The Book of Wanda, Volume Two of the Seventeen Trilogy

by Mark D. Diehl

  Top Dog consciously relaxed his face. Sneering at subordinates could make him appear weak and petty. He had heard this about the Subjects, that they simply existed to exist.

  Contemptible creatures.

  “Have you been able to find out how many of them there actually are?”

  “They say they had thousands b‘fore the bomb dropped, sir. I’ve only seen…not even a few hundred, sir. It’s hard to be sure, though, because it’s dark and they all look the same, scabby little skeletons with great big eyes. There are never many of them together at one time, because you can only line ‘em up single file in a tunnel.”

  How nice it would be to know for certain, to perhaps cross off the Subjects from the list of threats to New Union power. Top Dog wanted to believe that most of them had been blown up by the bomb, and that Rus was correct in his estimate of a few hundred or less. Might the wispy mildew eaters have an incentive to do the same manipulation Top Dog himself did when he insisted his Elements say there were only five thousand in the New Union?

  Still, he supposed, no matter how many there might be down there, it was hard to imagine them posing much of a threat to an organization like his.

  Hard to imagine them raiding the CBD and triggering a nuclear response, too.

  “All right, for now.” Top Dog said. “Tell me more about the religion stuff. It seems that’s the main way they’re kept under control.”

  “Well, sir…They sure seem to believe in it. The Subjects have got stories and prayers, but all they ever seem to do is hang on. They believe as long as they keep starvin’ and working all the time, and stayin’ out of each other’s way, they’ll stay alive. They call it being blessed by the Great Mother, survivin’ like that. I heard some of their stories, with all these names of different spirits or gods or whatever, but there’s really just one message: Sacrifice yourself for the group.”

  “Sacrificing for the group is the basis of their entire belief system?”

  “Yes, sir. I think so. It’s like…life is pretty bad there for everyone. They’re all sick. It’s dark and wet. They eat mildew twice a day and pray their thanks for it. But they don’ think about themselves. They’re all one big…thing together. The Divinators tell us in the New Union about the Unity, sir, that life and death are the same. Down there, it’s easy to see life and death as the same, sir. Subjects drop dead all the time, but they don’t care, because they don’t think much about their own lives. Just the group.”

  “So it’s a political focus? They martyr themselves for their nation, that sort of thing?”

  “Yes, sir, I guess. But it’s different than we’d be. For them, it’s like, ‘I’m good because I’m havin’ one less spoonful of mildew today, or, carryin’ one more stone, or breathin’ shallower, that kinda thing. That’s why the CBD attack is so strange, sir.”

  “What’s the pull, Tunnel Master? What makes them so cohesive? It can’t just be this religion that makes them want to breathe shallower. We have Divinators who provide certain services and function to make our Elements work together, but they don’t have the ability to create that level of dedication on their own. Do the Subjects have a drug like our Juice?”

  “Don’t think so, sir. They sure don’t carry it in vials hanging around their necks like we do. Maybe there could be something in the black soup they eat that gets ‘em high or whatever, but they never seem drugged, sir. I think it’s just the religion, sir.”

  “But how does it control them so completely?”

  “I don’t know, sir, but I think a big part might be that they’ve got no place else to go. They’ll pretty much do anything to stay there, religion or no.”

  “Yeah, but that’s true for our Elements, too. And professional Divinators.”

  “They got stories, too, Top Dog, sir. Our Divinators do important stuff, but they don’t tell stories. The Subjects tell stories about their heroes, like this one called the Prophet, and another they called General Eadie. And the stories tell ‘em why everything that happened is because of the Great Mother, and stuff like that.”

  “Stories.” Top Dog mused. These Subject stories must be worth something if they engendered compliance almost as totally as Juice did.

  “Ooh! An’ they’ve got those…what’re they called, sir, when they have special stuff they pray with? Relics? They got these relics they pray with, like staffs with important religious things glued to the tops of ‘em.”

