Though she scanned the crowd for her brother, Jak was nowhere in sight. He must have eaten on a different shift. As BleakHall was so big, there must be at least two or maybe even three separate seatings for each meal, she reasoned.
Ari sighed. Well, they couldn’t have gotten away together tonight anyway—her plan required a clear, open sky above to work. But still, it would have been nice to see her older brother. It had been over six solar months since he’d hugged her goodbye on his way to sell the tulsa crop and had gotten captured by pirates and sold to the Yonnite mistress who eventually sent him here.
Putting the memory aside, she scanned the Mess Hall.
There were about thirty long tables arranged in five rows of six which ran the length of the large, echoing room. The walls were made of black metal, just like the holding area and all the rest of the prison, at least as far as Ari could see. Near the front of the room was a long countertop with a plasti-glass shield running the length of it.
Inmates took a battered metal tray and cup from piles near the front of the counter and walked through the line, shoving the tray in front of them. As they went, long, silver mechanical arms protruded from under the plasti-glass shield and deposited lumps of food on the trays. At the very end was a cooler filled with cloudy liquid—presumably water—where each man could fill his cup.
None of it looked very appetizing from where Ari was standing but she was well aware that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since that morning before arriving at the BleakHall gates. Even now she was beginning to feel a little faint. If she didn’t get some nourishment, she was going to have a hard time staying alive and unmolested until she could get to Jak tomorrow.
Reluctantly, she went to the back of the line and grabbed a tray and a cup from the stacks and began pushing it along the counter. She kept her face bowed and her head low, hoping not to attract any attention along the way. Though she snuck glances from side to side, no one seemed to be noticing her and no one bothered her—apparently her strategy of keeping a low profile was working. Ari breathed a sigh of relief and kept going.
She soon found that she couldn’t spend too much time looking around her, though, because the rusted mechanical arms coming out from under the plasti-glass shield were creaky and none-too accurate. Ari had to be fast to catch the globs of food they scooped out, maneuvering her tray around quickly as the arms delivered it with herky-jerky motions.
Wow, these really need some maintenance work! she thought as she caught the last scoop. I wonder how long it’s been since they had a tune-up?
A little while in her lab back home and she bet she could have come up with a fix for them, but of course, home was too far away to even think about right now. In the meantime, she just tried to keep her tray out of the mess—there were sticky smears and slimy trails all up and down the long counter, proving that not all the prisoners were as quick as she was at catching the food.
Of course “food” was a relative term, she thought as she reached the end of the counter and looked down at what her tray contained. There was some pinkish, spongy cubes swimming in thin black gravy that might have been meat and a scattering of dirty orange things that might once have been some kind of vegetable. For dessert, there was a smear of bright green pudding with purple specs in it that looked suspiciously like insect parts.
Ugh! Ari thought as she filled her cup from the vast, burbling cooler of cloudy water. This looks horrible! I’m really glad this is my only supper here.
But no matter how bad the stuff looked and smelled, she could feel her stomach growling and she knew she needed to choke at least some of it down for energy. Grabbing a bundle of plasti-utensils, she scanned the vast, echoing Mess Hall, looking for a place to sit.
The tables were numbered from 1 to 30 but most of them looked occupied. Still, Ari saw inmates crowding into them and the prisoners sitting at the tables were surprisingly accommodating about making room for the newcomers. Well, that was nice but she still didn’t want to try squeezing into any of the mostly full tables.
She couldn’t help looking at table 13—the one the big Kindred had ordered her to sit at. It wasn’t nearly as full as the rest of the tables—however the people who were sitting there looked extremely odd.
Not all the prisoners at BleakHall were humanoid apparently and it seemed that most of the ones who weren’t had chosen lucky number 13 as their preferred seating. Ari saw a purple creature with eight tentacles sitting there—it was using four of them to shove food into its beak-like mouth and the other four were exploring the length of the table, including its immediate neighbors.
