The cafeteria, if you could really call it that, had three bulkhead food dispensers embedded along one wall at equal intervals. The rest of the room was filled with rows of simple tables and attached bench seating. Ethan made his way to one of the free dispensers and depressed the actuator on its simple control panel. A food tray with cup and a single spoon utensil slid into place in the hollowed out area inside the dispenser. A mechanical grinding sound resonated from inside the bulkhead and then a lumpy stream of liquid, as colorless as the room and matching furniture, poured out from the unit’s dispenser nozzle onto the tray. At the same time the accompanying cup was filled with water from a second nozzle in the top of the module. Removing the tray, he took his breakfast to one of the nearly empty tables and sat down.
Grimacing at the unappetizing meal before him, the first of three he would be having if the previous day had been any indication, he dipped his spoon into the portion of muck and shoveled it into his mouth. Whatever it was, most likely some kind of vitamin and mineral enriched compound, it tasted as bland as it looked. He had to admit it was filling though, even if it was like eating the equivalent of partially liquified rubber. Swallowing the tasteless mouthful down, he scooped up another spoonful, trying his best to imagine it was anything but what he saw before him.
Someone approached and sat down on the bench next to Ethan and he shuffled over a bit to give the man some room without looking up at him.
“Don’t I know you?” the man asked.
Ethan kept his eyes on his plate. “I don’t think so.” He had kept to himself mostly since arriving, unsure of the people around him. Judging from the almost constant quiet in the compound’s living areas, he guessed most of the others felt the same way, and under the circumstances, had little interest in socializing either.
“No,” the man continued. “I
do
know you. You’re that kid from the Isyss outpost.”
Ethan did glance up at the man now, instantly recognizing his face, much rougher with a few day’s stubble. He was the card player from the cantina at Wasteland Station. The one Jarred had been hunting, and who had managed to run off during their own escape from the outpost. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten very far.
“Mac Keplar,” the man introduced himself, holding out a hand.
Warily, Ethan shook it. “Ethan Bishop.”
“So, Ethan,” Mac continued, glancing around the cafeteria, “I haven’t seen our bounty hunter friend around here. He didn’t happen to buy it during the raid did he? A little bit of good news would be nice right about now.”
“No,” Ethan answered, sharply. “We escaped the outpost.”
Mac looked a bit confused. “Then what are you doing here?”
Ethan shoveled another spoonful of muck into his mouth. “We got off Isyss and made it to Trycon City, but the Dominion caught up to us there.”
“Caught up to you? You make it sound like it was
you
they were after.”
“Well, it was . . . kinda. They were really after Orna, I think, and because she was with us, they were chasing us.”
“Orna? Who’s Orna?”
Ethan was about to answer, but stopped himself, thinking better of it. “Never mind. It’s a long story. Anyway, they found us in Trycon and I ended up getting captured. Now I’m here.”
“What about the others?” Mac asked. “The bounty hunter and . . . your sister, right?”
Ethan considered what might have happened to them. Something he had been doing almost constantly since he had watched them vanish on that tram. “I don’t know.”
Mac looked thoughtful. “So . . . the bounty hunter might have been fragged after all? One can only hope. What goes around comes around, right kid.” Mac made eye contact with him and continued with a bit less enthusiasm. “I’m sure your sister wasn’t though.”
Ethan frowned at the man. “Jarred wouldn’t have let anything happen to her and he wouldn’t have gotten fragged. He would have escaped . . . and when the time is right, he’ll come back for me.”
Mac gave him the same look his sister did when he was telling her about his plans of becoming a space pilot. “Sure, kid.”
“He
will
come for me,” Ethan continued, a bit angrily. “I’ve seen the things he can do. Nothing can hurt him . . . not even a laser blast! He’s the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy! He’ll come in here and tear these mechs apart and free everyone. You’ll see.”
“Well, if he’s so great,” Mac began, “what are you doing here? It sounds to me like he left you behind.”
Ethan scowled at the man. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Jarred wouldn’t do that.”
Mac looked doubtful.
A crash caught both their attention and they looked over to where a man had just thrown his food tray to the ground, obviously disturbed. A couple of people tried to calm him down, helping to pick the tray and utensils up off the floor. It was a stressful situation for everyone, but you needed to keep your head about you. Otherwise, you might go off the deep end, like that man appeared to be.
Ethan returned his attention to Mac, who’s expression had softened a bit.
“You’re probably right, kid,” he said. “Forget I said anything. We’re in deep enough here as it is without making enemies of one another, am I right?”
“I guess.” Ethan glanced down at Mac’s untouched meal tray. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”
Mac pushed the plate aside. “I’m not really hungry. I’ll wait and see what they’re serving for lunch.”
Ethan snorted a short laugh as he swallowed the last mouthful of his breakfast, chasing it down with the cup of water and hungrily eyeing Mac’s tray.
Mac pulled Ethan’s now empty food tray away and slid his own in front of him. “Be my guest.”
After the last couple days’ adventure, Ethan still found himself famished and eagerly dug into the second helping while glancing over at Mac.
“So . . . why was Jarred hunting you anyway?” he asked.
“Just business, like anything else, I guess,” Mac answered, looking around the room. “We all have our jobs to do. His just happens to be collecting bounties, and I just happened to be unlucky enough to have had one put out on me.”
“Who put a bounty on you?”
Mac let his gaze come back to Ethan. “A man you definitely don’t want to get caught stealing from.”
Ethan furrowed his brow. “You’re a thief?”
