The Collector

by Rhett Bruno

  I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. It made me feel nauseous, yet I couldn’t stop staring.

  The entry hatch into the next portion of the facility labeled SUBJECT STORAGE whooshed open. A whistling doctor pushing another gurney came strolling through. I quickly ducked down behind a canister of who knows what. The door had a card-reader next to it and sealed directly after the man passed.

  I planned on getting through.

  I checked to see what the two researchers by the glass containers were doing. They were busy unhooking the stored android from its tube, but I didn’t have long. I waited for the gurney to get closer, then sprung out and grabbed the arriving doctor by his throat. I heaved him over to the door— again low-g served as my ally—and squeezed until he was unconscious. Then I slipped out the ID card in his lab coat’s pocket and opened the door.

  I rushed in, hand at my hip as if my gun were still there. Old habit, I guess. The sight that greeted me stopped me in my tracks.

  A grid of catwalks wrapped the room and rose in three levels toward an unfinished ceiling. Suspended around them—and me—were tiny cages filled with people. At first, I thought they were androids until the bony fingers of one of the captives groped at my ankles.

  “Help us…” she rasped.

  I shook free and edged forward slowly, no longer in control of my own legs. The prisoners, or whatever they were, watched me as I passed. Their gazes were as blank as the androids, only it was a different kind of blankness. Fear. Barely any of them were completely together. Some were missing arms, legs, hands or feet. Others, eyes and ears. Some had scars from having organs removed. All of them were marked up with black ink like the body I’d seen earlier, and up close I could see tick marks with measurements. I didn’t need to be a genius to know they were instructions for amputation.

  They weren’t all pretty. They weren’t all fit. In fact, many of those missing limbs appeared to be emaciated. The further I went, the more hoarse whispers I heard as they begged for help. At the far end of the room, one of the healthier looking ones rattled on his cages and shouted.

  I rushed over and found Jimmy Fring inside. Luckily, he was all in one piece but black ink covered his face, circling his eye sockets and ears. I couldn’t even imagine what that meant.

  “Fring, is that you?” I whispered.

  He grasped the bars. He wasn’t starved like many of the others but wore nothing but his underwear. His teeth chattered as he shivered uncontrollably.

  “I’m here to get you out of here,” I said.

  “Th…they promised me freedom,” he said, eyes darting from side to side as if searching for specters. “Then I… I…I woke up in here.”

  “I know. Now get back and I’ll break you out.”

  He continued raving as I knelt in front of the control mechanism. I used the card I’d stolen to unlock it and the door swung open. As soon as it did, Jimmy’s eyes went wide and he cowered against the back wall.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, kid,” I said as I stuck my hand out. “C’mon, there’s no time.”

  He stared over my shoulder, shaking his head back and forth like a lunatic. It didn’t take long for me to figure out why.

  “I’m sorry you had to see this, Mr. Graves,” Lucas said behind me.

  My head snapped around. He stood near the storage room’s entrance, wearing his standard, shit-eating grin. Only he wasn’t alone. Two shock-baton-wielding security guards stood on one side of him and the android named David on the other. The freak of nature had my own pulse-pistol aimed at me and I knew how good a shot he was.

  “Partially organic, huh?” I asked as I raised my arms. “You’re not creating anything, are you?”

  “I use the materials nature made available to me,” he stated.

  “What the fuck are you doing to these people!” I took a hard step forward and David did the same. I already knew the answer. Lucas was taking in his collection of scoundrels and runaways and leaving them more robot than human. Walking, mannequin, servants.

  “I’m giving them purpose,” he answered. “Half of these people were prisoners. The others were whores or homeless or worse.” He approached one of the cages. Inside, cowered a man without arms or a tongue. “Take this one, for example. He murdered his clan-sister on Mars because he was tired of looking at her. Now, the strong arms which choked the life out of her have graced the body of a loyal worker.” He glanced up at David’s shirtless body and sneered.

  My fingers twitched with rage. “That’s far from replication,” I growled.

