“Hammond-8 has a weakness for her civvies,” Palmer answers before Murphy can. “Me, I’m not giving up room space for low-score sympathy cases. Not unless they’re good for rec-time.” He turns to Murphy with a cruel leer. “Speaking of: Don’t forget you owe me one of yours. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to give her back in a couple of days.”
Murphy still doesn’t bother to acknowledge the debt.
“The mother was trying to keep her children away from their assigned barracks,” Murphy feels the need to explain. “The secondary recyclers sometimes get contaminated with viruses that are hard to clear—it’s a risk of communal living. Hammond let her stay because of her infant, earn her keep with cooking and cleaning.”
“And now?” I want to know (or at least want them to think about it).
“The virus has probably passed,” he isn’t convincing.
“I’d consider taking them myself, but the daughter’s too kiddy and I hear the mom is too loose, just lays there,” Palmer stays selfish and perverse. “And nobody brings a baby into my space, no matter how obedient they are.”
“The Protecteds are happy to serve,” Murphy seems to need to tell me, however unconvincingly, when he sees the look on my face.
“Sometimes a set of tasty holes is all they’ve got that keeps them from Casting,” Palmer devalues.
“And Gardener approves?” I wonder.
“Morale is important,” Palmer defends testily. “And without us, they’d all be Cast by now. Then raped, tortured, dead and eaten, in whatever order and combination amuses, because they’re too sorry to make it as Cast. Too weak. Too spoiled. They’d barely make an hour’s good entertainment for those animals outside, even if they have a nice scream. Now enjoy an H-K bed. Just bathe first—you stink of dust and Cast.”
Murphy almost looks like he’s going to apologize for his partner, but he just steps out with him, and they lock me in.
I use my solitude to delve deeper into Gardener and the history of the colony. Despite the relatively luxury of my prison, I’m not sure I can accept the cost.
Gardener is a meticulous record keeper. Almost twelve hundred residents have been “Cast” over the decades. Given the estimated population of the Cast, Palmer’s statements about the fates of those sent outside may be accurate. I think about all the bones that adorn the Lower Dome: enough to build mounds, pave pathways, and still have enough left for jewelry (and I’ve only seen the barest fraction of the Lower Dome). Unless they’ve had a large number of unlucky visitors or failed invaders, the remains are probably majority colony residents, forced outside at gunpoint when their scores deemed them more burden than asset, which happens any time the population grows past a sustainability threshold or systems degrade and lower that threshold.
I wonder how much H-K’s like Palmer get to influence the value of their charges, based on how well they serve them sexually.
I am torn as to what to do. And I am disturbed by the power I could wield over this place. I could destroy their cruel utopia: disable Gardener, disarm the H-K, let the Protected decide what happens next (assuming they wouldn’t just restore what I undo out of fear of the alternative). I could stay and enforce my own will over them, replace Gardener and the H-K with a benevolent god. I could even force a peace with the Cast. Make them into an army capable of resisting UNMAC and Chang. Save lives.
Become another Chang.
It strikes me: Chang is trying to prevent a hell where almost everyone has godlike power. What he’s created is a world where a select few have that power, set free to wield it over everyone else who doesn’t.
I’ve been here maybe an hour. In the first few minutes, I was already thinking about using my power to force these people to comply with my own ideals. And the impulse keeps eating at me. I want to fix this place, save these people from themselves. (And I do want to punish at least a few of them.)
Is that the kind of god I’m going to be?
No. I can’t even think that way. I can’t afford to.
But I’ve spent my life judging (and too often executing). And now I have less limits and more power.
I obsess on Gardener’s records: Fifty years of helpless people thrown outside, likely to horrible fates (as Palmer almost-gleefully detailed). Sanctioned hunts to cull the competing Cast population like so many wild pests.
