Chapter Text
The soldiers grabbed me just outside C-town and hit me with a disruptor before I could show them my pass. Which didn't really matter, since the pass was a forgery. But if I'd only known, I could have kept the clock circuit I'd traded off for it – not that I cared what time it was, but I didn't have a lot of mods I could spare. It had been hard to give it up, knowing I was going to need all the bargaining power I had to get operational and out to the edge colonies. Of course, it didn't matter now that they had me. Nothing mattered now. They'd take me back to the mines, and all my planning and trading and scheming was worthless. Just like what would be left of my life.
I lay there like a heap of scrap metal while they buzzed over my systems. That was the real pisser about disruptors, that they didn't mess with your sensory circuits, so you got to see, hear, and feel everything, but you couldn't do jack about it.
The big one cocked his head; he was receiving a transmission, and I could see the moment the word came back from Central, because he grinned at the two others. "Escaped mine-slave, just like I told you." Something flashed across his screen. The confirmation codes from Central, I guessed.
One of the others made a face. "Remind me not to bet against you again."
"You shouldn't bet your good mods. But you can wait to take it out until we get to the city."
I wondered what he'd bet: a weapons circuit, probably. These guys were loaded down with all their spoils, beams and disruptors and probably a couple of blasters or two, all high Q but nothing they couldn't afford to lose. But that was Rome for you. They'd built their empire on the best cyborg soldiers money could buy, back in the Tech Age, and even after everything went to shit, they still had most of the toys. And you know what they say about the ones with the most toys.
Out here we had always got by with minimum mods. We were just farmers and builders. Nobody needed anything more than a cutting module and the standard utility circuits, plus a few weapons and defenses. Nothing big, just what you'd need to take out a wolfry or keep a raider from getting you. And then the fuckers came out of the sky, decked from eyes to toes – and the real joke was that they acted like they thought they were the human ones. Romebots, we called them. Maybe they were cyborgs once, but if there was anything human left to them it was hidden under mods and metal.
Me, I was still probably sixty percent flesh, but that was because when my clan was taken by Romebots I was on a trading trip. I didn't get parted out, sure, but I also didn't get the mods that were supposed to have come to me when Cunoval went black. I was his heir, so I'd have had the first pick plus the heir's portion – and he was the clan chief, so his mods were the best we had.
But it didn't work out that way. There'd been a fight, and our clan lost, big-time. When I came back from the trading trip, they had been parted out and I was solo, with only my own metal to defend me, and that made me easy pickings when the slavers came through looking for fresh goods. I was in the pit before I even knew what had hit me, my weapons and shields disabled and my optic enhance gone. That had been my best mod that could be taken easy, and the slavers had known it.
The soldiers slapped a lifter on me and hauled me down the road. They had a whole bunch of other local Brigs disrupted and lifted; I couldn't turn my head but it looked like three or four, at least. Nobody I knew, or at least that I could identify right off. But I didn't know anybody anymore, not after two years in the mines.
When we headed towards the city walls instead of back out toward the mines, I figured they were looking for more Brigs to haul in, or maybe heading for an official to turn us in for their percentage. I wondered what they'd take from me. I didn't think they'd be granted both legs, and one by itself wouldn't be useful; and anyway, if they took them, I'd be worthless in the mines unless they had something to swap in. All their weapons were way higher Q than anything on me. The only sensory enhance I had left now that my optic was gone was an aural, and it was pretty good – I could hear a wolfry half a klick away – but I'd bet they had better ones.
But when we came to a stop, I realized they hadn't taken us to the government blocks. A chill went down my skell as I recognized the huge stone building in front of us. Shit. I knew that building, although I'd never gone in it. I'd never wanted to go in it. It was a Romebot thing; a place we Brigs stayed away from, and for good reason.
They'd taken us to the Arena.
They dumped us in a holding cell and turned a regulator on the lot of us. As soon as my systems came online I was up, back to the wall, eyeing the other prisoners warily. They regarded me the same way, of course.
"Don't waste your juice," one rasped. He was a big guy with only one arm; and I don't mean only one module, I mean, there wasn't even anything organic there. I could see the plug where the mod had been, but the edges were crusted over like it had been a long time. "Everyone's offensive mods have been disabled. They don't want us to fight until they can sell tickets."
