“Fast-like…now,” I say and we race down the length of the doomed warship and jump off its bow toward the vast aperture that waits beyond the incinerator to consume the liquid metal the warship will soon become. A wave of heat chases us into the aperture, down its huge umbilical, and into a grim processing center where vast cubic trays wait for the liquid metal. A Red foreman in a mech-suit turns our way, but we’re already gone and into the station through a pedestrian walkway high above.
* * *
—
The Carthii’s philosophy of order is simple. They believe in an iron rod of discipline held by a velvet, scented glove.
Dockyard workers who obey their Carthii masters are given many delights, including twenty-three delirium arcades for the pleasure of their coveted Greens. We target an arcade located on the thirty-seventh level of the eastern construction spindle. The arcade is thick with humidity, and the lights in the ceiling cast a dim indigo glow over the rows of delirium pods.
Our abrupt entry, and the sound the Brown janitor’s body makes as he hits the floor, draws the attention of the arcade’s admin, a tall androgynous Green with a cruel, pale face. They turn from their route through the rows of delirium pods to see a shadow leaping toward them. Cassius takes them down hard with a knee to the sternum. By the time I make it over to them, he’s holding their body, now limp as a wet towel. The shock of the mild collision killed them.
“Sorry,” Cassius murmurs. “Not used to this high gravity.” He drops the human towel. “So fragile.”
“We’re looking for an architect or a fulgur bellator. Delta symbol with three lightning bolts. Try not to kill them.”
We split the pods, and I go down the rows peering at the blank, pale faces for the right tattoos that will find Sevro’s cell and lead me through the doors blocking my path to it. Hardwired into the experiential pods, the Greens’ reveries are relayed through small holograms over their heads. More than half the Greens partake in sexual simulations and are fit with codpieces to catch the byproduct of their pleasure. I stop and feel my gut churn at the horror bathing the face of a highly decorated fulgur bellator—a lightning warrior. A hardy Green bred to be paired with Gray squads in the field to enslave or neutralize enemy electronics, his body is thicker than most of his colleagues, and his predilections far more gruesome.
I wrap my hand around his throat and tear out the wires going into the ports just in front of his ears. His consciousness falls out of its licentious revelry and back into his war-scarred, tech-enhanced body. I strangle him and then break his neck like a sheaf of dry hay.
Concerned, Cassius comes over. “You murderous hypocrite.” His expressionless helmet fixes on the frozen dream above the dead Green before he looks away in disgust. “Venusians.” He makes a spitting sound. “Found an architect, with healthier dreams.” I follow him to a slender Green woman with narrow eyes and the tattoo of an architect over her right eyebrow. Her delirium is tamer. She flies atop a scaled beast over a gloomy fortress lit in green light. The black mountains that surround the fortress are jagged enough to have been hewn by a giant with a scythe. Her eyelids flutter as Cassius eases her out of the dream. She starts. Her eyes focus on her new, frightening reality. As she tries to scream, I wrap Bad Lass around her neck and say: “Your life is in your hands. Don’t drop it.”
* * *
—
The Green architect does not choose to drop it. She is slight, probably a third of my weight, and so nervous her thin fingers shake on the keys of the hallway terminal. I made her access it manually so I can curb any potential mischief. Cassius keeps a lookout. The Green’s program filters through thousands of images. The brigs are filled with prisoners—most of them Golds or Grays—but no Sevro. She widens the search, delving into high-security zones until I have her stop on a bleach-white security room. A man lies in the fetal position, clad in a yellow prisoner’s jumpsuit, his head encased in a giant wolf helmet. Cassius must hear my heart beat faster.
“Got him?” he asks without turning.
“Maybe.” I zoom in on the prisoner’s exposed hands until I see a skull tattoo on the back of his left. Still not convinced, I assess the scars on his right hand. They match the ones Sevro received from Atalantia’s cajir war beasts on Earth. I swallow, nervous now that I’m so close. “That’s Sevro.” I check my chronometer. If Aurae is on schedule, she’ll have landed the Archimedes and finished her space walk on the sixth construction spindle by now. Our insurance should be in order. “Let’s go get him.”
With our jamField hiding us from cameras, I put the Green on a razor leash and force her to lead us. She unlocks the maintenance lifts to take us as close as we can get to Sevro’s prison. Accessing the maintenance crawl spaces, I have Cassius release a Sun Industries spider drone in the ventilation ducts. He guides it via the uplink in his helm until it peers through the vents into the high-security block. It crawls in and begins to pump gas from its carry-pod. An alarm blares inside and the Grays on duty scramble for their helmets. At the same time, I thrust the Green toward the main door controls.
Shaking, she hunches over the controls until the door hisses open. I drive my elbow into the back of her head and move in low and fast just as the spider explodes in stutters of white light. The first Gray turns toward the door. He’s blind when I spear him through his armor and heart. I lift him up and run with him as a shield. Guns crackle. Slugs slam into the Gray’s armor. But I’m into them, and that’s where I do my best killing.
Shoving the Gray off Bad Lass I cut at a man holding a rifle and take both his arms off at the elbows. I kick the other way and snap a Gray’s neck as I catch him under the jaw. I whip another around by his ankles and jerk him down from the level above, retracting the blade and taking his feet off, and then slam the razor into the crest of another Gray’s helmet. He parts like split wood. I whip at two others to either side of me. The damage to their helmets is superficial, but it buys Cassius time to shoot both Grays as he follows behind me.
“Three o’clock,” I call. “Low.”
Cassius ducks just as the Obsidian’s axe sweeps past where his head was moments before. In the same motion, Cassius sweeps his razor over his head in a circle, dividing one of the two charging Obsidians at the waist. His blade catches in the armor of the other. He blocks a second axe-strike with his aegis, a glowing shield emitted by his left vambrace, and rolls to free his blade. The Obsidian’s next swing crashes down. The axe sparks against his pulseShield and rebounds. Cassius stabs his razor two-handed under the Obsidian’s armpit, taking his opponent under the jaw. The blade emerges out the top of the Obsidian’s helmet. Cassius recalls his blade and cleans it as he stands.
“Clear,” he says. “I’ll hold here. Get your Goblin.”
I stumble over the twitching bodies and tear a pass card off a centurion’s armor. I race down the security block’s main corridor until I reach Sevro’s door where I wave the pass card. The heavy metal retracts upward and I burst into the cell.
Sevro lies in the center of the white room. The wolf helmet on his head is so heavy the act of lifting it from the floor makes the veins in his neck bulge. I race to him and with a careful swing, cut the lock on the helmet. I sheathe my razor and tear the helmet away. Sevro’s face is dewy and crusted with dried saliva, dead skin, hair, and yeast. He smells as cheesy as a popped cyst. His eyes blink out at me from the tangle.