Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Chapter 7: justice league

Harper decided to go by O'Keefe's berth before heading home. Cameron worked late nearly always and having a congress meeting today would only make her later. He knocked and yawned. There were days that he regretted joining builds, but mostly he was glad that builds had the strictest schedule keeping and it paid well. Still, his shoulders were nearly always sore and Cameron teased him constantly about how much weight he had lost and then had regained as muscle.

"Harper," O'Keefe nodded when he opened the door. "Come in; Cameron told me about the blueprint plan, I think that's a fantastic idea."

"I have to make the fake first," Harper pointed out. "And it's only to prevent anyone from printing more guns. It doesn't solve our issue with the siding."

O'Keefe gestured around his berth. Every wall was covered in various sketches and prints of the base. Cameron had been reluctant to bring O'Keefe on board, but Harper had insisted. O'Keefe knew the base itself much better than Cameron and Harper. He had built the venting thing.

"The paneling is removable at the junctions and inside the utility closets," O'Keefe told him. "And you know which berths we need?"

"Cameron does; she has their personal records," Harper replied. "And the earthstorm hits us in what, two days?"

"You tell me," O'Keefe shrugged.

Harper heard his holo-rib chirp and he glanced down at his messages. Cameron had received the holo-rib blueprint and they were ready to work on it. He messaged her back quickly. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with the blueprint. Having the next couple of days off would be a perfect time to work.

"Do you want to come over for dinner?" Harper asked. "Cameron is picking up a couple of zucchinis. Have you ever had zucchini? They are very strange."

"You think all vegetables are strange."

"I am not wrong," Harper shot back with a grin. "Come on, Cameron keeps telling me that man cannot live on noodles alone. That goes for you too."

"Who's the grumpy old man here?" O'Keefe questioned, but wandered to get his shoes, pulling them on his feet. "Should I bring anything?"

"Whatever you like," Harper said.

There were times when Harper struggled with O'Keefe being so much older than he was now. Privately he wished he could go back in time and stay out of cryo, being with Taylor, raise a daughter. He should have been dead by now, he knew. Taylor should have never been in a position to be captain and then promptly murdered.

These were things he kept to himself, unable to voice them to Cameron or O'Keefe. Harper wanted to believe he was happy here, and for the most part he had made the best of it.

"Have you let Cameron know I'm coming?" O'Keefe said, grabbing a block of cheese.

"Oui," Harper grinned and hurried to message just that to Cameron before they made it back to their berth.

The hallways were loud as people were getting off work and playing around before the storm hit. He wondered what it would be like; the photos were intimidating and potential damage immense.

A couple people gave O'Keefe dirty looks and scowls as they walked along. Harper noticed that O'Keefe walked just slightly behind him, as if trying to distance himself from Harper, as if tainting him with his reputation.

Harper didn't personally care, but knew that Cameron didn't need any personal attacks against her and so let it be. Harper looked forward to a day where he could be himself in the halls of the base.

Cameron had started dinner when they entered. She smiled at O'Keefe who offered the cheese a little awkwardly.

"Harper, if you want, we'll finish dinner while you take a look at the print," she said. "Lully also sent a program to open it, so you don't have to build your own. Oh, and the extra parts are on the table."

"Merci, Cameron."

Harper unlocked the small bedroom and turned on his tekcom. While it booted up, he sorted through the box of parts, noting that most of it was pieces he already had, but might be able to gel into new boards. His work was already a hybrid of quantum and Canary gear. He didn't know how much more code the mess could handle.

He opened the message from Lully, peering at the 3-D image of a holo-rib. He could make a joint, so long as opening up the file and manipulating it wasn't too complicated. Of course, the image was locked, and so Harper set a program to work breaking the passcode. He left it alone to return to the kitchen. O'Keefe and Cameron were amiably watching the zucchini slices cook on the stovetop.

"So?" O'Keefe asked.

"It's passcode protected so that's the first step," he explained. "But I should be able to make a good facsimile. Having the real version to reference will help."

"We think Victoria is the closest to a utility closet," Cameron said. "She'd be the easiest to test this, once we do the blueprint swap."

"I thought we were going to hit them all at once," Harper frowned. "When did that change?

"It's going to take more than one person to pull the siding open," O'Keefe said. "You've moved these panels. They're heavy. Even during the earthstorm, it's going to be difficult to move quietly enough. Not to mention, we'd have to print more guns if we don't do this separately. That's going to raise suspicions."

"Not necessarily," Cameron replied. "With the blueprint we can print at any of the printers on the base. Research has one, medical wants one, Lully has one. I agree with the need for stealth, but I don't think that lack of firearms should be our reason. I think it's the right course of action."

They had talked early in the process of staging accidents. But the point wasn't to kill them, otherwise Harper would walk up to Lincoln and do that tomorrow. The point was to prove that nothing had changed and pretending everything was normal was poisoning the base. They should have never allowed Lincoln into congress and they should have arrested and tried him. But that hadn't happened, and Harper wanted justice.

No, Lincoln deserved to be murdered in his bed, and the base forced to take a hard look at each other, wondering no longer if everyone on the base was truly happy with how things were.

"So the first day of the earthstorm?" Harper asked. "I guess it would really depend on how loud the storm is this time."

"That first day it is awful," O'Keefe promised. "After a while, you get used to it, so we're going to want to do this quickly once the storm begins."

"Carefully," Cameron cautioned. "We're going to do this carefully. I don't want any innocents killed and I don't want any of us to get caught. Just because our lack of a justice system worked for Lincoln doesn't mean it'll work for us. Dashiell has already promised he'll bring back the death penalty." 

"Words," Harper scoffed. "That's the only way Dashiell would kill a man, by talking him to death."

"We're having dinner with him tomorrow," Cameron told him sweetly.

Harper groaned.
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Cameron has a plan, righty? Thanks for reading!