Woven

by Elle E. Ire

  “Let’s join the party.” That’s our agreed-upon code for “drop fully into character.” Lyle takes point, then me, Kelly, and Alex at our six. I’m not thrilled with the formation. I’d much rather lead, but I’m the wealthy slave buyer. I keep private security. I don’t get my hands dirty. Not in that way.

  We process down the ramp, striding into the swarm of forest green, who take up circular positions around us. The autocarrier rolls along behind us all. “Welcome,” the lead guard says. “I’m Felix, head of security here. You are permitted to keep your own people with you. They and only they may go armed.” He passes a scanner wand over myself and Kelly, confiscating the pistol I had beneath my jacket—not military issue, not very powerful, and intended to be taken from me. They would expect me to be carrying. I don’t want to disappoint.

  “You’ll get this back when you leave,” Felix says, offering an apologetic smile and handing it off to another guard, who drops it into a bin beside the ship and locks the lid down. He turns to Lyle and Alex. “Your weapons go with your luggage for now. No one is allowed to have them en route.” He pulls their pistols and tucks them into a pouch, which he plops on the autocarrier with our bags. “If anyone starts any trouble inside, Jacks will deposit all of you outside the shield and let you suffocate.” It’s all said with a polite smile, matter-of-fact rather than threatening. “Once you enter the complex proper, you’ll each be fitted with a locator beacon. Don’t remove it. As long as it remains green, you’re in a common area. If it goes yellow, you’ve stepped into a transition section and should retrace your steps immediately. Red means you’re in a restricted zone. If you get that far, you’re already considered in violation of the house rules and subject to expulsion beyond the shield.”

  “Doesn’t Jacks have any other forms of punishment?” I ask, sarcasm evident.

  Felix glances over his shoulder to make eye contact. “No.”

  Wonderful.

  “I’ll provide your assistant with a full list of the do’s and don’ts around here, but those are the most important ones to remember. Anything you need, have her contact Markel, Jacks’s secretary. You may not get it, but you can ask.”

  Our group continues across the landing bay’s concrete floor, bootsteps echoing in the huge chamber and bouncing off the high ceiling. A maintenance team flutters around one of the other yachts, scrubbing the hull, refueling the tanks, and stacking boxes of dried foods beneath the ship’s ramp for later storage aboard. One of our female escorts, the one who’d smiled at Kelly, notices my interest.

  “We’ll resupply your ship before you leave,” she says. “The service is free with any purchase.”

  Which would be a nice perk if I didn’t know that purchase would be a human being. I’m unraveling the intense feelings of anger… no, all-out hatred boiling under my cool exterior. I’m essentially a slave to the Fighting Storm. Of course I’m taking this mission even more to heart. Should have figured this out sooner, but while I’ve made a lot of progress, I still struggle with pinpointing what I feel and why.

  Then there’s the little matter of the slaves themselves not being where they’re supposed to be. “You want to tell me what’s really going on here? Because my… scanning equipment showed a handful of warm bodies. Where are your staff and your… merchandise?” I force the word out, the minute pause undetectable to everyone but my team. Lyle gives me a quick glance over his shoulder, his face unreadable, then returns his attention forward.

  The woman smiles again, bright white teeth shining and blue eyes twinkling, like an advertising holo. “You must have some damn good equipment. I’ll have to talk shop with your tech support. Don’t be alarmed. You’ll understand shortly. I promise you, you’ll have a fine selection to choose from. I’m Petala. I’ll be the liaison between our people and your private security team.” She gives Alex and Lyle a little wave. Lyle ignores it and walks on. Alex waves back with a grin.

  He and I will have words later.

  Or maybe not. Gaining Petala’s trust will help us move about the slave facility with more freedom, and I already know Alex’s sexual preference wouldn’t include her. He’s playing the game. Good boy.

  An image of me patting a large shaggy dog on the head, the dog’s collar tag reading “Alex,” appears on my inner view. I shake it away.

  The autocarrier has gotten far ahead of us. At the end of the bay, a pair of double doors slides apart. The carrier glides inside, and they close behind it. I hope our luggage makes it to our rooms unmolested.

