Chaos Cipher (71 page)

‘
LOOK AT
HIM!’ Vadim shouted into Kyo’s ear, forcing his head harder against
the bars.

‘
Are you
looking at me, girly boy?’ the inmate glowered back, slamming his
palms on the steel.

‘
Tell him who
you are!’

‘
I am number two,
one, nine,
’ Kyo wept.

‘
LOUDER!’

‘
I am number
two, wh-one, nine!’

‘
On your
fucking knees two, one, nine!’

And Kyo
dropped, heaving deep breaths in shock, bewildered eyes glaring
around until Vadim grabbed the back of his hair and forced him to
stare at the prisoner’s crotch.

‘
STAND UP
FAGGOT!’ The inmate bawled.

‘
Stay on your
fucking knees!’ Vadim ordered.

‘
Do
gene-freaks suck dicks? I SAID STAND UP! Face me, you little
shit!’

‘
STAY
DOWN!’

Kyo convulsed
with fear, hearing a shrunken voice cry out and whimper. It was a
voice he did not know as his own now escaping his lips, a cowering
voice that lacked all he had ever thought of himself. The inmate
clapped his hands and began hollering and laughing, glad he had
successfully broken his victim. He reached out of the bars and
tried and snag Kyo, but Vadim pulled the boy away from the bars and
out of danger.

‘
Why not you
stand up?’ Vadim asked with a sinister smile. ‘You enjoy being on
your knees?’

‘
No!
’ Kyo hollered.

‘
Then you
should have listened when he said now STAND!’

He clambered
to his feet, legs like jelly, stomach in somersaults.

‘
You’re lucky
I don’t throw you in there,’ Vadim laughed sadistically. ‘Aren’t
you? Know how lucky you are?’

Kyo nodded,
wiping his eyes and shivering.

‘
Wanna go
back to your cell?’ Vadim asked, feigning a baby voice. ‘You wanna
go for a little nap two, one, nine?’

Kyo wasn’t
sure how to answer. He stared at Vadim ambivalently, and the Raw
Dog smacked the top of his head.

‘
MAN UP two,
one, nine, or I’ll have to show you how.’

‘
That’s
enough now,’ said Krupin.

Kyo’s
ferromag-cuffs then magnetised to the floor and he dropped to his
knees, brought down by the force. Krupin entered the cell and
handed something to the inmate on the other side of the bars. The
big man smiled, nodding appreciatively as he received his gift, and
disappeared somewhere into the large mess hall of the prison where
others laughed and joked and shouted their remarks.

‘
Do you like
your new home, little one?’

Kyo didn’t
respond, he stared at the ground, shivering, afraid to even look
Krupin in the eyes, and the whole thing delighted him.

‘
What’s up?’
he asked. ‘Now, don’t tell me your spirits are broken already? But
we’re just getting through introductions. You have many numbers to
remember in here, starting with your own.’ And Krupin knelt beside
Kyo and lifted his head to face him. ‘Two, one, nine, you better
get tough, or in here, you will die. I give you good opportunity to
be strong and you sit on your ankles wasting it.’ Krupin sniffed at
something sulphurous and grimaced, looking disgusted with the boy.
He moved away to stand beside Vadim.

‘
He pissed
himself,’ Krupin noted. ‘I might leave him in those uniforms until
he’s had enough of the smell.’

Kyo suddenly
lurched forth and purged a large pile of grey soup spewing onto the
floor and collapsed. Vadim cursed and stepped back.

‘
Disgusting,’
he uttered as a roar of applause broke out from the din of the
inmates in the mess hall. Kyo’s eyes shut out the horrors of the
environment, but he could still hear the harsh reality, the sundry
whistles and jeers with the clatter of plates and cutlery and the
farting glide of chairs shifting over laminate. He lay in his
vomit, overwhelmed by the shock and horror, heart racing,
exhausted. He could hear their discussion but he was at their
mercy.

