Police, reinforced by two Skin platoons, arrived at the Junk Buoy within four minutes of the owner raising the alarm. By then the fight had spilled out into the street. Several people were in the water, thrashing about frantically according to how drunk they were.
"Stop this right now," the senior sergeant said. Even with Skin amplifying his voice, no one took any notice. Several bottles were thrown at the Skins.
The two platoons formed a loose semicircle around the brawl, with the police standing behind them. The senior sergeant took a bulky cylindrical canister off his belt and held it high, angled slightly toward the Junk Buoy. There was a dull thud from one end. Its web flew out, a mesh of fine fiber that seethed like a gray-silver nebula in the air as it expanded, then settled over the fighters. Strands stuck to clothes and flesh alike, stretching with every motion. Nobody noticed.
Several thousand volts were pumped through it. People screamed, muscles suddenly locking. Purple-white static flared around extremities, fingers and hair squirting out sparks. Then the fiber's conductive molecules disassociated and the current vanished.
In its wake it left a stunned silence and convulsed postures. After a second, those it had struck and immobilized juddered down gulps of fresh air. Limbs trembled uncontrollably. Nobody was fighting anymore. Locals regarded the picket of dark Skins with considerable trepidation. Squaddies who'd been caught by the web grinned nervously, holding their hands up.
"Thank you," the senior sergeant said briskly. "You are all under arrest. Please wait here." He marched toward the bar's main door. The spent web canister was dropped, clattering away on the stone-paved road. He pulled another one from his belt and stood in the doorway. "Pack it in!" he yelled. The new web canister was fired into the Junk Buoy.
Lawrence woke up knowing he must have only seconds to live. His head was obviously split open, allowing someone to pour boiling oil over his exposed brain. He groaned feebly, moving about. Which was a big mistake. He dry-retched. His hands waved about slowly, coming into contact with thin strings of vomit beading out of his mouth.
"Oh fucking hell."
The light was agonizingly bright and penetrating deep inside his broken head. He didn't so much blink as weep the world into focus. Not a very good focus, he had to admit.
Someone had dumped him in a very weird hell. He was lying on the thin gray carpet tiles of what looked like a brightly lit airport lounge. There were long rows of red plastic chairs screwed into the floor. People were slumped listlessly in them. Some of the men were injured, holding pressure dressings to cuts and bruised eyes, blood staining the white fabric. Girls in small tight dresses leaned against each other, either asleep or staring blankly. There were other people sleeping on the floor—at least he assumed they were sleeping; none of them showed any signs of movement. Several Skins stood guard around the perimeter of the room, imposingly silent and still.
Lawrence got it then, and memory oozed back. The fight. This was a hospital waiting room, then. Not hell after all.
Slowly, very slowly, he turned on his side, then levered himself up to a sitting position. Pain pounded away on the side of his head, making him nauseated again. He winced, dabbing at the spot with fingers. There was a huge tender lump just behind his left ear.
Amersy was sitting in one of the red chairs beside him. The corporal's white cheek had turned gray; both eyes were badly bloodshot. He was holding a chilpak across his forehead. His shoulders were trembling.
Lewis, Odel, Karl and Dennis were in the seats beside him; Odel with his right hand swallowed by a blue field-aid sheath, Karl with a busted nose and blood on his lips and chin. Edmond was lying on the floor, curled up at Karl's feet.
"Ho shit," Lawrence croaked. "What—"
"We got webbed," Lewis muttered. "The owner called the cops."
"Oh great." He paused, pulling down some more air. "Everyone okay?"
"Sure. We were kicking some serious butt in there till our own cavalry came over the hill and shot us. Fuck. I mean, whose side are they on?"
Lawrence wasn't going to give any sort of answer to that "What's our status?"
"The kid's in with the doc right now." Amersy jerked his thumb toward the curtained-off cubicles at the back of the room. "Nothing bad, at least not broken. And we're on notified restraint until the medics clear us."
"Great." He looked round to see if there was some sort of pillow he could rest his head on. "Where's Jones?"
"Christ knows."
"That's good. He'll make his own way back." The effort of talking and thinking was incredibly tiring. "Let me know when it's my turn." He lowered his head back onto the carpet tiles again.
The nurse was surprisingly sympathetic. Lawrence had no idea what time it was when he was finally called into a cubicle to be assessed and cleaned up. Very early morning, he guessed.
She scanned the side of his head where the bump was, and the medical AS decided he wasn't concussed. "But I'll get a human doctor to examine the image when we've one free," she told him. "Just to be on the safe side."
"Thanks."
"It'll be a while. They're a bit busy right now." She laid him on his side and pulled the grubby T-shirt over his head.
"Sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't start it. Did you?"
"No. But I should have realized it was inevitable."
She started squirting some kind of cool cleaning liquid on his lump. Lawrence grunted at the sharp sting.
"Any fool could have told you that."
"I'm not just any fool, I'm supposed to be in charge."
"In charge, huh?" A gauze napkin was dabbed on his skin, soaking up the excess liquid.
"Yeah, I know. Listen, I don't suppose you've got anything for my headache, have you?"
"Headache or hangover?"
"Both. And they really don't like sharing space."
"Not surprised. Hold that." She took his hand and pressed it against the napkin. He could just see her shoes as she walked over to a wall cabinet.
"Anyone badly hurt?" he asked.
"Us or you?"
"Just anyone."
"Three deep stab wounds. One emergency regenerative procedure, a girl's face was cut up—"
"Aw shit."
"—several broken bones. And that electrocution weapon of yours has left a lot of people very shaky. Nobody dead, though. I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies." She handed him a couple of purple capsules and a glass of water. "Take these."
He swallowed them automatically. Only afterward did he realize how trusting he'd been. Strategic security policy was quite strict on receiving externalmedical assistance, especially in nonlethal situations.
The curtain was shoved back, and Captain Bryant stormed in. He was in full uniform, the light mauve fabric showing up his anger-heated skin. "There you are, Newton."
"Excuse me," the nurse said. "I'm treating this man."
"He's cured." Bryant held the curtain open for her. "That will be all."
She gave him an indignant look and walked out.
"Would you care to explain, Sergeant?"
"Sir?"
"What the hell happened tonight? I let you out for a quiet drink and the next thing I know you're restaging Santa Chico."
"There was some kind of argument. About a girl, I think. It sprang from that."
"Then it damn well shouldn't have sprang. For God's sake, you're supposed to stop this kind of thing."
"I wasn't actually there, sir. Otherwise I would have."
"You should have been there. You're their sergeant. I depend on you to keep order."
"We were off duty."
"Don't even start pulling that one on me. There's a damn sight more to your job than official duties, and you know it. And if you don't, you shouldn't have those stripes."
"Sir," Lawrence grunted with extreme petulance. If he hadn't been so unstable he would have said fuck it and simply smacked Bryant one.
"Now where is Jones?'
"Sir?"
>
"Jones Johnson. Remember him?"
"I thought he'd gone back to barracks."
"He hasn't reported in, and the police didn't take him into custody with the rest of you. Where is he?"
"I don't know, sir. Have you checked the hospital?"
"Of course I have."
Lawrence rubbed at his eyes. The capsules seemed to be having some effect. At least the nausea was fading. But he felt desperately tired. "Officially he doesn't have to report back until oh-six-hundred hours, sir."
"Don't play it smart with me, Sergeant, you don't have the IQ to pull it off. Jones is the only person unaccounted for, and he's under my command. Have you any idea how badly all this reflects on me? After this total debacle, I don't want further loose ends. Do you understand that?"
"What I'm saying, sir, is that if he got out from the fight before the police arrived, then he's probably with a girl."
"He'd better be. I want you to take that shambles you call a platoon back to barracks right away. You're on double house duties, and any breakages from the Junk Buoy will be met out of your pay. I shall also be loading an official reprimand onto your record. Now get your act together, Newton."
The curtain was tugged back forcefully as the captain strode out.
Lawrence gave his invisible back the finger, then groaned in misery as he sank back down onto the examination table.
* * *
Jones Johnson woke to a hot ache in his wrists and back. Despite that, he was alarmingly cold.
Not surprising. He was naked, spread-eagled with his wrists fastened in some kind of manacles that hung from an oval frame. Ankles, too, were held fast against the base of the frame. The rest of the room was empty. As far as he could see, it didn't even have a window, just a plain wooden door on his left. The walls were whitewashed concrete, the floor some kind of spongy black matting.
Instinctively he tugged at the manacles. Whoever had built this frame knew what he was doing. His freedom of movement was very limited.
The worst thing about it was, he simply could not remember how he'd got here. There had been some kind of fight in the Junk Buoy. He'd seen a knife flash. Combined with a chair?
What the fuck happened after that?
His brief struggle with the manacles left him panting. There was the dull throbbing on his forehead that indicated a big bruise.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Hey, can you guys hear me? Anyone there? Hey."
He watched the door for a while, expecting someone to come see what the commotion was about. Nothing.
It's a brothel, he told himself, an S and M joint, that's all. I took a hit in the fight, and those turds Karl and Lewis paid for this. Some dominatrix will arrive any minute and start hitting my ass with a cane. The bastards. "Hey, come on, guys, this isn't funny anymore."
