by Liam Clay
“This is Farakul.” The albino messages to me, nodding sideways at the girl. “She's my fight doctor. Welcome to our treefort. It's not actually in a tree of course, but try to use your imagination. Care to join us?”
Glancing over the container to make sure Vor is still inside, I take a seat on the roof beside them. “So, what do you guys do up here?”
Farakul points to the sky. “I mostly watch that, and then describe it to Nem.”
I look up. The Stormline is almost directly overhead: one cable running east, the other pulling us steadily into the west. But that isn't what the girl is referring to. A troupe of acrobats are tightrope-walking the cable, holding doubled-ended spears for balance. As I watch, a tiny woman leaps from one cable to the other, somehow correcting for the change in direction. A man follows her over, but he botches the landing and slips. An ankle rope arrests his fall and he dangles upside down, almost near enough to touch. The acrobat gives Farakul a friendly wave, and then hauls himself back up to the Stormline.
“What are they doing?” I ask.
“Training.” Nem says. “Their owner is the exclusive supplier to Ninetown's battle circus. He's planning to sell them when we get there.”
I want to ask what a battle circus is, but an acrobat distracts me by performing a death-defying aerial backflip sequence. Next up is a man who, if I'm being honest, looks rather out of place. He is somewhat pudgier than your average gymnast, and his movements seem clumsy as well. He makes it about five meters along the cable before falling spectacularly. On the way down, the man somehow manages to sever his safety rope with the blade of his balancing spear. He falls between two containers and vanishes from sight. Farakul makes an exasperated sound.
“Seriously, again?”
But she moves quickly enough, darting to the ladder and vanishing over the side. Once I've described what just happened to Nem, he and I follow at a more sedate pace. We find the acrobat sitting with his back to a container, letting Farakul look him over. His face - which is babyish and oddly rubbery - is slightly flushed, but otherwise he seems completely fine. I'm getting better at making sure to stand in view of Nem's throat, and so I see him ask, “How is he this time?”
The fight doctor makes a disgusted sound. “Fine, as usual.”
Nem shakes his head in wonderment, and then leans over to address the acrobat. “That's five of your nine lives eaten up now, Pep. And those were just in the last few days. I might think about slowing down if I was you.”
“Can't slow down, no, no, no.” The pudgy man replies with a vague smile. “The battle circus is calling, and Pep must answer.”
“That might be difficult with a broken pelvis.”
“But the doc says Pep is fine, fine, fine. Don't you worry about him - he always pulls through.”
“You sure do.” Nem says, giving up. “Just try to be more careful next time, please?”
“Oh, I always take care to be careful. Oh yes.”
The man goes off in search of his master, and we return to the tree fort. When Nem is settled in his chair again, he gives me the lowdown on the acrobat.
“Obviously, the fellow's got an entire hardware store full of screws loose. Thinks his destiny is to become a battle circus trapeze samurai. Can you believe he actually begged to be made a slave, just so he could go to Ninetown? And to top it off, he can barely stay up there for five seconds without falling. It's absolutely loony.”
“But he hasn't been injured any of those times?”
“Barely a scratch. I wouldn't believe it myself, if I hadn't been here for each of them. Can you be an idiot-savant at falling off shit?”
“Seems like maybe you can. What's the battle circus, though?”
“With the possible exception of the Gamehouse, it is the hottest ticket in Ninetown. Think gymnastics, heights and sharp objects, combined. They've tried to buy me a few times, but my boss knows a cash cow when he sees one.”
Down at deck level, I hear a door opening.
“The mistress calls.” Nem says. “Best be on your way. Don't be a stranger though, you hear?”
And so I return to Vorashia, wondering how I could possibly be jealous of someone in Nem's position.
CHAPTER 10
Now that I’ve been introduced to both sides of memory conditioning, Vor starts to use them in tandem. But instead of subjecting me to extended sequences, she focuses on micro-memories. If I am obedient, she sends a flash of happiness through my amygdala. But if I misbehave... enough said. The slavemaker induces dozens of these micro-memories every day, until it becomes difficult to separate my actions from their consequences.
