Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (21 page)

“If they don’t have their clothes off, help them,” Hendricks ordered.

Mark started pulling off his clothes, shirt first, and that elicited some stares from the Chosen. His tattoo of the EMF was hidden, but his familial one was still visible.

He pulled off his pants. Chosen were going through ripping people’s clothes off.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?!” a woman yelled.

“Oh, we’ll be getting acquainted
real
well, Earther,” the fondling Chosen said, and he ripped her clothes, getting a shocked shriek as he tore the front of her dress off and pulled the back away. The woman tried to cover herself, but she only had a bit of fabric on her shoulders.

Mark averted his eyes, she was a good-looking girl, and the Chosen would quickly break her down. He had seen enough of the non-active implants recording to know what happened in these camps.

“Now I have your attention; this is your lesson. Since you Earthers like to make others work so much for your precious credits and sitting back on your asses, you’re now going to work for your living,” the Chosen talker said. There was still fire in his voice, righteous anger lingering there, but Mark could tell the man had given the speech a number of times before.

“Fuck you I’m no...” a man cried out, and a whip caught him, a bloody line appearing down his chest.

“Earth isn’t here, just Harmony, you try to disrupt Harmony and will learn that your actions have consequences. You will each be given a person to follow, so do what they say and don’t get in the Chosen’s way. You slack off, you start reverting to your Earther ways, then the Chosen will look to sort out your ways. Sykes, get them paired up.” The speaker turned away and headed for an air conditioned air car.

People were crying, scared, with their worlds turned upside down. They were led by Sykes to a row of people who looked half-starved, their eyes lifeless and bored.

Someone started running away, and an air car started up, hitting the person with their bumper, and knocking them to the ground. The chosen beat the person, chucked them in the back and threw them off of the air car as they passed back around.

The person fell in a lump, rolling on the ground. There was a thin dust of metallic sand, and underneath was solid steel and other metals. It did not make for an easy landing, but they got up.

Mark looked to the person he was paired with.

“Hi,” she said, seeming confused as she looked him over.

“Never seen a man before?” Mark growled, reaching down and pulling his pants up. The Chosen wanted to humiliate people, and as long as he didn’t give them ammunition then he wouldn’t get any extra beatings. Some of the threats he’d heard as he was being transported made him sure that the beatings were coming.

It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

He let his shirt drift back down over his chest, then held his zip-tied arms high, and swung them down, bringing his elbows out. The zip ties broke and he was free-ish.

“Just not one like you,” she said.

“Well I’d keep that to yourself,” Mark said, his dark eyes glancing over her and then continuing to take in the rest of the strip mine that the lean-tos were perched on. Long ramps disappeared into shaft mines. Mark could only make them out by the trucks that were rushing to and from them. Everything went to the large factory complex and then back out to the strip mines and underground mines.

“I’m Mark.”

“Caroline,” she said, sounding tired.

“So what do we do now?”

“Now we get what little sleep we can until our shift siren goes up.” She led the way back to the lean-tos and Mark followed. His eyes were still searching, and he made out basic bathrooms, holes in the ground, and a food line at one end of the lean-tos, opposite the strip mines.

Maintenance areas were dotted around, with mining equipment and bell looking things on poles.

Caroline looked back at Mark, suspicion in her eyes, but he couldn’t see much other than her eyes and a scar that ran from her forehead and across her nose.

Mark looked at her in question.

“You think about trying to get lucky and I’ll open you right up,” Caroline said.

“Have you ever killed anyone before?” As soon as he asked the question her face gave the answer.

“Yes, I had to kill my best friend.” Her eyes were haunted and distant as she walked through the shack’s plastic sheeting. Inside it wasn’t much cooler than outside, and people were all over the ground passed out. Caroline and Mark found a spot and lay down.

Caroline kept away from Mark, watching him, her hands inside her sleeves, probably holding a blade. Mark lay down and closed his eyes, firing up his implants.

“Situation?”
Holm asked, his voice tight and professional to cut off personal feelings.

“In the camp, I’m fine. Nothing to report, I’m going to try and get some sleep,”
Mark sub-vocalized back.

“Understood, we are working on things on our side. We will be getting eyes on the area shortly. SWAS is coming in for a visit,”
Holm said, easing out of his professional voice.

“Tell him and everyone to not do anything stupid or rash. We need to finish the mission first,”
Mark’s voice was firm.

“We know, we’ll get it done,”
Holm promised.

“Talk later, stay frosty, Triple Twos,”
Mark said, turning off his communications. He needed to stay in somewhat capable condition until the fighting started, so he went into his augments and adjusted them to keep him as healthy as possible for as long as possible. Thankfully they ran off of batteries that would last a lifetime.

With the rations that the people at the mine were getting, he was going to have to stretch out every meal bar he got. Mark started trying to get to sleep only to have a siren go off.

Caroline moved from her position, she’d passed right out in a matter of minutes. Without any real thought, she and the rest of the camp dwellers started to move out of the shacks to start another day of working in Mining City Twenty-One.

Mark followed Caroline, and Chosen walked through the shacks, yelling and brandishing shock and night sticks. Anyone they caught, or deemed to be slow, went down with a crackle of electricity, or yelled after a brutal hit from a night-stick.

The Chosen beat on people, and Mark saw that few people that had been in the camp for a while paid any attention to the cries.

