Part Two – Three Days Without Vilens –
As soon as Fiddle saw Vilens leave the docking bay, he felt a sense of impending danger. He was in the same place with the same people, but without his brother to protect him he felt exposed. He looked down at his outfit, corset, skirt, and leggings, and decided he was far too conspicuous. His bag and clothes had been taken by the pirates, and he did not even know where his meager possessions were. There were still Pit Thieves in the area, dismantling the shuttle that they hijacked, but none he had spoken to before. He decided to make friends.
Fiddle approached one woman with dark green hair pulled up in a top knot. She was standing on a small platform behind a railing that she held onto while thin, metal arms attached to the bottom of the platform implemented laser saws and pinchers to pull the ship apart. The process made little noise, other than metal pulling apart metal, and the removed pieces went to an antigravity dolly behind her. She was wearing peach colored coveralls with square patches sewn over worn out pieces, and he hoped that meant she was nice.
With a friendly smile and his body language crouched to defer dominance, Fiddle asked her, “Where can a guy get a drink around here?”
She glanced him over and replied, “Not interested. I have a permanent mate.”
Laughing politely, Fiddle stepped closer and cocked his head, letting his straight black hair fall off his shoulder. He said, “It doesn’t have to be about business. Obviously, I’m new here and I could use a friend.”
“Friend? You’re more like a pet,” the green hair woman retorted. While they spoke, the dissembling platform continued to efficiently slice pieces of the ship away and place them on the dolly.
“I’m Fiddle,” he tried again, not having anything else to do.
She sighed. “My name’s Colette. If you’re bored, you came to the wrong person. I need to cut up as much of this ship as I can to sell it for scrap so I can afford enough water for me and my mate tonight. He’s down below in the mines hunting the tribeless so he can take them to recycling and press some extra water out of them. Nothing like a long drink of water to take the edge off at night. If you’re hungry, we got plenty of food cubes, but water will cost you.”
Fiddle nodded, trying to take in as much as he could, but not understanding why water was so rare. Even under the surface of Mars they had running water.
He asked, “What’s in the food cubes?”
With a wry grin Colette replied, “Vegetable matter supplemented with vitamins. It’s not people if that’s what you’re wondering. No, we don’t eat our dead. We press as much water out of them as we can. The recycler’s only pull out the hydrogen and oxygen so it’s as clean as it gets. The rest we grind up and use as compost. Narsinyx isn’t a place where we can let things go to waste.” She paused to glance at a piece of the hull that went onto the dolly. There was a small black device attached to it. Colette reached down and plucked it off.
“It’s a tracker beacon,” Colette explained to Fiddle. “Someone was keeping tabs on this shuttle.”
Fiddle perked up at an opportunity to be useful. “If you have to stay here, I can go tell someone for you.”
Collette turned her eyes on him with condescension and a little disgust. “I already did, through my brain-comp. Angela knew before you did.”
After an awkward pause Fiddle asked, “Is Angela coming here?” He made a show of glancing behind him as though she might appear that instant.
Colette chuckled. “Angela doesn’t tell me what she does or where she goes. She’s been leading the Pit Thieves for about five decades. Don’t waste time thinking she’s nice to be around. Angela’s as cold as the void.”
As if on cue, Angela strode into the docking bay. Her tight, sleeveless suit was now silver instead of copper, and her upswept hair was black with white highlights. The tattoos on her arms were the same shape, but bright blue instead of pink. Her beautiful face was the same though, almond shaped blue eyes to match her markings, proud cheekbones, and pouty lips. She had let him touch those lips while she rummaged through his mind like a waste bin. Morgan followed her around with his usual blaster and scowl. His sleeveless suit was silver now as well, but his mohawk was still orange.
She smiled when she saw Fiddle, and he returned it with a wave.
“Fiddle, did your brother run off and leave you alone? That bad boy,” Angela said as she approached. Her tone made Fiddle more anxious. He was painfully aware that he was in an unsecure place populated with strangers. She strode up to him and put an arm around his shoulder, her hip resting comfortably on his side, but locked eyes with Colette. Without a word spoken the worker handed over the tracking device.
“So where is Vilens?” Angela asked him, and used a little pressure to turn him away from Colette. They began to walk towards the exit while Morgan continued to drift around in the peripheral.
“He didn’t tell me,” Fiddle replied, putting some extra melancholy in his tone. “He said he wouldn’t be back for three days.”
Angela nodded her head and grinned. “Three days. Trapz must have given him the brain-c. Excellent.” She shook Fiddle a little and said, “Sorry, sweetheart, but there was only one loose brain computer on Narsinyx and your brother got it.”
Fiddle gave her a confident stare and replied, “Vilens will get me another one. He said so.”
Angela did not stray away from his gaze and said, “I need you to do a job for me.”
“Sure,” Fiddle said, a little more enthusiastic than he would have liked. His position among these Nyxians was precarious, and everyone else knew it. An opportunity to work for the leader of the Pit Thieves could not be passed up.
Angela instructed, “I’ve sent some coordinates to the map on your wrist communicator. Follow them and speak to a man named Black Baron. He has a message that I want you to remember and repeat to me.”
Fiddle used the device on his wrist to pull up the map and pushed a button to make it a three-dimensional rendering floating above his screen. It showed his position in a maze of tunnels that ran throughout the asteroid. Chambers of different size lined the tunnels with orderly precision. By pointing and moving his finger he could zoom in or access more detailed information about the specific areas of asteroid Ceres. A flashing beacon on another section showed the location of Black Baron. When he first received the sleek black wristband, Fiddle thought it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen. Now he was embarrassed to know it was an obsolete device, but would be lost without the thing.
“Don’t tell anyone I gave you this job,” Angela said, leaning down to look closer at Fiddle.
Confused, he asked, “Couldn’t you message him yourself with your brain-c?”
With a sly smile, she nodded, “But then someone else could intercept that message. I need this to be just between me and him, which makes you perfect for this job.”
Fiddle gave a solemn nod and set out to follow the flash to its end. Angela turned and walked in the other direction.
The complex beyond the shuttle bay was more expansive than Fiddle imagined, but he enjoyed walking the halls. It felt more like home than the wide-open spaces of Enigma Jupiter. Turn after turn the map took him through the labyrinth, tiled in the blue-grey stone. Every time he turned, he found a new hallway with new doors to places he had never seen. Some of the halls were bare, original tile, others were painted in garish colors, and some were decorated with items and things he had no words for. Some floated in air, with flashing lights, mysterious devices. He passed through it all like a shadow, following the direction on his wristband.
This alien culture was strangely different from the modest robes and reserved hairstyles from his home at Risky Rock, Mars. Ever since he was an adolescent, he and Vilens had worked as a pair, earner and enforcer. The two of them had always had to wear the same thing, green robes for their occupation and social standing. Vilens still wore the tattered remains of his old one, but once they reached Enigma Jupite,r Fiddle had found the freedom to express himself. No one cared what he wore, not even the other Martians. Fiddle had always liked his legs and took the opportunity to show them off with short skirts and tights. Sometimes the Jupitons would pay him just to dance around or amuse their guests at parties, as opposed to the other things.
The Nyxians did not dress like that, and many of the looks he received were not complimentary. Their native outfits were functional and practical with armor plates strategically placed on full length garments. The burns and scratches told him that the armor was not ornamental. The people he passed looked much like the pirate tribals he had met before. They had no set uniform, and all their garments seemed recycled from an earlier era. They did not even have an insignia that he could tell, but there were many patches, logos, slogans, and images that he had no reference for. Fiddle quickly realized everyone followed their own style here, sometimes piecing garments together to give them a certain look. He knew their faces were deceptive. In the Mars caves, he was used to a life expectancy of eighty years, and those old folks were shriveled husks of what they once were. Once he got to Enigma Jupiter, he found out real people lived much longer. He had clients that were over a hundred years old, but appeared as young as him. They seemed delighted to tell him, like it was some big joke that he was finally in on.