  We reach the doors ourselves, which part at our approach, but it’s not a hatch to another room or even a corridor. It’s a freight elevator, its deep, empty interior of plain metal walls and flooring utilitarian and unadorned in any way. The autocarrier is gone, already dropped off on whatever level it was headed for. Lyle follows the lead guard, Felix, inside along with several of the other local security. I halt before my boot crosses the threshold.

  “Vi—Valeria?” Kelly asks, bumping into me from behind. She comes around to my right side and places a hand on the sleeve of my suit jacket. “Something wrong?”

  She thinks I’m balking at getting on an elevator. Too close in structure and feel to an airlock, and I still, despite years of separation from my first death in one, have issues with those. For once, that’s not it.

  I take a deep breath and make eye contact with Felix, who has turned around at the holdup. “This hangar has no second floor.” I glance up to confirm, though I already know. It doesn’t. It’s the height of several stories, but it’s all open space except for a couple of catwalks, and the elevator doesn’t go there. “Where will this take us?”

  Felix shows his teeth in a challenging smile. “Hop in and see.”

  Not like I have a choice. I force my leaden feet forward and end up in the center of the car, surrounded on all sides by the various guards. Kelly sticks close, her shoulder in contact with mine, but beyond that, the lift is large enough that we aren’t packed in like a box of ammo.

  The doors seal shut with the softest whoosh/bump, not like the loud thunk of an airlock. Felix steps to the controls and presses a sequence of buttons. The elevator drops.

  And drops.

  And drops.

  It’s not fast or violent enough to upset stomachs or cause panic, but the vibrations through the flooring tell me we’re in constant motion as the seconds tick by. A lot of seconds.

  I exchange glances with Alex and Lyle, both of whom are shifting their feet. Lyle swallows hard. Alex checks his wrist chronometer, then checks it again.

  “This isn’t a gravlift,” Alex comments, resting his palm against the nearest wall. “The vibrations aren’t consistent. Cables?”

  Felix nods. “Old school, yeah. A gravlift wasn’t compatible with the shielding. Besides, Jacks prefers to make use of existing equipment when he can.”

  In other words, he’s taken his facility from a previous owner, and he’s a cheap bastard. Got it.

  It’s all in the moon’s core, I think at VC1. The entire slaving operation. That’s why no one ever registered their power signatures, why it was so hard to find until an informant told one of the hiring governments. I pause when we stop and the doors slide apart, revealing a rough-hewn tunnel, the walls of which are the same forest green as the guards’ uniforms. A musty, moist odor assails my nostrils, not unpleasant, but not at all what I expected. Flickering sconces holding bulbs simulating flamelight hang at wide intervals extending far into the distance. They turn the entire scene into something out of an ancient Egyptian tomb or castle dungeon catacombs more than a modern installation. The hall bustles with activity: servants, no, slaves carrying trays of food and drink, some other obvious buyers dressed in whatever is trending for their homeworlds’ elite no matter how ostentatious, and more of the ever-present security in their matching forest green. But there’s a difference. The slightly lighter green trim on their uniform jackets gives off a subtle glow under the subterranean lighting, making their imposing presen
ce easier to spot. While we disembark, one guard removes his jacket and folds it over one arm. The shirt beneath, as well as his pants and boots, do not have the same luminescent piping, meaning local security is seen when it wants to be and can “go dark” in the multitude of shadows if the need arises.

  Oh, that’ll be fun when this mission goes to complete shit.

  “How are we breathing?” Alex asks, his voice a squeak like a bat in the darkness and at complete odds with his role as bodyguard, or as a merc for that matter. I roll my eyes at him. He tries again. “I mean, up top you had shields holding in the atmosphere, but down here—?”

  Felix gives us a proud smile, spreading his arms out to indicate everything around us. “Actually, the natural atmo isn’t sufficient to sustain human life, but we’re adding in the additional oxygen we need. The shields extend deep beneath the moon’s surface,” he explains. “This was a mining facility before DigCorps abandoned it, and Mr. Jacks stumbled upon it while searching for a new place to operate from. Most of the original equipment was intact, just a few minor repairs needed and we were good to go. Don’t worry. We have backup generators, and you’ll find bins of emergency rebreathers in every tunnel.” He points to one now, a white wooden container with an image of a standard oxygen mask emblazoned in red on the front. One tap on the lid and it would dispense its contents from a chute on its side.

