by eden Hudson
“You poor, unsophisticated retard,” I said. “Your family probably never had the money to eat sashimi. Next time I’ll give you a hint so you don’t look so stupid.”
Nick’s gray eyes narrowed into a scowl, but all he said was, “There’s not a wrong way to eat a haiku.”
I put the mint strips into my mouth and didn’t so much chew as let them dissolve on my tongue like the final snowflakes of a blizzard. The cold, clean ending to the food poem purified my palate.
When I was done savoring the final lines, I pointed my sticks at him. “Sashimi of the Winter is an experience, and you experienced it wrong. Want to experience some dessert? Don’t worry about the price, it’ll be my treat.”
“You can shove your dessert up your ass.”
“Again, not how you’re meant to experience it. Here, I’ll show you.”
I raised my hand to get the dessert chef’s attention.
The dessert of the day was called the Pillow of the Silken Breast—a caramel and chocolate vler that would’ve caused acute ejaculation in someone with less self-control than me. I probably could’ve eaten ten of them before I started to get really sick, but stopped after two because my wristpiece beeped the notification that our flight was boarding first-class passengers in ten minutes.
As we made our way to the gate, I caught Nick watching me again.
“See anything you like, Nickie-boy?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t get you.”
“Of course you don’t.” The only human being who had any chance of coming close to understanding me was almost 2900 miles away, easily recognizable by her sinewy pink acid scars, breasts as silken and chocolatey as the dessert I’d just eaten, and pathological need to claim that she wasn’t in love with me. “You’re an idiot savant who understands machines better than he does people; I’m a handsome rogue, charming genius, and masterful lover with a knack for handling humans and lifting priceless objects.”
“More like a spoiled brat wrapped in a bagful of assholes who can’t stop insulting everybody within hearing distance.”
“Not true.” I shot him a wink and a finger gun. “I also insult people far away. The point is, there’s no future for the two of us, Nickie.” I slipped my hand into his and squeezed his fat banana fingers. “I can’t promise you forever. I’ll only break your heart.”
He shook me off. “Don’t touch me.”
“That is the exact opposite of what your fiancée said to me the last time we were here.”
“That doesn’t even make sense! Earlier you said you’d never be interested in Carina because of her scars.”
“If I were you, I’d spend less time making ridiculous accusations about things you imagined me saying and more time worrying about how to keep your fiancée’s hands off the better looking, richer, and infinitely smarter thief she’s infatuated with.”
“Carina doesn’t like you,” Nick said. “She’s just doing what she always does to get inside of sickos’ heads. Once she figures out what kind of twisted fishshit goes on in there, she can decide whether to lock you up forever or move for execution. Personally, I’m hoping for execution.”
I grinned. “You obviously have no idea who you’re dealing with here. Step back and think for a second—I’m so damn good at what I do that you had to hire me in spite of the fact that your future wife wants to drag me into the back of the nearest vehicle and destroy its shocks. Carina may be the best in the Guild at what she does, but even she doesn’t stand a chance against me. Which is lucky for you because without one Jubal D. Van Zandt on your side, Nickie-boy, you’ll never see that piece of soul you sold again.”
NINE:
Carina
With a soft push, the pliant slave fell back onto the platform as if it were a warm bed.
Carina had seen large game hung and skinned before. Even without Miyo’s superimposed memories, she knew where the hooks went, but little yellow Xs popped up behind the slave’s ankles for the less experienced skinner.
Using her index finger blade, Carina sliced a hole between the slave’s ankle and tendon on each leg. It wasn’t easy. If the blade had slipped right through, she could’ve scoffed at the game designers’ naivety about the surface tension of human flesh, but they had obviously done their research. She had to lean on the blade, slicing down as she pushed. She felt the skin resist, then give way, the blade punching through.
The slave didn’t react. His dark irises had been completely swallowed up by the pupils now. Wherever his mind was, it felt no pain.
