This was bad. Not at all what I was expecting. Worse. A gorge rose in my throat, and my stomach pinched and twisted painfully. The pointed edges of my ex-fingernail dug into the raw flesh of my wounded leg, twisting and turning. Perversely, the word “thumbscrew” popped into my head, and I wanted to laugh through the agony. Instead, I spat up water as my stomach heaved. My face burned, and little dots of sweat broke out against my forehead and temples. More water splashed out of me in a thick sheet of liquid and phlegm dribbling down my chin.
“I’m not fucking around with you, Everitt. You answer me, or we cut some more, shorten a few more fingers. Then I’ll let the medichines put you back together and start over, ’less you start getting smart here.”
I grinned through the pain, the world tilting crazily around me. I was hunched over as far as my arms would let me go, spitting between my legs, but I looked up and found his eyes.
“I don’t have medichines, you asshole.”
That one got me a punch—a hard one. No pull on his cybernetic patch job this time. Loose teeth popped free, and I tasted copper.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “You struck me as a medichine man for sure.”
I laughed, honestly amused. He was referring to an old advert from years ago, back when medichines had been new.
Daedalus Industries had promised to cure mankind’s ailments with a vaccine of nanomeds that would boost the immune system, slow aging and cellular decay, and improve cellular recovery. Cuts and bruises healed in no time. The adverts showed brief glimpses of policemen, firemen, and military professionals in the course of an average day. They all said the same thing, to a T. “I’m a medichine man.” Then it closed in an operating room with a brightly lit woman dressed in surgical garb, saying, “And I am a medichine woman.” It earned Daedalus a tremendous amount of popular support.
I’d never bought into it. I avoided the nano boosters the same way I disregarded annual flu shots. I was beginning to regret it.
“So, tell me, what do you know about Jaime Kristoff?”
“He runs a bar, grows his own potatoes, makes his own whiskey. It’s good.”
“Uh huh.”
“For those of us in the tents, he’s a nice little corner of the way things used to be. Somewhere we can go and feel normal.”
“Even with all those guards looking down on you? Fucking with your water?”
He caught my eye and winked at me. My run-in with Timmons was a recent event, a surface memory that would have been easy for them download, loaded with emotion, and kept close to the heart. Truth be told, I was still pissed off about it.
I tried hard to settle in the chair and find a more comfortable position. It wasn’t easy, and I was dizzy and lightheaded. My finger ached with each pulse, and a coppery taste tainted my mouth. I spat again, noticing all the old discolorations on the floor around me.
“He’s like you guys,” I said. The air around me changed, and something told me that was not the right answer. Instinctively, I braced for the blow. I was trapped under a flurry of punches as the men behind me took shots to either side of my head. My ears rang and something inside my skull popped. Kaften was yelling, but not at me. My shoulders were hunched, my head down, chin buried in my chest. Everything hurt. Nose broken. Had to be.
“Get out,” he said to the men, his voice calm but hard. A wordless moment passed before the door clicked shut again.
Cold fingers pried at my chin, pulling my head up.
Jaime, what the fuck did you get me into?
Cybernetic fingers pinched my cheeks hard, forcing the skin between my teeth. “You and Kristoff. You ain’t nothing like us. We clear? And we sure ain’t nothing like you, you understand that?”
I tried to nod but couldn’t with my face trapped in his grip.
“Look man,” I said. The words were thick, clumsy and slurred. My lips were fat and swollen. “We do our part. We try. The war… it’s over. We take potshots where we can.”
He looked at me with a degree of pity and a shade of sadness. He slid down the wall and sat.
“You live with them,” he said. “In the tents. You eat their food, drink their water. You don’t do shit except kneel, and you say you’re doing your part? That’s bullshit, man. You’re weak. And you’re a fool. You’re being played up and used, and you don’t even know it.”
“I fought,” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “I took lives. I know what that’s like.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe once, before. But I know you, Everitt. Who you are now. You’re a fucking junkie. You kill for the mem, for the rush. DMT, right? You’re a dreamer, nothing more.”
