The two pilots conversed on their comm. system about flying procedures. The fact that Zania understood their exchange told her the Collectors hadn’t turned off her universal translator. It would make things easier on the surface. But she wondered whether or not they could still hear her thoughts and locate her. She hoped they didn’t monitor her anymore. After all, they’d transferred her property title.
Would her new owners be more understanding? Would they listen to her thoughts as well? Given the poor state of the shuttle, Zania doubted it.
"Have the Earth authorities detected us?" one pilot asked.
"Negative," a computer voice answered. "Keep to the corridor in the blind spot of their surveillance satellites."
Smugglers? Zania was being smuggled onto the planet? Why? The Collector mentioned that this Earth’s government prohibited violence. So her new masters must own some clandestine fight ring catering to pervert citizens. Charming.
Security would be tight in an illegal facility. Just perfect!
During the descent, Zania recognized the vast continent. Africa... North Africa. Where the Sahara desert should be, spread a sea of green. She had a glimpse of a white city in the distance. Small, cubic buildings, no more than two stories high, clung to the slopes of a mountain around a few larger structures. They glistened in sunlight at the edge of a deep blue lake. But Zania also noticed a shimmering dome of energy, like a shield over the city and the surrounding fields and waters. Protection against what?
All around the shield grew a thick forest, and the small craft headed for the canopy of trees. Zania had never seen so many huge trees. The craft slowed then plunged into the shadows of lush foliage and flew at low altitude between trunks and vines.
As the shuttle slowed and wove through the vegetation, flocks of brightly colored birds took flight. Snakes hung from branches, monkeys screamed and leapt away, throwing fruit at the vehicle. Zania understood why the small craft looked so beat up as it brushed against tree trunks on both sides, snagged hanging vines, or hit a slow bird.
Of course, smugglers wouldn’t land on an official pad. They’d hide under the dense forest canopy. Somehow, Zania hoped they would be detected by the satellites and get caught. The decent people of this planet would no doubt understand her plight and give her freedom. It seemed logical.
"Approaching facility," one of the pilots said. "No sign of detection."
Disappointed that they weren’t caught, Zania saw the guards relax and let out a relieved sigh. She realized they never uttered a word and wondered whether or not they could speak. Were they mute, or just very disciplined?
The craft came to a stop and hovered one meter above a concrete slab. The door opened and the guards leapt out first. The last one undid Zania’s chain but kept her in shackles. As she jumped off the craft, Zania wondered by what technology the craft just levitated without falling to the ground. Anti-gravity? The humidity and the heat of the jungle almost instantly drenched her skimpy blue dress. Insects buzzed around her head and crawlies crunched under her bare feet. The landing slab resembled the flat roof of an underground bunker.
A metal trap door in the slab slid open and the guards motioned Zania down a rusted ladder. She obliged, awkwardly, one rung at a time, her shackled wrists hindering her descent.
Inside the dark bunker, five meters underground, a heavy metal door slid opened on well oiled rails. As soon as she stepped through the doorway, the thick panel slammed shut behind her, leaving the guards on the other side. The clang of the locks reminded Zania of a maximum security prison. She glanced back but saw no evidence of a mechanism on the bare rock walls. The door must be remotely controlled. From where?
In front of her, three new guards, in similar gray leather and wielding prods, motioned her toward a tunnel. Zania hadn’t expected the facility to be underground. The dingy passages stunk of decay. Dimly lit by widely spaced sconces, like the tunnels of ancient mines, they dripped with dark water and sticky sap that gathered in black puddles and stuck to the sole of her feet. The walls, cracked by roots, looked centuries old. Small rodents scurried at their approach.
Down many steps going deeper underground, Zania trod along for half a mile or so. The room they finally entered didn’t fare any better. In her home world, this could have been the laird of sand demons. The guards chained her to a bench where she waited for what seemed like hours. All the while, documentaries ran on various screens on the walls, like posters in a recruitment office. But these warned against escaping.
