6

Somewhere in the Zone

Wanda was guided by five people, two of them with fingers digging into her shoulders, shoving her roughly this way and that, through so many convoluted turns she lost track of where she was relative to the intersection of 6th and G.

She now found herself in an unlikely place: an old strip mall, one with glass still in the windows and bright, fluorescent electric lights inside. Three of her guides stayed outside and two escorted her in through one of the many unbroken glass exterior doors. They spoke at a normal speaking volume but gave the impression of shouting.

“Judee Bayar!” they called.

Wanda realized the cavernous room was full of beds. Some people had longneck bottles hanging above them, sealed with plastic and wax, with tubes coming down and connecting to arms.

A hospital!

A woman who had been tending a patient in the corner stood up and made a kind of bowing motion with her knees together and her hands on her thighs. The guides brought Wanda toward her and the woman took several quick steps to shorten the trip for them.

“New arrival,” one of the guides said, speaking in the same creepily quiet voice as had been used by the Horde members who’d challenged her. They released her and turned, exiting the building again without a look back.

“Hi,” whispered the woman. Her voice seemed slightly less creepy than those of the others who had spoken. “Where did you work?”

“Amelix,” Wanda said. Her voice betrayed her anxiety.

The woman nodded. “I’m Judee. Come with me.” She headed toward a door off to the side, almost running.

Wanda followed as quickly as she could, given her level of astonishment and terror. They went through some swinging doors into what might once have been a storeroom but now contained surgical equipment. “It’s a bit dark in here, but the light can only be used when there’s a surgery. I think we can see each other well enough,” Judee said. Her smile was clearly forced, appearing almost as if she were holding it in place with her fingers. She put a palm on Wanda’s shoulder, too stiffly to be comforting. “I can see you’re feeling confused and stressed.” Wanda nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Wanda,” she said, proud that she’d managed to speak without vomiting.

“I’m sure you’ve figured out that names are a big deal around here,” Judee said. “Someone gave you a list when you left Amelix, obviously. I don’t know why they do that, but they always do. Every department in every organization keeps a list of its own Departed.”

Wanda would never get used to thinking of herself that way, as Departed.

“Amelix, in the labs, right?” Judee asked. Wanda nodded. “Just like me. Coach V has been taking on women for this role from our labs since the beginning. We get men, too, but Coach is even harder on them and most either leave right away or kill themselves. Of course, some of them just die. That’s a pretty common thing, here, just plain dying.” Judee gestured out toward all the patients, then rubbed her eyes.

“Coach says our science backgrounds make us better at following her orders.” She shrugged, looking surprisingly defeated. “Good thing someone gave you that list, in any case,” Judee said. “That’s how the Horde screens people who wander up. If you don’t have a connection to at least one person here, we can’t be sure you worked in the CBD, and if you didn’t work in the CBD, you’re not one of us.” Judee’s eyes locked on Wanda’s. “If a name on your list matches someone who is still alive here, that person becomes your mentor, teaching you how to survive. You apprentice under them to learn whatever job they have.”

Someone who is still alive here. Judee was at the bottom. The entire list is now dead, except for her.

Wanda couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

“You’ll work here with me,” Judee said. “I’m your mentor and your boss. It’s like a job and marriage. You do everything I tell you, always, without question, right away, just like I did for my mentor when she was still alive. Of course I am required to do the same for our boss, Coach V. You’ll meet her soon, Coach V. She’s… mean. And she’s strong, and incredibly demanding and…well, I guess it’s obvious you’ll have to do everything she says, too. That’ll be a lot. But with you joining us, that makes it easier for everyone. There are five of us: myself, Sula, Chi Sun, and Piyumi, plus you now, Wanda. You’ll get to know us.” She closed her eyes and exhaled sharply, seeming to fake a laugh. “You’ll get to know us more intimately than you can possibly imagine, she’ll make sure of that.” Her eyes opened again. “We’re all women, of course. You’ll know why soon enough.”

“So…I’m going to be a nurse?” Wanda asked. She recognized the incredulousness in her voice but was powerless to change it. At least the volume was as low as everyone else spoke around here. “In this hospital?”

Judee’s smile was so sad Wanda felt her own eyes welling up as much as Judee’s. “Don’t ask questions. It’s easier if you just accept. Asking questions here is bad, okay? Don’t ever, ever do it again. But no, dear. You’re a slave. Your choice, now and for the rest of your life, will either be to do what you’re told, or die. She won’t kill you, but if you displease her she’ll kick you out of here.” She sniffed forcefully as if to bolster herself. “No job means you’re out of the Horde, just like it meant you were out of the CBD. But the good news is that while we are part of the Horde, Coach isn’t. We live right on the edge of the territory because Coach insists upon treating everyone who comes in the door. Even so, about eighty percent of our patients come from the Horde. You’ll meet so many people working here. Because our job is medicine, we need to see the body in order to treat it, and we need to talk with people to learn what’s wrong with them. Life in the Horde gets lonely, as you can imagine. Everyone stays silent so the special words can work; it’s like an alarm, and they all have to be ready to hear it and respond. Here, lots of people come in and out, usually thrilled to talk to you…or anyone.” She gave a tight smile that quickly melted into expressionlessness. She blinked, steeled herself, and smiled again.

“Because we’re outside the regular group and we work together to treat Hordesmen, our rules are looser than theirs,” Judee said. “We can flush waste, for example, instead of carting it to the edge of the territory to scare away those who might wander in except for the smell. Or at least we could flush waste if we didn’t use everything coming out of every patient. Everything can be of use in the labs, like for petri dish media or extracts of various chemicals. Anyway, we can talk to each other, which is wonderful, though it can only be about work, and we still have to use the quietest functional voice.”

She paused again and her face went blank. Wanda suspected that Judee’s habitual state was expressionless and empty. “Also, we are able to mind our tasks by ourselves without being subject to constant monitoring by everyone around us.” She swallowed. “That’s a big one.” Her head nodded slowly. “And we’re not obligated to swarm.”

Wanda blinked, and even that action felt like it was in slow motion. “Swarm?”

“The Horde of the Departed exists for security,” Judee said. “We’re all safer inside than we would have been outside. None of us are the kind who can make it on our own out here, so we have to watch each other’s backs. For that, we pay a price. The way we survive is by using our only resource: human beings who are predisposed to cooperate and acknowledge a hierarchical structure. You saw them use the special words, right? Don’t say them, ever. Using those special words when we’re not being invaded will bring the same fate upon you that they would upon an invader. But you saw what happens, right? I heard it right before you showed up. Did you try to push past your questioner?”

Wanda nodded.

“And after the words and finger pointing, you probably stopped and listed names, right? That’s also what most do. If you hadn’t, all those who’d been pointing fingers would have run to you and beaten you to death. Most of the time when that happens it’s just some poor fool who wandered into the wrong place, but occasionally it’s a group of Fiends with machine guns. When it’s Fiends, two-thirds of that first wave can get cut down. But others do reach the invaders and pummel them, and the ones who pointed fingers from farther back come running up to take the place of anyone who already rushed forward. At the physical center of the Horde are those with the most experience here, and all the weapons the Horde has collected. As swarms occur, weapons are accumulated, and now some of the Horde is armed. For most, the swarm is the most important duty there is here, and failure to participate brings an automatic death by swarm. But we don’t have to do that here at the clinic, because we belong to Coach V.”

