someone had come prepared with a powerful spot light. It lit up the path leading down towards him, but stopped before it reached him. Apparently he had made better time than whoever it was expected. The light shifted, and was the pointed up into the abyss. Maybe they felt the same eery feeling Akers had felt, or maybe... No!
Akers turned on his com light and dashed down into mine shaft. The stope narrowed back into a tunnel as the spot light found him, and he was quickly around a corned before whoever it was had the opportunity to shoot him. The shoe-prints were still there, and so he followed them, confident that they had to lead to the murder site, and another exit from this scorching underworld; the exit that Bachchan had supposedly used.
The tunnel opened to another stope, and Akers skidded to a halt, shining his com light up at the stope's hanging wall. It looked good, carbon-nanotube support beams and ventilation ducts all appeared in good condition. Then it came, a dull bang from the tunnel behind Akers, followed by a bone chilling crack. No! And then the crash. He was right about why that person had shone the light up into the chasm, and now he found himself running again. He didn't decide to run, and hadn't thought about a direction, apparently his body just wanted to get away from that noise. Then another crash came, and another, and he found himself blown off his feet, in a swirl of dust.
He rose with the feeling that two nails had been driven into his ears, and couldn't stop himself from screaming. He realized it was the air pressure, he quickly opened and closed his jaw repeatedly until each ear popped, and the pain began to subside. The pressure had increased and now he could feel the air forcing its way past the seals on his face plate, and there was nothing he could do. The faceplate respirator-mask was designed to work on the surface of Mars, at a low atmospheric pressure. He needed to find the murder scene fast. Every Mars-born knew the effects of hypercapnia; too much carbon-dioxide in the blood led to disorientation, panic, unconsciousness, and then death. He was already disorientated, and realized he was panicking too.
He stopped. He stood there in the cavernous stope and reasoned it out. Behind him, the crashing noise had become a deafening roar, but it was beginning to fading, the cavern was collapsing. The air-pressure didn't seem to be changing anymore. The sudden increase in pressure would have been caused by the air being compacted, so the path behind him was blocked. He would have to go forward; that was his original plan. Where where the shoe prints? Blow away by the shock-wave that had knocked him down. Damn! He shone his com light back up at the hanging wall above him, it seemed fine, no signs of change. Good enough.
He took another swig of instantly-chilled water from his flask and continued forward, down the inclining floor, deeper into the pitch-black inferno. He was jogging now, a steady pace he could continue for hours under different circumstances. He had no idea how long he could keep it up down here, or if the hypercapnia would get him first. It took just over ten minutes to reach the wall blocking off the newer sections of the mine from this older one. Ten of the longest minutes in Akers' life. The wall was like the air lock Akers had passed through to enter the mine with a large set of equipment airlocks, except showing in infrared as slightly cooler than the area he was in.
He looked for the personnel hatch, and used his com to hack the access lock. Another short passage-way, and then a hatch opening to a cooler world, a much cooler world. It felt cold, freezing, that couldn't be right. Akers pulled out his com and checked the temperature, it was 34 degrees Celsius. Not freezing by any standard. He realized it must be the CO2 building up in his blood, his skin was likely flushed. At least the CO2 wasn't seeping in at the sides of the faceplate anymore. Wait.
Akers looked up at the air-ducts and realized he didn't need to shine a light. The lights were on. The air-ducts should be working. His ear-drums felt like they were going to burst again. He checked the air quality with his com: breathable. He pulled his faceplate off and inhaled deeply, and the air was good. He opened and closed his jaws a few times to release the pressure, and then sat down and started hyperventilating, a technique taught to all children on Mars to flush the CO2 out of their blood. It took less than a minute of him to start feeling normal again. He drank some more water, and then rose to look around.
“Feeling better?” a voice asked.
Akers spun around, and found Justice Zeus sitting not far away, alone it seemed. Akers glanced around, but Zeus was alone.
“You wont need the gun,” Zeus stated.
Akers looked down at his hand, and then slipped the gun back into his shoulder holster. “An autonomic reflex. I wasn't expecting to find you here.”
“Expecting someone else?” Zeus asked.
“No, actually. Is there surveillance in here?” Akers asked.
