He had been trying to make himself eat the chicken frankie. For someone who had spent his childhood starving the idea of wasting food was detestable, but he just couldn't raise the odd tasting meat back to his mouth. He knew they raised chickens up in Madhabani, but the odd tasting meat reminded him too much of the meat he'd seen people eating at some of the smaller colonies back during the war. There was a lot of cannibalism back then, it had been a dark time.
“Have you found out anything?” Anantha Bachchan asked as she sat down at the bar next to Akers, she looked as beautiful as the first time he'd seen her boarding the elevator, although now she was soaked in sweat, like everyone else in the station.
“A few things, nothing I'd care to comment on yet,” Akers answered. The door opened again, and Justice Zeus walked in, paused briefly when he saw Akers and Anantha speaking, and then headed for a table.
“He is innocent!” Anantha declared. “You must believe me! Is there anything I can do to help your investigation?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Akers answered. Zeus ordered something from the waitress, but seemed to be more interested in watching Akers and Anantha. He wasn't as sublet as he thought he was, perhaps Anantha hadn't noticed, or maybe Akers had just spent too much time looking over his shoulder. He looked up at Anantha, and for a second lost himself in her eyes. She looked so sad. She believed her father was going to be found guilty. She had just lost her mother too, and had been thrown out of university when her family's assets were seized. She looked so sad, he had to do something. “Don't say anything to anyone yet, but I think I'll have the case against your father dropped by the morning.”
Anantha's eyes opened as she stared back at him, and he knew he'd made a mistake. He didn't know he could get the charges dropped, but in her eyes he could see they had already bee dropped. “Really? You mean it?”
Akers paused. What should he tell her? She could blow it if she talked. He glanced over at Zeus and noticed the man was still watching them. It dawned on him that the Justice could have a cybernetic eardrum, and might be able to hear them clearly. “Yes, but only if you don't tell anyone. The case is at a critical state.”
“Can I tell me father?” Anantha asked quickly.
“No,” Akers answered decisively. “If I'm right, he'll find out in the morning anyway. It's important that no one knows right now.”
The door opened and Constable Jain walked in. When she saw Akers talking to Anantha she stormed over and sat down next to them. “I told you to get out of Agni Station!”
“You could arrest me,” Akers offered, then decided to push Jain's buttons and raised his voice. “Otherwise this station is open to the public, and I have a job to do. Bachchan is innocent, and you know it.”
For a few seconds Akers though Jain was about to hit him. Akers was prepared to defend himself, he always was, but he didn't want to get into a fight with the local police officer. That wouldn't help his case.
Almost a minute passed in silence, then she seemed to force herself to calm down. She leaned back, and flashed a vicious grin. “Alright Sherlock, play your game. We will see what the Ombudsman thinks when he arrives here.”
“Yes we will,” Akers stated as he got to his feet, then he turned to Anantha. “Go get some sleep, you can't do anything for your father tonight.”
As he turned to leave Chicken Frankies he glanced back over at Justice Zeus, who was staring thoughtfully at Anantha and Constable Jain as he sipped his drink. Did he know what Akers was planning? Would he interfere?
Akers stepped out into the heat of the Chhatri and walked back to the hotel. When he got back to his hotel room he pulled his respirator-mask from his bag. He checked his com for a map of the station, found the entrance to the abandoned north shaft, and then headed back out. There were only a few people in the Chhatri at that early hour, and no signs of Anantha, Zeus, or Constable Jain. He crossed the Chhatri and followed one of the passageways, then turned into a tunnel that led past doors to various apartments. The passage way ended at a closed door. It was locked. Akers pulled out his com and used a stolen pass code to unlock the door.
The passageway behind the door was dark, the area was abandoned. Akers stepped through the door and it slid closed behind him. In front of him his cybernetic eye-lenses enhanced the visible spectrum, and he started out into the darkness. The area had once been used as a staging ground for the north shaft, and he quickly came to the large equipment airlocks sealing off the abandoned mine-shaft. The infrared indicated the airlocks were warmer than the sealed area he was in, and he wondered if he could take the heat. He looked around for the personnel hatch, and found it quickly not far from the to large equipment airlocks. It looked the same temperature as the area he was in, but he put on his respirator-mask and unlocked the hatch.
