Dark Age

by Pierce Brown

  He sits on the edge of the table. “Now, I’m not sayin’ I was fond of Duncan. Fact is, this job’s got me a little pinned, and he was making some moves, you know. But…” He taps the table with the hammer. “Man’s got his orders.” He leers in my face. The broken veins of his nose look like Hyperion traffic arteries this close. “You weren’t exactly a looker before, but if you don’t tell me how many girls you got pissin’ acid, well, not even the dead’d kiss you.”

  I don’t want to waste my tooth on him.

  And I don’t have to.

  Behind Picker, a Red girl opens the door and slips through. It is Freckles. One hand rubs at a dark stain on the right side of her dress. She did it then. The other hand is hidden in its right pocket. Her hair is tangled, and her face maintains its dazed expression when she sees what’s happening. She draws her right hand out from her pocket to reveal a tarnished pistol.

  “Shoot him,” I say.

  The color drains from Picker’s face as he turns to see the young woman he collected not a day ago now holding a gun on him from five paces. His hand reaches out. “Careful with that big iron, lass. You could hurt someone.” He takes a step forward. “Just set it down, right?”

  The pistol shakes in her hand.

  “Shoot him!” I shout.

  Picker takes another step forward, hesitating when he sees her finger stiffen on the trigger. “Think of all the times Gamma did your blood wrong,” he says. “All the times your sibs were sick. How fat they got getting those boxes. While you sat with a bowl of sludge. That’s a Gamma right there.” Freckles blinks as he gestures to me. “ ’Course she wants to get your hands dirty for her. But you ain’t bad blood. Just set—”

  The gun flashes. It’s a small caliber, so his head only seems to lose its regular dimensions when the bullet goes into it. Picker doesn’t fall. He seizes, gasping like a driller with rust lung. She shoots him again, this time in the chest. He flops down and lies twitching with his eyes open.

  “Is he dead?” she asks.

  “Well, he ain’t talkin’,” I say. She shudders in horror. “Freckles. Hey, lass. I never asked. What’s your name?”

  “Vanna.”

  “Vanna, I’m Lyria. Do me a kindness and untie me?”

  “You’re really a Gamma?” Vanna says, and the barrel of the gun drifts toward me. I go dead still.

  “Yeah. That a problem?”

  “You’re not fat enough to be a Gamma.”

  I laugh. Of all things.

  The gun goes off, slamming a round into the rope on the table and ricocheting past my ear. I jerk my head away, flooding with adrenaline.

  “Sorry!” Freckles cries. “I thought that would work!” She tried to shoot the rope in half.

  “You crazy? Just use a bloody knife. He’s probably got one in his pocket!”

  Picker is still twitching when Freckles searches his pockets and stands back up with a vibroKnife. She mutters apologies as she cuts me free.

  Wincing from the two mangled fingers, I pull my hand from the ropes and bolt to my feet. Blood rushes to my head. When I blink the spots away, Freckles stands shivering over Picker. I pull the gun from her loose fingers. She looks over at me as I check the magazine. Twelve rounds left.

  “Where are the other girls?” I ask.

  She blinks as if coming back to herself. “Don’t know. I saw them take you, out the window.” Her hand rubs at the blood on her dress again. “Came soon as I could. W-what do we do?”

  There’s no right answer. Who knows if enough guards drank the swill in the mines? If the girls hid well enough? If I put enough haemanthus in there to do the trick? Or if Volga could convince the others to help her overpower those guards left standing? What should I do?

  Even with a pistol, I’m no freelancer. Hell, I’m not even a Red Hand soldier. I can’t help the girls. I need someone built for war.

  The township is in turmoil as Freckles and I slip out onto the walkway. Up the town’s tiered stone levels, melting men are stumbling onto walkways and bridges outside their homes. Their friends, many drunk, run to help them, but then push them back in fear that the acid will spread to them. The acid eats through a cable of a bridge and sends six men spiraling through the air to land five levels down on the mine floor. One splits his head open on a table. Several others lie calling for help, unable to move. Drunk men rush to help them.