Blood welled and Miyo’s nausea came back with a vengeance. Carina moved slowly and focused on the cold steel of the gambrel as she hooked the slave’s tendons over each side. Miyo’s muscles shook and her head swam as Carina forced her to pull the rope until the slave was hanging suspended upside down over the platform.
The lettering popped up again.
Ceremony: Tithe of the Gods
For every new slave he brings to our lovely Tsunami Tsity, the mighty Envishtu requires a tithe of flesh. Your hands were blessed by Envishtu when you were born—oh, lucky Miyo!—and as such, it is your right and pleasure to take the tithe for our great and mighty god!
Objective: Peel the flesh from the first slave and burn it in the Fire of Envishtu
Independent of Carina’s choice, Miyo glanced up and over her shoulder at the structure built in the largest tree in the village. Instead of repurposed First Earth materials, its walls were made of fine, handworked leather which the superimposed memory banks told her had been culled from the ancestors’ very first raids.
Envishtu’s Temple. It hulked there like a colossal monster watching over the flaying. The breeze moved the tent walls so slightly that the whole structure seemed to breathe. Just outside the entry, several women from the tribe were building a fire in a huge cauldron. The Fire of Envishtu, where all sacrifices and tithes were burned.
“I could slip,” Miyo whispered. “Cut his throat’s artery. Let his lifeblood fill the water.”
Carina glanced around to see if anybody had heard Miyo talking to herself, but no one was listening. They were too busy chattering about the raid, the tithe, tonight’s feast, and the new clothes they planned to make from the new slaves’ hides.
“No,” Miyo said, and Carina realized that her voice had a slightly echoey quality to it, similar to the ones holos used to indicate narration. This was what Miyo’s internal monologue sounded like. “I can’t. For twelve years I’ve taken the tithe flawlessly. They would know I did it on purpose. Envishtu would know I did it on purpose.”
Miyo turned back to the hanging slave. He swung slightly with the breeze as he waited to be skinned alive. She climbed onto the platform and took hold of the gambrel to stop its motion.
The rest of the world fell away as she lifted her bladed fingers to his body. She sliced away his torn, ash-covered clothes, taking care not to nick the hide beneath. Envishtu demanded his tithe be perfect and unblemished.
“His old life is over,” Miyo thought. “I’m about to cut it away like his flesh. I’m a defiler, a destroyer of what may have once been good and happy, a forger of lifelong chains. Say goodbye to freedom, slave. Say goodbye to happiness.”
The slave didn’t say anything. He couldn’t hear Miyo’s thoughts, but even if he had and he could understand her language, he was too sedated to reply.
“I wish you could curse me,” Miyo thought. “A human being should be allowed that much dignity, at least.”
Miyo reached up without Carina’s interference, her fingers hovering at the inside of the slave’s calf, just below the ankle. She could feel the heat radiating from his skin. Faint yellow lines appeared around the slave’s ankle like a bracelet tattoo, then plunged down the inner calf and thigh, across the genitalia, over the belly and chest, out along the inside of each arm, and up the throat.
Guidelines.
Carina could hear the rest of the tribe hushing one another. A silence fell over them. They were waiting fo
r the flaying ceremony to begin, waiting for their favored daughter to do the job she excelled at, the job that had made her father a pillar of the community, that kept her mother in the most beautiful leathers, that ensured Envishtu would bless their tribe until it came time for the next raid.
There was nothing left to do but make the first cut.
The slave’s chest rose slowly, then fell. There was a long pause. Silently, Miyo yearned for his next breath never to come, but it did. The slave was alive. He would live through the flaying unless she cut a vital artery while she worked.
Begin the ceremony, Miyo, or they’ll know you’re not Envishtu-blessed at all, but a curse on the tribe!
Objective: Make the first incision
Current objective failed in 10…9…8…
In the space between breaths—Carina had instinctively matched her breathing with the slave’s respiration—Carina forced Miyo’s bladed finger into the slave’s flesh along the yellow line. The slave didn’t react, but blood welled up, too bright and thick to be anything but virtual reality.
