by Liam Clay
I suppose I should be flattered: Raka has had the stocks relocated just for me. My wrists and neck are pinned inside adjoining wooden crossbeams, which are locked into a pair of vertical posts. I’ve been moved to a spot just outside the chaotic hole town that surrounds the Fortress. By turning my head as far as it will go, I can barely make out the palisade’s main gates. They stand closed for the first time since my arrival.
Cyan, Olia, Juanita and Lucy have formed up in a semi-circle facing the town. They’ve shined up for the occasion, too: faces washed, hair slicked back, armor gleaming. But they’re just a backdrop for the main attraction. Tikal has stripped down to lycra tights and a sports bra, eschewing all weaponry as well. A biting gale rips over the trampled fields, but if the cold is bothering her, she gives no sign of it. Every inch the warrior.
“Oi Raka, time to come out and play!” She shouts. “You’ve got yourself a challenger.”
Crows hop and croak, bodies twist like spindles from frayed rope. Then the gate creaks open and a man steps through. (To striking effect, I might add, which is probably why he had them closed in the first place.) Raka turns out to be even scarier than advertised. A true behemoth at over two meters tall, he is built of bunched muscle and slack fat layered over an almost grotesquely broad frame. And yet he is surprisingly light on his feet, gliding between hovels with Kenrit and a contingent of guards. Drawing closer, they complete the circle my platoon mates started. More of his supporters take up positions at the town’s edge. A lot more.
As for Raka, he is leering at Tikal out of the left side of his face. The right hangs limp and loose, possibly the result of a stroke.
“I knew Kingston would come out from behind its walls to treat with me eventually.” He booms. “Never thought their emissary would be so fuckable, though.” Hyena laughter from his entourage. “But you say you have a challenger for me. Where is he?”
Tikal bares her teeth. “Wrong on two counts, pretty boy. We’re not from Kingston, and it’s not a him you’ll be fighting. It’s me.”
“You? I think not. A woman’s place is on her knees, not on a battlefield.”
Every word lends further insight into this man’s cult of personality. Weak douchebags love a leader willing to blaze the evil trail - it lets them coast within a slipstream of normalized hate. Tikal isn’t fazed, though.
“Who said anything about a battlefield? More like a jungle gym for a fat kid trying to play at warlord.”
Raka’s good humor sours.
“Easy to talk tough when you have guns to back you up. But guns require bullets, and I don’t see a supply line strung out behind you. You’re going to run out of ammo before I run out of men.”
“No need to find out, honey buns. Like I said, this is a good old fashioned challenge. I’m calling you out. Fist fight for the top job, toe to toe, fatso vs bitcho. Come on, it’ll be fun! How many of these things have you won already? Five, six?”
“Eight.” Raka states proudly. His men - who had been shifting uncomfortably at the mention of bullet to body ratios - now switch to confirming murmurs.
“And all of those against big, muscly lads I’m sure. So what’s the problem, not interested unless there’s another sweaty male body involved?”
The mood swings again, from awe to shock laced lightly with amusement. It’s clear that Raka doesn’t want this fight - there are too many unknown quantities at play here. But Tikal’s comment has had its intended effect. He can’t back out now.
“Oh, you’ll get your title shot.” He points to the men assembled behind him. “And when I’m done fucking you bloody, I’ll leave you for my dogs to play with.”
Tikal smiles lazily. “Sounds good, baby. Do you have any dobermans, though? These terriers don’t look up to the job.”
Raka must be used to having his threats of sexual violence taken seriously, because the good side of his face twitches, lips pulling back from corn kernel teeth. Then he charges.
The ensuing fight is reminiscent of a speed chess match I once watched on the late night feeds. There is undoubtedly a lot of skill involved, but the moves are so far beyond my ability to follow that I find it hard to get emotionally invested. I mean obviously I want Tikal to win - it’s just that the action itself has little meaning to me. Punches are punched, kicks are kicked. Knee impacts solar plexus, elbow spins into jaw, rinse, lather, repeat.