I wondered how he knew; who he had been before the soldiers had taken him. He wasn't a Brig, not with his height. Probably from one of the other rocks that Rome had taken over. He wouldn't have been a mine-slave, not with only one arm. Normally when the slavers took a major part for their percentage they swapped it out for something basic and low-Q, they didn't just take it off. Maybe he'd fought in the Arena before, and lost, and the winner had claimed his arm.
He must have seen the question in my eyes, because he spat on the ground between us and shrugged. "I was a body-slave to an official. I came with him to the Games a few times."
Body-slave, well. That could mean anything from a house-servant to a sex toy. I jerked my chin towards the empty plug at his shoulder. "How did you lose it?"
"His mod went blinky, so he took mine. Said he'd get me something from the yards to make up for it, but he never did. I think he liked watching me struggle to do things this way. Nothing I could do about it until he went black."
"You wouldn't be allowed to part him out, not an official," I said.
He laughed, but there was no mirth in it. "I tried anyway."
And that was why he was here, of course. That was why we were all here; for crimes against Rome, which for us Brigs meant just daring to exist. Sometimes I wondered why they hadn't just parted us all out; but of course then they wouldn't have the use of our labor. Or be able to watch the spectacle of us fighting it out in the Arena for the promise of a percentage.
So there I was some days later, fighting it out in the Arena for the promise of a percentage. I had almost forgotten how glorious it felt to have all my systems back on. And I even got to enjoy it for what was probably three whole seconds – just a guess, since my clock circuit was now being used by a mine guard – before getting tossed onto the sand in front of a crowd of cheering, screaming Romebots.
"Don't bother. There's a shield at the edge of the stands. You can't touch them."
It was the one-armed man. Except he wasn't any more; now he had a gleaming mod extending from his shoulder, something with a weapon in it – I could see the nozzle – but I couldn't tell what. He held it up, looking at it almost lovingly. "They put me up against a real softie. No skell at all. What do you think of my percentage?"
He extended it towards me, and I threw up my shield and ran. I heard him laughing behind me as he came for me.
I had done a lot of hunting and a little raiding before I was taken for the mines, and I knew how to run, how to dodge a beast or a beam. I had enough juice to keep my shield up for a while. If I could put some distance between us I could hit him with my beam; I should have shot him earlier, but I was still a little woozy from the disruptor they'd hit me with to put me out while they turned my systems back on.
And running was what I was good at. That was my best mod, my legs. They'd come down through the clan, real high Q stuff from the height of the Tech Age. Cunoval had inherited them from the previous chief, but he had just kept them in storage, and when I was old enough that the clan could see my hunting skill, everyone had agreed I should get them, if I wanted. And I wanted.
Of course it wouldn't be like a clock circuit or a wrist shooter. The leg mods came with a serious price, and the clan made sure I knew it before I said yes. They weren't just clamp-ons, they were true cybermods; a couple of years and they'd be so integrated with my own skell that if anyone took them, the flesh would come with the metal. It had been longer than that, long enough that the mods were a part of me now.
So I ran. Which would have been a great choice out in the open, but the Arena floor wasn't all that big, which limited my advantage. Still, I got some distance between us, zig-zagging so he couldn't hit me with anything; then I whirled and shot my beam at him. His shield glowed, catching the power. It was a good one. His arm went up – his old one, not the shiny one. It was still mostly organic with a few weapons circuits along the forearm, and I dodged as something shimmery splashed in my direction.
My shield wasn't as good as his, so I felt the backwash of power and the stuttering of circuits as some of the energy got through. It wasn't a beam like mine but something disruptive, and when I checked systems I could tell it had done some damage. Shit. What was this guy doing with tech like that? And he knew how to use it, too, how to move and shoot at the same time. I'd bet he hadn't just been a body-slave; he must've been a bodyguard.
I zapped him again, with the same ungratifying lack of result, and then I ran. Abuse rained down on me from the stands, and thanks to the aural I could hear every word. Mostly they were variations on "Stand and fight, you worthless scum!" Yeah, no thanks. I dodged another disruptive shimmer but the edge of his third caught me. It cut something out in my left leg, sending me sprawling to the sand. Before I could get to my feet, the guy pointed his new arm at me and something shot out of the nozzle. I was expecting a beam or another shimmer – some kind of ray, at least – but it was physical rather than tech, and it caught me by surprise. What came out of the nozzle was a net, and it covered me and pinned me where I lay.
