by Dan Davis
“Sounds nice when you put it that way,” Ram said.
“It's not, bro,” Te said. “Think about what it's like to spend your time with a bunch of killers and no oversight. No one to come rescue you. No one to break up the fights but us.”
“Do not be so dramatic,” Sifa said, punching Te on the shoulder. “It is not all bad. We are tired and the nights are long but we need not feel lonely.”
Te grinned and Sifa smiled. They followed the rest of the subjects toward the mess and the barracks beyond.
“We’ll watch your back,” Te said. “Me, Sifa. Even Alina, maybe, depending on her mood.”
“You’ll help me watch out for Eziz?” Ram said. “Call me crazy but I reckon he is plotting revenge for his broken fingers.”
“Eziz is a dangerous man,” Sifa said. “But he is a follower, not a leader. I think he was ranked as a private in the military.”
“He lacks the imagination to instigate something alone,” Te said. “The one you need to watch out for is Mael. He isn't afraid of using the darkness to hurt you.”
“Why are you helping me?” Ram said. “What’s in it for you?”
“We’re just good people, mate,” Te said, grinning.
Sifa tutted. “A few of us resist Mael’s demands, his bullying, his violence.” Her beautiful face twisted into a cold anger. “We must stick together to survive.”
“I can’t believe this,” Ram said. “Aren't we going to fight the aliens? What's with this infighting? It doesn't make any sense. We should be on the same side.”
Sifa nodded. “I think so too.”
“We’re unusual for not following this techno-primitivism anarcho-competitivism bullshit. But this is how they do it. The right level of conflict, designed to produce the highest performance. It's not about creating harmony for us. It's not about us being happy or feeling comfortable.”
“And many of the subjects and crew are military or ex-military,” Sifa said. “This is how they do things.”
“Alright,” Ram said. “I understand, I get it.”
Ram was tired but amazed by his new body and what it was capable of. The sparring had been difficult but the most fun he'd had in real life, maybe ever. He was aching, exhausted and the thought of sleep was welcoming. On the other hand, he was afraid of being alone and unobserved.
“So there's no cameras in the barracks,” Ram said. “Can we still speak to our drivers?”
Te chuckled. “Man, if Milena was my driver then I'd be missing her, too, bro.”
“Your poor driver, Te,” Sifa said. “She's beautiful.”
“She is,” Te said. “She’s no seven-foot-five African goddess like you, babe. But Milena? Oh, man, she’s something else.”
Sifa laughed. “There is no contact with the drivers in the barracks, our communications are shut off,” she said. “So if you want to speak to sexy little Milena before tomorrow then do so now.”
Milena came through in Ram’s internal speaker. “They're right, Ram. We should speak about tonight.” Ram found a quiet place at the side of the hall outside the barracks door and leaned against the wall.
“What, you’re just listening to me all the time?” He said, feeling violated all over again.
“Watching you, too,” she said. “That’s my job. I’m here to help you.”
“Alright then,” Ram whispered. “You're going to help me get through tonight. You're going to give me advice on how to deal with Mael and whoever else decides to put me in place tonight.”
“The main thing is to relax,” Milena said. “They won't kill you on the first night, probably, so just make sure you stand up for yourself. Hit back, at least once. You might get barely one opportunity before they get you so try to break someone’s nose or gouge out an eye, maybe. No matter what it costs you.”
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Ram said, his heart hammering.
“Sweet dreams,” Milena said in his ear. “
“Come on, Ram,” Sifa said, waving him over. “We will take you in.”
“Into the dungeon,” Te said, grinning. “We call it the dungeon.”
“No we do not,” Sifa said. “No one calls it the dungeon, don’t be ridiculous.”
She slipped her arm inside Ram's and drew him after the others. Her arms were rippling with muscle, shining and dark and her shoulders showed striations, so low was her body fat. Where most of the others were hulking monsters, gorillas or rhinos, Sifa was like a cat. A big cat, admittedly but there was a fluidity to her movements that was bordering on inhuman. Te strode a pace in front of them, his V-shaped upper body half as wide again as Sifa's.
