by Essa Hansen
Panca’s chest fluttered. Her shoulders caved in, balling up tighter. The core in her forehead dulled.
“Don’t worry, sweet thing,” Çydanza said, acrid as bile. “You fear I’ll send you back to Aken, but didn’t I promise to reward each of you with what you wish the most? You know nothing but the inside of a box, and we have many boxes here.” The saisn’s face screwed into a cruel sneer. “Take her to the Servicer.”
En reached for Panca’s shoulder as she was marched past, but a boot kicked him to his knees.
Caiden choked back vomit. The N-Sector Servicer was vile even to someone as insensitive as he.
Çydanza billowed back to cloud. The soldiers pushed Ksiñe forward. His face was a storm, his red eyeshine blazing with the rind’s light. The whipkin whined in his hugging arms. Two Casthen grabbed Ksiñe’s shoulders and pulled the whipkin away by the neck, throttling her squeak.
Ksiñe unfolded in a blur. The flash of a scalpel blade jammed into the Casthen’s artery.
They fell to the floor. Blood flicked as Ksiñe spun and crouched, swiping between the armor of the other Casthen’s thigh. But they were chketin and broke Ksiñe’s wrist in one grab. The blade tinkled to the ground. The chketin grunted and grabbed the whipkin in a meaty hand.
More Casthen poured forward, jamming glaves against Ksiñe and shoving him to the rind. His body was a storm of hateful patterns. Face stoic, his gaze flashed to the whipkin as the chketin smothered her shrieks in an enormous palm.
For a long moment Çydanza simply stared, formless. Ksiñe flinched sharply on all sides. Memories of torture.
“Ah, Kasiñae, you were ours, long ago.” She whispered the Andalvian name with a tonal emphasis of layered meanings. “Executioner, surgeon, torturer, harvester. Take off his jacket.”
A soldier stripped off Ksiñe’s upper clothing, revealing a torso riddled with scars: ragged gashes, straight slices, puckered burns, bites of all manner of teeth. A self-conscious darkening of his Andalvian skin framed each one.
“So many scars,” Çydanza said. “You must love these wounds, to want to keep them now that your violent professions are over and no longer put you in the path of sick minds. And you’ve replaced your sweet little fillion, we never did get to sell the parts we carved up of her, a pity— are whipkin just as valuable?”
The skin of Ksiñe’s face and torso dripped the smoke gray of despair.
“Do you miss the game your old employers used to play? Perhaps you miss those twisted affections, with so many mementos? There are countless twisted individuals among my soldiers, but pain is best built up tenderly, which you understand best of all. Take him to Harrower Iyllen for some of the games he misses.”
Ksiñe fought, instantly overpowered. The Casthen twisted him around, prodding him up the stairs and away.
Only En remained. He straightened, chin lifted, posture light and easy, but Caiden could read the coiled angles, the fight pent up in augmented muscles, one heel raised, balanced on the ball of his foot. On the other side of the rind, Çydanza’s cloudy shape solidified into a mirror of En, a twin not quite identical. Softer, without the hair-thin augmentation seams on his skin.
“You are fairly renowned in your own right, Endirion Day.” Even the voice was similar. “Where Taitn is beloved by the law, the military, the factions, you are beloved among the lawless, but what a price, to be beloved by so many. Buying momentary affection by paying with body parts … Rejections— physical, personal. The world and everything in it rejected you, no matter who you were or are.”
En’s fierce eyes misted as he relived it all in his mind. His jaw was set, cheeks hollowed. Pigment glitched on his neck.
“I can help you,” En’s original self said, singsong. “You’re changing in all the wrong ways, and look at all these parts, they aren’t you. I wonder what will be left if we strip them away; do you still have a heart, Endirion Day?”
En managed a tight smile. “I never imagined you were a vishkant. Explains a lot.”
Çydanza’s own smile didn’t falter. “Take him to the labs for divesting.”
Three soldiers with glaves marched En out of the room, into the maw of the Casthen Harvest and whatever divesting meant.
“Probationer.” Çydanza’s shape fell apart in a fall of smoke.