(Two Gun had two precious H-K weapons and ammo, and part of a uniform. Mak had an H-K jacket. I expect I know what they had to do to earn them. I find no fewer than thirty H-K listed as killed in the line of duty. But I also see the hunts bring by far the highest point awards. Some of the currently serving H-K have killed dozens of Cast. Palmer-6 is particularly high ranking in that regard, but Murphy-7 isn’t far behind.)
I make myself “unplug” from the records of atrocity and try to let go, find some serenity in my borrowed surroundings, maybe some insight into the humanity of these professional murderers.
Hammond’s quarters are neat and sparse, not many belongings on display. Clothing in her cabinets consist of plain workwear, workout wear and two more H-K uniforms. She has another pair of tactical boots that look like they’ve been re-soled at least once, and simple slippers. There are a few simple wire and scrap sculptures that could have been made by a child, but there’s some definite talent—I wonder if she made them or if they were gifts from her charges.
As I’m banging around like a bad thief, I kick loose a panel at the base of her bed, find and old diamond necklace and what looks like a wedding ring—family heirlooms?—along with a threadbare stuffed frog with abraded plastic eyes. I hide her secret treasures back away.
I plug back into Gardener—I really can’t help myself—and take my curiosity into personnel files. There are three other Hammonds currently serving (though Hammond-9 is a ten year old boy still listed as a “cadet”). Hammonds 1-6 are deceased. Three are listed as killed in the line of duty. Two others list cause of death as “voluntary self termination”. The remaining—Hammond-1—was a “self-Cast”.
I count a total of ten H-K family lines, all dating back to the original Hammond-Keller personnel. Forty-nine currently serve, with another ten in training and just the one—Dory—in jeopardy because of her injury.
I hack into the sentry cameras, find her in Medical. She’s out, but breathing on her own. A drainage tube is coming out of her right breast. The family that got booted from here is visiting her, sitting in silent vigil.
I decide to take Palmer’s “suggestion” and risk a shower. It’s only the second time I’ve been naked—out of my morphic armor—since I awoke converted, and the first time I actually have time to appreciate the almost plastic-perfection on my new body. It’s my size, roughly my skeletal proportions—it even has my percentage of bodily hair (all dark now—no more gray)—but it feels too alien to be me. There isn’t a single scar. The pale skin is completely unblemished (like plastic). And the muscle tone makes me look like some kind of underwear model.
Just to reduce my sense of humanity further: Even though I’ve been sealed up in my armor for days, and haven’t bathed since before I “died” (which was months ago), I have no odor. No sweat or oil or grime. (I can’t even smell anything of Lisa on me—just one more thing to remind me she’s gone.) The only thing I’m washing off is residual surface dust, which I could probably just absorb and recycle into raw materials. And when I’m finished, I watch the water get soaked up by my pores. I’m dry in a matter of seconds. I don’t even have to comb my stupid hair—it seems to do that all by itself.
My armor is equally clean when I decide it’s best to stay dressed just in case another quick retreat is in order.
I go to Hammond’s kitchenette, find a metal cup and pour myself a glass of pure, cold water. Then six more. Just to drink like a human being.
Then I get tired of sitting around.
“How did you get here?” is how Murphy-7 says hello when I show up at his hatch. His question appears to answer itself, and he opens the hatch wider to usher me in
. “Never mind. Just get in before someone sees you.”
No one did. Gardener still has the domes on curfew. The absence of human guards is either a statement of their confidence in Gardener keeping watch over me, or Gardener ordering them away from me on purpose. (Just in case I’m contagious? Or to see what I would do given opportunity to roam?)
And it was a short, quick trip: the H-K quarters are all in the Upper Dome, on the upper decks, like they’re looking down on everybody else.
“Not worried about losing points?” I have to question the potential cost of his invitation.
“I’m assuming Gardener knows where you are.”
“More or less.”
Murphy’s quarters are mostly identical to Hammond’s. And he’s got his own “family”: I get greeted warily by a lean dark-haired woman in her thirties, another rounder redhead maybe a few years younger, a young girl likely in her tweens that looks related to the redhead, and a boy that bears a resemblance to Murphy. The redhead and the girl are dressed in worn light gray jumpsuits, the other woman and the boy wear black tunics and fatigue-style pants.
