by LM. Preston
“Here! Turn here. We still have a few miles to go to get to Sector Seven. When we get near, park where we won’t be seen. I know a kid that will let us in from the back entrance,” he said, pointing to the turn.
Shamira thought about Sector Seven, which she’d heard was falling on hard times. Sector Five may have had its bad areas, but Sector Seven had many more. It was like a virus was spreading on Mars, and crime, poverty, and homelessness were taking over. With the Security Force members coming up missing, the infrastructure that held Mars together was breaking apart. It was like a war was brewing, and the kids and innocent people of Mars were about to be swept up. Shamira couldn’t help but wonder, How are they able to hold the Security Elite down? What are they doing to them? How are they tracking them? “Valens, do you know what they do with the kids? Why are they even taking them?” she asked, figuring he may know something she didn’t. Adjusting in her seat, she tried to focus on the dark road ahead. She passed cars, squeezed between trucks, and drove at top speed. No one knew the leader by face or name. Whoever led them stayed extremely hidden.
“I don’t know about the leader, but I have an idea of why they’re preying on the Security Force Elite. The lead I’m following has his hands dirty in the dream pushing business. That business is booming. Especially in the Sectors that have missing Security Force members. The kids are probably an insurance policy for Monev, to make sure that the Force stays too busy taking care of their own,” Valens spilled.
“Did you have a chance to check out the Outlands? My lead said he believed some of the kids may be held there,” Shamira said.
“No. I have to get some gear first. That place is dangerous. Not to mention it’s cold as hell there. The generators are few and far between out there, and we’ll freeze before we get to their hideout if we go unprepared,” he said. He was feeling a little at ease now, because his hands rested back on her waist.
Just great. More delays. She was getting angry at all this waiting, but she had limited time tonight to search. “Well, your lead better be a good one,” she said.
She hit the clearing and turned into a hidden parking space behind the building. Lights of the city shined brightly in the dingy night air, and sand blew by in the two-moon Mars sky. The magnetic fields buried in the north held most of the sands to the south at bay, but they didn’t always work as well at night when the sandstorms were the strongest. Shamira climbed off her motorcycle and ignored Valens behind her. Pulling her jacket closed, she yanked up the zipper at the top and then pulled at the bottom zipper to open up the bottom part of her jacket, which would give her access to her weapons. She heard him slide off the motorcycle. He came up behind her, and she felt his hand reach out again. The air changed when he pulled it back.
“Let me lead the way this time. I know it’s hard for you, but I have connections here that will help us get in without paying or jacking in to the games. Give me a minute though. I have to call Tim to let us in,” he said. Dismissing her before she could argue, he walked ahead to the alley entrance to the club. She frowned at him. How dare he. She worked alone and didn’t need his help, or at least she wouldn’t after this.
She followed behind him, looking around at the brown and black buildings huddled together on the city block and sand swept ground separating the bundles of buildings. There were people hanging out around the buildings, most of them trying desperately to get in, and many of them clearly strung out on dream. She pondered over the different products Monev sold. Dream, they sold in order to hook people on the euphoric feeling of happiness. It was basically a cheap street drug. Scream was sold to get their upperclass clients addicted to the gaming hells they ran. It seemed to Shamira that Monev had no bounds to the poison they tried to push. They found every angle and exploited anyone and everyone at their evil whim.
Shamira continued to watch people huddle around the club entrance. The people hooked on dream had a glazed look in their eyes and were not talking or aware of their surroundings. They were like human zombies while the drug had them in the pleasure phase. That would change once their fix was over. They would become angry, anxious, and violent, depending on how deep their addiction went.
Looking at Valens, she could tell he was waiting for the boy named Tim, their ticket into hell. Snake Ice was one of the most dangerous places on Mars, so she braced herself to prepare for what was within. Her eyes closed and she inhaled the gritty smell of her surroundings. She felt a brief change in the wind and realized that Tim must have opened the door. Opening her eyes, she followed Valens into the building. The hallway was dark, and Tim walked ahead of them. Tim was tall and lanky with a shot of green hair that stood straight up to a point. He smelled of dream, the drug that was infecting Mars like a disease. She grabbed Valens by the jacket. He turned slightly toward her.
