by M. R. Forbes
“Until Packard orders you to do it again.”
“We’re all living minute to minute down here. It isn’t personal.”
“Greenie.”
Both Abbey and the Trover looked to the side, where Gant was standing. He bent down, sliding the metal he had been playing with across the floor, right into her waiting hand.
She took it, looking back at the Trover at the same time he looked at her.
Then she brought it up into his eye.
Deep into his eye.
He froze, looking down at her with his remaining eye, suddenly confused. The weight on her grew heavier, and she cursed as she pushed him off. He rolled away, still alive and awake, but barely alert.
“That’s fragging cheating,” one of his lackeys said. The three of them were coming toward her.
She struggled to get to her feet.
“He cheated first,” Gant said, moving to stand at her side, pointing at the man who had pulled her away from the machine.
“I didn’t do anything,” the man said.
The guards suddenly reappeared at the windows to the tower, and a red light began to flash.
“Better get back to your cell, Greenie,” Gant said. “Packard’s going to be down here, and he isn’t going to be happy.”
“Why did you help me?” she asked.
He chittered in laughter again. “Just trying to be polite.”
Then he left with the rest of the cons.
Abbey wasn’t far behind.
17
The bots in medical did a pretty good job of patching the cracked ribs, but then again the injury wasn’t too serious. The Trover, Pok, didn’t fare as well, suffering from a brain hemorrhage that wound up killing him. In another place he probably would have been saved, but the damage had been done and he was never going to work again, so they just let him go.
Initially, Abbey expected that she would be punished for killing him. It was a perfect excuse for Packard to inflict more pain on her. He didn’t. He never said anything about it at all, and nobody came for her. She didn’t feel bad about doing it, either. She wanted to make a statement, and with Gant’s help she had.
Losing Pok did create a bit of a power vacuum on Level Twenty, one that Abbey was forced to navigate without knowing much at all about how the pecking order worked in the deepest pit of Hell. There were a few fights, all of them broken up by shocks from the bracelet, visits from Packard, and plenty of broken bones and bruises. There were a couple of inmates killed. She stayed out of it, keeping to herself for the most part, working the mines during her shift and sitting by herself in her cell afterward. The other cons didn’t bother her. They didn’t even talk to her, except for Gant. It seemed that by siding with him, she had excluded herself from every other circle.
She was okay with that. Gant was crude, but he was also the smartest individual on the level by a long mile. He made things out of the bits and pieces of material he managed to squirrel away under his hellsuit or stuff into his cheeks. He had a whole collection of weapons hidden within the circuitry of his washer, where the guards would never find them. For what purpose? He didn’t even know, or if he did he wouldn’t say.
There was no relief from the heat. No relief from the heaviness. Working in the mines only made it worse. They had laser cutters to dig into the rock, but then they had to lift the chunks out and break them by hand, carefully so that they wouldn’t damage the disterium within. It was grueling work. Not even as much physically as she had expected, but mentally. It took patience to get the crystalline material out unharmed. As much as she hated doing it, that aspect made her good at it.
She could feel herself wilting under the oppression. She could sense her hope trickling away, diminishing day by day, hour by hour. This was going to be the rest her life, and she was only thirty-one in a time when even the poorest Terrans lived into their early hundreds. She was sure she wouldn’t last that long down here, but ten years? Twenty years? She had been here for three weeks and she was starting to give in. She had caught herself crying at the end of her shift the other night, sitting alone and naked in her cell while her hellsuit was wiped clean of the dirt and sweat and urine that accumulated within. She missed Hayley. She missed the sky, the stars, the light. She missed cool air, normal uniforms, and freedom.
All of her earlier thoughts about staying strong to prove something to Davis seemed so stupid now. Maybe she could hold out for a few months, but then what? Whatever the game was, he had won it. She knew herself well enough to know she would break eventually.
She picked up her cutter. It was an old thing, dented and rusted. It didn’t put out enough power for her to harm herself with it before the bracelet would shock her unconscious, though she had heard plenty of inmates tried. She carried it from the staging room out into the mine, making the long walk along three kilometers of tunnels to her assigned section. Gant had worked beside her for the first couple of weeks, but Packard had noticed they were getting chummy and had changed the Gant’s shift, forcing them to work opposite. Now she found herself setting up beside Private Illiard.
“Lieutenant,” he said mockingly as she put the cutter down and put on her work gloves. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
Abbey glared at him. She hadn’t seen him since their first day in Hell. “Did you just get out of medical?” she asked.
“Yup. It took a while for the mechanicals to reassemble all of my broken bones, and for the healing agents to knit them back together. I still have pain in my ankles when I walk.”
“Do you want to go back?”
He put up his hands. “Whoa. Hold on there, Lieutenant. I may be giving you shit, but I had nothing to do with your situation. You got the raw end of the deal, I agree, but that wasn’t me.”
“Do you know who it was?”
