The Reprisal

by Kelly St Clare

  The guards didn’t jostle her or sneer on the way down. They really did seem like the Amach guards. Probably because they had been Amach guards once. “You know,” she said softly, “if you wanted to come back to the Amach, the commander-general would pardon you, and anyone who admitted they’d made a mistake.”

  The guard in front snorted. “Back to that peace-yapping place? No thanks. We’re here for a reason, and that’s because we plan to get something done about the Mandate.”

  “And become the Mandate by doing so?” Romy asked in genuine curiosity.

  The relaxed demeanour of her escort disappeared, and she was glad to arrive at her cell a minute later and see the backs of the six men.

  “Ro,” Elara said in relief, coming to hug her. “Are you okay? What did they do to you?”

  “Put an electrical current through me, and made me run on the treadmill.” Romy beckoned them in, sitting cross-legged on her bed. They bowed their heads close. “I overheard Houston say something in there.” Romy repeated the doctor’s crazed mutterings.

  Tina straightened. “That sounds. . . .”

  “Like he’s trying to create a certain kind of soldier?” Romy finished. “I agree. I can’t decide if it’s me he means to control, or a whole bunch of soldiers.”

  Elara whistled. “Poacher poop.”

  “Poacher poop, indeed,” Romy said.

  Tina bent her head in again. “Do you think he plans to tamper with the space soldiers he has? Maybe you should ask to see them tomorrow,” she urged Romy. “Getting you away from him is our priority, but if there’s a chance we can get the rest of the soldiers out, we need to know where they are and how many of them are alive.”

  Romy agreed. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  “Do what, little skyling?” Houston’s voice slid through the bars.

  She jerked, but managed not to squawk like Elara. How much had he overheard? They had to set a watch at the door from now on.

  Romy decided to go with the truth. “I want to see the space soldiers you have. Tomorrow.”

  “Why?” he asked, pressing his face against the bars.

  “Are you actually crazy?” Romy asked, going on a tangent. “You were never normal, but you actually seem crazy now.”

  Tina sucked in a breath that needed no translation: Not a wise move. Romy pressed her lips together, stopping her question about his father in its tracks.

  Houston smiled slowly. “I suggest you don’t try to find out.” His eyes unfocused and snapped back into awareness. “But I am happy to show you the space soldiers. Maybe that will . . . help your participation levels.”

  Romy raised her brows, saying in a firm voice, “I did everything you asked today.”

  “Ah, yes. I have no complaints . . . about today. You may find the coming days more trying.” He shifted his gaze. “I am here for the beautiful and fearless leader, Tina Lyons.”

  “Save it,” Tina sneered at him. Still, sensing an opportunity to obtain more information, she sauntered up to the bars.

  Guards appeared behind Houston.

  “A precaution, you understand?” the doctor said.

  “I understand that I would definitely seize the chance to kick your cowardly ass if you didn’t bring them, yes,” Tina replied without batting an eyelash.

  The guards approached and Tina didn’t look back as she was led out of the cell.

  * * *

  “I miss Phobos,” Elara sniffed into her pillow.

  Romy’s heart squeezed and she threw off her blankets to slide into bed with her knotmate. “I’m sure he misses you, too, Ellie. Be strong; you’ll see him again.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Her reply was honest. “I can’t not believe that, even if my brain tells me it’s foolish to hope.”

  “This is so messed up.”

  “More or less messed up than me having three personalities two months ago?”

  “. . . Less.” Elara giggled. “Much less. That was scary stuff. Crazy Romy was the shit, though.”

  Romy smiled. “There’s still a bit of her around.”

  “That’s for sure. Hey, did you and Atlas ever end up . . . ?”

  She pretended to think. “Redecorating our room?”

  Elara snickered. “You know what I mean. Did you, or did you not, engage in illicit activities with commander-general cargo hotness?”

  “Can you call him that to his face?”

  “I enjoy that you think I haven’t.”

  Romy laughed under her breath. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. Just pursed his lips and walked off.”

  “That means he wanted to laugh, but he caught it before it escaped.”

  “Really?”

  Romy nodded. “To answer your question, yes, we did. Just before the meeting in Cairo.”

  “Finally.” Elara sighed and shifted closer, hugging Romy. “You know,” she said in a sleepy voice, “you guys are a great couple. I hope you guys grow old together.”

  A tear trickled from Romy’s eye. She cleared her throat of the thickness there. “I hope we all grow old,” she said hoarsely. “I want it more than anything in the world.”

  The cell door creaked open and Tina was shoved through. She rolled across the concrete floor, but sprang up against the hastily closed door, screaming obscenities.

  When the guards disappeared, she stopped and turned, searching the dark cell until she spotted her cellmates in Elara’s bed.

  “What’d you do to piss off the guards?” Romy asked. They hadn’t treated her that way.

  Tina panted. “I’ve been known to antagonise one or two people in my time.”

  The others waited.

  “I punched Houston in the face. After I asked whether he was insane because of his mother, or his father.”

  Romy gasped, unable to hide her smile. “What did he do?”

