He ran for the first Unionist his eyes had found and the man backpedalled at his advance and another who stood beside him interposed. Sejanus registered the new threat and put his head into its nose and pulverized it. His head was thrown back and his mind briefly into senselessness. In that time Sejanus had struck his windpipe so that it no longer protruded and the man fell before him.
The two Unionists who held Tobias still against the wall flew from him through the air and passed Sejanus on either side, blood trailing after them from the ruptures of broken bones across their bodies. Sejanus saw only that man who remained and at last fled toward the gateway which he saw then began to open. He reached him in a few paces and snatched him up with both hands by the ankles and his face caroomed off the ground. The Unionist reached for his own legs, that he might turn the tables, but the foot for which he stretched connected of a sudden with his face and did not cease til it had been rendered a gory ruin. Sejanus cast him away then as so much refuse and then cast himself about for the next sign of human life.
His attentions had settled onto Tobias Simms and he charged for him. Then he was torn away through the air by the ethereal quaver of the concussive pulse wave that clipped him sidelong and met with the wall farthest from the gateway. He crashed down to the floor again and collasped there to see the guard who stood amused within the threshold across from him. He rose with a cry from where he lay and the man started and blasted him yet again with the concussion cannon. The wave hit him full and flung him backward and into darkness as his head rebounded against the metal of the wall. He smelled his own blood and then nothing.
Day 43
Water sprayed down on him from above and stung his skin, cold and sharp, and drove him back across the floor. He cried out and scrambled away from it to his feet, but the force of it knocked him down again. Then there was a squeak beneath the roar of the water and the flow dithered off to nothing. He could stand and see the hose which reeled now back into the darkness of the ceiling far above him.
He shivered and hugged himself against the freeze that set his teeth to chattering, watched his breath fog in the pale moonlight that shone down from the small windows atop the walls. He saw the snow flurries that blew across them and knew that they did so about one of the Courtyard pods that ringed the heights of the holding towers.
He hopped from one foot to the other lest they both freeze to the floor, so cold that he could find no place to set himself and huddle his naked body back into warmth. A spotlight activated and blinded him to all but the shadow of the hand that he held up to block it out. He tried to call out, but the chill caught his voice in his throat and he could only gasp for air.
"Prisoner #1871, formerly 1771." A man said from somewhere beyond the white. "You have a habit, as I understand it, of causing a ruckus. You have a habit, as I understand it, of not doing what you are told."
"Where am I?" He said to the light, shivering.
"We cannot seem to cure you – can we?" The voice said. "It is futile, you know. You cannot win."
"I know it." Sejanus said and looked about the cold floor at his feet to find his answers there, augured the patterns of the frost the hose had made.
"I hear already the next words to leave your lips. That you are a man and not an animal. That you will not be caged. You cannot be controlled." He said and clucked his tongue. "You know, many of the Captains would have had you shot. Jettisoned out into an ice-ditch for the natives to feed on. Elias Mullins the foremost among that faction. But I chose to do the thing differently here, for you. Yes we may do whatever we like with you, and it will be met with no great importance. Someone may get angry, or many someones. But it is always the same to us. Put blinders on any animal and he will only see what is in front of him, which of course is all that you want him to see. So you see now, because I show it to you, that we have done wonders to convince man he is an animal. We give you food and drink, and you want more of it. Take it, it is endless. You want women, your mind is a harem and your body will not know the difference once it is hooked in. And drugs, well you know all about drugs – don't you, 1871?"
He felt his knees grow weak and his eyelids heavy. The frozen stone beneath him appeared inviting then and it was only the beat of his heart that told him he still was there. His limbs were faint glows of feeling against the outer cold, the outer cold becoming all that there was of the world.
