Beyond the Rim

Not again, I thought over and over again, trapped in the force field. This can’t be happening. I was free. I had talked to my sister. We were going to see each other soon. I was going to rescue Rock…

Comet nodded in rhythm to some tune in his comlink as we flew over Eastern City, back toward the east coast. Over miles and miles of buildings beneath clouds that seemed to have overcast the entire continent.

“This isn’t a bad job, you know,” said Comet. “I bring in low-profile slaves that only the radicals are crazy enough to pay for, and then I capture or kill ‘upper class’ slaves like you for quite a handsome sum. When I heard what Navarre was offering for you—well, I wasn’t going to let another hunter snatch that prize.” He smiled back at me, revealing razor-sharp canines. Nice tooth job, I wanted to say, but I doubted I had much of a voice left, even if the force field would have let me speak.

Come on, I told myself. You got out before; you can get out of this one.

But despite my best efforts, I felt little hope. Somehow I doubted Dagan would come back for me. It was too much of a risk. And who else would find me? Even if Stace hadn’t forgotten all about me, I didn’t know how she could get me out, despite her resourcefulness.

The Coronade reappeared, its elegant furl half-swallowed by clouds. My heart flipped over. No. I can’t be here again. I am not a slave!

The car hovered near the side of the building, and a window opened. Comet shut off the force field, then pushed me in through the window. I fell on the floor on my hands and knees.

We were inside a steel-gray octagonal room that looked like a vault. A shiny pole stabbed through the middle of the floor. The floor slanted slightly where the pole disappeared.

A door opened, and Navarre strode in, a large bot without a face floating on her left, a tall young man with a shock of white hair on her right. Navarre wore a black skintight suit, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Thank you, Comet, for bringing my property back.”

“My pleasure.”

She passed her hand over his, completing their transaction while I watched from the floor. “Now you may go.”

“Can’t I stay for the fun? I’m good at interrogations.”

“So am I.” She smiled tightly. “Until our next meeting.”

Comet, a disappointed look on his face, stepped out to his waiting car.

Navarre regarded me for a moment; I shifted under her gaze. Then she waved the white-haired man forward.

“What do you think, Kohl?” she said. “Something you can work with?”

“Oh, yes, definitely.” He grinned.

“Take him,” she told the bot. It floated forward and grabbed me by the arms, hoisting me up and carrying me over to the pole. It pressed me against it and I stuck there as if to a magnet.

“Cut off his clothes,” she said.

Its sawblade finger cut through the beautiful clothes that I’d borrowed from Dagan. They suctioned through the small hole around the base of the pole. I shivered in the cold, trying not to think of the last time I’d been unclothed before Navarre.

She stood in front of me, Kohl at her right, the bot hovering at my side. “Now, slave,” she said, “I need to know about Dagan. He is clearly not one of us; the very fact that he freed you betrays him. What we want to know is who he works for. I want you to go over everything he spoke to you about. Something you might not see as important, I might.”

I was not about to betray Dagan. He’d tried to free me. I owed him, even if it hadn’t worked exactly the way we’d planned.

“We could discuss it over dinner,” I said.

Navarre gave one of her cold, ironic smiles. “Yes, we could. Then afterwards we could have an evening like we shared before.” She stepped forward and ran one fingernail down my chest. “Would you like that?”

Ice sleeted down my spine at her words. I struggled against the invisible bonds, but the force field yanked my limbs back, slamming them against the post.

“Now, now,” she said. “We can’t have that.” She kissed my lips. “Don’t you remember how it was?” She kissed my cheek, then nibbled my ear. “This is what you like, isn’t it?” She bit my lip, hard. The hot tang of blood seeped into my mouth. She laughed and continued to kiss me; I clenched my jaw shut and wouldn’t move one muscle.

She licked the blood from her lips and stepped back. “There are things I would like to know. For one, I would like to know why Dagan released you. Why would he bid so high for you and then hand you over to the radicals? What kind of game is he playing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is he working for?”

I didn’t know. I wouldn’t tell her even if I did.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “If you don’t want to talk, there are always other things we could do together.” Her hand wandered across my chest and stomach, and she ran her finger lightly across my hip.

“Please…”

She brushed my hair back tenderly and whispered in my ear. “Tell me about Dagan, please.” She traced my upper lip, then ran her finger down to the hollow beneath my throat and up over my Adam’s apple. “I’m asking nicely, but I don’t have to. You are nothing. What I want is everything. You will tell me, one way or another.”

