Rage

by Matthew Costello

  Raine took a breath. Steady, he told himself. Nice and easy. He is the goddamned sheriff after all.

  “You took out Starky. People lost money. Worse, they lost their star. And what’d they get in its stead? You.”

  “I won the damn race.”

  Another shake from Black. “There’s only one thing for you to do now. And I’m going to tell you what that one thing is.”

  “Clayton said if I raced-”

  Black smiled. “ If you raced. Right. Let me ask you something: what you gonna race in now? ’Fraid you didn’t win enough to go buy a Cuprino. No fucking way.”

  “I’ll do something else.”

  Raine didn’t like the feeling that Black had an agenda here, that they were going somewhere in this conversation and he didn’t know where.

  “You took something away from the people of Wellspring. Now, you’re gonna give back. The winner of the goddamned White Rabbit is going right onto Mutant Bash TV.”

  Raine remembered the ads he saw, thinking more bread and circuses. The porcine face of the host, his head looking like a wad of human-shaped dough. The leering faces of mutants.

  “I don’t watch TV.”

  “A wiseass?”

  Another phrase that survived. A good one, too.

  “Well, wiseass, you won’t be watching. You will be on Mutant Bash. Tomorrow, it’s the big Friday Free-for-All.” His voice got low and conspiratorial, as if he was letting Raine in on a secret. “You see, people like their race night, and then they like heading home with containers of stim and getting drunk the next night watching Bash. They’ll love seeing you in there.”

  “No thanks. I’ll pass.”

  Black raised a finger and jabbed it at Raine.

  It was one push too many, and Raine reached up. He twisted Black’s wrist, quickly turning, making Black spin around from the pain as he bent the arm up.

  In a moment he could break the guy’s arm.

  He saw Black go for his gun with his free hand, and Raine reached down and grabbed that wrist. Now, right up to Black’s ear, he whispered.

  “I wouldn’t do that”-he gave the trapped arm a slight pull up for emphasis-“if you know what I mean.”

  “You’re fucked.”

  “Could be. I’ve heard that before. Now if you can talk in a civil manner, I will let your arm go. Just keep those hands away from those six-shooters, pardner. Deal?”

  Black hesitated, perhaps weighing if he had another shot to get Raine off him.

  Then: “Deal.”

  Raine let Black’s trapped arm slide free. “You’d be a dead man. If Clayton didn’t want something from you.”

  “I’ve been a dead man before. There we are. So-we were talking about TV?”

  “You-” Black adjusted his tone a bit.

  Good. Lesson learned. Though Raine guessed if Black didn’t need him to do the show, he might indeed be in big trouble.

  “You will go on the show tomorrow night. The audience will love it. Win there, and you just might have enough for a new buggy.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous show.”

  “Oh, it is. You can consider what happened out there”-he gestured at the stadium-“as a warm-up. The Bash Arena is not a happy place.”

  “Then why the hell would I do it? I’ll go back to Clayton and-”

  “Clayton sent me.”

  Raine stopped. He remembered seeing Clayton with the men from the Authority, their black uniforms standing out from the ragtag clothing worn by the people of Wellspring.

  “He sent me. With this offer.”

  “And if I pass?”

  “The mayor gets a lot of pressure. Ark survivors are a highly valued commodity out here.” Black smiled. “Yeah, we know. We’re not fools. You’d be a nice prize to turn over. But the mayor’s a man of his word. He’ll keep quiet. For now.”

  “ If I do Mutant Bash.” Man of his word? His word seemed to change daily.

  Black nodded. “And I’ll be quiet as well. Though the day will come, stranger, when you and I will deal with each other.”

  Raine heard a noise from down the hall. One of the other drivers limping his way down. He and Black stood there, quietly, as he passed. The man was not so quiet as he passed Raine.

  “Fucker.”

  He kept limping down the hallway.

  “Another new friend,” Black said.

  “I see.”

  “You show up at the studio on the east side of the city, near the mutant pens. About seven tomorrow night, an hour before the show. You do that, and the Authority will just see you as some other lucky guy who wandered in from the Wasteland…”

  “And about to die in the arena.”

  “That,” he said, adjusting his hat, “will be up to you. I know one damn thing, Raine-I’ll sure as hell be watching.”

  And with that the sheriff walked away.

  Raine went to a table in the back of the bar and sat down. His aches now mixed with a numbing fatigue as his body screamed for rest. Despite that, the race and the move he pulled off to win-and then the threat from Black-had his mind in overdrive.

  Sally had a full bar. A skinny guy with a domelike head and jittery moves helped her. When she got a break, she walked back to him, two drinks in hand.

  “You won.”

  “Isn’t that what I was supposed to do?”

  “Not that anyone expected it.”

  “Not even you?”

  “Can I sit?”

  “Your bar, right?”

  Sally sat down, the place full enough that she had to lean close to speak to Raine.

  “Heard Starky took a nasty spill.”

  “About as nasty as they get when the person’s still able to walk away from it. Except he didn’t walk away.” Raine took a sip of the drink Sally had brought over. “He got carried.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, you know, the funny thing is that when I was in there, I kind of forgot what you said he did to your driver. But I could see how he operated. Taking drivers out right and left, even if he didn’t need to in order to win. And suddenly I wanted to take him out. I wanted to win.”

