Titanborn (22 page)

I guess Zhaff didn't think anything in the space we entered was much of a threat since he merely stated, “Clear,” and delved farther in.

At first glance it appeared to be a large, dug-out hollow below the quarantine zone. Hundreds of masked Ringers lined the space from end to end. They were laid out under tattered blankets against the corroded walls. Rustling, moaning, and coughing filled my ears from every direction. Most of them turned to gaze on me with their bloodshot eyes, their slender necks hardly able to support their heads. All of them were so skinny that I could see the outline of their cheekbones through their sallow flesh. I turned around to see more poor souls strewn across the floor and lying atop chairless tables—men, women, and even children so young that they weren't as tall as my hips.

That was when I noticed the odor. The whole room stunk of body odor, sickness, and burned hair. My helmet's ventilation systems probably helped alleviate some of it, but it was still enough to make me gag. On the far end of the space I could see the crackling flames of a furnace behind a makeshift glass enclosure. I didn't need to ask what it was for. I knew that infected Ringer dead were burned to keep diseases from spreading, but the orange glow was enough to reveal the charred remnants of clothing filled by nothing but ashes.

Zhaff approached me, completely unfazed. “This hollow is clear,” he said. “The quarantine zone is directly above us, but this is not part of it. The smugglers must be in deeper.”

I've been to the rotting sewer tunnels submerged beneath the Martian domes. I've been to the most remote slums on Earth, and to the depths of asteroid mining colonies where being able to see the outline of your own hand in front of your face was considered bright. I've seen death all over and been on the end of the killing more times than I cared to count, but none of it could compare. Back on Earth, I lamented how thirty years of being a collector made me numb to suffering and bloodshed, but as I entered that new setting, apparently I was wrong.
Quarantine
was a generous term. It was closer to a morgue.

In a trance, I stepped past Zhaff toward a blanket on a gurney right outside the furnace area. A motionless lump lay beneath it. A bony leg stuck out from the bottom, the skin mottled with inflamed sores. I peeled the blanket back from where I guessed the head would be with the tip of my pistol. Underneath lay a young female Ringer, her stringy hair matted against her damp forehead. Her jaw hung slack beneath her sanitary mask and her glazed eyes stared blankly toward the ceiling, but I could hear that she was quietly wheezing. Alive, but barely.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I snapped around with my gun raised to find Zhaff bowing smoothly out of its line of fire.

“We must move quickly to apprehend the smugglers before we're swarmed,” he said.

“There are so many of them,” I whispered. The smell that close to the furnace was making me dizzy.

Zhaff glanced down at the young woman, then up at the rest of the room. “Generations of offworld breeding has made them vulnerable to Earth's most basic microorganisms.”

“I know that…I just never realized it was this bad.”

“It used to be worse. Most of the medicines they required stopped being produced by Earthers centuries ago due to our adaptation to the Earth's natural environment. Containment remains the safest option while research and production continue on Earth.”

I glared back at the wheezing young woman. “My daughter was around her age last time I saw her.” The thought of seeing Aria sprawled out to rot in the dark sent a horrible chill through my body. I took a step back and shook my head.

“There is no need to concern yourself. As only a first-generation offworlder, your daughter will have retained most of your immunities.”

I didn't bother responding. I pulled the blanket back over the dying girl's head and tucked in her leg. Then I followed after Zhaff as he started off toward the other end of the refectory. The countless soon-to-be-cremated corpses had me thrown. Every time I heard a cough my gun snapped toward it. Every time I heard incoherent rambling from a Ringer on the precipice of death my trigger finger itched to put a bullet through their brain and end their suffering. I tried to ignore it by concentrating on breathing through my mouth.

“Up here,” Zhaff said. “There is equipment running, and I am reading a collection of heat signatures.” He tapped me on the shoulder and motioned ahead toward a tall passage at the short end of the hollow. Bright-white lights emanated from the other side.

