Deathstalker (63 page)

Finlay decided to take that as an exit line and moved back to Evangeline, who seemed to be summing up. Clones. Like Evangeline. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He kept hoping for time to think, but things kept happening so quickly. When he got up that morning, as an elder son and heir of a respected Family, he’d never thought he’d end up down here, standing helplessly by while a clone argued with espers for his life.

He’d never thought much about clones and espers before. They were just there to be used, like other things belonging to his Family. And now here he was, in love with one. Whatever else had changed, that hadn’t. He’d lost his Family and his place in society, and the Empress he’d sworn to serve all his life was now his implacable enemy, but he hadn’t lost his Evangeline. And in the end, she was perhaps the only one out of all of them that mattered. She was still talking eloquently to the esper leaders on his behalf, and there was no one else in the chamber to talk with, so he moved reluctantly back to Hood and the Stevie Blues. For better or worse, they or people like them were going to be his future companions, so he’d better learn to get on with them.

He was an outlaw now. Like Owen Deathstalker. Finlay wished he’d felt more concern over Owen when it happened. He understood more now. Rather than think too much about Owen’s fate, and his own possible future on the run, he nodded lightly to the man with no face. In his time at court, Finlay had made polite conversation with lunatics, eccentrics and monsters of all sorts. He could handle a few disgruntled clones and an esper. And if anything went wrong with the leaders, he could always grab Evangeline and fight and shoot his way out of here. He was the Masked Gladiator, and he’d faced worse odds than this in his time. Actually, he didn’t think he had, but he decided very firmly that he wasn’t going to think about that.

“My apologies for our barging in on you like this,” he said easily to Hood, “but life up above was getting a bit
frantic. Guns firing all over the place, and assassins on our tail. You know how it is.”

“Yes,” said Hood. “We all do. That’s why we’re here. But persecution above doesn’t automatically buy you acceptance in the world below.”

“Right,” said Stevie Three. Finlay admired her leather and chains outfit, and wondered fleetingly how Evangeline would look in it. He realized the clone was still talking and made himself concentrate on her face. Stevie Three smiled nastily, as though she knew what he’d been thinking. “Far as we’re concerned, you’re just another damned aristo who got his fingers burned and came crying to the underground for help.”

“Not that we’re entirely unsympathetic,” said Stevie Two. “Any enemy of the Iron Bitch can’t be all bad. But we don’t take chances anymore. We’ve been hurt too often.”

“Right,” said Stevie Three.

“We don’t carry passengers down here, aristo,” said Stevie One. “No matter who your enemies are. What can you do for us?”

Finlay’s face flushed, and anger sent his hands moving automatically toward his weapons, but he made himself stop in time. It was a fair question. They only knew him, if they knew him at all, as a notorious fop and idler. And the torn and blood-stained clothes he was currently wearing weren’t exactly helping. Still, it had been a long time since he’d had to justify himself to anyone, and he had to stop and think a moment before replying. Knowing several languages and which fork to use first wasn’t going to be much help here.

“I’m a fighter,” he said finally. “Any weapons, any odds. And I’m the best you’ll ever see.”

The three Stevies waited, and then smiled slightly as they realized he’d said all he was going to say. Hood chuckled softly. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You may get a chance to prove that, Campbell. And sooner than you think.”

“What did happen to your face?” said Finlay. “Cut yourself shaving?”

Hood turned away without answering, but all three Stevies smiled. Hood came to a halt beside Evangeline and broke into her speech without apology. “The Campbell is a complication. Valentine Wolfe is his enemy. The last thing we need is a blood feud in our midst. Particularly when so much is happening. Send him away.”

“He comes to us in need,” said the waterfall. “Just as you did once. And he at least has shown us his face and told us his name. Shall we not show him the charity that was shown you? All the world above is his enemy now, as it is ours. They would kill him, as they would kill us. We accept him. Provisionally. Prove yourself, Campbell, and you will be made welcome. Fail or betray us, and we may kill you.”

“Try me,” said Finlay. “My sword is yours.”

The giant hog nodded once, grunted explosively, and then turned its massive head to look at Hood. “You said you had a matter of importance to discuss with us. We are here. Talk.”