Shit. This was it, then.
I mean, I could have pulled out my cutter and fought my way through it, or just tried to get the guy with my beam from the ground. But he had his disruptor arm pointed in my direction, and his shields were better than mine. I'd lost, and I knew it.
The guy held up his arms in victory, and the stands went wild. They were all screaming for blood and oil, begging the guy to flame me, to skewer me, to pull me apart one mod at a time. That was the way of Rome, letting the crowd decide, and it was clear they had already decided. There was nothing I could do, so I didn't bother. I just lay there and listened, and waited to go black.
Then I heard a voice. It was almost lost in the noise of the Arena, and I would have missed it without the aural. But to me it seemed to cut like a beam through the frenzied screams. It was quiet but strong, and it went straight to my skell: "Life. Life. Life."
For one moment I felt a surge of hope. I could sit up, struggle against the net. I could show those Romebots it would be worth it to let me live to fight again. Let the other guy take his percentage. I still had plenty of juice.
And what will that get you, Esca? The voice in my head overrode both the crowd's screams and the quiet chant. Nothing, that's what it would get me. Nothing at all. Just like all the work I'd done to get out of the mines had been made useless in the end. I wasn't getting out of the Arena anytime soon. Even if I did, I had nowhere to go. My clan had been parted out for the Romebots. I'd be back on the sand in another day, or another hour, maybe. And I'd be down one mod, so it would be harder to win the next time, and even harder the time after that.
Either I got parted out now, or I'd be parted out bit by bit over the next few hours or days or weeks. It would be easier if I just went black here, on the sand. I stared up at the high domed roof, and waited for the beam.
It didn't come. Instead, little by little, the screaming all around me changed. As I listened, one voice after another picked up that soft, steady chant. "Life! Life! Life!"
The noise built, swelled, rolled over me like a groundstorm. I closed my eyes. I wasn't getting out of this the easy way.
An announcement boomed from the amps, so loud it limited out in my aural. The emcee was reading out the list of my mods so the winner could pick what he wanted. In the middle of his recitation the Arena disruptor hit me, so I lay there like a sack of grain while two goons came and pulled the net off me.
The winner came over and stood in front of me, studying my metal. "The beam on his right arm," he said after a moment. It was what I had figured he'd take. The crowd cheered again.
I thought they might cut it off there and then, but I guess they wanted to clear the sand for the next fight, because the goons slapped a lifter on me, hauled me out a side entrance into a small room, and dumped me onto an op table. Then they started disabling all my mods with a hand-switch so I'd be unarmed when the disrupt wore off.
From where I landed I could see tools lined up on a bench. One of the Arena workers went over and selected a couple, probably the pliers and the cutters. At least the beam was a clamp-on. I'd still have the arm, though it would be marked where the mod had been, the blue lines telling everybody that I had had something there once.
The Arena men were not gentle, and it hurt like a son of a bitch. Even a clamp-on gets to be part of you after you've had it long enough, and I'd had the beam ever since my spear-day, when I was considered a grown man in the clan. I mean, I had a couple aux circuits by then, because you can put them in early – you don't need to wait until your skell's mostly full-grown – but the beam was my first phys enhance, and when my arm got bigger as I got stronger, the prongs grew into my flesh.
It didn't take long. After they were done, they keyed the lifter again and one of the goons started maneuvering me out through another door and into the warren of corridors that filled the back part of the Arena building. It all looked the same to me, but I figured we were headed for the cell that had been my home since they'd brought me in.
"Wait," said the other. I could hear his voice but I couldn't see him, and I couldn't turn my head yet. "I'm getting new orders." After a moment, he laughed. "We're to take him to the pickup gate. Our boy here just got bought."
My heart began pounding. I could hear the blood in my head, as loud as if my aural had been amping it. If I could have screamed for joy I would have. Yeah, okay, I was still going to be a slave. But someone had bought me, and frankly, I didn't care if he wanted me to serve his dinner or suck his cock; I was getting out of the Arena.
I wondered if it had been the one who had started the chant, who had turned the crowd in my favor.
"Lucky bastard," said the one who was running the lifter. He made an abrupt turn and we headed down a different corridor than the one we'd been in.
"Not really. It's Magistrate Aquila's nephew who bought him."