The Nyxians did not need visible marks to identify their affiliations. Identity and verifications were done through their brain-computers. He still did not entirely understand how brain-computers worked, but he knew that without one he would always be disposable. As he braved their scrutinizing stares and unfriendly sneers, he recognized how much of a stranger he was here. These people had known each other for decades, and were members of an advanced network that he could barely access with his silly wrist module. They were part of the Big Sis, the information service that made a cohesive civilization across the vast solar system possible. Next to them he was what like Colette had called him, a pet.
He rounded a corner down another hallway, but this one was full of people and makeshift structures. Curtains and drapes hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, dividing the hallway into little living spaces for a throng of people wearing hooded brown robes. None of them looked directly at him, but he could tell they saw him. One came forward as he crept hesitantly, her gaze on the floor, yet he could tell she was not blind.
“The Servitor wills,” she said. She was plain and undecorated, but her face was pleasant and creaseless. Her long brown hair fell out of her hood in a charming way and Fiddle knew it was intentional.
He leaned down to look her in the eye, but the small woman turned her face away without focusing her gaze on him.
“Me?” Fiddle asked. “I’m not the servitor, unless . . . I am doing a service for Angela, so I suppose I am the servitor.”
The woman laughed and shook her head slightly. “You are not the Servitor, but the Servitor lives in all of us. It is service. It is to please.”
He laughed with her. “Good. Being Servitor sounded like too much pressure. My name’s Fiddle.”
“I am Tolera Mienne. What service can I provide for you?”
Fiddle laughed again and looked down at his ‘working boy’ outfit. “Is there somewhere I can find better clothes? I don’t have any credit right now, but I’m working on that.”
Tolera giggled and smiled. “A fabricator can make you clothes. Raw materials we have in plenty on Narsinyx. That service is not required here. We offer emotional assistance, release. No credit required. I live to serve. We live off gifts granted through our service. Ask and receive.”
Fiddle nodded in understanding and looked on the small booths again with a new perspective. A couple of brutish looking Pit Thieves came from one of the booths with another of the brown robed people.
Fiddle waved off the offer with a big grin. “Oh, I don’t need anything like that. I don’t even know if I could. I don’t have a brain-thing,” he pointed to his skull, “but my brother Vilens got one, and he’ll get me one soon, I know it.”
Tolera nodded, her pleasant demeanor not changing a bit at the refusal. “A brain-computer, I noticed. When I learned that two from Mars had come here without an essential brain-comp I had a device fabricated that would allow us to link minds with you. If you prefer another you may choose at your desire.”
Fiddle grinned and playfully pointed at her. He knew that trick too. “Yeah, you’re cute. But, the thing is I’m on a mission from the leader of a very dangerous tribe here on the asteroid, and I don’t want to disappoint her. How long would it take?”
Still without looking directly at him, Tolera took his hand and guided him gently to the closest booth.
“Well, I’ve done it in less private places,” Fiddle declared as he looked the sparse booth over.
Once inside the hanging walls, though, all sound from the outside was blocked, and inside a slow, pleasant beat was playing.
“We have complete privacy here,” Tolera said and when Fiddle turned back to look at the opening, he saw that the nearest hanging tarp had extended to block the view. In the gaps between the four hanging walls there was only darkness.
There were two mats on the floor, and she directed him to one of them. “Lay here. You are safe.”
Since he had come this far, he lay down, face up, on the directed mat. From her robe she pulled a set of thick goggles to place over his eyes. He did not want to disappoint this kind woman, but he had done this thing before with Angela. The leader of the Pit Thieves was not his roughest customer, but she was not gentle either. He suspected if she had done to his body what she put his mind through he would have trouble walking today.
He remained still as she placed the headset over his eyes. Suddenly he was not in a small booth, but running through a wide, green field. The bright grass was soft beneath his feet, and gentle hills rolled to the horizon. He had never seen a place like this with his physical eyes, but he had seen images of this and many more. This was the paradise of Earth, across the void, where his people had come from long ago. They came to mine the ore from the Martian soil and stayed so long they belonged to the red planet, not the home world. On Mars, plants were kept behind glass and fed vital nutrients and grown with special lights. He had seen the farm tubes where the food was grown in 360 degrees around the sun lighters, lamps that replicated the effects of the central star.
Overhead there was one bright, warm glow granting ample light to everything and water vapor clouds drifted lazily across the blue. In the caves they had no stars to see by. Their light globes shone in 360 degrees as well, keeping away the dark. For places without the globes his people had glasses that let them magnify even the smallest light into images for the eyes. Getting lost in the Mars underworld without globes or glasses was one of the surest ways to never be seen again by your people.
“You miss your home,” a rich feminine voice said behind him.
Fiddle turned and knew the woman before him was Tolera, he saw it in her face, but she was nude and glowing. Her strong, flawless body looked like the most perfect example of female Martian physiology. The golden light flowing from her skin was inviting, and as she moved toward him her hair bounced with shafts of it spilling out. Her naked beauty filled his brain with aching desire, and when she came close enough, he wasted no time in wrapping his arms around her supple waist. Every touch from her was ecstasy, filling his mind with warmth, love, and acceptance. He wept from it as they embraced, spiraling across the green grass and not picking up a single spot of dirt.
Fiddle dove into the feel of her, losing himself in her glow, yet at the back of his mind he remembered his brother. At once he broke the embrace. He saw one last look of shock on Tolera’s glowing face before he sat up on the mat and pulled the goggles off. Next to him lay Tolera on her mat, and her eyes opened. She sat up and tears began to run down her cheeks.
She faintly shuffled nearer and said, “That was amazing.”
“Thank you,” he replied softly, not caring if she was still playing proprietor/customer or not.
He turned to go, and she put a hand on his arm to hold him back. Fiddle suddenly realized she was looking at his face.
“I have never met anyone with an aura like yours,” she said, her brown eyes staring into his, “and you broke the contact. I’ve known people willing to die rather than end a session. Normally we are the ones that must say ‘stop’.”
He shrugged playfully. “Oh, well, I told you I’m on an important errand.” He held up the goggles. “Do you do that with a lot of people here on the asteroid?”
Tolera nodded. “Of course. Everyone wants comfort from servitors, but I have never used the goggles before. This was different, though. Your glow was brighter than any I have ever seen.”
Fiddle gasped. “I glowed?”
She gazed at him with adoring eyes. “Yes. So bright. So beautiful.”
“Good to know,” he beamed a smile, and as was his custom on Mars, reached to give her a hug. She flinched, and he pulled back. “Oh, you don’t hug?” When she shook her head in disgust, he replied, “Too bad. Oh well, maybe I’ll come by again and see you on the way back.”
“Where are you going?”
Fiddle held his wrist up and tapped on the buttons to pull his map up again. Tolera smiled and looked away, as though embarrassed for him. “Looks I have to go to the end of this hall and make a right.”
She looked back at him, concerned. “That will take you close to ZSZ territory. What is this errand?”
The worry on her face made him anxious. “I have to receive a message from Black Baron and bring it back to Angela.”
Tolera’s mouth hung open, and she started to shake her head. “Black Baron. Fiddle, Zero Star Zebras are brutes, monsters in flesh, and their leader is the worst of them. He destroys people through torment. Black Baron won’t just kill you; he’ll use you for his depraved appetites, then kill you.”
Fiddle laughed to allay her fears. “I’ve handled brutes before. I can take care of myself. If I go back and say it’s too dangerous, they’ll never trust me with anything.” He paused and frowned. “Being a hooker all my life never really bothered me, but now it’s time to become something more. I can’t be a pet.”
She placed a hand lightly on his arm, as though she was afraid to bruise him with her touch. “Forget the tribe life. Stay with us. We can show you way of Servitor. You will be at peace with the universe.”
Fiddle placed his hand over hers, just as gently so as not to offend her. “I need to do this to prove myself to Angela and my brother. The only reason Vilens and I are on this horrible rock is because of me. I wanted to go find my people, not realizing I was hunting ghosts. Now he’s going to wake up and be different, like all of you. I need to prove I can still be useful. Now, where can I find a fabricator for some new garments?”
Tolera glanced at his wrist band and it chimed from receiving a message. Fiddle checked it and saw a fabricator back the way he had come on a different floor.