  Her white teeth gleamed in the dark. “That’s what I wanted to find out. He had a full-blown, someone-stood-on-my-sandcastle tantrum, that’s what. He threw papers, smashed beakers, kicked walls. Completely lost it. I might’ve hurt his feelings.”

  “Wow,” Elara said.

  “You had no idea what provoking him would do.” Romy admonished her. “What if he’d decided he didn’t need you anymore? Or did something while he was worked up?”

  “Did you find out what he wants you for?” Elara piped up.

  Tina sat on her bed and unlaced her boots. “Obviously I found that out before I pushed his buttons. I’m not stupid. He wants me to rule the world when he conquers it.”

  There was a moment of disbelieving silence.

  “What?” Romy and Elara chorused.

  “You heard me. He said I have a reputation of strength and fairness and all this other crap. Then he said, he worried that though he was a trailblazer, the public opinion was turned against him, that he was willing to bear that cross for the betterment of humankind, but that in the interest of lasting and prosperous peace, he wanted me to consider taking the figurehead position.”

  “Figurehead?” Romy asked.

  “Exactly. He still means to be in full control of everything. That is about the time my fist had a disagreement with his face.” She padded over to join them on the bed and threw herself on top of them, whispering, “I do mean to try to negotiate the position. I’m hoping I can get Elara out of here.” Her emerald eyes shifted to Romy. “Not you; he’d never let you go. But Ellie, he might.”

  “No,” Elara protested.

  It would strengthen their position. One less person to get out, and one less person to force her compliance.

  Romy held Tina’s eyes. “Do it.” She sat on the bed, a crease between her brows. “Do you think Houston has had a more personal agenda than we’ve thought? He told me this was all about leaving a legacy, but. . . .”

  “. . . His parents both lost their minds,” Tina said, nodding.

  “Wanting to prevent the same fate for himself seems more in line with his selfishness
than the whole legacy idea,” Elara added.

  It seemed that way to Romy, too. “This whole time, he just wanted the cure for himself.” Her eyes widened. “He must’ve been livid when he saw it didn’t hold in the space soldiers.”

  Tina sighed. “Yes, but what is he planning now?” She tilted her head to Romy, eyes hardened. “That’s what we need to find out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The guards arrived the next morning and took Romy to the first level, instead of the lab.

  It looked like Houston was keeping his promise to show her the soldiers after all.

  The guards marched her to the far end of the passage on this level, and the head guard swiped his card to open a set of double doors.

  Houston was standing inside. He didn’t lift his head upon her arrival.

  Romy glanced around when the guards fell back, and walked slowly around the room. Her heart grew heavy as she took in row upon row of upright sealed cases. Inside were space soldiers, frozen in time until Houston saw fit to release them. She did a rough count and gritted her teeth. Nearly three hundred.

  She was glad more of the space soldiers were alive, but this wasn’t living, being encased like this.

  “They’ve all been given another injection,” Houston called to her.

  Romy spun. He still stood in the same spot. She looked past him and saw he stared at an empty cultivation tank, like the ones the space soldiers grew up in.

  She swallowed at the gleam in his eyes. “They’ll live?”

  “Yes.” He tilted his chin up. “They’ll live.”

  “Then why keep them frozen?”

  A ghost of a smile flashed across his face. “Because the first thing they’ll ask will be where their other comrades are. I need the others back first.”

  He had plans for the space soldiers, and after his mumbled words yesterday, Romy had a gut feeling that curing the soldiers of the insanity trigger was the least the Renegades leader planned to do. “I assume you don’t mean to give the Amach the one hundred soldiers you promised. How shocking you didn’t keep your word,” Romy said sarcastically, but then she decided to prod. “Are you any closer to finding a permanent cure?”

  Houston didn’t answer. He raised a hand and rested it on the cultivation tank.

  Romy held her breath. Why was he looking at it like that? The guards neared her and she tensed. “You plan to put me in there,” she said, on the edge of panic.

  Her comment startled a laugh out of the mad doctor. “You?” He laughed again, and dropped his hand. “No. Not you, skyling.” He blinked, coming out of his daze. “I did want to show you something, however. Seeing as we’re here.”

  Romy gave the cultivation tank a wide berth, the hairs on her neck rising as the guards crowded behind her. She’d never willingly go into one of those again.

  Houston led her to a glass pane and gestured for a guard to turn on the light.

  She gasped as the other side came into view. “What have you done?”

  On the other side were five cages, and each one held a space soldier. But they weren’t space soldiers anymore. Romy shied back as the . . . creatures began throwing themselves against the bars in response to the light. Their white orbito fatigues were stained with blood and yellowed with the soldier’s waste. Their eyes were bloodshot, and wide with madness. Saliva trickled from their mouths, and even through the thick glass, Romy could hear their snarling screams.

  Her chest tightened as her own past hit her with enough force to give her whiplash.

  “Not pleasant, are they?”

  Romy curled her fists and turned on him. But she was surprised to find him completely serious. “No,” she said shortly. “What happened to them?”

  “You are looking at a space soldier who has had the injection, and then killed once it’s worn off. It makes them incredibly violent. They make what your insane version did to those Mandate soldiers look like child’s play. Ten of them killed one hundred of my soldiers before we managed to take them out.”