He shrugged. “Would it matter if I did? You’ve been erased from the universe. We both have. We’re ghosts, Cage. Demons. We have no voice beyond these caverns. We’re going to rot here, whether the work kills us, Packard kills us, or we kill ourselves. That’s reality.”
“You seem to be okay with that.”
“It is what it is, and I am where I am. I told Coli we were going to get caught. Fragging baby. If I had known he was going to crumble like that, I would have ratted him out.”
“The guns. Were you selling them to the Outworlds? Are you really traitors?”
He started to step toward her until his bracelet buzzed a warning. He settled for turning his head instead. “To be honest, yeah.”
“Why? You could have made just as much without getting sent down here.”
“It isn’t all about the money.” He paused, looking around. “The Republic doesn’t want anyone to know the shit that they’re into. The level of corruption.” He paused again. “It isn’t what it used to be, is all I’m saying.”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not down here.”
“So tell me.”
“Nothing good happens to people who know things. Nothing good happens to people who try to do the right thing. Does the name Sylvan Kett mean anything to you?”
Abbey nodded. “You were selling the guns to Kett?”
“Not exactly.” He paused when both of their bracelets began to buzz. “Time to work,” he said. “I’ll give you more tomorrow. Same place, okay?”
“For free?” Abbey asked.
Illiard laughed. “If you’re offering, I’m taking, but otherwise for free. I know you weren’t involved with the shit we were into. It’s the least I can do. I’m an asshole, Lieutenant, but I’m not a heartless asshole.”
“Tomorrow then.”
She picked up the cutter and turned it on. One minute at a time. One day at a time. That was the only way to survive down here.
18
Illiard didn’t show the next day.
He didn’t show the day after that or the day after that.
It took Abbey another day to find a minute to drop in on G
ant, leaving her shift as soon as her bracelet buzzed her off and running full-speed through the tunnels and back to the cell block. The other inmates looked away as she sped through, and she briefly entertained the idea that they would be reporting back to Packard about her strange activity.
Maybe they would, but so what?
There was nothing anybody could do to her down here that was worse than being down here. Even Pok’s attempted molestation paled in comparison to the daily grind of life on Level Twenty, and she was starting to believe the only thing keeping her going was the thought of getting some answers about what the Fifth Platoon and Gradin had to do with Sylvan Kett, and maybe why Davis had buried her down here in the first place. It was information that might never make it to the surface, but she was still driven by a need to know.
And right now that curiosity was tuned to finding out where Illiard had gone.
Gant was on his mattress facing the wall when Abbey arrived. She knocked as she entered, startling him and causing him to hunch over a little more, concealing whatever contraband he was working with at the moment.
“Gant,” she said.
“Shit on a quasar,” Gant said, her translator completely failing on his curse. “I could have been playing with myself over here. What would you have done then?”
“Probably laughed at the size,” she replied as he turned around. His hellsuit was sealed, though she noticed there was a slight bulge around the wrist.
“Laughed in amazement, maybe. You missed me so much you ran?”
“Have you heard anything about Private Illiard?”
“I have competition?”
“I’m serious. What do you know?”
“He’s gone,” Gant said.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I didn’t think that was a vague statement. This is Hell, Greenie. Cons disappear all the time.”
“Dead, then?”
“That’s usually the case. He probably found a way to off himself. Or maybe Packard decided he wanted a piece of him.”
“I didn’t think Packard got involved down here unless there was a problem?”
“Maybe Illiard was causing a problem. You wouldn’t know how that could be, would you?”
He raised his forehead, the motion making him look like a toy. Abbey opened her mouth to tell him about the conversation she had with Illiard but stopped short. What if the Private was missing because of the things he had told her? What if the Warden was listening in on every word they said? She remembered the recording Davis had shown of her private conversation with her sister in the construct. Nothing was safe. Nothing was secret. Packard was probably listening in right now.
Maybe, but again, so what? The worst he could do would be to kill her. She was already in Hell. She was already as good as dead. It would be a gift.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know anything.”
Gant nodded, putting his hand to the side of his head, suggesting she was getting smarter. Abbey nodded back.
“I might need to think of a different name for you. You know, the other cons are calling you the ‘Demon Queen of Level Twenty.’”
“Why?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re the only female down here. I’ve been here six standard years, and I’ve never seen another. And after what happened with Pok? Why do you think nobody else will go near you, or talk to you, or even look at you?”
Abbey had noticed she was the only woman currently on the level, but she had assumed there had been others before.
“I thought it was because we were friends. I couldn’t have beaten Pok without your help.”
Gant chittered in laughter. “Pok had a reputation for killing people with one hit. You held out against him, and if that asshole Bastion hadn’t screwed you over you would have knocked him cold. Or rather, he would have knocked himself cold. They’re afraid of you, Queenie.”
“You’re telling me that being down here, working in the mines, not everyone here wants to die? Six years?”
Gant made a sound that her translator named ambivalence. “Maybe we’re just too stupid to realize we’d be better off not being here. Or maybe we’re hoping the Outworlds will find this place and set us free. They try to keep the location secret, but everyone here knows we aren’t that far from the Fringe.”
