Condemned (Death Planet Book 1) (6 page)

“We can rent more accommodating girlsss in Kingssston.”

Maggot’s face lit up beneath his scraggly mass of hair. “And when are we doing that?”

The bag of shinies clinked as Red tossed it from one hand to the other. “I reckon I’ll be taking a trip tomorrow.”

His balls better be working by then. They were going to get a good workout.

D
aniel trudged through the woods behind Guy, trying to put his feet in Guy's footprints so he wouldn’t step on anything that might eat him, give away their position to any nearby hunters, or worse. Only moonlight shining through the canopy of leaves illuminated their surroundings, just enough to make out the shape of the trees, and make every leaf look like a beast that wanted to kill him. Whenever he heard something moving around them in the darkness, he stared toward it, sure it was one of the hunters still searching for him.

Or worse.

He rubbed his chin. The beard itched. He’d never had one before, and it just felt wrong. The stiff hair scraped against his fingers when he rubbed it.

“I should shave.”

Guy glanced back. “Can lend you a knife, but it’ll only grow back.”

Cutting the beard off with a knife? He’d probably cut his own throat if he tried that. He walked on, and his hair tapped against his shoulders. It must have grown while he was in the pod, and it was much longer than he was used to.

“I guess I’ll keep it for now. But I need a haircut.”

Guy tapped the hilt of his knife. “I can shave that off for you, if you like.”

Would a bald head be better, or worse, than hair dangling in front of his eyes? He’d have to think about it.

“These clothes don’t fit right.”

Guy had given him a leather jerkin, trousers and boots to replace his jumpsuit, and all of them were the wrong size. The boots were too small, the rest too big. His heels were blistering, and his groin itched. He reached down to scratch it. He didn’t even want to think about what was happening in there.

Plus, he was sure he’d seen a big patch of blood on the side of the jerkin, in the faint light from the fire.

“For someone I just rescued, you sure complain a lot.”

“This is a stressful time for me.”

Guy laughed. “That outfit's better than wearing that orange thing all the time. Do that, and everyone knows you're fresh meat for the grinder.”

And it stank.

“Where’d you get it from?”

Guy pushed a branch out of the way so they could clamber beneath it. “Just found it lying around.”

A drone buzzed around a nearby tree, then whirred off into the distance before returning to hover above them. It rotated slowly as they moved, the cameras scanning the area.

“That drone’s still following us.”

“Of course it is. It’s my drone.”

“How did you get that? Surely they didn’t let you bring it here with you?”

“I built a backdoor into my skulltop before PubSafe caught me. They didn't find it, and it let me take back control after I landed here. Then I hacked the drone with some gear I salvaged from the pods.”

“So they’re not recording you through the skulltop?”

“Nope. I thought they’d try to do something about the drone, but, so far, they seem content to let me keep it. I guess it amuses them. Course, they wised up and fixed the security hole in the other drones, so I can't hack any more. And now they do a full reflash of the skulltop software before they ship you out, in case anyone else gets the same idea.”

“Couldn’t you reprogram them here?”

“Maybe, if you don’t mind me hacking up your head with a rusty knife. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”

They walked on. The big, grey, furry mass tied to the top of Guy's backpack bounced from side to side in front of Daniel's face. It smelled of rotting meat, and something dark dripped down the backpack. Red drops splashed to the ground.

“What's that thing on your backpack?”

“Ask a lot of questions, don't you kid?”

“I'm new here. What do you expect me to do?”

“Killed an animal, and skinned it. Thought I might make a blanket out of it, to keep me warm at night.”

They were near the edge of the woods now. The trees were further apart, and more of the sky showed between the spiky branches. One of Hades’ moons glowed brightly as it crept across the star-filled sky, illuminating the scrubland beyond the wood. The smell of salt, and sound of breaking waves, put them closer to the sea.

“Don't you want to know why I was sent here?”

“Not particularly. Whatever it was, I’m sure you didn’t do it, it’s all just a big mistake, you didn’t deserve to be Condemned, and they'll be coming to take you back home next week.”

“How did you know?”

