Hades- the Revolution, page 19
part #2 of Hadesjan Cycle Series
“You’re a stupid prick,” she was plucking small hairs around her eyebrows, “although you fuck me like no one has before.”
He knew he was still holding his current position not only thanks to his skills. The few slip-ups which he had managed to commit were always forgiven.
“Report time,” she demanded. It was time to get to the point.
“We received the last convoy without any trouble. The progress of work on the other planet is more than satisfactory. Before the next conjunction the crops we harvest will enable us to become self-sufficient in terms of food supplies. We might have problems with agricultural surplus, as we don’t have enough magazines to store it. He continued with his report for the next few minutes, recalling numbers and statistics from his memory. Linda appeared not to be listening, but it was just pretence. He brain could focus on many different activities at the same time. He admired her for it, but dreaded the fact at the same time. She acted like a robot, passionless and mercilessly effective.
“The output?”
“We’ve increased the effectiveness by twelve percent.”
“This is not enough.”
“It is a steady growth. We have a mass of people within the system. The recruiters took anyone willing. Many lied about their qualifications and part of the transport documentation got lost. We have to verify everyone individually and it takes time. I don’t want to send miners to farm the fields, and the farmers to the mines. And there are those who are unskilled. We’re setting up numerous courses for them.”
“Transport?”
“The connection network has improved the situation, although it is still our weakness. We don’t have enough resources to transport people. We somehow manage, but we have to use makeshift solutions. The Health and Safety Department is believed to have printed a warrant with my picture on it.”
“I’ll find something better for them to do.” Red alert!
“I don’t find it at all surprising. I myself don’t like what we’re doing. Sooner or later something terrible will happen and the public will start looking for those responsible for the negligence.” Dillins didn’t want to have others on his conscience. “We need the Health and Safety people exactly where they are. What we have to do is buy more shuttles or start producing them ourselves.”
“Pass it on to the design office.”
“I will.” He didn’t tell her that the project was already under way. He gradually let himself take more decisions on his own. This is what she expected from her subordinates, as long as they didn’t make mistakes.
“What about the anomaly?” They were on to the difficult questions.
“It temporarily switched off all electric appliances. As a consequence we lost two shuttles, which crashed during the landing. Now only the nuclear reactors and ships powered by solid fuels are working. The infrastructure of Uroboros hasn’t been damaged. The network started working again, although it keeps breaking down and is full of errors, so we haven’t been able to assess the total losses. The Short Under Message System is working; and from the information we receive it looks like the other systems have suffered much more than we did. Apparently, humanity had never dealt with a similar anomaly before.”
She didn’t ask about the number of casualties.
“I heard that the Fleet asked you for help?” He was surprised himself once he saw the face of admiral Black on the communicator monitor.
“As you can see, some people know that you let me into your bed,” he began cautiously. “The Fleet has a problem with their fusion drives, and the only hope are the shipyard engineers. I couldn’t get through to you and every second mattered.”
“Good,” Linda accepted his decision. “Don’t be too quick with the repairs. Let those in the uniforms understand how dependent on me they are.”
“I don’t know if this is the best solution.” This was the first time he had ever questioned her opinion. She turned around surprised, eyeing him closely. The most difficult moment, for which he had been getting ready for a couple of days, came.
“There is a gaping hole in the richest Hadesian deposit, and our best geologists and engineers are racking their brains to solve the mystery of what exactly had happened there. The answer to this question is important, but even more important is the fact that they are looking for it also on Earth. The speed and direction of the anomaly point to the fact that it all started in our system. They know about it and are starting to ask uncomfortable questions.”
“Do you think this is all our doing?” she laughed. “No, my Prince, I have absolutely nothing to do with that.”
“Even if this is the case, does everybody else know about it?” he sat on the edge of the bed. “They might assume that it was Uroboros working on a new kind of weapon, and that there was an accident, or even worse, a test carried out. In the whole universe you won’t find a person who wouldn’t like to know what exactly happened. And the question is being asked by both a drunk in a gutter and the Prime Minister of the Earth government. And while the drunk will be happy with another bottle, the Prime Minister will not fail to send his representative our way, just in case.”
“And is that bothering you so much?”
“Yes, because I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to fuck the queen again.”
A gun materialized in the hands of the Razor. She was pointing it at John.
“Who told you?” she hissed.
“You did.”
“You’re lying!”
“You talk in your sleep, although I was slowly beginning to figure it out on my own too.” There were already two bullets in the headboard. Dillins didn’t want to leave a third one behind. He had no other choice but to win or lose everything. As Linda Collins’s favorite, he had already interwoven his fate with hers. “Uroboros is withdrawing its assets from the Earth. The bankers are falling into a frenzy. And all the huge recent purchases, ships, equipment and people. You want to be independent and the admiral has his buddies around him and is eating out of your hand.”
John slowly stood up and took one step towards the woman who was holding the thread of his life in her hands. She didn’t react, but didn’t lower the gun either. Taking step by step he walked up to the dressing table. The barrel was poking into his stomach. Out of Linda’s purse he took out a foiled square, ripped it and took a stimulating plaster out of it. She watched his every move.
