by King, Sara
Magali couldn’t take it anymore. Even without Anna to help her, Magali knew she had to do something. More loudly than she intended, she said, “What you’re doing is illegal.”
The Director turned to give Magali a puzzled smile—the look of a zookeeper who suddenly realized one of her chimps had spoken to her. “What?”
“I’ll refer you to Section Fifteen of the Mandatory Lifeline Act,” Magali said, surprised that the words were flowing out of her, feeling almost as if she were hearing them from a distance. “There are three paragraphs in there that should interest you. Each one refers to the penalties a government official can face if they are found to be abusing their power over the citizenry using a government lifeline.”
The Director’s smile cracked. “Who are you?”
“Magali Landborn,” Magali said, spurred on by the whimpering creature clinging to the Director’s arm. “My sister wasn’t the only one who read the Consolidated Galactic Encyclopedia.”
The glittering skin around the Director’s mouth paled. The cyborg gave Joel a nervous look, then released the man’s chin as if he had caught fire.
Anna scared her, Magali thought, stunned.
At the Director’s widening eyes, she added, “You should really let him go.” She gave her best imitation of Anna’s psychopathic stare.
The Nephyr flinched under the assault, and for a moment looked like a starlope caught on a landing pad.
Scratch that, Magali thought, Anna scared the shit out of her.
Then, But I’m not Anna.
In that instant, as quickly as the Director’s fear had come, it was gone. “Wait.” The Director snorted, and there was a new cruel confidence to her voice. “The Lifeline Act. He forfeited those rights when he tore out his own lifeline twenty years ago.” She glanced back at the whimpering smuggler, a thin smile on her lips. “Didn’t you, Joel?”
Magali’s mind screamed at her to run into the mines and hope the Nephyr forgot about her. Instead, loud enough for even the retreating eggers to hear, she said, “I promise you you’re going to find out, if you continue to break the law.”
All around them, glittering faces jerked to look at them.
The Director’s smile faded and, for a long time, the Director’s sharp brown eyes merely watched her.
Under the Nephyrs’ gazes, Magali felt like a moth under a magnifying glass, the tip of a pin poised to skewer her abdomen. She tried desperately to keep her terror in check.
The cyborg’s gaze hardened. “You’re shaking, girl.”
Oh no, Magali thought, her heart thundering in painful arcs through her chest under the Director’s gaze. She squeezed her hands into fists, willing her knees to stop trembling. Anna would have helped her, now, but Anna wasn’t there. Before she could regain control over her own terror, Magali dropped her eyes.
The Director smiled, and there was a viciousness there that made Magali cringe. “Not so confident without your little sister, are you, brat?” the Director said. Then she cocked her head, as if coming to a sudden, pleasant realization. “Landborn, eh? That would make you the girlfriend. You like fucking him so much…perhaps you’d like to join him?” The cyborg returned her attention to Joel, who still clung to her arm amidst sobs. She regarded his hunched and broken form with distant curiosity.
“What do you say, Joel? Should she share your fate on the rack tonight? Seems a fitting end to a couple of collie lovebirds.”
Hunched over the arm that held him, Joel said nothing, struggling to keep his sobs under control. The entire camp seemed to hold its breath.
Into the silence, one of the robots said, “I’m sorry, Director, did you say you wanted me to mute him?” His voice was pleasant. Utterly emotionless. Like he’s asking if she wants a damn pizza.
Watching Joel whimper, the Director’s face stretched in a smile. “Sounds like an excellent idea, Ferris.” She gave Magali an amused look. “Unfortunately, I didn’t find his begging very convincing.”
“No!” Magali cried. She lurched forward reflexively, but Joel had already gone board-stiff, his face going slack. Magali’s hand tightened on her prybar and a sick feeling welled up in her gut.
Still holding the smuggler by his wounded hand, the Director leaned in until her head was almost touching his. Near his tear-stained face, she whispered, “Let’s see you be a smartass now, Joel.” Then she released him, to crumple in a heap on the dusty ground.