  “Re-appropriation is a more apt description. Robotics is a tedious and troublesome pursuit. Everything you’ve seen here, from aesthetic surgery to neural realignment, is art. Taking parts from broken people to make a perfect whole.”

  “You call stitching people together like monsters art?”

  “Clearly you don’t understand the intricacy of the human nervous system, reconstructing connections, maintaining full mobility and function.” He ran his hands along David’s steady, outstretched arm. “The next step in human engineering.”

  I stared into the barrel of my pistol, then at the vacant eyes of David, and then back to Lucas. “And what were you going to do, try to blind me with some flashy presentation?” I questioned. “Make me think they’re really androids? I’ve been around too long to take men like you at their word. I read about what happened to Mann Industries.”

  “That was a long time ago. How many people have you killed in the name of credits? We’re after the same thing. You clean the filth, put a bullet in their brains or throw them behind bars forever. I’m just giving those same people a chance at providing a service for our thriving, inter-solar civilization. A service that can benefit you and your employer greatly.”

  “If you believe what you’re saying, you wouldn’t be selling these things as something they’re not,” I said. “You’re angry because another Corp got the better of you. So, you found a new way to cheat the system.”

  “Even you must admit, they are impressive.” He grinned wickedly as he ran the tips of his fingers along David’s stalwart chin and up through his hair.

  “Slaves in a skin suit. Tell your monster to shoot me and get this over with. Your twisted little experiments can find another backer.”

  “I have no intention of killing you, Mr. Graves.” The armored guards approached me, shock-batons crackling. “I hope you didn’t think I’d fully trust that moron Harris. Venta Co. is full of nothing but imitators. I know why you’re really here. I thought I could change your mind until I saw what you did to Rebecca. It’s no matter. A quick look at your brain and I can make you tell Pervenio Corp exactly what I want.”

  “You think I’ll let you get one hand on me, you’ve got another thing coming.” I dropped into a crouch, ready to do whatever was necessary to fight my way out. They may have had armor and weapons, but they were lacking in specialized Collector training. I didn’t put my body through hell for nothing. The guards held their ground a short distance away from me, waiting for orders.

  “I feared you might say that. David, get her.”

  David kept the gun aimed at me while he stepped toward the production center entrance. He reached through, pulled a small girl out and held her in front of him. Her fire-red hair contrasted against his pale flesh like an ion-engine trail against the black of space.

  “Aria…” I mouthed, all the air sucked from my lungs. She squirmed and kicked but her mouth was taped shut. It was often my job put her directly in harm’s way, but my blood felt like it was going to boil through my skin.

  “Ah, so you do know her!” Lucas exclaimed. “Not just some stowaway after all.”

  “If you lay a hand on her, I swear!”

  “That’s completely up to you. You can either cooperate and work with me, or I can reprogram both of your brains. It’ll be my finest work, altering a man’s brain chemistry as stubborn as yours. And her...” He thread his fingers through one of her curls.

  “Don’
t you fucking touch her!”

  “Maybe I’ll wait until she’s older and she can replace Rebecca. Maybe not. There are men with certain… predispositions who may prefer her at this age.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  “Make a decision Mr. Graves. Help me or watch her mind disappear.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I cursed under my breath. This was a fine mess I’d stumbled into, but the job could wait. Jimmy Fring could be chopped up and turned into another David for all I cared if it meant my daughter would be safe. I’d handle the fuck up with Pervenio Corp after. “If I support you, you leave her out of your games?” I asked.

  “Untouched.”

  “I mean completely out. If I see you touch even a hair of hers, you won’t have a body to stitch back together.”

  “You have my word, Mr. Graves. We’re men of business, you and I. Our deals are our bond.”

  “Some business…” I exhaled and let my arms fall slack. “All right, tell me what you want.”

  The guards immediately seized me. Not to bring me to Lucas either. They squeezed as hard as they could and dragged me toward an empty cage. What was I thinking, trusting a man like him? I tried to break free, but their powered armor made them exceedingly strong. One keyed the lock on the cage and yanked open the door.

