by Allen Ivers
The poetry of that was just too much for them to handle, Aaron supposed. People need their heroes wherever they find them, qualifications be damned.
The two guards at the checkpoint -- Anatoly and Kipling -- were wrapped up in some conversation, with a handcuffed inmate on all fours as their footstool. Based on the bruising around his head, there had been some minor brawl, and this was his punishment — for losing, of course.
The winner would’ve been long gone before the guards arrived, and they rarely gave enough of a damn to pursue; they surely weren’t motivated by fairness, after all.
Aaron didn’t recognize the punching bag, but he could make his guesses as to who painted on his bruises. “Where is she?”
Black & Blue spat a big wet one at Aaron’s feet, “Fra tow paz ki lomar!” Aaron knew a bit of the Colonial creole, and curse words were some of the first he picked up.
“Such a creative individual, this one,” Kipling slurred out past his cheek full of ration bar. The very notion of a condensed dehydrated protein mash, even deep in this rotund prick’s cheek, was intoxicating to Aaron’s malnourished mind.
A day of hard work notwithstanding, he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in a month. Capitals often traded whatever materials they could find for a single bite of the soldier’s daily allotment. And these lonely guards were often in a bartering mood.
A handful of well-known marketers had long since worked their abuse instinct dry and had instead turned almost chummy with their charges — provided they weren’t using them as furniture.
Anatoly propped his heel upon the prostrate man’s shoulder, like a human ottoman, steel toe leaning against temple. A reminder of the Capital’s status. “His friends brought this little fella out, then went back inside.”
Okay then, in this instance there had not been a discovery; there had been a delivery.
Aaron went for the door, but Kipling stopped him with a raised hand, “Pay the toll, 626.”
Aaron rolled his eyes, “Take a swing.”
The game had sprung fully formed from Anatoly’s big brain and spread through the Pits like plague. The Capitals had little documentation about their past lives, and both prisoner and guard alike tried to deduce the prior lives of their fellows. Only the Foreman had access to confirmation, and he had agreed to stipend the winners.
A correct guess and the guards could ‘own’ a Capital for a day and a night. Helped with morale -- the guards’ anyways. Whoever guessed correctly dictated the results, and the range of punishments were… wide.
Kipling and Anatoly, however, mostly liked casual abuses. They were lazy bastards and enjoyed service of the more utilitarian type.
After all, they were using bag of bruises here as a footstool.
Anatoly rubbed his hands together, “I think you were some artsy guy, like a… guitar guy!”
Kipling and Aaron looked at him quizzically. The fat lunk shrugged, “Y’know like the…” He strummed his gut with his hand.
“No, I - I understood,” Aaron said, stopping short of correcting him further, “But that’s not it.”
Anatoly snapped his fingers in cartoonish dismay, before nudging his ‘stool’ in the kidneys for slacking.
“My turn,” Kipling said, stroking his nonexistent beard, fingers scraping across stubble, “I’m thinking you have the bearing of the educated, but too young to have gotten far. You were… a research assistant.”
Aaron shook his head and Kipling fired off his last shot from the hip, “It’s a trick question, innit? You didn’t have a job, you skel!”
“Don’t worry, Kipling, you’re zeroing in,” Aaron said, gliding past the guards toward the checkpoint doors. “I have a good feeling about you.”
“We got everybody else, 626!” Anatoly called out, “We’ll get you too!”
Kipling had a few good guesses under his belt, but Aaron would be surprised if Anatoly had correctly guessed his own lunch an hour after eating it. And with his restrained approach, Aaron had made himself neither easy nor a sought after trophy. It was a delicate balance he learned in his first cell block -- this was the only place in the Universe identity was a weakness.
Numbers are lost; names are remembered.
The entrance of the apartments was large and vaulted, though it had become claustrophobic with the grime and mold. There had once been a lift system in place, now overtaken as the impromptu trash chute.
The central stairway wrapped around the caged elevator shaft, now half buried in refuse and excrement. The rotting morass would probably make a half-decent mortar if left out to bake. It had long since stopped turning Aaron’s stomach, but he could still taste the burn at the back of his throat.
After all, if he was going to get ill, he’d have gone feverish, delusional and died months ago. He was probably inoculated at this point to whatever foul growth festered in that mess.
He jogged up the steps toward the fifth floor. There was no one to negotiate around at this hour -- most of the residents were out in the mines. At night, he’d be stepping over people on these steps.
Late arrivals — or those excommunicated from their tribe — were Dwellers, living only on the steps, caught between worlds and without homes.
Not that having one was that much of an upgrade, really. It mostly offered allies to insulate from the more aggressive patrons. After all, this assortment of inspirational folk weren’t sentenced to back-breaking labor for their work in children’s charities.
Each floor bore the marks of the colonists that had once deemed this structure home -- some abandoned furniture, worn decorations, and loose cloth littered every room. The mining dust and garbage tracked in by every Capital’s boots didn’t much help with the general scum that now clung to every edge and corner like artificial shadows. The well-walked path around the mess lined each long hallway as though it had been drawn with felt-tipped markers by drunks or children.