Wanda looked away, facing the floor but focused on nothing. “We belong …”

Judee’s strong fingers gripped Wanda’s chin, tilting it up again. “We belong to Coach V. Never forget that. Coach V’s will is our will, and that is the way it is. She’ll tell you herself, but you might as well know what she believes: She’s responsible for every life here, and that means she needs complete control. When mistakes are made, people die. It’s better to let her be responsible.”

Judee’s smile was so sad Wanda began sobbing. “Just remember, Wanda,” she said, patting her gently on the back. “It’s better than what they call life inside the Horde proper.” Judee placed her fingers against her forehead as if trying to massage away a headache, her Golden knuckles whitening as she pressed.

“You’ll work with patients,” Judee said. “But a lot of what you do initially will be back there, in the lab and storeroom.” She gestured to a small door at the back of the room with a dim light showing underneath it. “We make almost everything we use. There are a dozen strains of modified bacteria we use to produce human antibodies, though by far the one we use most is the syphilis one. We’re the biggest manufacturer of sterilized syphilis antibodies in the Zone. You’ll be turning blood and stool samples into nutrient suspensions for some of the antibody strains, as well as doing everything that’s required to support the drug-producing strains, distilling sterile water from urine and collecting urea from the remaining solids, sterilizing instruments, cataloguing stocks. Pretty much all the behind-the-scenes stuff that keeps this place running, is what you’ll start off with.”

At least some of those activities sounded like the kinds of work Wanda had been trained for in her long career as an Amelix lab tech. Maybe she could find a way to fit in here, after all.

“I’m going to introduce you to Coach V now, and to the rest of the team when it’s appropriate,” Judee said.

“But… I… I don’t understand,” Wanda said. “What about—”

Judee slapped her so hard Wanda nearly lost her balance. She expected Judee’s eyes to show anger, but instead they were wide in terror. Her body was stiff. “She’ll punish me! You can’t go behaving like that, questioning what you’re told. I’m your mentor and she’ll punish me as well as you.” The shaking in Judee’s hands turned into a full-body shudder, and then she slapped Wanda five more times, fast and hard. “Questions show a deficit of respect for Coach! If Coach wants us to know something, she will tell us. Asking questions is trying to substitute our judgment for hers. Just shut up and do as you’re told, or else run away and hope they don’t think you’ve already seen enough to be dangerous. Don’t ask questions. Do you understand?”

Both women stood frozen a moment. Wanda’s face stung and throbbed, and her eyes burned, flooded with tears. “Yes. I understand.”

Judee straightened. “Now. You saw me bow before. Watch again. This is what you’ll do when you meet her.” Judee’s knees came together and she placed her hands on her thighs, curling her head toward the floor. “You try.”

After a few practice bows Judee led her back out through the doors and across the room to where a wiry woman with shoulder-length gray hair and thin metal-framed glasses was writing with a brush across a rough-hewn piece of stiff plastic. She let them wait a moment as she finished writing and hung the plastic on a hook at the foot of the bed.

“Coach V,” Judee said. “This is Wanda, my apprentice.”

Wanda put her knees together and bowed as the woman looked her up and down. “We have little to go around as it is,” Coach V said. “Turn her out. What she would eat would be better spent on my patients.”

“Coach, ma’am,” Judee said. “She called me by name. It is a Horde rule, Ma’am, one of the most fundamental rules we have, as I’m sure you are aware, Ma’am.”

The woman, Coach V, came to Wanda, grabbing her by the chin and crotch. “I don’t want you here, but the Horde protects this clinic so I have to let you in,” she said. “Understand this: My girls do what they’re told. I am responsible for every life here and I will tolerate no deviations from perfect obedience. I will have full rights to every part of you: your labor, your body, your mind, your soul. I will watch you, make you watch my other girls for me, and use you in every possible way. I will educate you when education is appropriate to your duties, guide you in the provision of care, teach you how to satisfy me, and correct you when you fail me. I will drug you, interrogate you, inspect you, and analyze the composition of your blood, stool, and urine. You will have weekly confessionals with me where you will inform me under the influence of bactrohypnotic serum about every transgression. You will have no privacy, no rights, and no dignity. If you choose to stay, you admit you are dead without me and agree to exist solely as an extension of my will, as payment for saving your life.

“Most Hordesmen don’t make it past about four months, while I tend to keep my girls for nearly a year. Without a job you’re out of the Horde, and your life expectancy will be measured in hours. Only out of obligation am I offering you this job opportunity, and it’s the last you’ll ever get. The choice is yours.”

Wanda surprised herself with her immediate answer. “I want to stay here with you, Ma’am.” She bowed again as she had been taught.

Coach puffed up to say something but another woman had approached, Golden with auburn hair, bowing in the same way and freezing like that until Coach acknowledged her. “What is it, Chi Sun?”

“The Directorate, Ma’am,” the woman said. Though her voice was as quiet as anyone’s around here, it shook with a chilling desperation.

Coach turned abruptly to look at the door but there was nobody there. “How far away?”

“All seven are on the lot, ma’am.

Coach cursed, looking out across what had been the strip mall’s parking lot, and then walked toward the door with her hands on her hips. Chi Sun followed her, one step behind.

“Let’s find you a project,” Judee said, leading Wanda away toward a back corner. She gestured to a patient whose head was wrapped with a bloody red bandage. He was relatively young and his face had a gentle, boyish quality. Sprouting just over the bandage was apparently well-groomed, short brown hair.

“How many of yours do we have today?” Judee asked the man.

“Not mine,” he said. His was the most natural smile Wanda had seen in the Zone. “Each of us belongs only to the One.”

“Wanda, so far we’ve triaged Porter, here, about third in terms of need for immediate attention. It’s a head wound, but he seems able to walk and talk. See what information you can get from him that will be helpful when Coach sees him.”

Judee shuffled away again. Standing upright among so many who were lying in beds made Wanda feel conspicuous and exposed. She sat on the edge of the bed next to Porter’s, lowering herself gingerly onto the mattress so as not to disturb its unconscious occupant.

“You’re new here,” he said. He kept looking past her, his eyes darting around the room. She supposed that was common behavior in people of this area, given how traumatic life was here in the Zone.

“So… you’re Porter,” she said. There was nothing to write on so apparently she was expected to remember all of it. “How did you get hurt?”

“We were attacked by a small street gang. Just a fight. Hit with a stick. How long ago did you Depart?”

She paused, shocked by the question. It seemed so personal, so invasive, to be asked about the moment when her company had decided she was a disgrace and ended her life. It was probably unwise to answer, anyway.

“Let’s see,” she said. “Head wound.” She tried to think of what might be a good check for brain damage. “Here. Grab my hands and pull them. I want to see whether you’re able to control your limbs on both sides.”

“No,” he said. He had a hand tucked under a blanket in his lap. She was pretty sure it had the shape of a gun. Most Zone people who had guns probably had a hard time letting go of them.

“I can’t help you if—”

“Ask me something else.”

“Okay. How’s your vision?” His eyes had normal-sized pupils and no apparent broken blood vessels.

“I see fine. I see that you’re brand new here, for example. I never thought I’d be nostalgic for that time, fresh from the company, but life here has a way of evoking strange feelings.”

At least he was talking. Perhaps by chatting a bit she could get him to participate a bit better in his own care. “How… ” she started. She couldn’t even make herself talk about his Departure, let alone her own. Her insides clenched at the thought, making it impossible to speak. “How long have you been part of the Horde?” she managed finally.