“In front of him?” said Hood, gesturing disdainfully at Finlay. “I protest.”

“He is one of us now. Accept him, as we accept you. Talk.”

“Very well. For a long time now, we’ve been discussing various ways of freeing our fellow espers and clones held in prison and condemned to death for their rebellion. Most are held in Silo Nine, also known as Wormboy Hell. A maximum security prison, with esp-blockers by the dozen and a small army of guards. Long considered impregnable, none of our people have ever broken in or out and lived to tell of it.

“We’ve planned to storm it a dozen times, but we always had to call it off. Projected casualties were just too high. But information has come into my possession that changes everything. There’s going to be a complete changeover of the guards this evening, at twenty-one hundred, as the prison’s new security systems are installed. For a short time it’s going to be sheer chaos in there, with new faces all over the place as they yank out the old equipment and plug in the new. The perfect time for us to launch an attack and free all our people rotting in Wormboy Hell. But we’ve got to go
now
if we’re to take advantage of this opportunity. The authorities knew how vulnerable they’d be, so this was kept secret from practically everybody right up till the last moment. I only stumbled across it by chance. I’ve contacted as many of our people as I could reach, and had them prepare for action, but I can’t launch an attack this big without your approval. We’ve got to do this. We’ll never get a better chance.”

The esper leaders turned to each other, and though they were apparently silent, Finlay could all but sense the telepathic
arguments crackling between them. He moved in close beside Evangeline and kept his voice low.

“Fill me in, Evie. A maximum security prison just for espers and clones? How come I never heard of it before this?”

“Not many have. The Empire doesn’t like to admit its conditioning fails as often as it does. Most espers and clones used to die trying to break free of their conditioning, but an increasing number are surviving. The Empire’s tried augmenting the usual mental blocks and controls with tech and chemical implants, but they kill as many as they cure, and there’s always a pressing demand for more espers and clones. We’re so useful. Most failures are locked away in the usual prisons until they can be disposed of. They don’t bother with trials. Clones and espers are property, not people.

“Silo Nine is where they send the hard cases, the ones who fought back. Who questioned their orders or dared to think for themselves. And, of course, anyone found guilty or even suspected of being members of the underground. Officially, Silo Nine doesn’t exist. Which means they can do anything at all there that they feel like. The prisoners become just so many warm bodies, used for experimentation. The Empire’s always interested in improving its stock, or learning better ways to control or discipline it. We’re talking about psychological conditioning, genetic tinkering, and every kind of mental or physical torture you can think of. Some of it works, much of it doesn’t, but there are always more warm bodies to work with. Sometimes, the Empire works changes on them in the name of scientific inquiry. There are monsters in Silo Nine.”

“And Wormboy?” said Finlay.

“He runs Silo Nine. He was human, once. Now he’s become something else, though whether it’s more or less than human depends on who you talk to. He has artificially augmented esper abilities far beyond anything that’s ever arisen naturally. He makes the prison the hell it is and enjoys every moment of it. The suffering and despair of others makes him strong. It’s because of him that no one ever leaves Wormboy Hell alive.”

Finlay shook his head slowly. “I never knew any of this.”

“You never asked. As long as there were always more clones and espers for you to use up as you chose, you never
questioned the system that produced them. And you never asked what happened to the garbage you threw away, did you?”

“All right! I’m sorry. There are a lot of questions I never asked, but I’m asking now. I want to know. Has anyone ever tried to break into this place before?”

“No one that’s lived to tell of it. Silo Nine has state-of-the-art security. Always. We’ve never been able to get past it before, but this could be the break we’ve been praying for. There’s a lot of us who’d give our lives and die happy for a chance to bring down Wormboy Hell.”

Finlay looked at her steadily.
I thought you said I was your life
. “You’ve lost someone to Silo Nine, haven’t you? Someone close.”

“Yes. We all have. She was my friend, before I was a clone and after. She helped brief me on taking over as Evangeline. The only person I could ever really talk to. They came for her in the early hours of the morning, and I never saw her again. Daddy tried to find out what had happened to her, for fear she’d talk, but even he couldn’t get answers about what happens to people inside Wormboy Hell.”