The subjects in front streamed through the empty mess hall and then through the heavy security door at the rear into the barracks beyond. Bediako’s assistants were standing around, wishing everyone a good night and filing back the way they had come.
Sifa squeezed Ram’s arm. “All of us in this ludus, everyone here is training so that, whoever is the best of us, is in the best shape they can be when they fight the Wheelhunter. If it takes our deaths to achieve that goal, then it is acceptable to me. I can say that in truth. My driver agrees with me and I believe her. Te Zhang believes it, too, correct, my dear Te? Everyone on the Victory, I bet, believes themselves as a means to an end.”
“Mael thinks that we are the means to his end,” Te muttered.
Sifa inclined her head in acknowledgment.
They stepped through into the barracks room. The door was large and bulky, like a blast door on an old battleship. Ram wanted to ask why there was so much heavy security but he was afraid to ask. He was getting tired of all the questions.
“Thanks, I appreciate you helping me out, explaining things to me,” Ram said. “I got to say, the idea of dying for a cause I never signed up for is pretty strange. I’m not sure if I want to be here at all but I guess escape is off the table now.”
Sifa stopped him in the doorway, grabbing the flesh of his arm in a grip of steel. “If I was in your position,” she said, all her charm and warmth suddenly gone, “taken against my will, then I would still give myself, my life, body and soul to this project. This is for our species, Ram. For our culture, for all the cultures that make our civilization. Everything that humanity has accomplished in thousands of years may be lost if we do not give of ourselves to making this mission a success. I will suffer any hardship, experience any pain and humiliation and loss necessary to contribute to that. But all this does not mean I must be rude to my comrades and colleagues. Taking the time to befriend you, instruct you, help you, these things take little of my time or my energy and cause no harm. More than this, by helping you, we help our mission. Come on.”
Ram pulled his arm away. “Fine,” he said. “I get it. This is all very important.”
She tutted and turned away. Ram knew he needed to keep her as an ally, that he should apologize for being sarcastic or flippant but he couldn’t bring himself to.
They stepped into a long room with doors down both sides, eight doors aside and one at the far end. The center aisle was a communal space with three benches running down the middle and five of the rest of the subjects already stood and sat around, chatting. Mael was not one of them.
“Your room is the last one on the left,” Sifa said, speaking brusquely.
“It belonged to your predecessor and no one wanted to swap rooms,” Te said. “They’re all the bloody same, anyway.”
They got halfway through the center of the long barracks when Mael squeezed himself through the doorway into his room, in the center of the right-hand row, half blocking their way. Sifa and Te stopped.
“You,” Mael said to Ram, his face contorted into a sneer.
He wore nothing but a pair of tight shorts, he was rubbing some sort of oil or lotion over himself. His body was ludicrously over muscled, his pectorals were vast, his deltoids like upturned bowls carved from solid olive wood. He wasn’t as bulky as Ram was, nor even as big as Eziz but his body was astonishingly perfect, with a kind
of symmetry and proportion to his physique that made him stand out even amongst a room full of giant freaks. His arms were crisscrossed with veins resembling a river system seen from orbit and his thighs were as thick as redwoods. Mael wiped his hands on a rag and tossed it back into his room.
All the others fell silent and gathered in the central area, a couple of half-stripped subjects leaning on their doorframes to watch the confrontation. The heavy barracks door behind was closed. All twelve of the subjects were there. Ram looked around for Bediako or the ludus crew members who could help him, protect him.
There was no one but the subjects.
Mael laughed. “Alone, at last.”
The quality of his musculature was noticeable, even to Ram. Mael’s muscles popped out all over, they seemed dense and solid. Clearly, Mael had received the deluxe version of the tank grown synthetic bodies.
“Thanks for being so welcoming,” Ram said, trying to sound calm.