  Several childwives I know are running up the levels toward the mine’s entrance. Red Hand men run to cut them off. I see Lion leading a couple of girls into a tunnel several levels up. Is she carrying a pistol?

  Harmony’s two levels above, shoving a man without a face off her and charging into a home. There’s gunshots from inside. Knowing that a girl just died because of me woulda once put me on my heels, but all it does now is make me focus on the Can, the fortress the Grays would have used as barracks back when the mine was operating.

  Its metal walls squat over the mine, and it’s connected to the township by cable ladders hammered into the stone four levels up. Freckles and I rush to the ladder and begin to climb. We abandon it on the next level as we see men coming down. I hiss at Freckles to follow me into a house as a man leaves it. His wife stumbles back from the door, clutching a newborn as we shove in. I make a quiet motion, and she doesn’t scream when she sees my pistol. In fact, her whole face changes.

  “We gotta get to the next level,” I say.

  She leads us to the second floor of the home and gestures out the window to a cable. “Connects with the one above.” She glances at my two mangled fingers. “Can you climb it?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “You should probably stay inside,” I reply before swinging out.

  It isn’t easy, but tucking the pistol into my pocket, I scale the cable hand over hand. Aengus would smile to see all that exploring wasn’t in vain. Freckles manages to follow me, a bit slower until she starts using her legs to push off the wall.

  “Psst,” a voice whispers as Freckles crawls up to the sixth level. I turn to see Lion’s dark face staring out from a tunnel between two houses. “Is it safe?” A dozen other girls peer out from behind her.

  “Not yet,” I say. “Wait here, and we’ll tell you when to come.”

  Freckles and I use a stone stairwell to make the seventh level. From there, we cross the cable bridge to the Can. I pull Freckles behind some crates as the door bursts open and a dozen men pour out past the crate and over the sky bridge to help their fellows below.

  Seems most of the boys were drawn below by the screams. How do I know that? They’re moving down different stairwells than I am. On opposite sides of the Can. I lean to get a view off the edge and see them going across different sky bridges.

  How did I know they were there?

  Or that the men were coming through the door?

  Or that Freckles is just off my right hip?

  It’s not sight or sound, it’s just a sense. A low-frequency humming in my head. A sort of texture of movement. The parasite. Not broken completely after all. I don’t know what it’s doing, but I like it.

  The door to the Can is little more than a sheet of plastic. It covers a hole they must have welded into the Can to give it access from the sky bridges. It leads to a dark hall stocked with Republic rations. We pass storerooms filled with boxed electronics, foodstuffs, stolen fur jackets, and helium-3 canisters.

  Finally near a stairwell, I see the level signifier. Level seven. We’re three floors down from where Duncan claimed Victra is being kept. About to rush up the stairs, I push Freckles into a room and close the door at the feeling of soldiers coming up.

  We wait with our backs pressed against the wall as their boots clatter the metal hall outside. Beside the door, I aim my pistol where the first man will come in. None does. Freckles looks at me afte
r. “How did you know?”

  “I heard them,” I lie.

  She’s about to answer when I nod to the room.

  It’s someone’s quarters. Across from a rumpled bed lies a mound of Gold sigils nearly half a meter high. I approach and see several carved figures sitting on a shelf, almost as if the sigils are an offering for them. A sacrifice. A military jacket hangs from a chair set in front of a table with organized rows of weapon parts and maintenance kits. The glass floor is covered with rugs. I lift one and see the township through the glass.

  This musta been the room of the Mine Magistrate.

  Ain’t hard to guess who lives here now.

  I unbutton my pants and take a squat. “What are you doing?” Freckles says, wide-eyed.

  “Had to piss. Seems like the best place. Look for a map.”

  I search the room with Freckles when I’ve finished and we find a paper map taped to the wall above a communications console. I trace our route to the jail cells and then look down at the coms equipment.

  It’s all alien to me.