“I used to be part of the Horde, but I’m not anymore. Our group is separate. We’re something new.”

The Federal Administration Building

“Agent Daiss reporting, Instructor Samuelson, sir,” Daiss said from outside the door.

“Enter, Brother Daiss,” came the voice.

“Thank you, sir,” Daiss said. “It is always an honor to see you, sir.” In a world with so much gratuitous ass kissing, Daiss was happy to mean it this time. Instructor Samuelson was the finest Federal Agent ever to have lived, the one who truly justified the layman’s parlance referring to their kind as Federal Angels.

“Sit down, Brother Daiss,” Samuelson said, gesturing to a chair. “I have a new assignment for you.” His eyes focused on the air between them as he read something via his EI. “Clayton Ricker’s son has been killed. Now I know what you’re probably thinking, and no, it doesn’t appear to be politically or economically motivated. We’ve found no link to any legitimate corporate interest as a perpetrator, so this case remains under Federal jurisdiction. A waitress and some bum got uppity in a corporate diner. The waitress was the first to become violent, and then some student from Fisher Academy got involved… we suspect he may have had some grudge against Ricker.”

“Thank you for telling me, Instructor,” Daiss said. “But there are no corporate diners in the Zone. Why would Task Force Zeta be interested in this case, sir? Outside the Zone is outside our focus area, isn’t it, sir?”

“I volunteered you for this one,” Samuelson said. “A waitress and a bum, so obviously they’re from the Zone, which is certainly our focus area. But more importantly, it’s Clayton Ricker’s son, dead. It is crucial that you do everything to show him we’re working on the case around the clock and expending all available resources.”

“Yes, sir. Though I am surprised at this. Task Force Zeta has never strived to impress ordinary businessmen before, even at Ricker’s level. Don’t we usually let other Agents do the bowing and scraping to those people, sir?”

“If the point was to keep him happy, then yes. But in this case it’s something quite different. We need Clayton Ricker, and everyone else, to believe he’s getting special treatment because of who he is. What’s material to us is the impression we give about our work, not his actual satisfaction with it. Then when he and the rest of the public have seen that the Zone forbids justice even to the likes of him, they will clamor to seal off its dangers.”

“Brilliant, sir! And so what level of involvement shall I have?”

“Well, full involvement, of course. You will do everything you can to investigate the case, duty-bound as you are. And eventually you’ll locate the waitress and bring her in, unless she ends up dead from the Zone’s various hazards first. But you needn’t be terribly efficient about it. And if she does end up dead, perhaps we’ll keep that information to ourselves a while and let the tension remain high. This investigation will allow us to begin addressing other issues as we gradually claim total jurisdiction over the Zone.”

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”

Coach V’s Clinic

“Okay,” Wanda said. “I guess I got the information they needed. I should probably find someone to assign me a new job.”

“Could you stay with me a bit longer, please?” he asked. “I want to keep talking to make sure my brain is okay.”

Wanda glanced around the clinic. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. They haven’t given me another assignment but maybe I’m supposed to ask for one. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“You won’t. I promise.”

“I don’t know that I can afford to trust your judgment in this case. From what I’ve seen it’s quite strict here.” Wanda glanced over her shoulder toward the storeroom, where Coach was meeting with the Directorate. “I don’t know what’s going on in there now, but it looks serious.”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on there,” he said, leaning closer. His voice became a legitimate whisper, rather than the low but more forceful speaking tone these people used generally. “The Directorate controls the Horde, and the Horde controls this whole area. They used to control me. I made it into some of the inner circles, and they trusted me enough to make me kill for them. I ended up here in the clinic a few days ago, after getting shot on a mission to poison a water supply.” He pulled his shirt collar away, revealing a bandaged shoulder. “The Directorate has always wanted control of this clinic, but Coach has made it clear that she won’t treat anyone if she can’t treat everyone. They’ve tried many times to convince her otherwise, and I’m sure they’re running out of patience. This clinic is a strategic asset they want to control completely.”

“A strategic asset?” Wanda asked. Her own voice had dropped to a whisper, too. It was uncomfortable speaking in a room with so many silent people all around, especially when she remembered Judee’s desperate, slapping warning. If she were to survive here at all, though, she needed to understand this world.

“A strategic asset is something that helps win wars, like a port or a fortress.”

“There’s a war?”

“A war has been brewing for a long time. There have been skirmishes between the Horde and the Fiends, but it hasn’t erupted into more than that because the Horde has so little the Fiends want. The Fiend army, called the New Union, preferred to enslave the wild people on their side of the Zone because they were better fighters than the Horde’s CBD rejects. Now they’ve claimed all the wild types, and there’s been some evidence that they’re starting to capture Hordesmen. Controlled with drugs and fear, the captives become slave soldiers for the New Union. They’re not in any hurry, I think because it takes time to get the new ones brainwashed and addicted, but once the Fiends decide to make a real push on this territory, the Horde will fall in a matter of days.”

“I just encountered the Horde, not even an hour ago,” Wanda said. “It was an overwhelming experience.”

“The Horde is scary, that’s true. Nothing like the Fiends, though. I was with the Horde for nearly two years. Lots of us Saved come from it. There were a dozen of us in here when the One Who Returned appeared, and we all just stopped being Horde right then. We’ve been following him since.”

“Since you were here getting that shoulder patched a few days ago?”

Porter nodded.

“You met someone here and just followed him out?” Wanda asked. “I can see how the idea of leaving the Horde has some appeal, especially if what you said about the Fiends is true, but how did you suddenly decide to abandon the only form of security available? The Zone is a dangerous place.”

“When you meet the One, it’ll be obvious why I chose this path. You’ll see what we all saw that day: He has come to save us from the misery that is life here. Every day more come to join us, mostly from the Horde.”

“So you started with twelve, a few days ago, and now you have, what, like thirty?”

“Nine hundred seventy something, as of last night. Probably many more now.”

Wanda gaped.

“It’s surprising, I know,” he said. “But there are several reasons for it. Think about how many Zone people would have joined the Horde if they could,” he said. “Every day the Fiends get a little more dangerous, a little more brutal. Regular Zone people live all alone out there. The Horde, with its thousands of Hordesmen, provides protection to former corporates, but even it is threatened now. We’re different. We have a truly divine leader who promises salvation, and we welcome everyone who believes. The more who join, the more protection we’re able to provide each other. Even those who have never seen him are coming to join us, and bringing family and friends.”

A boy of maybe twelve came running up to Porter’s bedside.

“United in faith we live,” the boy said. It was strange to hear such formal words said with such a guttural Zone accent.

“United in faith we live,” Porter replied.

“The other Disciples’re ready,” the kid said. “There’s twenty-seven elite guard total, seventeen still standin’ outside, so mus’ be ten in here. Assault weapons an’ body armor.”

Porter laughed to himself. “Unbelievable,” he said to Wanda. “The entire Directorate came to this place with not even thirty guards between them. You can see they’ve only had to worry about border skirmishes with a few Fiends now and again. Cockiness like that will get them in trouble, you’ll see.” Turning back to the boy, he said, “Tell the other Disciples to wait until they hear me.”

The boy ran off.

The storeroom door opened and Coach V. appeared, holding it open and gesturing for the Directorate and guards to leave through it. “…not be intimidated!” she said. The Directorate stayed where they were.