“Look, I don’t want any dreamhead identifying us. They can’t be trusted,” she pushed out in a whisper, nodding toward Tim.
“He’s okay. He just sells it. If he became a user, they’d kill him. They don’t want users giving away their information to the Security Force,” he told her in his deep voice. She continued to follow but refused to trust this kid who smelled like sour perfume - like dream.
The club played loud music, and there were huge screens on all the walls with games and various tournaments. Games of death, destruction, and addiction were played here. Winners took home millions of dollars in debits. Losers sometimes lost their lives. This was what her parents fought to keep off of Mars and what Earth fought to keep here.
Shamira looked at the games with her eyes for the first time. They were vivid in color, images of the players held within. Some players, the serious ones, jacked in using bio conductors that were lodged into their brains. They would go to an underground surgeon to get those shot in and then would wirelessly connect to the games they played in the different gaming hells. People that were just experimenting started off with nanoshots. She could tell who they were by the blue hue around their lips, a known side effect. Nanoshots were vials of microcomputers that users would drink. The vials were laced with a drug that enhanced the virtual reality of the games. It came out in their bowels within twenty-four hours, taking the euphoria of the game with it right down the drain. The experience would cause the players to seek it out again if they weren’t strong enough to resist.
“Hurry up, dude, before they see us,” Tim said, gesturing for them to follow. Shamira pushed her sight past the wall above them and saw two men arguing over what she presumed was money. One guy with jet-black hair and a scar slanted on his lips gave the other guy some dream. It was enough to sell to a small army.
“Tim, who runs this place?” Shamira asked while he walked them through the crush of people watching the games, drinking, dancing, or high on dream.
“I don’t know the guy, but he comes and goes here a lot. You’ll know him if you see him though. He has an ugly-ass scar right down his lip,” Tim said, pointing them toward a corner behind the bar.
“Thanks, man. Remember, if you need a place to hide, I got one for you,” Valens said as he slapped hands with Tim.
“I know, man, but I think I can help you more from in here,” Tim said, and then walked away.
“How do you know all these guys?” Shamira lifted an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall. She took a moment and closed her eyes, seeing with her other senses. She inhaled the overpowering scent of all the different odors in the room and tried to find something different.
“Hey, stop closing your eyes. That freaks me out,” Valens said. He was looking out at the crowd as if he were looking for someone he knew.
“So, who are we hunting for tonight, Valens?” Shamira asked, gazing over the crowd of gamers and partiers.
“This guy that works for the thug that runs the human pushing ring here on Mars,” he answered.
“What do they do with the people they capture?” she asked and moved off the wall to look more intently at the crowd.
“They go after t
he genetically gifted, so to speak—types like the Elites. People pay for muscle grafting, good health, and the best body transplant specimens available,” he said, disgusted. She looked at the blond curl falling over his eye as his eyebrows frowned. His lips frowned and a look of recognition showed brightly on his face.
“Who are we looking for?” Shamira asked again, this time with an edge of anger and frustration at having to wait to find out who her target was.
“There he is. Fisher. The kids around these parts warned me to stay away from him. They say he will try to add as many kids to his collection as he can get. He’s the one who collects young meat. There’s another that collects the grownups,” Valens said. His eyes followed the guy named Fisher.
She looked at Fisher, a big guy with a broken nose and brown hair. He was feeling up and talking to some woman. The woman was a blond with her hair pinned up and her breasts falling out of her slinky purple dress. Valens’ gaze paused over the woman and looked her over from head to toe. Shamira smirked. Figures he’d be after the double-Ds just like every other guy.