One thing I do know is that Raka is more than a simple brute. His movements are measured and exact, planned multiple steps in advance. But Tikal is a surprise too. I think I expected her to go far east mystical - you know, praying mantis position, tiger in the long grass and what have you - but she just stands and delivers. Rights driven from the shoulder, low calf kicks, hooks to the body, upper cuts when Raka tries to get close. Powerful, fast and relentless, a human machine firing on all cylinders.
Ducking a jab, Tikal lands a perfect rib shot where Raka’s muscle is thinnest. He grunts and drops his guard. She wails repeatedly on the same spot until he doubles over at the waist. But when she tries to go for a kill shot, he grabs her around the thighs and brings her to the ground.
Now the fight becomes completely unintelligible. Cyan and Juanita probably know what’s happening - those two love their arm bars and ankle locks - but it all looks like aggressive foreplay to me. A minute into the ground assault, Raka manages to get both legs around Tikal’s neck. Cut off from air, her face goes crimson, veins standing out blue along both temples. Sensing victory, Raka starts to laugh. Until she wrenches her head around and bites down hard on his crotch. There is a wet tearing sound, followed by a moan from the crowd.
Raka screams and tries to roll away, but Tikal has other ideas. She straddles him as he turns over and starts dropping bombs into his face. Up until now, the entire episode has had a schoolyard vibe to it, exacerbated by all the pre-match taunting. But here that illusion vanishes, because Tikal just keeps on punching.
One of my first Ladders was a C-list celebrity chef. He was a high strung type, always seeing some new shrink, and one of them turned him onto something called schnitzel therapy. Every time he felt an anxiety attack coming on, he would start pounding on chunks of veal with a wooden mallet, spreading the meat thinner and thinner until it was all but translucent.
This is a similar process.
For the first thirty seconds, I keep waiting for the mob to intervene. It’s what Tikal expected to happen, and why the other four women are carrying a full half of the platoon’s ammunition. For thirty seconds after that, I think the mob is hoping she kills him. But then Kenrit’s words come back to me. To these people, Raka is an invincible force of nature. They are completely sold on his indestructability, and can’t imagine a scenario where he would need help of any kind. And so it is with macabre curiosity that I wait for the mob to realize he’s dead. They’re slow learners though, so I decide to see how the other half of the operation is going.
“Still alive, I see.” Delez comments when I initiate the link. “How’s our girl doing?”
“Living up to the hype. And you?”
“All good so far. We had to use our shears at the gates, but it’s been smooth sailing since we got inside.”
“And the pits?”
“We’ve already freed about half of the women, although some took a bit of convincing. They thought we were Raka’s men playing a game of bait and switch.” He hesitates. “I’ve seen some bad shit in my day, but this...”
“Tell me about it. Can you move any faster, though? Tikal is pretty much finished over here.”
“I know. Peace is on the wall with eyes on you, and she’s reporting back to me.”
“How? I can’t sense her.”
“I’ve got her on a separate connection.”
“Who taught you to do that?”
“Nobody. Just been figuring it out as I go along. She says you look like a piece of modern art, by the way.”
“Most of it is someone else’s blood.”
“Really?”
&
nbsp; “No, just kidding. It’s mine. Anyway I’ve got to go, something’s happening.”
We disconnect, and the real world slides back into place. Tikal is still crouched over Raka’s body, but she’s not punching anymore. No one else has moved a muscle. Then she rises to her feet - shoulders back, chest heaving, red streamers trailing from both fists. It may be the most gangster thing I’ve ever seen, but it can’t last, this moment. Any second now the mob is going to get angry - like, you just beat our god to death angry - and Cyan, Juanita, Lucy and Olia are going to waste precious bullets subduing them.
“Bow down, motherfuckers.”
No one reacts. Then Kenrit glances at me, ducks his head, and places both hands flat on the ground. The front row follows his lead, and then everyone is joining in, dropping to their knees in a rippling wave.
.
“It’s called transference.”
“What is?”