Porter sprung up, making Wanda jump and slip off the edge of the bed, landing on the floor. Six patients sprang from their beds, aiming assault rifles into the still brightly lit operating room. From where she sat, Wanda could see one of the guards grabbing for his gun. Then all six attackers fired. Porter lunged toward the door, repeatedly firing a handgun.

The bandage lay on the bed where it had fallen off; there had been no head wound. Wanda could now hear the steady fire of automatic weapons outside.

Amelix Building, CBD

“Hello, Dr. Kessler,” Keiko said.

“Hi, cutie,” he said, looking her up and down. Her body curved nicely beneath her Corporate Green uniform. “Come on in.”

“I guess our analysis of Eric Basali’s writing may as well end now, sir, with Basali’s suicide attempt today,” she said. “There’s no reason for us to determine wrongdoing if he’s headed for mandatory reconditioning and a clean slate.”

“No, no,” he said. “Wrongdoing was only part of it. I’ve begun a new project for us, where you’ll translate all his writing into those fundamental pillars of Accepted life you’re so good at parsing out. It’s powerful stuff you’re producing, Keiko. When added to our supporting documentation for various regulations, that language will thoroughly discourage workers from questioning their applicability. We have an amazing opportunity to codify the moral and ethical basis for everything Amelix does. I think you’ll be coming here for quite some time.”

“That’s wonderful, Dr. Kessler, sir,” she said breathily. “But will Amelix allow such an investment of our time and energy?”

“Of course. Humanity itself is any modern organization’s main raw input. Amelix is special among the corporations of today because as a biotech firm we still produce a high number of patented products, but it still holds true for us. Our most important business is processing raw personnel into a devoted workforce that exists solely to further the company’s interest in every possible circumstance. This project has huge potential for streamlining that process, and I will make sure you are recognized for your contribution to it.

“Mmm. Thank you, sir. You’re truly a gifted executive, Dr. Kessler, and I have so, so much to learn from you.”

“Yes, you do. But tonight, we’re going out. Let’s visit a nasty little bar I know in the Zone.”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” Keiko gushed.

Kessler put his arm around her waist, escorting her out of the office and out of the building. His hand caressed her hip. They left the CBD on foot, through one of the gates that opened into the Zone’s entertainment area. The smell of decay was still easily noticeable, but it seemed somehow more bearable than it was most days in the Zone. The gravel crunched under their shoes.

“Where are we going, sir, if I may ask?” Keiko said.

“It’s a hidden bottle club called Lincoln’s,” he said. “Private. I’m a member there. It’s safer than regular bars and we can have a room to ourselves.”

“Welcome to the Roman Legions,” a man wearing some kind of cloak or cape said as he passed, throwing a handful of powder into Kessler’s face. Keiko screamed as Kessler coughed and choked and tried to wipe the stuff from his eyes.

Fisher University Campus

“I can’t even tell you how glad I am that we have class together now!” Jack said. Li’l Ed wished he’d taken a different route. He pointedly looked away, at anything but Jack, and tried to increase the distance between them as they walked, hoping their interaction would be less obvious to observers. Jack kept pace and continued to talk. “People have stared at me in every class today. Nobody said anything about Sett or the waitress directly—they hardly said anything to me at all, actually—but they never seemed to look away.”

“We can’t sit together,” Li’l Ed said. “If we separate, maybe they’ll see our group that day as just a random gathering. Maybe they’ll forgive us for having been there. It’s unlikely but we have to do whatever we can.”

“Come on, Li’l Ed!” Jack said. “I don’t know how much more isolation I can take. If we sit together like always, it will be like we still have some status, some reason to be here.”

“Precisely why we can’t. If we act like we have no group, no status here at all, then we’re not a threat. They can bully us and push us around, but in the end they will have no real reason to kick us out. If we seem to be a united front, though, a group with pride and a sense of belonging here on campus, they’ll feel they have to destroy us right away.”

“But they’ll probably do that anyway,” Jack said. “There will be some decision made, by the school and by the crowd. We know how the dynamic works. They’ll probably decide we’re out, no matter what we do.”

“We have to try. A slight chance is better than none.” Li’l Ed bounded up two stairs and then two more, causing Jack to fall a few steps behind. “Don’t walk with me, Jack, and don’t sit with me. Act like we’re strangers who were caught in an awkward situation and now are trying to put it behind us. That’s what we are.”

Outside Dobo Protein Refinery

Furius sat leaning against a wall, appearing to be just another hopeless Zone inhabitant with no place to go and nothing to do. He’d been watching the closed refinery for about an hour. He supposed the red cloak around his shoulders might stand out a bit, but in this part of town, people had little choice but to wear whatever was available. His appearance didn’t seem to strike anyone as unusual.

Collecting information about the Garbageman and his life had been surprisingly easy. The man had not been nearly careful enough, given the kind of work he did on the side and the number of people around here who hated his guts.

With the various deals Furius had done and the single-dose packages he’d exchanged for information, plus the random passersby he’d been dosing with fistfuls of Pink Shit on the street, he’d now put more than two hundred more doses into circulation. The new Roman army would soon rise to conquer this strange, desolate land.

According to its posted business hours this protein refinery was supposed to have opened hours ago. People had come carrying waste to turn in for payment, waited, and then left again. The Garbageman’s continued absence made sense if he had been replaced by a Roman by now. Perhaps he was out searching for his superiors.

Or perhaps he is a superior.

Until now, Furius had assumed the army would consist of foot soldiers oath-bound to serve at his direction. It had not occurred to him that someone of higher rank might come through, a general or praetor with a clear plan of action. He was a bit surprised by his disappointment at the thought. Shouldn’t he be happy to have a leader, someone to whom the blood would stick, someone who would be responsible for the carnage and misery the new campaign would bring?

Yes. Of course that will be better. My job will be as it always was, keeping discipline in the ranks and killing as I’m told. Let the generals make the decisions and carry the guilt.

If Furius remained the highest-ranking Roman in this territory, he would have to assume sole responsibility for advancing the Republic’s interest here. It was his duty, and duty was everything to a soldier. Given the choice, he’d prefer to take orders and keep his mind clean, though.

A vision came to him: He stood in Charon’s boat, regal and powerful in a general’s armor crossing the underworld’s River Styx. Then suddenly a thousand unseen hands grabbed him and threw him out of the boat and into the water.

Not water! Blood. Blood I have spilled!

It burned his flesh as if it were molten bronze. He sunk down into it, fast, burning, suffocating, and dissolving in it, yet he never died, never lost consciousness or moved on from it. In campaigns before, the sacramentum had protected Furius; the blood hadn’t counted against him. This would have been his fate, had he been a general controlling those conflicts.

He shook his head and the River Styx faded away. Furius returned, shuddering, to the world of guns, drugs, and garbage.

Gods below, please let there be a general.

Dok’s place

Kym Evans leaned woozily against Dok’s office wall. It had taken her a few tries to lift herself off Mikk’s floor, but finally she’d managed to change out of her stinking, blood-stiff clothes and head here. She had stumbled and shuffled along the street, stopping to rest and even sitting down on the gravel a few times, but now she’d made it here and everything would be okay. She was already feeling better, from just a single dose of bitter powder mixed into water. Dok was a great healer.

Some mother had brought in a boy with rotten teeth, and Dok was working on them now. He’d hypnotized the kid into feeling no pain.

A strange man sat next to Kym on the floor, bearded and dressed in rags even more torn up than hers. The harder she made herself look away from him, the harder he seemed to stare.

Another man trying to bully and control me!

