by M. E. Thorne
Shoved in a corner, I was chained to a pipe, the bag still over my head. There was always a guard standing over me. If I so much as twitched or adjusted my position I was given a swift kick or blow to put me back in line.
Everything hurt. My leg throbbed constantly, along with the dozens of bruises I had picked up.
“What should we do with him, sir?” one of the guards asked after I had been left sitting for a while.
“Throw him in a sample crate,” Valash ordered, sounding distracted. “Load him into my car, along with the rest of the samples.”
“Sir, we just got a call from the black site commander, requesting orders,” yelled someone on the other side of the room.
“Tell him to remain on alert, but take no action,” Valash answered, after thinking for a moment. “There’s no need for us to play that trump card now, as long as they haven’t been detected by the State. We can maintain a presence on this shit hole of a planet even if we’re forced to abandon the spaceport and embassy.”
Shortly thereafter I was manhandled into some kind of plastic crate. I had barely been tossed inside before someone hammered and sealed the lid, trapping me inside. The crate was carried on some sort of dolly, down a long hallway and up a long ramp, before I was unceremoniously dumped on a floor.
Feeling about, I could tell my prison was small, with barely enough room for me to hunch over and press my back against the sides. Someone had stripped me of my boots, belt, and tools.
My hands and ankles were still bound, but I was able to at least move and wiggle about. I hadn’t been restrained with zip ties, but rather copious amounts of duct tape. Clearly these morons haven’t had to tie up prisoners before.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, my bound wrists by my shins. Pushing my knees forward, I felt the tape strain and eventually it began to tear. It hurt like hell, but I kept going. A bit more effort and my bonds snapped apart. After that, it was easy to pull off the bag and get my ankles free.
Not that I had anywhere to go. The crate was tiny, featuring clear plastic walls, and a few holes that had been drilled into one side to let air in. I twisted about and tried kicking my way out, but all I did was aggravate my wounded leg.
Looking outside of the crate, I saw I was in some sort of tramcar, but far larger than any I’d seen before. There were other empty, plastic crates lined up to my left. To my right were cardboard boxes, just like the ones the Syndicate soldiers had been carrying out of the Honormark facility. Across the aisle from me was a lab bench, piled with vials, sealed flasks, and several strange devices that I couldn’t identify. The vials were full of what I could only assume was my blood and tissue samples. The windows only revealed grimy, concrete walls.
I looked back towards the table, squinting and trying to figure out what the machines were for, but came up with nothing. They were old and had been haphazardly repaired and refurbished.
I felt the car rumble as we began moving. A muffled cheer came from the riders in the forward cars.
“You must be having a rotten day,” someone chuckled as they entered the car.
Twisting around, I watched as Valash approached. He was still using the red sash as an improvised sling, and under his faceplate, I could see his neck was bruised black and blue.
“Fuck you,” I said, my mouth feeling sandy and dry.
He laughed again and grabbed a bottle with a metal nozzle from a nearby shelf. He stuck the straw through one of the air holes.
Burning with outrage, I leaned over and took a drink. The water tasted like rust and mold, but I was so thirsty I didn’t care. The condescending look Valash gave me almost made me want to spit it up.
“You freaks gave us a lot of problems,” he said, taking a seat on a stool attached to the lab table. He spun it around so he could sit and look down at me.
“You’re dead meat,” I growled. “As soon as the State finds out what you did, they’re going to kick all you assholes off this planet.”
“By the time they figure out what happened I’ll be long gone,” he answered confidently. “We’re heading to the spaceport using this secret rail system, one that the State doesn’t even know exists. How do you think we got around this shithole planet so quickly? Took us years to fix it up, but it was worth it.”
The implications were staggering. A secret rail system? Is it part of the tram tunnels Marcella mentioned? How far does it go? With a hidden tramline, the Syndicate’s reach was far wider and more invasive than we could have ever expected. How long have they been here, working against us like this?
Valash chuckled, reading my dismay. “But don’t worry, I’ll be back to finish off your freak friends. And that traitor, Sabra.”
He leaned in close. “But you won’t have to worry about any of that, you’ll be long since dead. We have a nice dissection lab on my ship. I called ahead and told them to prepare for a new subject.”
I leaned back against the wall of my prison, glaring wordlessly.
He just laughed again at that. “You don’t even know how you lost, do you? Thought you were so damn smart, a bunch of idiot animals running blind.”
