Part XII – Confidence, Part 2

This is Part XII of the serial space western The Ghosts of Blackmoon Rift. It is also available for download in RTF format here. Or click here for a complete listing of episodes.

Part XII – Confidence, Part 2

The red-rimmed sky smoldered as the sun’s embers sank behind the hills. The shadows that stretched from the horizon limned the rest of the world with purple and blue. Murphy wished he were anywhere else.

“You know what sucks?” he asked. His baleful companion did not respond, but he gave a sinister smile as he chucked the baggage down from the hoversled. “No need to answer,” said Murphy, “that was a rhetorical question. This sucks. This whole thing. I’m a simulation, okay, sure. My role in life is to look and sound a lot like somebody else, I accept that.

“What I have a problem with is this whole deal where I’m completely powerless. I never even asked to be brought to this rock in the first place, you know. Soon as I get here, I’m dragged off into the wilderness by a crazy man. Then quicker than you can say I froze my sister he checks out and leaves the keys with his evil alter ego. Who is now hauling me back towards where we just came from, ostensibly so he can deprogram me.
“At least we’re taking the scenic route back,” Murphy added. “What did you call this charming little ghost town you’ve brought us too? I love the way it’s all run-down and completely abandoned.”
The Man Who Was Not Wallace effortlessly peeled a piece of siding off a ramshackle building. “Shut up, or I’ll hit you with this 2×4,” he said.
Murphy sighed. “I’m glad we had this discussion,” he said.

By all appearances the town was indeed abandoned. The man grabbed Murphy’s projector and explored the main street, which showed every sign of having been a bustling burg up until recently. Now there were only crickets and tumbleweed.
The man found a cellar door in an alley and yanked it open. Rough steps led down into darkness. He chucked Murphy’s projector unit through the door. The device skittered across the rough dirt floor.

“This is a good plan,” said Murphy, brushing himself off. “Send me down first to look for danger. Spiders, snakes, whatever. Too bad I’m not organic, or I could keel over like a parakeet if there was poison gas. But it’s cool, I’ll do what I can.” He made a big show of looking around the empty basement.

“Nah,” said the man, “I’ve got a different job in mind for you.” He grabbed several of the bags of equipment and threw them down the stairs. “You just keep an eye on this stuff. I’ll be back in, oh, how long did you say your battery life was?”

“About six days?” said Murphy tentatively.

“Five-and-a-half days, then,” said the man. “And then we’ll have a little chat.” With a harsh laugh he slammed the cellar doors shut, and Murphy found himself alone in the pitch black cellar.

As the Void Where Prohibited hurtled toward disaster, its emergency systems kicked in and an emotionless female voice announced “Thirty seconds to impact.”

Egan Torr, Miss Kitty and Crash were trapped in a tiny scout vessel racing along a narrow lane between rings of asteroids directly toward an oncoming ship.

“Twenty-nine seconds to impact.”

At these sub-relativistic speeds, Crash would have only moments to avert total destruction. One false move and the three would be pulverized into space dust.

“Twenty-seven seconds to impact. Twenty-six.sec -”

Crash flipped a switch and the voice shut off. “Enough already,” he said. “Okay, let me save you the suspense. The computer shows that I can deflect our angle just enough to strike the other ship with only a glancing blow, about twenty-two seconds from now. We should survive the initial impact, although our ship will be badly damaged. Should make landing interesting.” He shrugged. “Miss Kitty, can you get on the horn with the other ship, find out what’s going on and offer assistance? Professor, since you don’t have a proper seat you’d better go ahead and assume the fetal position.”

“Already on it!” said Torr.

“Attention approaching vessel, attention approaching vessel,” Miss Kitty said into the com. “You are on an impact heading with our craft. You folks alright?”

There was static, and then an excited babble broke out over the com system.

“Aliens!” said Torr.

“Engineers?” gasped Crash.

“Not that kind of aliens, genius,” snapped Miss Kitty. “That’s Spanish. Um, Usted está en peligro,” she radioed. “Nuestras naves están a punto de chocar!”

“You speak Spanish?” asked Torr.

“Pretty badly, I’m afraid.” The voices that came back over the speaker were more excited than ever. Miss Kitty shook her head in frustration. “Por favor repetición –“

There was a bone-jarring thud and everything went sideways for a moment. When he peaked out from between his fingers, Egan Torr saw that the stars were spinning rapidly around them and Crash was doing something very frantic with the controls.

“Okay,” he said. “We’re really crashing now.”

Miss Kitty sighed. “Somehow, I knew this was going to happen.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” said Crash, “I’m probably better at crashing than I am at regular landings.”

“So you got all your metal parts during regular landings?” asked Torr.