Aaron slid down the hallway, turning only to slip past other Capitals. The fifth floor was comparably clean when measured against the rest, with a garbage detail organized to remove the worst of the refuse. After a few outbreaks and even a fatality, the entire floor decided that sleeping in filth produced poor results for everyone.
He cracked the door on his room, waiting the requisite half second before entering. While he’d seen nearly everyone on his floor in some state of undress and even seen a few mid-intimacy, he always felt it polite to allow that single breath of time for someone to bellow out a warning.
Absent that, Aaron proceeded inside.
It was a small room, maybe only ten by six, and housing a good eight people at night. For the moment, there were only the two he expected.
Nora Silva held a wet rag to the side of her head. She gave as good as she got this time, it seemed, with stains of red tainting the edges of the damp cloth.
She had popped the faceplate off the gas heater, exposing its pilot light. Back and forth, like a bow across strings, she waved a threaded needle through the tiny flame.
She was a short woman, but solid, with a dancer’s frame. This caused a number of people to underestimate her and each individually make the enchanting discovery that this little raggedy blonde could unscrew the human neck with a properly thrown elbow.
“What did he do?” Aaron asked, more curious than concerned. One too many broken bottles in a pub brawl is how Nora found herself Capitalized, anyway.
“He was an evangelical prick,” Nora blurted, with a tilted grin. Maybe she was picturing the state in which she left him.
“Yeah, but what did he do?” Aaron reiterated.
She shrugged, “Should’ve listened to his own speeches, maybe he’d still have his two front teeth.”
“He cornered her at the mess.” The rich soprano tones and proper bedside manner cooed from the corner. Eden Neria squeezed out another dirty rag, the murky water darkened by the fresh blood.
The fae little woman was half of Nora’s already small size, never clearing five feet tall, but tha
t pitchy voice could command as much as calm. Her shoulder length hair -- an allowance from working in medical and not around heavy machinery -- had been tied back out of her face some time after she arrived five months ago and might not have been touched since.
It had gone oily and matted but her concern had always been for others before herself. Her soft brown eyes never seemed to darken, despite the ever-darkening circumstances she found herself swaddled in.
Aaron snorted at Eden’s brief explanation, “Yeah, that’s a mistake made one time only.” He turned back to Nora, “What, did he try to share the Good Word?”
“Some choice words, really,” Eden huffed, “about his exceptional genetics.”
Nora smiled, some of her own blood still stained to her teeth, “I expressed my distaste.”
Aaron glanced at the rancid water bowl Eden worked the cloth in and out of, “Did Nora leave us with any drinking water or…”
Nora clucked her tongue behind his back, as Eden dug for a bottle in the floor cracks. She removed a plastic bottle, half empty, the top crumpled down to save on space. She tossed it to him, checking that task off her list so she could focus on the real problem. “Progress?”
Nora pulled her soiled rag back, revealing the ugly abrasion to the side of her head. She had cracked her skull -- a slam against a chair or table edge, maybe -- but the bleeding had largely abated, revealing the soft tear in the tissue.
Eden settled next to her, taking the heated needle from Nora and gripping her hand with the other.
“Bite down on something,” Eden instructed.
Shaking her head, Nora just smirked back at her, “Do your worst, seamstress.”
Eden slid the needle under the skin. Nora didn’t even need to squeeze the hand. She just stared at Aaron, more out of a game than a challenge.
Mental focus. She knew it unnerved people, and that amused her. Whatever pain she was experiencing paled in comparison to the pain she was inflicting with that downright Spartan display.
Give more than you take.
“You want to gawk, shortstack, you gotta pay,” Nora taunted him, presenting the fresh zipper along her temple.
Aaron snorted at the quip: ‘Shortstack.’ Nonchalantly, Aaron leveled his hand at his height and swiped it clean over Eden’s head — illustrating the stark difference.
Nora just smiled back. Whether it bothered him or not, she just liked taking up rental space in his head.
Not many stitches were required, and Eden was soon finished with her sanguine arts. It was not the first patchwork she had done in this space and, if Nora continued to pick fights, it would not be the last.
“If you’re just marking time,” Eden said, “Quinn’s never without a deck of cards. Across the hall.”
“I found a Jergad arm bone.”
That stopped them both, backs stiffening and necks craning up as though a string lifted them to the roof.
The Pits were a good ten miles behind the colony Wall. Nobody they knew had ever seen one of the creatures in person. But they’d heard horror stories related by the guards: towering monsters, with scythes for hands, that could rend an entire platoon to pieces in seconds. They jumped from the ground and disappeared again like sharks in water.
No one believed the tall tales, but there had to be some brand of truth, some origin to the myth. And their curiosity never wavered.
“And?” Nora asked, masking the quake in her voice.
Aaron shook his head, “Got kicked up into Jensen’s rig. We’re lucky it didn’t pull half the gears out of alignment. Would’ve torn the cliffside down.” There was a hushed, almost reverential, tone to his voice. As though he feared invoking the image of the beasts might summon them to that very spot.
After a moment, Nora whispered, “What did it look like?”
