Ben Chaney - Son of Sedonia

Vaughn shook his head. He knew what Shima had meant… even agreed with him to some extent now that he’d seen Hell up close. A small part of him beneath the mission, the noise, and the terror was actually enjoying the play of it all. And that part scared him. Especially when the memory of it mingled with the sound of Mason’s death rattles over the comms, and the images of the torn bodies flying apart along the roof edge. ‘Duty,’ ‘honor,’ ‘protecting civilization.’ All the stuff he’d bought wholesale at Red Gate still mattered, but had somehow dimmed like a childhood memory. He mourned it all.

He awoke hours later as the decel-thrusters kicked on, knocking him out of the downward spiral. At least he’d get to see the Moon. Always wanted to… even applied to be a guard on Themis, only they’d sent him a form letter about ‘all positions filled, but we’ll keep your information on file’ or some such. The EXOs were the next best thing… or so he thought then. Not sure anymore.

Regardless, the boy inside him pressed his face to the porthole glass, trying to get a better angle to see the surface as it came up around the ship. Gray desert stretching to a sharp black horizon. He marveled at the size of some of the craters…way bigger than in the textfeeds and documentaries. Detail appeared as he squinted. They’re terraced… man made! A turquoise explosion soundlessly rippled along the edge of one of the terrace ledges, blasting a plume of dust into orbit. Passing scows flew in and sucked up the debris with huge intake systems. Tiny dots on the surface became vehicles. Giant landcrawlers with what looked like UV spotlights scanned the ground in wide indigo swaths.

The slow pull of gravity came in a sudden wave. It was unsettling. Vaughn wasn’t aware how accustomed he’d gotten to weightlessness, and this wasn’t exactly like having weight again. He lifted his arm and let it fall. Shifted in his seat. Tested his feet and legs. Hopefully there would be enough time to adjust before ‘cargo transfer’.

They dipped low into the mouth of a canyon and flew half-way above the ground at cruising speed. Something like a formal highway buzzed with activity below them. Industrial traffic. All positions filled, my ass… you’d need an army to watch all these inmates. The canyon opened wider ahead, crested around the edges by an inward-leaning rock wall some four-hundred feet tall. Natural shelter from cosmic radiation and solar wind .

Just as he got frustrated with being unable to see ahead, the ship turned left to skirt the rim of the canyon. Thankfully his window was on the right. The canyon floor had been gouged into a perfect circle and the Themis Facility main complex sat inside. It was a hollow cylinder, reaching down kilometers into the surface. Lights from millions of portholes and windows lined the inner cylinder walls. The cells . The main control hub protruded out and up from the hole in a gigantic tower, extending bridges to dock stations on the canyon walls. No direct access from cell to dock… smart. Inmates could access the ground level to work, but would have to get from walls-to-tower, tower-to-bridge, then bridge-to-dock to escape.

The ship slowed to a stop beside the airlock gate. Vaughn felt the bulkhead vibrate as the docking clamps slid into place and locked. Harnesses released all over the cabin, and the squad got to work. They were a bunch of kids eager to test their training…just like he had been yesterday. Did all of it really just happen this morning? Damn disorienting. The weird-ass gravity didn’t help either. He blinked past the fuzzy feeling behind his eyes, stood, and lined up for the hatch.

AFTER THE ENGINES cut out, the compartment fell to total stillness. The smells of sweat, piss, and shit filled the twilit cabin. Matteo couldn’t be sure if it was coming from him or just everywhere. Fear was thick in the air. He’d never seen any T99 so scared in his entire life… even when they charged head-first into EXO machine-gun fire. Matteo felt himself on the brink too, but insane curiosity kept him afloat. A new kind of ship in the Pits had been enough to send him into hours-long daydreams. Those stars… this place… what’s outside that door? If something didn’t happen soon, he would scream. Or cry. Or explode. Maybe all three in that order.

A few mechanical pops broke the silence, triggering shouts and curses from the T99s. The cargo bay doors yawned open, bathing the compartment in blinding light. Matteo squinted over his restraints. Human figures appeared. Started coming into focus. He heard some of them coughing.

“Fuck me! ”

“Yeah… takes the breath away, don’t it?”

“Whatever, just stick ’em and pull ’em so we can hose the whole thing out ASAP.”

Matteo saw EXO gear on a few of the figures and jumpsuits on the rest. A few details of the room beyond trickled in. A high catwalk. Stacks of crates. A hydraulic lift…then one of the figures leaning into the compartment. It opened a panel on the wall, and hit a button. A sharp pain jabbed into the small of Matteo’s back. He and the others howled as their bodies went limp, but this time he didn’t black out. He watched as his harness swung open and dropped him on the ground. The pain was distant and dull but enough to bring his wheezing to full tilt. Hands grabbed him under the shoulders.

“Bit sickly, this one… sure you got use for him?”

“No mark on his arm. Must be a dweller. Pit worker too, judging by the scars,” the figure chuckled, “Plenty of pits on the Moon. Toss him in with the others.” Matteo’s body tingled as they dragged him out of the cargo doors. Totally paralyzed, he was forced to stare at the floor as they carried him through what sounded like a large room. The floors used to be white, he could tell, but had been worn to yellow-gray… stained with ruddy trails and patches here and there. Dozens of them led in the direction he was going. The pounding fear buried his curiosity. He passed out.

Consciousness came back like one of Utu’s old records starting up. The floor under him had turned from stained tile to shining chrome. There were holes in it. Cold. His body shook as the numbness faded. He was naked, he realized, and cuffed around the wrists to a plastic-coated cable tethered to a floor track. The whole room seemed to glow with a stinging white light. He rubbed at his eyepits.

“Time to wake up, cop-killers! There’s work to be done!”

Before Matteo could figure out where the voice came from, an electric current raced through the metal floor. Every fiber in his body contracted in a wrenching spasm. Once his muscles slackened, his eyes flashed wide. The blurry shapes of the others around him came into terrible focus. They looked like strangers. Suomo was much skinnier than he’d looked in all his designer clothes, and Oki… he reminded Matteo of a Pit dog. Broken and bloody after a fight over scraps.

The walls of the room were glass. On two sides, the same figures from earlier stood in darkness. Watching.

“You wanna do the honors?” said the same voice from before.

“Is that cool? Figure you guys got protocol and such for this kind of—” asked another.

“Your recommendation got me this job, remember? ’Sides, Shima, I figure after what you done for the City… you deserve a little payback.”

“Heh. Well, if you insist,” replied the one called Shima. A fraction of a second later, scalding hot jets of water fired down from the ceiling, pinning Matteo and the others to the floor. They writhed, pulling against their bonds as they tried to shield themselves. Matteo felt like the water would cut through him at any second. It stopped. Everyone in the chamber groaned between coughs and gasps for air.