The hydroponics bay was warm and still. The sounds of the crop-walkers going about their tasks were muffled by the humid air.

  Zed stood just outside the office of Ethan Johns, who was busying himself with several carrying cases. In one, stacked in neat rows, was what must have been the entirety of the remaining mushroom samples.

  “Taking a vacation?” Zed asked in as calm and cold a tone as he could manage.

  Johns turned so abruptly that Zed found himself taking an involuntary step back. The look on the big man’s face was one of pure shock, not the usual steely control that Zed was used to seeing. The shock disappeared in an instant, as if a mask had been slammed over it.

  Johns smiled. It terrified Zed that even with Unen, he couldn’t see it as anything but a genuine smile.

  “Zed, my boy! I’m so glad to see you out and about. Though, I guess that’s not entirely true, is it?”

  “What do you mean?” Zed asked, but the answer came to the front of his mind before he’d even finished asking the question. “You ate some of the plant, didn’t you?”

  Johns put an affectionate hand on the sample case. “These little things pack quite a wallop, don’t they? In spite of my, shall we say, special access to Naug’s systems, I couldn’t see all the research information on your own experience with these little alien shrooms. That Issac Roth is more paranoid in his data storage than I gave him credit for.”

  Johns took a slow look around the bay, as if taking it in for the first and last time with new eyes.

  “I don’t know about you, Zed, but I find the experience to be… singular.”

  “I hope you’re ready for the side effects. I’d recommend a quiet room and a hard look inward if you really want the full experience. See what the new mind makes of your little mutiny,” Zed spat.

  Johns waved a careless hand at him and picked up the cases.

  “I fear this gift is wasted on you, Zed. Two days with it and I got deeper into Naug’s systems than in the previous year. Imagine what a dozen engineers and scientists could do with these turbocharged minds. It’d be just like she says. Ah, but enough of the delay tactics, boy.”

  Johns walked toward Zed as if to walk straight through him, which of course he could.

  “Ah, don’t take it too hard, boy. I’m sorry it had to come down this way, but there are bigger things at play. I applaud your attempt, but it’s time to step aside before you or someone else gets hurt.”

  “Was spraying Alina’s blood over the Martian sand always the plan, or did you just get bored?” Zed was proud of himself for delivering the line without a tremble in his voice. It wasn’t easy.

  It had the desired effect. Zed didn’t need Unen to notice the flicker in Johns’ expression. Was that disgust?

  “Now, Zed, I can only imagine that your feelings must be hurt and all, but that’s no reason to start casting baseless accusations at random,” Johns replied.

  “She was in your way. She knew there was a hack, and eventually, she’d have found the source. What’s a little murder here and there when there are—how did you put it? Bigger things at play?”

  Johns’s expression hardened. He straightened and seemed to grow in size.

  “You’re upset and can’t see clearly right now. I’ve got things to do, so I’m just going to leave you to stew in your misplaced anger.”

  He picked up the two cases he’d been packing and walked with a steady stride out of his office and toward the hydroponics exit.

  Zed turned and faced Johns’s retreating back.

  “No.”

  Johns stopped and half-turned. He opened his mouth, but before he could make a sound, he was yanked sideways with a speed that was alien to his large body. With sickening quickness, the big man found himself wrapped in a tangle of multi-jointed robotic arms.

  “Turns out your crop walkers weren’t that hard to get control of with the right access. Seems like a big oversight considering they’re the only things around here that are armed and dangerous.” Zed smiled. For the first time in a long time, he felt in control. “See what I did there?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Zed walked at a deliberate pace, circling until he stood in front of the now immobile and suspended Ethan Johns. The robotanist looked down at Zed with a blank coldness that Zed had never seen before.

  “I think I’m ready for that talk now. I’m feeling very much myself, and I’m ready to hear a story.”

  The sound of whirring servos and hissing plant sprayers filled the silence that passed between them. Johns stared at Zed. A sad smile spread across his face.

  “Alright, boy, it seems I have no choice. What do you want to know?”

  “What do you want?”

  Johns laughed deeply. “Well, that’s an easy one. I just want control of my own destiny. Though in reality, that always comes down to money and power. I wouldn’t mind a sprinkling of glory in there either. As long as the end result is me relaxing on a beach that I own with beautiful women bringing me drinks, then I can live with it.”