The platoon has gathered on the tipi’s bottom floor for an emergency meeting.
“The phenomenon we just witnessed.” Kalana explains. “Raka built himself into a godlike figure in the eyes of these people, and he also instituted a law allowing anyone to challenge his authority via single combat. Which Tikal did 100% legitimately. So to them, she is...”
“The Second Coming.” Tikal finishes. I can’t tell how she feels about the idea.
“For the time being, yes.”
“This is good news, right?” Delez asks the room. “So how come everyone looks so bummed out?”
“I think overwhelmed is more accurate.” I reply, trying not to dribble blood onto the floor. “Even with everything we’ve said on camera, Porter might still have let us off the hook if we’d done our job properly. But now that we have a few thousand fanatics at our backs? He will think we’re way too dangerous to keep alive.”
“So where does that leave us?” Cyan asks.
“It leaves us 17 days to seize the leverage we need to bargain for our kids’ lives.”
“So how about it?” Delez asks Tikal. “Want to be a deity?”
She taps a finger against her thigh, thinking. “Only if the Soccer Moms are onboard. It’s their children we’d be risking.”
Everyone looks at Kalana.
“We’re in.” She says without hesitation.
“Are you sure?” I say.
“Yes. We’ve been talking it over, and all of us think Lucy is right. Let’s say we go along with Porter’s plan. The moment I die, the Topsiders will dump Sophie into a Slump sweatshop or a brothel.” Her voice remains steady as she says this, but I can only imagine what it’s costing her. “We would rather take this chance to save our children - right here, right now.”
“And there are the other Underworlders to think about, too.” Juanita adds. “If we head back over the wall, Korezon will learn everything we know, including how weak the Hive is. Armed with that information, he might decide to kill off the other platoons and send in a smaller force of his own instead. But if we pull a no-show, Porter has orders to send our people in. And if we’re waiting at the wall to greet them...”
“We can get them to help us hold the coastline, and bargain for the release of the children from there.” Cyan finishes.
I’m already shaking my head. “It won’t work. In that scenario, the kids would become the only leverage the Topsiders have left over us. They would keep them indefinitely as insurance.”
“Probably.” Kalana agrees. “Which is why for the plan to work, someone has to travel back to Opacity and rescue them. Before the 17 days are up.”
“But how do we do that without transmitting everything we’ve done to Porter?” Lucy asks.
Kalana motions to Francis. With considerable reluctance, he pulls a spherical object out of his belt kit. At first I think he’s showing us a nanodrone. But its surface is translucent instead of silver, with a dark spot on one side. With a jolt, I realize what it is: the retcom he pried out of Judith’s head after the glider crash. The others tense up as they figure it out too.
“Given the proper tools, I might have time to deactivate a few of our transmitters.” He says. “But I would need to run revenge on this one first to learn how.”
Lucy’s mouth twists. “And where do you plan to find these tools?”
He shrugs. “There are lots of complexes near here. We could send out search parties and see what they turn up.”
“You can try.” Lucy says. “But we all saw the condition Elias’s complex was in.”
“Maybe some of the others will be in better shape.”
“Wishful thinking. And even if you’re right, what are the odds of finding the gear you need?”
“To be honest? Not good.”
“We should go to Kingston.” Tikal says, a propos of nothing.
“What?” Delez squawks.
“It was the Designer’s home base, right? There must be some decent labs there.”
Francis thinks it over. “She may have a point.”
About a dozen people try to respond, but Lucy wins by virtue of being the loudest. “Are you suggesting that we just walk in there and ask to use their stuff for a few hours?”
“No, I’m suggesting we walk in there and fuck their shit up. And not only for the tools.” Tikal tilts her head toward the entrance. “I’ve got those assholes out there cowed for now, but they’re not going to take a female leader lying down.”
Someone snorts.
“Okay, poor choice of words. What I meant is that we need to bind them to us.” She points at Juanita. “If you want to intercept the other platoons as they hit shore, we will need to man the entire mainland-facing stretch of the wall. That’s a lot of bodies. But as it stands I wouldn’t trust these fuckers to put milk in my coffee, never mind execute a large scale military operation.”