  I fiddle with the buttons, but only get bursts of static and the internal coms of the Red Hand. I stop on one when I hear a man shouting: “She got Darran, they’re coming…they’re—”

  Something cuts the signal short. I hammer at a few more buttons.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Freckles asks.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Well, what are you tryin’ to do?”

  “I’m trying to get a signal out.”

  “Me pa was the radio signal operator in my camp. Let me try.” She edges me out of the chair. I breathe over her shoulder watching her work. “It might take a second.”

  “We don’t have a second.”

  She shrugs and goes back to working. Unable to just wait, I scour Harmony’s room for anything we can use. I find two razors in a box, and a heavy breastplate of a Gold’s pulseArmor sitting on a rack at the foot of the bed. I can’t tell if the battery works or not.

  I try to concentrate to get some help from the parasite, but it is dormant. Freckles gives a little cheer and motions me over. “It’s only a broad transmission. I don’t know how to call anyone. Or if this thing even can.”

  “How far will it go?” I ask, taking over the chair. She shakes her head. I look back at the microphone. If I broadcast Victra’s name, then her enemies will come here, and she seems to have a lot of those. Can this signal even reach Republic territory? They won’t beat the Ascomanni if they’re nearby, and may not be able to reach Victra if this is Obsidian territory. So who’s left?

  With a smile, I lean toward the microphone.

  TWO WEEKS OF SEARCHING in vain has netted us little but debris and close shaves with both Republic and Alltribe air forces. Electra and I have given up hope, and were it not for Pax, and had we someplace to go, we would have given up the search yesterday.

  I drew the night shift today. As the kids grab a few hours’ sleep, I hunch over the controls and watch the fjords below. Our passive sensors throb, detecting no emergency transponders. Volga is dead. I run a finger along the scar forming over Electra’s incision. The heartspike the Alltribe put inside me jiggles within its container. Every day that passes makes my heart feel more and more like that spike, artificial and one big joke.

  A weak signal crackles through the static. “Red…base at coordinates.” I frown and adjust the sensors. “Repeat, the whole bloodydamn…at 46 degrees…we…under siege. All…and enemies of Red Hand…call for your aid. Repeat…”

  I know that voice as it rattles off the coordinates.

  It comes from a ghost.

  I trigger the ship’s internal alert systems at maximum volume. Half a minute later, Electra and Pax are stumbling through the hall rubbing sleep from their eyes. “If it’s another false alarm, I’m going to hack off your—”

  I interrupt Electra and play the recording. The two kids hunker down in the seats and help me compile the message from the scattered fragments until it’s as clear as we can make it. Lyria is under siege at what she claims is the Red Hand headquarters. Her hail is for any and all enemies of the Red Hand to come to her aid. Lyria was likely kept in a cell near Volga. If she is alive, then Volga might be with her. I dare not even hope.

  Pax immediately begins setting course for the coordinates. I slap his hand away. “If that’s the Red Hand headquarters, we’re gonna need more men.”

  “Obsidian are scratched,” Electra says. “They’ll just capture us. Republic?”

  “They won’t pay any attention to our hail,” Pax says. “We have emergency codes, but if there were Howlers on Mars, they would have answered our earlier broadcasts. Even if we can get the message to Uncle Kieran, it’ll be too late.”

  “Republic and Alltribe are a finger’s twitch from all-out war,” I say. “They’ll both think this is some sort of trap. Not to mention if they find out you two are on my ship, then we’re in the crosshairs of every mercenary band looking for a payday.”

  “Then who’s left?” Electra asks.

  “Mars,” Pax says. Electra and I look at him for some semblance of clarification. “We need to boost Lyria’s signal.”

  FRECKLES STAGGERS UNDER THE enormous weight of the Gold breastplate as we make our way down the hall toward the jail. I lead with my pistol out, trying to make the parasite work again. I can’t tell where anyone is.

