L'Gem

by Sharon L Reddy

  Chapter Two

  Ritzi, Tarse, Lima, Brimmy, Garil and Panner talked about what they could do with what they'd discovered, and how to get a message to Bard they had it. Eventually, they decided the message might get to him if it didn't look like a message and the bribe was attractive enough. They discarded the idea of a threat for non-delivery. Eventually, they discarded the idea of addressing it. Ritzi wrote the function on a piece of dispo-towel. They put most of the cash they'd accumulated, which they wouldn't need to buy parts, in an envelope they made from another dispo-towel.

  They flew into Shimmerton to 'buy supplies.' They overheard a conversation and Lima followed the right person, a guard's 'friend,' out of a store. She showed her the message and told her it was from a girl who wanted Bard to know she "couldn't forget him." The woman agreed she was "a hopeless romantic" and it was a "dumb way to spend two hundred fifty credits," but fifty of it were hers if she could find a guard who'd drop the piece of toweling in, for two hundred.

  Lima pulled a text up and showed her the function wasn't "a secret formula or anything," but the girl was sure he'd know who sent it, and had given her the whole thing, and "a little spending money," when she'd learned she'd be going to Shimmerton. Then she smiled and said she recognized a woman smart enough to get fifty and two hundred spent on her, too. The woman returned the smile and took the fifty, the note and the envelope, and noted she was pretty romantic, too, especially when it paid nicely. When she left the woman, Lima cleared the text with the replaced function.

  Two days after 'segregation day,' a piece of toweling floated down into the corner. Since guards often dropped trash in, it would have been ignored until morning sweep-up if it had been a whole dispo-towel and hadn't landed function side up. Since none of the guards would 'write math,' it was passed to Bard.

  He stared at it a moment, then burst into laughter, when he remembered where it came from. If the IS had grabbed him even a half-day later, he'd have had the formula for a 'secret weapon.' He told Harim he should have worked his way up to asking the girl to go dancing faster, and he still planned to "someday." Harim looked around and said he wasn't quite as sure it was an impossible dream as he had been.

  "So, what do people wear to places like that?"

  "Don't you think it's a little early to be planning your attire?"

  "Probably a bit, but I didn't think I'd have any trouble with the dancing part. A couple of the kids sang and danced when they got great marks on an exam and I practiced a little in my room, but I didn't know what to wear."

  "About anything that shows off your body and doesn't look like you're going to work or a real fancy party."

  "I was sure I didn't have anything appropriate. Show-off-body wasn't in my wardrobe."

  "You've been caged your whole life."

  "No, Choppy. My parents weren't killed in the Kafter lab explosion until I was six. I'd already showed I inherited their gifts in Ed programs. The IS might have gotten what they wanted if they hadn't grabbed me and tried to kill everyone else in the research lab, but the excited talk wasn't about that project and they destroyed two decades of work on the shield that kept the others alive. They wanted a secret weapon and thought grabbing me and killing the others would assure it was secret. I was convicted of doing it. I doubt the 'public record' of my trial is in public record, but I'm sure it has the 'proof,' in case one of the survivors of my 'attempt' found it. I wonder how many rebels they made."

  "IS keeps searching for a lead to the rebel organization and there isn't one. There can't be. The truth scan and comm monitoring prevent any small group from joining with others to build one, but IS makes more rebels every time they search for one. The government will fall in a true people's uprising, each individual deciding he too will do something to bring it down, or it will not fall. I believe, sometime in the near future, one group will decide there are enough others who want it ended and begin a series of acts against it and the populace will rise to assist, because all who are not in collusion want it ended, even if they have not named themselves rebels in their own minds."

  "I agree, Lone. One, two or several decide something must be stopped, but truth scan doesn't lead to others, then more and more. It ends with those who committed the act. The only place a rebel organization could exist is in prisons, where no outside communication is allowed. There are four. This one, the women's, and the men's and women's rebel prisons. But beyond these walls, hundreds of thousands wait for a sign the rebellion has begun."

  "I thought no one would free anyone here, if the gov did fall. I don't believe that now."

  "My mother would come for me, Harim."

  "The ones who know I didn't try to kill them will come for me."

  "My sister knows why I killed a man, too well."

  Men around them nodded assent. That evening, the men discussed the realizations that had come with the segregation. Some had former cellmates on the other side of the yard, but none had friends there. There were men they didn't dislike, who they'd lived with or worked beside, but they didn't consider them friends. They'd been thrown together by assignment and made the best of it, but all friends were among them.

  They discussed the fact the guards had done nothing to stop the segregation or end it and decided they had enough problems explaining bodies, and the warden might take credit for peace restored. They knew he had the next day.

  The walls across the yard and between the segregated work areas were only two meters high, but they had no doors. There were doors in those between the high and low ends of the cellblock and splitting the meal hall. New doors had been cut into work areas and meal hall from the low side. In the meal hall kitchen, the tray conveyors had been changed. One went out and one in on each side of the wall between the sections. The men rearranged the line some to make it less inconvenient, but none complained. When the early shift went into the yard, they sat down in the middle, not the corner of it.