  “And how do those objects make a difference in the way they practice their religion, Tunnel Master?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I think maybe it feels nicer to do that, lookin’ at special religious things and listenin’ to stories. The Divinators make us afraid of acting outside what we’re taught, but they don’t make us feel like we’re part of a story. When the Subjects hear the story and then see the relic from it, it’s like they’re part of the story, too, and then they know what they’re supposed to do.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Top Dog said. “Is there anyone besides a Divinator who knows as much about their religion and ours as you do?”

  “I think maybe not, sir. I know what I learned from the Divinators during training an’ stuff, an’ I know more about the Subjects than pretty much anybody.”

  Top Dog stared at him. “How about I make you a Divinator, kid? You’ll be tasked with learning the Subject religion and bringing in those pieces you find the most powerful, so they can be integrated into our traditions. We’re going to have stories and relics, too.”

  Rus puffed out his chest. “I would be proud, sir.”

  “Keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll start your training immediately.”

  “Thank you, Top Dog. Thank you, sir!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Top Dog gestured to Patrol Leader Elfman, who was in charge of implementing much of what was ordered in these sessions. “Make that happen, huh?” Elfman nodded brusquely and escorted Rus out with a hand behind his shoulders. “Okay, next!” Top Dog called. Two men entered. One had a sword and a Federal railgun across his back.

  “Coiner? What’s this?” Top Dog said. “Not like you to come to the council meetings.”

  “Hello, Top Dog, sir,” Coiner said. “I’m here to present you with a gift.” He gestured to the skeletal figure next to him. “The doctor who kept all the mole people alive so long. Now we have the new clinic, and I found him just in time to put him there.”

  “Hmm,” Top Dog said. “Come closer.” He peered at the skin-and-bones man, who looked very much like the other Subjects he’d seen. “So you know the tunnels as well as the Subjects do, but you’re not in league with them anymore?”

  The man wheezed and his voice cracked as if he were a thousand years old. “Yes,” he managed.

  “You know of any egress points from the tunnels into the entertainment districts?”

  The man stood silently for a long time, then seemed to snap back to life. “Uh,” he said. “Yes. Uh. Yes, sir. I do.” His knees buckled.

  “Thank you for the gift, Coiner!” Top Dog said. “Take him to the clinic for now, but as a patient. Get him fattened up. He’ll be going back into the tunnels to navigate for us, soon.”

  Amelix Lab

  It had been hours since the rat had let her have a sip of water, even though she could do better work if she was more comfortable. Hadn’t the Rat Gods already decided that Amelix work was important to them? They’d always allowed her to make it a priority before.

  The thirst was now bad enough that she found it harder and harder to think about anything else. Trying to swallow hurt her throat. Her tongue felt fused to the roof of her mouth.

  If you won’t let me drink, will you at least increase the Thrall?

  Right now the pleasure had been reduced to a trickle. The physical sensation was distracting enough, but there was another factor that agitated her much more: Chelsea was a scientist, and she knew an experiment when she saw one.

  Please don’t make me die of thirst. The effects of dehydration on the human body
are well documented. I can look them up for you.

  Pathway amplification seized on her idea that the rats might decide to make her die of thirst, and she became increasingly desperate for water. Her mind writhed as it tried to find a way to convince them, though she knew that the Rat Gods would never be bothered about her feelings. They were the corporation itself, made flesh, and their agenda was infinitely grander than any concern of Chelsea’s.

  She felt something, though. Something in her mind. Thinking on it now, she realized it had always been there, though she’d not previously paid attention: It was possible to resist the rats, at least a little.

  Being under their control, in Thrall, had felt too good for her to care about resisting much before now, especially after she’d realized how they were working for Amelix goals just like she was. Sometimes they trained her in unpleasant ways, like when they took the Thrall away to punish her, usually for thinking in a way they didn’t approve of. She had learned to block all thoughts of resistance from her consciousness by now, though, and she was quite certain she’d done nothing to earn this punishment. She did and thought whatever they wanted, anymore. It was a terrible feeling, having the Thrall ripped away.