Still nothing happened. He couldn't hear any traffic sounds, any voices.
Bastards.
He needed to pee, too. God damn!
And who would have thought that Memu Bay had a cathouse that specialized in this kind of stuff. He stopped that train of thought straightaway.
Some time later the door opened.
"About fucking time," Jones yelled. "Come on, get me out of here."
A man came in, dressed in a dark blue boilersuit. He paid no attention to Jones at all. He was carrying a large, and clearly heavy, glass container, which he placed on the floor by Jones's restrained feet.
"Hey! Hey, you," Jones said. "What the fuck is this? Hey, say something. Talk to me."
The man turned round and walked out.
Jones shook himself about as much as he could. It was all pointless, the manacles never budged. But the door hadn't been closed.
"Look, whatever they paid, I'll match it."
The man came in again, lugging another, identical, glass container.
Jones found he was sweating now. His heart had begun to flutter in that way that acknowledged his subconscious knew something was deeply wrong. He just couldn't admit it to himself, because that would be when the panic and dread would kick in.
"Please," he asked. "What is this?"
But the man had left again.
He didn't want to think it. Not that. Not KillBoy. That this wasn't something Karl and Lewis had thought up for a laugh when they were drunk. That he'd been the dumbest fuck in the universe and let some fanatical resistance group snatch him.
"But I don't know anything," he whispered. "I don't."
Torture was centuries out of date. It really really was. There were drugs, all sorts of techniques. Available to all modern, well-equipped, properly financed police and security forces. Didn't Thallspring have them? Backward primitive Thallspring?
It didn't matter, he persuaded himself, because Z-B would be turning the town upside down in their search for him. The sarge would never let them stop. He looked after his men. Good old sarge. Any second now and the door would fly off its hinges, and the platoon would charge in to rescue him.
The mute man was back again, with a third container. This time he'd brought a load of clear plastic tubing as well, which he left looped round the container's short neck. Jones stared at it, bitterness and furious resentment contaminating his anger. The apparatus was for an enema. He was going to be raped. Gang-raped most likely. Part of the softening up. Part of breaking him.
He clenched his fists, pulling desperately. "God no. No. No." His contorted face so nearly let tears escape down his cheeks. "Why me? Why did you pick on me? It's not fair. Not fair."
The door closed again behind the man. Jones let out a sob, and the tension went out of his body, leaving him drooping painfully from the frame.
"Please," he told the empty room. "I'm nobody. I'm not important. You don't have to do this. Please."
He was sniveling now. Wretched and pathetic. Back on Earth, anti-interrogation training had gone through the routines for strengthening resolve. How to withstand tiredness and strain, how not to be caught out in lies. That was training. That wasn't real. Not when some bunch of psychotic terrorists have got you stripped naked and strung out like they're about to crucify you. Not when you are so utterly helpless that you would genuinely sell your soul to the devil you now want to believe in very badly indeed. Because there's no other way out.
Where were they? God damn it, where were the platoon?
"Everyone is important in their own way, Mr. Johnson."
Jones's head snapped up. There was a beautiful young woman in the room: her long flatfish face was one that any man would find enchanting. Thick dark hair swung around her head as she stared at him. Her movement was birdlike, examining him from minutely different angles. She was twisting a gold ring on her index finger.
"Please," he entreated. "Just let me go."
"No." She said it with a finality that was horrifying.
"Why! What are you?"
"At this particular stage of our mission, I suppose you could call me a revolutionary anarchist. It is my task to bring chaos and disorder to Memu Bay."
"What?" he blurted.
She smiled gently and took a step closer. Her proximity was one he found alarmingly sexual. Then she picked up the tubing. One end was carefully plugged into the top of a container. She began to uncoil the rest.
"Don't," he begged. "Jesus, please."
"There will be very little pain," she said. "I am not a sadist, Mr. Johnson."
Jones clenched his buttocks as if he were going for Olympic gold. "I'll tell you anything. Just... don't."
"I'm sorry. You're not here for questioning. I already know more about the universe than you ever dreamed existed."
He stared at her, coldly shocked by the realization that she was no revolutionary, she was simply insane. Bug-eyed, dancing-in-the-moonlight crazy. It was one of the universe's most heinous crimes that a creature so beautiful should possess such a demented soul.
"People will die," he cried. "Your people, the ones you're supposed to be fighting for. Is that what you want?"
"Nobody wil
l die. Zantiu-Braun will never know for certain if you are alive or not. It is a dilemma that will eat at their souls. That is what I want."
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