“No,” Mac chuckled. “At least not any more than the average person is.”
Ethan thought a moment about that. He had stolen things before, including money. As a refugee, sometimes you had to do things you knew were wrong in order to survive.
“What do you do then?”
“I’m the owner and operator of an independent cartage and distribution company,” Mac answered, sticking out his chest as if to appear dignified.
“So . . . you’re a smuggler.”
Mac nodded, sheepishly. “I guess you could call it that.”
Ethan took another bite of food, slurping it down. “What did you steal, then?”
“A couple of things I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t so much steal them, as borrow them. The first was his money.”
Ethan had stolen money before. Not a lot, but pocket credits from strangers to help by food or cover transport fees. “What was the second thing?”
Mac raised an eyebrow and one side of his mouth curled up into a mischievous grin. “His daughter.”
“Oh,” Ethan said, swallowing another mouthful of tasteless muck. “Why did you do it, I mean, knowing the trouble you might get in?”
Mac seemed to think about it for a moment. “Well, there’s an old saying that hindsight is twenty-twenty. I didn’t bet on getting caught. Had I been thinking ahead, I probably would have reconsidered. But, there’s also another saying that says you only live once. I tend to subscribe to that one. In the end, some things are just too hard to resist.”
Ethan screwed his face up a bit. “I don’t get it.”
“You will, kid,” Mac said, grinning. “Someday. Trust me.”
Ethan frowned, a bit annoyed. “All grownups say that.”
“I never really thought of myself as a grownup,” Mac said with a laugh, “but I guess they do, don’t they.”
The simultaneous activation of both their bracelet alarm tones, along with those of everyone else in the room, signaled the end of breakfast.
“It looks like fun time is over,” Mac commented, dryly. “A new day at the office.”
Ethan shoveled the last remaining portion of food into his mouth and stood up to walk the empty meal trays over to one of the room’s sanitization units. Dropping the trays inside, he returned to where Mac was waiting and they both headed for the exit. Close to the open hatchway they both turned at the sound of another crash. The same man from earlier had thrown is tray off the table again.
“No!” he shouted at the people around him, who were obviously trying to calm him down again. “I’m not going!”
The few people were imploring him to get up. He resisted them, batting their hands away as he continued to sit at the table, stubbornly.
“These
things
” he spat, raising his bracelet up for everyone to see, “tell us where to go, when to eat, when to sleep, when to work. I’m not listening to it anymore. I won’t be their slave. Let them come and take me away.”
The tone sequence of everyone’s bracelets were continuing to speed up and Mac took a hold of Ethan’s arm, urging him to step out into the corridor. Others were following suit and as they cleared out of the room, their bracelet alarms deactivated. Inside, the man and his companions remained as they continued to try and convince him to get up.
“You go and be their slaves!” he shouted. “I won’t. Leave me here. Let them come for me.”
As their bracelet tones became more rapid, the man’s companions left his side, moving towards the exit while still imploring him to follow. Others, already standing in the corridor were doing the same, shouting out for the man to come to his senses. He ignored them all, sitting quietly at the empty table and staring blankly across the room. His sole bracelet alarm sequence was so rapid now that it had become almost a single wailing tone and Ethan felt Mac’s hand attempt to turn his face away from the scene.
“Don’t look,” he said, somberly.
Ethan didn’t understand what he meant, and craned his neck around to keep the man at the table in his sight. He could see that the flashing red light on his bracelet had become solid along with the high pitched tone.
What happened next was something Ethan would probably never wipe from his vision and he immediately understood Mac’s attempt at turning him away, wishing he had let him.
The man’s bracelet appeared to spark and all at once, his body lit up. His pained scream was cut off as he suddenly ignited before everyone’s eyes, disintegrating into a pile of ash on the floor. Screams of shock and horror came from all around and Ethan did finally turn away, feeling sick to his stomach.
Now he knew why there were so few mechs overseeing them. The wrist gauntlets were all the security that was needed. If they tried to escape or stopped working, their bracelets would solve the problem by vaporizing them. It was both simple and disgusting. Ethan’s hopes of escape were taken down yet another notch. He wanted to cry, but resisted the urge.
Feeling Mac’s hand on his shoulder, he looked up at the man, who had a look of sympathy on his face.
“Come on, kid,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do.”
He was right. The man was dead, and as their bracelets began to sound again in the usual lengthy time sequence, urging them to move on to their work zone, Ethan felt suddenly helpless.
He was indeed a slave. They all were. And there was nothing any of them could do about it.
Chapter 22
SOLTA
A member of the Toguai came for Jarred before the sun rose the morning following his discussion with Orna. As she had said, the Toguai would lead him into the mountains, to a hidden place, where he would find the answers to his questions. He was more than reluctant to believe anything the strange being had told him and yet he had still agreed to go to the place she spoke of. Perhaps it was simply his own curiosity, though more and more, he was beginning to believe it was this place itself that drew his interest. He felt a strange yearning here, as if something beckoned to him, compelling him to come to it.
“There is a place in these mountains,” Orna had said. “A sacred place, buried deep within the earth and rock, that has awaited your arrival. You have felt it calling to you. It is there that your journey will begin. Where your
path
will be revealed to you. The path of the Hybrid.”
He had told none of the others about his conversation with Orna and, as a result, had spent most of the previous day avoiding them. Sierra had been more than curious, if not suspicious, about what they had discussed, but he didn’t intend on divulging any of it to her or anyone else. At least, not until he understood it for himself.