“Does that mean you’re a traitor, too?”
Level Twenty was reserved for traitors and mass murderers.
“No,” he replied simply, sending a chill down Abbey’s spine.
“They’re afraid of you, too,” she said.
“Size isn’t everything.” Gant’s bracelet buzzed, and he hopped off the mattress and headed toward her and the door. “Time for my shift.”
He brushed up against her as he passed, and she found herself holding a sharp, wedge-shaped piece of disterium crystal. It was large enough to be worth a fortune. Large enough that if Packard knew Gant had taken it, she wouldn’t be seeing him again either.
She knew why he had given it to her. Not for protection from others. For protection from herself. If she used it to kill herself, they might trace it back to him and either mess him up or kill him, too, and he had made it clear he didn’t want to die.
She used her fingers to push the crystal up under the sleeve of her hellsuit. Then she headed back to her cell before her bracelet decided she wasn’t following the rules.
She sat on her mattress, staring at the wall ahead of her. Packard had killed Illiard before he could tell her what he knew about Kett and the dirty side of the Republic. Whatever the truth was, it all ran deeper than she had realized. All the way down to Hell, in fact. The thought only made her hunger for the answers deepen. But how could she learn anything without the Warden knowing about it?
She was still thinking about it when her bracelet buzzed, and a heavy clank at her door signaled that she was on lockdown. She immediately stood and went over to her washer, hunching over it and removing the small access panel on the side the way she had seen Gant do it. She slid the crystal shard from her suit and dropped it in, quickly putting the cover back in place. Then she stood and put her fingers to the front of her suit, pulling lightly at the invisible seam. The material spread apart and she removed the suit, enjoying the momentary sensation of slight coolness on her naked flesh before her brain adjusted to the heat once more. She placed the suit in the washer and turned it on before retreating to her mattress and lying down. Lockdown lasted four hours, and she had to use that time to maximize her sleep.
She turned onto her side facing the wall and closed her eyes. She could feel the sweat on her forehead, between her knees, her legs, her buttocks, and breasts. She would have given anything to be cold, if only for a second or two.
A bead of the sweat ran onto her nose. She was sleeping before it slid off and onto the mattress.
19
Abbey’s cell door unlocked with a loud clang that jolted her awake.
She turned over as she sat up. There was only one person who could open her cell while it was on lockdown, and she wasn't that surprised he had come for her.
She was surprised to find Packard out of his battlesuit; however, wearing standard issue blue utilities, the high neck of them making his head look too big for his slim frame. He had a satisfied smile on his face as he entered.
“Cage,” he said.
She put an arm over her chest. It was a stupid thing to do. She had no doubt there were cameras in every cell, and he had already seen her naked anyway. She lowered it, getting to her feet and standing in front of him.
“Did you come to make good on your threats?” she asked, edging slightly toward the washer.
“Please,” he replied. “There’s an order to everything, Cage. A hierarchy. Pok had his orders. I have mine. Davis has his. They don’t include anything as banal as rape. There has been a change of plans, though. A miscalculation. They want you to do more than rot down here.”
Abbey was both relieved and confused by the statement. “You... Y
ou’re going to let me out?”
“Yes. They have need of you somewhere else. It's your lucky day.”
She felt her heart begin to thump harder, a sudden feeling of elation working its way through her, along with a greater sense of fear. She didn’t feel very lucky.
“I don’t understand.”
A second person joined them in the room. A woman. She was tall and thin, and wearing a softsuit. She had something in her hand, but Abbey couldn’t see it that well.
“This is Clyo,” Packard said. “She’s going to prepare you.”
“Prepare me?” Abbey said. “For what?”
Packard didn’t answer. He stepped back, closer to her cell door, touching a hidden control panel on it that caused it to close and lock once more. Then he leaned back against it while the woman, Clyo, approached her.
“What the hell is this?” Abbey asked. There was something about the woman that wasn’t sitting right. A coldness, despite the overbearing heat.
“You should be honored,” Clyo said. “They’ve noticed you.”
“Who has?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Packard said.
“Please,” Clyo said. “Lie down. It’s easier if you don’t resist.”
Abbey tried to get a glimpse of whatever Clyo was holding. It looked like a small, black piece of metal. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Give you more than you ever dreamed you would have. A chance to get back at those who put you here. A chance to find the answers that you seek.”
“Davis put me here, and Packard works for Davis. You work for Packard.”
“I don’t work for Packard. Davis? He is expendable if you’d like to expend him.” She smiled, glancing back at Packard. His expression was flat. Empty. Submissive. “Please. Lie down.”
Abbey glanced over at the washer. She had left the panel loose enough that it would fall off if she hit it hard enough, giving her access to the shiv. Could she take the woman in a fight? Against a softsuit? Probably not, unless the woman had no fighting skills at all. By the way she carried herself, Abbey doubted that was the case.