  But here she was, in very light Thrall but still firmly under their control, and this realization—that she could resist a little if she really tried—hadn’t brought any response. She could feel it deep inside: There was a tiny part of her brain that the rats hadn’t yet reached. The rats hadn’t killed the part of her that controlled the body, but rather had merely squished that part into a tiny space inside her brain.

  That was probably why the rats weren’t punishing her for thinking about it! The thought was taking place inside that tiny bubble within her brain into which their influence had not yet seeped.

  They’d left her the ability to move her eyes and breathe, but that was all. She moved her eyes down to watch her left thumb. She focused intently on that tiny space inside her mind that still had some residual control, and, for an instant of blissful freedom, twitched her thumb.

  The Thrall’s pleasure vanished and in its place grew a frigid, crippling terror. Her gut knotted and her blood seemed to solidify. All her muscles went stiff and she again lost control of her breathing, which was now so shallow she knew a loss of consciousness was imminent. Pathway amplification took over, spiraling her into a desperate icy black hell.

  Under the rats’ control, she walked toward a different counter in the lab, moving robotically as her cramping muscles fought each other. Her hand removed a wide gauge hypodermic needle from a drawer. Her right index finger traced up her left thumb bone to where it joined the other bones of her hand and placed the needle point just outside the joint, shoving down hard with the blunt, plastic hub end of the needle against the table. Slowly her left hand pushed down on the point, which tore its way through her flesh. The skin on the back of her hand tented up briefly, and then the point emerged, stabbing suddenly upward as her hand slid down quickly to slap against the counter. Her face bent down over the counter, with her left eye looking straight down into the needle’s opening from a distance of only a few centimeters. Some of her flesh had torn and now partially clogged the needle’s tip.

  I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I will never do it again, not ever, I swear to you!

  Slowly her eye moved closer to the needle, stopping millimeters away. Her mind froze, incapable of thought. She lost track of how long the rat held her like that.

  Suddenly she stood straight upright, pivoted her wrist, and slammed the back of her hand down so hard on the countertop that the needle popped most of the way back out.

  It was an experiment, after all.

  The rats had tested her ability to resist them.

  ?

  So much chaos.

  Dok tried to sit up but found himself unable. It was so bright here that his eyes refused to open. By concentrating, he could crack them just enough to peer out through his eyelashes. Shapes—people—constantly bustled this way and that, in dizzying blurs.

  Dok lost consciousness for a moment. Coming to again, he realized there was someone there next to him.

  “Uhm,” he managed.

  “Hi, there,” a voice said. It sounded female. He started to drift again but caught himself, forcing his eyes open a little wider.

  “Where am I?” he croaked.

  “A clinic,” she said.

  A clinic!

  He moved to place an elbow onto the bed beneath him, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.

  “Oh, do you want to sit up a bit? I can help.”

  A hand appeared under his shoulders, and then a pillow. “There,” she said. “Is that better?”

  Dok nodded. “What clinic?” His voice came out as a croaking whisper, but at least it was audible.

  “Well, that’s kind of hard to say,” she said. “No, no.” Her hand appeared on his forehead, pushing him back to the pillow. “Just stay there for now, okay? You’re not as strong as you may think. As to what clinic, I guess it depends on when you ask. Right now, it’s controlled by the New Union. Before that, it belonged to the Saved. Before that, it was Coach V with the Horde.”

  Dok’s mouth felt forced into a strange shape. He was smiling. “Coach V,” he said.

  “You know Coach V?”

  “The Saved? Who are the Saved?”

  “Shh, shh.” The hand patted his forehead gently. This one had great bedside manner. “The Saved are a religious group that succeeded the Horde,” she said. They say they follow a man they call the One Who Returned, but he’s dead now. The Fiends are wiping the Saved out, and they took this clinic from them in the process.