“Protecteds?” I wonder out loud.
“Kim, my wife,” he introduces the dark woman, who only glares at my intrusion (possibly expecting I will be a threat to her husband’s score). “Ara and Kara are mother and daughter. Ara works food processing. Kara is in school, training to work the gardens. They help cook and clean for mat-space. And this is my son James. Murphy-8, if he keeps up his scores.” The boy looks equally suspicious of me, but forces a grin for his father’s benefit. “Ara’s husband is still on shift,” he seems to feel the need to add, as if I had designs on her. (And I remember Palmer wanted the use of her daughter, in spite of—or because of—her youth.)
I realize I smell food.
“Are you hungry?” he invites, then considers: “Sorry. Maybe I should ask: Do you eat?”
“I do. Thank you.”
“Are you an Eternal?” the boy has the nerve to ask, as Murphy helps set out the meal (possibly to reassure his flat-mates).
“No. But I have some friends that are.” Then I subtly interrogate: “Have the ETE visited before?”
“Not in a long time,” his father demonstrates his good hearing. “My grandfather’s day.”
“I take it things didn’t go well?” Gardener’s files are unusually vague on the subject. They record a few visits by ETE Turquoise Station in the first five years after the Apocalypse, and again a decade later, then no more.
“They wanted us to stop Casting. But they didn’t give us an alternative. They couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help fix our systems. They expected us all to starve and suffocate, huddled in too small a space. They even wanted us to take in Siders. They never offered to take us in, into their Stations.”
Old bitterness still clings to the generations. Though I expect the tale is a bit one-sided, I’m not doubting the ETE’s trademark idealistic arrogance.
“There was violence?” I ask about the special ammo.
“First time, we just pointed guns and they left. I think they were surprised the Cast rejected them as much as we did, but then they wouldn’t offer the Cast any help beyond simply asking us to take them back inside. But when they came back many years later to make the same demands, they wouldn’t leave, not right away. It took Cast spears and our bullets to convince them. But they didn’t die. They were hurt, but they shook off their wounds.”
“I expect that was pretty disturbing.”
“I can only imagine—I’ve only heard old mealtime stories and seen fuzzy video during my training days, but then I’ve just seen you erase a pair of head shots. Those early encounters gave us warning about what was out there. Thankfully, the Eternals apparently didn’t like getting shot and stabbed, and didn’t come back a third time. And all the Siders that came since bleed and die normally.”
“Until me. Did you think I was ETE?”
He chuckles under his breath. “You came in like one of them: Stupid fearless. But you fought—fought some of the Cast Boss-Fighters, and they won’t even show out of the green unless you show you’re worth taking. The Eternals never fought—couldn’t or wouldn’t—just looked down on us like we were animals. They had no idea what we suffered, what choices we made and why, they just told us what they thought we should do, how they thought we should live. You’re not like them. It’s like you know.”
I’m glad I at least manage the impression of acceptance.
“So we get to hold off on the shooting and stabbing?”
“I guess we’ll see,” he seems to appreciate my humor. “Food time. Sit.”
The meal is surprisingly Earthlike, more so than I’ve had even before the Apocalypse: There’s homemade pasta and real tomato sauce, fried tofu, steamed squash, and some kind of blended fruit juice. It’s a sparse meal, but there’s enough for all (though I still feel bad about taking a share of it—still, I expect it would be worse to decline the hospitality). Ara and Kara take their meals to their corner of the living room, and eat sitting on the floor—either I’ve taken their spot at the table or there’s some caste separation going on (but I heard no discussion of eating re-arrangements). I don’t ask, and it goes unexplained, as if taken for granted.
Murphy’s “family” slowly seems to begin relaxing around me. His son starts asking the questions of a child’s wonder: about my sword, my gun, my armor, what won’t hurt me. Apparently he rates me “Prime Score”.