Caiden crept forward. The hollowness in him had filled with rage, a furnace ready to incinerate. The tears beneath his mask seared hot.
She re-formed in his mother’s visage. “They really care about you, don’t they, to come all this way, but I saw in your mind how they held you back and confused you. Look at you now, stronger than any of them.” She smiled in the same way his mother had smiled when she was proud, when he’d fixed or climbed or triumphed over something larger than him. Reflexively, horrifically, his racing heart responded with pride.
“You did well wiping the human stock bound for the new operation, and getting the defects settled in the Servicer. Let’s test again how far you’ve come: I have another harvesting task for you. Whipkin have unique and valuable fascia, once flayed off, and in three rare universes, an element of their lymph converts to an expensive substance. The other parts have minor value: aphrodisiacs and such if I search more into cultural profit. You will butcher and prepare the parts for transport. Report to me afterward, and if you’ve managed this task, I will judge if it’s time to move you from probation to full rank.”
It took all of Caiden’s focus to reply without wavering. “Thank you, Prime.”
He turned to leave.
“But not yet.”
Caiden swiveled back, wary.
“Your family needs time to receive their gifts. And since we did forge you to be a Casthen hero, and valor is in your makeup, you may not be able to resist rushing to their aid. After your task, I shall need them thoroughly broken to ascertain if you, too, shall break or if you’re proven to be loyal and resilient after all.”
Caiden cocked his head. “Time to …”
Çydanza looked up to the stairs behind Caiden. “Towa, take the probationer to a lesson in patience.”
Caiden had hardly turned when Towa and three other Casthen surged down at him, locking his limbs, spinning him around and shoving him up the stairs. The tal hissed into his ear, “The Prime should not be giving you another chance; I do not care whether you come from that thing in the subterra or not.”
Thing?
He twisted but the group held him tight as they ushered him to a nearby hangar and the solitary quarantine cell used for infectious animals. They threw Caiden onto a sieve-like floor.
Towa said, “Threi is not here to protect you. I will see that your family gets their due, and you will stay here, learning patience.”
The cell door slammed shut.
CHAPTER 41
VALIANCE
Caiden’s imagination was far worse than nightmares. Days passed and he couldn’t sleep. His family was enduring torture.
Periodically, the Casthen opened the door, and only ever brought pain, not food or refreshment of the bucket they’d left him in a corner. They clogged the narrow doorway with bodies one hundred thick, blocking escape. He fought back with all the valor bred into him, venting the rage and worry that crammed up inside him every moment he was stuck helpless in a cell.
Groggy, bruised, Caiden lay on his back as the isolation stretched on. He tried to empty his mind, struggled to recall nothingness.
An electric hum spidered through the wall.
One door lock disengaged. Two.
He groaned. His cuts had barely scabbed from the last beating. Even his rapid-healing genetics were no match for this frequency of attack. Perhaps that was a point that Towa wished to make.
The airlock wheezed.
Caiden rolled to all fours.
The door crashed open. Silye rushed in, gesturing frantically. Wires and holosplays littered the floor behind her where she’d hacked the cell security. Her whole body shook, face pinched, fingers butchering the words she tried to m
ake. Threi said wait, but— She cut off, hands trembling.
“But what?” he choked, scrambling to a sitting position. “What’s happened?”
She signed, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Then she just stared and shook her head.
Caiden realized— recalled Silye’s genetics— she couldn’t cry. The distress escaped her body through her quivering fingertips, which he captured gently. He drew in a breath and held it, squeezed Silye’s hands between his, and tried to gather his mind.
She exhaled, then gestured, I know— I know— you need to go now, or no one is safe.
Claircognizance. Chills sheeted through him. “Silye. Who isn’t safe?” He took a deep breath and summoned every Graven cell in his body to align. “How long has it been? Where’s Threi? Where is the whipkin held?”
Silye riveted to attention. She spoke with a mix of signs and gestures, blurring languages to be swifter; Threi, not sure. Animal is in main lab. I released you early. Four days have passed. You … Her hands hovered, shaking.
“Four.” Caiden surged up, flexed his Graven will, and said to Silye, “Come with me.”
