Marcus went back to staring at the wall. “Smart business model.”
He didn’t say anything else. Reeve was trying to read if a long silence was his fuck-off signal, but it was impossible to tell. He decided to err on the side of caution.
“Catch you later,” he said.
Reeve did a circuit of the cells, checking who had stuff to trade and who wanted it. Twenty-six hours was a long time to fill each day. It had been tedious enough in the early years, before the shortages had begun to bite and the outside world still had a semblance of normal life going on. There’d still been TV and coffee and books back then, and a guy could earn a few bucks to buy basic comforts by making car parts in the prison workshops. But the car work had stopped abruptly because the factories were turned over to arms production, and the TV had dwindled to a news channel, and then it got harder to get food supplies sent in or even medicines. Stuff wasn’t being manufactured outside. The criminal scum of the COG were just about the lowest priority there was. Now their time was taken up keeping an obsolete prison from falling apart and growing whatever food they could wherever they had space. They did it themselves, too. Merino might have been a bastard, but he was an efficient bastard, and ran his domain like a business, like the organized crime boss he’d been—with the emphasis on organized.
Reeve was okay with all that. If the warders didn’t run the day-to-day life of the inmates, then the inmates had to do it themselves, or sink further into anarchy and filth. Merino’s iron fist meant a few clean floors and enough food. An occasional kicking was a small price to pay for that.
If the smell got too bad for him, there was always the fresh air in the prison gardens, a sports field that had been dug up when every scrap of grass or mud in urban Ephyra was reclaimed to grow food. It had its own fish pond, too, and even if the fish tasted like shit—not surprising seeing how shit had to be recycled in this dump—it was a welcome change of protein from the myco crap they fermented in the kitchens.
But gardening had proved more satisfying than Reeve had expected. He went outside to check his personal crop, a few rows of speckled beans. He could dry those and stash plenty away for himself at the end of Bounty. He worked along the rows of poles lashed together like tent frames, picking bugs off the leaves.
They could have just shot us all, any time. Funny where governments draw the line. Fry the whole world and kill millions of helpless citizens, but balk at executing prisoners even under martial law. The Indies worked POWs to death but shipped them out to hospitals when they got sick. Maybe that’s the definition of civilization—pretend rules of decency. That, or else they need to keep some deterrent for the thousands of folk they can’t afford to shoot: play nice, or we’ll stick you in the Slab.
“I’ve got some real nice lettuce seedlings,” said a voice behind him. It was Merino. “Gonna be a good harvest. Is our new boy interested in horticulture?”
A few men in a confined space without a lot to distract them meant that news got around in minutes. The Slab was a village, minus the kindly old ladies and ruddy-cheeked farmers.
Reeve squashed a cluster of aphids between his fingers and contemplated the smeared remains. It was nothing personal, just necessity. “I think he just wants to keep himself to himself.”
“You know how it is. Guy with a reputation shows up, and bored assholes want to see if he’s going to shake things up a bit.”
“Like I said, he’s not exactly sociable. You just carry on as normal.”
“It’s not me who needs telling,” Merino said, and wandered off.
Reeve watched him go and realized he was sizing him up. Merino was pretty big and solid, but Marcus was bigger and had fought grubs hand to hand. Maybe Merino would bear that in mind.
That chainsaw rifle was kind of impressive, though. Reeve almost regretted his own career choices. He turned over another leaf, ran his thumbnail along the underside, and wiped out another growing colony of aphids.
CHAPTER 6
Welcome to Azura, a haven of security, stability and comfort for humanity’s most precious resource: you. Like all of Azura’s citizens, you have been selected for your outstanding contributions to society. This island, isolated and hidden from the troubles of the mainland, was developed to protect and allow society’s greatest minds to continue their work, free of fear or peril. You will be the architects of a grand reconstruction. No matter what fate befalls the rest of the world, Azura—and its citizens—will carry on. Your diligent work ensures the enduring survival of mankind.
