Son of Sedonia (17 page)

The ship slowed to a stop beside the airlock gate. Vaughn felt the bulkhead vibrate as the docking clamps slid into place and locked. Harnesses released all over the cabin, and the squad got to work. They were a bunch of kids eager to test their training...just like he had been yesterday.
Did all of it really just happen this morning?
Damn disorienting. The weird-ass gravity didn’t help either. He blinked past the fuzzy feeling behind his eyes, stood, and lined up for the hatch.

15

Fate

AFTER THE ENGINES
cut out, the compartment fell to total stillness. The smells of sweat, piss, and shit filled the twilit cabin. Matteo couldn’t be sure if it was coming from him or just everywhere. Fear was thick in the air. He’d never seen any T99 so scared in his entire life...even when they charged head-first into EXO machine-gun fire. Matteo felt himself on the brink too, but insane curiosity kept him afloat. A new kind of ship in the Pits had been enough to send him into hours-long daydreams.
Those stars...this place...what’s outside that door?
If something didn’t happen soon, he would scream. Or cry. Or explode. Maybe all three in that order.

A few mechanical pops broke the silence, triggering shouts and curses from the T99s. The cargo bay doors yawned open, bathing the compartment in blinding light. Matteo squinted over his restraints. Human figures appeared. Started coming into focus. He heard some of them coughing.

“Fuck
me!
”

“Yeah...takes the breath away, don’t it?”

“Whatever, just stick ‘em and pull ‘em so we can hose the whole thing out ASAP.”

Matteo saw EXO gear on a few of the figures and jumpsuits on the rest. A few details of the room beyond trickled in. A high catwalk. Stacks of crates. A hydraulic lift...then one of the figures leaning into the compartment. It opened a panel on the wall, and hit a button. A sharp pain jabbed into the small of Matteo’s back. He and the others howled as their bodies went limp, but this time he didn’t black out. He watched as his harness swung open and dropped him on the ground. The pain was distant and dull but enough to bring his wheezing to full tilt. Hands grabbed him under the shoulders.

“Bit sickly, this one...sure you got use for him?”

“No mark on his arm. Must be a dweller. Pit worker too, judging by the scars,” the figure chuckled, “Plenty of pits on the Moon. Toss him in with the others.” Matteo’s body tingled as they dragged him out of the cargo doors. Totally paralyzed, he was forced to stare at the floor as they carried him through what sounded like a large room. The floors used to be white, he could tell, but had been worn to yellow-gray...stained with ruddy trails and patches here and there. Dozens of them led in the direction he was going. The pounding fear buried his curiosity. He passed out.

Consciousness came back like one of Utu’s old records starting up. The floor under him had turned from stained tile to shining chrome. There were holes in it.
Cold.
His body shook as the numbness faded. He was naked, he realized, and cuffed around the wrists to a plastic-coated cable tethered to a floor track. The whole room seemed to glow with a stinging white light. He rubbed at his eyepits.

“Time to wake up, cop-killers! There’s work to be done!”

Before Matteo could figure out where the voice came from, an electric current raced through the metal floor. Every fiber in his body contracted in a wrenching spasm. Once his muscles slackened, his eyes flashed wide. The blurry shapes of the others around him came into terrible focus. They looked like strangers. Suomo was much skinnier than he’d looked in all his designer clothes, and Oki...he reminded Matteo of a Pit dog. Broken and bloody after a fight over scraps.

The walls of the room were glass. On two sides, the same figures from earlier stood in darkness. Watching.

“You wanna do the honors?” said the same voice from before.

“Is that cool? Figure you guys got protocol and such for this kind of—” asked another.

“Your recommendation got me this job, remember? ‘Sides, Shima, I figure after what you done for the City...you deserve a little payback.”

“Heh. Well, if you insist,” replied the one called Shima. A fraction of a second later, scalding hot jets of water fired down from the ceiling, pinning Matteo and the others to the floor. They writhed, pulling against their bonds as they tried to shield themselves. Matteo felt like the water would cut through him at any second. It stopped. Everyone in the chamber groaned between coughs and gasps for air.