The lifter man let out an unpleasant laugh. "Should have guessed. From the wolfry's teeth into the serpent's gut, my friend," he said, and I suppose he was talking to me. "So that's why he called for life."
So the man who bought me was the man who had saved me. That was good, right? Except then why had the goon said I was going from bad to worse? What did he know?
I found out when the slave who had brought me back by lifter dropped me in the front room of the Aquila place. The disrupt had worn off but of course I couldn't do anything until the lifter was switched off. And when it was, I couldn't do much, with all my mods disabled. I picked myself up off the floor and stood warily in front of the men who had bought me.
One was an older Romebot, a big man with a shock of white hair, and he had the works; integrated optic and aurals, extra circuits across his chest that could have been anything from timers to lookups, and a full complement of military hardware on his arms and legs, stuff of the highest Q. He must have had some serious status and a whole lot of creds to have that much tech. The other held the hand-switch which had been keyed to my mods. He must have been the nephew. He was closer to my age and had the look of a soldier, too, with weapons and shields, but there was a lot more flesh to him than metal.
"Thanks for saving me," I said.
"Against your wish," said the younger one. He was looking at the place on my arm where the beam had been removed.
I looked too, at the blue lines of dead flesh and the red of blood, and the empty plug that looked like a wound. It still hurt, but it wasn't as bad as it had been. Then I shrugged. "An Arena death is better than an Arena life. And it all comes to the same thing in the end."
The older one laughed. "Well said! But where do you suppose an Aquila life lands on that scale?"
I frowned at him. He had said it lightly, as though he really wanted to know. As though we were equals, and I could give him an answer.
Then the young one stepped toward me, and suddenly I got it. I knew why he'd bought me. My blood ran cold and my oil seized up, and I wanted to drop to the floor and cry. Because he walked with a limp. No, worse than that; he shuffled up with one leg dragging. His mod had gone blinky, or maybe it was still organic, severed and dead. I couldn't tell under the metal he wore.
He wanted my legs.
In the mine and in the Arena, I had clung to the knowledge that it would take more than a goon with pliers and cutters to take my legs. True cybermods were a lot more delicate than clamp-ons. They'd have to be cut away carefully to ensure they had full function when removed; lots of little wires and stuff in the plugs, lots of metal struts that were currently fused to my flesh and would need to be individually disconnected. As a bonus – at least from my perspective – I probably wouldn't go black from loss of blood and oil, not with a real mech doing the work. And judging by the Aquila home and the Aquila enhances, he could afford a real mech.
He could probably even afford a set of basic low-Q legs from the yard for me, after. That kind of stuff was worse than organic, and I'd probably limp worse than he did now, but I'd have something. Of course, there was no reason he had to get me anything. He could just have my stumps plugged and stick me on a lifter. He could just let me go black, once he had my legs.
"You bought them," I said dully. "I guess you get them."
He reached out and grabbed my shoulders, which was probably a good thing because I wasn't sure how long I could keep standing on my own feet. His hands were big and strong, with the traceries of metal that spoke of good mods. "You keep them," he said. It was the voice that had cut through the shouting in the Arena: quiet, confident, firm. "I don't need you to crawl at my feet."
"Then why did you buy me?"
There was no immediate answer from either Aquila. It gave me time to think, so I thought out loud. "You bought me from the Arena. That must have cost some creds. But if you had the creds, you could have got yourself a leg from the yards. Maybe even something high-Q from Rome, like he's got." I nodded in the direction of the uncle.
Who smiled widely, much to my surprise. "Marcus, I do believe you've made a fine choice," he said, and he left the room. Now it was just the two of us. The younger one – Marcus Aquila – looked intently at me. He only had a standard optic, like my old one that got taken, so I could see the rest of his face under it: thoughtful, calculating, more open than I'd ever expected a Romebot to be.
If it wasn't my legs, I guess he wanted my ass. Well, he bought it; he could have it. I almost wouldn't mind, because his metal was solid and his flesh was good-looking, and that expression on his face showed he had some brain circuits in his head. Too bad I hated him and everything he stood for.
"Okay," he finally said. He toggled the hand-switch and I felt everything coming online – aural, cutter, aux circuits, shield, legs. I even felt the beam that wasn't there, like it should be there. Like I could power it if I wanted. But the juice ended at the dead plug where my arm ached hard under a pattern of blue lines, and I knew it wouldn't do any good to power the empty space.
