1
“El Agujero” (The Hole)
Private max-security prison
La Paz, Bolivia
September 2098
Ander Rade decided he was going to die.
It was the only way he was ever going to escape this place. Escape the hell his life had become. Seven long, torturous years locked away without a word from anyone on the outside. Plenty long enough to realize he’d been forgotten. And he wasn’t made to live in a cage. So, death it was. He’d spent the last several nights sitting awake in his cell attuning his mind to the concept of surrender. Played out scenarios in his head in as many different ways as he could possibly imagine so that he’d be ready when the moment came. He knew that he’d never be able to kill himself, though, so he’d have to rely on the violence of others. And in the fighting pit, there was no shortage of violence.
Should’ve been easy. Just stand there. Keep his hands down. Not fight back. It was what he deserved for all the horrible things he’d done. But a good plan never survives contact with the enemy.
Now, as Rade’s opponent drove a fist into the left side of his face, the notion of surrender abandoned him completely. His custom combat-tuned endocrine system surged, pumping endorphins and unbridled rage through every fiber of his body. Pain disappeared. Exhaustion became a myth. Time slowed to a crawl as razor-sharp focus catalogued the details of his surroundings and tagged any immediate threats for elimination.
The bloated, muscle-bound mod who’d hit him was tottering back around after nearly losing their balance on the awkward follow-through, having put everything he had into the attack. Rade shook off the blow and stepped in, driving the heel of his boot into the mod’s knee. A crunch, a high-pitched shriek. Cloud of dust as his opponent hit the dirt. One threat down.
A flash, something moving to the right. Rade ducked as a vibrohammer swung through empty space an inch above his head. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d grabbed ahold of the hammer’s handle and pulled the attacker into him.
Stop. Fucking stop. Just let them end it for you.
But Rade’s body was on autopilot. His right hand clamped around his opponent’s chin. A violent twist, muffled crunch of snapping vertebrae. The body spasmed and fell.
Shouts from the scaffolding above the pit where spectators watched from behind electrified razor fencing, waving credit chips and cold hard cash as they cheered on their wagers. Generals, drug lords, politicians. Criminals, every last one of them.
The third and final threat came in fast and low. Rade dropped the vibrohammer and tried to will himself to be still, to ignore the blades flashing in his opponent’s hands. No good. In two moves, the attacker was disarmed and pinwheeling through the air. The body hit the electrified wall of the fighting pit with a bright flash and shower of sparks. A smoking, charred husk fell to the dirt.
The fight was over and Rade was still alive. Again. Defeated by his own instincts.
He stood over the carnage scattered across the pit trying to slow his heart, calm the storm in his body. As the adrenaline faded, a piercing sensation began to needle its way into his skull, burrowing deeper and deeper until the searing agony nearly dropped him to his knees. His hands shook, his vision went blurry. Crippling pain utterly consumed him.
There’d always been an uncomfortable emptiness that came on the tail of a combat-endorphin comedown, but these fits had been getting significantly worse.
Punishment for surviving, perhaps. He clenched his teeth, focused inward, and tried to ignore the pain while the villainous crowd watching from above cheered and shouted and spat curses. Money changed hands and already new bets were being made.
The walls of the fighting pit powered down and guards stepped out onto their elevated platforms pointing stun throwers down at Rade. A suppressor drone rolled up and docked with the cage door to the pit, yellow warning strobes flashing as it reconfigured itself for prisoner transport, going from insectile in appearance to looking more like a mechanical interrogation chair. The cage door slid open and one of the guards barked orders at him though the drone’s voice amp. Rade followed protocol, turning to face away from the drone, walking backwards until told to stop and lowering himself onto the drone’s seat. Power cuffs clamped around his wrists and ankles, locking him in place. It was like sitting on a robot’s lap, and it was every bit as ridiculous as it felt. It was meant to be humiliating. Everything in El Agujero was designed to dehumanize the inmates. Take away their sense of self. Keep them beaten, physically and mentally. Even though many of the inmates weren’t considered human anyway, but that was beside the point.
The drone turned on its tracks and took Rade from the fighting pit, leaving the chaotic shouting of the crowd behind. Normally after a blood bout he’d be brought to his isolated cell in the lower levels, but instead he was delivered through the prison to one of the upper levels, closer to the surface. There were still no windows in this part of the prison, but he could sense the change in pressure—the atmosphere more natural, the air cleaner and less dense than what the ventilation systems pumped through the depths. Maybe he was being sold again, to some new criminal high roller who’d bring him to some other hellhole in some other forgotten corner of the world.
The drone came to a stop in the prison’s interrogation wing. Rade had no idea what this was about, but he knew it couldn’t be good. A dozen guards were waiting for him in full riot gear, crackling stun rods at the ready as the drone deposited him and folded back into its tactical configuration. One of the guards came forward and clipped a charge pack around Rade’s waist, then connected it to a set of portable shock cuffs. They’d learned early on not to take chances with him.