"In this way he is like a sheep." The man went on like a stream over small rocks, like the tired early morning. "Yet even sheep are troublesome in a herd. He must be managed and like the animal we have reduced him to, we have reduced him also to the belief that only in great numbers lies great strength. His only hope to overcome the shepherd who keeps him for his own ends. So we keep him apart, in all the ways that matter. We keep you apart with your gangs and petty hatreds. What is it worth then, this distinction between man and animal? It is metaphysics, principles. Whether you call yourself a man or indeed the universe looks on at you and says 'ah, yes: here at last is a man', it does not matter. You see, I have locked you into a cage like an animal just the same. And like a hound that will not bring to heel, I will beat the stubborness out of you. Now, 1871: what do you make of that?"
"I make that you'll end up disappointed."
The man clucked his tongue again and said, "That is all, then?"
"That's all."
"Well," He said and the light dimmed, went out altogether. "If we cannot take the fight out of you, perhaps sub-level isolation can convince you to leave it behind, eh?"
Sejanus said nothing, but pooled his powers against shaking less and drew himself up. He looked from his feet to the holoprojection that had manifested in the dying of the light and bouyed in the air before him, large so that the stare he matched could swallow him. He studied the mild and preened countenance of the man he found in it, that looked upon all that he saw as part of some paltry play he had only then become aware of. Sejanus traced the lines of age that ran down from the ends of his lilting smile and across skin too darkened for so pale a world. Everything about him spoke of smelted copper, he thought, that a man unused to such things might mistake for gold.
A pair of guardsmen manifested from the darkness of an opening that had appeared along the wall to his right and came for him. He was too frozen to gather the will to move, but something inner and terrible wrestled with him anyway to escape. As it always had, no matter the lack of evidence for one. He awaited them and when they reached him he would not turn until he was made to turn from the incautious eyes that watched him go upon the holoprojection. Beneath them he was comedy, and he could not help but feel it was a court he had been expelled from – and that he was the jester.
Day 43
The lift thundered down the shaft, its walls replete with the bare cabling that governed it and the few glowlamps which flickered past. Sparks shot up from the gears that turned madly along their tracks within the walls and lay cruciform at the edges of the platform, at turns grinding and screeching. Hastur Victor Sejanus stood eyes forward and his hands clasped together at the wrist magnetically, held at his bare navel. He shivered as he looked up into the dark heights they had left behind and felt the cold droplets of leaking coolant tubes fall upon him, freezing him the more. One of the guards that stood on either side behind him thrust his head forward again.
The air grew heavy, warm. He ceased to shiver and commenced to sweat and to lose track of the air he breathed. He looked without moving for a readout somewhere on the flat plane of the lift, some panel upthrust through the shadows that could indicate to him their depth. But he did not need it to know that they had begun to plumb the far depths of that planet, to escape the freeze of its surface and be taken into the fire that is within every world. And with still many more miles to fall yet, beyond the braced glass and steel at his feet.
The brakes engaged of a sudden, though he knew not how much time had gone by. Great profusions of sparks erupted from the machinery and it sounded with a terrible keen. The l
ift shuddered beneath them as it met the suspension columns at the base of the shaft and they braced themselves against the impact. Then there was a crackling, warbling noise that came from a panel beside the doorway ahead and one of the men escorting him shouldered Sejanus aside to go to it.
“Passcode.” A tired voice said from within the noise.
“Bhukard, Fulgh. Code 129558372221.” Said the Enforcer. “You know who it is.”
“Verified.” The man said, but the door did not open. “Well what are you waiting for?”
“Suck my dick, Zirdat. Just open the door.”
“You’re welcome to drop your pants.” The panel said. “I could use a laugh tonight.”
“Let me through the door and I’ll show you how small it is.”
“I bet you’d certainly like to.”
“Can you guys cut it short?” The other Enforcer that was with them said.
“See,” Zirdat said. “Llord knows.”
“Come on, Zirdat. We’re missing out on Suzie’s.”
“You got it, youngster.” He said and they heard the magnetic whine of the locks deactivating. “Door opening; come on in, people. Make yourselves at home.”