  “So-more races?”

  Raine shook his head. “The buggy’s a wreck. Besides, Clayton has other plans for me.”

  “What does he want you to do?”

  Raine nodded toward the tube television suspended over the bar. Had to be over a hundred years old and still working. Pretty amazing.

  “Going on Mutant Bash TV.”

  Without thinking, Sally’s hand covered his as she said, “No. You can’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You ever see a Bash?”

  He shook his head.

  “You have to fight and kill mutants, or at least get past them. Each setup is different, like a puzzle, only you have mutants coming out from all over. If I could, I wouldn’t even let it be shown in the bar. But they’d tear the joint apart. I don’t even look. You can’t do it, Raine.”

  “I wasn’t given an option. It’s this or the Authority. Guess you figured out that they’re looking for me, hm? And since Wellspring is my only option for now, especially without wheels…”

  Sally leaned even closer.

  “ They know about you. Someone will be coming. Not sure when.”

  Raine raised his eyes. “You mean Enforcers?”

  “No.” She lowered her voice even more. “The Resistance.”

  “You’re with-” He looked around. “Okay. Good to know that. I got something for them. And maybe I can find out what I’m supposed to be doing in this world. Other than races and bashes.”

  “I don’t want to know too much, but I was told you will be contacted. Won’t help, though, if you’re dead.”

  Raine drained his glass. He noticed some of the men closer to the table looking over, perhaps flashing on the fact he was the out-of-the-blue newcomer who’d won today’s race. No one smiled.

  Cost them money, he imagined.

  “Don’t have much
choice, Sally. Tomorrow night at eight.” He laughed. “A star is born.”

  She didn’t laugh back.

  “If you do it, win, Raine. Do whatever you have to… to stay alive.”

  “Always do.”

  She looked around.

  “Like I said, I don’t know much about the Resistance. Don’t want to know much-not healthy. But I do what I can, and I’m sure of one thing: they sure as hell can use someone like you.”

  He nodded.

  “Another drink?”

  He shook his head. “No. That bed in the storeroom still free?”

  She hesitated, and he wondered whether another offer might be on the table. Then the moment passed as she smiled.

  “Sure. Rest up.”

  The possible offer… vanishing with the idea that he might be a dead man.

  And as Sally walked away he thought…

  Not if I have anything to do about it.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  INTERROGATION

  Captain John Marshall, his vision blurry from blood and sweat dripping down his face, looked up at the man standing in front of him.

  He had been drugged for his transfer here, but he now knew where he was.

  That much, at least, was clear.

  Inside Capital Prime, inside its prison-with who knows how many other political prisoners. The ones still alive.

  Or had they all been killed?

  The man before him, dressed in a black officer’s uniform and flanked by two Enforcers, waited until he felt Marshall’s eyes on him.

  “Tomorrow you will meet the Visionary. Quite an exciting moment for you.”

  Marshall looked right into the man’s eyes. “The Visionary can kiss my-”

  Before the word was out, an Enforcer smacked him with the back of his hand and sent him flying to the ground. Another Enforcer put his boot on Marshall’s back, keeping him pinned there.

  “You think this is a joke, Marshall? You think that we, the Authority, can permit scum like you to create problems in this world? There is much work to be done, and we’ve just started. You, and whatever is left of your Resistance, will not stand in our way.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Now the other Enforcer’s boot was kicked into Marshall’s side, knocking the wind out of him. Marshall gasped, choking to get air back in his lungs, still with a heavy boot stepping on his back.

  “Y’know, it’s too bad you won’t cooperate. The Visionary could have use for someone like you. We have… openings.” The man paused. “Let him up.”

  The boot came off, and now the only thing holding Marshall to the ground were the spears of pain he felt all over his body. He guessed the plan was to leave him in such battered shape that in the morning he’d just stand-if he could-in front of the Visionary, listen while the Visionary asked his questions…

  And tell everything.

  Marshall wondered how far they would go to get information from him. How much pain, how much time?

  He had been tortured once. Captured by a small antigovernment tribe in the hills of Waziristan. Old school, they used their knives to keep him in agony for days.

  They had been real amateurs. It doesn’t quite work that way, he had wanted to explain to them. You got to go back and forth until it becomes clear to the subject that there was only one thing they wanted. For the dance of pain and remission to end. Nothing else mattered-the lives of friends, the safety of other soldiers, the mission, and even the fate of the goddamn world-you just wanted the pain to stop.

  In the morning a squad of Rangers had parachuted nearby and raided the cave dwelling. The terrorists were dead in minutes; he had said nothing.

  But now?

  How long could he hold out?

  One technique taught in Ranger school and drilled into the covert ops leaders was that you had to stay in the goddamn moment. Don’t think about the past, of warm beds, meals, lovers… and don’t think about the future, about what you want, how you want this to end one way or the other.

  Concentrate on the small details in that moment.

  Even amidst horrifying pain. One expert in counterinsurgency ops explained there can be good no matter what was happening. Focus on that.

