Atlas Fallen

by Jessica Pierce

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  ATLAS FALLEN

  First edition. April 24, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Jessica Pierce.

  ISBN: 978-0999843307

  Written by Jessica Pierce.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

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  About the Author

  For Mom—

  Who taught me that seeing the world through a library is cheaper than a passport.

  And for Dad—

  Who taught me libraries are also good places to catch grasshoppers.

  I love you.

  ONE

  TONIGHT, SHE WOULD BURN.

  Bodies pulsed around Tesla like a swarm of sweaty insects. Strobe lights flashed from the ceiling, programmed to match the motion of humanlike draadhart dancers on suspended platforms above her, their lithe frames slithering to the heavy electronic beat. Tapping their wristcomms, patrons sent the dancers tips, and the synthetic lips of the androids smiled in response. She’d never understood the fascination with draadhart robots—they were just sprockets and gears and wiring. She’d scavenged enough of their inner workings in the past year for the novelty to fade.

  Her ears absorbed the thunder of the deep bass as she scanned the crowd. They’d be ringing for a day, at least, the way they always did after visiting Minko’s gambling den.

  To her right, a beefy bouncer she didn’t recognize eyed her with suspicion. It was no wonder; grease soiled her fingernails and scorch marks from the botFight still smoked from her jumpsuit. The bouncer scanned her dark forearm, looking for the pulsing digital tattoo of a forked phoenix tail—the mark of the Red Ashes crime family. He found only smooth, bare skin glistening from a mixture of sweat and blood.

  She hadn’t allowed Minko to brand her. It was part of the deal. The bouncer spoke into his wristcomm, stepping toward her, but Tesla melted back into the raving crowd.

  He must be new.

  A live DJ behind a turntable nodded his head to the rhythm. His blue-tipped Mohawk barely swayed, and Tesla felt a twinge of jealousy. He probably spent more on hair product than she made in a month. The pace of the song increased, and the crowd roared.

  She aimed for the lux boxes near the stage. Overhead, vents pumped in pleasant-scented mist, designed to inject endorphins into the club patron’s brains and cover the musty smell always permeating through the space station’s lower levels. More endorphins meant more pleasure at the clubs, which meant more corpCredits for the Red Ashes.

  The thought of money reminded her why she was here. She pushed through a wall of sweaty club-goers and made her way toward the lux boxes, careful to avoid anyone who looked troublesome. Minko’s den was a favorite of those ready to spend their hard-earned corpCredits on distractions, and the Red Ashes made certain to satisfy any appetite... for the right price. Not a single patron spared her a glance as she passed a card table filled with orange-clad maintenance jumpsuits playing a game of Six Man Slicer.

  Just as she ducked under the serving bar and slid out the other side, a fat man with bushy eyebrows offered her a square blue tablet. Tesla declined—she wasn’t a skirri user. She grasped the hilt of the knife tucked into her waistband as he narrowed his eyes at her rejection. Tesla hurried forward, eager to put some distance between herself and the drug peddler before the man got any ideas.

  Minko sat in the center of a golden booth. Red velvet seats engulfed him, making his overflowing figure seem somehow smaller. Two bodyguards flanked the booth on either side like giant, meaty pillars. In the flashing club lights, Minko's shaved head glimmered almost as brightly as the diamond rings on each of his fingers.

  A waitress delivered him a large drink and a stack of buttered wings. The girl shuddered as Minko admired her figure. With a grunt, he shoved her from the lux box and sent her scrambling back to the kitchens.

  Tesla’s hands tightened into fists. Everything about the crime lord set her teeth on edge.

  Her stomach grumbled at the sight of steaming food, the kind that wasn’t something heated from a nutrition tablet. It was a rarity to find this far down in the Atlas space station. Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten since the day before, so caught up had she been in her focus on the fight against Radek.

  She gritted her teeth against the hunger as the crime lord bit into a wing. As much as she hated Minko, she needed his good mood to last. He didn’t like getting bad news, and today she had very, very bad news to give him.

  “Tesla,” he cooed with a sluggish grin. His slurred speech told her the crime lord was already gut-deep in lunarshine pints. He spread his flabby arms and gestured for her to sit. With a large bite, his sharp teeth snapped against a wing, ripping the meat clean from the bone.

  She shook her head, forcing herself to be polite. If his anger raged, she wanted to be on her feet to make an escape. Tesla eyed the two bodyguards watching her with disinterest. They don’t think I’m a threat, she thought bitterly.

  Nyen Atu, whose Red Ash tattoo included three stars—the sign of his status as Minko’s personal security—acknowledged her with his usual curt nod. How long had she been coming here? Eight months? Only four more to pay her debts from the funeral expenses.

  Minko smacked his lips. “What news do you have for me, my little ghost?”

  Tesla resisted the urge to touch her snowy hair. Little ghost. She ignored Minko's idea of a joke and steeled her nerves, forcing her eyes to fixate on his bulbous face instead of shifting toward the door.

  “I can fix it,” she preempted.