As time passed, Zania’s hopes of regaining her freedom dwindled. According to the info clips, any human life sign outside the shielded city of Dagora was considered hostile and targeted for instant extinction by the satellites. No wonder the crew seemed relieved to have escaped detection.
The jungle thrived with hostile life forms, some of them resembling the big cats the Collector had mentioned. The documentary showed flayed corpses, and huge primitive tigers with long fangs feasting on the bloody carcasses. No one could survive alone in the wild. But Zania couldn’t trust propaganda. Given a chance, she would still escape, no matter the risks. Better to die free than to live in chains. Besides, Zania had good survival skills.
First, however, she had to train, regain her strength and stamina. She also must learn the truth about her surroundings. She suspected the fights happened somewhere in the city. She might find her opportunity to escape once inside the walls, then request asylum.
One documentary offering information on Dagora caught Zania’s attention. The citizens of this planet had no sympathy for violent elements, and any individual with violent genes was executed on sight by the armed robots defending the city. Could this be true? Zania’s last hopes collapsed. As a fighter, she would no doubt be considered a violent element.
Crushed, she told herself this could be false information, but the sinking feeling in her gut said that life on this planet might prove more difficult than she expected. Then again, any life was better than no life at all. Or was it?
*****
After freeing her from the bench, a guard gave Zania a bundle of brown leather clothes and let her carry it as he walked her through wider corridors, better lit but still dreary. Other guards in gray leather emerged from an adjacent tunnel and walked by, paying her no heed. By now Zania just wanted to sleep.
But when someone else came toward her along the corridor, she felt a quickening in her chest. Svend! When did he get here? He seemed fully recovered, no wonder if he’d faked his knock out.
Dressed in an open fur vest that revealed his muscled chest, like a Viking of old, he walked alone, unhurried, as if he owned the place. No guard accompanied him. Wasn’t he a prisoner, like her? He gave her a once over then smiled and winked at her. Embarrassed by his attention, Zania blushed, hoping the guard wouldn’t notice. Zvend didn’t say a word. Probably wouldn’t speak in front of the guard.
Zania would have liked to thank him but it wouldn’t be prudent. Somehow his lack of comment bothered Zania more than the idea of captivity. He was her only friend in this universe, the only one who had showed her kindness. And after saving her life, even he wouldn’t speak to her.
She glanced over her shoulder after he passed, but he didn’t look back. He had smiled, though. Somehow, his presence would make her detention more bearable.
The wide hallway branched into a labyrinth of narrow passages with right angle turns, and closed metal doors at regular intervals. Zania tried to count the turns but they were too many. She wondered how the guards could find their way in that dim sameness.
Sounds of women’s voices came from an open doorway. Above the door, a sign chimed and spoke. "Welcome to the Amazon’s quarters."
Amazons? It seemed appropriate. As soon as Zania entered the vast dormitory, she felt at home, like in a military camp. Curious faces came around the bunk beds to take a peek at the newcomer. The guard took away her shackles. Zania stuck the bundle under her arm to massage her wrists as the guard stepped back and wal
ked away.
"Zania?" A young woman, twenty something, with short red hair, clear green eyes and freckles, stared at her with surprise. "Zania? Is it really you?" A radiant smile lit up her face. She rushed to Zania, and enveloped her in a bear hug. "You let your hair grow?" she said between laughs. "I like it," she whispered suggestively in Zania’s ear. "You look absolutely gorgeous."
Confused, Zania didn’t have the energy to protest, but she felt uneasy about such familiarity.
The young woman, still holding Zania by the shoulders, exuded pure joy. "Hey, girls," she called to the women watching the exchange. "This is Zania, my girlfriend from the Andromeda sector! She comes from another Earth, a desert planet where she fought sand demons!"
Stunned, Zania couldn’t even speak. She’d never met the woman in her life.
Chapter Three
Still under the shock of being recognized, Zania sat on her bunk and remained silent, trying to make sense of the information. How could this freckled fox know so much about her? Could the spunky woman be a Collector spy? Unlikely. Not if they had the technology to read minds.
