Meritorium (Meritropolis Book 2) (9 page)

“What’s he doing?” Hank asked, fear rising in his voice.

“I believe he intends to
rescue
us,” Orson said.

The man thrust both hands straight up in the air as if summoning a lightning strike. Which, Charley thought, maybe he was. He bellowed out, “You slave traders will be in
those chains
and wearing
that harness
—” he pointed toward the captives—“before nightfall!” His eyes blazed with a strange light. “
Agonistici
, charge!”

Marta’s men were hardened fighters with deadly sharp blades that flashed death and dismemberment indiscriminately in the gloaming light. Marta herself was a fair swordswoman, and what she lacked in quickness, she made up for in clever maneuvering. They chopped and hacked their way into the midst of the Circumcellions with careful precision, bodies falling in their wake. The dusky light glory-striped each fallen martyr, for a moment captured, time immemorial, in a medieval-esque panorama of violence and veneration.

But, for all of that, the battle seemed to shift before Charley’s eyes.

Marta’s men were discovering the difficulties of fighting an opponent with senses dulled by pharmaceutical means and determined to die in spectacular fashion. One young man purposefully let himself be impaled by a sword, only to die shrieking, not in pain, but in glorious ecstasy. Charley’s eyes grew wide as the man, in his dying throes,
pushed himself further onto the sword
, allowing his fellow martyrs-to-be beat the man down with their clubs.

Marta and her men were being pushed back.

Quite suddenly, Charley, Hank, Grigor, and Orson found themselves in the thick of it. Even in chains, Grigor was a force to be reckoned with. Anyone who came near, Circumcellion or slaver, was dispatched of with brutal efficiency. The four of them moved like a slow-rolling tank, trampling all who made the mistake of getting too close. One gaunt Circumcellion, eyes bloodshot and pupils dilated, managed to find himself inside of their harness and was summarily pummeled from four directions at once.

Charley looked frantically for Sandy, but she was lost from view. In the bloodlust of battle, he saw Hank regaining some of his customary confidence. Taking courage from Hank’s newfound resolve, Charley steeled himself to fight on; it was the only choice he had if he wanted to ever have a chance of seeing Sandy again. “Let’s get that one!” Hank called out, pointing to a large man swinging a club in their direction.

Grigor dipped a shoulder, bucked up his head viciously, and entangled the man’s club in his chains. With a knee to his gut, and a double-hammer thump on the back of his neck, the man was down for the count.

Hobbling slowly by him in their chains, Hank looked down. “Come on, Grigor. I meant that I wanted to get him, too.” Charley looked sideways at Hank, who paused for a moment with his foot lifted, before stepping on the side of the fallen man’s head for good measure. Hank looked up, noticed Charley’s gaze, and shrugged.

Charley carried on looking in vain for Sandy, but he took heart after seeing what he thought was the flash of her red hair. It appeared that Marta had wisely sent her to the back of their caravan for safety. Yoked together in their foursome of slave chains and manacles, moving slowly through the mass of shrieking, grabbing, pressing people, Charley felt as if their harness was a slave ship, propelling them through the roiling waves of combatants.

The harnessed quartet continued to subdue anyone foolish enough to come in range. One cult member with legs like sticks cracked his club so hard against Grigor’s shoulder that Charley felt the impact reverberate through the harness and twist his neck to one side. Grigor, seeming not to even feel the blow, merely disarmed the man with a flip of his chained wrists, and then upended him and began to use him, head-first, as a battering ram.

Orson, in a display of acrobatics that was every bit worthy of his High Score and former status as commander, had perfected a maneuver where he would grasp the yoke, and then extend his chained legs like a human flag, rigid and unmoving, until Grigor had lifted him above a target opponent. Then, slingshotting his feet down, he would reverse-boot-kick the unlucky target into the center of their harness, where each of them would contribute to a quick four-way dispatch of the now thoroughly confused subject.

The battle dragged on, each side becoming entrenched, but the sun was close to setting. The old man was now nowhere to be found, likely long ago having been granted his wish of martyrdom. The slaves had not been freed. The purplish-orange smelting across the horizon, coupled with the tawny grassland, contrasted against the spilled crimson blood and violence that littered the foreground of Charley’s vision.

And yet, the battle was turning back to Marta’s favor. She screamed out, “The nets! Now, use the nets!”