I wonder how long it will be before I stop caring about their yells and screams?
Mark wondered. His famous anger was simmering under the surface, but he held off, biding his time, his rationality grating against his wants.

***

Caroline walked back to the shacks where Mark was waiting. He’d grabbed water, she’d gone to get food.

“I don’t have it,” she said, expecting him to accuse her of eating it. She didn’t know what she would do when he accused her of that.

She liked Mark, he never made any advances and he was a reassuring presence.

She wondered why a strong man like him was staying around a woman like her. She had seen others do it to use them, but Mark treated her as an equal, listening to her when she talked.

He was a good listener; she’d finally told him about Ellie and the blade, and he hadn’t judged her as they lay on the shack floor, he’d just listened, giving up his sleeping time to hear the fears and tears that she thought she was done with.

When she was done he pulled her to him, his beard touching her head as he hugged her.

“You did what Ellie wanted, what she needed you to do. If you didn’t do it then she would have just suffered,” he said, his voice reassuring, like cold water over her inflamed worries.

“What happened?” Mark said, pulling her down to sit. There wasn’t any accusation in the words, just curiosity.

“Someone took them,” she said, looking away, ashamed. She should have gone the long route, but she’d wanted to get back to the shack quickly and nestle up next to Mark. She felt safe sleeping next to him.

“Who?” He tilted her chin, and his hands were rough but gentle as he lifted her face.

“Some guy with blue pin-stripe shirt, new guy, shack three. I’m sorry, I just wanted to get back quickly.”

“Don’t apologize for the assholes in the world, Caroline,” Mark said standing, the shack’s floorboards creaking.

“I’ll be back, drink some water.” He smiled.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get our dinner back,” he smiled as if he was just going to the cafeteria.

She drank water and waited, her anxiety growing, and frustration boring in her stomach.

Is he going to come back? He might just be leaving to sleep in another shack. Doesn’t want to sleep with someone that loses his food,
her fears and doubts plagued her.

The shack’s plastic boards creaked and Mark walked in a smile on his face.

“Worried about me?” He asked, amused and maybe happy as he sat down and gave her ration.

She noticed his scarred knuckles looked rough. “What did you do?”

“I made sure that he doesn’t steal from anyone again.”

“Are you okay?” The question seemed to catch him by surprise.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” He put the bar into his sleeve to eat it when the next shift started.

With that they laid down and went to sleep. Mark started tossing a few minutes into sleeping, talking in his sleep and sounding panicked.

He rolled over, his arm pulling her on top of him so she was lying on his chest. His face looked pained, scared and close to tears.

Whatever he had been through, it had never left him.

She made reassuring noises, her hands caressing his face. She laid her head down on his chest, making the noises and rubbing his face until she fell asleep to the strong beats of his heart.

There was something different about Mark.

Today they were on road clearing duty. They ran out between trucks, using picks to cut grooves into the slopes that went into the mines.

Caroline and Mark’s shift got hard labor in the shaft mine, and they lost two newbies to truckers. Mark snarled, but he kept on working.

Caroline realized what was different about Mark; he was dangerous. The way he held himself, the way he looked at people, and that body… he didn’t have the body of a person from Osdal Actual.

“Where are you from?” Her voice was low as she slammed her pick into the ground, cutting through the rock. It was hard work and metal flecks hit her arms. Pain was something she’d just got used to, living around Mining Station Twenty-One.

Mark looked at her, his eyes thinning as he struck the ground again. His blows were powerful, sending metal and sparks flying.

“Somewhere far from here,” he said, looking up as the sound of picks died down. A truck was coming out of the mine.

He and Caroline rushed to the side, and a truck came rushing past, then they went back to their lines and continued them across to the other wall.

It was hard work and Caroline’s further questions fell away as they moved lower into the mine, repeating the same grooves and running away from trucks.

Eleven sirens went off and Caroline started to wander back to camp, it would take ten minutes to walk there, ten minutes she couldn’t eat or sleep. She slogged it back, Mark staying with her.

“You going to hurt me?” she asked Mark.

Mark took some time before responding. “No, little Caroline, I’m here to protect you.”

“Okay,” she said, and somehow she knew he was telling the truth. She saw it in the hard lines of his face and the darkness in his eyes. He might be a dangerous man, but having a dangerous man around was comforting to her now. They went through the food line, and Caroline ate the bar on the way to her shack, but it was hard going. Her head was pounding from too little water and too much labor.

She fell onto the shack floor and made to go to sleep.

“Water,” Mark said, pouring some down her throat. She drank it thirstily, half of her already asleep.

Once he was satisfied, he set her down and hid her food bar in her clothes.

She happily passed out, the worst of her headache abating a bit.

That night she dreamed of Mark’s body. The siren came too early and she woke up to find Mark pulling himself up.

“Let’s get this day over with,” he said, holding out a hand to her, and she took it, her scarf hiding her blush as she remembered her dreams.

Even in a place like this her mind tried to escape.

Though why couldn’t it be a spaceship leaving this place and not the hunk I slept beside?

Thoughts on her dreams fell away as they moved to the reporting board. Caroline frowned at the board but it told her and the truck drivers to report to one of the maintenance pads.

She trudged off, Mark following her.

Time to see what these fuckers have lined up for us today.

Chapter
26