He flew into a scour on the other side of the hangar, instantly healing minor injuries and relieving the pain load a bit. When he emerged, Silye had found his morphcoat. He whisked it on and rampaged toward the main lab like a storm front, as fast as his beaten body could go.
Out in the larger hallway, Towa headed a score of Casthen soldiers marching with purpose.
“Stand down,” Caiden snarled. Half of the group parted, but Towa attacked instantly and ignited the others’ courage. The tal’s leg slammed Caiden’s left shoulder as he blocked. He spun and broke her knee. She shrieked. Ten others poured onto Caiden, and he eagerly expelled more of his valorous rage. He whirled one around to take a knife meant for his gut, threw them into the others, a kick to a groin, elbow to the skull, broken limbs and blood all over and he was done with a few heartbeats to spare.
Most of the other soldiers retreated. Towa sprang off her good leg and tackled him. He wrapped her in a choke hold, using his legs for torque. Her ruffled body wriggled in his grasp, black teeth bared and snapping until she finally passed out and slumped in his arms.
The glass chicory she’d taken before— her victory prize for killing his nophek— glistened in a mesh pocket at her hip. Caiden fished it out and shoved it in his coat, then detangled himself, breathless.
Free the whipkin. Get everyone safe. Find Threi.
He stole armor, then followed Silye and burst into the lab. “Everyone out.” His husky, savage tone cleared the room of even those who weren’t as susceptible to his paltry Graven effect. The blood on him probably helped.
Ksiñe’s whipkin lay sedated on a table, where Caiden was supposed to butcher her in a repeat of Ksiñe’s worst trauma. A lump lodged in his throat and a whimper caught there as he rushed to the little animal and scooped her up. He tore off enough armor pieces to cuddle her under his coat against the crook of one shoulder. She mewed and he petted her head and cooed soft Andalvian syllables. “You’re safe, little girl. I’m so glad I came in time.”
He cradled her and rocked back and forth for a while before his relief sharpened into urgency. He commanded Silye, “Find a route to where my family’s being held.”
She flicked through a holosplay map and showed him. The prison cells weren’t far.
Caiden sprinted, taking shortcuts and indirect routes. He charged down a narrow alley between warehouses and swept around the corner, slamming straight into Threi.
As they both staggered back, Caiden got his bearings faster. “Bastard,” he roared and locked Threi in a hold against the wall. The scent of blood and lilies stuffed his nostrils as he leaned close to the man’s ear. “What did you do to Laythan?”
“Talked, first.” Threi didn’t struggle. “I had something to settle with your captain. For the others, I used my own people or gave orders— I did what I could to soften Çydanza’s abuse.”
“Soften?” Caiden curled Threi’s locked arm, ready to snap it.
“If you defy her,” Threi snarled back, “you’re just an unruly pup. But if she realizes I am against her, the entire Harvest will be locked down faster than you can blink.” Threi glanced at the bulge of the whipkin in Caiden’s coat. “That thing. Crimes, you couldn’t do it, could you. Stealth was our only advantage but you’ve blown it now!”
“We still have haste.”
“That’s all we have.” He growled through his teeth. “What was Silye doing? Now you’re loose too soon, couldn’t complete your task, and Çydanza won’t give you another chance.”
Caiden shoved him away. “I’m doing it with or without you. Even if the ship capture beams can’t be disabled, I can endure the memory flood.”
“ Çydanza is on edge and knows exactly what to expect. One slip-up now and both you and your family are dead.”
Threi fussed his clothes back into place and snatched Silye’s holosplay map. “I’m not sure how long I can buy us time. We’ll need to disable those defenses around her universe and cover escape routes. Create a distraction to preoccupy her most loyal adherents. Silye, dismantle surveillance facility-wide, make it an accident and a distraction at the same time.”
Silye dropped to a sitting position and brought up another holosplay, its light filling the alley with flickers as she plowed through code.
Caiden stared straight into Threi’s eyes, waiting for the man to meet his gaze. “You’re ready? We’ll do this?”
No more planning. No more convenient delays to punish him into obedience. No more “soon.”
