by Nick Webb
“You sure you’re ok, friend?” Alessandro’s half-mustache bristled as he glanced up at Jake.
“Really, I’m fine. It just seems like this thing kills whenever you’ve got that scanner running.”
Alessandro turned the scanner off, then on again. Then off. Each time he did, Jake felt an almost imperceptible pulse, and when it turned on, the pain indeed seemed to intensify. “You don’t feel that?”
Lieutenant Bernoulli shook his head, but Avery cocked his. “Yeah, I think I do,” grunted the marine. “Barely.”
“Very interesting.” Alessandro held the stubby cylinder up to his face and clicked the thing on. He waved it all over his head, but the blank look on his face told Jake that he still felt nothing. “I wonder if the electromagnetic signal is interfering with your collars. I can’t feel it affect mine.”
“Obviously it’s because your brain is so much bigger than ours, it takes a lot more oomph to get you to notice,” surmised Jake.
In reply, Alessandro touched several buttons on the front of the cylinder. “I’ll increase the gain.” He waved it over his own head again.
“Shit!” Avery’s hand slapped his forehead, right as Jake felt a stabbing pain behind his own.
“Yes, friend, yes! I feel it!” Alessandro seemed far too excited, especially given the amount of pain Jake and Avery were experiencing.
“Fine! Shut the damn thing off!” Jake waved his hand blindly in front of him as he closed his eyes against the pain.
Alessandro shut the scanner down and sat staring at it in his lap.
“Well?” Jake said.
“Well what?”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you just did that for fun.”
“It was a mystery. I wanted to test the hypothesis.”
“And what was your hypothesis?” Jake rubbed his forehead.
The squinted eyes of their scientist seemed to penetrate into the scanner as he turned it over and over in his hands. “That the field generated by this thing can interfere with our collars.”
“Obviously. But Bernoulli, tell me. Does that help us? Come on, we’ve got to make this quota or we’ll be in a world of pain in a few hours. Remember what happened to that other crew yesterday? They screamed for nearly an hour.”
“I believe it does, Captain.” Bernoulli called him Captain. He never called him Captain—he always said friend, or Jake. The man stood up, brandishing the scanner. “I need to study this to be sure. During our next break, can you make sure I get time? Warn me if the boss notices? If I can just get inside this thing and examine some of the circuitry I can— shit!” His head snapped down to his hand and he grunted. He’d exceeded his word limit. Again.
Jake cocked his head at his friend. “Sure thing, Lieutenant.” He stooped to pick up the rock Bernoulli had just scanned. “Which bin?” He looked at Alessandro, pointing at the rock.
“The rejects,” said Alessandro, without taking his hand off his face.
Jake turned and began his long, stumbling walk back to the main passageway that held the ore carts. Surely, he thought, if the man could figure out a new solution to the gravitic field equations, he could figure out how to disable their Domitian Collars.
Because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure they would ever get out of there.
Unless Po came through, somehow. But why should she come get him? He was a liar. He’d stolen his command from his best friend. Was Ben really his best friend? No, Crash was. But Crash was most likely dead. The last he’d seen of the Roc, it was being boarded by Imperial troop carriers. Crash was dead.
But what if they’d somehow escaped too? They could meet up. Share resources. Combine forces. Track down Pritchard and live off the land for a few years while they planned their next moves.
Jake’s head spun. The hunger, thirst, and fatigue were clearly starting to affect his mind. No. Crash was dead. Pritchard was dead. Po would not risk another mission to the surface. She was far more sensible than he. She’d have the sense to get the hell out of there while she still could and save the ship.
It’s what he should have done in the first place, right after the Sphinx shifted away. He should have taken Ensign Ayala’s advice, and gone to look for her people. They had neodymium, she’d claimed.
He stumbled again on another loose rock, this time falling flat on his face since he was hefting a piece of ore in front of his chest.
He wiped the blood from his nose onto his sleeve. The sleeve of the jacket Velar had given them. Slave’s clothing, he now realized.
“Dammit!” he said to himself. Why hadn’t he seen this all coming?
