face. The person said nothing.
Helvius took a step closer. “Maybe few coins would refresh his memory.”
“Coins,” Bruttius echoed in disgust. He pulled the rags off his pulse rifle and aimed down. “I say the prospect of a slug in the brain would refresh his memory even better.”
“Put your weapon down,” said Lucius. “We are not shooting my people.”
Bruttius covered the rifle with his rags again.
“Captain, do you have any coins?” Lucius asked.
Arrius took something out of a pocket from his vest. He held it over his shoulder so the emperor could see what it was. A golden coin with the letter V engraved. Victory.
“It was a gift from your father,” Arrius said. “I earned it with my service at the Battle for Luna. It is the only coin I have.”
“Anyone else have a coin?” Lucius called to his men.
Silence.
Maybe Bruttius’s approach would do. He looked down over the captain’s shoulder. “Do you know where the doctor is?”
The person said nothing.
“We’re wasting time,” said Bruttius. “Maybe someone else would know?”
They went on through the street of sorrow. Whoever they asked only gave a weak look in the eyes as an answer. They either had no idea where the doctor was, or they didn’t want to say.
By the time the group reached the end of the street, Lucius lost his temper. “Either you tell us what we want to know,” he said to a man that tried to look tough, standing tall and straight. “Or we get the answer by ourselves.”
The soldiers hinted to the man that they were heavily armed and weren’t messing around. The man moved his eyes over the group and then focused on Lucius. “You think I am afraid by a half man?”
In that instant, Arrius pulled out his sword and touched the neck of the man. Bruttius had already aimed his pulse rifle and fought to keep his finger off the trigger.
“One more word that doesn’t give an answer, and your head will watch the rest of these people fight to rip your body apart,” said the captain.
The man peered behind the soldiers to see his neighbors waiting intently. “The- uh… the doctor, you say–?”
“Where is he?” Arrius asked.
“He, um, he usually stays at the Gambler’s House. I- I’ll show you where...”
The man led the group through Subura from one street to another, through gloomy alleys that seemed to grow darker the deeper they went. He could be leading them to an ambush, to take their weapons and bodies, for all they knew.
Stay alert – Lucius sent to his men – this may be a trap.
After a while they emerged in a narrow street where each house seemed more desolate than the next. Only few were concrete buildings. The rest were metal shacks half ruined. In front of them stood a two-story building of concrete and metal, but its door was gone, almost like the buildings at the merchant district. Someone must’ve been very angry to break the door, and someone must’ve been very poor not to replace it.
“This is it,” said the man.
Lucius looked at the building again. This time he noticed a weak flickering light coming from inside along with faint voices talking or arguing, he couldn’t tell.
“Helvius, go in and see if the doctor is there,” Lucius said. He gestured to another soldier to accompany him. Both went through the doorway and after a moment the voices went silent.
Lucius turned to the man that brought them here. “What is your name, citizen?”
“M-mm, my name? They call me Gerius.”
“Gerius, I thank you for your service. You have my word that when this war is over you will be rewarded. You are free to go.”
The man didn’t say a word. He just turned and ran as fast as he could and as far as he could.
Helvius and the other soldier came out of the shack. “They say the doctor isn’t here.”
Lucius couldn’t help but exclaim, “What?”
Helvius lowered his head. “It’s what they said.”
Lucius gritted his teeth. “We go in and we ask them again.”
Two soldiers went first. Two more with the crates went second. And the last one, carrying the wounded soldier, went last after the captain and the emperor.
The corridor was dim and narrow. Sand crunched under their feet, carried inside by filthy boots. The light they saw from outside came from deep down. A sharp smell started burning Lucius’s nostrils as they moved closer. He didn’t need a cranial computer to tell him that thing he smelled was smoke, a combination of burned wood and plastic. Through a doorway at the far end they found a wide room with fire burning in few places, though not to provide heat, but light. One window at the wall across the doorway served as a bar, and a beggarly man with two robotic arms was the bartender. His wary red eyes watched them from the moment they entered to the moment they stopped in front of him.
