Chapter Text
“That’s old world contraband, Butcher,” Mark said, handing the data chip back to him.
“Can you open it?” Simon asked.
The Brother of Eden scrunched his nose and held out an open palm. Simon doled out his usual price: a fourth of a ration block.
“It's not my wheelhouse. I don’t have the equipment and my English is shit. But if you talk to Grace, he'll have no problem with it.”
Simon tilted his head curiously.
Mark was a good information trader, a Brother of Eden who had lost his leg at seventeen. Instead of becoming a raider, he'd joined the salvage team, which meant he always knew someone who would know something about Simon's finds. But 'Grace' was never mentioned before. And that was strange on its own. Eden wasn’t a big space station; its headcount was a little less than 510.
“Why don’t I know him?”
“He keeps to himself. Apparently, he was from Earth, you know, before.”
Before Mars, Earth, Sol, and the stars beyond their little solar system disappeared in a flash around their space stations in the Quiet Rapture.
"The Olympus Stations?"
"No, Earth."
Dr. Ryland Grace lived in C-Block, which was about as far from the Grove and the heart of Eden as one could get without living with the engines and life support. There were still the usual barracks, mess halls, and common areas, but it was duller.
The raids had given Eden a lot to salvage, but there was less of that clutter of lived-in treasures that had built up like plaque in an artery over the decades. There were also less people lingering in the walkways, but that was probably because it was so fucking loud.
C-Block was so close to the internal engines and life support systems that it felt like walking next to Eden’s heart and lungs thrum through the thinnest layer of skin.
The faces Simon passed tended to be older, and vaguely familiar but not known to him the way most of the station was. The reason was simple: a lot of these guys weren’t Martian or Eden-born. They were the transfers who’d been traveling to or from the space station when the Quiet Rapture disappeared their destinations out from under them. Which, would include an Earthling.
Simon found Grace in an old lab that had been somewhat taken over by engineering tools and scrap metal. He was tall, blond, with a crooked nose (broken once), and peering down through cracked glasses as he rolled up strips of frayed linen. He looked a bit older, maybe forty? He had gray in his hair and fine lines around his eyes.
He stopped and looked up the minute Simon entered. “Am I about to have a bad day?”
“You Dr. Grace?”
“Unfortunately…Brother,” Grace said, blue eyes flicking from Simon’s boots, to his pouch, to the knife sheathed on his shoulder. “The Keepers send you?” he asked wearily, meaning the Father and his clergy.
Simon shook his head. “Mark Fischer.”
“Good kid,” Grace said, seemingly on reflex. “Wh–what can I…”
Simon tossed the data chip on his table, noting as he did that the stainless steel had been recently scrubbed down. There were bloodied rags soaking in a bucket under the workbench. Worker injuries? Simon didn’t know any raiders who went this far down to get patched up.
Grace set aside his wrappings, but didn’t touch the chip. “Why does that feel like trouble?”
Well, no use being vague, he was going to see if he accepted, and Simon could see this guy wasn’t a talker. “It’s a data log of names leaving Mars through Vinland Station the July before the rapture.”
Grace whistled lowly, “Big trouble. What are you doing with this, Eden Son?”
“Can you open it?”
Grace chewed his lip, looking from Simon to the log. “I…Sorry, no dice. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And he was a shit liar. No wonder Mark liked him.
“I can pay.”
“I don’t need rations, and I don’t do favors,” Grace said, clearly having been offered both often. For what? There couldn't be that many people after contraband data. Was he an actual medical doctor? Why the hell would he be down here? The Father would have brought him up decades ago.
“I don’t do favors either. What do you want?” Simon asked. A breathless laugh escaped Grace, who seemed to think he was posturing. “Believe me, I’d have no trouble getting it.”
Grace looked at the chip. “Why do you want the names of dead people? You know what happens if you’re caught with this stuff. That can’t be worth it.”
Simon frowned. “That’s not your fucking business.”
“Well, it’s my price.” Grace sucked in a breath and shrugged like it couldn’t be helped. “Listen, you’re a very, ya know, intimidating guy, but big muscles are more short-term scary than the guy you worship so—”
“I don’t worship the Father.”
“Right. Anywho…” Grace pushed the data chip back.
“You’re fucking serious?”
“Yep.” Grace popped the ‘p’ and went back to rolling up the bandages.
Ok. Fuck this.
Simon grabbed the chip. But he got five steps outside of the cramped lab before he found himself trudging right back.
Grace, seeing him, braced in his seat, eyes scrunching, waiting for Simon to hit him. He looked baffled when Simon laid the chip down next to him.
“My mom was supposed to leave Mars around then. She had an engineering job. Depending on when she left, she could be on one of the surviving stations as a transfer. Her name would be on the log if she made it before.”
Before Eden broke off communications and refused to cooperate with any other station in the name of its Martian independence.
Grace sighed and rubbed his face. His glasses fell and hung off one ear, but he didn’t move to fix them. He squeezed his eyes tight, seeming to regret his next words before he spoke them.
“Come back in a week. What was her name?”
“Lia.”
“Got a last name to go with that?”
Simon opened his mouth, but he knew he didn't. He’d been called a Son of Eden for so long he’d forgotten it. The pause in the air admitted that for him, but Grace didn't comment. Instead, he carefully picked up the chip and folded it in one of the strips of cloth.
“See you in a week.”