***
It wasn’t until Ben woke up that he’d understood he’d been drugged again. He shook his head, trying to remember the last moments of being awake. Footsteps from behind—Velar’s, he’d thought—and then something touching his arm. It pinched. Like a needle.
She’d said something. It enraged him, but he couldn’t remember. Something about retiring.
He tried to move, but found that he couldn’t. Not one limb responded. No pain—not like last time—but nothing moved. He opened his eyes and looked towards his chest.
Straps. About two dozen straps holding down his chest, arms, legs, and abdomen. Everything except his head, which he let clunk back down on the table he was tied to. He wondered how much money he’d finally sold for.
Velar. That’s what she’d said. One more sale like you, and I can retire early. He swore at her, and thrashed against his chains. Another voice. That man. The one who’d bought him. The sadist—or so Velar had let on.
He swore again to himself. How the hell had he gotten in this position?
The answer was obvious, of course. Jake was always getting the two of them into trouble. It seemed like half the bars they went to over the past two years had kicked them out at some point for fighting. When he met Jake, he seemed like the perfect friend. Older, a little more experienced, a bit of a loudmouth. Not the kind of people he usually gravitated towards.
Ben was not a loudmouth. He preferred to speak softly and carry a big fist. All those years of jujitsu, wrestling, and plain-old Irish boxing were not for nothing. At the time he learned them all, he’d only planned on winning. He wanted to be a superhero—someone who was never at the mercy of anyone or anything. And so he studied. He read every book. Mastered every skill he could think of. Wilderness survival. Bow-hunting. Hell, he even learned a little black-smithing. Anything and everything he thought might come in handy one day. Anything that would help him stay one step ahead of the game. Keep him out of anyone else’s mercy. No situation would catch him with his pants down.
He glanced back down at his body. Still naked.
He sighed, and glanced to his right.
The room he was in seemed more like a dungeon. Chains hung from rivets on the steel crossbeams of the ceiling and iron shackles dangled from the brick walls. Various cages and tables were scattered around the room, along with other implements of what could only be torture and several items of a less savory nature. Seemingly out of place, computer terminals sat on a lab bench, accompanied by an array of scientific equipment. Test tubes, scopes, microscopes, and several other pieces that Ben couldn’t identify.
He closed his eyes and concentrated. What does the field manual say about capture? Surely there were protocols to follow, weaknesses in his captors to exploit? He strained to remember.
And then he did. That was the one section of the manual he’d skipped. At the time he couldn’t even fathom a situation in which he’d need that knowledge.
He was never supposed to be at another’s mercy. He was never supposed to be caught.
A rustle. With a start, he looked to his left, where he thought the sound had originated from.
Another man. At least, he looked somewhat like a man. He was tied to a wall, but minimally, by just a single, long chain. Deep, savage scars were cut across his face and chest, which had only somewhat healed. Many of the wounds looked fresh, but the deepest ones looked o
lder. The man was naked; his thighs and abdomen appeared to be similarly ravaged by scarring. His eyes sagged, and he squinted at Ben, as if searching him for something.
“Who are you?” said Ben.
“Shhh!” The man held up his middle finger to his lips. Ben wondered why he used the middle finger, until he saw the stump of the index finger, which looked red and inflamed, as if only recently healed over. “We’re not supposed to talk to each other,” he whispered.
“We’re not? Says who?” Though Ben knew the answer before the man replied.
“Him. The master. He gets very angry if he’s disobeyed.”
“How long have you been here? What’s your name?” The evidence of their captor’s cruelty stood hunched before his eyes, but still Ben did not want to believe he was in for a similar fate.
The man looked reluctant to speak further. His eyes darted left and right before glancing furtively back at Ben. “Number six. That’s my name. That’s what he calls me. I’ve been here for … for … forever, I think.”
Forever? “He’s messed with your mind, friend. Don’t believe him. Tell me, how long have you been here? Do you remember your life before you came?”
