table quieted in a moment of silence to memorialize my embarrassment.

  Brassard cleared his throat. “I saw you were speaking to Myka Benton.”

  I grimaced, downing my wine. “She was speaking to me, rather.”

  “What about?”

  “Oh, she was telling me all the Cadinoff secrets, Brassy.” Dumbass. “Come on. She was just doing what she usually does. Show up, hint around at things, then leave. It’s her whole thing.”

  “Wait, who?” The woman on the other side of me, Charli Paradis, joined in. “Myka Benton? You’ve talked to Myka Benton?”

  “Yeah, haven’t most people here?”

  All I got were blank stares from my fellow alumni. “Myka’s the personal attaché to Adela Glezos, herself,” Brassard said. “She doesn’t flit around talking to people willy-nilly.”

  A kind wait-bot had refilled my wineglass, so I downed the new alcoholic offering. “Well, she does to me.”

  A scrawny man next to Charli sank in his seat. “I’ve been trying to get a meeting with her for months.”

  “It’s hard to get her attention. Even my team has tried to reach out to her for a future project.” Brassard’s gaze threatened to drill a hole in me.

  “It’s ‘cause you refuse to take any job offers,” Charlie said.

  “I have a job,” I objected.

  “Working at a run-down shop in the middle of the Back 40 isn’t a real job, El. Be sensible.”

  This was why I hated these types of expos. Inevitably, it ended with people chiding me for striking out as an independent rather than cashing in on the big corporate bucks. There’s only so much of that I could take, and with a luncheon I was gonna get it in surround sound. I rolled my eyes to cut things off at the pass. Another drink arrived. Good wait-bot.

  “Maybe she fancies you,” Brassard said lazily.

  That would have prompted a spit-take if I’d had any wine in my mouth. Fortunately, I’d just downed it all—again—when they’d insulted my shop.

  Brassard shrugged. “Contractors need love to, you know.”

  Contractors were the unlucky class of colonists. Basically, a company owned a contract on their services. Contractors worked purely to pay off debts, whether inherited from their family at birth or their own. They earned no extra income. Oh, they got living expenses covered, and they could move up the ranks to some pretty respectable positions. But most contractors never managed to pay back the debt in their lifetime. The most they could hope for was to pass on less debt to any children they had.

  I felt sympathy for most contractors, but Myka was different. She was like an empty person. No substance. No time for hobbies or a social life. And I never got the vibe that she disliked it. Most contractors were menial workers. Bottom of the ladder. But Myka had to be ambitious to become the personal assistant to a Cadinoff regional VP. She enjoyed what she did. It’s fucked up.

  I shook my head. “Contractors don’t have the freedom to fancy anyone.”

  Brassard rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe. But a contractor who did fancy someone would be a very attractive damsel in distress.”

  Charli wrinkled her nose. “Ew. Keep your fantasies to yourself, Brassard.”

  “Seriously,” I said. “Besides,” I continued as I lit up another cigarette. “I’m not Myka Benton’s fucking prince.”

  * * * *

  As Myka had promised, I was admitted upon showing up at the much-vaunted night expo. Same room as the day expo. Same dealers. But the wares changed. The toilet robot was swapped out with intensive, experimental colonic nanobots that made using the toilet unnecessary. Supposedly. I wouldn’t be signing up for that trial.

  The crowd had thinned, but the proportion of suits had increased. I presented a contrast with my “sexy slum grease monkey” look. Enough to turn a few heads. Once diverted, they promptly filed me away as ignorable. Even if they did recognize me, I hadn’t done anything notable in years.

  Oston Supplies was in the back corner, on the other side from where I was. Gondola lift it was. The gondola lift wasn’t interesting. Nothing interesting ever happened in a gondola lift. Half an hour later, I was where I wanted to be.

  The Oston Supplies booth nestled between a booth dedicated to pet technology and a booth dedicated to extreme sensory implants. Both were livelier than the Oston Supplies booth. As I walked up, I couldn’t even see a person.

  “Hello?” When in doubt, be loud.

  A young woman sat up. She’d been digging around in a box under the table. Her hair was in pigtails, and she sported a O tattoo around one eye. She was part of the indie engineering scene, then. The O-tat was common among young openware enthusiasts. They wanted tech to be open to innovation by anyone, do away with corporate patenting, all that shit. Basically an engineering version of open colonies loonies.

  Yeah, that was all my philosophy too, but I abhorred the idea of joining a group of any sort.

  “Yes? Hi.” She seemed surprised that someone had stopped by.

  To be fair, there wasn’t anything on display. Only their company name and an empty tabletop.

  “You guys make parts for old engines, right?” I lit up a cigarette.

  “Oh, yes. That’s our thing.”

  “You got stuff for the Solar Forward 280?”

  Her eyes lit up. Literally, she had some decorative optical implants. “Yes! Such a great old engine! My grandma helped design it back in the day. What part do you need?”