Fed up, she turned to him, scowling.

“Hello, there,” he said. “How are you feeling?” His gaze was flat and his voice was monotone, but it was a more pleasant exchange than she had expected, or, for that matter, had experienced in a long while.

“Better,” she said, deflating. “Thanks.” The man’s eye was partially black and his lip was split and swollen. “Looks like you got some of what I got, huh?”

“Well worth it, I assure you,” he said. “I was the first casualty in the General’s war.” He nodded toward the young girl with the long gash across her face. “She will end the kind of abuse you and I suffer in this society.”

“Okay. Sure she will,” Kym said.

“What we need is a leader to bring us together,” he said. “To make us strong. The General’s army has already begun to gather around her: The young student you saw before, for instance, and me. We’re merely followers, but you can see she possesses the kind of true greatness that can bring together all the various elements of our society.”

“Yeah, tough girl,” Kym said. “Gonna take it all on, turn it around for us. Doesn’t seem to be goin’ so well just yet.”

Crazy fuck.

“Actually, ma’am, it is. Think about your own experience and I bet you’ll remember a time when you just didn’t care what happened anymore, a time when your desire to fight was too strong for fear alone to stop you. Maybe you fought, or perhaps you refrained from fighting only because there was nothing to gain, but I’m sure you understand the feeling of power that comes from having nothing to lose.”

“So what? Nothin’ I do is gonna change anything.”

“Of course you’re right about that, ma’am,” he said. “One’s feeling of power is meaningless as long as she remains isolated. The General’s power arises from her ability to inspire all those thousands and thousands of people who feel that way. Individuals with nothing to lose may fight a few small battles. Groups with nothing to lose, however, when rallied around the right leader, can become a revolution.”

A teenager and her dirty hobo were going to take on the power structure, with its Feds, its guns, its Unnamed…

“Okay,” she said. “Dok said I need rest. Nice talking with you.” Kym closed her eyes.

“You still think as an individual,” he said. She could feel him staring at her. “You see yourself alone, myself alone, even the General alone, and you see weakness. But coming together for a common goal can make us strong, and the General brings people together. Imagine joining us and gaining your own followers, people willing to support you. You might become an officer with us, maybe even the General’s second-in-command, able to take the helm in her stead, perhaps eventually becoming a general yourself. I can see that you have true leadership ability, even when it is hidden by doubt, as now. I, for one, would be proud to follow you, ma’am.” He slowly lifted himself off the floor. “Excuse me a moment, please, ma’am.”

He went to talk to his general, giving her what was apparently some kind of warning, though cryptic and strange. The girl told him she’d consider whatever it was he was saying, and he bowed and sat back down.

He bowed?

Kym couldn’t help thinking about it. An army of reasonable people who could truly support her and give her power to change things? In her mind she saw Mikk’s sneer, the one his face always wore right before his first blows struck her, and then she heard her own voice commanding. The vision changed and a wave of people—soldiers—justice!—swept past her to annihilate him.

Even Mikk, with his gun, his physical strength, and his cruelty, was insignificant to a real army. What if Kym’s weakness did stem from thinking she was alone and therefore had no power? Maybe this weird little bunch could change things, or maybe not. Probably not. Almost definitely not. But like the bum said, Kym had nothing to lose.

He was watching her again. She faced him, finding herself no longer disturbed by his blank stare. “I’m Kym,” she said.

He bowed as he had done for the General. “It is very nice to meet you, Kym, ma’am. Perhaps one day we’ll call you Colonel Kym, or even General Kym.” He grinned slightly. Kym’s bruised face ached as she clenched her jaw, suppressing a shiver. “And if you like, you may call me as others do. I am the Prophet.”

Coach V’s Clinic

After the gunfire had erupted outside the clinic yesterday there had been the predictable and terrifying Horde response, and then silence. Porter had gone out to speak to the mass of pointing fingers, and apparently he’d known enough of them personally to talk them out of a swarm. Many of the ones he’d spoken with had quit the Horde right then to join the Saved. Coach had growled that the clinic would go on as it always had, and now she and her “girls” were back at work, bustling between beds and triaging emergencies.

Wanda removed a bottle from the spiral of coat hanger wire that held it upside-down above a patient’s bed. She checked the inked letter on the bottom. The sun was going down, making it harder to see the dark marker on the dark glass. This one read “Q,” so she replaced it with another “Q.”

The bottles were old longnecks that had once held beverages, but sealed with sterilized plastic putty, they functioned as IV bottles here.

“Q” was for Quanara, an Amelix patent that had now made it to the street. Wanda had learned about it in her lab tech training, but she’d never imagined she’d actually be holding a bottle of the stuff, let alone using it to treat patients. One of the sixth-generation engineered antibiotics, Quanara was mostly outdated and useless except against the deadly FLIEs bacteria it had been sold to combat. Amelix, always the world’s most innovative company, had created and released the FLIEs strain, knowing that only Quanara could fight it. The monopoly had been a huge boost for the company economically as other organizations scrambled to license it, though Amelix soon found itself paying similar ransoms to other biotech companies who’d created their own lock-and-key diseases and cures.

The corporate class no longer used antibiotics. The drugs were too clumsy, and reliance upon them made corporations too vulnerable. Once the engineered antibacterial fungal strains had reached their twelfth generation, R&D had taken a new tack, producing a new generation of synthesizers that could test for specific pathogens and develop special hunter-killer antibodies for each one. Microbes mutated incredibly fast, especially when they were human pathogens in a world with seventeen billion people to attack, so companies now had entire departments of scientists and programmers whose sole function was to monitor and tweak the relationship between the synthesizers and all the targeted germs.

Wanda peered through the glass, hoping to gain a little insight into the situation outside. What was happening with the Saved and Horde? Would there be more shooting?

Nobody would count on Quanara to cure anything today. Coach undoubtedly added it to control contamination, as a prophylactic safety measure more than a treatment.

“Sister Wanda!” Sister Chi Sun called from the front of the room. Wanda dropped the empty bottle into her sterilization bin and scooted toward the area where they were admitting new patients. Her pace would have been a run, but one of the rules she’d learned here was that the girls were not allowed to take steps longer than a foot’s length. Ostensibly it had to do with patient safety in the cramped space and the stirring up of germs. Wanda had noticed Coach observing her girls with a look of satisfaction as they minced around the place, though, and it was obvious that bullying and control were the main motivations for this constraint.

Sister Chi Sun handed her a thin dowel with a cardboard disc attached across one end. A spiral pattern on the disc would rotate when the dowel was rolled between palms.

“Show him this spiral and just keep quietly repeating to him that he needs to stare at it, that nothing matters but watching the spiral, okay?”

Wanda took the dowel and began rotating it, speaking softly. “It’s okay. Just stare, right there at the center. Watch it go inward, down and down and down. And watch it come up, now, up and up and up, always turning. Which way does it seem to be going to you?”

“Look here, Chi Sun,” Coach V. said, running two fingers in a light circle midway up the patient’s calf. “See this indentation, the cavity beneath the skin?”

“Yes, Coach,” Chi Sun said.

“Ruptured tendon,” Coach said. “Let’s get him into the operating room. If we were busy now we’d triage this down, but right now it’s slow enough for us to address it. Wanda, help us move him.”

“Yes, Coach,” Wanda said.

