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Authors: Steve Perry

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BOOK: The Omega Cage
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The image of Maro raised his hands and let the cosmic lightning flow, basting the Zonn revenants with forces they had never been designed to withstand. Their jubilation turned to terror and they would have fled, but the fire, the
Relampago
, followed them, dancing upon them as flames dance upon a stick of wood, using their substance for fuel.

It was all over in a moment. The stored memory patterns were crisped into near nothingness, and their astral ashes were reabsorbed by the Zonn fields, leaving not a trace behind.

On the floor of the cell, Maro opened his eyes. The room was empty, save for himself, and he knew he would not be bothered by the alien thoughts again.

Once more he had survived the Demon Graveyard.

"Stark?" came a tiny voice from the patch over his ear.

"Who is it?" Maro subvocalized, keeping his lips still.

"Stark, it's Juete—please, I—I need to see you!" Her voice bordered on hysteria, Maro realized. Juete. The Exotic.

Was this another trick of some sort, instigated by the Zonn patterns? No. He had destroyed them, of that there was no doubt. Some subtle psychological trick by Stark, then? Perhaps—but the desperation in the woman's voice was so real that he could not help replying.

"Juete—this is Dain Maro. I saw you outside the warden's office."

A moment of silence; then, "Where is Stark? How did you get on this line?"

"I don't know. I'm in a special cell. There are some strange energies in here; maybe they've screwed up normal radio transmission."

"I need Stark! I'm
alone
in here!"

"I'm alone, too. In solitary."

There was a long pause. "Are you afraid?"

He no longer was, but he still heard the fear in her voice. "Yes. I'm afraid. Maybe we can help each other fight the fear."

"Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you."

The ceiling.door swung open, and Stark and a guard leaned into the room, staring down at Maro, who still sat in the center of the cell. "Maro!" Stark called.

Maro looked up at the warden. "I'm here."

"Are you ready to tell us what we want to know?"

"No."

"Fine. Then stay down there with the monsters!"

The door slammed shut, and Maro grinned. The warden didn't know that his chamber of horrors no longer worked. Good. Maybe the next man stuck in here would have sense enough to keep his mouth shut, too. It might go on a long time before Stark figured it out. Maro hoped so.

"Juete?"

"Here."

"Tell me about yourself. I need to hear your voice."

* * *

In her cell, Juete took a deep breath and allowed it to escape slowly. She could feel Maro almost as if he were here in the room with her; a warm presence on the other end of the link, somebody who cared about her. Somebody who was isolated and trapped, as she was. She felt a sense of solidarity, of common purpose. Maro hadn't put her here. Maro was a pawn, just as she was, and so she could talk to him as she had not talked to anyone since she had left the Dark world, so many years before.

"I had two brothers," she said. "Both died before they were twenty, killed in fights. My mother was murdered, and I never knew my father. And now I'm here, for killing the son of a powerful man. He used me, and when I could, I killed him. I used a pruning laser on him, cut him in half. I would do it again."

"It's all right," Maro said. "I understand.

"Do you? Do you really?"

"Yes."

And she believed him, that was the surprise of it for her. There was something in the tone of his words, something in his voice that convinced her. Some kind of…calmness permeated his speech. He had nothing to gain from her, he couldn't touch her, and yet he was willing to talk to her. And so she believed him. And she could help him as well; he was alone, just as she was. That was important, to be needed, as well as wanted. Nobody had ever needed her before, not since her family had died. Everybody had wanted her, many had had her, but nobody
needed
her.

That was important. It warmed her in a way no man's or woman's touch had ever wanned her. She had never loved a man, and she knew she didn't love this Dain Maro—not yet, at least—but there was a potential here she had never felt before.

"Tell me about you," she said. "Please."

Chapter Eleven

Maro lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was the only place in the cell he could look at for long periods of time without discomfort—staring at the featureless pellucid surfaces of the Zonn walls and floor made him feel as if he were falling into them.

"Dain?"

The voice belonged to Scanner, and it came from the compatch receiver stuck behind his ear. He subvocalized his reply. "Yeah."