“Look, I don’t want to wait here all night for him to leave. Let’s roam and talk to some of the kids here that would know his habits,” Shamira suggested. She started to walk along the side of the crush of people, and Valens followed closely behind. As they walked around, she saw a boy cleaning the floor around the bar on his hands and knees.
“Hey, why don’t they have the android doing that?” Valens asked, bending down to slip the boy some credits for information. The boy hesitantly took them and shoved them in his back pocket.
“They make me do it for punishment. I messed up the pass of the dream, and my boss threatened to give me to Fisher. I would lick the toilets clean before I would willingly go with that sadistic bastard,” the boy spat out.
“Dude, what’s your name? I got a place you can hide if things get sticky for you,” Valens said.
“Naw, that’s alright. I don’t want to bring my boss down on you. He can be a son of a bastard, but he’s better than the alternative,” the boy said.
“Hey, what’s your name? I need some information,” Valens said lowering his voice.
“Kevin,” the kid said, scrubbing the spot under his hand with serious vigor. Shamira glanced down at the kid and wondered why he didn’t take Valens up on his offer for help. She turned away from them and looked out for Fisher among the mass of people crammed on the floor.
“Do you know who Fisher works for? Where they may be holding some kids that were kidnapped?” Valens asked and then looked around briefly to make sure no one noticed him.
“Oh, man, you don’t want to know where Fisher’s boss is. Where he is, death is. Believes in the old ways of torture and punishment, they say. I think Fisher is a fake compared to Slasher,” Kevin said, and then moved up the floor of the bar. Shamira noticed one of the guards observing them a bit too closely.
“Hey, c’mon, Valens. Someone’s onto us,” Shamira said and tapped Valens with her boot heel. He looked in the direction of the door and saw the muscle-head guard walking their way with a distrusting scowl on his face. Shamira hurried toward the back entrance, and Valens followed.
“Go to the left. That hallway leads to the exit near your motorcycle,” he said while he pointed.
“That guy is on us. This way,” she said and took off down the middle hall. They ran at top speed to the door and heard the muffled sound of an argument. Shamira looked back to make sure the guard wasn’t still following them. She slowed down and put her hand up to Valens to signal for him to stop. He ran into her and caused her to slide a few feet. The sound of their clumsy collision was silenced by the distant sound of the music. Shamira walked softly toward the hallway off to the side of the entrance. She put her finger up to her lips and motioned to Valens to be quiet. Just ahead she saw two thugs tugging some kid back and forth. She heard the boy scream and the voices of two men arguing got louder.
“You can’t save him now, Danny. I’m going to kill his sorry ass right here. The little bastard spent my money, and he will pay for it with his life,” a deep voice yelled.
“Don’t be a fool! This kid sells more dream than any of those slack ass runners you have. He’s worth more alive. We just need to rough him up enough to teach him a lesson. Like this,” a guy with a softer, more menacing voice said. Then she heard a thump, and the boy cried out while she watched his body crumble from the punch.
Her anger rose, and her adrenaline started to pulse. She wanted to save the boy, but she wanted even more to hurt these men. She stepped into the hallway in front of the three, took her metal ball out of her belt, and threw it at the tallest guy on the left. The ball flew at him, its metal net opened, and the hooks extended. It slammed the man’s head against the wall. She ran full speed at the shorter, bushy eyed man. Quickly, she twisted her glove, which extended her claws and slashed him on the face. She felt power now. Her heart was beating, and she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t help herself. Beating this man’s head to the wall made her feel better, like she was getting a little revenge on someone that was part of the gang that stole her brother.
“Shamira!” she heard. She didn’t stop, but the guy she was beating did. He fell against her in dead weight. She smelled blood and moved back as the man fell dead to the floor. Turning her head toward the boy she’d saved, she saw a look of guilt written on his face.
“Sorry, but he was going to kill you. He went for his gun while you were beating him. He likes pain and isn’t really fazed by it. I didn’t want him to hurt you like he did my sister,” the boy said. Shamira looked him up and down, studying his jet-black hair and his piercing gray eyes.