“Hah! Just like the car wash back at base!”

“Go on, Shims, time to dry ‘em off.” Heavy motors thrummed under the floor. Matteo struggled to get up but a sudden blast of hot air helped him the rest of the way. It blasted out of the floor slots, rasping against raw, bare skin. The air stopped, replaced by roaring laughter

“Ho ho,
man!
Now that...that was satisfying,” said Shima outside. Matteo and the others stood in line. All shaking. Noticing the track in the floor again, Matteo traced it to the end of the room. Some kind of chamber stood at the end of it. A smooth cylinder with double doors...painted solid red.
I’m third in line.

“‘What
is
that little red room for?’ That’s what you’re all wondering isn’t it?” the guard asked, “It’s a...naaaah. Better if it’s a surprise for each and every one of you fine gentlemen!” The red doors slid open, revealing solid darkness inside. The cables in the floor track went taut and the line lurched forward. Feet squeaked and slipped on the wet metal as they fought against the pull. Matteo fell backward, knocking into Oki.

“What the fuck, man?! Get offa me!” Oki howled and shoved. The T99 at the front of the queue screamed as the cable dragged him into the chamber. After a hiss of air, the doors snapped shut and muffled screams filled the room. Matteo and Oki paused to stare in horror. The sound. Something like the hover-engines of a gunship combined with a grinding buzz. The screaming inside stopped suddenly.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 21 years of age. 1.85 meters. 75.9 kilograms. Blood type A negative. Designating inmate number 272310-A: Scout Operator.” The voice was cold and mechanical. Matteo watched as the jumpsuited guards moved around toward the rear of the red chamber.

“Ey, what the fuck did y’all do to him?!” Suomo yelled, sounding hushed and painful. Matteo swallowed past the rasping knot in his own throat.

“HEY!—-” Suomo gagged on the shout and started coughing.

“Pipe down in there, shitbird! You’ll find out
directly!
” Muffled laughs followed through the glass. The red doors opened and the track started pulling again. Suomo’s turn. He fought harder than the first, pulling at the cable until the shackles cut into his wrists. Drops of blood left a trail on the chrome floor.

“You motherfuckers, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all! Your families! Your friends! EVERYONE! EVERY—!” The shutting chamber doors drowned the last word. When the machine started up, Suomo pushed himself louder. The words gave Matteo chills through his already trembling body.

“
Ra-sa-lla, Ra-sa-lla, we-fight-for-our-home! From-scrap-and-from-ashes-and-dirt-we-are-grown! T-nine-ty-nine-soldiers, our-blood-for-our-own! DIE-EXO-DIE-EXO-in-pain—-”
The chant stopped. The machine wound down.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 25 years of age. 1.91 meters. 76.1 kilograms. Blood type B negative. Designating inmate number 272311-A: Crawler Technician.”

Matteo’s heart sank...then his eyes fixed on the track in the floor. No one now between him and the chamber. He got a head start on his bonds, tearing at the seals with bending fingernails. A heel slammed into his back.

“This is your goddamn fault,
Wheezy!
Betchu wish you could’a jumped now, huh?! I should’a shot you right then, you ain’t
one of us!
” Oki sprayed spit as he shouted. He planted another kick into Matteo’s side, then the doors hissed open.

“Stand up! STAND UP! Get what’s comin’ to you, bitch!” Oki shoved Matteo toward the blackness of the chamber.

“Get what’s comin’ to you! Go on! You ain’t one of us! YOU AIN’T!”

Matteo stood. Maybe he did deserve it. ‘
No blood.
’ Jogun’s plea bubbled up from the past. Matteo felt hollow. Done. Whatever waited for him in the dark, it was all that was left to him now. He hung his head in tearful silence and took the final shove into the chamber. The doors clamped shut around him.

