Need to catch up?
Mercer wasn’t a fan of where this was going.
After dismissing Eckles—the man looked like he wanted dismissing, and Mercer was happy to oblige—he headed for his office. The Corrector would be elbow-deep in his facility before the end of the day. Something nagged at the back of Mercer’s mind. It wasn’t the man’s attitude, although that was… unexpected.
I can’t put my finger on it.
His inability to work out the cause of that mental itch was why he didn’t like where this was going. A rogue Corrector could cause havoc, and by definition, they were all rogue. Logos mandates, Veritas Bureau backing, fucking starships that could go where they liked. The rest of humanity’s rank and file were handed ballistic weapons like babies given pacifiers, and their starships only went where the Logos willed.
Peace, Mercer. Korvus hasn’t done anything wrong. In fact, he saved your miserable life.
But still, they were the law, or at least a law unto themselves. The checks and balances were there; the Logos wouldn’t allow a rogue agent to live, but the agent had to go rogue first.
Mercer’s dead wife was evidence of that.
He made it to the quiet calm of his office. Mercer’s desk had a standard holodeck, and he’d given himself both a gift and torment by placing a still of his wife there. Her beauty hadn’t faded over time, frozen for all eternity as she cast a laughing look over her shoulder at him. His optics had recorded it, just another memory to stack with the rest, and he hadn’t realised how much he loved the way she smiled until there were no more of them.
Straightening his jacket, he pushed those thoughts to the side. Work wouldn’t wait; he didn’t want more death on his hands. As he settled into his chair, the creak of the printed leather sighing right along with him, he heard a sound from the air vent on the right side of his office. It was a standard vent, just a square grill about half a metre a side. It led into the station’s air reticulation system. The sound wasn’t terrifying by itself; it almost sounded like the innocent splash of water.
Vents shouldn’t make any noise at all. Noise means malfunction, and a malfunction seven kilometres below surface level can mean death.
The good news was it was almost certainly nothing. If it was water from outside, then he’d be dead already; if the pressures there found a micron-sized gap in the facility’s hull, it would power-wash them right to the bone. He mentally tagged the noise to look into later and waved his holo to life.
The display glowed to luminance in the centre of his desk, its Chainlink verifying that yes, he was Warden Samwise Mercer, and also yes, he had privileged access to the topside surveillance recordings.
He pulled the last half hour’s worth up and scrubbed through the video. There they were, all walking out like hangover victims blinking at the dawn after alcohol consumption volume mistakes were made. The acidic hell-fog that was Lethe’s atmosphere dimmed the light from the system’s star, but it was still daylight—a harsher brilliance than they were used to down here in the Well.
Wait, no. He paused the recording, zooming in on an inmate. That one wasn’t blinking at the sunlight. Just shambling along—not necessarily noteworthy in itself, as Aris had dosed many of them with a ‘calming cocktail’ to ready them for departure. Still, it was eerie enough: that was the same prisoner who’d charged the Corrector.
Mercer ignored the back-and-forth between Reeves and Eckles. He was more interested in how Reeves also didn’t seem to mind the light as much. She was so strung up on nerves she should have bounced around that protective dome; there was no sedative-based reason for her not to be squinting in the light.
Another note to my future self: check on Reeves’s medication plan. Aris would know what he’d dosed the woman with.
His vent made another wet splash. Mercer half-expected a rivulet of fluid to be leaking down the wall, but there wasn’t anything like that. Just the vent and his no doubt overactive imagination.
He went back to his task of checking through the video feed, but another splash from the vent suggested he either wasn’t imagining it, or he’d had a psychotic break. Mercer just didn’t fancy himself as the psychotic-breaking type. If it was going to happen, the best time was when his wife passed, and he’d come out the other side of that, firmer of mind than ever.
He initiated his Chainlink.
Maintenance, I need a technician in my office. There’s a problem with the air filtration.||:MERCER
TORRES:||You got it, boss.
Isabella Torres was a good worker. Diligent but precise with it. When she fixed something, it stayed fixed. Mercer settled back in his chair, scrubbing through the feed.
There was the moment the Corrector’s ship arrived. No change in the inmates. And there was when the elevator descended. Still no change.
Another splash, this time with a secondary plop, came from the vent. Mercer gritted his teeth, trying to focus on the glowing holo. Ah, there it is. The Corrector left the orbital elevator car, and the inmates charged. Mercer slowed the feed to a treacle through time. The Corrector was fully armed and armoured. There was no mistaking the heavy plating protecting him or the straight-backed way he wore it. And yes, there was that arc sabre at his hip, a weapon severe enough to cut through the hull of a tank.
When the Corrector pulled out his Adjudicator, Mercer almost winced. It was a sidearm, yes, but it was a sidearm that fired black holes. The agents of the Logos were not a fuck-around group; they were the find-out team. Maximum shock and awe, known in all parts of the Logos’s empire. The Herald System’s hypervelocity cannon was just icing on the cake.
Except… He leaned forward, his optics requesting higher fidelity from the surveillance feed. The inmate charging Korvus wasn’t, in fact, actually charging the Corrector.
He was charging for the elevator. The system’s autopathing routines showed the likely line the inmate was taking. It was a small factor, perhaps inconsequential. Who knew what Aris had drugged them with? Who knew the motivations of a Dissonant? But as the Corrector left the ramp, Korvus headed to his right, taking a line away from the elevator car, allowing him to use that nasty flechette cannon without perforating the elevator leading into the Well itself.
The agent was smart, calm under fire, and had a sense of humour. Mercer might even get to like the man, if they’d met under different circumstances. But… the last Corrector had been just as efficient. Just as calm. And it still left him with a dead wife.
Maybe it’s better if they’re not likeable.
His vent splash-plopped again. Mercer surged upright, grabbing the edge of his desk. “I will,” he gritted his teeth, “undertake some preventative maintenance before Torres arrives.”
He wheeled his chair across his office and rested it underneath the vent. Climbing on—carefully, because a wheeled chair was not the friend of violent actions—Mercer unsheathed his belt knife. He worked the tip into the screws holding the grate in place.
Another splash came from the grate. He squinted, but it was black as sin in there. A faint, coppery smell drifted out, like old blood left to fester in the grouting. He worked the knife around, removing the four screws holding the grate in place, then pulled it back and lowered it to his side.
What was inside didn’t even give him time to scream.
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