  Focus on the very fact of existence.

  But no one in that room ever hoped to have to experience that, to have the need to try that technique. Marshall wasn’t that lucky. What was happening now, he guessed, was a warm-up. Setting the stage for the morning’s interrogation by the Visionary himself.

  “We will stop this for now, Marshall. Want you fresh, alert, in the morning. But before you go back to your ‘room,’ you should know what the Visionary will be asking about.”

  The Visionary. It always came back to the Visionary.

  A man Marshall knew. A bastard he hated a century ago, for what he did, for what he stood for.

  Now he’d be questioned and tortured by that man.

  “What is that? My name, rank, and fucking serial number?” Marshall didn’t know this Authority officer standing before him, but all he could think about was how great it would be to make that sneering face squirm and twitch with pain.

  He caught himself.

  In the moment, he thought.

  “Unlikely, considering your rank means nothing to the Authority. No, he will ask about your various secret bases. About the key people you work with, the settlements not to be trusted. Where you keep your supplies. In short, Captain Marshall,” he snarled, “ everything you, the pathetic Resistance leader, know.”

  In answer, Marshall spat on the ground.

  The man turned aside.

  “Take this piece of garbage away. Give him nothing. No food. No water.”

  The two Enforcers grabbed Marshall and began dragging him back to his cell.

  Those guards disobeyed their orders, though, and thoughtfully gave him a boot to the head the next day. Not full force, but hard enough that Marshall saw stars as he awakened blinking, taking a few seconds to see where he was.

  Right. It’s morning.

  He was curled on the floor of the cell, competely empty except for his battered body. Not even a hole in the floor for a toilet, as if making him as much of an animal as possible would help the process of interrogation. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t working-he wasn’t an animal yet.

  But he was surrounded by them.

  “Get up.”

  He could fight them, become a dead weight and force them to rough him up and then pull him to his feet. But what was the point?

  To tell them they can kiss his ass, that’s what.

  But instead he pushed off his hands and got to his feet. If he still had nanotrites coursing through him, he’d be in a lot better shape. Not that it was a real possibility.

  “Let’s go boys,” he said. “Guess your Visionary is waiting.”

  The Enforcers’ helmets prevented Marshall from seeing if there was any reaction to his words.

  Clever idea, making the people in uniform… faceless. Not only rendering them scarier than the freakiest bandit tribe, but also making it hard for them to ever see each other as anything but part of the army of the Authority.

  And who were they, really? Recruited from settlements? Ark survivors who preferred life with the Authority rather than being on the run from them? Supposedly, more and more were choosing life with the Authority.

  The Visionary’s goddamn vision… coming true.

  The Enforcers cuffed Marshall and then led him out of the cell. If he had been a religious man, he would have prayed.

  And then, as he walked-despite everything-he did just that.

  As Marshall entered the room, he was momentarily blinded by massive lights that dotted the ceiling and bathed the polished metal floor with a brilliant light.

  It took him a few seconds to see what was here: a chair, a few tables, computer monitors-all probably removed from Arks. The monitors appeared to show different areas surrounding this building, the heart of the Authority.

  He also notice
d that one table had instruments on it. His eyes tried to make out exactly what those items were, and he found that his very inability to determine that made him anxious.

  Steady, he told himself. Don’t let your thoughts race ahead.

  He saw someone sitting in the chair, two Enforcers on either side. The first inquisitor from yesterday stood to the left.

  His two Enforcer escorts held his arms tightly.

  “Anyone else coming to this party?”

  The two guards holding him pushed him forward until he was meters away from the man in the chair.

  The Visionary.

  Or as he was known back in the day…

  General Martin Cross.

  “Colonel, see that he’s uncuffed. He is a captain after all.” Surprisingly, Marshall didn’t detect any disdain when Cross said his rank.

  The colonel signaled to the Enforcers behind Marshall, and one stuck a key in the cuffs. Marshall’s hands slipped free and he rubbed his wrists, red and bruised.

  “Am I supposed to kneel now?” he said.

  The colonel walked forward and slapped Marshall with the back of his hand.

  “You will speak with respect, Marshall. Or-”

  “Colonel, please. Really. Marshall is not used to the ways of civility here in Capital Prime. No, Captain, you do not kneel. Or even salute.”

  “That’s good, General. Since I plan on doing neither.”

  “You will-eventually, though-talk. That I can promise you. Just as others have.”

  Marshall knew that one of the key cell leaders-not an Ark survivor, but head of a small trading settlement to the north-had been captured weeks ago. He spoke. Good people were lost. In the end the Authority sent in Predators to torch the settlement. Killing everyone.

  A message sent.

  For some it signaled that the Resistance was dead. For others it signaled that the Resistance had just begun.

  “We’ll see, Cross.”

  Cross.

  He had been hostile to the new President from the start of her administration, and then became a constant roadblock to President Campbell’s foreign policy, until he was removed from that position by her. Then he was given responsibility for training, a bureaucratic job that took him far away from Washington, away from where he could stir up trouble and opposition to the President as she attempted to exit the wars that had spread to every continent.