Wanda moved the patient’s hand to the dowel and got under his shoulder. “Your turn to work the spiral for yourself, now,” she told him. “Just keep staring at it. Let yourself get lost in the pattern as it pulls all your pain away.” Chi Sun put herself under the other side and together they lifted, half-dragging the man backwards to the room where Wanda had first spoken with Judee. The powerful light came on as they hoisted him to the table, helping him turn onto his stomach.

Wanda took the rod again. The patient lay with his head turned to the right, so she moved toward that end of the table and knelt down next to him. She held the spiral a short distance from his face, alternating from one hand to the other so she could keep it spinning in the same direction. “Stare at the center,” she told the patient in a hushed, calm voice. “Is the spiral coming up, up, up, or going down, down, down?”

Coach and Chi Sun poured sodje onto the back of the man’s leg, spreading it around with their hands. The alcohol was the best means of sterilization they had available in an environment like this, without soap or running water.

“Okay,” Coach V. said. “See here? Look at the anklebone, and then see this slope in this direction and the curve in the other? In this case we need these muscles relaxed, so we’re going to put one needle here, and the other up here on the other side, behind the knee. You see that?”

Wanda wished she could see, but the spiral was in the way. They were doing acupuncture, which she’d not yet been allowed to observe. Coach had made it clear Wanda was to learn only what Coach taught her, whenever Coach decided to teach it.

“This guy’s Golden,” Coach said. “So you can see where the ends of the snapped tendon are inside the flesh, from the borders of the dark red patch that formed on the skin, there. Now, I’m going to make an incis—”

“Stare into the spiral,” Wanda said to the patient. He certainly didn’t need to hear about the incision. Coach turned to get some equipment from the counter behind her and Chi Sun whispered in Wanda’s ear. “Never stop talking when you do the spiral. Coach will punish you to help you remember that.”

Wanda went blank for a moment but quickly recovered, saying the first calming thing that came to mind, a simple “Shhh, shhhh, shhhh.” She discovered she could still see some of what was happening in the reflection in one of the glass cabinet doors. Coach cut but the man stayed surprisingly quiet, even as Coach prodded around with forceps in the incision, looking for the ends of the tendon.

“Wanda,” Coach said. “This foil is ruptured so I can’t use this packet. Hurry to the storeroom and ask Piyumi for a gut-threaded needle. Chi Sun, you take the spiral until she gets back.

Wanda handed off the dowel and passed through a little door at the back of the operating room. Sister Piyumi was there in the storeroom, standing on a stepstool to place a box onto a shelf.

“Coach said she needs a gut-threaded needle.” Wanda said. “I guess that’s cat gut?” Wanda had seen a live cat, once, when visiting the home of a schoolmate whose parents were much higher ranked than her own.

Sister Piyumi descended and moved over to a different set of cabinets and drawers. She opened a long, narrow drawer and examined various items inside as she talked. “Our job is to do and learn what we are told, Sister,” she said. “We do not wonder. We do not speculate. Coach said a gut needle, so you will be given a gut needle. And we address each other as Sister, Sister. Coach will punish you to help you remember that.”

“I’m… sorry, Sister,” Wanda said haltingly. “I have noticed that you all say that, about Coach punishing me to help me remember.”

“What did I just say about wondering, Sister?”

“I’m sorry. Sister.”

“Coach will punish you to help you remember that.” She selected a small foil packet and closed the drawer. She spoke more quietly as she came up and placed the packet into Wanda’s hands. “We are required to educate and remind each other of Coach’s rules, and also of the fact that we are watching each other so that Coach can help improve us through punishment. Coach is responsible for every life here. Her gift to us is allowing us to do exactly as we’re told. We absolve ourselves of ultimate responsibility through obedience to her.”

“Yes, Sister,” Wanda said. This was her life now: absolution through obedience. “Thank you, Sister.” She hustled back to Coach, making sure her feet stayed close together.

Dok’s place

Kym averted her eyes. General Eadie and the Prophet had run off just before this nasty fucking giant Fed had showed up looking for them. The Fed had been beating on Dok, asking him all kinds of questions. Dok had been shining him on, making him madder and scarier until finally the Fed had just thrown him to the floor.

He stomped on the back of Dok’s head and Dok went limp. Then he focused his icy stare on Kym.

Mikk was weak because he was alone. Or rather, because he’d only had control of his whores and Kym. This Fed was just like Mikk, but there were thousands and thousands of other Feds like him, all armed and protected by an entire society. Kym had never hated anything like she now hated this Fed.

He reached her in a single stride and yanked her up by the arm, his thumb digging into a bruise. “How about you?” the Fed said. “Do you know where the waitress with a cut face might have gone?”

It had to stop.

Kym should have been terrified, but instead she remained steady. A rock. A tiny stone, flung by the General, straight into this clunky Fed’s eye. She had nothing to lose and no fuel but hate.

“Didn’t see any waitress,” she said, truthfully. She had seen only a general.

The Fed’s thick fingers hooked into Kym’s shoulders and lifted her until her toes dangled. She tensed her neck muscles in a desperate effort to keep her head attached to her body as he shook her violently. He stopped and shifted his grip, taking her by the throat. This Fed could snap her neck with his thumb, and he could see she knew it.

“Tell me where she went, you dumb bitch,” he said quietly.

Kym thought about what she should say. Should she be angry and insult him, proving she was innocent by her more extreme reaction? Or maybe she ought to be calm and meek, acting like she was impressed with his power? Or cower and whimper?

It didn’t matter what she had to do, as long as whatever it was helped the General and her cause.

Behind the Fed, Dok slowly pulled himself up to a standing position and leaned against the counter. The thought flashed through her mind that Dok could kill him, smash his head from behind, but that would never happen. Dok wouldn’t have the heart to kill anyone, even this giant demonically engineered Fed.

The Fed grabbed her shoulders, preparing to shake her again. It didn’t matter. He could shake her, choke her, beat her, or whatever else. Mikk had beaten her all the time and she’d just taken it, mostly out of fear, and yet now she was facing this Fed and the power of thousands and thousands of Mikks, and holding her ground. There was no longer any fear. As the Prophet had said, Kym understood the power of having nothing to lose. The General was something to believe in, and Kym would not betray her.

A loud crack sounded somewhere outside the clinic: a door getting kicked in. The Fed let go of her and turned his attention to Dok again, punching him in the face for some comment he’d made.

Pivoting back to Kym, he said, “I have no further use for you. You may go. Now.”

(?)

“Dr. Kessler, sir?”

It was Keiko’s voice.

“Dr. Kessler, sir?” she asked again. Kessler sat up.

“Keiko,” he said. “Where are we?”

“This is Lincoln’s, the club you’d told me we were heading for,” she said. “After that man on the street threw the powder in your face, you were okay for a little bit, and then after a few more minutes you became disoriented. The doorman recognized you and pulled us in, sir. It was lucky he did because this place has no sign and the door just looks like part of the wall outside.”

He looked around, recognizing the private room Lincoln’s had provided. The floor was raised to about knee-high and padded in black vinyl, everywhere but the space into which the door opened.

“How are you feeling, sir?”

He realized he probably looked foolish, repeatedly massaging his forehead and temples with the tips of his fingers. He imagined the action was working badly needed blood back into his head. “What time is it?” he asked. There was no way to know inside the windowless space.

“Twenty-oh-four GMT, sir,” she said.

That was midafternoon.

“The office must—”

“I told them you had been attacked on the street, sir, and that I was caring for you. I know it’s not the best story but I didn’t know what else to say.”