I crossed my arms across my chest. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you think we tracked you? You were on your home turf, running scared, but we caught you just the same.”
Sabra didn’t warn me how much this jackass likes to boast, I fumed internally. Maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll talk me to death.
Reaching over, Valash picked up one of the odd machines. It kind of looked like a streamlined sniffer, a box with a receptacle at the base and a series of tubes and nozzles at the other end. It had been repaired with duct tape and poorly soldered wires. “Any idea what this is?”
“An air freshener?” I said sarcastically.
“A DNA tracker,” he proudly proclaimed. “A relic of the Corporation Wars. Assassins would use this to track down their targets. With one of these, you can follow a man across an entire planet." He reached over and pulled a vial full of red-brown liquid off the tabletop. “All you need is a blood sample.”
My hand twitched towards my wounded leg. He gave me a huge, vicious smile.
“I’m glad I followed my gut instinct and swabbed your DNA off my knife. You probably have no idea what you’ve become, do you?" He greedily looked at me. “Adaptive reproductive capabilities far beyond anything our scientists have ever seen. I bet if you stuck your dick into a blow-up doll you could get it pregnant.”
“And you practically left a trail through The Stacks,” he mocked me. “Every drop of blood was a signpost showing where you went.”
“That’s how we found you and your fungal friends. Thanks for that, by the way, you also gave us a chance to test out one of our new toys.” He patted another one of the strange devices, one that featured a bell-shaped nozzle and a large, liquid reservoir tank. “The antifungal spray was very efficient, it blinded those slug freaks long enough for us to blow them apart.”
“How long have you been stealing from us,” I spat.
“You can’t steal from animals,” he said. “Despite whatever crap Sabra might have told you, the SADB has been picking this place clean for years. We kept her and the other cowards in the dark while we did what needed to be done, saving the human race.”
“We’re not the monsters here.”
He just shook his head and got back up. “It doesn’t matter what you say at this point. I won, you lost. My story goes on, and yours will end shortly and on a particularly appalling note.”
Exiting the tramcar, he left me with dark, brooding thoughts and the desperate urge to get up and pace.
Half-an-hour later, a dirty, flickering light began seeping through the tram windows. We had been steadily climbing the entire time, my ears popping from the change in pressure.
The tunnel walls suddenly fell away, and I saw the planet’s surface for the first time in my life. It was horrifying.
The tram tracks emerged into a
blasted landscape, dominated by destroyed buildings, toppled skyscrapers, and the rusted hulks of forgotten war machines. Bleached bones were scattered across crumbling piles of concrete and steel.
Almost everything had been leveled flat, only a few desolate structures stood above the wreckage. Nearby, a huge, angular shape, which I could only assume to be a spaceship, rotted amongst the remains of the buildings it had pulverized as it had crashed.
Does their hidden tramline run on the surface? No wonder the State never found it, only the mad and the desperate come up here.
The roiling storm clouds, brown, black, and gray, hung low overhead. The occasional spark and flash of purple lightning could be seen within their boiling depths. If the sun was out, I couldn’t see it. Not even a single beam of sunlight could break through the choking murk.
I stared but didn’t see a single living thing, not even a bit of mold or a shambling mutant. Everything was still, gray, and dead. The place was truly an endless graveyard. A cold, shivering feeling slipped through my spirit.
“As I said, a shit-hole planet,” Valash burped, as he wobbled back into the car and flopped down onto the stool.
I was incredulous. “Are you drunk?”
He burped again. “You’d be surprised what you can get through the suit's nutrient system. I figured me and my guys deserved a chance to celebrate, we’ve got away scot-free!”
“You make me sick,” I scowled, hunching over in my cage.
He just laughed and got up to kick the crate, sending me skidding a few feet. “You feel sick? I’m just imagining a future, where perfect, healthy Syndicate children are born thanks to the fruits harvested from your loins. That makes me sick. A freak like you will inadvertently be the savior of mankind.”
“I’m more than happy to pass upon that honor,” I deadpanned.
“Maybe if I’m not too hungover, I’ll let them shoot you in the head before they begin the dissection,” he rumbled, his good-natured drunkenness giving way to his true malice. “Better try and get --”
His last words were cut off. The tram's emergency breaks kicked in, sending the car’s contents flying. My crate slid into the empty plastic cages. I bashed my head against the crate wall and saw stars.
