The Ceres Murder

The day that the Ceres Station 453 Penitentiary lost communication with Earth was also the day of the murder. It was right in the middle of the call to communicate this event, in fact. Customarily speaking, the Penitentiary only had contact with Earth once a week for a general check in, progress update, and inventory check. The supply drones arrived every three months, and the water tanks made their exports every six weeks. These calls were so rare, in fact, that the Prisoners took an extra six hours after the murder to figure out how to make the call, because Samantha generally did it for them. When they asked her, she said someone had put a blockade in that programming. Bug had to hack the system and reprogram it to get the signal back up. Then Samantha was able to dial in.

The Prisoners had elected Artemis to speak for them. If for nothing else than that "the girl should do it," as was echoed through the communication room. She folded her arms, standing before the screen as though in defiance of its very existence here on this desert landscape of death.

"This better be good," the Commander said by means of greeting.

Artemis glanced back at her fellow Prisoners, shaking her head. Why should she deliver the news? She didn't find the body. She wasn't even close to the guy.

"We got a dead guy," she told the screen.

"What?" it buzzed back in a blizzard of black and white stripes.

"Nuñez is dead."

"Who's Nuñez?"

"The Beast."

The Commander rolled his eyes. "So what? This is why you call me on an emergency line?"

"Well, it was kinda weird. And we don't know who offed him."

"Look, I don't care. I told you when you were dropped off on that Godforsaken piece of rock that I didn't care if you worked or if you didn't work or if you killed each other or if you didn't kill each other. It doesn't matter. You thugs work alongside the machines, Samantha logs your mining contributions. That's it. I'll be honest with you: we have twenty nine other colonized mining asteroids. This won't be the first death, and it won't be the last."

Artemis shook her head slowly. "No, you don't understand. The body... he was inside out, man. Inside Out. Ain't none of us got that kinda power."

The Commander was quiet a moment, the screen buzzing. "Listen, Inmate, I don't care what you freaks are doing to each other down there. You guys figure it out. Punish the murderer or don't. I don't care."

"Well... what do we do with the body?"

"Bury it. Catapult it into space. Eat it. Aren't you a cannibal?"

"Me? No."

"Make a scarecrow. Put on a puppet show. Sleep inside of it to stay warm. Do you need more ideas?"

"Ah, no, I think we're good."

"Good. One last thing -" And then the screen went black. And the room fell silent.

"Samantha, what happened?" asked the Green Man.

"We lost communication," Samantha answered.

"No shit we lost communication, get it back!" The Green Man turned to Crocodile. "This supercomputer ain't done a damn thing since this whole thing started."

"Yeah," agreed Crocodile. "What the hell, Samantha? You don't know who murdered Nuñez, you don't know how it happened, you didn't know how to call Earth, now you don't know why we lost communication? I sense a conspiracy, boys."