I look to the left hemisphere, not letting my eyes drift too far up this time, and see neatly delineated blocks. Most are shades of green flecked with shoots and spots of other color, but there are also shimmering fields of golden wheat and fallow stretches of dark soil. There are more gray compounds sown around the farmlands, and lengths of tube crisscross the whole of the Sphere.
Forests for air, farmlands for food—everything they need is generated right inside the prison. Except water. Maybe that’s my exit strategy: wait for a water delivery and hijack the ship.
This huge rock has been hollowed, terraformed, and turned into a self-contained ecosystem: wholly artificial yet somehow natural too. I can’t believe that MEPHISTO built a garden world for their fucking prisoners, while there are hundreds of colonized planets in the empire where people still can’t go outside without protective gear.
I forget my awe for a second as a new realization creeps into my thoughts: How do I break Mookie out of a closed system? A prison inside a prison?
A loud hiss builds within the transit tube, then ends suddenly in a shup as a bullet-shaped pod slides to a halt within the pipe. Machinery shunts the pod out of the transit loop; the roof folds away and an android envoy emerges. It’s unusually stocky, with extra armor plating on its torso and limbs. The head is lit up with a grainy image of a guard’s face: young, male, and bored.
The envoy holds a waver across its chest, low enough that it doesn’t block the lenses that act as its eyes. Weapons that tear apart flesh but leave inorganic material untouched are perfect for a prison where screws ride metal bodies via a holo-rigfrom behind the scenes via holo-rig.
The guard looks at me, then at the line of Legionnaires fanned out behind me. “All this for her?”
A Legionnaire to my right grunts. “Do not underestimate this prisoner. A recommended security routine was transmitted to Doctor Rathnam.”
The lenses on the envoy’s chest shift and swivel as the guard studies my face, then he raises his eyebrows and steps right inside my personal space.
“Yeah, we received it; Doctor Rathnam had this fabricated to specifications.” He produces a large, segmented collar from behind the envoy’s back and puts it around my neck. There’s a series of quiet clicks as the collar tightens. “Normally we fit our prisoners with a bomb collar, but this is something else entirely.” His voice is pitched high, with a strange lilt. It rises and falls steadily as he speaks, with no regard for what he’s actually saying.
“For some reason, they want to keep your head where it is, so there’s no bomb in this one, but there are sensors that can detect abnormal brain activity. If you use the abilities Hamid warned us about, the collar will shock you. If you stray too far from your designated prison campus, it will shock you. If you try and remove the collar, it will shock you.” He points over my shoulder and says, “If you try and enter that tunnel—”
“The collar will shock me?” I say.
He grins. “You catch on quick.”
When the collar closed around my neck, the information scrolling across my HUD dried up as my aug-feeds were shut down. Now, all that’s left is a blinking message: DISABLED. After a few seconds, even that is gone.
I lift my cuffed hands. “Are you going to take these off?”
“The restraints stay, but I’ll take this,” he says, then he grabs my cloak and lifts it off, snaking it down my arms and over the restraints.
The cloak was my second gift from Sera. The first was a bracelet that lets me slip through powershields; the same bracelet that’s clamped beneath my handcuffs, hidden from sight. With the cloak gone, the guard quickly frisks me, cold android fingers prodding my flesh.
“I’ll take it from here,” he says. The envoy grabs me by the arm and yanks so hard I bash into the android’s torso, then he spins and drags me toward the transit tube.
The Legion start moving and I turn to watch their formation shift and flow until they vanish into the darkness of the tunnel. The gate closes, and for all appearances it could be blocking a sewer drain or water runoff, not the prison’s only dock.
I sigh and almost stumble as the guard hauls me along, my legs still aching. I’ll be alone until I find Mookie, but loneliness was my life before; just me and Ocho, with a whole galaxy to hide in. So why do I feel so lonely now?
