Broken Slate, Chapter 06
A few days after returning from the End at Harper’s, Martin was with Pia in the kitchen, helping him sort potatoes, when Campus Labor Security banged on the front door. Lila, who had been cleaning silver, rubbed her hands on her apron and went out to answer it. She returned in a moment, puzzled. “They say we have to report to the commons. Campus Security do. All us contracts.”
Martin’s stomach jumped. He looked at Pia, who was staring back.
“They talking to Lord Strauss,” Lila said. “What is it?”
“Fucking crap,” Martin said. “Who?”
Pia shook his head. He didn’t know.
Deja pushed the kitchen door open. His expression was annoyed. “You come straight home when it’s done. Understand?”
Martin’s heart was beating jaggedly.
Deja watched them put their coats on. The road was filled with all the contract labor from their street. A Redback checked them off his list, and they joined the contracts lined up in the gutter. Martin had been on estates when this got done, but he had never seen it happen in a city. He could hear the helo coming, the pound of its engine deep in the bones behind his ears.
“What is it?” Lila whispered to Pia, who hushed her. Martin shot her an annoyed glance.
It was over a hundred CLS among the contracts lined up on the commons, more than Martin had known worked the university. Studying them, he saw they mostly wore mismatched uniforms – Julian Transit Security trousers and Campus Labor Security shirts, for instance. Someone had cobbled together a huge Security force for this occasion. He lifted his head a bit more, to see why: a sea of cots working the university, that was why. Someone was nervous, enacting justice among so many contracts. He watched the helo sink from the clouds.
“But what is it?” Lila whispered.
Pia took Lila’s hand and began speaking in the undertone that contracts used when they didn’t want holders or bosses to hear. Her eyes grew wide.
The helo landed on the green space, the area where students held parties during the End. Martin realized no students were around. Lila had started to cry. She tried to hide her face against Pia’s shoulder, and a CLS shouted, lunging toward them. The contracts around them shoved at her, and Pia pushed her upright. “You have to watch,” he said. If you didn’t watch, Security waded in with their sticks, and they didn’t much care who they hit, either.
She kept crying, but she stood up. The Redback glared, pacing back and forth. Martin watched past him, at the helo on the field. The door was opening. Labor Security dumped not one but two contracts out. No one he knew, he saw. He swallowed. They were young. No shock there. They almost always were young. He heard Pia swear under his breath, and glanced over. “Britt,” Pia said. “That’s Britt. The girl.”
Martin looked back. One was a girl, about fifteen years old. The other was a boy, maybe twenty or twenty-one.
Lila was really crying now.
They were both filthy, bruised, exhausted. Labor Security hauled them stumbling to the flagpole.
Nothing got said. Nothing ever got said. Martin reckoned they figured lectures were wasted on cots. The Redbacks pushed the girl to her knees – she wailed – and the one with the Lopaka shot her. Blood and brain on the nice flagstone paving. Martin’s muscles had jerked at the gunshot. Her body fell. The boy cried out. They pushed him down next to her. He vomited on the ground and the one with the gun shot him too.
The Security with the coal oil tipped it over their bodies, dousing them heavily. The third Security, the one with the rope, tied it around their ankles. Once they were good and soaked, he hauled them up the flagpole. Then he flicked his torch and caught them alight. Lila collapsed on the ground. Martin dragged her back to her feet before Security could get to them. Pia kept his arm around her after that, keeping her up.
They stood on the commons, watching the bodies burn in the shining afternoon. The smoke coiled black against the bright sky. Security prowled back and forth, making certain they all saw it all. Not until the young dead were grinning bone and charred muscle was anyone let to leave.
What was known ran from house to house – Britt and York, secret lovers, and his contract had been sold. He had been about to be shipped down to the Rice Islands. He had been a tech in the radiology labs in Van Eyck, and had reckoned that he could null their chips with high-dose X-Rays.
“Hopeless lackwit,” spat Pia. “Couldn’t he do five minutes research?”
Martin, who had been drinking steadily since returning from the Commons, grunted. Everyone knew simple radiation wasn’t enough. It was about six hundred posts out on the subject, not to mention if this York had bothered to ask any cot older than twelve, well. Everyone knew Republic Labor Security had built the identity chips with radiation shields just so contracts couldn’t fuck with their chips by fucking about with radiation sources. Everyone knew that. He got up for more rum. “How’s Lila?”