He nodded and sighed, “That’s the wrong direction so I’ll have to get it on the way back. Oh well, one last mission in the old uniform, I guess.” Fiddle curtsied for her. Tolera smiled in delight, and he left her there.
Ahead on the map Fiddle could see an open space. He passed through the Servitor warrens to the end of the hall and opened a door that gave access to a walkway along a deep chasm. A stone bridge before him was six feet wide, had a waist high steel railing, and appeared as solid as the day it was crafted. The chasm was fifty yards to the other side, but the bottom was lost in darkness far below. Fiddle peered to the right, left, and down and saw many railed bridges across it, fading into the distance. He looked up, craning his neck to see the Narsinyx towers. The stone surface of the asteroid ended about twenty yards over his head. From there every space was taken by the base of a tower, lining the chasm on both sides, dotted with thousands of empty windows. The air was thin and perfectly clear. A mile over his head, he could see the dark tops of the towers, and just beyond their pointed tips was the edge of the dome shedding the light by which he could see. Between the towers the stars were spread in a twinkling array.
For most of his life he had looked up at a cavern roof. His first time outside of the Mars caves was when he was shipped out like junk to Enigma Jupiter. He never thought he would see sights like this. It made Fiddle feel small and insignificant but determined at the same time. If there could be such things as that many stars shining light from so far away, then there was no reason he could not go on doing what he was doing.
He started across the stone bridge and began to feel lightheaded. The air was much thinner than he thought, and it was harder to breath. He took slower steps and longer breathes, holding onto the railing to carry him across. He reached the other end and turned the handle on the door. It opened without much effort into a similar stone hallway from the one he left. This one was long and had few turns, none of which he took. The blip on his map kept him straight ahead. He did not see any people on this side, something that made him nervous, but the ample air seemed clean. There were no security measures, and that made him curious.
Fiddle walked to the first intersection, and to his left there were two men standing next to a metal door. They both wore matching blue long coats over white shirts with a psychotic faced, white creature with black stripes. Their pants had several side pockets down the leg, and were black along with their thick soled boots. Their faces were reassuringly different. One had dark skin, pointed features, and many gold piercings over his face. His hair was shaved into a blue mohawk. The one next to him had lighter skin and long, flowing gold hair. It hung over his left shoulder down his front. Both were large and muscular, and their scowls told him they were the kind of people he tried to avoid as customers. His indicator told him this was the way to continue his job, and there was no avoiding the issue. He approached with confidence and hoped they did not shoot him on sight.
“Hi, where does this go?” Fiddle asked in his cutest, friendliest voice.
The men looked at each other, incredulous, and then back at him.
The one with gold hair said, “What are you, some animal that looks like a person? Did someone dress you up in that ridiculous costume?” He looked down his nose at Fiddle with a haughty attitude.
The mohawk man laughed and stuck a thumb in Fiddle’s direction. “He’s one of those mutts from Mars. They don’t have brain-c’s.”
Gold hair asked with a sneer, “What are you doing here, Mars mutt?”
Fiddle began to feel threatened, but persisted. “I’m looking for Black Baron.”
The two men looked at each other with bemused expressions and turned to laugh in his face. Their mirth continued, with them pointing and giggling, putting hands on each other’s shoulders, and leaning together. At once the two men straightened, snarling at Fiddle. He jumped, falling back into a defensive position.
Mohawk said, “What does the leader of Zero Star Zebras have to do with you?”
Fiddle tried his cutest shrug, presenting himself as some harmless moron in a dress. “With me, nothing. I just got to this asteroid, but I’m supposed to pick up a message for Angela of the Pit Thieves.”
Gold hair sneered again. “What does that runny cunt have to say to our murder-house leader? Does she want to crawl on her tits and beg for her life?”
Fiddle shook his head with a blank expression. “I don’t know, I’m supposed to pick up a message.”
Gold hair responded with a flourish of his hand, “Oh, you will receive a message, and deliver one. We shall turn you inside out first. Get ready for the worst death you can imagine.”
Growing up in a brothel in the Martian caverns, Fiddle had many painful lessons from cruel people. If there was one thing he knew from bitter experience, it was when someone was going to attack him. There was a certain look to the eyes and a tension in the body language that spoke of intended violence. If both door men had attacked at once, they would have overwhelmed him. Underestimating him, as Fiddle intended, only the gold hair man reached for his shoulder. His other hand was bringing up a slender blade, not designed to do much damage, but to administer poisons.
Fiddle pulled out the small blaster Vilens had given him, angled it up as his brother taught him, and released a scarlet stream of energy that burned through the throat and skull of the gold hair man. With deft steps Fiddle moved out of the way to let the already dead man fall, the knife in his hand pinned under his corpse. Mohawk stared at the blaster pistol leveled at him.
Fiddle said, “Now that you’ve confirmed you know who Black Baron is, take me to him.”
Mohawk glanced down at the dead man. “You’ve drawn blood from the ZSZ. No place on this asteroid is safe for you now.”
Fiddle bobbed his head and replied, “Then I might as well keep going. If I fail this mission, I’m useless to the Pit Thieves anyway. Are you going to take me where I want to go, or do I draw more blood from the ZSZ and ask the next person?”
Mohawk shook his head. “You have some nice nerve on you, man-thing, but there is nothing but pain and death for you beyond this door.”
Fiddle scoffed and retorted, “Pain and death wouldn’t need two people to guard it. Stop trying to scare me and open the damn door.”
Ignoring the demand, he motioned down at the corpse. “His name was Hextiaus, my body partner. I’m Togglekoff, the one who’s going to kill you.”
Fiddle shot him through the forehead. The laser bolt burned a neat hole through to the stone wall, only scorching the dense material. Togglekoff slumped to the ground and Fiddle opened the unlocked door.
On the other side was something completely unexpected, a massive chamber. The air was cool, and the well-lit interior was wall to wall with plants. Fiddle did not know much about flora, but some were as tall as the caves of his birth, and some did not even reach his knee. He saw long, wide leaves, and short, thin ones, rough bark, and smooth, green stems. Fiddle had never seen so many plants in one place, but he knew they must have come from Earth. The home world was a green paradise; he learned on Jupiter.
Fiddle walked forward slowly, and his shoes made strange sounds in the dark, rich mud. He let his fingers drift over the leaves, and the humid air made beads of sweat form on his arms and legs. He saw drops of water running down the leaves, and he bent down and licked one of them. The texture was strange, coarse, and bitter, but the water was nice on his tongue. He held his hand under another leaf and let the water pool in his palm before licking it. His grimy skin tasted worse than the leaf, but he got a full swallow.
A small oval drone drifted down, its one blue lens pointed at him like a huge eye. A noise from the machine said, “Do not harm a single one of those plants.”
Fiddle smiled and replied, “I wasn’t hurting them. I’m here to see Black Baron.”
“Not hurting?” the drone retorted. “What about the ones you’re stepping on, asshole?”
Fiddle looked down and saw his footprints left on the mossy ground.
“We need every bit of oxygen these precious greens can give us,” the drone continued. “Go back the way you came and try and step in the same spots.”
In reply Fiddle pointed his blaster at one of the thick, rough plants and said, “Have somebody take me to Black Baron or I’m going to burn holes in these things.”
“You little monster! Those lifeforms are sacred to all of Narsinyx!” the drone shrieked and shook.
At once the floating machine quieted and remained still. A new voice that came from it was deeper, meaner. “I am Black Baron. You’re trespassing in my garden, you little slut.”
Behind Fiddle the door opened, and the hall was filled with large people, all glaring at him. There were men and women, and all wore the ZSZ shirts over their muscular frames. The pants and boots were all different.
Black Baron told him, “Go with these Zebras, and they will bring you to me.”
That sounded like the worst idea in the system to Fiddle, and he noticed that none of the angry Nyxians had taken a step into the garden. They were waiting on him to come to them. Instead Fiddle fired a bolt through the drone, dropping it in one shot, and took off in the other direction. The Zero Star Zebras screamed in horror, but they still did not pursue. His boots sank into the green mud up to the ankles. There were no trails for walking, and he crushed the smaller plants as he ran through. Curses and threats followed him from the open door, many he did not even understand.