“And what if the queen doesn’t want you?” she asked as he was sticking the plaster to her arm.
“She does,” he waited for the active substances to work.
“No more meetings with Lora Lock,” she said, lowering the weapon. She found out about his meeting with the local holovision star. Nothing happened, but there was a spark between them and Lora gave him her private number.
“Are you jealous?”
“I need both of you, and I’d rather not choose between the two.”
The pupils of Linda’s eyed dilated, and her breasts moved as she was breathing faster. The aphrodisiac started working. He took her by the head and moved closer. One more time the praying mantis will not devour the male but let him have her.
“Take it into your mouth and then straight to bed.”
Before she did she said.
“If you meet with her, I’ll bite it off.” A cold shiver ran down his spine, but then it was only wet, warm and pleasant.
☼ ☼ ☼
The Lost Hope Shipyard. Zulu Hour countdown – 1:00
I was going through my disc for the umpteenth time.
“Fucking nothing,” I commented on my unsuccessful attempts.
“What are you mumbling?” Theodore asked from his bunk above.
I took the sensor net from my head.
“I’ve lost all the important data. I only have the piloting course and nothing else.”
“Does that mean that your lady friend is no longer around? Good for you. She was a mean bitch and that’s it.” My buddy was in a really foul mood. Sunshine left him and was almost making out with Star before our very eyes.
I didn’t know why she was doing it. Star, apart from his crookedly tattooed two fours on the forehead, had nothing to look up to. I also doubted his abilities to prophesy the future. Taking a girl from Theodore Schmitt, a former storm trooper, would not bode him well. I reminded myself to make sure to stick some mattress stuffing into my ears before going to bed.
“Shut up,” I wasn’t in the mood either. “And fuck off Ingrid.”
I felt totally drained, as if someone was actually wringing my brain. I had uncoordinated double vision. I only hoped I hadn’t suffered any neurological damage to the brain.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really see a doctor about that. What would I tell him? I have lost a virtual woman, doctor. Can you prescribe a pill for bad love? I would get a laxative, to say the least. The other slaves were busy doing their own things. We all tried to make the best use of the precious breaks in our work. Uroboros went completely mad after the mysterious breakdown and everybody was sent to work. People almost collapsed with exhaustion. Nobody wanted to talk unless it was necessary. Ringlet, Comma and Four Eyes were playing cards. Cockroach was lying in the corner. I tried to ignore the fact that the blanket he covered himself with was rhythmically going up and down. Normally, we would send him to the john, but now we couldn’t be bothered to protest.
“Get up, lazybones!” We saw our foreman in the doorway. “You have many noble goals to accomplish.”
This was perversion. We had just done a full shift and we were entitled to at least five hours of rest. A boot flew in the direction of the carrier of the bad news. He managed to duck and avoided it. He couldn’t shirk the second one though. The brogan flattened with a smack on the obnoxious mug of the foreman. A murmur of approval at the precision of the shot could be heard in the room.
“Fuck!” he moaned and blood ran down his chin. “A re-f-olution f-roke out!” The guy had a problem with pronouncing his consonants.
The first one who got the sense of the whole thing was Four Eyes. He jumped up, scattering the cards all around.
“A revolution broke out?” To our surprise, the foreman nodded in confirmation.
“Yes,” he said, getting the power of speech back. “Follow me.”
We looked at one another. I once took part in an action to protect the good name of the working classes and I wasn’t very optimistic about the success of similar enterprises. Four Eyes briskly walked towards the exit, and Sunshine followed him closely, glancing at him meaningfully. He got to his feet and hit my mattress.
“Move your ass. Once the riots start, Uroboros will detonate the charges in all of its slaves. I hope somebody had already thought about it.”
“You would be better off if you hadn’t given the blocker to your lovebird. You wouldn’t have to worry right now,” I was talking about the pendant, which he had presented to Sunshine as a gift.
“Pick on your own pussy!” he said.
“I wish I could, but she’s disappeared.”
He dragged me off my bed and stood me upright. I didn’t protest. I was feeling really low.
“Don’t make me punch you,” he warned me.
Truth be told, I didn’t care one way or the other. I didn’t give a shit about this whole revolution. I lost faith in the fighting. I also lost the only person for whom I was most important. My first friend, with whom I had come to this fucking godforsaken planet, betrayed me. The Marines took advantage of me and then fucking threw me away like a used condom. I found myself among slaves with a white cross on my nut and a number tattooed on my forehead. Fucking cool, right? So why the hell would I need the revolution?
“I’m not going,” I said totally resigned.
As a response, Theodore punched me in my stomach with his fist. When I bent over, he took me by the arm and helped me walk towards the door.
“Pig,” I wheezed.
“I care about you too, jerk.”