  “Why are you keeping them alive like this?” Romy said, looking back at the screeching space soldiers with burning eyes in the cages.

  “To try to save them. Why else?” Houston replied.

  Her eyes narrowed. Romy didn’t believe that for a second. He wanted to save himself. How much testing would it take for Houston to find the actual cure?

  Romy had to get the space soldiers out of here before any more ended up in cages.

  * * *

  Blunted needles pricked her in acupressure points with methodical order.

  After three days, she knew this phase of testing was about what made the anger inhibitors in her brain disappear—to find what made her volatile. Romy was certain Houston meant to replicate it somehow. But the other space soldiers hadn’t gone through what she had, so how did the doctor mean to mimic her specific reaction?

  She jolted as they dug the sharp end into her upper trapezius. Ouch.

  “That was a good one,” Houston murmured. “Not as good as the Li-4.”

  Whatever he planned to do, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt others. The sight of the insane soldiers in the cages was seared into her memory, and she’d barely thought of anything else since. She’d told Tina and Elara about what she’d seen, and they were in agreement. The soldiers had to be saved. Somehow. Seeing as they had yet to think up a plan to save themselves, this wasn’t looking great.

  The assistant stabbed her in the other trapezius and blood pounded to Romy’s temples.

  Her mouth twisted as her control on her anger slipped. “It’s ironic, don’t you think, James? That I was the one who lost my mind, but you’re the insane one?”

  His head snapped up and he fixed murderous eyes on her.

  She grinned. “You don’t like being called insane, do you, James? Is it because of your daddy? Little Houston doesn’t want to be like his little father?” Romy tested the arm restraints, gaze honing in on the doctor. She smiled.

  The assembled doctors stirred uneasily.

  “Do you mean to make an army of angry space soldiers, James?” she pressed again. “Is that why you’re doing these tests and not focusing on the cure?”

  A few of the doctors glanced at Houston uncertainly and this broke him out of his jaw-tight fury.

  “There’s the Rosemary I haven’t seen in a while,” he said smoothly. “Observe, everyone, what happens if she is pushed too far. Sawyer, jot this down.” He assembled his thoughts, or so it appeared. To her eyes it was a frantic reach for control, and she wanted to see him snap.

  Houston dictated. “Subject able to withstand an aggression-inducing spot in isolation, but several of these in a row results in verbal—” His hazel eyes flickered to her straining arms, “and physical displays of aggression.”

  “Avoidance of any comment that questions his state of mind and absence of ethics.” Romy mimicked the doctor’s professional voice. “Sawyer, jot this down: It seems to be becoming easier for Houston to justify his depravity over time.”

  Houston surveyed her. “Clear the room,” he said flatly.

  The doctors filed out, exchanging wide-eyed looks.

  Once they were gone, Houston reached to pick up the blunted needle. Smiling, he rested it in the web area between Romy’s thumb and forefinger and dug in down. Hard. She drew in a breath, feeling blood fill her cheeks. But her anger overrode the pain. Romy stared at him, telling him wordlessly that if she were free, he would be dead.

  “We had a deal, my dear,” he said, twisting the needle. “Elara’s safety is guaranteed only by your continued cooperation.”

  Tina’s plans to negotiate a way out for Elara depended on how on easy it was for Houston to keep Romy compliant. “You can’t expect a person without an operating lateral septum to control what she says, can you?” she said silkily.

  Romy would shove that needle in his jugular if he touched her knotmate.

  He withdrew the needle and it was almost more painful without the pressure. The
doctor twiddled the needle around in one hand. “Right you are, skyling. That is unreasonable of me.”

  She couldn’t help probing again. “Do you really need an army of soldiers you can control, Houston?”

  He paused. “Why yes, I believe I might if all goes well.”

  Houston strode to the door. “Sawyer,” he called into the hall. “Could you fetch me that ball gag from the interrogation room?” He glanced back over his shoulder at her before calling back out, “That’s the one.”

  He ambled back over to Romy. “Problem solved.”

  She grinned at him until he looked away.

  * * *

  “He pretty much admitted today that he wants to create an ultra-aggressive army of space soldiers,” Romy said, lying on the bed, staring at the concrete ceiling.

  Tina replied, “I don’t know that I trust anything that comes out of his mouth. He continually lies. We know his family history is a definite factor. That reaction was genuine. Everything else . . . I’m not so sure.”

  Her doubt was understandable. Houston was hard to read, and always had been. “He’s testing how to induce anger,” Romy said. “It’s working on me. I lost control of my temper in there today.”

  Tina munched on a carrot stick. “Do anything good?”

  “Spoke enough crap about Houston to make him gag me for the rest of the day,” Romy admitted.

  Elara gasped from where she watched the passage for company. “Oh, Ro.”

  “Worth it,” Romy replied. She stretched out an arm, and she and Tina bumped knuckles.

  Tina ran her hands through her greasy red hair. “I haven’t made any headway with him. He’s crazy, but not stupid.”

  She crouched next to Romy, speaking low. “The only way I can see us getting out is if all three of us can rush the guards when they open the door.”

  “Six guards, and we have no weapons,” Romy said.