Around a tree thicker than his arms could reach around, Fiddle saw another door at the far end of the garden. He made for it at once, but found it locked when he engaged the switch. Desperate to try anything, he knocked on it with a loud bang. To his surprise, the door opened, and a large hairy hand grabbed his gun arm, pulling him through the door with a grip like a steel clamp. The head of the large man was as hairy as the hand, with a thick mane of white-gold hair and a bushy beard to match. He wore dull silver armor over the rest of his body.
The armored man screamed, “Look at your boots!” By the deep voice he knew him as Black Baron, and his dark eyes glared over him with scalding hate.
Fiddle glanced down and saw mud, moss, and leaves still clinging to them. “Sorry,” he managed to say.
“No one has set foot in that garden in over a century,” Black Baron shouted in his face and shook him. “It was pristine! You trampled it like the animal you are!”
“I didn’t know. Your men scared me!”
“They’re supposed to scare little shits like you!” Black Baron declared. “It’s the only way we can keep people from plundering our fucking garden!”
Shock had worn off and morbid fear was setting in over Fiddle. He tried to pull his blaster back, but it was secured in Black Baron’s huge fist. It was not painful, more cocooned in his hairy grip than crushing, but he could no more pull away from that hand than he could push this planet. Without much effort Black Baron pried the blaster from his smaller hand.
“I’m truly sorry,” Fiddle said with a weak smile. All his tricks and tactics were forgotten in the terrible grip of the tribe leader. He knew he was begging for his life now, but thinking back to the two ZSZ that he burned down he was not hopeful for mercy. His brother always made it look so easy; kill the ones that threaten you and move on with life. With a sick realization he knew he had not lasted a day without Vilens’ support.
Black Baron shook his head and gave a maniacal laugh. “You’re not sorry; you’re fertilizer. We’re going to sprinkle you over this very same garden, but I have to make an example of you first.” He turned and stomped away, pulling Fiddle along the hallway with his still captured arm. The smaller man’s feet slid on the floor as his resistance was ignored.
“Do-do you have a message for Angela of the Pit Thieves?” Fiddle tried, one last time.
“I don’t give a single drop of piss for what that runny cunt has to say,” Black Baron replied. “After I’m done with you, we’re going to pay her Pit Thieves a visit, and we’ll all drink well tonight.”
More of the ZSZ met up with their leader from adjoining halls, but they only grinned, poking at Fiddle with thick fingers as he was dragged along. They licked their lips, grabbed their crotches, and slapped him when he tried to resist. Black Baron took Fiddle to a small room, filled with ZSZ members surrounding a chair with restraints. Fiddle still tried to break away, setting his feet, but it did him no good. Black Baron lifted him with one arm, wrenching Fiddle’s shoulder and drawing a shriek of pain, before slamming him down on the hard, aluminum chair. There were no cushions on the device and Fiddle’s vision blurred from the impact. The gathered members cheered in delight as he was strapped in. Black Baron shoved a headset over his eyes, and slapped him hard across the stomach. While still writhing in pain, gasping for breath, the device took over his mind. Suddenly Fiddle was not in the room with the ZSZ anymore. He was in a place with a light blue sky and white puffy clouds, more beautiful than any he had seen in his life. To his left and right were stone walls with blood red mortar that stretched to the limit of his vision. He tried to climb, but they were too high and slick. The scene reminded him of the network game in the shuttle that they played before the pirates came and killed the nice pilot.
A low, throaty sound caused Fiddle to turn. It was Black Baron, naked, his muscular body covered in curly, blonde hair. He was stalking towards Fiddle, and growling like some beast. Fiddle turned to run and saw more of the ZSZ members there, all of them nude. He looked down and realized he was also nude. As the circle closed in there was rage and lust evident on their faces. His mind desperately sought a way to escape. He saw a new hallway appear with no one blocking it and ran that way instead. The tribe gave chase with Black Baron in the lead. They hooted and taunted, making promises he hoped they would not keep. No matter where he went or turned, he only found another stone hallway.
He continued to run as long as he could, but it was never far or fast enough. At sporadic intervals, the ZSZ would catch him, abuse him, and release him to chase all over again. Some would beat him, others raped him, and some, like Black Baron, did a lot of both. Fiddle felt everything, every kick and punch, every rip and tear, but his body never gave out. The wounds never stayed, although the pain did, until his entire mind was one excruciating experience. Still he did not die, could not die. His body was still strapped to the chair, with only minor injuries. Through the device on his head, anyone with a brain-comp could join their mind to his and do whatever they wanted with him. Usually a joining was mutual and used for pleasure. With the ZSZ cranial capture, the victim had no power, no strength to utilize. They were completely at the mercy of anyone that connected to the device.
The Zero Star Zebras were practiced in torment and had less mercy than the stone walls around them. Incensed over the violation of the garden, and the two dead, they were creative in their torture. They subjected Fiddle to every defilement their twisted imagination could conjure, breaking his helpless will again and again.
They were still at it two days later when Vilens woke up.
____
It was the next day when Angela finally had time to investigate the tracking device found by Colette.
Angela stared at the small black device in her hand. Her hair was bright red today, her eyes black, her lipstick a light shade of green. Her bodysuit was violet. She was sitting in Trapz chair while he sat on the desk, kicking his legs absently. They were in his cluttered office. She could never decipher why the boy enjoyed having so much crap around.
Trapz nodded at her and scratched his grey beard. “Scans confirm it’s a tracker, but whatever signal it was sending has stopped. There’s no identification on the device, which isn’t surprising, so we have no way to know who made it or why. We have no way to know how long it was on that ship. That design was at least five decades old.” He raised his hands in an amused, defeated gesture. “There’s nothing about it in the Big Sis, but we all know how accurate that thing is.”
“The Big Sis is always accurate,” Angela told him. “But it doesn’t let us know things it doesn’t want us to know.”
Shocked, he declared, “The Big Sis says there are no people living on Ceres. We can message each other, but no one else. No one outside of Narsinyx can message us. To the rest of the solar system, we don’t even exist. That’s not accurate.”
She chuckled. “We don’t exist to anyone else. That is accurate. When the water ran out and the people that could afford to left, they took all the good stuff with them. We were told to leave. We refused, and in a moment’s notice the rest of the solar system was gone to us. We could still think up information and communicate through the Big Sis, but only observe. When we researched ourselves, we found records that we were dead and recycled. That was when I realized what true power was, not just in the ‘no’, but in the ‘yes’. Narsinyx was declared empty and abandoned.” She held a finger up for emphasis. “Those were the bad days of this city, the ones that forged its reputation. You only think we hoard now. Everyone hoarded, and went looking for extra. Back then, getting a drink of water meant forcing someone into a recycling hub. That’s why everyone formed into tribes, protection in numbers and others to help with the hunt. The hoards got bigger. Then came the inevitable alliances where whole tribes were taken out and divided up. We abandoned the surface city. Didn’t need it anymore, so we let the void consume what it would, programmed the dome to keep essentials close to the surface, focused on the sublevels. The numbers of people in the city got so low we started to recruit outlaws that wanted a place proper society had forgotten. Most of them tried to take over the city, turn it into some criminal base, but they all failed. More water for the cup. Plus, we kept their gear. Once we had a few ships, we were able to go out and get more necessities, like people. We had to steal what we needed because we couldn’t buy anything since we weren’t part of the system. We’re in our own little domain here, outside of normal life. Those that don’t know think Ceres is just a dead asteroid. Those that know different live around Mars and Jupiter, or in a different part of the asteroid belt. They don’t bother us, and we only bother them when we must. Since most wealthy vessels have defense systems that would fry our chunky ships, we have to settle for unarmed transports like poor Hickle’s and hope for a big score.” For fun she spun around in the chair, and on cue, Trapz laughed.
Angela shook her head, letting her bright red ponytail swing across her shoulders. “The tracker was fresh, placed within the last year or so. It was for that pilot, Hickle. I know it. She was a Martian with abnormal genetics, and she had that case with the titanium record slips.”