The sight of blood coming from another person’s body and the knowledge that you’re causing it makes you sick!
Penalty: -2 to Speed, -2 to Dexterity, -2 to Perception
Duration: Unknown
The world faded and dimmed around Miyo, making it hard for Carina to see the guidelines. Her head spun as if she were standing on the top of a speeding amphibious personnel carrier in the middle of a howling megacell. Her bladed fingers wavered, meandering away from the yellow lines and back again.
Be careful, Miyo! You have to maintain at least 80% accuracy! Remember, Envishtu demands only the best for his tithe!
“Envishtu is sick!” Miyo cried inside her head. “How do we even know he marks the lesser tribes for us? Just because we capture them? Couldn’t it just be that we’re stronger and they’re weaker? Or that our weapons are better?”
The fuzzy dimness faded slightly. Carina focused Miyo on her inner turmoil while she focused on following the lines. As Miyo railed against the unfairness of it all, Carina wondered at the depth of the cuts, whether a slice that damaged muscle would send her back to the last checkpoint, but it didn’t seem to matter how deeply she cut as long as she stuck to the lines.
Hooray, Miyo! You’ve unlocked Dual Minded (Level 2)! You can now think of other things while actively engaged in bloodletting and regain 2% of your lost Perception and Dexterity per second! But if you try to move too quickly, your focus will shift back to the blood, and we all know what happens then, don’t we?
TEN:
Jubal
Our flight landed in Crystebon just after ten o’clock that night. We would’ve landed earlier, but a squall passing over the city delayed us until it had moved farther inland.
During the flight, I’d contacted the Ratlines, the best five-star hotel on Emden’s west coast, and let them know that the esteemed J.D. Vincent would be using the penthouse and one additional suite tonight. They sent over a luxo to pick us up at the airport.
“Pretty swanky,” Nick said, sliding into the soft leather backseat across from me.
“Sure.” I grabbed a bottled water from the minibar. “If you think mass-market fleet production that caters to the poverty-stricken horde’s ideal of wealth is swanky.”
“Turns out I do,” he said with a little extra bite in his voice. “Got a problem with that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be the lowest common denominator of underprivileged youths all grown up, Nick.”
“Fuck you, breaker.”
“Yikes, somebody’s cranky. Must be getting close to feeding time again.”
Having already used his most clever comeback, all Nick could do was scowl out the window. His meaty fist flexed and relaxed, popping the tines of that barbwire in and out of his wrist.
I grinned as I checked the time on my wristpiece. A connection I sometimes used in Crystebon had sent me the details of that night’s dogfights, but because of our flight’s delay there was no way for us to make it before they were over. We were going to have to attend tomorrow night’s fights instead.
“That storm killed our itinerary, Nickie. We’ve got all night to rest up and wash the shitpuddle stank of Courten off and fuel up. We’ve got a long tomorrow ahead of us. They should charge your room service to the penthouse. Message me if they don’t.”
“I can pay for my own food,” Nick growled.
“Don’t go getting proud on me now, Nickie-boy, not after you did such a great job of begging me to take this contract—I mean, favor—for free.”
***
Nick and I parted ways after checking in at the hotel front desk. As one of the last truly considerate five-stars in Emden, the Ratlines had separate elevators—one for the regular suites, and one that went only to the penthouse.
The penthouse—affectionately referred to by the Ratlines staff as the Crow’s Nest—was a huge circular suite at the top of the hotel, with a wraparound bank of windows offering a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Crystebon. From my bed at the center, I could look in one direction at the distant, moonless expanse of black on slightly wetter black that was the open ocean, another direction at a forest of high-rise hotels and businesses, another direction to the round-the-clock bustle of the shipping yards, and another to the flickering, brightly colored fires of the Cryst Riders’ Cathedral.
I peeled off my green-and-purple tourist shirt, asphalt-scuffed khakis, undershirt, and shorts and dropped them into the trash. I wasn’t sure exactly how long I’d been wearing those, but they were too rank to ever touch again. I arranged for a full set of new clothes to be rush-delivered to my room, then hopped into the shower.