(Introduction to orientation leaflet given to new arrivals at Azura research station.)
COG RESEARCH STATION AZURA, SOMEWHERE IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE: BRUME, 10 A.E.
The residents of Azura had counseling sessions to stop them feeling guilty.
Nevil looked at the menu—a menu, for God’s sake, a menu with a wine list—and found he’d lost his appetite yet again. This was all wrong. And if that smarmy recorded voice from the PA system started up again, the one they said was Niles Samson himself, he’d lose it completely.
Counseling sessions? Too right you’re guilty. You need to face up to it.
I’m sorry, Emil. I had no idea. Believe me, I didn’t know this place existed.
He pushed the plate of lamb cutlets away from him. It was a lovely plate, too, Furlinese bone china with a gilt rim, and the silverware really was silver, hallmarked with the Jacinto Assay Office’s winged cog. He picked up the fork and examined it. But he couldn’t even bear to drink from the crystal glass, even if it was just full of water.
It wasn’t, of course. It was some kind of white wine, and Nevil wasn’t a drinker at the best of times. He’d never felt less like drinking in his life.
A waiter darted over to take his plate. Nevil found himself more interested in the lives the staff led and how many of them worked here. He hoped the guy reheated his untouched lamb later and enjoyed it. The thought of throwing it away was disturbing for someone used to rationing.
“Nevil, you really do need to see the doctor.” Erica Marling was a molecular biologist and there was nothing wrong with her appetite. “Most of us have been through this. It’s hard, I know. You hate yourself. You feel you have no right to be here when everyone else is struggling to stay alive.”
Revelation could be ecstatic, like a scientific breakthrough after years of struggle, or an agonizing slap in the face when you realized your life was a charade. All Nevil could see were the lies, the slaps in the face, the insults to the dead. Reality shook him by the collar and laughed at him. You thought the genetics team at La Croix had been killed in a Reaver attack, did you? Well, they look just fine now. They’re having roast quail and a bottle of nice fruity red. The disappeared, the dead, and the defected were here on Azura, counseled and fed and full of fucking purpose for the future.
But Emil was really dead. There was no bringing him back with a nice day at the spa and a bit of psychotherapy.
Nevil had never realized that he had such a bitter, slow-burning temper. It was stoking up to a full eruption. “Oh, I don’t hate myself,” he said quietly. “I hate you bastards and I hate my government.”
“This was built during the Pendulum Wars, Nevil. It was designed to sit out another apocalypse. You can’t blame Prescott for making good use of it.”
“Yes, some of you have been here since then, haven’t you? Never even seen a Locust in the flesh. Bully for you.”
She took a sip of wine. “Your department did some of the research used on the Maelstrom project, actually. Professor Fenix is cited. As are you.”
Bastards. “If we did, we didn’t know what it was going to be used for.”
“Exactly.”
“No, not exactly. Why exactly? Ah, damn it. You can shove your need-to-know.”
Erica just shrugged and sliced up her pork filet. Behind her, a spectacularly ornate open elevator rose like a monument, bringing more displaced scientists and thinkers to the tower restaurant. Nevil hoped they choked on the
ir duck pâté.
“Where does all this stuff come from? All this food?”
“You think we don’t have rationing here? There’s a lot of food off the menu.”
Nevil thought of his precious and very stale chocolate bar back in Jacinto, how he’d harvested every last crumb. “Pardon me while I sob in my napkin.”
“We haven’t been able to ship in supplies for years. Anyway, Azura’s obviously designed to be self-sufficient. So we have intensive agriculture—hence the quail.”
“And presumably some peasants to do all the work for you. Do we ever get to see them, or are they like the house-keeping staff and stay out of sight in the service corridors?”
“Spare me the theoretical socialism. Of course we have support staff. We’re supposed to be focusing on research, unless you want the biochemists made to work in the fields like they had to in Furlin …”
“I fully understand the logistics of running a community like this, thanks, but that doesn’t mean it won’t make my flesh crawl.”
