Free Severance by Chris Bucholz Page B

What happened?”
    Hatchens studied him for a second before turning his
attention to the elevator door. “It was a knife. The neck, you see?” Hatchens’
hand moved up towards his own neck as if to demonstrate, before he seemed to
think better of it. “First deck,” he said instead. “No idea who might have done
it, but we’re checking the feeds now.”
    The elevator finally arrived. Harold blinked, lurched into
the car, and turned. Hatchens remained outside, looking at something on his terminal.
“Oops, looks like I have to go. I’ll be in touch. Sorry again.” The doors
closed, obscuring Hatchens’ face and an expression that didn’t look very sorry
at all.
    As the elevator accelerated downwards, Harold’s legs gave
out. Finding himself sitting on the floor, he looked at his shaking hands.
Oh,
Kevin, my boy. Oh, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin…

     

Chapter 3: Brash

    Ron Gabelman had an excellent excuse for missing work; his
head had been nearly lopped off. Stein found this out when she arrived at the
maintenance office to find a red–eyed Curts already there in the company of a bulky
security officer, Sergeant Hogg.
    Hogg asked Stein what she knew about Gabelman’s activities
over the past few days. She explained the task she had assigned to Gabelman the
last time she had seen him, when she sent him to investigate the hot and cold
complaints in the aft government offices. She pulled up the complaints on the
Big Board for them to observe, although from the dismissive glance Hogg gave
them, she got the impression that Curts had already walked him through this.
The two complaints were both flagged as ‘Resolved.’ One had a brief note
attached to it: “Adjusted air balancing.” The other simply said, “No Issue.
Complaint was mistaken.” A couple of taps on the screen indicated Gabelman had
made these notes shortly after ten in the morning the day he disappeared, at
which point he should have reported back to the maintenance office.
    “So, he should have returned here at, what, 10:30?” Hogg asked.
    “Sure. But it isn’t unusual for techs to take their time
walking back,” Stein replied. She exchanged a glance with Curts, who nodded.
    Hogg eyed Stein carefully for a few seconds. Finally he
said, “His body was found this morning on the first deck, off 45 th and Fir Street. Do you know of any reason why Gabelman would be in that part of
the ship?”
    She shook her head — she really had no idea what the kid did
for kicks.
    Hogg nodded, and continued, “We also found a couple tabs of
guru on him. Did you ever know Mr. Gabelman to use narcotics? Did he ever
arrive at work intoxicated? Tardy or absent often?”
    “He was new, so I can’t be completely sure. Not necessarily
a model employee, but I never saw him doing anything like that.”
    “How was he not a model employee?”
    Stein waved her hands back and forth defensively. “I don’t
mean anything bad. He was just a little slow. Sometimes took longer, needed
more help with tasks than I’d prefer. That’s all.”
    Hogg stared at her for a few seconds more, waiting to see if
she would elaborate further. She recognized the ploy and stayed silent. Hogg
frowned, looked down at his terminal, then the door. “Okay. If I have any
further questions, I’ll be in touch.” With a nod, he turned and left.
    Curts slumped forward on the table, head resting on one
hand. He yawned, then repeated all of Hogg’s questions, apparently checking to
see if Stein had decided to withhold information from the security man that she
would for some reason share with him. She answered his questions, not bothering
to hide her annoyance. Eventually, satisfied that Stein wasn’t omitting
anything, Curts stood up and straightened his ridiculously clean orange jumpsuit.
Whatever he’d been doing the past few months, it clearly hadn’t been very dirty
work. As he tucked away his terminal and adjusted his webbing, Stein detected a
hint of indecision in his movements.
    “Let me