“It looked like a bone,” Aaron blurted, the words racing past his lips with the uncommon velocity of a jailbreak, “But it had this claw on the end, like one big finger.”
“Metatarsal,” Eden chimed in with the infuriating ‘actually’ tone that only came packaged with specific education or complete lack of one. People never talked like that when they had just half of a clue.
“Whatever,” Aaron said, “But it was long, flat. And sharp.”
A chill filled the air. They had all heard rumors. Aaron never trusted rumors. That bone was no rumor.
But the other two were still frozen, as if they were unplugged, slumped. Their minds elsewhere.
“Not as big as the fairytales but… big enough,” Aaron murmured to the two statues.
He pushed the plastic bottle to his cracked lips, letting just a touch of the drink dribble down his lips. He could feel it seep into every crack of his throat and soak into the gristle of his thin beard, as if every part of him were eager for the drink. The moisture sank into his skin, doing little to sate the thirst banging on the alarms in his head. But the migraine will have to wait its turn.
Eden’s big brown eyes locked on to his, as though hollowed out. “Carmona was looking for you this morning.”
“He say why?” Aaron probed.
She nodded, “Army’s pulling out. Got bigger fish than little ol’ us. But they still have that Wall.”
“Car knows more,” Nora hinted with a natural lyricism, “He gave us the sales pitch a little bit ago.”
Aaron did all the mental gymnastics himself. “A draft?”
“Volunteers,” Eden corrected, “Serve a tour... go free.”
“They goin’ to give us sharp sticks or…” Aaron trailed off. When the two didn’t answer, he wished he was back in the Pits, “You two idiots can’t be thinking—“
“Not one to say ‘no’ when someone asks,” Eden said.
Aaron rolled his eyes, “Just want to remind you, you can though.”
Nora inspected the stitch work with her fingers, rough pads tapping along the beveling, “And do what else? Get shipped off to another border world sludge pen?”
“So you choose military service? They don’t even see you as a living person!” Aaron was dumbfounded by the logic. This was lunacy to even entertain.
“It’s just nice to have a choice, y’know?” Eden pointed out with a half-hearted smile.
“Choose what?” Aaron chuckled, miming out some floating text crawl from a propaganda video, “Death or dishonor?”
She didn’t even blink, “Freedom.”
Nora stopped just short of pointing and laughing, “Ah, they should slap your flat ass on a recruitment poster!”
Eden ignored the color commentary, stepping in closer to Aaron, “They’re offering full clemency. I didn’t choose this spinning rock any more than you did, but after this… maybe we could pick literally anywhere else?”
That notion gnawed at him. ‘Freedom.’ No more mining pits; no more sadistic guards; no more idle punishments. He could hold his head up for a change.
Go somewhere nice. Start over. With her.
Now there was something worth some pain.
3
Riley
They had worked all through the night to prepare the fields.
The parkland had once been a welcome respite for scientists and laborers to bring picnics or energetic children, a gathering point for the community. The grass was a local fauna and had been trimmed and maintained for both safety and aesthetic, with the dirt running track around the circumference kept packed and level.
Bleachers and other uncomfortable seating options were usually stacked around the various games, but workers had pulled them aside sometime in the night, the swift action carving six-inch troughs in the ground where they were dragged. They were now piled together at one side of the arena, forming a kind of control tower for the military, local government, and peacekeepers to have a full clear view of the basin.
What was once a two-square mile field for competition and recreation had been overtaken with nearly a thousand terrible examples of humanity. Murderers, thieves, and undesirables alike lined up for Riley’s appr
oval -- as though their kind would ever deserve it.
But desperate times asked for moral compromises.
Cables dangled from the back of the bleachers where sleep-deprived technicians grunted out the last few adjustments. They were over an hour behind schedule, but they were badly understaffed.
Nothing to be done about it.
Several computers had been strung up to provide the most basic of database management for Riley and his crew. They would need to direct the field officers through the varied exercises to provide the most accurate information possible.
And in the event of an uprising, their vaulted position offered excellent lines for the twin mounted GA-57 repeaters on either corner. There wasn’t enough ammunition to stop them all, but a given amount of falling brass would make any body politic reconsider their futures.
To put down a rebellion, a master need only bleed the crowd a sufficient amount. If fear can overcome hate, one man could control a thousand.
In Riley’s experience, hate always trumped fear. And after all, wide-scale slaughter did not harness an animal; it left the master with a dead horse.
“Colonel!” A demanding alto voice dogged at his heels.
He knew the owner of that voice like he knew knee pains.
The Governor’s daughter, Talania Dedria, held a minority post in the Governor’s administration. He wanted to keep his activist daughter occupied with her passions. Unfortunately, they were many.
The human manifestation of spunk trotted up to Riley’s side. Her strict ponytail like black silk pulled high on her head made her only seem taller. She looked down on him from her six-foot altitude. Her ‘princess’ voice and forced formality induced eye rolls from his staff every time she knocked on his door with the aggravating weight of a privileged woman in search of the shift manager.
Her clothes were minimalist, a simple white blouse with power trousers, but it was clearly off-world make. She had her expensive tastes, and her father did little to dissuade her.