A micro-reader was easy to come by to inspect what was on the metal slips, which she had done soon after she took them from Fiddle. The slips recorded the extermination of over twenty million Martians for genetic impurity, Vilens and Fiddle’s people.
Angela said, “Someone was tracking her, but if it’s someone from Earth, why didn’t they just pick her up?”
Trapz replied, “Maybe to find any accomplices she might have.”
“Accomplices to what?” she asked, setting the inert tracking device on one cluttered shelf, knowing Trapz would want to keep it. “So she had proof earthlings snuffed over twenty million Martians in those fancy caves they found a couple years back. No one outside of the Earth atmosphere would even care enough to get offended by that, much less be able to do anything on Earth about it.”
“Maybe that was it. People are still touchy about that kind of stuff on Earth. Whoever planted the tracker did not want those records to get into the wrong earthling hands. If the records stay out past the Moon, they don’t care about them.”
Angela chuckled and asked, “Does anyone know or care that we have the records now?”
With a tedious grin, Trapz grinned and shrugged. “Probably not? If the tracker knows they’re here, they’re hoping we melt them down for scrap.” He smirked and she saw his father’s face in that visual sarcasm, “I don’t recommend we melt them down since their historical value is worth more than the metal. No one cares about those Martians now, but in a century or so, they’ll eat that up. Speaking of the Martians, what did you do with the little one?”
Angela waved the question off, but answered anyway. “I made up some errand about a message for Black Baron, so he’d leave me alone.”
Trapz stared, incredulous, and guffawed, “You sent him to that monster? Vilens is going to want your head on a stick. We wasted that brain-computer on him.”
Angela threw back her head and laughed, “I did send Fiddle that way, but I also contacted Tolera and asked her to intercept him. She assured me she could keep him out of harm’s way for three days.”
He smirked again. “Servitor Tolera. Yeah, I’m sure she could keep a mongrel like Fiddle down for a month. Those Martians are a galactic punch-line. What do you see in Vilens? Do you think he’s going to be your new war-chief?”
She frowned. “Vilens killed Lucky Harry. I knew Harry for five decades, back to our first raider gigs on the Venus colonies with Morgan.” She motioned to her life-mate, as usual standing silent and still against the wall. “He earned his name coming through scrapes and wrecks that a lot of other people didn’t survive. Yet, on a simple hijacking, I come through the hatch, and there’s Larry on the floor with a brand-new hole in his head. Vilens is standing on the other side of the ship, looking like one hundred percent predator. I wasn’t worried. Morgan had him covered, of course, but for a moment I thought he was going to raise his blaster and throw his life away. I don’t know what happened to him in those caves, but he came out hard as Martian stone.” She stood up and put her hands on Trapz’ shoulders, pulling him into an embrace. He wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his cheek on her chest.
“You’re still young, sweet boy. You don’t know what it’s like to have decades behind you and still more ahead. Neither does Vilens. He lives in the moment, little thought to where he’s going. That might change now with a brain-comp, but if he’s ready to fight the whole solar system he might as well start on our side.”
He sat back with a smirk, “I’m twenty years old, that’s two decades. Vilens is chaotic. He’s likely to kill you to take over the tribe. Just wait until he finds out what happened to his brother.”
She leaned back, perplexed, and was about to ask, ‘what happened?’. Instead, she began to receive graphic and specific threats to her life by the Zero Star Zebras. Her crime was sending an assassin that desecrated a ZSZ garden and murdered two members. Sentence for the assassin was currently being carried out as meat puppet. The sentence for her was immediate death.
Knowing as much as she needed to, she cut off receiving messages from any of the Zebras. She locked eyes with Morgan as she began to send messages to all Pit Thieves. “Defend with all force! Take up arms and fight! ZSZ is ripe for blood!”
Even as she sent those messages, she began to receive warnings of attacks at the border posts. The assault had already begun. Morgan opened the door and swept out with his blaster, checking each way. He messaged all clear.
Angela took a knife from her boot, pulled out the fabric of her top and cut it. She pulled the severed part of the cloth down to her waist, baring her chest. Leaders of the Pit Thieves went into battle topless, a tradition from the first leader. Handed down from the same former leader was a force field belt that Angela activated with a thought, covering her body in an invisible shield that would make armor redundant. It was the only such device the Pit Thieves had.
She pointed and said to Trapz. “You stay here. I’m locking the door.”
He rose to his feet, disappointment clear on his face. “Let me fight with you. I’ll do well.”
Angela shook her head. “I got plenty of killers fighting with me. You’re special. You need to stay here. I can’t lose you to some random lucky shot.”
Morgan told him, softly, “Listen to your mother, son.”
Trapz nodded, as he always did when his father spoke up. Two decades, he had proudly proclaimed his age. He was still a child. Angela swept out of the room, moving quickly, forgetting the boy’s resistance. The door slid closed and locked. No one could override her code in the Pit Thieves territory.
There was a strange sound behind her, one she recognized, yet defied belief that it could be here. It was the sound of blaster fire, and she spun to find it immediately. Morgan stumbled into her, a hole burned into the back of his head. She reached for him in the Big Sis, but he was not there.
On the other side of the doorway was Morgan’s half invisible killer, the ecstatic grin of triumph on her face. She was wearing the stupid ZSZ tee-shirt and a pair of tight red shorts, but nothing else. One each wrist was a metal band, and Angela knew the paired devices as a ‘chameleon cloak’. The wrist devices granted the user invisibility to detection. Small motions could be performed if the wearer were patient, but quick motions would disrupt the field and ruin the cloak. A quick motion like shooting someone in the back of the head. The discharged blaster was still in her hand.
The ZSZ killer had white hair with black stripes, like their namesake, tan skin, and bright green eyes. Without hesitation she fired again, but the bolt bounced off Angela’s forcefield, ricocheting to burn the wall. The ecstatic grin was replaced with shock.
Without taking her eyes from Morgan’s killer, Angela took the long blaster from his limp grip, flipped it around in her nimble hands, and fired. The ZSZ managed to shoot again, but it still failed to penetrate her field. With no protection, Angela put three quick shots through her body, and the killer crumpled.
She took a moment to look down at Morgan’s body, but had no time for empty flesh. She headed back the way she was going when they were ambushed. She sent out a message to all Pit Thieves. “Morgan is dead. First Lucky Harry and now Morg. Maybe it’s our time after all these decades, but I’m going out bloody. Any Pit Thieves ready to kill, meet me at the armory.”
The main weapon storage was only one turn away and she soon arrived, finding others grabbing their blasters and slingers from lockers. She gave Morgan’s blaster to Zekia, one of her veterans. In a locker all by itself was her claymire, Stroker, a two-handed sword. Most of the blade was steel but the edge was white clay. Activating the claymire caused the clay to be heated and vibrated until it took on an edge sharper than any metal. Weapons like this were banned throughout the system, but she had no pause for that. This sword could cleave through any battle armor with one stroke.
As she turned to leave the armory, messages of pain and terror assailed her. She began to run, leading the charge as further up the hallway, Zero Star Zebras came around the corner. Embry, one of her technicians fled before them, but a blaster bolt cut her down. With that impetus, the Pit Thieves ran at the ZSZ, screaming their battle cry that echoed through the Big Sis.
Blaster bolts scorched back and forth around Angela, but they either reflected off her field or found other targets. She was unharmed as she reached the first of the ZSZ, a huge, broad brute with a double-barreled blaster. Screaming back at her, he discharged it at close range, and her field flickered as the protection limit was reached. She swung with practiced precision, the glowing edge leaving a trail of white through the air as she sliced through both of the ZSZ’s arms. The heat cauterized his wounds immediately, and he screamed incoherently as she kicked him in the stomach to land back on his friends. She chose another target, protected with silver armor that deflected blaster bolts much like her field did, but it made him much slower. She stabbed him through the body, twisting and yanking the blade back out.
