Taodenni Salt Mine
Near Christchurch, Capital City
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 2. 2. 11:26
“You stink, Stringfellow,” a prison guard named Brown says. “Here’s another one for your daddy.”
He slams the butt of his shotgun into my back, knocking me forward toward an outcropping of salt rock. My feet get tangled in the chain shackled to my ankle, and I stumble, slamming into the caramel-colored crystals, shredding the skin on my hands, and tumbling to the hard-packed grit of the ground.
It feels like my mind separates from my body, rising high into the air, far above the sheer pink-tinged cliffs surrounding the Taodenni Salt Mine. At the bottom of the mine, three guards—Brown, Jones, and the watch captain—dressed in starched khakis, wide-brimmed hats, and teashades, ride herd on a chain-gang crew of miscreants. Dressed in gray tank tops and sweat-stained overalls, the crew is pounding rock by hand. It’s the most bone-breaking, back-wrenching, soul-sucking detail in the whole mine. Only the most miserable and despised prisoners get stuck on it.
Miserable and despised. That’s me to a T.
I roll onto my side, groaning. Salt seeps into my cut hands, stinging like fiery oil burning through my veins. Three weeks in this mine. Three weeks of busting rock. Three weeks of abuse. Three weeks of moldy bread and putrid water for rations. I have never been so hungry in my life, and I’ve never wanted to strangle anybody as much as the guard standing over me, ready to pound my face to mush if I so much as twitch.
“Oh, how the mighty has fallen.” Brown laughs.
“Have,” I say, squinting from the pain.
“Have what?” Brown says, blocking out the sun with his fat head.
“Have fallen. It’s how the mighty have fallen,” I say. “They don’t teach grammar in prisoner guard school? Or is the curriculum limited to just physical abuse?”
He puts a jackboot on my bruised kidney. ”You got a smart mouth, convict.”
“It matches my ass,” I say. “I like to coordinate.”
That earns me a whack on the knee, which sends a bolt of pain to my cerebral cortex. I grunt again. I despise grunting.
“Next one’s right in the teeth,” he says. “I don’t care how many medals you got or who your papa is.”
Once upon a time, a group of scientists, soldiers, and adventurers left Earth to settle on the barren planet Mars. Known as the Founders, they created a fledgling society under habidomes and labored together to begin the centuries-long process of terraforming the planet. Over time, the Founders gave way to the Orthocracy and its leader, the Bishop. They were in turn replaced by the CorpCom prefectures.
One of those CorpCom CEOs was my father, who was one month ago convicted of a plethora of crimes, the worst of which was treason. He’s now serving time in the Norilsk gulag, and I am now incarcerated, awaiting my own trial while I do hard labor in the pit of a salt mine.
My name is Jacob Stringfellow, and I’m seven and a half Mars years old, making me fifteen on planet Earth. I’m a former Regulator and, if you believe my father, former future prince of Mars. My friends call me Durango. Others, like Brown, call me all sorts of things.
“Host,” the omnipresent voice in my head says, “that statement is contrary to all available data. You have been referred to by only six names and nicknames in your lifetime. Would you like me to list them?”
That is the voice of the artificial intelligence flash-cloned to my brain three months ago to help me overcome severe head trauma suffered in battle. She talks in my head, using the voice of my former chief, Mimi, but she’s nothing like my chief was. For instance, she has no sense of humor.
“Host,” she says, “I was not programmed for humor.”
I tap my right temple, which activates the subdermal microphone on my larynx, allowing me to “talk” to “her.”
“You’ve got a gift for the obvious, computer,” I whisper.
“Host,” she says, “it is no longer necessary to speak aloud when addressing me. To improve efficiency, I have rerouted the signal along neural pathways so that you only need subvocalize your commands.”
“That’s handy.” I subvocalize by moving my lips but not making sounds.
“Off your ass,” Brown barks. “You’re bogging down the line.”
I get to my feet, which isn’t easy considering that I’m chained to other convicts. There are sixteen of us linked to this main chain. There are more than fifty convicts on the gang.
“Sorry,” I say to the poor sap to my left.
He’s a former barrister who made the mistake of defending my father in court. He doesn’t answer because he’s not talking to me. In his shoes, I wouldn’t be either, not when you’ve lost everything defending a war criminal who turned humongous bioengineered insects loose on his own soldiers.
With the sun beating down on us, I doff my hat and wipe sweat from my mop top of hair with a forearm. That’s the silver lining about doing time—I don’t have to chop off my hair anymore. So long, military buzz cut.
“Taking off,” I yell to Brown.
