Point And Shoot Part 2

After another few minutes of nothing, the transmission came to an end. Hardie was beginning the process of unstrapping himself when- Whoah.

He felt the satellite jolt.

3.

The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door.

-Fredric Brown.

HARDIE TICKED DOWN the extremely small list of things that could possibly jolt a $3.7-billion-dollar satellite.

The best-case scenario: an off-schedule food delivery drone. But that couldn't be. The last had arrived two weeks ago, and there wasn't another scheduled for at least six more weeks. There's no way his employers would send extra, because (a) they were super budget-conscious, and (b) everything up here was planned down to the ounce. Which left ... asteroid? A collision with a piece of s.p.a.ce junk?

Sure sounded like the food delivery drone docking, though. The noise and clatter was like someone slamming an SUV into the side of your house, followed by magnetic deadbolts, locking it in place.

CLUNK-CLUNK-CLUNK-CLUNK.

Hardie pulled himself over to the gateway hatch, using the handholds to make his way. He checked the sensors that usually told him when a delivery drone was ready to deliver a payload. He waited. Nothing appeared on the screen. This wasn't a delivery drone. This was something else. The very thing they a.s.sured him could never, ever happen ... because they'd taken every possible precaution so that it would not happen ... well, it seemed tobe happening.

f.u.c.k.

Hardie decided he wanted a beer. Like, yeah, right now. It was the morning in Philadelphia, but it was afternoon here in s.p.a.ce. He should have insisted that they install a cooler in this d.a.m.ned thing, maybe arrange for monthly s.h.i.+pments of quarter-kegs or even a couple of six-packs. Beer is packed with nutrients, right? If you're going to stick a guy in a tin can, at least give him a couple of cans to open every now and again.

But no. The satellite was too small for such an extravagance as a beer.

His entire world was in the shape of a bullet, and it flung itself around the earth many, many times a day.

There were two main sections: the bulbous part where Hardie lived and performed his pointless daily tasks, and then the skinny-a.s.s metal gateway tube that led to a small rear hatch, where the delivery drone would bring fresh supplies of food and water and also accept waste. And, boy, was that whole process fun.

Then again, ordinary life up here in s.p.a.ce was a Black & Decker funhouse of pain. Hardie was forever banging random body parts (elbows, knees, toes, skull) into the metal gizmos on the interior of his living quarters. As a result, he moved throughout the craft perpetually stooped, limbs tucked in close to himself at all times. Sometimes all Hardie wanted in the world was the opportunity to stretch. A real stretch, where you reach your hands to heaven and you can feel the vertebrae pop. Such a stretch was impossible inside this claustrophobic tin can. And taking a leak? Back on Earth, guys were blessed with the ability to find a semi-hidden spot, unzip, and let it fly. Up here Hardie had to contort as if he were doing yoga in a closet. If the vacuum seal wasn't tight, then he'd enjoy the sensation of his own gravity-free p.i.s.s droplets smacking into this face.

Most days Hardie thought he'd have been better off languis.h.i.+ng in that secret f.u.c.king prison.

The living area was about the size of a minivan. The interior, however, was so jammed with subsystems (thermal control, environmental control, avionics, communications, guidance computers, and a bunch of other c.r.a.p he couldn't remember) that to Hardie it felt like a minivan jammed with c.r.a.p for a cross-country family vacation. To do pretty much anything-sleep, eat, s.h.i.+t, shave-he had to strap himself in to one kind of harness or another.

Strapping myself in here, boss.

Go on, Charlie, strap yourself in.

For fun, Hardie could open the hatch and crawl into the gateway tube. But seeing as how that was lined with machine guns and didn't offer much in the way of entertainment value, such excursions were brief and unsatisfying. Sometimes he could look through one of the four tiny windows and check out the groovy solar arrays sticking off the sides of the satellite like robotic dragonfly wings. But that got old fast, too.

There was nothing else to do.

No place to go.

His only diversions were the heavily pixilated transmissions from Earth, showing his wife and son live their lives without him.

