insane.
Not as mad as Radioman, though. The one who says I love him. He hears it in his head. That I love him. A boy. So crazy. I don’t love anyone. I don’t even know the word that they use. I know it doesn’t mean sex. I mean, people who say they love, they
have
sex. But you never hear the word in the Sex Tunnels. Some of the Dancing Girls work there, for credits. A long time ago, the whisper-stream said, you had to live in the Sex Tunnels if you wanted to work there for credits. But it’s not that way now. You just go into the main gate and tell them you want to work, and they measure you and capture your image. Then they ask you what kind of sex you will do and they put you in the right subtunnel. When you’re done, you just walk out and collect the credits you earned. If you ever come back, anytime at all, they have your image and your other stuff and you can go right through the gate.
Radioman never tried to sex me. He was a Game Boy, when they still had their pistols. They were the ones who started the whole thing. With marks, I mean. You got a mark for every life you took. I had a lot of them too. I wore them on my thigh, hiding the secret. But not the secret the boys thought.
It didn’t get crazy until two things happened:
The first one was the idea that if you killed someone with marks, then their marks belonged to you. So people stopped going after the easy ones and went after the ones who already had marks—you could get maybe a dozen marks for one kill that way.
But crews aren’t allowed to fight each other. So a lot of people in crews got put Outside. The Rulers were confused at first, thinking everybody was breaking the Rules. But then they figured it out.
The second thing that happened, the bums made their own crew. Nobody thought this would ever happen. It wasn’t such a big thing to the other crews, but it made the Rulers very upset. You could tell because they changed the Rules. The new Rules were even more tricky.
Most of the crews stopped wearing their costumes. And when they did, even then, it had to be on the fringes, near the Uncharted Zone. That wasn’t much fun. People don’t recognize you’re moving all together in a fan if you’re not dressed the same. So they don’t get out of the way like they used to.
Radioman was a Game Boy. They said he heard signals in his head all the time. But he never got a signal to take a mark, so he never did. That meant he was the lowest in the crew, but he didn’t care.
When he said he loved me, I just laughed at him. If he had tried to sex me, I would have sliced him. But he didn’t. One of the other Game Boys did—laugh, I mean—so I ripped him. We were all going for marks back then, but the other Game Boys were scared to shoot, because the Rulers don’t let crews fight and they were afraid it would look like that. We never did fight. Not as crews.
But the Rulers got it wrong. They didn’t know it was about marks. And it didn’t matter who you took them from.
There has to be a way to get people there. To the HydroFarm. Where they have my girl. Charm. I have to rescue her. They must have a way to get them there, and it has to be a conveyor. It’s too far to walk and, anyway, the ones who come back always say it took a long time to make the trip. They couldn’t see anything, but they were moving. And there’s new ones back here every day. I asked a couple of them but they wouldn’t tell me. After a while, I figured it out. They wouldn’t tell me because they didn’t know. And if a conveyor goes there, it has to be through the Charted Zone, because the Rulers couldn’t have something as important as the HydroFarm out of the Zone. All the power for Underground has to come from the HydroFarm—they could never risk it.
I know who to ask. I just don’t know how to ask. But the voices will tell me when they’re ready.
The way they make you work here is they use what you make
on
you. Electricity. That works. Nobody wants it on
Not as mad as Radioman, though. The one who says I love him. He hears it in his head. That I love him. A boy. So crazy. I don’t love anyone. I don’t even know the word that they use. I know it doesn’t mean sex. I mean, people who say they love, they
have
sex. But you never hear the word in the Sex Tunnels. Some of the Dancing Girls work there, for credits. A long time ago, the whisper-stream said, you had to live in the Sex Tunnels if you wanted to work there for credits. But it’s not that way now. You just go into the main gate and tell them you want to work, and they measure you and capture your image. Then they ask you what kind of sex you will do and they put you in the right subtunnel. When you’re done, you just walk out and collect the credits you earned. If you ever come back, anytime at all, they have your image and your other stuff and you can go right through the gate.
Radioman never tried to sex me. He was a Game Boy, when they still had their pistols. They were the ones who started the whole thing. With marks, I mean. You got a mark for every life you took. I had a lot of them too. I wore them on my thigh, hiding the secret. But not the secret the boys thought.
It didn’t get crazy until two things happened:
The first one was the idea that if you killed someone with marks, then their marks belonged to you. So people stopped going after the easy ones and went after the ones who already had marks—you could get maybe a dozen marks for one kill that way.
But crews aren’t allowed to fight each other. So a lot of people in crews got put Outside. The Rulers were confused at first, thinking everybody was breaking the Rules. But then they figured it out.
The second thing that happened, the bums made their own crew. Nobody thought this would ever happen. It wasn’t such a big thing to the other crews, but it made the Rulers very upset. You could tell because they changed the Rules. The new Rules were even more tricky.
Most of the crews stopped wearing their costumes. And when they did, even then, it had to be on the fringes, near the Uncharted Zone. That wasn’t much fun. People don’t recognize you’re moving all together in a fan if you’re not dressed the same. So they don’t get out of the way like they used to.
Radioman was a Game Boy. They said he heard signals in his head all the time. But he never got a signal to take a mark, so he never did. That meant he was the lowest in the crew, but he didn’t care.
When he said he loved me, I just laughed at him. If he had tried to sex me, I would have sliced him. But he didn’t. One of the other Game Boys did—laugh, I mean—so I ripped him. We were all going for marks back then, but the other Game Boys were scared to shoot, because the Rulers don’t let crews fight and they were afraid it would look like that. We never did fight. Not as crews.
But the Rulers got it wrong. They didn’t know it was about marks. And it didn’t matter who you took them from.
There has to be a way to get people there. To the HydroFarm. Where they have my girl. Charm. I have to rescue her. They must have a way to get them there, and it has to be a conveyor. It’s too far to walk and, anyway, the ones who come back always say it took a long time to make the trip. They couldn’t see anything, but they were moving. And there’s new ones back here every day. I asked a couple of them but they wouldn’t tell me. After a while, I figured it out. They wouldn’t tell me because they didn’t know. And if a conveyor goes there, it has to be through the Charted Zone, because the Rulers couldn’t have something as important as the HydroFarm out of the Zone. All the power for Underground has to come from the HydroFarm—they could never risk it.
I know who to ask. I just don’t know how to ask. But the voices will tell me when they’re ready.
The way they make you work here is they use what you make
on
you. Electricity. That works. Nobody wants it on
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