  "Too fast not to have been done before."

  "Copied from the women's prison, Choppy."

  "I think you're right, Pans. I feel so much safer. I got my own room in Hell, and the demons can't get in."

  "The only problem is new ones."

  "They'll put them in on this side, Pans."

  "Why are you so sure, Bard?"

  "Because the ones on the other side would kill them without any to yell 'enough.' Every new one would at least require a medical report."

  "They're not all that vicious, Bard."

  "No, Choppy, but there are no caring, gentle men among them. Any who were would have found words to come to the side, even if only they were young and stupid, or wanted to be with us and not them. I don't believe none could be rehabilitated, but I don't believe any have been. By the end, any who didn't come forward had made the choice to stay with what was familiar to them, with rules of survival they understand. Those seventy-three are those who are remorseless killers, who would do it again. The number is appropriate for the population of this world, if you realize only those the gov is sure can't be controlled enough to be employed 'usefully' are there."

  "That's what Lone meant when he said the number is now correct."

  "I got a real fast statistical computation, Dripper. He's been researching it for twenty-six years. He was just waiting for 'the numbers to indicate the probability of success.' He spoke to no one because anything he said might have had an effect, or forewarned the guards. He listened to every word said around him and said none. I couldn't have, but I'm not the scientist he is."

  One after another, the four of the six with jobs, commed employers and requested vacation time, all pointing out it was really a more convenient time than that usually requested. One employer fervently agreed, two admonished they were supposed to request in advance and the fourth yelled Garil was "so involved in that damn book" he wasn't working and hoped they'd get it done, so he remembered he was "on this planet!" Garil smiled widely and said, "Thanks."r />
  "She was great."

  "Fantastic, Panner. She made sure no one had a reason to come into the lab until I got the shield built and that she didn't know I was building something, just working on things in the book."

  "They were all great. It's time to go shopping again. This time in Vairdslea. Here are your student IDs and your purchase orders. Exact amount in cash."

  "Cash is a little odd, Ritzi."

  "If anyone says something, tell them the prof complained about getting one draft for equipment for seven projects. The Institute business office is notorious for including all department grants in one draft and leaving them with the chore of splitting it to open project accounts."

  "The prof is too smart to end up paying a fee for emptying an account the day it opened."

  "That's the cash reason, Panner, if you need one."

  "Vairdslea is the closest place we're sure we won't be paying Shimmerton prices for food. I'll be shopping for groceries with my Brightway Buyers Club card. Try to get to the coffee shop early enough you all obviously just looked around while I was loading carts. Optimum city transport time and route in blue on the maps, secondary yellow, orange is nervous and red I'll be waiting for you in the flyer, probably in the toilet."

  "With the rest of us already there yelling we need a turn, Tarse."

  Eighty-seven minutes later, Ritzi took four IDs off the table and dropped five in the cycler. All had made it back on blue. They were in the coffee shop, excitedly talking about having their vacations to "finish getting the hero out of the dungeon with the magic sword," when IS checked their presence in Vairdslea. Tarse yelled, "Load up!" and they followed two auto-carts across the parking lot to the flyer pads on the outside corner, right beside a public transport stop.

  IS verified no tech had been purchased from any of the Technical Institute suppliers without purchase orders and Institute identification and then verified those. As soon as they had, five disappeared from Vairdslea Technical Institute files. The deletion completion sent a ping to a computer in Richland, then the deletion program vanished. The computer that received the ping deleted nine programs, thirty-two directories and eleven thousand two hundred ninety-six files. The program to delete them began storage defragmentation and deleted itself.

  When defragmentation was complete, a program emptied the deleted file directory, deleted eleven space holder files, the record of the defrag, reset clock time to correct time and vanished, no copy made in deleted file directory and no hole left in very high address storage.

  Bard chose a time it was busy and noisy in the kitchen and softly told Harim they needed to put a big X on a wall, outside. Harim almost dropped a pan. Bard managed to suppress a giggle. He held out his hand with the bit of toweling in the palm and grinned.

  "Wrote it on a datpad to try next. She remembered."

  "The girl you wanted to ask to dance."

  "You're jealous."

  "I am… jealous. It's a surprise."

  "Harim, I love you. That won't change, no matter who else I love, too. You're my best friend. The first real friend I've had. I'll still want your company, and still want to make love with you."

  "You… all of it?"

  "Yes, I all-of-it. Harim, you're my equal."

  "I don't understand. Lone…"

  "Is brilliant, but wouldn't have learned what you have in a year. Not starting where you did. I could have."

  "Yes, because I don't know another who could have learned what you have either, except me."

  "Why did you choose to allow yourself to be caught? I know why Lone did, but you've never told me why you did."

  "Here, my client didn't have to try to kill me. It's difficult for dead people to keep promises."

  "You didn't know who or they'd have learned."

  "I truthfully answered I killed her because I wanted to. An X."

  "This end."

  "A good idea. I love you."