The man shook his head violently. “Mustn’t think of that. Master tells me not to. There is no before. Only now. Only now, if I am to feel peace. There is no peace for the wicked. I was wicked, but my master saved me. I’m whole now. Pure. See? My master purified me.” He held out his ravaged arms.
Ben felt sick. Their captor was indeed a psychotic lunatic. Somehow, he’d ruined the man—the shadow of a man—chained to the wall. He wondered how long the man had been here. How long did it take to break a man? Ben swore he’d die first.
“What’s your name?” Ben repeated.
“Six. I told you. Six. And you’re Seven. I heard master call you that.”
“Screw that. I’m Ben. Ben Jemez. Hey, can you reach me? That chain of yours is pretty long.”
The man covered his ears with his gnarled, beaten hands. “No. He speaks impurities. Can’t listen. He’ll sully me. He’ll lure me in. Mustn’t listen.”
Ben let out a sigh. He closed his eyes and tried again. “Listen, Six. I’ve got a ship out there waiting for me. A big one. If I can just let them know where we are, we’ll both be safe. I’m with the Earth Resistance. We take care of our people—if I get out of here, I can take you with me. You’ll be safe. I just need you to reach over here.”
The man’s hands edged away from his ears. “Earth? Did you say Earth?”
Progress.
“Yeah. I said Earth, all right. You been there?”
The man’s hands hovered near his ears, as if undecided whether to plug them again. “I remember Earth. I think. From another life. Before I was born to this life. Earth, and the Resistance, and ships, ships, ships, great Jupiter there were so many ships. And that madman. Pritchard. Who ended it all for Earth.”
Ben’s eyes opened with a start. “You knew Pritchard? Were you with the Resistance?”
Six laughed. A coarse laugh. Bitter. “Resistance? Resistance was pointless. Futile. Resist? To what end? In submission there is order. You’ll submit to the Master, too, and you’ll find peace.”
Ben snorted. “Peace? You think you’ve got peace? Have you looked in a mirror lately?”
“Servants don’t look in mirrors. Our Master’s face is our mirror. If we see joy in his, then we feel joy. If we see anger, we feel anger at ourselves for causing it.”
“You’re really messed up, aren’t you?” Ben wiggled against the straps. His shoulders still felt incredibly sore. Probably a by-product of hanging from the chains for so long. He took inventory of the rest of his body, focusing for a moment on each limb, flexing and relaxing, searching for any give in the restraints. Nothing. Each strap had been wrenched down tightly. Whoever did it knew what they were doing.
Six hesitated, starting to speak but stopping multiple times. “Are … is your ship still here? In orbit?”
“Yes,” said Ben. In truth, he had no idea where the Phoenix was, but he had to believe they hadn’t left him. How long since he’d been captured? A few hours? A day? A week? With no idea of how long he’d been under, it was difficult to tell with any certainty.
“Mine left me here. The bastards left me. But no, it was a blessing. A wonderful chance blessing. If they hadn’t have left me, I’d never have my Master.”
Ben tried to get the man to focus on his old ship. “They left you here? What ship was it? Why did they leave you?”
Six continued without answering, as if unhearing. “I was furious, at first. My fury could hardly be contained. My fury!” He chuckled at the word, though Ben couldn’t see what was so funny about it. “My master expunged my fury. He purified me from it. He helped me to—“
Ben interrupted, not interested in hearing Six sing praises to his twisted Master. “And the ship? Was it a big one? An Imperial ship?”
“Imperial, no. Not Imperial. I resisted, like you, once. It was the Fury. That devil of a man was my master. That soulless shell that left me here.”
The Fury? Had it really stopped here? The coincidence seemed far-fetched. And yet, why would the poor man make it up. And the devil he referred to … Admiral Pritchard? Was it possible that a Resistance officer would think of their hero that way?
“Do you mean Pritchard? The Resistance Admiral?”
