Back then, she also thought the Rings on Earth were real.
She thought the humans who died in the Rings really died. She had no idea that only a small percentage of those deaths were anything other than theater...or that those who did die, mainly died as a result of accidents. One match in particular stuck out in Jet’s mind, from when she’d been around twelve or thirteen, so Biggs’ age.
When that human’s final run had been televised, his apparent death had all the skags cursing and crying, overcome with grief. The contestant had been from a neighboring settlement and a lot of the skags had traded with him, so knew him personally.
Jet knew now that the ex-skag was still alive.
His swan song in the Rings had been a gift, probably for good behavior. His Nirreth owner retired him since he’d been pushing forty and was getting a little old for the Rings, despite his impressive physique. Jet even met him once in the Green Zone, at one of the functions where they brought some of the previous and current Rings stars together for a photo op. He’d seemed happy. He even had a girlfriend. His girlfriend was human, not Nirreth, but Jet stammered so hard when introduced to the two of them, she’d barely gotten her name out.
Of course, he still probably got stung regularly by his “hosts.”
He might still get stuck servicing them sexually, too, depending on where their tastes lay. Even so, to say that his fate was worse than it would have been otherwise, given conditions outside the Green Zone walls, would be a pretty distorted half-truth, if not an outright lie.
“...Do you accept your punishment, Anaze Galren?” the center judge was saying.
Jerking her mind back to the present, Jet realized she’d already missed at least some of the ceremony around Anaze’s run. Still, the similarity struck her, from the Rings on Earth. Even here, they asked the runner’s permission. It had to be even more of a farce in the Retribution than it was in the entertainment version, but it still surprised her.
“I do,” Anaze said.
His voice came through clear, almost sounding like the person she knew.
She glanced at Laksri.
Maybe because he knew the cameras would be on him, gauging his reaction, Laksri watched Anaze with a hard frown on his face, his eyes close to angry. She found herself remembering when he’d tried to corner her on her feelings for Anaze, the same time he asked her to stop sharing a bed with Richter’s son. As the thought crossed her mind, Laksri looked at her.
Briefly, that harder look in his eyes intensified.
She’d asked him back then if he was jealous. She knew now that he had been, but it was complicated by their attempts to appear jealous, partly to fool Richter, and partly to fool the other Nirreth. Now, looking at Laksri’s face, she found herself wondering just where that line lay.
Even as she thought it, he averted his gaze, focusing back on the screen.
Frowning, Jet let her eyes follow his, right as the voices of the judges broke the silence in the pause after Anaze’s answer.
“...The participant’s owner agrees also that Retribution is necessary,” the lead judge said, after what must have been a signal of some kind. His tail coiled behind him in a sensual arc, the only indication Jet got of any emotion on the lead Nirreth. The feeling it gave her nauseated her a little. The guy was getting off on this. Not only that, his enjoyment was blatant, certainly more overt than anything she’d noticed on Trazen.
Laksri turned, giving Jet another hard stare, that one less ambiguous.
“...If the participant would position himself according to the rules of the contest?” the large Nirreth added, motioning politely with one hand. His hooded eyes, a flat black that unnerved Jet even through the cameras, aimed towards the opening into the walled arena.
Unlike the Rings amphitheater back home, a stone wall marked the edge of the play area here, unlike the transparent cage Jet knew from Earth. That same wall separated the run from the main floor where the judges and handlers milled to oversee the mechanics of the run.
The rest of the arena had no covering at all, with the exception of a clear guard-wall standing between the bottom fifty or so rows of stadium seats and the floor. Jet found herself thinking that the people in those seats could still see unobstructed kills, even from the highest part of the stadium.
She fought to shake that thought off, too.
Laksri said he would survive this. He’d all but promised her.
Anaze reached the opening in the wall.
Jet remembered the two of them in the pits, hanging out in the forest, talking about what it would take to make a real rebellion work, much less a government following the fighting itself. Thinking back on it now, she even remembered him musing about partnering with oppositional factions among the Nirreth. She’d laughed it off at the time, sure he’d been joking, but looking back on those conversations, she couldn’t help seeing that he’d been trying ideas out on her.
He’d also likely been trying to decide how much he could tell her.
He’d talked to her about governorships of various kinds, of Green Zone type arrangements (although she hadn’t known enough about the Green Zones at the time to know that’s what he’d meant), about centralized authorities versus collectivities of local governments, like what the old tribes used to have. Jet remembered being impressed by how much Anaze knew about all of those complicated issues and governing models. He’d talked like he’d been reading books on different forms of government since he was a kid.
Knowing what she knew now, she wondered if he had.
Maybe Anaze really had been trying to reach out to her, to share his ideas as much as test her beliefs. Maybe he really had tried to be her friend.
The more Jet remembered that person, and what she’d thought she knew about him then, the more she realized her assessment of him hadn’t been as far off as she’d thought. She’d revised every opinion of him she’d ever had when she learned his true identity in the Green Zone, especially when she found out Richter was his father.
Now, she found herself revising it back.
She glanced at Laksri, even as her eyes swam back into focus.