He shook in the darkness for three shallow breaths. The air was close, still, and reeking of sweat and ozone.
A small space
. Then the machine powered up. Much louder inside, instinct jerked his hands toward his ears. Couldn’t reach with the cable. A blazing ring of light switched on above him, filling the chamber with red. Jagged mechanical shapes set in the walls seemed to promise pain from all directions. The ring grew brighter. Brighter. He felt the heat from it as it turned pure white. It slid down the walls, sweeping over his body to the floor and then back up again. The light died.

He furrowed his brow.
Is that it—
A sharp pain seized the back of the neck.

“Unknown Male. Approximately 18 years of age. 1.74 meters. 65.2 kilograms. Blood type AB negative. Designating inmate number 272312-A: Assistant Scout Operator.” The voice sounded far away. Images pulsed through his head, bombarding all his senses. He crumpled to his knees as a set of doors slid open in front of him. The light and reaching hands were the last real things he saw before memories assaulted his awareness. At least they were like memories. The schematic of an LTS-780 scouting vessel. Its load bearing capacity and top speed. Procedures for scouting Helium-3 deposits. Titanium ore. Lunar ice caches. All so clear...at first. They started coming in fuzzy or sort of half-drawn. His own memories pushed back. The dark shape he’d shot back on the rooftops. Raia’s flaming eyes. Oki laughing as he punched and kicked. Jogun lying broken on top of their shack. The first time Jogun brought home a piece of fruit...

Then...the dream. The one he’d been having off and on for years except now in full waking color. It started with a loud boom that made him cry.
Is this the dream or am I crying now?
Familiar voices spoke frantically in front of him. Their fear made him cry harder. Another boom and everything flipped...started shaking. His tiny chest fluttered at the sensation of falling. The familiar voices screamed now. The one on the left...a man...struggled with a control panel, eventually pounding it with his fists. The one on the right slumped in the seat. The man yelled back to him...something familiar about the voice. Rust-colored rooftops loomed up ahead as the man spoke. Comforting him. Then it all went black.

Matteo awoke to the jumpsuited guards bending over him. They spoke frantically, but the words mingled with the fading dream state.
Is this happening?
As his senses sharpened, he felt something press over his nose and mouth. A respirator. His eyes flashed wide open as he slapped it away from his face, and struggled to push himself away from the guards. He stopped after a boot to the stomach.

“Talk to me, Doc, what the hell happened here?!” the one they had called Shima demanded.

“I dunno! I dunno! It could’ve been uh...uh...shit, maybe some kind of psychotic reaction to the juice?”

“Thought you said that wasn’t possible with the anti-aggro cocktail you guys mix in!”

“It shouldn’t be possible...”

“Shouldn’t be?! Don’t tell me you’ve been injecting shit into an entire hostile population that
should
squash their need to kill us all!”

“I’ve never seen anything like this! Some of ‘em just go brain dead or have a seizure, sure, but...wait a minute.”

“What?”

“Counter-measures.”

“Counter-measures as in neurotech? As in
top of the line
neurotech? What the hell would a mope like this need with anti-hacking hardware in his head, huh?!” Shima asked.

The medic shrugged.

“Maybe to keep us from squashing his personality and installing a new one? How the hell should I know?”

“How should you—?” Shima laughed, “Nevermind. Just do a pass with the deep local scanner.”

“But the Designator already...”

“We’re gonna take another look and see what’s going on here, okay? Now do a pass,” Shima said. The medic reached to the wall and took a device that hung from a hook there. It looked like a pistol handle with a broad, flat-nosed barrel. Matteo tensed as the man walked toward him and knelt. He grabbed Matteo’s head, pressed the device to it, and pulled the trigger. A yellow-orange screen materialized off the side of the scanner. Numbers, graphs, and images flickered to life.

“Oh yeah. This kid’s definitely been augged...from birth it looks like,” said the medic. Matteo gaped at the man through the corner of his eye and tried to turn and see the screen. The medic wrenched Matteo’s head back in place, pressing fingers hard into his skull.

“Let me see that...” Shima knelt to look, “Nah, bullshit. Had to be stolen...maybe in one of those boosted freighters last month. Check the forearm.” They released Matteo’s head and yanked his arm out. Turned it palm up to the scanner.