As we reach the car, we fall into the shade of one of the watchtowers. Hidden from the artificial sunlight, the shadows are black and cold as the void. I shiver and hope the screw didn’t see, doesn’t think I’m afraid.
We take a seat inside the transit pod and the roof closes as the vehicle slots into the transparent tunnel. The guard turns to look at me, his head twisting unnaturally while the android’s chassis stays motionless. “Hold onto your hat.”
We’re launched forward and my neck snaps back, head thrown against the metal headrest. The guard laughs. Pinned by gravity, all I can do is look up and watch the surface of Homan Sphere shift above me.
* * *
The transit loop delivers us to a complex deep inside Homan’s forest. Fake sunlight falls dappled through the leaves; eyelids glow flesh pink when I close my eyes.
The compound is butterflied—two mirrored halves connected to a main hub—and the guard leads me to a central building with a sign reading Maximum Security Site over the entrance. The doors slide open as we approach and snap shut immediately behind us.
The main corridor smells of antiseptics with an underlying note of urine. A flash of childhood wracks my brain—girls waking up in screaming terror, sheets soaked with sweat and piss. In my memories it’s the other girls who wake like that, pounding the ceiling with their manifesting telekinetic powers, but I was one of those girls too. Slapped by a caretaker and forced back into a soiled bed, feeling the wet patch turn cold while I cried, only knowing I’d slept because I woke later in the harsh light they used to simulate day.
I shake my head, as if that might clear the thoughts, but they linger.
Women dressed in green prison uniforms and metal collars move past, most of them walking slow or staggering. Some have had their scalps razored, others walk with heads low, faces hidden behind lank, dirty hair.
The guard takes me to a clinic. The lights inside are brighter than elsewhere, bleaching the skin of the patients lying in bed. Autodocs glide on wheeled feet, and a number of envoys line the far wall. These envoys are unarmored, torso panels white with caducei painted in red along the sternum, finely detailed wings spreading across the chest.
One of these medical envoys comes to life and walks toward me. A man’s face is projected from the holo-unit at the neck: sharp nose, large eyes, and a white beard speckled with black.
He nods to my escort. “Good day, corporal.”
“Sir,” he replies.
I roll my eyes at the farce: wherever they’re controlling the envoys from, these two are probably within spitting distance, heads hidden inside holo-rigs, playing at prison staff through their android toys.
“This is our new arrival?” he asks.
“Yes, sir; Mariam Xi. She was captured on Miyuki by Commander Hamid’s forces and claims to be the terrorist responsible for the destruction of Commander Briggs’s fleet, the murder of Commander Briggs, and the deaths of the personnel under his command.”
“Is that so.” The doctor’s holographic face doesn’t shift, but the envoy’s lenses whir as he focuses his gaze on me. Standing this close, it’s easy to see how his eyes don’t quite meet mine. “I was informed we were taking delivery of an extremely high-risk prisoner, but I must admit I wasn’t expecting someone quite so . . . petite.”
“Death comes in all shapes and sizes,” I say with a smirk.
He frowns, drawing deep lines across his face. “Deliver the prisoner’s cloak to storage;” “I’ll take her from here.”
“Sir, the induction procedures—”
“I will handle it, corporal.”
The doctor says the last word like a threat, but if the guard responds I don�
��t hear it. His head flickers then disappears and the envoy leaves the room holding my bundled cloak, carried away by its own basic artificial intelligence.
“My name is Doctor Rathnam, and I’m responsible for all that happens inside Homan Sphere. As warden and senior physician, I have assigned myself as your caretaker.”
It’s like they deliberately chose the title “caretaker” to make my skin crawl.
“Mariam Xi,” he says, as if to himself.
“People call me ‘Mars.’”
“Come, walk with me.” The envoy moves out into the hallway and I follow, walking beside the android as it ambles down the corridor.
“How do you feel, Mariam?”
I try to think of the best words to describe my particular mix of brain-fog and sluggish limbs. The best I can come up with is, “Drug-fucked.”