“Cuál es su, uh, situación?” said Miss Kitty into the com.

There was a note of rising panic in the static-laden response. Miss Kitty groaned in frustration.

“What did they say?” asked Crash.

“My Spanish is terrible,” she said. “I can’t make it out at all. It sounded like they said that their pilot has dissolved.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do anything more for them now,” he said. “Better strap back in. I’m gonna run a reentry diagnostic.”

“How does that work?” asked Torr.

“It’s pretty ingenious if I do say so myself,” said Crash cheerfully. “Basically we reenter the atmosphere and see what falls off.”

Murphy snapped awake. Something had jarred him out of his power-conserving state. “Hey, what gives?” he asked. “I was having the most wonderful dream about flying toasters.” Around him, all was dark. Fortunately, What Would Murphy Do was very little else besides light. He turned his projector to full and lit up the basement.

Next to him, Wallace was smiling his dreadful smile.

“Gah! What gives, you psycho? I know it hasn’t been five and a half days yet.”

“Ssss!” said Wallace. It took Murphy a second to realize that the man was shushing him behind gritted teeth. “Sss! Quiet! It’s me you fool!”

The man’s face was smudged and dingy from lying on the packed dirt floor, and both his hands and feet were bound.

“Oh, yeah, you do look a lot like Wallace. You know who you also look like? Evil Wallace!” Murphy hissed in an angry whisper.

The man’s smile vanished. “That’s not me, you idiot! Do you think I’d be trussed up and stuck down here if I was?”

“I don’t know,” said Murphy. “You’re crazy. You do crazy person things. My name ain’t What Would Crazy Do.”

“I’m not crazy,” snapped Wallace, “and I don’t have an alter ego. What I do have, about right now, is a real short fuse.” He lunged threateningly toward the projector unit.

“Okay, you definitely sound like the real deal,” said Murphy. “You’ve got Wallace’s sunny disposition. But if you’re Wallace, then who’s the dapper fellow that looks so like you? He’s got your chin. And your clothes.”

“My brother,” said Wallace, looking away.

“What?”

“My twin brother, alright? Name of Fetch. Kind of a family secret. Boy had some issues.”

“Fetch and pa, they didn’t get along so good. He did some stuff, bad stuff. Had to run from the law. I ain’t seen him in fifteen years. But he’s back, and he’s trying to take over what’s rightfully mine.”

“What’s that?”

“Blackmoon.” Wallace worked his way over to the wall and began scraping against his bonds. “He’s been stockpiling weapons,” he said. “The Feds have been after him for it. They think I’ve been shooting at Bureau agents. But it’s Fetch. And he took my sister too, darn him.”

But Murphy wasn’t listening. “Bureau agents, huh?” he said.

“What?” asked Wallace. He grinned. “You know something about the Bureau?”

“Well, it’s quite a coincidence that you should mention them,” said Murphy. “Because,” he said, lowering his voice, “Flanagan was sort of working for them.”

“Flanagan?” asked Wallace.

“Hard to believe, I know. That red-headed dolt wasn’t an agent or anything. But when word got out he was headed to Blackmoon to try and find his fiancé, he was approached by an agent from the Bureau, a woman. Very mysterious character. She told him to keep his eyes open for anything strange on Blackmoon.” Murphy snorted. “At this point that list would fill an encyclopedia.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, I’m free!” said Wallace.
“Huh?” said Murphy. He turned around and saw Wallace triumphantly brushing himself off. “Your brother must never have been a Boy scout,” Murphy said.
“Never was the scouting type,” said the man, throwing open the cellar doors. “See, I don’t play well with others.” He smiled sickeningly.

“Aw, phooey,” said Murphy. “You’re Fetch, aren’t you?

The other man laughed harshly. “You’ve been played for a sucker, Murphy,” he said, grinning wickedly. “Fooled by a schizophrenic. Shame on you, doc.”

“Schizophrenics don’t have split personalities, genius!” said Murphy. “And anyway, I’m a doctor of history.”

“Live and learn, eh?” said Fetch. “Except sometimes you just don’t get the chance.” Fetch picked his 2×4 up from where he’d dropped it beside the cellar door. “Now, I’m gonna go have a word with that boy Flanagan about his Federal connections. But before I do, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ‘reprogram’ you.” He brandished the board threateningly and began to descend the steps.

“Oh, c’mon,” said Murphy frantically. “Does that really seem like a good idea? Think of all the stuff I could do for you. I can impersonate people! I can spy! I double as a flotation device! And I know lots more information, tons! Hey! No! Wait! Please don’t –“

Fetch hefted the board over his head.

It was at that moment that the roof of the building blew off.

To Be Continued…

 

(Part XIII is here.)