“Can’t you just use a dreamcatcher? Even a truthteller would be okay.”

“Dreamcatcher. Few outside of the spygame know about those. Did Dagan use one on you?”

Even without trying to, I had given him away. I would not say anything from now on.

“What did he ask you?” She grabbed my throat.

Her metallic nails dug into my throat. I gasped for breath. She won’t get any answers this way, I thought vaguely, and hoped for unconsciousness, if not death.

She let go. I gulped in air; it wheezed into my burning throat.

“Who is Dagan working for?”

I stayed silent. I didn’t know whether I could talk anyway.

She shook her head and stepped back. “Okay, Kohl, see what you can do with him. I wouldn’t doubt he breaks by the end of the day, but if he doesn’t, we might have to resort to other methods.”

Kohl stepped toward me. “Well, let’s see.” He had a rather handsome face, but there was something off about it; perhaps the fact that his smiling eyes did not match the thin line of his mouth, like a predator secretly laughing at the struggles of his prey.

He regarded me for a moment. “Yes, I can work with this. He’s very nice, very basic. That pristine skin and red hair. His reactions, too. Very expressive. You can see the fear in his eyes; he doesn’t hide it. And yet there is a strength to him—he doesn’t collapse into a quivering mass. He’s defiant. Yes, a very interesting subject for my holo. Of course, we’ll have to edit out the parts where you ask the questions.”

“Of course,” said Navarre, hand on her chin.

“We’ll stick with the classics for this one.” He opened a door in the bot’s chest and took out a control pad. He tapped his fingers over it, and the force field around the pole shifted. It pushed my arms up above my head, my legs against the pole. The he took something else out of the bot’s chest. A whip with three strands.

He lashed the whip into my chest. Before I could recover, the whip thwacked down again. It wasn’t electric, but there must’ve been tiny barbs in it, because it snagged against my skin as he pulled it off.

Slap! It snapped against my face and the end of one strand embedded in my cheek. “I don’t want to tear the flesh too much,” said Kohl, and gently unhooked it from my skin.

He continued, lashing ten more across my chest— I counted and then the numbers blurred—my mind blurred— I wondered, why don’t they use drugs? It’s more efficient but maybe they enjoy this somehow—

The pain made my stomach stir sickeningly. I told myself, Think of something else. Only way to get through this.

Think of the outside—wind, and sun on my face—no pain, only warmth—skimming into the air with Stace—

The whip stopped and the force field shifted. It turned me upside down, my lacerated chest pressing into the pole. I couldn’t help but cry out. He pressed something small and cold against my back and twisted, tiny barbs cutting into my flesh. He pushed one into my leg, shoulder, face. A moment later shocks burst into me from the one on my back, surging through me, burning hotter and hotter until nothing but pain blazed through my mind.

As soon as it stopped, another one fireworked, this time on my face. He set each one off one by one, then all of them in concert, a constellation of fire—

I was shivering. Shaking with shock. Upside down, a bitter liquid pooling in the roof of my mouth.

The force field let go and I plummeted to the floor, my neck twisting sideways. I half-caught myself with my arms and lay there, pain lancing through me. A warm liquid was beneath me; I didn’t want to think what it was.

Somewhere above me a voice said, “Take him away and clean him up.”

I knew nothing after that but a whorl of pain and fear, light hurting my eyes, and then blessed nothingness.

Light streamed in through the window. I lay in bed, breathing deeply, the nightmare shaking away from my mind with the return of consciousness. I’d probably hit my head on some adventure with Rock, and Vega had to come rescue me…Speaking of which, where was she? I waited for her to come in with a bowl of homemade soup and a peanut butter sandwich.

I lay there for a while, soaking in the sun, letting the nightmare dissipate. But when she didn’t come, I began to wonder. This room, for one. It didn’t look like my room at Vega’s, and it certainly wasn’t my dorm. Maybe we were somewhere else, but why couldn’t I remember?

I slipped out of bed, and found I was completely naked. The nightmare flashed through my mind, but I cut it off. I wrapped the sheet around myself and walked around the room, looking for some clothes. I punched open the stash, but it was empty.

Where was I? Was it possible that I was still—

I turned away from the window. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to be somewhere else as long as possible.

I sat down on the bed again, and the sheet slipped from my chest. Pink, still-healing slashes raked across my skin.

So it had been real.

I got back up, looked out the window. Sure enough, there were the familiar buildings surrounding the Coronade.

I grabbed the red curtain in my fist and screamed.