“’Because that’s what everyone says. Least, anyone who doesn’t say that isn’t someone I want to be around.”

“I was protesting. For freedom and stuff. They called it anti-State agitation and propaganda”

Guy leaned against a tree and laughed until his face grew red, and he was gasping for breath. “That’s it? You went out on the streets with your friends, throwing shit at PubSafe, and you're surprised they sent you here?”

“They arrested one of our comrades for posting anti-State messages on the underground. I didn’t want to mess with PubSafe, I was in the crowd, chanting and holding a placard, and the others pushed me into them. They started attacking the commissar, and I got arrested.”

And then there was Erica.

She said she was going to the protest, and was so impressed when he said he was, too. He wouldn't have gone, otherwise.

What if they’d Condemned her too?

No, the Comrade Stalin barracks had the pull to get her out of anything. Not like his Witold Pilecki barracks. In Comrade Stalin, they probably even got to watch the
Punishment Channel.
Even if Erica was on Hades, she’d know just what to do.

“Yeah, that’s what your asshole commissar-wannabes do,” Guy said. “They stand at the back of the crowd shouting, and let the rest of you get caught. Well, congratulations. You’ve got your freedom, red in tooth and claw.”

“This isn’t freedom. This is... something else. This isn’t a real world, with real people, it’s a planet of psychopaths, killing each other over nothing.”

“It is free. No PubSafe here to stop you doing anything you want, so long as you're man enough to take it.”

“You saved me. You seem like the local PubSafe.”

“True. But I did that because I wanted to.”

“Who were those people, anyway?”

“Call themselves the
Meat Packers.
Just another gang of dumb assholes trying to make some shinies. They do the dirty work for the slavers, catching newbies to sell.”

“How did they know we’d be here?”

Drones circled around them, dodging between the trees. Guy grabbed a broken branch from the ground, and threw it toward one. The drone dodged sideways as the branch passed by, then moved in closer.

“The gulag ship flies past the same day every year. Drops you off as it approaches the planet, and the orbit brings you here. Someone figures out the trajectory, and there’s always a crowd waiting to greet the newbies. You just got unlucky, landed right in the middle of them in broad daylight. Most years, they actually have to hunt.” Guy grabbed a rock and threw it at the drone as it buzzed past them again. “PubSafe will make sure it doesn’t happen next year.”

“I hope so. All those people just caught or killed as soon as they landed...”

“It’s bad for the ratings. It’s the thrill of the chase they want, and they can drag that out for days in a good year. Weeks, sometimes.”

“What do they want people for?”

“Men will do for slaves or meat. Or muscle, if they need more in their gang.”

Daniel shivered. They had slaves here? How could society had devolved so fast? Well, they were criminals, and already half-way to beasts. Imagine Erica dragged off, naked and screaming, like the girl he'd tried to rescue. His stomach churned at the thought.

“What about the girls?”

“Whorehouses or harems will buy them, if the hunters don’t keep them for themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“Girls are valuable, kid. There aren't any sex bots here, you have to make do with the real thing. Rich men will pay a good pile of shinies for a girl of their own, and the rest will pay to rent a whore for a quick roll in the hay. How many newbies do you think they send every year?”

How many pods had he seen? “A dozen?”

“About ten thousand. How many do you think are female?”

“I didn't see anything like a thousand pods.”

“The pods land wherever gravity takes them. You could have been freezing to death at the poles, or floating out to sea, wondering whether you'll die of thirst before the big fish eat you. Now, how many do you think are women?”

Daniel shook his head. How many women would commit crimes that would get them sentenced there? Not a lot.

“Less than one in ten,” Guy said. “By the time we men get done killing each other, there are about four of us left for every woman. If they're not tough enough to avoid being caught... there are much worse fates than a whorehouse.”

“That's sexist. Women can do anything men can.”

“Maybe back home. Not so much around here, unless they have a fuckton of body mods. There's no PubSafe to protect them, if they aren't tough enough to protect themselves.”

“They should still have equal rights.”

“They do. They get raped, murdered and eaten, all equally like we do. Only a lot more of the first than the last.”