“But your victory -”
“- is fresh in their minds right now, but that won’t last. What we need is an ironclad show of strength, and taking Kingston is the best way to do that.”
“She’s right.” I tell the group. “Raka built his power base on this exact same promise, but he never followed through. We need to walk his talk.”
“Who told you that?” Lucy asks.
I point to Kai and Olia, both of whom look to have lost the conversational thread some time ago.
“Their father.”
.
That night we break out the sides of beef, build a massive bonfire and hold a feast. And once everyone is good and full (and drunk off the fermented homebrew they swill here) Tikal addresses the crowd. She keeps it short. There is no talk of the past, or of our plans for the Fortress and the Hive. It’s just good old fashioned hate speech, directed squarely at the Designer.
The Painted Men drink it up quicker than the booze.
Also described is her plan for growing our numbers. All captives are to be sent back to their holdout families with gifts, and invitations to join us in our fight. (We don’t expect anyone to accept, but Tikal neglects to mention this.) She closes with a declaration of war, and gives everyone seven days to prepare.
CHAPTER 28
The next week passes in a blur of activity, most of it logistical. We have an army now, and as Tikal takes pains to impress upon us, they are hideously complicated machines to run. I spend most of my time on a couch in the tipi recovering from my injuries. But I try to make myself useful by organizing our scouts as they search the countryside for materials.
Raka’s plan, it gradually becomes clear, had been to destroy all of the island’s technology aside from his own hoard, with the endgame - we can only assume - of turning himself into a sort of modern day wizard. One who would not, naturally, be called upon to defend his supremacy via mortal combat. So a retirement scheme, in essence.
Unfortunately, his plan has left us tragically short of weaponry. We do our best to alleviate the situation, but these efforts boil down to replacing a load of wooden clubs with steel ones. This isn’t all bad though, because we don’t want our new allies to
be too well armed either. Guns and shears remain the platoon’s trump card. It’s quite the tightrope, all told - made more complicated in my case by the fact that I can barely walk.
But I’ve got it easy compared to Kalana and the Soccer Moms. Upon them has fallen the unenviable task of keeping the peace. Most of the camp’s women have departed in search of their families (a surprising number of whom do end up returning with them). But quite a few have nowhere left to go, and they are understandably keen to take some well-deserved revenge.
Stopping them from doing so is a heartbreaking task. But we have to try, because Tikal’s army needs every able body it can get. This is accomplished through development of The List. The system Kalana devises is highly complex, but it amounts to a catalogue of every man’s activities prior to our coup. Eye witness accounts are recorded and cross-referenced; levels of transgression are assessed; future punishments are planned out. All of this is done quietly, without the perpetrators’ knowledge. And although it takes some doing, Kalana manages to appease the hundreds of victims with these promises of future justice. But it is an uneasy agreement that leaves us all feeling dirty.
There are a few positive moments, however. I put in a good - well, decent - word for Kenrit, and after some convincing, Olia consents to speak with him. At her request I also sit down with Kai, hoping to dispel some of his father worship before he faces the reality. The boy gets angry with me at first, and then there are tears, until he eventually admits to having suspected as much for years. Another compromise reached, another precarious balance arranged.
A final cause for optimism stems from Nina and Elias. With the creation of The List, Nina seems to have shed several layers from her onion of madness. Or maybe it is talking to her fellow victims that is helping her. And certainly she is helping them in return: always with a kind word or a shoulder to cry on. It is only just dawning on us that we have an entire generation of trauma victims to care for, and nothing like the infrastructure required to do so. But every little bit helps.
All of these activities are being shoehorned into the war preparations, of course. But the fact that the platoon is even considering such matters indicates a shift. We have begun to plan for the possibility, however faint, that we might end up living here when all this is done. And for once, the major resource we will be lacking is people. To farm the land, to protect our borders from Korezon, to build a functional society. So anything we can do to keep people away from each other’s throats is a win.