One of those neighbors was a male so vast he took up most of one side of the bench himself. He had bright green skin and he was wearing some kind of harness that fit over his shoulders and ran down his back. Poking out of the harness were vials of green fluid that ran in a ridge along his spine. Was it some kind of fluid delivery system, Ari wondered. Or was there some other reason for the strange vials?
Sitting across from the green-skinned male was one with orange skin. Aside from the strange skin color, this one looked vaguely humanoid. He even had a tuft of straw-like blond hair on his head and he was holding a small communications device in one tiny hand and tapping at it with his thumbs. In between bites of food he appeared to be yelling at the other males at the table, none of which were listening to him.
Ari couldn’t hear what he was saying but she decided she didn’t want to. Why had the big Kindred ordered her to sit at the one table in the Mess Hall which appeared to have the strangest occupants?
Probably so he can isolate me and get me to himself, she thought with a shiver. Well, no thank you—she was going to sit where she wanted, Ari decided. And what she most wanted right now was to be alone.
With that in mind, she turned and spotted exactly what she was looking for—a completely deserted table. It was the far one in the right corner of the Mess Hall—table number 30—and she was glad to see it. Surely there she could eat her dinner in peace—or as much of it as she could stomach anyway. Then maybe she could find a good hiding place and try to stay away from Tapper until it was time for lights out.
What exactly she was going to do once she was assigned to a cell for the night, Ari had no idea. She had a vague hope that maybe she could hide and skip being assigned at all. If she could just hang around the edges of the prison until it was time to go out in the exercise yard, she could find Jak and get them out of here.
Seating herself in the middle of the empty table, she began picking at her food with a blunt plasti-utensil. She had almost gotten up the nerve to try one of the orange vegetable blobs when a tray was plunked down to her right with a loud clatter. Then one was deposited to her left and, as Ari looked up, the entire formerly-empty table began to fill with hard-faced felons, all wearing the same ominous looking serpent tattoo in purple ink across their foreheads.
Suddenly Ari became aware that someone was standing right behind her. She didn’t know how she knew—she just knew. Maybe it was the crawling sensation between her shoulder blades or the expression on the face of the man across from her. Whichever it was, she put down her plasti-utensil and turned to see a tall, impossibly thin male standing there. He was looking down at her with a blank expression on his long, thin face but Ari heard the man to her left mutter, “Holy shit!” as he scooted a little farther away from her.
“I believe,” said the stone-faced man who was as thin as a skeleton and twice as frightening, “That you are sitting in my seat.”
Eight
The crawling sensation between Ari’s shoulder blades got worse, spreading up along her body to make her scalp prickle with fear. Clearly this “empty” table she had sat down at wasn’t empty at all. In fact, if the purple serpent tattoo she saw on all these inmates’ foreheads was any indication, she might have sat herself directly in the territory of some kind of cult or gang.
“I…I’m sorry,” she said, picking up her tray and starting to stand up. �
��I didn’t mean to sit here. I mean, I didn’t know this was your seat.”
One thin but incredibly strong hand landed on her shoulder and pushed her back down into the plasti-steel chair.
“Are you a Serpent?” The thin man spoke so quietly she could barely hear him but his eyes flashed with anger.
“Am I a what?” Ari could scarcely get the words out.
“Are you a Port-side Serpent from Yonnie Six—from the Opulex warehouse district?” the man asked her. “And more specifically, are you the Grand Jiho of the Port-side Serpents of the warehouse district?”
“No.” Ari’s mouth was dry and her stomach was tied in knots. “No, of…of course not.”
“Well then, why are you sitting in the seat reserved for the Grand Jiho of the Port-side Serpents when you are not he?” the man screamed suddenly in her face, flecks of spittle flying from his thin lips. “Can you tell me that? CAN YOU?”
“I…I’m new here,” Ari gasped, feeling nearly faint with fear. The skeletal man had spoken so softly before that his sudden screaming fit came as a terrible shock. She thought of trying to use a Ton-kwa throw on him but there was no room—she was stuck at the table and surrounded by the gang of inmates.