They shuffled Rade into one of the interrogation rooms and sat him at a table, where they locked him in place. Once they were confident he was secured, they filed out, leaving him with two strangers who were standing in the corners of the room watching him closely. The strangers didn’t look at all like the types who typically visited places like El Agujero. A man and a woman, both clearly not part of the prison staff. Green tactical cargo pants and all-terrain boots, gray button-up shirts with under-the-arm holsters complete with KZ-11 service pistols—the kind favored by agents of the United American Provinces. The man was the older of the two, maybe only a few years older than Rade. Old enough to have seen a few things. There was a sharpness behind his eyes that reminded Rade of Hab. Intelligence, cold and calculating. He feigned disinterest in his surroundings, but Rade could tell the man missed nothing.
The woman seemed to hold the higher rank, though—the way she moved, the way she commanded the space she occupied. There was an economy of motion there that led Rade to believe she was no stranger to violence. She stood with shoulders poised and feet planted like she could spring into action in a second. All business. She had dark hair, almost black, cropped to muscular shoulders, and dark eyes to match that were locked on Rade like he was some kind of prey. She glanced at a file in her hand and tapped something into the interface on her wrist.
“Prisoner number eight-oh-seven, can you state your name for the record,” the woman said in English.
Rade eyed her curiously. “You’re American.”
She ignored the comment. “Your name, please.”
“You must work for one of the agencies,” Rade said, ignoring her back. “Maybe even a sanctioned company. You’re not here by accident. So you know goddamned well who I am.”
“Regardless,” the woman said, unfazed. “I’d like to hear you say it.”
The urge to resist was powerful, but his curiosity was even more so. These people were the first Americans he’d seen in seven years. And they were here for something. Something that just might lead to a fate other than death in a pit. “Rade,” he said, deciding to give in just this time. “My name is Ander Rade.”
She watched him for a moment, measuring him. “Heard you just killed two inmates and left a third one crippled.”
“Happens. They were convicts and illegal knockoff mods anyway. I doubt you came here for the entertainment, though.”
“That’s correct. We’re with the Genetic Compliance Department of the United American Provinces. I’m Agent Morgan Moreno. This is Agent Danny Atler.” She nodded toward the man standing in the opposite corner. “And we didn’t come here by accident. We came here specifically to find you.”
Rade had no idea what in the hell the Genetic Compliance Department was, but for the briefest of moments he wanted to believe that these people were here to take him home. Set him free. He knew better than that, though. There was always an ulterior motive. Always some other purpose at play. And he didn’t quite like the sound of “genetic compliance,” either.
Agent Moreno went on. “We’re part of a task force dedicated to tracking down rogue mods.”
“Rogue mods…” Rade said, trying out the words. They had a bad taste, like they were synonymous with something untamed and wildly dangerous. It was starting to seem like things in the outside world had changed more than he’d thought.
Moreno must have seen the way Rade was chewing on this new information; her demeanor changed. Not by much, but enough that he noticed. She shifted into a less combative stance, and there was something at the edges of her eyes that didn’t match the cold exterior she put on. “I don’t know what kind of secondhand information you get in places like this, but let me give you the quick and dirty,” she said. “Xyphos—and every other contract company running enhanced operative programs—was shut down in 2091 when the Genetic Compliance Act was ratified, banning the practice of human genome modification under the authority of the World Unity Council.”
“Xyphos … doesn’t exist?”
“No. That’s why no one came looking for you.”
Anger began to bubble inside. Rade felt the fibers of his muscles tensing, nerves thrumming with energy that needed to be released. The same rage that overtook him during that last blood bout. And the needle in his skull began to dig deeper. His vision blurred with the strain of keeping it contained. “I’ve been here at El Agujero for three years,” he said. “Spent some time being sold around the prizefighting circuits in the South Pacific before that. This was after my team was ambushed in Myanmar in the middle of a company-sanctioned op.” Rade had spent too many quiet nights alone in his cell wondering if his teammates were out there somewhere enduring the same kind of hell he was. Or if they were still alive at all. They’d been abandoned, but now it seemed something had changed. “So,” Rade said, biting back the anger. “After all this time, why are you here now?”
Moreno dropped the file on the table in front of him. “Go ahead,” she said.
Rade reached for the file, the chains attached to the power cuffs rattling over the table. The fact that he was being handed a hard copy and not a digital file meant that whatever was in there was sensitive enough that they didn’t want to risk leaving an electronic trail that could be traced on the data stream. Paper could be shredded and burned and no one would ever know it had existed. Whatever this was, it was important.