“Look,” Erica said. “The Locust are closing in on Jacinto. You haven’t got the facilities you need. And when they finally overrun the city—well, imagine if this facility was there now. We’ve already lost years because Adam Fenix kept Lambency to himself.”
But they all knew about the Lambent now, and how it had driven the Locust to the surface. Nevil got the feeling that the biologists here resented a physicist like Adam more for dabbling outside his discipline than for not sharing his discovery. They really had been away from the real Sera for a very long time.
“Do you see any news coverage from Ephyra?” Nevil asked, folding his napkin. Linen. Real linen. “Do you have any idea how bad things are? Do you even know about the poor bastards outside the wire, the Stranded? Do you understand how we stay alive?”
“Of course we know.”
“I bet you watch it every night when you’re having a small brandy to help you sleep.”
“Nevil … please, take advantage of the counseling. You do need it.”
Nevil pushed himself back from the table and walked away. He had to step onto the magnificent elevator to get out of here and it wasn’t an express. As the platform slowly descended, he had far too much time to look at the art treasures in the lobby below. This was where all the stuff from the National Museum of Ephyra had been moved, then: they had the resources to save that, but not to save people. He understood. He knew the impossibility of the heavy lift, of finding room for the population of Ephyra on a small island, and the need for a society rebuilding itself to hang on to some scraps of its culture and remember what it could be. But it still felt utterly wrong.
My brother died for this. And I didn’t volunteer.
He still hadn’t seen a fraction of Azura yet. He had an office and nice suite of rooms. He’d found the library and the botanical gardens. Beyond the careful landscaping, Azura had a fascinating coast of rocky cliffs and sandy inlets, and he was still working out where he could find refuge so that he could have some time alone to think without being surrounded by people who thought—or had been persuaded—that they had a right to be here and sit out the global holocaust.
The ground floor was an interlocking complex of rooms and corridors, all of them beautifully decorated with exquisite inlaid floors, drapes, and gilded console tables. It looked like a cross between a five-star hotel and a spa, which was pretty well what it was if it hadn’t been for the research facilities and extraordinary defenses. Nevil found a door leading into another formal garden crisscrossed by decorative canals and dotted with water features, and just wandered around for a while taking in the setting sun and rehearsing what he’d say to Adam Fenix when he finally saw him again.
Eventually he sat down on a decorative wrought iron seat to stare at the palm trees and purple-flowered tropical vines he didn’t have a name for. The early evening air was pure perfume. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Through an archway, he caught a glimpse of the curtain of permanent tornados and waterspouts shielding the island from the rest of the world. The physicist in him marveled at the scale and ingenuity of it. The rest of him wasn’t so sure. He spread his arms along the back of the seat and looked straight up, where the sky was uniformly clear and full of swifts scooping up insects on the wing, not Ravens patrolling to keep Reavers out of Jacinto airspace.
Then that damned voice drifted across the scented air. It was all recorded messages, either playing on a loop or triggered by opening doors or setting off infrared detectors, but it had started to stoke a personal dislike in Nevil. He didn’t like the voice, and he didn’t like the bullshit it came out with. It was a man’s voice, unnaturally soothing and re-assuring, telling the cocooned residents about the facilities or the latest recreation being laid on for them.
“… and later this week, you’re invited to see the new desalination plant at …”
“For God’s sake, shut it,” Nevil sighed.
He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. A couple of women in dark blue uniform dresses—probably domestic staff—appeared on one of the walkways wheeling a cleaning cart before disappearing behind a cascade of vines. For a moment, the illusion of paradise looked a little more mundane. And he reminded himself this was a prison. He couldn’t opt to go home now.
No point hiding here, then. Got to face him sooner or later.