Before the door to our cell the foreman was unloading boxes. There were laser guns and extra batteries hidden in the packages. A group of shipyard men was looking at us from inside the corridor. We knew them by sight, although our interactions so far had been limited to curt exchanges of politeness. They were all well armed, and they had used creativity to make up for uniform deficiencies. Instead of real helmets they wore colorful scarves, headbands or safety helmets normally worn by the technical services. There was one element of clothing which they all sported: a red armband worn on the right arm. They were observing us distrustfully, gauging what attitude we were about to adopt.
“Take it,” the foreman handed us the weapons and two batteries each.
Theodore grabbed his first. He opened the breech mechanism, took out a trapezoid crystal and assessed its purity against the light. He then pushed it back inside and locked the mechanism. The next thing he did was blow the contacts of the battery magazine. He put one into the pistol grip and blocked it by striking it against his knee. Then he shook the whole thing to check whether the ceramic and metal elements of the gun rattled or not. Finally, he pointed the rifle at the nearest wall, aimed and pressed the target illuminator with his thumb. Nothing happened – the microscopic dot didn’t show.
“We don’t have enough batteries for everyone. They died during transportation,” said one of the shipyard men, an older looking graying man with a hooked nose. “Storm troopers still have fully-charged ones at their disposal.”
He pointed to the young people standing behind him. At first glance only a few of the group were significantly older than me. There were boys and girls who believed in ideals and were ready to die for them. What was wrong with me that I didn’t share the enthusiasm glowing on their faces? Theodore handed me the gun he had just checked and took another one. He repeated all the procedures.
“Since we didn’t get the batteries, what is this glorious part we are about to play?” I asked.
“You’ll be the support group. Should any technical problems arise, you’ll be the ones to deal with them.”
“Who is in charge of this escapade and what are its strategic aims?” I wanted to know.
The man in command came closer to us and looked at us carefully. We didn’t seem to have made a good impression on him. Four Eyes was eyeing the rifle as if he was wondering which end should be directed at the enemy. I was pretty sure that Sunshine had never held a gun in her life before. She grabbed it by the end of barrel and was holding it with a trembling hand. A perverse thought instantly appeared in my head. What a sexist pig I was! It’s not worth talking about the rest of the slave brethren as they didn’t seem interested in taking an active part in absolutely anything.
“This information is confidential and you don’t have to know it. You’ve been freed from the hands of the concern suppressing the working classes.” The guy talked like a political agitator, who he must have been in some other world. “You’re not slaves anymore. Join our fight against the enemy!”
Only Cockroach reacted to the man’s lofty speech. He stood on the side of the revolutionaries. Comma, Ringlet and Star were still hesitating.
“I don’t know nothing about politics,” said Ringlet, a criminal with a lengthy record, who couldn’t get over after the loss of his buddies during the shipyard repairs. He had run many scams with Old Man and Ink. Left alone, he was just a shadow of a hardened criminal. “Take away that revolution of yours and leave me alone,” he decided.
We watched him walk to the cell. A stooped, burnt out shell of a man.
“You two,” the man in charge of the revolutionaries turned to the undecided two. “Do you believe in ideals?”
“Ideals?” Comma echoed the question. “And where can you buy the damned thing? Don’t serve me texts like this here. I was sentenced an innocent man and lost everything I loved: my wife, children, my company, my friends. Come on, Star, we’d better join them than sit idly. Maybe we’ll get a chance to have our little trivial revenge?”
“Since you’re asking so kindly, I can’t say no to you.” And they both reached for the guns.
The commander walked between us following Ringlet into the cell. He was the only Kappa 12 slave who refused to take an active part in combat. Nobody expected to hear a gunshot. None of our group that is. The young revolutionaries didn’t look surprised. I don’t know why I didn’t take any action nor even cared about the death of a comrade. Maybe because he hadn’t been alive for some time already, or maybe I was still in shock after losing Ingrid. Or maybe I just made peace with the fact that I couldn’t change the world. I still don’t know why I didn’t shoot the son of a bitch when he walked out of the cell with a smoking gun in his hand.
Chapter XV
Zulu Hour countdown – 0:15
On our way to the departure lounge we passed many armed squads. It looked like preparations for the fighting were under way. Controllers stood in all the important passageways and directed groups to their starting positions. We, as a support group, accompanied the squad that had brought us freedom, no matter how idiotic this may sound.
I noticed that the revolutionaries used rather light arms. Hardly any group had weapons of larger caliber, and I had only seen one heavy machine gun with a tripod. But they were all very eager to fight, singing songs, smiling, as if a long expected moment was about to come.
The departure lounge was very crowded. The Organization managed to smuggle in lots of supporters. More and more groups kept coming in from other parts of the shipyard. We were all handed red armbands. When we arrived, an elderly woman was finishing her speech.
“Workers! You’ve come here to take rightful vengeance. We are about to show everyone what we are capable of!” Shouts of support could be heard everywhere. “The dam which is keeping all our grievances in check is bursting. To arms!”
Her place was taken by a girl. I knew her as we had recently had an awkward moment in the kitchens. Although I had saved her life in the Bio&Sonic base earlier before, she didn’t give the impression of a lost soul. Quite the opposite – she looked like an avenging angel.