Evangeline fell silent, and Finlay couldn’t think of anything to say. They looked across at Hood, who was talking persuasively again.

“I’ve managed to infiltrate some of my own people into the incoming security forces, and I’ve convinced some of the braver cyberats to run a jamming storm to coincide with our attack. They’ll run interference while we get our people out and keep security from calling for outside help.”

“All right,” said the hog. “We’re convinced. Set things in motion. We’ll spread word throughout the esper network. You organize the clone forces. We’ll begin our attack on Silo Nine in one hour from now. Get moving.”

Hood nodded quickly with his empty cowl, turned away without acknowledging Evangeline and Finlay, and strode quickly out of the chamber. Finlay looked at Evangeline.

“This is all happening a bit fast for me. You’re really going to launch an attack on a maximum security prison just on that man’s word?”

“Of course. We trust Hood. We’ve been given good reason to in the past. And we’ve had plans for an attack for years, ready to take advantage of any opportunity that arose.
We’ve dreamed of this for a long time, Finlay. A lot of blood debts are going to be settled today.”

“But what if it all goes wrong?”

“Then it goes wrong! We can’t miss out on a chance like this; it might not come again for decades. You can’t conceive what it’s like in that hellhole, Finlay. None of us can.”

“That’s not strictly true,” said the abstract pattern in a cool, expressionless voice. Looking at it too closely made Finlay’s head ache, so he looked at it sideways and concentrated on the voice as it continued. “We have contact with one of our people in Silo Nine. She volunteered to be captured and sent there. We spent some time preparing her so that she would appear to break under their interrogation, but still keep the deepest part of herself free and separate. We can listen in, but we can’t speak to her. She knew she was almost certainly going to her death, but she still volunteered, just on the chance that we might be able to make use of her. She was ready to wait for years, if need be. Have you ever cared about anything that strongly in your life, Finlay Campbell?”

“I put my life on the line everytime I entered the Arena,” said Finlay. “But that was just for me. I never cared about anyone except me, until I met Evangeline, and then I only cared about us. Maybe that’s changing now. I don’t know. I’m still coming to terms with … everything. I can’t really understand what life has been like for you.”

Then let us show you
, said the esper leaders, and their thoughts swept over Finlay’s mind like an irresistible tide of blinding light. He was torn away in a rush of thoughts and images, and all he could do was go along with it. He could feel Evangeline’s presence beside him in the churning maelstrom, and that comforted him. He stopped trying to fight it and allowed the esper leaders to take him where they would. He listened, and after a while, thoughts came to him that were not his own.

Jenny Psycho wasn’t her real name, but she had to give that up when she went undercover. She lost a great deal more when the Empire threw her into Wormboy Hell, but she somehow held onto her real name and kept it safe, one last secret hidden deep inside her, where her torturers couldn’t find it. Not even Wormboy himself. To them, she was still Jenny Psycho, captured terrorist. Just as the esper
leaders had planned, though she’d forgotten that. She’d forgotten a lot of things. It was the only way to survive.

She lay curled in a ball, naked and shivering, on the bare concrete floor of her cell. There was no furniture, or any other luxury, just four bare stone walls surrounding a space maybe twice the size of an average coffin, with a ceiling so low she couldn’t stand upright without stooping. They’d dropped her in, sealed the lid shut, laughed, and then left her alone in the darkness. They dropped food and water in through a sliding vent in the ceiling, but no one ever talked to her.

Except Wormboy.

She knew she’d never be allowed out again until it was time to kill her, but she didn’t know when that would be. So everytime the guards came, she was afraid they’d come for her, and scrabbled back to press into a corner, as though she could hide from them. But they only dropped the food and water and went away. Sometimes it was hot and sometimes it was cold in the cell, but there was never any light. She had no idea what she looked like now, but it was probably pretty bad. She hadn’t been able to wash in all the time she’d been there, however long that was. She’d tried counting the meals, but she soon lost track. There was a grille in the floor in one corner that served as a toilet, but not very well. Sometimes she heard things moving underneath it. Live things. Living off her.