  "No. You're essential. It's a good idea. Without the idea, 'Damn, seventy-three to find.' Without you, vast knowledge lost and a gaping wound in my soul that would never heal. You don't say goodbye to me."

  "You really do…"

  "All of it."

  "Hey! Steam in pans now!"

  "Yes, Choppy! But don't ask Bard to get something from the bottom shelf! I'll think about it."

  Ritzi grabbed Tarse's hand, grabbed a blanket and pulled him out of the flyer. Lima, Brimmy, Garil and Panner burst into laughter. "Waiting until they look us over" had gotten on Ritzi's nerves and Tarse looked so stunned.

  "I've been waiting for that."

  "Everyone but Tarse has, Lima."

  "She decided he'll recover, when she tells him he's choice for best friend, but she doesn't have faithful in her repertoire and has no intention of learning it."

  "She's been trying to figure out how for five years, Garil."

  "She's been trying to figure out how to get off the pedestal and into bed for five, Panner."

  "She does have a thing for Bard."

  "Who doesn't, Brimmy? Even the guys noticed him."

  "I noticed he was big, brilliant, gorgeous and didn't have a clue, Lima. I was beginning to hate the gov for what it did to him before it did this to him. And before we held Tarse together to keep him alive, until the medics got there. His uncle has been packing everything he could think of Tarse might need, to tear it apart, in this flyer for a year."

  "He could get him everything but what we got today and Ritzi. She wasn't going to prepare for anything until she knew where he was."

  "She couldn't imagine them 'wasting' him. She really did think they had him stashed somewhere, trying to convince him a lower echelon idiot had ordered it and wouldn't do it again, until she saw they convicted him of it."

  "Enough. Book and magic sword. The hero knows the spell exists and he found it, but just opening a hole would let lots of beasts loose."

  "How many are beasts and how many are people who fought the evil of the wizard and were made to look like beasts, Lima?"

  "And how many beasts are roaming the land disguised as people?"

  "The wizard has many minions. Most in the dungeon aren't beasts. The only ones there are those the wizard can't control enough to disguise."

  "If the hero knows he has the spell for the magic sword, wouldn't he start separating them?"

  "How would he know?"

  "People beasts wouldn't attack. If most are people-beasts… there would be a point where they'd realize it, but they hadn't yet, or the wizard wouldn't have sent him there."

  "The hero would be a catalyst."

  "You're sure of it."

  "I'm sure no one could scare him into pretending he's a beast like all the others, to keep beasts from attacking, Brimmy. At some point, he'd take the side of the attacked."

  "A people-beast would recognize him as a hero and guard his back."

  "You're sure, Garil."

  "He's not dead. Someone is guarding his back, Brimmy. The hero is big and beautiful. He had fangs and claws, but he didn't know how to use them. 'Instinct' wouldn't be enough. I think a people-beast had to… claim him to keep him alive."

  "We've got another hero?"

  "Many of them, Panner, but they're… small heroes. They battled evil that rose before them, not turned away. They'd want to help the hero, but it would take one the beasts feared. I don't think a people-beast would choose to be the type of pack leader it would take to rule the beasts of the dungeon."

  "I don't either, Lima, but how could a people-beast… By being the maddest, deadliest beast in the dungeon. Walk carefully around it and leave it alone. It would take a very smart people-beast, who really knew how to use fangs and claws, to be the maddest beast."

  "And the real maddest beasts, Garil?"

  "Wouldn't survive if they attacked other beasts."

  "We've got a people-beast, so deadly he scares the pack, who recognizes the hero? Are we getting improbable?"


  By the time Ritzi and Tarse came in, they had a scenario, but the "maddest, scariest, deadliest people-beast hero" had to already have skill using fangs and claws to make it plausible. They decided he'd had practice disguising he was a hero and been "beast who couldn't be controlled," or the wizard would have recruited him. After that, they got stuck. How could a hero that smart, deadly and adept at beast disguise have ended up in the dungeon? Tarse said, "Only by choice," and they all looked at him. He asked where the maddest-beast-hero could have learned everything. They came up with nine possibles and got them down to four probables quickly. Garil suddenly grabbed the input board and five watched him open news archives and type in a search criteria.

  "Dream dust in Roper?"

  "Roper district in Jenneara is real odd for a subsidized district, Brimmy. Dream dust ODs among kids just don't happen there. Dead-no-suspects-no-motive do, but I remember… there. There was a live cam on the body when they rolled it over, or those packets of dream dust would have never been mentioned."

  "And been nicely profitable sold elsewhere. Selling dream dust isn't allowed in Roper?"

  "It's sold, Panner, but no one's paying the minions to guard the merchants and kids don't OD, so selling it to them is fatal."

  "We've got a hero who made a deal with a demon to go to the dungeon?"

  "To not reveal the deal, Brimmy, and that's the only place the demon would be sure he wouldn't, but the demon may not be sure the hero couldn't get out if he chose to."

  "We're making more hero than possible."

  "Not if the demon wanted to keep the deal."

  "A demon with ethics?"

  "A business-demon who thinks short-term regular customers are a waste?"

