Uri was a recruiter, but he found himself doing more bounty hunting than actual recruiting. Furloughed mercenaries, with too much time and money, gave the local constabulary a headache. Not officially under contract, the men were required to sign prior to deployment. Once tagged, the rabble-rousers were ordered to deploy or face incarceration by order of the Smirnov Legal Code. Either way, Uri was performing a public service by getting them off the streets.
Cossack Point’s gardens were the pride of Tiraspol, the showcase of the “future city.” Alkonost made efforts to transform the capital into a working vision, their city planners embracing the inevitable. Rice paddies, doubling as bioreactors, lined the arboretum’s causeways. Islands of tropical pine intermingled with manicured mangrove, adding floral density to the garden’s intimate space. Everything had a dual purpose. Behind the scenes, in the underground waterworks, filters strained oxygen from the supercharged growth, plumbing enriched gas back into the city’s air distributors.
Above the gardens rose the Alkonost Tower and Central Command. Standing among the roof’s forest of antennas was the statue of the mythical Alkonost. A massive bronze icon, the angel-headed raptor glowered over Cossack Point, arrows clutched in her talons ready to strike the enemies of Nova Byzantium and Alkonost’s beloved Transnistria.
Uri passed through the park’s southern gates towards the Dniester’s shopping arcades and the arena. Like sculptors, Tiraspol’s architects had turned its Euclidean harshness into luxuriant ziggurats. The city was a conurbation of concrete terraces, leafy canyon-like streets interconnecting the districts. The place welcomed the Post-Industrial Shock. Each oxygen-starved ashfall infused the city with a renewed lushness, the runoff a boon to the hydroponics towers.
He reached the arena by sunset. Stopping at the food carts, Uri had a red cabbage roll and a shot of vodka prior to checking the odds board. Three matches tonight; his recruit would be the middle act.
Blood sport, an export from Nova Byzantium, was a gladiatorial circus embraced by Tiraspol. Barbarian slaves captured on the frontier were the favorite opponents, their ferocity like caged animals. Uri took a seat in the risers and thumbed through the odds book. Two Carpis were matched against his man. The odds makers put the outcome at fifty-fifty. Not so much big as they were stealthy, Carpis had a knack for speed. To beat them, the Alkonost gladiator would have to act decisively.
The spectators, mostly composed of veterans, wandered in and took their seats. The arena mimicked a Zen garden, islands of granite surrounded by raked sand. The obstacles were a Tiraspol addition to the typical arena landscape, a nod to Alkonost battle ideology and Sun Tsu’s philosophies of terrain. Rules allowed for weapons, but nothing edged. Unsanctioned contests of sine missione, “without release,” while illegal, were known to exploit an array of medieval cutlery; no one had the stomach for a lingering death.
The first match was slow. The slave was a fanatic Chechen with a poorly healed gunshot wound to his right trapezius. Gimped, he could barely lift the aluminum baton, making for comic theater. His opponent, a heavily tattooed Alkonost, hesitated to bash in the slave’s head outright, instead lobbing limp blows into the Chechen’s midsection. The crowd wasn’t having it. Jeers poured down from the upper seats until the shamed Alkonost grimaced and disarmed his opponent.
It didn’t last long. One blow to the Chechen’s skull, and the bearded slave folded to the sand. The victor lifted his arms, triumphant, but was met with a wall of boos. No one had made anything from the bets. Even worse, the battle lacked the necessary drama.
After intermission, the next bout was announced: “The Vampire” versus two nameless Carpis of inferior breeding. Led out in hobbles, the barbarian duo’s physiognomy looked of a lower Romany caste: pigeon chests, beady black eyes, sloped foreheads, and blemished skin. Balkan clans were a stratified ilk, their hierarchy emerging from tribal conquest and interbreeding. Despite their bloody servitude, the two were doubtlessly better treated in captivity than at home. Escaped slaves were given little quarter upon return. Shame and dishonor was treasonous, the tribal chieftains’ punishments deadly.