He abruptly rushed forward and put his back against the wall on one side of the entrance as if he'd heard something. He signaled me to move to the other side. I listened, but once I was there I opened my mouth to ask him what was wrong. He placed a finger on top of his helmet's visor over his mouth before I could.

A minute or so passed in silence before Zhaff sprang through the opening and pulled someone back. He slammed the intruder against the wall and nudged his rifle up under his neck.

He was a teenage boy, but definitely not a Ringer judging by his height. He wore a full hazmat suit for protection, but he appeared to be completely healthy. In fact he looked familiar.

“Who are you?” Zhaff questioned.

“I'm…only an assistant. I…I…” he stammered as Zhaff glowered at him with his eye-lens. “The Doctor wishes to speak to the collector.”

I shot a look through the passage to see if anybody else was coming. It was clear except for the radiant, focused lights on the far side. “With me?” I asked. “Why?”

The boy staved off Zhaff's glare and gathered enough confidence to respond to me. “You must see for yourself, Collector.”

“Why don't you tell us right here and save us the trouble?”

“I can't.”

Zhaff released the boy. “He is telling the truth.”

“My people will listen to the Doctor,” the boy said. “Your partner must wait here, but neither of you will be harmed as long as you hold your fire.”

I looked to Zhaff. “He's just a kid. He might not be lying, but the Children of Titan were going to blow up Pervenio station. Do you really think they'll keep their promise?”

“I do not, but you must proceed. I will stay behind to make sure nobody attempts to escape.”

“They'll only allow you to wait out here if you are placed under watch,” the boy said.

“That is acceptable,” Zhaff replied.

I was startled that Zhaff wanted to split up after being so adamantly against it back on Earth. “I'm not sure about this, Zhaff. I'd rather not wind up their prisoner.”

“Do not worry. I will not hesitate.” He nodded at me, the corners of his lips lifting subtly enough for me to know he'd developed a plan. I could almost mistake it for a grin.

“Are you sure?” I asked. He nodded again and backed away slowly. I was hesitant to follow the boy alone into the unknown, but I wasn't about to let that show. “Come on, then.” I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him into the passage. When I glanced back over my shoulder Zhaff had already vanished into the shadows.

“Wait. I must retrieve something,” the boy said. I gave him the okay and he hurried past me back into the hollow. I kept my pistol aimed at his chest while he did, and he returned quickly rolling the gurney that the dying young woman was on. “This way.”

I followed. Only two days before, when we'd arrived at the Ring, there was no chance I would've gone along with whatever it was Zhaff was up to. Against my initial intentions, however, I really was starting to trust the Cogent and all his heightened senses. His assurance wasn't enough for me to lower my pistol from the boy's back as he rolled the gurney forward into another hollow, but it was enough to get me going.

The boy and I entered a spacious cavern where two shadowy fighters quickly slipped by us to go keep an eye on Zhaff. More gurneys were lined up along the rocky walls, divided by crudely hung curtains. Ringers lay on each of them, makeshift tubes sticking out of their bodies and attached to crude-looking monitors that were beeping faintly. Another boy in a hazmat suit performed tests on an older Ringer woman sitting up on one of them. Her unsettling glare followed me.

I quickly turned from her and looked toward the back of the cavern, where we were headed. A low table was bathed in spotlights in front of a barricaded tunnel that led up toward what I assumed was the actual Darien quarantine. Someone stood beside it, wearing a clunky hazard helmet on their head.

I peered up as we approached the table and saw at least a dozen white-armored soldiers watching from a carved-out balcony a level above. I saw the outline of their suits' fabricated wings tucked under their arms, and could just make out the symbol on their chest plates—the same orange circle that the attackers both on the gas harvester and in hangar 20 wore. The Children of Titan.

“What are they doing?” I asked nervously, spinning around with my gun aimed in their direction.

“They are watching my instructor,” the boy responded. He pointed to the person in the hazard helmet at the other end of the hollow.

