by Liam Clay
An Underworlder named Lucy overhears her. Fox faced, with a shaved head and leech tattoos down her neck, she is a professional poker player known for her acidic table talk.
“More like withdrawals.” She sneers. “Haven’t you heard of the Kaleidoscope bomber? At least he hasn’t tried to off himself yet today.”
Peace unleashes her trademark stare, but a career spent working tables has taught Lucy to disguise her reactions. She just laughs, pivots on her hip and walks away. Peace turns to me questioningly; I smile and shrug.
“One emotionally unstable drug addict, at your service.” Much as I’d like to throttle Lucy right now, it actually feels good to get my shit out in the open. Like giving a wound some air.
“Charmed, I’m sure.” She points across the grounds. “But I would be saving my breath if I was you.”
A man has just collapsed in the next quadrant over. Red’s ex-partner Doro is screaming into his face, flecks of airborne spittle gleaming in the morning light. The man struggles to rise, and fails. Before he can make a second attempt, the sergeant unholsters his sidearm and fires three bullets into the man’s chest. Any vestiges of my good humor die with him.
Gunshots narrate the morning like morse code slowed down. The day grinds on. Strength training, a bitch of an obstacle course, a break for lunch that I can’t touch and then back at it. I retreat into a private world of pain. Twice I collapse, and twice Red starts in my direction. Both times I regain my feet before she reaches me. Not so on the third occasion.
“Get up!” She barks. I rise to one knee - too slowly. She reaches for her gun.
“Wait!” I rasp.
“Why should I?” She growls back. “Think I’ll go easy on you just because we’ve met before? It was business then and it’s business now. So get up!”
I get up.
“Better.” She says. “Now listen closely. You are obviously going through withdrawals. In two weeks you will probably be the strongest one out here, but if you fuck up at any point before then, I will be forced to shoot you. This is my neck on the line too. And don’t look at me like that - I warned you this would happen.”
I almost choke. “That’s a bit of an overstatement, don’t you think?”
“How do you figure?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you never mentioned that Korezon planned to attack the entire Underworld in addition to the Kaleidoscope!”
“Hey, I was as surprised by that as you were.”
“I doubt that very much. And what are you even doing here, anyway? I thought you were a cop.”
“I am. But I used to be military - a pilot, to be specific. So they shunted me onto this gig when it came up.”
“For real? You were in the Regional Defense Corps?”
“Yeah, got a cigar smoking parakeet tattooed next to my asshole and all that. Now get moving.”
The second day is much like the first, only worse. Every muscle aches, my brain barely functions and my voice has completely failed. I push through on fumes, clinging doggedly to the goal Red has provided. Two weeks. If I can last that long, everything will be alright. A week later I’m cursing her for a dirty liar. Ten days in, the same. But on the twelfth day, I wake up without immediately regretting it. Up until now it has been an effort to ingest anything, and harder still keeping it down. But today in the mess hall I find myself actively hungry for the first time.
I have Delez and Peace to thank for my recovery. Both have been doing their best to help me - although Peace might deny this if asked. She’s quite the enigma, our resident legend is. She is often friendly, even giggly on occasion. Other times, it looks like she’s thinking up amusing ways to murder me. I wonder if she knows that Delez and I have guessed her identity.
The Fractal is seated beside me now, with the blonde sniper across from us. The three remaining members of Delez’s crew flank her, but with a buffer between them. (Peace has shown a penchant for torquing on fingers when touched.) Kalana is nowhere nearby. I’ve been too messy to seek her out, and she has stayed away. I was worried about her fitness at first, but needlessly. (She shares my background, after all, minus fifteen years trapped in a pill bottle.)
Morgan - Delez’s youngest crew member - reaches across the table to nudge his boss.
“Lookie here, I think our boy’s finally coming around.”
All eyes turn toward me.
“Check this out.” I say, and bite off a solid chunk of protein bar.
“Praise the lord.” Delez breathes. “He’s healed!” I find myself grinning.
“Not fully, but I do feel better.”
Morgan’s older brother Francis shakes his head. “What a shame. You’ve been my main source of motivation these past few weeks.”
“How so?”
“Every time I felt like quitting, I would look at your dumb ass and think: if that strung-out bastard can do this, so can I.”
The laughter is led by Tiana, Delez’s third crew member. Tall and strong limbed with cheekbones you could cut a steak with, she might pass for a Topside model if not for all the scars, which are impressive in both size and number. The brothers both claim to be hopelessly in love with her. Having seen them hit on almost every girl in camp, however, I take their romantic declarations somewhat lightly. As does Tiana, although she plays along for fun when it suits her.
That day in training I don’t shine in any way, but neither do I lag behind. The next session is better again. And true to Red’s word, by the fourteenth day I am easily outstripping the competition - Delez and company included. Peace pulls up beside me after a run that afternoon, wheezing like an asthmatic in an attic.
“I don’t get it.” She says between gasps. “How do you go from dead on your feet to deadly fast in two weeks? Shit makes no sense.”
Francis nods. “Seriously man, I know you were climbing the ladder, but no Underworlder should have the lungs you do. What’s your secret?”