‘
We’ll kill
him, if we keep this up.’ Krupin sighed. ‘Get him to infirmary.
He’s ready for conditioning.’

*

‘
I will fight
to survive and earn my name!’

‘
I will fight
to survive and earn my name!’ Hattle repeated.

‘
On your
knees!’ Vadim roared, kicking Hattle’s legs. He fell to his knee
and screamed in pain as something sprained, and Vadim leaned over
him.

‘
Earn your
name two, three, six.’ Vadim stated. ‘What’s your name?’

‘
Hattle!’

A sharp pain
lanced through Hattle’s temple and he fell dazed to his side. There
were violent gasps and tussles as he felt hands seizing his ankles,
and Hattle slid across the floor into the dark workshop. The clang
of steel and the buzz of machines were all around now, and he heard
the ringlets of an iron chain jingling from above where the pale
evening sky shone through a square of transparency in the vertex of
corrugate roofing.

‘
Whu – what
are you doing?’

‘
SHUT UP!’
Vadim’s voice roared. Hattle screamed as he felt his ribs crack
under Vadim’s foot. The chains fed around his ankles like hard
metallic snakes. Hooks latched onto the orange jumpsuit they
provided him. Hattle was hoisted, dangling inverted to the ground,
thrashing for stability as he spun in helical motions, crying out
with distress.

‘
Let me down!
Okay? Just let me down.’

‘
Hold him.’
Vadim stated.

A series of
hands held Hattle still. He saw scratched and stained welding
masks. He saw men in oil stained uniforms. He saw vehicles
suspended on platforms being stripped and reassembled. A fountain
of amber sparks and embers showered from the depths of the
workshop. The rattle of pumps and the grind of power generators
throttled the air all around him. His head and ribs pulsed with
pain and Hattle began to sob.

‘
You can’t do
this! Don’t kill me, men! You don’t know who I am.’

‘
We will gut
you like a pig, bitch!’ One of the masked men said, and a roar of
laughter erupted from the workers.

‘
No no…you’re
joking, you’re joking.’ Hattle wept, forcing a desperate laugh and
trembling into fearful tears again.

‘
We already
got one boxing champ here,’ said Vadim, holding up his hands. And a
triumphant roar of support exploded from the workers, as they
patted Vadim’s back victoriously and brought him into arms, sharing
fist bumps and high-fives.

‘
Why do we
need another boxer?’ he jeered, as someone passed him a power
drill. ‘You are going to do something new? Going to improve this
place some how?’

‘
No, don’t!
Please, don’t!’ Hattle begged as she drill revved with a
high-pitched whir and a jet of air. Vadim tested the trigger, a
staccato revving and whirring from the power drill, taunting
Hattle. He grabbed hold of Hattle’s ear and pressed the dull tip of
the drill lightly into his opposite earhole, and between each his
eyes were wide and spinning as he gasped for breath, making strange
howling and groaning pants, anticipating the pain to come as he
thought he felt the drill twist a little.

‘
What is your
name?’ Vadim asked, finger resting on the trigger.

‘
Two…eh – eh
no! I don’t remember! Tell me the number, please, God don’t fucking
drill my ear…’

‘
Your name?’
Vadim chided with a sadistic smile, pushing the tip of the drill
deeper, toying with the trigger. Laughter and cheers started up
from the back like a brontide.

‘
It’s
two…three six.’ Hattle gasped, deep panting breaths sucking in all
the air. ‘Two, three, six. My name’s two three six
champ.’

‘
Champ?’
Vadim laughed.

A vivified
roar of laughter roused up again and Vadim threw his arms into the
air and embraced the applause from his audience, revving the drill
in celebration. Hattle laughed nervously amongst the raptures,
relieved to have the drill out of his ear. He wept in the next
moment and hung from the chains, screaming out his tension. Vadim
took a tuff of Hattle’s hair in his fist and steadied his spin
again.

‘
You’re in
the hardlands now.’ Vadim smiled. ‘You must be fast learner here
two, three, six. I like you accept me as champ, but it is not
enough. There are some more lessons I have for you.’