His eyes remained on her face, a frown touching his dark, sculpted lips.
She saw his worry, and realized she also felt it through his skin. He didn’t want to see Anaze die any more than she did. He also seemed to be admitting to her, without saying it aloud, what a real possibility that was, despite his assurances to her before.
Feeling her throat tighten as the realization sank in, Jet again followed his gaze back to the monitor, focusing on the image of Anaze standing there, at the edge of the stone-walled arena.
She had time to think how small he looked, compared the Nirreth walking beside him.
...Then his feet crossed the line that ended just past that wall.
Immediately, the virtual net kicked in, filling her eyes, nerves and ears.
Jet had never been on the other side of the Rings before, much less in a private, virtually-equipped sense-booth like this one.
Laksri had warned her that it would be intense, almost like running in the Rings herself.
Even so, the change managed to catch her completely off-guard. The sound of the venom-stoned Nirreth and his equally stoned and horny human friend cut off in mid-stream, as if someone had turned off a radio.
The glass window and the monitor vanished.
Jet found herself still seated, but oddly unaware of her own body, which she also couldn’t see, or get a handle on really, other than to feel that she hadn’t moved. Rather than being at Anaze’s eye-level, Jet found she hovered in the air somewhere just above him, looking down at him through the trees, her view unobstructed despite the odd angle.
Anaze appeared to be looking around, too, taking in his new location.
Jet didn’t recognize where he stood from any of her own runs in the Rings, nor from any of her studies on Nirreth-colonized worlds...nor even from any of Chiyeko’s books back at the pits. The place bore some resemblance to an ancient hi
story video she’d once seen about Astet. It didn’t look exactly the same though, and Jet found herself thinking she didn’t know enough to be able to say one way or the other.
Anyway, the pullers certainly weren’t above creating purely fictional environments, so trying to ID the exact location was likely pointless. Jet couldn’t be sure if it would help him to know the precise virtual setting for his planned torture and murder anyway, and she couldn’t communicate with him even if she figured it out.
It wasn’t like back home, where he had a prayer of winning this thing.
Still, Jet didn’t get the feeling this place was purely fictional.
In fact, something about it struck her as almost familiar, even though she was positive she’d never done a run here herself.
She’d forgotten Laksri sat beside her, touching her, until he spoke.
“You are right,” he said, from somewhere next to her. “It is not purely fictional. Nor is it prehistory. This is present day. It is the wildlife refuge of Green Zone Ubati, on Earth.”
Pausing, he met Jet’s gaze, his eyes faintly outlined in the virtual landscape.
“You have never been there before, Jet, but it takes up the entire land-mass of the largest of the Green Zones created on Earth. Much of it is reserved as a natural setting for the non-human indigenous life forms that still exist on your world. It was thought they could be used to re-populate species, following the environmental repair.”
Laksri paused, then added in a flatter voice,
“It is also where the spiritual branch of the Royal family lives, Jet,” he added. “The Shinkara live in Ubati...those who are said to be directly descended from our gods. The Shinkara do not rule on the secular plane. However, they still technically wield power over the ultimate fate of the Nirreth Empire. They do not generally exercise this power, or intervene in the making of laws, the governing of bodies or the use of the military.”
“Why not?” Jet said, still watching Anaze.
Laksri smiled faintly in the virtual landscape, like the Cheshire Cat.
“They would say...it is not their place,” he said, softer. “But, as I said, they are the ultimate decision-makers for our people. They wield a power that has never been questioned, nor stolen, nor couped...not once in the history of our civilization. The Shinkara last exercised that power over three hundred of your Earth years ago, to remove a government that they felt would set the history of the Nirreth on a course so dangerous that it threatened the survival of the very species.”
Laksri let out a purring sigh and shrugged.
“...Once that branch of the Royals had been excised, they returned to their reclusive ways. The Shinkara have since stayed out of all factional struggles among our people. More recently, there have been attempts to involve them from the various factions...as well as appeals to get them to speak as to which branch of the family they feel is most fit to rule for the better future of our people. There are many who would like the Shinkara to name the rightful rulers of the Nirreth, but so far they have refused to answer such pleas.”
Jet nodded, but felt a kind of uneasiness steal over her as she stared around at the land stretched before Anaze.
She’d heard of the Shinkara...vaguely.
As part of her assimilation classes, Jet had been forced to study Nirreth history, at least in broad brush-strokes. She remembered reading about the intervention Laksri just mentioned, as well as its aftermath, when that branch of the Royals got removed from the family tree. Jet remembered reading about the mysteriousness of the Shinkara themselves, and how little even the Nirreth seemed to know about them.
They worshipped the Shinkara, though.
No one passed one of the monuments of the Shinkara without pausing to pay respect.
It was one of the few quasi-religious expressions that Jet found completely consistent across all Nirreth, no matter what caste or family. Even Laksri did not question the supposedly holy nature of the Shinkara. No one even knew what they looked like. Supposedly, their appearance differed from that of the vast majority of regular Nirreth.
None of that alleviated the sick feeling pooling in Jet’s stomach.
