by Liam Clay
“Where is he?” The man shouts, grabbing her by the collar.
“Who?” She replies innocently.
“Don't play dumb with me, you surly little bitch. Someone broke into my private container during the battle and stole one of my prized possessions. And now your pasty friend has gone missing!”
The man looks spitting mad, but beneath that I think he's terrified.
“What did they take?” Farakul asks.
“You know very well what they took. Or what he took, I should say.”
When I realize what he's talking about, I have to fight back a grin. This must be Nem's master. And it sounds like the albino used the attack as cover to steal back his frequency jacks. What a character.
“Sorry boss, but I don't know anything about that.”
“The hell you don't.” The man raises a hand to hit her, but then he growls and backs off. “Just get to work fixing these people up. And keep a record of everything you do; I will be charging them for your services afterward.”
“What an enchanting individual.” I say as he stalks off. Farakul grunts, and then pokes me in the shoulder. I'm so drained that I almost fall over.
“You're too tired to be helpful.” She says shortly. “Better get yourself to bed.”
I point to Vor. “What about her? Will she live?”
The doctor gives me an illegible look. “Don't know. Probably. Do you regret saving her?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“Well it was the right move.” She points to my Sift. “The dominatrix is the only one who can remove that thing. So if she dies, you'll be wearing it for life. It will be strictly ornamental, but still.”
At this point, one more unwanted body mod wouldn't mean a lot to me. But she's obviously trying to make me feel better, so I nod in thanks. She returns to her work shortly afterward, and I start back toward Vorashia's container. The storm isn't over yet, but it is finally starting to weaken. The barge is a wreck. Half of the containers have been shredded by bullets, and tornadoes have thrown others across (and in some cases partially off of) the deck. Reaching Vor's quarters, I let myself in. My litter of dirty furs has never looked so good. I curl up in my corner, and drop out in seconds.
CHAPTER 11
I sleep the rest of that day and through the night, waking up in the early morning. Through the open bedroom door, I see Vorashia. Her torso is swathed in bandages. But she is sitting ruler straight, gaze trained on my face. When she sees me staring back, my master shudders and looks away.
“Close the door!” She commands in a strangled voice. I struggle to my feet and oblige her. She must make a call, because her men show up a few minutes later. They drag me outside. The cloud cover has dissipated, and the temperature is rising fast. My fellow prisoners have been let out of their containers as well. They are milling about on deck under the watchful eyes of the Pros. The stink coming off them is terrible, but they don't look as malnourished as I'd feared. The Pros may specialize in pliable merchandise, but slaves still need enough strength to be useful.
We aren't the only group out on deck. Lockup containers are being thrown open all up and down our row.
“Ah, moving day.” One of the Pros says sarcastically. “It's like a parade made up of the smelliest shits in the universe. Come on you piss ants, time to go.”
We join a growing throng moving in the direction of the Stormline tower. But the Pros are ruthless crowd wranglers, and they manage to push through to the barge's portside railing. A smaller vessel has pulled alongside us. A crane positioned on top of it is transferring private containers from the Platypus onto its own deck. A second, fully loaded craneship is already chugging away from us, weaving between the anchored barges. There is no sign of the vessel we rammed during the storm; either the Ninetowners have taken it away for repairs, or it's at the bottom of the sea.
A gangway connects the Platypus to a concrete dock that runs around the base of the Stormline tower. Farakul is standing next to it, overseeing the crossing. As I wait my turn, she drifts over to my side.
“There are two types of slaves in Ninetown.” The doctor tells me. “Subserviants and laborers. You've been picked to be the first kind, but that is no life. At least there's honor in honest work. So here's a tip. When they put you on the selling block, stand tall and hold your head high. If you do that, none of Ninetown’s shareholders will want you in their homes, and you'll get shunted to the labor pool instead. Do you understand?”
“Yes, and thank you.” I whisper back. She nods and starts to move away.
“Wait. Do you know what happened to Nem?”
She smiles, although there is an element of sadness underlying it.
“He stole back his frequency jacks and escaped.”
“Escaped? To where?”
But the fight doctor just shrugs enigmatically and moves on. “Head held high.” She says over her shoulder as she goes.
My turn comes, and I cross the gangway onto the dock. The Pros lead us to an unpainted iron stairwell that hugs the tower, circling up into the heights. Heat wafts off the steps in waves, and the man in front of me faints. One of the slavers kicks him in the side until he resumes his place in line.
I start to climb. My legs ache from yesterday’s exertions, and I can practically feel the temperature rising. There is almost no wind. Up until now, the fleet of anchored barges has obscured my view to the west. But I am about to rise above them. One last turn around the tower, and I get my first look at Ninetown.
Holy motherfucking shit.
I spent half of my life living in skyscrapers over 300 stories tall. Worldpool was enormous too, as was Medival. But none of those structures could hold a candle to this one - in breadth at least. Its angular facade rises from the waves in both directions for as far as the eye can see. Starkly uniform at its base, the black structure rises a hundred meters into the air before ending abruptly in a melted line of gnarled steel. This must once have been a pyramid multiple kilometers in height, before something burned it down almost to the waterline. Something clicks and I clutch at the railing, mind clouded with shock.