Valash was sent to his knees, his wounded arm cracking against the floor. His face went slack and pale as the pain rocked him. Though my head and leg were killing me, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching him suffer as well.
“What the fuck happened?” he yelled through gritted teeth as he tried to get up.
“The track’s out,” came a soldier’s response from the tram’s announcement system.
“Blocked?" He looked baffled.
“No, Sir, the bridge ahead collapsed. Looks like part of The Stacks underneath gave away,” the soldier replied.
I laughed hollowly. “You probably caused it yourself when you decided to do all that explosive remodeling down below.”
“Listen up,” Valash called, his voice echoing through the tram’s loud-speaker. “The party is over! Drop the booze and administer yourself a combat cocktail, I want everyone sober and sharp in ten minutes!"
He reached toward his collar and toggled something under his suit. He shuddered and twitched as he injected himself. Whatever it was, it left him sweaty and feverish-looking.
“Can we turn this thing around?” he called through his radio, his voice thin and strained.
“Yes, sir, it’ll take us a few minutes, but we can reverse the tram,” came the response.
He thought for a moment. “We’ll have to take the fork we passed five kilometers back.”
“The underground route?” the conductor sounded uncertain. “Sir, that will add another five hours to our trip.”
“Unless you can build a damn bridge or want to walk to the spaceport, I suggest you get us moving." He had gone livid with rage.
“Must be hard being the boss,” I commented.
The teeth-rattling kick he delivered to my cage was worth it.
Chapter 20
Riding the tram in reverse proved to be just as distressing as riding it going forward.
Looking out the windows at the blasted hellscape was bad enough. Valash marching up and down the tram was worse. Apparently he liked to pace just as much as I did; he never stopped moving. His voice grew hoarse from yelling orders and making threats.
He took his anger out on me whenever he passed, kicking and flipping over my tiny prison.
Now I know how it feels to go through a clothes dryer, I bitterly mused as I counted the number of bruises I’d earned myself. At least my leg wound hasn’t opened back up.
“We’re almost to the fork, sir,” a soldier came into the car. “It’ll take at least thirty minutes to switch the tracks.”
Valash cursed the man out, then turned and glared at me. “I’ve changed my mind, we’ll go with vivisection instead. I’ll have them start cutting you up while you’re still alive.”
I pressed my head against the walls of my plastic cage and hoped my friends would come to save me.
When I next opened my eyes, the tramcar was empty. Night, or what passed for it on the surface, had fallen. The sky had somehow gone darker, and pitch-black shadows covered the landscape.
The tram was moving slowly, the rails beneath us uneven and poorly maintained. Everything shuddered and bounced.
I made another attempt to kick my way out of my cage, but it was just as futile as the first. A patrol of strung out-looking soldiers came through the car. They appeared jittery and exhausted. The combat cocktails Valash has been ordering was no replacement for sleep. I just hope one of the stupid bastards has a walking nightmare and shoots up the place.
The tram eventually slowed down and came to a stop. I could hear more soldiers clomping about and Valash hollering orders somewhere towards the engine. Unable to see what was happening, I did my best to listen and hear what they were saying.
“No way, no way!” someone screamed.
“That place is a deathtrap,” another soldier objected.
“We’re going, and that’s final,” came Valash’s strained voice. “It’s the only way to the spaceport. Clear the tracks. And I want everyone armed and ready to fight. Double your dosage!”
There was more arguing, but I wasn’t able to pick out individual voices. Finally, the tram started moving forward again, and I watched as we slowly entered a tunnel.
The walls were crumbling, metal rebar peeked through the decaying concrete. Several times we were forced to stop and soldiers disembarked. I guessed they were clearing more rubble off the tracks or fixing broken rails so the tram could keep moving.
Not once did Valash come in and check on me. His hands were full trying to keep his increasingly anxious and delirious troops on guard.
I was on the edge of dozing off again when I was snapped to wakefulness by a burst of gunfire. I saw erratic light beams bounce off the tunnel walls as soldiers ran outside, screaming and panicking.
“Monsters, monsters!” one of them yelled as he ran past a window.
I bent my neck, trying to see what was happening, hoping my friends had arrived, but I couldn’t see anything.
“Get back on the damn tram,” Valash hollered. “Full speed ahead, we’re not stopping for anything!”