The dim light of the shaft burned meagerly outward into the total dark of the sublevels. The guardsmen activated the flashlights of their helmets. They pushed Sejanus out before them, into the dueling cones of their light, and stepped out behind him to push him along with the stocks of their rifles. It was a wasteland of half-seen metal and distant glows that he was ushered into, and which contained within it the unmappable power that isolation wielded over man.
Far ahead they could see the light of the observation booth that sat at the intersection of the level’s four main walkways. The guardsmen waved at the dark figure they saw to be standing within and leaning over its consoles to peer out the window. It waved back and they marched onward into the wall of night. Sejanus could feel its gates opening to him, those they had already damned beyond crying out to him.
The thin viewing ports of the nullgrav isolation tanks stretched without end above and along the walls as so many crosses of light. He saw the dark vagaries of those interred within, floating, and their torment which seemed so silent and tranquil on the outside. So much akin to the dull metal of the ships he had seen during combat in orbit, passing calmly but for the hull punctures that had forever silenced the crew.
He felt stairs beneath his feet and he was thrown headlong down them. The hard grating of the steps cut coldly into him and the low chuckling of the guardsmen above followed him down to where he crashed upon the landing, sprawled out and unable to move. The world shook with the great, laborious beating of his heart and threw the light that was nearer now in strange ways. So that he thought something had fled into the darkness then at his sudden coming.
“Come on,” Fulgh said and he felt hands round his arms, dragging him upright. “Get up, traitor.”
He found his footing again on the damp metal, but he went on at a stumble across it. The Enforcers pulled him into the humid gloom ahead and he pulled back against them, away from what he had seen go into the shadows. His eyes wide, stinging at the sweat that ran into them.
“Come on.” He said again and swung the butt of his rifle into the small of Sejanus’s back when he made no move to comply. “He’s being an asshole, Llord; we’re going to have to drag him.”
“He’s a big son of a bitch, Fulgh.”
“Quit your crying.” He said and took hold of one arm and one leg himself. “They give us these suits for a damned reason.”
“I thought it was for the climate control."
"Damn it, Llord.”
“Alright,” He said and took the other limbs. “Only trying to lighten the mood.”
“My mood don’t need any damned lightening.” Fulgh said as they hauled Sejanus down the walkway, wrestling against them. “You want to lighten my mood, you get me to Suzie’s. Until I see those girls I’ll be as pissed as I like.”
“Would you shut up.” Llord said.
They drew up then alongside one of the dozens of docking pulpits that lined that level, fitted to the array of containment tubes below them. They tossed Sejanus to the patch of grating inset between its clamps and he struggled to his feet. The boil and warmth of the air encroached upon him and his sleepless nights were close at hand. It was all he could do to focus on the sounds of his breathing, that he might remain awake and alert.
“Zirdat,” Fulgh said into the comms receiver of his helmet. “Raise IMP 12-B.”
“12-B is occupied. Some Crimson Mask piece of work from Tower 3.”
“Well what the Hells is he over here for then?”
“They’ve got a lot of Crimson Mask in Tower 3.” Zirdat said as though it were a readily apparent thing that he said and required nothing more. “Those sons of bitches cycle in and out of iso faster than you could a Khagani whore. Or any whore, I guess.”
Fulgh shook his head and said, “What about the one next to it?”
“12-C is at your disposal. Raising now.”
Its machinery started up below and whirred low as the column of dark, reddish metal rose up from the sea of dusk it had a home in. The cables that wound into its ports trailed up after it through the shadow, wavering in the glow of the flashlights. Sejanus turned as its shadow fell over him and recoiled at the sight of it, but the butt of a rifle held him onto the boarding plinth.