Rathnam laughs, but it’s a polite, insincere sound. “I’m certain the sedatives will be out of your system soon enough.”
“Which is why you put me in this collar, right? I’m not sure a little zap is going to stop me, doc.”
“I am well aware, Mariam: I have read the briefing documents which detail your abilities.” We come to a hallway intersection and Rathnam stops. “I have decided we must take additional measures to ensure the safety of the other prisoners.”
Rathnam’s envoy raises its arm and motions to a guard escorting a prisoner toward the clinic. This prisoner is an older man, his back hunched and organic eyes cloudy with untreated cataracts.
“Your weapon, corporal?” Rathnam says, and the guard passes his waver over. Rathnam turns to face me and raises the weapon, pressing it to the elderly man’s temple. “If you use your abilities to act out in any way, even in self-defense, one of your fellow prisoners will be killed. That might sound harsh, but you are a dangerous individual, and I take the well-being of my charges very seriously.”
I’m sure you do.
His display complete, Rathnam returns the guard’s sidearm. The old man sags, disappointment not relief, and we keep moving. A woman walks past and looks at me, her wide eyes windows to terror. She’s wretchedly thin, and dark shadows line the hollows of her cheeks.
“You probably think this is the part of my speech where I say that we’re going to break you—”
“I was waiting for that bit actually,” I say.
“—but believe me when I say we hope to treat you well here. Commander Hamid has great plans for you, and it is my job to see them brought to fruition. One way or another, you will pledge your loyalty to her.”
We enter the mess hall, empty but for a few prisoners mopping the floor and wiping down tables.
Rathnam continues. “I should also let you know that there are no space suits kept anywhere within Homan Sphere. So if you were to, say, break open the dock, you would be killing yourself and every other prisoner here.”
“Not to mention the staff,” I say, as a super subtle threat.
The doctor laughs, a loud blast that echoes off the high ceiling. “I am sorry to say that we are all safely ensconced on the surface of Seward, far away from your terrible abilities.”
We come to a long corridor walled and roofed with glass. Outside the sun has set, and the leaves flutter in an artificial wind, but I can’t hear their song.
The glass corridor leads us inside a multitiered building, four stories of cells rising above an open central corridor. Envoys patrol the walkways, some ridden, others empty-headed, all armed with wavers.
“And now we arrive at your new home, Mariam.” Rathnam leads me to a large cell on the second floor. A powershield shimmers across the opening—beyond, lines of shield segregate the women into individual cells. They sleep on the ground, arms folded under their heads for pillows. A woman with two prosthetic arms has her cheek pressed flat against the polycrete floor. Another wears only collar and underwear; even through the blur of the shields I can see the lesions and cuts on her skin.
A segment of shield disappears and the doctor sweeps an arm toward the opening like it’s a grand invitation. I step inside and hold my hands out to the envoy.
As he undoes the restraints, Rathnam says, “Escape is impossible. Remember that, and you will come to accept your new role more easily.”
I nod and cover my bracelet with my other hand, hoping he doesn’t notice it. It takes effort not to wince; beneath the bracelet my skin is broken, flesh bruised. “I understand,” I say. It’s true, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning to comply.
CHAPTER NINE
I jolt awake as a shiver wracks my body; the cold touch of the polished cement floor has seeped into my bones.
I push up off the ground, my hands and arms oddly pale in the stark light falling from the single, illuminative panel that makes up the ceiling.
The powershields that separated us overnight have gone, but most of the women still lie in their spots, asleep or simply unwilling to move. The woman who’s dressed in just her underwear sits in one corner, curled in a ball with legs pressed against her chest, head resting on her knees. Her limbs are bone-thin, and her black hair is streaked with white. She looks both juvenile and middle-aged, like living in this place has somehow aged her rapidly and rendered her childlike, dependent on authority figures for everything.
A larger woman sits on the cell’s only toilet. She sees me looking and glares, then opens her legs and wipes herself, holding my gaze in an aggressive, animalistic display.