He nods, and I strip off my sweaty work shirt. My ribs may be protruding due to a hollow belly, but pounding rock has thickened my muscles, and the sun’s browned my skin. But nothing can hide the battle scars that being a Regulator left on me, especially the thick purple ones that run like a vein over my shoulder and across the right side of my face.
“Nice abs, Stringfellow,” says the raggedy woman chained to my right foot.
It’s her first day on the chains, and she’s already coated in sweat and dirt, bandanna over her red hair, her freckles occluded by dust. Her name is Rosa Lynn Malinche. Like the barrister, she was sentenced to hard labor without trial, but we’re still on speaking terms. “Can I wash my overalls on them later?”
“Not a good plan.” I swing my hammer to hide the blush blooming on my face. The butterscotch-colored rock explodes beneath it. Mars was once known as the red planet, but in the wilderness areas not changed by terraforming, it’s mostly dark yellow or the color of rust from all the iron in the soil. “I’m ticklish.”
“Ticklish?” Malinche says, shaking her head. “You’re still such a kid.”
I blush again, then start when I hear a gunshot fired in the distance.
“That was not gunfire, host,” my computer says. “Data indicate that was a backfire from a vehicle. It is impossible to discern at this point in time the type, make, and model of said vehicle.”
I tap my right temple. “Could you stop referring to me as host? It makes me feel like a germ factory.”
“Affirmative,” she says. “How would you like to be addressed?”
“How about Cowboy? It’s what you called me when you were, you know, alive.”
“Available data suggest that is inaccurate,” she says. “You were a Regulator, not a cowboy. There are no cowboys on Mars. The term itself is anachronistic even on Earth.”
“Whatever,” I say. “It’s what Mimi called me, so deal with it.”
“Confirmed,” she says. “I will deal with it.”
“Thank you.”
“Cowboy,” she says, “would it be possible for you in turn to desist referring to this entity as computer? I assure you that I am as much superior to a computer as you are to a stuffed horse.”
I never thought of it that way, but she’s right. She counts way better than a stuffed horse. Smells better, too. “All right,” I say. “What do you want to be called?”
“I prefer to be referred to as Mimi.”
I stop, stunned. The handle of the sledgehammer slips through my hands, and I grab the steel head to save it from dropping. A knot forms in my throat as I remember Mimi—the real Mimi—dying in my arms in battle. “I reckon I could get used to that.”
“Affirmative,” Mimi says.
A moment passes with me staring into space, until Malinche gives my shoulder a nudge. She points at the guard Jones, who is glaring at me through his teashades.
“So what’re you in for, Stringfellow?” she asks.
“Huh?” I say, startled out of my thoughts. “Oh. Yeah. I’m charged with two counts of assault on law enforcement personnel.”
“Good on ya! Details?”
I slam my hammer down, obliterating a chunk of salt rock. “I passed a veteran panhandling in Christchurch and slipped him some coin,” I say. “A trooper saw and tried to confiscate it.”
She flicks chunks off her overalls. “How many times did you hit the trooper?”
“Just one,” I say. “After he curb stomped the vet. It was the right thing, even if it was the wrong thing according to the rules. So, what’re you in for?”
“Choosing to work for the wrong man,” she says, and explodes a rock, too.
I look back at Brown, who is covering us as Jones and the captain take a lounge in the shade. “Seems to be a lot of that going around.”
We beat hell out of the rocks until the sun is shrinking on the horizon. I wipe my brow with a square of synsilk and stare up at the twin moons, Phobos and Deimos. The first star of the evening is Earth, glowing bright on the horizon. It’s almost quitting time.
“Technically,” Mimi says, “it is called an apparent horizon. Due to refraction, the astronomical horizon is not observable from your vantage point. Also, Earth is a planet, not a star.”
“Oh, my carking bishop!” I say. “Did they or did they not implant you to aid in the healing of my brain?”
“Confirmed,” Mimi says. “That was my prime directive.”
“Then why are you trying to nag me to death?”
Then it occurs to me—she said was. Has that changed?
A honking horn.
I look up, past the guards and their nasty dispositions, toward billowy smoke in the distance. Jones sucks a toothpick and glares at me. I feel an insult forming on my lips.
“Do not antagonize the authorities,” Mimi says.
“I antagonize them just by breathing,” I say. “Do you want me to stop doing that?”
“Negative,” Mimi says. “Respiration is essential to survival. Survival of the host is my prime function.”
“It was a joke,” I say. “Lighten up.”
“I have no apparent mass,” she says. “So it is impossible for me to become lighter.”
My face puckers, and I shake my head. How am I going to survive all this nagging?
“What’re you looking at, convict?” Jones barks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Nothing what?”
“Nothing nothing. Mr. Jones Guard, sir.”
“Your vital signs suggest that you are not being one hundred percent truthful,” Mimi says.
