Judas Unchained

“Hi, baby,” Liz called. A maidbot was standing between her and Antonio, a wine bottle held in one of its arms. When he got closer, he realized both of them were naked. His throat tightened automatically. He didn’t say anything, because that would just show how small-minded and conservative he was.

Liz hadn’t got a job yet; the agreement was she would stay home to look after the kids. They weren’t in school, and Mark really didn’t want them to go to an Augusta school; he had too many bad memories of his own time at Faraday High. In fact, returning to Augusta was only ever supposed to be temporary; they arrived here purely because it was the first stop after Ozzie Isaac’s asteroid. He wanted them to move on soon, hopefully to somewhere like Gralmond, which was about as far away from Dyson Alpha as it was possible to get. But that took money, and the invasion had wiped them out financially, taking away their entire equity, and he knew damn well that even after the navy beat the Primes back into their own space Elan was ruined beyond reclamation. The mortgage he’d taken to buy their little vineyard and the Ables Motor franchise had left him massively in debt. If the insurance didn’t take care of it, he’d need a couple of lifetimes to pay it off. And the insurance company was based in Runwich, Elan’s capital. Nobody knew if the Commonwealth government would pay compensation to everyone from the Lost23, and even if they did it would take years if not decades for such a bill to work its way through the Senate. Right now tax money was being poured into building up the navy.

He knelt down and gave Liz a perfunctory kiss. “Hi.”

“Wow, you look like you need a drink.” She pointed to the maidbot. “We’ve got some extra glasses.”

“Not that, thanks. I’ll maybe get a beer.”

“No problem,” Antonio said. “Sit yourself down, Mark, the bot’ll get it for you.”

Mark gave him a tight smile, and sank onto an empty sunlounger. “How long have the kids been in the pool?”

“Not sure,” Liz said; she drained her wineglass and held it out for a maidbot to refill. “Half an hour.”

“They should be getting out soon. They need to have their tea.” He didn’t actually ask: What have you got them? But it was in there, implicit with the tone.

“The house array is watching them,” Liz said with a little too much emphasis. “This isn’t Randtown. The systems here are top of the line.”

“Always useful to know,” Mark replied coldly.

Liz turned around so she was looking out across the landscape below the hill, and sipped her wine.

“Hey, come on now, you two,” Antonio said. “We’re all on the same side. Mark, the kids know they have to get out at quarter past six, they always do. The kitchen is making tea for them.”

The timer in Mark’s virtual vision read: 18:12. “Fine, sure,” he grunted. “Sorry, it hasn’t been a good day.” Not that he was going to sit here and bang on about his day in the factory—that was too stereotype even for him; in any case he suspected they wouldn’t really be listening. He’d applied for and got the general technician job at Prism Dynamics the day after they left the asteroid. The salary wasn’t anything special, not for maintaining assembly bays that built fuselage sections for the aerospace industry; but he did actually enjoy the work. It was the combination of practical troubleshooting and writing program fixes that he was most at home with. He took it because there was no way he was accepting charity from anyone, not even family. That was a gene he’d inherited direct from Marty.

A maidbot trundled up to Mark and handed him a bottle of beer. He flipped the cap and took a decent drink. Liz was still ignoring him.

“Giselle Swinsol called,” Antonio said. “She said she’d be here at seven to interview you.”

Mark waited a moment, but Liz didn’t say anything. “Is this for me?” he asked.

“Yes.” Antonio gave him a baffled look. “Didn’t you arrange an interview?”

“No. Why would she call you?”

“It was to the house array, not me personally. She said she wanted to be sure you were in this evening.”

“I’ve never heard of her.”

“Probably an agency headhunter,” Liz said.

“I’m not registered with any agencies.”

“Could be the insurance company,” Antonio suggested. “They’re paying out for the invasion.”

Mark drank some more beer. “Not with my luck,” he muttered.

Liz shot him a look as she got to her feet. “I’m going to get the children ready,” she said and pulled on a robe.

Antonio waited until she’d gone up to the pool and started calling the children. “You two okay?”

“I guess so,” Mark said limply. “We’re just finding our feet, that’s all. Honestly, Antonio, we had the most perfect life on Elan. Now there’s nothing left to go back to.”

“It’s tough, man. But you can beat it. I see that in Kyle. You Vernon guys don’t give in. You’re a scary family.”

Mark raised his bottle, and even managed a feeble grin. “Cheers. But you’re wrong. First hint of a job on a planet far from here, I’m taking Liz and the kids.”

“You sure about that?”

“Sure I’m sure.”