ingest that poison,” Virginia said and crossed her arms.
“I’m not. It’s for a friend here.”
“A friend?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “He has something I need.” I didn’t explain further. I could almost see her bioware churning away, trying to guess what I was up to.
Others approached me, but I turned them down. I had enough stimulants to keep one man awake for months, and that might do Quilp for the time I needed him.
We entered the marketplace, packed with a crowd of vendors and beggars, the air rich with voices haggling, blooming with the odors of fried food, perspiration, and urine. Bald slavers paraded their living wares and gave appreciative glances to Virginia.
She held her plasma tube a bit higher, and clicked the safety off.
They gave her no trouble.
There were plenty of customers for flesh today: necromancers with tarnished silver nose rings who searched for bodies to fuel their rituals; lonely men who looked for beauty; and industrialists who preferred human hands to expensive mechanical ones. Flesh to match every desire was on the auction block today, top-of-the-line pleasure constructs that lived for three centuries, enchanted to provide their master with delight. They were ridiculously expensive, hard to make, and I found myself scrutinizing a flame-haired odalisque.
Celeste filled my head with her fantasies, the things I could do with my own personal harem, but I gritted my teeth and moved on.
Everyone was sold here—even small girls and boys with hopeless pleading stares. My childhood had been much the same, chattel to my father and brother, no friends, tortures that the psychologist would love to dissect. The other slaves, they deserved to be here, in debt, or to pay for their crimes, but the children were just unlucky—to be born into a cruel family and sold off, or unlucky to trust the wrong stranger at the wrong time. I knew about that.
There was money left in my account. I could buy their freedom. Give them a second chance.
We don’t have time to rescue slaves, hissed Fifty-five. And you can’t drag a hundred screaming brats along on your mission. Keep moving.
The logic of his words was undeniable. I turned my back on them, grabbed Virginia’s arm, and continued. Their desperate faces lingered in my memory, reminding me what a coward I was.
Why don’t you stand up to that bully? the psychologist demanded. You possess the willpower.
I had no answer.
There were more drugs to be had. And as we ventured deeper into the colony, they grew in strength and selection: pink antibiotics; powdered tiger penis aphrodisiacs; eerie glowing green mutagens to change the color of your eyes, or to alter your sex; sparkling black psychotropics to expand your consciousness, lift your soul to paradise or drag it to hell; and naturally, prescriptions to simply make you forget. There were countless shoppers, not only merchants buying in bulk, but tourists who came to get higher than they’d ever been. Many stayed, spent all they had, then were recycled as slaves or medical surplus. Nothing went to waste on Needles.
The farther away from the central market we wandered the more trash accumulated on the sides of the streets, both people and physical refuse. Long stares were cast our way, lean looks of hate.
This was where the locals hung out, where the hard core remained to keep their high as long as they could—any way they could. I set my rifle into warm mode. Its tip hummed with power and glowed with an evil red eye. That was all the warning I intended to give.
The buildings were boarded up, paint crumbling off, and covered with layers of faded graffiti. Figures moved in the shadows. Streetlights were dim, infrequent pools of illumination, islands in the murky avenues. On our left stood a five-story office, its walls blackened by fire, its smoked glass windows boarded up. This was Quilp’s home. The metal entrance was battered and the intercom smashed. I knocked hard on the door with
“I’m not. It’s for a friend here.”
“A friend?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “He has something I need.” I didn’t explain further. I could almost see her bioware churning away, trying to guess what I was up to.
Others approached me, but I turned them down. I had enough stimulants to keep one man awake for months, and that might do Quilp for the time I needed him.
We entered the marketplace, packed with a crowd of vendors and beggars, the air rich with voices haggling, blooming with the odors of fried food, perspiration, and urine. Bald slavers paraded their living wares and gave appreciative glances to Virginia.
She held her plasma tube a bit higher, and clicked the safety off.
They gave her no trouble.
There were plenty of customers for flesh today: necromancers with tarnished silver nose rings who searched for bodies to fuel their rituals; lonely men who looked for beauty; and industrialists who preferred human hands to expensive mechanical ones. Flesh to match every desire was on the auction block today, top-of-the-line pleasure constructs that lived for three centuries, enchanted to provide their master with delight. They were ridiculously expensive, hard to make, and I found myself scrutinizing a flame-haired odalisque.
Celeste filled my head with her fantasies, the things I could do with my own personal harem, but I gritted my teeth and moved on.
Everyone was sold here—even small girls and boys with hopeless pleading stares. My childhood had been much the same, chattel to my father and brother, no friends, tortures that the psychologist would love to dissect. The other slaves, they deserved to be here, in debt, or to pay for their crimes, but the children were just unlucky—to be born into a cruel family and sold off, or unlucky to trust the wrong stranger at the wrong time. I knew about that.
There was money left in my account. I could buy their freedom. Give them a second chance.
We don’t have time to rescue slaves, hissed Fifty-five. And you can’t drag a hundred screaming brats along on your mission. Keep moving.
The logic of his words was undeniable. I turned my back on them, grabbed Virginia’s arm, and continued. Their desperate faces lingered in my memory, reminding me what a coward I was.
Why don’t you stand up to that bully? the psychologist demanded. You possess the willpower.
I had no answer.
There were more drugs to be had. And as we ventured deeper into the colony, they grew in strength and selection: pink antibiotics; powdered tiger penis aphrodisiacs; eerie glowing green mutagens to change the color of your eyes, or to alter your sex; sparkling black psychotropics to expand your consciousness, lift your soul to paradise or drag it to hell; and naturally, prescriptions to simply make you forget. There were countless shoppers, not only merchants buying in bulk, but tourists who came to get higher than they’d ever been. Many stayed, spent all they had, then were recycled as slaves or medical surplus. Nothing went to waste on Needles.
The farther away from the central market we wandered the more trash accumulated on the sides of the streets, both people and physical refuse. Long stares were cast our way, lean looks of hate.
This was where the locals hung out, where the hard core remained to keep their high as long as they could—any way they could. I set my rifle into warm mode. Its tip hummed with power and glowed with an evil red eye. That was all the warning I intended to give.
The buildings were boarded up, paint crumbling off, and covered with layers of faded graffiti. Figures moved in the shadows. Streetlights were dim, infrequent pools of illumination, islands in the murky avenues. On our left stood a five-story office, its walls blackened by fire, its smoked glass windows boarded up. This was Quilp’s home. The metal entrance was battered and the intercom smashed. I knocked hard on the door with
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