The girl couldn’t have met the Zania born in this alternate universe, since the local Zania would have lived over a millennium ago. Besides, she said they met in the Andromeda Galaxy, and Zania had certainly never been there.
But if the Collectors displaced people through time, Zania could have met this friend in the future. That would explain why she couldn’t remember it. For her, it hadn’t happened yet. At this point, it was the best explanation Zania could muster, but she wasn’t ready to share it.
Deciding to play along until she knew more, Zania accepted the troubling familiarity and the effusions of the vivacious redhead. The other Amazons called the girl Morrigan, like the feisty Celtic goddess. A fitting name for the slender warrior.
When the curiosity of the other women subsided, Zania finally changed into the clothes given by the guard. Although used to locker rooms, she found the lusty stare of her new old friend uncomfortable at best. She tried to ignore it as the blue dress slipped from her body. She suspected this friendship to be of the intimate kind.
"What happened to your scars?"
"Gone." Obviously Zania would gain new scars in the future. As a fighting Amazon, it made sense. "The Collectors got rid of them." And that was the truth.
"Their medicine is stronger than mine..." Was Morrigan a healer?
Better fitted for life underground, the brown leather bustier and skort gave Zania freedom of movement. The sturdy sandals, laced up to the knee, provided great mobility. Invigorated by the new look, that of a warrior, albeit an ancient one, Zania completed the picture by tying her long hair into a high ponytail.
With no mirror for reference, she turned to Morrigan. "What do you think?"
Morrigan smiled and nodded approval.
"So, how does this place work?" Zania hoped Morrigan’s knowledge of these surroundings could help her escape.
"Just like the old one, silly!" Morrigan chuckled. "The first Amazon motto is the same everywhere. Train, train, train, until exhaustion, then train some more."
"Of course." Zania had enough fighting for one day but she needed the practice.
Morrigan took Zania’s hand. "Come. I’ll show you around." She led her out of the dorm. "See these lines on the ceiling?" She pointed to parallel stripes of different colors, about five centimeters wide, painted on the bare stone of the arched tunnels.
Zania had mistaken them for electric tubing and paid them no heed, but now she could see them going in various directions, following the branching corridors. "What do they mean?"
"The green line is that of the Amazons. It goes from Amazon quarters to Amazon training gym, Amazon meal room, Amazon baths, all Amazon facilities." Morrigan flashed a warm smile. "Always keep to the green line areas and you won’t get lost."
Zania nodded but it would take more than stripes to keep her from exploring escape routes.
They reached a wider tunnel where Zania noticed more colored stripes. "What about the red?"
"That’s the Centurion line. Roman style fighters." Morrigan shrugged. "They are allowed in this common tunnel but no further."
"And the blue?"
"It’s for the Vikings."
So, that was where Svend belonged.
"The gray is for the guards, like their uniform. That’s what we call them, the grays. They can go almost anywhere." Morrigan frowned. "Never venture outside the green territory. If you get caught where you don’t belong, you are fair game."
"Meaning?"
"Anybody passing by can kill you, gang rape you, make an example of you. It’s the accepted rule. And if you survive, they throw you to the beasts."
How barbaric. "Does it happen often?"
"Sometimes a newcomer gets lost, or a male in rut wanders into the Amazon baths, or a woman in heat stalks a male." Morrigan batted her auburn lashes. "Fortunately, you and I do not fancy men."
Just as Zania feared, Morrigan would soon want more from her than friendship. How, even in her future, could Zania grow so hateful of men that she would turn to women? Somehow it seemed farfetched.
"Where is the arena where we fight?"
Morrigan shook her head. "Not here."
"In Dagora? The city from the info room? How do we get there?"
"In a box, like cattle." Morrigan’s face turned somber. "Don’t be in such a hurry. Only half of us return from these trips alive."