"Listen, we're collecting the stuff you wanted. Some of it won't be easy, though. We got Parker, the fat guard on shop detail, helping us."

"How?"

He could hear the chuckle in Scanner's voice as the circuit-rider answered. "He thinks he's giving me parts to build a 3-D pornoproj." Maro chuckled as well.

"So, how are you holding up?"

"Fine. I think their camera is broken; somebody keeps coming in to check on me every hour or so."

"What about the hallucinations? They're supposed to be pretty bad."

"I think whatever caused that is broken, too. It's no worse than ordinary solitary."

Silence for a moment. "You did something." It was not a question.

Maro thought about it for a couple of seconds before he answered. It wouldn't hurt at this point if the prisoners thought he held some kind of ace. He needed their help, and they would help more if they really believed that he could pull this whole plan off. "Yeah. I took care of it. Nobody will ever have problems in here again."

"Amazing. How?"

"Trade secret. Never mind. Do you understand what I want you to do with the gear?"

"I understand the theory. I don't know if I can hardwire the system."

"You can. Did you ask your link for the plans for a single-passenger Bender unit?"

"I got them."

"Good. See if you can get a phase generator circuit chip, and a Peen stasis unit."

"I see what you're getting at, but I checked on something last time I was online.

It's been tried, Maro. It doesn't work."

"Not on regular walls, you're right. But we're dealing with something that only
looks
like a wall here, Scanner. It's an energy field, and I think it will Bend."

"I hope you know what you're talking about."

Maro stared at the ceiling. The trapdoor opened and a guard stuck his head inside. Maro closed his eyes against the bright light.
I hope I do, too
, he thought.

Stark's nervousness translated into movement. He tapped his fingers on his desk, shifted in his chair, and finally stood and paced around the office. When he couldn't stand it any more, he went outside into the heat, his cooler humming into life and rolling after him.

Why wasn't Maro climbing the walls in the Zonn Chamber? Nobody had ever come out of there unchanged, and most had gone totally insane by this time. Yet, as far as he could tell, Maro was unaffected. That didn't fit into his plans at all.

Karnaaj would be coming back any time now, and when he did. Stark did not want him around for very long. The SIU man would not like the story that Juete had died. Probably he wouldn't believe it, but there would be no way to disprove it, and once he had accomplished his business with Maro, there would be no further reason for him to stay around. He did not know the prison well enough to find Juete, and once he was gone, life would go back to normal.

A guard waved at him as he passed, and the warden nodded mechanically. He was not due to visit the albino girl for several more hours, and, while he would have spent more time with her, he did not want to be caught there if Karnaaj showed up unexpectedly early. It would be exactly like the bastard to do that.

Juete did not like being alone, that was apparent enough, but she would just have to make do. Sometimes she seemed to forget that she only survived here because of his intervention. She had a treasure hoard of supplies in that cell with her; she should be grateful instead of whining about being alone.

He stopped walking, finding himself in a half-windowed corridor overlooking the prison infirmary. Prisoners moved around in the atrium below, and he saw a man wrapped in bandages lying in a bed. Somebody caught by a flock of bloodbirds, he remembered.

No, it wasn't fair to blame Juete for his irritation. It was Karnaaj and that goddamned Maro who deserved the anger. Karnaaj for what he was, and Maro for not rolling over and saving him all this trouble.

Abruptly, Stark turned away from the infirmary. The Zonn Chamber was not going to be the answer for Maro—he knew that now. Maybe he could find out more by releasing him back into the general population and prodding him with one of his dips. If Maro let something slip to one of the dozens of spies working for Stark, the warden would know it before the echoes stopped. That might be a way to do it. He hoped he still had time; Karnaaj was not due back for five or six days yet. A few days might be enough. If worse came to worst, there was always a way out: the mindwipe might dredge up enough to satisfy Karnaaj. Maro would not be Maro afterward, but that was too bad. It would be his own fault.