Pia, mixing the sponge for tomorrow’s bread, took a furtive glance at the door to the main part of the house. “I sedated her. Don’t tell him.”
Martin grinned. “Don’t reckon you’d sedate me?”
Pia shrugged, uneasily.
“Just messing.” Martin knocked back more rum. “How well you knew her? That Britt?”
“I knew her mumma.” Pia shook his head. “They were convicted for immoral lifestyle. The parents. Her mumma asked…but how could I watch over her?”
“Not your fault.” Martin finished the rum in his glass. He wanted more. He was always going to want more.
Deja was in the doorway. “Why are you still down here?” he demanded.
Martin got to his feet, overbalanced, and caught himself on the table. “Just coming up.”
In the bedroom, Deja scowled. “You’re drunk.”
“I am,” Martin agreed, taking off his shirt.
“It’s disgusting.”
“Right. Not like burning two kids to cinders. That’s charming as all fuck.”
“What?” Deja asked, dangerously.
“Sorry. My filthy irrational reaction to seeing justice done. Contract ethics, field in my blood, ain’t actually help it, can I?”
Deja stood scowling. Martin gave him a sunny, drunken smile and went to clean his teeth. He was thinking about vomiting as well. He couldn’t seem to get the stink of roasting children out of his mouth.
Deja came to the doorway. He had taken off his belt and was holding it. That made Martin nervous. “It was justice,” Deja said. “The penalty for attempted escape is execution. Every one of you knows it.”
Martin spat toothpaste. He tried not to look at the belt in Deja’s hand. “You make sure of that.”
“Which is exactly the point of making you watch these things. To be sure you know what will happen if you try to run.”
Martin rinsed out his mouth and spat again. His stomach was wildly unsteady. If Deja decided to use that belt, it was nothing he could do about it. He could feel the nerves prickling up along his back.
“So it’s not like either of them didn’t know,” Deja said.
“No, sir.” He spat again. “I’m going to take a shower,” he added, when Deja kept standing there. “All right?”
“Whatever you like,” Deja said. He went away.
Martin leaned on the sink, relief and terror sweeping through him. After a moment, he vomited into the basin. Mostly rum. When he was done, he didn’t feel any better. He rinsed out the basin, set the shower on high, and climbed in. It was his third shower since the burning. None of them were making him feel cleaner. He scrubbed himself all over and soaped his hair twice, letting the water run at its hottest. He still felt queasy and light-headed. After standing a long while under the rushing spout, he reached, half against his will, to put his hand against his own shoulder blade: the hard hot knot under the scarred skin and muscle where his own chip was planted in the bone.
Up in the tank of the naval frigate. They’d been dragged out six at a time, strapped down in the surgery. Hold still. It’ll hurt worse if you move. It had, too. The physician had used a kind of hand-steered injection drill. Republic Labor Security had held Martin, strapped belly-down, while the chip was inserted into his shoulder bone, while he screamed. He had lain gulping in pain, listening to it get done to the rest. No pain patches afterwards; just immuno-boosters and bug patches and Labor Security standing over them while they watched a clip about how the identity chips worked, how easily they could be tracked now, how swiftly they would be caught, what would happen after that. Dumped back in the tank, his shoulder bone and muscle throbbing, he huddled in the corner of the cabin he shared with five other contracts. Fourteen years old. Idiotically certain, in his misery and grief, that nothing could be worse than this.
He dug his fingers against the knot in his bone, his teeth clenching hard. Then he shut off the water and climbed out.
It was about a week later that Deja told him he would be starting as Harper’s research assistant after the End. Martin put down his fork.
“I said I wouldn’t sell you,” Deja said cheerfully, slicing into his Lamb Tayib. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t rent you.”
Martin sat looking at him.
“Day work only.” Deja winked, like this was funny.
Martin looked down at his plate, and made himself start eating again.
“Look at me,” Deja said. Martin did, after a moment. “What’s the trouble?”
“Not a thing, sir. I’m sure it will be fine.”
Lila came in with the vegetables. Deja waited, his jaw set, while she served them. When she had gone out, he snapped, “If you can’t speak decently to me, you can leave the table.”