“Who do you think you are?” Mael said, speaking softly. He kept his distance but his body almost quivered with tension, as if he was aching to leap forward.
A couple of the guys near Ram backed away slowly.
The feeling of unreality crept back. Ram felt as though he was in Avar, acting out a script. As if what was happening was set on rails and he was just going through the motions.
“I'm Rama,” he said. “You're Mael, right? I met Te Zhang and Sifa and Alina. And I met Eziz, didn’t I, Eziz, how you doing there, fingers all fixed up, right?”
Eziz, leaning against the next doorway, scowled. His heavy, black eyebrows knotting together over his nose. A few of the others snorted and laughed at the audacity. Or the foolishness, perhaps.
“You are right,” Sifa said, stepping forward, placing one of her dark, perfect shoulders slightly in front of his. “We should introduce ourselves. Bediako should have done it earlier but is it up to us to make our own community here. We should take it turns, yes?”
Mael took a step forward himself, flexing his back and latissimi dorsi muscles. “He won't survive long enough for it to matter if he knows our names,” Mael said, his accent heavy with rounded vowels. “He won't survive his first week. Look at the body they gave him. It's a fifty-year-old design, it didn't work last time and it won't work this time. What were they thinking, bringing those fucking things on the ship? Is that really the best the Project has got, are we so poor with resources that we have to share our space with that? With that thing? Put any one of one of you on that body and you’d be the bottom of the heap so what the fuck is this moron going to do? You saw him sparring with Te Zhang, he’s like a child. Like a disabled fucking child and they just handed that freak body to him, like winning a lottery. And the prize he has won is a painful death.”
A deep anger rose from Ram’s guts, his face flushing hot. He wanted to stride over and punch the guy but he was rooted to the spot by fear. He knew he should at least shoot back an insult but he did not know what to say so he just stood there like an idiot, like a coward.
“Sure,” Te said, shrugging and stepping up to Ram, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re right, Mael, you’re right. Doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole, does it?”
The room seemed to take a collective breath.
“He doesn't deserve to be here,” Mael said, jabbing a finger at Ram. “His presence puts the mission in danger. When he dies, we will all be better off.”
With a final sneer, he turned and barged back into his sleeping quarters.
Ram breathed out in a long sigh.
“So that's our buddy Mael,” Te said, attempting levity. “Who wants to say hello next?”
Four of the remaining subjects unfolded themselves from where they sat or leaned and stomped off. Two went into Mael's room, two of the others into an adjacent room, banging the doors shut behind them.
Te pointed at the ones who stalked off with him and turned to Ram with a lopsided grin on his tattooed face.
“The Chinese woman who went in with Mael was Jun. She was some sort of special forces super soldier in her past life. Not sure what because her file is redacted to fuck and she doesn't talk about it. So we all reckon she was an assassin of some sort, right, like political murders from the Chinese Terror a few years back, remember that? She’s the smallest subject here but she’s fast and she’s ruthless. She’ll smash your face in without even changing her own expression. She might be a robot, we don’t know.”
The others around laughed, nodding.
“And you already met that miserable bastard Eziz, he was from Turkmenistan, originally. Great wrestlers, those guys, they love it. They all have those long arms and big heads, must be something in the food up there. You just stay away from him altogether. He was even better with an assault rifle that he was grappling in the dust, I think he just likes blood and shit. And did you see that big white chick? She’s an American called Genesis. Crazy name, right? Religious parents. She's a killer, though, another special forces soldier, a United States Marine special forces unit so secret she still won’t even tell us what it was called. She spent her twenties in the jungles and mountains in South America fighting for the forces of capitalism over the corrupt, communist, totalitarian assholes. How many people do you reckon she killed? Hundreds, definitely. She liked to use a big knife to cut people up, she’s totally insane. Black guy's called Gondar. Ethiopian army, you might have heard of him from the news a few years back when he took on all those terrorists who had taken the airport?”