Her men, prepared for this pre-arranged signal, used their hunting nets to entangle the last remaining Circumcellions and proceeded to fall on them with abandon, spearing them like fish in a net. If there was any doubt about Marta’s willingness for violence, this settled the question.

Charley looked back, continuing to watch Marta and her men skewer the Circumcellions trapped in the nets. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Charley had seen violence, and a lot of it. But this was horrific. His stomach roiled. Maybe the Circumcellions weren’t the animals. Maybe Marta and her men were.

Charley looked around at the fallen bodies, many never to rise again because of his own hand.

He swallowed, the saliva sticking in his throat. Maybe they were animals, too.

“Well, that was a close one.” Marta, slaked in blood, walked back to her captives. “Let’s get moving.”

Charley trudged ahead. Lifting his head, his pulse quickened. Despite their present predicament, against all odds, they
had
actually made it.

He could see something peeking just over the darkening horizon.

Meritorium.

CHAPTER 6

Civilization

“
I
bet you’d like to get out of that harness, huh?” Carter sauntered up, a strip of jerky in hand. It heartened Charley somewhat to see that Marta and her men had to eat the same foul-tasting stuff for breakfast that they did.

Charley remained silent, more from exhaustion than by force of will.

Carter continued his morning stroll, making an attempt at bravado, but Charley noticed he still maintained a cautious distance from the slaves in the zippo harness. Charley, Hank, Orson, and Grigor sprawled on the ground in a pile of straw, half-sitting, half-laying, in whatever semblance of comfort they could manage while still harnessed together.

It had been a long night.

They were in stables on the outskirts of Meritorium. The air was rank with the smell of dung—both animal and human, Charley suspected. Their own pot in the corner was not something any of them wanted to linger over; the four slaves had quickly realized that they were only cattle to their owners. Charley looked down at the Score on his arm: 173. They were valuable cattle, and so treated with greater care than the others, but they were cattle nonetheless.

Hank stirred, groggily shooing his hand in Carter’s direction. “Beat it, loser.”

“Adios, I think I’ll go explore around town,” Carter said. “Too bad you can’t come.”

Charley watched silently as Carter walked away, free. Free to do as he wished. Charley looked at their chamber pot in the corner of their stall, surrounded by insistently buzzing flies. Not even free to relieve himself in private. Funny how many little things one takes for granted.

Charley looked at Orson and Grigor, each with eyes closed, but Charley suspected well awake. They were wisely getting whatever manner of rest they could, while they could, preparing for whatever lay ahead. Something he knew he should emulate. He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop thinking.

The dank musty smell of manure mingled with the crispness of the hay. Even with his eyes closed, Charley couldn’t mistake their surroundings. There was something else he could just faintly sniff: animals. Probably lots of different animal combos, of varying sizes and shapes, if Marta’s son Jameson was to be believed. Charley hadn’t seen or heard from him since their hunt preparations. He wondered if he had known of his mother’s plan.

And Sven, where was he? Charley knew that Sven and the other Low Scores would be even worse treated in Meritorium. A fly settled on Charley’s ear, and with eyes still closed he shook his head to dislodge it, trying not to think about what had likely been the fly’s most recent destination. He sighed. His one consolation was that it seemed like they would all be safe from any real harm for at least a few days—until the Venatio began.

But then, if the Venatio was anything like the ancient Roman event it was modeled after, Charley knew things would change in a most violently abrupt way.

***

“You know—” Marta eased herself down on the log beside Sandy—“the scoring system was one of the best things that could have ever happened for us women.”

Sandy fought the urge to pull away. “How so?”

Marta extended a piece of jerky, which Sandy reluctantly took. “Well, you and I both know that men want to make things all about them.” She turned down her lips and mimed a high-and-mighty expression. “Men are more important; men are in charge; women are just second-class citizens.” Marta spat, her wet loogie glopped on the dry ground by her feet, shriveling the dust inward. She scuffed it out with the toe of her boot and looked up. “Am I right?”

Sandy shifted uncomfortably, thinking about Charley. She loved him, really she did, but why was it assumed that he should be the one to lead them? And why did he have to treat her like she didn’t have anything valuable to offer? It certainly wasn’t
her
temper and lack of self-control that was constantly getting them into trouble. She lifted her head to meet Marta’s eyes, trying to keep her gaze neutral. Whatever her misgivings about Charley, she wasn’t quite willing to just go along with Marta’s polemic, but she certainly didn’t want to antagonize her. “Sure.”