She turned for more, but the rest of her group was already blasting the last of the ZSZ. She paused for breath, and she felt nothing. Her emotions were suppressed. Angela became an animal, out in space on a rock no one cared about. It was kill or be killed again. She had played this game more times than she could count. She made a conscious effort to reach out with her brain-comp, finding other hostile minds nearby. She ran around one corner and launched at a new set, Pit Thieves following, blasting around her. Everywhere she went, a hail of weapons fire went before her, while the bolts of the enemies ricocheted off her field. Stroker was as light as a data rod in her hands, and deadly with every swipe and stab.
The ZSZ kept coming in squad groups at odd times during the next day. All combat members of both tribes were involved, a complete conflict through the network of halls. When Angela’s forcefield ran out of power, she refused to retreat. She continued to lead her people in defense until Vilens awoke.
____
Vilens opened his eyes into a new universe. All he had to do was think about it and he could connect to the Big Sis. All the accumulated knowledge of the solar system was his to know. He did not read it or look at it, he simply knew it, pulling it to him as needed. He wondered how such a thing as the Solar System Information Service, the official name of the Big Sis, was possible. A moment later he knew that the crystal cities of Earth transmitted the information and received new updates as fast as thought. The Big Sis was connected to every brain-computer in the solar system. How the SSIS accomplished this, and how it processed information so quickly, was a secret only Management knew. When he requested the names of Management, he had knowledge of a list of names of one hundred people from each Earth city. There was no personal information attached to any of the names, but it did include a three-dimensional image of them. Thinking of past members, he had the full list, including the one from two years ago. He had the registry of those that killed his people. The names and faces meant nothing to him. He attempted to contact one at random, send a long-message, but he established no connection.
When he questioned that he received knowledge of the history of Narsinyx, the sole city on dwarf planet Ceres. There were many deposits of ice throughout the asteroid field, and most of it was processed at Narsinyx. The city on Ceres was the place where the water flowed, packaged, and sent to wherever in the solar system it was needed. So many colonies needed water for expanding populations, and it took time to pull it from the environment that they landed on. It is vital to Management that water from Earth is not plundered to the thirst of the system, but that substitute sources should always be available. Water became the most valuable resource in the solar system. On Earth, water smugglers were executed. When the precious drink ran out on Ceres, so did the people.
There was something else beyond that information. Vilens felt a strange sensation, like the Big Sis was pushing and pulling at the same time. He went with the pull, and received a deeper understanding of Ceres. The people of Narsinyx had come to adore their asteroid city, and wanted to hold onto enough water to supply their needs. Earth Management disagreed. With Ceres and the surrounding asteroids drained, Narsinyx was a place without a purpose, and to supply enough water to the millions of residents would be a waste. The people and the water were desired elsewhere. The mandate was given, not to any organization, but to every individual on Ceres: Relocate to other parts of the solar system. Necessary resources will be provided for your development. The asteroid Ceres will be listed as abandoned by the SSIS, with no current residence. All necessary resources will be removed. All individuals remaining on Ceres will be outside the SSIS. This order will be in full effect by 10-07-2276.
When the deadline was reached all reservoir tanks were drained, and valuable equipment was removed. Essential resources were no longer provided to Ceres, and no requests or messages were allowed to reach past its dome. He could feel all the other minds near him, could message any one of them, although the message could be denied by the intended receiver.
He thought of Mars and what happened to the millions of under-dwellers, his friends and family. What he knew from the Big Sis differed from what he remembered. The official record of the subterranean people was that it was a few small communities. After the rebel leaders were arrested, the rest of the people were transferred to the atmosphere mines of Jupiter. It knew nothing of the millions that did not make the trip, like his mother and other siblings at the brothel. The only listed deceased were the handful of select dissenters executed on the live feed forty-five earth days after the raid. The doomed people were allowed to give speeches, and most spoke of Martian independence. One, though, the oldest Martian, spoke of a desire to stay out of the Big Sis.
Vilens tried to correct the record, using his own memories of the immense caverns that the subterranean Martians had carved out, but nothing changed. When he persisted, trying to fill the Big Sis with names and places, people that he remembered, the memories vanished like fog. Terrified, he tried to recall what it was like to live under the Mars surface, what his mother or sisters looked like, what kind of food he ate in his childhood, where his home was. Nothing came to mind. He blinked when he forgot everything except for the small fact that he lived on Mars and was transferred to Jupiter. It was years ago. It did not matter anymore.
All of this occurred within one blink of his eyes as he lay on the floor.
He sent a message to Angela. “Does this make me a real person now?”
Angela sent back, “You understand now why we looked down on you. The difference is everything.”
“Where can I meet you?” he sent.
She replied, “You’re still closed off. Open yourself up more to the Big Sis and you’ll find me. By the way, we’re under attack.”
“What?” Vilens thought to himself. He expanded his senses, using the sensors in the ceilings and floor and knew the extent of the battle immediately. The minds of the intruders were hostile and aggressive. While the defenders’ brain-comps were still aggressive, he knew they were not hostile towards him. The difference was slight, but obvious, a change in frequency.
Vilens sat up and stretched, trying to push his body out of the lag from his three-day sleep. He lurched to his feet and stumbled to the exit. He felt himself getting stronger by the second, and by the time he got the door open he felt his best self. He ran down the hall towards the battle. His main sidearm was a Martian made Series Nine bolt projector. The weapon could use almost anything solid as ammo, superheated and projected with magnetic pressure, the matter energized into a bolt that could tear through the toughest Martian body armor. He had no idea how effective it would be against the defense tech of Narsinyx, but it was time to find out.
Ahead and around a corner, one of the friendly minds went dark, fading from his perception, while the attacker moved toward the intersection with his own hall. Vilens crouched and aimed his blaster at the hall entrance. A figure came around the corner wearing a white tee-shirt with a zebra with a maniacal look on its face. Vilens had never seen even a picture of a zebra, but he knew that’s what the animal was. The Nyxian woman was carrying a two-handed blaster with a serrated bayonet extending from the barrel. Vilens fired first, striking through the throat and exploding to sever the head. The body twitched as the head toppled to the ground, but the heat from the shot burned up most of the blood and cauterized the wound. The kill shot left slight red sprays over the corpse and wall, but nothing more.
Vilens looked down the hall and saw one of the Pit Thieves that was at the dock when he arrived, dead. He never learned his name, and found no record of his life in the Big Sis. When he thought of Narsinyx, the information service informed him the asteroid was deserted and empty of intelligent life. He could find no record of himself after he boarded the shuttle to Triton Towers. He did not persist in changing the record this time. He accepted that the Big Sis, and its masters on Earth, did not give a damn what anyone did here. No one would ever remember.
Suddenly Vilens got the not-so-bright idea of making them remember.
His inner musings were interrupted by two more of the Zero Star Zebras coming around the corner. Vilens snatched up the rifle from the dead woman and opened fire as they came into view, stitching a row of scarlet blasts across each of their stomachs. They screamed in pain and one managed to fire back a bright white beam from a small blaster, but the shot was to his right. Vilens fired again, higher this time, and cut them both down.
He focused on finding Angela and located her in the middle of a group of defenders, holding back an attack. Vilens ran in that direction taking a right, then another, and saw a group of Zero Star Zebras trying to batter the door down. This time Vilens paused, brought the rifle level, and fired accurate shots into the head area of the intruders.
“Attack now,” he sent to Angela.
With a primal scream the Pit Thieves pushed out of the door, swinging swords and axes, the edges heated to a white glow. Vilens stopped firing, mumbling a curse as they stabbed and cut their way free. The Zero Star Zebras fell in pieces, but the heated edges kept the blood at a minimum.
Angela stepped into view holding a two-handed sword, the edge glowing, and with her black hair pulled up in a tight twist. Her brown shoulder bore a burn mark from a blaster and her violet jumpsuit was cut and pulled down to her waist, exposing her chest. She did not seem to notice his gaze or cover her breasts as he approached.
“Where are your blasters?” he asked, incredulous.
“We ran out of ammo. This shit has been going on since yesterday,” she snapped at him. That made him check his own remaining shots and found only two left in the rifle. His pistol contained a clip of twelve with one less.
He pointed to her exposed skin. “Are you okay?”
She laughed. “I’m the leader of the Pit Thieves. I always go topless into battle.”
Out of habit he looked again at her breasts, firm and smooth with pointed, dark nipples.