One of the best features of the Ratlines’s penthouse is the clear glass waterfall shower that looks out over the city. I scrubbed the smells of the day off my skin while flashing my junk at the Crystebon Historic District.
When I was finally clean enough to eat off of, I got out and raided the pop-up fridge in the in-room bar. A few high-end manufactured snacks for the discerning palate, some traditional Cryst Rider sugar eggs, and a box of small-batch chocolate-covered coffee beans from a local chocolatier. Not a bad haul.
I grabbed the dish of sugar eggs and plopped on the bed to do some research on soul jars. Most of the image results I got were tasteless décor stores that sold jars treated with resin to make them look like First Earth glass. None were actual soul jars because owning one was a capital offense.
One article explained that soul jars were thought to have descended from the Thorn Knife ceremony back in the early 200s—the one where rulers would extract a piece of each royal guard’s soul to establish absolute loyalty—but the infogram I watched right after reading that claimed soul jars came first and the Thorn Knife ceremony was descended from them.
Information on how soul jars worked was even less plentiful. The consensus was that the person in possession of the soul fragment had total authority over the body it belonged to, with the only condition being that a soul couldn’t be made to intentionally harm any part of its body. Every article and infogram made sure to point out that soul jars and any other type of soul trap were now strictly illegal throughout the Revived Earth as outlined in the Lenandredis Concordat of 451, and that anyone found to be in possession of an active soul jar was subject to the death penalty.
Basically, they were saying if I wanted to know how to work a soul jar, I’d have to ask a vocor. Or maybe the Courten witch. None of the articles had mentioned her blood-swallowing trick to protect against a soul jar related attack, so obviously Re Suli knew more than the experts. Maybe she’d even been alive back before the Lenandredis Concordat. Maybe I could talk her into soul jar operation being the “something neat” she kept promising to teach me.
The sparkling crystals of the sugar eggs dissolved on my tongue and crunched between my teeth as I read, eventually revealing the baby seahorses at the center. Supposedly the Cryst Riders eat those to ensure pleasurable dreams, b
ut since I don’t believe in dreams and don’t like the brackish, radioactive taste of seahorse, I spat each one out when the sugar was gone and set it on the bedside table in a neat line. When the sugar eggs ran out, I had arranged a tiny undersea parade.
My stomach was starting to ache from all the sweets I’d had today. I needed something savory to soak it up with.
My mind flashed to a midnight breakfast with Carina in the hallway of a southern Soam hotel.
I didn’t bother looking for the room service menu, just messaged the front desk from the dumbwaiter’s call screen. When you keep a standing penthouse reservation at a five-star hotel, it’s assumed that you can order whatever you want, whenever you want, and their head chef will be happy to craft it. It’s the least they can do.
Twenty minutes later, the dumbwaiter dinged discreetly, letting me know that my Soami bacon with hot pepper remoulade had arrived. The salty, crunchy bacon had been cooked to within an inch of black, as all bacon should be, and the spicy smell wafting off of the remoulade tingled in my nose hairs. Perfect.
As I ate, I pictured Carina in that hallway, laughing and picking bits of waffle off my plate while I tried pieces of bacon from hers. Now and then things that hadn’t happened but that we both wished would’ve happened filtered into the memory, making it something better than history, creating a new past or maybe a future reality.
My wristpiece beeped a message notification, sending a flare of electricity through my gut.
But it was from Iceni again, not Carina.
AI 00:11:39 An ILO with a description of somebody who looks a lot like you just came across my desk. Are you in Soam?
AI 00:12:00 ILO=international lookout order, btw
JVZ 00:12:04 I know what an ILO is. If this is how you pick up men, it’s no wonder you don’t have anyone else to bother.
AI 00:12:25 If I wanted to pick you up, you would already be fixing me pancakes.
AI 00:12:52 So, are you in Soam?
I hadn’t been for more than eight hours, so I said