  "One who thinks people should be old enough to understand the vice they're buying will kill them and who doesn't sell it, or pay to protect those who do. As close to a hero as a demon can get."

  "Over six years? Get a comparison with Pastonville, Kellerton and Jamis Quarter in Silvertown."

  "We've got a demon powerful enough the wizard doesn't send minions against it, but would if a deal was known? It's a credulity stretch."

  "Not any longer, Ritzi. There he is."

  "He's a monster!"

  "No, Brimmy, she was a soul-sucking demon. Paying protection for pushers was probably just a rider on the property insurance. That description doesn't tell you what the real estate was like. She was a slumlord. Most of the property she owned was gov-subsidized apartments. The 'philanthropy' was the deodorizer to cover the stench of vermin-infested shit and garbage piled beside buildings with non-operative cyclers."

  "Stated he's an assassin, but killed her because he wanted to. He didn't get paid! He got a promise and told the truth."

  "And allowed them to catch him, Lima."

  "Huh, uh. He arranged for them to catch him, Brimmy."

  "I agree, Tarse. He looks very different from this perspective. He's beautiful."

  "Ow!"

  "Tarse."

  "I'll work on it, Ritzi."

  "You want to wait another five years until I decide to attempt to get out of the princess costume again?"

  "No. The costume still fits."

  "Thanks, but the chastity belt chafes."

  "I didn't notice it was included in the design."

  "This princess is wearing pants and vaulting onto a horse to go after more heroes. I plan to find the right time to bodyslam them on a bed, too, but yours will always be the hand I grab for fun with a friend. I love you, Tarse, but aesthetic appreciation segues right into tactile once in awhile. I'm real picky, but I'm not monogamous."

  "I'm real jealous, but I'll kick it into a corner and ignore it."

  "That's what I do."

  "Huh?"

  "I said, 'I love you,' and you're surprised I have to ignore jealous? Dense. We've got a hero who learned to use fangs and claws and a mad beast disguise, probably before he was ten, as little and pretty as he is."

  "He's a gemtrove lizard. Sleek, glittering beauty and the deadliest thing on the planet. And we're all sure he's with the hero. Why?"

  "Because he was terribly lonely his whole life and the hero was the first who needed him, who was worthy of his friendship, not just his skill."

  "That was available to any who needed it, Lima. Some of them paid for it."

  "Ooh, now that's an interesting twist, Garil."

  "He's been there six years. He was eighteen, by four days."

  "We really think he's with Bard?"

  "I think he's with our hero because he'd know he was special. Our hero would see through the disguise, as soon as he looked in his eyes, and see he was his equal. He chose to live by ideals, because everything around him tried to destroy them, and learned to more than survive."

  "He didn't have time to learn anything else, Lima."

  "But now his back is guarded too. They both have a lot to teach."

  "He's with the hero."

  "Sudden sureness, Tarse."

  "It was the function that suddenly eliminated all the exceptions, Ritzi."

  They were sitting under the canopy beside the flyer, working on how the hero and companion would learn which were beasts and which were people the wizard had made beasts, when a boat went slowly past. Tarse and Brimmy waved. The other four glanced, sort of waved and continued working.

  Garil reminded beasts ran in packs and there wouldn't be many the wizard couldn't control enough to make minions and disguise as people. Ritzi agreed a few would have realized there were many more people-beasts and it wouldn't take long.

  Brimmy said she was chilly and Tarse lowered the canopy sides, then turned on the lights in the frame, when Garil complained of low light. Lima and Ritzi both groaned, when he and Brimmy were suddenly more interested in how the canopy was built than the scene they were building. Tarse laughed and lowered the front, then led them out and showed the latch mechanisms. Ritzi opened the door.

  "Tarse, drop the back flap and extend the floor. Were going to spread out."

  "Were not going to retract for awhile?"

  "No, there's no reason to move."

  "It won't extend with objects in the way."

  "Panner's got the chairs moved. I'm going in to start dinner."

  "This is a great design, Garil. We'll watch from the door. The back flap comes down and the floor unrolls and extends along the tracks in the canopy walls."

  "It's uneven ground and not level."

  "The floor will be, Brimmy. I asked about retraction because it takes power to make the posine rigid and release it. It's silly to use it to extend the floor, if we're going to retract to go somewhere tomorrow."

  "I'll miss the canopy."

  "There's one that attaches, but it has to be unrolled and hooked to support posts. There's enough of that type of thing to accommodate about sixty people in warmth at a cold Bressler U game, including groundcover, but this is a big room with a floor. A companion for the hero surprised me."

  "You don't like it?"

  "It was a nice surprise, Brimmy. The interaction will give the hero more depth and greater possibility for growth."

  "Editor."

  "I like it."

  "You're good at it."

  "Oh, he's a genius!"

  "Ritzi said she was impressed, too, Brimmy. We'll probably partition for bedrooms."

  "You hope. Has he got a patent?"