And if Hardie wanted his family to go on living, he knew that he had to take care of whatever might show up in that gateway tube.

The docking mechanism made a last, loud clunking sound. Hardie knew this was basically his front door being unlocked. Usually, he was the one doing the unlocking. To hear it being done with unseen hands was genuinely disturbing. This was no asteroid. This was some sentient being on the other side of the hatch, unlocking it on purpose.

Hardie's hands were wrapped around the dual triggers; here we go. All he had to do was point.

And shoot.

But a dizzying wave of thoughts raced through his head. He wondered how loud the gunfire would be. And would his employers bring him back down immediately, or would they force him to remain in orbit with the dead chunks of whomever still clinging to the sides of the gateway? Hardie heard himself sigh. Was he really going to do this?

The speakers crackled and popped.

"Charlie Hardie," a voice said.

Oh boy.

Not only was there a sentient being on the other side of the hatch. But this sentient being knew his G.o.dd.a.m.ned name.

"Hardie, can you hear me?"

Yeah.

I can hear you loud and clear, partner.

The craziest thing-and this was pretty much the maraschino cherry on a sundae full of crazy-the voice sounded familiar. As in, it sounded like Hardie's own voice. Which was insane, right? Maybe after nine months of talking to himself, his ears were tuned only to his own voice. And now every voice sounded like his own.

The only other explanation was that Hardie had finally lost his d.a.m.n fool mind, that the voices in his head had escaped and had somehow taken possession of this s.p.a.cecraft.

"Hardie, if you can hear me, use the audio communicator and let me know, okay, buddy? It's the third b.u.t.ton down to the left of the monitor."

Sure. Yeah. The audio communicator. So I can talk to the voices inside my own head. A handy external manifestation of interior cuh-RAAAY-zee.

"Hardie, talk to me," his own voice insisted. "I'm here to save you, man. Eve Bell sent me!"

Eve Bell?

That was a name Hardie thought about almost every day.

Hardie and Eve had been bound together in the strangest way possible: They were old prison buddies. In her previous life, Eve Bell was a private investigator, a professional "people finder" who'd been hired to find Hardie. And find Hardie she did. But they'd ended up in the clutches of their common enemy, and both had to claw their way through h.e.l.l (and its Prisonmaster) to escape ... at which point Eve announced that she was quitting the people-finding business. No, instead she would be in the "destroying the Secret America" business, and wouldn't rest until it was dismantled, destroyed, in flaming embers, etc. She recruited other like-minded loners who'd been screwed by the people she called Secret America and waged b.l.o.o.d.y war.

Eve had said: "We can fight back. All of us. We can take these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down."

But the Prisonmaster shook his head and smiled. "You have family, Mr. Hardie. A wife and a son, isn't that right? They will be dead the moment you leave this facility. They'll see to it."

"Not if I get to them first. Who are they? Who are your bosses? I want names."

"That won't do you any good. You can't comprehend the complexity of the Industry ..."

Eve said, "I hate to say this: Hardie, he might be right. Once they know we've escaped, they'll be relentless. They won't hesitate to take out your family. I know how they work."

Which made the decision clear: Only Hardie could slip out of the prison for now. Leaving Eve behind to deal with the other prisoners. Hardie promised he'd send help.

"Don't," Eve had said. "Take care of your family first."

"I can help."

"Go," Eve insisted. "Leave this to me. This is no hards.h.i.+p. I've been at war with Secret America for two decades now. Thanks to this place, I now have an army. And we're going to kick their a.s.ses."

That was what Eve had promised, anyway. Hardie had no idea how that whole war thing was going, because he was stuck in outer s.p.a.ce.

Hardie often wondered if Eve had been winning any battles down there. Or if she'd already been caught, silenced, and/or killed. If it was the latter, Hardie wondered if they had made it look like an accident.

Now this mystery man here (who sounded just like Hardie) was invoking the name Eve Bell. Which would be a pretty clever move on the part of the Industry, or Secret America, or whatever you wanted to call them. Maybe this was simply a test to see if he had the guts to pull the triggers after all.