“They’ll say it’s still my fault for being out of the secured areas,” he said. “But you stayed with me, Keiko. You cared for me.”

She grinned. “Yes, sir, I stayed. I was very concerned for you, and I was also afraid to leave here alone.”

Kessler made himself lower his hands to the vinyl pads. He realized he was leaning against a wall, also padded in vinyl, though he had no recollection of having leaned. “We’ll square it away with the office. Don’t worry.”

“I have complete faith in you, sir. Are you all right now?”

He nodded. “It was the strangest experience, that drug. It was like…like I was a cup, and the drug was trying to pour something in. Like it was trying to make me into something else. A junkie, maybe, I don’t know. But I was already full, so it just skimmed over the top and down the sides. I kept thinking of Amelix. I…I feel like I was saved by the fact that my heart was already full of my love for the company, as if reconditioning had vaccinated me.”

“Reconditioning is truly a blessing, sir. Do you think you’re ready to go back to the office now? I’m sure you’re sorely missed.”

“Yes, I think so. Better to walk through this area in the middle of the day, too, I think. Let’s get back to work.”

Approaching Dobo Protein Refinery

Rus led the way back to where it had all started, where that cheat fuck Garbageman had ripped him off, where Murph had gotten killed and probably carbon recycled, lining the Garbageman’s pockets even more.

“Tonight the Bridges are doin’ some payback!” he said, far too loudly for a part of the Zone this far from home. He’d heard there were some tough gangs around here. One called Plague was known to come running straight at you and beat you into the ground with no warning, no demand, no nothing. Another that called itself the Hueys was supposed to have more machine guns than any other street gang. This street, J Avenue, was said to be at the center of a territory dispute between the two, but Rus hadn’t seen anyone wearing any colors at all here yet. It seemed like there were fewer and fewer gangs lately. In any case, it was better to be safe. There was no excuse for shouting like that, even if he was pretty messed up right now. He’d finished the sodje bottle and another, needing to clear his head after he’d—

A greasy coating of cold, black guilt and self-loathing settled over him.

I don’t have to think about this bitch, not now, not ever. Unlucky property of a shitty guy, that’s all she is.

He stumbled and went down hard to one knee.

“Damn!”

Too loud again.

Shouldn’t one of his brothers have caught him? They made him into a fucking monster, a hateful fucking monster, and they couldn’t even—

The image flooded his mind again. He was fucking the girl—the whore—and she opened her eyes. She’d been crying with her eyes shut all goddamned night, and then right when Rus was fucking her, she opened her eyes and looked into his, not sad, not afraid, but just like she was saying, “I’m here and I see what you’re doing.”

“Fuckin’ Garbageman!” he said. This time he was glad it was too loud. Maybe some worse gang would come and kill them now. It was only a group of eight Bridges here tonight, since the entire gang was now down to twenty-four. How big a force could they fend off, really, with just eight? Four Bridges carried the whore, and the other four, including Rus, who had wanted to distance himself from her, walked at their sides as protection.

“Garbageman! We gonna fuck you up!” D’Wayn called out. Now Rus wasn’t the only loud one. “When he sees this bitch, cut up and covered in blood and cum and bruises, he’ll know he fucked with the Zone’s hardest thugs.”

Rus needed to be more like D’Wayn. The Bridges who truly ruled were always the hardest and the meanest. He had to grow the fuck up, but this shit with torturing the hooker had made him lightheaded.

They dumped her outside the heavy metal doors and gave the finger to the Garbageman’s security camera, pulling out weapons. Everyone had a club and at least one knife, but Duke Q also had a .38, and Pawley had a .22 that would look like a bigger gun on camera, even though neither had any bullets. “You’re fucking dead, Garbageman!” Rus taunted to the camera.

“We gonna ugly up every bitch you got, including you!” Duke Q shouted.

The Garbageman would never face the Bridges all together. Then again, he might just start shooting, too. In fact, he would probably do that, straight through the metal gate like last time.

The Bridges hustled away from the door, just slowly enough to avoid seeming scared. The laughing and backslapping trailed off quickly as they turned onto a back street. They walked without speaking, the only sound being that of their feet crunching over the gravel.

They wound from one back street to another. Rus’s neck was starting to ache from craning in every direction. Just a few months ago the Bridges would have attracted the attention of serious tough guys here, but tonight the streets were silent. He would have been less on edge if they’d been confronted already.

The Bridges’ footsteps stopped as the others came into focus, just standing there, frozen, each one of the six or eight silhouettes aiming rifles at the Bridges. Rus realized how easy it would have been for these shapes to remain hidden here, and how many might still be hidden there, with so many layered shadows. These silhouettes had intentionally let themselves be seen.

Blood rushed to Rus’s head, making his lips and ears throb. This was no ordinary street gang. His chest tightened.

Fiends!

“Move and you meet Unity,” a gravelly voice whispered, rancid spittle landing among the hairs on Rus’s neck. A pistol barrel appeared there next, then a hand on his shoulder pushed him to his knees. The other Bridges landed next to him. Hands stripped the Bridges of their possessions. “Congratulations, kids,” the voice said. “You’re now property of the New Union. If any of you survive the training, you’ll have glory, wealth, and power.”

Outside Dobo Protein Refinery

Kym Evans still limped and wobbled a bit as she walked, but Dok’s treatment had helped a lot. She’d already found a way to be a part of the General’s holy mission, first by staring down the Federal Agent and not telling him shit, and then by recognizing her student follower on the street and filling him in on how to find her.

“Perhaps one day we’ll call you Colonel Kym, or even General Kym.”

The Prophet’s words stuck in her mind. It felt right: Kym, herself, commanding hundreds or thousands of dedicated soldiers. More than that, it felt owed to her.

I’m Colonel Kym, you fucking Fed. You won’t scare Colonel Kym into telling you shit, fucker.

It was dark now. Mikk never came here to the refinery at night because it was too far away from the action, so she’d be safe from him, though she’d have to deal with the stench of carbon recyclables all night.

She could leave at sunrise to avoid Mikk.

As she approached the refinery she discovered someone had dumped a corpse outside the heavy doors. Who would just abandon this much carbon? A full-sized adult body could bring enough cash for a decent meal, maybe two. Kym unlocked the door and grabbed the corpse by a wrist to drag it in. It writhed and moaned—the girl was alive! Kym got an arm under her and hoisted her up and through the door, heading for the office. Someone came in after her, closing the door behind them and locking it. “Where’s the Garbageman?” a gruff male voice asked.

Kym felt as afraid as the situation called for, but the feeling was insulated by her rage and her new sense of power. “You did this to her so you could find him?” Her voice didn’t even shake.

“No. A gang of punks dumped her here about an hour ago. Where is the Garbageman? I won’t ask you again.”

“Oh, you gonna kill me? Criminals like you are all going to disappear,” Kym said. “The General is going to build a new society, and I’m gonna be fightin’ too.”

Even in the dark, she could sense the man deflating somewhat. His voice softened. “Which general did he become?”

The comment seemed strange, but she had too much real shit going on to worry about whatever particular way this guy was crazy. Kym turned her back on him, helping the girl toward the office and unlocking it. If he wanted to stab, shoot or rape her, there wasn’t much she could do to stop him, anyway.

“There are a lot of us,” she said finally. “And more coming.”

She got the office unlocked and turned on the dim light. The girl was a teenager. Kym was surprised to find herself retching. She would have figured she’d be used to horrible acts like this by now. Two other of Mikk’s whores had been dropped here after being raped and mutilated, but this was the first one she’d ever found alive.