  "He puts together not invents, Garil. He buys all kinds of stuff he doesn't use. He gets it, decides to do whatever some other way and buys more. Charged. It's now a room with a solid floor that feels cushioned. The walls are sound dampening. Ball game parties can get loud."

  They walked in, closed the door and bowed to applause. They'd set up the workshop right in front of the ones sent to see what they were doing. The others had given great lead-ins and Tarse had explained everything, from why they just stayed there to all the tech his uncle had bought.

  They s
et up a living room on one side and made two bedrooms on the other, then went in to dinner. Midway through it, a tiny bell rang and they grinned. Someone had come to peer in the window, stepped on one of the strands of monofil, strung just above the ground, and rang their doorbell. Lima was congratulated for the idea again. She'd come up with the "undetectable sensor" to let them know when the visual snoop was done.

  They cleaned up after dinner, moved the bed pads back into the flyer, opened the wind ports and turned on the generator. By the time they got the things they needed moved to the workbench, the system was fully charged and the wind ports had closed.

  The wind-power generation system was millennia-old tech. Tarse had enjoyed helping his uncle update the design, while he was recovering from a lab 'explosion' that had nearly killed him. He'd run into the blast to turn on the shield. He'd been very surprised to wake up.

  A guard dropped trash in the yard. Bard and Harim hurled 'it' back. One piece went all the way over the outer wall. When it hit the ground, it splattered. It was a well-designed piece of trash and Harim had hurled it to drop right beside the wall. They didn't expect the guards to notice a bright yellow splotch on the outer wall for some time. They wouldn't get it off, if they did, and they wouldn't suspect it had come from inside. They wouldn't believe something that would dye plasine could be made from food in the kitchen, if someone told them.

  Bard and Harim hadn't told anyone why or what they were doing, but Choppy and Pans had both checked the pot several times, as they did every pot on the stove. Both had seen the 'trash' go up, then nearly straight down. When Bard and Harim sat down, Choppy sighed.

  "Someday, someone will come for us."

  "Someday, someone will decide everyone who doesn't work for, or with, the gov is at least disgusted and most are angry. I hope it's soon. I don't want to be here as long as you."

  "I don't want to be here as long as me, either, Bard, but the lessons help a great deal. We couldn't do anything like this before. Learning and knowledge were resented. Attempts to organize anything to relieve boredom were request to be beaten. If the inmates didn't do it, the guards would have."

  "Not even games in the yard. There is equipment, but the closet was never unlocked. Something might have to be replaced and the warden wouldn't have the annual budget to use for his personal pleasure. Everything appears to meet minimum interplanetary human rights standards for confinement of perpetrators of violent crimes beyond hope of rehabilitation. There's even a comm message number, but nothing passes the security check. We have entertainment screens because the comp reports riots and there was one every time they were turned off. We have datpads because they're less expensive. Men used anything they could think of to write on walls, shirts, bunk pads. Shit was very popular for graffiti out here. We've had datpads for about forty years."

  "The guards don't come in any time prisoners are present and they don't go in cells."

  "The warden uses the craft supply budget, too, and no one makes anything the guards could sell. The shelves of the little store where we're supposed to be able to buy things, with the tiny amount were supposed to get for working, are bare and the store has never been unlocked. We do spend our money in the store, of course, or he wouldn't have a nice budget and the prison inspectors would report it, if they stopped getting it. The guards stopped pulling men out of cells to 'discipline' them because men threw shit every time they did and yelled the reason. We don't know if they stopped because the comp reported it or they got tired of cleaning shit off the walk and the smell coming up from what went over, but they stopped doing it eleven years ago. If they do it again, we'll throw shit again."

  "Cell and work assignments?"

  "Those didn't end until there were suddenly forty-three vacancies. It was easier to just record 'reassignments,' and the number of incident reports the warden had to write for med treatment dropped, too. There were several no one moved in with and quite a few who changed cells, but most had cellmates they'd learned to live with long before. Work assignments have been subject to change for decades. They'll gas you if you don't go to your cell at buzzer and lock your cell door for two days, if they have to put you in it or you don't work, and your cellmates staves too, but they don't do it if you decide to change jobs. Kitchen is harder work than most, but it's not as equally boring as the rest, so those who prefer hard work to boredom consider it a good job."

  "I like it much better than running cloth through a garment fabricator to make work clothes."

  "Push cloth or push buttons to make it. Seventy-three years ago, inmates grew some of their own food, but the gov gets more for covalls than it saved on food and guards don't have to get close, so we get a limited variety of dried food with diet supplements to cook, and make covalls. Until eleven years ago, we wore covalls we made, then the gov decided they'd make more money on higher quality covalls and we got cheap pants and shirts to wear. This prison probably pays for itself, but the records don't show it because the budgets for everything we don't get, like our income and fresh fruit and vegetables, goes in someone's pocket."

  "It's totally corrupt and a disease that spreads to more children every year."

  "I agree with Demmon, Bard, the gov makes dream dust. I think it makes all four addictive drugs. I don't think anyone else can."

  "Harim, I'll agree on the basis the gov would want all the profit. I don't know enough about drugs or market for them to use any other."