My gaze fell back down on what I assumed was the Doctor. Other than a helmet, whoever it was also wore a winged suit of armor that was stained with blood. A Ringer lay on the brightly lit table nearby with a sanitary mask on. The young man's shirt was off, and he had a pale, chiseled body similar to those of the marble statues in Mr. Pervenio's office. He was staring at me with intense loathing while the Doctor stitched up a fresh wound in his shoulder. He had to be the one flying Ringer from outside who'd survived.

The Doctor's head turned in my direction. “He came!” a distorted voice exclaimed, almost triumphantly. I couldn't see a face through the tinted visor. The Doctor snipped the end of a stitch and hurried around the table. “I mean I knew that he would, but…”

The Doctor reached up and pulled off the helmet. Long, curly auburn hair came bouncing out, revealing that it was a woman. Then I saw her face—slim and freckled, but not quite white or tall enough to belong to a Ringer. My heart began to race. She was older, but it wasn't a face I could ever forget. It belonged to my daughter.

“Thank you. Go and help your brother,” she said to the young assistant, who bowed before rolling the gurney with the woman on it over to an open medical station on the wall. Aria then turned back to me and said: “Hello, Dad.”

It had to be a bad dream. I figured I'd dozed off on the shuttle down to Titan and had been dreaming ever since. But as I removed my own helmet, hoping to wake up, there was no denying it. I now knew why her assistant seemed familiar. He was one of the Sevari twins. I reached out for her, my gloved fingers grazing her pink cheek.

“Aria,” I whispered. Words froze in my throat. My pistol very nearly slipped out of my hands.

“They've grown, haven't they?” she said. She no longer had the gentle soprano voice I recalled.

“Aria, what are you doing here?”

“Everything I can, since nobody else will,” she answered sternly.

“Where's the other one?” The Ringer on the table snarled at me through his mask.

I peered down at him, startled by hearing someone else speak. All of my focus had been on Aria. “As requested, my partner is waiting outside,” I explained.

“I'm surprised to see you were willing to take on a new one,” Aria said, suppressing a grin.

“So was I.” In my peripherals I couldn't help but notice the shadow of one of the Children of Titan operatives skulking around on the level above us. Never throughout the many years she was gone from me had I imagined her in a more dangerous place. “Dammit, Aria, you shouldn't be here!”

“Neither should you,” she countered.

I sighed. “Would you mind telling your friends to lower their guns at least?”

“You killed my brothers,” the injured Ringer growled. He sat up and slammed his hand against the medical table. “By Trass, you're lucky you're still alive!” The movement caused him to wince in pain. Aria placed her hands on his shoulder and helped lay him back down.

“Quiet, Nash!” she snapped at him. “After the stunt on Earth, Mr. Pervenio will keep sending more and more collectors until there are none of us left. If your former leader had detonated the bomb away from civilians where he was supposed to then none of this would have happened. At least this is one collector I can reason with.”

Nash muttered something under his breath before relaxing his head. He continued to hold his heated gaze fixed on me, however.

“I would love to work beyond the sights of guns, but in the end we aren't Titanborn,” Aria said to me. “It is their right to remain wary of me after all of this, no matter how much I help.” She spread her arms, gesturing to the rows of gurneys filling the room. The only thing I noticed was how she'd used the term
Titanborn
freely.

“All of what?” I tried to get a good read on the workstation beside her table. Everything appeared to be medical equipment except for a stack of familiar containers lying against a cabinet with the red-and-black logo of Pervenio Corporation stamped on the side. They looked exactly like the ones in hangar 20 and apparently had just arrived since they were still closed. I approached them, finding it strange that nobody attempted to stop me from looking.

“Don't play games with me, Dad,” she snapped, following close behind me. “Do you really think that after fifty years Pervenio Corp couldn't help bring an end to places like this? Right now we're buried a few dozen meters below the ‘official' Darien quarantine, where sick people like this have no chance at receiving help because it costs a lifetime's salary to get the care they require. I bring the ones deemed ‘too unfit to survive' here and care for them as best as I can. Many don't make it. You think germs slip through decontamination by accident? So long as Ringers fear being sent to places like this, Pervenio Corp will own the Ring.”