Sean-Michael Argo - Dead Worlds

“But the elites are gone, they left when Vorhold pulled out, everyone here is a low-rating worker,” protested Virginia, “There’s no way any of them have that kind of cash, regardless of whether or not Vorhold was a life-bond economy.”

“Red List,” said Boss Marsters, and his words cut across the conversation like a knife, silencing all but his voice.

“They’ll join Grotto or pay the expatriation fee as a way of covering their portion of the outstanding Vorhold debt. Otherwise they’ll be put on the Red List and then it’s open season,” said Boss Ulanti as she nodded her head, “Anyone who doesn’t bond or pay will be classified as a hostile.”

“So while we’re down in the sewers playing hide and seek with real gangers, those cor-sec forces who bonded with Grotto will liquidate the population,” growled Marsters. “Once we’ve purged downspire the real salvage work begins.”

“Man, when cities die they die hard,” said Harold, as he tapped his armored fingers against the barrel of his heavy machine gun.

The conversation died down after that, and Samuel was glad for it. He’d always been equally fascinated and terrified by the Red List.

To live in the world without a corporation seemed as alien to him as living in the world without the basics of survival.

A man needed the support of an institution greater than himself, didn’t he? What hope could there be for the people who chose to scorn Grotto’s offer of bonding? No doubt they would flee, using every available ship, registered or unregistered, that they could charter, stowaway on, or capture.

The shift manager had warned against a sharp increase in acts of piracy from the refugee population, though Samuel had not quite made the connection until the Bosses spelled it out for him. The people of Vorhold were being given the choice between slavery, death, or exile, and Samuel shuddered at the prospect. At least he and the other people born into Grotto were shackled with their life-bond at an early age, so had years to work against it. Those Vorhold citizens who bonded were old enough that they would certainly die in debt and poverty. Samuel had to remind himself, however, that poverty was relative, and though he had known no masters beyond Grotto, he had yet to go hungry as its subject. The wargir, Imago, was right, being on the Red List was freedom, but of a darkly desperate sort.

The marines had descended into silence, each lost in their own thoughts as they moved through the city. Soon they reached the rally point and found that for each of the seven Reaper platoons there were no less than two full platoons of bonded cor-sec troopers who would serve as additional combat support.

Samuel didn’t like the look of most of them. To his eyes they seemed more like jumped up security guards than soldiers. The Bosses, including the dour new Boss Aiken, who had replaced Mag, seemed equally unimpressed.

What did catch everyone’s eyes though, were the seven costumed and tattooed warriors who stood at an uneasy distance from the cor-sec platoons. Each of the seven individuals couldn’t have been more different from the next, save for the eight-pointed star over a crown tattoo on the right sides of their faces.

They were dressed in rags, though much of the material was festooned with a dizzying assortment of bones, bullet casings, coins, beads, and other items to numerous to catalog.

The longer Samuel looked at them the more he became convinced that the items must be trophies, tokens to commemorate one deed or another. It sounded good in his head and helped him make sense of it all. The people of Grotto were plain folk, and typically did not make such a show of themselves.

The gangers bristled with a multitude of weapons, armed with every imaginable type of shotgun, pistol, spear, knife and axe. Their hair styles were equally bizarre, a riot of strange colors and cuts that reminded him of the revel bands back on Baen who played in illegal underground clubs and screeched anti-Grotto propaganda at the audience over the grating sound of guitars, synths, and drums. He’d never cared for the music, though Sura had insisted that it was important to see a few shows.

Once he’d joined the Reapers that had stopped. Now that his movements were tracked much more closely as a soldier he couldn’t afford to be caught involved in such things.

Still, like those revel bands, the same defiance and fierce individualism, was reflected here by these downspire gangers.

What Samuel couldn’t understand was why in the world nobody was shooting at them. The gangers were the very enemy the Reapers had been sent to eliminate. As the marine looked around he saw that he wasn’t the only one confused by their presence, and it was only the lack of response from the surly cor-sec troopers that stayed his hand.

“Boss?” asked Spencer from his perch on the transport as he flexed his hand on his rifle’s handle, “Are those what I think they are?”

“That’s right, Green. Bought and paid for with food, fresh water and our promise to wipe out every rival gang they’ve ever had a grudge against,” answered Boss Ulanti as she stood and shoulder checked Spencer in a manner that had to have been the closest thing to affection any of the marines had seen her display, “Those gangers are the Rotted Kings, our local guides.”

As bullets chewed up the wooden planking that comprised the makeshift low tide dock, sending swarms of splinters flying in all directions, the salvage marine was thankful for his battle armor.

Samuel sprinted across the dock and managed to stay a few steps ahead of the machine gunner who was tracking him with deadly fire.

The gunner was firing a weapon that seemed to have been fabricated entirely out of spare parts. The report and muzzle flash were different with each round, which indicated homemade ammunition as well.

Samuel leapt behind a rusted and pockmarked metal pylon just as the gunner’s aim caught up with him. The shots rattled the pylon so hard that a cloud of rust and who knew what else cascaded down onto the marine.

His body was encased in the standard Reaper combat armor, though for their mission into downspire each soldier had been issued ‘tunnel webbing’, a series of specialized coverings for the segments of their armor. The webbing resembled matte black spider silk draped in a lattice pattern across each section of Samuel’s armor. Its purpose was to wick away toxins, chemicals and a variety of other harmful substances that might be suspended in the various liquids a soldier was likely to encounter downspire. The armor appeared to now have glossy scales or insect shells layered over it, giving him and the other Reapers a somewhat more menacing appearance, although nothing that the marines were sporting could equal the eye-catching, mismatched costumes and markings of the downspire gangers.

It had been a hard fight just to get this far into District 12’s downspire region. It was being ferociously held by the Haggard Sons, a powerful clan of gangers that had dominated these sewage tunnels for generations.

Samuel dared to pop out from behind the pylon long enough to fire several rounds into the murky half-light of the sewage channel, and then cursed at himself for not using his low-light scope to ensure that he’d actually hit anything. Then again, thought Samuel, toggling the sight on his combat rifle, pausing to aim would have given the gunner plenty of time to peg him. The gunner was good; Samuel had to give him that, considering how the last few minutes had unfolded.

Samuel looked back the way he’d come and saw the bullet-riddled corpses of two cor-sec troopers laying mangled and bloody on the planks of the dock.

It had all happened so fast. He couldn’t be sure, but Samuel thought it likely that the body of a third trooper was even now floating in the water on the other side of the dock. The rest of Squad Aiken, as they were now called, looked to be in stout cover behind a series of pylons supporting the spires above and the handful of portable flak-boards they had lugged down here with them.