“May I offer you a drink?” asked the bartender. “I have something that’ll freeze your brain.” He grinned with a nasty smile of two rusty teeth. “You will see shit you can’t even imagine.”
Lucius looked around. At three different places on the floor, three groups of people were seated. They gambled, throwing dice. One of them had a brand new heart at the table as a bet. The man next to him took a syringe from the table and he inserted the needle into a port on his skull. His red eyes rolled and then turned black almost as if he was asleep, or dead, and he collapsed on his back. He shivered violently, but no one rushed to help him. Some seconds later, his eyes turned red again and he sat up to complete the game as if nothing happened.
Do you recognize any of these men, captain? – Lucius sent – Is the doctor among them?
No – he quickly replied – Helvius was right, the doctor isn’t here, only thieves and scoundrel. I believe we were misled.
Lucius turned to the bartender. “Where is Doctor Axios?” he asked.
“Oh, the little man talks,” said the man and chuckled. He stopped the moment every soldier aimed their weapons at him. His smile quivered.
“The doctor,” Lucius repeated.
The bartender was frozen, only his eyes moved. They pointed at the group behind the soldiers.
Arrius turned and approached the gamblers. “Where,” Lucius demanded.
They stood up, dragging the man that emptied the syringe, and pulled the cloth they used as table. Underneath was a hidden door. They opened it and nodded down.
“Bruttius,” said Lucius, “pick a soldier and make sure no one leaves this place. And keep an eye on the injured soldier. You will send him down after we are done.”
“Understood,” he said.
The rest climbed down a stairway into a narrow corridor that smelled of chemicals and rust. This time they didn’t have to walk very far as the door was few steps ahead. As Arrius moved closer, Lucius realized that the door seemed familiar, as if it was scavenged from a battleship.
Arrius knocked. Nothing happened. He knocked again, harder. Still nothing.
“Doctor, it is Arrius. Open up.” He knocked again. “You hear me?” The door didn’t move. “If you don’t open this door, I swear to gods I’ll blow it–” and it slowly started to move inward, letting faint red light get through.
A head showed with a helmet full of instruments and two one-eyed visors that could be brought down individually. “No need to do that now, is there?” the head said with a smile.
Arrius pushed inside. The man barely managed to hold his balance while walking backward on crutches and hopping on one leg. He had a tall body, but gaunt. White coat concealed something. Lucius looked down toward his legs and realized he had only one of them. That was discouraging.
The soldiers quickly entered and secured the area.
Captain Arrius leaned closer to the doctor. “Why didn’t you answer my transmission?”
The man glanced sideways. “Er, maybe because I didn’t want to?”
Lucius looked behind the man, to see where he will have his body replaced. He found
the room very small, maybe the size of the infirmary on Aquila. Robotic parts rested on shelves at the walls from his left and right, and blank computer screens covered the third wall from the floor to the ceiling. One inclined bed, surrounded by tables with tools on them, stood in front of the screens. Lucius looked up. He found the ceiling too low for his taste, but it was the slums, he didn’t expect anything better. But what was surprising is that the room was lit with red lights from above. This place had its own independent power source, it seemed.
“I told you to come here only if there is an emergency,” the doctor said.
“This is an emergency.”
Lucius brought his eyes on the doctor. He is old and frightened, he realized. His forehead had a hole from where Lucius could see a piece of glass holding his brain inside. His nose was rusty and his face dented at spots like someone had beaten him with a hammer.
The doctor caught his stare. “It doesn’t seem like an emergency to me,” he said. His eyes moved back to Arrius. “You shouldn’t have come here with soldiers. Do you have any idea what the people will now say?”
“I don’t care...”
The doctor shook his head. “Well, you should care. The people will now say I work for the emperor.”
Arrius tilted his head. “Since when did working for the emperor become a problem?”
“You think you know how this place works, captain? Subura is not like the other districts where you’ve learned to live, trust me. People kill you here if you look at them the wrong way. The emperor had done nothing to ease the suffering of this district. People need brain nutrients, medicine, prosthetics. There are two
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