I stared at him. We were alone, and I could take him. I didn't have the beam, but I might be able to use the cutter on him. And I could run; with his limp, he wouldn't be able to stop me. I might even make it out without being taken again. Maybe.
"You could run," he said, like he was reading the thoughts right out of my brain circuits. "You might make it. But I've got a better offer for you."
"What do you want, if you don't want my legs?"
"Oh, I do want your legs. Only I want you to use them to help me."
"Help you do what?"
He smiled, a crafty smile. I heard the sub-sonic tap of him keying a command; the slave who'd brought me from the Arena appeared with a chair, and Aquila let himself fall into it. Then to my surprise the slave brought a second chair for me. Marcus indicated that I should sit. The slave brought a tray of food and set it between us; then he slipped out the door. I heard his footsteps tapping down the hall as he left.
"Have something to eat. Our cook's quite good."
I looked suspiciously at the tray. Aquila sighed and picked up a pastry, taking an ostentatious bite from it, so I took one, too. It was the first real food I'd eaten in years; on my own it was just forage and whatever meat I could bring down, and in the mine and the Arena it had been brick rations, nutritious and tasteless.
"Help you do what," I repeated around a mouthful of pastry. It was hot and tart and thick and sweet, like meat and honey combined. I wondered if I dared take a second one. There were two glasses on the tray, and an opaque jug. I wondered what was in it.
"My father had an experimental mod. New tech."
I looked up sharply. New tech didn't exist; everything had been lost at the end of the Tech Age, and we were all left with whatever the mechs could keep running.
He smiled wryly. "Yeah, I know. No such thing. But that's why it's so important." He took another bite, then picked up the jug and filled the two glasses. Water; clean, clear water. I could smell it. My hand was on the glass almost before he put the jug back down; then I whipped it away, suddenly unsure. I was his slave. I shouldn't be grabbing for the water.
"No, go ahead," he said, and I reached back and took the glass. I took a long drink, and I closed my eyes, it was that good. The best water I'd had since forever. Then another bite of the pastry. Oh, I could get used to this.
"So your father had new tech." I tasted the words in my mouth, like I'd tasted the pastry and the water.
"He ran a military lab. They'd worked for years, and they finally had something. It wasn't as high-Q as the best of Old Rome, but it was something that had been made new, you know? He went out past the Wall to test it."
Past the Wall. The pastry went tasteless in my mouth. Nobody went past the Wall, not on purpose. The wolfry were thick there, and the serpents in the water, and the Sealies who, they said, modded their fingers into spikes and ripped people apart with them. They ate their flesh and melted their metal for more spikes. That was what they said.
Marcus Aquila was looking at me like he expected me to say something. I thought a moment. "He didn't come back."
"No."
"Sounds like the mod failed the test, then. If he was taken."
His face went fierce under the optic. "It was an experimental mod. The whole point is to show the world that Rome can make new tech. If we can make new tech, we can do something." He slashed his hands through the air, sending pastry crumbs flying through the air. "So we come in here and take your mods – what's the point? They all go blinky sooner or later. If we can't make anything new, the whole of Rome is going to go blinky in the end. Everything goes blinky. Everyone goes black."
"You think he didn't go black? Your father?"
"I don't know. But if that experimental mod is still out there, we need to bring it back. For Rome."
For Rome, I thought. The last cause I ever wanted to support. But he had bought me, and it must have been expensive. And he wasn't going to take my legs.
"The mod, it had a code-name," he said. "It was called the Eagle."
"And you want me to help you bring it back. For Rome." I laughed harshly. "I hate Rome. I wouldn't piss on Rome if it were on fire."
"If you help me bring it back, I'll give you your freedom. No more mine-work, no more slave-work. No more fighting in the Arena. You would be a part of Rome."
A part of Rome. That would be a hell of a lot better than being parted out for Rome. Not a bad percentage, assuming we survived.
He picked another pastry from the tray and brought it to his mouth. He took a bite, then another. "Then again, your systems are online. You could run," he said. "I can't stop you. My uncle probably couldn't stop you."
"You want me to help you bring back the Eagle."
"I do."
I studied him carefully, and he returned my gaze without blinking. I could run.
Instead I reached out and took another pastry. "Okay," I said. "When do we leave?"