“This is going to be like my first run, isn’t it?” she muttered. Turning, she looked in the direction of Laksri, even though she couldn’t see him through the virtual net. “They’re going to have him go after a real target. They’re going to have him go after the Shinkara.”
Looking back at the jungle and Anaze, Jet felt her nausea worsen.
“It’ll be an excuse to tear him apart,” she added under her breath. “It’ll be the excuse to rip him to shreds before they kill him.”
Laksri didn’t answer.
Then again, he didn’t really need to.
Dense jungle surrounded Anaze.
He’d been walking for at least a half-hour, but the environment hadn’t noticeably changed.
Jet could see his eyes well enough to know he hadn’t figured out where they had him, not yet. Even as she thought it, he looked down, examining his clothes, which Jet realized she’d forgotten to look at as well. Instead of the black sense-suit, he now wore camouflage pants, dark to blend with the tree trunks and shadows. He also wore a gun belt, and a black tank top.
A second weapons belt looped around one shoulder. Holsters strapped a gun to his right thigh and also a longer rifle to his back, as well as at least one knife.
He also wore a headset, black gloves, and a coil of wire-like rope on the gunbelt that made Jet think they’d have him rappelling down something, too.
Or maybe up something. Like the walls to the Shinkara’s compound, maybe.
Anaze touched the headset without slowing his strides through the dense underbrush. The audio came through the virtual feed, almost as if from inside Jet’s own head.
“...How close are you?” a voice asked him in English, distinctly human.
“I don’t know,” Anaze said, hardly missing a beat.
“Can you see the perimeter markings?”
“No.” He continued to walk. “Wait...yes.”
Jet’s eyes followed Anaze’s gaze. In seconds, she saw it, a dark metal projection protruding from what she’d dismissed as another tree.
She could see now that it was a disguised fence line.
“Yes,” Anaze repeated. “I see it. Do I proceed?”
“Yes. We couldn’t disable this one, so we know the field is on. Find a way through, then contact us again. We’ll guide you the rest of the way in.”
“Understood,” Anaze said, his voice still matter of fact. “How much time do I have?”
“None,” the voice said grimly.
“Copy,” Anaze said, even as his hand dropped from the headset.
Again, Jet found herself watching him, as if remembering who he was.
How had she ever believed he could be just another pawn of Richter’s? The Anaze she’d known at the pits was definitely his own person. She’d forgotten that, too, somehow, in the months since she’d been culled.
Anaze approached the line of the fence, his face concentrated.
His eyes first went to where Jet’s own probably would have gone...to the surrounding trees. He was looking to see if he could get over the fence that way, by dropping over if he got high enough to jump from one tree to the next. Unfortunately, Jet didn’t see any trees spaced close enough to serve that purpose.
Anaze must not have, either, because Jet saw him frown. His eyes followed the length of the fence’s line, visible now that he stood at the correct angle to the post. Nothing grew where the energy field lived, leaving an oddly straight line through the dense jungle, invisible until one stood almost directly on top of it.
Jet found herself wondering why Anaze was playing along.
True, he didn’t have any good choices, no matter what he did. But why give them their show, when he could just as easily stand there, force them shoot him where he stood?
“They have ways of getting you to cooperate, Jet,” Laksri sa
id from next to her.
“Like what?” Jet muttered.
Laksri didn’t answer at first. Then she heard him give a purring kind of sigh.
“I did the same,” he said. “I ran for them.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“Because it was that, or stand there while they cut off my sister’s fingers, one by one. Then her toes...then her feet...”
Jet felt her sickness worsen. “Okay. Stop. I get it.”
She felt Laksri’s fingers on her arm, although she couldn’t see them. His voice grew lower, and she felt his breath against her ear.
“Jet,” he said to her softly. “It will not be easy, to watch this. You don’t have to be here for it. No one would think less of you if you left.”
“I thought I did,” she said, feeling her arms tense. “...Have to be here for it, I mean.”
Laksri made a vague noise in the back of his throat, vibrating her ear. “I can work around it. Leave, if you do not wish to witness this. I mean it, Jet.”
Thinking about his offer for another few seconds, she shook her head, reaching over to grip his leg, although she couldn’t see that, either.
“No,” she said. “Thanks, but no. I’ll stay.”
Laksri made another soft sound, kind of a suit yourself in Nirreth.
She could tell her decision saddened him, though.
Jet’s eyes were back on Anaze, who was walking up to the metal, tree-like fence post, staring up at the transformer atop a higher branch. The metal and glass bulb stood at least ten meters off the ground. The manmade “tree” wasn’t shaped in a way that invited climbing, either, even if Jet didn’t suspect it would be suicide to try it.
The thing was probably electrified.
After another pause, Anaze shrugged, pulling the rifle off his back and aiming it up at the transformer. Jet immediately tensed. If he shot that thing out, he’d have every security guard in the complex after him. She remembered what the guy on the headset told him about time though, and realized that Anaze’s approach actually made a lot of sense.
Trying to get too clever would likely just prolong the inevitable.
Anaze squeezed off a shot, even as she thought it.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 62