Magali tore her eyes from Joel, who had curled into a fetal position, his sobs coming out as uncoordinated rasps of air, and focused on the Director, who stood over him with a pleased expression.
The Director noticed Magali’s horrified look and smirked. “Your little sister really was the brains of the operation, wasn’t she? The Lifeline Act… Are you actually stupid enough to think you could bluff me? I should take your tongue just for the insult.”
And Magali knew she would.
The Director took a step toward her. Magali stumbled backwards, terror clawing at her lungs. A Nephyr casually shoved her back onto the line—right into the Director’s grasp. The Director grabbed her and, as if she were a doting grandparent, casually buttoned the top clasp of her studded egger’s glove. Magali froze, terrified of looking down lest she lose sight of the monster in front of her. This close, the Nephyr’s inhuman body seemed to pulse with a cold, powerful energy that sucked the warmth right out of her skin.
Once the Director had finished buttoning her glove, she patted Magali on the shoulder with a painfully heavy hand. Leaning close, the Director said, “I’ll only give you one warning.” Her brown eyes held icy promise. “You may have played in the majors for awhile, by proxy, but your time in the sun’s over, kid. Your sister isn’t ever coming back, and you ain’t got the brains to fend for yourself. Not around Nephyrs. You open your mouth again and you’ll end up sharing space with Joel tonight.”
The Director gave her another good-natured pat on the shoulder, then spun and returned to the podium, leaving Magali her tongue and Joel curled in the dust. “All right, folks, we’ve wasted enough time with smugglers and their whores. Form a channel from the exit to the ships. The first ones should start filtering out in a few hours. You have my permission to entertain yourselves with any collie who comes out without a full sack. Some of them are going to try to cheat and use rocks, so when we dump them out, I want you all ready to catch the ones who try to bolt…” Her voice grew less distinct as the Director joined the group of Nephyrs, still issuing instructions.
Magali glanced down at Joel and lowered herself to the ground beside him.
The smuggler’s eyes were squeezed shut and he was hunched over on his knees in the dust. His good hand cradled the one the Director had crushed. Tears wet his cheeks, dripping onto the depleted nanostrips on his thigh. His uniform and his collection gear lay scattered and forgotten on the ground beneath him.
Anna would have been able to tell her what bones the Director had broken, what tendons had been damaged, and approximately how much force the Director had put into her grip. Her sister would have been able to look at the pain in the man’s eyes and talk about what areas of the brain he’d just lost as if he were a broken toaster. She would have had no qualms with leaving him there, sobbing quietly on the ground to be shot by the soldiers, so that they could begin the scramble to fill their sacks in the mounds.
But Magali wasn’t Anna. Agonized, Magali reached out and touched the smuggler’s shoulder.
Joel opened his eyes and gave her a look of such gratitude that it brought tears to Magali’s eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” Magali whispered.
Joel squeezed his eyes shut. Tears traced down his bruised cheeks. He sucked in a huge breath and let it out in what should have been a sob. The ragged wheeze that came out instead left Magali aching for him.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. She felt tears burning her own eyes and knelt beside him, choking on the grief building in her chest. She reached forth to gather up his sack and his prybar, t
hen tentatively took his good hand to help him to his feet. “Can you stand?”
He gave her a blank look.
He can’t even understand me, Magali thought, horrified. She’d heard of head-wounds that destroyed everything—wiping every scrap of language from the victim’s brain. “Come on,” she whispered through tears, “I’ll help you.” She made a show of leaning back to give him support in order to stand.
Joel stayed where he was, refusing to look at her.
Magali gave a nervous glance at the last stragglers shuffling into the mines. She and the smuggler were the only two humans left on the parade deck. Nearby, she could feel Nephyrs watching them.
“We need to get going,” she whispered. “The others are leaving. They’ll shoot us if aren’t in the mines by the time they lock the doors.”