  But how far apart are these dispensers? Do they hold enough masks for the entire population here? Have they been maintained?

  I glance at the uneven rocky walls of the now-too-narrow tunnel. Servers and guests make contact with me as they brush by in the tight space. A constriction settles in my chest and throat. Why do the rocks feel like they’re closing in?

  “We’re fine, Valeria,” Kelly whispers beside me. “Deep breaths. You’re okay.”

  Oh. Fuck. This I don’t need.

  When I joined the Fighting Storm, I had zero claustrophobic tendencies. My death by airlock changed that. VC1 might have sent the worst of my memories, the Rodwell rape, to some other data storage location when I became a clone. But I’ve still got all my other traumas. Lucky me. The discomfort with enclosed spaces hasn’t been too severe of late, nothing I couldn’t push through, but….

  Is the guard right about the shields? I ask VC1, forgetting the man’s name. Felix. It’s Felix. Shit. If I’m not careful, I’m going to blow my cover.

  Then again, the slavers would probably expect one of their buyers to be more claustrophobic than a battle-edged, fully-trained merc.

  Sigh.

  The guard is correct. The shields extend well below our current level of the former mining operation. Their maintenance is… adequate. They have backup generators in place and the systems appear to be functioning efficiently. If it will help, I will leave a remnant in their computer to monitor it. It will also enable me to better map the facility for our purposes.

  Right. VC1 can divide herself to perform a variety of functions at once, so long as I’m not situated too far from any one of her… pieces? Tendrils? Whatever, so long as it works. Do it, I command, then add, please. I will not treat my computerized symbiont the way the Storm treats me most of the time. I won’t. Knowing my secret partner is on it, I manage to fill my lungs on my next inhale.

  Beside me, Kelly’s shoulders untense. “Better,” she says, patting my arm.

  “Why don’t we proceed to someplace a little more… open?” Felix suggests, grin firmly in place and waving an arm for us to follow him. I don’t miss the fleeting panic in his eyes.

  Guessing it won’t look good for him to freak out one of Jacks’s most affluent customers.

  Petala holds up a hand for us to pause, then produces four wrist bands from a pouch at her belt—the promised locater beacons. She fastens one on each member of my team, saving mine for last. A sensor in the band’s center glows green, making it look more like jewelry than a security device and reminding us that we are in an approved area. Once mine is securely in place, she gestures us onward.

  In motion once more, we tromp along the tunnel, Petala placing herself on my left and cautioning me to watch my head for low-hanging stalactites. The smell of dank dampness increases the farther we walk. I brush my fingertips along the rock wall. They come away wet. I dry them on my suit pants with a disdainful growl in keeping with my Valeria persona.

  Petala keeps up a constant stream of tour-guide-like chatter, pointing out mining equipment sitting idle in some of the side tunnels, explaining the use of a laser drill to remove gemstones with so much precision as to not damage them in any way. When one of the drills starts up mere feet from my position, I jump at the sudden shrill whine and deep grating like gravel caught in a blender.

  Oh yeah, Vick. Smooth and in control. That’s you.

  “We still do a bit of excavating in our off-hours,” Petala says, smiling. “There’s not enough here for commercial excavation, but most of the guards have squirreled away some good-sized stones to start a retirement fund.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Kelly pipes up when I don’t respond, my voice caught in my throat. “You should offer drilling excursions to your buyers.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Felix says with a wink. “Our buyers find plenty of distractions during their visits here.”

  On that note, the tunnel ends, opening into a much wider space—an enormous cavern soaring so high over our heads and so far out to the sides that I can’t discern a distinct perimeter in the dim light. Our path continues forward onto a wooden platform extending about twelve feet before it abruptly stops and drops into inky black nothingness.

  Chapter 6: Kelly—River Styx

  Vick is nervous.