Being alone was not quite so bad, now that she had a link with Dain. The cell did not seem as confining, now that she knew she could talk to him whenever she wished. At first, she had worried that Stark might overhear, but Dain had reassured her that the channel was private. He had a friend who had taken care of that.

"Juete?"

"Right here."

"It looks as if Stark is going to let me out. The Zonn Chamber didn't produce the results he wanted."

She felt a sudden needle of fear, but before she could speak, he wiped the pain away. "I'll keep this circuit open."

"What will you do?" she asked. "Karnaaj is coming back."

"I have a couple of ideas." There was a long silence. Then, "How much do you want to get out of here, Juete?"

"That's a silly question. How much do
you
want to leave?"

He didn't answer that, but said instead, "Is there a Zonn wall in your cell?"

"Yes, the back one. Why?"

Another silence came, and she felt as if he were making some kind of decision.

Finally, he spoke. "Listen, I think there's a way out. It's a long shot, and even if it works, it'll be dangerous. Some of us are going to try to escape. I think it can be done. I'm betting my life on it. If the plan goes like I hope, there's no reason why you can't come along. If you want to."

She felt her heart beating faster. "No one has ever escaped before," she said.

"I know. But there's always a first time for everything."

Juete thought about the life she had in the Cage. Of spending years inside, with Stark as her master and keeper. And that was the best scenario she could imagine. There were men like Karnaaj, there would always be people like him, waiting to prey on those without the power to protect themselves. She was alive here, but the quality of her life left no room for growth, for pleasure, for joy.

What did she have to lose?

"Yes," she said. "I want to go."

"Good. I'll keep in touch. It won't be long. It'll either work or it won't—we'll know pretty soon."

She heard the electronic locking mechanism whine on the cell door. "It's Stark," she whispered. "I have to go."

"Call me when he's gone," he said.

When Stark entered the cell, Juete wore a smile for him. He hugged her, and she returned the embrace, but the desperate quality was gone. She had to give him credit for some preception; he noticed the lack.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I'm fine. Glad to see you."

He untabbed the front of his coverall, grinning. "I'm glad to see you, too."

Afterwards, he lay with her on the bed.

"So, how are things out there?"

"Not much different. That bastard Maro didn't crack in the Zonn Chamber. Some kind of mind control, I think. Kamaaj knew. The rinthsucker is setting me up to fall if he doesn't get what he wants from Maro."

"What can you do about it?"

"Not a lot. He said he'd be in the city for a week, but he could come back at any time. And if I don't have Maro ready to leak information like an unshielded microwave caster, Karnaaj will skewer me, somehow."

"Can't you convince this Maro to give you what Karnaaj wants?"

"I don't think so." He shifted on the bed and cupped one of her pale breasts.

Inwardly, she shuddered; no ripple of it showed on the pale surface.

"Then you're in danger?" she said.

"Maybe not." He rubbed the pink nipple with his thumb and forefinger. It erected under his touch. "I have a final token I can play in this little game. I can mindwipe Maro, if it comes to that. I'm hoping he'll spill something to one of my dips with the right prodding, but if he doesn't, I can clean his slate and give the recording to Karnaaj in a neat little package."

He leaned over then and kissed her on the neck, and she stroked his back mechanically as she thought about what he had said. A week. Dain only had a week at most, to make good his—and their—escape. After that he might be little more than a mental infant if Stark carried out his plan. She would have to get this information to him as soon as possible.

It was that thought which made her realize that she had shifted her allegiance from Stark to Dain Maro. Stark was her jailer and Maro might be her saviour.

The choice was simple, and it had been made.

"You look pretty good for a man who spent four days in the Zonn Chamber,"

Sandoz said.

Maro grinned. Standing around him in the yard along with Sandoz were Scanner, Raze, Chameleon and Patch. Maro said, "Ah, I needed the rest. Nice and quiet in there. If the warden offers it, you might spend a couple of days; it'd do you good."

"No, thanks," Chameleon said. Everybody laughed.

"So, Scanner tells us you've got a plan working. You want to let us in on it?"

BOOK: The Omega Cage
4.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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