I’m told the produce is all grown in the domes, though the grain sometimes requires harvest runs outside. The pasta and tofu are indeed hand-made. I get the impression the meal isn’t a typical one for all colony residents, and Murphy’s wife confirms that processed foodstuffs—much of it waste recycle—are the usual staple, especially for the workers not directly involved in gardening. But there are communal feast days at the Town Hall.
I’m praising the cooks and offering to help clean up (something that earns me an eyebrow-raise from Murphy) when the hatch opens unexpectedly. Palmer and two other H-Ks are in the doorway.
“Cozy,” Palmer almost purrs.
“You could ding before popping,” Murphy criticizes his entrance. I notice Ara and Kara have edged themselves as far away from the door as they can without actually hiding in the bedroom.
“He could have been eating you, for all I knew. He can talk to Gardener. Maybe he can fake security feed.” He doesn’t try to make his concern sound authentic. “Besides, I have a debt to collect, and rec-time to enjoy it.”
“I don’t owe you, Sam,” Murphy calmly defies him, sounding like this isn’t the first time he’s had this argument. “Gardener ordered the mission change. You didn’t argue the new target. Gardener cost you your trophies. Maybe you should petition for a credit.”
“Maybe I should call for a Casting review.” I realize he’s looking at me as he says this, like he’s daring me—not Murphy—to stand up to him. “We have another body sucking resources, and Hammond-8 on Medical. I bet that puts us over Threshold. And your little toy isn’t doing too well in her performance evals.”
Ara reflexively grabs her daughter and holds her close. Kara looks paralyzed with fear. I get a fresh sense of how terrifying the designated guns of the colony’s AI must be to the rest of the population.
Palmer moves toward them, and I do what he wants: I step in his way.
“I could just leave,” I tell him levelly.
“Gardener says you’re an asset. Prime Score.” He grins at me, trying to egg a stronger reaction. But then Murphy steps between us.
“Go away, Sam. Call your review. Let Gardener calculate.”
Palmer stands his ground for a bit, still smiling, then backs toward the hatch.
“Hmmm… Maybe Hammond will get picked instead. I’m worried she’ll never get her scores back up—it’s a nasty wound. I’ll be happy to give her Voluntary—better than what the Cast will do to her, especially since she’s already got the extra hole.”
“I’ll be sure
to pass your offer along, once she’s back up and ready for duty,” Murphy subtly threatens.
“Partners need to watch each other,” Palmer oozes back, then shuts the hatch behind him.
There’s a long heavy silence in the moments that follow. Ara is crying in a corner, holding her daughter. Kara’s gone pale, still shivering at the threat, the possible fates looming over her.
“Did I pass?” I grumble at Murphy.
“You played,” he gives me with a breath of relief, then confirms: “He wanted you to attack him, to prove you’re a threat.”
“Are you?” Kim confronts, also sounding shaken.
“I have no doubt I could destroy this colony and you wouldn’t be able to stop me,” I tell her honestly. “But that’s the last thing I want. I think Gardener knows that. Your friend Palmer-6, on the other hand, could be in real danger.”
“An attack on any H-K is an attack on Tranquility,” Murphy confirms my dilemma.
“He wants to see if I‘ll take enough offense at your way of life to impose my values on you by force,” I read it, confessing my own sin. “If I do, I’m your enemy.”
“Would you?” Murphy asks straight out.
“I don’t know,” I have to tell him. But I realize: These people have lived like this for generations, all their lives. This order is all they’ve ever known. “I haven’t decided.”
Kim is visibly fuming at my arrogance—how dare I judge them?—but holds her tongue.
“Kara, could you make us some tea, please?”
Murphy’s request is polite and ordinary. It gets the girl—and her mother—moving again.
Murphy offers me a seat in what’s arranged as a conversation pit of chairs and sofas (the latter perhaps doubling for beds for his Protecteds). Sits across from me. His wife and son join us, looking like they’re preparing to hear bad news. What I get is a history lesson:
The God Mars Book Three: The Devil You Are Page 10