Lieutenant Sava Valis entered the arena opposite. He wasn’t the mercenary Uri remembered from Moldava. Chrome fangs had replaced his missing canines, no doubt the basis for his nom de guerre. Subconjunctival hemorrhage reddened the whites of his eyes. Aggression drugs caused coagulopathies, increased blood pressure, and thinning of membranes. Bloody noses were common; wounds and cuts bled easily and copiously. Intricate tattoos of ribbed bat wings on his bare back extended from shoulder to shoulder. Looking the modern Dracul, Sava played the monster with flair. Agitated, he paced the sand.
“Christ, Sava. What’s got into you?” Uri whispered to himself.
The crowd cheered and waited.
Clad in nothing but leather kilts, the gladiators flexed their bruised torsos. The arena arbiter unchained the barbarians and handed each man a bifurcated pole separated by a chain. Sava squatted and spun the cudgels.
The Carpis circled and exchanged blows to probe for weaknesses. One of the arena’s obstacles, a stone pyramid, shielded Sava’s back. The crowd roared with each lunge. The barbarians tried to lure him away from his sanctuary, tempting him with an easy target. Another explosion of fighting; the sound of clacking mahogany filled the arena as the match grew ferocious.
Sava hissed. His red eyes were aflame, brow pinched, fangs dripping with saliva. The Carpis showed no emotion as they fought. Ignoring Sava’s demonic tableau, they focused instead on tactic. Stepping out from the pyramid’s protection, Sava struck the nearest Carpi. A blur of whirling poles pushed the barbarian back until he stumbled into the arena’s concrete wall, knuckles barked, elbows skinned, cringing. Set to deliver the final blow, the other Carpi leapt onto Sava’s back. Using his poles as a garrote, the barbarian cinched the connecting chain.
Choking, Sava crunched down and pulled the Carpi off his feet, then slammed him into the pyramid. The barbarian gasped for breath. Unrelenting, Sava descended like a cobra, sinking his chrome fangs into the man’s neck and shoulder. The shrieking Carpi tried to crawl away, but Sava had him pinned. The arbiter sounded a warning horn, a signal for the belligerents to desist. Sava ignored it, blood dripping from his mouth as he bit the Carpi again.
The other barbarian, back on his feet, pounded Sava’s head and spine. Undeterred, Sava continued his orgy of violence. The crowd turned quiet as the fight took a macabre turn. Facing forfeit, bets were being lost. A shout came from the upper tier urging the arbiters to stop the match. Receipts floated down like confetti. The attack was a violation of the “edged weapon” mandate. Two arbiters activated their shockers and approached Sava.
“Stand down!”
Berserk, he ignored them.
Blue sparks arced across his metal teeth. Rigid with electricity, Sava fell away, tearing a mouthful of flesh. His victim lay motionless, viscous purple pouring from his carotid into the clumped sand. The arbiters tried to hold the other Carpi back, but the barbarian was enraged, pummeling Sava into unconsciousness.
The match was over.
Uri left his seat to find the slave pens and medical bays. Flashing his recruiter badge, the arena guards led him to the bed where Sava lay. His vitals were stable, but left untreated, his wounds would become septic. A medic wiped the sand grit from his face and removed his vampire fangs. Missing his canines, he looked bucktoothed like a rabbit.
“We had a rough winter, didn’t we, lieutenant?”
Sava’s eyes fluttered as he lifted his head to nod.
“Your time in Moldova got to you a bit, eh?”
Sava closed his eyes and tried to inhale deeply, wincing from broken ribs.
“Command’s authorized initial deployment prior to contract authorization from Constantinople. We’re moving out shortly,” Uri said, lighting his pipe.
“Where?” Sava whispered.
“Baku, in the eastern Caucasus. It’s the staging area for the newly branded Operation Alexan
der. They’re bringing down a flotilla from the Volga for the amphibious assault.”
“What’s the mission?” Sava said, slipping in his less monstrous bridge.
“Secure the Caspian’s last proven oil reserves. The sea’s northwestern basin is depleted, just a trickle from Azerbaijan. So it’s off to make a beachhead in Turkmenbashi.”
“I’ve never heard of the place,” Sava said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. One of the medics grasped his deltoid to administer the antibiotic injections while the other deftly wrapped his broken ribs with wet mesh.