I tap my temple and remember to subvocalize. “Sarcasm. But you weren’t programmed for that, either.”
Jones plucks a nightstick from his belt and taps it in his palm. “I served in your daddy’s army when he set the Big Daddies loose, and I’ve been looking for payback ever since. So go on, give me an excuse.”
He steps toward me.
I shift the chains so that there’s enough slack to fight back. But then an engine roars, and a truck whips around a bend, gravel failing down on me and the rest of the chain gang.
The truck is a Noriker. Military issue.
So is the blonde behind the wheel, her hair stuffed under a cap. She slams on the brakes, throws the door open, and steps out wearing a long skirt and boots.
Her name is Vienne.
We go way back.
And I’ve never seen her in a skirt before.
“Define the parameters of way back,” Mimi says.
“A year,” I say. Which isn’t that long. “Okay, so we go back, not way back.”
All work stops. Brown and the captain move closer to the truck, taking their eyes off us.
Jones removes his wide-brimmed hat and wipes his forehead. “Well, well, little susie,” the guard says. “You lost?”
“I’m never lost,” Vienne says, and whisks past him.
Jones shifts his weight, like he’s not sure of how to handle the situation. “Is there something we can do you for?”
Vienne waves him off. “I just need water. My truck’s overheating.” She keeps walking until she’s nose to nose with Brown, who blocks her path.
“My, my, my. Blond hair. Been years since I seen that. You’re a looker, ain’t you?” Brown says. “How about you and me head over to the bushes for a little personal overheating? Then I’ll see about some water for your vehicle.”
Vienne flashes a smile frosted with mischief and grabs Brown’s shoulders.
“That sounds—”
Then knees him in the yarbles.
“Completely disgusting.”
“Mommy,” Brown squeaks, his voice three octaves higher.
Vienne grabs his shotgun, then drops him with a leg sweep. She twirls and sticks the barrel into the captain’s gut. “Drop your weapon or I’ll drop you.”
“No, you drop it,” the captain says.
Vienne shakes her head, as if to say, These fossikers never learn.
But she’s cocky. Doesn’t sense Jones sneaking up behind her, ready to let loose with his scattergun.
I jump to block him. But the chains yank me short. “Vienne!” I yell. “On your six!”
Jones opens fire.
Blam!
The force of the blast knocks Vienne forward. Shredding the fabric of her shirt and flowing skirt. Revealing the body armor beneath it.
“Oh, shite,” Jones says softly. “She’s a Regulator.”
He drops the scattergun and backs away, hands in the air.
“Pick up your weapon, Jones!” Brown bellows from the ground, where he’s writhing and cupping his nether region. “Shoot her!”
“Won’t do no good!” Jones calls, still backing away. “She’s got symbiarmor on.”
Vienne stalks toward him, barrel pointed at his gut. “You carking shot me.”
Panic washes over Jones’s face. He drops to his knees. “I was just doing my job!”
“You shot me in the back,” she yells, outraged.
“It wasn’t personal!” Jones says, hands laced together in prayer. “Listen, Regulator, I got no truck with you. I surrendered, okay? See. I put my weapon down.” He lifts his hands to prove that they’re empty. “I don’t want no trouble. I got a wife and two mouths to feed.”
Vienne pauses, thinking. “See that dry creek bed?” She points with her armalite. “Start running.”
Jones swallows hard and croaks like he’s got a mouthful of salt. “Yes, ma’am. How far should I go?”
“It’s not how far.” She pumps the shotty. “It’s how fast.”
With a glance back at the other guards, Jones starts running as quickly as his bowed legs will carry him.
Vienne fires into the air—boom!—to inspire him. “Faster!”
Apparently unimpressed with Vienne’s lighting reflexes and willingness to insult a jack’s manhood, the captain takes aim at the back of her head.
Where the symbiarmor is most vulnerable.
“No!” I dive forward, cutting him down at the knees, as his gun fires, blowing buckshot into the air.
I grab the captain’s feet, pinning him down. Then wrap the manacle chain around his throat.
“That susie’s a friend of mine,” I hiss, “and I don’t take kindly to you blowing her head off.”
The captain claws at the tightening chain. His face turns bloodred, and he rasps, “Why’d a susie like her care . . . about a lowlife dalit like you?”
Vienne glides over. She kicks the guard’s weapon away. Waves her left hand in his face. The pinky has been cut off at the second joint. “Because I’m a lowlife dalit, too,” she says, and knocks him cold with a hammer fist. She turns back to Brown. “Am I going to have more trouble out of you?”
Brown cups himself again and squeaks. “No, ma’am!”
“Good boy,” she says, and begins unlocking my shackles.