Martin got up, put his chair in its place, and left.
Once upstairs, he regretted his rash act; but on the other hand, he was still furious. He paced, swearing. Downstairs, the outer door shut. He went to his window, and saw Deja striding down the lane. His stomach flinched. Deja never left the table in the middle of a meal. Uneasy, Martin rested his hand on his belly.
He went over to his armchair and flung himself into it. He never had gotten his handheld back from Harper, but Deja had gotten him another. He flicked it on and did his best to work on an abstract for Deja. Though if he was working for Harper now and not Deja, why should he, he thought, fuming again. He hadn’t gotten far in any case before Pia came tapping on the door, shouldering it open without waiting for an answer. He had a tray with a bowl of soup, its smell meaty and heavy. The scent did Martin in. He bolted for the pisser.
By the time he came out, shaken, coated with icy sweat, Pia had taken the food away and had a mug of hot tea and ginger instead: Pia’s cure for bad bellies.
“When do you plan to tell him about this?” Pia wanted to know, talking about the vomiting.
“It’ll stop.” He took the tea, but didn’t drink it. He was trying not to smell it, even.
“It’s been weeks. It hasn’t stopped yet.”
“It ain’t. Not weeks.”
“Since just after he bought Lila. Since you went up to Paris that time. You vomited on the train. You’ve been getting sick since then.”
Martin moved his shoulders uneasily. “It’ll stop,” he repeated. “It always does.”
Pia frowned at him. “This has happened before?”
Martin put the tea down on the worktable. “I’m sorry I annoyed him,” he said, since he knew this was why Pia was here. “I’ll handle it. I will. I’ll make sure he takes it out on me.”
Pia frowned deeper, brushing at a stain on the lap of his overshirt. “It’s not just that. It is that, yes. You put him in a rough mood, you’re not the only one suffers from it.”
“All right.”
“But that’s not all of it,” Pia said doggedly. “I think he is trying to help you. Best he can, Martin. Do you know many holders would? Would it hurt you to notice?”
Martin lowered his eyes. His stomach hurt, a fierce lance of queasy pain. He hid it as completely as he could.
Pia rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s not my issue.”
“You’re the cook.” Martin forced his mouth to smile. “Of course it’s your issue.”
Pia sighed. “Well, I think you should tell him about this vomiting, too. He needs to know.”
“If it ain’t stop, I will,” Martin lied. He would do no such thing. Deja hated it when he was sick.
Pia nodded glumly and headed for the kitchen. Martin waited until he was all the way downstairs before he went to vomit again.
Deja came home late. He was yelling for Martin before his door was shut. Martin, who had been expecting it, took a deep breath and went in. “Well?” Deja demanded.
“I’m sorry,” Martin said, standing properly: hands behind him, head down.
“Not good enough,” Deja said, yanking off his loop-tie. “I want to know what the problem is. I want your case. Now.”
“I was wrong,” Martin said sweetly. “I don’t trust Lord Harper. I don’t want to work for him. I was angry that you didn’t ask me whether I wanted to work for him before you made this agreement.”
Deja started to speak.
Martin didn’t give him a chance: “But I can see that this is an unreasonable attitude, that there’s no reason you would ask me first. Why would you ask me first? It’s not like my opinion matters, is it? So I’m ever so sorry, and hope you can forgive me.”
Deja stood staring. “You upstart little sow,” he said, when he had recovered.
Martin shrugged. “You asked,” he said, and went over to fix them drinks.
“I ought to…”
“Go ahead. Not like I’ll fight back.” Martin slugged down rum straight and poured another. When Deja moved toward him, he didn’t retreat. Deja stopped very close to him. Martin finished mixing the drinks, and turned to give Deja his. They stood looking at each other.
“I was trying to fix things,” Deja said. “I was trying to help.”
“I know. I can see that part too.”
“Well, why are you acting like this, then? You’re acting like Sudi.”
Martin laughed, startled. “Ow,” he said, grabbing his chest. “I’m hit.”
“Well, you are,” Deja growled, and turned away.
Martin went to sit on the sofa, taking his rum along. “I ain’t know,” he said, putting his feet on the tea table. “Do you treat Sudi like this? Arranging her life without her consent? Did you even talk to this Harper? He ain’t what he plays he is. He fucking well isn’t.”