  “Oh,” Dok said. His eyes closed briefly and he nearly fell unconscious again, but the words resonated inside his mind and jolted him awake. He actually pulled himself up to an elbow. “One Who Returned?”

  “Yeah. The One Who Returned.” Her hand on his forehead shielded his eyes from some of the light, allowing Dok to see the room and all the patients. “He was a leader or guru or something to them, though I heard he was actually a local psycho people used to call the Garbageman. He had an unsaintly side to him, that’s for sure. Anyway, for now, this place is New Union.” She gestured around the clinic, with every bed occupied by a Fiend.

  Dok tried to speak again but found he hadn’t the strength. He rested a while longer and tried again. “Does the One who Returned claim to have come here from some other time?”

  “I never heard that. He’s sure different from anyone else I’ve met, though. I can tell you that much. Now you need to rest and—”

  Dok’s voice came back somewhat as he talked to himself. “It’s that same strange undifferentiated schizophrenia! It didn’t disappear, after all. That drug may still be circulating.”

  “Schizophrenia?” she asked.

  He felt his eyelids trying to close and willed himself more awake. “There was some street drug going around that made people schizophrenic. I treated one patient who was like that, and then a Federal Agent came and threw me out on the street. The next thing I knew, my reputation was ruined, my career was over, and I was living in a sewer.” He coughed and actually did black out again this time, but apparently only for perhaps a second or two.

  When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. “Are you Dark Dok?” she asked.

  He didn’t know how to answer. Anyone who knew that name would know that he’d now been labeled the Zone Poisoner. He was so tired, though. So weak. There was no reason to hide, no way to fight. Dok nodded.

  “It was my job to monitor the MediPirates page for a while after Coach died,” she said. “I’m Wanda, by the way.”

  “Hi, Wanda.” He coughed again. “I’m, yes. I’m Dark Dok. Though I’m surprised you’re still talking to me, if you know who I am. Someone set up shop in my old clinic, and started poisoning people in my name.”

  “I’m happy to meet you, Dark Dok. I read so many of your old posts, I feel like I know you. You have a brill
iant medical mind. I suspected there was something wrong with the posts calling you a killer, and I met a lot of practitioners on chat boards who felt the same way. Dark Dok, the man who cared so much and so genuinely about his patients, could never have been the Zone Poisoner. Don’t worry, Dok. I believe you already.”

  Nondescript and disintegrating civilian truck, Saved territory, the Zone

  Agent Daiss scanned the windows and alleys for potential threats as Agent Juli Lehri maneuvered the slagheap truck. Protocol for an Agent manning the vehicle’s guns on patrol was to keep a finger next to but not on the trigger, but Daiss gripped it almost as tightly as if he were already shooting. The Saved made Daiss uncomfortable.

  Many of the Saved came from backgrounds a little too similar to those of Federal Agents. He found it distasteful, having to acknowledge the grace of God through this forced proximity to them. Among the Saved’s typical dust monkeys were true Golds who had grown up in suburbs or corporate housing, attended corporate schools and fought to survive in large organizations, only to fall to this wretched life in the end. Federal Agents Departed all the time, though their enhanced physiques required so many calories that they usually died quickly out here.

  “We should have seen them by now,” Lehri said.

  “This is Saved territory, certainly,” Daiss said. “Used to belong to the Horde. You’re new enough you probably never ran up against them. If you drove down the streets here they’d be everywhere, acting like they were just random bums except that every one of them stared straight at you all the time. I’ve been watching the Saved since they took over, and they’re less confrontational, much more likely to hide. There are fewer of them in any given place, but there may be many more around than what you see. They can stay out of sight and follow us for hours. No doubt they know we’re here.”

  “What should we do?” Lehri asked.

  “Another couple turns,” he said. She turned twice more, traveling down some of the smaller streets.