  “I didn’t want it to go this way,” Lucas said. “All you had to do was stay put while I prepared and we could have ended this with dinner and a call to your superiors. Hopefully, this cage holds you.”

  “You said you wouldn’t touch her!”

  “She’ll be safe here but I can’t afford to take any risks with you. After I’m done, Pervenio Corp will thank me for fixing that sharp tongue of yours and my beautiful humanoids will find homes all over Sol.

  “I’ll kill you! You’ll wish you died in that explosion! You hear me!?”

  I stretched my legs, pushing against the cage’s exterior to buy myself some time. Shoot me in the head, fine. There’s plenty I’d done to deserve that. Seduce me, feed me drinks, I can stomach that too. But nobody threatens my daughter. My sparkling career wasn’t going to come to an end helpless in a cage.

  An idea popped into my head. It was risky. One second off and I’d be stuffed behind those bars and, soon after, put under one of Lucas’s drills for my own personal lobotomy. I fought the guards harder, kicking at the cage’s door and making it impossible for them to get me in. One of them lit his shock-baton and swung at me.

  I let my body go limp. The baton raced over my shoulder, missing me by a fraction of a centimeter before it slammed into the bars of the cage. I yanked my arms away from him, grabbed his other hand and shoved it against another bar. 10,000 volts of electricity flowed through him, his screams muffled by his helmet.

  The second guard was flabbergasted. I rolled around him, escaping a wild swipe from his weapon. He was stronger than me, but a careful blow to the small, weak spot in his armor around his throat caused his hands to lose their grip. I tore his baton out of his hands and cracked him across the helmet so hard his visor shattered.

  A gunshot rang out from David’s direction but not before I positioned myself behind the unconscious guard. The bullet tore through his stomach and then another sunk into his chest. I was lucky for his armor, otherwise the high-caliber round would’ve easily pierced through him and into me.

  “Get him!” Lucas shrieked.

  Just as David lined up another shot, Aria kicked him in the shin and made a break for it. Good girl, just like I’d taught her. She didn’t get far before Lucas grabbed her, but at least he wasn’t armed.

  I bolted forward and threw the charged baton at David while he was disorientated. The lit end didn’t hit but it knocked him more off balance. A stray shot clipped my shoulder as I leaped. Adrenaline dulled the pain. My feet stomped on David’s wrist, causing my gun to pop out of his hand and into my waiting grasp.

  It had never felt so good to hold. I smashed David in the skull with the handle, knocking the monster out. Then I glanced up. Lucas had Aria in his clutches.

  “Drop her!” I barked. “This is over.”

  His gaze narrowed. “You made the wrong choice, Graves.” He pushed Aria toward the rail of the raised catwalk we were on, then ran. I sprawled out and grasped her by the leg with one hand just before she flipped over and fell to her death. Pain shot down my arm from where David shot it, but I needed my good arm to aim. I used the floor to level my pistol as I lay on my stomach. I could tell from the weight that it only had two rounds left, so I had to make them count.

  Lucas stumbled toward the production center entry. “Wake them!” he shouted. “Somebody kill him!”

  While Aria dangled in my grasp, I ignored the shooting pain in my arm and stared down the sights of my pistol. I exhaled, counted to three, then pulled the trigger. The bullet hit his calf, shredding the bone, and tearing his foot off like he was one of his amputee victims.

  He shrieked in agony and fell flat on his face.

  I grunted as I heaved Aria up onto the catwalk and lay her down. My arm felt like it was going to fall off, but I’d suffered worse. I tore the tape from her mouth and hugged her tight. Tears filled her pretty eyes as she struggled to talk.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded slowly. That was all I needed to know. “Stay here,” I said those familiar words, only this time I wasn’t going to be locking her underground.