“No, that’s not—”
“Shut up. Quiet down for a minute. This is how it’s gonna go. You’ve taken shelter with the enemy, you and everyone else in those fucking tents. You turned your back on us, on your country, on your homes. We got your memories, as much as we could, and we’ll splice ’em into a nice little story we can easily follow and forensic the shit out of. And then I’m going to put a bullet in you.”
Neither of us spoke. The air was still and quiet.
“You defiled that girl,” he said. I must have look confused, because he screwed up his face and made a small angry ticking sound with his tongue and teeth. “The one you found during clean-up. The one whose gore is all over your hand there, from tearing out her back-up.”
Jaime. Alice Xie. What the fuck did I get into?
I hated his self-righteousness. “Better to hide bombs under them, right? Kill whatever innocent fucks find her?”
“Ain’t none of you innocent,” Kaften said. “You’re colluding with the enemy—all of you. You’re cleaning up the mess those chinks made, handing our cities right over to them.”
“We’re not colluding.” I tried to say more, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“You slaves then. That it?”
“Your hands aren’t clean, either.”
“No, mine ain’t at all. But at least my head is. I’m not some washed-up whore needing a fix. But what about you? That how desperate you are?” he asked. “Defiling dead girls now? Looking to get high off the war kills?”
“It’s not like that.” The words were a hollow lie. The truth was, I would have burned copies, played them, and passed them off for credits or favors. I would have lived her life, licking my lips in anticipation of her death and that white, burning rush of death’s chemical dump. I would have played it over and over, until euphoria turned to unconsciousness.
“Nah, sure. You molest them for the money.”
I couldn’t deny that. A small degree of shame sank in over the truth of his words, but I was already feeling beaten.
“It’s why you killed that general, right? Little Alice, she’s got her hands in a lot of pots, too. What do you suppose that’s all about?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Course you wouldn’t,” he said. “So. Jaime Kristoff. What do you know about him? I mean, what do you really know about him?”
I thought about it and about what I knew, remembered Mesa asking me what the fuck I know about anything. Everything hurt. My vision was limed with red, and each heartbeat brought pain. He asked me if I wanted more morphine. My finger throbbed, cascading waves of torment that tickled their way through my whole body.
“He leads a cell, or at least, I think he does.” I hated myself for this. Talking. Spilling secrets. “He was responsible for the bombing on the 101. He lost his wife in the war. We both did. After the US gave up on us and pulled out, we were on our own. We had nothing left. Not a single fucking thing.”
“And he never told you nothing, huh?”
“Hey, you’ve got all my memories, man. There’s not much else I can add.”
“We think we have your memories. Some surface ones, sure. But deeper down, who knows how reliable it is? Especially with your jacked-up brain. How many mems you’d say you’ve done now? Hundred? Thousand? You even know which are yours, buried in that
skull? Which ones are reliable? You got any suppressant software in there? Anything maybe your subconscious is electing you to forget? Any wipers in there? Maybe reformatting your shit?”
I didn’t know how to answer. He wouldn’t believe any arguments from me, and I didn’t have any I could sell credibly. Not while I was crying and bleeding all over the place. I was a shell, and he was picking me apart one piece at a time. The few defenses I did have had been hacked through far too easily for my liking. My thought bombs and mem-mines had proved impotent.
His questions about Jaime made it clear he knew things that I did not, and he was aware of it. He was plumbing for information, but his mind was already made up. He had passed judgment on me long before speaking with me, maybe even before the download on the ride over.
“Tell me what you know about Samuel Hodgson,” he said.
Again, the name threw me. I didn’t know what the hell he was asking me.
“Whatever it is you’re looking for, I can’t help you,” I said.
He pushed himself to his feet and walked out. I wondered how long it would be before he came back and we did all of this again.