He gave a cry and snatched at the gun with bound hands, laid hold of it. Long ago thought-mantras and the chemical shaping of neural pathways overtook his bodily needs as they had been trained to in the face of threats. His mind became clear again and in an instant. He heaved on the weapon with muscles made weak by fatigue and abuse; but the guard pulled back on it and with the inexhaustible strength of his exo-suit. It came easily out of his grip and the rifle of the other guard beat him to his knees.
“Please,” He said, bleeding from his scalp. “Don’t put me in there.”
“You ever see an OBPAFer beg before, Llord?”
“Don't believe I have, Fulgh.”
“I wonder what's got him so spooked.” He said and planted his boot on Sejanus's shoulder when he tried to rise. “You ain't going anywhere, punk. Overseer's orders are the only thing that's kept a shell out of your skull, but if you want to keep pressing buttons you go right on ahead.”
“You can't.” The inmate said and tears made tracks through the dirt along his cheeks and welled from the hysteria in his eyes. “Shoot me; but I won't go back in.”
“You ever see one cry?”
“I reckon that I haven't, Llord.” He said and kicked Sejanus hard in the chest, knocking him onto his back. “I won't shoot you, 71. But I'll make it so you can't make much argument.”
Sejanus made to get up again and Fulgh slammed the rifle home into his nose and his head bounced down to the grating from the force of the blow. Blood ran from the crater made there and the shadow-world around him spun in streaks of light and haze. He rolled to lean on his elbow, that he might stand, and a boot visibly depressed his sternum.
“The prick won't stay down.” Fulgh said over Sejanus as he howled like some lost thing, a wastrel soul upon the walkway. “Go on, Llord. Get some practice in.”
Llord nodded as though something waited above him out of sight and shuffled over to the inmate, stole glances at the other guard behind him. He came to stand over Sejanus and raised his rifle as if with a great weight. He began to stand from his hands and knees then and the first blow fell and awkward upon his shoulder. It knocked him prostrate again and Llord looked upon him with quickening heart, the symbol of the Magnartig Hieraccies's brutal power brought low before him and all he would never be. He began to sweat in spite of the suit's temperature regulators and kicked him in the ribs. There was a muffled crack and he stomped upon his head. Llord drew his sidearm in a fevered rush and held it to the neck of the man.
“Should I kill him?” He said.
“Ease down, Llord.” Fu
lgh said at length and put his hand overtop the barrel of the pistol, lowered it gently. “Easy.”
He let out a shuddering breath and shook himself. Fulgh bent down to the inmate as he stowed away his pistol and took up the rifle from where it hung at his side by its sling.
“Is he dead?” Llord asked.
“Who knows,” Fulgh said and took hold of Sejanus beneath the arms. “Let's just get him inside. Get over to that panel there.”
Llord went to the pedastal and submitted his bio-tech credentials. Its interface lit up and flickered into the dark around them in a display of diffuse spectres. He keyed on the touchscreen for the door to open and the face of the metal cylinder revolved away to reveal a gloom that defied their flashlights. Fulgh tossed Sejanus onto the small platform therein, limp and lifeless, and Llord shut the hatch upon him.
“12-C ready to lower.” Fulgh said.
“The Hells took you so long?” Zirdat said.
“Prisoner was giving us trouble.” Fulgh said and gave Llord a look, who looked away.
“Well,” He said. “Awaiting parameters.”
“Beaming now.” Fulgh said and did so upon the hardlight console of his bracer.
“Hastur Victor,” Zirdat said and broke off into mumbling. “2 weeks?”
“Just do it, Zirdat.” Fulgh said and started away from the tube. “Overseer's orders.”
“Overseer's orders are getting to be a hell of a thing.”
Day 43
His breath made hollow sounds and he knew little more than that. He floated interminably through the void; he had been encased forever in a stasis field that knew no failing power source or set deactivation. His eyes moved nowhere but to other nowheres and blank darknesses that brightened not at all to shadow. A crackle broke through the silence and a light came into being somewhere above, but he could not move to see the origin of either sight or sound.
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