“Not in the mines,” Zeus answered. “And this mine is out of limits to everyone right now.”
“Everyone except you?” Akers noted.
“I asked the constable for access to the crime-scene,” Zeus explained. “I thought you'd turn up here. I've been reading up on you, Hero of the Rebellion.”
“Seems so,” Akers conceded.
“I fought too,” Zeus stated. “I was with the Grand Army when we retook New Edinburgh.”
“You were there?” Akers asked with a smirk. Every Arean citizen seemed to claim that.
“Yes,” Zeus answered ignoring the silent jab. “I wouldn't expect you to remember me, I was just a corporal, I didn't even see the General.”
The General. He was there. “I wasn't with the Grand Army so I couldn't remember you anyway.”
“You weren't? You must be the only Arean citizen to ever say that!” Zeus grinned. “I thought everyone was there!”
“Seems so sometimes,” Akers replied. “I was with General Rome hacking the colony's power distribution network.”
“Rome! That treacherous hosenscheißer!” Zeus shot back. “They should have shot him!”
“He has been under Canadian protection since the war,” Akers observed. “Besides this was before that, early in the war. Without Rome we wouldn't have got the defences down when the Grand Army attacked New Edinburgh, and the war would have probably ended right there.”
“Maybe, but they still should have shot him!” Zeus retorted.
“Either way, it doesn't help us now,” Akers observed. “We seem to be at an impasse.”
“I suppose you have figured out who the real killer is?” Zeus enquired.
“It seems apparent,” Akers stated.
“This is a problem,” Zeus replied.
“Is it?” Akers asked. “I would have thought the shoe-prints back in the closed off sections of the mine would be a problem.”
“They're Bachchan's size,” Zeus stated. “And there is a pair with that same red dust on them, sitting in Bachchan's closet. Waiting for the constable to find.”
“I shouldn't think that will be a problem now,” Akers observed.
“Why not?” Zeus enquired.
“You didn't hear the chasm collapsing?” Akers asked in disbelief.
“That was the chasm collapsing!” Zeus shot back in shock. “I though it was a quake. I almost shit myself!”
Akers chuckled at the thought of Justice Zeus waddling back to his hotel room in shitty drawers. Zeus started chuckling too, and then stopped as be realized something. “Strange timing, think someone set it off?”
“Definitely,” Akers replied. “Someone else was in there. With a bright spotlight, looking up into the chasm.”
“Who?”
“I didn't see them close up,” Akers replied. “But only the killer would have reason to drop a mountain on me.”
“Oh I see,” Zeus pondered. “And who do you think the killer is?”
“The way I see it, it could only be Constable Jain,” Akers replied.
“Constable Jain?” Zeus repeated in disbelief. “What reason could she have had for killing Darzi?”
“Lust,” Akers answered.
“Ah yes, she is Sucheela's lover,” Zeus agreed. “But the way
that poor woman was brainwashed anyone could be.”
“That doesn't matter,” Akers replied. “All that matters is that Constable Jain lusted for Darzi's wife, and killed him to get her. It's one of the oldest stories.”
“And why is it a better story that Bachchan killing Darzi over his corporate manoeuvring?” the Justice asked.
“Well that would be because Bachchan is Mars-born,” Akers explained. “He's a citizen of the Confederacy, and we can't have our citizens killing bureaucrats from the most powerful federation on Earth.”
“Their power is waning,” the Justice retorted. They now have a civil war in Vietnam, and open rebellions in India, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Cambodia. Our sources are positive that they would never fight us for their CMZs if we invaded. Besides all their power is tied up in their army and navy. They have never had much of a space fleet. We could beat them in space.”
“It that what this is about?” Akers asked. “A war with the Singapore Conglomerate?”
“We don' think they will go to war,” Zeus stated.
“We?” Akers enquired.
“The mission of the Bureau of Corporate Affairs has always been to shut down these capitalist enclaves,” the Justice stated. “Now is the perfect time to move against the Singapore Conglomerate, while they are in disarray.”
“I see,” Akers stated. “And would the corporate police officer killing the corporate bureaucrat to take his programmed sex-slave wife not be as effective a story?
The Justice seemed