My vision faded, the red going black. The touch of fingers roughly pulling at my wounded hand tore me back to consciousness. A young voice told me to straighten my fingers. A rough piece of wood was jammed between my teeth, and I bit down, bracing myself for the pain. But bracing for it was impossible. They said nothing. Their silence was punctuated with the hiss of an igniting flame. I howled as they cauterized the stump of my index finger. The rubbery smell of my cooking flesh was acrid and nauseating.
The cuffs had worn oozing rings into my wrists, and my arms were numb from immobility. When I tried to shift my weight, a blaze of pinpricks traveled up and down my limbs, and they felt heavy with sand. Everything hurt to varying degrees, some a dull ache, others a throbbing soreness, but each wound was vivid in its pain.
The light above me died, and I was abandoned to the darkness, left alone and broken.
I didn’t know how many hours passed. I slept poorly and with no recollection of having fallen asleep. When I woke, my neck was sore and stiff, and all of my other pains had multiplied. Muffled screams lulled my eyes open. I had to piss so badly, it hurt.
The door opened. Harsh light spilled in, shocking my eyes after all the hours of blackness.
“I’m undoing one wrist. Just the one, though,” Kaften said. “You’re going to stand up and allow yourself to be re-cuffed.”
With that done, he gripped my arm and led me out of the room. The screams grew louder, then softer as we passed, distancing ourselves.
“What’s happening?” I asked him. My mouth was dry, and the words cracked.
“Seems you got a benefactor. We’re through here.”
“Who?”
The only answer I received was a small push forward, up the steps. My legs were weak and tired, and I was ready to topple over. Kaften stayed close enough behind me that his breath warmed the back of my neck. We went down a long, wide corridor. Guards were positioned on each side of heavy metal doors that were chained and padlocked. Kaften was apparently quite security conscious and had a thing for chains. Didn’t want anybody getting in or out. His little fiefdom was far less porous than the refugee camp at Echo Park, which made me question the nature of his beliefs and how high up his moral high ground truly was.
Outside, the differences dividing Kaften and his regiment from the PRC grew thinner. If there had been a line drawn in the sand, it had eroded severely. The daylight revealed rows of canvas habitats and dirty, grimy people, fewer than those at Echo Park. For some, their clothing was nothing more than thin shifts of fabric. Children were hungry and thin, their faces long and hollowed out, making their round eyes appear too large and alien. Ribs poked through papyrus flesh above distended bellies. Armed guards—well-fed, muscled, and healthy—were a far cry from the gaunt wraiths living around them. They had been given purpose by the guns they carried, while everyone else seemed lost and sad.
This was not an outpost of freedom fighters, nor was it the last bastion of a dead America. The people here had no country, no objective. They lived merely because their bodies were too stubborn to die. Kaften had built up a dominion of rulers and their weak subjects. Even after all the wars, all the fighting, and all the death, Kaften and his inner circle had learned nothing. They fell back instantly on the ancient instincts of survival. I wondered which version of the American dream he was really fighting for.
“At least you’re free, huh?” I said, feeling bitter. Animosity welled up out of nowhere, and I suddenly felt a lot less pity for myself. Rage burned inside me, along with hatred for the hypocrisy.
He didn’t seem to appreciate my contrary tone, even as his eyes wandered over what I had seen, maybe trying to see them from my perspective. He said nothing. My pace lagged a bit, and he shoved me forward again, intent on keeping me moving. The eyes of hungry strangers dogged my every step. I couldn’t tell if they were jealous, piteous, or just empty stares.
Small clumps of grass grew among weeds tucked into the cracks of broken sidewalks. Before the war, this had been an industrialized area. Everything was crumbling and rusted, an ill-maintained haven for broken souls. The remains of a massive metal crane towered over the site. Metal shipping containers, abandoned and forgotten, were stacked three or four high. The ground-level ones had been turned into a squatters’ nest, home to a dozen people, if not more.
Kaften helped me into the back of a jeep, clearly a military relic, open to the air. He sat in the passenger seat, while I rode in back. Our driver’s was not a face I recognized. A second jeep carrying four people followed ours.