  I stood and took my time approaching Lucas as he crawled, his severed foot leaving a trail of blood in his wake. A few researchers stood in the doorway, including Dr. Helu, but none dared approach. They were men of warped science after all. Cowards willing to dice and drill their victims and help Lucas play god.

  “Get him!” Lucas screamed. They looked at each other nervously, then ran the other way. “Cowards!”

  I pressed my foot on Lucas’s calf. He squealed like a stuck pig. “You don’t understand!” he yelled. “I’m trying to help Sol! To improve humanity!”

  “We’re getting along just fine.” I flipped him onto his back. His smug grin was gone, replaced by the sheer terror of a man staring down the barrel of a pistol. I’d seen that same look on dozens of others before I took them in or put them out of their misery. I couldn’t think of any more monstrous than him.

  “You can’t stop the future, Malcolm,” he groaned. “Collectors like you are obsolete! Other corporations will be lining up for what I have to offer. Workers that are easy to control.”

  I glanced up. A handful of Lucas’s creations marched through the production center toward us, Rebecca at the front. A stream of blood trickled down her head from where I’d struck her. He could call to them for help, but they’d never reach us in time. Poor saps. None of them asked to be what he made them into, and now they would be free to pass away.

  “You’re probably right, but you made the biggest mistake possible. You made this personal.”

  Lucas’s eyelids spread wide, but then he unexpectedly started to snicker like a madman. Until the pain made him wince. “You can’t kill me, Graves,” he rasped. “There’s no price on my head.”

  “You’re right, there isn’t.” I kneeled over him and turned back to Aria. She stood beside David’s body, watching us with tears in her eyes. “Turn away sweetie.” She listened. Good girl.

  I pressed my gun against Lucas’s chest and leaned over to whisper to him. “This one is for me.” The captives gasped as the shot rang out. I watched with pleasure as the life fled from his eyes. After a few seconds, they were vacant as one of his abominations.

  I stood, wiped my pistol on my duster and holstered it. Aria still held her hands over her eyes. The captives around me started begging to be freed while the fake androids by Lucas’s body stared, unsure what to do. Across the room, Jimmy Fring peaked out of his cage, arms shaking as he crept out slowly. They could all wait.

  I returned to my daughter and pulled her to my chest. “It’s okay, Aria,” I said softly. “Everything’s okay now.”

  “I told him
what you said to…” she whimpered. “I was so scared.”

  “I know, baby. You did nothing wrong.”

  I heard feet shuffling and quickly raised my pistol. A reflex, especially considering I was out of bullets.

  “P…p…please take me away from here,” Jimmy Fring said meekly, scared to get too close to his savior. I wasn’t surprised. He ran away from home to see the world and he got to experience the worst of it. A Collector’s world. My world. I squeezed Aria tight and kissed her head, hoping she’d never try to do the same but vowing that if she did I’d make sure she was prepared. Monsters like Lucas Mannekin waited across Sol to take advantage of the naive and the helpless. He wasn’t the first one I’d put down—though he was the first I’d ever killed for free.

  “You sure you’ve had enough running?” I replied.

  “Please, Mr. Collector. I want to go home.”

  I chuckled, then without letting go of my beautiful daughter, sent a message from my hand-terminal to my Pervenio Director. GOT JIMMY FRING. NEED A NEW TRANSPORT SENT TO MY COORDINATES IMMEDIATELY FOR PICKUP.

  They’d be pissed when I loaded up all of Lucas’s tortured subjects and sent them off to find new homes, but nobody deserved to be stripped of mind and body. The others…Lucas’s living dolls …I had no idea what to do with them. Rebecca kneeled beside her maker, eyes wet like a lost puppy. Her brain had been reprogrammed to respond only to a man who was now dead. That last shred of her soul, her purpose, stripped away.

  The decision was probably above my pay grade, but maybe they’d all vanish in an accidental explosion from an overactive fusion core just like there had been at Lucas’s old Mann Industries facility on Mars. Before that, however, somebody needed to patch up my wound and get my aging body up and working properly again.