‘
Okay,’
Hattle gasped, nodding desperately, dripping with
perspiration.

‘
You are good
fighter but shit thinker,’ Vadim noted. ‘Shit with tactics, shit
with skill. You win because you are reckless. If I knew Cerise
Timbers fighters did dirty fighting, I would never have taken my
time to demonstrate my skill. So now…while you are here…I promise
you two, three, six we can fight your way.’

‘
I want to
learn, I want to learn,’ Hattle pleaded.

‘
Good.’ Vadim
vivaciously cheered, handing back the power drill. He walked around
some of the laughing workers to a man opening up a toolbox and
taking out old long bandages. ‘I’ve one or two more things we can
clear up.’ He said, as the worker started to swathe his fists.
‘It’s about punching.’

‘
Oh God
please,’ Hattle begged. ‘Not like this!’

He reached up
his guard, but suddenly found the ferromag-cuffs attracted to the
floor with all the weight of anvils. Hattle screamed and fought
against the magnetic pull, spinning in circular motions as his
wrists bound together.

‘
This is for
you, two, three, six,’ said one of the workers, setting a clock
beneath him and beginning the count-down from three minutes. ‘Good
luck.’

‘
I need to be
keeping fit,’ Vadim laughed ebulliently, approaching his victim.
‘The best way of learning is from experience. How can you know how
to punch a punch bag when you have never been a punch bag? For
three minutes, two, three, six, you’re going to learn
this.’

-54-

T
he neurosphere interface patterned
through Ace Ripley’s mind, sequences of starlight, streams and
effervescent swirls. Once the antimatter reaction had extenuated,
the acceleration forces reduced, and he drifted through space at a
steady rate.

‘
Jesus Ace!’ Estella said.
‘You
just shot straight past us. Damn near clipped my wings.’

‘
I’m glad I
was neurophased,’ Mortel adjoined. ‘That engine tail was bright
enough to burn through my radiation shield.’

‘
Keep us
steady D.W,’ Ripley commanded. ‘CDR’s online.’

Aye
commander.

Ripley
dropped out of the neurosphere and stared into the void. A softly
illuminated snowball hung in the vapid obsidian space ahead,
surrounded by a thin haze of rings, a planet that was unmistakably
Saturn.

‘
Guys, you’re
falling behind a few clicks there.
’

‘
Sorry
Commander,
’ Estelle said ironically.
‘
Stymphalion
s
don’t accelerate quite like Solitaire strike-ships. Even if we
could do that antimatter hop-scorch trick, I doubt our bodies could
hack it. We’re not all Olympians here, you know.
’

Takes a
little training Estelle.
Said D.W,
even for Ace pilots.

‘
He’s not wrong,
I’ve had my fair share of inertial black-outs.
’ Ripley said.

Coming up on
Saturn
,
his AI
reported.
Searching for the C.A.L.C
station Luminate but I’m getting no readings.

‘
What was the
last ship berthed at the station?’ Ripley said.

The SC
Pontiac,
said the AI, detailing reports
about the ship on a heads-up display for Ripley to view.

‘
Hey Ace,’
Dwight Mortel’s voice came in on the network. ‘Got a large debris
field near Telesto, that where the station was based?’

‘
Affirmative,’ said Ripley.

‘
Get your
scanners on the area and check out the radiation. There must have
been a massive explosion.’

Confirmed,
said D.W,
almost like our antimatter fusion reactor loosing
stability.

‘
Maybe it was
antimatter,’ Ace Ripley pondered aloud. ‘In the briefing Adamoss
reported that antimatter fuel cells were taken from the Hephaestus
One.’

I’m tracing
the source.
D.W said.
Got it, target’s heading steady rate Southern
port-side.

The ship
highlighted the area on a spherical starchart compass, but Ripley
didn’t need it. Instead, he flipped back into the neurophase and
got comfortable.