But what if this guy truly had been sent by Eve Bell? What if she was winning the war, and she'd sent someone to rescue Hardie? In that case, it would be a major b.u.mmer if Hardie were to pulp his own rescuer into machine gunstyle chopped ham and flush him out into the void of s.p.a.ce. Either way, he had to be sure.

"Eve who?" Hardie asked, trying to sound oblivious.

"Eve Bell. I know you know who she is, Hardie."

"No, it really doesn't ring a-" Hardie stopped himself. Christ, he had lost his mind.

"Hardie," the strange yet familiar voice said, "time is critical here. You either have to trust me and open this hatch, or you don't. In which case we're both dead men."

"Well, I don't trust you," Hardie said. "I don't know you, or this Eve Bell, so why don't you just leave." The moment he spoke the words Hardie realized how absurd that sounded. This wasn't like telling someone to get off my porch. There was no gray area here. This was low-orbit s.p.a.ce. He had to either let this guy in or kill him.

"At least let me show you my face," the voice said.

"Why?"

"Trust me. It's a face you'll recognize."

"If I know you, why won't you just tell me your name, then?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that. Please, Hardie, just let me open the hatch and show you who I am."

This boggled Hardie's mind. Which wasn't good, because Hardie was already convinced he'd gone crazy inside this tin can all of these months. Secret America or the Industry or who-the-f.u.c.k-ever wouldn't run some kind of freaky psychological experiment on him all this time, would they? No. They wouldn't do that to poor old Hardie. Not after all that they'd been through together.

"I'm opening the hatch."

"You can't," Hardie said quietly.

"Overriding the system now," the voice said. "Hang on."

"Don't, I'm warning you," Hardie said, but he had to admit-his curiosity was overwhelming.

Who could it possibly be? Why would Hardie know his face? Maybe it was his former pal Deke Clark, who somehow had convinced his FBI bosses to rent a rocket s.h.i.+p for the weekend. Or, for that matter, the president of the United States of America. Even better: Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, teaming up to rescue him. Oh, the adventures they would share!

Hardie knew it didn't matter, though. He'd been given simple instructions: If anyone enters the tube, you shoot him.

Otherwise, your family dies.

Down below, the hatch unlocked and opened a few inches, as if a cat had playfully nudged it open. Hardie was ready. The target onscreen, fingers on the dual triggers. Again, he hesitated. Was he really going to do this? Pump buckets of bullets into a total stranger?

h.e.l.l, yeah, he was. If it means saving his family, he'd do anything. There was no choice.

Hardie was about to squeeze the triggers when the hatch popped open all the way and someone screamed, Don't shoot! I'm here to save you! The figure clawed at the latch connecting his helmet to his suit, shouting, Wait! Wait! Wait! Don't shoot! Please! Then the helmet came all the way off to reveal ...

Hardie's own face.

4.

Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time?

-John Simm, Life on Mars.

THE SIGHT OF his mirror image left Hardie dazed, his vision fuzzy. As if his mind was struggling to apply some logic to the situation. There's a guy down at the other end of that tube who looks just like you. Therefore, we don't exist. Therefore, I am shutting us down so as to avoid a time-s.p.a.ce paradox. Hardie dropped his hands from the triggers without even thinking about it. The tips of his fingers tingled.

"Relax," the Other Him said. "I can explain everything."

Hardie thought: no. f.u.c.k no, I'm not going to relax. I need to pour hundreds of bullets into this guy right this very second, no matter who he looks like. But ...

... but ...

What if he was the salvation he'd been looking for?

All this time, spinning hundreds of miles above the surface of the earth, praying that G.o.d would grace him with even the tiniest glimmer of an escape plan. Was this it?

Hardie stopped himself.

What, yourself? You are your own salvation? For reals, yo? Are you hallucinating?

That was it. A hallucination.

Nothing more than a bit of undigested reconst.i.tuted beef or powdered NASA potato-Scrooge in s.p.a.cestyle.

So a hallucination wouldn't mind getting blasted into little red messy chunks by twin machine guns, would it?