“But here’s the thing …” Her eyes bored into Sandy. “Now the men are no longer in charge; the
System
is in charge
. It’s a cold, hard numbers game: High Scores win, Low Scores lose. I won’t pretend it’s not a harsh reality, but it’s a fair reality. Man, woman, old, young—it doesn’t matter; it’s all about your Score. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Cruelty applied equally is still cruelty,” Sandy said, chewing the horrid jerky with her head down.

“Some would call it justice,” Marta continued, unperturbed. “For many years, women have contributed more to society than we ever got credit for. And what thanks did we get in return?”

“I don’t—”

“Zip. Zilch. Nada. Instead, we got reduced wages, delayed voting rights, and that’s just in the so-called civilized pre-Event world. Most of the world had it even worse: sex-selective abortions, female genital mutilation, child brides, gendercide, sex trafficking—need I go on?”

“Yes, but—”

“And don’t even get me started on
racial equality
.” Marta spat the words out, her eyes blazing. “Look at me.” She drew herself up, thrusting her chin in the air. “You may not remember, but pre-Event I was nothing but a stereotype—a proud black woman. If I have an opinion, then I’m just another angry black woman. Why is it that if a man has an opinion, he’s a man, but if a woman has an opinion, she’s just an old battle-ax? Huh, answer me that? Let alone a black woman with an opinion. Now, though, I’m a businesswoman. And a darn fine one at that.” She rose, lifting her forearm toward Sandy. “All that matters now is my Score.”

“Is that why you’re even talking to me?” Sandy asked quietly. “Because of my high Score?”

Marta paused, her obsidian eyes glinting. She spoke slowly. “You are a girl—a woman, with a high Score in a society that values Score above all else. Above gender, above race—it’s all about your Score. We are in a difficult time, sure.” She made a gesture at Sandy’s chains. “But we are in an unprecedented time.” She crouched down to look Sandy in the eyes. “Your entire value is summed up by that Score. You can use it. You can be anybody.” Marta’s eyes shone with a feverish gleam, and Sandy suddenly realized that Marta had ambitions far beyond being a successful businesswoman.

“But—” Sandy started to say, then paused as an image of the little girl sentenced to the Meritropolis gates flitted across her mind. “But what about all of the females with low scores? The little girls, the old women, the low-Score baby girls still in the womb, those that nobody wants? What about them? Just because we changed the measuring stick for prejudice, it doesn’t make us any better.”

Standing, Marta’s lips creased into a wide smile. “Finish your jerky.”

As Marta strolled away, Sandy thought she heard her say something that sent a shiver rippling straight down the hairs on the back of her manacled neck.

I’ve got plans for you.

***

When Charley awoke, he was alone and trussed up like a durkey about to be skinned. Which is to say, hanging upside down. He thrashed around, bucking at his restraints, but the movement only caused the blood to rush even faster to his head. He arched his back, drew his head as high as he could, and then snapped his body downward in a contortive blast, hoping that his momentum, aided by gravity, would snap him free.

“Ooowee, I like this one!”

Charley craned his head up to see who had spoken, his chains slowly spiraling him in circles.

“This one’s got fire, I can tell. I know heart when I see it.”

Charley caught a glimpse of a short, square-jawed man with bright orange hair who was stroking his goatee. He chuckled. “And, believe me, I know a temper when I see one, too.”

Charley felt a jab in his ribs. “What do you say, boy? You got a temper?” Another sharp poke in his stomach followed. Charley jerked up his head, attempting a head-butt in the general direction of the abuse.

“Oooh, yes you do. You can’t even hardly help it, can you, boy?” Charley felt himself pulled to a halt and the spinning mercifully stopped. Cornflower-blue eyes sized Charley up from a craggy face thick with orange stubble. “The anger’s just there, isn’t it? You don’t need to work it up; it just kind of explodes, doesn’t it?” The man took a step back and stroked a finger across his freckled cheek, still appraising him. “I know all about that.”

Charley remained silent. He tried to look around the room. It appeared to be another stall in the same stable, but he couldn’t see much of anything. Where were the others? Charley wondered if they had been given another sedative before being put in the stables. His wakefulness and memory were patchy. An upside-down Marta entered his field of vision, and Charley began thrashing like a swordfish on a hook, screaming out every insult he knew.

The red-haired man took another step back. “He does talk after all.” His eyes twinkled, looking very much like some kind of leprechaun bodybuilder. “And such a vocabulary, too.”