For a moment, it looked as if Joel would ignore her and stay there until the Nephyrs came to kill him.
“Please,” Magali whispered. She gave his good hand a gentle squeeze, trying to dispel some of the despair she saw in him.
Joel’s eyes flickered to their hands, then back to her face.
Magali quickly gathered up his equipment and stuffed it under one arm. Then, to her relief, he allowed her to pull him to his feet and lead him between the Nephyrs guarding the entrance into the mines.
Magali stepped into the dim orange darkness of the Shrieker mounds, gently pulling the smuggler behind her. As soon as she was inside the first cavern, she stopped dead in her tracks, staring into the darkness with instinctive panic.
The Director, expecting Shriekers to be more volatile, had dimmed the lights. Only one in ten of the small LEDs set in the ceiling were giving off any illumination at all. Magali could barely see her own hand in front of her face.
The other eggers were milling uncomfortably, a tight knot at the very edge of the cavern. Childlike sounds of terror echoed against the slimy walls. Everywhere, people were crying. No one was making any move to enter the mines.
The lights flickered.
Spending the last months in the Shrieker mines, Magali had become used to the flickering lights. The solar generators often missed a beat whenever the camp power grid was being shifted from one battery system to another, or from charging to discharging.
Yet, seeing them flicker now, while she was naked and nervous, when the Shriekers were down there, guarding their hatchlings, when the Nephyrs were outside, waiting to tear her apart, the spike of terror that clawed its way up from her stomach left her heart thudding against her lungs. She backed up a pace.
Joel gave her hand a squeeze.
Startled, Magali looked up. She had been so unnerved that she’d forgotten he was with her.
Joel gave her a weak smile.
“Thanks,” Magali whispered.
The smuggler gave her a blank look, and she cursed herself. He can’t understand you, Mag, and you have to rub it in. Guiltily, she squeezed his hand back, and Joel gave her a nervous smile.
“Good luck, folks,” one of the human guards called from the doorway behind them. However much Magali had hated to see him at the gates before, the man’s face was familiar, and unlike the Nephyrs, he sounded almost apologetic. There was a definite look of anguish in his eyes before he cleared his throat and tore his eyes from the frightened mass of eggers, focusing it on the wall, instead. “Doors will open again in four hours.” He stepped back, and from outside, she heard the metallic screech of the main door swinging shut.
They’re going to lock us in here, she thought, terrified.
Suddenly, the smuggler’s hand in hers was the only thing keeping her from turning and rushing towards the Nephyrs silhouetted in the exit. Several other eggers were not so anchored, however, and ended up getting brutally shoved back into the mines. One man’s chest collapsed under the pressure of the Nephyr’s push, and he lay there in the slime inside the door, writhing and choking, unable to breathe.
He turned blue and died. A young girl—probably a daughter—dropped to her knees in the slime beside him and began to cry.
Then the heavy, bomb-proof doors slammed shut. The resounding boom made Magali jerk out of reflex.
Harvest time, she thought, a coldness pooling in her gut.
She had a full ten seconds to consider that before several eggers in the dim huddles near the front of the group screamed.
“Everyone listen up!” a woman from up ahead suddenly shouted. It was the voice of someone used to command, and Magali didn’t recognize it. Had the Nephyrs followed them in there? “All you collie bastards are going to listen if you wanna live through the next ten seconds, you get me?”
Beside her, Joel tensed.
From somewhere close, Magali heard the heat-crackle of an energy weapon. Bits of the roof collapsed. More people began to scream.
Above the din, the woman shouted, “And yes, I’ve got a gun.”
Chapter 24
A Dangerous Duo
“Huh. They’re all dead.” Anna tapped a glass-covered body bearing the strange forehead node, frowning at the odd titanium lump.
“It would appear that way, Anna,” Doberman said, glancing at the door. “You have ten minutes and fifty-three seconds until the morning technician arrives.”