Ignoring the implications, Zania wanted to know more. "You mean in a cage?"
"No. A closed metal box the size of a small room, with no light, no air. And it rolls on a train. So we don’t see anything." Morrigan winked. "But from the sounds and the movements we feel inside, we also travel by boat."
"You mean on the lake?"
"There is an island. I think that’s where the arena is, rather than in the city. But we don’t know anything about how we actually get there."
"When I flew in, I didn’t see any roads."
"There aren’t any. These people don’t travel. They have no physical contacts with the other towns."
"The cities are self-sufficient?" It seemed unlikely.
"The computers manage all their needs. They have a few flying shuttles but only high ranking citizens are allowed into space."
As they followed the green stripe, smells of cooking wafted on the air and made Zania hungry. She couldn’t remember the last time she ate.
Morrigan pointed to the refectory. "Smells like tiger stew. The best meat. They expect much from us, but they feed us well."
Past the game room, steam and running water sounds announced the baths, and Zania wished she could take one now. But she would have to wait.
"We have a natural hot water spring," Morrigan volunteered. "Quite a luxury."
As they approached the training gym, the yells of attacks and the clash of sword against metal and shields echoed in the tunnel. Zania stepped through the arched entrance.
The rectangular enclosure looked like a temple, with thick pillars at wide intervals, supporting the arched ceiling. Zania wondered what kind of gods the people of this Earth worshiped. An empty pedestal indicated there must have been a statue at one time.
Steel sparked against steel as couples practiced in different areas of the wide space. The musty odor of sweat and soggy leather reminded Zania of a locker room. The ventilation system left much to be desired.
What seemed like high, narrow windows had been filled with concrete. Why would they have windows underground? Wall sconces provided a flickering yellow light, not unlike that of flaming torches.
On both sides of the training hall, the stone bleachers stood empty. An array of archaic weapons on the far wall caught Zania’s attention. No guns. An assortment of swords, daggers, spears, hatchets, throw knives, Ninja stars, cudgels and maces, hung from iron hooks. She felt as if she’d been transported to the medieval past, not the far future.
In the center of the space, one fight seemed mo
re intense than the others. Two tall women bled from several cuts but didn’t show signs of slowing down. One of them was black. Zania couldn’t help but notice that the other looked definitely alien, with snaky strands of hair that seemed alive, like pencil-thin serpents.
The creature charged with a blood-curdling scream and her hatchet split the other’s wooden shield in two. Zania shivered at such aggressive training.
"Are they fighting for real?"
Morrigan shook her cropped red mane. "Just practice. This is not the Andromeda sector. In the arena we fight to the death."
If this was practice, Zania could only imagine what a real fight would be like. She suddenly understood that it might not be easy to survive in such an environment. The Collector had been right on that point. "Do you have friends among these women?"
"Making friends is considered a weakness. You may have to kill your best friend in order to survive. It’s harsh."
So the price of this relationship might be higher than it seemed. "What’s with the serpent hair? Is that a real Gorgon?" Zania thought they were a myth, but they must have existed at one time. And if the Collectors traveled through time, they could have brought one back.
"This one is quite alive. Her name is Medusa. A nasty creature. Don’t get her angry. You’ll regret it."
"All stop!" yelled the black Amazon fighting the Gorgon.
The Gorgon lowered her sword and shield. All training ceased, even on the peripheral mats.
With long black hair braided through colorful beads, the tall Amazon looked fierce in her short leather skirt exposing well developed thigh muscles. Dark-skinned with black eyes, she exuded strength and authority. She looked Zania up and down with open scorn. "We have fresh meat!"
"Oh, no!" Morrigan squeezed Zania’s arm. "Don’t look at her. Don’t antagonize her in any way."
"What?" Zania could smell bad news. "Who is she?"
The Amazon walked purposely toward Zania, stopped three steps away then pushed Zania’s shoulder with the point of her short sword. "I am Dakini, I rule this tribe. Kneel before your queen!"
Snatched Page 3