  "That's my basis, Bard. They get all the money for supplying and all the protection brides too. There's never a bust of a supplier, only dealers who evidently don't pay protection promptly, or the gov decides to use to quiet complaints it doesn't do anything."

  "And the gov assures all the stats that leave look like other worlds'. No one out there knows what's going on here."

  "All the reports look normal, Pans. They probably even do business offplanet, so it does, but they make sure we look too boring to be worth a thirty-eight-day round trip to visit."

  "No one travels, Bard. Comm is instant, so it only requires assuring it doesn't look profitable for traders. I couldn't find the reason for that change in available references."

  "Someday, we will, Lone. I'm sure of it."

  Six built something 'impossible.' It took them nine days. Ritzi dictated some of the book and sent an update to her home computer every evening. The tenth day, they began building their transport. The large shield assembly went on top and the sword went on the front. It only took a day to build the pieces. The eleventh morning, they carried them out the door and assembled the vehicle in the trees.

  After they moved the generator to it, five boarded it with their things from the flyer. Ritzi ran out and got in just as they finished loading. They didn't know how long they'd have before someone or something noticed no communications went in or out of the prison, but they expected it would be quite a while. Most days, there were none.

  'Nothing' saw them coming and nothing reported the magic sword cut a hole in the perimeter fence. Ritzi pushed a button and the prison comp obediently assured cell doors were unlocked. Tarse saw something on the screen and whooped. Somehow, Bard had found a way to mark where he wanted the door.

  Ritzi pushed a button, monitors died, all doors into monitor and guard stations and out of the prison locked and the comp shut down. The program to do it 'vanished.' Lima fired gas grenades and all guards on the walk went down. They weren't going to need the shield to keep weapon fire from reaching them.

  The only people in the yard when a hole suddenly appeared were the early kitchen shift. Bard tossed three over the center wall, then followed. The real prisoners were manually locked inside before the others were told they were leaving. Three helped each other back over the wall, as men began to pour out of the door to the cellblock. Bard walked through the hole.

  "There are one hundred fifty-seven of us, Tarse! How long have we got?!"

  "We expected! Unknown, bu
t an hour-plus is probable! Nice target! We've got room for you and Harim to ride!"

  "How did you know…?!"

  "We'll explain! Get them all under the shield!"

  Bard directed men to get under something they couldn't see, until they were beneath it. Once they were, they saw it was an enclosure of shimmering air wide enough for four abreast. They'd come through an opening at the back. Once all were under, the opening closed and they were warned they were about to begin moving at a brisk walk. Bard and Harim moved up through the column, Bard telling the men no sensors could see them, as they did. When they passed Lone, he said he hadn't included "secret tech advances" in his data, but he didn't mind adding them. Bard was laughing when he and Harim climbed into a box with benches.

  "Hi, Bard. Hello, Harim. You're even prettier with a smile. Laughter?"

  "The premier sociologist on the planet doesn't mind adding secret weapons to his data, Ritzi. Harim, Ritzi, Tarse, Brimmy, Lima, Garil and Panner. I want to know how they knew we'd be together."

  "Someone had to be guarding your back. When we figured out what it would take, we figured out where he had to come from to have learned enough. After that, we looked for a hero who traded his freedom for the end of an evil. He wasn't hard to find. Garil pulled up OD stats for Roper and it was obvious who the hero in the disguise of a beast, who'd made a bargain with a demon, had to be. Lima's got your brief."

  "The cover for everything is a fantasy novel Ritzi's writing and we're all helping with. The math was to assure the laws of magic were plausible. That's the magic sword. In the book, the hero had it in the dungeon, but it's a spell he scribbled on a parchment, just before the wizard's minions got him. The minions are beasts disguised as people. Once we figured out how few the wizard couldn't control enough to disguise, we had an approximate proportion of how many beasts in the dungeon were people the wizard disguised as beasts. We can just keep working on the book until we're warned there was a prison break and we yelp and get out of the area fast. We can make identification that checks out for everyone and this thing will provide cover all the way to Pensterburg. Or, we can go to the Demfen mines and operate out of there."

  "Food?"

  "You can get jobs in Pensterburg, or elsewhere, or harvest what no one knows is growing in the hydro tanks in the mines and grow more."

  "The hydro tanks are operating?"

  "Tarse and his uncle designed this wind-power generation system and we built one there. We rehabbed everything in the mine over a half-year, a half-day trip, to near one of the twelve known adits, at a time. Every trip included something that showed we were near, but there weren't any checks. We started stocking for you and the rebels when Ritzi broke all the locks to get to the 'public record' you'd been convicted of trying to kill us and sent there. Basically, there's not a government file anywhere we can't get into, do anything we want to and get out without a trace, but we still can't make a comm call without IS hearing it, or send a comp message without them reading it. The book is being written. We discuss it right out in the open. The only clandestine thing we've done was buy some equipment in Vairdslea twelve days ago, and every stu ID and purchase order was checked, then disappeared as soon as IS verified it had been. If you think it's time, we go to the mines and send Tarse's uncle's flyer home by remote. We make sure every man's ret scan matches his ID and that's who he is in gov files, minimal change on records of 'escapees,' and they never find any of them, either way."