My self defense skills aren’t nearly as useful as I thought they would be in here, she thought numbly and wondered what the gang members were going to do to her.
“Please,” she said, daring to speak again. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to eat alone so I didn’t have to be surrounded by—”
She broke off abruptly, aware that she’d been about to say “murderers and thugs” and that those words might be taken very badly. “Surrounded by other people,” she finished at last, lamely. “I, uh, like to be by myself.”
“Ah, solitude. Yes, I enjoy it as well.” The thin man was suddenly quiet again, almost cordial as he spoke. “Do you know where it is said one can find a great deal of solitude and peace?” he asked Ari conversationally.
“Um…no.” She cleared her throat nervously. “Where…where might that be?”
“Death!” screamed the man again. “There is solitude in DEATH!” Turning to the man at Ari’s right, who happened to be a hugely muscular inmate with arms as big around as her thighs, he made an expressive gesture with one finger, slicing across his throat as he pointed at her.
The man nodded once and grabbed Ari by the shoulders, lifting her bodily from her chair and holding her in the air in front of him like a rag doll.
Ari began to fight and struggle, trying to get away. Clearly this was a life and death situation and she most certainly didn’t want to die. But through she aimed several well-placed kicks at the huge man holding her, he simply held her further away so that she couldn’t reach him.
“Well, well—so I see you found my new cell mate, so you did.”
The new voice was horribly familiar and when Ari looked to her left, she saw Tapper with his two henchman, Fenrus and Gorn, standing behind him. He also had one of the Horvath guards with him—the big one that had been doing the body cavity searches before—the one Medic had convinced to let him search her instead.
Medic—where was the big Kindred? Maybe he would save her if for no other reason than to keep her for himself? But a quick glance around the Mess Hall showed that he was nowhere in sight.
Ari was on her own.
“What do you mean, your new cell mate?” The thin man, who was surely the Grand Jiho of the Serpents, frowned. “This newbie came and sat at our table in my seat—his life is mine.”
“And you can have it, so you can,” Tapper said amiably. “But not before I claim his ass. See, he’s a virgin—a true virgin—and you know how I’ve been wanting to have one of those. Haven’t had one in ages. Besides, he’s on my list.”
“Your list, eh?” The Grand Jiho frowned. “And you say I can have him tomorrow, after you are finished claiming his ass?”
“Sure can.” Tapper’s small, piggy eyes lit up greedily. “In fact, you might even have him later on this evening—depending on how many times I want to taste him before lights out. I don’t like to share my cell at night, as you know.”
“Yes, I know. Neither do I.” The Grand Jiho nodded. “Very well, as a gesture of friendship from my squad to yours, I cede this little chirro-putango to you for the night. I will claim his life for the insolence he committed against me tomorrow.” He turned to his henchman, who was still dangling Ari from his meat hook hands. “Let him down. For tonight he is Tapper’s.”
“Mighty fine of you, Jiho.” Tapper nodded agreeably.
Ari had watched this whole exchange with a growing feeling of unreality. Surely this was some kind of a dream, wasn’t it? She couldn’t really be listening to these two men discussing her rape and murder in the same tones they might discuss last night’s bibble-ball match, could she? Yes, it must surely be a dream.
That’s the kind of thinking that’s going to get you killed, whispered an urgent little voice in her head. This is no dream, Ari and if you don’t get away now, you won’t get away at all. You’ll be raped and murdered and probably served up in the prison commissary for breakfast tomorrow. You have to get out of here—now!
The thought seemed to bring her back to herself and she blinked her eyes and shook her head, just as the huge Serpent gang member was lowering her to the scuffed metal floor.
“Git him, Fenrus,” Tapper said, nodding at one of his own henchman. “You and Gorn bring pretty boy here up to my cell. Strip him down and put him in the middle of my carpet so I can admire him, like, before I take that virgin ass.”