Behind the hatch was a short passageway, and then another hatch, this one warmer than the passage he was in. He paused, and then decided it had to be survivable if there had been minors working in there. He opened the door, and heat rushed in at him and engulfed him fully. He fought the urge to panic, and found it was manageable. Curiosity made him pull out his com and check the temperature. 53 degrees Celsius. He was glad he'd brought a flask of water with him.
In front of him was darkness. Even his cybernetic lenses' light enhancement was having a hard time; there just wasn't enough light to enhance. He turned on his com's flashlight function and held it up exposing another loading area, just like the last except this one had abandoned equipment strewn about it. He started out.
The floor and equipment were covered in a fine layer of red dust, no doubt carried in during the blow-out. Blow-out seemed the wrong word, and Akers' briefly wondered if he should call it a blow-in when he filed his report. There were footprints in the dust, someone had been though here recently. Akers finally had some evidence, but it wasn't particularly useful. The shoe-prints were slightly smaller than his own, and could belong to anyone with feet smaller than his. They might clear Bachchan, if his feet were larger than the shoe-prints, but Akers hadn't thought to asks Mr. Bachchan for his shoe-size when he was at the Police Station. He'd have to look into it later.
He followed the shoe-prints through the loading area, past some abandoned ore tractors to an open shaft. Finally, the mine. He shone his com light up at the ceiling examining the hanging wall, it seemed sound for an abandoned mine, and so he started down the shaft. What started out fairly narrow, with only enough room for couple ore tractors to drive down it, soon widened out, quickly becoming an artificial cavern carved out my the miners, known as a stope. Akers shone his com light up again at the hanging wall far above, and saw cracks beginning to show around the carbon-nanotube support beams. Similar beams had been used back in Hussy, and he'd never seen cracks forming near them, but this was 10 kilometres deeper into the planet. He noted a trickle of water running out of one of the cracks, that wasn't a good sign.
He was still following the tracks when it opened in front of him, an abyss, ascending upward. The hanging wall of the mine had collapsed, raining a mountain of debris down on whoever had been working in the area. Warped and shattered carbon-nanotube support beams and ventilation ducts protruded from the mountain of rubble in front of him. The shoe-prints continued up the pile of rubble, although they were harder to follow now, as the dust had become thicker, almost like silty sand in some areas. It didn't matter though, it was clear whoever had climbed this mound of rubble had been following the path of least resistance, and all Akers had to do was follow it up, and then down the other side. At the peak he shone his com light up into the void again, but only blackness stared back, and the deafening silence seemed scream that more rubble could fall at any second. It was an irrational fear. Eventually the cavern would collapse in, but that might not happen for centuries. It would likely take a quake to start it. Still the void haunted him, and he hurried down the other side of the mound.
On the other side of the mountain of rubble the mine shaft had been descending, and so more of the rubble
had rolled that way, making clambering down the hill seem like more of an ordeal than climbing up it had been. When Akers stood on the flat floor of the old mine shaft again, he stopped to take a drink from his flask. He held his breath and lifted his face plate, raising the flask his it to his lips but the water was warm, almost hot. He pressed the button on the side of the flask, and a tiny dry-ice pellet was released into the water, causing an eruption of ice-fog to burst out the mouth of the flask, which quickly dissipated into the sweltering air around him. A green light lit up on the side of the flask, and Akers took a swig of the icy, slightly carbonated water, before returning it to his pocket.
As Akers turn to follow the shoe tracks it happened, something unexpected that sent his blood racing more that that chasm above him. Another light appeared, up on top of the pile of rubble, someone was following him. His war time instinct kicked in, and his thumb swiped off the com light before he could think about it, leaving him there, at the bottom of the rubble, in the dark. Now he couldn't move, but it was possible that the other person hadn't seen his light.
The light shone around, and then down the path he had followed. This wasn't a com light;