The drive was neither slow nor fast. The batteries that ran the vehicles were silent. The tires kicked up dust all around us, turning our skin gritty and chalky. The men were silent, except during brief radio communiqués, and those were mostly to confirm that the people ahead of us were in place and the rendezvous was clear.
We drove for maybe an hour. The sky went from blue to orange, but I did not know what day it was. My seclusion in the dark, along with having slept, had deprived me of any sense of time. It could still have been the same day. I could have worked on the reclamation site that morning, and the world was only just giving way to dusk. It felt as though more time had passed, though. A day at least, but when I asked, I was ignored.
I watched the city slide by, remembering how it had looked before the war. The fighting had turned it into a dilapidated graveyard that stretched for miles. Nature had begun slowly reasserting itself, blurring the landscape with subtle greens from plant life that had found incongruous methods of supporting itself.
Ahead, a pair of lights flashed on, off, on, off. We slowed, and a garbled voice came over Kaften’s radio once again. First the outlines of figures began to resolve, then people more distinctly. I recognized the lanky man standing in front of the plate-armored hood, dressed in a slimming black suit, a white button-down, and a thin black tie. The shine of his shoes had been lost to the cinders he’d walked through.
Kaften helped me from the jeep, mostly by stopping me from falling on my face as I half-tripped, half-jumped out of the vehicle. His patience and assistance were odd after all that had happened earlier. I looked at the skyline, knowing he had installed spotters well before this arranged meeting. I could practically taste the distrust in the air. If snipers were secreted away in the unfinished skeleton of the Alcyone Towers, they were well hidden.
He walked me forward, staying behind me, but pressed closely in a manner that suggested a degree of intimacy neither of us felt. From the way his body hugged mine, I was clearly a human shield. His movements were close, tight, and unsubtle, as his arm moved behind me. The cold, hard metal of a gun pressed into my back.
My breathing turned shallow and a pit opened in my belly for my balls to crawl up into. My mouth was dry. I sucked a scab loose from the jagged stumps of missing teeth.
We stood patientl
y for a moment while the driver examined us. Hai walked around the vehicle’s hardened shell, to the rear driver’s-side door, and a pair of shiny black heels stepped onto the earth as shiny black hair rose above the doorframe.
Alice Xie turned to me, studying my cuts and bruises as if she were taking inventory. She saw my torn pants, the pucker of skin, and thick clots of blood from where I’d been shot. Her lips were pursed in disappointment, but when her eyes met mine, they were unusually soft and tender.
I hadn’t been sure who my mysterious benefactor was, but when I saw Alice, I wasn’t all that surprised. Even though our relationship was often one of employee and employer, we shared a mutual respect and, if I squinted hard enough, maybe even a degree of camaraderie around the rough edges.
She stood alone, ahead of the car, halfway to the space that separated us, while her driver hung back. Hers was the lone car on the far side of the imaginary divide separating us, and she and Hai were woefully outnumbered by the soldiers flanking my rear. I wondered if she had taken precautions similar to Kaften’s. She seemed unconcerned and cool to the whole affair.
“He recovered a memory chip.”
“It’s in his right hip pocket,” Kaften said. His voice was loud in my ear, but his body pulled away, and he whispered, “I’m going to uncuff you. Keep your arms at your side, your hands away from your body.”
He nudged me forward, and I could still feel the gun pressed into my back. My body would hide it from view for several paces, and I knew its presence alone would bore into me every step of the way. I had a hard time walking. Unbalanced and uncoordinated, my feet shuffled forward as I limped painfully and over-favored my good leg. I probably resembled a penguin, wobbling toward an invisible line.
Alice urged me forward with her eyes. The rest of her body was motionless, coiled tight, and waiting to strike. I nodded to her.
I was still close enough to hear Kaften’s soft voice, intended solely for my ears. “I forgot to tell you. We finished splicing together all of your memories. Remember that promise I made you?”
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