  WE PAUSE at the edge of the wooden platform, me crowding Vick to keep her moving. She doesn’t want to reach the end, and considering our path seems to drop into the great beyond, I can’t blame her, but our guards show no concern for our, or their, safety.

  At least her claustrophobia has abated.

  If anything, I’ve developed a touch of agoraphobia. I don’t like dark corners I can’t see into—a paranoia that’s increased since my exposure to Vick—and the emptiness on all sides except behind gives me the creeps. I put a little more space between myself and Vick’s body. While I need her to walk forward, I don’t need our physical contact to transfer my fears to her. She has enough going on in her head as it is.

  The platform is wide enough for four of us to walk abreast, and instead of Lyle and Alex being first and last, we find ourselves side by side. We’re a team. No matter what the Storm assigns us, we’re a team. And it’s nice.

  As we reach the end, Lyle points across the emptiness. There’s a light—a tiny circle of wavering light, though it’s growing in size as it comes closer. Soon enough the light reveals a large raft-like structure attached to it, empty except for one male figure guiding it with a lever at the front. A soft whirring echoes off the distant walls and ceiling, a motor of some kind.

  Vick slips between two of Jacks’s security to the edge of the platform, then peers down.

  “It’s a lake. A gigantic fucking lake. In the middle of a moon,” she says, voice breathy with awe.

  I move beside her. Now that there’s more light from the oncoming raft, I can make out hundreds of tiny darting forms beneath the formerly smooth, now slightly rippling surface of the water. The light reflects off the iridescent scales of the fish, turning the entire body of water into a midnight sea of shooting stars. It’s fascinating, hypnotic, and—

  “Beautiful,” Vick whispers.

  The emotion in her voice stuns me, and I’m reminded of how very far she’s come in her emotional regrowth. The back of her hand brushes mine as we stand beside each other, my skin tingling with the urge to take hers and hold it, but that would be out of character at this moment. Realizing she’s slipped a bit herself, she steps away from me, straightens her posture, and places her hands on her hips, more like a businesswoman surveying a possible purchase than a gawking tourist.
/>   Or a hopeless romantic.

  My heart surges. I stifle the need to grin like a fool and school my expression into one of professionalism—the perfect assistant.

  “How did they get here?” she asks.

  “The miners who originally worked here had the lake stocked so fishing could be a recreational activity. Not a lot to do between shifts down here,” Felix says, playing tour guide. “The current staff takes advantage of it sometimes as well. And they’re quite tasty, though chemicals in the water mean you have to cook them in a detox boil.”

  “Yum,” Vick mutters under her breath.

  The raft bumps gently against the dock platform. The operator opens a swinging portion of the railing that runs around the entire craft, and we all step aboard, taking places along the rail and wrapping both hands around it. Even the local security grabs hold.

  “Does it get rough?” I ask, a slight tremor in my voice. I’ve been on rocky boats. Neither I nor my stomach enjoy them. As I speak, the operator backs us up, turns us around, and sets us off toward a distant, invisible shore.

  Petala glances at me over her shoulder from where she stands on the opposite rail. “Um, no. But we do have some, shall we say, overeager wildlife. Nothing carnivorous,” she hastens to reassure me.

  Oh good. I’m having flashbacks of octosharks. A shiver passes through Vick’s frame beside me. She still has nightmares about that encounter, when two of the eight-mouthed creatures nearly tore her limb from limb in the ocean on Infinity Bay. I guess that incident was too recent for VC1 to eliminate when she transferred some of Vick’s worst memories elsewhere.

  I continue to wonder where that “elsewhere” is, and so does Vick.

  Regardless of Petala’s assessment of the danger, all four of our team members stare into the dark waters of the cavern’s lake, trying to spot anything aggressive before it spots us. Or eats us, for that matter. But it’s peaceful, the tiny albino fish circling around the raft in large clusters of shimmering brilliance. My shoulders relax. Vick shifts her stance away from the one I recognize as “ready to fight” and into her “at ease” pose, still prepared to snap back to attention at a moment’s notice, but more observant than wary.