Threi’s pupils constricted as he met Caiden’s glare with ice. “You caused this, and you’re going to see it through if I have to throw you at her myself.”
Caiden’s nostrils twitched. “Where is the Azura?”
“In a machinist facility on the other side of the Harvest, dismantled completely.” He showed Caiden on the map.
“How much is completely?”
Threi grimaced in response.
“Did the machinists dismantle it segmentally so the organics can be recondensed?”
“Not sure, I’m not the mechanic.”
“Nine crimes, Threi, this could take days that we don’t have!”
The man’s jaw tightened. “Don’t suppose you have a manual on how to put it back together faster?”
Caiden swore under his breath. “No, but I know someone better than a manual. We’ll have to pray it’s enough when I see what the machinists have done. Cover my tracks and buy as much time as you can.” Caiden surged down the hall.
He crashed through the ten detainment guards like a lightning bolt. His augmented fist barreled masks to pieces, ripped armor off, crushed bones. All the violence he’d received in the quarantine cell poured out. He knocked the last one cold then stole glaves and bladed weapons before rising shakily among the bodies.
A sick anticipation petrified in his breast. No nightmares could strengthen him enough to be ready to see the torture Çydanza had designed for his family.
He strode downstairs into the darkness of the prison ward. Strip lighting bled along metallic black walls. The cells were dark sections of a large central circle, with a corridor wrapping around. No cage bars on these— the front was a field of blue force. He found the security console and dug around in the code, wishing Silye had come with him. While he worked at bypassing the fields, every tiny noise reverberated against the hard prison walls. Small moans. Drips. Loud, raspy breathing. A rhythmic scrape.
Fury clawed around in Caiden’s bloodstream beside the spice of the performance enhancers. He mashed the EXECUTE command and brought all the security down, then launched into the hallway.
First cell empty. Next.
Laythan slumped against the far wall. His bruised eyelids swelled half-shut over deep eyeless voids. Blood crusted down his cheeks.
Caiden was hammered with guilt.
“Laythan.” He dithered between rushing and movin
g cautiously. Laythan’s brow furrowed, not recognizing the Casthen voice both amplified and muffled. Caiden ripped off his mask and took hold of Laythan’s shoulders. The man flinched then grasped Caiden tightly, pulling him into a hug.
“Tell me you’re not one of those bastards now.” Laythan’s voice cracked. “Bloody fool. We didn’t save you just for you to crawl back here.”
“And I didn’t leave just for you to rush into danger. I’m going to send the Prime to oblivion, but I need you all safe first.”
Caiden squeezed before he pulled away and guided Laythan from the cell. The man weakly fended off Caiden’s arms. “Boy, I spent a decade blind, you think I need your help?” He groaned as Caiden eased him against a wall. “The others—”
“Stay here.” Caiden dashed to the next cell.
En draped against a corner. Machine parts and morphic materials lay exposed, a mangle of synthetic muscle, bone, and organ. His exposed heart beat, purple and glossy. His face was a mask of black bone and knotted white muscle bands, dribbling blood.
“En.” Caiden choked on a sob.
En looked up, gray eyes wet and weary, but he smiled. “Look at you. You seem older, somehow.” His voice vibrated in triplet, forced through soggy materials.
Caiden swallowed ache and forced a smile. “I’m going to murder her, En.”
“I know ya will.” En’s voice crackled. “But we needed you too. In case you couldn’t tell that, when you left. And don’t give me that bullshit about you being Graven. You charmed me all on your own.” En tried a wink, but the eyelid only half closed. “Your freckles are cute though, I admit.”
Caiden sobbed a laugh. He helped En to a sitting position, but En’s legs were splintered into segments. Tendrils of plasma twitched. “I can’t carry you like this. Here—” He yanked up his left sleeve, flexed his machine muscles, probed an invisible seam, and fished between blue bands to rip out a nanogenerator. Pain flailed up his arm but he gritted his teeth and pulled out two more. His arm spasmed the last of its stored energy and fell limp at his side. He deposited the nanogenerators in En’s skeletal palm. “Use these.”