  "We think it's time and no one else knows anything but we were writing a book, and it's on my comp for anyone who snoops to find. The math isn't the same as it was, but it never was. The program that read some things as others no longer exists. Friends, families, employers and coworkers will all truthfully say all they knew is we were writing a book."

  "Why do you want us to choose the mines, Ritzi?"

  "Because none of those men can give the people they love a hug until the gov comes down, and all the people who just made sure there were things laying around, or time we weren't disturbed, in hopes we would do something. We're the only rebel organization that can exist."

  "I know. The only place one could form is in a prison. You found a totally unique method of planning and communication. Harim, we need Lone's opinion."

  "I'll get it. He won't fit in here and men don't have to scrunch for me to get by."

  "That's why I asked you. Thanks. Lone is Doctor Carter Lopez. He didn't talk to anyone for twenty-six years. He listened to everything. It was a sociology research project and anything he said could have skewed the results. If he thinks it's time, the mines. Either way, I'm going to destroy the gov labs where dream dust and the other three addictive drugs are made, then the hydro-farms were the herbals are grown."

  "They're our first target choices, too."

  "I thought it would at least be a surprise, Tarse."

  "When we started the book, it was a cover for math and planning. As we worked on it, we realized we were learning how everything had to work on Gradelode, because it didn't make sense in the wizard's realm in any other way. The drugs came early. The bribe system got too unwieldy at the top. The money had to be going straight to the wizard. It was too much for him to allow anyone else to control. The drugs are a means of populace control. They're too cheap for the established levels of protection payment to exist. The wizard doesn't need, nor want to support, all those little boxes of people, who don't have anything to do but eat and sleep. All four addictives reduce reproductive drive and fetal viability. That's widely known. 'Well, at least they aren't having ten kids to get more subsidy and our taxes aren't going up,' is a very well-funded common-talk propaganda campaign. It can't be anything else. The population of this world is actually dropping. The slow growth stats are false. Everything we tried to make sense of new construction observed, not figures, says the gov is doing something else to lower it. We think it's a reproductive suppressant, probably in water supplies. High spontaneous abortion would alert medical personnel, but there are some very human-specific, not particularly expensive, oral spermicides and sperm count is an automated test. It's probable every result is increased by several powers before being displayed. The gov keeps the med lab inspection schedule too well not to have a reason to assure no one else does. Tax structure also penalizes for more than two children and the deductions for the first two are too low. Look at any neighborhood, except where high-level government employees live. No children isn't rare. One child is common, two children is average, three quite unusual."

  "That's probably why the Kafter lab exploded, Tarse. They blew physics and 'bio went too,' because a bio-lab explosion would have been odd. I hadn't figured out the gov was making the drugs, but I knew it was lowering reproductive capability and reducing the population, as soon as I got to the university and learned most of you were only children and no one had more than one sibling. I'd begun to suspect my parents were murdered, but I still wasn't a rebel. I didn't have enough knowledge or experience to be sure."

  "Lone said he's walking with an army under a banner of freedom, Bard."

  "The mines it is."

  "I hate losing all that great equipment in the flyer."

  "It's going with us, Brimmy."

  "How, Tarse?"

  "It's a self-contained unit. It'll get to the mine before we do. It brushes out its tracks as it travels, just like the trailing edge of the shield does ours."

  "How does the shield do that?"

  "Sort of by accident, Harim. It forms a convection field at the interface. It pulls up flattened grass and compacted soil and the airflow around it disperses very light dust and debris evenly over a fairly wide area. It even spreads out and thins the scent too much for sniffers. We could make shields small enough for a single person, if we had time and parts, but the magic sword is too new theory to even imagine all the applications. We built what would make a hole in the dungeon wall. The genius who designed it is sittin
g beside you."

  "Punch a hole in something without punching through it was the simplest application and test of the theory, Garil, if I could figure out what went in the hole and the physical structure."

  "You did, Bard. When we saw the finished theory, we laughed."

  "The answer was a hollow pyramid, Harim. All they had to do was find or shape one."

  "That was really what told us what we thought were the physical laws of the universe were rules for specific circumstances. The shape was important, but material and size weren't. It could have been ten kilos or a tenth, been eighty cens tall or an eighth. Smooth works better than rough because you have more control. Lead would work, but other materials are lighter. The smoother it is the more precise the hole you can make, but it will make a hole if it has hammer dents, as long as the shape is correct."

  "Harim, the firing aperture is the bottom of the pyramid."

  "The ancients were right. The shape has a power we didn't understand."

  "Yes, they were. That function came out of an ancient study on why they preserve things."

  "That means crystals have power, but it's the shape and not the mineral that forms it."

  "You're correct. It's going to be… fun helping write the book."

  "Ritzi, be prepared for a plot twist. The hero just took over the storyline."

