The door closed behind them automatically, and Moss pressed a button on his wrist screen which opened the electronic locks which restrained the man. Moss scooped up the chains and shackles and turned to Anders, ordering, “strip,” in as cold a voice as he could muster.

  “Yes, sir,” Anders said, playing the defeated man perfectly. As he pulled the one-piece jumpsuit from his body, Moss saw that his chiseled form was covered with poorly treated burns from his left calf all the way up part of his back. He wondered what kind of incident had done that to him.

  Moss winced and turned to the locker sized machine in the corner of the room. Ynna had given them a vague sense of what to do, and he held his wrist toward the machine and selected PRINT UNIFORM.

  The machine sent a beam into the room, which scanned Anders quickly before disappearing. Prisoners were not given their names, simply numbers based on their arrival date and time. The machine shook as it worked, and another gray and white striped jumpsuit fell into an open slot at the middle.

  “Guest PM1005842022,” was printed in bold letters across the chest. The machine rumbled again, and an electronically lockable collar dropped out. Moss lifted the collar and flipped it in his hands. Black leather with a single ring on the outside and electrodes that would press against the skin on the inside.

  Moss had to work hard not to make a face at the appalling device. He placed it back in the slot and slid closed a light plastic cover. He opened the door at the front of the room and stepped back into the hallway to join Gibbs, and they watched as their friends were blasted from all sides with icy water. They both had many things they wished to say at this moment but knew better as there was another guard in the hallway and more cameras watching their every move.

  When the water shut off, the two were then blasted with powered air to dry off. It looked no more comfortable than the water. The guard watching from a chair in the corner of the hallway leered as Ynna dressed, one of his hands lost in the folds of his pants. Gibbs looked disgusted but did not speak. Moss was impressed that his friend was able to hold himself together through this and was unsure how Ynna and Anders would be after. At least Ynna had known what to expect, and Moss thought, given the little he knew about Anders and seeing the scars, he had probably been through worse.

  Lights flashed next to the doors, and the two stepped back into the rooms, grabbing the wet clothes off the floor and swapping them out for the new ones. Moss gritted his teeth to keep from apologizing to Anders as he clipped the collar around his neck. One more tap of his wrist and Anders disappeared through the door at the rear of the room. The door closed and Moss turned, the easy part over. He walked over, and the two exited the building. The space between the walls was large and open with a few armed guards milling about. Industrial lights kept the space bright though everything was flat and dark. Parked trucks were off to one side with buildings on the other. The woman strode back over to them.

  “All done?” she asked, and they nodded. “Good.”

  She looked to be in her late forties and walked with the proud, upright posture of someone who had possessed power for a long time. Her eyes were sharp and watched everything with judgmental exhaustion. Her armor appeared to be older but was kept in pristine condition, and she carried a baton rather than a gun at her hip. Moss wondered if she used that more on the guards than the prisoners.

  “We’ve had a large influx the last two days, and your file shows your shift just started, so I’ll get your training going now,” she informed them. “If you have any questions, save them for the end because I’m going to tell you everything you need to know.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Moss and Gibbs said in unison.

  “Good boys,” she said as though she were speaking to dogs. “I take this job seriously, and I expect those beneath me to do the same. You’ll be free to get the lay of the land, and I encourage you to walk the street and get a sense of the place. We don’t take any guff from the guests, so if you see anything or if anyone says anything to you which you don’t like, I expect it to be dealt with—no room for a soft touch in here.

  “Don’t make friends with the guests. Your job is to keep them in line. They try to get all buddy-buddy, they are trying to take advantage of you, remember that. You get three square meals in the employee mess which can be taken when you see fit, but don’t dally. Your entry and exit are time-stamped, so I’ll know if you are taking a long lunch. Same goes for sleep. You get seven hours in the barracks, but I expect you in uniform and on the streets after that time. This all making sense so far?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they said once more as they passed through the bottom of a tower to the final wall. This was of strong stone and topped with spirals of barbed wire. The guard towers built into this wall had no doors and looked down onto the only passageway into the city—a massive programmable nanometal door which was caged in with electrified chain-link. She waved her wrist at a keypad, and the sound of arcing electricity fell silent. She opened the door with a key, and they stepped inside. She turned the fencing back on before activating the door which shimmered into a liquid that opened a gap just large enough to walk through. They stepped beyond and were met by another electrified cage on the other side.

  “Impressive,” Gibbs observed, and the woman snorted.

  “Unnecessary high-tech nonsense if you ask me,” she said, “but the higher-ups say it deters the guests from trying to escape, so you’ll hear no complaints from me. Escape prevention is your primary motivation day-to-day, so you need to keep your ears to the ground.”

  “Wouldn’t that be easier if we can befriend the guests?” Gibbs asked, unable to help himself.

  “Was some part of don’t ask questions unclear to you?” the woman snarled.

  “No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,” Gibbs quickly apologized.

  Her eyes narrowed as she stared into his face. “You want to make friends here?”

  “No, ma’am,” Gibbs stated, his body vibrating.

  “Because it sounds like you do,” she said.