“Where’d you get the key?” I ask, rubbing my ankle where the iron has chewed through my skin.
“From the first guard,” Vienne says. “Why else would I get so close?” She grabs my overalls and hauls me to my feet. “Get in the truck. We’re leaving.”
I kick the shackles loose, and with a glance back at Malinche, who looks at me with pleading eyes, I follow Vienne to the Noriker. “Nice truck. Where’d you steal it?”
“I’m not a thief,” Vienne says, stowing her armalite behind the front seat. “I borrowed it from a Ranger who spent too much time enjoying his supper.”
“Hey, Stringfellow!” Malinche calls. “You’re deserting us?”
I stop. Take a long look at her. “Vienne, what about the others? You’re just going to leave them?”
Vienne surveys the chain gang. “They’re criminals. They deserve their fate.”
“Not all of them,” I say. “Some of them are innocent.”
“Criminals always say they’re innocent, but they’re always guilty.”
“What about us?” I ask, holding up my left hand to display the stub of a pinky. “Are we guilty?”
Vienne knocks her forehead with her palm. “We don’t have time for your idiotic heroics!”
I hold out my hand. “Give me the carking key.”
Vienne fires the key at Malinche, who easily catches it and begins unlocking her shackles.
“Happy?” Vienne asks me. “Now get in the truck!”
I start to open the driver’s door.
Vienne grabs it.
“I’m the driver,” she says.
“Since when?”
She looks me straight in the eye. “Since always.”
“It’s your truck.” I stare back into her eyes. My stomach turns flip-flops. “I reckon you get to drive.”
“Glad you see it my way,” she says, and grins, which makes my belly button feel like it’s spinning counterclockwise.
As soon as my door closes, Vienne slams it into reverse. The truck bounces backward down the dry creek bed, throwing rock dust into the air. She pumps the clutch. Rams it into first. And hits the accelerator.
My skull slams against the headrest. “I’ve got whiplash!”
“Quit whining,” she says, cutting me a look that could strip paint. “Or I’ll take you back.”
A moment later, as we bound over deep gullies, we come upon Jones, who has slowed to a jog, his face streaked with sweat and rusty dirt, his tongue hanging out.
Vienne swerves toward him, laying on the horn.
“Aiieee!” Jones screams, and dives into a copse of gorse bushes.
“That was harsh,” I say. But funny.
“He shot me—”
“You’re wearing bulletproof armor.”
“—in the back. The Tenets forbid shooting an adversary in the back.”
“He’s not a Regulator,” I say. “Our rules don’t apply to him.”
We cut from the creek bed, climbing up an embankment and pulling onto a road. The tires bark when they hit pavement, and the truck surges.
“You and I are not officially Regulators,” Vienne says, “but we still follow the Tenets.”
The Tenets are the guiding principles that govern Regulators’ code of behavior. Vienne is a strict adherent to them, following them with an acolyte’s zeal. But I don’t want to argue with Vienne, who has all the flexibility of wrought iron when she’s made up her mind, so I check the rear to make sure we’re not being tailed.
“Mimi, what direction are we headed?”
“South,” Mimi says, “with a general heading that will intersect with the Bishop’s Highway.”
South? Interesting. I’d guessed we would be heading back into Christchurch, the capital city. “I assume there’s reason for this daring daylight rescue?” I ask Vienne. “Other than the fact that you missed me.”
Vienne cuts me a look that says you wish. “When we get to the job, don’t use my old name. They call me Sidewinder now.”
“Who is they?”
“The rest of my davos.”
I can’t hide my surprise. “You’re working with a crew again?”
“That’s right. Now you are too.”
“What if I don’t want to work for some piker’s davos?”
Vienne hits the brakes. “We’ve got a job and could use a good extra hand. Either you’re in, or you can get out right here and take your chances with the Rangers. Your choice.”
I rub my whiplashed neck. “That’s not much of a choice.”
“Hard choices never are,” she says.
I look out at the unforgiving horizon. Either go on a job under the command of a chief I’ve never met, or walk the twenty kilometers to the next town without water, hoping a Ranger patrol doesn’t pick me up.
“My chief is dead.” I open the door. “I’m not hankering to take orders from another one.”
Vienne grabs my arm. “Mimi saw something in you. Don’t turn your back on that.”
I pause, thinking. Then close the door. “If I’m going to be working again, two things: I need to pick up my gear and get some grub. My stomach’s as empty as a black hole mine.”
“Where’s your gear?” she asks.
“In a high-security facility that can only be hacked into by one person on this planet.”
“How do we find this person?”
“By putting the Noriker in reverse.” I point my thumb toward the salt mine. “She’s one of the convicts you left behind.”