  The crime lord's smile disappeared. His eyes darkened as he leaned his enormous frame forward on the velvet seat. Slowly, he wiped the wing grease from his jowls, every motion a threat. “You come into my club, while I’m enjoying my dinner, to give me bad news?”

  Tesla shifted her weight, ready to run. “I lost.”

  “You never lose,” growled Minko. “That’s why you work for me, and that’s why I bet so much on you.”

  She shrugged, trying to adopt a casual air despite every atom in her body pulsing with alarm. “Well, this time I lost. But I can win back your money. I just need time.”

  Minko eyed her thoughtfully, and the look sent shivers down Tesla’s spine. “You know, you’ll be eighteen soon. Pretty girls like you fetch a good price, even with your unfortunate attitude. Men and women pay extra for goods that seem so... unspoiled. Maybe I can have you work off the debt in other ways.”

  “Forget it,” Tesla snapped, pointing a shaking finger at Minko’s gelatinous rolls. She swallowed the bile that had risen to her throat
. “I’m a welder, not a companion junko. I only work for you on the side and I only handle your fightBots. That’s the deal. The robot had to lose sooner or later. Now, we can build another and—”

  “We?” sneered Minko. “Without my corpCredits, you wouldn’t have been able to even afford the scrap metal for your first suit, let alone the circuitry. And let’s not pretend I don’t know you’ve been filching money from the fights to fund your little hobby. How is your investigation going, Tesla? Found any evidence to clear old Daddy Petrov’s sullied name?”

  Anger seared Tesla’s cheeks. “Do you want a new bot or not?”

  Minko dragged a long yellow nail across his whiskered chin. The club lights caught in the stones of his rings, casting constellations against the wall. “Alright, my ghost,” he said after a moment. She hated the way the words oozed from Minko’s mouth, dripping with slime and slavery. “How much do you need?”

  “Twelve thousand corpCredits.”

  His eyes bulged. “Are you planning to build a bot—or an escape ship?”

  “Good machines take money. You know you’ll get a return on your investment, and then some.” Minko pressed his lips together thoughtfully, and Tesla knew she had him. His arrogance would never let her fight in any mechanical suit that wasn’t befitting of the Red Ashes.

  “No."

  The room pressed in around her, sucking the air from her lungs. “What do you mean? How I am supposed to pay for a new fightBot? I can’t get into the ring without one, and if you pull me from the fights you’ll have to postpone any matches until you find a new pilot. We both know I’m the best you’ve got, Minko. Either you pay for the new fightBot, or you lose a fortune by halting the matches.”

  “I stop the fights for no one, least of all a slum jumper who fell from the commander’s good graces,” His fingers clenched around the handle of a knife on the table. “Whether or not you have a suit to wear in the ring is not my problem. You will fight, Tesla Petrov, or you will burn.”

  Tesla eyed the blade, calculating how much time it would take to gut the crime boss before his bodyguards could overpower her. Minko's thick fat would put up a fight. She would have seconds, at best.

  His teeth flashed as he seemed to read her mind. “Make a move, if you dare. It’s good to see some fight in you after all this time. Perhaps that fire will help you during your next match—let’s say, two weeks from tonight?”

  “Two weeks?" she gasped. "It took me months to build the last fightBot. In two weeks you’ll be lucky if the main programming is complete. Besides, what good will it do to call a match if your prize fighter has no way of winning? Think of the money you’ll lose betting on me. Without a mech suit I won’t last five minutes in the cage before Radek paints the arena with my blood. No one is going to pay to see a massacre.”

  “Ah, that is where you’re wrong,” said Minko with a terrible grin. “There is nothing a man loves more than blood and sport. Either you build a robot and it’s an even fight, or you face Radek without one and my clients pay to watch you die. No matter the outcome, the Red Ashes walk away with more corpCredits than ever before.”

  She shook her head. “I need more time, and you know it. There are too many workers being sent upstation for the preparations. My crew is already slugging through double shifts to cover extra repairs, and it won’t be easy to gather supplies while the Grand Imperator is visiting from Earth. You and I both know you won’t book a fight while people are visiting for the Centennial of the Crown. Even Yosef wouldn’t take that risk with all the increased security.”

  Yosef led the Skinners, a rival gang on Level Five. Fighting between the two crime families had increased in recent months as Yosef had begun infiltrating Minko’s skirri territories, stealing drug sales from the Red Ashes. Numerous Skinners had gone missing in the last week alone, thrown into Level Eight’s incinerator along with anyone else who dared to cross Minko.

  The crime lord considered her logic. “Richies love entertainment just as much as Gulch rats. I may book a match during the festivities, or I may not, but it would be in your best interest to start building a fightBot. We have to give the people what they pay for.”

  Tesla turned to leave, but at Minko’s swift command, Nyen stepped in front of her. The bodyguard sneered, exposing jagged teeth crowned with chrome.

  “One more thing, Ms. Petrov,” chimed Minko. Tesla hesitated at the sound of glee in his voice. “In light of your failure today, I’m extending your sentence. Another twelve months—in addition to the four you still owe—should be sufficient. That is, if you survive the next fight at all.”