  Everything echoes in the metal halls. Men shout in the distance. Boots hammer stairs. Doors slam. Freckles and I creep behind three men who stand inside some sort of transparent coms room, washed pale by the light of holograms. Maybe they didn’t notice my signal go out. Maybe it didn’t go out. Most of the security globes are dark, but enough are alive to show the slaves unlocking themselves in the mines around the bodies of their overlords. A group of them gather around Volga. Blood drips from her head as she cradles a rifle and shouts at them.

  There you go, big girl.

  Then one of the men leans over his screen and goes stiff. My voice fills their room. We’re stuck halfway down the hall. They know. Freckles looks at me in fear and I shove her into a maintenance closet. “Wait here for me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just wait here with the weapons. I’ll be right back. Do not come out if you hear me scream.” I shut the door as she nods. I grip my pistol. Men are coming from both directions. I drop my pistol and get on my knees.

  “There’s the bitch.”

  They bowl around the corner with rifles drawn, and I say the only thing I can think up with enraged psychos running toward me: “I’m with the Gold. I have information to sell Harmony.”

  I barely duck a boot aimed at my mouth. I catch it on the head instead and tip sideways. Someone’s grabbing my hair. “What information?”

  “I know where Julii’s other daughters are.”

  * * *

  —

  The day my clan saw the sky for the first time, we toured the Can. Pa saw how unimpressive I found its jail. He told me it’s a little jail for little crimes; anyone guilty of a big crime got the lash or the gallows. The jail was meant for loudmouth drunks, disobedient miners to cool their heads, and sometimes rats to spill their clan’s secrets for a little cheese.

  I don’t know why, but I asked him if he ever turned rat, and he just grew quiet.

  This mine’s jail is as small as ours was. But instead of drunks or miners, it is stuffed a dozen to a cell with starving Obsidians and Reds. The smell as they throw me into a cell is tremendous.

  Like I hoped they would, they’ll lock me up until Harmony can come up from the chaos below. Things sound like they’re settling down. I hope Lion is still hidden.

  There is only one other prisoner in my cell, but her long legs take up most of it. Victra sits hunched on the floor. She doesn’t move as I sit up from where the guards threw
me. She wears tattered pants that barely reach her calves. Her shirt is torn and bloodied over her muscular shoulders. A wound oozes blood from her head.

  She doesn’t even look at me. I can’t imagine the pain inside.

  “Victra…” I say. She doesn’t reply. “Victra, I’m here to—”

  The jail door slams open. A dozen sets of boots come our way. Harmony leads a pack of her nastiest-looking men. “I thought I left you downstairs. Does anyone have my saw?”

  A man pales. “I thought you wanted to use the hammer.”

  “Yes, but I also left my hammer downstairs.”

  Another man darts behind the corner and comes back with a saw crusted in old blood. Harmony smiles at him, glares at the first man, and kicks the cell door. “What’s this bullshit about her other girls?” She spits. “Like the Julii would risk telling someone like you. How did you get the acid in?” She kicks the door again. “Where is it hidden?”

  “Up your cootch,” I say.

  She points the saw at me. Then there’s a shout. “Got one of them.”

  They drag a dead girl in. Harmony pushes through her men as they lay her out on a table at the far side of the room. Their backs are turned. I snap my fingers at Victra until she looks at me.

  I pop the tooth.

  Without changing her broken expression, Victra coils her legs under her. The acid releases into my mouth. She thrusts her manacles at me. When the acid goes cool, aligning itself to recognize my DNA, I dribble a line of it at the bridge between her cuffs. Then I spit the rest at the lock of the cell. It begins to smoke as it eats through the casing.

  “It’s in their teeth,” Harmony murmurs after inspecting the dead girl. She wheels around. “It’s in their teeth!” Before the men can turn back to the cell, the lock makes a satisfying clonk.

  I’ve never been to Mercury or its Hippodrome. But I’ve seen videos of old chariot races. When the horn sounds, there is a rippling of muscle, a stir of dust, and everything becomes…heightened.

  Victra bursts from the cell.