  “No, ma’am,” Gibbs was nervous now. His inquisitive nature had no place in Carcer City. They stepped through the final gate and onto the pressed earth street surrounded on both sides by crudely constructed buildings.

  “Guests who can afford materials are given the right to build here. They are under supervision the entire time and rent tools which are to be checked out and in by the supervising employee. Only managers can rent out the tool. Just as in the cities, managers have one stripe under the logo, senior managers have two and wardens have the garish flames,” she said, tapping a gloved hand to her own emblem. “You will be assigned a quadrant every morning, of which there are four in the city. The guests can move freely between them during the day, curfew begins at twenty-one hundred, and everyone needs to be in their respective zones. You see a woman with the men or an aug with the pure, they will be moved. You understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Moss said, the drying blood in his mouth guard making it difficult to speak. He wanted to get it off and wash his face but knew better than to show his face here. He knew he was not such a high value target that every Carcer employee would know his face, but he did not want to take any chances.

  “I will take you now to meet your direct supervisor, Twelve, and he will see you settled in. Should you ever need to speak with me, I am Warden One of CC1 but ignoring the chain of command is a punishable offense, so I do not expect to see you again,” she stated as they moved toward the imposing building at the center of the city. Red lines spray-painted onto the ground stretched from the structure, marking the separate quadrants. Prisoners moved away and spoke in hushed tones as they passed. A long, shrill scream emanated from down a street, and One turned to look. “Go inside and find Twelve,” she snapped, turning robotically and marching toward the sound and away from them.

  “We are in it now,” Moss said cautiously.

  “You think I should put on a fake voice?” Gibbs asked in an appalling English accent, “So we are harder to recognize.”

  “I think you’re more likely to draw attention that way,” Moss told him.

  “Right,” Gibbs said, disappointment in his voice.

  “Listen, we have to stay real smart if we have any chance of surviving this,” Moss warned.

  “I know,” Gibbs said. “How are we going to find the rest? Or your grandmother?”

  “One problem at a time,” Moss said. “We were lucky to make it this far, and it’s only going to get more complicated. We are surrounded on all sides by people who would profit greatly if they figured us out, so we need to stay focused. We’ll try to meet with Ynna and Anders tonight, but we have to get past this first.” He pointed to the large building with a massive Carcer logo on the front.

  “Belly of the beast,” Gibbs said as they passed through fences and ascended the stairs. Just inside the building, a stocky man with little musculature under his armor looked up from the screen at his wrist.

  “New guys?” he asked impatiently.

  “Yes, sir,” Moss answered in a fully subservient tone.

  “One sent a message two minutes ago. What were you doing all that time, braiding each other’s hair?” he asked aggressively.

  Moss shifted uneasily. “No, sir.”

  “I know you weren’t. You aren’t ladies, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Moss said again, instantly despising the man.

  “So, what were you doing?” Twelve barked.

  “Getting the lay of the land, sir,” Moss answered.

  He snorted and faked a chuckle meant as mockery. “You need a survey team to go in a straight line?”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir,” Moss said, and he realized how much they were going to have to change their style here.

  “Silent plus-sized,” he said, pointing to Gibbs (though Twelve was actually larger), “One says you want to make friends with the guests.”

  “No, sir,” Gibbs murmured.

  “No, you didn’t say it, or no, you don’t want to make friends with the guests?” he pressed, and a sheen of sweat broke out on Gibbs’ forehead.

  Gibbs swallowed hard and stuttered, “I don’t want to make friends with the guests, sir.”

  “So, you are calling One a liar?” Twelve asked with affected confusion.

  “Oh! No, sir,” Gibbs exclaimed.

  “So, you are calling me a liar?” Twelve’s eyes opened wide with indignation.

  “What? No. No, sir!” Gibbs said frantically, and Twelve blew his lips before letting out a loud false laugh.

  “You new people are so easy to mess with.” He chuckled to himself, though Moss felt as though all the air had been sucked from the large, open room. “Funny, right?” Twelve asked, and the two made nervous laughter. “You two are all right,” he said and turned to guide them down a long hallway with rooms full of cots. They passed locker rooms and lounges with screens and beers for purchase to the end of the hall which opened into a large cafeteria.

  “So, you’ve seen where you can sleep and rest for your mandated breaks, you boys hungry?” Twelve asked. Gibbs looked as though he was about to speak, so Moss piped up.

  “No, sir. Hoping to get to work straight away,” he said hurriedly. Gibbs’ eyes looked forlorn, but he understood.

  “I like that attitude,” Twelve said with a suspicious smile. They breezed through the room to a door at the rear and exited back outside. The air was cool and heavy with fog. They moved beyond more fences, and Twelve turned to look at them. “Ready to see the real Carcer City?”

  Chapter 15

  The streets at the back of the building were different from those at the front. Large groups of men stood around, smoking and chatting. They didn’t seem as concerned about the presence of the guards. Twelve scanned the people, disdain in his eyes. He started them walking down a street, and they took note of how crowded all the bars and restaurants were.