“I don’t remember that,” Ram said.
Alina spoke up from across the room. “He was one of those kept ignorant and enslaved by the Avar network and he knows nothing of the world.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Te said, waving down Ram’s objections. “Anyway, you got to watch the footage, it was broadcast live and he went through twenty or thirty of them. Proper ninja shit, guns, knives, hand to hand. The guys running UNOP recruited him straight from the hospital after. I think now he worships Mael Durand as the chosen one so he must be another nutcase. Stay away from him, he’d kill for Mael without thinking about it.”
“Okay,” Ram said.
“They all would,” Alina said, without looking up.
“Hi, I'm Alejandra,” a woman said, strutting over and taking Ram's hand. She had a big, crooked nose and a closely shaved head. “I am sorry you have such a poor welcome. I hope that you do not die.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“Didem,” another said, a sturdily built woman with coffee color skin and big, hooded eyes. She stepped up close and put her head so close to his that her face was touching his body as she muttered at him. “You should not make friends with anyone here. Everyone will betray you. Sifa and Te are the weakest of us all, they cannot protect you. Save yourself, give yourself to Mael and you might make it through.”
“Er,” Ram said, wanting to ask what she meant but she nodded and stepped back.
“Javi,” a black haired man said, stepping up with a lopsided half-grin. He had a face like a coyote. “You made a real bad choice signing up for this. Oh, wait, you didn't. Never mind, good luck to you, friend. Listen, you stay away from Mael.” He lowered his voice and leaned in slightly. “And you stay away from Alina, too. She’s even worse. Seriously. I’m not kidding.”
Ram wanted to ask why but he already turned away.
“Yeah, hello,” Ram said, looking around at the faces of those that had remained in the central common area, feeling that he needed to say something but being overwhelmed by how much he wanted to express. “I know this is strange for you. And I know I'm here because someone you knew died. I never wanted to be here. They never asked me. But now I am here, all I can do is do my best. Everyone expects me to fail, I know that. And maybe I will. But I will do my best to live up to your standards. I’m just going to give it everything I have.”
“Well said, mate,” Te shouted and clapped. No one joined him but he did not seem to care and he kept clapping enthusiastically for a
good few seconds.
“You're one of us now,” Sifa said when he stopped, grinning.
“No,” Eziz said from the doorway to his room. He stood leaning against the frame, his voice a rumble so deep it was felt as much as heard. His broken fingers had been fixed in no time at all but it was not his body that had been wounded. “No, he is not. He never will be.”
Eziz turned and slammed his door.
I have made a couple of allies, Ram thought, staring at the door as the air yet rang with the slamming of it.
But he knew they might be weak and he had no idea how far their friendship would go. And the one thing he did know for certain was that he had managed, on his first day, to make a lot of powerful, psychotic enemies.
CHAPTER ELEVEN – DEFEND
Te showed Ram his quarters while Sifa went to hers.
“We usually have more time before lights out,” Te said, “but with that extra sparring session taking up our down time, it’ll be dark soon.”
“That’s my fault,” Ram said as he stepped into his new home. “Sorry about that.”
“Nah, that’s Bediako’s fault,” Te said. “That fucker’s a bastard.”
A rectangular room dominated by a giant slab of a bed along one wall. Underneath were pull-out bins for storage. A plain desk and chair took up half the opposite wall and laying on the desk was a screen. Another door led to the shower and toilet. It was completely bare, totally sterile.
“This is lovely,” Ram said to Te. “So homely.”
He knew he would have to make it through the night in that box. He’d have to make it through the night and then all the nights after.
“How do I lock the door?”
“Bloody good thinking,” Te said. “You got your head screwed on straight, you have. Sorry, just a little UNOP subjects humor for you. Yeah, mechanical lock here operated by your thumbprint, there’s the scanner by the door. I’d recommend that whenever you are alone in here, sleeping or showering, you lock it up. There’s a little red light that shows on your door when it’s locked.”