Oh, how quickly we come down to it. Do I stay silent and safe, or open up to these people about my past? The truth could drive a wedge between us, or push them away entirely. They might even rat me out to Porter - who, considering the circumstances, would probably delight in torturing every last ounce of intel out of me. But if I don’t tell them, I risk falling into the same trap that has kept me a loner for most of my adult life: when I keep my secrets, other people keep theirs, and bonds of trust are never formed. Which could be a major problem, because something tells me that allies are my best hope of surviving what’s to come.
I motion the group closer and they crowd in, keen to hear me spill the beans. But instead of answering, I glance meaningfully at the nearest tripod. I doubt Porter would bother to monitor our conversations - we’re nobodies to him - but that’s no reason to go blabbing within range of recording devices.
“I’m just lucky.” I say, mouthing the word ‘tonight’ directly afterward. Then I peel off toward the obstacle course.
But our late-night gossip session is not to be. At the end of training, Red usually escorts us to the mess hall for dinner and then straight back to bed. But today she orders us into ranks along with the other platoons. About twenty minutes later, Menta and Voranez arrive in their jeep. A troop transport follows close behind it.
It must be Menta’s turn to address us. “Congratulations are in order.” She says in the nasal tones we have all learned to hate so well. “You have survived the first stage of training. We will now be finalizing your platoons.” There is some shifting among the Underworlders. “As of today, Sergeant Tikal is taking command of Alpha platoon, which will be made up of the most promising among you. Sergeant Doro will command Beta Platoon, and so forth. Sergeant Tikal, your roll call please!”
Red - or Tikal, as I suppose I should start calling her - steps forward.
“Anex!”
Leaving the crowd in my rear view, I fall in behind the former pilot.
“Fort.” She continues. “Delez. Williams. (The name Peace is going under.) Davies. Lucy. C
yan. Juanita. Francis. Tiana...”
Most of the recruits she calls were in our original group as well. But the list ends at twenty names this time, meaning that Alpha platoon will be much smaller than its predecessor. Kalana is among the last to be chosen, and my relief is so great that it takes me a moment to realize that Morgan has been left out. I glance over at Francis, but his face is a rigid mask.
“Alpha platoon, march!”
And so we do. Not to the mess hall though, but out the gate and into the back of the waiting transport. Tikal does not accompany us. As we take seats on the benches inside, I hear Doro bark Morgan’s name. Then the engine roars and we’re moving.
No one speaks. Pockets of solidarity have developed within the group, but we are still far from being a team. The new people in particular (or solos, as I’ve dubbed them in my head) keep their eyes and thoughts to themselves. We travel like this for almost an hour. The training sweat dries on my skin, leaving me sticky and uncomfortable.
The solo makes his move without warning. One second he’s on his bench, head down, the next he’s launching himself through the truck’s rear flap in a rolling ball. There is a muffled thump, followed by two more in quick succession. We all wait for the inevitable reaction. But when the vehicle doesn’t slow, a new form of tension bleeds into the air. The divide lies between the young guns, who want to let the solo take his shot at freedom, and my generation, who are livid with him for endangering our children.
Now for obvious reasons I’d like to avoid being labeled a snitch. But if I want to prove myself to Kalana, it’s time to start putting my money where my mouth is. Before anyone else can move I’m off the bench, slamming my palm against the cab’s steel backing. Brakes squeal and the truck skids to a halt. The sudden stop knocks me off my feet, and then I’m being crushed under a pile of bodies.
“You fucking rat!” Someone growls in my ear - Fort, I think. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
The debt collector is ninety kilos of drug fueled muscle, but I’m even bigger, and nastier too in this moment. I’ve got my legs under me now, shedding attackers, powering slowly to my feet. Fort is the only one still hanging on. I have no desire to make an enemy of him, but if I don’t establish some authority right now this is going to keep on happening. With a guttural roar, I pick him up and throw him to the truck bed.
“You want to know whose side I’m on?” I say to his prostrate form. “My daughter’s, that’s fucking who!”
The rear flap twitches aside to reveal the driver’s angry face. “Hey, y-liners! Save the fighting for when we tell you.”
“Never mind us.” I say quickly. “You’ve got yourself a runner. Davies, I think.”
The driver scowls. “Which way did he go?”
“Do I look like I can see through walls?”
Voranez must have been following us in the command jeep, because he appears before the situation can degrade further.
“Anyone hurt?” He asks - somewhat bizarrely in my opinion. We shake our heads. “Good.” He turns to the driver. “Button them back up. We’re carrying on.”
“But sir -”
“Now!”
The driver grudgingly complies, but not before I catch a glimpse of the lieutenant’s jeep. It’s a good ways back, making it hard to be sure, but the front grill appears to be caved in and streaked red. Shit. As we get back under way, I wait for Fort to confront me again. But he has retired to a corner with his fists clenched in front of him, face the most fascinating shade of purple.
“Who died and put the junkie in charge?”
It’s Lucy the buzzcut poker player, eyes offering challenge from under heavy lids. I wonder if she has something against me specifically, or if causing trouble is just her style.