Nevil got up and headed for what he’d come to think of as the center of town. It was another set-piece garden, flanked by the medical center on one side and an office block on the other. It didn’t look like an office building. The whole thing was a spectacular piece of architecture, all sinuous organic forms and mellow stonework softened by hanging baskets of brilliant flowers.
A bunker was one thing. This level of excess was something else.
You know the reason.
This was designed with the assumption that the rest of Sera would be wasteland and this would be the place humanity started its recovery. The planners had expected the Pendulum Wars to end in mutual destruction. They couldn’t have seen the Locust coming.
I could go up and knock on Adam’s door, I suppose.
But Nevil didn’t have to. As he was watching the ebb and flow of people in lab coats or tasteful leisure clothes wandering up and down the paths and walkways around him, his eye was caught by someone walking a lot more slowly. It was Adam Fenix. He had two crutches, the forearm kind, and he was trying to negotiate a flight of stone steps lined with flowering bushes in fluted urns. Nevil wasn’t sure if the professor had seen him until the man stopped and stared across the gardens at him.
Nevil could only raise his hand. It wasn’t a friendly wave. It was just a here-I-am. He waited for Adam to make his way across, determined not to get up and meet him halfway despite his physical condition.
And I was worrying about facing him after turning him in. Adam stopped a few meters from him and tilted his head slightly on one side. Maybe he didn’t know where to start either.
“So who’s going to shout at who first, Adam?” Nevil said. “You could start off by telling me what an asshole I am for reporting you to the Chairman. Or I could go first, and tell you that I still can’t believe you’d do this to your own people when you’ve got a son in the army.”
“I can’t blame you for going to Prescott.” Adam fumbled with his crutches and managed to sit down on the seat next to Nevil. “In fact I’m relieved it’s over. I suppose I told you because I didn’t have the guts to come clean myself.”
Nevil wasn’t sure if that meant Adam regarded him as someone who would automatically going running to the authorities. It might have been an insult or flattery. Nevil decided to think it was the latter.
“So … how are you feeling?” he asked.
“Sore. Broken ribs take weeks to heal. I’ll live.”
“So this place came as a big surprise to you as well, did it?”
Adam nodded. He looked wrung out. All that pent-up energy that had always illuminated him had vani
shed. “That’s an understatement.”
“Well, life’s full of surprises for most of us.”
“Okay, I lied, Nevil. I lied by omission.”
“It’s a bit more than that. Isn’t it?”
“Would you be amused if I told you I found out about the Locust the hard way too?”
“Not really.”
“My wife Elain. Well, you know all about Elain. I thought I did too, right up to the day she went missing.” Adam raked his fingertips through his beard as if he was tidying himself up before a meeting. “I was frantic. I knew something was wrong. And while the police were looking for a body in the river—I told them she’d never do anything stupid like that—I went through her study, just in case. Never went in there, usually. Private space. And I found it—her journal. She’d gone into the Hollow regularly to look for specimens, those damn rock shrews with the extra vestigial legs, and she found the Locust instead. Never told me. Then one day she went down there to make contact with them and never came back. You know the rest.”
Maybe he was looking for absolution. Nevil didn’t have an answer, let alone a sensible question. He simply let another little bombshell leave his head rattling. Elain Fenix had kept a whole species secret even from her old man: did the whole world behave that way and he simply hadn’t noticed? It was hard to know where to start on any given day now.
“So she lied to you, and you lied to me and everyone else, and Prescott—well, he inherited a lie and decided to keep it too.” Nevil tried to separate his sense of personal betrayal from the global implications, but decided the personal scale was the only thing he could handle right now. A couple of men carrying briefcases slowed down to look Adam’s way. He was still a celebrity in these circles. “Am I the only idiot who told the truth?”
“No.” Adam shook his head. “You and Hoffman. He’s as straight as a die. Not an easy man to work with, but he’d have handled this very differently. Which is why he’s been kept in the dark too. We reward the liars, you see.”
Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5) Page 18