  “A replacement for the alternate cabling. I got a logjam there.”

  She was already scrolling through her inventory. She bit her lip. “Uh, so I don’t have any here. We have some at the factory.” She leaned over the table. “Listen, it’s worth it to wait a bit. We’re about to be—”

  “Bought out, yeah, I heard. I wanna buy this from you before Cadinoff nabs you.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She looked confused. “Why?”

  I shouldn’t have to explain this to an O-tat. “Because Cadinoff is a shitheel, and I don’t buy from them.”

  She still looked confused but nodded as if she weren’t.

  “Come on, you’re openware-aligned.” I tapped my own eye, where her tattoo was. “You should get this.”

  “Right, but I just live in this world, you know? And
the big hootsengahs got the big bucks and the whoaza builds. I wouldn’t play with nothing if I didn’t buy anything from Caddie.”

  She definitely wouldn’t have the light-up optics. Kids today had no dedication. All appearance, no follow-through. Their slang was dumb too. “Could you fetch the part from your factory so I can buy it before Cadinoff buys you off?”

  “It’s just me here at this booth. Don’t have anybody to cover for me.”

  Right, the booth that had no advertising and that nobody seemed interested in. “You expecting a rush of people?”

  Now she looked annoyed. “I can call Phil and have him grab it. Might be a wait, though.”

  Well, it was a large expo. I could find some way to kill the time. I gave her my contact info so she could buzz me when the part came in.

  The corner had emptied out in the meantime as people were drawn to a loud buzzing siren a few rows away. A presentation of some sort. Large screens decorated the corners, so I forwent going in person and lit a cigarette while watching on-screen.

  Brassard. Presenting Sev Tech’s revolutionary new design. I wondered how much they paid for this promotional hoopla.

  Brassard had always been that self-assured asshole. Came to Becker with money. Left with more money. Kept getting even more money. Thought that made him awesome. And the money made up for his lack of brain. He got top marks in classes because he paid a private tutor to do everything for him. When it came time for him to take on actual projects, he got by on charisma combined with strategic assholery and suckered somebody else to do the work. Then he’d take the credit.

  It had caught up to him on his final project with Becker. Solo deal. And the assessors caught him relying on the tutor. He should have failed out of the program entirely, but his money kept him in. He took a poor assessment on his way to graduation, but he got the fancy Becker degree. His cheating past kept him from being snagged by Cadinoff, but Sev Tech still took him.

  So, yeah, I didn’t expect much from his “revolutionary” design. If it was at all impressive, it probably came from someone else. Brassard should have been a salesperson instead of an engineer, but apparently the engineer thing ran in his family.

  On screen, Brassard spun on a circular floor, covered engine looming behind him. A crowd populated the background with the excitement of teenage jocks at a pro hurlball game.

  “Tonight is a special night.” Brassard spoke with an extravagant smile. “You all are part of a revolutionary moment in our history.” He shook his head in faux humility. “I know every company says that about every new design that comes out. I can see some of you rolling your eyes. I get it. But this is different.”

  He walked around the obscured engine. “Our current engine systems work on fusion power. Nuclear power. Messy. Inefficient. Potentially dangerous. Radiation leaks, nuclear explosions, space waste. We all know the problems with modern space engine design. And the standard approach in engineering is reduction. Reducing risk of leaks. Reducing risk of explosions. Reducing waste.”

  He smirked, knowing. Smug. “But what if we could get rid of that entirely? What if we tried something completely different?”

  My fingertips tingled, and my stomach began to flip. Something about this pitch was off. Not right. Very wrong.

  “Sev Tech, tonight, will transform how we do space travel. Renewable. Waste-less. Zero risk.” He nodded at the crowd’s excited murmuring. “That’s right, zero. How?” He placed a hand on the cover in an obscene caress. “Over 100,000 person-hours, a decade of trial and error, the combined skill of fifty premier engineers and scientists. We harness the most powerful source of energy in our universe.”

  Before him bloomed a holographic display of the primary sun, Helios I.

  Solar power. They were using fucking solar power.

  When Brassard peeled back the cover with a flourish, I already knew what would be revealed. Intricately designed solar modules coated plastonamium solar cells, miniaturized to fold a million per square centimeter. The entire photovoltaic system a concave blossom designed to move around the outside of the ship so as to ensure it was always facing the nearest star. It sucked in solar power, transformed via external circuits with offshoot batteries holding varying capacities depending on size and cost. It was clever and ambitious and demonstrably better than anything we had up till now, surpassing the current limitations of solar powered flight by its novel miniaturization process that allowed for astoundingly massive amounts of input. It was, truly, going to revolutionize space travel.

  I knew all this because it was my design. Stolen by Cadinoff. Then stolen by Sev Tech, it seemed.