The man standing here in the office was a basic Zone dealer type, slender, mid-twenties, with dark hair and facial stubble framing cold blue eyes. She’d probably seen a hundred just like him coming and going from deals with Mikk. This one wore some kind of red cape around his shoulders, which was fastened with handcuffs.

“I know there are more coming,” he said. “I’m the one bringing them.”

“You?” she said. “You serve the General?”

“Haven’t yet met him, but yes. I’m here to form the new legions.”

Kym knew better than to correct him about the General’s gender. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Centurion Septimus Furius. I formerly served under Praetor Crassus and I look forward to meeting your general. Is it Crassus? There is much to be done if the legions are to be formed. If the General came from this place, I will wait here with you until he returns.”

Kym lowered the bleeding, naked girl gently to the floor as he stood there in the doorway, looking out at the mounds of trash.

The attackers had cut the girl’s nostrils out from inside and left diagonal slashes across her face, as well as across her breasts, midsection, and thighs. The cuts were all deep enough to leave nasty scars but none had cut any major blood vessels. Kym kept a bag of rags in a drawer for whenever they might be handy, mostly just clothes she’d stripped from corpses. She dug around to find one of the cleaner ones, an old plaid shirt, and ripped it into makeshift bandages for the girl’s various wounds. The man who called himself Centurion whatever turned from the doorway and stood in silence, watching her work.

“This place is a protein refinery, so it takes all this garbage and turns it into food, right?” he asked finally.

“No,” she said, a bit glad for the chance to condescend. “Synthesizers make it into food. Here we just break it down, back into amino acids that the bacteria inside synthesizers will make into proteins.”

“So it goes from here to those things, the synthesizers, all over?”

She shook her head. “Goes to the factory that produces sterile nutrients. Sterile nutes packages have our aminos, plus other things like vitamins and phytonutrients, all combined. Those packages get shipped to the synthesizers all over.”

“And how many people does one of those blocks you make here, the amino acids, end up feeding?”

“Dunno. Probably a few thousand, when it’s mixed into sterile nutes packs. There’s a backlog of amino blocks, though, so they’ve been lettin’ them pile up here instead of paying us. Trying to use it as an excuse to lower prices, but a lot of us are just sitting on ‘em, waitin’ for the manufacturers to need ‘em again.”

“Waiting for a shortage of dead bodies and garbage,” he said. “Bold move, that.”

He stared out through the glass at the various steps of production, which were relatively well illuminated by moonlight. The hopper was huge and dirty, and from there the pipes traced the process of chemical disintegration and recombination, ratio control, and sterilization. Kym stopped working on the girl as he removed what appeared to be about half a kilo of white powder from one of his big coat pockets.

“Is there a final step in this process, right before it goes out from here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, without looking up from the girl’s wounds. “The sterilizer. Doesn’t look so clean on the outside, but that big, grimy blue machine sterilizes the aminos inside and wraps them into those big blocks you see on the shelf. They’re sealed in super thick bioplexi film to keep out germs.”

“This is how we’re going to build the legions,” he said. As she watched, he strode out to the sterilizer and dumped some of the powder into it.

Part of the Zone outside La Guada

“Arrulfo!” Ernesto said. “You’re pushing me the wrong way! It’s the wrong way, Arrulfo. We’ve already been there.”

“We have to be quiet now, Ernesto,” Arrulfo whispered. “Remember what I told you?”

“Yes. If there’s a fight I should stay by you.”

“That’s right, amigo. What else did I tell you?” Arrulfo was pushing hard now, even lifting Ernesto’s feet from the ground a little bit.

“If you get hurt in a fight so bad you can’t move anymore, I should run and run and not stop running until I can’t run anymore. And also this is a dangerous area for us so we have to be careful not to be seen.”

Nine men and boys shouted from across the street. “Mex! Mex!” they yelled. English was a strange language Ernesto didn’t understand very well, but “Mex” was clear enough. Their voices were loud. More of them came. Rosa pushed Mari against a wall. Marcos was swiveling his head around from side to side. Arrulfo had said Marcos was a psychopath and all psychopaths were dangerous, but Ernesto had said that Arrulfo didn’t know all psychopaths so he couldn’t say that they were all dangerous, but Arrulfo had said that was what a psychopath was, it was a person who was dangerous. Then Ernesto had said that people in LaGuada said Arrulfo was dangerous because he was so good at fighting, but Arrulfo had said that there were different kinds of dangerous people and psychopaths were just one kind, so someone could be dangerous and not be a psychopath. But Arrulfo had said he paid Marcos and threatened him because Arrulfo was even more dangerous than Marcos, and so Marcos protected Ernesto and Ernesto could be okay around him. Not safe, exactly, but kind of okay, with Marcos and Arrulfo around.

Now there were thirty-two other men and boys shouting. Arrulfo was fighting them but he was still moving, and that meant Ernesto didn’t have to run away. Arrulfo gave Ernesto a stick. “Hit anyone who attacks you, amigo,” he said.

“That’s fighting, Arrulfo!” Ernesto said. “You know I’m not good at fighting!”

Someone hit him hard on the side of his face! His eye ached, getting worse and better and worse and better over and over as his heart pumped. He couldn’t open the eye and he wasn’t crying, but his face was wet and his mouth tasted salty. Now everything in the world was completely different because now he was completely different, with one crying, aching eye getting worse and better and worse and better, one broken eye Ernesto didn’t know how to fix.

His stomach! A shoe was there, and then it pulled away. Now his stomach was hurting but not getting worse and better but just hurting the same all the time and making him fold in half. He was broken in two places and now he was different and unfixable and he lived with his eye getting worse and better and his hurting stomach folding him in half.

This was an attack! Hitting someone in the face was an attack, and kicking was an attack. Arrulfo had said Ernesto was supposed to hit anyone who attacked him. Keeping a hand on his stomach and turning his hurting eye toward his raised shoulder, Ernesto screamed and swung the stick back and forth as hard as he could with his one hand.

There were more attackers now, but Arrulfo was fighting them, protecting Ernesto. Arrulfo had said he would always protect Ernesto, but Ernesto had said he couldn’t always do that, like if he were dead he couldn’t protect Ernesto. Then Arrulfo had asked him how many fights he had seen Arrulfo protect him in and Ernesto said he had done so in one hundred forty-three fights before today.

This time there were thirty-two attackers, eighteen with weapons.

There were shouts around the corner where these had come from.

Ernesto ducked his head again, flailing and staggering. Whenever he watched Arrulfo fight, he saw how perfectly Arrulfo’s motions counteracted and overcame his opponents. Now, being attacked himself, Ernesto still saw the hinge actions of his attacker’s joints and the arc of the weapon. Arrulfo could push on one side of a joint and make the body fold and crumple, but pushing the same joint another way made a long, awkward limb he could use for leverage. He recognized the mechanics of what Arrulfo did, working those hinge actions and arcs to his advantage in grappling opponents to the ground, intercepting the blows before impact, and using cunning spins and shifts in balance to neutralize whatever attack came at him, but it didn’t help. Ernesto couldn’t move his body the way Arrulfo could. There were too many things happening when Ernesto tried to move his body, too much information to process, for him to be able to do it smoothly.

Ernesto did not like fighting.

There was someone next to Arrulfo, now. Not fighting him, just standing there next to him, fighting other people. He had long hair in a tube on top of his head.