I shake my head and stand, then step over three prone women as I walk to the shield wall enclosing the front of the cell. I turn back to face the woman on the toilet, give her a smile and a small wave, then step backward through the powershield. My whole body tingles, a surge of energy passing through me, igniting nerves in bizarre sensation.
The woman’s face goes slack, her lips parting as her mouth hangs open. I spin away and start off at a jog.
Headless envoys man the sections of wall between cells, all on standby, the human guards likely working the daylight half of the Sphere. If the androids see me pass them, they aren’t smart enough to realize I shouldn’t be out of my cell this early.
I reach the stairs and bound down, footfalls gonging gently as I descend. A thin smile spreads across my face as I jog. It feels good to be moving, it feels necessary.
* * *
I shadow an envoy transferring from my wing to the core of the Maximum Security site. I stick close as it walks through the open steel door and slip through just before it clangs shut.
The central hub is beginning to stir, the hum of mechanical labor building with the approach of artificial dawn. I tail another envoy with my head low, acting like it’s escorting me somewhere. When the envoy peels off into one of the clinic rooms, I switch to another. This one takes me through the reinforced door to what I guess is the men’s wing.
Just like on the other side, it opens onto a corridor walled entirely in glass. Dull sunlight reflects off rich green leaves. If the prison wakes with Homan’s sun, then I’ve got only minutes before the guards catch me.
The male prisoners are awake, and when I reach the cells a dull murmur of conversation ripples through the block. I approach the nearest lockup and push through the shield, startling an older man sat by the wall.
“Do you know Mookie?” I ask, voice quiet.
He narrows his eyes like he’s trying to think, but he stays silent.
“Does anyone know Mookie?” I ask, louder this time.
The men all turn and look at me. One of the prisoners says, “How the fuck?” Another just mumbles, “Emperor’s crack hair.” If they know anything, they’re too startled by finding me in their cell to say.
I duck out, and the men move as if caught in my orbit, drifting to the powershield to watch me slip into the next cell.
“Mookie?” I say. The men stare blankly, and I step back out.
At the far end of the block an envoy’s head lights up as the guards start their rounds.
“What the hell?” she says when she sees me.
She starts running. The envoy’s forearm opens, armor segments parting as a stun-baton emerges to jut perpendicular from its wrist.
“I know Mookie.” A raspy voice speaks up.
I turn and see a wall of gaunt faces staring at me, unable to tell who spoke. “Where is he?” I ask, but no one answers.
The guard is almost on me now. I lift my arm and shove the envoy so hard it sails through the air. The collar around my neck reacts; skin burns and electricity sparks through my body. I collapse as the android crashes to the ground with a metallic clatter.
* * *
By the time the guards drag me back to the cell, I can almost walk under my own power. Almost.
The prisoners must be at breakfast now, because the other women’s cell blocks are all empty. Not mine—it’s packed with as many screws as prisoners, the women lined up against the back wall, the guards facing opposite.
Doctor Rathnam stands between the two groups, riding a guard envoy now, but somehow looking less authoritative in the armored android than in a medical one.
“Sergeant Ramirez!” Rathnam barks. “How did this happen?”
A guard steps forward, an older woman with as many facial tattoos as wrinkles showing in her holo-projection. She scans me up and down, then settles on my wrist.
“Sir,” she says, “this device allowed the prisoner to escape. It should have been found and removed at induction.”
I smirk at Rathnam.
The sergeant takes the bracelet off and snaps it in half. Losing one of my few reminders of Sera hurts more than I thought it would.
Rathnam pulls the envoy’s waver sidearm from its holster and points it at the line of prisoners. “What did you think would happen, Mariam?” he says, sounding disappointed. He doesn’t wait for an answer; he pulls the trigger and there’s a sound like a robotic critter squeaking, following by a wet pock.
I don’t even know the woman’s name, but she’s dead and toppling forward impossibly slow. She has brown hair, green eyes, and a gaping head wound.
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