  Tesla inhaled sharply, tears stinging her eyes. “You promised me it would only be one year, not two. You can’t do this, Minko. We had a deal.”

  The crime lord shrugged, causing his lumpy chest to jiggle. He almost seemed bored. “Take it or leave it,” he said. “Unless you’d like to terminate the contract?”

  Nyen stepped forward, his palm tapping against his sidearm. To terminate a deal with Minko was to choose death. It was the only way out of a debt with Red Ashes, other than working off the terms through one of Minko’s contracts. Until now she’d made herself invaluable through the fights. But she’d lost Minko a small fortune today, so she bit her lip and bowed her head. Minko’s thin lips curled upward, satisfied at her answer.

  The waitress returned to check on the club owner, and he dismissed Tesla with a wave of his swollen hand.

  “Always a pleasure,” Tesla muttered, fighting back a wave of despair. How would she afford an entire mechanical suit capable of taking down Radek—or any other fighter for that matter? And even if she managed to scrape together a fightBot by the next time Minko called a match, what would happen if she lost again?

  She may have avoided the furnaces tonight, but her luck—and Minko’s patience—was running out. How long would it be before the Red Ashes decided she wasn’t worth the trouble? Minko had been right about the missing money. Bribing her way into the station’s criminal records wasn’t cheap, but she needed the access to the databases if she was ever to prove her father’s innocence.

  He had been a lot of things, but she knew he wasn’t a traitor.

  Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth as she fought through the crowd, throwing open the massive double-doors leading back out into the main atrium of Level Eight. She turned a corner past a giant mural depicting the crest of the First World Union—three concentric circles representing Earth, the moon, and the Atlas station—positioned next to a large portrait of the Grand Imperator. Someone had scrawled blood-red words over the monarch’s face: ONLY UNITY IN DEATH.

  Across the market, men and women poured out of the station’s main lift dressed in the black uniforms of security forces. Closed market stalls slumbered in a half-moon shape positioned around rusted public tables, and iron grates protected their entrances against thieves.

  Datavision screens angled out from the common area walls. During the day, they broadcasted newsfeeds of station events such as footage from glamorous parties in the lux penthouses of Level Two, or reports of nutrition advances in Level Three’s hydroponic gardens, but now they seemed to look down at Tesla with a sense of shadowed knowing.

  Dormitories stretched all the way back to the farthest bulkhead. Evidence of the Atlas' history as a haven for refugees during the Great War still existed in the underbelly of the station; shipping containers in shades of blue, green, and crimson salvaged from transports carrying the first arrivals rested on top of one another in precarious piles, connected by rusted staircases and an overhead network of heavy cables. The way the wires swooped upward, converging at a single electrical source in the center of the dormitory ceiling, reminded Tesla of the pictures her father had once shown her of old circus tents on Earth.

  At least in a circus, the outcasts can earn a living, Tesla thought bitterly. The station had been built to house those unwanted by any nation—until the richies had realized a life on the Atlas meant they were free and safe from any
wars on Earth. The wealthiest families had swooped in, demanded to live in the habitable upper levels, and forced the refugees to live in the bowels of the station. It was the richies who had built the deimark. They claimed it was a precaution to keep people safe, but Tesla knew the truth—the barrier existed to remind the poor where they belonged.

  A voice crackled over speakers built into the floor: “Curfew begins in five minutes. All Level Eight residents are to report to their dwellings.”

  She quickened her steps as a security guard’s eyes followed her past the first cluster of container apartments. Propaganda leaflets proclaiming the Grand Imperator’s love for his people littered the floor, but Tesla knew the truth—to the rest of the galaxy, no one living below the deimark truly mattered.

  A mother painted in layers of soot from her incinerator shifts yelled for her two sons to come inside. The blonde woman coughed into her apron, and Tesla saw a spot of blood land against the dirty fabric.

  Dark Lung, she realized with a shudder. The illness came from a lifetime spent in the poorly ventilated lower levels. Station residents living above the deimark line dividing Level Four and Level Five could afford clean air, while the Gulch was left to breathe filth until their lungs became pocked with painful lesions. Bloody coughs were a sign of the disease reaching its advanced stages.

  Tesla chanced a smile, but the woman looked away, her sooty hands smearing the stain against the cloth as she retreated inside.

  With no money for burial services, the dead of the station’s poorest workers were sent to Minko's incinerators for burning—but eight months ago the thought of her father’s ashes floating around the dirty Gulch air had made Tesla sick. She’d borrowed the funeral debt from Minko to afford a narrow coffin and a small service, knowing full well what indenture to the Red Ashes would really cost.

  A priest visiting from Earth had said the Old Words over her father's body, his voice thundering across the empty chairs. Few people could afford to miss shift work just to see Nevik Petrov, traitor against the crown, released into space. The next day, Commander Grey had revoked her security clearance, claiming her connection to her father made her a liability. It was then that Tesla had lost her pilot wings. Grey had expelled her from flight training on Level Four and reassigned her back below the deimark to assume her father’s place on the welding crew.