“No one.” I reply. “But I’ll do the same thing a dozen times over if I think it will keep my daughter safe.”
“Glad to hear you feel so comfortable trading in lives. Voranez may have decided to let Davies go, but you had no way of knowing that.”
Withholding the truth would be better for my agenda. But that, of course, would be wrong. Peace saves me from my moral quandary by filling them in.
“Voranez didn’t let Davies go, you dunce. He ran over him with his fucking jeep. And unless you want to become roadkill too I’d follow the junkie’s lead, because the Topsiders aren’t bluffing. Unlike some people I could name, with their played out tough girl bullshit.”
Lucy smiles lazily. “Looks who’s talking. Any softer and you’d be melting.”
Peace shows every sign of being delighted by the gambler’s response. Probably because she’s imagining a tin can lying next to her corpse.
“What I just did is going to haunt me.” I cut in. “But taking a lone wolf stance isn’t going to work in this situation. Even if Davies had managed to escape, we’re talking about one person. Our children would suffer for his freedom, and the rest of us would still be trapped here under even tighter security.”
Lucy snorts. “What do you suggest then, big shot?”
I realize that the entire platoon is looking at me expectantly. Me, the Kaleidoscope bomber. I turn to Delez.
“You’ve got the most leadership experience of anyone here. Thoughts?”
The Fractal looks surprised but recovers quickly, rising to address the group.
“Right now, I think our biggest problem is lack of information. So until we have a better idea of what’s going on, I say we hang tight and go with the flow.” He shrugs. “And as we’ve recently seen, battles can be confusing things. If Alpha platoon were to go MIA at some point...”
“Then we could escape without endangering the kids.” Tiana finishes.
I nod enthusiastically at this suggestion. The more realistic best-case scenario is that we die in combat, but succeed in achieving the Topsiders’ objective. Then we just have to hope they find the mass slaughter of children off-putting. But that’s not really the kind of plan to rally support with.
“So can we all agree to play the long game for now?” Delez asks the platoon at large. There is general assent, although much of it is grudging. He nods anyway and resumes his seat. I glance over at Kalana, wondering if my actions have earned me any brownie points. She is looking my way, but I can gain no sense of her feelings on the matter.
The truck comes to a halt a minute or so later, and we hear the sound of another gate opening. The driver takes us through, kills the engine and climbs down from the cab.
“Get out here!” He bellows.
We emerge into a pit of blasted earth at the end of a sheer-sided ravine. The area’s only structure is a cylindrical tank raised on stilts. A broad steel panel sits flush with the ground beside it. Oh, and I should probably mention the soldiers, too: people with guns tend to dislike being ignored. They usher us onto the steel panel, Voranez blinks out a tune, and the pit walls begin to grow.
Or, more accurately, the earth swallows us as we drop down a concrete elevator shaft. But no one screams, curses, or even flinches that I can see. We are becoming immune, perhaps, to any fear that doesn’t promise immediate pain. A door rises into view, and the panel shudders to a halt. There is a pneumatic hiss. I assume this sound is a preface to the door opening, until pink gas floods the shaft like weaponized cotton candy. I was wrong, I think as we crumple to the floor: I managed to get a hold of some drugs after all.
CHAPTER 16
I come to on an examination table, naked, limbs restrained by rubber straps. As far as most depressing wake ups go, this is giving the precinct interrogation room a run for its money. At least no one has thrown piss in my face yet. The ceiling, I notice, is a flat screen, currently dormant except from a boot up logo at its center. I give my bonds an exploratory tug. They don’t budge, but the movement causes someone to clear their throat nearby.
“Sir? I think he’s awake.”
A rolling chair purrs over linoleum, and Porter’s face interposes itself between me and the ceiling screen. What a douche this guy is: jaw ove
rly chiseled, hairline too even, tanned as the devil with teeth whiter than fake movie snow. He treats me to a companionable wink.
“How do you feel?”
The smart move would be to jolly him along, but after everything that’s happened I just can’t bring myself to do it.
“How the fuck do you think?”
Porter chuckles, like we’re at the country club and I’ve just made a charmingly racist joke. Then he grows suddenly serious.
“Would you like to know my deepest regret?”
I’d rather snuggle a rabid badger than listen to this guy try to humanize himself, but he doesn’t wait for an answer.
“In my youth,” he says, “I wasn’t afraid to take risks because I knew that I could keep grinding, keep hustling, until I overcame my occasional failures. But as I got older, I began to worry that I would lose the strength to keep getting back up after a fall. And so I started to play it safe.” He sighs theatrically, really hamming it up.
“It was just small things at first. Failing to pursue a woman because she was too ‘wild’ or not ‘girlfriend material’. Turning down a job offer that paid in stock options. But before I knew it I had sold my future off by increments, and lacked the personal capital to buy it back. And not a day goes by that I don’t hate myself for that. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
I actually sort of do, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to give him the satisfaction.
“I’m a shiftless Underworlder, remember? Your first world problems mean nothing to me.”
Porter smiles indulgently, like a father catching his child in a harmless lie.
“Come now, Anex, I want us to be honest with one another. I know what you do for a living, and how high you spend your time.”