Charley calmed himself forcibly. Marta stayed well back, apparently unmoved by his outburst. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Charley took a deep breath.

The man looked at him curiously. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Charley.”

“Come on, Ian,” Marta interjected. “You’ve seen enough. You know this is just a personal favor to you. You can inspect him along with all the others at the public auction. Besides, you know you’d take him sight unseen with that Score.”

Ian turned to Marta. “It’s true. And I thank you for the opportunity to see such a fine specimen.”

He strode up to Charley and cuffed him sharply on the side of his head. “Hold on to that temper, boy. It’s all you’ve got to keep you going now.” He walked away behind Marta and called out over his shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you later; don’t you worry.”

Charley rotated slowly, an upside-down spinning piece of meat; bagged, tagged, and ready for the butcher’s block.

He was alone, again. No better than a common animal, and about to be sold. He bit his lip, fighting back hot tears that slid in rivulets up his forehead and splashed little salty droplets on the hay-strewn floor below.

But he wasn’t totally alone.

The man was right: his anger kept him company. He nursed the rage, spiraling deep and dark down inside his soul like the chains swirling him slowly around.

Anger was an unforgiving, demanding cellmate—but it beat being alone.

***

Sven’s face flushed red. He was naked, save for a small strip of cloth that scarcely covered his crotch. He assumed it was so that he and all of the other Low Scores could be searched. Their weapons were confiscated, their clothes were piled away to be sold or burned, and any other personal possessions were outright stolen by their captors. Sven suspected that the primary motivation behind his new one-piece wardrobe was pure humiliation.

Humiliation, he had to admit, seemed to be an effective crowd-management technique. They had been stripped, hosed down like farm animals, and were now being herded into what could only be described as a livestock pen. It was made of slatted metal and corroded by what looked to be years of use. The smell of stale urine and fear rose like incense to the idol Moloch.

Sven staggered forward, bumped and jostled from all sides by other shivering captives. Teeth chattering, arms clasped across his narrow chest, he fought to keep himself upright.

“Let’s go, keep it moving!” A lanky youth, not much older than Sven, shouted at a slipping, sliding girl of about fourteen, who was falling behind as he herded them into the pen. The boy gave her a push forward with the heel of his boot, his lips splitting to reveal crooked teeth protruding like misshapen kernels of corn above a wisp of youthful corn silk desperate to be facial hair.

The girl scrambled to her feet, crying all the way into the pen.

Sven lowered his head. If Charley were here, he wouldn’t let himself be led into an animal pen. Not quietly. And he certainly wouldn’t stand by meekly as a poor little girl was abused right in front of him.

Sven slowly lifted his head, peering out from under a strand of wet hair that flopped in front of his dark eyes. He lifted a hand, blue with cold, and brushed the hair out of his eyes, slicking beads of water across his forehead.

The guy with the crooked teeth was walking just up and to the side of him.

Sven slowed. Feigning a stumble, he fell to one knee and scooped up a glistening rock he’d spotted. Returning his arms quickly to cross his chest, he slid the cool contours of the rock gently around in the palm of his clenched fist.

They were almost to the pen.

He slipped to the back of the pack; he would be one of the last to enter the pen. He knew he would only get one shot at this. Even if it went wrong, at least he could console himself that he had done something. If there was anything he had learned in Meritropolis, it was that apathy was the enemy. Inaction just brought more doubt and fear; but action begets confidence. And Sven was tired of feeling worried and scared.

He lowered his hand, tightly clenching the hard, solid reassurance of the rock.

Mr. Crooked Teeth, all six feet of his lanky, girl-abusing frame, leaned against the open gate to the pen, his languid movements displaying a disregard for the last of the Low Scores that trickled in, their heads down. His mouth was open, teeth sprocketing in all directions, a casual look of contempt wrinkling up his hooknose as a little boy ran into the pen sniveling.

Sven stopped. He threw the rock before he really even thought about doing it. He had the faintest impression of thinking about those teeth, but he didn’t aim. He just launched the rock as hard as he could, so hard that he slipped forward a little, and hopped twice to bring himself to a stop.

The rock crashed through teeth like a baseball through a window. A sound like broken glass was followed by a choking cough. Doubled over at the waist, eyes bugging out and spitting shards of bloody teeth onto the ground, the youth made a gagging sound, before expelling a smooth little object onto the ground.