  My cheeks heated as the audience cooed over my engine. My engine.

  My final project at Becker had involved a hybrid solar/fusion engine. At that point, the tech was only good enough for small propulsion. Mini drones. Uncrewed stuff. And long trips were out of the question. Too many limits, not enough oomph.

  That design was my entire life after I graduated. Yeah, I had a shop and did repairs for people, but all the money I made was poured back into getting a fully-solar engine assembled. During the war, I sidetracked a bit to help the Colonials with that new fusion drive, but it was to get the money for more work on my actual, real project. I’d already called it the Henderson Helios. Damn right I was gonna be one of those assholes who named an invention after myself. It wasn’t ego, it was pride.

  Okay, a little bit of ego.

  A year ago, Myka Benton had approached me with an offer that I couldn’t refuse. Resources. Not just money but a full team. Cadinoff wanted to help me see this project to completion. In exchange, they wanted half-ownership on patent and ensuing profits.

  I took it. They gave me everything. Everything. An entire floor in Glezos’ headquarters. I ate, slept, lived that project for over a month and a half. Maybe more. Honestly, my memories from then all ran together ‘cause I had been so focused on the damn engine. Once I had a team instead of a scattered network of collaborators, things fell into place so quickly. We were getting close.

  I should’ve known it was too good to be true. Even from the beginning, Glezos had Myka Benton looking over my shoulder every day, hectoring me with questions or thoughts. I couldn’t get a break from her incessant interference. She was the portent of things to come.

  One day, word came down that the deal had changed. They were gonna take ninety-ten on the patent and profits, and my name would become a byline on the design. They had reeled me in, shackled me, then fucked me over. When I refused the new terms, they refused to let me leave. Literally. Guards appeared at the exits, and I was forced to keep working.

  That was a fucked up couple weeks. Yeah, I worked. Under duress. Looking back, I should have just stopped, but this project was the most important thing to me. I was sucked into it. Hyperfocused. I had needed to finish it as surely as I needed oxygen to breath. I figured I’d find a way to keep ownership of it once everything was complete.

  Didn’t get a chance. Ryan called the Corporate Enforcement Agency in when Cadinoff stopped letting me call him. The CEA goons usually didn’t do much actual enforcing. They received too much money from the corporations to bother. But Ryan pestered them enough that they got off their asses and stepped in. Ryan had come, himself, to “rescue” me. Great kid.

  I was extracted from the headquarters, Cadinoff got a slap on the wrist for kidnapping me, and in the turmoil of the rescue, I had no idea what had happened with the project. The plans, the research, the work. Per the initial agreement, I’d brought everything with me to Cadinoff. No backups. Dumb, I know, but I had tunnel-vision. I had assumed that Cadinoff still had everything, but what if a Sev Tech corporate spy had been inside the project? Maybe they took advantage of the chaos to steal everything away.

  And then a year later, Sev Tech presented it to the world as if it were their fucking idea.

  No. Nope. No, this was my engine. My work. My life. It didn’t belong to Brassard or Sev Tech or Cadinoff. It was mine.

&n
bsp; And I’d find a way to make the world know that.

  No Fucking Way

  I needed to establish ownership of the solar engine plans. I could only do that if I could get a copy of those plans. Even when I had handed everything over to Cadinoff, my fingerprints were all over it, nice and smudgy. The early drafts? Named after women I’d slept with. Draft #46? An odd one I created to resemble the abstract form of the colonial spirit. I’d been high out of my mind. Draft #74 was done by Ryan. I had given him a chance to take charge as practice. The reams of research, compilations of correspondence, and feasibility studies were all from my contacts list. Every one of them would vouch for my ownership.

  So this damn thing was mine, and I could prove it if I could bust the plans open. Without those plans, nobody would take me seriously. The authorities were shy about the big corps. I’d need to make the case myself and hold their hand through it all.

  This meant I needed to steal the Sev Tech plans. Tonight. During this night expo.

  All participating companies were given storage space in the basement levels of the expo center. It was easy to hitch a ride down the elevator with staffers milling back and forth. No security at that point.

  The main basement level was as vast as the ground above. Neon tape partitioned the floor, coded to indicate the company assigned to that partition. Sev Tech wouldn’t be here. This was for the peon companies. Small fries. Sev Tech would have its own room. Or maybe its own basement level.

  “Elly Henderson! Wipe your ass again!”

  I turned to see a broad-shouldered, sweaty man with a large grin spanning his red face. The ass thing was an in-joke with unpleasant origins.

  “Jagcoop!” Then I was in a sweat-coated embrace, lifted off my feet momentarily before returning to the ground.

  “You haven’t aged a day.”

  Jagcoop had provided muscle to the colonial leaders during the war. He’d been assigned to “protect” me while I did my work. I hadn’t needed protection, but I had appreciated the company. Good guy. Dumb as rocks, but good guy.