“Watch the mouth.”
Martin drank his rum. He had been drinking all evening. So far it wasn’t helping.
“It’s work in your area,” Deja was saying. “He’s Jeno Lord Harper, Senior Lecturer at the University in Durbin. His work in geology is known all over the planet. That’s what you ought to be thinking about, if you could be bothered to think.”
Martin frowned. “I’m contract labor.”
“I didn’t forget that.”
“Well, what do you mean, work in my area? I ain’t have an area, I’m a shitting cot.”
Deja, passing behind him, slapped him across the ear. “If you don’t stop—”
“All right, all right. Sorry. But.”
Deja came around the sofa to sit beside him. “Why can’t you do as you’re told, just once? Without two hours of whining? Just once, Martin.”
Martin bent his head. Deja pulled him in close and kissed his ear, the place he had slapped. “I hate fighting with you.”
Give it up, Martin told himself. You lost. You were never going to win. Just quit.
Deja stroked his hair, and kissed him again. Oh, fuck, Martin thought, desperately. Deja kissed his jaw, took the glass of rum away. He slipped his hand inside Martin’s shirt.
“Deja,” Martin tried. “I’m really, I don’t—”
Deja twisted his shirt, tugging. “Come here.”
Afterward, he sat in the bath, on the steps of the tub, washing between his toes. He was very drunk by this time, though not drunk enough. Deja came in and tickled the back of his neck. “That was nice. Thank you.”
Martin made a sound in his chest. Deja shook out his razor and set the controls by touch. He watched Martin in the mirror. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Drunk.”
Deja grunted. “You’re drinking too much these days. We may need to watch that.”
Martin looked at Deja from under his eyelashes. He thought about saying no. Or even, please no. Instead he soaped the sponge and moved further down into the tub. He nudged the pad to cycle in more hot water. If Deja started limiting his access to rum, he would – put up with it, was what he would do. Fucking eat it. It was what he always did.
“What are you sulking about?”
“Nothing.”
“What?” Deja insisted.
“I don’t want to work for Lord Harper. I told you that.”
Deja gave him an incredulous look in the mirror. “I thought we finished that. You’re still on that?”
“You finished that.”
“Oh, for – You’re such a cot. There’s not a single one of you that can think further ahead than the next meal. The next drink,” he added nastily.
Martin bit on his tongue, trying to keep his teeth shut; but he was too drunk for caution. “You really think Harper wants a lab assistant?”
Deja gave him a sharp look in the mirror.
“He’s got students thick as bugs in that sh– in that university, if he needs lab workers. You think he needs to come after me this hard? Me? A bone-ignorant cot?”
“What are you going on about?” Deja asked impatiently.
“That in the Ross Mountains. You actually think that was a house party?”
Deja hated being reminded of the End party. “This is a university,” he said, his lips gone thin. “Not one of your contract dorms.”
“Of course not, sir,” Martin said.
“You don’t have the first understanding of university politics.”
“Of course not, sir.”
Deja turned around. “Do I need to come over there?”
Martin went still.
Deja turned back to the mirror, his expression lined with temper. “You’ll work for Harper. You’ll stop arguing with me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” He was watching Deja from the side of his eye.
“You’ll do what you’re told, and you’ll shut that mouth.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ll be grateful, too,” Deja added, furiously. “If you’d think seriously, if you were capable of that, you would see the chance I’m giving you. At a great deal of trouble to myself, I might add.”
Martin squeezed the sponge under the water, watching the patterns the soap made as it spilled into the water. Deja was right. It was a waste of time. Standing in a corridor trying to understand chemistry? What did he think it was ever going to get him, even if he had been clever enough to learn anything from those lectures?
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, sir,” Martin lied. He wasn’t. He was thinking of his mornings in Barton Hall. He was thinking of his afternoons in the campus gardens, lying on the pink granite benches among the lilacs, the stone warm beneath him, day sprites humming through the air around him, studying lab notes on his handheld while the day stretched before him and everything slowly made sense. So what, he told himself fiercely. It’s not yours. It was never yours.
“I know what I’m doing,” Deja said.
“I know you do.” He drank off the rest of his rum. It bit into the pain in his throat and belly. Deja started the shaver going and at least that shut him up for a while.
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