He opened the file. The first thing he found inside was a printed photo of a younger version of himself from the Xyphos archives. The young face that glared back at him was one carved of anger and determination. That Ander Rade had wanted nothing more than to leave behind his broken past and become something greater. Something powerful. Like leaving behind his humanity was the answer to the world’s unrelenting torment.
How little he’d known.
Behind that were more photos. The first was of an oceanic transport vessel with the name VERANA painted on her hull and a mountain of shipping containers stacked on her deck.
“One week ago, a surface ship carrying industrial chemicals sunk off the east coast of the American Provinces just before reaching international waters,” Agent Moreno said. “It was believed to have been accidental until the dive team found what was left of the crew locked in the vessel’s walk-in freezer. As it turns out, the freezer was not watertight.”
“What does this have to do with me?” Rade asked.
“National Oversight found an image from a surveillance camera dated the day before the Verana left port. Take a look.”
Rade flipped to the next photo and froze. It was an overhead image of a dockyard along an industrial port with shipping crates and spider cranes clinging to the slabwork in the background, and a single face, digitally enhanced, standing out in the middle of a crowd of workers.
It was the unmistakable image of Darius Turin.
“Your old company pal,” Agent Moreno said. “This is the first confirmed sighting since your team went off the grid seven years ago.” Moreno gestured for Rade to keep flipping through the file.
The next photo was of what looked like some kind of solar energy station with acres of black silicon panels stretching out to the horizon. Behind that photo was another digitally enhanced overhead shot of Darius Turin, walking past an observation tower outside the facility gates. It was unmistakably him, wearing a collared jacket, no hood, no hat, nothing to obscure his face, which was turned toward the camera and washed in lamplight.
“Two days ago, this energy station was attacked,” Moreno said. “Three employees were killed and the control deck was shot to hell. The motive isn’t clear, but we know Darius Turin is involved.”
Something about it was wrong. Both pictures were too clear, too easy to identify. Xyphos had not only augmented their DNA but had run them through rigorous tactical schooling as well. There were numerous ways to avoid detection while casing a target and, in both photos, Turin hadn’t implemented a single one.
“Turin’s alive,” Rade said, incredulous.
“It appears so,” Agent Moreno said.
Rade could see where this was going. “So what do you want from me?”
“We need your help tracking him down.”
A glimmer of hope, but at the cost of hunting his old teammate. “And why would I do that?”
Agent Moreno paused, seeming to choose her next words carefully. “We have reason to believe that Darius Turin was aware of the impending ban on human gene modification back in ’91. Before your team went to Myanmar.” She paused here, giving Rade the opportunity to take in her meaning. “He used his connections in the local underground network to sell your team out to the rebels in order to secure his own escape just three days before the ban was ratified by the World Unity Council and the programs got shut down.”
Rade remained silent, willing the tightness in his chest to uncoil and slip back into the darkness before it took over. He’d always wondered how they’d been compromised that night, and he knew Turin was an asshole, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe they’d been stabbed in the back by one of their own. Could Turin really have done it? Had he really betrayed them or was he forced to give them up? Maybe these agents of the Genetic Compliance Department were playing Rade in order to get what they wanted from him. There were too many questions, too many potential variables. It made no sense. But there he was, Darius Turin, out in the world after all these years. Was that by chance or deceitful calculation?
“Why would you tell me this?” Rade said, almost a whisper.
“Wouldn’t you like the chance to find the guy responsible for … this?” Moreno gestured at the interrogation room around them.
Rade set the file down and looked at his hands. Long scars stretched over thick knuckles, hands meant for fighting, breaking. He’d spent more time in the pits than in the program. His life was violence and rage and regret. And now someone had finally come, and they’d brought this revelation with them.
“How long have you known that I’ve been here?” he asked.
Agent Moreno’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that matter?”
“How long have you known, and left me here to rot? And you come now only because you need something from me.”
“How would you like to be free, Rade?”
Anger flared again, sudden and furious, from knowing he was being manipulated. He wanted to snarl and thrash against his restraints, feel the crippling bite of the power cuffs as the charge pack pumped him full of electricity. But the worst part of it was that he realized he was actually tempted by their offer. Freedom, a thing he’d only dreamed of while alone in his cell and had all but given up on, was suddenly a possibility.
He realized the woman had taken a few steps back and the other agent in the corner had his hand around the gun under his arm. Rade unclenched his fists and took a breath, willing the tension in his muscles to go slack. “Go on.”
Agent Moreno eased her partner with a gesture. “Help us find Darius Turin and stop whatever it is he’s doing. In exchange, the GCD will grant you your freedom. You’ll be brought home and given a place to live with a new identity, a complete biometric rewrite, free from the scrutiny and persecution of being a mod. You can erase your past, Rade. You can live again.”
“There’s no erasing a past like mine.”
“How about making up for it, then?”
Copyright © 2024 by Zac Topping
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