Uri continued, “There’s a warlord there who controls most of the conurb and Awaza oil complex. We’re going to reinforce him.”
“That’s way outside the frontier.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess: child soldiers, cannibals, rape on a massive scale. Just another day, eh?”
“I can hardly wait.”
“No dead zones though, that’s the good news. It has something to do with the Karakum’s desert winds.”
A sweaty man in a tracksuit burst through the swinging doors, a gang of angry bookies rushing in behind him. He was the promoter, and furious over Sava’s subterfuge. Uri tried to step in but was met with shoves. A tray of medical instruments clanged to the floor as the rolling stand toppled over. A man grabbed for Sava’s throat.
“Enough!” Uri shouted, pointing his 9mm pistol at the mob. “Back off! Alkonost official business.” He flashed his recruiter ID, warding the men back.
“This man cheated! People lost money.”
The arbiters stepped in and convinced the men to leave.
“I think it’s time you signed,” Uri said, pulling out a fingerprint scanner.
“And leave all this behind?” Sava smirked. “I was just beginning to make a name for myself. A few more bouts and . . . ”
“Tiraspol isn’t our home, Sava; you know that. We’re just circus animals here, chained and tethered. It’s all a recruiting tool to get us wild animals back into the fight, So sign, please.”
“Do I really have a choice?”
“No, brother.”
Sava reached out and thumbed the glass. A green laser crisscrossed the tiny skin folds. The LCD glowed with Lieutenant Sava Valis’s Alkonost profile, ARIN number, and status: Activated.
“Report to Field Bay Two a week from today, got it?”
Sava nodded.
Uri stepped onto the deck of his conapt and lit his pipe. Decameters below, the jungle maze of Tiraspol’s linked landscapes lay static and quiet. Black pinpricks of marsh birds filled the setting sun’s blur. The air was thick, stuffy, and full of cinder.
He pulled up a white plastic chair and sat down. These ubiquitous chairs, mankind’s most prolific invention, he thought. From Constantinople to the ruins of Moscow and beyond, no landscape was devoid of them. Their injection-molded plastic would be the geological hallmark of a brief industrial age. Knocking through the strata with rock hammers, post-human archaeologists would one day unearth the “White Chair Line,” an epochal demarcation between the Holocene and the Post-Holocene. With pyramids and cathedrals dissolved into loam, humanity’s legacy would be nothing more than mass-manufactured convenience.
He walked back inside, shut the slider, and turned on the climate filter. The ionized whoosh of conditioned air chased away the burnt smell from outside. His duffel lay open like a gutted animal, a set of neatly folded fatigues half thrown in. Packing was a painful exercise; simple choices about what to take and what to leave behind exhausted him.
Slumping into the couch’s dusty cushions, he glanced down the hallway. Like a vault, the door to her room remained sealed. It was a non-feature, like a carpet stain, something the brain conditioned the eyes to unsee. But in the late hours, when the city offered no other distraction, Uri couldn’t ignore the emptiness.
The constabulary had informed him there wasn’t much they could do. They only had jurisdiction within Transnistria, and filing a report with Nova Byzantium was pointless. This sort of thing happens all the time, the gendarme explained, especially in the conapts of active-duty personnel. Then there was the quip about “looking in his own backyard,” which enraged him. Uri fought the urge to punch the bastard; the last thing he needed was a civilian report on his military record. Knocking around Tiraspol’s law enforcement wouldn’t solve anything.
He had been begging her via shortwave to rethink. He had cajoled, he had threatened. Another couple of months and he’d be back from Moldova, if she would just wait. A week after the call the line went dead, his communiqué inbox empty. Back home he discovered she was gone, her room left undisturbed. He checked with the building concierge. Despite a few rumors, he didn’t have much to go on, just a description of an Alkonost recruit, probably her lover.
There’d been a deployment to Kharkov around the same time, Operation Allied Saint. The deployment was sentinel duty, low-level enforcement, and a likely destination for greenhorn mercenaries. Girls often followed their men into a war theater. Alkonost Command had no formal policy forbidding it. Uri contacted a few comrades working the operation and asked them to keep an eye out.