Aware of his gaze, she gave him a wry grin and said, “Touch my flesh and I’ll rip you apart, Mars-boy.” A few chuckles from the other Pit Thieves let him know they would enjoy the sight of his dismemberment.
The other dozen tribe members present were strangers to him, and most wore scorched and battered ceramic armor over their torso. Apparently only their leader was expected to go brazenly into battle. He noticed Morgan, Angela’s bodyguard, was not with the group, but thought it wise not to ask.
“Have you seen Fiddle?” Vilens asked, unable to find his brother without a brain-comp.
Angela looked away, up the hall. “The ZSZ has him, specifically Black Baron.”
Vilens was skilled at reading body language, and hers was telling him that she was hiding something. “What? Why do you think that?”
She faced him. “Ten minutes after they attacked Black Baron sent a city-wide message that one of our pet Martians had drawn blood and trampled in one of their gardens. He was sentenced to torture-death. This was sent to let the other tribes know that the attack on us was justified and not to interfere.”
Vilens shook his head and did not know what to think. He knew Fiddle was his brother, but could not recall anything before they both arrived at Enigma Jupiter. Those memories on the atmosphere mines were crystal clear, able to be viewed again and again from his brain. Strangely, he could recall many times with Fiddle on the mines where his brother or another Martian would reference names and places he could not recall.
He put it out of his mind. Finding Fiddle was his top priority. “Is there a chance he’s still alive?”
Angela shrugged. “If they’re still torturing him. They often keep at it until the body dies. It’s a mental torture. It allows them to keep hurting someone even after what they do would normally kill a person.”
Vilens whispered, more to himself, “I thought he would okay for a few days.”
Angela glanced away as she told him, “Fiddle was missing from the first day of your absence.”
“Let me know how to find him. I have to know if I can save him.”
She held up her sword, and the heat waves coming from the edge distorted her face. “Black Baron has him. I’ll go with you because I’ve turned a corner on my relationship with the ZSZ. Either Black Baron dies, or I do.”
Vilens wondered how the sword edge heated up like that and the Big Sis responded. He knew the heating element was in the handle of the melee weapon, connected to the blade edge, made from a special clay. Because heating and cooling the edge would weaken it over time, the edge was made to be replaced.
The rest of the Pit Thieves moved off as a group, looking for survivors he would guess, but no one told him anything. Angela pulled up the top of her suit over her chest, putting the cut edges together. The cloth sealed itself so that it appeared that it was never severed.
With a grin, he asked, “Was that for my benefit?”
She gave him a condescending look. “It’s actually not comfortable to swing a sword with my tits out, but that tradition gives my followers courage. If I’m crazy enough to run into battle with my skin exposed, then they should be brave enough to fight with me. This, however, is a rescue mission, not a battle, so back to the way it should be.” She ran a hand down the smooth material covering her torso.
Angela and he moved down a different hall, and he decided he would ask a delicate question now.
“What about Morgan?” Vilens asked.
Angela shook her head. “The ZSZ came for me first. They shot Morgan in the back. No warning, that’s just what the Zero Star Zebras do when they want to do it.” After a slight pause she said, “Morgan was my mate. We came up together on this asteroid. One hundred four years. Through lovers and wars and tribe changes, we always had each other on this damned rock. I feel like a piece of me died. I feel like I don’t know how much of me is left. I know what you’re feeling for Fiddle, because that’s exactly what I’m feeling about Morgan. ZSZ has gone too far this time. I won’t leave any of them to brag about this.”
Vilens did not know what to say so he let it drop and they continued. The stone walls were scorched, gashed, but the hallways were remarkably clean, without bodies or blood stains. The Big Sis responded to his thought again, and he knew about the drones that would collect corpses for recycling and scrub the floors clean of any blood. He looked at the floor again and realized that only part of it was clean, where the drones had collected the spilled blood. Now he saw cleaner spots in the grime where puddles had been as he went along. This hallway was a high fatality area.
“Thanks for letting me say that,” Angela said, unexpected. “I can’t really talk to the to the other Pit Thieves with any kind of empathy. I always have to be fearless leader, but good thing for me, that’s exactly what I am.” She darted forward and slid on her knees, slicing through the air. The edge of her sword connected with an invisible barrier that imploded as soon as she struck it. Standing in the path of the heated sword edge was one of the ZSZ, now fully visible in her tee-shirt, her pistol held up and ready to fire. The barrel was pointed at Vilens, and for a moment he feared she would shoot him. The ZSZ started to scream as she toppled, her thighs sliced cleanly apart by Angela’s heat blade. Her finger pulled the trigger on her blaster, sending two bolts searing into the ceiling over Vilens’ head. Angela stabbed the woman in the face, ending her struggle, and scooped up the pistol.
She checked the ammo, nodded in approval and said, “Three shots left. Not bad.”
He glanced down at his two-shot blaster. “Is running out of ammo a common thing here?”
She smiled at him. “This is a long way from the pleasure mines of Jupiter. Often fighters only carry a gun or pistol with ten shots on it. Everything else is close and quick.”
His gaze went to the woman’s severed legs, all four stumps charred from the heat but still drooling blood.
Angela answered his unasked question, “You notice more the longer you have a brain-comp, little inconsistencies that can save your life.”
Vilens replied, “The Big Sis lists a dual purpose for the invisibility belt the ZSZ wear, bending light around a target and masking the heat signature. Using both at once leaves a slight outline that can be detected by your sword, which is linked to your brain-comp.”
She nodded and chuckled. “You learn fast. Yes, my sword lets me see the heat dispensed by invisible ZSZ, but only if I’m within about five yards. If she had fired sooner, she might have killed us, but she was likely waiting for us to walk by. Back shots earn more prestige in the ZSZ.”
Angela glanced away, pain evident on her face. Vilens knew she was thinking about Morgan.
Two flying, oval drones zipped down the hallway past them and paused over the corpse. They began to pick up the three pieces with magnetic slings, floating the body parts the same way they floated off the floor. Thin beams scoured up the blood, and the drones departed with their grisly cargo, headed for the recycling plant.
“That’s fast,” Vilens remarked.
Angela said, “All the water taken from fallen bodies during an attack is shared among the tribe. The water from our dead is special to us, savored like wine, while we use the water from enemies to shower our crops first. Was it not like this on Mars?”
Vilens furrowed his brow from lack of memories before Jupiter. “I never wondered where the water came from,” he responded, “as long as it was clean.”
They started again down the hall and after a few more turns, reached the door that opened to the chasm. Vilens began accessing information about Ceres as he went along. The deep fissure was the main water mine and from this rift in the rock hundreds of tunnels struck off through the asteroid. Dug by drones controlled by miners, the mine followed pockets of muddy ice that was collected, purified, refrozen, and shipped off to other areas of the expanding solar system. The blocks of ice sent out from Narsinyx when it was a functioning city were the most valuable resource in the solar system. By law, the water of the home world, Earth, could not be plundered, and the necessary water for expansion through the solar system had to come from sources such as the asteroids or planet mining. When Vilens wondered where most of the water from Ceres was sent, he knew the biggest clients were from nearby Mars. This asteroid had sustained his people long before he even knew it existed.
They crossed the chasm bridge and through the door on the other side into ZSZ territory. They saw no people in this part of the complex, and none of the fighting had reached this far. The empty stone halls were unmarked and undecorated. He could feel no one nearby, but he felt someone was watching. Their pace slowed, cautious.
Vilens paused and turned to Angela. “Do you see anyone?”
Angela replied, “If I did, we would already be in a fight. I haven’t been on this side of the chasm for forty years. I’ve been to Jupiter four times in four decades, but not the other side of this damn asteroid.”
Confused, he looked at her, “If you can leave, why don’t you? The solar system has plenty of places to resettle, make a new life.”
She grinned and gave him a condescending look. “With over a century of memories, I’ve learned life is life no matter where you go. Only the names change. For a couple of decades, I thought Management would reverse their decision, reconnect Narsinyx to the Big Sis and let people come back. Now, after I’ve gone through so much to survive here, it would seem like defeat to quit and leave. This is where I belong anyway. Here, I’m Angela of the Pit Thieves, always ready to wreck lives and drink water to celebrate. Everywhere else I’m just another thought machine, bowing and scraping to survive with Earth’s blessing.”