“So we will, Tapper! So we will,” chortled Fenrus through the blackened stumps of what were left of his teeth. He reached for Ari as the Serpent released her but she was ready for him. With a swift jab of her elbow to the felon’s solar plexus, she was off and running, making her way through the crowded tables as fleet as a small woodland creature with a predator at her back.
“Git him, boys!” she heard Tapper howl. “He’s at the top of my list and he’s getting away, he is!”
Ari ran like the devil himself was after her and for all she knew he might be. If being raped and killed wasn’t reason enough to run away, she didn’t know what was.
She leaped nimbly through the crowd of prisoners, dodging around the ones that were in the aisle, her eyes fixed on the exit to the Mess Hall. Surely if she got through it she could find someplace to hide. In a building as huge as BleakHall, there had to be numerous cracks and crannies a person of her small stature could squeeze herself into.
Almost there! Ari cast a glance over her shoulder…and promptly tripped over an outstretched leg.
Amid loud guffaws and coarse catcalls, she tried to scramble to her feet. But a pincer-like grip suddenly latched onto her elbow.
“Sorry boy.” A hard-faced con—the same one who had tripped her—dragged her to her feet. “But it’s always good to have Tapper in your debt. Nothin’ personal-like. Just business—you understand.” He raised his voice. “Tapper! Over here—I’ve got ‘im!”
“Let me go! Let me go!” Ari yanked and pulled in vain but the con had a grip like iron—there was no way she was getting away from him.
As Ari’s panic grew, Tapper came strolling up in a leisurely manner, the top and sleeves of his trustee jumpsuit dragging through the spilled puddles of water and smears of food, his hairy belly protruding like an obscene pregnancy.
“Now, now, pretty boy,” he said to Ari, who was yanking desperately to get away from the convict who held her. “Looks to me like Yoder there has caught you proper, ‘ent he?”
“Caught ‘im just for you, Tapper,” the big con said, nodding his head respectfully.
“Just so, just so. You’ll be remembered next time you’re needing privileges, Yoder, so you will,” the hairy gang boss said.
“Let me go! I’m not a piece of property to be traded away!” Ari shouted. She aimed a kick at Yoder’s hard midsection but though it connected solidly, the man never los
t his grip on her, though he did cough and double over.
“He’s a wild one, he is,” he said in a low, choked voice to Tapper.
“That he is. Hold him a minute longer for me, won’t you, Yoder?”
Taking a step forward, Tapper drew back and punched Ari full in the face.
Ari saw the blow coming and managed to turn her head at the last second so that his fist fell on her cheek instead of her nose, where he had aimed it. But though she might have saved herself a broken nose, the pain was still intense—like a bomb bursting under her skin.
She’d never been struck like this before—not even during Ton-kwa combat—and she heard something crunch as the heavy gold ring scraped ruthlessly across her skin and plowed into her face. It hurt so much that for a moment she could barely breathe.
“Ahh!” she gasped, tears of pain and rage springing to her eyes. “You asshole!”
The minute the words were out she knew she probably shouldn’t have said them—they would only make Tapper angrier. Then again, what worse could he do to her than what he already had planned?
Her answer wasn’t long in coming.
Tapper’s face darkened, his bushy brows drawing together low on his bald head.
“Did you hear that boys? Did you hear what this pretty boy just called me?” he demanded, looking at Fenrus and Gorn.
“Sure did, Tapper. He called you an arsehole, so he did.” Fenrus, who had apparently recovered nicely from the elbow Ari had thrown to his midsection earlier, spoke eagerly.
“Shame-shame…” Gorn clucked his tongue and shook his head disapprovingly. “Terrible to hear such language from such a pretty mouth as that.”
“It most certainly is, Gorn.” Tapper nodded, wiping Ari’s blood off his ring with one trailing sleeve of his prison jumpsuit. “And can I just tell you now how disappointed I am in this pretty boy? Saying such nasty, nasty things…”
Leaning down, he grabbed Ari by the face. His fingers tightened, squeezing until she gasped in pain as his rough actions displaced the thing that had broken in her cheek, causing jagged pain to knife through the left side of her face.
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