I know what she's doing, of course. This is simple Pavlovian training: conditioning me to embrace good behavior for the positive emotion it brings, and to avoid the bad for the same reason. But from the beginning, Vorashia has been transparent about her tactics. Because unfortunately, being aware of the conditioning doesn't make it any less effective. Before long, I am losing the ability to feel emotions on my own. Everything must be doled out by my master. This dependency gives her a godlike power over me, and I can feel the slide towards subjugation beginning. It doesn't help that the bad weather is holding, meaning that we barely leave Vor's quarters. And as my memory addiction grows, it becomes harder to be away from her anyway. Because then... then I can feel nothing at all. I see Nem and Farakul from a distance a few times, but do not manage to speak with them. And of the squad, there is still no sign.
As a way of battling Vorashia's process, I try to concentrate on my daughter, and Opacity and the Hive, and all the people who once watched my feed. The Null are still out there, and when they're done hacking Worldpool out of the ice, they will march on my twin homes. Someone needs to stop them. But it’s hard to imagine how I could do that. Even before I lost my arm, all of my efforts to slow the Null came to nothing. So maybe it's better that I stay dead to the people I love. Better that, than them seeing what I've been reduced to. But even these dark thoughts (which have always been something of a trademark for me) are hard to hold onto when I’m being inundated with pleasurable flashes of emotion. Time passes, our destination edges closer, and escape starts to seem like an impossibility.
One night, Vorashia emerges from her bedroom in white lingerie and stilettos. Taking a seat on the lounge across from my litter, she says, “I've just heard that we will reach Ninetown in a few hours. And you have been well behaved these past few weeks, so I think a reward is in order before we reach the floating city. So, what will it be? You seemed to enjoy killing Porter and those movie studio executives. Or how about when you cured the Afflicted in the Thresh? Or... maybe I could give you a night with a lover? Yes, I think you would like that. And so would I.”
Beneath my eagerness to please, I hear Nem inside my head. So this is it, then: the moment he was warning me about. If Vor drops me into a sexual memory about Tikal, my body is sure to react. And then the slavemaker can do whatever she wants to me. In other words, I am about to be raped.
“That sounds great.” I say. “But I should mention that I am absolutely riddled with STDs. My junk's got stuff they don't even have names for, you know? Some real back alley, hybrid type of business. So unless you've got an industrial strength condom on you, riding me while I'm under would be a bad idea.”
Her playful smile fades. “Again with the comedy, Anex. I thought we had moved past this. You really must -”
“Stop using humor as a crutch? So I've been told. But I've only got one arm now, so I need something to hold me up.”
For once, Vor has no cutting riposte. She just blinks out a command, and I melt into the past.
.
Five's grand opening is a runaway hit. The Church's dancefloor is a dense mass of bodies, gyrating to the latest yellow-line grime. I'm feeling pretty drunk, and more than a little jealous of my friend's success. Or I would be, if I could keep my eyes off Kalana. She's wearing a backless yellow dress and simple faux-pearl earrings - an almost comically old-fashioned o
utfit here in this hotbed of smogpunk fashion. But mine aren't the only eyes on her. She is classically, effortlessly radiant, like an angel descended into the Underworld.
I’ve often wished I could tell Kalana all the things that are circling around inside my head (well, maybe not all). But in many ways I am still that genetically altered loner, wandering the Hive's quarantine zone in search of food. The freakish child I was never learned to express himself, and not much has changed.
But tonight feels different, somehow. For two years, Kalana and I have been battling Opacity together. Sleeping on rooftops, selling bootlegged media, begging meals from the soup kitchens on the NGO strip. We are rarely clean, often hungry, never safe and always in survival mode. Even the clothes we’re wearing right now are borrowed.
But tonight... tonight I feel human. Like a person. We are standing in a quiet corner, sipping the snyth vodka Five keeps bringing over. And now Kalana turns unexpectedly, and catches me staring.