  “That makes no sense. How has anything you’ve done gotten you any closer to any of that?” Zed asked, arms wide in exasperation.

  “Oh, Zed. You think you’re on top of things, but you see so little.”

  “So enlighten me. What don’t I know?”

  Johns grunted. “Oh, we don’t have the time to even scratch the surface. Have you even considered how earth-shattering this little Martian plant is? Of course not. You can’t see past your own little problems.”

  Johns’s voice softened. He looked at Zed with what at least appeared to be sympathy.

  “It’s not your fault. You’re young; you can’t help your limited experience. When it comes to something as important as that little plant you found, the normal rules of societal niceties go out the window. Power like that needs to be in the right hands.”

  Now it was Zed’s turn to laugh. “I’m assuming the right hands are the ones that also happen to be holding bags of money?”

  Johns attempted to shrug, but the crop walker arms tightened their grip in response. “Times of great change should be taken advantage of. To do anything else would be an immoral waste.”

  “Oh, so you’re worried about being moral? How did killing Alina fit into that? Was she not an ‘immoral waste’?”

  Johns’ face hardened again. “I didn’t kill her. She was more of an unintended consequence of having to work with what I had. Or who I had, I should say.”

  “Yeah, where did your accomplices crawl off to?”

  “Oh, I suspect Andy is about somewhere,” Johns said, keen eyes watching for Zed's response.

  “Andy? Are you kidding me?” Zed exclaimed. He felt both validated and horrified at the same time.

  “Yes, well, we don’t always get to pick the people we work with. For what it’s worth, Alina was never supposed to die. Andy got carried away. Initiative isn’t a positive trait in a fool.”

  Zed felt a deep anger growing in him. A sad rage that was hollow and helpless.

  “So what was your plan? Were you going to take those stolen samples and grab a taxi? There’s nowhere to go if you hadn’t noticed. This is literally the worst place in the solar system to try and pull off a heist.”

  “No taxi hailing. A better metaphor would be stealing a car.”

  Zed frowned. Johns couldn’t be serious.

  “You were just going to steal a rocket? What would that do? You’d just give everyone a leisurely few months to call Earth and have you arrested the second you popped into orbit.”

  Johns smiled down at Zed. There was no mistaking the emotion in his face now. It was a smug smile devoid of any concern or fear for his situation.

  “That’s the thing about talking to Earth. It’s kind of hard to do without a communications array.”

  Zed had Johns trapped, but he couldn’t help but feel that of the two of them, he wasn’t the one in charge.

  “Zed, this whole thing,” Johns gestured with his chin to the mess of metal arms surrounding him, “it’s admirable, truly. You made a real effort, but sometimes experience trumps enthusiasm. You might have had an edge with someone else, but as I said, that plant really is a marvel.”

  Johns looked down at his robotic captors and said, “Alright, that’s enough of that.”

  At once, the arms relaxed and lowered him gingerly to the floor.

  “You didn’t think I’d ever put myself in a position to be compromised by my own hired hands, now do you?” Johns said, stretching his neck.

  Zed stepped back in shock and amazement.

  “But… I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t, boy, and that’s what’s so great about you. Just maybe not great for you, eh? You rush in without a clue. It’s endearing, but I’m truly sorry it had to come to this. I think you’re a great kid, truly I do.”

  Johns walked right up to Zed’s virtual body and stooped until they were eye to eye.

  “I know you’re not here, but your attention is, and that’s all I really needed.”

  Johns's eyes turned cold as he said it. Zed had the feeling that he wouldn’t have felt any less chilled if he’d been face to face with a shark.

  Zed heard a loud banging. He was disoriented for a moment and then realized the sound was coming from his physical location and not the hydroponics bay.

  “Give Andy my regards,” was the last thing Zed heard Johns say as he logged out, and his attention returned to the commander's office where his real body sat.

  “Open up, Zeddy! This will be a lot cleaner if I don’t have to break down the door.”

  Adrenaline shot through Zed’s veins like an electric jolt. He’d never been in any kind of physical altercation before, and he didn’t feel like his odds of fending off an attacker set on killing him were great.

  “Oh, right. Scratch that, Zeddy. I don’t even have to break down the door, do I?”

  Realization dawned on Zed. He reopened the Bubble in Time program as fast as he could, but it was too late.

  The door slid open, revealing a red-faced Andy Foster, with what Zed could only assume was murder in his eyes.