Vilens nodded, understanding her sentiment.
At the end of the hall was another, perpendicular. As they approached, something felt out of place to Vilens, as though the t-section ahead would be perfect for an ambush.
“Wait,” he cautioned before they crossed the corner.
As though waiting for his silent command, the wall in front of them slid open in two pieces. On the other side, were four Zebras in their t-shirts and another, in dull silver armor with a thick mane of white-gold hair and beard.
Black Baron stood in triumph, fists on his hips and a broad grin on his pale face. The four ZSZ behind him had their arms cocked back, ready to throw four blinking, fist sized spheres, grenades, at them. In the proximity of the hallway, Angela and he would be blasted to vapor.
Vilens recognized all this in an instant, and saw only one way to avoid the trap. With a thought he connected to the mechanism that worked the automatic doors. There was another brain-comp controlling the doors, but he pushed it aside, commanded the segments to close.
Just as the arms of the ZSZ grenadiers moved forward, releasing their deadly bombs, the two sides of the false wall slid closed. Black Baron managed one look of shocked horror before the doors sealed, blocking the grenades in with the ZSZ.
Vilens leapt to the floor as the grenades exploded, but the blocking doors took most of the blast, leaving their hall undamaged. He hopped to his feet, chagrined. One half of the false wall was blown off its hinge, hanging slightly open. With delight Angela skipped over and peered into the dark, smoking interior.
Looking back at him, she said, “They’re all over the walls. There isn’t enough left of those Zebra turds to fill a bucket.” Clearing her throat, she spit through the opening into the bombed hallway with a contemptuous sneer. “There’s some free water for you, Black Baron.”
With the ZSZ leader finished, Vilens said, “So, let’s find Fiddle.”
Angela nodded. “I have a good idea where he is. The equipment they would use to torture him is this way.” She pointed to the left hall.
They moved on, passing unmarked doors, Angela leading. When she finally stepped to one of those doors and it opened, a disturbing smell of human excrement wafted out.
Vilens pushed past her. The room was poorly lit, one overhead light illuminating the only occupant.
Fiddle lay unmoving on a reclining metal chair, strapped in tight, his skirt and tights stained with his own waste. A headpiece was over his eyes, tangled in his limp black hair. His face was slack, his mouth slightly open.
As he quietly approached, Vilens feared his brother was dead. When he neared, he saw small signs of life in Fiddle, chest rising with air, blood still flowing in his veins.
Keeping watch at the door, Angela advised him, “Don’t just disconnect him from the headpiece, it could do more damage. You have to connect to the device and disable it before you remove it.”
Not knowing what he would find in Fiddle’s head, Vilens connected to the headpiece. The image of his brother on the chair was replaced with a courtyard carpeted with strange green fibrous plants, grass he knew from the Big Sis. There was a circular wall around them without any way out. Overhead, the sky was black, an empty void.
Fiddle lay in the center of the circle, nude, blinking at the empty sky.
“Hey, Fiddle,” Vilens said, smiling. “It’s time to go.”
Fiddle let his eyes drop to Vilens and then squirmed, uncomfortable. “Please, Master, use me good. No hurt, please. Use me for pleasure. No hurt anymore.” He spread his arms and legs as wide as he could.
Vilens felt anger and dread. His brother sounded like an imbecile, his infantile voice a mockery of what it was. “That’s all over,” he told him. “Time to go now.”
With a thought he deactivated the device, letting the circular chamber fade as Fiddle said again, softly, “No hurt, Master. I’m for fun.”
Tasting bile, Vilens could see the chair room, holstered his blaster, and took the headpiece off Fiddle. His brother did not respond, letting his head flop onto his shoulder without blinking. Drool spilled from his mouth, sliding down his arm, but he did not react. Vilens unfastened the restraints, noting the lack of abrasions. Whatever the headpiece did to Fiddle’s mind, it kept his body from thrashing around. Other than a few bruises, he was unharmed.
Ignoring the filth, Vilens picked his brother up out of the chair. His head lolled, and he made no reply.
Angela kept her blaster ready, but they saw no one else on the way back to Pit Thieves territory. She showed him to a room with rows of open, coffin like devices with instrument panels. Several chairs were scattered around the room.
Vilens recognized the medical beds, and gently lay Fiddle in one, closed it and activated it with a thought. The device would clean him, scouring away debris and harmful microbes, and heal any physical injuries.
Vilens sat in a chair, his face in his hands. “What happened? How did he get that far from here?”
Watching Vilens closely, Angela replied. “I didn’t know what to do with Fiddle. Since he doesn’t have a brain-c, I couldn’t give him a place in the tribe, and I couldn’t keep him around like a pet until you woke up. There’s always some conflict with the tribe that I must resolve, so I move around a lot. The ZSZ were the worst in Narsinyx, but some of the Pit Thieves aren’t much better. It wasn’t safe for him on his own, so I sent him on a job. I told him to find Black Baron, made up some stupid mission about a message, but I never actually wanted him to find that monster. I gave him a path to the ZSZ that took him through the Servitors, they’re like a religious group, they serve to honor their god, Servitor, service itself. They will link minds with a person to please them, do whatever they wish. It’s extremely intense and more than a little addicting. I’ve known people that have lain with Servitors until they died. I asked one I know, Tolera, to keep Fiddle with her until you woke up and could look out for him again. It didn’t work. Somehow, maybe because he only has an organic brain, Fiddle was able to resist Tolera’s charms. He found the ZSZ, no doubt killed a couple of them in self-defense, desecrated one of their gardens, and the rest you know.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I thought if I told him I wanted him to stay with the Servitors until you woke up, he wouldn’t do it. Tolera would never force him to link with her. If you want to kill me for what happened, you can try, but I’ve already paid my price. I lost Morgan, and the Pit Thieves are decimated. That group you found me with is the only batch of fighters I’ve got left. While you were sleeping, thousands of Pit Thieves died in the attack. The other tribes will learn soon that the ZSZ is cratered, and my tribe is vulnerable.”
Vilens kept his focus. Angela might have set up Fiddle for torture, but she was his only ally on this floating rock. If he took vengeance on her, the rest of the Pit Thieves would be hostile, not to mention everyone else in Narsinyx.
He told her, “You don’t know Fiddle. He knows a strong relationship with your tribe is the only thing that will let us survive here. Any mission from you he would have treated like a mandate from heaven, risking his life to get it done. I believe that you didn’t intend Fiddle any harm. If you did, you could have killed me and him on the way back. I was totally vulnerable, worried about him. Besides that, he’s my brother, not yours. All I could think about was getting a brain-c, and I was the one that left him on his own. I thought he would be okay, but Fiddle doesn’t always see what’s really there. He, he sees what he wants to see. He thinks people will be nice if he’s nice, despite all the times I’ve had to protect him. Well, we can’t do shit about what happened, so what now? Will the other tribes attack?”
Angela bobbed her head as she considered. “The recycle plant has been working non-stop and the reservoirs are filling up with water. The Pit Thieves and ZSZ have held an uneasy alliance in this part of Narsinyx for a couple of decades. Yeah, the other tribes will come to take whatever they can get, erase the Pit Thieves and Zero Star Zebras with one burst.”
“With the ZSZ trashed, which tribe is your biggest competitor?”
Angela chuckled, “Pretty much all of them. We don’t have lasting truces on Narsinyx. The closest other territory is the Candy Cane Pigeons.”
Vilens laughed. “Candy Cane Pigeons? What is that?” His brain-comp informed him of what candy canes and pigeons were separately, but had no discernible connection.
She gave a slight shrug. “The words don’t mean anything on this rock, its phonetic. We just use what sounds good.”
His retort to that was cut off by receiving a message, “This is Jeremy Dandelinits. We are ready to perform our concert.”
Continued in Part Three: Music from the Void
By Aaron Ward
Published by Aaron Ward
Copyright 2020 Aaron Ward
Edition, License Notes
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Original Literature 