Ninetown. Nine. The 9th Pyramid. Could I be looking at the remains of the world's oldest arcology? The one that gave rise to the Southern Software Arcology Union? The one that invented the pooled link technology that destroyed the Thresh? The one that knocked Balthazar's space station and its brethren out of the sky, and was destroyed in turn? Although not completely, it would seem. Jesus fancy Christ.
But as fascinating as this discovery is, it doesn't help me in any appreciable way. Two platforms have been welded to the upper section of the tower. The higher one is used to detach barge hooks from the Stormline. And the lower serves as a staging area for the crossing to Ninetown. A suspension bridge links it to a yawning hole about halfway up the structure's side. The fucking thing looks like the mouth of hell - and in many ways, it probably is.
We gain the platform and crowd onto the bridge. Its supporting cables almost rival the Stormline, but the span is so long that it still sways nauseatingly. I turn once to look back at the tower, hoping to spot my friends on the stairs. Instead, I catch sight of Timothy the political scientist. Or what’s left of him. The amiable eccentric I met on the Amateur's ship is gone. Only the broken animal from the Aquarium remains. Shaken, I look away from his stooped, shambling form. Below us, the craneships I saw earlier are chugging toward an oceanic tunnel cut out of the pyramid. A container on the second one looks like it might be Vor's.
I wonder how the slavemaker will react to my saving her life. According to her ravings she was once a slave herself, and only escaped that life through sheer willpower and ruthlessness. Will my actions make me an equal in her eyes, or will she say that I was merely following her conditioning? Only time will tell. But I do know that my own mental state is vastly improved. Even crippled, even tortured, even cut off from my friends and dead to my daughter, I remain a survivor. And like Kalana once told me, that's as good a trait as any to have
these days.
We are nearing Ninetown's entrance now. And from within its maw comes a sound of hungry anticipation. I pass inside and onto a broad promenade walled in by chain link fencing. The roof is so high as to be invisible. A horde of what must be Ninetown residents have their fingers laced through the fence, rattling the iron diamonds. I walk the gauntlet head down, trying not to draw attention to myself. I doubt many of these bastards have retcoms; but if Vor can figure out who I am, so could somebody else.
This promenade seems never-ending. Most of the Ninetowners are jeering and catcalling, but others are taking notes. These are customers, I realize, checking out the merchandise before we go up for sale. Then my eye lands on a man in green breeches and a knee-length tan coat. Or rather, his eyes land on me. He is barrel chested and handsome in a weathered, blue collar sort of way. The bridge of his nose is knobbed and slightly crooked, and crow’s feet slant back toward his temples, where his sandy hair is just starting to go gray. He looks like a really nice guy, all told, which goes to show how much appearances can be trusted. Then his gaze travels to my amputated shoulder, and suddenly he doesn't look as nice as before. More like excited. Is this the buyer of broken things that Vor talked about, or has he recognized me?
The man falls back as we move forward. The crowd thins out, and then the promenade splits into over a dozen smaller corridors. The Pros usher us through one of these and into a lineup. When my turn comes, I pass through a swinging door into a surprisingly well equipped med lab. A bored woman orders me to strip, throwing my clothes into an incinerator chute once I've done so. Then she conducts a quick but thorough examination. She takes a skin sample from my stump, and frowns over my eye and the shunts in my neck. But I must pass muster, because she motions me onward in the end. I wonder what would have happened if I'd failed. Probably better not to know.
The next room is larger. Here, I am given a pair of overalls and a tattoo. It takes the form of a number string scrawled across my cheek, just below Vorashia's vulture brand. This represents my true welcome to Ninetown. I'm on their books now. The tattoo artist whistles as she works, giving the process a sense of mundanity that does not reflect reality. The Pros collect us afterward. Leading the way to a set of double doors, they fling them wide.
I am looking down on a massive stadium unlike anything I’ve seen before. Instead of a playing field, its middle area has been carved away to reveal the ocean below. And at the center of this cavity, level with the front row seats, is a suspended disc strung between black cables. A simple block of blood red stone rests on top of it. Cameras surround the stone, throwing a live feed onto a four sided omniscreen that hangs from the rafters. There is also an iron cage hanging just below the disc on a rope.
The stands are empty now, but there are enough seats for at least 100,000 people. Ninetown must be far more populous than I had imagined. The Pros lead us down into the stadium. Reaching the cavity, we continue onto a stairwell that descends all the way to water level. The air grows cooler, and picks up scents of salt and tar. I find myself in an echoing subterranean grotto that extends outward into darkness. Platforms float in a rough circle around the cavity above, and these are connected by walkways lined with green lanterns. The craneships are here too, transferring the slavers' private containers onto the platforms.
We reach the bottom of the stairwell. After a short wait, a squat tugboat emerges from the gloom, pulling a platform with it. It is rectangular in shape, with a fenced lockup at one end and containers occupying the other. The tug brings the platform alongside the stairwell. At our guards' urging, we jump across the gap and onto our new, temporary home. Then they open the lockup - which is already half full of prisoners - and we start to file inside.