The man sneered, the jagged scars on his face bunching up into hideous folds. “The same. He left me here. I came down like a good tech. They told me to find some food to barter for. We were running low, you see. But we couldn’t just come down to any old planet. We were on the run. Pritchard said no one could know where we were. And so he kept us to the backwater worlds. The spaces in between worlds. The voids. Until we ran out of food. Then we came here. And I woke up in this room.” His voice drifted off, and he added, in a wispy voice, “I suppose I do remember my birth. Funny. I must be the only one to remember his own birth. I was born there,” he pointed up towards Ben, “on that very table. The blood stains from my birth stayed on the floor for months afterward. I think. Time passed so slowly back then.”
Ben’s heart sank as he realized just how far the man had deteriorated. Was he too far gone? Could he come back? “Look, Six, you’ve only been here, what, two years? Three, tops? You’ve got to pull yourself together. We can get out of here. I just need you to come over here. Can you reach?”
“There is no peace for the wicked,” said the man, with an air of finality, and he dropped his head to his chest and said no more.
Ben let out a long, slow breath, trying to breathe in a rhythm—to stay focused. He glanced around the room. Various tables held all sorts of wicked looking steel equipment that his mind couldn’t even fathom the use of. Whips and flogs hung from the wall, as well as chains, shackles, various clubs, crops, hammers, mallets, and straps. A few power tools even lay here and there—several drills, and Ben could only imagine what their captor did with those.
And against another wall, a stark contrast. Sleek scientific equipment. Computer terminals. Vials. Chemicals. Even what looked like a scanning muon microscope. A lunatic. And a scientist? It didn’t make sense.
Stone walls and hardly any lighting gave the room the distinct impression of a dungeon—the rank smell of urine and the faint whiff of blood didn’t help. The room looked as if it could hold up to ten prisoners or so, and Ben wondered how many residents had occupied it over the years.
“How many—“ he began, but a noise distracted him. Someone was coming. Against the far wall, a door opened, and in walked the man who’d purchased him, dressed in a white lab coat, as if just coming back from his laboratory. Ben wondered what sort of research the man did. Nano-cybernetics? Is that what Velar had said?
“You’re awake. Good.” He stopped at a table and picked up a vicious-looking knife, and continued on towards Ben. He turned to Six. “Has he talked at all?”
“Yes, Glorious Master. He tried to pollute me, but I r
esisted.”
Stone stopped, and turned towards Six. “Did you talk back?” His voice had assumed a dangerous tone. The stuttering seemed to disappear when he talked to the man on the floor.
Six cowered. “Only to tell him to stop. He was polluting the air with his ramblings, and I made him stop.”
“I told you to stay quiet.”
The broken man cowered further.
“But I see you were trying to help me. Good slave. I’ll give you your punishment later, for disobedience. But then I’ll reward you for your good intentions.”
“Thank you, Glorious Master.”
How had the man sunk to this? Ben swore he’d never descend to the poor fool’s level. He’d fight to the end. He’d rather die than end up like Six.
Doctor Stone turned back to him, and sniffed, wiping his nose with a lanky wrist. “And n—n-n-now, Seven, we come to your first lesson. It is the easiest lesson there is, but I’ve found that m-most of my subjects have trouble with it.” He moved closer, resting a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Especially the s-s-strong ones, like you. Six only resisted a few days. I certainly hope I’ll get much more fun out of you. Hades knows I paid for it.”
He lifted the knife against Ben’s chest, who took a breath and held it. The knife dug into the flesh, cutting downward, and to the side, hopping over the straps as he came to them. “Oh my,” said the man. “Like a virgin canvas. And what a canvas. Not a hair, not a single hair. You keep yourself clean, don’t you, my b—b-beautiful thing.”
Ben’s eyes, though shut, watered—not so much out of pain, though it was certainly intense, but out of rage. Several swipes later, the man drew the blade away.
“There. Now I’ve marked you as mine. No one will want you now. No one will ever want used property.” He set the bloodied knife down and picked up a whip that had rested out of sight on the floor. Chunks of glass and metal were embedded in the single thick strand of hide.
“Your first lesson. Your name is Seven, and mine is Master. Call me Master.”
He waited.
“Do it. I am your Master and you must address me as such.” A pause. “Speak, slave!”