  “You’ll take the non-augmented men’s quadrant tonight. I’ll expect a report in the morning at end of shift,” Twelve told them as he walked with an intentionally intimidating stride down the street. A young man hustled over from an alleyway.

  “Manager Twelve,” he panted.

  “Yes?” Twelve said.

  “We just removed two women from the quad,” he said.

  “Why was I not informed?” he barked.

  “It happened so fast,” the young man justified, though his nervousness was clear in his tone.

  “Too fast to call me on comms?” Twelve pressed.

  “Yes, sir. Well, no, sir. We just wanted to sort it for you,” he stammered, and Twelve’s eyes narrowed, and the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. Moss had known managers like this at ThutoCo—people who had taken too much joy out of the discomfort of their employees. Mr. Greene had always mocked the type, saying their management got the worst out of those who worked for them. Thinking of him instantly brought the guilt back. Moss remembered the recording, and he wondered what had come of his old boss.

  “Were you in the riots of seventy-nine?” Twelve asked.

  “No, sir,” the man said.

  “I was,” Twelve said with an air of superiority.

  The man slumped his shoulders subserviently. “Yes, sir.”

  “You would not have survived,” he stated coldly. “Begin your shift,” he told Moss and Gibbs. “I need to follow up on this.”

  He puffed himself up and strode away.

  “Hi, I’m Dimitry,” the young man said with a genial little wave.

  “Nice to meet you, Dimitry,” Moss said, intentionally not introducing himself.

  Dimitry asked, “You guys new?”

  “First minutes,” Moss admitted.

  “Whoa,” Dimitry said, “want a drink?”

  Moss knew he shouldn’t remove his mask around a stranger, but he was tired and overwhelmed, and a drink sounded perfect.

  “Yes, please,” Gibbs said, feeling the same way and sensing that the round-faced, freckled young man posed no threat to them. Dimitry guided them to a ramshackle structure constructed of ancient road signs soldered and bolted together. The words “pit stop” were cut out of scrap metal and affixed above the door. The smell of charred meat and beer filled their noses as they entered the room with prisoners sitting at crude tables cut of shipping boxes. No one even shot them a glance as they walked over the sticky floor to the bar. Dimitry held up three fingers and the tired, miserable-looking obese man behind the counter went about opening the beers slowly.

  “How long have you been here?” Gibbs asked Dimitry, who shook his head.

  “Three years,” he informed them.

  “And Twelve still talks to you like that?” Gibbs asked. Dimitry snorted a laugh.

  “He talks to everyone like that,” he said, “but you get used to it. Things are so crazy in here these days, and I hardly notice that kind of talk anymore.”

  “Why so crazy?” Moss asked.

  “How hard was it for you to get this job?” Dimitry laughed.

  Moss calculated his answer and tried to look calm as he peeled the respirator from his face, dried blood pulling at his skin. “Not hard,” he guessed.

  “Exactly!” Dimitry exclaimed. “Ever since the terrorist attack at ThutoCo, almost no one wants to work for the big companies. The turnover here is crazy. People are quitting left and right. There are as many managers as front-line guys like us.”

  Moss blanched. He had known the way the media painted what they had done but had never thought the public had bought it, yet this young man had called them, “Terrorists.”

  “You think they were terrorists?” Gibbs asked, pulling his own mask away. Moss was struck by the fact that they were revealing their faces while discussing their own actions with someone who thought them criminals.

  “What else would you call them?” Dimitry asked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “They broke into a company, set off bombs, stole proprietary information, and killed a bunch of people.” The bartender waddled over and set the beers before them, handing Moss a wet, dirty rag to wipe his face. Moss couldn’t tell if the rag had been brown originally or if it had become that way over time, but he took it in the spirit it was intended and scrubbed at his mouth, wincing at the pain. “I got this round,” Dimitry offered, tapping at the screen on his armor to make the payment. Moss made a note to check his own armor’s balance when he had a chance.

  “Didn’t they know that ThutoCo was trying to kill their employees?” Gibbs offered lightly, taking a sip of the beer.

  “What?” Dimitry scoffed. “If you believe that, I have a lake house to sell you! Problem is, a lot of people believe that bull and now we are desperate to keep staff.”

  “That is crazy,” Moss echoed the youth’s verbiage.

  “Right?” he said.

  “And your bosses don’t care that you drink on shift?” Moss asked as he tipped his beer and took a sip.

  “Nah, they run it pretty loose in here. For as much as it looks like a big-bad, and as hard as the bosses can be, no one cares too much as long as things aren’t getting out of control,” Dimitry explained cheerily.

  “Sounded pretty strict about time management,” Moss put in.

  “Oh, sure,” Dimitry agreed. “But when you’re on shift, it’s pretty loosy-goosy.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good job,” Moss said, trying to keep the kid happy and talking.

  “It is,” Dimitry said and clinked his bottle against Moss’s.

  “The prisoners don’t give you too hard a time?” Gibbs asked.

  “The guests,” Dimitry corrected, finishing his beer, “are good people for the most part. You have some people who are in here for violence and the like, but for the most part, it’s just people who pissed off the wrong rich guy who could afford a bounty.”

 

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