“What’s your name?” Valens asked. Shamira crossed her arms and continued looking the boy over from head to toe.
“Mitch. C’mon. We got to get out of here, quick!” Mitch said, dropping the gun to run toward the door. Valens took off and grabbed Shamira by the jacket. She jerked away from him.
“I can’t leave a mess,” she said. She ran to the man held by the metal net. Taking a pill from her belt, she forced it into his mouth. Then she kneed him in the groin to make him swallow the pill. “That will take my face out of your mind, you scum.”
She yanked the hooks from the wall. The ball retracted the net, and she put it in her pocket. She turned around to follow Valens when she saw a look of irritation on his face.
“Duck!” he yelled. She ducked, and he threw a boomerang-like device at the guard that had been tailing them. The silver boomerang hit the guy and knocked him out cold. He fell in a heap on the floor. The device returned to Valens, and he compressed it and jammed it into his pocket. Valens grabbed her by the jacket, and they ran out the exit door to her motorcycle. Mitch grabbed a nearby hummer board and followed them as they sped away from the scene on her motorcycle.
“Go near your home, two blocks up. My motorcycle is there. I’ll take this kid to my hideout and get some answers out of him when we get to my cycle,” Valens said from behind her. Shamira sped, and the boy was right behind them, his slim body fitted with a light jacket for the cold Mars night. She focused on the road ahead of them. Taking several deep breaths to calm down, she felt a sensitive tingling on her skin from the remnants of the fight. She wanted to hurt someone. The training room will have to do for tonight.
She pulled up to Valens’ motorcycle and paused to look up at the two moons in the sky. Crap, nothing is going as planned. He slowly slid off, letting a hand linger on her waist. She turned to him and frowned, and he smiled a dimpled smile back at her, and then walked toward Mitch. She got off her cycle and followed him. Valens, you won’t be the only one to get answers from this kid. Frowning, she looked Mitch over. This kid looked her age, but he was now a killer.
“So, Mitch, what’s your story?” Valens asked, his hands on his hips. Shamira walked over, crossed her arms over her slightly bloody black jacket, and frowned at Mitch.
He rubbed his hand through his hair. “Well, about a year ago,
I came home to a massacre. My aunt, who moved here to help my dad with my sister and me after my mom died, was stabbed, lying on the living room floor. My dad was missing, but he gave whoever took him a fight. Everything in the front room was broken, and there were holes in the walls. They didn’t find my sister. She was hidden in a spot I showed her when we played hide and seek,” Mitch said. His eyes watered. He got a dazed look, as if reliving that horrible moment.
“What’s your dad’s name?” Shamira asked. She distanced herself from his pain, not wanting to think of that as a reality for her family.
“Carl Poole. He was one of the Sector Seven Security Elite. A lot of good it did him, since he got taken and got my aunt killed,” Mitch said.
“So, where’s your sister?” Valens asked. He crossed his legs when he sat down and faced them on his bike.
Mitch started to pace slowly and said, “I don’t know exactly. I found my sister and figured we’d better hide. We contacted the Security Force in our Sector, and they helped us out for a short while, and then they just forgot about us. We got hungry, and street junkies tried to take us and sell us to Fisher.” Mitch stretched, and then crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Did they sell you?” Shamira asked flatly, sizing Mitch up to see if he was telling the truth.
Mitch frowned back at her and said, “What do you think? Anyway, that guy I killed back there, his name is Snake. He… well, I thought I had bargained with Fisher’s cronies. I decided to sell some dream for them so Kate and I could eat. I started working for Snake and Kimble.”
He shifted and turned to Valens, “They work under Fisher, the leader of the human trafficking part of the gang named Monev, or The New World, they sometimes call it. Well, they took Kate and promised me that Slasher, their leader, would not hurt her if I did what I was told. Then, they put me on the street to sell dream. I haven’t seen my sister since, and I haven’t gotten paid.” A lone tear dripped from his eye, and the anger he felt showed through his pain.