“I can count, thank you,” Anna said. She moved to another case, checked the history on the chart, then moved on to the vacuum-sealed tube. They had all died within forty-three hours of the implant. Most within thirteen.
“It doesn’t look like this is operator technology,” Anna mused, tracing the contours of the node in her mind. “There’s no hookup.”
“Interesting,” Doberman said, in a way that suggested he really was interested. It was one advantage to having a robot as a companion. He wasn’t sarcastic, and he understood about fifty percent of the stuff Anna said. That made him forty-nine percent more interesting than anyone she had ever met.
Anna moved on to the records panel. The screen was locked and dark. “Open it,” she said, stepping back.
The robot obediently opened the panel with the Director’s password. It was another advantage to having a robot as a companion, Anna mused. It didn’t get all pissy when she told it what to do.
As soon as the screen was up, Dobie stepped aside, allowing Anna access. “Eight minutes fourteen seconds,” he said, as she moved to the controls.
“I don’t need a play-by-play. Just tell me when we’ve got thirty seconds left.”
“As you wish, Anna,” Doberman said, then went silent.
Scanning the reports, Anna was initially confused as to what she was seeing. Quickly, however, she began to get interested. “…allow a concentrated blast of psi force to reproduce the same effects as a specimen of Shrieker Fortuna…”
“Thirty seconds,” Doberman said, looking utterly calm. A human in his situation probably would have been sweating and dancing around like an idiot, whimpering that they were going to get caught and the Coalition was going to find them and kill them. For once, Anna was grateful for the lack of theatrics.
“Download it,” Anna said, nodding.
Doberman moved forward and placed a hand over the dataport for a heartbeat before retracting it, and saying, “Twenty seconds.”
“Erase the rest,” Anna said.
A moment later, Doberman nodded. “Fifteen seconds.”
“Grab that,” Anna said, pointing to an unfinished node in the box on top of the workbench.
“It’s unfinished,” Doberman said, grabbing it.
“Yeah, whatever,” Anna said. “Let’s go.”
They passed the technician in the hall on their way to the next corridor, twenty seconds late for his shift. The chump technician even stopped to ruffle Anna’s hair and speak baby-speak to her about what she was going to do as a Nephyr.
“Kill people who deserve it,” Anna said.
“Oh?” he asked, a stupid, patronizing smile on his face. “Like who?”
“I dunno,” Anna said. “Scientists, probably.”
The tec
hnician laughed. “Scientists? What kind of scientists?”
“The kind who keep killing their test subjects because they’re too stupid to realize what they’re doing wrong.”
The technician left after that.
“You know,” Doberman said, as they walked away together, “It would have been easier for us if you had not done that.”
Anna shrugged.
Forty-six seconds later, the base alarm began going off. Anna never flinched, and she was impressed when Doberman continued to stroll forward as if nothing was happening. Another benefit to working with a robot—they didn’t panic like imbeciles and make everything worse.
Hearing footsteps behind her, Anna paused.
The technician came panting up behind her. “You! Kid. What’s your name?”
Doberman whirled and punched his face in.
Not just punched him in the face. Punched it in. Anna was impressed.
“Nice job,” she said, as the technician crumpled. Doberman was already moving again. “You ever kill anyone before, Tinman?”
“Just a few dozen eggers,” Doberman said, calmly leading them out of the hall and into another corridor.
“Really? What did you do with the bodies?”
“Buried them in the peat bogs.”
“Cool. What’d they do?”
“They drank too much strawberry soda and ate too many double-patty hamburgers with extra mustard.”
Anna frowned. “Was that sarcasm?”
“No. It was right after a Harvest. Director didn’t need all the mouths to feed, since they wouldn’t need them for another three years. It was mostly the ones displaying symptoms of Wide, though I killed a few of the children, too. Oh, and anyone who didn’t show up with a full sack when Harvest day was over, it was my job to execute them before they…”