  "It's about time, Lima. Every fantasy writer I like says the characters take over at some point."

  "Tarse, what's in the mines?"

  "Basically, everything seven hundred people need to be comfortable, plus a copy of Ritzi's home system and a few things I thought she'd like, but wouldn't accept as gifts. Most is used, bought from individuals with cash and appropriate not-notice bribes."

  "Tarse is rich, Harim. He's also the one who turned on the shield when the gov tried to kill us all. When the floor fell, we thought we lost him, but we got back to him in time. We literally held him together until the medics got there."

  "Waking up was one of the two nicest surprises of my life, Ritzi."

  "Love you too, Tarse."

  "Don't worry, Bard. She told me I'd wait five more years if I didn't get it through my head monogamy is not acceptable."

  "In my case, Tarse, 'impossible' may be the correct term."

  "You're on her yum list, too, Harim."

  "He's on several, Garil."

  "I was sure he was on yours, Lima."

  "Thank you. Bard."

  "Thank you. Now what?"

  "In other circumstances, this is when you'd go shopping for something to wear to go dancing, then find a semi-private time to ask one of the ladies. This may be the most difficult thing I've ever said, but three women with one hundred sixty of us is not a good idea."

  "We aren't worried, Harim, but we know how hard it will be on some of them, so Brimmy and I found out where the nearest brothel to every known mine adit is located. Records of the adit we're headed for disappeared."

  "Lima, sometimes you astound me. How did you find out brothel locations?"

  "We drew a rough map of the wizard's land, Tarse, obviously hunted for an area about the right size and population and asked Morv to help us figure out how many and where inns with 'that' type of amenities would be. After he stopped laughing too hard to talk, he said he'd see what he could do. A few minutes later, he gave us license listings on a datpad."

  "Who is Morv?"

  "A tea shop owner, Bard. We met there to work on the book several times. We said thanks, copied them to my datpad, then went to the table and marked them on our map. It covers a larger, and somewhat north, area."

  "Morv didn't have a list, Bard, but he's run a tea shop stus go to for decades, so he knew where to find it. One of the reasons the book has been such a good cover is fiction is a challenge for us. We check everything for plausibility. What they asked Morv was perfect. Everyone, who we speak to, who's watched us doing this thinks the method is hilarious, but they all agree the book is going to be plausible, and the story is good so far."

  "Having a wizard to take care of your land is very nice. Nearly every land has one. Everything is great right after they get the wizard. Brigands are caught, demons run away, beasts are penned, hail and drought don't destroy crops, people who get sick are made well, all the nice stuff you pay a wizard to do, but bit by bit, that begins to change. It stops being pay the wizard to assure it doesn't happen, and begins to be pay the wizard more or it will. That's covered in a three-paragraph prologue. By the time the story starts, the land is fully in the grip of the evil wizard. No one can leave and the wizard's minions are everywhere watching everyone with magic the wizard gives them. Demons pay the wizard well, so they're doing well, brigands have jobs working for them, and the wizard has a nice number of beasts to disguise as people to be minions. It all happened slowly, but wizards live a very long time. Everyone knows they got an evil wizard, but the magic keeps them from even mentioning they want to get rid of him to each other. They're waiting for a hero. There is one, but he needed to find the magic sword."

  "You're writing an allegory."

  "Yes, Harim. We intend to assure it has a happy ending."

  When the flyer landed, Tarse's uncle, Drand, quickly pushed a self-contained storage unit full of tools and flyer parts out of his workshop. He put the generator he'd just finished building in the flyer and new fans in the wind ports. He also replaced the workbench with one he'd just finished building. He installed the workbench from the flyer in his workshop. He put the storage bin of tools, flyer parts, canopies, chairs and assorted other items useful for a party, which had also been assembled for year, in the flyer. He went in it, checked everything was in good shape, emptied cycler bins, filled water tanks and wrote a new program for the new remote control, which included switching on the new generator, then he commed a game-going buddy.

  "They got it back in time for me to put the new stuff in it."

  "What did you add to it?"

  "I put in a wind generator and workbench. We can extend the floor, retract it in an hour, do it again, heat the party tents, power the sound system and I can work on things for the flyer by the flyer."

  "How did you get a generator in there?"

  "There was just enough space behind the tool bin for one like my nephew and I built in the workshop a year ago."

  "I'm surprised you didn't do it sooner."

  "I had that space stuffed, but I never used what was in it. I had to take out the storage bin to get to it."

  "Being able to use that room for a couple hours at a time will be nice."

  "Especially when Bressler plays Dodgevale."

  "Definitely. The canopy kept the rain off, but the flyer lot was one big puddle. I've got our tickets."

  "I've got the tanks topped off and they left it clean and the tea bin filled."

  "They didn't have parties in it."

  "No, but they had a good time. They left the file of the book in open access for me. They got a long way on it. I just glanced while I was rewriting the control program, but it's going to be good."

  "They helped?"

  "I didn't even see them. I looked out and the flyer was there. My nephew may have been moving fast to get tea for two instead of six. He's been trying to get an invitation a long time."