“Not him.” A voice says behind me. I turn to find Vorashia standing in front of her container, which has been placed in the row closest to the lockup.
“Yes sir!” One of the guards says. He grabs my arm and pushes me toward the slavemaker. She motions for me to follow her, and we enter her container together. It is almost completely lightless inside. A reckless mood comes over me, and I say,
“You haven't broken me, you know. Not after yesterday.”
Vorashia watches me from the dark.
“I know.” She says finally. “And you go up for sale in two days. Something must be done.”
“Whatever you try, it won't work. You might be able to cow me for a week or a month, but I will eventually turn on whoever buys me.”
“And the moment you do, they will have you killed.”
“And how will that reflect on you?”
She attempts a shrug. “One failure will not ruin my career, and I need the money you will bring to buy a new ship.”
“So you're just going to forget that a slave saved your life? Suppress the memory and continue on as you are? You can try that, sure. But deep down, you will always know what happened. You will know that you were weak, vulnerable, in need of rescuing. That your strength gave out, just like all of the people you enslave. And it will eat you up inside.”
With a snarl, Vorashia smashes her steel jawbone into my face. But her burns twist as she moves, and we both end up on the floor, moaning in agony. Then she crawls over to my litter and lies down, panting like a dog. I watch warily from the floor. Long moments later, she speaks.
“If I cannot break your will, I can at least sabotage your body. And since your own pain wasn't enough, let's see how you like watching your friends suffer instead.” She blinks in the black, and I slide into a pit of memory once again.
.
“It's true, then. You really are him.”
“Are who?”
“Anex, aka the Live Soldier. We assumed your feed was a fabrication, and yet here you are.”
“Why should you care about my feed?”
“Because it presents me with new options. Through you, I can send a message directly to your leaders.” Bringing her face close to mine, she looks straight into my linked eye. “Shion and Kalana, please listen carefully. We have one other task to complete, and then we are coming for you. When that happens, you can save millions of lives by surrendering to us. I doubt you will listen to me though, which is why I am sending the Live Soldier and his accomplices to negotiate on my behalf.” She pauses to draw breath. “Except for one. Because of Anex's feed, this ‘squad’ is currently the most influential entity on the planet. And if they can be induced to accept my orders, many of your own people will follow them - whether you like it or not. So I am going to keep the beating heart of their group as leverage.”
At her gesture, Null soldiers wheel a cylindrical object onto the stage. It looks like a miniaturized version of the tanker I encountered earlier. Dread settles over me, and I start to struggle again. They're going to take Tikal. She is our leader, and our only true tactician. It has to be her. But when the Architect points to her victim, it isn't my girlfriend.
It's Delez. Peace fights like a mountain cat as the Null take her husband, but she is punched into submission. He reaches out, trying to touch her hand one last time. But their fingers miss by centimeters, and then he's shouting, “I love you!” over and over again. The Architect opens the cylinder's hatch. The soldiers force him into it, and begin to prepare his body for nullification. This can't be happening. Delez could never become one of them. Have his emotions stripped away, his feelings for Peace wiped out? Impossible. He can fight against it, surely.
But thousands of people have probably thought the same thing about their loved ones. And there is nothing special about us, no reason why we should be different. The Architect has just proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Before the hatch closes, I lock eyes with Delez. The angular planes of his face are etched, not with fear or grief, but with defiance.
“Promise me you'll keep fighting them!” He shouts. And then my friend is gone, trapped inside a coffin of cold steel.
.
How much abuse can a mind take before it breaks? What is the threshold? For two st
raight days, I am forced to relive the moment Delez was stolen from us. Two days of horror, of guilt, and of hopeless futility. By the time Vorashia pulls me out, I am a jibbering, palsied wreck. The first thing she does is reclaim the Sift. Then she has her men carry me onto the platform deck. The grotto keeps fading into that final image of my friend, mummified inside the nullification cylinder. Where is he now? What does the Architect have him doing, and does he even remember us?
The Pros douse me in the ocean to remove the stench of vomit and stale sweat. Then they throw me into the lockup. It's crowded here, but the other prisoners clear a space for me - whether out of pity or disgust, I don't know. I lie facedown, the deck pressed against my branded cheek, waiting for whatever happens next.
CHAPTER 12
That moment doesn't take long to arrive. I hear a tugboat approach, and kill its motor. Chains clink as the pilot ties up to the platform, and then we start to move. It takes a massive effort, but I manage to roll over. The tug is pulling us toward the cavity in the roof. And through it, I can see that the stadium is now thronged with spectators. Light from the omniscreen shines down into the grotto, except for a dark circle where it is occluded by the suspended disc. When our platform comes into view, a tremor runs through the crowd. The merchandise is about to arrive.
We reach the shadow created by the disc. There is a ratcheting sound, and the steel cage I saw earlier begins to descend on its rope. Then an amplified voice blares out through the space.
“And now for the moment you've all been waiting for! Today, we have no less than three batches of fresh subserviants to present for your consideration. Looking for a sweet boy to feed you grapes, or a young lass to fan you with palm fronds? Well get those digital paddles ready, my good masters, because the auction is about to begin!”