“What is it?” She says lightly. Something comes over me, and I smile at her in a way I never have before. And then I'm pulling her out onto the dancefloor. We strike deep into the press. The crowd closes in, locking us inside a jigsaw of pheromone-laced flesh. Our bodies come together and we dance, close and hot and face to face. I can see her questioning this course of action, but the moment eventually sweeps her up too. This is -”
I’m back in my body. Vorashia's quarters are bathed in red, and there is an alarm going off outside, heavy and insistent. My master is straddling me, one hand on the waistband of my pants.
“Pity.” She says. “I was enjoying that. No matter, though - another time. Let's see what's going on.”
She feeds me a good micro-memory to ensure compliance, and throws on her cloak. I scramble to my feet, trying to hang onto the reality of what this woman was about to do. But when we step outside, other matters crowd in. The Platypus has run into a storm. Rain lashes the deck, and the wind thrums across container straps, creating a high-pitched keening noise. And now another sound layers over it, coming in from the starboard side. Vor frowns.
“That's not the storm. Sounds more like -”
We both duck as a two-man fighter plane soars low over the barge. With its beige-green camouflage and WW2 aesthetic, it is instantly recognizable as an Opacian spitfire - like the ones Tikal flew back in her Regional Defense Corps days. The plane rakes our forward shield wall with gunfire, aiming for the missile placements on top of it. Vor swears.
“It must be pirates, using the storm as cover for an attack. I didn't think they would have the balls to try something like this. Come on, there's no one manning our guns.”
She takes off at a sprint, cloak streaming behind her. The woman may be a monster, but she's a stylish one, I'll give her that. I follow her through the lanes between containers, heading for the prow. Waves smash the ship's port side, sending sheets of water up over the deck. Then I see the first spout. A sinuous tornado of wind and water, it connects sea and sky, whipping both into a frenzy. Spitfires fly between them, taking the fight to us despite the danger. Vor curses again and increases her speed.
Passing the VIP area, we reach the forward shield wall. It is completely deserted. Vor heads up the ladder without hesitation. I do the same. But when I clear the wall, the storm smashes me in the face, glorious and terrifying in its strength. Vor is on her hands and knees, using grip points built into the walltop. She reaches a missile placement and slides into the recessed firing nest beneath it. A spitfire swoops in. She adjusts her aim, and fires. A rocket flares up into the cobalt sky. It clips the plane's wing without exploding and detonates at high altitude, creating eddies in the ashen cloud cover. The spitfire wobbles and then limps away, unable to hold a course.
Tearing my attention away from the spectacle, I fight my way to the next placement over. Its nest provides some protection from the wind, and I crawl inside with relief. There is a chair here, angled up toward the sky, and a targeting headset as well. It’s meant to fit over my absent eye, but I manage to use the good one instead. A green cross layers over my vision, but nothing else; this missile system is a DIY kind of deal. The rockets must not have inertial guidance systems either, or Vor's first shot would have taken out that spitfire.
I slow my breathing, waiting for a plane to enter my sightline. When one does, I track it with my eye... and blink. The headset reads my retina, the placement bucks, and a rocket flashes into the sky. It hits the plane's fuselage, enveloping the craft in a ball of vivid flame. Whoever these pirates are, I don't see how they could be worse than the slavers on this barge. But battle sets its own rules, and I feel a spike of elation as the plane crashes into the towering waves.
More slavers have gained the wall now. Rockets fill the air as they take aim at the incoming spitfires. I see Farakul too, tending to a man who has been strafed by gunfire. Then a placement down the line goes up in smoke. The fight doctor does what she can for her patient, and runs over to assist the next.
I can hear Vorashia laughing; she was made for moments like this. I glance her way, and suck in a breath. The waterspout is huge: at least ten meters across at the base. It is angling in toward the shield wall, moving directly for Vor's placement. Without thinking, I shout at her to bail. But she doesn't hear me. The spout hits the wall like a freight train. It rips the placement off the wall first. Crushed within the twisting spire, rockets start to fire in all directions. Then one detonates inside the tornado, transforming it into a pillar of liquid fire. And into this firestorm, Vorashia is drawn. The twister grips her in its circular jaws and pulls her skyward. A few seconds later, she is cast from the vortex at least twenty meters up. The slaver plummets downward, trailing a flag of flame, and crashes into the face of a wave.