At the age of fifteen, she was already turning out to be just like her mother.
He popped a flask of single malt and toured the conapt. Gathering himself, he swallowed his shame and opened the door. The smell overwhelmed him, the fruity lotions and perfumes of a teenage girl. Closing his eyes, he breathed deep and felt the tears well. Dusky light from the curtained window drained the room of color, its bright pastels dulled. He sat on the edge of her bed and smoothed the pink paisley duvet. Propped on the pillow was the plush bear he’d given her for her tenth birthday. Button eyes watched him, inanimate and cold.
Uri knew he couldn’t spend another night. He quickly finished packing the duffel and left. The conapt wasn’t his home, just a closet filled with the clutter of a past life. Someday he would own up, but not tonight.
“Do you know why you’ve been flagged as a Section 12?”
“A candidate for desertion? I have an idea,” Uri replied.
“It looks like you’ve been divorced for five years,” she said, reading from her monitor. “You’ve a daughter as well. Missing. There was a report filed.”
Uri nodded and took a sip of vodka.
“Any attempts at extortion, ransom demands made by kidnappers, that sort of thing?”
“No. My daughter left of her own volition. I’d rather not get into it.”
“I apologize if the question touches a nerve, Lieutenant Vitko, but I-and-I obliges me to ask.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Somewhat. The system’s soft logic performs an initial evaluation. It’s up to us, the psychiatric staff, to complete the profile.”
The fifth ward of the Alkonost’s central hub was I-and-I’s division for internal audits and investigations, a quiet complex of interconnected glass offices built around an artificial pond full of lily pads. The psychiatrists were civilians. Employed by command, they were accessed to the highest security levels.
“And what’s your take?” Uri asked, getting up to pour more vodka from the liquor bar. “Am I a risk?”
“As you know, there’re other entities in the world that need Alkonost’s talents but wish to subvert the overhead of hiring the mercenary company outright.”
Uri raised an eyebrow. “Anyone in particular?”
“You just have to look to the night’s sky.”
“The caliphate? I wouldn’t think those Arab spacemen need mercenaries.”
“No one’s quite sure what they’re up to, but I suspect there’s a need to protect their secrecy. As the best trained and most professional, Alkonost veterans make tempting recruits.”
“Might be a good gig,” Uri winked. “They probably pay in gold.”
“Are you aware of the punishment for desertion?”
Uri slashed his forefinger across his neck, and then sat back down in the lounger. “I’m well aware.”
“The way I-and-I sees it, these recent events in your personal life . . . you’ve no immediate family or registered next of kin, correct?”
“Right,” he said, knocking a few ice cubes around his tumbler.
“These recent events can be extremely isolating, and isolation has been shown to breed divisiveness, a bifurcation of loyalties. This is our main concern. Are you devoted to Alkonost’s mission statement, do you see yourself as a citizen?” she asked, reclining in her desk lounger, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Uri stared at the abstract print on the wall and pondered. He hadn’t given his allegiances much thought. A mercenary, by definition, was a contract soldier hired to do the bidding of whoever was paying; loyalty was bought and sold. There were binding treaties established with Nova Byzantium—rules regarding enemies of enemies—but this did not constitute patriotism. Her questions were academic and antiquated, decoupled from the world of the Post-Industrial Shock.
“Can I ask you a question, doctor?”
“Please.”
“Have you ever been to the frontier?”
“No.”
Uri realized she was quite striking, dark hair peeking out from a headscarf, almond eyes, and a crisp pinstripe dress suit that conformed to her body’s curves. She was of aristocratic ancestry, maybe from Ankara, Nova Byzantium proper. Lacking the educational infrastructure, most of Alkonost’s support staff was expatriate.
“Let me tell you about it. It’s drowned, empty, hot, poisonous, suffocating, roamed by anthropophagites, troglodytes, and all shades of inbred mongrels in between. We’re a species in competition with birds, insects, reptiles, and even bacteria for survival. How many are left, do you think?”
“People?”
Uri nodded, finishing his vodka.
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