“That’s just male privilege talking.”

Guy shook his head and walked on, in silence.

It still wasn’t fair. Daniel imagined Erica captured, tied up, and forced to do things with men against her will. He shivered again. Imagine her naked in the mud, with that horse hybrid on top of her. His heart thumped as the creature writhed on her soft, naked body. She could be one of the ones screaming out there in the dark. She was good at shouting, but wouldn’t have been able to fight off those hunters. Not on her own.

The thought was triggering him again. But she’s not out there. That’s not her. It couldn’t be. He should fear for himself.

“They wanted to send me to a whorehouse.”

“Lot of guys ain’t choosy after a while. Pretty face and a nice ass will do them, no matter what it’s attached to...”

“I'm not tied to a cisgendered sexual identity. I'm willing to try new experiences.”

Of course, he'd never had any old experiences with anyone, either. Unless VR fantasies about Erica counted. He'd had more than a few of those.

“You probably wouldn't be too eager to try a couple of dozen guys pounding your ass every day, for a shiny a time.”

Guy's drone passed them, then buzzed into the trees ahead.

“Stop,” Guy whispered, as he stopped suddenly, and raised his hand.

B
ack home, Andy had lived like a king. Now he just worked for one. Not that being a King’s Guard was so bad, but it was a big demotion from his previous life, just three years before. Back when he worked as a PubSafe commissar, he'd had a big apartment in a nice tower block, and some very nice, very, very accommodating girls. He'd had plenty of opportunities to get rich when he had a gun, a pack of drones, and easy access to the entire World State’s surveillance network.

He'd come to an arrangement with the street gangs, taking a cut for letting them carry out enough crime to make a good living and keep him in a job. Just not enough for anyone who mattered to start asking questions about how they managed to stay in business, or why the surveillance recordings always seemed to be corrupt when someone wanted to solve a crime. The few questioners who didn’t matter would just... disappear.

If he wanted some fun, he had his choice among the gang girls and their sisters. And hookers and strippers would always oblige, if they didn't want to spend a night in the cubes. Or he'd spot some lonely, scared girl on the street, follow her back to her barracks, then knock on the door to tell her there were reports of gangs in the area, so maybe he should check out her room... and why not check the bed? A tall, strong, protective man in uniform could charm her pants off in minutes.

Now, he lived in a barracks, and was lucky if he could get to the King's Guard whorehouse once a month.

“Put your back into it,” Rob said as he crouched in the dirt.

The sharp edge of the cart's chassis was already digging into Andy's fingers as he and Mac tried to lift it high enough for Rob to push the wheel back onto the axle. They'd bounced over one too many rocks on the way down the path toward Kingston, and that one had cracked the wooden wheel. A bit of work with a hammer and some spare wood had knocked it back together, but now they had to get it on the axle, so they could catch up with the others. All in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by bears, hunters and newbies. Great one.

Mac grunted as he adjusted his hand position, and pushed with his legs. The cart lifted, but not enough. Andy's feet slid on the wet rock as he strained. He dug his heels into the dirt alongside the rock and tried again, his muscles shaking as his back took the strain. The weight rose from the rock, and he panted as he and Mac held the side of the cart high.

The hauler hissed and thumped his feet on the ground as the cart twisted behind him. Those dumb animals had barely been domesticated, and freaked out at anything unexpected. Jacob pulled on the reins, and the hauler squealed and twisted its head against the pressure.

Rob lifted the wheel upright, and rolled it toward the axle, trying to line it up. “Higher.”

Andy strained harder, lifting the cart until his legs were straight, and knees locked. “Hurry up before I die.”

Rob twisted the wheel, and grabbed the spokes. Andy sweated in the cold night air as his arms shook with the weight. He was going to drop it any moment, if the idiot didn’t get the wheel on.

Then Rob slid it onto the axle. Andy relaxed a little, letting the wheel take some of the cart’s weight. Rob reached behind him, and grabbed the big wooden mallet.

The girl with the red and blue hair banged against the bars of her cage in the back of the cart. She pushed her arm between the bars, and grunted as she tried to grab the bolt that locked it.