Common sense is telling me to keep firing - or better yet, to ditch the battle and go hide until it's over. But my conditioning is insisting that I save Vorashia. And in this instant of indecision, I lose the chance to choose at all, because now the twister turns in my direction. I clear my nest, but the placement is already crumpling above me. Then it explodes, sending me hurtling into the ocean alongside the barge. I come up gasping for air, flailing about with my lone arm.
“Hey!”
I look up just as Farakul throws a life ring down to me. It lands five meters away, but the next wave drops me almost on top of it. I grab hold of the rubber circle and hang on for dear life. The Platypus is passing me by, but there’s nothing I can do about that right now. Then the firetwister flares up again; and in the light it provides, I am shown two things. One is the Stormline's western terminus. The cable ends at a great square pillar, thrust up from the seafloor. A fleet of barges heave against their anchors to either side of it. The second is Vorashia. She is floating face-up in the swell, eyes open but unseeing. There is a deep gash in her forehead, and an abrasion runs along her steel jaw as well.
This is my chance. All I have to do is ignore her, and she will never harm me - or anyone else - again. It would be so easy. So why am I kicking toward her? Sliding the ring down over her shoulders? Doing everything I can to save her life? It must be Vorashia’s conditioning, forcing my hand. Or have I trained myself to help other people no matter who they are?
Atop the terminus pillar, I can see workers preparing to unhook the Platypus from the Stormline. Once that happens, the vessel will lose momentum and nose into a padded berth at the pillar's base. Then a spitfire flies straight into a tornado. Both of its wings are sheared off instantly. One spins harmlessly into the ocean, but the other severs the main rope connecting the barge and the great cable. Driven by the storm, the Platypus veers off course. It misses its berth and broadsides one of the other barges, which starts to sink, its hull torn open below the waterline.
And now, from beyond the terminus pillar, heavy guns start to fire. I can't see their origin point; but within seconds, three spitfires have been blown out of the sky. Knowing they have lost, the others swing around and fade into the gray.
The storm
still rages, twisters and all. But with the spitfire battle over, the scene seems almost calm. Vorashia is in shock. Her hair has been reduced to char, and I suspect that the ocean is concealing burns to her body. She is clutching the life ring with clawed hands, but beyond that I can't get her to move. So it's on me to get us back to safety. After a few failed configurations, I hook a foot through the ring and start to swim with an arm and a leg, aiming for the Platypus.
Halfway there, Vorashia starts to talk.
“You can't save me.” She says, spitting up water with every sentence. “I won't allow it. I fought for my freedom. Never asked for help or pity. Made my masters afraid of me. I am different. But you... you were born to serve. And I refuse to become indebted to a slave.”
“Be my guest and drown then.” I say, too tired to behave myself. Luckily, she doesn't seem to hear me.
“But... maybe this is a dream. Yes, just a dream.”
Her speech loses lucidity after that, although it does not cease. The Platypus is close now. I’ve spent the past few weeks wishing I could be anywhere else, but now I’m desperate to return. When I reach the ship, Farakul is waiting. She has devised a stretcher and pulley system that we use to get Vorashia back onto the deck. I try to lie down right then and there, but the doctor won't let me.
“Help me carry her.” She says. “We've set up a field hospital in the VIP area.”
Together, we manage to get Vor's stretcher to the fighting ring. It is crowded with dead and wounded. Heavy caliber bullet wounds seem to be the most common injury. Streak is here, laid out with a broken leg, as is the young man she brought to Vorashia's. He is clutching a stomach wound that looks likely to go septic. A gray haired man with crafty eyes is observing the proceedings with displeasure, like he's mad at the victims for inconveniencing him. He accosts Farakul before we can even put Vor down.